CSEE Professor Tülay Adali and Professor Kelly Westlake from the University of Maryland School of Medicine receivedan award from the joint UMBC-UMB Research and Innovation Partnership Seed Grant Program for a project  that ultimately will improve the recovery of stroke victims. The new joint UMBC-UMB Seed Grant Program pairs primary investigators from UMBC and the University of Maryland, Baltimore to conduct research as a team. Successful partners are offered research funding of up to $75,000 over twelve months to pursue their collaboration.

Nearly 800,000 U.S. citizens have a stroke each year, making it the leading cause of long-term disability. Treatment for stroke victims is mainly targeted towards residual functional deficits, especially regaining hand functions. Their project (“Independent Vector Analysis to Investigate Cognitive Neural Networks after Stroke: A Comparison between Two Rehabilitation Interventions”) will have a direct impact on stroke rehabilitation through objective evaluation of the two main treatment paradigms currently in use: unimanual (involving one hand) and bimanual (involving both hands) training. The evaluation will use the new class of medical image analysis techniques, independent vector analysis (IVA) algorithms, developed by Dr. Adali and her research group. The new class of IVA algorithms successfully captures subject variability and perform significantly better than the approaches traditionally used for the problem.

The initial results of the project demonstrate the advantages using IVA for the problem and will be presented this month at the 48th Annual Conference on Information Sciences and Systems in Princeton, NJ. The PIs are preparing two journal submissions, one based on the methods developed for the task and a second one emphasizing clinical significance of the results. These results will also provide the preliminary data for the proposal that Professors Adali and Westlake plan to submit to the NIH later this year.

CSEE Professor Marie desJardins has been named as UMBC’s Presidential Teaching Professor for 2014-17. Dr. desJardins joined the UMBC faculty in 2001 after earning her Ph.D. in computer science from UC Berkeley and spending ten years at SRI International as a research scientist. She has made significant contributions to the fields of artificial intelligence and machine learning, published over 100 peer-reviewed papers, brought over six million dollars to UMBC as PI or co-PI in external grant funding, and held leadership positions in the top professional organizations in her field.

Dr. desJardins is an outstanding teacher, earning praise from students in courses from freshman-level courses for non-majors to specialized graduate-level seminars. She was named one of UMBC’s “Professors Not to Miss” in 2011 and is one of the first cohort of Hrabowski Academic Innovation Fellows. She is also well known for mentoring students at all levels, having graduated ten Ph.D. and 22 M.S. students, mentored over 50 undergraduates in research and served on the dissertation and thesis committees of more than 30 other students. She was recently recognized for mentoring by the National Center for Women & Information Technology, who selected her as one of four awardees of the 2014 NCWIT Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award.

Within the department and university, Dr. desJardins’s commitment to teaching and student success goes far beyond the classroom. She has served as the computer science undergraduate program director and led an effort to redesign the introductory computing course to better serve new students. In addition to mentoring her own graduate students, she is the Faculty Advisor for the Women in Science and Engineering Graduate Association and a member of the Center for Women in Technology Advisory Board. She is regularly invited to participate on panels, give presentations in the Honors Forum and other campus events, and to run workshops for graduate students and junior faculty.

Outside of UMBC, Dr. desJardins has built an international reputation as an advocate for high-quality education, mentoring, and diversity at all levels of the profession. She has been chair, mentor, reviewer, and/or panelist of the AAAI/SIGART Doctoral Consortium for the last 14 years; this event has provided valuable feedback and mentoring to hundreds of computing graduate students during that time. She co-founded the AAAI Educational Advances in Artificial Intelligence annual symposium. She regularly publishes articles on her research and innovations in computing education, including tools and techniques for classroom teaching, new courses, and analyses of the state of computer science education at the high school level.

Dr. desJardins is also a nationally recognized leader in computer science education and has received multiple NSF awards to support her work in this area. She gives frequent presentations around the state and the country on high school computer science education and preparing a diverse population of students to succeed in computing careers. She is a founding member of the Maryland chapter of the Computer Science Teachers Association, and has organized several professional development workshops for high school teachers. Her NSF-funded CE21-Maryland (Computing Education for the 21st Century) grant explored the landscape of high school CS education in Maryland, culminating in a statewide summit for educators, administrators, and community members that was held at UMBC in May 2013. A recent NSF CE-21 grant will result in curriculum creation and professional development for 100 Maryland high school teachers, focused on the new CS Principles course that is scheduled to become a new AP offering in 2016. Other funded grants in the educational arena include her Hrabowski Innovation Fund award to create the ACTIVE Center, an NSF TUES award that is developing a new freshman-level computing course, an NSF T-SITE grant to build a community of transfer scholars in IT/engineering, as well as multiple smaller awards to run workshops and support graduate student development.

