Celebrating the HCIL’s 40th Annual Symposium
Director’s Letter | May 2023
I want to start this letter by winding back time a bit. For those reading this of a certain age, feel free to make the Wayne’s World dream scene sound effect now.
The year was 1983, and technological advancements abounded. NASA was continuing to push forward in space exploration. ARPANET (the predecessor of the modern internet) moved to TCP/IP. Apple released Lisa, the first commercial computer with a GUI, and the wildly popular Apple IIe personal computer. C++ was released. The first cellular phone call was made. Compact disc (CD) players were developed. We saw our first glance of Mario in a new arcade game and our first reference to a “computer virus.”
From a technological perspective, 1983 must have been incredibly exciting. But it also raised many questions regarding the design of these many new technologies — how would they be used? Were they user-friendly? Were they accessible? Had developers considered privacy, security, and ethical questions related to the design of these technologies? How might these technologies reshape everything from healthcare to education?
With this in mind, it’s somewhat unsurprising that Ben Shneiderman launched the Human-Computer Interaction Lab in 1983. Just a year after the first ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), there was an urgent need for research on the usability, utility, and accessibility of computers and other new technologies. In those early years, Ben, Catherine Plaisant, and their collaborators conducted important research that informed the development and use of hypertext, touch screen displays, and information visualization. If you’ve never checked out the history of the HCIL, I highly encourage you to visit the history section of our website and our YouTube page, which includes a number of our older video presentations.
Perhaps more importantly, the HCIL’s core values were less focused on solving hard problems (although that was still important!) and more on building a supportive training environment for junior researchers and facilitating collaboration among the diverse group of researchers who came through the lab. These values are encapsulated in what Ben has called “The Maryland Way” — seven “sparks” that foster innovation. The Maryland Way provides an initial framework through which to identify a problem, iterate on research ideas, move beyond failures, and work hard to achieve a goal.
Beyond that, I view the core of The Maryland Way as an indicator of the lab’s values. Yes, we strive hard to advance HCI research, and we’ve had significant success across a large number of domains. More importantly, however, The Maryland Way reflects our focus on community and the strength we can derive from it. This community can be found in events like the symposium, but also in more mundane activities throughout the year, ranging from our weekly brown bag lunches to paper clinics, retreats, group outings, and even our shared space on the second floor of Hornbake.
As we celebrate our 40th anniversary, I’m happy to report that the HCIL community remains strong. This year we welcomed three new faculty to the lab: Pablo Paredes (CS), Sheena Erete (iSchool), and Heera Lee (iSchool). I’m excited to share that two of our faculty — Hernisa Kacorri and David Weintrop — received tenure this spring, which is testament to the high quality of their research. We’ve also seen 12 PhD students successfully defend their dissertations, and 10 students finish their master’s degree. Many of our faculty and students have won awards and grants this past year, including five papers that received a best paper or honorable mention at CHI last month. I’d also like to congratulate Hal Daumé III, who is the lead investigator on a newly awarded $20 million NSF grant focused on trustworthy AI.
This symposium, we also send a fond farewell to Niklas Elmqvist, the eighth director of the lab and a professor in the iSchool. In the near decade Niklas spent at UMD, he made major contributions to HCI research, particularly in data visualization. He oversaw the lab throughout the first year of the pandemic and worked hard to maintain our community during a time of tremendous uncertainty. I’m grateful for Niklas’ leadership and guidance over the years, and I wish him well as he heads across the Atlantic — and much closer to home — to launch the (new) Center for Anytime & Anywhere Analytics (CA3) at Aarhus University.
Today, you’ll hear from a wide range of HCIL faculty and students who will be sharing the latest results from research spanning AI, natural language processing, and data visualization to accessibility, privacy & security, education, and more. The program is stuffed full of content, with three plenary talks, two panels, and 38 lightning talks! During the lunch hour, you can join a tutorial on HuggingFace, talk shop at a themed lunch table, or chat with other attendees. Make sure to stay for the reception, where you can munch on delicious hors d’oeuvres while checking out demos and posters.
The work we do in the lab would not be possible without support, including from campus units, funding agencies, and our sponsors, so I want to offer my sincere gratitude to our industry sponsors (VEX Robotics, Adobe, and Rice Murtha Psoras) and our campus sponsors (College of Information Studies, Philip Merrill College of Journalism, Computer Science Department, the Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security, and the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies). I also want to thank Luis Cortes, Joel Chan, Rachael Bennett, Sarah Grun, and Craig Allen Taylor for their help organizing this event, as well as all the students, faculty, and staff who volunteered this week.
As we spend time together today to share ongoing research from the lab, I hope you are as inspired as I am by the people who have made HCIL one of the preeminent HCI research labs for the last 40 years.
Welcome to the 40th annual HCIL symposium!
Jessica Vitak
Director, Human-Computer Interaction Lab
Associate Professor, College of Information Studies
University of Maryland, College Park
