Dr. Aaron Quigley
Dr. Aaron Quigley can be considered a leader in the Human Computing Interaction field. He has been and currently a prominent figure in many Human Interaction organizations. Dr. Aaron Quigley is the general co-chair for the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors and the Head of School for UNSW’s Computer Science and Engineering in Sydney, Australia. When it comes to ubiquitous computing, human computing interaction plays an essential part. Ubiquitous computing is explained and described as seamless integration between different computer devices into the user environment and daily life activities. These ubiquitous systems can be everywhere, from shoes to clothing to watches. They become something normal that we don’t recognize them as technology devices. HCI designs are trying to achieve that by involving minimum user attention on technology, enabling them to focus on their task. As an essential figure in the HCI field, Dr. Aaron Quigley has worked in many different projects that have significant impacts on the field.
Education and Project Nightingale
Dr. Aaron Quigley attended the University of Dublin Trinity College in Ireland from 1991–1995 for his Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science. Two years after that, He moved to Australia and attended the University of Newcastle to work on his Ph.D. in Computer Science. After graduation, Dr. Aaron Quigley started working as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sydney. He worked with Smart Internet CRC and the National ICT Australia on a project called Nightingale. Project Nightingale is the first collaborative project between the two organizations in Australia. The project focused on elders’ studies and how they share memories; a few demonstrators of the project include SharePic, Ubicomp Scrapbook.
Memento
One notably outcome of this project is Memento: a digital-physical scrapbook for memory sharing. Reminiscence is well known to have therapeutic benefits for elders. It helps them recall, review, and share their memories. Scrapbook, as discovered, is a familiar object that people use to remind themselves of memories, or we can say memory aid. However, as technology developed and evolved, the act of scrapbooking changed as well. People can have “digital scrapbooks” that can contain digital media items such as videos, audios, pictures, and many more. The Memento system is a creation of scrapbooks that can include both digital and physical objects that allow elders to recollect their experiences. It is an exploration of a new interface that has yet available at that time. Ubiquitous computing is also something that this project touched on. As mentioned above, ubiquitous computing is seamless integration between different computer devices into the user environment and daily life activities. Devices will “disappear” and let people focus on their tasks. The study acknowledged and discussed that even though ubiquitous computing can be applied in the business environment, it is the social environment “where the notion of invisible or seamless computing shows much promise and appeal.” The physical-digital form of Memento allows it to take “advantages of the physical world of tangible scrapbooks with the sharing and collaborative possibilities offered by the online world.” Allowing Memento to promotes reminiscence and memory sharing activities in the social environment.
Dr. Aaron Quigley and his team were able to obtain positive results at the end of the study. They learned that users were readily able to move between digital and physical forms of scrapbook. However, users still prefer physical form scrapbook because of the tactile experience, and the natural social interaction they can have while working on the scrapbook. This result shows that interfaces will need to support natural interaction like sight, movement, touch, hearing, gaze, speaking in order to be “invisible” and seamless. Moreover, collaborative and sharing features are essential to social environment products. Users find it useful for sharing and collaborating memories with people who were far away. These features, however, only possible thanks to the digital aspect of the scrapbook.
SharePic
Another research by Dr. Aaron Quigley that aimed at finding new ways for humans to interact with computers is called SharePic. SharePic is a multi-user, multi-touch, gestural collaboration digital photograph sharing application. The focus of SharePic is to provide elders a more suitable way to share digital photographs. The application follows many guidelines and research on elders to support them effectively. The interface actions are designed to be as natural as possible and are derived from similar physical interactions. These interactions, gestures, like select, rotate, resize, copy, move, are all seen in smartphones today. The application and study provide useful design guidelines and core elements that current interfaces have adopted.
- exploration of an important new direction for future interfaces that will be part of people’s everyday lives, as they have social interactions around a table that supports interaction with digital objects
- interface design driven by guidelines intended to support learn ability and usability for all users, including those with some vision impairment, some cognitive loss and some loss of physical agility and coordination
In addition to Memento and SharePic, Dr. Aaron Quigley has published over 180 internationally peer-reviewed publications and delivered over 50 invited talks as an ACM Distinguished Speaker. He has influenced and explored new human computing interactions that we see and use every day. Reading these results and findings has allowed me to look at current technologies and understand them from a different perspective. Natural interaction, similarly mentioned in Memento, will enable technologies to fade in and become normal in our daily lives. When I gazed through my room, I noticed most of the devices that implement natural interactions are the ones that I felt “invisible.”
