2013 designing up

Designing UP

A Publication of the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering

Vol. 22013

On behalf of the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE), I hope you enjoy the second issue of Designing Up. Our students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends continue to put our department on the map.

This year, we welcomed 3 new faculty and 4 new staff, and our student body grew to a record 350. Andrew Davidson, Sean Munson (p. 14), and Kate Starbird (p. 12) joined our faculty in 2012. Daniela Rosner will join us this coming fall. Professor Julie Kientz also increased her HCDE position to 100%

(from a 50% joint position). Our new staff are also a fantastic addition to the growing department: Cassie Atkinson-Edwards, Office Manager; Emily Gunther Lloyd, Program Assistant; Scott Rivers, Computing Manager; and Elaine Shelley, Grants Coordinator. I am humbled by the dedication of our faculty and staff.

Our faculty and students continue to impact local and global issues through their research. From Professor Cecilia Aragon’s research on educa-tional gaming (p. 10) to Professor Mark Haselkorn’s work with Veteran Affairs (p. 13), our faculty are designing the future. Master’s students participated in a pilot capstone class (pp. 6–7), HCDE celebrated a 15-year partnership with the University of Twente (p. 15), and our students participated in a number of conferences (pp. 8–9). Our alumni continue to make a difference after gradu-ating, as Matt Shobe (p. 18) and Chelsey Glasson (p. 20) demonstrate.

I hope you find the second edition of Designing Up to be informative. As always, please contact me with comments or inquiries at [email protected].

Welcome from the Chair

Table of Contents

Amazing Growth of the HCDE Master’s Program

STEM Bridge Program

Designing to Delight

The Design of Communication

Communicating Vision

Biologists, Field Agents, and Computer Scientists, Oh My!

So What?

Crowdsourcing Disaster Response

Redesigning Healthcare Information Technology

Bridging the Political Divide

Time Flies

Adventures in Interning

Entrepreneur, Mentor, Friend

Paying it Forward

A Dedicated Educator and Scholar

Friends of Human Centered Design & Engineering

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Jan SpyridakisDepartment Chair

Putting people first, we research, design, and engineer interactions between humans and technology. Join us. Change the world.

ContaCt UsHuman Centered Design & Engineering College of EngineeringUniversity of Washington

428 Sieg HallCampus Box 352315Seattle, WA 98195-2315

Phone: 206.543.2567Email: [email protected]: hcde.uw.edu

Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering | 3

When I joined the department in 2006, HCDE’s Master’s program was divided into two separate programs: full-time and part-time. That year, we had a combined total of 55 Master’s students across the two programs. With the welcoming of our 2012 cohort, we now have a total of 140 Master’s students in our combined MS program. Despite this growth, the average MS class size remains around 30 students.

Much of the growth in the Mas-ter’s program started in 2009, when we changed our department name from Technical Communication (TC) to Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE). In the first year after the name change, we received almost double the number of applications over the previous year. Since 2006, our growth in applications has been an astounding 800%, with an increase from 28 ap-plications received in 2006 to 254 received in 2012.

Along with this amazing growth, HCDE faculty made two major changes to the Master’s program. In 2010, the full-time and part-time programs were combined, bringing together a younger cohort of full-time students—many continuing directly from an undergraduate program—and a cohort of part-time students with an average of six years of professional experience.

In addition to merging the two programs, HCDE faculty changed the curriculum to include more coursework in design and added the requirement of a capstone—one of the most commonly requested ex-periences by our alumni. Last year, HCDE alumni Rebecca Destello (MS 2011) and Ario Jafarzadeh (MS 2006) taught a pilot capstone course (covered in detail on pp. 6–7 of this publication).

In merging the two programs, our faculty were deliberate in bridg-ing the various gaps (generational,

international, professional) to create a more dynamic and diverse cohort of graduate students. In doing so, students not only have access to leading faculty in the discipline, but they also now have access to the varied experiences of their class-mates. For example, MS student Praveen Shekhar has valued work-ing on group projects and sharing knowledge with his “fellow students who come from across the globe with diverse expertise and skills.”

The MS in HCDE continues to thrive and meet the high demand for professionals with expertise in the field of human centered design and engineering. The 2013 applica-tion cycle has once again broken previous records, with a grand total of 417 applications.

Amazing Growth of the HCDE Master’s ProgramBy Gian Bruno, Director of Student Services

More informationhcde.uw.edu/ms

The Master of Science (MS) program in Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) has seen astonishing growth in the last five years.

Photo: Ario Jafarzadeh

HCDE MS students meet with professional UX designers at Zaaz (now Possible) as part of their capstone course. Read more about their experiences on pp. 6–7.

4 | Designing Up

STEM Bridge ProgramBy Drew Paine, PhD Candidate

HCDE Professor and Computer Supported Collaboration (CSC) Lab Director Charlotte Lee and PhD candidate and CSC Lab Man-ager Drew Paine had the opportu-nity to work with four incoming science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) students as part

of the College of Engineering’s STEM Bridge program this sum-mer. Th e Bridge program provides incoming engineering and science students from backgrounds that are traditionally under-represented in STEM fi elds with a four week transition to college life.

For two of the four weeks, the students conducted hands-on research in University of Washing-ton (UW) research labs. Lee and Paine felt fortunate to be able to work with four of these students on a human centered design project during the last two weeks of August

before the start of autumn quarter. Th e four students who worked with Lee and Paine are Atenas Figueroa, Fethya Ibrahim, Kenny Ngo, and Joseph Rodriguez.

Partnering with UW’s Museolo-gy Master’s program, Lee and Paine guided the STEM Bridge students in designing a mobile computer-mediated communication applica-tion that encourages visitors to share their experiences and perspec-tives during their museum visit.

Th e four students learned about HCDE, the human centered design process, and the fi eld of Visitor Studies. As part of the students’ introduction to HCDE and the UW, Lee arranged for Jim Borgford-Parnell of the Center for Engineering Learning & Teaching (CELT) to discuss working in teams and how to make the most of the college learning experience. Tom Satwicz of Blink Interactive also

Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) Professor Charlotte Lee and PhD candidate Drew Paine worked with incoming engineering and science students this summer, helping them transition into college.

continued on the next pageThe 2012 STEM Bridge Program class. Photo courtesy: Cathryne Jordan


Photos courtesy: Cathryne Jordan

visited and shared the user research process that takes place in industry. Using all of this rapidly gained knowledge, the students worked to design the mobile application.

