UCL Interaction Centre

UCLIC is a leading UK Centre of Excellence in Human-Computer Interaction, working collaboratively with industry and the research community and drawing on the best scientific traditions in Computer Science and the Human Sciences. UCLIC is the only UK HCI Centre with formal interdisciplinary support. More information about UCLIC can be found in our 2010 Newsletter.

Current Opportunities

Recruitment for the PhD studentship on HCI for pain rehabilitation has been extended until 19 August. We are also recruiting for a PhD studentship on Machine Learning for pain rehabilitation until 19 August. More information about the studentships can be found on the project page. This project is also described on the UCL News page.
Apply now to do a PhD with us (through the Computer Science department, by 7 January, 6 May or 23 September in 2011; through the Psychology department, by 31st January each year).

Apply now for a place on the MSc & Post Graduate Diploma/Certificate in Human-Computer Interaction with Ergonomics starting in September 2010. Contact uclic-admissions@ucl.ac.uk for more information, or telephone the Admissions Tutor Nadia Berthouze.

News

Today is World Usability Day! This gives people interested in making usable technology a chance to promote their field and discuss important HCI issues. The theme for this year is communication, and at UCLIC we are lucky enough to be able to showcase a great piece of communication by our MSc students on UCL TV. See 'Why buttons go bad'.
More information about World Usability Day can be found at http://www.worldusabilityday.org/.
Chris Janssen has just been awarded for the best student paper at the 10th International Conference on Cognitive Modeling (ICCM). This is the premier conference for research on computational models and computation-based theories of human behaviour, and takes place in Philadelphia between August 5-8, 2010. Well done Chris!
Congratulations to Andrea Kleinsmith, who has recently been awarded her PhD!
Two papers from UCLIC feature in the top ten cited articles from the Human-Computer Interaction journal (2007-2009), and can be downloaded free from the Taylor & Francis site. These articles describe Strategies for Guiding Interactive Search: An Empirical Investigation into the Consequences of Label Relevance for Assessment and Selection by D. P. Brumby and A. Howes and Scoping Analytical Usability Evaluation Methods: A Case Study by A. E. Blandford, J. K. Hyde, T. R. G. Green and I. Connell.
Well done to Ashton King, a former MSc student, who was recently awarded a London Entrepreneurs' Challenge 2010 Innovation Central Bursary from UCL Advances to set up Tigersense, a user experience agency.
We welcome Eddie Capstick who recently joined UCLIC as a PhD student to work on Immersion in Computer Games.
Congratulations to Francesca Pagnacco who has recently been awarded the Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors Ulf Aberg Award!
Congratulations to Charlene Jennett, who has recently been awarded her PhD!
We also welcome Chris Vincent who will be joining UCLIC in March as a research associate on the CHI+MED project and Dr. David Bainbridge who is currently visiting us from the University of Waikato.
Ann Blandford has been awarded funds from EPSRC to work on “SerenA: Chance encounters in the space of ideas”. The project is led by the University of Dundee, together with UCL; Goldsmiths, University of London; Lancaster University; Heriot Watt; and the University of Nottingham.
The book Interacting with Information, by Ann Blandford and Simon Attfield has recently been published by Morgan and Claypool.
Welcome to two new members of staff: Jo Brodie is the Public Engagement Co-ordinator on the CHI+MED project. Harsimrat Singh will be working as a Research Associate on the SENSORIA project.
Nadia Berthouze, along with colleagues elsewhere in UCL, at Imperial College, and at University of Leicester Medical School, has been awarded an EPSRC grant for a project on Pain rehabilitation: E/Motion-based automated coaching. The project is for £1,504,100 over 4 years.
A team led by Ann Blandford -- along with co-applicants from the FIT lab at Swansea, the Department of Computer Science at Queen Mary, University of London, and the Centre for HCI Design at City University -- has been awarded £5,792,050 for an EPSRC Programme Grant entitled CHI+MED: Multidisciplinary Computer-Human Interaction research for the design and safe use of interactive medical devices. The programme grant is for 6 years from October 2009, and will employ 3-4 researchers and 3 PhD students at UCLIC, along with similar numbers at Swansea and Queen Mary.
Comings & goings: Our teaching administrator Romy Beattie is now on maternity leave for a year, bearing our best wishes for the coming weeks & months. A warm welcome to Sally Watson who joins us from LSE to cover Romy's duties while she's away.
Kyriakos Spiliotopoulos, a student on the MSc HCI-E course, has been presented with an award for coming second in the competition for the UCL Union Student Employee of the Year. Well done, Kyriakos!
Nadia Berthouze is one of the team awarded an EPSRC "Sandpit" grant for a project on Digital Sensoria: Design through digital perceptual experience. The project is led by University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. UCLIC's share is £177,024, and will employ an RA for 18 months.