MHCI Project Description
Team Members
Jason Hum
Jason is currently an accelerated masters student doing a BS in Computer Science/HCI/Cognitive Science. He has previously worked on the RADAR project as a student researcher. Current interests are in information and service design.
Sandi Lowe
Sandi Lowe developed her passion for creating truly user-centered, intuitive interfaces in her six year stay at Monster Worldwide. With Monster, she worked on several challenging projects, from managing the development of the Company's global client and content management portal, to reviving the Interactive division in Ireland, to leading web projects for clients like Nestle USA, PeopleSoft, Expedia, and the US Naval Reserve. She holds a Bachelors in Business Administration from the University of Michigan. Sandi is the Marketing Manager of Carnegie Mellon's Innovation Transfer Center and the Co-founder and VP of User-Centered Design of Wellspring, LLC, a company that provides software to universities to manage intellectual property. She is pursuing the Masters program part-time.
Meghan Myers
Meghan's undergraduate experiences as a teaching assistant, peer tutor, and research assistant in CMU's Learning and Problem Solving Lab (more info) instilled a fascination in the cognitive mechanisms behind student learning. Coupled with her undergraduate BS degree in Cognitive Science and HCI, this has led to an interest in the use of technology to enhance education.
Jeff Wong
Jeff Wong is currently a part-time Master's student in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) at CMU. Jeff's interests are in human factors, computer-mediated communication, and high-level programming languages. He is currently working on research in remote collaboration over video.
Prior to arriving at CMU, he worked as a software engineer at companies such including Transmeta and Alcatel. He has also worked on computer vision-based projects to support pharmaceutical research. Jeff has a BA in Computer Science from University of California at Berkeley.
In his spare time, Jeff can be found riding around on his road bike or feasting on foreign cinema.
Zachary Zaiss (Sam)
Sam graduated from the University of Nebraska at Omaha with majors in Computer Science, Math, and Psychology. Under the tutelage of Dr. Jerry Wagner, he was one of the founding members of VIA Design, a student multimedia lab dedicated to developing software for engaging user experiences. Sam continued his work with VIA Design at The Gallup Organization, where he applied his knowledge to assist in the development of version of the Gallup Q12 assessment for small businesses.
At CMU, Sam is exploring computer-mediated communication in order to create a virtual environment for deliberative polling in the PICOLA project. He will graduate with his MHCI degree in May 2006.
Project Scope
The MHCI project is an 8-month capstone project that consists mainly of two phases. In the Spring Semester, or first phase, we performed contextual inquiries and requirements solicitation interviews to determine the appropriate requirements for the data shop. We solicited users across the different LearnLab curricula in order to ensure that the requirements would address the needs of all of the seven subjects. Finally, as a reality-check, we developed a survey, which we conducted in-person with representatives from each of the courses, to ensure that most of the general concepts required in the data shop (problems, errors, knowledge components, hint requests, etc.) were present in each of the current and planned courses.
In the second phase, or Summer Semester, we focused on iteratively designing, prototyping and user testing the interfaces for the Data Export, Learning Curves, Error Reports and Problem Profiles. The Data Export is the primary path to allowing users to export their data, which every user is likely to need at some point in the analysis. Learning Curves are difficult to produce by hand and are valuable in their ability to measure learning during a study, long before pre- and post-test results can be compared. The need for Error Analysis was shared amongst all of the LearnLab courses, including those whose researchers do not measure skill-based learning. And Problem Profiles provide researchers with context, which is essential to understand and interpret the data.