Pourang Irani

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor at University of British Columbia - Okanagan

Large curved displays are becoming increasingly popular due to their ability to provide users with a wider field of view and a more immersive experience compared to flat displays. Current interaction techniques for large curved displays often assume a user is positioned at the display's centre, crucially failing to accommodate general use condition...

Head Mounted Displays (HMDs) are gaining more public attention. With the advancement of tracking technologies, they are incorporating unencumbered interaction techniques to address the need for user-friendly and efficient interaction techniques for day-to-day activities. While there is a good understanding of the different interaction techniques in...

First-person view (FPV) technology in virtual reality (VR) can offer in-situ environments in which teleoperators can manipulate unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). However, non-experts and expert robot teleoperators still have trouble controlling robots remotely in various situations. For example, obstacles are not easy to avoid when teleoperating UGV...

Social robots equipped with conversational artificial intelligence are becoming increasingly common in educational settings. However, the long-term consequences of such uses remain relatively unknown due to their novelty. To ensure children's safe use of social robots, and proper adoption of the technology, it is crucial to scrutinize potential con...

Natural gestures are crucial for mid-air interaction, but predicting and managing muscle fatigue is challenging. Existing torque-based models are limited in their ability to model above-shoulder interactions and to account for fatigue recovery. We introduce a new hybrid model, NICER, which combines a torque-based approach with a new term derived fr...

Natural gestures are crucial for mid-air interaction, but predicting and managing muscle fatigue is challenging. Existing torque-based models are limited in their ability to model above-shoulder interactions and to account for fatigue recovery. We introduce a new hybrid model, NICER, which combines a torque-based approach with a new term derived fr...

IntroductionThe validity of chronic disease case definitions for administrative health data may change over time due to changes in data quality. Trend control charts to identify out-of-control (OOC; i.e., unexpected) observations in a time series may indicate where disease estimates are influenced by changes in data quality. Objective Apply and com...

As mobile and wearable devices are becoming increasingly powerful, access to personal data is within reach anytime and anywhere. Currently, methods of data exploration while on-the-go and in-situ are, however, often limited to glanceable and micro visualizations, which provide narrow insight. In this article, we introduce the notion of databiting,...

Conditionally automated vehicles provide unique opportunities for drivers to engage in non-driving-related tasks (NDRTs); however, drivers must remain prepared to respond to take-over requests. This paper explores design challenges and potential solutions for supporting reading as an NDRT in SAE Level 3 vehicles. Specifically, we assess two promine...

Virtual Reality (VR) headsets equipped with multiple cameras enable hands-only teleportation techniques without requiring any physical controller. Hands-only teleportation is an effective alternative to controllers for navigation tasks in virtual reality - allowing users to move from one point to another instantaneously. However, the current implem...

Data physicalisation is a technique that encodes data through the geometric and material properties of an artefact, allowing users to engage with data in a more immersive and multi-sensory way. However, current methods of data physicalisation are limited in terms of their reconfigurability and the types of materials that can be used. Acoustophoresi...

Smartwatches enable not only the continuous collection of but also ubiquitous access to personal health data. However, exploring this data in-situ on a smartwatch is often reserved for singular and generic metrics, without the capacity for further insight. To address our limited knowledge surrounding smartwatch data exploration needs, we collect an...

This paper addresses the relations between the artifacts, tools, and technologies that we make to fulfill user-centered teleoperations in the cyber-physical environment. We explored the use of a virtual reality (VR) interface based on customized concepts of Worlds-in-Miniature (WiM) to teleoperate unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). Our designed syste...

Teleportation, a widely used locomotion technique in Virtual Reality (VR), is used to move users through a virtual environment. Until recently, handheld controllers have been used for teleportation, where users use controllers to point to a location and perform an action (e.g., button press) to be instantly moved to the targeted location. Recent ad...

Supporting eyes-free interaction, mobility and encumbrance, while providing a broad set of commands on a smartwatch display is a difficult, yet important, task. Bezel-to-bezel (B2B) gestures are valuable for rapid command invocation during eyes-free operation, however we lack knowledge regarding B2B interactions on circular devices during common us...

