IST Faculty Bio: John Carroll

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John Carroll

Edward M. Frymoyer Professor of Information Sciences and Technology

ist.psu.edu
814-863-2476
307 H Information Sciences and Technology Building

Education

Ph.D., Psychology Columbia University, New York, NY 1976)
M.Phil., Psychology Columbia University, New York, NY 1975
M.A., Psychology Columbia University, New York, NY 1974
B.A.,Information Sciences Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 1972
B.A., Mathematics Lehigh University, Bethlehem,Pa. 1972

Web Sites

http://ist.psu.edu/newsevents/page2.cfm?intNodeID=100&intPageID=736&HeadlineID=1004
http://cscl.ist.psu.edu/public/users/jcarroll/Self/index.html

Biographical Information

John M.Carroll was a founder of human-computer interaction, the youngest of the 9 core areas of Computer Science identified by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). He served on the program committee of the 1982 Bureau of Standards Conference on the Human Factors of Computing Systems that in effect inaugurated the field, and was the direct predecessor of the field's flagship conference series, the ACM CHI Conferences. Through the past two decades, Carroll has been a leader in the development of the field of Human-Computer Interaction. In 1984 he founded the User Interface Institute at the IBM Thomas J.Watson Research Center, the most influential corporate research laboratory during the latter 1980s. In the 1994, he joined Virginia Tech as Department Head of Computer Science in order to of establish an internationally renowned HCI focus in research and teaching. In 1995, Carroll led the effort to form the university ’s Center for Human-Computer Interaction. That year, Virginia Tech was invited to join the Human-Computer Interaction Consortium, a group of the leading corporate and academic HCI research organizations in the world. Carroll has served on the editorial boards of every major HCI journal — International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Human- Computer Interaction, Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, Transactions on Information Systems, Interacting with Computers,Behavior and Information Technology. He was a founding associate editor of the field's premier journal, ACM Transactions on Computer- Human Interaction, and a founding member of editorial boards of Transactions on Information Systems, Behavior and Information Technology, and International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction. He is current on the Senior Editorial Advisory Board for the field’s oldest journal, International Journal of Human-Computer Systems. He served on the editorial board of all three editions of the Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction ,and was associate editor for the section on Human-Computer Interaction in the Handbook of Computer Science and Engineering. He has served on more than 50 program committees for international HCI conferences, serving as chair or associate chair 12 times. He has been nominated to become the next Editor-in-Chief of the ACM Transactions on Computer- Human Interaction. He is currently serving his second term on the National Research Council's Committee on Human Factors. Carroll has published 13 books and more than 250 technical papers, and produced more than 70 miscellaneous reports (videotapes, workshops, tutorials, conference demonstrations and discussant talks). He has presented more than 30 plenary or distinguished lectures, including keynote addresses at international HCI conferences in Australia (twice),Brazil,Canada (twice), China, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom (twice), as well as at international conferences in interactive system design, user interface design, requirements engineering, and home-oriented informatics. In 1996, he served on a British government advisory panel to assess human- computer interaction research in the United Kingdom. Carroll has received the Rigo Career Achievement Award from ACM (SIGDOC)for contributions to research and practice in technical information. He received the Silver Core Award from IFIP for contributions to design methods. In 2002, he was elected to the ACM CHI Academy, a small group of pioneers whose research enabled the development of personal computing. In 2003,he became the fifth recipient of the CHI Lifetime Achievement Award,the most prestigious research award in HCI (http://sigchi.org/documents/awards.html). Carroll has been a leader in HCI education. He led the design of a six-course package of undergraduate and graduate HCI courses in computer science that have been extremely successful not only among computer science students but among students throughout Virginia Tech. In 1999, he led the effort to establish an interdisciplinary graduate certificate program in HCI. Though this program has not been promoted by the university or provided with any administrative resource, there are about a dozen students pursuing certification. Carroll collaborated on an undergraduate textbook for HCI (Morgan-Kaufmann,2002). This book has been very successful; the National Science Foundation recently awarded $300,000 to support further development and dissemination of its case-based learning approach. In fall 2000,Carroll led an NSF-supported workshop involving 12 international leaders in the scientific foundations of HCI who jointly wrote a textbook for a graduate course in HCI models, theories, and frameworks (CS 5724 at Virginia Tech).

