Jon E. Froehlich

Associate Professor , CS
University of Washington

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I am an Associate Professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, a Sloan Fellow, and NSF CAREER awardee. My research is in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) with a focus on high-value social domains such as accessibility, environmental sustainability, and STEM education. I have published over 50 peer-reviewed publications; eleven have been honored with awards, including Best Papers at ACM CHI and ASSETS and a 10-Year Impact Award at UbiComp. Since becoming a professor in 2012, I have taught ~250 undergraduate students and ~150 graduate students in HCI, Design, and UbiComp courses and served as a research advisor to nine graduate students, 50+ undergraduates, and 15 high school students. From 2012-2017, I was an Assistant Professor in Computer Science at the University of Maryland.

Recent News

Venkatesh and Dhruv win Security TGIF

Nov 09, 2018 | Jon

At TGIF today, the security students hosted with the theme "Would you rather..." Attendees could brainstorm and submit questions that had a "would you rather..." scenario with two choices. The most popular submission was given an award.

Makeability Lab students Dhruv Jain and Venkatesh Potluri submitted: "Would you rather have a camera look at you or a microphone listen to you all the time?"

This ended up being a very provocative question with the TGIF attendees having mixed opinions.

DUB Retreat 2018

Oct 20, 2018 | Jon

Manaswi co-organized the PhD workshop at the DUB Retreat this year and Jon co-organized the retreat itself. Read Andy Ko's writeup about the event here with links to slides.

DUB is our grassroots, cross-campus alliance of students, faculty, and industry partners interested in HCI and Design at UW. The DUB Retreat has become an annual event aimed at bringing us together to reflect on our community, share fresh ideas, and hang out. Last year, we had over 150 attendees. This year RSVPs were at 180+.

10-Year Impact Award for UbiFit

Oct 02, 2018 | Jon

Our UbiComp 2008 paper entitled "Flowers or a Robot Army?: Encouraging Awareness & Activity with Personal, Mobile Displays" was just honored with a 10-Year Impact Award at the UbiComp 2018 conference. Congratulations to my co-authors!

It was a tremendous privilege (and humbling experience) working at Intel Research in the mid-2000s. I benefited tremendously from the mentorship of Mike Y. Chen, Ian Smith, and particularly Sunny Consolvo and James Landay.

Congratulations to Drs. Mauriello and Stearns

Aug 01, 2018 | Jon

Please join me in congratulating Drs. Matt Mauriello and Lee Stearns who successfully passed their PhD defenses today. One of the true joys of being a professor is seeing students develop into independent scholars like Matt and Lee. Matt is now off to a post-doc at Stanford and Lee will join APL at Johns Hopkins.

Thanks to the fantastic committee members as well who spanned from multiple disciplines, universities, and parts of the US! :)

Matt's dissertation is entitled " Designing and Evaluating Next-generation Thermographic Systems to Support Residential Energy Audits" and available for download here and Lee's dissertation is entitled "Handsight: A Touch-based Wearable System to Increase Information Accessibility for People With Visual Impairments" and available here.

$1.2m NSF Grant Awarded on Sound Sensing and Visualization for People who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing

Jul 23, 2018 | Jon

Our $1.2m NSF grant on "Wearable Sound Sensing and Feedback Techniques for Persons who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing" was just officially awarded. This is research started by Dhruv Jain, Leah Findlater, and Jon Froehlich in the summer of 2014 when Dhruv was between ugrad and MIT. Dhruv is now a PhD student in the Allen School and a member of the Makeability Lab.

The award officially starts Aug 1, 2018 and runs through July 31, 2022. Leah Findlater is the PI along with Co-PIs Froehlich (UW), Ramani Duraiswami (UMD), and Raja Kushalnagar (Gallaudet University).

This is the third award for this work following the initial two (a Google Faculty Award and the recent UW Reality Lab funding)--both which helped provide seed funding for the NSF effort.

