Invited Technical Speaker Jen Mankoff: Lessons Learned in the Course of Addressing Real World Problems Through Research
From Anita Borg Institute Wiki
Jen Mankoff, Associate Professor in the Human Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon
Over the course of my career, I have always felt the need to let real world problems drive my selection of research problems. Some examples include making computers more accessible to individuals who have difficulty typing, engaging individuals in energy-saving behaviors, and exploring how individuals with chronic illness select online content that is trustworthy.
I will discuss some of this work, describing how the application area was selected, what research problems arose from the application area, and how I balanced between competing needs such as real-world meaning and research-worthiness. I will conclude with some lessons learned about how application-driven research can mesh with long term and short term research career goals.
Mankoff-talk.pdf Slides: in black and white due to size restrictions
Juli James, GHC 2009 Live Notetaker
Dr. Jennifer Mankoff, Carnegie Mellon (ask for slides & will upload when I received) Web: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jmankoff/
Dr. Mankoff's research as always been related to real world problems.
Lessons Learned:
1 - Failure points are potential research problems. Synergy between the Real World and Research: that's where you can have impact. When addressing failure points, remember these are things perhaps no one saw coming. Another area in failure point: Accessibility (no one knows you're a dog when you're using the computer), design of software affects user experience and it affects ability/disability and effectiveness of use. Design also becomes a research challenge - who am I enabling/disabiling with my design?
2 - Interesting problems are often multidisciplinary. There is someone who would consider this problem their core research (in another field). Collaboration is hard but valuable. Find a good, small core of people and aim for balance.
3 - Start the work (on something that makes sense) and resources will follow. In her experience, once she started research she found people volunteered, news coverage came, and the work turned into conf/journal papers, etc. This created many benefits for her research program as a whole.
5 - Give it time. Sometimes research or a project needs to sit and build momentum. (Example: built http://stepgreen.org but dealt with department issues: WHy is this HCI? Is this risky?! But, Dr. Mankoff felt she could argue for cause and engage others.)
6 - Engage others. Dr. Mankoff ran a class for faculty mentors on sustainability. At first sustainability was resisted but after the class department peers made connections in their work and suddenly funds became more available because understanding for relevance was created.
7 - Be agile. Is there a way to push boundaries in another direction rather than 'beating a horse' so to speak. Problems can be dense and require a holistic (rather than narrowly focused) solution. This can also make for interesting failure points.
8 - Get out of the lab! Studying real problems in the real world reveals more, deeper complexities.
9 - Make it personal. Researching in an area that has an impact on your life, or one in which you have experience can save you time, gives you the passion to continue, & can help make your arguments relevant to funders.
