Overall Objectives

Keywords: human-computer interaction, usability, user interface design and evaluation methods, formal task description, ergonomic criteria, ergonomic quality of interactive software, user testing, user modelling, standardization, new forms of HCI.

Formal task description, ergonomic criteria, ergonomic quality of interactive software, user testing, user modelling, standardization.

New forms of human-computer interaction:

Hypermedia, multimodal interaction (speech, gestures, gaze), 3D interactive visualisations, mixed reality, visual search

The goal of the MErLIn2Rocq research group is to contribute to the improvement of the Ergonomic Quality of Interactive Software. Two sub-goals contribute to this general goal:

• Study, through empirical studies⁽¹⁾, users’ interactions with software-based systems in order to improve such systems. It is about increasing available knowledge about users’ activities and cognitive characteristics as well as about the usability of software systems.
  
• Study and improve ergonomic design and evaluation methods, thereby contributing to the overall improvement of technical systems by providing software designers with sound methodological elements helping the incorporation of user-centered concerns within the design process life cycle. It is about increasing knowledge on such processes, and defining new methods or complementing existing ones.

Considering interactive computing systems for human use, that is, ergonomic optimization of interactive software, requires to make progress both in fundamental knowledge and in methods in HCI (Human-Computer Interaction), and Ergonomics. The scientific contributions of the MErLIn2Rocq research group include scientific literature on users and task modeling, on empirical studies, on design and evaluation methods, on ergonomics recommendations, as well as software (e.g. mock-ups, test-prototypes, tools for supporting design and evaluation methods). These various contributions are aimed at disseminating current ergonomic results, knowledge, and know-how to the national and international scientific community, but also to standards and to technology transfer through industrial contracts, collaborations and consulting activities.

 

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⁽¹⁾i.e., resulting from experience, through various methods, including controlled experiments.