<!–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.

<!–Date/Time: 1-2pm October 27th, 2011
Location: 1.33a Jack Cole, University of St Andrews (directions)
Second Talk:
Speaker: David Flatla, Interaction Lab, University of Saskatchewan, Canada–>
Title: Using Situation-Specific Models of Colour Differentiation to Assist Individuals with Colour Vision Deficiency
Abstract:
Approximately 10% of the world’s population experiences either congenital, acquired, or situationally-induced colour vision deficiency (CVD – commonly called colour blindness). People with CVD often confuse colours that those without CVD can distinguish. When working in digital environments, CVD can lead to problems ranging from minor nuisances (e.g., being unable to distinguish ‘visited’ from ‘not visited’ links on a webpage) to major safety concerns (e.g., not seeing colour-coded warning messages).
Recently, recolouring tools have been developed that modify the colours presented on a display to eliminate the colour confusion that people with CVD experience. However, these tools are limited to individuals with dichromatic CVD – a particularly severe and somewhat rare form of congenital CVD. As a result, individuals with acquired and situationally-induced CVD as well as those with non-dichromatic forms of congenital CVD continue to have difficulties.
In this talk, I will present my PhD research toward a new recolouring tool based on situation-specific models of colour differentiation. I will first present my work on situation-specific models that capture the colour differentiation abilities of any individual in any environment through a two-minute in-situ calibration procedure. I will then discuss my most recent work on developing a recolouring tool based on situation-specific models of colour differentiation.
About David:
David Flatla is a PhD student at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada under the supervision of Dr. Carl Gutwin. His research focusses on the field of accessibility, particularly on how to help individuals with colour vision deficiency (CVD – commonly called colour blindness). To do this, he invented situation-specific models of colour differentiation that utilize in-situ calibration to accurately capture how people differentiate colors. He publishes at conferences like CHI and ASSETS. At UIST this year, he presented research exploring how to make boring calibrations fun by turning them into games.

The SACHI group and the University of St Andrews will be running the Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces Conference in 2013 (ITS 2013). This is the leading international conference on research in interactive tabletops and surfaces. This conference at St Andrews will be a proud continuation of the excellent experiences of past ITS conferences from Banff, Saarbrücken and Kobe. In due course we will be publishing a full website at http://www.its2013.org where you can learn more about the Workshops,  Keynote , Industrial Keynote, calls for Tutorials, papers and posters, along with demos, a doctoral colloquium, social events.
Our current Conference Committee includes:
General Chairs
Aaron Quigley
Giulio Jacucci, HIIT, Finland
Program Co-Chairs
Yoshifumi Kitamura, Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University
Miguel Nacenta
Local Conference Chair
Per Ola Kristensson
Local Organising Committee
Tristan Henderson
Per Ola Kristensson
Miguel Nacenta
Aaron Quigley
We look forward to welcoming the ITS community to St Andrews which is celebrating its 600th anniversary during 2013.

<!–Speaker: Miguel Nacenta, SACHI University of St Andrews
Date/Time: 1-2pm November 22th, 2011
Location: 1.33a Jack Cole, University of St Andrews (directions)–>
Abstract:
Our daily activities are continuously mediated by the space that we occupy; we face people to talk to them, sit in circular arrangements for group discussions, and write documents facing monitors. However, current interfaces generally make strong assumptions about where we are (e.g., monitors assume we are perpendicular and in front) or outright ignore important aspects of our spatial environments (e.g., several people editing a document). In my research I deal with the perceptual, cognitive and social aspects of space relationships that will shape the design of next generation interfaces. In this talk I will discuss projects that address questions such as: what happens when you look at a display from the “wrong” place? What forms of input are most efficient to interact with displays from different locations? How does having a private display affect our awareness of the work of others?

November 2011 – Editorial: Welcome to Computers––A New Open Access Journal for Computer Science

