Pioneers: Interview Sara Bly

At Xerox PARC, Bly and her colleagues were one of the first groups of Human Computer Interface (HCI) designers and developers to combine their skills and perspectives with those of anthropologists and social scientists to conduct ethnographically-informed fieldwork. This multi-modal approach has now become an accepted part of user experience studies to inform computer technology design and development. At Xerox PARC, Bly was part of a team investigating the use of technology to enable people to connect in new ways, predating today’s social media tools…The team’s Media Space diverged from the video-conferencing of the 1980s to provide an “always-on” environment. Their explorations included a link between labs in Portland and Palo Alto, tools for shared drawing spaces, and an awareness interface between Palo Alto and Cambridge, England.  Bly was active in the formation of SIGCHI in 1982, participating as a liaison with SIGGRAPH, and then as an author and reviewer over the years. She received the SIGCHI Lifetime Service Award in 2005. (HCI Pioneers website)