The Human-Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL) at the University of Maryland, College Park

University of Maryland, College Park

The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...

designs, implements, and evaluates new interface technologies that are universally usable, useful, efficient and appealing to a broad cross-section of people. To this end, the HCIL develops advanced user interfaces and design methodology. Primary activities include collaborative research, publication and the sponsorship of open houses, workshops and symposia.

The HCIL is an interdisciplinary lab with faculty and students from Information Studies, Computer Science

Computer science

Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

, Education

Education

Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

, English

English studies

English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language , English linguistics English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language (including literatures from the U.K., U.S.,...

, Business

Business

A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...

, and Psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

. Current work includes new approaches to information visualization

Information visualization

Information visualization is the interdisciplinary study of "the visual representation of large-scale collections of non-numerical information, such as files and lines of code in software systems, library and bibliographic databases, networks of relations on the internet, and so forth".- Overview...

, interfaces for digital libraries, multimedia resources for learning communities, zoomable user interfaces (ZUIs), technology design methods with and for children, mobile and pen-based computing and instruments for evaluating user interface technologies.

Collaborators and members

The HCIL is a fundamentally interdisciplinary place. In addition to members from around campus, it actively collaborates with other departments, centers and labs on campus. It regularly hosts academic and industrial visitors, and of course works closely with project sponsors.

External links

• http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/
• HCIL Director, Allison Druin