Design Lab Students Swarm CHI Conference in Denver

In May, many UC San Diego Design Lab members and students swarmed the largest human-computer interaction conference in the world, ACM CHI 2017. Affiliated with ACM SIGCHI, the premier international society for professionals, academics and students who are interested in human-technology and human-computer interaction (HCI), the conference brings together people from multiple disciplines and cultures to explore new ways to practice, develop and improve methods and systems in HCI.

“I love the mix of people at CHI—chatting with people making new sensor technologies, new theoretical approaches, new architectural construction techniques — it has incredible diversity but is still brought together with a common set of ideas and expectations,” said former Design Lab Fellow Derek Lomas, who presented at the conference.

This year, the mega-HCI conference, which was sponsored by tech-industry giants such as Facebook, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Yahoo! was held in Denver near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Organizers selected the site, which is full of scenic trees, mountains and valleys to serve as a motivation for the theme of “Motivate, Innovate, Inspire.”

Ailie Fraser (middle)

While some Design Lab students attended to engage with other researchers and learn, many others presented research. Design Lab Graduate Student Ailie Fraser presented a paper from her summer internship with Autodesk Researchers Tovi Grossman and George Fitzmaurice. The paper, titled WeBuild: Automatically Distributing Assembly Tasks Among Collocated Workers to Improve Coordination, unveils a system for helping groups of people coordinate physical assembly tasks, such as furniture building or construction projects on mobile phones. The system takes in the instructions for a task and uses a distribution algorithm to assign sections to workers in a group.

“CHI was a fantastic experience,” beamed Fraser. “It was my second time attending, and I got the chance to both reconnect with people I met last year and meet more fantastic HCI researchers from all over. The CHI community is a vibrant and exciting group to be a part of.”

Danilo Gasques Rodrigues (second from left) and Nadir Weibel (second from right)

In addition to Fraser, several other Design Lab members presented and received notable recognition for their work. Vineet Pandey presented his paper on Gut Instinct which is an online system that encourages citizen scientists by teaching them about the gut microbiome and then having them reflect on their experiences and life stories to generate unique insights. Steven Rick presented his work on pervasive sensing technologies in healthcare alongside leaders in healthcare-focused HCI research. Nanna Inie produced a full-scale laser cut poster of her current research that was featured prominently through CHI on social media. Danilo Gasques Rodrigues also presented a poster as late-breaking work at CHI and made some great connections with folks at Microsoft Research who are working on Hololens teams and might turn into some collaborative work with Microsoft in the near future.

But the CHI conference wasn’t all work and no play. Design Lab Graduate Student Vineet Pandey revealed a little known CHI conference secret. “The parties were really good — that’s where all the magic happens,” said Pandey with a smile.

CHI 2018 is set for Montreal, Canada with a theme of “Engage!” boasting of new innovations including a CHI Expo and two new design challenges. Design Lab students are already packing their bags.

Nanna Inie’s full-scale laser cut poster

Steven Rick (right)

Ailie Fraser (middle)

Danilo Gasques Rodrigues (second from left) and Nadir Weibel (second from right)

CHI 2018 is set for Montreal, Canada with a theme of “Engage!” boasting of new innovations including a CHI Expo and two new design challenges. Design Lab students are already packing their bags.

Nanna Inie’s full-scale laser cut poster

Steven Rick (right)

Ailie Fraser (middle)

Danilo Gasques Rodrigues (second from left) and Nadir Weibel (second from right)

CHI 2018 is set for Montreal, Canada with a theme of “Engage!” boasting of new innovations including a CHI Expo and two new design challenges. Design Lab students are already packing their bags.

Nanna Inie’s full-scale laser cut poster

Steven Rick (right)

Lilly Irani: Seeking to the Community Behind the Wheel in Tech

Lilly Irani is currently an associate professor in the Communication department and an affiliate faculty member at The UCSD Design Lab. She’s the winner of the 2020 International Communication Association Outstanding Book Award and the 2019 Diana Forsythe Prize for her book Chasing Innovation: Making Entrepreneurial Citizens in Modern India. Inspired by the work of Lucy Suchman, Lilly’s research in the field of design extends beyond simply “asking what’s right and wrong and for whom,” but encompasses giving workers and communities “an actual voice in shaping the technology” and getting “political agency over the technologies that we use,” as she put it.

Her involvement with the community is nothing short of impressive. For ten years, Lilly co-designed and maintained a website for online gig workers on the Amazon Mechanical Turk platform to let workers share reviews of employers and jobs to take or avoid. Over the last two years, she has grown the software platform into a worker advocacy organization run by Mechanical Turk workers themselves, so they can also organize to improve their work conditions in ways that matter to them.

More recently, she has worked with the United Taxi Workers San Diego to champion a program to digitize access to taxis for first and last mile transportation in San Diego. This project works towards maintaining good wages and rights for essential transport workers while working towards climate justice by using taxis to make public transit more useful to San Diegans. Design Lab members Udayan Tandon, Vera Khovanskaya, Enrique Arcilla, and Sam Muñoz work on this project.

Design Lab Uc San Diego Don Norman Creative Education

Rethinking Design Education

Don Norman, Design Lab Director

The Challenge

The requirements of the 21st century are quite different than those of earlier years. New needs continually arise, along with new tools, technologies, and materials. Designers are starting to address some of the major societal issues facing the planet. Does design education prepare them to work with and lead the multidisciplinary teams required to work on these complex sociotechnical systems?

The Origins

We are embarking on a serious effort to rethink design education for the 21st century. We started with the multiple thoughtful articles in two special issues of the journal She Ji on design education (download from our website). This inspired us to assemble a team of senior designers from academia and business to serve as a steering committee to start a large effort to rethink design education.

Announcing Appointment of Mai Thi Nguyen, Director of The Design Lab

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Mai Thi Nguyen as the next Faculty Director of the Design Lab, effective March 24, 2021.

Dr. Nguyen holds a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of California, Irvine and an M.A. in Sociology from Pennsylvania State University. She is an associate professor in the department of City & Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where she directs the Center for Community Capital, a non-partisan, multi-disciplinary research center housed within the College of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Nguyen additionally directs the Academic Leadership Program at UNC-CH, providing leadership training and mentorship to cohorts of academic leaders. She also serves as Director of the Equity and Resilience Lab, whose members are dedicated to the inquiry of equity and resilience in urban planning and public policy.

San Diego Design Week Celebrates Creativity and Innovation

"Everyone is a designer ... Design is a way of thinking — a way to change things for good."
Don Norman reflects on the evolution and future of design in San Diego in this San Diego Union-Tribune article. San Diego's first Design Week, a milestone event, happened from Sept. 9-13.

(Courtesy photo by Darren Bradley)