We congratulate Professor desJardins for her selection as Presidential Teaching Professor and look forward to thePresidential Faculty and Staff Awards ceremony on Wednesday, April 2 in the University Center Ballroom. Not only is she an outstanding and dedicated classroom teacher, her contributions to research, teaching, mentoring, and educational innovations have been broad and sustained.

CSEE Professor Marie desJardins has been named as UMBC’s Presidential Teaching Professor for 2014-17. Dr. desJardins joined the UMBC faculty in 2001 after earning her Ph.D. in computer science from UC Berkeley and spending ten years at SRI International as a research scientist. She has made significant contributions to the fields of artificial intelligence and machine learning, published over 100 peer-reviewed papers, brought over six million dollars to UMBC as PI or co-PI in external grant funding, and held leadership positions in the top professional organizations in her field.

Dr. desJardins is an outstanding teacher, earning praise from students in courses from freshman-level courses for non-majors to specialized graduate-level seminars. She was named one of UMBC’s “Professors Not to Miss” in 2011 and is one of the first cohort of Hrabowski Academic Innovation Fellows. She is also well known for mentoring students at all levels, having graduated ten Ph.D. and 22 M.S. students, mentored over 50 undergraduates in research and served on the dissertation and thesis committees of more than 30 other students. She was recently recognized for mentoring by the National Center for Women & Information Technology, who selected her as one of four awardees of the 2014 NCWIT Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award.

Within the department and university, Dr. desJardins’s commitment to teaching and student success goes far beyond the classroom. She has served as the computer science undergraduate program director and led an effort to redesign the introductory computing course to better serve new students. In addition to mentoring her own graduate students, she is the Faculty Advisor for the Women in Science and Engineering Graduate Association and a member of the Center for Women in Technology Advisory Board. She is regularly invited to participate on panels, give presentations in the Honors Forum and other campus events, and to run workshops for graduate students and junior faculty.

Outside of UMBC, Dr. desJardins has built an international reputation as an advocate for high-quality education, mentoring, and diversity at all levels of the profession. She has been chair, mentor, reviewer, and/or panelist of the AAAI/SIGART Doctoral Consortium for the last 14 years; this event has provided valuable feedback and mentoring to hundreds of computing graduate students during that time. She co-founded the AAAI Educational Advances in Artificial Intelligence annual symposium. She regularly publishes articles on her research and innovations in computing education, including tools and techniques for classroom teaching, new courses, and analyses of the state of computer science education at the high school level.

Dr. desJardins is also a nationally recognized leader in computer science education and has received multiple NSF awards to support her work in this area. She gives frequent presentations around the state and the country on high school computer science education and preparing a diverse population of students to succeed in computing careers. She is a founding member of the Maryland chapter of the Computer Science Teachers Association, and has organized several professional development workshops for high school teachers. Her NSF-funded CE21-Maryland (Computing Education for the 21st Century) grant explored the landscape of high school CS education in Maryland, culminating in a statewide summit for educators, administrators, and community members that was held at UMBC in May 2013. A recent NSF CE-21 grant will result in curriculum creation and professional development for 100 Maryland high school teachers, focused on the new CS Principles course that is scheduled to become a new AP offering in 2016. Other funded grants in the educational arena include her Hrabowski Innovation Fund award to create the ACTIVE Center, an NSF TUES award that is developing a new freshman-level computing course, an NSF T-SITE grant to build a community of transfer scholars in IT/engineering, as well as multiple smaller awards to run workshops and support graduate student development.

We congratulate Professor desJardins for her selection as Presidential Teaching Professor and look forward to thePresidential Faculty and Staff Awards ceremony on Wednesday, April 2 in the University Center Ballroom. Not only is she an outstanding and dedicated classroom teacher, her contributions to research, teaching, mentoring, and educational innovations have been broad and sustained.

