Design at Large: real-world, large scale, and sometimes disruptive
Scott Klemmer (UCSD)
Paul G. Allen School Distinguished Lecture
Thursday, October 12, 2017, 3:30 pm
EEB-105
Abstract
In recent years, my group--and probably many of you--have experienced a dramatically-increased ability to do Design at Large: creating research that is widely-used by real people and learning a ton from the experience. When moving from designing artifacts in the lab to designing experiences at large we inevitably shift to studying complex sociotechnical systems. A lot of the behavior is emergent, and sometimes completely unexpected. The successes in this new world are tremendously exciting, but like all creative endeavors, there are lots of flops. One source of failure is that designers often receive guidance that's based on faith rather than insight. This leads to designs that 'solve' nonexistent problems, miss important needs, hold onto misguided assumptions for too long, or waste time relearning known insights. To help sketch where a shift to Design at Large may take us, I'll share insights from our research systems and their real-world usage, experiences with online learning, former students' adventures, and what we're up to in the Design Lab.
Bio
Scott is a Professor of Cognitive Science and Computer Science & Engineering at UC San Diego, where he co-founded the Design Lab. He previously served as Associate Professor of Computer Science at Stanford, where he co-directed the HCI Group, held the Bredt Faculty Scholar chair, and was a founding participant in the d.school. He has a PhD in CS from Berkeley and a dual BA in Art-Semiotics and Computer Science from Brown (with work at RISD). His former graduate students include leading professors, researchers, & founders. He leads the Interaction Design Specialization on Coursera; it introduced peer assessment to online education. He has been awarded the Katayanagi Emerging Leadership Prize, Sloan Fellowship, NSF CAREER award, Microsoft Research New Faculty Fellowship, and Nine best-paper or honorable mention awards. He is program co-chair of Learning@Scale '18, on the editorial board of HCI and TOCHI; was program co-chair for UIST, the CHI systems area, and HCIC. He advises university design programs globally. Organizations worldwide use his group's open-source design tools and curricula.