skip to Main Content
Tricia Ngoon

Tricia Ngoon, UCSD & Design Lab PhD Graduate, Discusses “Adaptive Conceptual Guidance”

Tricia Ngoon, UCSD & Design Lab PhD Graduate, Discusses “Adaptive Conceptual Guidance”

Tricia Ngoon, UCSD & Design Lab PhD Graduate, Discusses “Adaptive Conceptual Guidance”

Graduate student and Design Lab member, Tricia Ngoon has always been interested in the science of learning. “It was always kind of born in me that I would do some sort of higher education, academic, STEM route,” she says as she reflects on the heavy influence of education, science, and math in her youth. “My parents always encouraged me to explore different fields… I think when I was a kid, I wanted to be a lawyer at some point, then a marine biologist at another point, and then all these different things. My parents were always very supportive of that.”  It wasn’t until high school that her aspirations gained specificity–a community college course in psychology solidified her interest in both psychology and neuroscience. As an undergraduate, she studied psychology and then worked at a neuroscience lab at Stanford. While exploring what she wanted to do for grad school, she came across Scott Klemmer’s work with The Design Lab and was inspired to apply. Her eventual involvement with the Lab opened up many new doors and introduced exciting possibilities as the focus of her research pivoted onto creativity and human-computer-interaction.

Tricia Ngoon, PhD, UC San Diego, Design Lab member

While acting as a teaching assistant for design courses at UC San Diego, Ngoon was inspired to start thinking about creativity specifically. She realized that the relationship between creativity and problem-solving is complex. “Creativity is really hard to define and really hard to assess,” she notes. “You need to be able to quantify something… that is inherently not quantifiable.” Another challenge in creativity-based research, she adds, is the general ambiguity of the term and the fact that “creativity means different things to different people.” Regardless, she is excited to continue answering the question of how researchers can define and measure creativity. To expand on this question, she notes that “with the advancements in [artificial intelligence] and machine learning… there’s the question of how does AI help with creativity, or can AI be creative?” According to Ngoon, AI can’t be creative on its own, “but it can push people to be more creative.” Ngoon is passionate about shifting the question from how do researchers help “computers themselves [be] ‘creative’?” to “how do [researchers] help computers or technology help people be more creative?”

Currently, in the spotlight of Ngoon’s research and involvement with The Design Lab is her recently accepted paper, Shöwn: Adaptive Conceptual Guidance Aids Example Use in Creative Tasks, which will appear in the Designing Interactive Systems virtual conference this summer, 2021. Her research hypothesizes that providing “adaptive conceptual guidance” will improve a person’s implementation of examples within creative work, as opposed to providing a static example. Using the domain of web comics, “[researchers in the study] present concepts to people alongside examples as they work.” Ngoon adds that “It’s essentially a step towards coaching. For example, if [a person is] working on a comic you might present a concept to consider the framing or kind of the composition of the panel and then [show] examples of different types of framing and composition.” Ultimately, her research concluded that “these adaptive suggestions as a person is working in context really help with making a clear and more unique story. It kind of changes the way they look at their ideas because they are more likely to explore different [ones].” 

Beyond these research achievements, The Design Lab has opened new doors for Ngoon, both personally and professionally. The Design Lab facilitates a supportive and diverse community of researchers and practitioners in fields ranging from automation to healthcare. “I think that it has been really important seeing how different design research touches different fields,” she adds. “That, I think, is what is most possible in being part of The Design Lab.” Similarly, as someone who has been affiliated with The Design Lab for nearly six years, Ngoon reflects on the exponential growth of The Design Lab community over the years as it’s been “exciting to see.” On a more personal level, involvement with The Design Lab and UCSD has introduced Ngoon to the many exciting leisure activities that San Diego offers–from surfing at La Jolla shores and hiking in the neighboring mountains, to trivia night at a craft brewery. “I think that being here has been great for discovering all these different sorts of activities that I don’t think I would normally be able to do anywhere else, and I think that’s what makes The Design Lab within UCSD really special. As well as just being able to be in an environment where you have a good work-life balance just because there’s so many things around you.”