Th rough CSC Lab’s partnership with Museology, the group selected the Henry Art Gallery’s visiting exhibit, Th e Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl, as the research site for the students’ project. Th e four Bridge students working with Lee and Paine toured the exhibit with the Henry Art Gallery’s cura-tor while examining how visitors experience the exhibit. With Paine’s guidance, they developed paper prototypes of the mobile app’s functionality that were reviewed with Museology experts and iter-ated upon.

By the end of the two weeks, in only four afternoons, the students designed an application concept

that encourages museum exhibit visitors to learn a bit about the ex-hibit before visiting, log the pieces they visit, and share their thoughts and impressions of the pieces with friends and other visitors. Th e stu-dents’ goal for the application was to encourage visitors to share their experiences and interpretations of pieces while not distracting them from the in-person experience of visiting the museum exhibit.

By the end of their experience in the CSC Lab, the four Bridge students were able to articulate the diff erent perspectives on design that they learned and how human cen-tered design applies to their diff er-ent intended majors. Lee and Paine wish the four excellent students the best of luck in their undergraduate careers and look forward to working with new students again next year.

Th e CSC Lab would like to thank the people who helped make this a successful, exciting experience for the STEM Bridge students:• Scott Pinkham; Counseling Services Coordinator, College of Engineering• Yuríana Garcia; HCDE Bachelor’s student and the students’ peer advisor• Kris Morrissey, Jessica Luke, and Nick Vischer; Museology• Th e Henry Art Gallery, especially Rachael Faust and Luis Croquer• Jim Borgford-Parnell; Assistant Director, CELT• Tom Satwicz; Blink Interactive• Brook Sattler; HCDE alumna (PhD 2012)• Th e Museology graduate students who provided feedback at the students’

fi nal presentation

On left: Students in the 2012 STEM Bridge Program work with HCDE Professor Charlotte Lee and PhD student Drew Paine in the Computer Supported Collaboration Laboratory. From left: Atenas Figueroa, Fethya Ibrahim, Kenny Ngo, and Joseph Rodriguez.On right: The CSC Bridge students present their fi nal design to Museology graduate students, HCDE Professor Charlotte Lee, CELT Assistant Director Jim Borgford-Parnell, and STEM Bridge mentors and staff . From left: Fethya Ibrahim, Atenas Figueroa, Joseph Rodriguez, and Kenny Ngo.

More informationbit.ly/csclab

6 | Designing Up

The goal of the capstone course was to improve the students’ user experience (UX) knowledge and skills using a structure that simu-lated the life cycle used in a typical real-world project. Students were encouraged to pick projects they were passionate about to keep the work engaging and relevant. The pi-lot class was the first time that MS students combined the creation of a portfolio with a capstone project.

Destello and Jafarzadeh guided students through a structured design process that covered all areas of product development, from ide-

ation to sketching and paper proto-typing to high fidelity prototypes, with each week of the class focusing on the next phase of the process. Destello, a Usability Analyst at Nordstrom, and Jafarzadeh, a UX Designer at Amazon, conceptual-ized and co-taught the course.

Destello and Jafarzadeh also brought in experts from the UX field weekly to speak on topics related to all stages of UX design. Guest speakers included Adam Baker, Scott Berkun, Sally Carson, Matt Carthum (MS 2008), Ashli-marie Dong (BS 2011), Braden

Kowitz, Yelena Nakhimovsky, Puja Parakh (MS 2011), and Matt Shobe (MS 1996). Students also toured design agency Zaaz (absorbed by Possible in 2012) to see what UX design looks like “in the wild.” The class culminated in presentations of students’ final projects and result-ing portfolios, with faculty and guest speakers invited to review the students’ work.

One of the project requirements was that students bring at least one element of “delight” into their designs, a concept introduced by Shobe. The idea behind “delight,”

On left: HCDE MS students Yunjia Zhong (left), Yi-chen Sung (center), and Venetia Chew review Zhong’s project.On right: HCDE MS students Venetia Chew (left) and Yi-chen Sung discuss their project ideas with alumnus Matt Shobe (MS 1996).

Designing to DelightCapstone class explores UX design from conception to high fidelity prototypes.

More informationbit.ly/hcde-capstone

Photos: Ario Jafarzadeh

Shobe says, is to invoke feelings of joy in the customer, provide a sense of authenticity for the product as well as “replay value,” and create a sense of affinity on part of both the customer and the designer for the product and/or company. HCDE faculty and audience members who watched the final presentations were—quite appropriately—de-lighted by these elements, which manifested themselves in various, creative ways. For example, some projects included clever responses when users encountered an error (such as a 404 page), while others

Students in the Master’s program in Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) participated in a pilot capstone class last spring, instructed by HCDE alumni Rebecca Destello (MS 2011) and Ario Jafarzadeh (MS 2006).

continued on the next page


included surprising experiences for the user during normal use of the product, such as animation during moments of transition.

Students focused on a diverse set of ideas. One student, Venetia Chew, aimed to raise awareness of and better motivate people to get into the habit of recycling. Her goal was to create something “motiva-tional, educational, and experien-tial,” so Chew came up with the idea for an interactive recycling ma-chine replete with a green monster that “eats” recycled cans.

Another student, Yoel Sumi-tro, designed a mobile app called Booyah to help international stu-dents studying in the United States learn informal, slang American English in a fun, interactive way. Sumitro incorporated delight into his design by allowing and subse-quently animating the randomiza-tion of word icons. Jafarzadeh was particularly impressed with Sumi-tro, commenting that he “really took to heart the message Rebecca and I were trying to get across by picking a project that was meaning-ful to him and letting some of his personality and playfulness express itself in his fi nal design.”

A third project by student Arch-ana Suresh was a mobile app called ShopHelp, designed to provide us-ers with a personalized, interactive, and convenient shopping experi-ence and bridge the gap between online and in-store shopping. Suresh implemented her element of

delight in the app’s search feature so that when users accidentally hit the search button without entering a term, the app responds with a clever error message.

