Improving Quality of Experience in P2P Online Multimedia Streaming Systems
This project aims to develop mechanisms to improve the quality of experience of users in online streaming systems based on peer-to-peer overlays or peer-assisted content distribution networks. To improve the end-to-end delay in multimedia streaming, this work focuses on peer selection strategies, caching strategies at the peers, and optimized overlay construction. Since end-to-end delay is seen as the main factor in improving user experience in online streaming, both overlay construction and peer selection strategies would be enhanced to reduce delay.
Computational Model of Aesthetics for Improved Interface Design
Good interface design requires knowledge about people: how they see, understand, and think. Another important aspect of good design is how information is visually presented to the user — the aesthetics of the interface. Aesthetically pleasing interfaces improve usability, which implies improvement in productivity. The specific objectives include: design of computational models for aesthetics prediction of webpage elements (text, image); design of computational model for aesthetics prediction based on geometric properties (wireframe) of webpage elements in the layout; design of computational model for aesthetics prediction of a whole webpage by combining the above; and use of the model for designing aesthetically pleasing webpages.
Attention Modeling for Web Page Users
We are currently living in the information age. The technology that emerged as one of the primary sources for individuals to access information is the World Wide Web. The interface between information providers and users is a webpage. It is of utmost importance that the webpage is designed so users find it easy to locate information (a usable interface). The project aims to model web page usability in terms of 'visibility' — a measure of attention the user is expected to give to particular objects/regions on the web page. The visibility model ranks different objects/regions in terms of their visibility to a user. A visual output of the web page is produced where objects/regions are marked with different colors according to their visibility.
Affective Interaction & Sensitive Classroom
Affective computing is one of the most recent research areas in HCI. Researchers are trying to incorporate affect and emotion in HCI to make the interaction sympathetic, empathic, or simply affective. The ambition is to improve usability and user experience by making systems more natural and responsive to user goals. The team emphasizes identifying the affective state of users of small handheld and touchscreen devices. At the same time, a sensitive classroom system is being developed where the emotional states of students are taken care of to make the teaching-learning process more efficient. Based on emotional and mental states, teaching-learning strategies dynamically change to enhance student interest and engagement. Students are warned if not engaged; instructors are alerted if maximum students are not engaged or unable to understand.
Interactive Visualization and Smart Warning
The most influential challenge in meaningful visualization is to represent large data sets that satisfy specific user needs. In HCI, particularly in visualization, there are challenges to designing an adequately simple system concerning better interaction and user experience. The key intuition to design goals in HCI is to explore and understand the data by a non-expert user. The project applies visualization techniques in education settings, particularly in ICT-based classrooms, to visualize the real-time status of students. The visualization techniques help the teacher explore details about students' engagement with the teaching-learning process. The project also focuses on designing smart warnings/alerts for classroom use, sent to smartphones/tablets and peripheral smart-bands.
Enhancing User Experience of Cultural Heritage using Immersive Technology
Cultural Heritage (CH) is an identity of any group (community or tribe). It provides a sense of bindings and belongingness amongst a group and allows them to have a better understanding of their previous generations and traditional evolutionary history. Cultural Heritage also promotes tourism and acts as a means of cultural exchange between groups. However, traditional preservation methods (museum, live tour with written description) of CH have failed to attract individuals, especially the younger generation. Moreover, restricted access to real-world heritage inhibits users' complete understanding of it. These motivated researchers to digitize the Cultural Heritage to preserve them as well as to attract individuals. The digitization of CH can be achieved using archiving technologies and immersive technologies (Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality). Three types of users are considered: Live Tour Users (smart-glass, in-situ), Virtual Tour Users (HMD, remote), and Mobile Tour Users (smartphones/tablets). The main focus is to give a user the experience of sensing realism and allow users to interact with the virtual world using controllers or body gestures.