Jacob O. Wobbrock
Jacob O. Wobbrock | |
|---|---|
Wobbrock in 2016 | |
| Born | January 15, 1976 |
| Alma mater | Stanford University (B.S., M.S.), Carnegie Mellon University (Ph.D.) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Human-computer interaction, mobile computing, computer accessibility |
| Institutions | University of Washington |
| Doctoral advisor | Brad A. Myers (Ph.D.) |
| Other academic advisors | Terry Winograd (M.S.), Thomas Wasow (B.S.) |
| Website | faculty |
Jacob O. Wobbrock is an American researcher and professor of information at the University of Washington.[1] His field is in human-computer interaction (HCI).
Wobbrock's research focuses on input and interaction techniques, human performance measurement and modeling, HCI research and design methods, virtual reality, mobile computing, and accessible computing. He is currently Director of the ACE Lab, Associate Director and founding Co-Director Emeritus of the CREATE research center, and a founding member of the DUB Group as well as the MHCI+D degree program.[2]
Biography
Wobbrock grew up in Lake Oswego, Oregon and graduated from Lake Oswego High School. He attended Stanford University, where he received his undergraduate degree in Symbolic Systems in 1998, as well as his master's degree in computer science in 2000. He earned his Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University in 2006. Between his time at Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon University, Wobbrock worked at Silicon Valley startups DoDots[3] and Google.
Research
Wobbrock's notable contributions include:
- The $-family gesture recognizers, which are designed to improve gesture recognition accuracy.
- The end-user elicitation design method, a technique for involving end-users in the design process to better understand their needs and preferences.
- The Slide Rule design for accessible touchscreen gestures, which has been noted by some authors to potentially influence the design of Apple's Voiceover accessibility software.
- The ARTool statistics tool, a software application for conducting nonparametric ANOVA-type analyses.
- The Pointing Magnifier, an assistive pointing and visual aid designed to improve accessibility for individuals with motor impairments.
- The EdgeWrite text-entry system, a text-entry method for mobile devices.
Other notable work
Wobbrock was the co-founder of AnswerDash, along with fellow professor Amy J. Ko and then-Ph.D. student Parmit Chilana, where he served as CEO from 2012 to 2015. After leaving AnswerDash, Wobbrock returned to his academic position at the University of Washington but remained an AnswerDash Board Observer.[4]
Personal life
Wobbrock lives in Seattle, Washington and is married to Alison Wobbrock (née Pawluskiewicz), niece of Polish composer Jan Kanty Pawluśkiewicz.
Awards and honors
- 2024 ACM UIST Lasting Impact Award[5][6]
- 2022 ACM ICMI Ten-Year Technical Impact Award[7]
- 2021 ACM Fellow[8]
- 2019 ACM SIGACCESS ASSETS Paper Impact Award[9]
- 2019 ACM CHI Academy[10]
- 2018, 2021 AMiner's #1 Most Influential Scholar in HCI
- 2017 ACM SIGCHI Social Impact Award[11]
- 2010 National Science Foundation CAREER Award[12]
- 2006 Distinguished Dissertation Award, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University[13]
- 2005, 2008, 2009 NISH National Scholar Award for Workplace Innovation and Design[14]
- 1998 Robert M. Golden Medal for Excellence in Humanities and Creative Arts, Stanford University[15][16]
References
- ^ "Meet Jacob O. Wobbrock | An Entrepreneur Focused On Interactive Solutions That Improve The User And Customer Experience". HuffPost. 2016-12-06. Retrieved 2025-06-17.
- ^ Wobbrock, Jacob O. "Welcome!". University of Washington. Retrieved 22 May 2025.
- ^ "DoDots". Stanford Graduate School of Business. Retrieved 2025-05-28.
- ^ Wobbrock, Jacob O. "Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). Retrieved 22 May 2025.
- ^ "iSchool's Wobbrock honored with Lasting Impact Award". ischool.uw.edu. Retrieved 2025-05-28.
- ^ Wobbrock, Jacob O.; Wilson, Andrew D.; Li, Yang (2007-10-07). "Gestures without libraries, toolkits or training: A $1 recognizer for user interface prototypes". Proceedings of the 20th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology. UIST '07. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 159–168. doi:10.1145/1294211.1294238. ISBN 978-1-59593-679-0.
- ^ Vatavu, Radu-Daniel; Anthony, Lisa; Wobbrock, Jacob O. (2012-10-22). "Gestures as point clouds: A $P recognizer for user interface prototypes". Proceedings of the 14th ACM international conference on Multimodal interaction. ICMI '12. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 273–280. doi:10.1145/2388676.2388732. ISBN 978-1-4503-1467-1.
- ^ "2021 ACM Names 71 Fellows for Computing Advances that are Driving Innovation". www.acm.org. Retrieved 2025-05-28.
- ^ Kane, Shaun K.; Bigham, Jeffrey P.; Wobbrock, Jacob O. (2008-10-13). "Slide rule: Making mobile touch screens accessible to blind people using multi-touch interaction techniques". Proceedings of the 10th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility. Assets '08. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 73–80. doi:10.1145/1414471.1414487. ISBN 978-1-59593-976-0.
- ^ "Award Recipients". sigchi.org. Retrieved 2025-05-28.
- ^ "2017 SIGCHI Awards – ACM SIGCHI". Retrieved 2025-05-28.
- ^ "NSF Award Search: Award # 0952786". www.nsf.gov.
- ^ "SCS STUDENT AWARDS". www.scs.cmu.edu.
- ^ "Contavespi, V. (2005). NISH Announces Winners of 2004-2005 National Scholar Awards for Workplace Innovation and Design" (PDF).
- ^ "Stanford Honors Thesis Prizes - Symbolic Systems Recipients | Symbolic Systems Program". symsys.stanford.edu.
- ^ "Wobbrock, J.O. (1998). The law and policy of autonomous software agents. Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 172 pages" (PDF).