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Prof Lizette de Wet, pioneer in the field of Human Computer Interaction

10 February 2021 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Stephen Collett

“I consider obtaining my PhD while balancing my work, my marriage, and two young daughters (who did not sleep through before reaching age four!) as one of my biggest achievements,” says Prof Lizette de Wet, Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Informatics at the University of the Free State (UFS).

Many firsts

Her achievements in the field include much more than the PhD referred to. On 11 February, International Day of Women and Girls in Science, the UFS celebrates her for pioneering the human-computer interaction (HCI) research environment, specifically the evaluation of usability and user experience in diverse application areas, where she has experienced and established many firsts.

Prof De Wet was one of the first students to complete a master’s degree in this discipline at UNISA (1994). She says the external examiner for her master’s was from the University of York in the UK, as expertise in South Africa was still lacking at the time.

In the Department of Computer Science and Informatics at the UFS, she established the HCI research area. This involved undertaking research projects in the discipline and developing curricula for a second-year module, an honours module, and a master’s module.

“The second-year module was also one of two modules on campus to first use iPads in class to assist in a blended learning approach,” she says.

Taking the human being into consideration is much more important than simply concentrating on the programming code that needs to be written.– Prof Lizette de Wet

A woman’s contribution

Prof De Wet believes that in the research field of HCI, the focus is on the user and his/her overall user experience (including emotions, feelings, and competence) when using computers. “Taking the human being into consideration is much more important than simply concentrating on the programming code that needs to be written.”

Whether the human being writing the code is male or female, does not matter. Prof De Wet is of the opinion that there is no gender distinction between what women and men could achieve in the field of Computer Science and Informatics.

“Although the students are still predominantly male, in the past few years more and more female students have enrolled for our postgraduate studies and completed it successfully, some of them with exceptional marks. In South-Africa, many women are making their mark in this discipline by being heads of departments at universities or in the private sector, by chairing national and international conferences, and by publishing ground-breaking research,” she adds.

Success with virtual reality

Over the past few years, Prof De Wet has concentrated on using brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and virtual reality in her research. By the end of 2020, she had successfully supervised 11 master’s students and four PhD students, with one of the master’s students delivering ground-breaking research using virtual reality in the training of nursing students.

She elaborates: “The prototype involved virtually examining and evaluating a patient (with a foreign object lodged in a lung) in a virtual ward while wearing an Oculus Rift headset. The evaluation results were extremely positive and will be continued as a PhD study to investigate how to attempt to relieve motion sickness in an immersive virtual clinical simulation.”

Starting out as someone who never had the opportunity to lay her eyes on a computer during her school years, Prof De Wet is of the opinion that in South Africa – being a Third World country – there are numerous opportunities to make computers accessible to rural communities, and even to the large senior population who did not grow up with technology and might fear it.

With her passion for the profession, she not only delivers pioneering work, but also trains professionals in computer sciences who will contribute to a better tomorrow.

News Archive

Doing what must be done – Fourth Reconciliation Lecture by Colm McGivern

2015-03-17

Colm McGivern
Photo: Johan Roux

Fourth Reconciliation Lecture: Audio

McGivern: speech (pdf)

The UFS Annual Reconciliation Lecture brings leaders, scholars, and the broader community together in a shared vision for social change and conflict transformation. This event is organised by Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Senior Research Professor in Trauma, Forgiveness and Reconciliation Studies. In 2012, Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Prize Laureate for Literature, was the first speaker to deliver the lecture. This year, at the Fourth Annual Reconciliation Lecture held on the Bloemfontein Campus, Colm McGivern, Director of the British Council in South Africa, continued the legacy.

Doing what must be done
'I get down on my knees and do what must be done
And kiss Achilles' hand, the killer of my son.' (Ceasefire by Michael Longley)

Using this poem to powerful effect, McGivern showed what reconciliation asks of each and every citizen: to do what must be done. “I think that peace and reconciliation are mutually dependent,” he said. “You can’t maintain one over the long run without attending to the other.”

South Africa’s history has tracked along a similar path to that of Northern Ireland. “And lessons from other places can be powerful and instructive,” McGivern said. Sometimes reconciliation needs a focal point for people to clearly see its power, as Madiba has for South Africa. But at other times, reconciliation needs everyday citizens to “kiss Achilles’ hand’”.

McGivern mentioned Candice Mama and her family, who have recently forgiven Eugene de Kock,. Or as Gordon Wilson did after his daughter, Mary, died holding his hand in the 1987 Enniskillen bombing in Ireland. In a TV interview mere hours later, Wilson forgave the killers of his daughter, and hope rippled across Ireland.

Learning from others
“People’s capability,” McGivern said, “to reconcile their own differences, however stark, can be boosted by learning from others in other places, internationally or perhaps just beyond their own identity group.” A powerful truth now being pursued in a joined initiative between the British Council and Teaching Divided Histories.

As an example, McGivern referred to the short film, ‘In Peace Apart’ where one Catholic and one Protestant girl decide to swop school uniforms. Harnessing the potential of moving images and digital media, the initiative enables teachers to explore contentious issues of history and identity in the classroom. This international field of conflict education draws lessons “from activities in Sierra Leone, India, Lebanon, and, of course, South Africa.”

Resuscitation of the national spirit of magnanimity
Here in South Africa, Archbishop Desmund Tutu has “called for a resuscitation of the national spirit of magnanimity and common purpose”, McGivern quoted. In the book, 80 Moments that Shaped the World, South Africa appears four times, McGivern pointed out. And as Archbishop Tutu wrote in the foreword of the book, “no act is unforgivable; no person or country is beyond redemption and the world needs more people to reach out to one another.”

For more information or enquiries contact news@ufs.ac.za.

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