University of Oulu
INFOTECH OULU

Human Interaction with Advanced Mobile Services and Intelligent Environments (INTERACT)

Professor Kari Kuutti, Department of Information Processing Science, University of Oulu
Research Professor Heikki Ailisto, VTT Oulu

kari.kuutti(at)oulu.fi, heikki.ailisto(at)vtt.fi

http://www.infotech.oulu.fi/interact

Background and Mission

The research group consists of researchers from the Department of Information Processing Science, and VTT, Advanced Interactive Systems Research Field.

Currently, Human Computer Interaction (HCI) research is facing ever increasing challenges, with advanced mobile services and intelligent environments moving from research laboratories towards everyday use. The problems with WAP acceptance acts as a good example of the dangers of designing without a user-centred approach: despite the success in realising the technology, commercial success remains elusive because, for the majority of potential users, "the pain is greater than the gain". While making telephone calls and sending text messages poses only moderate requirements on the device user interfaces, the more advanced services envisioned and even partly realised today are significantly more demanding. A smoothly operating and intuitive user interface will be a fundamental element of all successful applications, and an important element of competition. Mobile services may still bear some resemblance to traditional applications, but new, intelligent, adaptive environments will differ considerably with respect to user interfaces, and the usefulness of old design knowledge will indeed be limited.

There are therefore a number of difficult but interesting research problems on different levels:

  • The emergent use of non-traditional interaction modalities, such as voice, gestures and gaze, sets new requirements on HCI design, and opens up totally new, unexplored possibilities.
  • There is a need for advanced technological architectures that can provide the necessary HCI services to the user and adapt to situations.
  • We do not know how to efficiently utilize small, differently sized interfaces in the realisation of advanced mobile services
  • We lack efficient design methods for combinations of mobile devices and traditional services, not to mention methods to design interfaces for intelligent environments.
  • Although there is a body of knowledge for user-centred HCI design, we do not know which parts of that knowledge are directly applicable and what else may be needed.

The user experience in mobile networks and intelligent environments will be less controlled than with traditional applications. This is due to the fragmentation of service provision, which will be composed from parts offered by different providers. Ensuring that this collection will not have a detrimental effect on the user experience is a totally novel design challenge. Moreover, the increase in the number of stakeholders in service provision will make the organising of HCI design even more complex.

Human interfaces and experience with advanced mobile services and intelligent environments will be one of the major design challenges when the systems are moved from research laboratories towards everyday use. The INTERACT research group is addressing this problem area on a number of levels which support each other. At the level of basic research, the group is modelling the use situation of advanced services and intelligent environments, and correspondingly envisioning and constructing novel technology architectures needed to provide the optimal user experience in those environments, in a controlled way. The group is also developing and experimenting with novel forms of enhanced multimodal interaction for devices and environments. Moreover, the group is developing new methods and techniques for design interaction in intelligent environments, and constructing test environments where both the interaction techniques and design methods can be tested and validated. Finally, the group is developing methods for the evaluation and improvement of HCI design processes in product development organisations.

Scientific Progress

During 2008 the main scientific results were

  • Advances in both understanding of multimodal, and in particular touch-based interactions, and methods how to study them in the field (VTT research group in several projects)
  • Model for citizen participation in urban design and a system (WebMapMedia) to support it (Studio'n'site research project)
  • Development of a model architecture for support technology system for senior citizens (SECS research project).

Exploitation of Results

Dissemination of results - The group has been publishing very actively, and additionally the members of the group have been giving talks, presentations and demonstrations on a number of occasions, both in Finland and abroad, in both academic and industry led events. Several short visits from other groups have also been hosted, including a visit by a Japanese delegation.

Industrial cooperation - The cooperation in the SECS project has continued. A number of Master's theses have been supervised in cooperation with industry.

Personnel

professors & doctors

12

graduate students

13

total

27

person years (univ. 68% VTT 32%)

14

External Funding

Source

EUR

Academy of Finland

85 000

Ministry of Education

90 000

EU + other international

160 000

total

335 000

Selected Publications

Ermes M, Pärkkä J, Mäntyjärvi J, Korhonen I (2008) Detection of daily activities and sports with wearable sensors in controlled and uncontrolled conditions. IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine 12(1): 20-26.

Iivari N (2008) Exploring the rhetoric on representing the user: Discourses on user involvement in academia and the IT artifact product development industry. Information Communication Technologies: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications V, Chapter 5.34. Information Science Reference, 2741-2770.

Isomursu M (2008) Evaluating user experience in technology pilots. IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 272(47-52).

Isomursu M, Häikiö J, Wallin A & Ailisto H (2008) Experiences from a touch-based interaction and digitally enhanced meal-delivery service for the elderly. Advances in Human-Computer Interaction Q2.

Karasti H & Baker KS (2008) Digital data practices and the long term ecological research program growing global. International Journal of Digital Curation 3(2): 42-58.

Martikainen O & Alasalmi A (2008) Multichannel contact strategy helps outpatient healthcare access. The Journal of The Institute of Telecommunications Professionals 2(2).

Paterno F, Santoro C & Mäntyjärvi J, Mori G & Sansone S (2008) Authoring pervasive multimodal user interfaces. International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology 4(2): 235-261.

Alahuhta P & Ailisto H (2008) From technology prototypes to ethnographic studies: a look to the ubicomp research directions. MobilityConference 2008, the 5th International Conference on Mobile Technology, Applications and Systems. Ilan, Taiwan. ACM, Singapore.

Arhippainen L (2008) User experience context and impacts of subjective and collective experiences on appraisal of the ICTs. Persuasive 2008, the Third International Conference on Persuasive Technology, Oulu, Finland, June 4-6, Poster Proceedings. Ed. by Oinas-Kukkonen H et al., University of Oulu, 46-49.

Ehn P, Binder T, Eriksen M, Jacucci G, Kuutti K, Linde P et al (2007) Opening the digital box for design work: supporting performative interactions, using inspirational materials and configuring of place. The Disappearing Computer. Interaction Design, System Infrastructures and Applications for Smart Environments. Ed. by Streiz N & Kameas A & Mavrommatti I. Heidelberg, Springer, 50-76.

Nuojua J, Juustila A, Räisänen T, Kuutti K & Soudunsaari L (2008) Exploring web-based participation methods for urban planning. Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary Conference on Participatory Design 2008: Experiences and Challenges, Bloomington, Indiana, USA, October 1-4, 274-277.

Luimula M & Kuutti K (2008) Locawe: a novel platform for location-aware multimedia services. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia, December 3-5, Umeå, Sweden, 122-129.

Nuojua J & Kuutti K (2008) Communication based web mapping: a new approach for acquisition of local knowledge for urban planning. 12th International MindTrek Conference: Entertainment and Media in the Ubiquitous Era, Tampere, Finland, October. Ed. by Lugmayr A et al., 136-140.