Leilah B. Lyons

My main area of research interest is in the design of collaborative, computer-based museum exhibits. I have also done a great deal of work with complex system simulations in museums, classrooms, and in urban planning contexts. I am interested in the ways in which user interface design can be used to scaffold collaborative learning processes. I am also interested in how to make simulated scientific phenomena more accessible to learners: via the selection of appropriate technologies, the design of the user interface, and the activity design. As a consequence, my lab has worked with a range of technologies, from mobiles to computer vision to tangible user interfaces to embodied interaction. We have made a polar bear role-playing game for the Brookfield Zoo, an embodied data interaction exhibit for the Jane Addams Hull House, a table-based urban planning game, among other projects. Much of the research work comes AFTER building these experiences: we videotape users and try to figure out what they are learning from the experience by examining what they say and do, which we determine by examining log files of their interactions. Thus we use a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods.