WORKSHOP ON HUMAN COMPUTER INTELLIGENT INTERACTION AND HUMAN CENTERED SYSTEMS

Thomas S. Huang

Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

CONTACT INFORMATION

405 N. Mathews Ave.
Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: 217-244-1638
FAX: 217-244-8371
Email: huang@ifp.uiuc.edu

WWW PAGE

http://www.beckman.uiuc.edu/groups/IFP/people/Huang.html

PROGRAM AREA

Usability and User-Centered Design

KEYWORDS

Human-centered systems. human computer interaction. human computer interface. human centered design.

PROJECT SUMMARY

Without human computer intelligent interaction and a human-centered approach to system design, the vast future power of computing and communication cannot be tapped to the fullest extent for the benifits of society. In February 1997, over 40 researchers in the computing, social, behavioral, organizational, information, and engineering sciences gathered for a Workshop, entitled: "Human-Centered Systems: Information, Interactivity, and Intelligence". The goal of the Workshop is to define this emerging multidisciplinary field and articulate research, educational, and infrastructure needs to support work in this area.

Under planning is a followup Workshop emphasizing the Cognitive Engineering aspects of Human-Centered Systems, to be held in November 1997. Also, at the IEEE International Conference on Image Processing, October 25-29, 1997, Santa Barbara, CA, a Panel is to be held, entitled: "Human-Centered Systems: The Role of Image Processing and Understanding".

PROJECT REFERENCES

The Final Report of the February 1997 Workshop on "Human-Centered Systems: Information, Interactivity, and Intelligence" and additional information are available at the Web Site:

http://www.ifp.uiuc.edu/nsfhcs/

The IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, July/August 1997, contains an article "Toward Human-Centered Systems" by Nancy Talbert, giving an overview of the Workshop with emphasis on Visualization and Interface.

AREA BACKGROUND

The concept of Human-Centered Systems represents a significant shift in thinking about information technology. A shift that embraces human activity, technological advances, and the interplay between human activity and technological systems as inextricably linked and equally important aspects analysis, design, and evaluation. Human-centered systems have vast potential to alleviate problems of information overload and complexity in computer software, to increase the effectiveness of computer technology in communities and the public sector by making computers easer to use by ordinary people, and to enhance the ability of distant individuals and groups to work together using computer support. Research in human-centered systems also advances basic scientific knowledge in such areas as distributed cognition, speech, language, vision, and social systems, in disciplines ranging from linguistics to psychology and computer science. In an era of unprecedented technological change and growth, basic scientific research is crucial to design appropriate interventions into complex human social systems and to analyze and evaluate the effects of such interventions.

RELATED PROGRAM AREAS

The concept of Human-Centered Systems is of paramount importance to all areas of human-machine interaction.

POTENTIAL RELATED PROJECTS

The theme of the February 1997 Workshop is very broad. We need to follow up by having more narrowly focused Workshops and Panels, in areas such as: Virtual reality. Multimodal human-computer interface. Multimedia databases. Speech/language understanding. Vision and image understanding. Universal access to Internet.