Elegant technologies for complex lives
Socio-Digital Systems (SDS) aims to use an understanding of human values to help to change the technological landscape in the 21st century. Beyond making us all more productive and efficient, we ask how we can build technology to help us be more expressive, creative, and reflective in our daily lives.
Our group considers a broad range of human values, aims to understand their complexity, and puts them front and centre in technology development. An important aspect of this endeavour is the construction of new technologies that, in turn, we ourselves can shape. In so doing, we may create new ways that help us to actively realise our aspirations and desires, to engage with or disconnect from the world around us, to remember our past or to forget it, to connect with others or disengage from them. Important here are technologies which ultimately make our lives richer, and which offer us choice and flexibility in the things that we do.
SDS does this through the bringing together of social science, design and computer science. We believe that by understanding human values, we open up a space of new technological possibilities that stretches the boundaries of current conceptions of human-computer interaction.
Our publications are available here, and at the end of this page.
Socio-Digital Systems is one of three groups in the Computer-Mediated Living research area at Microsoft Research Cambridge.
SDS Themes
This group develops its work through themes that represent interlocking sets of social and technical concerns. Currently, SDS is investigating the following.
| Beyond Search | Human-centred System Architectures | ||
| The Future of Looking Back | |||
| At the intersection |
Our past themes are available here, and you can also see some of our projects here.
Affiliates
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2012
- William Odom, Abigail Sellen, Richard Harper, and Eno Thereska, Lost in Translation: Understanding the Possession of Digital Things in the Cloud, in ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems , ACM, 5 May 2012
- William Odom, Richard Banks, Richard Harper, David Kirk, Siân Lindley, and Abigail Sellen, Technology heirlooms? Considerations for passing down and inheriting digital materials, in Proceedings of the 2012 SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems (CHI 2012), ACM, May 2012
- Jonathan Bean and Siân Lindley, Computer-mediated collage: Notes and future directions, in CHI 2012 workshop on Visual Thinking & Digital Imagery , , May 2012
- Siân E. Lindley, Before I forget: From personal memory to family history, in Human Computer Interaction, vol. 27, no. 1-2, pp. 13-36, Taylor & Francis, April 2012
- Siân Lindley, Sam Meek, Abigail Sellen, and Richard Harper, “It’s simply integral to what I do”: Enquiries into how the web is weaved into everyday life, in Proceedings of the 2012 international conference on World Wide Web , International World Wide Web Conference, April 2012
- Helena M. Mentis, Siân E. Lindley, Stuart Taylor, Paul Dunphy, Tim Regan, and Richard Harper, Taking as an Act of Sharing, in Proceedings of the 2012 ACM conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, ACM, February 2012
- Michelle L. Mazurek, Eno Thereska, Dinan Gunawardena, R.Harper, and James Scott, ZZFS: A hybrid device and cloud file system for spontaneous users, in Conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST'12), USENIX, February 2012
- Siân E. Lindley, Shades of lightweight: Supporting cross-generational communication through home messaging, in Universal Access in the Information Society., vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 31-43, Springer, January 2012
- David Coyle, Conor Linehan, Karen Tang, and Siân Lindley, Interaction design and emotional wellbeing, in CHI 2012 Extended Abstracts, ACM, 2012
- Simon Fothergill, Helena M. Mentis, Sebastian Nowozin, and Pushmeet Kohli, Instructing People for Training Gestural Interactive Systems, ACM Conference on Computer-Human Interaction, 2012
- Kenton O'Hara, Richard Harper, Helena Mentis, Abigail Sellen, and Alex Taylor, On the Naturalness of Touchless: Putting the "Interaction" Back into NUI, in Transactions on Computer Human Interaction (TOCHI), ACM, 2012
- Helena M. Mentis, Kenton O'Hara, Abigail Sellen, and Rikin Trivedi, Interaction Proxemics and Image Use in Neurosurgery, ACM Conference on Computer-Human Interaction, 2012
2011
- R.Harper and Editor, The Connected Home: the future of domestic life , Springer, December 2011