Publications

A Feasibility Study of Using Google Street View and Computer Vision to Track the Evolution of Urban Accessibility

Ladan Najafizadeh, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of ASSETS 2018

keywords: computer vision, google street view, urban informatics, urban data mining, urban accessibility

PDF | Citation | Project Sidewalk | Urban Accessibility Evolution

Applying Transfer Learning to Recognize Clothing Patterns Using a Finger-Mounted Camera

Lee Stearns, Leah Findlater, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of ASSETS 2018 | Acceptance Rate: 58.3% (42 / 72)

keywords: wearables, computer vision, visual impairments, pattern recognition, transfer learning

PDF | doi | Citation | HandSight | Cloth Recognition

Towards Accessible Conversations in a Mobile Context for People who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Dhruv Jain, Rachel Franz, Leah Findlater, Jackson Cannon, Raja Kushalnagar, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of ASSETS 2018 | Acceptance Rate: 25.9% (28 / 108)

keywords: augmented reality, real-time captioning, deaf and hard of hearing

PDF | doi | Talk | Citation | AR Captioning

Interactively Modeling and Visualizing Neighborhood Accessibility at Scale: An Initial Study of Washington DC

Anthony Li, Manaswi Saha, Anupam Gupta, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of ASSETS 2018

keywords: urban informatics, information visualization, urban data mining, urban accessibility, geo-visualization, walkability index

PDF | Citation | Project Sidewalk | AccessScore | Accessibility-Infused Maps

Design of an Augmented Reality Magnification Aid for Low Vision Users

Lee Stearns, Leah Findlater, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of ASSETS 2018

keywords: wearables, head-mounted display, low-vision, visual impairments, assistive technology, augmented reality

PDF | Talk | Citation | HandSight | AR Magnification

A Large-Scale Analysis of YouTube Videos Depicting Everyday Thermal Camera Use

Matthew L Mauriello, Brenna McNally, Cody Buntain, Sapna Bagalkotkar, Samuel Kushnir, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of MobileHCI2018

keywords: thermography, sustainable hci, environmental sustainability, thermal cameras, youtube, user-generated content

PDF | doi | Talk | Citation | Pervasive Thermography

Physiological Investigations with Live Physiological Sensing and Visualization Tools

Tamara L. Clegg, Virginia Byrne, Leyla Norooz, Seokbin Kang, Jon E. Froehlich

Symposium Proceedings of ICLS2018

keywords: sharedphys, bodyvis, physiological sensing, large-screen displays, mixed-reality, scientific inquiry, collaborative learning, stem, wearables

PDF | doi | Citation | BodyVis | SharedPhys

Scaffolding Authentic Wearable-Based Scientific Inquiry for Early Elementary Learners

Virginia Byrne, Seokbin Kang, Leyla Norooz, Rafael Antonio Velez, Monica Katzen, Afe Addeh, Jon E. Froehlich, Tamara L. Clegg

Proceedings of ICLS2018

keywords: sharedphys, bodyvis, physiological sensing, large-screen displays, mixed-reality, scientific inquiry, collaborative learning, stem, wearables

PDF | Talk | Citation | BodyVis | SharedPhys

Exploring Augmented Reality Approaches to Real-Time Captioning: A Preliminary Autoethnographic Study

Dhruv Jain, Bonnie Chinh, Raja Kushalnagar, Leah Findlater, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of DIS2018

keywords: deaf, augmented reality, real-time captioning, sound awareness

PDF | doi | Citation | AR Captioning

SIG: Making Maps Accessible and Putting Accessibility in Maps

Anke Brock, Jon E. Froehlich, Joao Guerreiro, Benjamin Tannert, Anat Caspi, Johannes Schoning, Steve Landau

Extended Abstract Proceedings of CHI 2018

keywords: accessibility, crowdsourcing accessibility, accessible urban navigation, accessible cities, physical accessibility, touchscreen accessibility, accessible interfaces

PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk | Accessibility-Infused Maps

Prototyping and Simulating Complex Systems with Paper Craft and Augmented Reality: An Initial Investigation

Seokbin Kang, Leyla Norooz, Virginia Byrne, Tamara L. Clegg, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of TEI2018

keywords: children, augmented reality, prototyping, prototyping tool, design process

PDF | doi | Citation | Rainbow

TouchCam: Realtime Recognition of Location-Specific On-Body Gestures to Support Users with Visual Impairments

Lee Stearns, Uran Oh, Leah Findlater, Jon E. Froehlich

ACM IMWUT December 2017

keywords: wearables, accessibility, computer vision, low-vision, blind users, on-body interaction, skin texture classification, gesture recognition

PDF | Citation | HandSight | TouchCam | On-Body Interaction

A Pilot Deployment of an Online Tool for Large-Scale Virtual Auditing of Urban Accessibility

