CS 4784 : HCI Capstone : Fall 2014

Matrix Redux: Mixed-Reality Environments for Multimodal Interactions in Large Physical Spaces and Places

Designing and deploying information and communication technology into the physical artifacts and systems provides capacities that can change how systems behave and how users interact with them. The socio-technical gap is a well-known problem describing the divide between what we know we must support socially, and what we can support technically. Little is known about how this problem manifests in information-rich physical spaces.

The ICAT’s Cube facility ( www.icat.vt.edu/facilities/living_labs) provides a large physical space with tracking/projection capabilities that would allow us to explore social and technology interactions in information-rich physical spaces (and places). We will build on these capabilities to develop a living lab testbed to help us explore how to design human-space interaction, how to identify the modalities of interactions, and how to inform the overall design of space when it superimposed with technology (e.g., ubiquitous devices).

The specific aims include:

• Develop a supporting testbed on top of the existing Cube infrastructure to support research in social interactions and use of technology in large physical environments.
• Instrument the testbed with user monitoring capabilities, including biosensors and Brain-Computer Interface devices.
• Establish and explore new modalities in interactions between users and places.
• Explore how the center of social interactions in a large place (or collection of places) changes with the context; how is it influenced by technologies and behavior.
• Conduct a case study and develop a demonstration based on the ongoing House of the Future project.
• Enable the use for other projects as a living lab testbed for research and education in STEM related disciplines. (e.g., collaborative engineering or social design, psychology experiments, phobia treatment, autism intervention tool, health management).