Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year. (2017-2018 to 2022-2023)

This proposal addresses the problem that everyday interactive software tools, such as word processors and web browsers, are one-size-fits-all, often designed for a mythical average user. Smartphones and tablets are similarly one-size-fits-all. They are unable to accommodate a range of user needs and preferences. This forces users to adapt themselves to the tool. Designing tools that can be personalized in a significant way to satisfy user diversity is a promising solution; instead of the tool shaping the user’s behaviour, the tool adapts to the user by predicting what the user needs, or the user personalizes the tool to fit their own needs. Such personalization is difficult to achieve. If not well designed, it can add more complexity to the interaction, making tools even harder to use.

The general research objective is to create highly personalized interfaces that are easy to use. This requires: (a) capturing individual differences in user needs and preferences across modalities, interfaces, and classes of tools; (b) utilizing that understanding to build highly personalizable interfaces; and (c) validating that the built interfaces are usable and support the earlier observed individual differences.

This proposal describes four parallel and complementary research threads, each of which spans the requirements above and advances personalization in a particular domain:

(1) personalized software interruptions to mitigate the disruption caused by the deluge of notifications from emails, software update alerts, social media and more;

(2) personalized gesture input to make interactions on handheld devices more efficient and satisfying;

(3) collaborative personalization strategies to support sharing personalizations so that users can benefit from personalizations authored by those with more technical expertise; and

(4) personalization across users’ lifespans and ability levels to: i) create devices that adapt more seamlessly to users as they age, and ii) create an easy-to-personalize plug-and-play media system for individuals with significant motor and cognitive impairments.

Though difficult to quantify, the cost of interactive technologies that do not meet individual needs and abilities is felt in inefficient practices, distracted users, lost productivity and outright barriers to entry for specific user populations. Conversely, design that is highly personalized to individual needs will lead to high-value products that work better, cost less and enrich lives.