430 Stanford Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94306 (650) 323-3629 / (650) 815-9588

Alison Lee

alisonl@acm.org http://www.webcollab.com/alee/ http://www.webcollab.com/alee/portfolio/

Extensive R&D experience in the areas of the Web, CSCW, HCI, information access and management, social computing, and software productivity. Particularly strong in bridging across technical, design, and behavioral disciplines, and in bringing research, design, and usability sensibilities to bear in creating simple, engaging interactions with complex applications. People-oriented team builder with excellent communications skills.

30+ research publications (2005 Gary Poock best paper award); 2 patent applications; 10+ tutorials and university courses; 10+ invited and workshop presentations. Design and technical lead on projects that impacted product development and used by hundreds and thousands of users.

Research

Areas: Computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), human-computer interaction (HCI), Web-based technologies and applications, virtual communities, social visualization, mobile/handhelds, accessibility, multi-media/multi-modal interfaces, user interface management systems.

Development

Web Application Design and Development: 10+ years creating rich, multimodal Web applications and sites with client-side and server-side components working cross-browser and cross-platform.

Computing Platforms: Development projects on Linux, Windows, and Mac.

Tools/Techniques/Frameworks (selected): Eclipse plugin development, Eclipse rich-client platform, AJAX, LAMP, Client and server-side templating (MJT, JSP, Genshi), Apache, MySQL, DB2, CGI, servlets, Swing/AWT, SWT, Laszlo, Microsoft BHO/WFC/COM, clustering, image & video toolkits, text processing and categorization, UML modelling, social networks, and location-based services.

Programming Languages (selected): Javascript/DHTML/CSS, Java, AspectJ, Python, Perl, C/C++, AWK, sh, XML & XSLT, VoiceXML.

See Aspects of Rich Experiences, CHIplace, Portkey, People & Social browsers, Portholes.

User Experience Design & User Research

User Research Methods (selected): Contextual inquiry, focus groups, interviews, scenarios, surveys, heuristic evaluation, and naturalistic observation.

Data Collection/Analysis Techniques (selected): Log analyses (keystrokes and Web server), basic experimental design, statistical analyses, regression analyses and multi-dimensional scaling.

Tools (selected): Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Framemaker, Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Macromedia Director, and S-Plus.

See CRM scenarios, ePlace scenarios, Portkey studies, Portholes study, CSCW 2000 Video CD.

Metaweb Technologies, Inc., Web/UI Engineer, (Nov 2005 - Present)

UI for the Semantic Web:

• Enable data-oriented, non-technical users to create, manage, and leverage richly, interconnected, structured data.
• Develop interaction techniques to facilitate tagging, labelling, and inter-relating content.
• Analyze user activity and usage patterns of Freebase.com

Rich client technologies and framework:

• Create a full, browser-rendered, Web application using our own developed UI Ajax toolkit and application framework.
• Create demonstrator applications that leverage the Metaweb.

IBM TJ Watson Research Center, Research Staff Member, (Sept 1997 - June 2005)

Multi-Modal Interaction, Speech, and Accessibility: Create UI middleware, frameworks and technologies for Eclipse and the Web that enhance user experiences.

• Created a set of "Java + VoiceXML" APIs to speech-enable Web, mobile, and Eclipse applications.
• Developed a broad-based approach to accessibility without maintaining multiple source versions.
• Worked with seniors to create Web accessibility scaffoldings that present the elements, pathways, and structure of Web page and enable them to learn skills to function online with greater autonomy.
• Developed a novel Web page segmentation heuristic that exploits the visual structure of a Web page and integrated it into IE browser using Microsoft Java, browser helper objects, and ViaVoice TTS.

Social Computing & Collaborative eBusiness: Explore new eBusiness collaboration and social computing paradigms using two Social Web portals as research vehicles (CHIplace and Portkey). The portals enabled hundreds of users to meet, network, and share tacit knowledge and experiences.

• Engaged customers and product groups to understand business needs and social uses of technology.
• Developed the Web portals using J2SE, MySQL, applets, servlets, JSPs, JDBC, CSS, and XHTML.
• Created two social browsers for exploring relationships between People and Conversations.
• Analyzed user behaviors online to improve their designs and to demonstrate social uses of the portals.

New Paradigms for Web-based Collaboration: Conduct research and develop prototypes of Web-based collaboration technologies and online communities for eCommerce marketplaces.

• Developed a novel, spatially organized, interactive site map as a full-functioning proof-of-concept for ShopIBM to illustrate a social Web complement of a eCommerce Web site.
• Formulated design principles (e.g., place-making) and system components (e.g., social browser) for social interaction environments in large-scale collaborative environments such as digital cities.

Customer Relationship Management: Work with a Bank to explore business uses of shared voice and data for collaborative customer care. The project resulted in a new 50-person product team.

• Formulated the uses and social interface design of the solution for sales and marketing, leads generation, customer support, and customer service.
• Created scenarios using HTML, JavaScript, Adobe PhotoShop, and Microsoft PowerPoint.
• Developed test plans and coordinated the testing of the solution between the two organizations.

