Graduate Work
IMT540: Design Methods and Interaction
Top Panel Marks – Fall Quarter, IMT540 “Mobile Devices for UW Medical Center Physical Therapists”
Led a team that designed futuristic mobile devices for physical therapists. Team performed field contextual inquiries on 5 PTs. Notes, sketches, and photos were taken. Team ideated, created a rapid paper prototype of the design/interface, evaluated our design, and created a final working prototype which was presented in front of a panel of Nokia, Microsoft, and Intel researchers.
Click here for more information... Work performed with Jacob O. Wobbrock.
INFO498: Input and Interaction
Zero-Button Mouse Technique. For this project, our team created a zero-button mouse interaction technique called "Orthogonal Reverse Cross (ORC)" and implemented the design in C#. Inspiration for the project came from original work by Wobbrock and Gajos (Big 3MB PDF) on goal-crossing with trackball and from www.dontclick.it. Ten design sketches were made and two were iterated into a lo-fi prototype which was tested on volunteers. Results showed an error rate below 10% for a target with distractor targets from different directions.
Click here for more information... Work performed with Jacob O. Wobbrock.
IMT595: Capstone (Thesis)
"How relevant is your search engine? A Comparison of Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search APIs" A study was 
designed to compare the user ratings of unbranded search results with the search rankings provided by Google, Yahoo, and MSN. First, an API search tool was implemented to gather user search queries during a set of informationseeking tasks. Next, users were presented with a list of the unbranded search results from all three searchengines and asked to rate results as either “relevant”, “partially relevant,” or “not relevant.” Finally, data analysis was performed on all search results to compare user relevancy ratings against those provided by Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The goal of this study is to give users insights about the relevancy of search engine results and the effects of branding.
Click here for more information... Work performed with Efthimis Efthimiadis.
Click here for more information about the Initial Proposal
IMT530: Classification and Indexing
Analytico-Synthetic Classification Scheme. For this project, i created a faceted classification from twenty documents using isolate keywords. Facet creation used ideas from Louise Spiteri and S. R. Ranganathan. The faceted scheme was used to create a systemic bibliography using some of the principles laid out by Marica Bates. The classication scheme devised uses the BC2 as a framework. Work performed with Joseph Tennis.
Click here for more information about Classification
Click here for more information about Indexing
Click here for more information about HDSP-1
IMT586: System Dynamics
Using System Dynamics to Model Seattle Housing Afforability. System dynamics is the study of complex feedback systems within larger interrelated systems. For this project, I used Vensim modeling software to show a relationship between housing growth and job growth.
Work performed with Bill Harris at Facilitated Systems
IMT580: Management of Information Organizations
Student Grants and Funding Portal. For this project, our team created a system graph and proposed some recommendations for a grants and funding website that could be used by the UW iSchool Research director, Alpha DeLap.
Click here for more information... Work performed with Jochen Scholl.
IMT581: Agile Information Systems and Change Management
Study of Technology Use, Adaptation, and Work Design. For this project, I performed three inteviews with Seattle real estate agents to see how they changed their technology use, adaptation in a downturn real estate market.
Click here for more information... Work performed with Kevin Desouza.
Click here for more information about "Wisdom of Crowds"
Pre-Doctoral Work
INSC570: Research Design
NSF Grant Design and Proposal Wrote an NSF grant on Designing Interfaces for Native American Problem Solving. For this proposal, native and non-native college students on a reservation would be recruited to determine whether: (1) current interfaces used in standardized computer testing yield different results than traditional paper and pencil methods; and (2) changes in interface design affect the performance outcomes of students.
Click here for more information... Work performed with Jacob O. Wobbrock.
Undergraduate Work
SOC3309: Qualitative Research
Qualitative Study of College Women to a Computer Science Degree. I conducted original fieldwork by performing unstructured one hour interviews with 5 undergraduate women majoring in computer science to find shared motivations, experiences, and feelings. I performed an extensive literature review to make conclusions about self-efficacy, ability, and self-esteem.
Click here for more information... Work conducted with Patty Giuffre. [Brief Summary...]
SOC3308: Quantitative Research
Study of Educational Attainment by Women in Rural Towns from 1978 to 1998. Using selected data from the 1978 and 1998 General Social Survey (GSS),I tested the proposition that there is a statistically-significant relationship between the size-population of a community in which a woman lives and her educational attainment, as measured by completion of high school in that community, when compared with similarly-situated men. My original study showed that there was a benefit afforded to women living in larger urban settings in 1978, and that by 1998, any benefits of living in rural communities were negligible. SPSS software was used extensively throughout this project.
Click here for more information... Work conducted with Toni Watt.
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Contact Me
My email address is if you want to contact me. I am usually available via email on a regular basis.