Alternative Interfaces Group
How can we produce systems that are easy to use by a
range of users with differing abilities?
CURRENT USER INTERFACES to
interactive applications are heavily oriented towards visual
presentation of data, with input typically via mouse
manipulation of visual objects. This style of interaction
has a number of limitations, but it is clearly particularly
inappropriate for people who are blind or partially sighted.
We are therefore exploring alternative interactive
modalities, in particular the use of gesture and sound to
handle input, output and feedback. Our current exemplars
include a multimodal mathematics editor for visually
disabled users and screen 'widgets' with auditory
enhancements. These require sophisticated devices such as
data gloves, three-dimensional sound and speech generators
and haptic interactors with force feedback. A goal of this
work is to develop alternative interface systems that can
work in concert with more traditional modalities.
The Work
The research in this group is somewhat different to most of the
rest of the department. We are interested in designing products of
use to people with a variety of disabilities without compromising the
scientific foundations of the research. For more information about
each project, please see the personal pages of the staff involved.
The People
The Alternative Interfaces Group is an informal subgroup of the HCI Research
Group at the University of York. Most of the current members are pictured below.
(We need a new picture!)
Members of the Group (left to right): Alistair
Edwards, Syariffanor Hisham (Sherry), Dawn
Cliff and Chris Newell (or click on their picture)
- Alistair
Edwards BSc (Warwick), MSc (Penn. State), PhD (Open)
Alistair is the leader of the team as well as being a lecturer in the department
of Computer Science. He is interested in everything his students do and lots
more besides.
Email: name: alistair; domain: cs.york.ac.uk
- Syariffanor Hisham
Sherry is working on a PhD on the use of computers by elders in Malaysia and
the UK
- Chris Newell MSc (Huddersfield). PhD (York)
Chris completed a PhD on Place, authenticity, and time: a framework
for liveness in synthetic speech. You
can find out more about his ideas on his web site. He is a lecturer at
the University of Hull, but maintains a research connection with the
Department.
Email name: newell domain: cs.york.ac.uk
Former members
Photographs
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- Carmen Marincu
- Carmen worked on the Warp Project (Web Accessibility
Re-engineering).
- Heather McCartney
- Heather was the Research Associate on the Lambda
Project
- Fauzi Saman BSc (Western Michigan), MSc (Western Michigan)
- Fauzi looked at how to design interfaces for illiterate users, in particular
interfaces to cashpoint machines (ATMs). He has returned to his home in Malaysia.
- Dr David Bennett BSc (Exon), DPhil (York)
- David was a research student and is interested in non-visual visual programming.
He is now a lecturer at Christ Church University
College, Canterbury..
Email: name: djb12; domain: cant.ac.uk
- Prof Steve Brewster BSc
(Hatfield), DPhil (York)
- aka Dr Sounds long since completed his DPhil and become a professor
at Glasgow University where he has too many classes to teach.
Email: name: stephen; domain: dcs.gla.ac.uk.
- Dr Ben Challis
Grad.Dip (Mus), MSc (York), DPhil (York)
- Ben is looking at how multiple communication modes can be used in teaching
music to blind children. He is now a Lecturer at
the University of Glamorgan.
- Dr Alan Creak BA (Cambridge),
PhD (Leeds)
- Alan visited the department from Auckland. He is interested in rehabilitation
computing.
Email: name: alan; domain: cs.auckland.ac.nz
- Dr John Hankinson BA (Cantab), MPhil (Cantab), DPhil
(York)
- John has looked at ways in which a musically structured approach to audio
design can improve non-speech audio communication for people with speech and
language disabilities. He now runs
PocketSiteDesign.
- Philip Harling BEng (York)
- Philip was a research student, interested in gesture-based interfaces as
well as anything to do with British Sign Language.
Email: name: philiph; domain: dircon.co.uk
- Dr Evangelos Mitsopoulos BSc (Athens), DPhil (York)
- Evangelos was a research student and Research Associate and is interested
in non-visual multi-modal interfaces. His research was suspended while he
undertook his national
service. His
research pages are still on line.
- Dr Ian Pitt BA (Exeter),
MSc, DPhil (York)
- ...is now in Cork, Ireland having passed through Magdeburg.
Email: name: ianp; domain: cs.ucc.ie.
- Dr Roger Spooner BSc (Edinburgh) DPhil (York)
- Roger was a research student and is interested in writing assistance for
dyslexic people. Now working for Picsel
Email: name: roger.spooner; domain: picsel.com
- Dr Robert Stevens BSc
(Bristol) MSc (York) DPhil (York)
- Robert was a research associate and is interested in speech and non-speech
based interfaces. He is now working in Bioinformatics at the University of
Manchester.
Email: name: rstevens; domain: cs.man.ac.uk
- Dawn Cliff
-
Dawn was the Project Officer for the Centre for Tactile Images at the Univesity of York.
Unfortunately, the centre was closed down for financial reasons.
- Geniviève Hines
- Geniviève was Research Associate on the project
Sonification of cervical smear data to improve screening accuracy.
She is now working in the Department of Biology at the University of York.
Other Sites of Interest
Maintained by
<name: alistair; domain: cs.york.ac.uk>