Ozlab visiting WebWOZ (Trinity College, Dublin)

Ass. prof. Gavin Doherty, one of the principle investigator of WebWOZ, showed around and presented the utilization of WebWOZ in studies of interaction design. The Irish group has developed this system for Wizard-of-Oz prototyping for language-based applications and has also made a comparative study of such prototyping for other kinds of systems. Their system is now planned for use together with researchers in Paris for the development of smart home applications. Gavin Doherty expounded on systems for treatment of mental illness and how usability tests have been used in the development of these systems and also what the process for comercialisation has been. (Unfortunately, previous PhD student Stephan Schlögl, now at Management Center Innsbruck in Austria, and Saturnino Luz,  D&I3 delivery and Interaction 3, were not able to attend.)

In the afternoon the joint Computer Science premisses of Trinity College and University of Dublin was visited. Prof. Nick Campell who runs the Speech Communication Lab, and Post Doc Research Fellow Loredana Sundberg Cerrato joined in when the Karlstad troop presented findings and prominent Ozlab ideas and made a small demonstration of Ozlab on a laptop with wifi to smartphone. A note on the difference between using a wizard as a human and as a machine substitute ended in a discussion around objectives recognised by HCI community and speech technology commuinty and communties of other overlapping areas of study. Loredana is expected to visit Karlstad in the autumn.