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Research Objectives

TACIT will address its research towards integration and unification concerns and the use of novel technologies for the support of continuous interaction techniques. The network has the overall aim of

developing a Theory of Continuous Interaction Techniques

that will result from the unification of three different major directions of research:

classification and description of continuous interaction techniques, their expressive power, and their relationship by integrating different approaches from computer science, cognitive psychology and semiotics.
This will provide a basis for a common semantics of the expressions used in modelling continuous interaction so that both entities (user and system) that are part of an interaction can be described within the same framework. Mathematical structures will be used in a syndetic approach to model the technical artifacts, from devices to software applications, and to approximate the process of cognition of users.
classification and development of concepts for the concurrent use of techniques including the appropriate semantics.
This will develop means and methodologies for encapsulating the knowledge about continuous interaction techniques and their application to specific contexts as well as mechanisms enabling to draw appropriate design decisions for directing both presentation and interaction with the information.
evaluation of the state of the art of technologies and definition of appropriate architectural models for their integration.
This will be concerned with several novel technologies currently available within the network laboratories and will closely monitor the advances of such technologies. This will lead to the development of reference architectures supporting continuous interaction techniques that will match the requirements of users and applications.

The three major directions of research are further detailed to meet the specific objectives of the network. The specific objectives are mapped to the tasks described in the workplan. These tasks have a close relationship between them and will contribute with different weights to the three major research themes. The identified areas are distinguished as follows:

Task 1 Unification, Combination and Comparison, concerning the comparison and unification of the different approaches to design of continuous interaction systems, or of specific techniques;

Task 2 Design Space, concerning the classification of continuous interaction techniques, their expressive power, and their inter-relationship;

Task 3 Foundation, concerning the use of mathematical structures to describe continuous interaction techniques, including the definition of suitable categories of interaction processes, event structures, knowledge representation, and how to relate them with mental categories;

Task 4 Semantics, concerning the development of interaction metaphors for continuous interaction techniques, their adaptation to different constituencies, and the development of methods to evaluate their demand for cognitive load;

Task 5 Coordination, concerning the development of concepts of concurrent use and coordination of techniques including the appropriate semantics, as well as their comparison with different concepts of information blending;

Task 6 Implementation Platforms, concerning the state of the art of technologies for the support of continuous interaction techniques, and their integration;

Task 7 Evaluation, concerning the development of analysis and verification techniques to study which properties of continuous interaction techniques can be deduced or decided either by inspecting their mathematical formulation or through direct experiments.

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