Lidia Oshlyansky

I was a PhD student in HCI at UCLIC. I've now moved to University of Wales Swansea. Previously I was at DePaul University in Chicago where I earned my Masters in HCI. I have a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology from Ohio University.

Background

My professional background is a bit odd. I started out as a Social Worker. I worked in a domestic violence shelter and a teen residential drug treatment facility while I was an undergraduate. When I moved to Chicago I worked with elderly people through the Illinois Department on Aging. Then I decided that I needed to do something else so I became a programmer. (I know it seems like an odd transition, but it made sense, honestly!)

I worked in various companies as a programmer, programmer analyst, data architect, DBA, help desk/tech support and then finally as an Information Architect / User Experience Architect.

Research interests

I am interested in how culture informs, influences and constrains design. I am especially interested in designing for audiences that are multilingual and multicultural ñ like everything we put online. My PhD work has focused on understanding how cultural models can be used to help us understand our users so that we can design better interfaces. What can we use cultural modeling for, how and when?

Publications

• Oshlyansky, L., Cairns P., Thimbleby, H. (2006 in press). A cautionary tale: Hofstedeís VSM revisited. Proceedings of British Human Computer Interaction Conference 2006. London, September 11 - 15 2006.
• Cha, H., Oshlyansky, L. and Cairns, P (2005). Mobile phone preferences and values: the UK vs. Korea. Proceedings of the International Workshop on Internationalisation of Products and Systems. Amsterdam, July 7-9 2005.
• Vasalou, A., Oshlyansky, L., Savakis K. and Cairns, P (2005). Human-Moderated Remote User Testing: An empirical evaluation. Proceedings HCI International. Las Vegas, July 22-27 2005
• Oshlyansky, L., Cairn, P. and Thimbleby, H. (2004). Breaking Affordance: Culture as Context. Proceedings of NordiChi 2004. Tampere, Finland, October 23-27, 2004.
• Oshlyansky, L., Cairn, P. and Foy, K. (2004). User Centred Design and the Japanese User. Proceedings of the International Workshop on Internationalisation of Products and Systems. Vancouver, July 7-9 2004.
• Vasalou, A., Ng, B.D., Wiemer-Hastings, P., and Oshlyansky, L. (2004). Human-Moderated Remote User Testing: Protocols and Applications. Proceedings of the 8th ERCIM Workshop on "User Interfaces for All". Vienna, June 28-29, 2004.

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