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

该研究计划的目标是设计，开发和评估有形和具体的界面，以促进大型和/或复杂数据集的操作和解释。具体的重点是界面设计，以支持计算科学的做法，研究计划，因此建立在PI的正在进行的工作与生物化学工程和计算基因组学研究人员。我们建议，不断增长的人机交互（HCI）的研究领域被称为有形和体现的互动（TEI）提供了独特的机会，提高研究实践和发现在计算科学。这是基于认知科学和神经科学越来越多的证据，这些证据表明感觉和运动过程在认知过程中起着重要作用，例如科学推理和解决问题。然而，与计算模拟和大型/复杂数据集的交互目前仅有限地使用运动系统，因为这些交互仍然受到诸如键盘/鼠标以及最近的触摸交互的主流人机界面的限制。相比之下，TEI采用物理对象，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，需要创新的接口，可以提高发现过程涉及大型和/或复杂的数据集提供了一个机会，推动TEI领域。TEI社区建议该领域需要承担更复杂的问题和计算。然而，TEI仍然存在显着的局限性，研究领域尚未解决规模和复杂性在计算科学领域中应用的幅度。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的基本理解;设计，开发和评估可以应用于实践的这些接口的原型;以及制定一个设计框架，可以帮助HCI设计人员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/或规模而尚未解决的问题来推进TEI领域，但可以从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，在这项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物化学系统和基因组学等领域中困难但对社会至关重要的科学问题的能力。

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.