Abstract: In this talk, I will give a brief overview of the HCI research we are conducting (or planning) in the Small Artifacts Lab. I will showcase several recent works concerning various HCI topics, e.g., design, fabrication, wearable computing, and accessibility, but all from a technical perspective. As examples, I will discuss how we designed a small wearable robot that can relocate itself on a user’s full body instead of staying only in one area of interest (e.g., a smartwatch on the wrist) and how the design opens new opportunities in both research and art; I will also talk about how we created a tangible artifact that supports blind developers to create the graphical layout of webpages on their own. Towards the end of the talk, I will time and discuss with the audience how technical innovation can drive HCI research.

Bio: Huaishu Peng is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science department at the University of Maryland, College Park. He aims to advance interactive technologies by designing, prototyping, and evaluating novel artifacts that are personal, hands-on, and often small when it comes to the form factors. He is interested in the methods of building these personal artifacts (through design and interactive fabrication), the scenarios of using them (in mixed reality), and the users who can benefit from them (with assistive and enabling technology). His work has been published in CHI, UIST, and SIGGRAPH and won Best Paper Nominee. His work has also been featured in media such as Wired, MIT Technology Review, Techcrunch, and Gizmodo.