Projects I've Worked On
Multi-slate Reading System
Tablets have a number of great properties that support reading. For instance, they are thin, light, and thus easily handled. Using multiple tablets at the same time enables crucial reading activities like document comparison, cross-referencing, and spatially laying out information. My reasearch in this area is to develop interactions that streamline the process of specifying device relationships in a multi-tablet environment. These interactions that tablets are able to operate cooperatively with each other, as well as with traditional computing devices like PCs. This work is supported by Microsoft Research (MSR), and is a joint collaboration between MSR, the University of Maryland and Cornell University.
A demo I did of our system recently received some coverage at Engadget
- CHI 2011 Distributed User Interface Workshop paper and slides forthcoming
Dual-Screen Reading Devices
Existing electronic reading devices don't adequately support the different types of reading people perform. We explored interface designs for a two-screen reading device that allow it to improve the reading experience. To perform our exploration we created a series of prototypes, ranging from low-fi paper to a fully-functioning electronic reading device with two detachable, motion-sensitive faces. This work was presented as a demo at UIST 2007, and a full paper will appear in the CHI 2008 proceedings.
In short, we found that the dual-displays support navigation tasks associated with certain types of reading (e.g. reading magazines, technical documents) better than a single display device. For example, it is often valuable to see more of a document at once. Also, it is often the case with more technical reading that one will need to view different sections of the same document or two different documents at the same time. While a single display device with a large screen offers many of the same benefits, there are additional advantages with a dual display system. These advantages include the ability to flexibly modify the form factor, and the ability to layout each display in a custom manner in the workspace. The downsides, which we are currently addressing, are that a dual-display device is more difficult to handle, due to the increased weight and thickness, and can be more confusing to operate.
- CHI 2008 Conference Paper
- CHI video of the new prototype (10MB QT H.264)
- Device schematics and building instructions
- UIST demo handout
- Video of our first prototype (50MB QT H.264)
High Performance Pen Interfaces
Many pen-based devices are cumbersome to use because they employ interfaces taken directly from the desktop computer world, which often rely heavily on keyboards and mice. Certain luxuries users have come to enjoy such as keyboard shortcuts are not possible on a pen-based device. We are developing new interactions for pen-based devices that can efficiently replicate the rich set of functions that we take for granted on a desktop computer.
- Hinkley K., F. Guimbretiere, G. Apitz, N. Chen, M. Agrawala Phrasing techniques for multi-stroke selection gestures. 2006.
- Scriboly, a demo drawing program we developed to illustrate how our ideas of fluid scope specification and command selection might be used in a real application. Video (WMV format)
Context Aware Systems for Firefighting (at Berkeley)
We interviewed and observed firefighters to gauge their needs in the field. We then developed a infrastructure called Siren that gathers and disperses useful data to firefighters using the system.