Professor Mark Chignell, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto: Challenges in Interface Design for Mobile Devices

Wireless technology and Web-based applications and services are paving the way for new forms of mobile computing. As technology advances, the channel between the mobile device and the client is becoming a major bottleneck. This is the challenging problem of user interface design; not the last mile or metres connecting up a building or a room, but the last few centimetres linking the sensory receptors of an individual user to the cognitive processes in the cortex of the brain. This talk will discuss principles and methods for transforming the information available on large screens and desktop computers into small form factors and different modalities (e.g., voice interactions). Issues include user interface design, input methods, selection of appropriate application functionalities, and device design. I will discuss the problem of developing mobile devices that look and sound appropriate for mobile human use, and that perform useful functions within a mobile, rather than desktop-bound, context. The points made will be illustrated with three case studies representing ongoing research on mobile computing at the University of Toronto: Presentation of clinical evidence on a handheld device; Wearable computing for complex mixed reality tasks; Email and Unified Communications.

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John Cumberbatch