Research Goals
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Interaction and Presentation on Wearable Devices |
Mobile |
Querying |
One Ring to Rule Them All |
Spatial Analytic Interfaces |
Personal Health Data Queries |
Interaction and Presentation on Wearable Devices
In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, mobile and wearable devices have emerged as pivotal tools for personal and professional use. These devices, ranging from smartphones and tablets to smartwatches and augmented reality glasses, offer unprecedented convenience and connectivity. Central to their effectiveness is the design and functionality of their user interfaces (UIs), which play a crucial role in how users retrieve and access information.

Mobile Sensemaking
The challenge of designing user interfaces for mobile and wearable devices lies in balancing functionality with usability. Mobile devices, with their larger screens, provide a relatively expansive canvas for organizing and presenting information. Conversely, wearable devices such as smartwatches or smartrings, constrained by their compact form factors, necessitate innovative approaches to interface design to ensure that users can access information quickly and intuitively.

Querying Interfaces
Information retrieval and access are particularly critical in these contexts, as users often rely on their devices for real-time updates, navigation, and frequent interaction bursts. Effective UIs must therefore facilitate seamless access to information, allowing users to perform tasks efficiently while minimizing cognitive load. This involves not only designing intuitive navigation paths and clear displays but also optimizing interactions for touchscreens, voice commands, and optimizing input for the complex needs and queries users demand on such devices.
As we explore the intricacies of user interfaces on these devices, our team is delving into the strategies employed to enhance information retrieval and presentation. We will examine how interface design principles are adapted to meet the unique demands of mobile and wearable devices and consider the emerging trends and technologies shaping the future of user interaction.

