Newsmap is an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator. A treemap visualization algorithm helps display the enormous amount of information gathered by the aggregator.
I am a consulting research scientist for NYU's Department of Computer Science, currently working with Yann Lecun on various autonomous robot navigation projects, while also finding time to direct some of my own research.
The central goal of this book is to teach the reader how to design user interfaces that will enable people to learn computer systems quickly and use them effectively, efficiently, and comfortably.
The User Interface Design group studies new user interface techniques, focusing on two areas:
* Usable automation. Our goal is for every computer user to be able to harness the power of automation for handling repetitive, time-wasting, or error-prone tasks, without having to struggle with the complexity of programming.
* Usable security. Effective security depends on good user interfaces. A door may have the strongest lock in the world, but if authorized users can't open and close it easily, and have to leave it open in order to get their jobs done, then it has no security at all. We are studying ways to rethink computer security so that it is not only secure against attack but also usable by ordinary people.