CAREER: Advancing Innovation in Bio-Design through Reality-Based Interaction

Wellesley College, Wellesley Hills MA

Investigators

Abstract

In recent years, research in human-computer interaction (HCI) has generated a broad range of interaction styles that move beyond the desktop into new physical and social contexts. Key areas of innovation in this respect are tabletop, tangible, and multi-touch user interfaces. These interaction styles leverage users' existing knowledge and skills of interaction with the real, non-digital world; thus, they are often referred to as reality-based interfaces. Such interfaces offer a natural, intuitive, and often collaborative form of interaction that reduces the mental effort required to learn and operate a computational system. While these advances in HCI have been successfully applied to a broad range of application domains, little research has been devoted to investigating reality-based interaction in the context of scientific discovery. The PI argues that it is particularly important to study reality-based interaction in this context, where reducing users' mental workloads and supporting collaborative work could potentially lead to exciting scientific advances. For example, in a preliminary study of the workflow and computational tools employed by synthetic biologists, the PI found that members of this research community often experience difficulties in specifying, comparing, documenting, and sharing information - interactions that have previously been shown as critical for scientific discovery. She further observed that the limitations of current computational tools pose barriers for collaboration, information flow, and exploration. This lack of appropriate computational tools coupled with the inherent complexity of biological systems has limited progress to date, despite the enormous potential of synthetic biology to solve problems such as low-cost drug development and alternative energy production. In this project, the PI will investigate how reality based interfaces may be able to advance innovation in biological design. To address this question, she will develop and evaluate a suite of reality-based interfaces that support the design and assembly of novel biological systems, and which she expects will promote collaborative, effective, and safe workflow, facilitate exploration of alternative solutions, and reduce the mental workload associated with accessing and relating large amounts of information. Broader Impacts: Project outcomes will include: design, implementation, and evaluation of a suite of reality-based interfaces for synthetic biologists; a set of design requirements for developing future such systems; a methodology for evaluating the efficacy of computer-supported cooperative work of scientists; novel techniques for fluid interaction with heterogeneous computational devices of different scale; and a set of design considerations and a participatory design process for supporting scientific discovery. The PI will train three female undergraduate researchers per year, who will be an integral part of her research team and will participate in an international science competition. The project will impact computing and science courses at the PI's institution (a women's college) and at collaborating institutions. In addition, this research will serve as a highly visible "magnet" project that attracts undergraduate and high-school students' attention to computer science research through outreach activities.