The main theme of the research at CHIL is "Cognitive Science applied to human-computer interaction (HCI)." Research is concerned with the psychological processes underlying the interaction of people with man-made systems, particularly computer systems, with the ultimate goal of developing engineering models of human performance that can aid in the design of real-world systems. This work spans a broad spectrum of investigation, from the most coarse explorations of users' work environments (e.g. what are the tasks people perform?) to detailed analysis of the temporal microstructure of human performance (e.g. what eye movements do people make when they select from simple menus?).

We are always looking for bright, eager students--both graduate and undergraduate--who are interested in research in these areas, regardless of original academic background. Because of the technical nature of the work, however, people with backgrounds in psychology and computer science are particularly well-suited to this type of research. However, people with backgrounds from other disciplines are certainly welcome as well. If you are interested in becoming involved in research at CHIL, please get in touch with Mike Byrne immediately.

Dr. Kortum's lab research is interested in a number of applied human factors issues. Currently, his primary interests are in the research and development of highly usable systems in the medical, voting, and mobile computing domains and in the characterization of measures of usability and usable systems. With respect to voting systems for example, this may include how users interact with these systems, what kinds of errors they make, and how we might design secure voting systems that are highly usable by the general population and those votes who may have physical disabilities. 

These labs contain a variety of tools that allow the prototyping of visual and auditory interfaces, as well as the space to run experiments evaluating these interfaces. Much of the research in the Human Factors Research Lab takes place in the field, and so extensive facilities are not always required.

The perception and action lab is run by Dr. Patricia DeLucia. In this lab, we look at perceptual and cognitive factors that affect how people interact with their environment. Some of the current research being conducted in the lab is human factors in transportation (e.g., pedestrian street-crossing, perception of collision for drivers in traffic environments), healthcare (e.g., mental workload in nursing, virtual care models in hospitals), and vigilance decrement for vibrotactile and multisensory displays.