Thursday, June 19, 2008
Multi-touch Interaction Design Techniques: Links to Resources from AVI 2008 - Advanced Visual Interfaces Conference
ACM-SIGCHI, ACM-SIGMM, and SIGCHI recently held the AVI 2008: Advanced Visual Interfaces conference in Naples, Italy. Topics covered included interaction models and techniques, interactive visualization, interactive systems, and user interaction studies.
I found the information linked below worth exploring:
Workshop on Designing Multi-touch Interaction Techniques for Coupled Public and Private Displays pdf
Slides and videos from the workshop
From the conference website:
"This workshop will specifically focus on the research challenges in designing touch interaction techniques for the combination of small touch driven private input displays such as iPhones coupled with large touch driven public displays such as the Diamondtouch or Microsoft Surface."
Topics of Interest
- Understanding the design space and identifying factors that influence user interactions in this space
- The impact of social conventions on the design of suitable interaction techniques for shared and private displays
- Exploring interaction techniques that facilitate multi-display interfaces
- Personal displays as physical objects for the development of interaction techniques with shared multi-touch displays
- Novel interaction techniques for both private and public multi-touch devices as part of multi-display environments
- Techniques for supporting input re-direction and distributing information between displays
- Developing evaluation strategies to cope with the complex nature of multi-display environments
- Ethnography and user studies on the use of coupled public and private display environments"
Call for Papers for Personal and Ubiquitous Computing Special Issue
Pictures from the Multi-touch Interaction Workshop Publication:
Monday, May 26, 2008
Interdisciplinary Research in Computer Science and Information Technology: Revisiting the Equator Project
One of my goals is to participate in interdisciplinary research, although I am very much aware that doctoral-level research should focus on a narrow topic, explored in great depth.
Unfortunately, the research articles that appeal to me the most are those that were written by interdisciplinary teams, or by teams that built upon ideas and research from other fields. One of the outcomes of this sort of research is that the knowledge is shared across many research communities. In my opinion, his sort of "distributed cognition" has the potential to support innovative thinking, in the form of software, products, and processes, in ways that we have not yet imagined.
One example of interesting interdisciplinary research was the Equator Project According to the project website, the Equator project ran from 2000 through 2006, with many publications presented at various conferences through 2007. Equator was involved with a "series of research challenges explored (a) new classes of device which link the physical and the digital, (b) adaptive software architectures and (c) new design and evaluation methods, which draw together approaches from social science, cognitive science and art and design. Equator involved over 60 researchers, with a range of expertise encompassing computer science, psychology, sociology, design and the arts."
Right up my alley!
As an undergraduate student, I had a double major in psychology and social science. I took a few courses in the arts at the university level, such as dance and dance composition, jazz, and art education. When I returned to school at mid-life, courses I took included computer music technology, computer multimedia, programming, web development, human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, game design, and visualization.
(I'm a school psychologist, so my previous graduate work had an interdisciplinary focus, required for psychologists trained to work in the schools.)
Back to the Equator Project.
On the Equator website, there is a page with links to videos about some of the spin-off businesses generated from project. You can also find video clips of devices and tools that were developed through various research endeavors, playing and learning experience projects, an Infrastructure Toolkit, and much, much more.
Here is a description of the three major challenges addressed by the Equator Project, from the website:
* "The Devices challenge focuses on the devices used to interleave physical and digital interaction. During the last three years, Equator has created a variety of new devices that establish different relationships between the physical and the digital. It has also generated a variety of more generic sensing, display and power technologies that are emerging as a common fabric across the IRC."
* "The Infrastructure challenge focuses on the infrastructure required to support the dynamic assembly of new devices into coherent user experiences. We have taken an emergent approach by seeking to generalise from our experiences across the different installations deployed across Equator. This takes the form of a collection and structuring of the key components developed to support our experiences, reflection on our software architectures and the development of toolkits to reduce the cost of their construction."
* "The Understanding Interaction challenge focuses on outlining the key concepts required to support our understanding of the interweaving of physical and digital interaction, and the methods needed to design and evaluate systems in this area."
Research themes and applications included the following:
The project website has a wealth of teaching and learning resources, including reading lists, images, videos, animations, and presentation slides.
Addendum
The following information is for the benefit of people who are considering furthering their education in a computer/'technology related field, as it provides information about a wide area of study that most people don't normally associate with computer science or IT. High school guidance counselors need to review this information!
About 12 of the 83 or so researchers on the Equator Project were female, which is important to note.
