How to ... be a reflective practitioner.

The Sage Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods

Semiology of Graphics: Diagrams Networks Maps.

It represents a universally applicable attitude and skill set everyone, not just computer scientists, would be eager to learn and use.

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Computational Thinking 計算論的思考

One of the major challenges that autonomous cars are facing today is driving in urban environments. To make it a reality, autonomous vehicles require the ability to communicate with other road users and understand their intentions. Such interactions are essential between vehicles and pedestrians, the most vulnerable road users. Understanding pedestrian behavior, however, is not intuitive and depends on various factors, such as demographics of the pedestrians, traffic dynamics, environmental conditions, and so on. In this paper, we identify these factors by surveying pedestrian behavior studies, both the classical works on pedestrian–driver interaction and the modern ones that involve autonomous vehicles. To this end, we will discuss various methods of studying pedestrian behavior and analyze how the factors identified in the literature are interrelated. We will also review the practical applications aimed at solving the interaction problem, including design approaches for autonomous vehicles that communicate with pedestrians and visual perception and reasoning algorithms tailored to understanding pedestrian intention. Based on our findings, we will discuss the open problems and propose future research directions.

Autonomous Vehicles That Interact With Pedestrians: A Survey of Theory and Practice

Drivers use nonverbal cues such as vehicle speed, eye gaze, and hand gestures to communicate awareness and intent to pedestrians. Conversely, in autonomous vehicles, drivers can be distracted or absent, leaving pedestrians to infer awareness and intent from the vehicle alone. In this paper, we investigate the usefulness of interfaces (beyond vehicle movement) that explicitly communicate awareness and intent of autonomous vehicles to pedestrians, focusing on crosswalk scenarios. We conducted a preliminary study to gain insight on designing interfaces that communicate autonomous vehicle awareness and intent to pedestrians. Based on study outcomes, we developed four prototype interfaces and deployed them in studies involving a Segway and a car. We found interfaces communicating vehicle awareness and intent: (1) can help pedestrians attempting to cross; (2) are not limited to the vehicle and can exist in the environment; and (3) should use a combination of modalities such as visual, auditory, and physical.

Communicating Awareness and Intent in Autonomous Vehicle-Pedestrian Interaction

Our goal in this paper is to propose a Computational Thinking Pedagogical Framework (CTPF), developed from constructionism and social-constructivism theories. CTPF includes four pedagogical experiences: (1) unplugged, (2) tinkering, (3) making, and (4) remixing. Unplugged experiences focus on activities implemented without the use of computers. Tinkering experiences primarily involve activities that take things apart and engaging in changes and/or modifications to existing objects. Making experiences involve activities where constructing new objects is the primary focus. Remixing refers to those experiences that involve the appropriation of objects or components of objects for use in other objects or for other purposes. Objects can be digital, tangible, or even conceptual. These experiences reflect distinct yet overlapping CT experiences which are all proposed to be necessary in order for students to fully experience CT. In some cases, particularly for novices and depending on the concepts under exploration, a sequential approach to these experiences may be helpful.

A Pedagogical Framework for Computational Thinking

AV-pedestrian interaction will impact pedestrian safety, etiquette, and overall acceptance of AV technology. Evaluating AV-pedestrian interaction is challenging given limited availability of AVs and safety concerns. These challenges are compounded by "mixed traffic" conditions: studying AV-pedestrian interaction will be difficult in traffic consisting of vehicles varying in autonomy level. We propose immersive pedestrian simulators as design tools to study AV-pedestrian interaction, allowing rapid prototyping and evaluation of future AV-pedestrian interfaces. We present OnFoot: a VR-based simulator that immerses participants in mixed traffic conditions and allows examination of their behavior while controlling vehicles' autonomy-level, traffic and street characteristics, behavior of other virtual pedestrians, and integration of novel AV-pedestrian interfaces. We validated OnFoot against prior simulators and Wizard-of-Oz studies, and conducted a user study, manipulating vehicles' autonomy level, interfaces, and pedestrian group behavior. Our findings highlight the potential to use VR simulators as powerful tools for AV-pedestrian interaction design in mixed traffic.

AV-Pedestrian Interaction Design Using a Pedestrian Mixed Traffic Simulator

Reservoir engineers rely on virtual representations of oil reservoirs to make crucial decisions relating, for example, to the modeling and prediction of fluid behavior, or to the optimal locations for drilling wells. Therefore, they are in constant pursue of better virtual representations of the reservoir models, improved user awareness of their embedded data, and more intuitive ways to explore them, all ultimately leading to more informed decision making. Tabletops have great potential in providing powerful interactive representation to reservoir engineers, as well as enhancing the flexibility, immediacy and overall capabilities of their analysis, and consequently bringing more confidence into the decision making process. In this paper, we present a collection of 3D reservoir visualization techniques on tabletop interfaces applied to the domain of reservoir engineering, and argue that these provide greater insight into reservoir models. We support our claims with findings from a qualitative user study conducted with 12 reservoir engineers, which brought us insight into our techniques, as well as a discussion on the potential of tabletop-based visualization solutions for the domain of reservoir engineering.

https://utouch.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/docs/PointItSplitItPeelItViewIt-ITS2011-NS.pdf

"Point it, split it, peel it, view it": techniques for interactive reservoir visualization on tabletops

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) will redefine interactions between road users. Presently, cyclists and drivers communicate through implicit cues (vehicle motion) and explicit but imprecise signals (hand gestures, horns). Future AVs could consistently communicate awareness and intent and other feedback to cyclists based on their sensor data. We present an exploration of AV-cyclist interaction, starting with preliminary design studies which informed the implementation of an immersive VR AV-cyclist simulator, and the design and evaluation of a number of AV-cyclist interfaces. Our findings suggest that AV-cyclist interfaces can improve rider confidence in lane merging scenarios. We contribute an AV-cyclist immersive simulator, insights on trade-offs of various aspects of AV-cyclist interaction design including modalities, location, and complexity, and positive results suggesting improved rider confidence due to AV-cyclist interaction. While we are encouraged by the potential positive impact AV-cyclist interfaces can have on cyclist culture, we also emphasize the risks over-reliance can pose to cyclists.

Sowmya Somanath

Papers

Communicating Awareness and Intent in Autonomous Vehicle-Pedestrian Interaction

A Pedagogical Framework for Computational Thinking

AV-Pedestrian Interaction Design Using a Pedestrian Mixed Traffic Simulator

"Point it, split it, peel it, view it": techniques for interactive reservoir visualization on tabletops

Autonomous Vehicle-Cyclist Interaction: Peril and Promise