<!–Speaker: Jim Young, University of Manitoba, Canada
Date/Time: 1-2pm June 12, 2012
Location: 1.33a Jack Cole, University of St Andrews (directions)–>
Abstract:
Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), broadly, is the study of how people and robots can work together. This includes core interaction design problems of creating interfaces for effective robot control and communication with people, and sociological and psychological studies of how people and robots can share spaces or work together. In this talk I will introduce several of my past HRI projects, ranging from novel control schemes for collocated or remote control, programming robotic style by demonstration, and developing foundations for evaluating human-robot interaction, and will briefly discuss my current work in robotic authority and gender studies of human-robot interaction. In addition, I will introduce the JST ERATO Igarashi Design Interface Project, a large research project directed by Dr. Takeo Igarashi, which I have been closely involved over the last several years.
About Jim:
James (Jim) Young is an Assistant Professor at the University of Manitoba, Canada, where he founded the Human-Robot Interaction lab, and is involved with the Human-Computer Interaction lab with Dr. Pourang Irani and Dr. Andrea Bunt. He received his BSc from Vancouver Island University in 2005, and completed his PhD in Social Human-Robot Interaction at the University of Calgary in 2010 with Dr. Ehud Sharlin, co-supervised by Takeo Igarashi at the University of Tokyo. His background is rooted strongly in the intersection of sociology and human-robot interaction, and in developing robotic interfaces which leverage people’s existing skills rather than making them learn new ones.

<!–Speaker: Tristan Henderson, SACHI
Date/Time: 1-2pm May 29, 2012
Location: 1.33a Jack Cole, University of St Andrews (directions)–>
Abstract:
The prevalence of social network sites and smartphones has led to many people sharing their locations with others. Privacy concerns are seldom addressed by these services; the default privacy settings may be either too restrictive or too lax, resulting in under-exposure or over-exposure of location information.
One mechanism for alleviating over-sharing is through personalised privacy settings that automatically change according to users’ predicted preferences. This talk will describe how we use data collected from a location-sharing user study (N=80) to investigate whether users’ willingness to share their locations can be predicted. We find that while default settings match actual users’ preferences only 68% of the time, machine-learning classifiers can predict up to 85% of users’ preferences. Using these predictions instead of default settings would reduce the over-exposed location information by 40%.
This work has mainly been performed by my PhD student Greg Bigwood, but Tristan will be presenting the paper (at the AwareCast Pervasive workshop) because Greg will be busy in St Andrews graduating!
About Tristan

<!–Speaker: Helen Purchase, University of Glasgow
Date/Time: 1-2pm May 15, 2012
Location: 1.33a Jack Cole, University of St Andrews (directions)–>
Abstract:
The visual design of an interface is not merely an ‘add-on’ to the functionality provided by a system: it is well-known that it can affect user preference, engagement and motivation, but does it have any effect on user performance? Can the efficiency or effectiveness of a system be improved by its visual design? This seminar will report on experiments that investigate whether any such effect can be quantified and tested. Key to this question is the definition of an unambiguous, quantifiable characterisation of an interface’s ‘visual aesthetic’: ways in which this could be determined will be discussed.
About Helen:
Dr Helen Purchase is Senior Lecturer in the School of Computing Science at the University of Glasgow. She has worked in the area of empirical studies of graph layout for several years, and also has research interests in visual aesthetics, task-based empirical design, collaborative learning in higher education, and sketch tools for design. She is currently writing a book on empirical methods for HCI research.

<!–Speaker: Umer Rashid, University of St Andrews, UK
Date/Time: 1-2pm May 1, 2012
Location: 1.33a Jack Cole, University of St Andrews (directions)–>
Abstract:
A very apparent drawback of mobile devices is that their screens do not allow for the display of large amounts of information at once without requiring interaction, which limits the possibilities for information access and manipulation on the go. Attaching a large external display can help a mobile device user view more content at once. We report on a study investigating how different configurations of input and output across displays affect task performance, subjective workload and preferences in map, text and photo search tasks.  After conducting a detailed analysis of the performance differences across different UI configurations, we provide recommendations for the design of distributed user interfaces.
About Umer:
Umer Rashid has conducted my PhD research under the supervision of Prof. Aaron Quigley in the School of Computer Science at University of St Andrews. The goal of his research is to look into the ways mobile interaction with external large displays can complement the inherent capabilities of each device, thus resulting into an enhanced user experience.
 

