Projects

The EnCoDe Research Lab focuses on research areas, such as human-computer interaction, natural user interfaces, augmented reality, and child-computer interaction. Here is a list of our current projects.

Current Projects

Augmented Reality for Situational Awareness / Task Performance 

Augmented reality (AR) headsets allow a user to see and interact with virtual objects (i.e., holograms) projected onto a view of the real world. We are examining how visual information should be presented in AR headsets to aid in situational awareness and task performance for both adults and children.

Example Publications:

  1. Woodward, J., Smith, J., Wang, I., Cuenca, S., Ruiz, J. 2020. Examining the Presentation of Information in Augmented Reality Headsets for Situational Awareness. Proceedings of the International Conference on Advance Visual Interfaces (AVI ‘20), Ischia Island, Italy, September 2020, Article No. 57. [Pdf]
Co-Design with Children 

We are exploring how children think about and understand technology through getting design input directly from children. Our overall goal is to design technology that is tailored towards children to optimize their interactions, and to gain knowledge on how children conceptualize and interact with different technologies. So far we have examined how children perceive and conceptualize intelligent user interfaces and AR headsets. 

Example Publications:

  1. Woodward, J., Alemu, F., Lopez Adames, N.E., Anthony, L., Yip, J., Ruiz, J. 2022. “It Would Be Cool to Get Stampeded by Dinosaurs”: Analyzing Children’s Conceptual Model of AR Headsets Through Co-Design. ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing (CHI ‘22), New Orleans, LA, May 2022, 13 pages. [Pdf]
  2. Woodward, J., McFadden, Z., Shiver, N., Ben-hayon, A., Yip, J., Anthony, L. 2018. Using Co-Design to Examine How Children Conceptualize Intelligent Interfaces. ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing (CHI’2018), Montreal, Canada, 21 April 2018, Paper No. 575. [Pdf]
Augmented Reality for Education 

Adults and children are increasingly interacting with augmented reality (AR) (smartphones, tablets, headsets) in different contexts, such as museums and education. We are interested in how to design meaningful educational experiences in AR.