Human-Centered Data Science Lab

HDS Lab member, and 3rd year HCDE PhD student Ray Hong recently won the design competition for the 2015 Computer Human Interaction (CHI) Conference Student Volunteer T-Shirts. Ray’s design won out over thirty submissions to represent the student volunteers at the CHI Conference in Seoul, South Korea in mid-April of this year.

The winning design (below) features the Republic of Korea flag, and a globe with Seoul’s major landmarks, including the Kwanghawmun gate and the N Seoul Tower. The design integrates the conference theme of “Crossings” by showing people around the globe crossing each other to say hello in English and Korean, sharing cross-cultural knowledge. Congratulations Ray!

Taylor Jackson Scott, 4th year PhD student in the HCDE department and HDS Lab member, was recently nominated for the annual university-wide Excellence in Teaching Award for his outstanding contributions to the University of Washington and the department of Human-Centered Design and Engineering as both an instructor and teaching assistant. In his time at the UW, Taylor has worked closely with faculty and staff to foster creative and innovative learning environments for seven different courses, while serving as a mentor and collaborator to students progressing through the undergraduate and graduate degree programs.  He is currently the instructor for HCDE 411 Information Visualization where he teaches undergraduate students the fundamentals of visualization for use across a wide variety of disciplines. Asked about the nomination, he noted, “I am incredibly honored to be considered for the award, and grateful to those that have helped me along the way.”  The winners of the award are expected to be announced in the Spring quarter of 2015. Way to go Taylor!

Katie Kuksenok, SCC lab member and CSE PhD student, recently shared an article titled Hope, Lies & The Internet: Social Media in Ukraine’s Maidan Movement on the online journalism platform Medium. Kuksenok was a visiting scholar at the Central European University Center for Media, Data, and Society this past year, conducting research in Kyiv on online activism campaigns, and multilingualism in social media, connected to the Maidan movement.

Image from Hope, Lies & The Internet: Social Media in Ukraine’s Maidan Movement by K. Kuksenok on Medium

When asked about the effects of social media on political movements, Kuksenok notes that “a political movement is a physical phenomenon, not just an online one. Real-world action and discussion is the critical outcome, not the virtual interaction that helps organize or inform. Measuring online activity, the numbers of Likes and Shares, is a truly tiny fragment of the picture. A video shared on social networks, created by journalists, re-appropriated by individuals engaged in truth-finding campaigns has an impact not because of how much it is Liked and Shared, but because it gained critical mass and became a catalyst for discussion beyond the technology.”

The article is an introduction to the role of social media in the Maidan movement. The intersection of multilingualism and online engagement will be the subject of her contribution at the upcoming international SOYUZ meeting on post-socialist studies.

The entire article Hope, Lies & The Internet: Social Media in Ukraine’s Maidan Movement by K. Kuksenok can be read on Medium: https://medium.com/what-about/hope-lies-the-internet-9a983cd68f66

What can a life-sized robot named Pal teach us about human centered design methods? Apparently quite a bit when interacting with its creator in the comic strip Not Quite Human, authored by lab member and HCDE PhD student Taylor Scott. The comic was borne out of HCDE professor Charlotte’s Lee’s directed research group Comics Made by You: HCDE for Everyone, which seeks to make the topic of HCDE accessible to a broader audience through the use of comics. Scott’s work was recently featured in a UW Today article about the class. Great work Taylor! We can’t wait to read more of Pal’s future adventures.

The UW Today article: http://www.washington.edu/news/2014/12/01/what-is-hcde-new-comics-class-aims-to-answer-the-question/

Not Quite Human by Taylor Scott