These project ideas are suitable for students on the MSc project courses G64PMI, G64PIT and G64IDS (i.e. Interactive Systems Design, Information technology and Managament of Information Technology courses).
Please bear in mind the subjects I supervise are largely in the area of HCI - and I expect my project students to incorporate a significant component of user-experience centred design and/or user evaluation. I am interested in a variety of different areas of HCI and in particular exploring designing for novel and emotive experiences, and also in designing for novel forms of interaction. Doing this kind of work requires significant dedication and hard work, doing user-focused and design-led studies is never an easy option, and I will expect a high standard from my students.
I am particularly interested in students who might want to perform detailed fieldwork leading to interesting system design or students who are keen to take a strongly design-led approach, prototyping technologies and potentially evaluating them 'in-the-wild'.
NB, I also expect my students to do plenty of reading! - this is often the basis for a well thought through and delivered dissertation...
It's often best when students come up with their own project ideas and look for a resonance between those ideas and either the subjects that a lecturer teaches or their research interests as given on their university web-pages, you can see some of my research interests on my home page.
For those looking for suggested areas - I could suggest some of the following areas (but bear in mind I will supervise projects in other areas - depending on how interesting your idea is!):
I've previously done a lot of work which has sought to explore how human memory is digitally mediated. I'm interested in projects where students might build simple, but evocative technologies that enhance of expand our processes of memory, giving us the opportunity to remember new things or reflect on the past in different ways.
For example there are lots of different ways in which memories might be associated with or invested in our interactions with everyday objects. A project in this space might look at how to design and develop a technology that associates some kind of media-based 'memory' (audio, video or picture data) with physical objects. This might include the use of RFID technology or other sensing mechanisms and would require developing a way of associating media with artefacts and then replaying that in some meaningful way.
Another example might be to explore the evocative use of video as a sentimental memento. We already have a clear notion of the digital photo frame and what that is - but how could or should video clips be displayed in the home?
These are technologies which connect people, communicative devices, which allow people to share intimate messages or moments of connections. I would be interested in supervising a student project which might design and develop a simple communication device for connecting people, in subtle ways.
I have done various bits of research looking at video communication. A student project could explore the ways in which video technologies are used by specific groups of people to communicate. It might then design or develop new kinds of video service and technology.
For example, a project could explore how grandparents are using video technology to connect with remote grandchildren - what are the difficutlies they have - how could existing systems be improved - what new (video-based) interactive technologies could be developed to support these interactions.
Interacting with interactive surfaces is an exciting new(ish) interaction paradigm. A project in this space might develop or prototype novel surface interactions. In the past I've been particularly interested in exploring the differences between tangible (3D) and surface (2D) inputs. Experimental analyses of these different input methods is potentially interesting.
Alternatively, a project in this space might explore the design and prototyping of novel tangible interactions through the use of object recognition technologies such as the D-Touch system
Also a project could be in the area of gestural interaction (another growing area of HCI). A project in this space could prototype and test out different forms of gestural interaction to create a novel and engaging user experience, or to serve the needs of people who might find it difficult to interact with other input technologies.
Last updated 8th February 2011