Month: June 2015

ASEE 2015: Paper about the new HCDD major

It feels like I just returned from the annual ASEE meeting. I presented a paper about a topic near and dear to my heart: the new undergraduate major in Human-Centered Design and Development (HCDD) I spearheaded at Purdue.

The paper tells the design story (birth story) of the new program. I took a user-centered approach to curriculum design, since that’s what I know best. I think one of the most valuable tools that came out of it was the vision persona. And, of course, the program itself. 🙂

The paper is available online (you can read it here) and the slides I used are below.

DIA2 is out of beta!

Screenshot of DIA2 showing multiple toolsI am so pleased that we launched the redesign of  DIA2 and the new homepage this weekend! It’s been a long and fun journey!

DIA2 is a Web application for knowledge mining and visualization of the NSF funding portfolio. Anyone can use it to explore where NSF funding goes, how it’s distributed geographically, across NSF divisions, across topics, and institutions. You can explore collaboration networks of researchers who worked together on proposals, identify who’s well connected in a field, and figure out what NSF programs and program managers have funded research similar to yours.

I’m happy to have been involved with DIA2 since the very beginning, as a co-Principal Investigator (co-PI). I led the UX team for the project. We started with user research to understand user needs, and moved through ideation, wireframing, testing, the whole 9 yards. It’s been very rewarding to hear users say, “This thing reads my mind!” and “I feel it was designed for ME!” Perhaps best of all, DIA2 gave me the opportunity to work with and mentor many talented students. All DIA2 “employees” have been students working under a PI’s supervision. I am so proud of them!

If you’d like to, go check DIA2 out for yourself – it’s available for all at DIA2.org.

Or, read some research papers about it:

Using visualization to derive insights from funding portfolios. In IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 2015.

DIA2: Web-based cyberinfrastructure for visual analysis of funding portfolios. In IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2014.

Portfolio mining. In IEEE Computer, 2012.