Research and Teaching

Carroll teaches human-computer interaction, the design of information and user interfaces, and social and professional issues in computing. His research includes human-computer interaction, especially scenario-based methods for design and development, minimalist techniques for making information efficient, computer support for collaborative work and education, community-oriented computing, and social impacts of computing.

Publications:

Selected Papers

Carroll, J.M. 1990. Infinite detail and emulation in an ontologically minimized HCI. In J.C. Chew & J. Whiteside (Eds.) Proceedings of CHI90: Human Factors in Computing Systems (Seattle, WA, April 1-5). New York: ACM, pp. 321-327.

Carroll, J.M. 1994. Making use a design representation. Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery, 37/12, 29-35.

Carroll, J.M. 1996. Becoming social: Expanding scenario-based approaches in HCI. Behaviour and Information Technology, 15(4), 266-275.

Carroll, J.M. 1997. Human-Computer Interaction: Psychology as a science of design. Invited chapter for the Annual Review of Psychology, 48, 61-83. Co-published (slightly revised) in International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 46, 501-522.

Carroll, J.M. 2001. Community computing as human-computer interaction. Behaviour and Information Technology, Vol 20, No. 5, pp. 307-314.

Carroll, J.M. 2002. Dimensions of participation: elaborating Herbert H. Simon’s “Science of Design”. In Jacques Perrin, (Ed.), Les Sciences de la Conception (Science of Design), The International Conference in Honour of Herbert Simon. (15-16 March, INSA de Lyon)

Carroll, J.M. 2002. Making Use is more than a matter of task analysis. Interacting with Computers, 14/5, 629-637.

Carroll, J.M. & Aaronson, A.P. 1988. Learning by doing with simulated intelligent help. Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery, 31, 1064-1079.

Carroll, J.M., Alpert, S.R., Karat, J., Van Deusen, M.D. & Rosson, M.B. 1994. Capturing design history and rationale in multimedia narratives. In Proceedings of CHI'94: Human Factors in Computing Systems. (Boston, April 24-28). New York: ACM Press/Addison-Wesley. 192-197.

Carroll, J.M. & Campbell, R.L. 1986. Softening up hard science: Reply to Newell and Card. Human-Computer Interaction, 2, 227-249.

Carroll, J.M. & Carrithers, C. 1984. Training wheels in a user interface. Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery, 27, 800-806.

Carroll, J.M., Chin, G., Rosson, M.B. & Neale, D.C. 2000. The Development of Cooperation: Five years of participatory design in the virtual school. In D. Boyarski & W. Kellogg (Eds.), Proceedings of DIS’2000: Designing Interactive Systems (Brooklyn, New York, August 17-19). New York: Association for Computing Machinery, pp. 239-251.

Carroll, J.M., Choo, C.W., Dunlap, D.R., Isenhour, P.L., Kerr, S.T., MacLean, A. & Rosson, M.B. 2003 in press. Knowledge Management Support for Teachers. Educational Technology Research and Development

Carroll, J.M., Koenemann-Belliveau, Rosson, M.B. & Singley, M.K. 1993. Critical incidents and critical threads in empirical usability evaluation. In J. Alty, D. Diaper & S.P. Guest (Eds.), People and Computers VIII, Proceedings of the HCI'93 Conference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 279-292.

Carroll, J.M. & Mack, R.M. 1999. Metaphor, computing systems, and active learning. Thirtieth Anniversary Special Issue of International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 51, 385-403. (Originally published in International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 22, 39-58, 1985).

Carroll, J.M., Mack, R.L., Robertson, S.P. & Rosson, M.B. 1994. Binding objects to scenarios of use. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies , 41, (formerly, International Journal of Man-Machine Studies) 243-276.

Carroll, J.M. & McKendree, J. 1987. Interface design issues for advice-giving expert systems. Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery, 30/1, 14-31.

Carroll, J.M. & van der Meij, H. 1996. Ten misconceptions about minimalism. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 39(2), 72-86.

Carroll, J.M., Neale, D.C., Isenhour, P.L., Rosson, M.B. & McCrickard, D.S. 2003 in press. Notification and awareness: Synchronizing task-oriented collaborative activity. International Journal of Human-Computer Systems.

Carroll, J.M. & Reese, D.D. 2003. Community Collective Efficacy: Structure and Consequences of Perceived Capacities in the Blacksburg Electronic Village. Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS-36 (January 6-9, Kona).

Carroll, J.M. & Rosson, M.B. 1991. Deliberated evolution: Stalking the View Matcher in design space. Human-Computer Interaction, 6, 281-318.

