As researchers, practitioners, and educators in human-computer interaction, it is important to strive for societal impact. Although it can be very enjoyable to work only within our own disciplinary communities, where we have a shared understanding and a shared history, focusing only within our own community limits the societal impact. Therefore, it is important to collaborate not only with people in other research and practitioner disciplines, but also educators, policymakers and other government officials, advocacy groups, and the broader research and development community. As we in the HCI community increase the use of Mechanical Turk, sensors, tweets, and other big data approaches for data collection, it moves us further away from interacting with the users and user communities that our design and development work impacts. We need to recommit to interacting with users, user communities, and the broader communities for whom HCI work can improve the quality of life. Our own traditions of user-centered design can lead us down this path of engagement and societal impact. In this presentation, Dr. Lazar will not only present about his research and teaching related to improving the user interaction experience for people with disabilities, but will also discuss various forms of collaboration and outreach that can improve the societal impact of our HCI work. This presentation will discuss engaging with the broader community on HCI-related topics, including 1) other disciplines, 2) advocacy groups, 3) public policy and legal communities, 4) tech transfer and corporate R and D communities, 5) educational communities (starting as early as pre-school), and 6) the towns and cities that we live in. Dr. Lazar will provide examples of his own experiences in these types of engagement, including long-term collaborations with the National Federation of the Blind, the National Down Syndrome Congress, the Maryland Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, and the Baltimore County Public Library, as well as continuous engagement with the higher education, library, legal, and public policy communities. Guidelines for performing these types of engagement will be presented.
['Jonathan Lazar']
SIGCHI Social Impact Award Talk: Having a Social Impact by Getting Outside of Your Comfort Zone