Manaswi Saha, Kotaro Hara, Soheil Behnezhad, Anthony Li, Mikey Saugstad, Teja Maddali, Sage Chen, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of ASSETS 2017

keywords: crowdsourcing, gis, mobility impairments, urban accessibility

PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk

Augmented Reality Magnification for Low Vision Users with the Microsoft Hololens and a Finger-Worn Camera

Lee Stearns, Victor De Souza, Jessica Yin, Leah Findlater, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of ASSETS 2017

keywords: wearables, visual impairments, assistive technology, augmented reality, reading printed text, magnification

PDF | doi | Citation | HandSight

TacTILE: A Preliminary Toolchain for Creating Accessible Graphics with 3D-Printed Overlays and Auditory Annotations

Liang He, Zijian Wan, Leah Findlater, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of ASSETS 2017

keywords: blind, visual impairments, touchscreens, 3d printing, fabrication, speech interfaces, accessible graphics

PDF | doi | Citation | Touchscreen Accessibility | TacTILE

Evaluating Wrist-Based Haptic Feedback for Non-Visual Target Finding and Path Tracing on a 2D Surface

Jonggi Hong, Alisha Pradhan, Jon E. Froehlich, Leah Findlater

Proceedings of ASSETS 2017 | Acceptance Rate: 26.2% (33 / 126)

keywords: wearables, haptics, accessibility, blind, blind users, haptic feedback, haptic wristband, directional guidance

Investigating Microinteractions for People With Visual Impairments and the Potential Role of on-Body Interaction

Uran Oh, Lee Stearns, Alisha Pradhan, Jon E. Froehlich, Leah Findlater

Proceedings of ASSETS 2017 | Acceptance Rate: 26.2% (33 / 126)

keywords: wearables, visual impairments, mobile, on-body interaction, microinteraction

Recognizing Clothing Colors and Visual Textures Using a Finger-Mounted Camera: An Initial Investigation

Chuan Chen, Leah Findlater, Jon E. Froehlich, Alexander Medeiros, Lee Stearns

Proceedings of ASSETS 2017

keywords: wearables, blind, visual impairments, texture recognition, cloth recognition

PDF | doi | Citation | HandSight | Cloth Recognition

Designing 3D-Printed Deformation Behaviors Using Spring-Based Structures: An Initial Investigation

Liang He, Huaishu Peng, Joshua Land, Mark Fuge, Jon E. Froehlich

Extended Abstract Proceedings of UIST 2017

keywords: mechanical springs, 3d printing, fabrication

PDF | doi | Citation | Ondulé

A Temporal Thermography System for Supporting Longitudinal Building Energy Audits

Matthew L Mauriello, Jamie H Gilkeson, Noa Chazan, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of Ubicomp 2017

keywords: thermography, sustainable hci, environmental sustainability, environmental hci, sustainability, information visualization, thermal cameras, environmental sensing, sensors, design, environment, sustainability

PDF | doi | Citation | Pervasive Thermography

Early Explorations of Deformable Interactive Designs with 3D-Printed Springs

Liang He, Joshua Land, Huaishu Peng, Mark Fuge, Jon E. Froehlich

SCF 2017

keywords: fabricated objects

PDF | Citation

Live Physiological Sensing and Visualization Ecosystems: An Activity Theory Analysis

Tamara L. Clegg, Leyla Norooz, Seokbin Kang, Virginia Byrne, Monica Katzen, Angelisa Plane, Vanessa Oguamanam, Thomas Outing, Elizabeth Bonsignore, Jason Yip, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of CHI2017 | Acceptance Rate: 25.0% (606 / 2424)

keywords: scientific inquiry, sensor-based learning, wearables

PDF | doi | Citation | BodyVis

Differences in Crowdsourced vs. Lab-based Mobile and Desktop Input Performance Data

Leah Findlater, Joan Zhang, Jon E. Froehlich, Karyn Moffatt

Proceedings of CHI2017 | Acceptance Rate: 25.0% (606 / 2424)

keywords: crowdsourcing, mobile, human performance, input devices, touchscreens

PDF | doi | Citation

Exploring Novice Approaches to Smartphone-based Thermographic Energy Auditing: A Field Study

