{"id":307289,"date":"2009-03-11T09:00:31","date_gmt":"2009-03-11T16:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?p=307289"},"modified":"2016-10-18T19:53:22","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T02:53:22","slug":"chi-09-computing-human-touch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/blog\/chi-09-computing-human-touch\/","title":{"rendered":"CHI \u201909: Computing with a Human Touch"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Rob Knies, Managing Editor, Microsoft Research<\/em><\/p>\n Historically, Microsoft Research has had a big footprint during CHI (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, the annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery\u2019s Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>\u2014and this year\u2019s 27th gathering is no exception.<\/p>\n More than 12 percent of the papers accepted for this year\u2019s conference\u201425 of the 204 to be presented to more than 2,000 attendees from 43 countries April 4-9 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston\u2014involve papers from Microsoft Research, the majority of them representing collaborations with others in the global community interested in human-computer interaction (HCI). Six of 73 short papers include Microsoft Research authors. Four panel discussions will feature Microsoft Research participation. The list goes on and on, begging the question: Why CHI?<\/p>\n Ken Hinckley<\/a> and Meredith Ringel Morris<\/a> should know. They\u2019re serving as co-chairs of the CHI 2009 Technical Program.<\/p>\n Ken Hinckley<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a very broad topic,\u201d noted Hinckley, a principal researcher for the Adaptive Systems and Interaction<\/a> group at Microsoft Research Redmond<\/a>. \u201cThe face of all our products is defined by the human experience.\u201d<\/p>\n That human factor is what makes CHI so rewarding.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an exciting area for Microsoft Research because the topics capture people\u2019s imagination about the future of computing,\u201d added Morris, a researcher in the Adaptive Systems and Interaction group. \u201cThings like interacting with computers using gestures or using only speech embody the excitement the public feels about the future of computing, and those topics are at the core of HCI.\u201d<\/p>\n Underscoring that excitement, four of the papers boasting Microsoft Research authorship have been nominated for the Best of CHI 2009 award:<\/p>\n In the days leading to the opening of this year\u2019s conference, co-sponsored by Microsoft, Hinckley and Morris identified several themes expected to galvanize the attention of attendees.<\/p>\n Given current interest in issues relating to ecology and the environment, it should come as little surprise that the green movement is making itself felt during CHI 2009.<\/p>\n \u201cHow do we actually make computing green and make it so that we\u2019re not pumping out toxic materials or burning more coal than we need?\u201d Hinckley said. \u201cUnderstanding those problems in general and how they impact people is something that people are getting excited about.\u201d<\/p>\n One such effort is outlined in It\u2019s Not Easy Being Green: Understanding Home Computer Power Management, written by Marshini Chetty of the Georgia Institute of Technology and A.J. Bernheim Brush<\/a>, Brian R. Meyers, and Paul Johns<\/a> of Microsoft Research Redmond.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re interested in understanding how computer technology can be more power-efficient,\u201d Morris said, \u201cand how it can do that in a way that fits better into a user\u2019s lifestyle and existing practices.\u201d<\/p>\n Microsoft Research\u2019s global presence enables it to investigate the potential for innovation in a variety of social settings.<\/p>\n Meredith Ringel Morris<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cMicrosoft Research\u2019s lab in Bangalore gives us a great opportunity as a company to explore technologies for developing countries,\u201d Morris said. \u201cKentaro Toyama\u2019s group has been doing some interesting work on user interfaces for people who can\u2019t read.\u201d<\/p>\n That paper, the best-paper nominee written by Medhi, Nagasena, and Toyama, is a product of the latter\u2019s Technology for Emerging Markets<\/a> team, as is Comparing Semiliterate and Illiterate Users\u2019 Ability to Transition from Audio+Text to Text-Only Interaction, by Leah Findlater of the University of British Columbia, Ravin Balakrishnan of the University of Toronto, and Toyama.<\/p>\n Another emerging-markets paper of note: A Mischief of Mice: Examining Children\u2019s Performance in Single Display Groupware Systems with 1 to 32 Mice, written by Neema Moraveji of Stanford University, Kori Inkpen<\/a> and Edward Cutrell<\/a> of Microsoft Research Redmond, and Balakrishnan.