Having just defended her PhD, Ngoon’s future research will be at Carnegie Mellon University, where she will be a postdoctoral researcher working on a project with educational technologist, Amy Ogan. Their study will use data collected from various sensors inside the classroom to help teachers improve teaching methods. This project will “follow on some of [Ngoon’s] research on feedback and critique that [she] did in grad school,” and marks an exciting new endeavor for her eminent future. The future beyond Carnegie Mellon, however, is less clear. Regardless, Ngoon is certain that she would like to “continue doing research that is in creativity and in creativity support tools, and to be part of a lab or work environment that’s similar to The Design Lab in terms of its collegiately and interdisciplinarity.” Ngoon is grateful for her advisor, Scott Klemmer, for pushing her to be not just a better researcher, but a “better thinker,” and she is inspired to continue pursuing the question of what it means to be a creative coach.

Graduate student and Design Lab member, Tricia Ngoon has always been interested in the science of learning. “It was always kind of born in me that I would do some sort of higher education, academic, STEM route,” she says as she reflects on the heavy influence of education, science, and math in her youth. “My parents always encouraged me to explore different fields… I think when I was a kid, I wanted to be a lawyer at some point, then a marine biologist at another point, and then all these different things. My parents were always very supportive of that.”  It wasn’t until high school that her aspirations gained specificity–a community college course in psychology solidified her interest in both psychology and neuroscience. As an undergraduate, she studied psychology and then worked at a neuroscience lab at Stanford. While exploring what she wanted to do for grad school, she came across Scott Klemmer’s work with The Design Lab and was inspired to apply. Her eventual involvement with the Lab opened up many new doors and introduced exciting possibilities as the focus of her research pivoted onto creativity and human-computer-interaction.

Tricia Ngoon, PhD, UC San Diego, Design Lab member

While acting as a teaching assistant for design courses at UC San Diego, Ngoon was inspired to start thinking about creativity specifically. She realized that the relationship between creativity and problem-solving is complex. “Creativity is really hard to define and really hard to assess,” she notes. “You need to be able to quantify something… that is inherently not quantifiable.” Another challenge in creativity-based research, she adds, is the general ambiguity of the term and the fact that “creativity means different things to different people.” Regardless, she is excited to continue answering the question of how researchers can define and measure creativity. To expand on this question, she notes that “with the advancements in [artificial intelligence] and machine learning… there’s the question of how does AI help with creativity, or can AI be creative?” According to Ngoon, AI can’t be creative on its own, “but it can push people to be more creative.” Ngoon is passionate about shifting the question from how do researchers help “computers themselves [be] ‘creative’?” to “how do [researchers] help computers or technology help people be more creative?”

Currently, in the spotlight of Ngoon’s research and involvement with The Design Lab is her recently accepted paper, Shöwn: Adaptive Conceptual Guidance Aids Example Use in Creative Tasks, which will appear in the Designing Interactive Systems virtual conference this summer, 2021. Her research hypothesizes that providing “adaptive conceptual guidance” will improve a person’s implementation of examples within creative work, as opposed to providing a static example. Using the domain of web comics, “[researchers in the study] present concepts to people alongside examples as they work.” Ngoon adds that “It’s essentially a step towards coaching. For example, if [a person is] working on a comic you might present a concept to consider the framing or kind of the composition of the panel and then [show] examples of different types of framing and composition.” Ultimately, her research concluded that “these adaptive suggestions as a person is working in context really help with making a clear and more unique story. It kind of changes the way they look at their ideas because they are more likely to explore different [ones].” 

Beyond these research achievements, The Design Lab has opened new doors for Ngoon, both personally and professionally. The Design Lab facilitates a supportive and diverse community of researchers and practitioners in fields ranging from automation to healthcare. “I think that it has been really important seeing how different design research touches different fields,” she adds. “That, I think, is what is most possible in being part of The Design Lab.” Similarly, as someone who has been affiliated with The Design Lab for nearly six years, Ngoon reflects on the exponential growth of The Design Lab community over the years as it’s been “exciting to see.” On a more personal level, involvement with The Design Lab and UCSD has introduced Ngoon to the many exciting leisure activities that San Diego offers–from surfing at La Jolla shores and hiking in the neighboring mountains, to trivia night at a craft brewery. “I think that being here has been great for discovering all these different sorts of activities that I don’t think I would normally be able to do anywhere else, and I think that’s what makes The Design Lab within UCSD really special. As well as just being able to be in an environment where you have a good work-life balance just because there’s so many things around you.”

