Elena L. Glassman is an assistant professor of computer science. Her research focuses on human-computer interaction.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
FM: You study human-computer interaction. Can you explain human-computer interaction in a “Human-Computer Interaction for Dummies” way?
BAD: Given the ubiquity of computers, no matter where you are, you can often describe a human interacting with a computer in some way. And so whenever there is that interface, that interaction, then HCI is potentially relevant to studying how the interaction goes, the ways in which we can engineer it to be better.
FM: How does human-computer interaction incorporate elements from fields other than computer science, such as psychology and neuroscience?
BAD: Because there are many different fields within HCI, people contribute to the field from places like anthropology, sociology, in addition to computer scientists. But for me personally, sometimes I feel a bit like I’m asking psychological questions that are more specific to the context of a human or humans interacting with a computer or artificial intelligence.
FM: Unlike some other CS programs, Harvard doesn’t focus much on software industry skills. However, many, if not most, graduates will go on to work in industry. What do you think – or do you think the curriculum prepares CS students at Harvard to build good software?
BAD: I think what we, as educators in the CS department, care about is basically proving people’s knowledge in the future. If I teach you a software engineering course to brush up on Java, it will serve you well as long as Java exists. And hopefully you got higher level concepts that are likely to be preserved in other languages that will pick them up.
FM: Can you tell me more about “CS 178: Engineering Usable Interactive Systems,” and what you hope students get out of it?
Glassman draws from “The Essence of Software: Why Concepts Matter to Great Design” by Daniel Jackson.
BAD: Best thing I’ve found so far for thinking about usable interactive systems. It does not mean that this book is perfect. I think Daniel Jackson has really thought deeply and created a text that is fantastic to serve as a conversation starter for the students and I to have as a learning community.
One of the fundamental insights that came out quite early in the class this year was that usability is not a function of the object. It is a function of the person and his prior knowledge in relation to the object.
So something that’s really useful for you because you’re also using Tik Tok and it’s like, “oh, it’s just like Tik Tok,” can be very difficult for someone who’s never used Tik Tok.
We can make really new, exciting new usable systems by coming up with unique combinations of already existing basic building blocks.
FM: What aspects of human-computer interaction do you think are most overlooked by people designing software?
BAD: I hope all graduates of any CS program have looked over their shoulder at someone using a piece of software they wrote. And I think that once you do that, you will be inoculated from thinking that what is obvious to you will be obvious to a particular user. And then, hopefully – once that memory is etched in your brain – you’ll bring user feedback early and often throughout your development process.
FM: Some of your recent work has been on AI-resistant interfaces. Can you explain to someone unfamiliar with the topic what it is?
BAD: The generalized idea is that if you’re using an interface, and it has features that drive AI, we need to enable you, as interface designers, to be more resilient to AI choices that aren’t correct.
In order to allow the user to be resilient, we think that the user must be able to reliably notice and have the necessary context to properly evaluate these AI choices being made.
FM: You were an undergraduate and doctoral student at MIT. What, if anything, is better at Harvard?
BAD: Harvard students are well prepared for the kind of rigor that HCI requires, and that kind of rigor doesn’t necessarily mean deriving some optimal interface. We don’t have the math for that. If we are? cool! But we don’t.
I feel that a humanities and liberal arts education is excellent preparation for that kind of rigor. I think that notion of rigor was something that was harder for some students at MIT to grasp.
FM: What do you miss about MIT?
BAD: I belonged to an undergraduate living community called East Campus that was sort of for eccentric misfits.
Because we lived in a dilapidated old building that had been around forever, we had decades and decades of student murals plastered on every wall. Every flat surface was painted by someone and it was basically an art building.
Unfortunately, the building is finally slated for renovation, and all students have been moved out. They will basically destroy and reconstruct the interior. I’m sure it will be more affordable and all that stuff. But also, I’m sure that when the students get back into the building, they won’t be able to paint and it will never be the same.