People involved with the Equator Project, with links to each researcher's areas of interest:
University of Bristol, Wearable Computing Project
Chris Setchell
University of Glasgow, Computer Science Department
Scott Sherwood, Paul Tennent, Matthew Chalmers, Marek Bell, Malcolm Hall, Louise Barkhuus, John Ferguson, Barry Brown, Areti Galani
University of Lancaster, Equator Team (Ubiquitous Computing, Distributed Systems, Human-Computer Interaction, Ethnomethodology)
Oliver Storz, Nicolas Villar, Masitah Ghazali Martyn Welch, Martin Strohbach, Mark Rouncefield, Kristof Van Laerhoven, Jennifer Sheridan, Guy Dewsbury, Alan Dix, Adrian Friday
University of Nottingham, Mixed Reality Laboratory
Shahram Izadi, Rob Anastasi, Martin Flintham, Mark Paxton, Malcom Foster, Kher Hui Ng (Marina),
Jonathan Green, Jan Humble, Holger Schnadelbach, Hazel Glover, Dave Kirk, Daniel Fielding, Damian Schofield, Chris Greenhalgh, Boriana Koleva, Andy Crabtree, Alastair Hampshire, Adam Drozd
Royal College of Art, Interaction Design Research Studio (now at Goldmiths)
Brendan Walker, Gianni Tozzi,
Goldsmiths College, Interaction Research Studio
Toby Kerridge, Sarah Pennington , Konstantinos Grivas, John Bowers, Jacob Beaver, Jac Fennell, Bill Gaver, Bas Raijmakers, Andy Law, Andy Boucher
University of Southampton, Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia (IAM) Group
Wendy Hall, David De Roure, Mike Saywell, Mark Weal, Don Cruickshank, David Millard, Danius Michaelides, Ben Deitch
University of Sussex, Interact Lab
Sam Wolfe, Rowanne Fleck, Paul Marshall, Mark Stringer, Manuela Jungmann, Hillary Smith, Greg Hooper, Geraldine Fitzpatrick, Eva Hornecker, Eric Harris, Cian O'Connor, Anthony Phillips
University College of London, Virtual Environments and Computer Graphics Group
William Steptoe, Vinoba Vinayagamoorthy, Russell Freeman, Richard Milton, Mel Slater, Joel Jordan, Jean-Daniel Nahmias, Celine Loscos, Ashwin Beeharee, Anthony Steed, Andrea Brogni
Other researchers who were involved in this project in some way can be found in the Publications section of the Equator website.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Link to article: Demonstrating the Feasibility of Using Forearm Electromyography for Muscle-Computer Interfaces
I couldn't resist posting a link to an interesting article, Demonstrating the Feasibility of Using Forearm Electromyography for Muscle-Computer Interfaces, that was shared at the recent CHI 2008 conference in Florence, Italy.
- CHI 2008, April 5–10, 2008, Florence, Italy.
Copyright 2008 ACM 978-1-60558-011-1/08/04
About the Authors:
Desney Tan, a researcher at Microsoft, is one of the article's authors. Tan is known for his research with large screen displays, and also for his work with emerging forms of human/computer/technology interaction. T. Scott Saponas is a fourth-year Ph.D student at the University of Washington and was recently selected as a 2008 Microsoft Research Fellow. Ravin Balakrishnan is an associate professor at of computer science at the University of Toronto. (Balakrishnan was the co-author of Exploring the feasibility of video mail for illiterate users. Proceedings of AVI 2008 - the Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces.)
Back Story:
I came across this article while preparing slides for a presentation during a pre-conference session at the Games for Health conference in May. I'll be discussing usability and accessibility considerations for children's games for health in K-12 settings, from a UDL (Universal Design for Learning) perspective. UDL is closely related to the concepts of Universal Design and Universal Usability(pdf).
A muscle-computer interface might provide some creative ways to include students with special needs many more opportunities to participate with their "non-disabled" peers, especially in inclusive classrooms.
Traditional assistive technology input devices don't quite make it for some of the students, as many are difficult for teachers, therapists, or parents to program. The purpose behind the devices is to allow one student to access applications- or games- on one computer (or console). In many cases, the devices only work on certain applications or websites. Even if the student CAN access the application, game, or website through an assistive device, the application might not be designed to accommodate the special needs, or accommodate alternate modes of input, interaction, or feedback.
Although assistive technology and augmented communication devices used in education setting allows for some peer-to-peer and student-to-staff-to-student interaction, it is not designed for collaborative technologies, including multi-user learning games and applications, such as EduSim, that usually run on on larger displays and interactive whiteboards, found an increasing number of classrooms.
The muCI interface might prove to be an effective way for children, teens, and adults with special needs to interact with kiosks and interactive information displays that they come across in the community. These displays are becoming ubiquitous in in retail environments, museums, airports, hospitals, and other public spaces. If the applications for displays in public spaces are designed to allow for input from something like the muCI interface, and if future versions of the muCI interface are designed for cross-platform interoperability, the chances of effective community integration for people with special needs of all ages will be vastly improved.
We have a long way to go. It is essential that the teams who participate in this type of research include people from a variety of disciplines and examine this space from a broader perspective.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Who studies ubiquitous/pervasive computing?
Last year I took a course in Ubicomp, and as I delved into the research, I learned that people from a variety of disciplines are involved in this area.
I didn't return to school until mid-life, after working for many years as a school psychologist. My second major as an undergraduate was social science, and it's exciting to see what people in the social science are doing in this forward-looking, interdisciplinary field.
I've come across a few more interesting researcher-bloggers, and I'd like to devote some of my future posts highlighting some of their work and accomplishments.
I mentioned in a previous post that Sam Kinsey, a PhD candidate in cultural geography at the School of Geographical Sciences in the University of Bristol, is focusing his research in Ubicomp.
Sam Kinsey's current proposed thesis title:
"Practicing the technics of disappearance: emergent spatialities and the experimental development of ubiquitous computing."
Anne Galloway is a Ph.D candidate and a lecturer in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology at Carleton University, in Ottawa, Canada. Take a look at her Purse Lips Square Jaw and Space and Culture sites/blogs.
Anne's blog statement:
"My research interests can be found at the intersections of space, culture and technology. I particularly enjoy critical social and cultural theory, social studies of science and technology, design and new media studies, material culture studies and qualitative methodologies."
More later!