Smartrings have potential to extend our ubiquitous control through their always available and finger-worn location, as well as their quick and subtle interactions. As such, smartrings have gained popularity in research and in commercial usage; however, they often concentrate on a singular or novel aspect of a smartring's potential. While with any e...

Spatio-temporal visualization research has been capturing much attention in recent years. Space-time cube (STC) has been commonly used to visualize this data to support analytic tasks. However, the current STC visualization tools are currently not compatible with situated platforms since these tools are often designed for desktop computing. Thus, w...

Background Algorithms used to identify disease cases in administrative health data may be sensitive to changes in the data over time. Control charts can be used to assess how variations in administrative health data impact the stability of estimated trends in incidence and prevalence for administrative data algorithms. We compared the stability of...

We explore the design of Hand Proximate User Interfaces (HPUIs) for head-mounted displays (HMDs) to facilitate near-body interactions with the display directly projected on, or around the user's hand. We focus on single-handed input, while taking into consideration the hand anatomy which distorts naturally when the user interacts with the display....

Virtual hand or pointer metaphors are among the key approaches for target selection in immersive environments. However, targeting moving objects is complicated by factors including target speed, direction, and depth, such that a basic implementation of these techniques might fail to optimize user performance. We present results of two empirical stu...

Identifying cybersickness in virtual reality (VR) applications such as games in a fast, precise, non-intrusive, and non-disruptive way remains challenging. Several factors can cause cybersickness, and their identification will help find its origins and prevent or minimize it. One such factor is virtual movement. Movement, whether physical or virtua...

We describe a method of teaching a robot its empathic behavioural response from its interaction with people. We used the input modalities such as relative spatial information , facial expressions, body gestures and speech information as perception input that triggers the robot's empathic response. First, we bootstrap the training through a pre-lear...

Target acquisition in an occluded environment is challenging given the omni-directional and first-person view in virtual reality (VR). We propose Solar-Casting, a global scene filtering technique to manage occlusion in VR. To improve target search, users control a reference sphere centered at their head through varied occlusion management modes: Hi...

While teleoperated robots continue to proliferate in domains including search and rescue, field exploration, or the military, human error remains a primary cause for accidents or mistakes. One challenge is that teleoperating a remote robot is cognitively taxing as the operator needs to understand the robot’s state and monitor all its sensor data. I...

The tabletop robot Haru, used for affective telep-resence research, enables a teleoperator to communicate affects from a distance. The robot's expressiveness offers myriad ways of communicating affects through the execution of emotive routines. The teleoperator reacts to input modalities such as the user's facial expression, gestures and speech-bas...

Objective: Healthcare systems are challenged by the rapidly increasing number of older adults requiring services to maintain at-home independence. Technology, such as ambient sensing, has been identified as one potential solution to address these issues. This study's aim is twofold: (1) to explore the general perception of older and younger adults...

Extended Reality (XR) systems (which encapsulate AR, VR and MR) is an emerging field which enables the development of novel visualization and interaction techniques. To develop and to assess such techniques, researchers and designers have to face choices in terms of which development tools to adopt, and with very little information about how such t...

Visual video analytics research, stemming from data captured by surveillance cameras, have mainly focused on traditional computing paradigms, despite emerging platforms including mobile devices. We investigate the potential for situated video analytics, which involves the inspection of video data in the actual environment where the video was captur...

While teleoperated robots continue to proliferate in domains including search and rescue, field exploration, or the military, human error remains a primary cause for accidents or mistakes. One challenge is that teleoperating a remote robot is cognitively taxing as the operator needs to understand the robot's state and monitor all its sensor data. I...

BACKGROUND A short survey explored a possibility to use technology to contain highly infectious diseases through GPS data sharing. Since privacy is often the very first hurdle that many researchers need to clear in personal data collection, we probed one of the basic and yet crucial questions: what do people feel about sharing GPS data to mitigate...

