Eric Rawn

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Hi! I'm Eric.

PhD Student at UC Berkeley in Computer Science, advised by Sarah Chasins.

erawn at berkeley dot edu.

Google Scholar.

Github.

I study programming practice: how people use programs to learn about the world and think through their work. Using long-term qualitative methods, like participant observation, codesign, and in-situ deployments, I develop programming language interventions and programming systems for scientists, data analysts, and artists.

I also have interests in the intellectual history of HCI, the politics of computing, and philosophical discussions around action and practical reason.

Pagebreaks: Multi-Cell Scopes in Computational Notebooks

Eric Rawn and Sarah Chasins

Global variables in computational notebooks are confusing, but notebook users are reluctant to use functions. We understand why and built a new way to express scopes in notebooks. In a month-long in-situ study, we explore the different ways scopes organize code for our participants.

PDF Link CHI '25

The Work and Vision of Ubiquitous Computing at Xerox PARC

Eric Rawn

Tracing archival records of both the ideas and technologies, this article examines the practical work of Ubiquitous Computing as deployed by Mark Weiser in the late 1980's and early 1990's.

PDF Link IEEE Annals of the History of Computing '24

Beyond the Artifact: Power as a Lens for Creativity Support Tools

Jingyi Li, Eric Rawn, Jacob Ritchie, Jasper Tran O`Leary, and Sean Follmer

When we see a creativity support tool (CST), we should see a power relationship. From interviews with 11 creative practitioners and tool designers, we build a preliminary theory of how power relationships can manifest in CSTs, and what we could do about it.

PDF Link UIST '23

Understanding Version Control as Material Interaction with Quickpose

Eric Rawn, Jingyi Li, Eric Paulos, and Sarah Chasins

Working with materials involves iteration, reflection, and tacit knowledge building. For creative coders, we argue that version control systems are one way to support thinking about code like a material and built Quickpose to see how. We ran a month-long study with Processing artists, using their versions to chart their creative process.

PDF Link CHI '23

Laser Cut Layered Gels for Lighting Design

Eric Rawn and Jingyi Li

Stage and theatrical lighting requires physical filters to color lights. We created a system to approximate an arbitrary image by laser cutting a series of gels which are layered together, allowing lighting designers to iterate much faster and more cheaply.

PDF Link CHI '20 LBW

Let It Rip! Using Velcro for Acoustic Labeling

Eric Rawn and Tzu-Sheng Kuo - UIST ’21 Poster

Different shapes of velcro make slightly different sounds when ripped, which we trained a model to recognize. We argue that Velcro presents opportunities for passive acoustic activity labeling, based on sounds already in our enviornment

PDF Link UIST '21 Poster