Slides from my Inaugural Lecture

I gave my inaugural professorial lecture on the 30th of January 2019.

‘Users, participants, co-designers or just pesky humans? On the challenges of human centred research in Human-Computer Interaction.’

Abstract: 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.

The slides can be found at: https://www.slideshare.net/secret/Jxzo5uDajrX1s0