Our Vision
Principle investigator: Pattie Maes
Why do we still use a keyboard and mouse to interact with digital information? This mode of human-computer interaction, invented more than 40 years ago, severely constrains our ability to access and interact naturally with digital content. Computer systems lack the contextual knowledge to offer relevant information when and where we need it. Further, traditional screen-based interfaces divert our attention in mobile and social situations. They are designed for a single user, and not well suited to accommodate collaborative activities.
These are the problems that motivate our research. Our group designs new interfaces that integrate digital content in people’s lives in more fluid and seamless ways. Our aim is to make it easier and more intuitive to benefit from the wealth of useful digital information and services. Our work is focused in the following areas:
- Augmented Experiences: We augment a person's experience of their surroundings with relevant digital information. We try to make the experience as seamless as possible, blending the digital information into the physical environment and making interaction with that information natural and fluid.
- Responsive Objects: We alter everyday objects by embedding sensors, actuators and displays so that the objects can respond to people using them in meaningful, noticeable ways.
- Collaborative Interactions: We experiment with novel interfaces that are designed from the start for use by multiple people. The projects support collaborations ranging from small numbers to very large numbers of people and further differ in whether they support collocated versus remote collaboration as well as synchronous versus asynchronous collaborations.
- Programmable Materials: We invent interfaces and machines for control and manipulation of materials such as paper, fabric, wood and food. Our goal is to endow materials and manufacturing with some of the advantages associated with the digital world such as modifiability, programmability, responsiveness and personalization.