Topic: eXtreme Research
Speaker: A/Prof. Michael Twidale
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Location: B505, B Block, Level 5, Gardens Point Campus, QUT, Brisbane
Date: Tuesday, 3 June 2008
Time: 1.00pm
Abstract:
What happens when we take some of the ideas from eXtreme Programming and apply them in other contexts, like interface design, evaluation, user studies, ethnography, analysis, theory-building and other aspects of the research process? How is the way we currently conduct research like a classic 20th century Fordist optimized production line? When is that a Good Thing and when is that a Bad Thing? How might we take 21st century, post-Fordist industrial and service production models and apply them to research? How might we use mashups, YouTube, blogging, wikis, Second Life, other web 2.0 apps, minimalist user studies, single examples, metaphors and reframing to undertake a different kind of rapid prototyping and rapid evaluation? How might that help us in integrating computer science, informatics, psychology, sociology, urban planning, product design and other disciplines to inform the development of better products, infrastructures and socio-technical systems? Can we use these resources as inspiration to develop new methods to address the challenges of designing for new, constantly changing uses of ubiquitous computing applications, where users are actively selecting from, adopting, tailoring, appropriating and combining the use of dozens of resources, web services, physical devices and applications in order to meet their shifting goals?
Bio:
Michael Twidale is an Associate Professor of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Before that he was a faculty member of the Computing Department at Lancaster University, UK. His research interests include computer supported cooperative work, computer supported collaborative learning, human computer interaction, information visualization, and museum informatics. Current projects include studies of informal social learning of technology, technological appropriation, collaborative approaches to managing data quality, the use of mashups to create lightweight applications, collaborative information retrieval, ubiquitous learning and the usability of open source software. His approach involves the use of interdisciplinary techniques to develop high speed low cost methods to better understand the needs of people and their difficulties with existing computer applications as part of the process of designing more effective systems.
