HCII PhD Thesis Proposal: Noor Hammad
When
-
Where
Newell-Simon Hall 3305
Description
Zoom Link: https://cmu.zoom.us/j/97306061664?pwd=MEddeO6ruxjxgoqjw8FDxa2joLbDCn.1
Committee:
Jessica Hammer (Co-chair), Carnegie Mellon University
Erik Harpstead (Co-chair), Carnegie Mellon University
Nikolas Martelaro, Carnegie Mellon University
Bryan Wang, Adobe
Max Kreminski, Midjourney
Abstract:
Digital media creators, such as video editors, live streamers, and game developers, rely on diverse creativity tools such as game engines, video editing software, and live streaming platforms to produce their work. These ecosystems are powerful, but they also impose constraints on their users: they can limit a creator’s ability to realize ambitious ideas, offer inadequate mechanisms for communication between creators and their audiences, and provide interfaces that do not align with how creators naturally express their preferences. My prior work has responded to these gaps in specific domains, namely by expanding design possibilities in mobile augmented reality, creating novel mechanisms for streamer–audience engagement on live streaming platforms, and supporting video creators in expressing musical preferences through a vibe-based creative assistant. Taken together, these projects revealed the untapped potential of the data embedded in creators’ processes, which can inform how tools meaningfully respond to creators over time. To address this challenge, I argue for treating creator data as a design material through the deliberate use of Creative Activity Traces in tool design.
The term Creative Activity Traces refers to the process-related data generated by the creator during their creative practice. Because creative work is inherently non-linear, it naturally generates an evolving record of ideas, intermediate artifacts, metadata, and creative decisions that accumulate as creators develop content. These traces are often multi-modal, distributed across tools, and deeply personalized. From a design perspective, they represent a largely untapped resource for enabling adaptive, context-aware features in creativity tools.
Building on this foundation, my proposed work formalizes the concept of creative activity traces and introduces their use as a design material for developing trace-aware tools that adapt to creators’ evolving processes from the ground up. Grounded in technical HCI research, this work engages with various threads across creativity tools research, game development, user experience, and video content creation. In my work, I employ qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews and think-aloud studies, alongside system development to understand creator patterns and to integrate data pipelines into novel creativity tools. Based on this foundation, my proposed work outlines the development of a design framework for trace-awareness that specifies key dimensions for leveraging activity traces to support system features, and a trace-aware system for video creators to discover, maintain, and edit their personal brand.
This dissertation contributes to Human–Computer Interaction and creativity tool research. Specifically, it provides design principles for effectively leveraging creative activity traces to meet creator needs. By framing digital creativity as an inherently data-rich process, this thesis aims to re-imagine the future of digital media production, moving toward adaptive, trace-aware tools that better align with the non-linear and iterative nature of creative practice.