Designing for Intimacy: Interaction Research at the Human Communication Technologies (HCT) Laboratory

Research at the HCT lab focuses on the relationship between people and machines. The approach we take is that interaction aesthetics drive relationships that are at play as people learn to use devices in their external environment. An intimate relationship forms as people embody devices providing an aesthetic through control. I’ll explore the nature of relationships and how that impacts design of new interfaces. I will discuss a few examples from the HCT lab demonstrating some of the ideas. The examples include: Glove-TalkII, Iamascope, 2 Hearts musical system, and other research projects. See http://hct.ece.ubc.ca/research for a list of the project going on at the HCT lab.

Speaker Details

Sidney Fels (Ph.D, Toronto, 1994, P.Eng.) is an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia in the department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. He was recognized as a Distinguished University Scholar at UBC since 2004. He was a visiting researcher at ATR Media Integration & Communications Research Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan from1996 to 1997. He also worked at Virtual Technologies Inc. in Palo Alto, CA developing the GesturePlus™ system and the CyberServer™ in 1995. He is internationally known for his work in human-computer interaction, neural networks, intelligent agents, new interfaces for musical expression and interactive arts with over 100 scholarly publications and exhibitions. Sidney is one of the principal investigators of the Institute of Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems through his authoring a CFI grant to create a new $22.1M facility to house interdisciplinary research.

Date:
Speakers:
Sidney Fels
Affiliation:
MAGIC & HCT