Informatics Research Workshop 2006

introduction

Dr Dimitris Rigas

Prof Chris Taylor

Prof Rae Earnshaw

Prof Peter Excell

Prof Alan Dix

The 7th School of Informatics Research Workshop for Research Students was held on Wednesday 29th March 2006 in the University's John Stanley Bell lecture theatre. The Workshop chair and editor of the proceedings was Dr Dimitris Rigas from the Department of Computing in the School of Informatics

The proceedings were opened by the Vice-chancellor of the University of Bradford, Professor Chris Taylor. In his opening speech Professor Taylor congratulated the School of Informatics on it's commitment to research and offered much encouragement to the School's research students.

Following Professor Taylor, Professor Rae Earnshaw, Dean of the School of Informatics, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the University's Strategic Systems Development, addressed the workshop. Professor Earnshaw was followed by the School of Informatics' Associate Dean for Research Professor Peter Excell.

The workshop is an excellent opportunity for research students to exchange ideas and collaborate with research students from other universities. Following the success of previous workshops, the workshop is becoming an important part of the lively research culture in the School of Informatics and the University of Bradford.

Professor Alan Dix - Keynote Speaker

The Keynote Speaker for the event was Professor Alan Dix from Department of Computing, University of Lancaster. His presentation was entitled "Incidental Interaction — When Machines Do What They Want".

Synopsis

You used to know where you were with computers and things: you pressed a key and the text changed, you flicked the light switch and the light went on. But things are changing: you walk into a room and the light switches on for you; you are typing happily into your computer and a bouncy paper clip asks whether you are writing a letter.

Incidental interaction refers to those times when a system observes your behaviour and then in some way acts in a way that is (hopefully!) helpful but was not something you explicitly requested. This includes things in the physical environment such as the light that switches on (often called ambient intelligence) and also things in the digital world such as the way Amazon suggest what books you might like to look at based on your own and other people's past choices.

With standard intentional interaction you are in control of the system, you know when it is going to do something, you know what you expect it to do and so you can assess whether it is the right thing. With incidental interaction it is hard to know when or why an action has occurred.

This form of behaviour is getting more common from the TiVo box to toilet taps. How do people understand such interactions? How do we design for them?

For more on incidental interaction see: http://www.hcibook.com/alan/topics/incidental/

photographs from the event