Antti Oulasvirta
Computational Approaches to User Interface Design
12th Dec 2017, 10:00
Amphitheater of the Digiteo Moulon Shannon building (660), How to get to there ?
Abstract
Algorithmic methods have revolutionarized many areas of engineering and design, so why not the design of user interfaces? I discuss applications of optimization and machine learning methods in user interface design.
Biography
Antti Oulasvirta is an Associate Professor at Aalto University where he leads the User Interfaces research group. He was previously a Senior Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and the Cluster of Excellence on Multimodal Computing and Interaction at Saarland university. He received his doctorate in Cognitive Science from the University of Helsinki in 2006, after which he was a Fulbright Scholar at the School of Information in University of California-Berkeley in 2007-2008 and a Senior Researcher at Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT in 2008-2011. During his postgraduate studies in 2002-2003, he was an exchange student at UC Berkeley's Neuropsychology Lab and did an internship at T-Labs in Berlin in 2006. He was awarded the ERC Starting Grant (2015-2020) for research on computational design of user interaces. Dr. Oulasvirta serves as an associate editor for International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. His work has been awarded the Best Paper Award and Best Paper Honorable Mention at CHI ten times between 2008 and 2017.
Computational User Interface Design
3rd Dec 2013, 2:00pm - 3:00pm
amphitheatre RUBIS, Télécom ParisTech - 46 rue Barrault Paris 13 - Metro Corvisart
(how to get there ?)
Abstract
Search spaces in user interface design often grow too large to be explored manually. Let us consider the case of designing a menu, one of the most commonly used user interface. The number of possible designs for a menu with only 20 items is 20!=2432902008176640000 -- more than there are stars in the observable universe. Our group investigates computational methods for interface design. Automatic solutions to well-known, recurring problems allows a designer to focus on truly novel aspects of design. The basis of this work is quantitative predictive models of interaction combined with computational methods for searching the optimal design. Instead of generating and trying out one or only a few instances at a time, the designer defines optimization goals, assumptions about the user and use, and sets constraints, and the computer explores the best designs. We develop design tools that allow a designer interact with an optimizer while editing a user interface. This approach allows rapid exploration of millions of user interface designs as part of design process. Research results for keyboards, menu systems, and gestural interfaces are presented as case examples.
Biography
Antti Oulasvirta is a cognitive scientist leading the Human-Computer Interaction group at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and the Cluster of Excellence on Multimodal Computing and Interaction.