"Filling in the H in CHI"

 

Terry Winograd is a professor of computer science at Stanford University, and co-director of the Stanford Human-Computer Interaction Group.

 

Prof. Winograd started the talk by briefly introducing the initial research he had done in his early life into the field of Artificial Intelligence, for example the invention of ELIZA. At that time, the motivation drove his research in AI was how to make computer more like human. But when later on he realized that "What I came to realize is that the success of the communication depends on the real intelligence on the part of the listener, and that there are many other ways of communicating with a computer that can be more effective, given that it doesn’t have the intelligence" he shifted his research away from classical AI to Human-Computer-Interaction with the new motivation: ”How to make better interaction”.

 

He redefined the word ”human” based on the new dimensions of humanness over the years. Firstly, A human is a physical body, and the technology involved is Human Factors, which are the scientific understanding of the properties of human capability. Secondly, A human is a language interpreter, which is also recognized as the field study of Linguistic. Thirdly, A human is an information processor, ultimately a problem solver and decision make, which is the main study area of cognitive psychology. Then A human is also a worker in an organization, related to the study of Management and Business. Fifthly, by showing the photo of a scene of the social network gatherings in San Francisco Bay area in 1950’s, by John Coates, A human is also an information seeker, the technology related is information science and design. For the I part in HCI, he crossed out the most frequent question in Interaction “what do people do?” and threw a substitute question, which was again from the human side ”who am I?” He concluded that there are two main features of every single human being, which are personal identity and social identity. While Personal identity is the unique numerical identity of persons through time as most people familiar with, he in details explain the social identity of “I”, which is a combination of fame and fortune, family and friends, community and society.

 

In the final part, he listed the opportunities for doing research in HCI. First one, computer technologies as most research are technology driving, we are continuing exploring the new technologies. The second one is the human science, one important area in which is the understanding of what people do in social community. The third one is the interaction mechanism, the opportunity of research lies in the new approach of fixing problems. The last one is the design of the research. He encouraged the audience to ask themselves the question “How do I design my research?” instead of “What research should I do?” He also gave three tips on design the research. 1. Be ontological. 2. Challenge your assumptions and goals. 3. Be open to opportunities.