RIEC International Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction

- Welcome CHI 2021, thinking of the future of HCI together -

Research Institute of Electrical Communication

Tohoku University

Sendai, Japan

January 24 and 25, 2020

To assure quality of life of people in a society in which the information level has been highly developed, the importance of human-technology and human-computer interaction further increases. The ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems is the premier international conference of Human-Computer Interaction, and provides a place where researchers and practitioners gather from across the world to discuss the latest topics. It has been annually held mainly in North America and Europe since 1982, and the CHI 2021 will be the first CHI to be held in Japan. It is expected to be the largest ever, having more than 4,000 participants from more than 50 countries or regions. In addition, it is also expected to be the best CHI ever with enhanced rich content. For this purpose, this symposium invites internationally active researchers including key CHI 2021 committee members to discuss and think the future of HCI together.

人と情報システムの相互作用について，情報科学，認知科学，心理学，デザイン学等，多岐に渡る分野の研究者や技術者，学生等が世界中から集まり議論する学際的な場として，ACM SIGCHI が主催する国際会議CHIは，この分野で最大かつ最も権威がある国際会議として1982年から毎年開催されてきました．これまで北米と欧州を中心に開催されてきましたが，2021年5月には初めて日本で開催されます．そしてCHI 2021には世界50か国から4000人以上が参加し，これまでで最大のCHIになると予想されています．またプログラム等の内容もそれに見合うように充実させ，皆さんの記憶に長く残るCHIとすることが期待されています．そこで本シンポジウムではこの機会に，CHI 2021のCommitteeを務めるキーメンバーを中心に国際的にご活躍中の皆さんに集まっていただき，人と情報システムの相互作用やHuman Computer Interactionと呼ばれる分野の未来を一緒に考えてみたいと思います．

Venue: Research Institute of Electrical Communication Main bldg. Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan / 東北大学 電気通信研究所 本館

Supported by:

Japan ACM SIGCHI Chapter

Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University / 東北大学 電気通信研究所

Registration: free to participate / 参加費無料

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Program

Friday, January 24

13:00 - 15:00 Session 1

Chair: Yuichi Itoh (Osaka University)

13:00 - 13:15

Yoshifumi Kitamura

13:15 - 14:00

Hiroshi Ishii

  • The Jerome B. Wiesner Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Laboratory

  • Title of the talk

Making Digital Tangible: The Battle Against the Pixel Empire

  • Abstract:

Today's mainstream Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research primarily addresses functional concerns – the needs of users, practical applications, and usability evaluation. Tangible Bits and Radical Atoms are driven by vision and carried out with an artistic approach. While today's technologies will become obsolete in one year, and today's applications will be replaced in 10 years, true visions – we believe – can last longer than 100 years.

Tangible Bits seeks to realize seamless interfaces between humans, digital information, and the physical environment by giving physical form to digital information and computation, making bits directly manipulatable and perceptible both in the foreground and background of our consciousness (peripheral awareness).Our goal is to invent new design media for artistic expression as well as for scientific analysis, taking advantage of the richness of human senses and skills we develop throughout our lifetime interacting with the physical world, as well as the computational reflection enabled by real-time sensing and digital feedback.

Radical Atoms leaps beyond Tangible Bits by assuming a hypothetical generation of materials that can change form and properties dynamically, becoming as reconfigurable as pixels on a screen. Radical Atoms is the future material that can transform its shape, conform to constraints, and inform the users of their affordances. Radical Atoms is a vision for the future of Human- Material Interaction, in which all digital information has a physical manifestation, thus enabling us to interact directly with it.

I will present the trajectory of our vision-driven design research from Tangible Bits towards Radical Atoms, illustrated through a variety of interaction design projects that have been presented and exhibited in Media Arts, Design, and Science communities. These emphasize that the design for engaging and inspiring tangible interactions requires the rigor of both scientific and artistic review, encapsulated by my motto, “Be Artistic and Analytic. Be Poetic and Pragmatic.”

