Sonification for complex, mission-critical work environments. Human operators must often pay attention to an immediate task while monitoring background information, but intrusive alarms often capture operators' attention inappropriately. We investigate how continuous auditory information ("sonification") can provide low-level background information when all is normal, yet capture attention to abnormalities only when needed. The results of three experiments will determine the most effective combi ....Sonification for complex, mission-critical work environments. Human operators must often pay attention to an immediate task while monitoring background information, but intrusive alarms often capture operators' attention inappropriately. We investigate how continuous auditory information ("sonification") can provide low-level background information when all is normal, yet capture attention to abnormalities only when needed. The results of three experiments will determine the most effective combination of visual and auditory information delivery; how well sonification captures attention when needed; and whether sonification captures attention to deviations from expected changes. Our findings will help establish principles of attentional mapping that significantly extend current approaches to interactive systems design.Read moreRead less
Eat, cook, grow: Ubiquitous technology for sustainable food culture in the city. Raising people's awareness of healthy and ecological food options with nutritional data and educational information does not foster a sustained practice towards a more environmentally friendly food culture. This study seeks to develop a better understanding how to go beyond just informing and into supporting and sustaining action and change. Drawing on interaction design, ubiquitous computing and real- time informat ....Eat, cook, grow: Ubiquitous technology for sustainable food culture in the city. Raising people's awareness of healthy and ecological food options with nutritional data and educational information does not foster a sustained practice towards a more environmentally friendly food culture. This study seeks to develop a better understanding how to go beyond just informing and into supporting and sustaining action and change. Drawing on interaction design, ubiquitous computing and real- time information, the study will deliver research findings that inform viable new design approaches and information interfaces which will strengthen Australia's position to resolve the problems of obesity, malnutrition and ecological issues of mass food processing, and contribute to the sustainability of life in Australian cities.Read moreRead less
Social network sites for ambivalent socialisers: the case of smoking cessation. The aim of this project is to understand the potential of electronically-mediated engagement to support groups of ambivalent socialisers, and through this develop and evaluate new approaches to the application of social network technologies to smoking cessation.
Cooperation and reciprocity at the local scale enabled by social and mobile technologies: an empirically derived theoretical framework. The project aims to build new theories, design tools and social and mobile information technologies to support sharing of resources in local communities. Designs developed through agile software development will be built in communities to support new forms of community communication, agile ride sharing and distributed energy generation and use.
Earth soundscapes: A human-computer approach to environmental sound analysis. This project aims to visualise and analyse big sound data, to detect patterns of animal and bird calls at different temporal and spatial scales. Eco-acoustics are important for scaling environmental monitoring; since the resulting big sound data is opaque and its fully automated analysis is intractable, human-computer methods are needed to interpret the data. The project expects to deliver multi-scale sound visualisati ....Earth soundscapes: A human-computer approach to environmental sound analysis. This project aims to visualise and analyse big sound data, to detect patterns of animal and bird calls at different temporal and spatial scales. Eco-acoustics are important for scaling environmental monitoring; since the resulting big sound data is opaque and its fully automated analysis is intractable, human-computer methods are needed to interpret the data. The project expects to deliver multi-scale sound visualisation, end-user analytic tools and annotation and management methods so people can monitor the environment with insight and accuracy.Read moreRead less
Augmented Sociality: Enabling a Socialised Experience of Augmented Reality. This project will explore new socialised uses of Augmented Reality (AR) that expand creativity, social relations, and participation. We seek to better understand how AR content can be leveraged by people to create their own new ways of learning, collaborating, and relating with each other. To do so we will study and prototype new tools and platforms to allow non-experts to create their own AR media. We aim to enable peop ....Augmented Sociality: Enabling a Socialised Experience of Augmented Reality. This project will explore new socialised uses of Augmented Reality (AR) that expand creativity, social relations, and participation. We seek to better understand how AR content can be leveraged by people to create their own new ways of learning, collaborating, and relating with each other. To do so we will study and prototype new tools and platforms to allow non-experts to create their own AR media. We aim to enable people of all ages, education, and background, to imagine and create, and not just passively consume, AR contents, services, and applications. We will generate new applications of AR, a new platform to collaboratively create these applications, and a new theory of 'Augmented Sociality' to guide AR design.
