Intui[Lab]²![Intui[Lab]²](/images/uploads/logo-intuilab2.png)
Intui[Lab]² is the IntuiLab’s exploratory lab which researches new and emerging Natural User Interaction technologies and how they can enable better User Experiences (aka improve our digital life experience!). The lab aims both at enhancing today’s UIs and creating tomorrow’s technology that will allow IntuiLab to always offer the latest generation of user experience and interaction to its clients and partners. To achieve this goal, Intui[Lab]² has three main activities:
- The Survey of new trends in innovative NUI technologies and anticipate the associated usages of the future,
- The experimentation and evaluation of new and emerging NUI technologies,
- The development of new NUI drivers and middleware technologies that enrich IntuiFace, the surface computing software platform form IntuiLab.
During 2010, we will more specifically be focusing on the following research themes:
Ambient intelligence
Ambient Intelligence (AmI) is a vision of NUI systems that can perceive the presence and activities of users in their environment to anticipate the goal of users and adapt themselves to provide smart services dedicated to users with diverse needs and requirements. By designing NUIs that are more intelligent and immersive, IntuiLab wants to go beyond the traditional human-machine relationship (one user interacting with one computer through a single-user application) with interactive systems that are more attentive and responsive to people’s needs, and thus provide a better user experience through smart and personalized services. One simple example of such UI is an interactive system that begins to subtly (and that word is important) advertise itself when it detects a customer nearby in the retail store and guide her/him toward products s/he may be interested in based on its knowledge of this person (gender, age, previous interactions, etc.). The following picture shows some very interesting (and fun!) achievements that are being presented at a technology show this April.
Distributed interactions in surface computing
With technological progress in the field of information technology, computers are becoming ubiquitous permeating/finding their way into everyday objects (mobile phone, television, etc.). These new devices with computational and communication capabilities distributed in our environment offer great possibilities and challenges in terms of UI: instead of interacting with a single computer, users can interact with several devices simultaneously or sequentially in their everyday life or at work. IntuiLab explores new tools and interaction techniques to seamlessly integrate these devices to support the user activities. These results will also be useful to empower co-located and remote cooperative work situations where two or more people work together to achieve a common goal, for example in the context of an emergency situation room.
Plasticity in surface computing
Behind the term “multi-touch devices”, there is a wide range of devices with different capabilities: from dual-touch devices (two contacts maximum) to true multi-touch devices (unlimited number of contacts), from small to large surfaces, with or without tangible interaction support (tags, shape recognition, etc.), with or without user detection, etc. Some differences between multi-touch devices are so significant that an application that works well and provides a great user experience on one specific device will work poorly and gives a bad user experience on another one. IntuiLab takes this technological variety into account to propose supporting tools that allow designing and developing flexible NUIs that can self adapt to different devices based on their capabilities and a set of rules specified by UX designers ensuring a pleasant and engaging user experience on every device. First results in this area are already included in IntuiFace Presentation Player, allowing a presentation to be portable across a wide variety of multitouch devices.
Intui[Lab]²’s activities are directly funded by IntuiLab, its customers as well as through its participation to various collaborative R&D projects. If you feel you need to foresee the future (who doesn’t?) and are interested at collaborating with or contract research to Intui[Lab]², please contact us.