<!–Speaker: Helen Ai He, University of Calgary, Canada
Date/Time: 1-2pm April 10th, 2012
Location: 1.33a Jack Cole, University of St Andrews (directions)–>
Abstract:
Global warming, and the climate change it induces, is an urgent global issue. One remedy to this problem, and the focus of this talk, is to motivate eco-behaviors by people. One approach is the development of technologies that provide real-time feedback of energy usage (e.g. in the form of watts, monetary cost, or carbon emissions).
However, there is one problem – most technologies use a “one-size-fits-all” solution, providing the same feedback to differently motivated individuals at different stages of readiness, willingness and ableness to change. I synthesize a wide range of motivational psychology literature to develop a motivational framework based on the Stages of Change (aka Transtheoretical) Model. If you are at all interested in motivation, behaviour change, or designing technologies to motivate behaviour change, this talk may be useful for you.
About Helen:
Helen Ai He completed her Masters in Computer Science (specializing in HCI) at the University of Calgary, Canada, under the supervision of Dr. Saul Greenberg and Dr. Elaine May Huang.
She worked as a software developer in SMART Technologies for a year and a half, and plans to begin an HCI PhD in September 2012. She is particularly interested in topics such as personal informatics, cross-cultural research, technology design for developing regions, and sustainable interaction design. Aside from research, she enjoys doing karate, climbing, artwork, and eating!

<!–Speaker: Sriram Subramanian, University of Bristol
Date/Time: 1-2pm March 6th, 2012
Location: 1.33a Jack Cole, University of St Andrews (directions)–>
Abstract:
The talk will present some of the recent research endeavours of the Bristol Interaction and Graphics group. The group has been exploring various technical solutions to create the next generation of touch interfaces that support multi-point haptic feedback as well as dynamic allocation of views to different users. The talk will rely on a lot of videos of on-going work to illustrate and describe our systems. I expect the talk to be accessible to all computer scientists and even to the lay public. Thus I particularly welcome discussion, feedback, and critique from the community.
About Sriram:
Dr. Sriram Subramanian is a Reader at the University of Bristol with a research interests in Human-computer Interaction (HCI). He is specifically interested in new forms of physical input. Before joining the University of Bristol, he worked as a senior scientist at Philips Research Netherlands and as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. You can find more details of his research interests at his groups page http://big.cs.bris.ac.uk

<!–Speaker: Annalu Waller, University of Dundee
Date/Time: 1-2pm February 21st, 2012
Location: 1.33a Jack Cole, University of St Andrews (directions)–>
Abstract:
Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) attempts to augment natural speech, or to provide alternative ways to communicate for people with limited or no speech. Technology has played an increasing role in AAC. At the most simplest level, people with complex communication needs (CCN) can cause a prestored message to be spoken by activating a single switch. At the most sophisticated level, literate users can generate novel text. Although some individuals with CCN become effective communicators, most do not – they tend to be passive communicators, responding mainly to questions or prompts at a one or two word level. Conversational skills such as initiation, elaboration and story telling are seldom observed.
One reason for the reduced levels of communicative ability is that AAC technology provides the user with a purely physical link to speech output. The user is required to have sufficient language abilities and physical stamina to translate what they want to say into the code sequence of operations needed to produce the desired output. Instead of placing all the cognitive load on the user, AAC devices can be designed to support the cognitive and language needs of individuals with CCN, taking into account the need to scaffold communication as children develop into adulthood. A range of research projects, including systems to support personal narrative and language play, will be used to illustrate the application of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Natural Language Generation (NLG) in the design and implementation of electronic AAC devices.
About Annalu:
Dr Annalu Waller is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Computing at the University of Dundee. She has worked in the field of Augmentative and Alternate Communication (AAC) since 1985, designing communication systems for and with nonspeaking individuals. She established the first AAC assessment and training centre in South Africa in 1987 before coming to Dundee in 1989. Her PhD developed narrative technology support for adults with acquired dysphasia following stroke. Her primary research areas are human computer interaction, natural language generation, personal narrative and assistive technology. In particular, she focuses on empowering end users, including disabled adults and children, by involving them in the design and use of technology. She manages a number of interdisciplinary research projects with industry and practitioners from rehabilitation engineering, special education, speech and language therapy, nursing and dentistry. She is on the editorial boards of several academic journals and sits on the boards of a number of national and international organisations representing disabled people.