Destello and Jafarzadeh both enjoyed watching the evolution of the student projects from concep-tion to fi nal prototype, but more than that, Jafarzadeh says he loved the growth in student confi dence that he observed over the course of the class. By the end of the quarter, he says, the students were “talking and acting like UX professionals.” Destello echoed Jafarzadeh’s opin-ion, saying that she enjoyed observ-ing the evolution of the students’ understanding of UX design.

According to Jafarzadeh, one of the key components of the course that made it a success was week-end offi ce hour sessions that both instructors off ered to give students individual feedback on their proj-ects. Students who took advantage

of the sessions often ended up with more eff ective and cohesive prod-ucts at the end of quarter, and both Destello and Jafarzadeh say they would include more opportunities for one-on-one student-instructor consultations in future iterations of the class.

Students in the pilot course also called it a success. Chew said that the class was helpful and practical, and that she believed it would aid her in both building her portfolio further and in obtaining a job in the UX fi eld after graduation. Sum-itro went further, saying that this class has been his absolute favorite in the HCDE curriculum thus far, and he is confi dent that his design skills have improved signifi cantly as a result of the class. HCDE plans to continue off ering a capstone class in the Master’s curriculum and is also developing a capstone component for the undergraduate program.

HCDE MS student Yoel Sumitro designed a mobile app called Booyah for his cap-stone project to help international students learn informal Ameri-can English.

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HCDE MS student Archana Suresh presents her ShopHelp mobile app during the capstone fi nal presenta-tions. The app is designed to provide users with a personalized, interactive shopping experience.

HCDE MS student Venetia Chew’s project was an interactive recycling machine replete with a green monster that “eats” cans.On left: Chew’s plan for her project.On right: Chew’s initial mock-up for her product design.

Photo: Ario JafarzadehPhotos: Ario Jafarzadeh

8 | Designing Up

Th e SIGDOC conference was fi lled with informative workshops, insightful presentations and posters, and opportunities for attendees to share their passion and curiosity for the design of communication. Th e range of topics were as diverse as they were engaging, and they high-lighted how SIGDOC has evolved over time.

Members of the SIGDOC com-munity from around the globe were in attendance, and the Department of Human Centered Design &Engineering (HCDE) was out in full support of this local conference. Our own Professor Mark Zachry acted as the conference chair, and he worked with the rest of the conference planners and sponsors to ensure that this event was a success.

Many of our students were on hand to present work they had collaborated on with their fel-low HCDE students and faculty. HCDE presenters included: PhD students Doug Divine, Toni Ferro, Michael Gilbert, Robert Racadio, Taylor Jackson Scott, and Bob Wat-son. Also presenting from the Uni-versity of Washington (UW) was Biomedical and Health Informatics PhD student Melissa Clarkson. Th e research topics addressed by HCDE research included explorations of aff ect in the role of text-based com-

The Design of CommunicationBy Taylor Jackson Scott, PhD Student

munication, promoting behavior change through community gener-ated content, student-designed implementations of online knowl-edge sharing tools, and the poten-tial for social networking sites to support work.

In addition to the presentation sessions, HCDE Professor and Chair Jan Spyridakis welcomed attendees on behalf of HCDE and the UW, and Gerhard Fischer of the University of Colorado, Boulder, gave a keynote presentation, “Meta-Design and Cultures of Participa-tion.” Fischer was also presented with the 2012 Rigo Award, which celebrates an individual’s lifetime contribution to the fi eld of com-munication design.

Th is article was written by Taylor Jackson Scott with assistance from PhD student Daniel Perry and MS student Jarman Hauser. All three stu-dents attended the conference thanks, in part, to funding from HCDE.

The 2012 ACM Special Interest Group on Design of Communication (SIGDOC) conference was held October 3–5 in downtown Seattle.

More informationsigdoc2012.org

PhD student Taylor Scott presents his paper, “Adapting Grounded Theory to Construct a Taxonomy of Aff ect in Col-laborative Online Chat,” co-authored with Computer Science & Engineering PhD student Katie Kuksenok, HCDE PhD students Daniel Perry and Michael Brooks, HCDE MS student Ona Anicello, and HCDE Professor Cecilia Aragon.

Photo: Toni Ferro

Logo design: Jonathan Morgan


The conference provided a wonder-ful opportunity for five Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) students and alumni, as well as Professor and Chair Jan Spyridakis, to enjoy some sunshine, present their research, and meet professional and academic peers from around the world. Three HCDE graduate students, two recent alumni, and Spyridakis were there to present papers and proudly represent the department and the University of Washington.

PhD student Bob Watson pre-sented a paper entitled “Developing Best Practices for API Reference Documentation: Creating a Plat-form to Study How Programmers Learn New APIs.” This paper was well received and sparked some interesting discussions during the conference. Learning how software developers discover and apply infor-mation about programming topics resonated with attendees.

PhD candidate Elisabeth Cud-dihy and Spyridakis presented a paper entitled “From Web Designer to Researcher: Using Experiment Patterns to Research Web Design Decisions.” Their goal was to help designers back up their design deci-sions with research.

HCDE MS student Laura Li presented the paper, “InfoPlanet: Visualizing a Semantic Web to Improve Search Results through Exploration and Discovery.” Li’s presentation introduced a visual-ization tool that improves search results through exploration and discovery. She discussed possibilities using the semantic and visualization techniques to assist the web brows-ing process, especially when users have vague interests or goals when they start browsing.

HCDE alumna Sandy Bartell (PhD 2011) and Spyridakis pre-sented a paper entitled “Managing Risk in Internet-based Research.”

HCDE alumnus Joshua Bean (MS 2012) presented a paper entitled “Presentation Software Supporting Visual Design: Display-ing Spatial Relationships with a Zoomable User Interface.”

HCDE alumna Rebecca Walton (PhD 2011), now a Professor at Utah State University, also attended the 2012 IPCC to conduct a work-shop, “How to Select an Appropri-ate E-book Format.”

As is always the case, unfortu-nately, the good sessions all seemed to be scheduled at the same time so it was not possible to see them all.

Being in Florida gave the group an opportunity to enjoy some sunshine and tropical weather, and some members of the group were able to spend time relaxing in Key West and around the state after the conference. Next year’s IPCC will be held in Vancouver, Canada.

