My research interests are broadly in the area of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), including topics such as:
- Human-AI Interaction and Human-Centred AI
- Voice / Speech Interaction
- Accountable / Explainable / Intelligible Systems
- Ubiquitous Computing (e.g., Internet of Things (IoT)) and everyday life)
- Collocated interaction (with and around technology), and collaboration (e.g., CSCW)
Current and past projects
UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (TAS) Hub
“In order to realise the industrial and societal benefits of Autonomous Systems, they must be trustworthy by design and default, judged both through objective processes of systematic assurance and certification, and via the more subjective lens of users, industry, and the public. To address this and deliver it across the TAS programme, the UK Research Hub for TAS (TAS-UK) assembles a team that is world renowned for research in understanding the socially embedded nature of technologies.”
Hub website: tas.ac.uk
September 2020-August 2024 | Project details (funded by UKRI / EPSRC)
RoboClean: Human Robot Collaboration for Allergen-Aware Factory Cleaning
This project investigates the potential of human-robot collaboration, integrated with IoT sensors for cleaning and allergen detection on a factory floor. The outcomes of this project will include an interactive connected system enabling novel human-robot collaboration and sensor data collection in a factory by engaging with partners in industry (British Pepper and Spice) and the third sector (the Food and Drink Forum).
November 2018-April 2020 | Project details (funded by UoN Smart Products Beacon and Horizon DER)
A-IoT – Future Everyday Interaction with the Autonomous Internet of Things
This project seeks to investigate the design of interaction mechanisms and user interfaces for a future Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT): a system of interconnected devices that reaches beyond most current incarnations of the IoT to include aspects of autonomy or automation as a key feature.
April 2016-October 2019 | Grant details (funded by EPSRC)
UbiDesign – Ubiquitous Computing Enabled Design
This project explores novel, intelligent models of design engineering processes that utilise real-time sensor based information and Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp) technologies to promote stakeholder collaboration, and embed life cycle knowledge throughout sustainable engineering design processes.
February 2016-July 2017 | Grant details (funded by EPSRC)
CharIoT – Leveraging the Internet of Things to Reduce Fuel Poverty
This is a joint project with the Centre for Sustainable Energy and the University of Southampton. The project aims at supporting the work of energy advisors through co-development and deployments of IoT-sensor kits for collecting environmental data in homes, and interactive prototypes to support sense-making and advice giving based on that data.
October 2014-March 2016 | Grant details (funded by EPSRC) | Project website
Latest: the project continued into 2017, joint funded by the EPSRC IAA (impact accelerator account) and Horizon Digital Economy Research (http://www.horizon.ac.uk/project/chariot-2-0/).
ORCHID – Human Agent-Collectives: from Foundations to Applications
My research in ORCHID has focused on HCI in the application areas of energy use in the home, and on disaster response—the common denominator being the ORCHID theme of Human-Agent Collectives.
January 2011-June 2016 | Grant details (funded by EPSRC) | Project website
Research themes
Some selected research themes cutting across some of the earlier of the above projects.
HCI and Energy Use in the Home
The focus of this work is on HCI and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp) in the context of energy use in the home. Our research includes
- In the wild deployments of home energy agent technologies, see our CHI ’14 paper: Doing the Laundry with Agents.
- Collaboration with the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) to study and support their work on giving advice to people in fuel poverty. There’s a full CHI ’16 paper on the formative sensor kit deployment in the wild, a full ECSCW ’17 paper and a full UbiComp ’14 paper about our fieldwork with CSE advisors, and there’s a short paper here. This work has been funded by the CharIoT project, which has also been awarded EPSRC impact accelerator account funds by the University of Nottingham, and is being continued as a Horizon Agile project.
- Development and evaluation of recommender systems on energy tariff and usage shifting based on household profiles. See for example our IUI ’13 paper or AgentSwitch in action at www.agentswitch.org.
- Explorations of attitudes of the public towards future autonomous Energy Systems by means of whiteboard animations, as reported in our CHI ’13 paper, on which I’ve written here.
Disaster Response
In this research theme we investigate technologies to support team work in disaster response settings. Highlights include
- Our CHI2015 paper reporting ethnographic fieldwork with Rescue Global, a disaster response organisation based out of London.
- A short film produced in 2013 showcasing the ORCHID work on Disaster Response (more here).
- AtomicOrchid, the mixed-reality game we have developed to explore coordination and team work in a setting that simulates aspects of disaster response. It is introduced in this short workshop paper.
- Our COOP 2014 paper reports on the trial of the initial version of AtomicOrchid.
- AtomicOrchid with agent-based planning support is presented in our CTS 2014 paper.
- There is an earlier workshop position paper we had at CSCW ’12 that talks about ‘serious’ mixed-reality games.
Interruption Management
Between 2008 and 2011 I completed my PhD at the Mixed Reality Lab under supervision of Steve Benford and Chris Greenhalgh. My research focused on mobile, context-aware interruption management, and techniques to study interruptions in field experiments.
My thesis “Understanding Receptivity to Interruptions in Mobile Human-Computer Interaction” can be obtained from the University’s etheses archive here.
The thesis makes a number of contributions to the methodology of studying mobile experiences in situ, understanding receptivity to interruptions, and designing context-sensitive systems.
There are a number of papers that detail this strand of work (see Publications 2010/2011). The most recent paper Understanding Mobile Notification Management in Collocated Groups was published at ECSCW 2013.