HCI Qualifier 2014-2015


1 Purpose of the Examination

The purpose of the qualifying examination in HCI is to determine whether a student is qualified to begin work on Ph.D.-level research. To that end, the exam is designed to test:

  • Reading: the ability to critically read and analyze significant research articles in the field of HCI
  • Writing: the ability to write clear, thoughtful, persuasive, and original discussion, analysis, and ideas about HCI topics
  • Depth: the ability to obtain and demonstrate a reasonable depth of knowledge in a limited number of HCI-related subfields

The exam is not designed to test breadth of knowledge in HCI, so students with modest HCI background can still succeed on the exam. Breadth will be achieved by requiring all HCI Ph.D. students to take relevant introductory and advanced HCI courses. Coursework does not have to be completed prior to attempting the qualifying exam.

2 Examination Procedure

Students wishing to qualify for the PhD in the area of human-computer interaction (HCI) will follow a three-step procedure:

  • Announce the intention to take the qualifier in the area of HCI during the time period mandated by GPC by e-mailing the chair of the HCI committee, Steve Harrison (srh (at) vt (dot) edu .
  • Obtain a copy of the current HCI qualifier focus areas and reading list and study the papers listed there. Students may withdraw at any time before the question is posted.
  • Receive one or more written questions and submit answer(s) before the deadline.

2.1 Focus Areas and Reading List

Students who consider themselves to be deficient in their general HCI knowledge should study one or more of these books before attempting to understand the articles on their subarea reading list.

  • Shneiderman, Designing the User Interface
  • Sharp, Rogers, and Preece, Interaction Design
  • Rosson and Carroll, Usability Engineering

While students are not to consult with others during the writing of the exam, they are strongly encouraged to organize study groups to better understand the assigned reading. We consistently find that students who participate in reading groups do better.

2.1.1 HCI Subarea

The HCI subarea qualifying committee (this year, Steve Harrison, Doug Bowman and Gurjot Singh) will decide on a focus area: a small subfield of HCI that is relevant to the research interests of the faculty on the committee. The committee will then publish a reading list of several relevant and important scholarly articles within that focus area. Students will be expected to read these articles and understand the concepts described therein. Students are also encouraged to do further reading in the focus area (starting with the references in the reading list papers) if the area is unfamiliar to them. One strategy that has proven successful for students in the past is to forma reading group.

This year, the following nine papers form the core reading list. They are a STARTING POINT for further research. Since they cover diverse topics in HCI, we suggest that research to select further reading look for basic commonalities between and amongst them, such as foundational publications, topics, research questions, methodologoies, etc.

  • Bodker, S. (2006) When second wave HCI meets third wave challenges. In Proceedings of the 4th Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction: changing roles (NordiCHI '06), ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1-8.  http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1182475.1182476
  • de Sa, M., Navalpakkam, V., and Churchill, E. (2013) Mobile advertising: evaluating the effects of animation, user and content relevance. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '13). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2487-2496.  http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2470654.2481344
  • Green, S.A., Billinghurst, M., Chen, X., & Chase, G.J. (2008) Human-Robot Collaboration: A Literature Review and Augmented Reality Approach in Design.  International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems, 5(1), pp. 1-18.
  • Horvitz, E., Kadie, C., Paek, T., and Hovel, D. (2003) Models of attention in computing and communication: from principles to applications. Commun. ACM 46, 3 (Mar. 2003), 52-59. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/636772.636798
  • Lyons, K. and Profita, H. (2014) The Multiple Dispositions of On-Body and Wearable Devices. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 13(4) Oct.-Dec. 2014, pp. 24-31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MPRV.2014.79
  • Mistry, P. and Maes, P. (2009) SixthSense: a wearable gestural interface. ACM SIGGRAPH ASIA 2009 Sketches, Article No. 11. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1667146.1667160
  • Patterson, R., Winterbottom, M. and Pierce, B. (2006) Perceptual Issues in the Use of Head-Mounted Visual Displays Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 2006 48: 555 DOI: 10.1518/001872006778606877
  • Sanchez-Vives, M. & Slater, M. (2005) From presence to consciousness through virtual reality Nature Reviews Neuroscience 6, 332-339 (April 2005) | doi:10.1038/nrn1651
  • Starner, T. (2013) Project Glass: An Extension of the Self. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 12(2), April-June 2013, pp. 14-16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MPRV.2013.35

2.2 Written Questions

In early January, the committee will post this year's question(s) on this website. Students will provide written answers to the question(s). The question(s) will not simply ask students to summarize the reading list papers. Rather they will require students to integrate and synthesize their knowledge, come up with novel solutions to a problem, or do a critical evaluation of some published research.

Each student has two weeks to develop written answers to the question(s). Answers should be emailed to the committee members as instructed on the list of questions.

Answers should be given in the ACM SIGCHI conference proceedings format (here is a link to templates for this format), and be no more than 10 (ten) pages. The answers should include references.

The answer is to be completed by each student individually; students are not allowed to consult with others in preparing their paper (excepting clarification questions to the committee members). Students are expected to read and use the reading list papers and other sources, but all sources must be appropriately cited. The Virginia Tech honor code is in effect.

NOTE: There will be no oral exam.

QUESTION: Human-Robot Interaction (“HRI”) is a relatively new field - at least in comparison with Human-Computer Interaction (“HCI”). In looking at HRI and HCI, they currently appear to be different research and design communities with different approaches and understandings. What would it take for an HCI researcher or designer to work in HRI? How can knowledge and practice from traditional UI design, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and wearables be applied to HRI? In what ways is this existing knowledge insufficient to answer HRI questions? How does HCI handle new technologies and new situations — and does it’s approach to newness hold with HRI? What are the theoretical frameworks that drive each? Are they transferable?

Please consider the questions as prompts for you to develop a coherent scholarly argument. That is, please do NOT try to answer each question separately, but rather develop an idea and support it with careful thought and additional reading.

Your paper is due to the committee by 7:00 PM EST on January 20. Good luck.

3 Assessment


After the written exam period, each answer will be graded by the committee members. The score is either 0, 1, 2, or 3 points. These points may be applied toward the total score of 6 points necessary to qualify for the Ph.D. The assessment criteria, as defined by GPC, are as follows:


3: Excellent performance, beyond that normally expected or required for a PhD student.

2: Performance appropriate for PhD-level work. Prime factors for assessment include being able to distinguish good work from poor work, and explain why; being able to synthesize the body of work into an assessment of the state-of-the-art on a problem (as indicated by the collection of papers); being able to identify open problems and suggest future work.

1: While the student adequately understands the content of the work, the student is deficient in one or more of the factors listed for assessment under score value of 2. A score of 1 is the minimum necessary for an MS-level pass.

0: Student's performance is such that the committee considers the student unable to do PhD-level work in Computer Science.


The committee chair for this year is Steve Harrison (srh (at) vt (dot) edu). Email him with any questions.