<\/p>\n \u201cThis looks at how you can support education in the developing world,\u201d Morris said, \u201cby connecting multiple mice to a single computer so you can cheaply have multiple students engaging with technology.<\/p>\n \u201cThe researchers conducted a study to learn how that technology scales with different numbers of students using the mice at the same time. They\u2019ll be presenting some of those results.\u201d<\/p>\n Social computing is a particularly fertile field these days, and a number of CHI 2009 papers address various aspects of this burgeoning trend, among them mimir: A Market-Based Real-Time Question and Answer Service, written by Gary Hsieh of Carnegie Mellon University and Scott Counts<\/a>, a researcher in the Visualization and Interaction for Business and Entertainment<\/a> (VIBE) group at Microsoft Research Redmond.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are services where you have a question and you can\u2019t find the answer with your Web search,\u201d Morris explained, \u201cso you want a real person to answer that question. This is about how you can ensure higher-quality answers and good matches between people who have the questions and those who have the answers, by looking at economic models you might apply.\u201d<\/p>\n Her own CoSense paper, co-authored with Paul, suggests ways to enhance the experience of collective search, what she terms \u201ccollaborative sensemaking.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you have groups of users engaged in collaborative Web searches, working together to find information online,\u201d Morris said, \u201chow can you provide a more rich user interface to support that experience, to help people move beyond just doing a search together to using the information they\u2019ve found for some goal or task in a collaborative manner?\u201d<\/p>\n Another pertinent effort is What Do You See When You\u2019re Surfing: Using Eye Tracking to Predict Salient Regions of Web Pages, by Georg Buscher of the Deutsches Forschungszentrum f\u00fcr K\u00fcnstliche Intelligenz, Cutrell, and Morris.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re using eye tracking to understand what parts of Web pages people spend the most time looking at and understanding how to make very compact visual representations of Web pages,\u201d Morris said. \u201cThat could be helpful to find information more quickly by having the representation include the most memorable aspects of the page.\u201d<\/p>\n A collaboration between Microsoft Research and Microsoft Live Labs, Visual Snippets: Summarizing Web Pages for Search and Revisitation, by Jaime Teevan<\/a>, Cutrell, and Danyel Fisher<\/a> of Microsoft Research Redmond, Steven M. Drucker<\/a> and Gonzalo Ramos of Live Labs, Paul Andr\u00e9 of the University of Southampton, and Chang Hu of the University of Maryland, explores visual cues to help people find Web pages they have previously viewed.<\/p>\n \u201cThat paper look at other techniques for creating compact representations of Web pages,\u201d Morris said, \u201cand evaluates how well these different representations perform for re-finding information.\u201d<\/p>\n And Andr\u00e9, Teevan, and Susan T. Dumais<\/a> of Microsoft Research have contributed the intriguingly named short paper From X-Rays to Silly Putty via Uranus: Serendipity and Its Role in Web Search.<\/p>\n \u201cMedicine is littered with failed experiments in deploying technology that goes unused,\u201d Hinckley noted. \u201cThe CHI conference includes studies on how people use these artifacts and how you can make them fit people\u2019s existing work practices. That\u2019s where we can get fresh insights into those problems.\u201d<\/p>\n Two members of Microsoft Research, Ryen White<\/a> and Desney Tan<\/a>, will be participating in a 14-researcher panel discussion entitled \u201cInteracting with eHealth.\u201d The panel also includes Tim Berners-Lee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is credited with the invention of the World Wide Web.<\/p>\n \u201cMicrosoft understands healthcare technology is an important area,\u201d Morris said, \u201cand we have the potential to do leading-edge research in this area and to share our research with product groups within Microsoft, such as Microsoft HealthVault\u2122. We\u2019re trying to learn more about what people in the community think is important.\u201d<\/p>\n Microsoft Surface<\/a>\u2122 has received a lot of attention in recent months, but the concept of surface computing extends beyond the table-based domain. Even small mobile devices can incorporate direct-touch interaction.<\/p>\n \u201cI see those as two ends of a continuum,\u201d Hinckley said. \u201cImagine bigger surfaces that are touch-driven or operated by gestures. There are a lot of ways of interacting naturally.