Topics I am currently working on:
- Group Adaptation and the Modelling of Affective State. Inspired by Interactive Television (see below), I have done a lot of work on how to adapt to groups of users, and how to model the affective state of individuals in a group. More recently, I have started work with a.o. Dr Wamberto Vasconcelos on the application of group adaptation techniques to ambient intelligence. Publications on this topic (see in particular the two UMUAI journal articles).
- Persuasion and Trust. Technology can be used to persuade people to change their attitudes and behavior (e.g. live more healthily, use less energy). My PhD student Hien Nguyen and I investigate how to optimize this persuasiveness (e.g. by optimizing the credibility of the source, modeling the receiver's position, personalizing the selection of argument schemas). I have also started investigating the modeling of user trust. Publications on this topic.
- Explanations in Recommender Systems.
Recommender systems suggest items to purchase or examine based on users' preferences. They may also provide explanations, justifying why items were recommended. Good explanations may help to inspire user trust and loyalty, increase satisfaction, make it quicker and easier for users to find what they want, and persuade them to try or purchase a recommended item.
My PhD student Nava Tintarev and I investigate what kind of explanations (both content and presentation) are most effective. Publications on this topic.
- Diagrammatic Reasoning
Together with Dr. Gem Stapleton, I am working on diagrammatic reasoning, in particular automated theorem proving using Euler-based diagrammatic languages. Publications on this topic (see in particular the Automated Reasoning journal article).
- Interactive Television. I work on adaptation of TV programmes to groups of users (see group adapation above). Together with PhD student Sanaz Fallahkhair and Dr Lyn Pemberon, I have worked on eduction via ITV. I am on the steering committee of the European ITV conference series. I was Program Chair of the conference in 2003 and 2004, Doctoral Consortium chair in 2007, and will be Tutorial chair in 2008. I have also co-chaired workshops on the usability of ITV, personalized learning via ITV, universal access of ITV, and have been on the program committee of a series of workshops on personalization of ITV. I am a member of the IFIP working group on ITV. Publications on this topic
- Evaluation of Adaptive Systems. I am very interested in the evaluation of adaptive systems. Together with Alex Paramythis and Stephan Weibelzahl, I have organized two workshops on the design and evaluation of adaptive systems (at UM05, AH06), and given a tutorial at the User Modelling conference. Publications on this topic
- Computational Linguistics. I am a member of Aberdeen's Natural Language Generation group, and on the management committee of its EPSRC platform grant. Together with Ivandre Paraboni and Kees van Deemter, I am working on experiments to measure how effective a refering expression is from a hearer's point of view. Publications on this topic (see in particular the forthcoming CL journal article).
- IUI for the Medical Domain. I used to do a lot of work on this when employed by Philips Research. Currently, I am second supervisor of PhD student Wendy Moncur, who is investigating how to best communicate complex medical information to friends and families of babies in intensive care.