Papers by michael docherty
Proceedings of the 2013 ACM international conference on Interactive tabletops and surfaces - ITS '13, 2013
ABSTRACT "The Cube" is a unique facility that combines 48 large multi-touch scr... more ABSTRACT "The Cube" is a unique facility that combines 48 large multi-touch screens and very large-scale projection surfaces to form one of the world's largest interactive learning and engagement spaces. The Cube facility is part of the Queensland University of Technology's (QUT) newly established Science and Engineering Centre, designed to showcase QUT's teaching and research capabilities in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) disciplines. In this application paper we describe, the Cube, its technical capabilities, design rationale and practical day-to-day operations, supporting up to 70,000 visitors per week. Essential to the Cube's operation are five interactive applications designed and developed in tandem with the Cube's technical infrastructure. Each of the Cube's launch applications was designed and delivered by an independent team, while the overall vision of the Cube was shepherded by a small executive team. The diversity of design, implementation and integration approaches pursued by these five teams provides some insight into the challenges, and opportunities, presented when working with large distributed interaction technologies. We describe each of these applications in order to discuss the different challenges and user needs they address, which types of interactions they support and how they utilise the capabilities of the Cube facility.
... In particular, we would like to express our thanks to Takeo Ojika, Mario Santana Quintero and... more ... In particular, we would like to express our thanks to Takeo Ojika, Mario Santana Quintero and Hal Thwaites for their ... Organization IX Donald H. Sanders (USA) Dora Constantinidis (Australia) Edwin Blake (South Africa) Ekaterina Prasolova-Førland (Norway) Eric Champion ...
ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 2001
The University of Queensland has recently established a new design-focused, studio-based computer... more The University of Queensland has recently established a new design-focused, studio-based computer science degree. The Bachelor of Information Environments degree augments the core courses from the University's standard CS degree with a stream of design courses and integrative studio-based projects undertaken every semester. The studio projects integrate and reinforce learning by requiring students to apply the knowledge and skills gained in other courses to open-ended real-world design projects. The studio model is based on the architectural studio and involves teamwork, collaborative learning, interactive problem solving, presentations and peer review. This paper describes the degree program, its curriculum and rationale, and reports on experiences in the first year of delivery.
Proceedings of the Australasian conference on Computing education - ACSE '00, 2000
The University of Queensland has recently established a new design-focused, studio-based IT degre... more The University of Queensland has recently established a new design-focused, studio-based IT degree at a new "flexible-learning" campus. The Bachelor of Information Environments degree integrates the core subjects of the Bachelor of Information Technology degree along with a stream of design-based subjects covering Visual Thinking, Human Computer Interaction, Interactive Multimedia and Interaction Design. The core of the degree is the studiostream, modelled on the architectural studio, in which students undertake open-ended design projects every semester. Studio-based learning immerses the students in the learning experience and involves teamwork, collaborative learning, interactive problem solving, presentations, and peer review. The studio projects also require the students to apply knowledge and skills gained in other subjects in new contexts, hence integrating and reinforcing previous learning. This paper describes the degree program, its curriculum and rationale, and reports on experiences in the first year of delivery.
Electronic Journal of Information …, 2004
... In this way, significant collections of digital material can be curated and made public witho... more ... In this way, significant collections of digital material can be curated and made public without the ... of AVIRE is that resource sharing across a range of academic and cultural discourse is ... Some other examples of extensions to the Wiki authoring language are: {resource id=1641 ...
Architectural Science Review, 1997
Detail of the article referenced in the Airbase Database. Title, Thermal performance of housing i... more Detail of the article referenced in the Airbase Database. Title, Thermal performance of housing in the hot-humid tropics of Australia. Airbase #, 11424, Author, Hyde R, Docherty M. Reférence, Australia, Architectural Science Review, Vol 40, pp 105-112, 4 figs, 26 refs. Abstract, ...
Proceedings of the 2013 ACM international conference on Interactive tabletops and surfaces - ITS '13, 2013
ABSTRACT "The Cube" is a unique facility that combines 48 large multi-touch scr... more ABSTRACT "The Cube" is a unique facility that combines 48 large multi-touch screens and very large-scale projection surfaces to form one of the world's largest interactive learning and engagement spaces. The Cube facility is part of the Queensland University of Technology's (QUT) newly established Science and Engineering Centre, designed to showcase QUT's teaching and research capabilities in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) disciplines. In this application paper we describe, the Cube, its technical capabilities, design rationale and practical day-to-day operations, supporting up to 70,000 visitors per week. Essential to the Cube's operation are five interactive applications designed and developed in tandem with the Cube's technical infrastructure. Each of the Cube's launch applications was designed and delivered by an independent team, while the overall vision of the Cube was shepherded by a small executive team. The diversity of design, implementation and integration approaches pursued by these five teams provides some insight into the challenges, and opportunities, presented when working with large distributed interaction technologies. We describe each of these applications in order to discuss the different challenges and user needs they address, which types of interactions they support and how they utilise the capabilities of the Cube facility.
