Information about the HCI Lab
The human-computer interaction (HCI) initiative at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez was pioneered by three faculty members of the ECE Department. During the fall of 1992, this trio joined efforts to research the use of Spanish language for speech communication with computers. With funding from the Economic Development Administration of Puerto Rico for this applied research and with funding from NSF intended to improve the computer engineering academic and research programs, the research effort was underway with a group of undergraduate students. Later in 1994, the group received another grant from NSF to develop the research environment to start a doctoral program in computer science and engineering. This grant provided funds for two research areas: HCI and signal processing.
The NSF grant was instrumental for establishing the Center for Computing Research and Development that promotes research and development in different areas of computer science and engineering. This center is the administrative support for the research activities of the Human Computer Laboratory that was also established with the NSF grant and matching funds from the UPRM.
The HCI Lab is located at 215 Stefani Building. It is a 672 square feet local divided in three working areas (see figure below). The User Testing Room is used for running experiments with users and for meetings. The Wizard Room is used for observing experiments on the User Testing Room. Observation is possible through a one way glass window located between the two rooms. The Wizard Room also houses three PCs used by graduate students to develop their research. The Software Systems Development Room is used for developing software applications and multimedia productions.
The computing equipment in the lab consist of two Pentium Pro PCs (PC-2 and PC-4), three Pentium PCs (PC-2, PC-3 and PC-5), two Power Macintosh (Mac-1 and Mac-2), one laser printer and one scanner. A description of this equipment is presented in the Resources page.
HCI Lab Layout
The HCI-initiative in our department is just getting started. In the next year we expect to complete a proposal for a Doctoral Program in Computer Engineering with HCI being one of the areas of specialization. In the future we plan to extend our course offerings by expanding our liaisons with faculty members in other departments. This will allow us to offer courses in Human Factors, Linguistics, and other HCI-related topics.
| Human-Computer Interaction Lab, University of Puerto Rico - Mayagüez |
| For comments on this page contact: nestor@exodo.upr.clu.edu . This page can be accessed at: http://exodo.upr.clu.edu/hci/informationF.html (last modified on 5/7/98). |