- Professor Anthony Dunne, Onkar Kular, Richard Banks, Alex Taylor, Tim Regan, David Benqué, Dash Macdonald, Demitrios Kargotis, Kobe Barhad, Nicolas Myers, Sascha Pohflepp, Chris Woebken, and Kellenberger–White, The Future of Writing, October 2011
- Richard Harper, Eno Thereska, Sian Lindley, Richard Banks, Phil Gosset, William Odom, Gavin Smyth, and Eryn Whitworth, What is a File?, no. MSR-TR-2011-109, 1 October 2011
- Richard Banks, The future of looking back, Microsoft, September 2011
- Daniela K. Rosner and Alex S. Taylor, Antiquarian answers: book restoration as a resource for design, in Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems, CHI '11, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., New York, NY, USA, 11 May 2011
- Petra Sundström, Alex Taylor, Katja Grufberg, Niklas Wirström, Jordi Solsona Belenguer, and Marcus Lundén, Inspirational bits: towards a shared understanding of the digital material, in Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems, CHI '11, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., New York, NY, USA, 10 May 2011
- Alex S. Taylor, Out there, in Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems, CHI '11, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., New York, NY, USA, 9 May 2011
- Jonathan Hook, David Green, John McCarthy, Stuart Taylor, Peter Wright, and Patrick Olivier, A VJ Centered Exploration of Expressive Interaction, ACM Conference on Computer-Human Interaction, 9 May 2011
- Siân E. Lindley, Passing on memories in later life, in CHI 2011 workshop on Bridging Practices, Theories, and Technologies to Support Reminiscence, 8 May 2011
- Siân E. Lindley, Maxine Glancy, Richard Harper, Dave Randall, and Nicola Smyth, “Oh and how things just don’t change, the more things stay the same”: Reflections on SenseCam images 18 months after capture, in International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, vol. 69, no. 5, pp. 311-323, Elsevier, May 2011
- Graham Pullin, Jon Rogers, Richard Banks, Tim Regan, Ali Napier, and Polly Duplock, Social Digital Objects for Grandparents , in Proceedings of Include 2011 conference on inclusive and people-centred design., Royal College of Art, London, 18 April 2011
- Tamara Alsheikh, Jennifer A. Rode, and Siân E. Lindley, (Whose) value-sensitive design: A study of long-distance relationships in an Arabic cultural context, in Proceedings of the 2011 ACM conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2011), Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., March 2011
- Marshini Chetty, Richard Banks, AJ Brush, Jonathan Donner, and Rebecca E. Grinter, While the Meter is Running: Computing in a Capped World, in Interactions Volume 18, Issue 2, vol. 18, ACM, 1 March 2011
- Paul Andre, Abigail Sellen, mc Schraefel, and Ken Wood, Making Public Media Personal: Nostalgia and Reminiscence in the Office, in Proceedings of the 25th BCS Conference on HCI, ACM, 2011
- Michael Massimi, William Odom, Richard Banks, and David Kirk, Matters of life and death: locating the end of life in lifespan-oriented hci research, in Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems (CHI 2011), Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 2011
- Siân E. Lindley and Andrew F. Monk, Measuring social behaviour as an indicator of experience, in Behaviour and Information Technology, Taylor & Francis, 2011
- Harper and R., A Sense of Body, in New Industrial World Forum, FYP, Paris., 2011
- John Helmes, Alex S. Taylor, Xiang Cao, Kristina Höök, Peter Schmitt, and Nicolas Villar, Rudiments 1, 2 & 3: design speculations on autonomy, in Proceedings of the fifth international conference on Tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction, TEI '11, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., New York, NY, USA, January 2011
- John Helmes, Alexander Taylor, alex taylor, Kristina Höök, Peter Schmitt, Nicolas Villar, and Xiang Cao, Rudiments 1, 2 & 3: Design Speculations on Autonomy, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., January 2011
- Camille Moussette and Richard Banks, Designing through making: exploring the simple haptic design space , in TEI '11 - Proceedings of the fifth international conference on Tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction , ACM, January 2011
- Siân Lindley, Nearness: Family life and digital neighborhood, in The Connected Home: The Future of Domestic Life, Springer, 2011
- Yan Xu, Xian Cao, Abigail Sellen, Ralf Herbrich, and Thore Graepel, Sociable killers: understanding social relationships in an online first-person shooter game, in CSCW '11 Proceedings of the ACM 2011 conference on Computer supported cooperative work , ACM, 2011
