Title: User Experience: a step towards Natural User Interfaces.
Abstract: The road to natural interfaces is still long and we are now witnessing an artificial naturality. These interfaces are natural, in the sense they employ hand gestures, but they are also artificial, because the system designer imposes the set of gestures. In this lecture we will explore together the benefits and issues of Natural User Interfaces.
Speaker biography: Alessio Malizia is a Professor of UX Design at the University of Hertfordshire and a distinguished speaker of the ACM (the international Association for Computer Machinery); he lives in London but is a “global soul” and has been living in Italy, Spain and US. He is the son of a blacksmith, but thereafter all pretensions of manual skills end. Prof. Malizia began his career as a bearded computer scientist at Sapienza – University of Rome and then, after an industrial experience in IBM and Silicon Graphics, moved on with a career in research. He was visiting researcher at the Xerox PARC where he was appreciated for his skills in neural networks (Multilayer Perceptrons) and as peanut butter and chocolate biscuits eater. He worked as Senior Lecturer at Brunel University London and as Associate Professor (and Spanish tapas aficionado) at the University Carlos III of Madrid. Prof Malizia’s research and teaching interests focus on Human-Centred Systems.
He is interested in the design of Ubiquitous Interactive Systems with a special focus on the End-User Development community. He is particularly interested in systems where the physical and digital become seamlessly intertwined producing a new hybrid landscape and the study of problems arising from designing such complex hybrid environments involving collaboration of various disciplines and stakeholders. In his role at the School of Creative Arts at University of Hertfordshire, he is keen to develop novel approaches and attract funding for improving methods to design almost invisible interfaces embedded in a physical environment naturally exploited by users’ innate interaction modalities.

Abstract:  This talk concentrates on our efforts over the years to make the harvesting of relevant data from mobile devices accurate and efficient, to allow on device data interpretation and to produce models able to interpret the data so that it can be exploited for a wide range of applications. In this sense I will describe specifics of our work which range from fitting mobile sensing inference on devices and how we are able to exploit local device heterogeneous computation resources efficiently to data analytics for mobile health and urban computing. I will discuss challenges and opportunities of the field throughout the talk.
Speaker Bio:  Cecilia Mascolo is a mother of a teenage daughter. She is also Full Professor of Mobile Systems in the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK, a Fellow of Jesus College Cambridge and a Faculty Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute for Data Science in London. Prior joining Cambridge in 2008, she has been a faculty member in the Department of Computer Science at University College London. She holds a PhD from the University of Bologna. Her research interests are in human mobility modelling, mobile and sensor systems and networking and spatio-temporal data analysis. She has published in a number of top tier conferences and journals in the area and her investigator experience spans projects funded by Research Councils and industry. She has received numerous best paper awards and in 2016 was listed in “10 Women in Networking /Communications You Should Know”. She has served as steering, organizing and programme committee member of mobile, sensor systems, networking, data science conferences and workshops. She has delivered a number of keynote talks at conferences and workshops in the area of mobility, data science, pervasive computing and systems. She is Associate Editor in Chief for IEEE Pervasive Computing and sits on the editorial boards of IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks and ACM Transactions on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies. More details at www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/cm542.

Steven Drost (CodeBase Chief Strategy Officer) and Jamie Coleman (CodeBase CoFounder and Chair) will talk about the topics that are rarely discussed in an academic environment around startups, product management, jobs to be done and disruption. Discussing aspects of UX, HCI, AI and systems development this is the stuff that they wish every computer scientist and startup founder knew before trying to create an innovative new business.
What is CodeBase?
CodeBase is the UK’s largest startup incubator, home to around 100 technology companies in Edinburgh and Stirling. It brings together ambitious entrepreneurs, world-class technological talent and top investors, in a creative, collaborative environment designed for the new digital economy. We host a vibrant, open community of experts in a diverse range of fields, with hands-on mentorship, networking and world-class business support. http://www.thisiscodebase.com
Jamie and Steven are quite inspiring speakers and if you are looking for project partners, collaborators or just to learn how to develop your ideas commercially, this could be a good talk for you.

