David Benyon

• BSc (Hons), MSc, PhD
• Professor (Full) at Edinburgh Napier University

This paper focuses on interaction across and between the physical/digital divide. We use blending theory to design for these situations, otherwise known as conceptual integration. Initially, this paper offers a discussion of the literature around blends. From this literature, we applied Benyon’s (Benyon, 2014) proposition of conceptual integration...

Research at Edinburgh Napier University has developed new methods and principles for designing ‘blended spaces’ – those that combine elements of the physical and digital worlds. The work has led to three patents, the establishment of two new companies, and enabled new products to be developed by organisations and businesses worldwide, in sectors...

This study investigated the design and evaluation of a sonification, created for an astronomer who studies exosolar accretion discs. User design methods were applied to sonify data that could allow the classification of accretion discs. The sonification was developed over three stages: a requirements gathering exercise that inquired about the astro...

This study investigates the effectiveness of user design methods to create a sonification for an astronomer who analyses exoplanet meteorological data situated in habitable zones. Requirements about the astronomer's work, the dataset and how to sonify it utilising Grounded Theory were identified. Parameter mapping sonification was used to represent...

This study aims to provide an insight into effective sonification design. There are currently no standardized design methods, allowing a creative development approach. Sonifcation has been implemented in many different applications from scientific data representation to novel styles of musical expression. This means that methods of practice can var...

For approximately 10 years the SIGCHI Sustainable HCI (sHCI) and Sustainable Interaction Design (SID) communities have debated the contribution that HCI can make to sustainability. However, there has been little real progress in the field with few, if any, methods arising that take the discipline further. In this paper we present an approach to sHC...

Recent developments in information and communication technologies have left interaction design and human-computer interaction (HCI) with something of a conceptual gap. The distinction between physical and digital spaces is increasingly blurred. Cloud-based services have enabled a separation of information content from device so that content can be...

Presentation at Retail conferences in 2016

This paper provides a contribution to the conceptualization and design of hybrid, digital / physical spaces of action as information-based constructs, based on applying the theory of conceptual blending to the creation of novel, blended spaces on one side, and on extending these to actor-driven cross-channel ecosystems as the digital / physical pla...

This paper describes an exploratory study conducted in 2015 on the public transport system in the city of Karlstad, Sweden. A heuristic approach to cross-channel experience design was used to assess the overall structure and fittingness of the actor-driven ecosystems centered around public transport commuting and created by the interactions between...

Sound is potentially an effective way of analysing data and it is possible to simultaneously interpret layers of sounds and identify changes. Multiple attempts to use sound with scientific data have been made, with varying levels of success. On many occasions this was done without including the end user during the development. In this study a sonif...

Sound is potentially an effective way of analysing data and it is possible to simultaneously interpret layers of sounds and identify changes. Multiple attempts to use sound with scientific data have been made, with varying levels of success. On many occasions this was done without including the end user during the development. In this study a sonif...

Blended spaces are spaces where a physical space is deliberately integrated in a close-knit way with a digital space. Blended spaces may take the form of a carefully designed meeting room, for example, that integrates collaborative media with the design of the physical space. Another type of blended space integrates some digital content with a phys...

UX design is concerned with all the issues that go into providing an engaging and enjoyable experience for people in both the short and longer term. This is more than mere functionality and includes aesthetics, pleasure, and emotional engagement in terms of both the product and the service provided. In particular it is important to consider experie...

This paper describes the ongoing investigation of interaction design issues related to collaborative activities in device ecologies, mixing Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and smart meeting room technologies.

This paper provides a contribution to creativity and co-design based on applying the theory of conceptual integration (also known as conceptual blending, or blending theory) to creative design and collaboration. Our approach is based on bringing the principles of conceptual blending and applying them to the creation of novel spaces, objects and ser...

In this paper, we reflect on our experiences of designing, developing, implementing and using a number of real world, functional, multi-touch enabled Interactive Collaborative Environments (ICEs). We created an ICE in our university in order to explore issues of interaction design and of user experience in these types of environment. This ICE has b...

In this paper, we develop a new way of understanding interactions in blended spaces. We do this by developing ideas about embodied semiotics and then apply these ideas to the analysis of interaction in mixed-reality blended spaces (where the physical world and digital world are blended deliberately to provide new forms of interaction). We discuss h...

ABSTRACT This paper ,examines ,the ,effect that changing ,arena ,(i.e. an immersive ,CAVE or head mounted,display) and adding,an augmented,barrier has on the sense,of place and,presence intwo photo-realistic virtual environments. Twenty eight subjects (17 male, 11 female) mainly,undergraduate ,students ,or staff took part. The paper ,summarises ,tw...

