Rafael 'Tico' Ballagas
Principal Research Scientist - User ExperiencePalo Alto, CA
Tico is a Senior Research Scientist and Designer in the IDEA team at Nokia Research Center, Palo Alto. His research is focused on applying human-centered iterative design processes to ubiquitous computing. He is interested in rapid prototyping tools, evaluation methods, and most importantly building novel ubiquitous computing applications and services that address real human needs. Tico has been working in the mobile industry since 1997, originally as a member of the development team of Motorola's PageWriter 2000 -- the world's first two-way pager -- which has been ranked #13 on PC World's "The 50 Greatest Gadgets of the past 50 Years".
He earned his Doctorate in computer science at RWTH Aachen University in Germany with a focus on designing, prototyping, and evaluating ubiquitous computing applications and interaction techniques. During his PhD he deployed REXplorer, a pervasive game for tourists in Regensburg, Germany. He completed his B.S. with highest honors in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech, and M.S. from Stanford University.
Research Interests
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Ubiquitous Computing, Rapid Prototyping Tools, Pervasive Games, Computers in Entertainment, Novel Input Technologies, Multi-modal interfaces
Research Projects
Family Communication (www.connectedreading.com)
Other Information
Press:
- All Things Digital 2010/12/17: Nokia, Silicon Valley Giant?
- MIT Technology Review 2010/11/24: Out of Many, One In-box
- Wired.com 2010/05/07: Future Geeky Gadgets to Connect Families
- Nokia Conversations 2010/01/07: Family Story Play from CES
- Engadget 2009/10/29: Family Story Play
- NY Times 2008/04/09: My Life as a Video Game
- REXplorer featured in the evening news on major German TV stations Sat1, Kabel1, nTV, July 2006
- REXplorer featured in the TV technology format 'neues' on Swiss/Austrian/German TV station 3sat, July 2007
Publications
Citations: Google Scholar
Go, J., Ballagas, R., and Spasojevic, M. Brothers and Sisters at Play: Exploring Sibling Dynamics around Game Play. CSCW ’12: Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. ACM Press (2012).
Follmer, S., Ballagas, R., Raffle, H., and Ishii, H. People in Books: Using a FlashCam to Become Part of an Interactive Book for Connected Reading. CSCW ’12: Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. ACM Press (2012).
Raffle, H., Ballagas, R., Revelle, G., Mori, K., Horii, H., Paretti, C., and Spasojevic, M. Pop Goes The Cell Phone: Asynchronous Messaging for Preschoolers. Proc. Interaction Design for Children. ACM (2011).
Raffle, H., Revelle, G., Mori, K., Ballagas, R., Buza, K., Horii, H., Kaye, J., Cook, K., Freed, N., Go, J., and Spasojevic, M. Hello, Is Grandma There? Let’s Read! StoryVisit: Family Video Chat and Connected E-Books. Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems. ACM (New York, NY, USA, 2011), CHI ’11, 1195–1204.
T. Sohn, V. Setlur, K. Mori, J. J. Kaye, H. Horii, A. Battestini, R. Ballagas, C. Paretti, and M. Spasojevic. Addressing mobile information overload in the universal inbox through lenses. In Proceedings of the 12th international conference on Human computer interaction with mobile devices and services, MobileHCI ’10, pages 361–364, New York, NY, USA, 2010. ACM.
R. Ballagas, H. Raffle, J. Go, G. Revelle, J. Kaye, M. Ames, H. Horii, K. Mori, and M. Spasojevic. Story time for the 21st century. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 9:28–36, 2010.
S. Follmer, H. Raffle, J. Go, R. Ballagas, and H. Ishii. Video play: playful interactions in video conferencing for long-distance families with young children. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children, IDC ’10, pages 49–58, New York, NY, USA, 2010. ACM.
N. Freed, W. Burleson, H. Raffle, R. Ballagas, and N. Newman. User interfaces for tangible characters: can children connect remotely through toy perspectives? In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children, IDC ’10, pages 69–78, New York, NY, USA, 2010. ACM.