Carroll, J.M. & Rosson, M.B. 1992. Getting around the task-artifact framework: How to make claims and design by scenario. ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 10(2), 181-212.

Carroll, J.M. & Rosson, M.B. 1995. Managing evaluation goals for training. Communications of the ACM, 38(7), 40-48.

Carroll, J.M. & Rosson, M.B. 1996. Developing the Blacksburg Electronic Village. Communications of the ACM, 39(12), 69-74.

Carroll, J.M. & Rosson, M.B. 2001. Better home shopping or new democracy? Evaluating community network outcomes. Proceedings of CHI 2001: Conference on Human Factors of Computing Systems. (Seattle, WA; 31 March - 5 April). New York: ACM, pages 372-379. Also published as CHI Letters, 3(1).

Carroll, J.M., Rosson, M.B., Chin, G. & Koenemann, J. 1998. Requirements Development in scenario-based design. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 24(12), 1156-1170.

Carroll, J.M., Rosson, M.B. Dunlap, D.R. & Isenhour, P.L. 2003. Frameworks for Sharing Knowledge: Toward a Professional Language for Teaching Practices. Proceedings of HICSS-36: Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (January 6-9, Kona). IEEE Computer Society.

Carroll, J.M., Rosson, M.B., Isenhour, P.L., Ganoe, C.H., Dunlap, D., Fogarty, J., Schafer, W., & Van Metre, C. 2001. Designing our town: MOOsburg. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 54, 725-751.

Carroll, J.M., Rosson, M.B., Isenhour, P.L., Van Metre, C., Schaefer, W.A. & Ganoe, C.H. 2001. MOOsburg: Multi-user domain support for a community network. Internet Research, 11(1), 65-73.

Carroll, J.M., Rosson, M.B., VanMetre, C.A., Kengeri, R., Kelso, J. & Darshani, M. 1999. Blacksburg Nostalgia: A Community History Archive. In M.A. Sasse & C. Johnson (Eds.), Proceedings of Seventh IFIP Conference on Human-Computer Interaction INTERACT 99 (Edinburgh, August 30-September 3). Amsterdam: IOS Press/International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), pages 637-647.

Carroll, J.M., Singer, J.A., Bellamy, R.K.E., & Alpert, S.R. 1990. A View Matcher for Learning Smalltalk. In J.C. Chew & J. Whiteside (Eds.) Proceedings of CHI90: Human Factors in Computing Systems (Seattle, WA, April 1-5). New York: ACM, pp. 431-437.

Carroll, J.M., Singley, M.K. & Rosson, M.B. 1992. Integrating theory development with design evaluation. Behaviour and Information Technology, 11, 247-255.

Chin, G. & Carroll, J.M. 2000. Articulating collaboration in a learning community. Behaviour and Information Technology, 19(4), 233-245.

Chin, G., Rosson, M.B. & Carroll, J.M. 1997. Participatory analysis: Shared development of requirements from scenarios. In S. Pemberton (Ed.), Proceedings of CHI'97: Human Factors in Computing Systems. (Atlanta, 22-27 March). New York: ACM Press/Addison-Wesley, pp. 162-169.

Farooq, U., Schafer, W., Rosson, M.B., & Carroll, J.M. 2002. M-Education: Bridging the Gap of Mobile and Desktop Computing. Proceedings of IEEE International Workshop on Mobile and Wireless Technologies in Education, WMTE 2002. (Växjö University, Växjö, Sweden, August 29-30), pp. 91-94. (Revised version in press, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning.)

Isenhour, P., Rosson, M.B. & Carroll, J.M. 2001. Supporting interactive collaboration on the Web with CORK. Interacting with Computers, 13, 655-676.

Kim, K., Isenhour, P.I., Carroll, J.M. & Rosson, M.B. 2003 in press. TeacherBridge: Knowledge management in community networks. Proceedings of HOIT 2003: Home Oriented Informatics and Telematics, The Networked Home and the Home of the Future. IFIP.

Koenemann-Belliveau, J., Carroll, J.M. Rosson, M.B. & Singley, M.K. 1994. Comparative usability evaluation: Critical incidents and critical threads. In Proceedings of CHI'94: Human Factors in Computing Systems. (Boston, April 24-28). New York: ACM Press/Addison-Wesley. 245-251.

Rosson, M.B. & Carroll, J.M. 1996.. The reuse of uses in Smalltalk programming. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 3(3), 219-253.

