Équipe Ingénierie de l'Interaction
Humain-Machine

Context.

Design notations, such as UML, are used to specify the main aspects of any software application, at early stage of the development process. Designing and building interactive systems is a multi-disciplinary activity involving different expertise, such as software developers and experts in cognitive psychology. Therefore, these design notations are also used to support communication between experts of different domains. The problem is that, although these design notations are powerful, it is difficult to both master its language and rules, and the related best practices to make the most appropriate design choices. In addition, graphical software application supporting these design notations are often complex to use.

In this project, we would like to investigate and understand how augmented and tangible user interfaces could (1) facilitate the learning of such design notations; (2) better assist the designers to express their ideas according to notations’ rules and best practices. As an approach, we would like to investigate the design of a hybrid cards desk-based interactive system for a subset of the UML language.

Tasks.
The intern is expected to carry out typical research activities:
• To produce a state-of-the-art on tangible and augmented interaction to support design notations as well as on design cards
• To design and implement a proof-of-concept for an experimental setup
• To conduct experimental studies with participants

Environment.

The internship will take place at the LIG laboratory in Grenoble (University Grenoble-Alpes). Yann Laurillau & Sybille Caffiau are both researchers in HCI and part of the EHCI research team of the LIG. The EHCI research is primarily concerned with interactive techniques and systems that match users’ needs and capabilities, and aims at elaborating concepts, models and software tools/artifacts for interaction techniques and interactive systems. As this internship will contribute to the ANR ePsyCHI project (start in January 2022), a PhD might be considered as a follow-up.

Skills and applicants.

The expected applicant is a MSc student in computer science (M2 project, 6 months), showing a great interest in Human-Computer interaction. The applicant must have an experience in software development and basic knowledge about UML notation. Skills in hardware prototyping would be a plus as well as interests in cognitive psychology. Speaking English is recommended.