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Research
Jeffrey Heer · 21 April http://cs376.stanford.ed
The goal of this course is for you, upon
completion, to be able to undertake a
research project of your own design.
What is Research?
What is Not Research?
How do you tell the
difference?
What is the Relationship between
research and design?
 Design as a domain of research study
i.e., “What do designers do when they do
design?”
 Design as a method of research inquiry
i.e., using iterative exploration to produce
knowledge
What is the relationship between
research and development?
 Basic-------------------------------------applied
 Basic -> applied -> development ->
production
 Pasteur’s Quadrant
Yes
Use-inspired
Basic Research
(Pasteur)
Pure Applied
Research
(Edison)
No
Quest for Fundamental Understa
Pure Basic
Research
(Bohr)
No
Yes
Considerations of Use?
How can you get a research
idea?
 Read a paper; find something they didn’t
do
 Read a paper; find something you
disagree with
 Have lots of experiences
AIP MEMO 1
 Emerging theory
permits calculation
of behavior.
 Computing tasks
within early scope
of theory.
 Computer science
one-sided.
 Payoff for knowing
how humans
process.
 An Applied
Psychology Unit
would be ultimately
profitable.
Slide courtesy Stu Card
Dual-Search Strategy
An analogy: prove a mathematical theorem
 Bottom-up: start with known axioms and
theories, derive implications
 Top-down: start with desired result and
reason backwards
 Meet somewhere in the middle?
Another example: intelligence analysis
 How would you prevent terrorist attacks?
Big Project
Big Idea
Small Idea
Small Project
PhD as simulated annealing
Herbert A. Simon (1916-2001)
Psychologist, computer scientist,
economist… Pioneer in AI and
information processing
psychology.
 Turing Award (1975) for “basic contributions
to artificial intelligence, the psychology of
human cognition, and list processing.”
 Nobel Prize in Economics (1978) “for his
pioneering research into the decisionmaking process within economic
organizations.”
 Academic descendants include HCI