Matthew L Mauriello, Manaswi Saha, Erica Brown, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of CHI 2017 | Acceptance Rate: 25.0% (606 / 2424)

keywords: formative inquiry, sustainable hci, urban informatics, environmental sustainability, environmental hci, sustainability

PDF | doi | Talk | Citation | Pervasive Thermography

Comparing Touchscreen and Mouse Input Performance by People With and Without Upper Body Motor Impairments

Leah Findlater, Karyn Moffatt, Jon E. Froehlich, Meethu Malu, Joan Zhang

Proceedings of CHI2017 | Acceptance Rate: 25.0% (606 / 2424)

keywords: accessibility, touchscreen accessibility, motor impairments, human performance, input devices, touchscreens, mouse

PDF | doi | Citation | Touchscreen Accessibility

MakerWear: A Tangible Approach to Interactive Wearable Creation for Children

Majeed Kazemitabaar, Jason McPeak, Alex Jiao, Liang He, Thomas Outing, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of CHI 2017

keywords: wearables, children, making, tangible interaction

PDF | Citation | MakerWear

SqueezaPulse: Adding Interactive Input to Fabricated Objects Using Corrugated Tubes and Air Pulses

Liang He, Gierad Laput, Eric Brockmeyer, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of TEI'17

keywords: fabricated objects, acoustic sensing, squeeze interactions, corrugated acoustics

PDF | Citation | SqueezaPulse

Localization of Skin Features on the Hand and Wrist From Small Image Patches

Lee Stearns, Uran Oh, Bridget Cheng, Leah Findlater, David Ross, Rama Chellappa, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of ICPR 2016

keywords: handsight, computer vision, machine learning, on-body interaction, skin texture classification, biometrics, skin-based localization

PDF | Citation | HandSight | On-Body Interaction

Evaluating Haptic and Auditory Directional Guidance to Assist Blind People in Reading Printed Text Using Finger-Mounted Cameras

Lee Stearns, Ruofei Du, Uran Oh, Catherine Jou, Leah Findlater, David Ross, Jon E. Froehlich

ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS) 2016

keywords: wearables, handsight, accessibility, visual impairments, real-time ocr, blind reading

PDF | Citation | HandSight | Haptic Hand Guidance

New Horizons for the IoT in Everyday Life: Proactive, Shared, Sustainable

Joel Fischer, James A. Colley, Ewa Luger, Michael Golembewski, Enrico Costanza, Sarvapali D. Ramchurn, Stephen Viller, Ian Oakley, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of UbiComp 2016

keywords: iot, internet of things, sharing economy, automation

PDF | doi | Citation

“That's Your Heart!”: Live Physiological Sensing & Visualization Tools for Life-Relevant & Collaborative STEM Learning

Leyla Norooz, Tamara L. Clegg, Seokbin Kang, Angelisa Plane, Vanessa Oguamanam, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of ICLS 2016

keywords: sharedphys, bodyvis, physiological sensing, large-screen displays, mixed-reality, scientific inquiry, collaborative learning, stem, wearables

PDF | doi | Citation | BodyVis | SharedPhys

SharedPhys: Live Physiological Sensing, Whole-Body Interaction, and Large-Screen Visualizations to Support Shared Inquiry Experiences

Seokbin Kang, Leyla Norooz, Vanessa Oguamanam, Angelisa Plane, Tamara L. Clegg, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of IDC 2016

keywords: sharedphys, bodyvis, physiological sensing, large-screen displays, mixed-reality, scientific inquiry, collaborative learning, stem, wearables

PDF | Citation | BodyVis | SharedPhys

ReWear: Early Explorations of a Modular Wearable Construction Kit for Young Children

Majeed Kazemitabaar, Liang He, Katie Wang, Chloe Aloimonos, Tony Cheng, Jon E. Froehlich

CHI '16 Extended Abstracts

keywords: wearables, e-textiles, construction kits, electronic textiles, children, making

PDF | Citation | MakerWear | ReWear

Evaluating Angular Accuracy of Wrist-based Haptic Directional Guidance for Hand Movement

Jonggi Hong, Lee Stearns, Tony Cheng, Jon E. Froehlich, David Ross, Leah Findlater

Proceedings of GI 2016 | Acceptance Rate: 39.4% (13 / 33)

keywords: wearables, haptics, non-visual directional guidance, handsight

PDF | doi | Citation | HandSight | Haptic Hand Guidance

The Future Role of Thermography in Human-Building Interaction

Matthew L Mauriello, Matthew Dahlhausen, Erica Brown, Manaswi Saha, Jon E. Froehlich

