What can you do with a Ph.D in computer science?

PhD in Computer Science: What are the best Phd research topics ideas in HCI?

• I've got the master degree in computer science and now I am planning to do the PhD. Actually I consider the difficult part is how to find the good topic (new, enjoyable and easy to study). Recently I become interest in HCI, but I never joined in any program about it, so I am wondering if that will  hinder me if I wanted to study it in PhD degree ? if not, can you help to find the research topic or field (I like the design and I hate the programing of applications). Could you advice me how can I find good resources about HCI and what should I learn and do before starting in PhD study. Please help me. I am waiting for your advices and I will appreciate that.

• Answer:

  Of course, "best" and "enjoyable" and "easy" are subjective, but here are some starting points: New interaction techniques. How can we interact with computers in more natural ways? Check out Chris Harrison's work here: http://www.chrisharrison.net/index.php/Research/Welcome Sensor technology. How can we use sensors to inform computers about our activities? Scott Hudson does interesting work in that field: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~hudson/research.html Technology in education. Now that we know how people learn, how can we use technology to help? Ken Koedinger's research focuses on that: http://pact.cs.cmu.edu/koedinger.html Using technology to help people with disabilities. There are several approaches. Jeff Bigham's VizWiz uses crowdsourcing to provide information for people with visual impairments: http://www.vizwiz.org/. Jennifer Mankoff also researches this field, but I'm less familiar with her work: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jmankoff/ Service Design. This focuses less on the technologies we create, and more on the entire experience that UX research can inform and develop. Jodi Forlizzi and John Zimmerman frequently work in this area. This paper explains it more: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1836232 This list is slightly biased towards research at the Carnegie Mellon Human-Computer Interaction Institute, since I'm a student there. Fascinating research is being done at the HCII in a variety of areas, so I'd suggest that you browse through the faculty websites for more information. Good luck with your search!