Multi channel and multi degree-of-freedom user interfaces for heterogeneous display environments

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Our computing environments are increasingly diversifying to include displays with a variety of sizes, resolutions, and form-factors. In terms of size and resolution, these range from tiny low-resolution displays found on watches to gigantic high-resolution wall-size displays driven by multiple tiled projectors. Form factors are also increasingly varied, ranging from highly portable displays that can be used in any location, position and orientation, to more static displays used in either a horizontal (e.g., tabletop) or vertical format. In addition, projectors are getting increasingly smaller, allowing users to create dynamic displays of variable size at any location. Despite this diversity in displays, the user interfaces we currently use differ very little regardless of the display's characteristics, and tend to rely on one or at most two channels of input (e.g., keyboard and mouse/pen) with limited degrees-of-freedom. Furthermore, current user interfaces do not support the seamless use of multiple heterogeneous displays in a coherent holistic manner. The net result is that users are unable to utilize the multiple displays in their computing environment to their fullest potential. The proposed research intends to develop multi channel and multi degree-of-freedom user input and interaction techniques to allow users to work effectively in computational environments consisting of a variety heterogeneous displays. The research will investigate user interfaces for single person use, as well as interfaces to support multiple people working collaboratively in such environments. In addition to explicit interaction, we also intend to focus on techniques for more ambient and subtle interaction in these spaces. The methodology will include exploratory user studies better understand the human user's capabilities when working in these environments, developing predictive models of interaction performance, and the iterative design of new interfaces.