Research Interests
Designing an effective social interface for sharing digital photographs
The digital camera has changed the nature of photography and the photographic
process, and the need for more suitable ways to share digital photographs
is well understood. Digital photos may be printed, but this adds an
expense, and reduces the search and distribution capabilities of photos
in digital form, so some opt not to print at all. Thus some of the
traditional methods of sharing photographs, such as photo albums,
have been lost; along with the emotional attachment and social interaction
that is possible with physical items.
We have recently begun to see hardware support for the tabletop user
interface, offering a number of new ways for humans to interact with
computers. Our interface, currently in the form of a high-fidelity
prototype, leverages the multi-user and direct-interaction capabilities
of the tabletop, as well as aspects of multimodal and pervasive computing
to provide a natural interface for sharing digital photographs in
a collocated social setting. However, designing such an interface
and making it effective is not a straightforward task. Such
an interface needs to overcome problems of clutter and orientation
inherent in tabletop interfaces, and provide an experience that allows
the users to ignore the computer and conduct their dialogue unhindered
for a truly social interaction.
About
In March 2005, Trent Apted started his PhD at the University of Sydney after working with NICTA for one year as a research engineer on Project Nightingale; a joint research project with the University of Sydney and the Smart Internet CRC. In his PhD work, Trent is exploring the potential of the "tabletop interface" as a platform for formal and informal face-to-face collaboration, multimedia display and exchange, information visualisation and entertainment.
After studies in 2003, Trent was awarded the University Medal and first class Honours in the Bachelor of Computer Science and Technology (Advanced) at the University of Sydney. For his honours thesis he investigated learning techniques for interactive tangible user interfaces, or "Smart Toys", and graduated with the highest fourth-year weighted average mark in the Faculty of Science. While undertaking his degree he did tutoring and gained experience in a range of computer science disciplines including machine learning, knowledge representation, database design, computer security, networking and user interfaces as a result of coursework and research projects while participating in the Science Talented Student Programme.
During the last two years of his undergraduate degree, he published papers in four international conferences and submitted a paper to the International Journal on Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning (special issue on Concepts and Ontologies in WBES), which appeared in 2004. He has since published work in a number of workshops and conferences, as his tabletop research matures.
Current Projects
Publications
T. Apted, A. Collins, and J. Kay. Heuristics to support design of new software for interaction at tabletops. In CHI '09 Workshop on Multitouch and Surface Computing, 2009. [View Details]
T. Apted and J. Kay. Photable: Enhancing the social interaction around the sharing of digital photographs. In CHI '08 workshop on Collocated social practices surrounding photos, 2008. [View Details]
T. Apted, J. Bunton, G. Darke, J. Kay, and B. Kummerfeld. Systems & methods for collaborative interaction, 2008. [View Details]
T. Apted. A system and method for manipulating digital images on a computer display, 2007. [View Details]
A. Collins, T. Apted, and J. Kay. Tabletop file system access: Associative and hierarchical approaches. In TABLETOP '07: Proceedings of the Second Annual IEEE International Workshop on Horizontal Interactive Human-Computer Systems, pages 113-120, Washington, DC, USA, 2007. IEEE Computer Society. [View Details]
T. Apted. An interface element for a computer interface, 2007. [View Details]
T. Apted. Systems and methods for remote file transfer, 2007. [View Details]
T. Apted. A system and method for capturing digital images, 2007. [View Details]
T. Apted, J. Kay, and A. Quigley. Tabletop sharing of digital photographs for the elderly. In CHI '06: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pages 781-790, New York, NY, USA, 2006. ACM Press. [View Details]
T. Apted, J. Kay, and M. Assad. Sharing digital media on collaborative tables and displays. Technical Report 602, School of IT, The University of Sydney, November 2006. [View Details]
View All Publications
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