Representing HCDE at the 2012 IPCC in Orlando. From left: Josh Bean (MS 2012), Sandy Bartell (PhD 2011), PhD student Bob Watson, PhD candidate Elisabeth Cuddihy, MS student Laura Li, and Professor and Chair Jan Spyridakis.

Communicating VisionBy Jan Spyridakis, Professor and Chair, and her students

More informationbit.ly/ibuxl

Photo courtesy: Jan Spyridakis

The 2012 IEEE International Professional Communication Conference (IPCC) was held in Orlando, Florida, in October, with the theme “Communicating Vision.”

10 | Designing Up

Th ere are a lot of educational games out there, but how many are played outside the classroom?” So begins the introduction on Gamestem.com, the brainchild of Aragon and one of her research groups. Th e mission of Gamestem is to “address the planet’s important engineering challenges in a way that is collaborative, creative, and most of all, fun!”

Th e fi rst product of Game-stem is Max5, a game based on a futuristic crime scene investigation scenario. Th e goal of the game is to solve an international pandemic

using collaborative cyber sleuth-ing. Users select roles in the game as scientists or engineers and work together to fi ght the pandemic.

Gamestem’s ultimate goal with Max5 is to engage users while teaching them bioinformatics and computer science concepts—and thus help attract a new generation of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) students.

In addition, one of the unique aspects of Max5 is its seamless incorporation of diff erent learn-ing styles into the game, allowing students to learn STEM concepts in

Biologists, Field Agents, and Computer Scientists, Oh My!Teaching STEM concepts through gaming

whatever manner is most eff ective for them personally.

PhD student Daniel Perry has been working with Aragon since the project started in 2011. He is currently managing the project and working with students from both HCDE and area high schools to further develop and test the game. Th e group also plans to test the game in the College of Engineer-ing’s STEM Bridge program.

High school students working on the game have been impressed, with one student comparing it to an “actual” video game and another

Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) Professor Cecilia Aragon and her research team develop fun, collaborative games that are also educational.

More informationgamestem.com

commenting that the game was fun because he did not have to “think about” learning—high praise in-deed from high school students!

Future collaborative gaming projects include a game focusing on micro-electronic circuits, which will also be housed in Gamestem.

Aragon’s Gamestem research is currently funded by a two-year National Science Foundation (NSF) Offi ce of Cyberinfrastructure grant. Collaborators on the project include Suzanne Brainard, Jeanne Chown-ing, Daniel Perry, and Mette Peters.

Screenshots from Max5.On left: Sorting DNA sequenc-es. Since Max5 takes place 20 years in the future, the team wanted the game to refl ect the future of DNA sequencing techniques.On right: A view of the Ad-vanced Future Research Lab. Players in this lab receive mes-sages from other scientists and lab agents.

Images: Daniel Perry

“


Turns set out to discover how to solve this problem and better con-nect research to practice, bringing enthusiastic students with her on the way. While many academics notice the same problem, PhD candidate Drew Paine says that “nothing seems to be done other than acknowledge that it is a hard problem to address.”

Paine joined Turns’ directed research group on lifelong learn-ing when he began his studies in HCDE in 2010, and he recalls that she kept asking the group the

question, “So what?” during their readings. In other words, what are the implications of what they just read, and how can that research inform practice?

Intrigued by the questions Turns was raising, Brook Sattler (PhD 2012) and Turns began examining the implications (or lack thereof ) of academic research for practice. Th is, Paine says, became the “Im-plications of Implications” directed research group, in which Turns, Sattler, Paine, and other students examined Journal of Engineering

Education articles for implications for practice.

Th e group started working in the summer of 2011, and their research led to a paper presented at the 2012 Frontiers in Educa-tion conference in Seattle. In their research, Turns and her students developed a method for analyzing research publications to determine how authors articulate the implica-tions of their research for practice. Th e language patterns Turns and her students detect give them clues about why it is so diffi cult to con-

On left: HCDE Professor Jennifer Turns is looking at how academic research is translated into practice.On right: The fi gure symbolizes what HCDE Professor Jennifer Turns, PhD student Drew Paine, and alumna Brook Sattler (PhD 2012) have been attempting to do in their research.

So What?Researchers produce a wealth of academic publications, but how is this translated into practice?

More informationhcde.uw.edu/turns

Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) Professor Jennifer Turns noticed over the years that most academic research does not reach practitioners and instead languishes in academic journals.

nect research and practice. Th eir ultimate goal is then to “understand how research can be used to trans-form educational practice.”

However, the implications of Turns’ research goes beyond educa-tion, says Sattler. Finding a way to catalyze the rate at which research is actually implemented in practice would have an immediate impact on practically every academic fi eld, and beyond.

Photo: Anne Hilton; Image courtesy: Jennifer Turns

12 | Designing Up

Th us, Perkins’ introduction to the world of digital volunteering was less gradual than it might have been otherwise. Perkins and the other members of the research group, MS student Ankitha Bharadwaj and Computer Science & Engineering PhD student Camille Cobb, scram-bled to verify and then quickly relay information they tracked via social media to emergency responders on the ground. Th ey relayed the information using Tweak the Tweet (TtT), a tool developed by Starbird.

Th ough originally designed as a tool for citizen reporting, TtT is ef-

fective in helping digital volunteers fi lter, process, and map information about active crisis events—using the Twitter platform. TtT is a “micro-syntax” that allows users to submit structured reports of an unfolding crisis event through public tweets, which can then be easily collected and processed by remote computer algorithms. Starbird fi rst deployed TtT in response to the 2010 earth-quake in Haiti.

Th rough their work on Sandy last quarter, as well as by reviewing previous events in which social me-dia use played a large role, like the

Haiti earthquake and the revolu-tion in Egypt in 2011, Perkins and her peers gained a foundation on the use of social media in large-scale events like disasters, crises, or political protests. However, social media use in crisis is not just about sharing information, says Starbird, but also about “sensemaking—col-lectively making sense of an event.” Th us, digital volunteerism can be a sensitive road to navigate, which Perkins and the rest of Starbird’s re-search group had a chance to learn fi rsthand last quarter.

Crowdsourcing Disaster ResponseDigital volunteering and social media use in emergency response eff orts

More informationhcde.uw.edu/starbird

Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) MS student Annuska Perkins had just begun working in Professor Kate Starbird’s research group when Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeastern United States.

