Speakers: Nick Diakopoulos, Thomas Smyth, and Carl Di Salvo

Nick Diakopoulos

Videolyzer: Quality Analysis of Online Informational Video for Bloggers and Journalists Nick Diakopoulos

ABSTRACT:

Tools to aid people in making sense of the information quality of
online informational video are essential for media consumers seeking to
be well informed. Our application, Videolyzer, addresses the
information quality problem in video by allowing politically motivated
bloggers or journalists to analyze, collect, and share criticisms of
the information quality of online political videos. Our interface
innovates by providing a fine-grained and tightly coupled interaction
paradigm between the timeline, the time-synced transcript, and
annotations. We also incorporate automatic textual and video content
analysis to suggest areas of interest for further assessment by a
person. We present an evaluation of Videolyzer looking at the user
experience, usefulness, and behavior around the novel features of the
UI as well as report on the collaborative dynamic of the discourse
generated with the tool.

BIO:

Nick Diakopoulos is a 6th year Ph.D. student in the School of
Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His
research interests lie at the intersection of human computer
interaction (HCI), automatic content analysis, and information
visualization with themes from media including journalism,
collaborative authorship and annotation, and games.

Thomas Smyth
Designing for and with Diaspora: A Case Study of Work with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia

ABSTRACT:

We describe our experiences in designing new media technologies in
cooperation with Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This
work includes two major projects: a dynamic, interactive Web site for
the Commission, and a mobile video-sharing kiosk intended for use
in-country where connectivity is limited. We place specific focus on
our design exercises with members of the Liberian diaspora in Atlanta.

Our report includes lessons learned both in designing technologies
directly for diaspora users, and in using diaspora members as
surrogates for users in-country. These lessons include the need to
recognize diversity even within the diaspora community, the relevance
of both city geography and physical environment, the utility of both
trusted insiders and institutions, the periodic inconsistency between
‘book’ knowledge, diaspora knowledge, and in-country realities, and the
overall value of the perspective of interaction with diaspora members.

BIO:

Thomas arrived in Atlanta by way of Vancouver, British Columbia, where
he earned a master's degree in computer science; Accra, Ghana, where he
volunteered with the Ghanaian Judicial Service; and St. John's,
Newfoundland, his home town.  He studies the role of ICTs in
international development, and is currently involved in a project with
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia, which seeks to
employ new media technologies in the service of national reconciliation
following Liberia's protracted civil war.  He also has a strong
interest in how to design computer interfaces for non-literate users.

Carl Di Salvo

Nourishing the Ground for Sustainable HCI: Considerations from Ecologically Engaged Art

Carl DiSalvo, Kirsten Boehner, Nicholas A. Knouf, and Phoebe Sengers

ABSTRACT:

Sustainable HCI is now a recognized area of human-computer
interaction drawing from a variety of disciplinary approaches,
including the arts. How might HCI researchers working on sustainability
productively understand the discourses and practices of ecologically
engaged art as a means of enriching their own activities? We argue that
an understanding of both the history of ecologically engaged art, and
the art-historical and critical discourses surrounding it, provide a
fruitful entry-point into a more critically aware sustainable HCI. We
illustrate this through a consideration of frameworks from the arts,
looking specifically at how these frameworks act more as generative
devices than prescriptive recipes. Taking artistic influences seriously
will require a concomitant rethinking of sustainable HCI standpoints –
a potentially useful exercise for HCI research in general.

BIO:

Carl DiSalvo an Assistant Professor of Digital Media in the School of
Literature, Communication and Culture at the Georgia Institute of
Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. He also affiliated with the GVU. He
earned a PhD in Design from Carnegie Mellon University in 2006 and was
a post-doctoral fellow at The Center for the Arts in Society and The
Studio for Creative Inquiry (also at Carnegie Mellon) from 2006-2007.