2010
- Boon Chew, Jennifer Rode, and Abigail Sellen, Understanding the everyday use of images on the web., in Proceedings of NordiCHI 2010, ACM, October 2010
- William Odom, Richard Banks, and David Kirk, Reciprocity, Deep Storage and Letting go: opportunities for designing interactions with inherited digital materials, in Interactions Volume 17, Issue 5, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., September 2010
- Laurel Swan, Diana Tanase, and Alex S. Taylor, Design's processional character, in DIS '10: Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., New York, NY, USA, August 2010
- David S. Kirk and Abigail Sellen, On human remains: Value and practice in the home archiving of cherished objects. , in ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., July 2010
- Stuart Taylor and Jonathan Hook, FerroSynth: A Ferromagnetic Music Interface, in Proceeding of NIME 2010, Microsoft Research, 15 June 2010
- Abigail Sellen and Steve Whittaker, Beyond total capture: A constructive critique of lifelogging., in Communications of the ACM, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., May 2010
- Marshini Chetty, Richard Banks, Richard Harper, Tim Regan, Abigail Sellen, Christos Gkantsidis, Thomas Karagiannis, and Peter Key, Who's Hogging the Bandwidth?: The Consequences Of Revealing The Invisible In the Home, in CHI 2010, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 10 April 2010
- Vaiva Kalnikaite, Abigail Sellen, Steve Whittaker, and Dave Kirk, Now let me see where I was: Understanding how Lifelogs mediate memory, in Proceedings of CHI 2010, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., April 2010
- Nicolai Marquardt, Alex S. Taylor, Nicolas Villar, and Saul Greenberg, Rethinking RFID: awareness and control for interaction with RFID systems, in Proceedings of the 28th international conference on Human factors in computing systems , Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., April 2010
- Siân E. Lindley, Richard Harper, and Abigail Sellen, Designing a technological playground: A field study of the emergence of play in household messaging, in Proceedings of the 2010 SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., April 2010
- Siân E. Lindley, Eduardo H. Calvillo Gámez, and Juan José Gámez Leija, Remembering rituals of remembrance: Capturing Xantolo through SenseCam, in CHI 2010 workshop on HCI at the End of Life., April 2010
- Philip Tuddenham, David Kirk, and Shahram Izadi, Graspables revisited: multi-touch vs. tangible input for tabletop displays in acquisition and manipulation tasks, in Proceedings of the 28th international conference on Human factors in computing systems , Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., April 2010
- Tamara Alsheikh, Siân E. Lindley, and Jennifer A. Rode, Understanding online communication through Arab eyes, in CHI 2010 workshop on Models, Theories and Methods of Studying Online Behavior , April 2010
- Will Odom, Richard Harper, Abigail Sellen, Dave Kirk, and Richard Banks, Passing on and putting to rest: Understanding bereavement in the context of interactive technologies, in Proceedings of CHI 2010, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., April 2010
- Nicolai Marquardt, Alex S. Taylor, Nicolas Villar, and Saul Greenberg, Visible and controllable RFID tags, in Proceedings of the 28th of the international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems , Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., April 2010
- Dave Kirk, Shahram Izadi, Abigail Sellen, Stuart Taylor, Richard Banks, and Otmar Hilliges, Opening Up the Family Archive, in Proceedings of ACM Conference on Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW 2010), Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., February 2010
- Xiang Cao, Siân E. Lindley, John Helmes, and Abigail Sellen, Telling the whole story: Anticipation, inspiration and reputation in a field deployment of TellTable, in Proceedings of the 2010 ACM conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., February 2010
- Susanne Seitinger, Daniel M. Taub, and Alex S. Taylor, Light bodies: exploring interactions with responsive lights, in TEI '10: Proceedings of the fourth international conference on Tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., New York, NY, USA, January 2010
- Xiang Cao, Abigail Sellen, AJ Brush, Dave Kirk, Darren Edge, and Xianghua Ding, Understanding family communication across time zones, in CSCW 2010, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 2010