See full welcome to this new journal here –

<!–Speaker: Aaron Quigley, SACHI University of St Andrews
Date/Time: 1-2pm November 15th, 2011
Location: 1.33a Jack Cole, University of St Andrews (directions)–>
Abstract:
Our bodies shape our experience of the world, and our bodies influence what we design. How important are the physical differences between people? Can we model the physiological differences and use the models to adapt and personalize designs, user interfaces and artifacts? Within many disciplines Digital Human Models and Standard Observer Models are widely used and have proven to be very useful for modeling users and simulating humans. In this paper, we create personalized digital human models of perception (Individual Observer Models), particularly focused on how humans see. Individual Observer Models capture how our bodies shape our perceptions. Individual Observer Models are useful for adapting and personalizing user interfaces and artifacts to suit individual users’ bodies and perceptions. We introduce and demonstrate an Individual Observer Model of human eyesight, which we use to simulate 3600 biologically valid human eyes. An evaluation of the simulated eyes finds that they see eye charts the same as humans. Also demonstrated is the Individual Observer Model successfully making predictions about how easy or hard it is to see visual information and visual designs. The ability to predict and adapt visual information to maximize how effective it is is an important problem in visual design and analytics.
About Aaron:
In this talk Professor Aaron Quigley will present a talk for a paper he is presenting at the User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP) conference 2011 on July 12th in Barcelona Spain. This work on Creating Personalized Digital Human Models of Perception for Visual Analytics is the work with and of his former PhD student Dr. Mike Bennett and now postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Psychology in Stanford University.
Professor Aaron Quigley is the Chair of Human Computer Interaction in the School of Computer Science at the University of St Andrews. He is the director of SACHI and his appointment is part of SICSA, the Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance. Aaron’s research interests include surface and multi-display computing, human computer interaction, pervasive and ubiquitous computing and information visualisation.

<!–Date/Time: 1-2pm October 27th, 2011
Location: 1.33a Jack Cole, University of St Andrews (directions)–>
Speaker: Anke Brock, IRIT research lab, Toulouse, France
Title: Touch the Map: Making Maps Accessible for the Blind
Abstract:
Human navigation is a very complex phenomenon that mainly relies on vision. Indeed, vision provides the pedestrian with landmarks and dynamic cues (e.g. optic flow) that are essential for position and orientation updating, estimation of distance, etc. Hence, for a blind person, navigating in familiar environment is not obvious, and becomes especially complicated in unknown environments. Exploration of geographic maps at home (for travel preparation) or even on mobile phones (for guidance) may represent valuable assistance. As maps are visual by essence and hence inaccessible for the blind, multimodal interactive maps undoubtedly represent a solution. Multimodal interactive maps are based on a combination of multi-touch devices and tactile (e.g. embossed) paper maps. However, design and realization of interactive maps for the blind imply several challenges, as for example making multi-touch surfaces accessible for the blind. In this talk the concept and design of the maps, the work with the blind users, the technical challenges as well as the psychological background will be presented.
About Anke:
Anke Brock is currently a PhD candidate in Human-Computer Interaction at the IRIT research lab in Toulouse (France). She has worked several years as a research engineer for navigation and driver assistance systems at Bosch in Hildesheim (Germany). Anke has obtained her master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction in September 2010 at the University of Toulouse. Since then her research interests include accessibility of technology for the blind, interactive maps, tabletops, multimodal interaction, spatial cognition and haptic exploration as well as accessibility of the participatory design process.

Aaron will be giving a seminar in the School of Informatics in the Univeristy of Edinburgh on October 7th 2011 on the topic of:

Challenges in Social Network Visualisation

The University of St Andrews has a story about how SACHI researcher Per Ola Kristensson and his collaborator Keith Vertanen used crowdsourcing, Twitter, and other online sources to create better statistical language models for AAC devices. These devices enable users with communication difficulties to speak via a predictive keyboard interface. The new language models are by far the largest that have been built so far and they provide a 5-12% reduction in the average number of keystrokes that users have to type to communicate.
The research paper is open access and you can read it for free in the Association for Computational Linguistics’s digital library.
Reference:
Vertanen, K. and Kristensson, P.O. 2011. The imagination of crowds: conversational AAC language modeling using crowdsourcing and large data sources. In Proceedings of the ACL Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP 2011). ACL: 700-711.

<!–Speaker: Sean Lynch, Innovis group/Interactions lab, University of Calgary, Canada
Date/Time: 1-2pm September 28th, 2011
Location: 1.33a Jack Cole, University of St Andrews (directions)–>
Abstract:
Information visualization and new paradigms of interaction are generally applied to productive processes (i.e., at work) or for personal and entertainment purposes. In my work, I have looked instead at how to apply new technologies and visualization techniques to art. I will present mainly two projects that focus on multi-touch music composition and performance, and the visual analysis of the history and visual features of fine paintings.
About Sean:
Sean Lynch is a Master’s Student in Computer Science at the Interactions Lab at the University of Calgary. Sean’s research interests span interactive technologies (e.g., multi-touch), interactive art, and information visualization.