Daniel Vogel
Cheriton School of Computer Science
University of Waterloo, Canada
Everything is Spatial Interaction: Considering Materiality of Space as Position, Time, and Relation
We live in a world defined by space and materials. Whether physical or digital, the things we encounter occupy positions in space that change over time in response to our actions. This coupling of position, time, and relation is arguably at the core of what interaction is. In this talk, I explore the links between interaction, material, and space through examples from my research group, sometimes reinforcing and sometimes challenging what we mean by spatial interaction. I show how freeing a mouse cursor from a monitor considers spatial topology, how reconfigurable physical pixels express the materiality of a spatial display, how the way we walk enables slow spatial interactions, and how spatial interaction can even occur as we sleep. I hope to convince you that approaching human–computer interaction research a bit like art leads to exploring spatial interaction in unconventional and revealing ways.
Biography
Daniel Vogel is a Full Professor in the Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. He has published more than 100 papers in human–computer interaction on input devices, interaction techniques, and systems, spanning contexts such as desktop, mobile, mixed reality, physical computing, and fabrication. His background includes a BFA in studio arts with years of industry experience in design and animation, which he draws on to connect art and science in his work. With his students and collaborators, he has earned 17 ACM CHI paper awards, and he has received the CS-Can Outstanding Young Computer Science Researcher Prize, a Cheriton Faculty Fellowship, the Golden Jubilee Research Excellence Award, and recognition as an ACM Distinguished Member. He is equally passionate about teaching, having created an undergraduate specialization in computational fine art and a studio course where computer science and art students combine creative coding with art theory.
Mayra Barrera Machuca
Department of Computer Science
University of Calgary, Canada
Designing User Interfaces that Support Spatial Thinking in 3D Virtual Spaces.
Spatial thinking is a skill we use when interacting with virtual content using 3D user interfaces (UIs), as it involves our ability to understand, reason about, and remember the spatial relationships between objects or spaces. For example, spatial thinking helps people interpret and analyze the physical layout of environments and objects. However, spatial thinking creates a significant cognitive load for the user, as they need to mentally visualize how things fit together, move, or change in space.
In this talk, I’ll present work from the Vertex lab on understanding how people think spatially within a virtual environment and how we utilize this knowledge to design novel 3D UIs for 3D sketching that facilitate spatial thinking and improve user performance.
Biography
Dr. Barrera Machuca is the lead of the Vertex Lab and an Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Calgary in Canada. Previously, she was an assistant professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax. Her current research includes understanding how people think spatially in virtual environments and quantifying the perceptual issues associated with extended reality (XR) technologies. Her research also involves incorporating novel input methods and feedback types into 3D user interfaces and designing innovative XR training systems. Dr. Barrera Machuca’s work has generated considerable interest in the community, including winning the 2021 VGTC Virtual Reality Best Dissertation Award and the Faculty of Computer Science’s Best Researcher Award at Dalhousie University.