- Dave Kirk, Abigail Sellen, and Xiang Cao, Home video communication: Mediating "closeness", in CSCW 2010, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 2010
2009
- Abigail Durrant, David Frohlich, Abigail Sellen, and Evanthia Lyons, Home curation versus Teen Photography: Photo displays in the family home, in International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Elsevier , December 2009
- John Helmes, Xiang Cao, Siân E. Lindley, and Abigail Sellen, Developing the story: Designing an interactive storytelling application., in Proceedings of ITS 2009, ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces., Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., November 2009
- Jonathan Hook, Stuart Taylor, Alex Butler, Nicolas Villar, and Shahram Izadi, A Reconfigurable Ferromagnetic Input Device, in Proceeding of UIST 2009, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 4 October 2009
- Nicolas Villar, Shahram Izadi, Dan Rosenfeld, Hrvoje Benko, John Helmes, Jonathan Westhues, Steve Hodges, Eyal Ofek, Alex Butler, Xiang Cao, and Billy Chen, Mouse 2.0: Multi-touch meets the mouse., in Proceedings of UIST 2009, ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. p. 33-42. UIST 2009 Best Paper Award., Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., October 2009
- Alex S Taylor, Ethnography in Ubiquitous Computing, in Ubiquitous Computing Fundamentals, pp. 203-236, Chapman & Hall/CRC, October 2009
- Richard Harper and Stuart Taylor, Glancephone – an exploration of human expression, in Processdings of MobileHCI 2009, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 15 September 2009
- David Kirk, Abigail Sellen, Stuart Taylor, Nicolas Villar, and Shahram Izadi, Putting the Physical into the Digital:Issues in Designing Hybrid Interactive Surfaces, in In Proceedings of BCS HCI 2009, Cambridge University Press, 1 September 2009
- Abigail Durrant, Alex S. Taylor, David Frohlich, Abigail Sellen, and David Uzzell, Photo displays and intergenerational relationships in the family home, in People and Computers XXIII, Celebrating People and Technology, Proceedings of HCI 2009, Churchill College Cambridge, UK, 1 September 2009
- Siân E. Lindley, Dave Randall, Wes Sharrock, Maxine Glancy, Nicola Smyth, and Richard Harper, Narrative, memory and practice: Tensions and choices in the use of a digital artefact, in Proceedings of the 23rd BCS conference on Human Computer Interaction, September 2009
- Siân E. Lindley, Richard Harper, Dave Randall, Maxine Glancy, and Nicola Smyth, Fixed in time and “time in motion”: Mobility of vision through a SenseCam lens, in Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, September 2009
- James Scott, Lorna M. Brown, and Mike Molloy, Mobile Device Interaction with Force Sensing, in Proceedings of Pervasive 2009, LNCS 5538, Springer Verlag, May 2009
- Stuart Taylor, Shahram Izadi, David Kirk, Richard Harper, and Armando Garcia-Mendoza, Turning the Tables: An Interactive Surface for VJing, in Proceeding of CHI 2009, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 8 April 2009
- Siân E. Lindley, Richard Harper, and Abigail Sellen, Desiring to be in touch in a changing communications landscape: Attitudes of older adults, in Proceedings of the 2009 SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., April 2009
- Alex S. Taylor, Machine intelligence, in CHI '09, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., New York, April 2009
- Siân E. Lindley, Abigail Sellen, and Richard Harper, Bridging the gap between grandparents and teenagers: Lightweight vs. heavyweight contact, in CHI 2009 workshop on Age Matters: Bridging the generation gap through technology mediated interaction, April 2009
- Siân E. Lindley, Dave Randall, Richard Harper, Maxine Glancy, and Nicola Smyth, Reflecting on oneself and on others: Multiple perspectives via SenseCam, in CHI 2009 workshop on Designing for Reflection on Experience, April 2009
- Siân E. Lindley, Abigail Durrant, David Kirk, and Alex S. Taylor, Collocated social practices surrounding photos, in International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, vol. 67, no. 12, pp. 995-1004, Elsevier , February 2009
- John Helmes, Caroline Hummels, and Abigail Sellen, The Other Brother: Re-experiencing spontaneous moments from domestic life., in TEI 2009 - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction , Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., February 2009
