Jacob O. Wobbrock

Jacob O. Wobbrock is an American computer scientist and professor of human–computer interaction (HCI) at the University of Washington (UW), where he is a faculty member in the Information School and, by courtesy, the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. His research in HCI focuses on mobile and accessible computing, including text entry, pointing, touch and gesture input, human performance measurement and modeling, and HCI research and design methods. He co-founded the cross-campus design: use: build: (DUB) Group and the Master of Human-Computer Interaction and Design (MHCI+D) degree, directs the Accessible Computing Experiences (ACE) Lab, and is associate director and founding co-director emeritus of the Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences (CREATE).

Between his M.S. and Ph.D. from 1999 – 2001, Wobbrock worked at Silicon Valley startups DoDots and Google.

Research

Wobbrock joined the University of Washington faculty in 2006 as an Assistant Professor in the Information School, becoming Associate Professor in 2011 and full Professor in 2017; he also holds a courtesy appointment in Computer Science & Engineering.

His research seeks to understand people's performance and experiences with interactive technologies and to design, build, and evaluate new interaction techniques and systems, especially for people with disabilities. His other work on gesture recognition includes the $1 recognizer, a simple template-based recognizer for rapid prototyping, and the $P recognizer for point-cloud gestures, which later received 10-year lasting impact awards from ACM UIST and ACM ICMI, respectively.

In accessible mobile interaction, Wobbrock co-designed the Slide Rule system, which defined a set of touch and gesture interactions enabling blind people to use touchscreen devices for the first time; in 2008, Slide Rule was one of the first touch-driven screen readers. The work received the 2019 ACM SIGACCESS ASSETS Paper Impact Award.

Wobbrock has also contributed to methods and tools in HCI research. His work on end-user elicitation helped formalize how designers derive input vocabularies from user-suggested gestures and commands, and he developed ARTool, software for conducting nonparametric factorial analyses on Windows and in R.

He has co-authored more than 220 publications and 19 patents, receiving 36 paper awards, including multiple best paper and honorable mention awards from the ACM CHI conference and related venues.

Awards and honors

Wobbrock's research in HCI and accessible computing has been recognized with a number of awards, including:

2024 ACM UIST Lasting Impact Award for the $1 recognizer. 2019 ACM CHI Academy induction. 2019 and 2025 ACM SIGACCESS ASSETS Paper Impact Awards for long-term impact in accessible computing. 2006 Distinguished Dissertation Award from the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University. 2005, 2008, and 2009 NISH National Scholar Awards for Workplace Innovation and Design. 1998 Robert M. Golden Medal for Excellence in Humanities and Creative Arts, Stanford University.