ToRCHI Preview of CHI presentations from DGP Lab UofT

DETAILED ABSTRACTS
Title: Let's Kick It: How to Stop Wasting the Bottom Third of your Large Screen Display
Authors: Ricardo Jota, Pedro Lopes, Daniel J Wigdor, Joaquim A Jorge
Abstract:
Large-scale touch surfaces have been widely studied in literature and adopted for public installations such as interactive billboards. However, current designs do not take into consideration that touching the interactive surface at different heights is not the same; for body-height displays, the bottom portion of the screen is within easier reach of the foot than the hand. We explore the design space of foot input on vertical surfaces, and propose three distinct
interaction modalities: hand, foot tapping, and foot gesturing. Our design exploration pays particular attention to areas of the touch surface that were previously overlooked: out of hand’s reach and close to the floor. We instantiate our design space with a working prototype of an
interactive surface, in which we are able to distinguish between finger and foot tapping and extend the input area beyond the bottom of the display to support foot gestures.
Bio:
Ricardo Jota is a Post-doc with Daniel Wigdor at the university of Toronto. He joined in 2012 and has been working of reducing the latency of the next generation of devices that you have in your pockets right now. Jota got his PhD from the technical university of Lisbon, in 2011, and has collaborated with the University of Calgary and Microsoft Research in numerous projects. Coincidentally, he doesn't like soccer at all.

Title: Dive In! Enabling Progressive Loading for Real-Time Navigation of Data Visualizations
Authors: Michael Glueck, Azam Khan, Daniel J Wigdor
Abstract:
We introduce Splash, a framework reducing development overhead for both data curators and visualization developers of client-server visualization systems. Splash streamlines the process of creating a multiple level-of-detail version of the data and facilitates progressive data download, thereby enabling real-time, on-demand navigation with existing visualization toolkits. As a result, system responsiveness is increased and the user experience is improved. We demonstrate the benefit of progressive loading for user interaction on slower networks. Additionally, case study evaluations of Splash with real-world data curators suggest that Splash supports iterative refinement of visualizations and promotes the use of exploratory data analysis.
Bio:
Michael Glueck is a second-year PhD student at the University of Toronto.  Coupling his fascination for both psychology and computer science, his research focuses on the way users navigate and way-find during interactions with multi-scale information visualizations.

Title: Conductor: Enabling and Understanding Cross-Device Interaction
Authors: Peter Hamilton, Daniel Wigdor
Abstract: 
The proliferation of inexpensive connected devices has created a situation where a person, at any given moment, is surrounded by interactive computers. Despite this fact, there are very few means by which a user may take advantage of this large number of screens. We present Conductor, a prototype framework which serves as an exemplar for the construction of cross-device applications. We present a series of interaction methods by which users can easily share information, chain tasks across devices, and manage sessions across devices. We also present a cross-device usage scenario which utilizes several cross-device applications built within our prototype framework. We also describe a user study, which helped us to understand how users will take advantage of a large number of devices in support of performance of a sense making task. 
Bio:
Peter Hamilton is a first-year PhD student at the University of Toronto. His research is in Human Computer Interaction, focusing on interactions and applications that span across connected devices. 

Title: Panelrama: Enabling Easy Specification of Cross-Device Web Applications
Authors: Jishuo Yang, Daniel J Wigdor
Abstract:
We present Panelrama, a web-based framework for the construction of applications using distributed user interfaces (DUIs). Our implementation provides developers with low migration costs through built-in mechanisms for the synchronization of a UI state, requiring minimal changes to existing languages. Additionally, we describe a solution to categorize device characteristics and dynamically change UI allocation to best-fit devices. We illustrate the use of Panelrama through three sample applications which demonstrate its support for known interaction methods, we also present the results of a developer study, which validates our belief that cross-device application experiences can be easily implemented using our framework.
Bio:
Jishuo Yang is a MSc student at the University of Toronto with a background on HCI and software engineering. He recently completed his thesis on a web framework for distributing UI across multiple devices, and is currently working on bringing the framework to market with the startup company Conductr.

Title: LACES: Live Authoring through Compositing and Editing of Streaming Video
Authors: Dustin Freeman, Stephanie Santosa, Fanny Chevalier, Ravin Balakrishnan, Karan Singh
Abstract: 
Video authoring activity typically consists of three phases: planning (pre-production), capture (production) and processing (post-production). The status quo is that these phases occur separately, with the latter two having a significant amount of “slack time”, where the camera operator is watching the scene unfold during capture, and the editor is re-watching and navigating through recorded footage during post-production. While this process is well suited to creating polished or professional video, video clips produced by casual video makers as seen in online forums could benefit from some editing without the overhead of current authoring tools. We introduce LACES, a tablet-based system enabling simple video manipulations in the midst of filming. Seamless in-situ integration of video capture and manipulation forms a novel workflow, allowing for greater spontaneity and exploration in video creation.
Bio:
Dustin Freeman is a final-year PhD student at the University of Toronto. He comes from a hybrid background in theatre, mathematics and engineering. In his research, he explores interface for fluid, spontaneous expression. His thesis work is on a whole-body interface for stage performers to do video editing in the midst of performance.