Self-tracking feedback with engaging and persuasive visualizations not only helps convey data but can also affect people's attitudes and behaviors. We investigate persuasive self-tracking feedback by augmenting data videos (DVs)-novel, engaging storytelling media. We introduce a new class of DVs, called Persuasive Data Videos (PDVs), by incorporati...

Objective Finding the longest common subsequence (LCS) among sequences is NP-hard. This is an important problem in bioinformatics for DNA sequence alignment and pattern discovery. In this research, we propose new CPU-based parallel implementations that can provide significant advantages in terms of execution times, monetary cost, and pervasiveness...

Autostereograms are 2D images that can reveal 3D content when viewed with a specific eye convergence, without using extra-apparatus. We contribute to autostereogram studies from an HCI perspective. We explore touch inputs and output design options when interacting with autostereograms on smartphones. We found that an interactive help (i.e. to contr...

Large displays on smartphones accommodate tasks needing more screen real-estate, but at the expense of limiting the use of one-handed operations. In this paper we explore thumb reachability on an articulated dual-display smartphone. While mobile devices are featuring dual screens, no previous work has explored how each physical display’s positions...

Physical objects such as natural items or fine art pieces are often placed behind glass cases to protect them from dust and damage. Generally, interacting with such objects is indirect, based for example on an adjacent touch interface detracting users’ attention from the object. In this paper, we explore whether the glass case could be used as an i...

Recent technological advances in immersive devices open up many opportunities for users to visualize data in their environments. However, current interactive solutions fail at providing a convenient approach to manipulate such complex immersive visualizations. In this article, we present a new approach to interact in these environments, that we cal...

We present an approach for the semi-automatic generation of gesture mappings for devices with low gestural resolution such as the Myo Armband, an off-the-shelf EMG capture device. As an exemplar interactive task, we use text-entry: a pervasive and highly complex interaction. We quantify data related to interaction combining systematic studies (i.e....

Intensive exploration and navigation of hierarchical lists on smartphones can be tedious and time-consuming as it often requires users to frequently switch between multiple views. To overcome this limitation, we present PinchList, a novel interaction design that leverages pinch gestures to support seamless exploration of multi-level list items in h...

Multi-omics datasets are very high-dimensional in nature and have relatively fewer number of samples compared to the number of features. Canonical correlation analysis (CCA)-based methods are commonly used for reducing the dimensions of such multi-view (multi-omics) datasets to test the associations among the features from different views and to ma...

Hierarchy structures such as file systems are widespread interfaces for item retrieval and selection tasks. Some hierarchies can be modified by end-users, such as application launchers on smartphones or pictures in a file folder. These modifiable hierarchies cannot benefit from an optimization made beforehand as their content, unknown during the de...

With upcoming breakthroughs in free-form display technologies, new user interface design challenges have emerged. Here, we investigate a question, which has been widely explored on traditional GUIs but unexplored on non-rectangular interfaces: what are the user strategies in terms of visual search when information is not presented in a traditional...

Using smartwatches for self-tracking purposes has become increasingly common. This tracking is possible as a result of the many sensors embedded in modern smartwatches including GPS, heart rate monitor, accelerometer, and gyroscope. The ability to obtain personal health-related data is one of the most compelling reason to purchase such devices. How...

Hierarchy structures such as file systems are widespread interfaces for item retrieval and selection tasks. Some hierarchies can be modified by end-users, such as application launchers on smartphones or pictures in a file folder. These modifiable hierarchies cannot benefit from an optimization made beforehand as their content, unknown during the de...

Optimizing the use of a small display while presenting graphic data such as line charts is challenging. To tackle this, we propose G-Sparks, a compact visual representation of glanceable line graphs for smartwatches. Our exploration primarily considered the suitable compression axes for time-series charts. In a first study we examine the optimal li...

Smart home technology is receiving significant attention. This is largely in response to an increase in the size of demographic those who require assistance due to reduced mobility, in particular, older adults. Smart home technology enables the assistance individuals with limited mobility need for their daily routines: these limitations can be addr...