FM: You’ve tweeted a lot about pedestrians and cyclists. What do you think of the debates on cycle lanes at Cambridge City Council?
BAD: Oh God. Yes, that’s right, a bit of a funny story. During the pandemic, I was radicalized by a really, really beautiful channel called City Beautiful by a professor at UC Irvine. It gave me the language to understand the urban environment and what makes it more or less livable.
I mean, you know, if you look at Google Maps, and you’re like, what’s the fastest way to get from A to B? In most weather conditions it can be a bicycle.
The more people who can feel comfortable enough to ride a bike, the fewer vehicles on the roads and the less pollution. And the driving experience for those who need to use the vehicle will be better. I think everyone benefits from building cycling infrastructure that is in line with international standards.
FM: I saw you running from X. Are you running certain apps or gadgets?
BAD: I’m on Strava. I have a Garmin watch. The running community at Harvard was really nice.
FM: I saw through a Medium post that you were involved in competitive freestyle and judo. How did you get into these sports in the first place and what attracted you to them?
BAD: Every summer during college I rented a room at the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity in Brookline.
The house had only a few magazine subscriptions. One of them was ESPN, and they had a spread leading up to the 2008 Olympics during my senior year of Team USA and someone representing every sport. There was a woman wearing what looked like a leotard – like gymnastics, but it was subtly different – and underneath it said wrestling. And I had a very naive thought: I could take it. I’ve never fought before. She didn’t look like the Hulk. She looked like the girl next door.
So I invited my roommate, whom I had just met, to be my training partner and we continued, taking advantage of the fact that I was in my fifth year of NCAA eligibility. So together we joined the then Division III men’s MIT wrestling team.
We would occasionally get matches in men’s college tournaments, which were pretty short matches for me, as you can imagine, because these were men who had wrestled for many, many years. But I really wanted to learn how to do it better. As soon as that season ended, I would drive hours each way to train with other women. I would drive and compete in tournaments in Canada.
Objectively, I was never particularly good. But I was very proud to be, in a way, the faculty sponsor of the Harvard Women’s Wrestling Club, which is now doing great business.
FM: What sport did you play when you were in college?
BAD: My freshman year I was on the winter track team at MIT and it was a horrible experience. That started my five-year NCAA clock, and my last fifth year was wrestling, which was much better in line with the interest.
FM: Recently, there has been a boom in startups hoping to reinvent the way we interact with technology, such as the Humane AI pin or Avi Schiffman’s wearable assistant who dropped out of Harvard, Tab. What do you think of these new developments? Do you think they are better than traditional devices with screens?
BAD: One of the inevitable challenges of voice as a medium as opposed to a screen is that it is very difficult to communicate to the voice assistant user what the voice assistant can and cannot do. No information sent. There are no different buttons that you will look at and press where those buttons have descriptive names.
I think those sound like cool startups, I’m sure. Let’s hope they do a lot of user testing.
There is an apocryphal story about when people were developing the first computer. They went to the typists – probably unfortunately they were all women – who were just typing things. They asked themselves, “What would you like?” And they’re like, “Can you make me a better typewriter?” There is an opinion that people cannot imagine what it would be possible to ask for.
Part of a designer’s job is to identify needs that people are aware of and that you can help them with, as well as things that you know because you’re familiar with the design material. It is possible to reduce an obstacle that people currently face in achieving a goal that they simply did not consider. Like, I don’t wake up and think, “Maybe I’ll try to fly today.” It’s just not part of my world of possibilities. But if someone says, “For God’s sake, I actually know how I could get enough lift by attaching something to you. I can lower the obstacle for you to fly.” Well, suddenly, flying becomes an alternative travel option to cycling!
FM: Tell me about some beautifully designed software you use that people might be interested in.
BAD: I often use Superhuman for my email. Not exclusively, but I think it’s quite beautiful, and I think it’s quite functional. There are a lot of shortcuts. You don’t have to take your hands off the keyboard and I really appreciate that.
— Associate Journal Editor Sage S. Lattman is available at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @old man.