Research interest overview
I have been involved in research since 1985 when I joined the COST11-ter working group on Human Factors in Telematic Systems. Most of my research has been focused on the matter of understanding work tasks for the purpose of software design. In later years I have also found an interest in Didactics of HCI, i.e. how to teach HCI in the best way. My current work is a continuation of the Task Analysis and Modelling Area, where the focus is on the use of Intelligent Service Robots for People with Special Needs. Since 1991 I have been the Swedish representative of the IFIP Technical Committee 13, responsible for Human-Computer Interaction. On this page you will find my research policy statements for the respective areas.
Task Analysis and Modelling
My main research focus is in the area of task analysis and task modelling. Within this area, I have focused in conceptualisation of work tasks. In the early stages the interest was mostly on electronic communication systems, such as email, news, etc. Since 1999 I have collaborated with IpLab at NADA, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm with a changed focus on Intelligent Service Robots (ISR). In this project I have focused on how to model a robot's task so that they can support people with special needs.
Task Patterns
My current project in this area is to develop an editor for the special description and modelling language that I have developed within the scope of my Ph.D. thesis. The modelling language is based on an idea on regarding tasks as following specific patterns, where the concepts used are instantiations of patterns into concrete procedures. One basic notion in the work is the idea of grounded tasks, which is the idea that all tasks have a set of basic procedures that can be used to compose the larger tasks. In the case of robots, the basic tasks are equivalent to the robot's functionality (on a conceptual level).
HCI Education
I have also for a long time been interested in how to best communicate the ideas within HCI to students of different backgrounds. I have been teaching HCI and related topics since 1987, and this has given some insight into this problem. I am personally very fond of teaching by examples, and I have compiled a series of educational hints that are free to use for people who are interested. These can be found at the HCI education resource deposit.
Together with prof. Paula Kotzé I have also co-chaired a series of workshops on the topic HCI and education. The workshops have been productive, and given several perspectives on HCI, and its didactics. I have been vice chair of the IFIP working group 13.1 on HCI and Education since 2003.
In 2006 I initiated the new website for the working group, including a site dedicated at the deposit of educational resources located at http://www.hcieducation.org/.
IFIP Technical Committee 13
Since 1995 I have been the Swedish representative for the IFIP Technical Committee on Human-Computer interaction. The committee is responsible for the bi-annual conference INTERACT and also works through a number of working groups. Between 1996 and 2004 I was vice-chairman of the committee, with responsibility for information services, including the home page of the committee. Between 2004 and 2005 I was interim secretary of the committee.
In 1996 I received the IFIP Outstanding Services Award for my work with the information services.
The home page for the committee is located at http://www.ifip-hci.org/
The official pages
Curriculum vitae
Publications
Pedagogical merits
Educational Resources
Error gallery
IFIP Technical committee
The private pages:
Information about me
The No Art Gallery