Proceedings of the 19th ACM international conference on Multimedia - MM '11, 2011
ABSTRACT This paper presents a comprehensive study to find the most efficient bitrate requirement... more ABSTRACT This paper presents a comprehensive study to find the most efficient bitrate requirement to deliver mobile video that optimizes bandwidth, while at the same time maintains good user viewing experience. In the study, forty participants were asked to choose the lowest quality video that would still provide for a comfortable and long-term viewing experience, knowing that higher video quality is more expensive and bandwidth intensive. This paper proposes the lowest pleasing bitrates and corresponding encoding parameters for five different content types: cartoon, movie, music, news and sports. It also explores how the lowest pleasing quality is influenced by content type, image resolution, bitrate, and user gender, prior viewing experience, and preference. In addition, it analyzes the trajectory of users' progression while selecting the lowest pleasing quality. The findings reveal that the lowest bitrate requirement for a pleasing viewing experience is much higher than that of the lowest acceptable quality. Users' criteria for the lowest pleasing video quality are related to the video's content features, as well as its usage purpose and the user's personal preferences. These findings can provide video providers guidance on what quality they should offer to please mobile users.
Proceedings of the 23rd Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference on - OzCHI '11, 2011
The increase of powerful mobile devices has accelerated the demand for mobile videos. Previous st... more The increase of powerful mobile devices has accelerated the demand for mobile videos. Previous studies in mobile video have focused on understanding of mobile video usage, improvement of video quality, and user interface design in video browsing. However, research focusing on a deep understanding of users' needs for a pleasing quality delivery of mobile video is lacking. In particular, what quality-delivery mode users prefer and what information relevant to video quality they need requires attention. This paper presents a qualitative interview study with 38 participants to gain an insight into three aspects: influencing factors of user-desired video quality, user-preferred qualitydelivery modes, and user-required interaction information of mobile video. The results show that user requirements for video quality are related to personal preference, technology background and video viewing experience, and the preferred quality-delivery mode and interactive mode are diverse. These complex user requirements call for flexible and personalised quality delivery and interaction of mobile video.
Stigmergy is a biological term originally used when discussing insect or swarm behaviour, and des... more Stigmergy is a biological term originally used when discussing insect or swarm behaviour, and describes a model supporting environment-based communication separating artefacts from agents. This phenomenon is demonstrated in the behavior of ants and their food foraging supported by pheromone trails, or similarly termites and their termite nest building process. What is interesting with this mechanism is that highly organized societies are formed without an apparent central management function. We see design features in Web sites that mimic stigmergic mechanisms as part of the User Interface and we have created generalizations of these patterns. Software development and Web site development techniques have evolved significantly over the past 20 years. Recent progress in this area proposes languages to model web applications to facilitate the nuances specific to these developments. These modeling languages provide a suitable framework for building reusable components encapsulating our design patterns of stigmergy. We hypothesize that incorporating stigmergy as a separate feature of a site's primary function will ultimately lead to enhanced user coordination.
Project based, experiential learning is widely accepted within the design education community. Ho... more Project based, experiential learning is widely accepted within the design education community. How well does it translate to other disciplines and traditions? Since 2007, first year Bachelor of Design and Bachelor of Games (IT) students have been learning about design principles within a cross-disciplinary learning environment. Both courses are well subscribed and numbers can be as great as 700 per year.
Software development and Web site development techniques have evolved significantly over the past... more Software development and Web site development techniques have evolved significantly over the past 20 years. The relatively young Web Application development area has borrowed heavily from traditional software development methodologies primarily due to the similarities in areas of data persistence and User Interface (UI) design.
Proceedings of the 13th International Conference of the NZ Chapter of the ACM's Special Interest Group on Human-Computer Interaction - CHINZ '12, 2012
ABSTRACT This paper presents a comparative study to evaluate the usability of a tag-based interfa... more ABSTRACT This paper presents a comparative study to evaluate the usability of a tag-based interface alongside the present 'conventional' interface in the Australian mobile banking context. The tag-based interface is based on user-assigned tags to banking resources with support for different types of customization. And the conventional interface is based on standard HTML objects such as select boxes, lists, tables and etc, with limited customization. A total of 20 banking users evaluated both interfaces based on a set of tasks and completed a post-test usability questionnaire. Efficiency, effectiveness, and user satisfaction were considered to evaluate the usability of the interfaces. Results of the evaluation show improved usability in terms of user satisfaction with the tag-based interface compared to the conventional interface. This outcome is more apparent among participants without prior mobile banking experience. Therefore, there is a potential for the tag-based interface to improve user satisfaction of mobile banking and also positively affect the adoption and acceptance of mobile banking, particularly in Australia.
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Papers by michael docherty