  • Bio:

Hiroshi Ishii is a Jerome B. Wiesner Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Lab. He was named Associate Director at the Media Lab in May 2008. He is the director of the Tangible Media Group that he founded in 1995 to pursue new visions of Human Computer Interaction (HCI): http://tangible.media.mit.edu/vision/ Ishii and his team have presented their visions at a variety of scientific, design and artistic venues (including ACM SIGCHI, SIGGRAPH, Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, Milan Design Week, Cannes Lions Festival, Aspen Ideas Festival, Industrial Design Society of America, AIGA, Ars Electronica, Centre Pompidou, Victoria and Albert Museum and NTT ICC) emphasizing that the development of vision requires the rigors of both scientific and artistic review. In 2006 Ishii was elected to the CHI Academy by ACM SIGCHI, and received the SIGCHI Lifetime Research Award in 2019.

Prior to joining the MIT Media Lab from 1988-1994, Ishii led a CSCW research group at NTT Human Interface Laboratories Japan, where he and his team invented the TeamWorkStation and the ClearBoard.

14:00 - 14:30

Kai Kunze

  • Associate Professor at the Keio Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University

  • CHI 2021 Local Arrangement Chair

  • Title of the talk

Beyond HCI — Superhuman Sports and Augmented Humans?

  • Abstract:

This talk discusses potential ideas beyond traditional HCI, starting with an overview of interactions using eyewear computing, focusing on sensor-equipped smart glasses ( http://eyewear.pro ). I discuss sensing and interaction capabilities on smart eyewear to track reading activities, cognitive functions, facial expressions in everyday life etc. and give an outlook. Finally, I will introduce a couple of application cases extending HCI towards Augmented Sports, Augmented Humans.

  • Bio:

With over 20 years of experience in Wearable Computing research, Kai Kunze works as Professor at the Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University, Yokohama, Japan. Beforehand, he held an Assistant Professorship at Osaka Prefecture University, Osaka. He received a Summa Cum Laude for his Ph.D. thesis from Passau University. His work experience includes research visits/internships at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), MIT Media Lab, Sunlabs Europe, and the German Stock Exchange.

14:30 - 15:00

Koji Yatani

  • Associate Professor at Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Systems, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo

  • CHI 2021 Journal Chair & Sponsor Chair

  • Title of the talk

Helping adolescent SNS users overcome privacy and security threats

  • Abstract:

Social network services (SNS) are an integral part of modern life. But users, particularly young generations, may be at risk because they are not well aware of emerging threats or practices others in the same generation already commonly have. In this talk, I present our recent explorations on emerging privacy and security risks in SNS and interface designs for mitigating such risks. I will then share implications for future research in this topic.

  • Bio:

Dr. Koji Yatani (http://yatani.jp) is an Associate Professor and 2017 UTokyo Excellent Young Researcher at The University of Tokyo, where he leads Interactive Intelligent Systems Laboratory (https://iis-lab.org). His current research focuses on productivity/creativity support and sensing technology for personal healthcare. He also recently extends his research interests to usable privacy and security. He received RIEC Award in 2019 for his research on intellectual productivity support tools. He also received multiple Best Paper and Honorable Mention Awards at CHI and MobileHCI. He currently serves as the Steering Committee chair for UbiComp, and will serve as Sponsorship and Journals chairs for CHI 2021.

15:00 - 15:30 Coffee/Tea Break

15:30 - 17:30 Session 2

Chair: Kohei Matsumura (Ritsumeikan University)

15:30 - 16:00

Daisuke Sakamoto

  • Associate Professor at Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Hokkaido University

  • CHI 2021 Communication Chair

  • Title of the talk:

Designing Interaction for Computers, Mobiles, and Robots

  • Abstract:

The goal of this talk is sharing research insights from my previous works about creating user interfaces for tabletop computers, mobile devices, and domestic robots. We are having multiple information devices today and using it for accessing information resources including robotic things. This new style of life is getting popular and people accept new things basically, however there are many venues to do for refining interactions and user interface of those devices. Especially, the interaction with the domestic robot is not sophisticated enough yet for the practical usage of it in our daily lives. In this talk, I will share research concepts from the user interface and interaction that I had been done previously, and will present the idea of human-computer interaction research for near future life.

  • Bio:

Daisuke Sakamoto is an Associate Professor of Human-Computer Interaction lab, Hokkaido University. He received his B.A.Media Architecture, M.Systems Information Science, and Ph.D. in Systems Information Science from Future University-Hakodate in 2004, 2006, and 2008, respectively. He worked at The University of Tokyo as a Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (2008-2010). He joined JST ERATO Igarashi Design Interface Project as a researcher (2010). After that he backed to The University of Tokyo as an Assistant Professor (2011) and a Project Lecturer (2013-2016). His research interests include Human-Computer Interaction and Human-Robot Interaction, which focused on the user interaction with people and interaction design for the computing systems.