This chapter describes an approach to the development of virtual representations of real places. The work was funded under the European Unionand#x2019;s and#x20AC;20 m Future and Emerging Technologies theme of the 5th Framework Programme, “Presence”. The aim of the project, called BENOGO, was to develop a novel technology based on real-time image-b...

This paper provides an introduction to digital tourism as mediated by presence research as a means to create substantive user experiences (UX) for visitors. Tourism is a rich and varied socio-economic activity that permeates our global society. Digital tourism is the digital support of the tourist experience. In this paper we introduce and survey b...

The project was created in Edinburgh, Scotland, and aimed to produce and evaluate a visitor experience that enabled them to serendipitously discover digital content when visiting an attraction, to be led to the exact location of the content by audio, and to have an engaging and satisfying experience interacting with the blended space of a physical...

This paper explores the role of Blending Theory as a framework to aid in design decisions while deploying mobile experiences for heritage storytelling. Blending Theory provides a structured way of thinking about how digital and physical spaces can be brought together to create new experiences in blended spaces. In this paper we describe the develop...

There are numerous rules and well-established guidelines to help designers with the visual appearance of interactive technologies. In contrast, when it comes to the use of sound, there is a paucity of practical information regarding design for euphony, excepting musical composition. This paper addresses this hiatus by describing a theoretically bas...

Recent Internet of Things (IoT) research has been aiming at interoperability of devices and the integration of sensor networks. The Future Internet – Private Public Partnership (FI-PPP) has created a whole array of different purpose-oriented modules with defined specifications, better known as Generic Enablers. This article gives an overview of leg...

The "How Was Your Day" (HWYD) companion is an embodied conversational agent that can discuss work-related issues, entering free-form dialogues while discussing issues surrounding a typical work day. The open-ended nature of these interactions requires new models of evaluation. Here, we describe a paradigm and methodology for evaluating the main asp...

The Future Emerging Technologies (FET) Flagship Candi- date "Robot Companions for Citizens" (RCC) proposes a transformative initiative, addressing a cross-domain grand scientific and technological challenge, to develop a new class of machines and embodied information technologies, called Robot Companions for Citizens (RCCs) that can as- sist Europe...

Blended Interaction is interaction in physical environments including meeting rooms, design studios, or libraries, that are augmented with new UI technologies to blend the power of digital computing with natural work practices and collaboration styles. It combines the virtues of physical and digital artifacts so that desired properties of each are...

This paper is concerned with understanding the needs of Companion owners (the people formerly known as 'users'). The problem with developing technologies such as companions is in knowing what the requirements are. People cannot really be expected to express their needs for companions before the technology that will drive the idea has been invented....

We present an approach to the design of mixed reality spaces that aims to create a more harmonized and unified user experience. We refer to these as blended spaces. Blended spaces draw upon a description of physical and digital spaces in terms of the ontology, topology, volatility and agency. By describing physical and digital spaces in these terms...

Mixed reality technologies have been around for over 10 years but it is only with the proliferation of smart phones and tablet (computers) that mixed and augmented reality interaction is reaching the mass market. There are now enough examples of mixed reality interactions that we can begin to abstract principles of design and principles of user exp...

Technology surrounds people; it functions as their best friend and the worst enemy. From a trip to the local supermarket, to almost every aspect of people's professional and social lives technology is present; mediating their interactions, demanding their attention and engaging them. The main objective of this research is to understand how people l...

In this paper we introduce and explore the challenges of what we believe is the next generation of interface technology; companions. Companions are intelligent, persistent, personalized, multimodal interfaces. Companions change interactions into relationships. The paper describes the characteristics of companions and the changes that are needed for...

Biometric technologies are increasingly being used in a diverse range of contexts, from immigration control, to banking and personal computing. However, there has been little research that has investigated how biometrics are perceived across these different environments. This paper describes a qualitative investigation of the effect of context on a...

Novel speech systems such as the conversational agents being developed by the Companions Project (www.companions-project.org) can be simulated using the Wizard of Oz methodology. In this approach technologies that are not yet ready for testing by people are replaced by a human, both for prototyping and collecting additional dialogue data. In the ca...

Evaluation of complex, collaborative dialogue systems is a difficult task. Traditionally, developers have relied upon subjective feedback from the user, and parametrisation over observable metrics. However, both models place some reliance on the notion of a task; that is, the system is helping to user achieve some clearly defined goal, such as book...

As the world becomes increasingly computationally enabled, so our view of human-computer interaction (HCI) needs to evolve. The proliferation of wireless connectivity and mobile devices in all their various forms moves people from being outside a computer and interacting with it to being inside an information space and moving through it. Sensors on...

The Speckled Computing project is a large multisite research project based in Scotland, UK. The aim of the project is to investigate, prototype, and produce tiny (1mm 3) computational devices, called Specks, that can be configured into wireless sensor networks, called SpeckNets. Our particular interest is in how people might interact in such enviro...

