Defendeu recentemente com êxito a sua dissertação sob minha orientação o António Botelho, no Mestrado em Engenharia Informática, na UTAD - Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro. Desenvolvido no âmbito da sua atividade profissional na empresa Portugal Telecom Inovação, em Aveiro, visa constituir um documento factual dos problemas que se colocam aos profissionais de Engenharia Informática no desenvolvimento de software integrado em equipas empresa.
terça-feira, abril 22, 2014
sexta-feira, abril 11, 2014
Dissertação de Margarida Silva - Design iterativo para idosos
Defendeu recentemente com êxito a sua dissertação sob minha orientação a Margarida Silva, no Mestrado em Engenharia de Reabilitação e Acessibilidade Humanas, na UTAD - Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro.
Desenvolvido no âmbito da sua atividade profissional na empresa Cnotinfor, de Coimbra, é um primeiro passo para o que se espera venha a ser uma plataforma social de treino cognitivo para idosos.
Desenvolvido no âmbito da sua atividade profissional na empresa Cnotinfor, de Coimbra, é um primeiro passo para o que se espera venha a ser uma plataforma social de treino cognitivo para idosos.
segunda-feira, março 10, 2014
The anti-shamanic interface: bringing culture to human-computer gestural interaction
Some years ago, I was delighted reading the twin novels by Danuel Suarez. These technothrillers presented so many novel yet seemingly feasible ideas that I've often referred to him as XXI Century Jules Verne.
One such idea was the shamanic interface. In the utopian view of Suarez, this would be an augmented reality interface based on gestural commands from magic and ritual, enabling all people on Earth to use it, even from non-technological cultures.
This made me consider: most gestural interactions nowadays are mandated by the systems: we need to learn whatever gestures a systems decides are the adequate ones.
So, perhaps Suarez is utopian in thinking of a single gestural interface. But each person should be able to leverage the richness of meaning in his/her own culture in that interaction! Just like nowadays we respect language and symbols!
And yet... and yet... we've been trying for decades to develop systems where people can tell a computer what to do in complex ways: sliders and buttons on interfaces, programming languages, visual languages, icons, animations. With little success beyond immeadiate exploration (albeit "little" can be large, when one considers the successes of Logo and Scratch programming).
Perhaps, just perhaps, we can leverage the richness that exists in every culture, in its gestures associated with rituals and ceremony, perhaps even in everyday emphasis gestures associated with speech, to empower people to use computers with more depth and broader scope than mere immeadiacy of commands?
I first made a keynote about this in the CISTI conference in Chaves, in 2011; and then a TEDx Viseu talk later that same year. Below is the playlist of the 3-part keynote, which has English subtitles.
Two more formal pieces of this puzzle are now available: my paper at DSAI 2013, where I lay down the argument and background; and the MEng thesis of my student Filipe Carvalho, at INESC TEC / UP, where he takes the first step to analyse what this entails. Here I embed them both.
One such idea was the shamanic interface. In the utopian view of Suarez, this would be an augmented reality interface based on gestural commands from magic and ritual, enabling all people on Earth to use it, even from non-technological cultures.
This made me consider: most gestural interactions nowadays are mandated by the systems: we need to learn whatever gestures a systems decides are the adequate ones.
So, perhaps Suarez is utopian in thinking of a single gestural interface. But each person should be able to leverage the richness of meaning in his/her own culture in that interaction! Just like nowadays we respect language and symbols!
And yet... and yet... we've been trying for decades to develop systems where people can tell a computer what to do in complex ways: sliders and buttons on interfaces, programming languages, visual languages, icons, animations. With little success beyond immeadiate exploration (albeit "little" can be large, when one considers the successes of Logo and Scratch programming).
Perhaps, just perhaps, we can leverage the richness that exists in every culture, in its gestures associated with rituals and ceremony, perhaps even in everyday emphasis gestures associated with speech, to empower people to use computers with more depth and broader scope than mere immeadiacy of commands?
I first made a keynote about this in the CISTI conference in Chaves, in 2011; and then a TEDx Viseu talk later that same year. Below is the playlist of the 3-part keynote, which has English subtitles.
Two more formal pieces of this puzzle are now available: my paper at DSAI 2013, where I lay down the argument and background; and the MEng thesis of my student Filipe Carvalho, at INESC TEC / UP, where he takes the first step to analyse what this entails. Here I embed them both.
Shamanic interface for computers and gaming platforms by Filipe Carvalho
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