Rosson, M.B., Carroll, J.M., Seals, C.D. & Lewis, T.L. 2002. Community design of community simulations. Proceedings of ACM Symposium on Designing Interactive Systems: DIS 2002 (London, June 25-28). New York: ACM, pp. 74-83.

Rosson, M.B., Carroll, J.M., & Bellamy, R.K.E., 1990. Smalltalk Scaffolding: A minimalist curriculum. In J.C. Chew & J. Whiteside (Eds.) Proceedings of CHI90: Human Factors in Computing Systems (Seattle, WA, April 1-5). New York: ACM, pp. 423-429.

Rosson, M.B., Carroll, J.M. & Sweeney, C. 1991. A View Matcher for reusing Smalltalk classes. In S.P. Robertson, Gary M. Olson & Judith S. Olson (Eds.), Proceedings of CHI91: Human Factors in Computing Systems (New Orleans, April 27-May 2).

Sutcliffe, A.G. & Carroll, J.M. 1999. Designing claims for reuse in interactive systems. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 50(3), 213-241.

Books

The Nurnberg Funnel: Designing Minimalist Instruction for Practical Computer Skill

By John M. Carroll

From Cover: How do people acquire beginning competence at using new technology? The legendary Funnel of Nurnberg was said to make people wise very quickly when the right knowledge was poured in; it is an approach that designers continue to apply in trying to make instruction more efficient. This book describes a quite different instructional paradigm that uses what learners do spontaneously to find meaning in the activities of learning. It presents the "minimalist" approach to instructional design - its origins in the study of people's learning problems with computer systems, its foundations in the psychology of learning and problem solving, and its application in a variety of case studies. Carroll demonstrates that the minimalist approach outperforms the standard "systems approach" in every relevant way - the learner, not the system determines the model and the methods of instruction. It supports the rapid achievement of realistic projects right from the start of training, instead of relying on drill and practice techniques, and designing for error recognition and recovery as basic instructional events, instead of seeing error as failure. The book's many examples - including a brief discussion of recent commercial applications - will help researchers and practitioners apply and develop this new instructional technology.

Designing Interaction : Psychology at the Human-Computer Interface

John Millar Carroll, Editor

Drawn from psychology, computer science, anthropology, management science, and industrial design, these essays reveal how contemporary psychology can contribute to the design of improved human computer interfaces.

Scenario-Based Design: Envisioning Work and Technology in System Development

Ed. John Carroll, John Wiley

Growing out of a historic workshop sponsored by IBM, this book brings together contributions from many of the leading figures in the field of human-computer interaction and object-oriented software engineering. The first book-length work devoted entirely to the subject of use-oriented design representations—or scenarios—it discusses an array of scenario-based design approaches and demonstrates their practical applications across the system development life cycle, from requirements analysis and software design, to documentation, training, and prototype evaluation.

Minimalism Beyond the Nurnberg Funnel

Edited by John M. Carroll

From the Cover: How do people acquire beginning competence at using new technology? The legendary Funnel of Nurnberg was said to make people wise very quickly when the right knowledge was poured in; it is an approach that designers continue to apply in trying to make instruction more efficient. This book describes a quite different instructional paradigm that uses what learners do spontaneously to find meaning in the activities of learning.

Making Use: Scenario-Based Design of Human-Computer Interactions

By John M. Carroll

Difficult to learn and awkward to use, today's information systems often change our activities in ways that we do not need or want. The problem lies in the software development process. In this book John Carroll shows how a pervasive but underused element of design practice, the scenario, can transform information systems design. Traditional textbook approaches manage the complexity of the design process via abstraction, treating design problems as if they were composites of puzzles. Scenario-based design uses concretization. A scenario is a concrete story about use. For example: "A person turned on a computer; the screen displayed a button labeled Start; the person used the mouse to select the button." Scenarios are a vocabulary for coordinating the central tasks of system development--understanding people's needs, envisioning new activities and technologies, designing effective systems and software, and drawing general lessons from systems as they are developed and used. Instead of designing software by listing requirements, functions, and code modules, the designer focuses first on the activities that need to be supported and then allows descriptions of those activities to drive everything else.

Human-Computer Interaction in the New Millennium

John M. Carroll

This collection of selected writings presents a view of the motivation that is creating innovation in human-computer interaction. Covered are the influence of cognitive science on HCI, new interfaces and methodologies for collaboration, social and societal impacts, and other subjects.