Michael Twidale, Associate Professor of Library and Information Science, UIUC
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Michael Twidale is an Associate Professor of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his PhD from Lancaster University, UK in 1990 and stayed on there with UK Science and Engineering Research Council Fellowship and subsequently with a permanent faculty position. His research interests include computer sup- ported cooperative work, computer supported collaborative learning, collaborative information retrieval, user interface design and evaluation, information visualization, rapid prototyping and evaluation techniques and the application of ethnographic methods to computer systems design and evaluation. All these involve the use of interdisciplinary techniques in order to better understand the practices, errors and needs of end users as part of the process of designing more effective systems, that can better cope with real-life ambiguities. Current projects include: provenance analysis of email headers as a technique for analysis of spam, over the shoulder learning (informal workplace help-giving), collaborative techniques for improving data quality, and high-speed low-cost techniques for usability testing and redesign.
