A three-year PhD studentship is available in the area of novel gestural and audio user interfaces for use on the move on the EPSRC-funded "GAIME: Gestural and Auditory Interactions for Mobile Environments" project. This project will be in collaboration with Nokia Research Centre in Helsinki.

The project as a whole will investigate new interactions for mobile devices that allow them to be used more effectively on the move. Most PDAs and smart phones have sophisticated graphical interfaces and commonly use small keyboards or a stylus for input. The range of applications and services for such devices is growing all the time. However, there are problems which make interaction difficult when a user is on the move. Visual attention is needed to operate a device, which may not be available when the user is walking, running or crossing the road. The hands are also needed to or keyboards or pens. These may not be available if the user is carrying bags, holding on to children or operating machinery, for example. The novel aspect of the research is to reduce the reliance on graphical displays and hands by investigating gesture input from other locations on the body combined with three-dimensional sound.

The focus of the PhD studentship will be to design and evaluate novel interaction techniques using audio and gestures. Some key areas to be investigated are to:

* Design and evaluate sophisticated 3D audio interaction techniques for mobile devices;
* Develop ego- and exocentric audio display techniques;
* Assess these in mobile and static settings;
* Combine the best gestures and 3D audio interaction techniques into complete applications for evaluation in realistic settings to assess their real usefulness.

The post is available from 1 January 2008 (the start date is negotiable up to 6 months) for three years and would suit applicants with a good honours or Masters degree in computing science and an interest in human-computer interaction, multimodal interaction, audio and mobile devices. The post would also suit electronics or physics graduates who have excellent computing skills.

For more details and application forms see www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~stephen/gaime.shtml

Informal enquiries to: Stephen Brewster, email: stephen@dcs.gla.ac.uk
Web: www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~stephen