Abigail Evans
Lecturer in Interactive Media

Profile

Biography

My background is in Human-Computer Interaction (PhD University of Washington) and the Learning Sciences (EdM Harvard University). I am especially interested in designing interactive systems that can provide learners with real-time personalised support and guidance. My current project is exploring how programming environments could be re-imagined to scaffold novice programmers’ learning by helping them to recognise and recover from common misconceptions. My previous project aimed to help students collaborate on a tabletop computer by detecting when a group was struggling to work together effectively and triggering interface adaptations to get them back on track.

I am also interested in designing and evaluating interaction techniques. My prior work in this area has included developing an approach to distinguishing among simultaneous users at a tabletop computer and developing methods for assessing a user’s text entry and mouse pointing performance from naturalistic computer use.

Prior to joining the School of Arts and Creative Technologies in 2021, I was a Lecturer in Computer Science at Northeastern University’s Seattle campus. I have also worked in various roles in industry including web / application developer, user researcher, and curriculum developer.

Publications

Selected publications

Evans, A., Wang, Z., Liu, J., Zheng, M. 2023. SIDE-lib: A Library for Detecting Symptoms of Python Programming Misconceptions. In Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1 (ITiCSE 2023), July 8–12, 2023, Turku, Finland. ACM, New York, NY, USA.

Liebling, D. J., Lahav, M., Evans, A. C., Donsbach, A., Holbrook, J., Smus, B., Boran, L. 2020. Unmet needs and opportunities for mobile translation AI. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’20). ACM, New York, NY.

Evans, A. C., Davis, K., Wobbrock, J. O. 2019. Adaptive support for collaborative learning at tabletop computers. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL ’19). Lyon, France (June 17-20, 2019). ISLS.

Evans, A. C., Davis, K., Fogarty, J., Wobbrock, J. O. 2017. Group Touch: Distinguishing tabletop users in group settings via statistical modeling of touch pairs. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’17). Denver, CO (May 6-11, 2017). ACM, New York, NY. 35-47.

Evans, S. A., Davis, K., Evans, A. C., Campbell, J., Randall, D. P., Yin, K., Aragon, C. 2017. More than peer production: Fanfiction communities as sites of distributed mentoring. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW ’17). Portland, OR (February 25-Mar 1, 2017). ACM, New York, NY. 259-272.

Evans, A. C., Wobbrock, J. O., Davis, K. Modeling collaboration patterns on an interactive tabletop in a classroom setting. 2016. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW ’16). San Francisco, CA (February 27-Mar 2, 2016). ACM, New York, NY. 860-871.

Campbell, J., Aragon, C., Davis, K., Evans, S. A., Evans, A. C., Randall, D. P. 2016. Thousands of Positive Reviews: Distributed mentoring in online fan communities. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW ’16). San Francisco, CA (February 27-March 2, 2016). ACM, New York, NY. 691-704.

Evans, A. C., Wobbrock, J. O. 2014. Filling in the gaps: Capturing social regulation in an interactive tabletop learning environment. In Proceedings of the International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS ’14). Boulder, CO (June 23-27). International Society of the Learning Sciences. 1157-1161.

Evans, A. C., Dresang, E., Campana, K., Feldman, E. 2013. Research in action: Taking classroom learning to the field. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science. Vol. 54, No. 3, (Summer) July 2013.

Evans, A. C., Wobbrock, J. O. 2012. Taming wild behaviour: The Input Observer for obtaining text entry and mouse pointing measures from everyday computer use. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’12). Austin, TX (May 5-10, 2012). ACM, New York, NY. 1947-1956.