PROJECT IDEAS

HCI and ageing

• Adapting models of human behavior and performance to model how older persons use computing systems - with the purpose of understanding and designing the 'best' (defining what 'best' means is a part of the research work) computing systems for older persons
• Understanding the role of interactive systems on the quality of life of older persons and their caregivers, especially the ones who are home-bound, and are affected by ageing-related illnesses (e.g., stroke, arthritis, AMD, cataract, etc).
• Developing and testing interactive systems to help older persons remain active in the society

HCI and children

• Understanding how the methodology for measuring user experiences can be translated into measurement of children's user experiences.
• Understanding the role of children as users, testers, informant designers and design partners
• Developing and testing interactive systems to help children's education

HCI and people with special needs

• Developing methodology that captures user experience of people with special needs when using common interactive systems or assistive technoloy.
• Developing and testing interactive systems to help people with special needs remain active in the society

Current PhD Students

• Sonia Arteaga
  Sonia is working on mobile persuasive technology to motivate teenagers to perform physical activity, basing the design of the iPhone games on Theory of Meaning Behavior, Theory of Planned Behavior, Technology Acceptance Model and The Big Five Personality Theory.
• Alexandra Holloway
  Alexandra is working on computer games to help first time parents prepare for the arrival of their babies, basing the storylines on real scenarios of what can happen throughout the labor and childbirth process.

Serving in dissertation/thesis reading committee

• Ryan Shelby (graduated Jul 2009)
• Lyes Belhocine
• Antoine Abou Jaoude
• Zeb Nevins

Former PhD Students

Murni Mahmud

Dissertation title: A Mixed Method for Common Input Devices Evaluation

Graduated January 2007

This research explores the relationships between user abilities and performance when using input devices in common tasks. It is a feasibility study of incorporating simplistic psychometrics tests to measure user abilities in the input devices evaluation procedure. The users’ perception of the input devices and behaviour when using them were elicited during the experiment. In the study, three common input devices have been selected: mouse, tablet-with-stylus and touch screen. These input devices have been evaluated in two natural tasks which were browsing a hierarchical website and playing card game. Browsing task requires point-and-click and playing card game task requires click-and-drag. User abilities were measured using established psychometric tests: Mini Mental State Examination for general Cognitive ability, Identical Picture test for Perceptual speed ability and Simple Reaction Time for motor ability.

Federico Gaspari

Note: Federico is a PhD student of Prof. Harold Sommers that I helped supervise during his sabbatical)

Dissertation title: Machine Translation and the World Wide Web

Graduated June 2007

This research focuses on Internet-based machine translation (MT) services, and is carried out within a wide framework that covers areas as diverse as computational linguistics, language engineering, web localisation, web usability and human-computer interaction to address the key challenges of using MT technology in the on-line environment. I am particularly interested in the level of usability and in the interaction design of free web-based MT services, and in the seamless integration of on-line MT systems into monolingual web-sites for the purpose of multilingual dissemination. In an attempt to enhance and promote the use of MT technology on the Internet, my research emphasises the need to adopt a user-centred design for the successful deployment of web-based MT services, regarding the level of usability and the quality of interaction design as the key factors for the evaluation of their performance.

Khalid Al-quradaghi

Dissertation title: Measuring the Importance of e-Learning to Help Mathematics Learning

Graduated June 2007

This research investigates whether the use of e-learning can help students learn mathematics more effectively.

Prush Sa-nga-ngam

Dissertation title: An Assistive Web Browser for Older Adults

This research develops and evaluates an assistive web browser for older adults that (a) reduces complexity by redesigning web browser interface; (b) magnifies the appropriate part of content; and (c) makes optimal use of users’ limited cognitive attention by choice of audio/visual modalities.

Hasni Hassan

Dissertation title: Input Device Evaluation with Motor-Impaired Users

The main focus of this study is to present an input device evaluation framework when used by people with motor impairment. Specifically, the study compares highly controlled Fitts' Law experiment and browsing tasks, both in unassisted and assisted conditions. This study also investigates the effect of information architecture on browsing tasks with these users.

Nazean Jomhari

Dissertation title: Facilitating the Communication between Malaysian Grandparents and Grandchildren Living Abroad Through CMC

The main focus of this research is to identify the intergenerational topic for Malaysian GP-GC relationship. This knowledge will then be translated into the design of an appropriate mediated communication technology. An effective and usable design solution requires an understanding of its users and context, and therefore we need to understand the nature of the communication failures and successes in GP-GC relationship.