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Enabling Situated Immersive Science Collaboration with Remote Sensing Data . This project aims to help scientists communicate and collaborate in immersive environments. Fieldwork is more valuable to scientists than looking at abstract remote data, but expense, danger, or inaccessible locations often stand in the way. This project will address this issue by researching and designing immersive environments that combine remote data with visualisations and new interaction tools for science teams to ....Enabling Situated Immersive Science Collaboration with Remote Sensing Data . This project aims to help scientists communicate and collaborate in immersive environments. Fieldwork is more valuable to scientists than looking at abstract remote data, but expense, danger, or inaccessible locations often stand in the way. This project will address this issue by researching and designing immersive environments that combine remote data with visualisations and new interaction tools for science teams to make sense of spatial and temporal aspects of data. Outcomes will include new presentation and interaction methods, an evaluation with geoscientists, and a framework for designing interactive systems that enable situated interactions. Benefits will include helping Australian scientists overcome distance in their research. Read moreRead less
Framing and Enabling Children’s Active Play using Novel Technology. This project aims to address inactivity in the 3-5 age group through understanding and exploring innovative interactive active play experiences for children, with a view to increasing their physical activity over the long term. This project will be based on empirical research with real children undertaking real interactive experiences in real contexts, in order to understand issues around sustained engagement with these types of ....Framing and Enabling Children’s Active Play using Novel Technology. This project aims to address inactivity in the 3-5 age group through understanding and exploring innovative interactive active play experiences for children, with a view to increasing their physical activity over the long term. This project will be based on empirical research with real children undertaking real interactive experiences in real contexts, in order to understand issues around sustained engagement with these types of systems. We will design and develop solutions that may address the issues and test those interventions in a longitudinal manner. The outcome will be a framework which can be applied in a variety of situations and modalities by designers and developers of such systems, and feed into childhood technology guidelines.
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Bio-Acoustic Observatory: Engaging Birdwatchers to Monitor Biodiversity by Collaboratively Collecting and Analysing Big Audio Data. This project will research how to crowd-source the collection and analysis of environmental animal sounds (for example, birds, frogs). This will enable a bio-acoustic observatory which provides a scalable, objective and permanent record of the environment, something hitherto impossible. The project will investigate how to engage the community of birdwatchers to exte ....Bio-Acoustic Observatory: Engaging Birdwatchers to Monitor Biodiversity by Collaboratively Collecting and Analysing Big Audio Data. This project will research how to crowd-source the collection and analysis of environmental animal sounds (for example, birds, frogs). This will enable a bio-acoustic observatory which provides a scalable, objective and permanent record of the environment, something hitherto impossible. The project will investigate how to engage the community of birdwatchers to extend their pastime online with new kinds of interactive tools to enable collaborative analysis of big audio data, and new kinds of birding experiences. Outcomes will be: new approaches to physical/virtual engagement in human-computer interaction; new approaches to analysing big data; a new validated ecological monitoring technique and concepts for sustainable knowledge generation communities.Read moreRead less
Ambient nature network: new technologies to connect people to nature. This project aims to reconnect people with nature through new technology. Events in nature occur at times, places and scales that are hard to witness, leading to human disconnection from nature. This project proposes to address this issue by researching and designing new low-cost devices that combine environmental sensors with new interfaces to reveal local nature in parks and gardens in calm, engaging ways within and between ....Ambient nature network: new technologies to connect people to nature. This project aims to reconnect people with nature through new technology. Events in nature occur at times, places and scales that are hard to witness, leading to human disconnection from nature. This project proposes to address this issue by researching and designing new low-cost devices that combine environmental sensors with new interfaces to reveal local nature in parks and gardens in calm, engaging ways within and between homes in medium and high density environments. Outcomes will include new connected devices, playful interfaces and social sharing mechanisms, an evaluation with local groups, and a new theory of technology supported human-nature interaction. Benefits will include better community connection to nature, engagement in local citizen science, environmental initiatives and novel monitoring services and products.Read moreRead less