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of interest in the community in understanding how you interact with these types of devices, how you leverage the rich multitouch capabilities. You can do things with two hands, or multiple people can do things together. How do you understand that and go to something that\u2019s much nicer, with a much larger display space, that is much richer in terms of what you can do?\u201d<\/p>\n Among the papers that discuss touch computing, pen computing, and surface-like technologies is one from Hinckley himself, Codex: A Dual Screen Tablet Computer, co-written with Morgan Dixon of the University of Washington; Raman Sarin of Microsoft Research; Fran\u00e7ois Guimbreti\u00e8re, formerly of the University of Maryland and now at Cornell University, and Balakrishnan. The Codex paper concerns the potential for a dual-display device that has Tablet PC input and two screens.<\/p>\n Morris mentioned Baudisch\u2019s Back-of-Device Interaction Allows Creating Very Small Touch Devices paper, which uses input from fingers behind a handheld device to solve the problem of screen occlusion, as another innovative technology to be discussed during CHI. She, too, has contributed work in this area.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a project that Andy Wilson, Jake Wobbrock, and I worked on [User-Defined Gestures for Surface Computing] about defining new types of gestures that you would use on interactive surfaces,\u201d she stated. \u201cWe propose a new methodology for defining the gestures based on observations of the types of gestures that users naturally engage in on surfaces.\u201d<\/p>\n Also worthy of attention are works that explore the potential of surface technologies for artistic applications such as VJing and collaborative audio editing: Turning the Tables: An Interactive Surface for VJing, by Stuart Taylor<\/a>, Shahram Izadi, David S. Kirk, Richard Harper, and Armando Garcia-Mendoza, all of Microsoft Research Cambridge<\/a>, and Dynamic Mapping of Physical Controls for Tabletop Groupware, written by Rebecca Fiebrink of Princeton University, Morris, and her husband, Dan Morris<\/a>, also a researcher at Microsoft Research Redmond.<\/p>\n Secure computing is a necessity in the Internet era, but that doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s always convenient.<\/p>\n \u201cMy whole interaction with a mobile device might be for five or 10 seconds, if I just want to jot a quick note in my notebook,\u201d Hinckley said. \u201cIf I have to type in a password to do that, it basically makes it prohibitive to use the device, because it\u2019s so frustrating to type a password on small-screen devices.<\/p>\n \u201cIn terms of usability, having security mechanisms that can deal with those tight timing constraints is important.\u201d<\/p>\n A CHI paper that addresses similar concerns is It\u2019s Not What You Know, but Who You Know: A Social Approach to Last-Resort Authentication, by Stuart Schechter of Microsoft Research Redmond, Serge Egelman of Carnegie Mellon University, and Robert W. Reeder (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, a user-experience researcher in Microsoft\u2019s Trustworthy Computing<\/a> group.<\/p>\n Of course, the CHI focus isn\u2019t limited to these six themes. HCI offers wide latitude for exploration.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone is seeing the netbook devices hitting,\u201d Hinckley observed. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the few sectors in the entire economy that\u2019s growing. What happens when the price of these keeps getting driven down and they have fewer capabilities at lower cost? Suddenly, touch input makes a lot of sense.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019ll be plenty more going on during CHI 2009. Jonathan Grudin<\/a>, a principal researcher at Microsoft Research Redmond, is scheduled to serve as instructor for a course entitled \u201cHCI History: Trajectories into the Future.\u201d Brush will lead a special-interest group called \u201cDesigning for Families.\u201d Toyama assisted Jay Chen and Lakshminarayanan Subramanian of New York University on Web Search and Browsing Behavior Under Poor Connectivity, part of the Student Research Competition. And Microsoft Research Cambridge\u2019s Alex S. Taylor<\/a> and Harper, along with Laurel Swan of the Royal College of Art, will present their Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction paper Making Place for Clutter and Other Ideas at Home.<\/p>\n Two video showcases feature Microsoft Research personnel: CHIstory, by Grudin, and Digital Heritage, by Aditya Sankar, Archana Prasad, Joseph Joy, Naren Datha, and Ajay Manchepalli of Microsoft Research India. Toyama co-organized an opening-weekend workshop called Human-Centered Computing in International Development, and Dan Morris likewise co-organized a workshop on Computational Creativity Support: Using Algorithms and Machine Learning to Help People Be More Creative.