User studies are one of the main ways by which researchers evaluate the effectiveness of human-centric computing approaches (e.g., data visualizations, novel interaction techniques). The process of designing and deploying a user study from scratch is often tedious and takes a long time. Yet, user studies often rely on relatively standardized protocols, and even reuse materials and data (e.g., a particular data visualization or test dataset), especially when the aim is to extend or reproduce and existing study. This project is about allowing researchers and practitioners to assemble user studies quickly from reusable components, and to share them in a format that would allow other researchers to extend them with minimal overhead.

Objectives

Determine what are the orthogonal components of user studies
Investigate the workflows and use cases involved in sharing and extending user studies build from components
Design, implement, and evaluate a framework that would allow researchers to assemble user studies from components and share them with others

Skills/interests

User study design and human centric research
Requirements analysis, uses cases
Software design and development

Contact

This topic was suggested by Dr Radu Jianu. Please direct further enquiries to the giCentre.