Host: Right.<\/strong><\/p>\nAnn Paradiso: So, we didn\u2019t tell him right away. So, we had the drum kit. It was a kid\u2019s drum kit. We had it under a sheet. So it was like just this ridiculous lump in the middle of the table, and they roll Jeremy in and he\u2019s looking at the lump and he\u2019s got to go through, you know, research survey questions and do some speed tests, and, you know, he\u2019s doing a bunch of stuff that is really important stuff that we needed for other projects. But you could see he kept on looking over there. And finally, we finish the work part and so we take the sheet off the drums. Shaun starts to explain, you know, what we\u2019re doing, and does he want to try this? And Jeremy uses his speech device to type out, f*%k yeah! We might have to beep that out. But that\u2019s what he said. So, we calibrate him, we bring it in. Again, we don\u2019t know if it\u2019s going to work or not. We\u2019re all standing around like, please let it work. And he just starts ripping on the drums. And he\u2019s got this huge smile on his face and it was just this great moment. And then what happened on top of it is Arturo Toledo, who\u2019s one of our designers on our team and Arturo is also a deejay, and he had some of his equipment in. And he starts riffing on top of Jeremy\u2019s rhythms, and they have this moment where they\u2019re looking at each other, and they had communed. You could feel it. And it was at that moment where we were like, we\u2019re going to keep on working on this. This is definitely something that\u2019s worth investing in. And that\u2019s how that project got started.<\/p>\n
Host: So, Ann, that\u2019s a story that actually makes me cry as I listen to it, because I get that. You know, that\u2019s what musicians live for is that\u2026 in rowing, they call it \u201cswing\u201d where you\u2019re all together\u2026 you feel like you\u2019re one unit, right?<\/strong><\/p>\nAnn Paradiso: Absolutely.<\/p>\n
Host: Um, this story has another little chapter, involving South by Southwest, the music festival. Well, it\u2019s a tech festival, a music festival, a movie festival. It\u2019s all that now. Tell us the story of how the Hands-Free Music Project ended up at South by Southwest and what happened once it got there.<\/strong><\/p>\nAnn Paradiso: So picking up where we left off, where we had shown the proof of concept to Jeremy and we became energized by it and decided that was validating enough to keep the work going, we were trying to figure out, like, how can we put some cycles on this? Because we had other things that we were working. We were working on Windows Eye Control, we were working on research, and several other priorities. How could we keep this going? And so, what ended up happening is I decided to hire an intern to come in and collaborate directly with Jeremy on Hands-Free Music. And I came across this candidate named Paul Batchelor. And I knew from the second I Skyped with him that he was the one. So, you know, we were talking and he had ideas already, and I had said, you know, I don\u2019t have a lot of direction for you, but what I need you to do is work directly with this collaborator that we have, and see what you guys can come up with. The goal is to get him to play music again. And he was a Berklee College of Music undergrad, and he had gone to Stanford to their CCRMA Program, which is a computational music program.<\/p>\n
Host: Right.<\/strong><\/p>\nAnn Paradiso: And I remember asking him, you know, so you\u2019re a musician but you\u2019re a scientist, you know, how do you balance that? And he said, well, I identify first as a musician, second as a scientist. And that was the other criteria was, we wanted somebody who was a musician who would be able to think musically about this and not just computationally about this. So, what ended up happening is he created this great interface based on a clip launcher which is an interface that\u2019s used sometimes in professional music composition software. Ableton Live, for example, has a clip launcher. And so, he wanted to take paradigms that musicians knew and understood and use those instead of creating a brand-new paradigm. But he used them in different ways. That project ended up being called Sound Jam. So, Paul was here for the summer. He created an interface, a novel eye-gaze-enabled interface, that had, sort of, four quadrants on it. And one quadrant was riffs, one was melody, one was percussion, and the other was sort of whatever we wanted to put in. It could be harmonies, it could be effects or whatever. And it was all generated on the fly. This was not created out of recorded wave samples or anything. He had done all of this computationally. And so, you could pick it up pretty quickly and start playing some music. And then you could lay effects over it using your eyes. And he found really interesting and novel explorations of the space. And in parallel, we were building on what is now called Sound Machine which was code named D Music for Dwayne Lamb, who is the lead engineer on the project. And that came out of that early work that Shaun Kane and Arturo Toledo and the team had done. And so, we were working on Sound Jam in parallel. So, we had two different explorations going at the same time. And I don’t know what made me think of this, but I had said, you guys, all right, we\u2019re going to \u2013 I wanted to create a forcing function, or a target for people, you know \u2013 we\u2019re going to apply to South by Southwest. If we get this prototype up and working and we can get it released, because that was one of the criteria, we\u2019ll apply to South by Southwest. And at the time, I was also thinking, well maybe Jeremy could play at South by Southwest. That was ambitious, you know. We didn\u2019t know where we were going to land. And I was like, and I\u2019ll take you all. I had NO idea how I would do this. Frankly, because I didn\u2019t think…<\/p>\n
