“Users, participants, co-designers or just pesky humans? On the challenges of human centred research in Human-Computer Interaction” – Professor Luigina Ciolfi Inaugural Lecture – Wednesday 30 January 2019
A main aspiration of HCI is to be human- and user-centred in its approach to creating novel digital interactions. But how do we engage, involve and encourage end users to participate in HCI? The field has tackled this challenge in many ways. Notably, Participatory Design has been widely adopted in order for users and stakeholders to become active part of the technology development process itself. This, however, is no easy feat.
In this lecture, Professor Luigina Ciolfi will examine how focusing on people, their practices and the places where they occur does lead to illuminating insights, but also brings hefty challenges. Understanding and bridging cultures, languages, priorities, and identities is hard work, with difficult negotiations and some failures bound to happen along the way. Drawing from her experience of human-centred and participatory research on topics such as cultural heritage technologies, mobile and nomadic lives, interaction in public spaces, and tangible and embodied interaction design, Luigina will reflect on the opportunities, successes and difficulties that arise when working in partnership with end-users, and on what being “human-centred” means for HCI in an age of apparent ubiquitous sharing and participation.
Wednesday 30 January 2019
6.00 PM to 8.00 PM
Cantor Building Lecture Theatre (Room 9130)
City Campus, Sheffield Hallam University
Places limited, please book in advance here.
Welcome refreshments to be served at 18:00 in the Cantor Atrium. The lecture will begin at 18:30 prompt followed by wine and canapés.
Luigina Ciolfi is Professor of Human Centred Computing at Sheffield Hallam University. Over the past 20 years, she has been an active researcher, teacher and scholar in Human-Computer Interaction and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) in Italy, Ireland and the UK, with extensive collaborations across Europe and overseas. Her interdisciplinary research is at the intersection of computing, social science and design. She has worked on many collaborative projects investigating the understanding, design and evaluation of how digital interactive technologies mediate people’s lives. She is particularly interested in participatory approaches that engage end-users and stakeholders in the technology development process.
She is the author of over 100 publications (including three Best Paper Award winners), she has been an invited speaker in 10 countries, and an expert evaluator for many funding and development bodies. A trained mentor and advisor, she is deeply committed to supporting early-career academics and had led numerous doctoral consortia and early career development workshops. Luigina has extensive experience of service and leadership on scientific committees in the field of HCI. Highlights include: Associate Editor, the CSCW Journal; Subcommittee chair, ACM CHI 2018-2019; general chair, ECSCW 2017; papers co-chair, COOP 2014, ACM CSCW 2015; steering committee member of EUSSET- The European Society for Socially Embedded Technologies and of ACM CSCW. She is a Senior Member of the ACM. Full information on her work and interests can be found here.