The goal of this thesis is to investigate novel ways of interacting with wall displays, improving collaborative data analysis and decision support in time-constraint work contexts (time critical systems and command and control situations). With a focus on multi-user interaction with complex and multi-scale data, and collaboration awareness, this work will generate new interaction and visualization designs to better support data analysis and understanding.
Context
Wall-sized displays engulf viewers in large high-resolution information spaces and form intriguing environments for data visualization and monitoring. Nevertheless, outside research, in a work context, wall displays are largely treated as big desktop monitors, both in the type of information we view on them and in how we interact with them. Thus the full potential of interactive large wall technology, such as high resolution or direct-touch interaction, is not fully leveraged. To better understand the benefit of such new technology, we can gain insights from specific situations that could benefit from it, such as collaborative work around Time-critical systems and Command and Control situations. These domains already benefit from the use of wall displays as "monitoring" infrastructure, but not as yet taking advantage of their interactive capabilities, which is the focus of this thesis.
Objectives
Investigate novel ways of interacting with wall displays and visualizing information, in order to improve collaborative data analysis and decision support in time-constraint work contexts (time critical systems and command and control situations).
Evaluate these new concepts with users, under both controlled experiments and expert feedback sessions.
Communicate findings to high quality publication venues (conferences and journals), in the domains of HCI and Time Critical system design.
Work program
Review state of the art on critical systems in collaborative environments.
Gather requirements and tasks from experts on critical systems (user groups we are in contact with include operators of large telescope arrays and traffic controllers).
Design and implement prototypes of novel interaction and visualization techniques for multi-scale navigation in collaborative environments, with a focus on increased awareness.
Operationalize tasks performed in such environments and determine measures to optimize and test (e.g. efficiency, awareness, learning, etc)
Define and conduct user experiments to compare and evaluate the new techniques with respect to the identified measures.
Reinforce findings from user experiments through feedback sessions with expert users.
Extra information
As a platform for conducting this PhD, LRI is equipped with two interactive walls (WILD and WILDER), digital tabletops and other interactive devices (e.g. tablets, smartphones).
Prerequisite
Good knowledge of the foundations of Human Computer Interaction;