Research & Publications
Research Interests:
Modelling usersHow can we model people using interactive systems in order to inform and improve the design of such systems? I have used algebraic, formal and statistical models and I am currently very interested in developing a cognitive model that replicates people who perform very badly in usability tests.
- Schiller, J., Cairns, P. (2008) There's always one! Modelling outlying user performance. ACM Conf. on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2008, ACM Press. PDF
- Gow, J., Thimbleby, H., Cairns, P. (2006) Automatic critiques of interface modes. In Harrison, M., Design Specification and Verification of Interactive Systems, DSVIS 05, Springer LNCS 3941, 201-212 PDF
- Thimbleby, H., Cairns, P., Jones, M. (2001) Usability analysis with Markov models. ACM Trans. on Computer Human Interaction, 8(2), 99-132 PDF
We seem to all know what it means to be immersed in a game but what exactly is immersion? I have already worked on a number of studies positioning immersion with respect to attention, personality and addiction. I would like to devise games that specifically control the amount of immersion in order to study this area in a more experimental paradigm.
- Seah, M., Cairns, P. (2008) From Immersion to addiction in videogames. In England, D. and Beale, R. Proc. of HCI 2008, vol 1 BCS, 55-63 PDF Awarded best long paper at the conference
- Jennett,C., Cox,A.L., Cairns,P., Dhoparee,S., Epps,A., Tijs,T., Walton,A. (2008). Measuring and Defining the Experience of Immersion in Games. International Journal of Human Computer Studies. PDF
- Brown, E., Cairns, P. (2004) A grounded investigation of immersion in games. ACM Conf. on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2004, ACM Press, 1297-1300 PDF
I am interested in the development and presentation of mathematical materials in electronic form to provide wide access to methods and techniques that non-mathematicians can access. I am currently wondering about how to provide psychologists statistical support for planning the analysis of experiments
- Cairns, P., Gow, J. (2007) Integrating searching and authoring in Mizar. J. of Automated Reasoning 39(2), 141-160 PDF
- Gow, J., Cairns, P. (2007), A digital library based on Mizar. In Fourteenth Workshop on Automated Reasoning (ARW 2007), Imperial College, London. PDF
PhD Students
Current students:
- Charlene Jennett, Attention and immersion
- Rania Hodhod, Using interactive narrative to teach ethics
- Richard Ribeiro, Supporting hidden communities of practice
Former students:
- Eduardo Calvillo Gámez (2009) On the Core Elements of the Experience of Playing Video Games PhD Thesis, University College London
- Sarah Faisal (2008) From Tool to Instrument: an Experiential Analysis of Interacting with Information Visualisation. PhD Thesis, University College London
- Lidia Oshlyansky (2008) Cultural Models in HCI: Hofstede, Affordance and Technology Acceptance. PhD Thesis, University of Wales, Swansea
- Brock Craft (2007) A Sketching-oriented Design Method for Information Visualiszation Software. PhD Thesis, University College London
- Simon Li (2006) An Empirical Investigation of Post-Completion Error: a cognitive perspective. PhD Thesis, University College London
- Suziah Sulaiman (2006) User Haptic Experience: transferring real world tactile sensation of drawing tools into haptic interfaces. PhD Thesis, University College London