UCLIC Research Seminar Series

UCLIC Research Seminar 24th of March: Audrey Girouard (Carleton University, Ottawa). Deformable and wearable devices: Leveraging new devices for more tangible interactions.
Audrey Girouard, Carleton University, Ottawa
Location: On Zoom

Title

UCLIC Research Seminar 24th of March: Audrey Girouard (Carleton University, Ottawa). Deformable and wearable devices: Leveraging new devices for more tangible interactions.

Abstract

Deformable and shape-changing devices offer users the ability to physically manipulate objects to interact with them, which in turns can offer new interaction techniques to users. When wearable, devices can integrate on the body or on clothes to make this interaction more ubiquitous. These devices offer interaction opportunities in many domains, such as making or gaming. They may be particularly interesting for people with disabilities, offering complimentary inputs to the widely available ones. In this talk, I will present research on deformable user interactions conducted at Carleton University's Creative Interactions Lab, discussing interaction techniques, and showing how such devices may have an important impact for specialized users, including people with disabilities.

Biography

Audrey Girouard is an Associate Professor in the School of Information Technology at Ottawa's Carleton University, where she is also the Associate Director for Graduate Studies. She leads the multidisciplinary Creative Interactions Lab. She leads the Collaborative Learning of Usability Experiences (CLUE) training program and is an investigator on the Research and Education in Accessibility, Design, and Innovation (READi) training program. Specializing in next generation interactions, her current research focuses on deformable, tangible and wearable devices, with a focus on accessibility. She sits on the steering committee for the ACM TEI Tangible Embedded and Embodied Interfaces. In 2020, she received the CS-Can|Info-Can Outstanding Early-Career Computer Science Researcher Award and the Carleton Outstanding Faculty Graduate Mentor Award. Dr. Girouard received her PhD in Computer Science from Tufts University in 2010 and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Queen's University.