Having just defended her PhD, Ngoon’s future research will be at Carnegie Mellon University, where she will be a postdoctoral researcher working on a project with educational technologist, Amy Ogan. Their study will use data collected from various sensors inside the classroom to help teachers improve teaching methods. This project will “follow on some of [Ngoon’s] research on feedback and critique that [she] did in grad school,” and marks an exciting new endeavor for her eminent future. The future beyond Carnegie Mellon, however, is less clear. Regardless, Ngoon is certain that she would like to “continue doing research that is in creativity and in creativity support tools, and to be part of a lab or work environment that’s similar to The Design Lab in terms of its collegiately and interdisciplinarity.” Ngoon is grateful for her advisor, Scott Klemmer, for pushing her to be not just a better researcher, but a “better thinker,” and she is inspired to continue pursuing the question of what it means to be a creative coach.

Graduate student and Design Lab member, Tricia Ngoon has always been interested in the science of learning. “It was always kind of born in me that I would do some sort of higher education, academic, STEM route,” she says as she reflects on the heavy influence of education, science, and math in her youth. “My parents always encouraged me to explore different fields… I think when I was a kid, I wanted to be a lawyer at some point, then a marine biologist at another point, and then all these different things. My parents were always very supportive of that.”  It wasn’t until high school that her aspirations gained specificity–a community college course in psychology solidified her interest in both psychology and neuroscience. As an undergraduate, she studied psychology and then worked at a neuroscience lab at Stanford. While exploring what she wanted to do for grad school, she came across Scott Klemmer’s work with The Design Lab and was inspired to apply. Her eventual involvement with the Lab opened up many new doors and introduced exciting possibilities as the focus of her research pivoted onto creativity and human-computer-interaction.

Tricia Ngoon, PhD, UC San Diego, Design Lab member

While acting as a teaching assistant for design courses at UC San Diego, Ngoon was inspired to start thinking about creativity specifically. She realized that the relationship between creativity and problem-solving is complex. “Creativity is really hard to define and really hard to assess,” she notes. “You need to be able to quantify something… that is inherently not quantifiable.” Another challenge in creativity-based research, she adds, is the general ambiguity of the term and the fact that “creativity means different things to different people.” Regardless, she is excited to continue answering the question of how researchers can define and measure creativity. To expand on this question, she notes that “with the advancements in [artificial intelligence] and machine learning… there’s the question of how does AI help with creativity, or can AI be creative?” According to Ngoon, AI can’t be creative on its own, “but it can push people to be more creative.” Ngoon is passionate about shifting the question from how do researchers help “computers themselves [be] ‘creative’?” to “how do [researchers] help computers or technology help people be more creative?”

Currently, in the spotlight of Ngoon’s research and involvement with The Design Lab is her recently accepted paper, Shöwn: Adaptive Conceptual Guidance Aids Example Use in Creative Tasks, which will appear in the Designing Interactive Systems virtual conference this summer, 2021. Her research hypothesizes that providing “adaptive conceptual guidance” will improve a person’s implementation of examples within creative work, as opposed to providing a static example. Using the domain of web comics, “[researchers in the study] present concepts to people alongside examples as they work.” Ngoon adds that “It’s essentially a step towards coaching. For example, if [a person is] working on a comic you might present a concept to consider the framing or kind of the composition of the panel and then [show] examples of different types of framing and composition.” Ultimately, her research concluded that “these adaptive suggestions as a person is working in context really help with making a clear and more unique story. It kind of changes the way they look at their ideas because they are more likely to explore different [ones].” 

Beyond these research achievements, The Design Lab has opened new doors for Ngoon, both personally and professionally. The Design Lab facilitates a supportive and diverse community of researchers and practitioners in fields ranging from automation to healthcare. “I think that it has been really important seeing how different design research touches different fields,” she adds. “That, I think, is what is most possible in being part of The Design Lab.” Similarly, as someone who has been affiliated with The Design Lab for nearly six years, Ngoon reflects on the exponential growth of The Design Lab community over the years as it’s been “exciting to see.” On a more personal level, involvement with The Design Lab and UCSD has introduced Ngoon to the many exciting leisure activities that San Diego offers–from surfing at La Jolla shores and hiking in the neighboring mountains, to trivia night at a craft brewery. “I think that being here has been great for discovering all these different sorts of activities that I don’t think I would normally be able to do anywhere else, and I think that’s what makes The Design Lab within UCSD really special. As well as just being able to be in an environment where you have a good work-life balance just because there’s so many things around you.”