16:00 - 16:30

Jun Kato

  • Senior researcher at National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST)

  • CHI 2021 Student Research Competition Chair

  • Title of the talk:

Programming for X: Programming Experience Research for Convivial Computing

  • Abstract:

Computers have become ubiquitous in our life and work, and the way they are programmed needs to be more intuitive and inclusive. This talk presents our technical and social efforts to help people develop programs interactively and collaboratively in several application domains, including entertainment and physical computing.

  • Bio:

Dr. Jun Kato is a senior researcher at AIST, Japan, and the technical advisor at Arch, Inc. He is interested in designing user interfaces for programming, and more broadly, for creativity support. Before his current position, he worked for Microsoft and Adobe Research and received a Ph.D. from The University of Tokyo.

16:30 - 17:00

Naomi Yamashita

  • Primary Researcher at NTT Communication Science Laboratories

  • CHI 2021 Language Inclusion Chair

  • Title of the talk

Designing Technologies for Mindful Inclusion

  • Abstract:

To support people with disabilities, HCI researchers have focused on understanding their difficulties and designing technologies to fulfill their needs. While this is a promising approach to support the population, previous works have shown that people with disabilities tend to be overwhelmed by handling their own issues, and have few bandwidth to adapt to novel technologies. Meanwhile, people around them, who normally have more bandwidth to adapt to novel technologies, are often willing to help, but do not know how and when to provide support. To fill this gap, I propose a novel approach, “mindful inclusion,” which aims to induce support from surrounding people to individuals with disabilities. In this talk, I discuss the potential/challenge of this approach by introducing a few case studies.

  • Bio:

Naomi Yamashita is a primary researcher at NTT Communication Science Laboratories. She received her B.Eng and M.Eng degrees in Applied Mathematics and Physics, and Ph.D. in Social Informatics. Her primary interests lie in the areas of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Human-Computer Interaction. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods, she aims to uncover the nature of human interaction and to design novel communication technologies for supporting people with specific needs. Her current projects include technological support for non-native speakers in global communication, and support for individuals with mental health concerns.

17:00 - 17:30

Hideaki Kuzuoka

  • Professor at The University of Tokyo

  • CHI 2021 Workshop Chair

  • Title of the talk

Toward Augmented Spaces that Enable Sequential Communication (subject to change)

  • Abstract:

Studies in Social Science revealed that human communication is sequentially organized and combination of verbal and non-verbal cues play important roles. Due to the various constraints of mediated communication, it is not easy to develop a real-time communication system that goes beyond face-to-face. In this talk, I will introduce various studies to overcome the limitations of mediated communication and possible directions for future research.

  • Bio:

Hideaki Kuzuoka is a Professor at The University of Tokyo, Japan. He received his Ph.D. in Engineering from The University of Tokyo in 1992. His main research field is CSCW, Human-Robot Interaction, and Virtual Reality. He is one of the pioneers who introduced wearable devices and telepresence robots to CSCW research. Through the nterdisciplinary collaboration with social scientists and cognitive scientists, he is especially interested in how non-verbal communication can be supported via technologies.

17:30 - 17:40 Short Break

17:40 - 18:10 Lab Tour

Technical Visit to the Interactive Content Design Lab, RIEC, Tohoku University

18:10 - Reception

Kanpai

    • Satoshi Shioiri

    • Director, Professor at Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University

Saturday, January 25

9:15 - 10:30 Session 3

Chair: Masa Ogata (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST))

9:15 - 10:00

Margaret Burnett

  • Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Oregon State University

  • CHI 2021 Keynote Chair

  • Title of the talk:

Doing Inclusive Design: From GenderMag to InclusiveMag

  • Abstract:

How can software professionals assess whether their software supports diverse users? And if they find problems, how can they fix them? Although there are empirical processes that can be used to find “inclusivity bugs” piecemeal, what is often needed is a systematic inspection method to assess software’s support for diverse populations. To help fill this gap, we developed GenderMag, a method for finding and fixing “gender inclusivity bugs" -- gender biases in software interfaces and workflows. We then introduced InclusiveMag, a generalization of GenderMag that can be used to generate systematic inclusiveness methods for other dimensions of diversity. In this talk, we present the latest GenderMag results, and then introduce InclusiveMag and our early experiences with it.

