Lisa D. Harper

Researcher in Human Computer Interaction

Biography

I lead teams to design tools for users where language processing under the hood can help them work better and faster.

This work is situated at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP). Having studied both computational linguistics and interaction design, I strongly believe that NLP capabilities and user experience (UX) design are of most value when they are considered in tandem.

In addition to my day job as a research scientist, I teach for Georgetown University in the Master of Analytics program and also for University of Baltimore, graduate programs in Interaction Design and Information Architecture (IDIA).

Posts

A cognitive basis for academic workflows

During doctoral comprehensive exams, I paused to consider the effort it took to research and produce answers to questions that would only be used in a 2-hour comprehensive exam. Of course, if I was lucky, some of the writing might make it into my dissertation.

Last updated on Jun 6, 2020 7 min read workflows

Online experiments involving surveys

I’ve spent the last couple of months working on an experiment design framework in follow-up to an initial study concerning pragmatic understanding of UI designs. Though I discovered a few frameworks out there for constructing online experiments.

Last updated on Jun 6, 2020 3 min read HCI

Routinizing the UI

Interacting with graphical user interfaces (GUIs) sometimes feels conversational and sometimes not. A dialogue box that asks a yes-no question feels much the same as a verbal yes-no question. And a blog post can feel very un-conversational in the sense of a lecture or commentary.

Last updated on Jun 6, 2020 7 min read interaction design

Is perception of the world influenced by language?

It is interesting to think that the we still have much to learn about the most studied part of the brain - the visual cortex. Given this, how is it that we understand so little about such a basic neurological phenomenon as “visual integration”.

Last updated on Jun 6, 2020 3 min read language