Host: You\u2019d have to.<\/strong><\/p>\nAnn Paradiso: A) I wasn\u2019t even sure we\u2019d get it done. Then I didn\u2019t think we\u2019d actually get it \u2013 like we had to pull a lot off just to get the submission in. And I really wanted to get the submission in. We had to create a submission video. And we had a full-sized drum kit built by the team, including, not just the Enable team, but Chuck Needham, Irina Spiridonova, Gavin Jancke, from the Advanced Development Team, were important collaborators as well. So, everybody pulled together to get this prototype going. And we brought Jeremy in to play it, and Henry filmed it for us, and it was, I think, the day the submission was due, we had to get this done. We didn\u2019t even know if we were going to get it working. Everything was coming down to the wire. We got the whole submission done like three minutes before the deadline. In fact, several of us had stayed late to finish it and we sort of collapsed on the floor and we were just like, if that\u2019s all that happens, that is enough.<\/p>\n
Host: Right.<\/strong><\/p>\nAnn Paradiso: Like, we released Sound Jam Open Source, that was important to us. We got the very first bits for Sound Machine released, so we were able to exercise our shipping muscle. We were able to get Expressive Pixels hooked in because we wanted a way to see, visually, what was happening on the drums, and so we were able to get that all hooked up and working. I mean it just was crazy that we were able to get it to pull together. And so then, we submitted to the Innovation Awards in two categories. They were supposed to notify us I think in December. The time came and went, and we never heard anything and so I just assumed, you know, I\u2019ve got to give the speech of, you know…<\/p>\n
Host: Sorry, guys.<\/strong><\/p>\nAnn Paradiso: We didn\u2019t get in, but it\u2019s really not the point, you know? And so, I think it was January at this time, I get this note from South by Southwest saying, you know, if you don\u2019t accept your nominations tomorrow, we have to give them to somebody else. We had gotten in to both categories.<\/p>\n
Host: How did you not know that?<\/strong><\/p>\nAnn Paradiso: So\u2026 I get a lot of email, and my inbox has its own event horizon, just like a black hole. And I had been checking, and what happened is my clutter algorithm had grabbed it and put it into the clutter folder.<\/p>\n
Host: Bad algorithm.<\/strong><\/p>\nAnn Paradiso: And so I had checked \u2013 well, and it was bad Ann, really. It wasn\u2019t bad algorithm.<\/p>\n
Host: Okay.<\/strong><\/p>\nAnn Paradiso: That thing is usually helpful except for when it\u2019s not. So, we scramble, accept the nomination. And then we have to get a trip planned, we have to get funding to get the whole team going. And, you know, Rico Malvar, who is our leader and just a wonderful human being…<\/p>\n
Host: He is.<\/strong><\/p>\nAnn Paradiso: \u2026he and Jamie Rifley, who\u2019s our business manager, made it happen. And we got it so that everybody who had worked on the drum kit got to go. And we\u2019re trying to get Jeremy there, and in the end, we were not able to pull that off. And so, what we decided was, you will be there, but you\u2019re just going to be there digitally. And so, one of the things that they require you to do at this event is to create an acceptance speech, a Tweet-length acceptance speech, in case you win. And you had to make a video as well, so we had engineers and designers pulling the video together. Everybody rolled up their sleeves, jumped in, and worked on things. Chris O\u2019Dowd, who is our chief hardware guy and builder of everything, built a tee-shirt cannon that could be launched with the eyes. I mean, we had all kinds of cool stuff. And we went down there. And I was giving them the speech the whole time. It doesn\u2019t matter if we win. That\u2019s not important. What\u2019s important is now we have more people who might be able to work in this space that are going to see it. So, we go to South by Southwest\u2026 and so then, you know, we win. We win the thing, and we can\u2019t even believe it. We win in the music and audio innovation category. And we really didn\u2019t think we would. We had no idea. And so, we have Jeremy on FaceTime. He\u2019s got a speech prepared. We have Shaun Kane, who is, I talked about earlier, on my phone. And we all go up on the stage. And it\u2019s supposed to be this Tweet-length acceptance speech, and we put Jeremy up. And so they can see him. He starts out by saying, Hi, I\u2019m Jeremy Best coming at you from my living room in Seattle with a female synthetic voice. He\u2019s already \u2013 just his expression and his opening \u2013 he\u2019s already got everyone, right?<\/p>\n
Host: Right.<\/strong><\/p>\nAnn Paradiso: And then he says, this is so much better than public speaking. I\u2019m not even wearing pants. Everybody cracks up. Then he goes on to deliver this gorgeous speech, which was not Tweet-length. And the guy who had handed out the awards was crying, people in the audience were crying. We realize as we\u2019re on stage that although everyone can see Jeremy, we hadn\u2019t reversed his camera, so he\u2019s basically looking at the top of Chuck\u2019s head\u2026<\/p>\n