Higher eating rates are positively correlate with obesity. In this paper, we propose the design of a new eating utensil that can reduce eating rate by interfering with eater's ability to eat quickly. This utensil can change its rigidity and shape by deflating itself to interfere with eating. In this study, a low fidelity proof-of-concept prototype...

The health industry is always seeking innovative ways to use technology to create or improve the experiences of their professionals. Such improvements are seen in a variety of areas including the analysis of relevant health data and the establishment of new ways of communicating medical education and training. Advancements in head-worn augmented re...

Higher eating rates are positively correlate with obesity. In this paper, we propose the design of a new eating utensil that can reduce eating rate by interfering with eater's ability to eat quickly. This utensil can change its rigidity and shape by deflating itself to interfere with eating. In this study, a low fidelity proof-of-concept prototype...

We investigated interactive agents using subliminal priming - the act of exposing a person to stimuli that they may not consciously notice, but are still processed subliminally in their mind - in an attempt to shape a person's mood and behavior. We present an overview of the psychology of subliminal priming from the perspective of how it applies to...

The popularity of head-worn displays (HWD) technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) headsets is growing rapidly. To predict their commercial success, it is essential to understand the acceptability of these new technologies, along with new methods to interact with them. In this vein, the evaluation of social acceptabilit...

Recent technological advancements in augmented and mixed reality devices opened up many opportunities to users to interact in their environments. However, there are many unanswered questions about the definition of these interaction paradigms. In this article, we present a new approach to interact in these environments: using the body as a physical...

Spatio-temporal datasets (STD) are generated daily. Generally, their visualization includes 2D renderings or animated visualizations that do not fit to the exploration of such complex data. In this paper, we present an alternative approach to current STD visualizations. Our approach uses tangible and visual tools such as mini-robots and a tactile i...

This chapter introduces the concept of situated analytics that employs data representations organized in relation to germane objects, places, and persons for the purpose of understanding, sensemaking, and decision-making. The components of situated analytics are characterized in greater detail, including the users, tasks, data, representations, int...

Current haptic devices are often bulky and rigid, making them unsuitable for ubiquitous interaction and scenarios where the user must also interact with the real world. To address this gap, we propose HydroRing, an unobtrusive, finger-worn device that can provide the tactile sensations of pressure, vibration, and temperature on the fingertip, enabl...

We present PathWord (PATH passWORD), a multimodal digit entry method for ad-hoc authentication based on known digits shape and user relative eye movements. PathWord is a touch-free, gaze-based input modality, which attempts to decrease shoulder surfing attacks when unlocking a system using PINs. The system uses a modified web camera to detect the u...

Pictographic representations and animation techniques are commonly incorporated into narrative visualizations such as data videos. General belief is that these techniques may enhance the viewer experience, thus appealing to a broad audience and enticing the viewer to consume the entire video. However, no study has formally assessed the effect of th...

Selecting an item of interest on smartwatches can be tedious and time-consuming as it involves a series of swipe and tap actions. We present PageFlip, a novel method that combines into a single action multiple touch operations such as command invocation and value selection for efficient interaction on smartwatches. PageFlip operates with a page fli...

The use of crowdsourcing platforms for data collection in HCI research is attractive in their ability to provide rapid access to large and diverse participant samples. As a result, several researchers have conducted studies investigating the similarities and differences between data collected through crowdsourcing and more traditional, laboratory-s...

Smartwatches enable rapid access to information anytime and anywhere. However, current smartwatch content navigation techniques, for panning and zooming, were directly adopted from those used on smartphones. These techniques are cumbersome when performed on small smartwatch screens and have not been evaluated for their support in mobility and encum...

This paper presents ongoing work on a design exploration for mixed-scale gestures, which interleave microgestures with larger gestures for computer interaction. We describe three prototype applications that show various facets of this multi-dimensional design space. These applications portray various tasks on a Hololens Augmented Reality display, u...