SACHI Seminar – Large scale studies of habit changing interface design
Speaker: Matjaž Kljun
Abstract:
Various technologies can be used in persuading people to change their habits, behaviours or attitudes. Such technologies are defined as persuasive and they are used in a variety of fields such as marketing, public health and education.
We are daily exposed to persuasion through different visualizations and triggers on all our devices. For example, a social networking application tries to persuade us in opening the app with a push notification and once the app is opened other hooks are placed so we spend more time in it. However, such applications are usually installed by us and we are inclined in using them. But could we persuade highly busy professionals in completing a training course or just about everybody to read terms of service? We will discuss these issues through large-scale studies that have been in done in the wild.

Speaker biography: Matjaž Kljun is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technologies at University of Primorska and is co-directing the HICUP lab (Humans Interacting with Computers at University of Primorska) and a research associate at the Faculty of Information studies, Slovenia. He received his Ph.D. degree in computer science from Lancaster University, UK. His research interests span across various fields related to Human-Computer Interaction, Personal Information Management and the use of technologies in teaching and learning.

SACHI Seminar – The Missing Interface: Micro Gestures on Objects for Augmented Reality Interaction
Speaker: Klen Čopič Pucihar
Abstract:
Augmented reality technology can introduce digital elements to arbitrary objects. However, these objects were never designed to incorporate the digital component, hence do not provide the necessary interface. To overcome this limitation, AR Interaction systems add sensors to objects, use additional handheld hardware or perform hand and body tracking. These methods are not optimal for direct interaction with physical objects  because they:

• require modification of existing objects,
• require the the user to hold the controller in their hand,
• are based on synthesis of captured RGB or RGB-D data streams imposing the following limitations: (i) gestures need to be  performed within the view of the camera; (ii) the gestures include reasonable large hand or finger movements (e.g. pinching the fingers, blooming gesture of opening the palm; (iii) the hand performing gesture is not occluded (e.g. cannot detect gestures if performed whilst grasping an object).

In this talk Klen will look at alternative methods which try to overcome such limitations and make inconspicuous, precise and flexible object oriented interaction possible for both augmented and mediated reality applications.
Speaker Biography

Klen Čopič Pucihar is assistant professor at the Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technologies at University of Primorska. Klen’s research vision is to look for new ways in which one could augmented, modify and mediate rich sources of visual, auditory and tactile stimuli that fabricate our everyday life experiences. The goal is to augment human abilities with new ways of using computational resources. This is important because the interface presents itself as the bottleneck between us humans and the benefit ever increasing computational resources could have on our everyday life. This makes the interfaces the core challenge for the future and the essence of Klen’s research which is currently mainly concentrated on augmented reality, mobile computing and human-computer interaction focusing on different perceptual issues that arise whilst interacting with various computer systems which lead to innovative user interface designs. Klen’s work was published as high ranked scientific publications and won him best poster award at ISMAR 2014.

Abstract:  This talk is in two parts, in the first of which Adriana will focus on her experiences in assessment and feedback in large classes, and in the second part on her work in encouraging gender diversity in computer science.
The focus of the first part will be on her involvement in redesigning an undergraduate module on HCI, where the methods of assessment used were no suitable for increasingly larger classes (up to 160 students). Redesign decisions needed to preserve the validity and reliability of the assessment whilst respecting the need for timely feedback. Adriana will specifically talk about the exam and coursework, and how learning activities in the module were aligned to the assessment, through the use of PeerWise for student-authored MCQs, and the use of video for assessment to foster creativity and application of knowledge. During the talk, there will be an opportunity for discussion on the challenges then encountered.
A (shorter) second part of the talk will present her experiences in supporting women in computing, starting with a very small-scale intervention with staff and students at her previous institution, and concluding with her engagement at the Early Career Women’s Network in St Andrews.

