Section: Scientific Foundations

Introduction

The design of new user interfaces is a complex process that requires tackling research challenges at different levels. First, at a technological level, the input and output interaction space is becoming richer and richer. We will explore the new input/output modalities offered by such a technological evolution, and we will contribute to extend these modalities for the purpose of our main objective, which is to make 3D digital worlds available to all. Then, we will concentrate on the design of good interaction techniques that rely on such input/output modalities, and that are dedicated to the population targeted by this project, i.e. general public, specialists which are not 3D experts, and people with impairments. Finally, a large part of our work will be dedicated to the understanding and the assessment of user interaction. In particular, we will conduct user studies to guide the design of hardware and software UI, to evaluate them, and to better understand how a user interacts with 3D environments.

These three levels, input/output modalities, interaction techniques, and human factors will be the three main research directions of Potioc. Of course, they are extremely linked, and they cannot be studied independently, one after the other. In particular, user studies will follow the design process of hardware/software user interfaces from the beginning to the end, and both hardware and software exploration will be interdependent. The design of a new 3D user interface will thus require some work at different levels, as illustrated in Figure 2 . All members of Potioc will contribute in each of these research directions.

Figure 2. Diagram of an interactive system and the three main research axes of the Potioc project (blue boxes).