CAREER: Advancing Innovation in Bio-Design through Reality-Based Interaction

近年来，人机交互（HCI）的研究产生了广泛的交互风格，这些风格超越了桌面，进入了新的物理和社会环境。这方面的关键创新领域是桌面、有形和多点触控用户界面。这些交互风格利用了用户与真实世界（非数字世界）交互的现有知识和技能；因此，它们通常被称为基于现实的接口。这样的界面提供了一种自然的、直观的、通常是协作的交互形式，减少了学习和操作计算系统所需的脑力劳动。虽然HCI的这些进步已经成功地应用于广泛的应用领域，但在科学发现的背景下，很少有研究致力于调查基于现实的交互。PI认为，在这种情况下，研究基于现实的交互尤为重要，因为在这种情况下，减少用户的心理负担和支持协作工作可能会带来令人兴奋的科学进步。例如，在对合成生物学家使用的工作流程和计算工具的初步研究中，PI发现，这个研究团体的成员经常在指定、比较、记录和共享信息方面遇到困难，而这些信息的相互作用在以前被证明对科学发现至关重要。她进一步指出，当前计算工具的局限性对协作、信息流和探索构成了障碍。尽管合成生物学在解决诸如低成本药物开发和替代能源生产等问题方面具有巨大潜力，但由于缺乏适当的计算工具，再加上生物系统固有的复杂性，迄今为止的进展有限。在这个项目中，PI将研究基于现实的界面如何能够推动生物设计的创新。为了解决这个问题，她将开发和评估一套基于现实的接口，以支持新型生物系统的设计和组装，她希望这将促进协作，有效和安全的工作流程，促进探索替代解决方案，并减少与访问和关联大量信息相关的精神工作量。更广泛的影响：项目成果将包括：为合成生物学家设计、实施和评估一套基于现实的界面；开发未来此类系统的一套设计要求；一种评估计算机支持的科学家合作工作效能的方法流体与不同尺度异构计算装置相互作用的新技术以及一系列的设计考虑和参与式设计过程来支持科学发现。该项目每年将培养3名女本科生，她们将成为她的研究团队的重要组成部分，并将参加一项国际科学竞赛。该项目将影响PI所在机构（一所女子学院）和合作机构的计算机和科学课程。此外，这项研究将成为一个高度可见的“磁铁”项目，通过外展活动吸引本科生和高中生对计算机科学研究的关注。

In recent years, research in human-computer interaction (HCI) has generated a broad range of interaction styles that move beyond the desktop into new physical and social contexts. Key areas of innovation in this respect are tabletop, tangible, and multi-touch user interfaces. These interaction styles leverage users' existing knowledge and skills of interaction with the real, non-digital world; thus, they are often referred to as reality-based interfaces. Such interfaces offer a natural, intuitive, and often collaborative form of interaction that reduces the mental effort required to learn and operate a computational system. While these advances in HCI have been successfully applied to a broad range of application domains, little research has been devoted to investigating reality-based interaction in the context of scientific discovery. The PI argues that it is particularly important to study reality-based interaction in this context, where reducing users' mental workloads and supporting collaborative work could potentially lead to exciting scientific advances. For example, in a preliminary study of the workflow and computational tools employed by synthetic biologists, the PI found that members of this research community often experience difficulties in specifying, comparing, documenting, and sharing information - interactions that have previously been shown as critical for scientific discovery. She further observed that the limitations of current computational tools pose barriers for collaboration, information flow, and exploration. This lack of appropriate computational tools coupled with the inherent complexity of biological systems has limited progress to date, despite the enormous potential of synthetic biology to solve problems such as low-cost drug development and alternative energy production. In this project, the PI will investigate how reality based interfaces may be able to advance innovation in biological design. To address this question, she will develop and evaluate a suite of reality-based interfaces that support the design and assembly of novel biological systems, and which she expects will promote collaborative, effective, and safe workflow, facilitate exploration of alternative solutions, and reduce the mental workload associated with accessing and relating large amounts of information.Broader Impacts: Project outcomes will include: design, implementation, and evaluation of a suite of reality-based interfaces for synthetic biologists; a set of design requirements for developing future such systems; a methodology for evaluating the efficacy of computer-supported cooperative work of scientists; novel techniques for fluid interaction with heterogeneous computational devices of different scale; and a set of design considerations and a participatory design process for supporting scientific discovery. The PI will train three female undergraduate researchers per year, who will be an integral part of her research team and will participate in an international science competition. The project will impact computing and science courses at the PI's institution (a women's college) and at collaborating institutions. In addition, this research will serve as a highly visible "magnet" project that attracts undergraduate and high-school students' attention to computer science research through outreach activities.