Going forward, Starbird and her research group are conducting interviews with digital volunteers to see how they currently use social media in their work. Starbird and her students will then use the results to develop new tools to help people make sense of the fl ood of social media data during future crises.

Starbird joined the Depart-ment of Human Centered Design & Engineering as an assistant professor in 2012 and directs the Emerging Capacities of Mass Participation (emCOMP) Laboratory.

Maps created through Tweak the Tweet (TtT) during Hurricane Sandy.On left: Reports from the day Sandy hit and for a few days after. On right: Reports from a few days after the storm, focused on where gas (pink dots on the map) was available.

Images: Kate Starbird


Many healthcare workers spend a great deal of unproductive time just trying to get in touch with their patients. Phone tag between pa-tients and their healthcare providers wastes valuable time and may delay patient care, which in the case of serious or life-threatening health conditions can negatively aff ect patients’ health. Th is is a complex problem with no simple solution, Braxton says.

In response to this problem, Haselkorn, Butler, and their team developed a prototype of Priority Contact. Priority Contact is an application that has the potential to streamline the contact process for both healthcare providers and patients. Priority Contact auto-mates part of the process by which providers get in touch with patients and then documents the details of the patient-provider contact in the patient’s medical record. Simulation experiments indicate that Priority

Contact may reduce the unproduc-tive time that providers currently spend trying to get in touch with patients by as much as 40%.

Priority Contact was developed using the Modeling & Analysis Tool Suite for Healthcare IT (MATH), created by Haselkorn, Butler, Boe-ing Technical Fellow Ali Bahrami, and College of Engineering Systems Administrator Konrad Schroder in 2011. Th e MATH methodology brings a human-centered approach to the design of healthcare informa-tion technology (HIT). MATH represents a radical departure from traditional approaches to HIT de-sign that focuses on the capabilities of the technology rather than on the impact the technology will have on the way people work.

Now, Braxton is working with the VA on conducting an alpha-test of Priority Contact. In the current phase of the test, Braxton is work-ing with healthcare providers using

role-playing patients in a sandbox environment. Next, Braxton will test Priority Contact with the healthcare providers and some of their actual patients. If Prior-ity Contact fulfi lls its potential to improve communication between patients and providers, Braxton hopes that the VA may eventu-ally implement the software at its healthcare facilities nationwide.

Braxton says that the success of Priority Contact will reinforce the eff ectiveness of the MATH meth-odology, and the ultimate goal of MATH is to revolutionize the way HIT is designed and evaluated.

Research on Priority Contact is funded, in part, by the University of Washington Center for Commercial-ization. Butler and Haselkorn were also recently funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in US Health and Human Services to continue their research on HIT.

Wireframe model of the Contact Plan screen for an individual patient through Priority Contact.

Redesigning Healthcare Information TechnologyDeveloping tools to improve healthcare information technology

More informationhcde.uw.edu/markh

Image courtesy: Melissa Braxton

Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) PhD student Melissa Braxton has been working with Professor Mark Haselkorn and Research Scientist Keith Butler to test Priority Contact with the US Department of Veteran Aff airs (VA).

14 | Designing Up

Research shows that people tend to read information that reinforces their own political biases, and this tendency is only strengthening the political divide in the United States. In a recent interview with PBS Newshour, Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) Professor Sean Munson comment-ed: “If you always see one view, and you keep being told you are right by everything that you read, you can start to forget that other viewpoints might be valid.”

Munson set out to change that and encourage readers to expand their information sources through Balancer, an extension he created for Chrome web browsers that ana-lyzes the websites that readers visit for political bias. If their reading habits lean too far in one direction, the extension recommends sites at the other end of the political spectrum to help balance out what they read.

Balancer classifies more than 10,000 websites on a spectrum ranging from far right (-1.0) to far left (1.0), using results of previous studies and existing media-bias indices. For example, news pundit Bill O’Reilly’s website ranks far to the right at -0.99. At the other end of the spectrum, progressive news site Think Progress ranks at 0.89.

An online experiment of Balanc-er found that, among users whose reading habits were unbalanced, receiving feedback on the political slant of their online reading sources caused them to make modest changes, on the order of one or two new visits per week to a site repre-senting the (extreme) “other” side, or three to five new visits per week to more moderate sites.

HCDE MS student Aditya Manohar, an international student in Munson’s research group who has been in the United States for less than six months, says he has been

amazed by how strongly Americans feel about politics in general when compared to his experience growing up in India. After observing the re-cent election, it is now even clearer to Manohar how the political divide in the US is hampering new ideas.

Munson’s directed research group spent a large part of autumn quarter analyzing data that Balancer has been gathering from its users. Stephanie Lee, a member of the group and a PhD student in the Department of Sociology, says that the group hopes to use the results to create better website classifications and begin to provide readers with feedback on the bias of what they are reading in real time. The group also hopes to develop a plug-in for Firefox web browsers in order to reach a wider audience.

Munson joined HCDE as an assistant professor in 2012 and directs the Laboratory for Influence in Socio-Technical Systems (LISTS).

Bridging the Political DivideCould a browser extension make you more open-minded?

Do you know how biased the news you read is? And if you did, would you try to balance out your information sources?

The Balancer plugin analyzes the websites readers visit for political bias. If their read-ing habits lean too far in one direction, the extension recommends sites at the other end of the political spectrum to help balance out what they read.

Image: Sean Munson

More informationbalancestudy.org


HCDE Bachelor of Science (BS) students Jenny Acevedo-Barga, Anna DelaMerced, and Nata-sha Noltimier-Strauss spent the fall studying at the University of Twente (UT) in the Netherlands. Back in Seattle, UT students Elisa Stieglmeier and Jana Untiedt joined HCDE for two quarters.

Th ese exchanges continue a partnership of more than 15 years between HCDE and UT’s Depart-ment of Communication Studies.

Th e partnership began when UT Professor Th ea van der Geest approached HCDE (then Techni-

cal Communication) in 1996 about visiting the UW as a scholar in residence. HCDE Professor Judy Ramey then spent the summer at UT, and the partnership was formalized in 1997, shortly after Ramey became department chair.