H. Raffle, R. Ballagas, G. Revelle, H. Horii, S. Follmer, J. Go, E. Reardon, K. Mori, J. Kaye, and M. Spasojevic. Family story play: reading with young children (and elmo) over a distance. In CHI ’10: Proceedings of the 28th international conference on Human factors in computing systems, pages 1583–1592, New York, NY, USA, 2010. ACM.
A. Puikkonen, J. Häkkilä, R. Ballagas, and J. Mäntyjärvi. Practices in creating videos with mobile phones. In MobileHCI ’09: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, pages 1–10, New York, NY, USA, 2009. ACM.
A. Puikkonen, J. Häkkiä, R. Ballagas, and J. Mäntyärvi. Feature use in mobile video creation. In INTERACT ’09: Proceedings of the 12th IFIP TC 13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, pages 866–869, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2009. Springer-Verlag.
S. Kratz and R. Ballagas. Unravelling Seams: Improving Mobile Gesture Recognition with Visual Feedback Techniques. In CHI ’09: Proceedings of the ACM CHI 2009 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. (Best Paper Award Nominee), ACM, 2009.
R. Ballagas and S. P. Walz. Rexplorer. In M. Montola, J. Stenros, and A. Waern, editors, Pervasive Games: Theory and Design, pages 215–218. Morgan Kaufmann, 2009.
Rafael Ballagas and Steffen Walz. REXplorer: Using iterative design techniques for pervasive games. In Carsten Magerkurth and Carsten Röcker, editors, Pervasive Gaming Applications - A Reader for Pervasive Gaming Research, volume 2. Shaker Verlag, 2007.
R. Ballagas, M. Rohs, J. Sheridan, and J. Borchers. The design space of ubiquitous mobile input. In J. Lumsden, editor, Handbook of Research on User Interface Design and Evaluation for Mobile Technologies. IGI Global, Hershey, PA, USA, 2008.
Rafael Ballagas, Steffen P. Walz, Sven Kratz, Claudia Fuhr, Eugen Yu, Martin Tann, Jan Borchers, and Ludger Hovestadt. REXplorer: A Mobile, Pervasive Spell-Casting Game for Tourists. In CHI '07: Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pages 1929-1934, New York, NY, USA, 2007. ACM Press.
Rafael Ballagas, Faraz Memon, Rene Reiners, and Jan Borchers. iStuff Mobile: Rapidly Prototyping New Mobile Phone Interfaces for Ubiquitous Computing. In CHI '07: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pages 1107-1116, New York, NY, USA, 2007. ACM Press.
R. Ballagas and S. P. Walz. REXplorer: A pervasive game for tourists. In F. Von Borries, S. Walz, M. Bottger, D. Davidson, H. Kelley, and J. Kücklich, editors, Space Time Play: Computer Games, Architecture and Urbanism: the Next Level, pages 366–367. Birkhauser Boston, 2007.
Rafael Ballagas, Michael Rohs, Jennifer Sheridan, and Jan Borchers. The Smart Phone: A Ubiquitous Input Device. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 5(1):70-77, Jan-Mar 2006. .
Trevor Pering, Rafael Ballagas, and Roy Want. Spontaneous marriages of mobile devices and interactive spaces. Commun. ACM, 48(9):53-59, 2005.
Rafael Ballagas, Michael Rohs, Jennifer Sheridan, and Jan Borchers. Sweep and Point & Shoot: Phonecam-Based Interactions for Large Public Displays. In CHI '05: CHI '05 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, pages 1200-1203, New York, NY, USA, April 2005. ACM Press.
Rafael Ballagas, Andy Szybalski, and Armando Fox. Patch Panel: Enabling Control-Flow Interoperability in Ubicomp Environments. In PerCom 2004 Second IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications, Orlando, Florida, USA, March 2004.
Rafael Ballagas, Meredith Ringel, Maureen Stone, and Jan Borchers. iStuff: A Physical User Interface Toolkit for Ubiquitous Computing Environments. In Proceedings of the ACM CHI 2003 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pages 537-544, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA, April 2003.