Host: Oh, no.<\/strong><\/p>\nAnn Paradiso: Same with Shaun. So, they corral us, we finish the speech. Everybody else who went overtime got the music and got kicked off the stage except for Jeremy. And so, we were able to experience that with him. And at the time, we didn\u2019t want to overrepresent what we had. You know, I think they wanted to tell this story like, oh, he\u2019s playing music again because of this, and, and that wasn\u2019t true. We wanted to stay focused so that we could get there. But in technology, like this sort of stuff takes time. It takes way longer than you think. So, we focused the next year. We just kept on going to Jeremy\u2019s and we kept on working on it. And we finally got to a point where he had created his first composition. And it was just a great moment. And so, we have so much more to do with that, but we\u2019ve already found other applications that we can do now.<\/p>\n
(music plays)<\/p>\n
Host: Ann, it\u2019s about this time in the podcast where I ask researchers the famous \u201cwhat keeps you up at night?\u201d question. And I do it because I want to know how researchers are facing and addressing the idea of consequences, intended and otherwise, that come with all these new technologies. So, given the scope of what you\u2019re doing and the world that you\u2019re doing it in with the Enable team, is there anything that keeps you up at night?<\/strong><\/p>\nAnn Paradiso: Absolutely. What keeps me up at night is knowing we don\u2019t yet have a cure for ALS. I\u2019ve seen the suffering that ALS causes and the impact it has on families, and it is profoundly unfair. And I\u2019ve also seen, firsthand, the effect that technology can have restoring people\u2019s purpose in life, whether it\u2019s a creative purpose, or whether it\u2019s raising your children, or whether it\u2019s working or doing your taxes or buying a car. These are all things that our collaborators wanted to be able to do after ALS had taken their speech and their movement. We have this technology that we know can help, and we still have a barrier connecting that technology to the people who need it. We\u2019ve made great strides with Windows Eye Control, again, Harish Kulkarni and the Windows Input team have put so much heart into this, and that\u2019s the first step. But there\u2019s so much more that needs to happen. And that keeps me up. We started, with the PALS program of ten collaborators, and nine of them have passed away since we\u2019ve been working with them, people that we love, that we\u2019ve become very close with. And that keeps me up at night. And it will continue to keep me up until either there\u2019s a cure for ALS or we find a way to continue this work and to take it to scale where we really need to take it, not just in the United States, but outside of the United States where people have even fewer resources and less access. So that keeps me up.<\/p>\n
Host: Ann, I love stories with an unconventional twist. Um, they\u2019re so much more interesting, right? And you have one of those stories in that you\u2019re part of a relatively small group of researchers here at MSR that didn\u2019t arrive with a PhD in a suitcase. And your education path isn\u2019t necessarily what people would have thought, hey, this woman is going to run the joint on user experience design for Enable at Microsoft Research. How did you get here?<\/strong><\/p>\nAnn Paradiso: That\u2019s a great question. I feel like it was \u2013 it was an alternate path. And you\u2019re right. As my friend James Micken says, I did not go to the 25th grade. I had an unconventional upbringing. I struggled a lot in my early years. I was just dis-regulated in general, and I didn\u2019t have some of the skills that I have now. But what I did have was champions. I had champions every single step of the way. I was in my community college, which was really my only choice after, you know, that…<\/p>\n
Host: Flaming high school career.<\/strong><\/p>\nAnn Paradiso: …spectacular, yeah, spectacular high school performance. And I was struggling there, too. I had been living on my own. I had other issues that I was dealing with. And I was sitting in my philosophy class one day, and my philosophy teacher, Blair Morrissey \u2013 I still remember his name \u2013 asked me to stay after class. And he asked me, do you want to go on with your education? Yes, I do. He put me in touch with the dean. We created a plan. I started to take things more seriously and become accountable to myself. And then I went away to university, and I did fine there, I did great there. So, I got it together. I got it together late, but I got it together. I was an English major. That was something that I just loved. And I started my career as an editor. And my husband and I wanted to move out west, and we kind of came out to Seattle with two dogs and no jobs. We didn\u2019t know anyone. I started looking for work and so on a whim, I applied for a technical writing position at Microsoft. And I got there, and I didn\u2019t actually know what I was interviewing for. My interview was nine hours long! I didn\u2019t understand it. And I called this, this woman that I knew who worked at Microsoft, and I said, I think it was terrible. Like, it was nine hours long. And she said, no, it went well! You went all the way through. And right around the same time, I had interviewed for a startup. It was during the big startup dot.com boom.<\/p>\n