<!–Speaker: Ken Scott-Brown, University of Abertay Dundee
Date/Time: 1-2pm February 7th, 2012
Location: 1.33a Jack Cole, University of St Andrews (directions)–>
Abstract:
In this talk I review examples from industry engagement activity that have taken well known theory in cognitive science and used them to address common HCI problems by forming new questions that have in turn lead to interface development. In the first part of the talk I discuss how a multi-disciplinary team including input from computer arts, computer games programming, engineering and psychology developed a multi-touch application to visualise financial planning targets on a Microsoft Surface. In the second part of the talk I will discuss how assistive agents displaying deictic gaze cuing have been implemented and evaluated using touch screen displays and eye-movement recording equipment. Both examples demonstrate how a practice-based approach to animation and an appreciation of vision science contribute to the understanding and development of intuitive interface design and implementation. The critical feature is the development of authentic animation conforming to the artistic principles of animation and the biological limits of the human visual system.
Bio:
Ken Scott-Brown is a lecturer at the Centre for Psychology at Abertay. After completing his Honours Degree and PhD in Psychology here at St Andrews he then undertook post-doc research posts at Glasgow Caledonian University, St Andrews, and Nottingham before taking on his current role. He is a currently Principal Investigator on a series of industry and public sector funded grants; and a collaborator on several more cross-discipline research projects. The projects are linked by the theme of data visualisation and interaction using a blend of approaches informed by Cognitive Science and exploiting technologies and skills from the Computer Games Industry.
 

<!–Speaker: Adrian Friday, University of Lancaster
Date/Time: 4-5pm January 9th, 2012
Location: 1.33a Jack Cole, University of St Andrews (directions)–>
Abstract:

Previous work in eco-feedback has focused either on new sensing technologies, or on people’s responses to specific feedback devices and other interventions placed in their homes. We attempt to take a comprehensive approach based on a large scale deployment of off the shelf sensors coupled with face to face interviews to account for both the amount of energy that specific appliances draw upon, and what occupant practices rely upon the services provided by these appliances. We performed a study in four student flats (each with 7–8 occupants) over a twenty-day period, collecting data from over two hundred sensors and conducting interviews with 11 participants. We build an account of life in the flats, and how that connects to the energy consumed. Our goal is to understand the challenges in accounting for both resources and practices at home, and what these challenges mean for the design of future feedback devices and interventions aimed at reducing energy consumption. In this talk we share results of our recent analysis and our experiences of conducting Ubicomp deployments using off the shelf sensors to study energy use.
 

<!–Speaker: Mark Wright, University of Edinburgh
Date/Time: 1-2pm December 6th, 2011
Location: 1.33a Jack Cole, University of St Andrews (directions)–>
Abstract:
The cultural significance of Informatics is that it provides new forms of digital embodiment which lead to evolution of practices and meaning.
Engagement of Informatics with Design is a key approach to explore this relationship between technology and culture. This talk outlines how such an approach was developed over an extended period of engagement with the Arts and Humanities and Practitioners in the Digital Creative Industries.
Two projects in particular are used to illustrate this process Tacitus and Spellbinder.
Tacitus was a major AHRC/EPSRC project which explored tacit knowledge in designers and makers and how this could be support by computer design systems.
A novel haptic design system was developed which demonstrated significant improvements in ease of use.
Spellbinder was a new form of mobile application based on image matching using camera phones. Funded by the “Designing for the 21st Century” AHRC/EPSRC initiative we explored the potential of this new medium through an iterative series of workshops, intense design interventions and reflection which we termed Research by Design.