Summer at UIC

-Guest post by Taylor Day-

In the photo above: Taylor Day at UIC EVL.

During my time at the EVL lab at UIC, I was given the opportunity to explore guidelines for creating accessible applications for older adults, as well as participate in a user study that allowed me to see first hand exactly why specific designs were suggested. During the study, I got to join discussions about ways that navigation applications can be better designed so that they are much easier to use and less technologically intuition based.

I was also given the goal of using former research to create a background probability function, based on panning and zooming movement commands, that gives real-time suggestions for points of interest on a map while still taking into account relatively frequent human error when using a mobile device.

At first, I was hung up on past research that had been done before, and I was not able to see beyond former implementation. Over the course of the internship, I was able to understand that gaining inspiration from a past project does not limit you to the way it was used before. Rather, past research gives you a platform to stand on, and what you create can be your own entirely, no matter where the idea originated. I believe that was the biggest idea I took away from the experience, and I am more than grateful for everything I experienced and all the opportunities I was given in Chicago.