Dan Roam

To see what will be beautiful in the future, look to the past.

That’s the advice some design experts shared recently when we asked them about the future of design, usability and visual experiences. Many everyday devices we’ve used for generations are beautiful, they say, because of their adherence to age-old simplicity and solid strategy, which is why they’ll remain useful for years.

Dan Roam, a design consultant who dubs himself a “visual thinker for business,” says the most beautifully designed thing in his life has existed for decades: a Sharpie.

“It’s future-proof,” Roam says. “That’s not true about a lot of technologically enabled pens out there. What would happen if we added digital bells and whistles to the pen to make it smarter?”

Sketches courtesy of Dan Roam

Not much so far, he argues.

A few companies that have fused the indispensable pen with gee-whiz tech have not improved upon the simplicity of putting pen to paper and communicating ideas through sketches.

“Just bolting technology onto an existing, effective tool doesn’t mean you’re going to get anything great,” says Roam, who wrote the bestseller “The Back of the Napkin” and has helped clients like Google, Boeing, Wells Fargo and the U.S. Navy solve complex visual problems.

But, Roam cautions, that doesn’t mean designers shouldn’t be thinking about the future, what’s next in user experience, why design translates to revenue and how designers can improve our lives.

“The big challenge for designers and UX professionals today is to find the simplicity that lives on the other side of complexity,” he says. Focusing on simplicity will be integral because “everything is complex, and everyone is overwhelmed with information and data today.”

And it’s only getting worse. The hurdles for designers will be parsing the data, unraveling the complexity and presenting customers and companies with simple and elegant solutions.

‘You cannot not communicate’

Hans von Sichart

Designers must stop copycatting and understand what users need, Hans von Sichart says.

Von Sichart, a design expert at GE who has also worked as a UX designer at Apple and Cisco, says he’s hopeful the industry’s future is truly based on improving usability. It sounds simple, but he fears too much design today is a “re-dressing” of others’ work and a regurgitation of trends.

It’ll also be vital to keep understanding that designing means communicating, von Sichart says. He’s reminded of a useful aphorism: “You cannot not communicate.”

In other words: Everything we do every day is presenting information, whether we realize it or not.

“You’re always communicating, even if you’re doing it badly,” von Sichart says. “Even if you build a house without an architect, you still make architectural decisions. And if you build interactive products without designers, you still make design decisions. You just make them subconsciously or you make bad decisions, or you make random decisions.”

He believes the design community must become increasingly collaborative to create the wonderful user experience solitary artists are incapable of designing.

“I don’t like competitive sports,” he says. “I think the binary result of how people score in soccer, for example, is completely ridiculous because you miss all the elegance. It’s just not about scoring goals. But a friendly competition that is inspiring and where somebody tries to top the latest idea, I think that is very helpful.”

‘Design needs to have strategy behind it’

Jen Byyny

Jen Byyny wonders when we’ll experience a world akin to “Minority Report.”

“It seems like it’s coming. But is it 10 years away? Is it 20 years away?” Byyny, a senior UX designer at Yahoo, asks in reference to the 2002 sci-fi film that was flush with futuristic interfaces and tools.

In the meantime, the expectations for design standards will continue to rise — even from the most general consumer.

“It’s interesting to think about 10 years from now if you think about 10 years ago. 2014 sounded so far away in 2004,” Byyny says. “There’s this vision of design being seamless but the standards being very high. I think they’ve gotten higher in these 10 years. More of our lives are more designed than they were 10 years ago. That trajectory will continue.”

And vanished are the days when the design of a device or browsing experience needed to be merely utilitarian or pragmatic. It now must be beautiful, too. For some consumers, for instance, the iPhone is less about call quality or processor speed than it is about its looks and gestures.

The key is a well-engineered project strategy. That process — designers working closely with product directors, account managers and backend developers — will push the industry toward a brighter future. But Byyny says there’s still too much disorganization and a lack of standardization, even at large companies.

“Projecting forward, design needs to have strategy behind it. It needs to think through the whole experience and not just the task at hand. It goes beyond a module on a page, it goes beyond a page on a website and it goes beyond a website,” Byyny says. Good design needs to integrate the consumer’s experience with the experience of the brand.

