University PhD Research Studentship
School of Engineering and Built Environment
Reference Number: SEBE_AC_2015_1
Studentship Project Title: Inclusive Touchscreen Interaction
Applications are invited for a full-time PhD research studentship at Glasgow Caledonian University within
the school of Engineering and Built Environment. The studentship is for a period of three years, subject
to satisfactory progress and provides payment of tuition fees at the UK/EU rate plus an annual stipend of
£14,800 [please note that students from outside the EU are required to pay the difference between
International and EU fees, currently this would amount to £7,100 per annum]. The successful candidate
will carry out up to 6 hours of academic-related work per week as part of their research training.
Research Discipline
Computing Science & Interaction Design
Research Theme
Inclusive Societies – Social Innovation
Research Project Summary
Mobile devices now play an integral role in our everyday lives. However, despite requirements to ensure
devices are accessible, there is still an open research area as to how best to do this. For people with visual
impairments, the standard form factor adopted by the major manufacturers poses problems. The flat
touchscreen provides no tactile cues to indicate what is currently displayed and the gesture style of
interaction discourages tactile exploration. Accessible modes for these devices exist but are based
directly on the visual techniques offering access to limited functionality and are generally slow and error
prone. This project will explore techniques to open up the design space and allow non-visual interactions
that are fast, low effort and discrete. To maximise the impact, we will look to more fully exploit the
potential of technologies that already exist inside of phones. We therefore focus on the capacitive
touchscreen and inertial sensors for input and audio and tactile feedback for non-visual output allowing
closed loop interaction.
For input we move away from the single point touchscreen interactions that suit visual interfaces but
lead to issues with non-visual interactions. The student will develop whole hand gesture techniques that
take full advantage of the potential input space offered by capacitive touch input with the goal of
providing a quick overview of the on-screen information and providing a general purpose non-visual
mechanism to browse, interact and create content. These gestures will be thoroughly evaluated in
context initially with sighted users, and eventually with our user group.
For output, layered audio, speech, vibrotactile feedback, and physical texturing will be combined to allow
non-visual browsing of the touch space with the goal of evaluating the success of these techniques in a
longitudinal real world study.
Supervisory Team
Dr Andrew Crossan (Glasgow Caledonian University), Professor Lynne Baillie (Glasgow Caledonian
University), Professor Stephen Brewster (University of Glasgow)
Staff Contact
Dr Andrew Crossan
How to Apply
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Applicants should complete the University Research Application Form, available from:
http://www.gcu.ac.uk/research/phdresearchopportunities/
Please send the form, stating the studentship project title and reference number, with a CV, copies of
academic qualifications, references, and any other required documentation to:
researchapplications@gcu.ac.uk
At GCU we are committed to promoting a flexible, accessible and inclusive working
environment. Anticipated flexible work patterns for PhD students can be discussed with the project
supervisory team at the interview stage.
The closing date for applications is Friday 26th June 2015
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