Audrey Girouard

Audrey Girouard

Carleton University

Deformable Devices: Interaction Techniques from Surface Deformation

Deformable inputs offer users the ability to physically manipulate a device for system interaction. They combine flexible electronic technologies with human computer interaction to study how changing the form factor of digital devices can offer new interaction techniques to users. 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. This research has applications in health, accessibility, gaming, creative input, and mobile devices.

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 Creative Interactions Lab and the Collaborative Learning of Usability Experiences training program. Specializing in next generation interactions, her current research focuses on deformable devices and wearables. She sits on the steering committee for the ACM TEI Tangible Embedded and Embodied Interfaces where she was the Program Committee’s Co-Chair in 2012 and 2018. She has received the Ontario Early Researcher Award, the Carleton University Research Achievement Award and the Partner in Research Technology Achievement Award. Dr. Girouard received her PhD in Computer Science from Tufts University in 2010 and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Human Medial Lab at Queen’s University.