The Head of the Department of Informatics, Prof Carina De Villiers cordially invites you to a lecture by Prof Jennifer Preece and Prof Ben Shneiderman from the University of Maryland.

JENNIFER PREECE is a professor and dean emerita in the Information School at the University of Maryland, USA. She is particularly interested in how Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Interaction Design can support communities to collect and document biodiversity and environmental data through citizen science projects. Currently she is the principal investigator on a project about community driven environmental projects, funded by the US National Science Foundation. She is a SIGCHI Fellow, author of a broad collection of published articles, and co-author of Interaction Design: Beyond HCI 4th Ed. (2015).

BEN SHNEIDERMAN (http://www.cs.umd.edu/~ben) is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Founding Director (1983-2000) of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory (http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/) at the University of Maryland. He is a Fellow of the AAAS, ACM, IEEE, and NAI, and a Member of the National Academy of Engineering, in recognition of his pioneering contributions to humancomputer interaction and information visualization. Prof Shneiderman is the co-author with Catherine Plaisant of Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human Computer Interaction (6th ed., 2016). His latest book is The New ABCs of Research: Achieving Breakthrough Collaborations (2016).

In its 35 years, the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research community and the User Experience Design (UXD) profession have enabled an astonishing worldwide cultural transformation. Research on graphical user interfaces, touchscreens, hypertext, mobile devices, and social media have dramatically changed family/friend relationships, business, medical care, education, and much more. Many of the changes are for good, but disruptive changes and destructive forces have also been unleashed. This lecture discusses the impact of HCI research and the growing community of UXD professionals. We review success stories and future challenges for researchers and professionals.