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Section: Research Program
Objective 1: Understanding humans interacting with the digital world
Our first objective is centered on the human side. Our finality is not to enhance the general knowledge about the human being as a research team in psychology would do. Instead, we focus on human skills and behaviors during interaction processes. To this end, we conduct experiments that allow us to better understand what users like, where and why they have difficulties. Thanks to these investigations, we are able to design interaction techniques and systems (described in Objective 2) that are well suited to the targeted users. We believe that this fundamental piece of work is the first step that is required for the design of usable popular interactions. We are particularly interested in 3D interaction tasks for which we design dedicated experiments. We also explore a new approach based on physiological and brain (ElectroEncephaloGraphy - EEG) signals for the evaluation of these interactions.
Interacting with physical and virtual environments
Interacting with digital content displayed on 2D screens has been extensively studied in HCI. On the other hand, less conventional contexts have been studied less. This is the case of 3D environments, immersive virtual environments, augmented reality, and tangible objects. With the final goal of making interaction in such contexts user-friendly, we conduct experiments to better understand user strategies and performance. This allows us to propose guidelines to help designers creating of tools that are accessible to non-expert users.
Evaluating (3D) interaction with physiological signals
Recently, physiological computing has been shown to be a promising complement to Human-Computer Interfaces (HCI) in general, and to 3D User Interfaces (3DUI) in particular, in several directions. Within this research area, we are interested in using various physiological signals, and notably EEG signals, as a new tool to assess objectively the ergonomic quality of a given (3D) UI, to identify where and when are the pros and cons of this interface, based on the user’s mental state during interaction. For instance, estimating the user’s mental workload during interaction can give insights about where and when the interface is cognitively difficult to use. This could be useful for 2D HCI in general, and even more for 3DUI. Indeed, in a 3DUI, the user perception of the 3D scene – part of which could potentially be measured in EEG - is essential. Moreover, the usual need for a mapping between the user inputs and the corresponding actions on 3D objects make 3DUI and interaction techniques more difficult to assess and to design.
Interacting with Brain-Computer Interfaces
Although very promising for numerous applications, BCIs mostly remain prototypes not used outside laboratories, due to their low reliability. Poor BCI performances are partly due to imperfect EEG signal processing algorithms but also to the user who may not be able to produce reliable EEG patterns. Indeed, BCI use is a skill, requiring the user to be properly trained to achieve BCI control. If he/she cannot perform the desired mental commands, no signal processing algorithm can identify them. Therefore, rather than improving EEG signal processing alone, an interesting research direction is to also guide users to learn BCI control mastery. We aim at addressing this objective. We are notably exploring theoretical models and guidelines from educational sciences to improve BCI training protocols. We also study which users’ profiles (personality and cognitive profile) fail or succeed at learning BCI control. Finally, we explore new feedback types and new EEG visualization techniques in order to help users gain BCI control skills more efficiently. These new feedback and visualizations notably aim at providing BCI users with more information about their EEG patterns, in order to identify more easily relevant BCI control strategies, as well as motivating and engaging them in the learning task.
Interaction for people with special needs
Interaction capabilities and needs largely depend on the target user group. In the Potioc project-team, we work with people having special needs. As an example, we work with children in the context of education, which requires us to design interfaces that are usable, engaging and support learning for this target group. Furthermore, we work with people with cognitive or perceptive disabilities, which requires us to consider accessibility, while at the same time designing interfaces that are learnable and enjoyable to use. In order to meet the needs of the different target groups, we apply participative and user-centred design methods.