CHI 2016 Workshop: Future of Human-Building Interaction

keywords: thermography, human-building interaction, thermal cameras

PDF | Citation | Pervasive Thermography

The Design of Assistive Location-based Technologies for People with Ambulatory Disabilities: A Formative Study

Kotaro Hara, Christine Chan, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of CHI 2016 | Acceptance Rate: 25.0% (600 / 2400)

keywords: accessibility, mobility impairments, formative study, gis, navigation, trip planning

PDF | doi | Citation | Accessibility-Infused Maps | Project Sidewalk

Supporting Everyday Activities for Persons with Visual Impairments Through Computer Vision-Augmented Touch

Leah Findlater, Lee Stearns, Ruofei Du, Uran Oh, David Ross, Rama Chellappa, Jon E. Froehlich

Poster Proceedings of ASSETS 2015

keywords: finger camera, visual impairments, blind, touch vision, computer vision

PDF | Citation | HandSight

Characterizing and Visualizing Physical World Accessibility at Scale Using Crowdsourcing, Computer Vision, and Machine Learning

Kotaro Hara, Jon E. Froehlich

SIGACCESS Newsletter '15

keywords: crowdsourcing accessibility, computer vision, google street view, amazon mechanical turk, personalized routing, accessibility map visualizations

PDF | Citation | Project Sidewalk

MakerShoe: Towards an E-Textile Construction Kit to Support Creativity, Playful Making, and Self-Expression

Majeed Kazemitabaar, Leyla Norooz, Mona Leigh Guha, Jon E. Froehlich

IDC '15 Extended Abstracts

keywords: construction kits, electronic textiles, e-textiles, wearables, children, making

PDF | Citation | MakerWear

BodyVis: A New Approach to Body Learning Through Wearable Sensing and Visualization

Leyla Norooz, Matthew L Mauriello, Anita Jorgensen, Brenna McNally, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of CHI 2015

keywords: wearables, interactive body learning, physiological sensing, tangible interactive computing

PDF | Citation | BodyVis

Head-Mounted Display Visualizations to Support Sound Awareness for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Dhruv Jain, Leah Findlater, Jamie H Gilkeson, Benjamin Holland, Ramani Duraiswami, Dmitry Zotkin, Christian Volger, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of CHI 2015

keywords: wearables, accessibility, deaf, hard of hearing, head-mounted display, wearable, sound visualization, conversation support

PDF | Citation | GlassEar

"I Like This Shirt": Exploring the Translation of Social Mechanisms in the Virtual World into Physical Experiences

Ladan Najafizadeh, Seokbin Kang, Jon E. Froehlich

CHI '15 Extended Abstracts

keywords: wearables, e-textiles, tangible social interaction, social fabric, social objects

PDF | Citation | I Like This Shirt

AtmoSPHERE: Representing Space and Movement Using Sand Traces in an Interactive Zen Garden

Ruofei Du, Kent Wills, Max Potasznik, Jon E. Froehlich

CHI '15 Extended Abstracts

keywords: calm technology, tangible interactive art, xy servo table, sand drawings, zen gardens, physical computing

PDF | Citation | Interactive Sand Table

Understanding the Role of Thermography in Energy Auditing: Current Practices and the Potential for Automated Solutions

Matthew L Mauriello, Leyla Norooz, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of CHI 2015

keywords: energy audits, thermography, robotics, formative inquiry, design probes, sustainable hci, human-robotic interaction

PDF | Citation | Pervasive Thermography

Improving Public Transit Accessibility for Blind Riders by Crowdsourcing Bus Stop Landmark Locations with Google Street View: An Extended Analysis

Kotaro Hara, Shiri Azenkot, Megan Campbell, Cynthia Bennett, Sean Pannella, Robert Moore, Kelly Minckler, Rochelle Ng, Jon E. Froehlich

ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS) 2015

keywords: public transport, accessibility, crowdsourcing accessibility, bus stop auditing, google street view, crowdsourcing, low-vision, blind users, accessible bus stops, remote data collection

PDF | Citation | Project Sidewalk

Gamifying Green: Gamification and Environmental Sustainability

Jon E. Froehlich

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