Previous research has identified user concerns about biometric authentication technology, but most of this research has been conducted in European contexts. There is a lack of research that has investigated attitudes towards biometric technology in other cultures. To address this issue, data from India, South Africa and the United Kingdom were coll...

Wizard of Oz experiments allow designers and developers to see the reactions of people as they interact with to-be-developed technologies. At the Centre for Interaction Design at Edinburgh Napier University we are developing a Wizard of Oz system to inform and further the design and development of Companion based technologies. Companions are intell...

The introduction of effective auditory warnings into a shared environment requires a prior understanding of the existing soundfield and soundscape. Reifying the physical and perceptual auditory environment enables a form of pre-auditioning, as well as the evaluation of any auditory augmentation. This paper describes the development of a visualisati...

Personification technologies are technologies that encourage people to anthropomorphize. These technologies try to get people to form relationships with them rather than simply interact with them. They may do this through having behaviours that encourage people to attribute personality or emotion to them. They may be persuasive technologies in the...

The home is a complex environment, designed for general use but shaped by individual needs and desires. It is a place often shared by several people with different demands and requirements. It is a place embedded with technologies utilised at various times by people in diverse ways. Until recently most home technologies have been primarily function...

This paper describes part of the corpus collection efforts underway in the EC funded Companions project. The Companions project is collecting substantial quantities of dialogue a large part of which focus on reminiscing about photographs. The texts are in English and Czech. We describe the context and objectives for which this dialogue corpus is be...

The research presented here makes a contribution to the understanding of the recognition of biological motion by comparing human recognition of a set of everyday gestures and motions with machine interpretation of the same dataset. Our reasoning is that analysis of any differences and/or correlations between the two could reveal insights into how h...

This paper presents a unique insight into the way acousticians, computing specialists and sound designers describe the dimensions of sound they use. Seventy-five audio professionals completed a detailed questionnaire created to elicit common definitions of the words noise and soundscape, and to establish common methods of reifying sound, architectu...

How recent research in cognitive science offers new ways to understand the interaction of people and computers and develops a new literacy for well-informed, sensitive software design. The evolution of the concept of mind in cognitive science over the past 25 years creates new ways to think about the interaction of people and computers. New ideas a...

Personalization of a self-services kiosk or ATM may provide the user with an efficient means of obtaining new appropriate services with the degree of immediate gratification consumers now require. Successful personalization relies on many factors including acceptance of the services provided and the way these services are delivered. This paper pres...

The Companions project is a 4 year, EU funded Framework Programme 6 project involving a consortium of 16 partners across 8 countries. Its aim is to develop a personalised conversational interface, one that knows and understands its owner, and can access resources on the Internet. It does this whilst nurturing an emotional, psychological and social...

The paper introduces the COMPANIONS project, a 4 year, EU funded Framework Programme 6 project involving a consortium of 16 partners across 8 countries. It's aim is to develop a personalised conversational interface, one that knows and understands its owner, and can act as an alternative access point to resources on the Internet, all the while nutu...

This paper describes the design, application, and refinement of a qualitative tool designed to study sense of place. The Place Probe incorporates a range of stimuli and techniques aimed at articulating a person's sense of place. It has been developed, used, and undergone three revisions. The paper describes the background to the choice of measures...

The vision of truly ubiquitous computing is drawing closer, as show by the work of the Speckled Computing consortium who are developing micro-sensor networks to be invisibly integrated into our surroundings. The unique properties of this technology pose a challenge for current HCI theory, and so we propose a new interaction paradigm based on augmen...

This paper investigates soundscape classification by using two different forms of data gathering and two different populations. The first method involves a questionnaire completed by 75 audio professionals. The second uses a speak-aloud experiment, during which 40 end users were asked to describe their audio environment. While both approaches are d...

This paper describes a trial of Macaulay and Crerar's method of mapping a workplace soundscape to assess its fitness as a basis for an extended soundscape mapping method. Twelve participants took part within 14 separate environments, which included academic, commercial and domestic locations. Results were visualized and subsequently collapsed to pr...

The Web is the archetypal information space but even on a well designed site it can be difficult to find all the information you need. It is impossible to design a site so that all the information needs of all the users of the site are satisfied on a single screen. Accordingly people have to pick up information from a variety of sources; they move...

This paper reports an empirical study to investigate how individuals perceive and classify elements of their workplace auditory environments. The participants were 18 university employees chosen for their varying degrees of room occupancy, from single occupants through to those sharing with up to 11 colleagues. Participants in single rooms were exp...

Information architecture concerns how to structure the content of an information space. Information architects design information spaces. Staying with the notion of information space leads us to the realisation that people need to be able to both conceptualise an information space and find their way through that information space to where they want...

