| | | |

Research Groups

People-Centred Technologies

The research group’s focus is on human factors for the Web, where the Web is defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as the universe of network-accessible information. We are particularly interested in the following themes:

Usability (understanding users and developers)
Portability (anywhere—anytime computing)
Internationalization (language, culture, localization)
Accessibility (abilities and disabilities - physical, financial)
Collaboration

Current Projects
	Interaction Techniques for Mobile and Wearable Technology
	Knowledge Collaboration
	Maliseet Online
	Metaxtract
	Omnivore
	Online Questionnaire Design
	Systematic Methods of Tool Evaluation
	CIRP
	Usable Policy Configuration
	Voice and Multimodal Access to Web Services

With this research program, the Human Web Group hopes to explore new technologies and techniques in human-computer interaction to make the current and future Web more accessible and useful to everyone, regardless of physical ability, language, culture, computer skills, financial status, or versions of software employed. We will also explore the Web as a tool to facilitate better communication among human beings. We will also perform research into improved tools and techniques for Web content development and administration.

The Human Web group’s research could have the following impacts and benefits.

As a core research program, the Human Web Group’s research can impact a number of different application areas. In addition to using our own resources to work directly with partners in New Brunswick, the rest of Canada and around the world, we can add significant value to projects within the application domains of our fellow research groups (e.g., e-Government/ e-Citizen, e-Health and e-Learning), and they within ours as can be seen below. The field of e-Government, in which the Province of New Brunswick is a leader, is particularly ripe for innovations in computer-human interaction in order to achieve true citizen engagement.

The Canadian government, along with national, state/provincial and civic governments around the world, is committed to the principle of accessibility. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is active in this area and there is a significant opportunity for our group to take a leadership role in developing, testing and evangelizing new accessibility standards and guidelines.

The group's key competencies are:

3D computer modelling
3D immersive environments
augmented reality
context-aware computing
enhancing critical thinking
evaluation techniques
human factors
human-computer interaction
intelligent text analysis
internationalization
intrusion detection
knowledge sharing
localization
meta access control
metatagging
multimodal I/O
natural language processing
people-centred environments
pervasive computing
portability
strategic gaming
trust management
trust/security/privacy policies
ubiquitous computing
usability
voice technology
VoiceXML
wearable computing
web-based collaborative environments

The group is currently applying its strengths in the following areas:

Voice Technologies

VXML technology for mobile workforce
- Benchmarking performance of prototype VXML warehouse inventory system using:
  - large unformatted product database
  - large formatted product database
  - improved VUI navigation
  - improved grammars
- Guidelines for optimal database architecture based on VXML application requirements
- Guidelines for VUI design

Collaboration

Web-based project and corporate information management
- Data integration and management
- Multi-modal interfaces
Information navigation in collaborative virtual work spaces
- knowledge sharing
3D immersive environments & augmented reality
Inhabited Web

Natural Language Technology

Natural language and the semantic web
- Extract semantic web markup from unstructured text
- Map natural language queries to semantic web query languages
Automatic Aboriginal language analysis
- Maliseet audio texts and electronic dictionary
Linguistic text analysis for survey interpretation
Web internationalization and localization

Security, Privacy & Trust

e-Health security and privacy
Intrusion detection
- including distributed denial-of-service attacks
Human factors of secure systems
- Trustworthy policy configuration
- Meta access control
- Understandable trust management

e-Learning

Using knowledge objects for knowledge sharing in virtual collaborative environments
Methods to heighten critical thinking skills
- 3D Computer Modelling (also promote student interest in Canadian history)
- Strategic gaming (also applications in medical rehabilitation)

e-Health

e-Health technology assessment
- Multimedia electronic patient records
- Privacy
- Security
Trust
- Obtaining and respecting consent
- Building trust in e-Health systems
Web-based clinical decision support

HCI – Evaluation & New Devices

Context sensitive/aware design & evaluation
- profile-based evaluation & selection of artifacts
- accessibility issues
New evaluation techniques for emerging technologies & application domains
Mobile computing
- wearable & handheld devices
- application domains
Multimodality of input and output
- audio, haptic, gestural I/O techniques

Additional Information

Research Contact

Dr. Irina Kondratova
Group Leader
People-Centred Technologies
NRC Institute for Information Technology
46 Dineen Drive
Fredericton, NB E3B 9W4
Telephone: +1 (506) 444-0489
Fax: +1 (506) 452-3859
E-mail: Irina.Kondratova@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca

Business Contact

Marc-Alain Mallet
Business Development Officer
Business Development Office, New Brunswick
NRC Institute for Information Technology
46 Dineen Drive
Fredericton, NB E3B 9W4
Telephone: +1 (506) 444-0394
Fax: +1 (506) 452-3859
E-mail: Marc-Alain.Mallet@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca