Donald McMillan

Donald McMillan is an Associate Professor (Docent) in Human-Computer Interaction at Stockholm University's Department of Computer and Systems Sciences. He is a core member of the Stockholm Technology & Interaction Research (STIR) group, which brings together technologists and social scientists to research and build new digital technologies within the Human-Computer Interaction field.

His research focuses on the adoption, adaptation, and use of novel technology in everyday settings, with particular emphasis on expanding the interactional repertoire of conversational interfaces. McMillan investigates how insights from fluid human-human communication can inform the development of better human-computer interaction paradigms through machine learning applications. His work often examines the contextual and social dimensions of technology use in real-world environments.

Currently, McMillan serves as Principal Investigator for the Advanced Adaptive Intelligent Systems project, which develops new ways for robots and intelligent agents to understand and adapt to human collaborative work, and the Designing New Speech Interfaces with Ambient Audio project. He is also involved in the Implicit Interaction project. Previous projects include Autonomous Last Mile (developing Extended Reality experiences for human intervention in autonomous vehicle scenarios) and From Tracking to Hacking (exploring how people interact with technology to hack traditional sleep schedules).

• Advanced Adaptive Intelligent Systems: Developing adaptive interaction frameworks for intelligent systems
• Designing New Speech Interfaces with Ambient Audio: Expanding conversational capabilities through environmental audio analysis
• Implicit Interaction: Exploring subtle, background interaction paradigms
• Autonomous Last Mile: Creating XR experiences for human-robot collaboration scenarios
• From Tracking to Hacking: Investigating technology adaptation for non-normative sleep patterns

His extensive publication record demonstrates deep expertise across multiple HCI domains, with recent work focusing on conversational interfaces, ethical AI considerations, gaze patterns in speech interaction, and contextual wearable technology use. McMillan's research methodology often combines empirical studies of real-world technology use with design implications for future systems, resulting in practical contributions to the field of Human-Computer Interaction.