Information architecture concerns how to structure the content of an information space. Information architects design information spaces. Staying with the notion of information space leads us to the realisation that people need to be able to both conceptualise an information space and find their way through that information space to where they want...

This volume contains the full papers presented at HCI 2005, the 19th Annual Conference of the British HCI Group, a specialist group of the BCS. The conference has become the premiere annual conference on human-computer interaction in Europe, attracting a global audience. People and Computers XIX includes leading edge discussions outlining the lates...

This paper examines the effect that changing arena (i.e. an immersive CAVE or head mounted display) and adding an augmented barrier has on the sense of place and presence in two photo-realistic virtual environments. Twenty eight subjects (17 male, 11 female) mainly undergraduate students or staff took part. The paper summarises two experiments that...

The issue of how users can navigate their way through large information spaces is one that is crucial to the ever expanding and interlinking of computer systems. There are many ways of dealing with the issue of navigation one of which is to provide different dialogue styles to suit individual capabilities. The performance of users was compared on a...

This paper ,describes our ,work ,in developing the ,human- computer interface of an augmented reality (AR) systemthat has been designed to facilitate the accurates election of real world locationsin 3D space using 3D cursors. We detail ,the results ,of an ,experiment ,undertaken to ,highlight the benefit of ,certain features integrated into the ,de...

This work describes our work in developing the human-computer interface of an augmented reality (AR) system designed to facilitate the accurate selection of real world locations in 3D space using 3D cursors. The results of two experiments undertaken to evaluate the influence of certain sources of additional depth information and degree of interface...

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) is a complex and multi faceted area of research that continues to defy description in simple terms. Although the name suggests that HCI is simply the study of human interaction with computers, it belies the diversity and growing number of these interactions within a culture increasingly saturated with computational...

This paper reports on the work of the UTOPIA project, a consortium of four Scottish universities concerned with technology issues for older people, focusing specifically on artificial companionship. The importance of companionship to the emotional and physical well-being of older people is assessed, and a brief history of the various artificial com...

The challenge of pervasive computing to HCI is significant. HCI theory has been dominated by ‘the person using the computer’, work and efficiency. In the future of pervasive computing people will be living inside information spaces. If we take this view then it is natural to consider how people move through such spaces; navigation of information sp...

This paper argues that the current involvement of end users in the design of technological artefacts is too superficial. It is common to involve people in requirements generation, but rarely in product inception or design. A study is reported involving five households in central Scotland, who were each visited on three occasions, using a new inves...

Over the last few years we have been exploring an alternative conceptual isation of human-computer interaction (HCl) that sees HCl as the navigation of information spaces (Benyon and Höök, 1997). As a corollary cognitive engineers can be seen as the creators of information artefacts (Benyon, 1998b). The work is closely allied to some interesting de...

There are many changes happening in the world of computers and communication media. The Internet and the web, of course, have created this vast network of interlinked machines. Computers are becoming increasingly ubiquitous; they are “disappearing” into everyday objects. They are becoming increasingly small, so much so that they are now wearable. T...

That's a look at an array of social proxies. The purpose was to make it clear that the concept of social proxy is quite general. Social proxies can be designed to support a wide range of on-line interactions, whether they involve conversation or not. They may be synchronous or asynchronous, and they may be associated with activities which are an en...

: When system developers design a computer system (or other information artefact), they must inevitably make judgements as to how to abstract the domain and how to represent this abstraction in their designs. Over the years human–computer interaction, or more generally information systems design, has had a history of developing competing methods an...

Diaper's critical review of Carrol's book ‘Making Use’ raises a number of interesting issues about how to set about the design of interactive systems. In particular Diaper poses an issue that has long dogged the area of Human–Computer Interaction and Software Engineering (HCI-SE), namely how to deal with the formality required by the SE side and th...

This paper reports progress towards mapping workplace soundscapes. In order to design auditory interfaces that integrate effectively with workplace environments, we need a detailed understanding of the way in which end users inhabit these environments, and in particular, how they interact with the existing auditory environment. Our work concentrate...

Summary The paper describes the main themes of a recently funded research project under the European Community's Future and Emerging Technologies 'Presence' initiative. The aim of the research is to develop new tools for empirical and theoretical studies of presence based on the concept of the observer's embodiment in the computationally created vi...

When we use the term ‘human–computer interaction’ (HCI), the image that is conjured up is of a person sitting at a visual display unit staring in at the world of ‘information’; the person is very much outside the space of information. But when we think of other activities such as going shopping, having a meeting or driving across town, we do not th...

This paper presents a case study of the development of a visualization to represent and explore the relationships between multiple hierarchical structures, specifically botanical taxonomies. The case study outlines the visualization's development from initial meetings with taxonomists, through the early visual sketches of their activities, and thro...