Dancing with computers

Dancing with computers Elizabeth Churchill, currently Director of User Experience at Google, first became fascinated by the interaction between humans and computers w hen studying for an MSc in Knowledge Based Systems, at Sussex. What came first - your interest in psychology or in technology? - Psychology. Most definitely. I got into AI (artificial intelligence) and cognitive science in large part because I wanted to think about human reasoning and learning, and cognitive models seemed like a reasonable approach to me then. I became interested in augmentation - can we develop smart tools that augment human reasoning rather than model or replace it - tools that are well-executed, for a perfectly choreographed human-technology dance. Think of how two dancers can develop and then perform an elegantly executed piece. This fascination really developed when I worked on my MSc thesis at Sussex with Ben du Boulay on intelligent tutoring systems. I was also deeply inspired by Professor Maggie Boden , who encouraged me to think of technologies and computational techniques as reflecting our values as people, and that we can look at what we build and see ourselves inscribed therein. What follows logically from that is that if we don't reflect on our moral values, we can inadvertently create truly destructive experiences. We could start by just acknowledging we are not singular identities, but always shaped socially. That is what psychology teaches us. What do you believe has been the greatest breakthrough in terms of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)?