Having just defended her PhD, Ngoon’s future research will be at Carnegie Mellon University, where she will be a postdoctoral researcher working on a project with educational technologist, Amy Ogan. Their study will use data collected from various sensors inside the classroom to help teachers improve teaching methods. This project will “follow on some of [Ngoon’s] research on feedback and critique that [she] did in grad school,” and marks an exciting new endeavor for her eminent future. The future beyond Carnegie Mellon, however, is less clear. Regardless, Ngoon is certain that she would like to “continue doing research that is in creativity and in creativity support tools, and to be part of a lab or work environment that’s similar to The Design Lab in terms of its collegiately and interdisciplinarity.” Ngoon is grateful for her advisor, Scott Klemmer, for pushing her to be not just a better researcher, but a “better thinker,” and she is inspired to continue pursuing the question of what it means to be a creative coach.

Read Next

Cancer Care Kentucky Design Lab Ucsd

Experiencing Cancer in Appalachian Kentucky

A new paper from The Design Lab's Melanie McComsey and Eliah Aronoff-Spencer describes a new framework for improving #cancer care in Appalachian Kentucky. The project would leverage broadband connectivity and cancer communication research to make a difference in the lives of patients and their families.

Nothing tells the story of people working together better than a community quilt. A diversity of talents, colors, and materials brought together through skill and shared purpose. Perhaps never before have we as Americans needed a stronger reminder that many hands make short work of big problems. The work presented here by the L.A.U.N.C.H. Collaborative offers a new framework for health care that could be compared to a digital quilt, powered by community-based participatory design, with lived expertise and the newest advances in broadband-enabled connected health solutions. This work demonstrates the value and need to engage local communities and what can be learned when beneficiaries and traditional caregivers work together to develop healthcare solutions.
Design Lab Ailie Fraser Adobe Fellow

Adobe Selects Design Lab Student Ailie Fraser as a 2017 Adobe Fellow

UC San Diego Design Lab PhD Student Ailie Fraser has been selected as a 2017…

Design Lab Michael Meyer Navy Thebridge

Design Lab Faculty Reflects on Inspiring the First Design-Thinking Workshop on a Warship

By Michael Meyer A few months ago, Naval Air Force Cmdr. Jeremy Vellon participated in a design-thinking…

UC Adopts Recommendations For The Responsible Use Of Artificial Intelligence

UC adopts recommendations for the responsible use of Artificial Intelligence

Camille Nebeker, Ed.D., associate professor with appointments in the UC San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science and the Design Lab

The University of California Presidential Working Group on Artificial Intelligence was launched in 2020 by University of California President Michael V. Drake and former UC President Janet Napolitano to assist UC in determining a set of responsible principles to guide procurement, development, implementation, and monitoring of artificial intelligence (AI) in UC operations.

“The use of artificial intelligence within the UC campuses cuts across human resources, procurement, policing, student experience and healthcare. We, as an organization, did not have guiding principles to support responsible decision-making around AI,” said Nebeker, who co-founded and directs the Research Center for Optimal Digital Ethics Health at UC San Diego, a multidisciplinary group that conducts research and provides education to support ethical digital health study practices.
Subtance Addiction Digital Health

The Digital Health Landscape in Addiction and Substance Use Research: Will Digital Health Exacerbate or Mitigate Health Inequities in Vulnerable Populations?

A new paper from Design Lab member Camille Nebeker

Novel and emerging digital health technologies are increasingly used in substance use and addiction-related self-management and treatment research. The promise of digital health is exciting, yet there are important factors regarding population characteristics to consider prior to using novel technologies with vulnerable populations. This paper by Camille Nebeker, Design Lab member and UCSD Behavioral Medicine professor, and Dina Hamideh reports a review of scientific literature published between 2015 and early 2020 on the use of digital health strategies in research focused on substance use and addiction in vulnerable populations.

An Introduction to Bill Fulton, The Design Lab’s Visiting Policy Designer

An Introduction to Bill Fulton, The Design Lab’s Visiting Policy Designer How might we help…

Back To Top