  • Bio:

Margaret Burnett is an OSU Distinguished Professor at Oregon State University. She began her career in industry, where she was the first woman software developer ever hired at Procter & Gamble Ivorydale. A few degrees and start-ups later, she joined academia, with a research focus on people who are engaged in some form of software development. She co-founded the area of end-user software engineering, which aims to enable computer users not trained in programming to improve their own software, and co-leads the team that created GenderMag (gendermag.org <http://gendermag.org/>), a software inspection process that uncovers user-facing gender biases in software from smart systems to programming environments. Together with her collaborators and students, she has contributed some of the seminal work in both of those areas, and also in explaining AI to ordinary end users. Burnett is an ACM Fellow, a member of the ACM CHI Academy, and a member of the Academic Alliance Advisory Board of the National Center for Women In Technology (NCWIT).

10:00 - 10:30

Jun Rekimoto

  • Professor of Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies at The University of Tokyo

  • CHI 2021 Keynote Chair

  • Title of the talk

Human Augmentation and the future of Human-Computer Integration

  • Abstract:

Traditionally, the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) was primarily concerned with designing and investigating interfaces between humans and machines. However, with recent technological advances, the concepts of "enhancing," "augmenting" or even "re-designing" humans are becoming feasible and active topics of scientific research as well as engineering development. "Human Augmentation" is a term that I use to refer to this overall research direction. Human Augmentation introduces a fundamental paradigm shift in HCI: from human-computer-interaction to human-computer-integration, and our abilities will be mutually connected through the networks (what we call IoA, or Internet of Abilities, as the next step of IoT: Internet of Things). In this talk, I will discuss rich possibilities and distinct challenges in enhancing human abilities.

  • Bio:

Jun Rekimoto received his Ph.D. in Information Science from Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1996. Since 1994 he has worked for Sony Computer Science Laboratories (Sony CSL). In 1999 he formed and directed the Interaction Laboratory within Sony CSL. Since 2007 he has been a professor in the Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies at The University of Tokyo. Since 2011 he also has been Deputy Director and Fellow of Sony CSL. Rekimoto’s research interests include human-computer interaction, human augmentation, and human-AI-integration. He invented highly innovative interactive systems, including NaviCam (the world-first mobile AR system), HoloWall, and SmartSkin (the two earliest representations of multi-touch systems). He is a member of the ACM SIGCHI Academy, is very widely published and won numerous research and design awards for his research.

10:30 - 10:45 Short Break

10:40 - 12:20 Session 4

Chair: Hiroyuki Manabe (Shibaura Institute of Technology)

10:45 - 11:15

Kotaro Hara

  • Assistant Professor in the School of Information Systems at Singapore Management University

  • CHI 2021 Accessibility Chair

  • Title of the talk:

Characterizing Physical World Accessibility at Scale

  • Abstract:

Poorly maintained sidewalks pose considerable accessibility challenges for people with mobility impairments. Despite comprehensive civil rights legislation for people with disabilities, many streets and sidewalks in cities remain inaccessible. The problem is not just that sidewalk accessibility fundamentally affects where and how people travel in cities, but also that there are few, if any, mechanisms to determine accessible areas a priori. In this talk, I will introduce scalable data collection methods for acquiring street-level accessibility information using a combination of crowdsourcing, computer vision, machine learning, and Google Street View. Our overarching goal is to transform the ways in which accessibility information is collected and visualized for every sidewalk, street, and building façade in the world.

  • Bio:

Kotaro Hara is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information Systems at Singapore Management University. His research focuses on designing, building, and evaluating technologies powered by both people and machines to support people with disabilities. Kotaro received a B.E. in Information Engineering from Osaka University in 2010. He received Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland, College Park, where he was an IBM Ph.D. Fellow.