NYNEX Science and Technology, Member of Technical Staff, (May 1992 - Aug 1997)

Web-based Collaborative Applications: Exploit and evangelize the use of Web standards to create collaborative applications and technologies for several internal projects.

• Recasted a forms toolkit as a Web technology and used it to build a meeting notes function.
• Architected the system, re-designed the UI, conducted the user research, and built two Web-based versions of a video-based background awareness tool using Java, C, and Perl using HTML forms, applets, CGI, HTTP, FTP, JPEG libraries, video libraries for multiple system platforms.
• Developed video-image techniques to sense activity and to provide privacy shields.

Participatory Design: Identify features, technologies, and services of a participatory design system that supports problem understanding, mutual education, collaboration and negotiation among group members.

• Worked with an internal, cross-organizational group and the New York New Media organization to assess communication needs, required services, and work practices of virtual communities.
• Designed a multimedia group memory system and a set of communication services for sharing, discussing, and evolving a repository of work artifacts (e.g., photos, sketches, design requirements). Built the system in C and Perl using HTTP, CGI, HTML, helper applications, and MIME types.

Multi-Function Operator Workstation: Create a new multi-function telephone operator workstation. During the two-year period of our involvement, the workstation was rolled out to thousands of operators.

• Developed a keystroke data collection mechanism in C and using a network packet sniffer device.
• Analyzed operator performance, formulated UI recommendations, and developed test plans.

C. Danis and A. Lee. Evolution of Norms in a Newly Forming Group. In Proceedings of INTERACT 2005, pp. 522-535.

T.V. Raman and A. Lee. Speech-Enablement of Eclipse IDE and Eclipse Rich Client Applications Using AspectJ. Gary Poock Best Paper Award. In Proceedings of AVIOS — SpeechTEK, 2005.

A. Lee, A. Girgensohn, and J. Zhang. Browsers to Support Awareness and Social Interaction. In IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 24(5), pp. 66-75, 2004.

E. Churchill, A. Girgensohn, L. Nelson, and A. Lee. Blending Digital and Physical Spaces for Ubiquitous Community Participation. Communications of the ACM, 47(2), pp. 39-44, 2004.

A. Girgensohn and A. Lee. Making Web Sites be Places for Social Interaction. In Proceedings of ACM 2002 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, pp. 136-145, 2003.

A. Lee and A. Girgensohn. Design, Experiences and User Preferences for a Web-Based Awareness Tool. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 56, pp. 75-107, 2002.

C. Danis and A. Lee. Contemplating Electronic Mediation: What Makes CBOT Face-to-Face Trading Work? ACM 2002 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Interactive Poster, 2002.

Y. Jung and A. Lee. Design of a Social Interaction Environment for Electronic Marketplaces. In Proceedings of DIS’2000 — Designing Interactive Systems: Processes, Practices, Methods, Techniques, ACM, pp. 129-136, 2000.

C.G. Wolf, A. Lee, M. Touma, and S. Daijavad. A Case Study in the Development of Collaborative Customer Care: Concept and Solution. In Proceedings of INTERACT’99, pp. 54-61, 1999.

A. Girgensohn, and A. Lee, Seamless Integration of Interactive Forms into the Web. In Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, 29, pp. 1531-1542, 1997.

A. Girgensohn, A. Lee, and K. Schlueter, Experiences in Developing Collaborative Applications Using the World Wide Web "Shell." In Proceedings of Hypertext'96, pp. 246-255, 1996.

A. Lee, Exploring User Effort Involved in Using History Tools through MHP/GOMS: Results and Experiences. In K. Nordby, P.H. Helmersen, D.J. Gilmore and S.A. Arnesen (Eds.), Proceedings of INTERACT'95, pp. 109-114, 1995.

A. Lee, Y. Jung and P. Malkin. System for Interacting with Participants at a Web Site through an Interactive Visual Proxy, 2001.

A. Lee, Y. Jung and P. Malkin. System, Method, and Program Product for Navigating and Mapping Content at a Web Site, 2001.

Committee Roles

Conference Chair: CSCW 2004 Workshops, CHI 2003 Tutorials, CHI 2002 Online Interactions, CSCW 2000 Video, UIST’95 Registration, CHI’89 Videos.

Technical Program Member: WWW 2005, Group 2003, INTERACT 2003, CHI 2001, CHI 2000, CSCW 2000, CSCW’98, INTERACT’99, INTERACT’97, Graphics Interface’98, UIST’97, UIST’96.

Reviewer

Journals: ACM TOIS, ACM TOCHI, IJMMS, IJHCS, IJCIS, IEEE Internet Computing.

Conferences: ACM CHI; CSCW; Multimedia; UIST, Graphics Interface, IFIP Interact, HICSS, and CIPS.

Instructor

Conferences: Developing Web-based Collaborative Applications with A. Girgensohn and C. Danis. Presented at ACM CHI; CSCW; Group, IFIP Interact, IEEE KBSE, WWW conferences.

Universities: Columbia University for Masters/4th year course, UCLA Extension, and University of Toronto 2nd-year course.

Available on request.