In previous posts, we have discussed our ongoing work on the TIDESS project related to understanding how children and adults interact and learn from science data visualizations around large interactive surfaces.  For my dissertation work, my plan is to focus on understanding the Human-Computer Interaction questions related to how multi-generational groups collaborate and interact around multi-touch spherical displays to learn from science data visualizations.  This summer, the description of my planned thesis work, “Designing Interactions for Multi-touch Spherical Displays to Support Collaborative Learning in Museums”, was accepted to the 2020 ACM Interactive Surfaces and Spaces (ISS) Doctoral Symposium! The doctoral symposium provides an opportunity for Ph.D. students to share their thesis research plans with researchers from the broader Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community and receive constructive feedback. The paper discusses my on-going and future research plans towards my doctoral dissertation. Here is the abstract:

“Spherical displays are increasingly being used to present global data visualizations to support Earth science education in informal learning settings such as museums. However, most spherical displays deployed to date either support no interactivity or interaction only via an external touchscreen. Only recently have spherical displays become commercially available that can support multi-touch gesture interactivity. Family groups visiting museums can gather around these displays to collaboratively explore global science datasets simultaneously. However, the use of multi-touch spherical displays as an educational tool is relatively new and a deeper knowledge of how to design interactions for spherical touch surfaces to support collaborative learning has not been explored yet. Through my thesis work, I will explore how to design gestural interactions for multi-touch spherical displays to support collaborative learning from interactive science data visualizations in museums.”

Interested readers can access the camera-ready version here. The ACM ISS 2020 conference just recently happened virtually from November 8-11, 2020.

I am a fourth-year Ph.D. Candidate at UF. Attending the ISS doctoral symposium was very helpful for me. During the symposium, I got an opportunity to present my thesis research and received feedback from HCI researchers with expertise in various areas. The feedback spanned across multiple discussion topics including pointers for related work I can look into for my planned research, recruitment during the pandemic, and a more general discussion of how my research with multi-touch spherical displays can be related to existing research in interaction design for collaborative virtual reality technologies. Overall, it was a fun experience attending the ISS conference and I look forward to attending it next year as well.