What type of design am I interested in?

This was the question that was posed to us in our Human Computer Interaction Course taught by Dr. Paul Sparks at Pepperdine University.

We were asked to explore the following web site hosted by Stanford University that had a video achieve of lectures related to HCI and find out what topics interested us http://scpd.stanford.edu/scpd/students/cs547archive.htm .

So far I have visted three lectures:

(1) Social Interface November 4th 2005 by Professor Alex Pentland, MIT Media Lab

This lecture was on work MIT is doing on developing devices that can collect social information.

My company does a lot of group facilitation between different stakeholders in school districts to do strategic planning in the area of technology. I am interested in whether these new technologies could help us better facilitate these types of groups and if it could be useful in helping districts make better decisions about technology.

(2) Smart Mobs: Mobile Communication, Pervasive Computing and Collective Action September 26th 2003 by Howard Rheingold

This lecture had to do with how human interactions are changing because of wireless devices such as cell phones. It talked about how people are using these technologies to create collaborative communities. It also talked about the emergence of reputation systems as a result of using some of these technologies. This would be things such as how you can rate experiences with sellers on e-bay. These new technologies bring a whole new set of issues concerning digital rights management and copyright. Rheingold feels that the decisions we make about these technologies will determine the future of democracy in a real way.

(3) Hanging Out With Computers: The Role of IM in Teenage Communication March 8, 2002 by Rebecca Grinter, PARC

This lecture was about what teenagers are doing with instant messaging (IM) and why and what can we learn from teenagers and how they use communication technologies. Some of the findings were that IM allows users to multi-task, it is quiet and allows for economic optimization of free resources (often without invoking the anger of parents).


All three of my choices had to do with the social aspects of computing. I am interested in new emerging technologies that are shaping our culture and how these technologies could be used in the field of education.

Wikopedia defines social interaction design as “the behaviors or interactions of an object or system over time with its user population. Interaction designers create products and services that are typically informed by user research, designed with an emphasis on behavior as well as form, and evaluated in terms that include emotional factors instead of mere usability.
Social interaction design (SxD) is emerging due to many of our computing devices have become networked and have begun to integrate communication capabilities. Phones, digital assistants and the myriad of connected devices from computers to games facilitate talk and social interaction. Social interaction design account for interactions among users as well as between users and their devices. The dynamics of interpersonal communication, speech and writing, the pragmatics of talk and interaction--these now become critical factors in the use of social technologies. And they are factors described less by an approach steeped in the rational choice approach taken by cognitive science than by sociology, psychology, and anthropology.

Virtual world is an example of system which is heavily rely on social interaction design. Social interaction in the community, gathering and teamwork are also some examples of activities can be designed by social interaction design.”