“We’ve come so far in 10 years,” she says, “but there’s still so much more that can be done.”

What’s beautiful in your life?

Read what Roam, von Sichart and Byyny say are the essential and beautiful designs in their lives:

Dan Roam:

It’s a big, fat Sharpie. To me, a Sharpie — not the little skinny one, not the tiny ones, but any one of the round, warhead-looking Sharpies — they’re the perfect tool. They write upside-down, they write on anything and they write instantly. I’m the back-of-a-napkin guy — pull out a pen and starting drawing as you talk to help clarify what you’re thinking. The Sharpie is the absolute perfect tool for that. It doesn’t matter what you have to write on, your Sharpie has got you.

One that I love is called the Super Sharpie. If you want the killer app, the killer tool, the thing of beauty — the Super Sharpie. It looks exactly like the original, but it’s twice as big.

Hans von Sichart:

I have a Mercedes Benz built before 1988 — before the [Berlin] Wall came down. I have three. I bought them all here. My wife drives a wagon from ‘88. I have a diesel from ‘79 and an eight-cylinder from 1977. They are very ergonomic. They are easy to use. They have a different feel on the road. The suspension and everything is thought through by people who knew how to engineer cars. It’s just a completely different experience to a new car. The way the interior is made is much better than newer cars. I could talk about this forever.

The interior of one of Hans von Sichart’s Mercedes Benz.

Jen Byyny:

Most of the things at the store Design Within Reach. We’ve made some purchases from there. When I’m in my backyard, I look at our patio furniture, which are Adirondack chairs. They’re plastic and they’re all from recycled materials. You can leave them outside when it’s zero degrees. You don’t have to shovel the snow off them. You say, “Gosh, these look nice. They feel good. They’re simple.” I don’t have to pack them away. Having them doesn’t complicate my life. It makes a part of my home more enjoyable.

The style of Jen Byyny’s patio furniture.

The post Why Good Design Matters — and Why Pens and Patio Furniture Are Gorgeous appeared first on Treehouse Blog.

Crafted with great attention to detail, today’s icon set is extremely easy to use and will most probably be the next ultimate resource for any of your design projects. This set of round icons was thoroughly designed by the creative team at Roundicons and has been released exclusively for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

This freebie contains 60 icons that have been designed in both round and flat styles, and can be used for free without any restrictions and serve various design purposes. Feel free to modify the size, color or shape of the icons, and use the icons in your commercial as well as your personal projects. No attribution is required, however, reselling of bundles or individual pictograms is not allowed.

The colors have been chosen with care to ensure maximum harmony when multiple icons are used on the same page, and can also be used in your mobile applications as well as in templates and themes. (Large preview)

The icons come in various file formats, which makes them very easy to use. Also, each icon is a flat illustration that can either be used in its circular container or as a standalone illustration. (Large preview)

A preview of each icon included in the icon set, with and without rounded containers. (Large preview)

Download The Icon Set For Free!

• Large preview
• Download the icon set for free (ZIP, 71.4 MB)

Insights From The Designers:

“Ever since the launch of our first 1000 flat icons, we received great feedback which encouraged us to further refine the icons, add more features, provide more formats and most importantly, produce many new icons. It is a true challenge attempting to cover all subjects and actions while trying to keep the illustrations simple enough to work as “icons” — a challenge we love!

We’ve received requests for over 800 different icons and have now successfully produced 500 of them for our first update. New ideas keep arising, so bear with us and stay tuned!”

Thank you, dear Roundicons team, for this fantastic icon set! We sincerely appreciate your time and efforts!

(il)

© The Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2014.

The Multimodal Interaction Working Group has published a Group Note of Vocabularies for EmotionML. This document provides a list of emotion vocabularies that can be used with EmotionML to represent emotions and related states. EmotionML provides mechanisms to represent emotions in terms of scientifically valid descriptors: categories, dimensions, appraisals, and action tendencies. Given the lack of agreement in the community, EmotionML does not provide a single vocabulary of emotion terms, but gives users a choice to select the most suitable emotion vocabulary in their annotations. In order to promote interoperability, publicly defined vocabularies should be used where possible and reasonable from the point of view of the target application. The present document provides a number of emotion vocabularies that can be used for this purpose. Learn more about the Multimodal Interaction Activity.