When designing interactive information visualization systems, we used to have in mind a single user sitting in front of a desktop computer with a mouse and keyboard. With the advent of new input and output technologies, we have to rethink these stereotypes. New interaction paradigms need to be explored that better exploit humans' natural abilities to perceive and manipulate physical objects. Recent research has shown that moving parts of information visualization systems into the physical world can yield many benefits. But this research has so far been focusing on passive physical objects that do not update themselves with new data and do not support elaborate forms of data exploration (e.g., filtering, search, etc.). The goal of this thesis will be to design, build and study dynamic physical visualizations, i.e., physical objects whose shape reflect dynamic data and that can be interactively manipulated to explore large datasets.
Context
Information visualization is a growing topic of research. A study estimated that the amount of data produced in the world was increasing by 50% each year. Since our brains and sensory capacities have not changed in the meantime, we need to effectively support human abilities to perceive, understand, and alter it.
At Aviz, we showed how moving visualizations to the physical world can facilitate information retrieval. These initial studies have opened up a new domain at the intersection of information visualization and tangible user interfaces, revealing new opportunities but also new challenges.
One major challenge is the design and the study of dynamic physical visualizations, i.e., physical visualizations whose shape can be dynamically altered to support dynamic datasets, the dynamic tuning of visualizations and interactive exploration.
Objectives
The purpose of this PhD thesis topic is the engineering, design and study of dynamic physical visualizations. Four distinct but complementary directions of research are:
Designing and building functional dynamic physical visualizations.
Designing new interaction techniques for dynamic physical visualizations.
Building theories and models for dynamic physical visualizations.
Work program
Given this topic's strong focus on hardware design, ideally the PhD student should initially have a strong background in electronic and hardware design. At the beginning of the thesis, the student will first get acquainted with the fields of information visualization, tangible user interface and user interface evaluation methods through a combination of literature review and by attending modules from our HCI Master class (introduction to HCI + information visualization). Then the student may pick a small research problem that seems novel, interesting and feasible in order to ensure a first publication and acquire the necessary skills for publishing scientific results. A further step will then consist in empirically validating and generalizing the approach. The outcome of the PhD thesis may be a general framework for the design, construction and evaluation of dynamic physical visualizations and/or related artefacts.
Hold a Masters degree in computer science or equivalent
Have sufficient training or experience in electronics and hardware engineering, and software development
Have a genuine interest in — and if possible some basic knowledge of information visualization, human-computer interaction, digital fabrication, empirical research methods
Be creative and possess good analytical thinking skills
Have a decent level of oral and written English. Speaking French not requir
Détails
Expected funding
Institutional funding
Status of funding
Expected
Candidates
Mathieu Le Goc
Utilisateur
pierre.dragicevic
Créé
Vendredi 31 mai 2013 19:04:31 CEST
dernière modif.
Vendredi 31 mai 2013 19:09:38 CEST
Fichiers joints
filename
créé
hits
filesize
Aucun fichier joint à cette fiche
Connexion
Ecole Doctorale Informatique Paris-Sud
Directrice
Nicole Bidoit Assistante
Stéphanie Druetta Conseiller aux thèses
Dominique Gouyou-Beauchamps
ED 427 - Université Paris-Sud
UFR Sciences Orsay
Bat 650 - aile nord - 417
Tel : 01 69 15 63 19
Fax : 01 69 15 63 87
courriel: ed-info à lri.fr