What followed was years of student, faculty, and resource exchanges. International summer workshops were held for several years between the two universi-ties, and HCDE and UT faculty collaborated on projects together, including a special issue of the jour-nal Technical Communication.

Fast forward fi fteen years, and Noltimier-Strauss still fi nds the partnership between the two institutions to be valuable. She says her studies in Enschede were both “challenging and engaging.” Because the UT curriculum is more communication-focused than HCDE, Noltimier-Strauss says she was able to broaden her perspective beyond just human centered design and engineering and look at other relevant topics.

However, Noltimier-Strauss found that the most rewarding outcome of her studies in the

On left: HCDE BS students Natasha Noltimier-Strauss (left), Jenny Acevedo-Barga (center), and Anna DelaMerced visit Stonehenge in England.On right: University of Twente (UT) Professor Thea van der Geest, one of the founders of the UW-UT partnership, gives a lecture on user-centered design during one of Noltimier-Strauss’ classes.

Time FliesHCDE’s partnership with the University of Twente celebrates 15 years.

More informationbit.ly/hcde-twente

Photos courtesy: Natasha Noltimier-Strauss

Netherlands was more than just the academic experience: “Th e most valuable thing I took away from this is being able to look at how society and technology are evolving from a more global perspective.”

In addition to their studies, Noltimier-Strauss, Acevedo-Barga, and DelaMerced also had the op-portunity to visit Belgium, Eng-land, Germany, and Spain while living in the Netherlands.

Three Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) undergraduate students studied at the University of Twente this fall, and two University of Twente (UT) students came to the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle.

16 | Designing Up

Adventures in InterningBy Katie Derthick, PhD Student

Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) PhD student Katie Derthick reflects on her internship at Microsoft Research Cambridge (MSRC) and reports on undergraduate student Amado Robancho’s internship at nonprofit Imara Partners.

HCDE PhD Student Researches UX Design at Microsoft Research Cambridge.

In summer 2012, I worked as a Re-search Intern at Microsoft Research Cambridge (MSRC) in the United Kingdom. At MSRC, I worked in Sensors and Devices, the group responsible for devices such as Gad-geteer and SenseCam. This group of engineers is a sub-group of the larger Computer-mediated Living group, whose focus is on the design, development, and evaluation of technologies for everyday life.

My role in the engineer-ing group was that of the social scientist, bringing the research-sup-ported human perspective to one of their human-computer interaction (HCI) projects. My supervisor had developed a way to have smart-phones access and control everyday appliances, such as coffee makers or washing machines, and my role was to develop a study related to this.

It was a tough problem to tack-le. I suggested studies such as in-home observations of individuals’ and families’ daily routines, with a focus on appliance use, or a week-long deployment of a smartphone-accessible coffee maker in a public space, where we might have return “customers” to compare within and between. In the end, due to time and technological constraints, I was unable to work with actual users.

My supervisor and I worked hard to figure out a study that would give us insight into what role this technology might play for real world users’ everyday lives, with-out accessing users directly. Thus, we decided to explore “the design space for user experience this new interaction paradigm opened up” by interviewing 16 user experience (UX) designers at Microsoft, 3 HCI PhD students from the University

of Surrey, and an Industrial Design PhD student from the Eindhoven University of Technology.

It was a really unique study. I demonstrated the technology for each participant remotely, gave them a set of worksheets and design tasks focused on redesigning the holistic system—appliance + smart-phone—for two different appli-ances, then analyzed the results of these design tasks and followed up with a final interview, during which participants described their sketches and design motivations.

In addition to producing rich and varied data, I had an insider’s view of practicing UX designers’ creative processes, including how they think about how users’ lives will be affected by new technol-ogy, as well as how they sketch and communicate their design ideas. It has been especially valuable to have

this insight as a current instructor of HCDE’s User Experience Design class (HCDE 418).

Interning at MSRC was an enjoyably challenging experience, one that enriched my research skills, increased my understanding of UX design, allowed me to make research- and product-level connec-tions throughout Microsoft, and, of course, gave me a summer in the United Kingdom! My research abilities, the rental car whose tires I demolished on a weekend road trip through Scotland, and I will never be the same.



Amado Robancho is a senior in the HCDE and Informatics Bachelor of Science (BS) programs, with a concentration in HCI. In summer 2012, he began an internship as a web designer at Imara Partners in Seattle, a new nonprofit whose goal is to connect volunteers and donors to meaningful projects worldwide.

Robancho’s primary responsi-bilities at his internship include de-veloping information architecture, wireframes, and HTML and CSS for the company’s website. With a background in UX design and the opportunity to develop his web de-sign skills, Robancho’s favorite task is using his skills in both these areas to design Imara Partners’ website, and working with his supervisor to connect the website front-end to the existing back-end architecture.

Before he began designing the website, Robancho researched

the potential users of the site, which include volunteers, donors, and subject-matter experts. After researching the users of the site and their needs, he began the design phase. Robancho is also conducting usability tests on the site to discover any potential points of friction, and will then iterate on the design.

Robancho credits the course Web Design & Publishing (HCDE 437) and instructor Rebecca Destello for teaching him how to approach web design from a user-centered design perspective.

In addition to the experience Robancho is gaining in web design, he’s learning the more pragmatic and equally important practice of collaborating remotely. Since the company is still in its early stages, Robancho and many other employees work from home most days. Several members of his team

Photo courtesy: Katie Derthick

More informationhcde.uw.edu/jobs

live across the United States, so the team regularly meets through Google+. Through this aspect of his internship, Robancho is learning a skill that can only be acquired through experience.

HCDE Senior Brings User-Centered Design Skills to Web Design at a New Nonprofit.

HCDE PhD student Katie Derthick cheers as the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay comes through Cambridge.

Photo courtesy: Amado Robancho

HCDE BS student Amado Robancho is doing an internship on web design with local nonprofit Imara Partners.

18 | Designing Up

”

Two experiences as a graduate student in HCDE stand out as being particularly transformative to Shobe—his first class in the program, taught by Professor Mary Coney (now retired), and one of his research assistantships.