- Siân E. Lindley, Richard Banks, Richard Harper, Anab Jain, Tim Regan, Abigail Sellen, and Alex S. Taylor, Resilience in the face of innovation: Household trials with BubbleBoard, in International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, vol. 67, no. 2, pp. 154-164, Elsevier , February 2009
- john helmes, Caroline Hummels, and Abigail Sellen, The Other Brother: Re-experiencing spontaneous moments from domestic life., in TEI 2009 - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction , Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 2009
- Richard Banks and Abigail Sellen, Shoebox: Mixing storage and display of digital images in the home., in TEI 2009 - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 2009
- Lorna Brown, Renan Krishnan, Abigail Sellen, and Richard Harper, Exploring the potential of audio-tactile messaging for remote interpersonal communication, in CHI 2009, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 2009
- Abigail Sellen, Yvonne Rogers, Richard Harper, and Tom Rodden, Reflecting human values in the digital age, in Communications of the ACM, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 2009
- Gilbert Cockton, Abigail Sellen, Dave Kirk, and Richard Banks, Evolving and augmenting worth mapping for family archives, in Proceedings of British HCI 2009, Cambridge University Press, 2009
2008
- Stuart Taylor, Txt-it Notes: Paper Based Text Messaging, no. MSR-TR-2008-172, November 2008
- Shahram Izadi, Steve Hodges, Stuart Taylor, Dan Rosenfeld, Nicolas Villar, Alex Butler, and Jonathan Westhues, Going Beyond the Display: A Surface Technology with an Electronically Switchable Diffuser, in ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST '08), Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 19 October 2008
- Andrew D. Wilson, Shahram Izadi, Otmar Hilliges, Armando Garcia-Mendoza, and David Kirk, Bringing physics to the surface, in Proceedings of the 21st annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology (ACM UIST 2008) , Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., October 2008
- Siân E. Lindley, Richard Harper, and Abigail Sellen, Designing for elders: Exploring the complexity of relationships in later life, in Proceedings of the 22nd BCS conference on Human Computer Interaction, September 2008
- Siân E. Lindley and Andrew Monk, Social enjoyment with electronic photo displays: Awareness and control, in International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, vol. 66, no. 8, pp. 587-604, Elsevier , August 2008
- Richard Harper, tim regan, Shahram Izadi, Kharsim Al Mosawi, Mark Rouncefield, and Simon Rubens, Trafficking: design for the viral exchange of TV content on mobile phones, no. MSR-TR-2008-88, June 2008
- Abigail Durrant, Alex Taylor, Stuart Taylor, Mike Molloy, Abigail Sellen, David Frohlich, Phil Gosset, and Laurel Swan, Speculative Devices for Photo Display, in CHI '08 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems , Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 4 April 2008
- Siân E. Lindley, James Le Couteur, and Nadia Bianchi-Berthouze, Stirring up experience through movement in game play: Effects on engagement and social behaviour, in Proceedings of the 2008 SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems , Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., April 2008
- Siân E. Lindley, Abigail Durrant, David Kirk, and Alex S. Taylor, Collocated social practices surrounding photos, in CHI 2008 Extended Abstracts, April 2008
- Eric Laurier, Hayden Lorimer, Barry Brown, Owain Jones, Oskar Juhlin, Allyson Noble, Mark Perry, D Pica, Philippe Sormani, Ignaz Strebel, Laurel Swan, Alex S Taylor, Laura Watts, and Alexandra Weilenmann, Driving and passengering: notes on the ordinary organization of car travel, in Mobilities, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 1–23, January 2008
- R.Harper, T.Rodden, Y.Rogers, and A.Sellen, Being Human: HCI in 2020, Microsoft Research, 2008
- Rui José, Nuno Otero, Shahram Izadi, and Richard Harper, Instant Places: Using Bluetooth for Situated Interaction in Public Displays, in Pervasive Computing, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 52-57, IEEE, 2008
2007
- Stuart Taylor, Shahram Izadi, Kursat Ozenc, and Richard Harper, VideoPlay: Playful and Social Editing of Video using Tangible Objects and Multi-touch Interaction, in IEEE International Workshop on Horizontal Interactive Human-Computer Systems (TABLETOP '07), IEEE, 10 October 2007