Host: Yeah, yeah.<\/strong><\/p>\nAnn Paradiso: And, and I had gotten an offer there, and I took that job. It was a PM job and I worked at that job for eleven months, and then that whole company just tanked with most of the other startups and we all got brought into a room and they said, we\u2019re done, we don\u2019t have any more money. Everyone\u2019s laid off. We all go to the bar\u2026 And I called the Microsoft recruiter a couple days later, and she said, you know, why don\u2019t you come back in and just meet the new director? You don\u2019t have to go through a new loop or anything. Just come meet this group. And I did, and I was a technical writer for three weeks and they re-orged, and then I became basically a web producer. I worked in the Office group for four years and there was a position available at Microsoft Research for a website manager. And I came in and started that way. And we built a new web platform and, you know, that was fun and interesting work. I built up a team. I started managing designers. And then, when we shipped that platform, I started to have opportunities to work on interesting and cool research projects, and that was so great. And I knew, I was like, this is what I want to do. And I got to work on some of the best projects. I got to work on Micro Productivity with Jaime Teevan and I got to work on Pocket Skills with Mary Czerwinski, and I just got to really stretch. And I found the research work so much more interesting. And that was just a great fit for me. And so, I did that. I worked on the Advanced Development Team for eleven years and loved it and would have probably never left had not this opportunity\u2026 I was seeking a more meaningful connection. And I was talking with Peter Lee who was just forming NExT and he mentioned this team is forming around people with disabilities, and you can work directly with the users. And that was it for me. I said, that\u2019s what I want to do.<\/p>\n
Host: As we close, Ann, what advice or words or wisdom could you give the next generation of researchers who might be interested in making interaction design and user experiences for anyone and everyone better?<\/strong><\/p>\nAnn Paradiso: I would say, first and foremost, follow your gut. Be honest with yourself. Learn from your mistakes. Be fearless and care about something deeply, and if you find something that you care about deeply, stay with that. Things tend to work out that way. They really do. And, you know, there are opportunities in tech for people that do come from unconventional or non-traditional backgrounds. And there\u2019s great, interesting, meaty work. There\u2019s great problem solving. Multi-modal interaction is such a cool and interesting space, and there\u2019s so much room for invention there. So, stay with that. Figure out what your north star is and stay focused on that at the expense of all things, and everything else will become noise. And that is also what will give you the strength and the resilience you need to overcome the setbacks, because this kind of work comes with a lot of setbacks and you have to fight a lot of battles. So yeah, be a bulldog.<\/p>\n
Host: Ann Paradiso, thank you for coming in today. It\u2019s been awesome.<\/strong><\/p>\nAnn Paradiso: Oh gosh, it\u2019s been my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.<\/p>\n
(music plays)<\/p>\n
To learn more about Ann Paradiso and how researchers are bringing innovative interaction design to people with disabilities, visit Microsoft.com\/research<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Episode 70, April 3, 2019 – On today\u2019s podcast, Ann tells us all about life in the extreme constraint design lane, explains what a PALS is, and tells us some incredibly entertaining stories about how the eye tracking technology behind the Eye Controlled Wheelchair and the Hands-Free Music Project has made its way from Microsoft\u2019s campus to some surprising events around the country, including South by Southwest and Mardi Gras.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38022,"featured_media":632778,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"msr-url-field":"https:\/\/player.blubrry.com\/id\/42978063\/","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[240054],"tags":[],"research-area":[13554],"msr-region":[197900],"msr-event-type":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-promo-type":[],"msr-podcast-series":[],"class_list":["post-576456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-msr-podcast","msr-research-area-human-computer-interaction","msr-region-north-america","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_event_details":{"start":"","end":"","location":""},"podcast_url":"https:\/\/player.blubrry.com\/id\/42978063\/","podcast_episode":"","msr_research_lab":[],"msr_impact_theme":[],"related-publications":[],"related-downloads":[],"related-videos":[],"related-academic-programs":[],"related-groups":[144928,615681,724690],"related-projects":[438972],"related-events":[],"related-researchers":[],"msr_type":"Post","featured_image_thumbnail":"![\"Microsoft](\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2020\/01\/Ann-Paradiso_POD_Site_11_2018_1400x788-960x540.png\")
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<\/p>\n