Daniel Avrahami
Carnegie Mellon University

Thursday, April 5, 2007
Talk begins at 11:00 a.m.
Refreshments served at 10:30 a.m.
Computer Science Building 2, UC Irvine, Room 136

Abstract: For the majority of us, interpersonal communication is at the center of our professional and personal lives. With the growing distribution of business organizations and of our social networks, so grows the need for and use of communication technologies. Many of today’s communication tools, however, suffer from a number of shortcomings. For example, the inherent discrepancy between one’s desire to initiate communication and another’s ability or desire to receive it, often leads to unwanted interruptions on the one hand, or failed communication on the other. In order to address some of these shortcomings, and also in order to provide a better understanding of human behavior and the use of these tools, I have taken an interdisciplinary approach in which I combine tool-building and the creation of predictive models, with investigation and analysis of large volumes of field data.

The focus of this talk will be my recent work on Instant Messaging (IM) communication, a popular, interesting, and highly observable point on the continuum between synchronous and asynchronous communication mediums. I will start by presenting a set of statistical models that are able to predict, with high accuracy, users’ responsiveness to incoming communication. A quantitative analysis complements these models by revealing major factors that influence responsiveness, illuminating its role in IM communication. I will then describe an investigation of the effect of interpersonal relationships on IM communication, and statistical models that can predict these relationships. Finally, I will describe a tool I have created that allows users to balance their responsiveness to IM with their ability to stay on task.

Biography: Daniel Avrahami is a Ph.D. candidate in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, where he is advised by Professor Scott E. Hudson. Previously he received an M.S. in HCI from Carnegie Mellon. As an undergraduate he received a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel (HUJI). Themes present in his research include the use of machine learning for the support of interpersonal communication, design and implementation of communications solutions, and the use of field and controlled experimentation to examine communication and tools. His recent publications -- describing his work in the area of communications and interruptions, as well as in the area of physical interactive prototyping -- include papers at the CHI, CSCW, UIST, and DIS conferences, and articles in Journal of Behaviour and Information Technology (BIT) and ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (ToCHI). Additional information can be found at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~nx6

For more information please contact Gloria Mark at (949) 824-5955 or Marty Beach at (949) 824-2901.