Grasping Science: Designing Tangible and Embodied Interactions for the Computational Sciences

该研究计划的目标是设计、开发和评估便于操作和解释大型和/或复杂数据集的有形和具体界面。具体的重点是支持计算科学实践的接口设计，因此该研究计划建立在PI与生化工程和计算基因组学研究人员正在进行的工作的基础上。 我们认为，日益增长的人机交互(HCI)研究领域被称为有形和体现交互(TEI)，为加强计算科学的研究实践和发现提供了独特的机会。这是基于越来越多的来自认知科学和神经科学的证据，这些证据表明感觉和运动过程在科学推理和解决问题等认知过程中发挥着重要作用。然而，与计算模拟和大型/复杂数据集的交互目前只能有限地使用电机系统，因为这些交互仍然受到主流人机接口(如键盘/鼠标)以及最近的触摸交互的限制。相反，TEI使用物理对象、表面和空间作为数字信息的控制和表示，支持运动、感知和认知过程与计算系统交互的联合参与。 我们进一步提出，对能够加强涉及大型和/或复杂数据集的发现过程的创新接口的需求为推动TEI领域的发展提供了机会。TEI社区建议，该领域需要承担更复杂的问题和计算。然而，TEI的重大限制仍然存在，而且该研究领域尚未解决应用于计算科学领域的规模和复杂性。该研究计划的贡献包括对TEI如何支持特定计算科学领域的研究实践和过程有一个基本的了解；设计、开发和评估可应用于实践的这些接口的原型；以及制定一个设计框架，以帮助人机交互设计者和研究人员创建支持计算科学实践的系统。 该计划将通过解决由于其复杂性和/或规模而尚未被该领域解决的问题来推进TEI领域，但这可以从TEI技术中受益。更广泛地说，计算科学对加拿大的科学和技术进步至关重要，该研究计划中开发的设计框架将作为创建工具的实用指南，这些工具有可能更好地促进计算科学家解决生化系统和基因组学等领域的困难但具有社会关键意义的科学问题的能力。

The goal of this research program is to design, develop, and evaluate tangible and embodied interfaces that facilitate the manipulation and interpretation of large and/or complex data sets. The specific focus is on interface design to support computational science practices, and the research program thus builds on the PI’s ongoing work with biochemical engineering and computational genomics researchers. We propose that the growing area of human-computer interaction (HCI) research known as tangible and embodied interaction (TEI) offers unique opportunities for enhancing research practices and discovery in the computational sciences. This is based on the increasing body of evidence from cognitive science and neuroscience, which shows that sensory and motor processes play an important role in cognitive processes, such as scientific reasoning and problem solving. However, interactions with computational simulations and large/complex data sets currently make only limited use of the motor system, as these interactions remain constrained by mainstream human-computer interfaces like keyboards/mice and, more recently, touch interaction. In contrast, TEI employs physical objects, surfaces, and spaces as controls and representations for digital information, supporting joint engagement of motor, perceptual and cognitive processes in interaction with computational systems. We further propose that the need for innovative interfaces that can enhance discovery processes involving large and/or complex datasets presents an opportunity to drive forward the field of TEI. The TEI community has suggested that the field needs to take on more complex problems and computation. Yet, significant limitations for TEI remain, and the research area has not yet addressed scale and complexity at the magnitude applied in areas of computational science. The contributions of the research program include developing a fundamental understanding of how TEI can support research practices and processes in specific computational science domains; the design, development, and evaluation of prototypes of these interfaces that can be applied in practice; and the formulation of a design framework that can aid HCI designers and researchers in creating systems to support computational science practices. The program will advance the field of TEI by addressing problems that have not yet been addressed by the field due to their complexity and/or scale, but that can benefit from TEI techniques. More broadly, the computational sciences are critical to scientific and technological advancement in Canada, and the design framework developed in this research program will serve as a practical guide for creating tools that have the potential to better facilitate the ability of computational scientists to solve difficult yet societally critical scientific problems in areas such as biochemical systems and genomics.