UG and MSc Project Ideas

Chris Greenhalgh, 2024-09-04

2024-09-26: Note, I'm already talking to several UG students, so I'm unlikely to have capacity for more.

General topics

In general I am interested in Human-computer interaction, Distributed Systems and Computer-supported cooperative work, in particular

• Enabling non-tech people to use novel digital technologies to do great stuff, e.g. artists, health professionals, "ordinary" people :-)
• Unusual interactive experiences that play to the strengths of a particular technology, e.g. audio, mobile, AR, VR
• Creative applications including audio, music, music making, theatre, opera, etc., e.g. the Opera "Losing Her Voice" or "Climb!" for Piano
• Mental Health/Wellbeing and Digital technologies

Most of my projects combine (to varying extents) software development, interaction design and user studies and are
suitable for HCI and CS students but NOT DataScience or AI.

General Requirements / Course-specific Guidance

Human-Computer Interaction

If you doing an HCI project (i.e. on the MSc HCI, or an HCI project within the BSc/MSci CS) then your project must be "human-centred". This can involve an emphasis on requirements gathering, design and/or evaluation. You will almost certainly need to do some prototyping, but depending on the project it may be possible to use non-functioning prototypes (although I prefer functioning prototypes).

If you want to tackle one of the HCI projects then please write up a brief (one page) summary of:

• the aim of the project
• why you want to do it
• the specific HCI methods and prototyping technology(s) and level of programming, and
• the specific part or parts of the project that you think are most interesting (and why).

Computer Science

If you doing a CS project (i.e. in the MSc, BSc or MSCi CS) then your project must involve a significant practical (programming) element. It may also involve some HCI elements and prototyping, but at least some will need to be functional.

If you are tackling a web-based project then you should be prepared to use a technology stack with something like Flutter (and Dart) or Angular+Bootstrap (and Typescipt) or Svelte as the front-end and a well-defined HTTP API to any back-end. For Svelte, see SvelteKit. Note, you may not need to implemented your own back-end services, for example a static back-end may suffice or you may be able to use a cloud service such as Firebase.

If you want to tackle one of the CS projects then please write up a brief (one page) summary of:

• the aim of the project
• why you want to do it
• the actual work you would do, including whether and how you would involve users,
• the technologies you would use (including what experience you have with them) and
• the specific part or parts of the project that you think are most interesting (and why).

AI, Data Science

Sorry, I'm not able to supervise projects in Data Science at all, and only to a very limited extent in AI (i.e. only if the emphasis is on human-AI interaction with existing technology/algorithms/data). Also I do NOT have suitable existing datasets to work with.

Some Specific Project Ideas

Extensions to Cardographer, a web-based multi-user ideation card system

The Cardographer project is exploring the use of activities based on (physical or virtual) playing cards to help generate ideas, and learn about and explore ethical and legal issues for new technologies and applications. The project has (mid-2023) developed a first version of the Cardographer Platform, a web-based digital platform for creating cards, managing shared session using cards and analysing card use, and a first version of a Unity-based 3D virtual table top simulator, similar to Tabletop Simulator. The system also integrates with Miro, an online shared whiteboard tool. There is still plenty of scope to extend and add to this platform; a number of suggestions are given below.

CARDO-2D: The aim of this project is to prototype and evaluate a 2D browser-based interface for online card sessions, integrating with Cardographer.

This is to be an alternative to the 3D virtual tabletop and miro. For example, this might be more similar to playingcards.io.

CARDO-REPORT: The aim of this project is to create a flexible analysis and report-generation facility for the Cardographer platform, to help users to analyse and reflect on past card use sessions.

The platform already supports recording the final state of a session and provides a limited number of interactive visualisations and a summary report. But it would be useful to also be able to generate tailored printable reports and associated visualisations, and also to compare different related sessions (e.g. follow-on sessions) or changes made in a session over time.

Companion agent to support digital health

There are many apps, websites, etc that can be helpful when someone is struggling with their wellbeing (e.g. anxiety or mood). However, to benefit from them the user has to actually use them, and we know that people often don't, or stop after just one go. This project is linked to a current reseach project which aims to suport children and young people in particular (age 10-25). We conjecture that a "companion" agent - perhaps in the form of an anthroporphic animal - could help to encourage and remind someone to keep using a digital health intervention (DHI) like this.

AGENT-HEALTH-NAV: The aim of this project is to design, prototype and evaluate a companion agent to help someone navigate the health system, especially in terms of support for mental health.

The health system has all kinds of recommended process and responses, ranging from providing self-help resources, through primary care (GPs) to special care of various forms. If someone has concerns about their mental health or wellbeing it can be very hard to know what to next. The concept of this agent is a kind of personal assistant that would help someone to identify and access sources of support and understand where they are in the "system", so that they can make effective choices.

Citizen Science platform for Mental Health research

Citizen science refers to science that is done by and with "citizens", i.e. not professional researchers/scientists. For example, in ecology there are several projects where members of public carefully record the prevalence of particular animals or plants. There are also many science projects that involve volunteers identifying things from images (e.g. types of galaxies from pictures from telescopes). Citizen science is much less common in health research, and especially mental health research. This is partly because there are additional challenges for example in working with potentially vulnerable volunteers, and the kinds of research is also different.

CITIZEN-GROUP-UI: The aim of this project is to design and prototype web- and app-based for a colocated group of people to work together on (esp. mental health-related) citizen science task(s)

Most citizen science platforms and activities assume that each person works independently and remotely on their own tasks. In some situation, including where people have significant mental health challenges, it may be more appropriate for them to work together with others or as part of a group. The project should address this aspect specifically, for example developing requirements, designing interfaces/functions and evaluating them. Ideally it could be integrated with related ongoing work, including a user dashboard for the REDCap study database system.

Sonic biofeedback system

From current research, we have found that fine-grained changes in heart-rate can predict when someone is paying attention. Other changes can predict relaxation. We think that some therapeutic tasks (e.g. attention training for people with ADHD) might be more effective in some states than in others. We conjecture that giving someone sonic (sound and/or musical) feedback about their physiological state might help them to get "in the zone" to learn well.

BIOFEEDBACK: The aim of this project is prototype a sonic bio-feedback system based on heart beat (RR or II) data.

It would involve working with colleagues in the Institute of Mental Health, to develop and test prototypes. It would include elements of sound design/composition as well as the technical work of interfacing to a suitable heartrate monitor and processing its live data.

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