<\/p>\n And four panel discussions will include Microsoft Research contributions:<\/p>\n In addition to Technical Program co-chairs Hinckley and Morris, Bongshin Lee<\/a> and Nathalie Riche<\/a> of the VIBE group served as the conference\u2019s proceedings chairs.<\/p>\n Such efforts can prove rewarding in themselves.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a great way to learn about all the latest work that\u2019s going on in the field of HCI,\u201d Morris said, \u201cand make sure that we\u2019re aware of the current trends.\u201d<\/p>\n And, Hinckley added, getting people involved and making contacts can pay dividends over the course of a career.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s also a great way to shape what kinds of research are encouraged by the conference,\u201d he said, \u201ctrying to make the review process open to a broad range of contributions.<\/p>\n \u201cMaking sure that the best people we know throughout the CHI community and at universities and other research labs get involved, and forging those relationships, as well, with Microsoft\u2014they\u2019re all doors we can go knock on in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Rob Knies, Managing Editor, Microsoft Research Historically, Microsoft Research has had a big footprint during CHI, the annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery\u2019s Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction\u2014and this year\u2019s 27th gathering is no exception. More than 12 percent of the papers accepted for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39507,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","msr-author-ordering":[],"msr_hide_image_in_river":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[194476,194487,194489,194464],"tags":[200871,186714,215522,213164,215525,215528,215531],"research-area":[13552,13558,13568],"msr-region":[],"msr-event-type":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-promo-type":[],"msr-podcast-series":[],"class_list":["post-307289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devices-and-hardware","category-privacy","category-security","category-technology-for-emerging-markets","tag-chi","tag-healthcare","tag-human-experience","tag-human-factors-in-computing-systems","tag-power-efficient","tag-technologies-for-developing-countries","tag-trustworthy-computing","msr-research-area-hardware-devices","msr-research-area-security-privacy-cryptography","msr-research-area-technology-for-emerging-markets","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_event_details":{"start":"","end":"","location":""},"podcast_url":"","podcast_episode":"","msr_research_lab":[199561,199562,199563,199565],"msr_impact_theme":[],"related-publications":[],"related-downloads":[],"related-videos":[],"related-academic-programs":[],"related-groups":[144633,144784,144794,578422],"related-projects":[],"related-events":[],"related-researchers":[],"msr_type":"Post","byline":"","formattedDate":"March 11, 2009","formattedExcerpt":"By Rob Knies, Managing Editor, Microsoft Research Historically, Microsoft Research has had a big footprint during CHI, the annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery\u2019s Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction\u2014and this year\u2019s 27th gathering is no…","locale":{"slug":"en_us","name":"English","native":"","english":"English"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39507"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307289"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":308597,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307289\/revisions\/308597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307289"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=307289"},{"taxonomy":"msr-region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-region?post=307289"},{"taxonomy":"msr-event-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-event-type?post=307289"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=307289"},{"taxonomy":"msr-post-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-post-option?post=307289"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=307289"},{"taxonomy":"msr-promo-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-promo-type?post=307289"},{"taxonomy":"msr-podcast-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-podcast-series?post=307289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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Sustainability and Green Computing<\/h2>\n
Technologies for Developing Countries<\/h2>\n

Web and Communication Technologies<\/h2>\n
Technology\u2019s Role in Healthcare<\/h2>\n
Pen and Touch-Computing Technologies<\/h2>\n
Usable Security and Privacy<\/h2>\n
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