Research

We’re a human-computer interaction research lab contributing new methods and tools for interface engineering, ubiquitous computing, and crowdsourcing.

Initially, we have two primary research directions:

  • future interfaces: we build and study next-generation user interfaces, involving touch, gesture, speech, cross-device, and augmented reality interactions, as well as novel techniques and tools to design them;
  • crowd-powered technologies: we invent interactive technologies, augmented with human intelligence and capabilities, to enrich the interaction with both digital and non-digital devices such as paper, tables & walls.

Latest Research

Below are some first prototypes from our research in the Information Interaction Lab so far:

  • XD-AR: an augmented reality platform that we are developing for multi-user multi-device augmented reality experiences that allow users to “edit” the physical world in realtime
  • 3D Lab: virtual and physical 3D models of our lab environment that we are using to design new forms of natural user interfaces and cross-device interactions for both users in the lab and users participating remotely
  • Surface Pad: initially conceived as a sketching interface that can work with new kinds of input devices, we are currently exploring how the interface can be extended to easily import and blend content from the digital and physical worlds

Previous Research

Previously, while at Carnegie Mellon University, the lab’s PI Michael Nebeling investigated ways of orchestrating multiple devices and crowds to enable complex information seeking, sensemaking and productivity tasks on small mobile and wearable devices. He also contributed to the Google IoT project led by CMU. This work led to three papers at ACM CHI 2016:

  • XDBrowser: a new cross-device web browser that I used to elicit 144 multi-device web page designs for five popular web interfaces leading to seven cross-device web page design patterns (CHI’16 paper, CHI’16 talk)
  • Snap-To-It: a mobile app allowing users to opportunistically interact with appliances in multi-device environments simply by taking a picture of them (CHI’16 paper)

Selected Publications

For the full list of publications, please check Google Scholar and DBLP.

  1. XDBrowser 2.0: Semi-Automatic Generation of Cross-Device Interfaces CHI’17
    M. Nebeling
  2. XDBrowser: User-Defined Cross-Device Web Page Designs CHI’16b
    M. Nebeling, A.K. Dey
  3. WearWrite: Crowd-Assisted Writing from Smartwatches CHI’16a
    M. Nebeling, A. To, A. Guo, A. de Freitas, J. Teevan, S.P. Dow, J.P. Bigham
  4. Snap-To-It: A User-Inspired Platform for Opportunistic Device Interactions CHI’16c
    A. de Freitas, M. Nebeling, X. Chen, J. Yang, A. Ranithangam, A.K. Dey
  5. Kinect Analysis: A System for Recording, Analysing and Sharing Multimodal Interaction Elicitation Studies EICS’15
    M. Nebeling, D. Ott, M.C. Norrie
  6. Web on the Wall Reloaded: Implementation, Replication and Refinement of User-Defined Interaction Sets ITS’14
    BEST PAPER HONORABLE MENTION AWARD
    M. Nebeling, A. Huber, D. Ott, M.C. Norrie
  7. XDKinect: Development Framework for Cross-Device Interaction using Kinect EICS’14
    BEST PAPER AWARD
    M. Nebeling, E. Teunissen, M. Husmann, M.C. Norrie
  8. Interactive Development of Cross-Device User Interfaces CHI’14
    M. Nebeling, T. Mintsi, M. Husmann, M.C. Norrie
  9. CrowdAdapt: Enabling Crowdsourced Web Page Adaptation for Individual Viewing Conditions and Preferences EICS’13a
    M. Nebeling, M. Speicher, M.C. Norrie
  10. CrowdStudy: General Toolkit for Crowdsourced Evaluation of Web Interfaces EICS’13b
    M. Nebeling, M. Speicher, M.C. Norrie
  11. W3Touch: Metrics-based Web Page Adaptation for Touch CHI’13
    M. Nebeling, M. Speicher, M.C. Norrie
  12. jQMultiTouch: Lightweight Toolkit and Development Framework for Multi-touch/Multi-device Web Interfaces EICS’12
    BEST PAPER AWARD
    M. Nebeling, M.C. Norrie
  13. Metrics for the Evaluation of News Site Content Layout in Large-Screen Contexts CHI’11
    BEST PAPER HONORABLE MENTION AWARD
    M. Nebeling, F. Matulic, M.C. Norrie