Seminars

March 21, 2018 – Matthew Easterday

Northwestern University, School of Education and Social Policy
Time: TBA
Location: TBA

Designing Tools for Remote Communication Between Programmers

Steve Oney, University of Michigan, School of Information
November 17, 2017
Time: 10:30 am to noon
Location: 1240 Computer Sciences

Abstract: Communication is a fundamental need in the software developers of all levels of experience. Communication tools can help novice programmers seek help and learning resources. For experienced programmers, communication is fundamental to effective coordination. In this talk, I will present several tools aimed at improving remote communication between programmers. First, Codeon explores ways to provide on-demand remote support through semi-synchronous communication. Codeon allows programmers to make verbal requests that are then packaged with their code context and sent to remote experts. Second, chat.codes is a synchronous code communication tool that enables synchronous conversations about a shared codebase to be re-used and referenced after a conversation concludes. Chat.codes tracks synchronous messages along with code edits and references. I will conclude with future work in this space.

About the Speaker: Steve Oney is an assistant professor and Postdoctoral Presidential Scholar at the University of Michigan School of Information. His research focuses on enabling and encouraging more people to write and customize computer programs by creating new programming tools and exploring usability issues in programming environments. Oney completed his Ph.D in Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, where he was advised by Brad Myers and Joel Brandt. He also attended MIT, where he earned a computer science and math SB in 2007 and a computer science MEng in 2008.

Understanding and Designing for Late-Life Online Engagement

Robin Brewer, University of Michigan Information School
Monday October 23
Time: 10:30 am to noon
Location: 4207 HC White Hall “Charles Bunge Room”

The older adult population will grow exponentially in the coming years with more baby boomers reaching retirement age. Yet, our online communities are not well supported for engaging them online. Older adults with internet access struggle to see the value of engaging in certain online communities. Offline seniors face many barriers to internet use (e.g. cost, access). Despite these barriers, there are social, financial, and health benefits to engaging online, specifically for older adults.

In my work, I primarily use a mixed methods approach (e.g. interviews, observations, surveys) to understand, design, and develop interactive systems for aging populations.​ ​In this talk, I present my research investigating how to create more meaningful online communities for seniors and more accessible systems to support seniors with vision impairments. This work explores designing for self-expression and connection, and I discuss the implications for future technology development.