current research
My current research projects involve in-depth analysis of requirements for the design of interactive systems in areas such as personal service robots and interactive assistive technologies, computer-aided design tools for sustainable construction and locative media apps.
Successful design involves not only gaining an intimate understanding of the people for whom the technology is being designed, but also the contexts within which they will be using it. The challenge for ensuring effectiveness and acceptance of the solutions lies in being able to surface and communicate deep insights in regards to real-world situations, which are interwoven and influenced by human emotion, perceptions, experiences and beliefs. Iterative prototyping and user-based evaluations, further help to clarify and resolve often poorly understood issues and constraints. However, when designing innovative technology that needs to function safely and reliably in unpredictable environments, conducting prototype evaluations that have both ecological and external validity, itself becomes a challenge.
I am driven by exploring pragmatic and creative approaches that address the above issues in different contexts, to ensure that the solutions developed are not only effective and efficient, but result in an engaging, pleasurable and satisfying interactive experience.
My current research follows on from my work in the area of interactive evolutionary computation, which was the focus of my PhD - An Interactive Evolutionary Approach for Configuring Machine Vision Systems. This research was aimed at the development of a methodology for rapidly reconfigurable systems for machine vision. In these systems, the users’ tacit knowledge and requirements are elicited via a process of Interactive Evolution, tuning the image processing parameters to achieve the required goals without any need for specialised knowledge of the machine vision system.
My research explored ways to enhance user experience and ease of interaction, which are vital to ensure the applicability of these algorithms in real-world scenarios. The graphical user interface and algorithms are currently being adapted to support web design, with a view to exploring the design space for innovative solutions that enable interactive personalisation.
My previous research has also included the application of adaptive non-linear learning algorithms to a range of medical and finance related problems.