HCI · HAI · SOCIAL ROBOTS
I study how robots and interactive systems can support communication between people and between humans and agents. I design subtle interventions that emerge between people and technology.
Internal states like tension or fatigue are hard to notice, let alone feel as your own. We use the emotional impressions that a shape's form and movement evoke to externalize these changes as a geometric agent, shown on a wearable device, a tabletop robot, and a shared display.
Related publications
Paper-summary slides created in seminars and reading groups make research visually accessible, but often become scattered after presentations. Paper Gallery is a web system that automatically builds a slide database through existing information-sharing platforms. Its searchable gallery supports knowledge discovery and communication among researchers through shared slides.
Naming a quiet participant to prompt them to speak puts them, and everyone else at the table, on edge. We built small tabletop robots that instead move toward whoever has spoken least, as if they want to listen in — nudging participation without singling anyone out.
Pixel Board is a grid of full-color LEDs designed to create a sense that other people are present in a shared community. Multiple remote users can manipulate its display over the internet.
Related publications
Service robots need to end one conversation before helping the next person, but a unilateral ending can feel uncomfortable. This study used a crowdsourced survey to examine when a robot should announce that an interaction is about to end.