User Interfaces for Human-Algorithm Collaboration through Modelling

我的研究项目是在人机交互领域，并打算让那些没有数学或计算机科学背景的人在解决他们自己的个人问题和数据问题时利用大量现有的算法知识。我们可以为人们在职业和个人生活中遇到的许多问题找到计算解决方案。例如，考虑一个试图协调孩子课外活动交通的家庭（我们如何在减少等待时间的同时最小化成本？），或者一个需要安排班级座位的八年级老师（我们如何让优势互补的学生坐在一起？）。不幸的是，它需要专业知识和时间，才能以计算机可以解决的方式制定特定的问题。人们不太可能雇佣专家或学习如何编写约束编程语言，以找到针对当前环境的即时和非常具体的更好的解决方案。因此，问题得不到解决，或者我们不得不应付平庸的解决方案，对我们中的一些人来说，这是可以做得更好的唠叨的感觉。这项研究是为了寻找更好的方法，让算法和需要它们的人相互交流。换句话说，我想改进人类算法通信（HAC）。如果人们能够（也许是在计算机的帮助下）以快速有效的方式提出他们的问题，并且对解决方案的制定和应用环境敏感，那么我们就不需要专家或冗长的培训来获得更好的解决方案。同时，如果算法的输出和参数能够以改进的方式传达给人们，人们将更有可能相信计算出的解决方案，并利用我们在算法方面拥有的大量现有知识。该研究项目涉及人类问题的研究，它们出现的背景，如何识别它们，以及人类如何概念化它们。它还涉及设计新的描述语言来表达这些问题，并构建支持良好的人-算法通信的接口。成功将意味着更多的问题将得到更好的解决方案，因为目前可能有非常多的人无法利用这些来之不易的（主要是纳税人支持的）现有知识。因为我们将开始针对专业人群的特定部分（管理员和行政助理）工作，这些工作的人应该很快就能从提高的生产力和更具挑战性和刺激性的工作环境中受益。所获得的知识还将有助于为复杂的任务构建更好的用户界面，这将使其他为这一人群、当地经济和整个加拿大开发软件工具的研究人员和公司受益。

My research program is in the area of Human-Computer Interaction and intends to allow people who do not have mathematical or computer science backgrounds to take advantage of the large existing knowledge of algorithms when addressing their own personal problems and questions on their data. We can find computational solutions to many of the problems that people come across in their professional and personal lives. For example, consider a family who is trying to coordinate transportation for their kids' extracurricular activities (how can we minimize costs while reducing waiting times?), or a Grade 8 teacher who needs a seating arrangement for a class (how do we sit pupils with complementary strengths close to each other?). Unfortunately, it takes expertise and time to be able to formulate the specific problems in a way that the computer can solve them. People are unlikely to hire an expert or learn how to program a constraint programming language in order to find a better solution for something that is immediate and very specific to their current circumstances. Hence the problems stay unsolved, or we have to cope with mediocre solutions and, for some of us, the nagging feeling that this can be done better. This research is a quest in search of better ways for the algorithms and the people who need them to communicate with each other. In other words, I want to improve Human-Algorithm Communication (HAC). If people could, perhaps with help from the computer, formulate their problems in quick and efficient ways that are sensitive to the context where the solution can be worked out and applied in, we would not need experts or lengthy training to get better solutions. Simultaneously, if the outputs and parameters of the algorithms can be communicated to people in improved ways, people will be more likely to trust calculated solutions and to make use on the vast existing knowledge that we have on algorithms. The research program involves the study of human problems, the context in which they arise, how they are identified, and how humans conceptualize them. It also involves the design of new description languages to express those problems, and building interfaces that support good human-algorithm communication. Success will mean that more problems will get better solutions, for a potentially very large number of people who, currently, do not have ways to take advantage of this hard-won (and largely tax-payer-supported) existing knowledge. Because we will start work targeting a specific section of the professional population (administrators and administrative assistants), people in these jobs should be soon able to benefit of improved productivity and more challenging and stimulating work environments. The knowledge gained will also help build better user interfaces for sophisticated tasks, which will benefit other researchers and companies who build software tools for this populations, in the local economies and in Canada at large.