Brett Campbell
I started my PhD in 2002 at UQ after completing a vacation project with the CRC for Enterprise Distributed Systems Technology (DSTC). I have a background in Information Technology, BInfTech (Hons. I), and my research interests include user-centred design, participatory design, and pervasive/ubiquitous computing.
This year I'm on the organising committee for the Australasian Computer Human Interaction conference - citizens online: considerations for today and the future (OZCHI2005) as the Short Paper/Poster Co-Chair. You can view the Call For Participation here.
I recently organised The University of Queensland postgraduate Interaction Design conference (QUIDconf 2005) with two other PhD students from UQ, Jared Donovan and Clint Heyer.
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The following is a brief description of my research:
Smart Ways of Supporting Interaction with Distributed Devices
As computing becomes more ubiquitous, moving away from the
desktop and into our home and work environments, the means of designing
interaction with this technology must adapt. There will no longer be a single
focal point for interaction; computation will be embedded throughout the
environment where it can be of assistance. As we try to blend social, physical,
and human-machine interaction together, the task of designing for interaction
becomes problematic.
To date most of the prominent examples of ubiquitous computing technologies
haven't evolved beyond the walls of universities and research laboratories. More
attention is devoted toward what can be built rather than how the technology can
be seamlessly merged into a user’s existing work practice. There is a genuine
need to move these applications away from and beyond contrived scenarios of use
and into the real world, to situations and environments rich with human
interaction, where we work with, and are constrained by technology, and where
understanding the context of use, and in particular social context are pressing
challenges.
My research examines the boundary between the technical and human-centred
approaches to exploring interaction in a particular context of use. By examining
human-computer interaction from a technical and a human perspective we can
develop an understanding of how to make the most effective use of a human’s
familiarity and knowledge of the world, and a machine’s features and
capabilities. My research explores the dental surgery as a domain which exhibits
a rich combination of both human interaction and tool use within a complex
social context. Recent research on interaction in context suggests that we
cannot prescribe interaction, but need to design technologies that support a
range of improvised interactions contingent on use. The aim of my research is to
use a participatory design approach in order to understand exactly how to do
this.
Publications
Campbell, B. and Brereton, M. (2004). Maintaining Human Agency in the Design of Context-Aware Systems: Design Games in a Dental Surgery. In 2004 Australasian Computer Human Interaction Conference (OZCHI2004), Wollongong, New South Wales, CHISIG.
Campbell, B. and Brereton, M. (2004). Designing to maintain human agency in context-aware systems. In Eighth Biennial Participatory Design Conference (PDC2004), Toronto, Canada.
Campbell, B., Cederman-Haysom, T., Donovan, J., and Brereton, M. (2003). Springboards into Design: Exploring Multiple Representations of Interaction in a Dental Surgery. In 2003 Australasian Computer Human Interaction Conference (OZCHI2003), Brisbane, Queensland, CHISIG.
Brereton, M., Bidwell, N., Donovan, J., Campbell, B. and Burr, J. (2003). Work at hand: an exploration of gesture in the context of work and everyday life to inform the design of gestural input devices. In Fourth Australasian User Interface Conference (AUIC2003), Adelaide, South Australia, Australian Computer Society Inc.