Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The goal of my research is to investigate how to develop adaptive, enjoyable, and engaging human interfaces that result in a pleasant user experience (UX). This is divided into two distinct research strands: First, I plan to explore human interfaces that augment traditional input techniques with sensor technologies taking into account internal and external user information. Second, I plan to identify motivating and engaging game design principles to make tedious maintenance tasks more engaging.While traditional input technologies allow comfortable direct manipulation of software, they are limited in accounting for the internal and external circumstances that a user may be in. Therefore, my goal is to augment input control with sensors, which can gather information about how a user feels internally (e.g., physiology and eye trackers) and what contextual affordances and limitations they have in their physical environment (e.g., location tracking to infer activity), to create a richer experience. This research will contribute tools and techniques for evaluating interaction techniques and adapting software systems with sensor information.In my second strand, I will focus on making software or hardware maintenance tasks more enjoyable using game design techniques. This is important because many software and hardware systems require tedious manual maintenance and calibration tasks, which are important for a system's security and proper functioning. Since some of these manual tasks cannot be automated I am looking for ways to make them more engaging.Major outcomes of this research will include novel augmented interaction tools and techniques based on results from scientific experiments as well as new and engaging design principles for maintenance tasks leveraging game design methodology. I expect up to nine students, including Undergraduate, Master's, and Ph.D. level, to receive training through participation in my research program.