Multimodal Location Based Techniques for Extreme Navigation

Helsinki, Finland, Monday 17th May 2010

 

Location-based data and services for geographical and navigational information (such as electronic maps and gps directions), are usually presented using visual displays. With the increasing complexity of information, and the variety of contexts of use, it becomes important to consider how other non-visual sensory channels, such as audition and touch, can be used to communicate necessary and timely information to users. Activities such as running, rock-climbing and cycling, are all examples of activities where navigational and geographical information may be needed, but where the visual modality is unsuitable. Additionally, there are a number of user groups such as visually impaired people and the emergency services, who also require  non-visual access to geo-data. This workshop will provide a forum  for sharing  research ideas and findings about new interaction and perceptualization metaphors, novel application contexts, multimodal and context-aware technologies for mobility -- thereby creating a solid foundation for further exploration of pervasive extreme navigation.

 

Topics

Topics of the workshop include, but are not limited to:

Sensing and applying user context to navigation and wayfinding
Multimodal techniques to augment visual map displays
Multimodal navigation systems for extreme sports
Multimodal navigation systems for runners
Multimodal systems for rescue workers
Navigation systems for "eyes-busy" activities
Wearable technology and textiles for navigation
Environmental awareness for Disabilities and Visual Impairment.
User requirements capture/user involvement for non visual design


Objectives

To bring researchers who work with non-visual interaction in different fields together
To foster a community of cross-disciple researchers working in the area of pervasive navigation
To identify the future challenges in providing multimodal and non-visual solutions for navigation

 

Preliminary agenda

9-12 Position paper session 1

13-15 Demo session

15-17 Position paper session 2

 

Submission details

Submissions of either position papers or demo abstracts covering the topics of the workshop should be submitted by 15 March 2010.


4 page position papers or 2 page demo abstracts should be submitted in ACM format (http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates).

 

At least one author from each accepted submission is expected to attend the workshop

 

Accepted authors will be invited to submit extended versions of their work for inclusion in a special edition of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing to appear in 2010.

 

Submissions or other queries should be mailed to Charlotte Magnusson (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) or David McGookin (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

This workshop is organized within the HaptiMap project.

 

Workshop organizers

Charlotte Magnusson, PhD, associate professor (docent), Certec, Division of Rehabilitation Engineering Research, Department of Design Sciences, Lund University. Charlotte is the leader of the research at Certec on the design of useworthy haptic and audio interfaces for people who are blind or have low vision. She has over 10 years of experience in the field. Charlotte has currently two particular areas of interest. The first is concerned with the use of haptic devices, and how haptics and audio can be used to make different types of complex information and virtual environments more accessible.The second is design and design methodology for persons with and without disabilities. Charlotte is also an experienced programmer, with particular experience from interactive multimodal applications. Charlotte is the leader of the haptics group at Certec, and has been responsible for the department participation in the EU projects MICOLE, ENABLED and ENACTIVE. She is currently the coordinator of the EU project HaptiMap.

 

David McGookin is a research associate at the University of Glasgow. Holding a Ph.D. in computing science, he has spend over 9 years investigating the role of multimodal interaction to improve and expand the ways in which users can access and interact with information systems in novel contexts. He has over 20 refereed publications, several of which have been awarded best paper prizes, and given invited talks to SIGGRAPH Montreal, the Royal Society and the DANA center London. As a researcher on the EPSRC MultiVis II project, he led work on improving access to graph based information for blind and partially sighted users via multimodal presentation.  His work on MultiVis  was independently rated as outstanding, and he was a co- creator and chair of the successful Haptic and Audio Interaction Design (HAID) workshop which is now in its 4th year. McGookin's current work as part of the EU FP7 project HaptiMap, continues to investigate novel interaction for wayfinding and navigation.  In addition to these interests McGookin continues to purse other areas including non-visual tangible interaction and touch screen accessibility.

 

Margarita Anastassova is a researcher in the Sensory Interfaces Laboratory at CEA, LIST in France. She holds a Ph.D. in Psychology and Cognitive Ergonomics from Paris Descartes University. Her PhD work was centered on the analysis of users’ needs for an Augmented Reality system to be used as a job aid by automotive service technicians. Margarita has over 7 years of experience in the user-centered design of interactive systems, which she gained in a number of EU projects such as Ambient Agoras, VIRTHUALIS and SAMBA. She is currently working on the EU HaptiMap project. Her main research interests lie in the field of human factors (usability, utility, accessibility) of emerging technologies such as haptic and tactile interfaces, mobile systems, virtual and augmented reality. She is also interested in cognitive ergonomics aspects of navigation and wayfinding. Margarita is a member of the program committee or a reviewer for a number of international conferences (CHI, Interact, MobileHCI, Pervasive Health).

 

Wilko Heuten is the manager of the Intelligent User Interfaces group at the health department of OFFIS – Institute for Information Technology in Oldenburg, Germany. As part of this position he is supervising research projects in the field of multimodal interaction, e-inclusion and accessibility as well as digital media lifestyle and ambient assisted living. Since 2008 Wilko Heuten is leading the technology cluster “Human-Machine-Interaction” at OFFIS. In 2007 he received his doctorate at the University of Oldenburg, Germany, which was concerned with the design of non-visual interaction techniques to support navigation and wayfinding in urban environments. In 2001 he received his diploma degree in computer science at the University of Oldenburg.

 

Arantxa Rentería has the degree of Computer Engineer (1987, University of  Deusto)  and  a  MSC  in Robotics & Advanced Manufacturing Technologies (1988, Faculty of Engineering, Bilbao). Since then, she has been working in Robotiker-Tecnalia in the field of robotics and automation, where currently is Project Manager at the Dept. of Health & Quality of Life. She has worked in many projects, both on research and on development of industrial systems (robotized cells, mobile robotics, data acquisition and monitoring systems, human-machine  interfaces,  robot  simulation, automation for environmental engineering).  She  has  directed  several  post-graduate thesis related to robotics  and  robot  simulation  applications.  She has attended different Congresses,  Symposiums  and  Seminars  as  a speaker, being author of many papers  and  a  book on Robotics. She also worked as assistant professor of Industrial  Robotics during 1997-2000, in the Telecommunication Engineering School  of  Deusto  University  in Bilbao. Nowadays she is leading projects dealing  with  accessible applications and cognitive rehabilitation, mobile services accessible for impaired users, mobile robots for social sector.

 

Susanne Boll is Professor for Media Informatics and Multimedia Systems as Department of Computing Science at the University of Oldenburg, Germany. Also since 2002 she is a member of executive board of the OFFIS Institute for Information Technology (OFFIS) where she is scientific head of many multimedia related research projects and is supervising the Human-Machine-Interaction Cluster. In 2001, Susanne Boll received her doctorate with distinction at the Technical University of Vienna, Austria, which was concerned with the flexible multimedia document model ZYX, designed and realized in the context of a multimedia database system. She received her diploma degree with distinction in computer science at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, in 1996. Susanne Boll’s research interests lie in the field of multimodal multimedia retrieval, context-aware mobile multimedia systems and multimodal multimedia user interfaces. She has been publishing her research results on many international workshops, conferences and journals. As an active member of the community, Susanne served on program committees for many international conferences and also co-organized several international events. Susanne Boll is an active member of SIGMM of the ACM and GI, and also a member of IEEE Computer Society.