In HCDE 501, Coney “achieved the impossible—transforming [her students] into enthusiastic critics of rhetoric in supposedly dry techni-cal discourse.” The class heightened Shobe’s regard for “understanding and appealing to an audience’s sense of humor and delight” in his work, and he applied this to his writing,

allowing him to “write to win, or at least win over a few new fans while failing quickly.”

In the research assistantship he completed, Shobe gathered data at 911 call centers in order to improve the systems that dispatchers use when tracking and responding to calls. After doing “listen-in” ses-sions, he observed that, even with cumbersome, outdated systems, the dispatchers had learned to manage their responsibilities competently and efficiently. The experience was especially eye-opening, said Shobe, because it demonstrated that “‘newer’ doesn’t automatically mean ‘better’ without deep understanding of context and practice.”

Even before attending gradu-ate school, Shobe was beginning to realize the potential of combining writing, design, and production

for the web. Thus it comes as no surprise that Shobe’s résumé reads like an entrepreneur’s dream.

After completing his MS, Shobe headed to Chicago and joined with three other co-founders to create Spyonit, a web service offering alerts to the general public. This fed directly into the development of FeedBurner in 2004, an RSS feed management and analytics service acquired by Google in 2007. At Google, Shobe worked on many of the company’s tools for publish-ers and advertisers. In 2011, Shobe joined BigDoor, which provides loyalty programs as a service to digital media publishers. He contin-ues to contribute as the company’s Design Advisor while working on several new startup projects.

In addition to his own entre-preneurial ambitions, Shobe began

Entrepreneur, Mentor, FriendHCDE MS alumnus Matt Shobe remains close to the department.

Matt Shobe received his Master of Science from the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) in 1996. He founded the department’s Shobe Prize in 2010.

Photo: Annie Laurie Malarkey

“Shobe told HCDE MS students to go beyond satisfying their users—they should aim to delight.


advising and investing in other startups, through both TechStars Seattle and Startup Weekend. This helped him better understand Seattle’s startup culture, but also allowed Shobe to give back to the startup community from his own experience and network.

The format of TechStars then inspired him to found and spon-sor the Shobe Prize in 2010, a design competition for University of Washington (UW) students in entrepreneurial leadership. In this competition, student teams test their skills by submitting a proposal for a tech-focused project. The win-ning team is awarded a grant, office space, and one-on-one mentoring from industry experts and from HCDE faculty.

In its third year, Shobe and his judging panel have just selected the


next round of winning projects: GoGo Games by HCDE PhD student Alexis Hiniker and Stanford University students Joy Daniels and Heidi Williamson; and Feedback Sandwich by Computer Science & Engineering PhD student Katie Kuksenok and HCDE PhD student Michael Brooks. Th e two teams will receive mentoring from Shobe, fac-ulty, and industry professionals over the spring and summer quarters and pitch their fi nal prototypes to the judging panel next fall.

Shobe’s support for HCDE goes further than the Shobe Prize, with Shobe serving on the department’s

External Advisory Board, where he advises HCDE faculty to help advance HCDE’s research, teach-ing, and service goals.

Shobe also frequently lectures in HCDE classes, and he gave the commencement address at HCDE’s 2012 graduation ceremony. He has incorporated what he learned as a graduate student into his daily work, and he emphasizes this in his mentoring and guest lectures. In a guest lecture to HCDE’s pilot cap-stone course last year (see pp. 6–7), Shobe told HCDE MS students to go beyond satisfying their users—they should aim to delight users.

HCDE Professor and Chair Jan Spyridakis commented on Shobe’s commitment to HCDE: “Matt

Matt Shobe gives the keynote address at HCDE’s 2012 commencement ceremony.

Photo: Darivanh Vlachos

Shobe is one of our most dedicated alumni. He is an inspiration to our students, having founded the Shobe Prize. Matt can frequently be found mentoring our students through guest lectures in our classes. It is a pleasure to work with Matt and we are honored by his dedication to the department and to this fi eld.”

Th e College of Engineering acknowledged this dedication by selecting Shobe as a recipient of the Diamond Awards in 2009. Th e College’s Diamond Awards honor outstanding alumni and friends who have made signifi cant contri-butions to the fi eld of engineering. Shobe also received the 2012 Mikey Award from HCDE for his dedica-tion to the department.

More informationmatthewshobe.com

HCDE MS student Allan Bathurst (left), one of the recipients of the 2012 Shobe Prize, discusses the fi nal prototype of his team’s product, Conversationalist, as Matt Shobe looks on. Bathurst’s team members (not pictured) were MS student Mike Bulajewski and Robert Wlodarczyk (MS 2012).

Photo: Anne Hilton

“Matt Shobe is one of our most dedicated alumni. He is an inspiration to our students.

Jan SpyridakisProfessor & Chair, HCDE”

20 | Designing Up

We are

Udacity is a startup based in the Bay Area that, according to Glasson, is “trying to democratize higher education so that people who would not otherwise be able to can easily access high-quality education at no cost.” Throughout her studies and career, Glasson has felt strongly about “giving back to society” through her work.

As a graduate student in HCDE’s MS program, Glasson par-ticipated in HCDE Professor Julie Kientz’s directed research group on persuasive technologies, where she worked on evaluating technologies that encourage users to make better choices about things like diet, exer-cise, or sleeping habits that can lead to healthier lifestyles. Reflecting on Glasson’s involvement, Kientz said, “Chelsey was always really pleasant to work with, had a ton of great ideas and contributions, and really was a huge help with the group…. We also published a paper at the

International Health Informatics symposium on the work we did.”

Glasson says that one of her favorite things about HCDE is its directed research groups. The groups provide a unique opportu-nity to students, where they have the chance to use the concepts they learn in the classroom to solve real-world problems. Glasson directly credits her participation in Kientz’s group to obtaining her first user experience (UX) research internship at T-Mobile. In fact, one of the only things she regrets about her gradu-ate experience is not participating in more research groups.

Glasson’s classmates were also one of the best things about her experience. Due to the diverse backgrounds that students in the MS program had, Glasson says she “learned just as much” from her classmates as she did from the faculty, and working with people from so many different fields and

professions gave her a taste of what it would be like to work as a UX researcher in the field.

Glasson was hired by Salesforce upon finishing her MS degree, and she says the challenges she would be working on and the colleagues she would be working with were fundamental in the reason she chose to work there. Thus, it was difficult for Glasson to move to Udacity, but in the end, Udacity’s commitment to providing free access to higher education was the deciding factor.

