Sergio Sayago: human-computer interaction, ethnography, older people

Current position: Visiting post-doc (Beatriu de Pinós Fellowship), School of Computing, University of Dundee, Dundee (Scotland, United Kingdom)

Sergio Sayago's profile in Google Scholar

Education

2009 - PhD in Computer Science and Digital Communication, Department of Information and Communication Technologies, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain). PhD dissertation: Human-Computer Interaction with Older People: from Human Factors to Social Actors, Excellent Cum Laude

2004 - Software Engineering in Computer Science (honors), Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Sergio in a nutshell

Computer Science, Digital Communication, Software Engineering... BUT I am not mad about computers. Rather, I have a passion for both understanding and improving the human side of interactions with Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).

My PhD focused on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) with older people. While I was undertaking it, I worked in 9 EU-funded projects - my participation in them had a strong focus on user's needs, and supervised 25 Software Engineering degree projects in HCI and Computer Science within the studies of Computer Science at Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

I have been awarded with a two-year post-doctoral research fellowship (June 2010-June 2012) by the Catalan Government to follow up on my research with older people, and I am enjoying it in the School of Computing at the University of Dundee.

Research interests

My main research interests are ethnography in HCI with older people (60+). In my PhD, I conducted a 3-year classical ethnographical study with almost 400 older people using ICT in adult educational centres in Barcelona. I combined this study with other quantitative (e.g. experimental design) and mixed studies.

In my post-doc in Dundee:

• I have been conducting classical ethnography in the Dundee User Centre since September 2010
• I have been looking into:
• the evolution of the everyday ICT use by older people as their experience with these technologies increases over time
• older people ICT learning (and teaching)
• everyday accessibility and use of geo-enabled ICT & iTV with older people
  
• And I am currently focusing more on: (while deepening my research on the previous ones)
• the current wave of HCI (experiences) with older people
• elements of digital game play that makes them worth playing by older people
• co-design and ethnographically-inspired methods which might help us understand much better participatory design with older people
  

Most relevant research contributions and visibility

The research I have been conducting with my colleagues (Interactive Technologies Group, Digital Media Access Group) over the last 6 years has mainly resulted in a better understanding of:

• the relative relevance of the interaction issues that older people face when using ICT, showing, for instance, that cognitive-related issues such as remembering steps limit more severely their interactions with ICT than those due to age-related changes in sensory capability
• the use of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) tools, such as e-mail systems, video chats and blogs, in out-of-laboratory conditions by older people, revealing common aspects across their use of tools, such as socialisation, inclusion and independence, and that this use is far richer than what stereotypical views of older people might suggest
• The evolution of interaction and ICT use over time (i.e. with increasing ICT experience), enabling a discussion, based on longitudinal data, on aspects which will be relevant in our work with future generations of older people
• Older people in HCI research, which currently tends to regard them as a collection of factors (e.g. 'make things bigger' or 'special tools for them'). By contrast, my research suggests a change of paradigm, regarding them as social actors, which provides a deeper understanding of factors and is also closer to the current (or third) wave of HCI

Other research contributions are methodological, providing a better understanding of ethnography and other research methods, such as interviews and questionnaires, in HCI with older people, and evaluations of the usability and accessibility of W3C WCAG, online forms and mobile phones with older people.

These most relevant research contributions have been published in:

• three papers in indexed (JCR) journals: Interacting with Computers, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Behaviour and Information Technology
• a conference paper awarded with the Best Technical Paper award in the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility 2009 (W4A, Madrid, Spain)

My overall track of publications consists of 6 journal papers, 6 magazine papers, 18 conference papers and 8 workshop papers. Author's accepted versions of some of these papers can be downloaded here.

I have also been invited to give talks and seminars.

Participation in R+D projects

While I was doing my PhD, I co-ordinated the evaluation of 6 European projects in the areas of Digital Cinema, eLearning, Lifelong Learning, and Audiovisual Entertainment, involved people other than older ones.

My role as an evaluation coordinator consisted of

• establishing a common evaluatio methodology in each individual project
• understanding the needs of both the project and end-users
• coordinating with industry, user-groups and research parnters
• reporting evaluation activities in formal documents (deliverables)
• participating in project meetings and reviews

I also conducted research into user interface design and usability evaluation in 2 EU projects in the areas of eLearning and Digital Cinema.

These activities resulted in 6 technical reports, 3 chapters in Springer books, and 2 conference papers (see my profile in Google Scholar)

Experience of Teaching HCI

I have combined my activities in EU projects and PhD with teaching HCI to undergraduate students. Over 5 years, I have been a teaching assistant in a second year course on user interface design, which focuses on iterative prototyping and end-user evaluation, and supervised 27 Software Engineering degree projects about HCI and Computer Science.

After finishing my PhD, I designed and coordinated a first year course on interaction engineering, which also concentrates on user interface design and evaluation.

I was accredited as a tenure-track lecturer by the Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency (AGU) in June 2010.

I have also published papers in Spanish and international workshops addressing HCI education.

Contribution to the HCI community

Since June 2010, when I started my post-doc in Dundee, I have reviewed papers for:

• Gerontechnology
• Interacting with Computers
• International Journal of Human-Computer Studies
• International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society
• Universal Access in the Information Society
• ACM CHI 2010, 2011, 2012
• ACM IDC 2012
• W4A-ACM 2012 (Advocate)
  

I have examined a PhD dissertation submited to Charles Sturt University (Australia) on older people and online communities, and been appointed as a member of the Advisory Panel of the BRAID project (Bridging Research in Ageing and ICT Development, EU FP7 Support Action)

Contact information

E-mail: sergiosayago [at] computing [dot] dundee [dot] ac [dot] uk