Photo by Kira Koop. The recipient of the 2020 award for the best doctoral dissertation completed at a Canadian university in the field of Human-Computer Interaction is Dr. Daniel J. Rea.
Dr. Rea’s highly innovative dissertation, Now You’re Teleoperating with Power: learning from video games to improve teleoperation interfaces, paves the way for an entirely new approach to designing teleoperation interfaces by integrating affective computing and social robotics concepts into the more typical command and control approach. Dr. Rea developed and tested a wide range of prototypes to support remote operation of an industrial robot by systematically considering the psychology of the person operating a robot in order to shape operator experience, improve operation effectiveness, and reduce errors.
The research approach builds on lessons from video game design, which leverages player psychology and affective techniques to shape how people engage and use a game. He applies these techniques to robot teleoperation interfaces and operator control, improving task outcomes without requiring changes or improvements to the robot itself or to its algorithms. He demonstrates the importance of how a robot and its controls are perceived by people, and how interfaces can use social models and techniques to impact the operator and shape interaction, improving outcomes. Novel examples he developed for shaping operator behavior and mental state include directing operator attention, priming operators on robot capabilities (telling them a robot may be dangerous), adding a virtual “nervous” back-seat driver, and modifying joystick feel, robot responsiveness, or robot sound to make a robot seem more (or less) dangerous.
The comprehensive dissertation describes both prototypes that illustrate the new techniques and empirical studies that assess the techniques’ effectiveness, and then provides a theory-based summative framework and reflection on the research process that comprises a wonderful example of a complete approach to identifying and solving a problem in HCI.
Daniel Rea earned his BSC, MSc, and PhD degrees in Computer Science from the University of Manitoba. His dissertation supervisor was Dr. James E. Young. The different components of his doctoral research have been published individually in four first-author papers and one second-author paper at top conferences in the field. After a post-doctoral appointment at Kyoto University in Japan, he returned to Canada where he currently holds a faculty position at the University of New Brunswick.
Funding from an anonymous donor established this award in 2011 in honour of Bill Buxton, a Canadian researcher, designer, and musician who has done much to promote excellence in the field of Human-Computer Interaction, both within Canada and internationally. Bill challenges how academics and practitioners think, and he inspires them to do things differently. He is a true advocate for HCI.
The award is determined through a juried process by a selection committee consisting of accomplished researchers in Human-Computer Interaction. This year, the jury was Dr. Christopher Collins (Ontario Tech University), Dr. Regan Mandryk (University of Saskatchewan) who chaired the jury, Dr. Sara Nabil (Queens University), and Dr. Sowmya Somanath (University of Victoria).