Glasson says she would not have gotten to where she is today with-out the help and support of men-tors. She has therefore promised herself to “pay it forward,” and she is currently fulfilling her promise by guest editing a career-focused issue of UX Magazine. Glasson also enjoys mentoring aspiring UX pro-fessionals and has maintained close ties to her classmates in HCDE.

Paying it ForwardHCDE MS alumna Chelsey Glasson uses her ninja UX skills for good.

More informationudacity.com

Chelsey Glasson graduated with a Master of Science in Human Centered Design & En-gineering (HCDE) in 2011. She recently moved to Udacity as their lead user researcher.

HCDE alumna Chelsey Glasson (MS 2011) recently began work at startup Udacity as their lead user researcher.

Photo: Robertsen Ashman


Farkas is nearing the end of a long career that included faculty posi-tions at Texas Tech, West Virginia University and—for the last 30 years—the University of Washing-ton. Farkas’ area of research is infor-mation design; he has done design work and conducted research on user assistance, slideware, web navi-gation, multimedia, design patterns, consumer-information graphics, and more.

One of his major ongoing projects is QuikScan—a document format that enables selective reading within a document and provides improved retention. Farkas has

authored or co-authored four books and a long list of journal articles and proceedings papers.

HCDE alumnus Quan Zhou (PhD 2008) worked closely with Farkas as a graduate student. Zhou wrote, “Dave was the best mentor I had and was devoted to his scholar-ship and teaching. Th e entire dis-sertation journey was an enjoyable and rewarding experience.” Zhou is now an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin, Stout.

Teaching has been central to Farkas’ professional life, and he makes these observations:• When I step into class, I am

fully “psyched” (and caff ein-ated). Teaching is never routine.

• I have canceled very few classes in my 30 years at the UW, and I have never missed a class due to illness.

• I do not have hard deadlines for student work. I want to review the best a student can do. Th ere

is not much value in grading haste or exhaustion.

• Mentoring a graduate student is a serious commitment. I have stayed close to many of my graduate students.

Farkas’ students affi rm his com-mitment to education. HCDE alumnus Jerrod Larson (PhD 2010) commented: “Professor Farkas was excellent, pushing me when I needed to be pushed, providing support when I needed help. I really cannot imagine a more dedicated, caring educator.” Larson is currently a User Experience Associate Techni-cal Fellow at Boeing.

After Farkas transitions to Emer-itus status, he will teach for HCDE on a part-time basis. He will also remain an active researcher and writer with several projects under-way, including fi nishing a textbook/trade book on user assistance and investigating the potential of Quik-

A Dedicated Educator and ScholarProfessor David Farkas to retire in December 2013

Professor David Farkas came to the University of Washington in 1983 and has served the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) for thirty years.

Photo: Anne Hilton

Scan as an assistive technology for blind readers.

But he will slow down the pace, spend more hours in his canoe, travel more with his wife Jean Farkas, and have lots of time for his new grandson.“ I really cannot imagine

a more dedicated, caring educator.

Jerrod Larson (PhD 2010)User Experience associate

technical Fellow, Boeing”

Friends of Human Centered Design & Engineering

Many thanks to our friends who have supported the mission of HCDE. Included here are people who have given to HCDE in the last fi ve years.

If you would like to support HCDE, please visit us online at hcde.uw.edu/give.

We have worked hard to prepare a complete list of our donors. Despite our best eff orts to avoid errors and omissions, these can occur. If you contributed as a donor and your name was inadvertently omitted, misspelled, or listed incorrectly, please accept our sincere apologies and contact us by phone at 206.543.2567 or by email to [email protected] to let us know.

Putting people fi rst, we research, design, and engineer interactions between humans and technology. Join us. Change the world.

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FACULTY AND STAFF Cecilia Aragon Associate ProfessorCynthia Atman ProfessorCassie Atkinson-Edwards Offi ce ManagerGian Bruno Director of Student ServicesKeith Butler Principal Research ScientistAndrew Davidson Senior LecturerIlana Diamant Postdoctoral ResearcherDavid Farkas ProfessorEmily Gunther Lloyd Program AssistantMark Haselkorn ProfessorAnne Hilton Communications ManagerMasashi Kato Senior LecturerJulie Kientz Assistant ProfessorBeth Kolko ProfessorAllen Lee Fiscal SpecialistCharlotte Lee Assistant ProfessorJaime Luce Assistant to the ChairDJ Miller Administrator Sean Munson Assistant ProfessorJudith Ramey ProfessorSammie Rayburn Student AssistantScott Rivers Computing ManagerDaniela Rosner Assistant Professor*Elaine Shelley Grants CoordinatorJan Spyridakis Professor & ChairKate Starbird Assistant ProfessorMichio Tsutsui ProfessorJennifer Turns ProfessorAlice Ven Student AssistantStephanie White Academic AdvisorMark Zachry Associate Professor*arriving fall 2013

ACADEMIC PROGRAMS Bachelor of Science Human Centered Design & EngineeringMaster of Science Human Centered Design & EngineeringDoctor of Philosophy Human Centered Design & EngineeringInterdisciplinary Master of Science Technical JapaneseCertifi cate User-Centered Design

RESEARCH LABORATORIES Center for Engineering Learning & Teaching Directed by Cynthia AtmanCommunicative Practices in Virtual Workspaces Laboratory Directed by Mark ZachryComputer Supported Collaboration Laboratory Directed by Charlotte LeeComputing for Healthy Living and Learning Laboratory Directed by Julie KientzDesign for Digital Inclusion Laboratory Directed by Beth KolkoEmerging Capacities of Mass Participation Laboratory Directed by Kate StarbirdInternet-Based User Experience Laboratory Directed by Jan SpyridakisLaboratory for Human-Centered Engineering Education Directed by Jennifer TurnsLaboratory for Infl uence in SocioTechnical Systems Directed by Sean MunsonPacifi c Rim Visualization and Analytics Center Directed by Mark HaselkornScientifi c Collaboration and Creativity Laboratory Directed by Cecilia AragonTechnical Japanese Laboratory Directed by Michio Tsutsui

Human Centered Design & Engineering

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