11:15 - 11:45

Keita Higuchi

  • Researcher at Preferred Networks

  • CHI 2021 Local Culture Chair

  • Title of the talk:

Compute Vision-based Interactive Systems for Expert Work Assistance and Accessibility Improvement

  • Abstract:

Recent advances in computer vision (CV) technologies have enabled automatic detection and recognition for general objects and human behaviors. Although cutting-edge CV researches made reasonable performances on several vision tasks, introducing such technologies into interactive systems requires deep understandings of real-world problems. This talk gives several instances of designing interactive systems based on computer vision technologies to assist expert works and improve accessibility in real-world settings. The main contents of the talk are twofold: 1) vision-enhanced video browsing experience, and 2) vision-assisted blind navigation technologies.

  • Bio:

Keita Higuchi is currently a researcher at Preferred Networks, Japan. He received his MS and PhD degrees from the University of Tokyo in 2012 and 2015. Before joining Preferred Networks, he was a project lecturer at Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo. His research interests include video technologies and blind navigation systems.

11:45 - 12:15

Aaron Quigley

  • Professor in the School of Computer Science at the University of St Andrews.

  • CHI 2021 General Chair

  • Title of the talk:

Discreet Computing: Discreet interaction and sensing with Radar, Vision and Breath

  • Abstract:

Discreet Computing is intentionally unobtrusive through its design, development and use. In this talk we discuss novel sensing to facilitate new interaction modalities which can form discreet or subtle interaction.

Across the breadth of HCI we can see the development of new forms of interaction underpinned by the appropriation or adaptation of sensing techniques based on the measurement of air movement, sound, light, electric fields, radio waves, biosignals etc. In this talk I will delve into three forms of sensing for object detection and interaction with radar, blurred images and touch.

RadarCat (UIST 2016, Interactions 2018, IMWUT 2018 UbiComp 2019) is a small, versatile system for material and object classification which enables new forms of everyday proximate interaction with digital devices. RadarCat exploits the raw radar signals that are unique when different material and objects are placed on the sensor. By using machine learning techniques, these objects can be accurately recognized. An object’s thickness, state (filled or empty mug) and different body parts can also be recognized. This gives rise to research and applications in context-aware computing, tangible interaction (with tokens and objects), and in industrial automation (e.g., recycling), or laboratory process control (e.g., traceability). In Solinteraction we explore two research questions with radar as a platform for sensing tangible interaction with the counting, ordering, identification of objects and tracking the orientation, movement and distance of these objects. We detail the design space and practical use-cases for such interaction which allows us to identify a series of design patterns, beyond static interaction, which are continuous and dynamic with Radar.

Beyond Radar, SpeCam (MobileHCI ’17) is a lightweight surface color and material sensing approach for mobile devices which only uses the front-facing camera and the display as a multi-spectral light source. We leverage the natural use of mobile devices (placing it face-down) to detect the material underneath and therefore infer the location or placement of the device. SpeCam can then be used to support “discreet computing” with micro-interactions to avoid the numerous distractions that users daily face with today’s mobile devices. Our two-parts study shows that SpeCam can i) recognize colors in the HSB space with 10 degrees apart near the 3 dominant colors and 4 degrees otherwise and ii) 30 types of surface materials with 99% accuracy. These findings are further supported by a spectroscopy study. Finally, we suggest a series of applications based on simple mobile micro-interactions suitable for using the phone when placed face-down with blurred images.

Finally, with breath we can show a sensing technique for detecting exhalation patterns (OzCHI 2019). Our concept is based on detecting a user’s forced exhalation patterns in a time duration using a MEMS microphone placed below the user’s nose. We breakdown the signal into FFT components and identify peak frequencies for forced voluntary “breath events” and use that in real-time to distinguish between “exhalation events” and noise.

These pieces of work show subtle gestures for discreet computing which can be used to control input without calling attention to the user in public.

12:15 - 12:30 Closing

Discussants

Takeo Igarashi

Yuichi Itoh

Hiroyuki Manabe

Kohei Matsumura

Masa Ogata

  • Researcher at National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST)

  • CHI 2021 Local Arrangement Chair

  • Web Page: https://masaogata.com/

Kaori Ikematsu

Kunihiro Kato

Xiyue Wang

  • PhD candidate at Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University / JSPS Research Fellowship for Young Scientists

  • CHI 2021 Student Volunteer Local Support Chair

Akihiro Matsufuji

Takefumi Hiraki