Video Insights
Related Publications
One Ring to Rule Them All: An Empirical Understanding of Day-to-Day Smartring Usage Through In-Situ Diary Study
Sandra Bardot, Bradley Rey, Lucas Audette, Kevin Fan, Da-Yuan Huang, Jun Li, Wei Li, and Pourang Irani. (2022, September). One Ring to Rule Them All: An Empirical Understanding of Day-to-Day Smartring Usage Through In-Situ Diary Study. In Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies, 6(3), Article 100, 20 pages. Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3550315
ARO: Exploring the Design of Smart-Ring Interactions for Encumbered Hands
Sandra Bardot, Surya Rawat, Duy Thai Nguyen, Sawyer Rempel, Huizhe Zheng, Bradley Rey, Jun Li, Kevin Fan, Da-Yuan Huang, Wei Li, and Pourang Irani. (2021). ARO: Exploring the Design of Smart-Ring Interactions for Encumbered Hands. In Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Mobile Human-Computer Interaction (MobileHCI '21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 12, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1145/3447526.3472037
SF-LG: Space-Filling Line Graphs for Visualizing Interrelated Time-series Data on Smartwatches
Ali Neshati, Fouad Alallah, Bradley Rey, Yumiko Sakamoto, Marcos Serrano, and Pourang Irani. (2021). SF-LG: Space-Filling Line Graphs for Visualizing Interrelated Time-series Data on Smartwatches. In Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Mobile Human-Computer Interaction (MobileHCI '21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 5, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1145/3447526.3472040
BezelGlide: Interacting with Graphs on Smartwatches with Minimal Screen Occlusion
Ali Neshati, Bradley Rey, Ahmed Shariff Mohommed Faleel, Sandra Bardot, Celine Latulipe, and Pourang Irani. (2021). BezelGlide: Interacting with Graphs on Smartwatches with Minimal Screen Occlusion. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 501, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445201
Eyes-free graph legibility: using skin-dragging to provide a tactile graph visualization on the arm
Sandra Bardot, Sawyer Rempel, Bradley Rey, Ali Neshati, Yumiko Sakamoto, Carlo Menon, and Pourang Irani. (2020). Eyes-free graph legibility: using skin-dragging to provide a tactile graph visualization on the arm. In Proceedings of the 11th Augmented Human International Conference (AH '20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 1, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1145/3396339.3396344
Expanding Touch Interaction Capabilities for Smart-rings: An Exploration of Continual Slide and Microroll Gestures
Anuradha Herath, Bradley Rey, Sandra Bardot, Sawyer Rempel, Lucas Audette, Huizhe Zheng, Jun Li, Kevin Fan, Da-Yuan Huang, Wei Li, and Pourang Irani. (2022). Expanding Touch Interaction Capabilities for Smart-rings: An Exploration of Continual Slide and Microroll Gestures. In Extended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 292, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519714
Understanding and Adapting Bezel-to-Bezel Interactions for Circular Smartwatches in Mobile and Encumbered Scenarios
Bradley Rey, Kening Zhu, Simon Tangi Perrault, Sandra Bardot, Ali Neshati, and Pourang Irani. (2022, September). Understanding and Adapting Bezel-to-Bezel Interactions for Circular Smartwatches in Mobile and Encumbered Scenarios. In Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 6(MHCI), Article 201, 28 pages. Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3546736
EdgeSelect: Smartwatch Data Interaction with Minimal Screen Occlusion
Ali Neshati, Aaron Salo, Shariff Am Faleel, Ziming Li, Hai-Ning Liang, Celine Latulipe, and Pourang Irani. (2022). EdgeSelect: Smartwatch Data Interaction with Minimal Screen Occlusion. In Proceedings of the 2022 International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI '22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 288–298. https://doi.org/10.1145/3536221.3556586
G-Sparks: Glanceable Sparklines on Smartwatches
Ali Neshati, Yumiko Sakamoto, Launa C Leboe-McGowan, Jason Leboe-McGowan, Marcos Serrano, and Pourang Irani. (2019). G-Sparks: Glanceable Sparklines on Smartwatches. In Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2019 (GI 2019). Canadian Information Processing Society. Kingston, Ontario, 9 pages. https://doi.org/10.20380/GI2019.23
ThumbText: Text Entry for Wearable Devices Using a Miniature Ring
Junhyeok Kim, William Delamare, and Pourang Irani. (2018, May). ThumbText: Text Entry for Wearable Devices Using a Miniature Ring. In Graphics Interface. Canadian Information Processing Society, Toronto, Canada. PDF
D-SWIME: A Design Space for Smartwatch Interaction Techniques Supporting Mobility and Encumbrance
Gaganpreet Singh, William Delamare, and Pourang Irani. (2018). D-SWIME: A Design Space for Smartwatch Interaction Techniques Supporting Mobility and Encumbrance. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 634, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3174208
Combining Ring Input with Hand Tracking for Precise, Natural Interaction with Spatial Analytic Interfaces
Barrett Ens, Ahmad Byagowi, Teng Han, Juan David Hincapié-Ramos, and Pourang Irani. (2016). Combining Ring Input with Hand Tracking for Precise, Natural Interaction with Spatial Analytic Interfaces. In Proceedings of the 2016 Symposium on Spatial User Interaction (SUI '16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 99–102. https://doi.org/10.1145/2983310.2985757
PageFlip: Leveraging Page-Flipping Gestures for Efficient Command and Value Selection on Smartwatches
Teng Han, Jiannan Li, Khalad Hasan, Keisuke Nakamura, Randy Gomez, Ravin Balakrishnan, and Pourang Irani. (2018). PageFlip: Leveraging Page-Flipping Gestures for Efficient Command and Value Selection on Smartwatches. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 529, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3174103
A comparison between audio and IMU data to detect chewing events based on an earable device
Roya Lotfi, George Tzanetakis, Rasit Eskicioglu, and Pourang Irani. (2020). A comparison between audio and IMU data to detect chewing events based on an earable device. In Proceedings of the 11th Augmented Human International Conference (AH '20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 11, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1145/3396339.3396362
A smart utensil for detecting food pick-up gesture and amount while eating
Zuoyi Zhang, Huizhe Zheng, Sawyer Rempel, Kenny Hong, Teng Han, Yumiko Sakamoto, and Pourang Irani. (2020). A smart utensil for detecting food pick-up gesture and amount while eating. In Proceedings of the 11th Augmented Human International Conference (AH '20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 2, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1145/3396339.3396361
Spatial Analytic Interfaces: Spatial User Interfaces for In Situ Visual Analytics
Barrett Ens and Pourang Irani. (2017). Spatial Analytic Interfaces: Spatial User Interfaces for In Situ Visual Analytics. In IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 37(2), 66–79. https://doi.org/10.1109/MCG.2016.38
Databiting: Lightweight, Transient, and Insight Rich Exploration of Personal Data
Bradley Rey, Bongshin Lee, Eun Kyoung Choe, and Pourang Irani. (2024). Databiting: Lightweight, Transient, and Insight Rich Exploration of Personal Data. In IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 44(2), 65–72. https://doi.org/10.1109/MCG.2024.3353888
Investigating In-Situ Personal Health Data Queries on Smartwatches
Bradley Rey, Bongshin Lee, Eun Kyoung Choe, and Pourang Irani. (2023). Investigating In-Situ Personal Health Data Queries on Smartwatches. In Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT), 6(4), Article 179 (December 2022), 19 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3569481
Towards Efficient Interaction for Personal Health Data Queries on Smartwatches
Bradley Rey, Charles-Olivier Dufresne-Camaro, and Pourang Irani. (2023). Towards Efficient Interaction for Personal Health Data Queries on Smartwatches. In Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Mobile Human-Computer Interaction (MobileHCI '23 Companion). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 18, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1145/3565066.3608700
Understanding User Preferences of Voice Assistant Answer Structures for Personal Health Data Queries
Bradley Rey, Yumiko Sakamoto, Jaisie Sin, and Pourang Irani. (2024). Understanding User Preferences of Voice Assistant Answer Structures for Personal Health Data Queries. In Proceedings of the 6th ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (CUI '24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 17, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1145/3640794.3665552
Team Members

Pourang P. Irani
Professor Principal's Research Chair in Ubiquitous Analytics
University of British Columbia (Okanagan campus)
Room No: 304
Charles E. Fipke Centre for Innovative Research
3247 University Way
Kelowna, BC V1V 1V7
Email: pourang.irani@ubc.ca