Title:
Instant Interaction
Abstract:
Although Mark Weiser’s original vision of “ubiquitous computing” has all but arrived due to the wide availability of smartphones, tablets and interactive screens, the envisioned ease of use is still mostly lacking. This is particularly apparent when we consider interaction and collaboration between multiple persons and their personal mobile devices. These issues can be partly mitigated by relying on cloud services for data exchange, but this approach opens up multiple other issues regarding data safety and privacy. In this talk, I will present the concept of “instant interaction”, which aims to enable ad-hoc interaction between multiple persons, their individual mobile devices, and fixed infrastructure, without requiring any prior exchange of account data or PINs. The only prerequisite for immediate interaction is physical proximity. Examples from my current research will illustrate this  concept.
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Title
Augmenting touch expressivity to improve the touch modality
Abstract
During the last decades, touch surfaces have become more and more ubiquitous. Whether on tablets, on smartphones or on laptops, touch surfaces are used by a majority of us on a daily basis. However, the limited expressivity – the different channels used to convey information to the system – of the touch modality restricts drastically the amount of features that can be controlled via touch only. For instance, a typical smartphone touchscreen only provides the absolute position of a contact on the screen, thus applications usually offer only one way to carry out tasks (which can augment user frustration or cap performances) or restrict possibilities (e.g. Photoshop on desktop offers more than 600 commands but only about 40 on smartphones and tablets). In this talk, I will present an overview of my on-going research and discuss different ways to tackle this problem, augment touch expressivity and user efficiency: from tools that helps better designing touch interfaces to the use of new input dimensions in original interaction techniques.
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Title:
Visualization and Taxonomy
Abstract:
This talk will consider the relationship between visualization and taxonomy from two perspectives. Firstly, how visualization can aid understanding the process of taxonomy, specifically biological taxonomy and the visualization challenges this poses. Secondly, the role of taxonomy in understanding and making sense of the growing field of visualization will be discussed and the challenges facing the visualization community in making this process more rigorous will be considered.
Speaker Bio:
Jessie joined Edinburgh Napier University in 1986 as a lecturer, was promoted to Senior Lecturer, Reader, and then Professor in 2000 Thereafter she held the post of Director of the Institute for Informatics and Digital Innovation from 2010-14 and is currently Dean of Research and Innovation for the University.
Jessie has published widely, with over 100 peer-reviewed publications and over £2 million in research funding from a range of bodies, including EPSRC, BBSRC, National Science Foundation, and KTP, and has had 13 PhD students complete. She has been programme chair, programme committee member and organiser of many international conferences, a reviewer and panel member for many national and international computer science funding bodies, and became a Member of EPSRC Peer Review College in 1996 and a Fellow of the British Computer Society.
Jessie has a long-standing record of contribution to inter-disciplinary research, working to further biological research through the application of novel computing technology.
Her research in the areas of user interfaces to databases and data visualisation in biology contributed to the establishment of the field of biological visualisation. She hosted the first biological visualisation workshop at the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2008, was an invited speaker at a BBSRC workshop on Challenges in Biological Visualisation in 2010, was a founding member of the International Symposium in Biological Visualisation – being Programme Chair in 2011, General Chair in 2012 and 2013 – and steering committee member since 2014.
She has been keynote speaker at related international conferences and workshops, such as VIZBI, the International Visualisation conference and BioIT World, and is currently leading a BBSRC network on biological visualisation.
Her research in collaboration with taxonomists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, produced a data model for representing differing taxonomic opinions in Linnaean classification. This work led to collaboration on a large USA-funded project with ecologists from six US universities and resulted in a data standard for the exchange biodiversity data that has been adopted by major global taxonomic and biodiversity organisations.

Title:  How to Closely Read a Topic Model: Visualizing the Poetry of Emily Dickinson
Biography:  Jonathan Armosa is a Doctoral Fellow at New York University (NYU).  Jonathan’s research is in the area of Digital Humanities and focuses on Computational Modelling of Literature and Information Visualization.  MORE