- Alex S. Taylor, R. Harper, Laurel Swan, Shahram Izadi, Abigail Sellen, and Mark Perry, Homes that make us smart, in Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, vol. 11, no. 5, pp. 383-393, Springer Verlag, June 2007
- David Kirk, Abigail Sellen, Richard Harper, and Ken Wood, Understanding Videowork, in Proceedings of CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., April 2007
- Lucia Terrenghi, David Kirk, Abigail Sellen, and Shahram Izadi, Affordances for Manipulation of Physical versus Digital Media on Interactive Surfaces, in Proceedings of CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., April 2007
- Barry Brown, Alex Taylor, Shahram Izadi, Abigail Sellen, Joseph Jofish’ Kaye, and Rachel Eardley, Locating family values: A field trial of the Whereabouts Clock, in Proceedings of Ubicomp 2007, Springer-Verlag, 2007
2006
- Alex S. Taylor, Laurel Swan, Rachel Eardley, Steve Hodges, Tim Regan, Abigail Sellen, and K. R. Wood, Augmenting refrigerator magnets: why less is sometimes more, in Proceedings of the 4th Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction: changing roles , Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., New York, NY, October 2006
- A. Taylor, S. Izadi, L. Swan, B. Buxton, and R. Harper, Building Bowls for Miscellaneous Media, in Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Physicality (Physicality 2006), July 2006
- Abigail Sellen, Rachel Eardley, Shahram Izadi, and Richard Harper, The whereabouts clock: early testing of a situated awareness device, in CHI '06 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems , Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 2006
- Richard Harper and Steve Hodges, Beyond Talk, Beyond Sound: Emotional Expression and the Future of Mobile Connectivity, 2006
- Abigail Sellen, Richard Harper, Rachel Eardley, S. Izadi, Tim Regan, Alex S. Taylor, and Kenneth R. Wood, HomeNote: Supporting Situated messaging in the home, in Proceedings of the 2006 20th anniversary conference on Computer supported cooperative work (CSCW '06), Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., Banff, Canada, 2006
2005
- L. Swan, S. Izadi, A. Taylor, R. Harper, and A. Sellen, Rethinking the "Smart" Home, in Proceedings of IEEE International Workshop on Intelligent Environments, IEEE, June 2005
- Steve Hodges and Richard Harper, Just what you need: Simplifying electronic devices, Microsoft Research, 27 April 2005
- Richard Harper, TxtBoard: From text-to-person to text-to-home’, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., March 2005
- Richard Harper, “The Moral Order of Text: Explorations in the social performance of SMS” , ACL/SIGPARSE, February 2005
2003
- Alex S. Taylor and Richard Harper, Switching On to Switch Off, in Inside the Smart Home, pp. 115-126, Springer Verlag, London, 2003

New issue of our magazine!
"Things We've Learnt About..." is a regular publication from the Socio-Digital Systems team that summarises our work around a specific theme in a way that we hope is interesting, insightful and inspirational. And most importantly, succinct. Issue 2 is all about MEMORY. Download your copy today!
Being Human
Socio-Digital Systems, along with 40 or so of the world's best HCI researchers, have put together a report for anyone interested in the ramifications of our digital future and in ways society must adjust to the technological changes to come.
Recent Press Coverage
- Using touchless interaction in surgery, May 2012: A piece in New Scientist about our joint project with the Machine Learning Group here at the lab, as well as St. Thomas' hospital, and Lancaster University.
- An interview with Abigail Sellen on lifelogging on CBC radio's show Spark in Jan 2012.
- Richard Banks' new book The Future of Looking Back is just out and is getting great reviews!
- An excellent review of Richard Harper's new book Texture, from MIT Press. The book won the Association of Internet Researchers award for best book of 2011.
- Richard Harper on communications overload. Full page in the Observer, Nov. 2010.
- Richard Banks and Abigail Sellen on Digital Heirlooms, broadcast on All in the Mind, BBC Radio 4, Nov. 2010.
- Richard Banks and his Backup Box in Stuff magazine, October 2010.
- Stuart Taylor's gooey interfaces, Technology Review, Nov. 2009.
- Being human, with computers. Cambridge Evening News, May 2009.
Contact Us
- Socio-Digital Systems
Microsoft Research
7 J J Thomson Ave
Cambridge CB3 0FB, UK
+44 1223 479700
Careers
- The Socio-Digital Systems group are always looking for interns and Post-docs. For more information, visit Microsoft Research Careers.






