The interaction challenges presented by touch-screen enabled devices for blind and visually impaired people has been addressed extensively in the literature. However, the emergence of wrist-worn devices with small screens, the so-called smartwatches, exacerbates such challenges. This paper presents an evaluation of text entry methods for smartwatches, covering three existing approaches—Voice Input and two QWERTY methods: GBoard, and A4Keyboard—and three Braille input methods proposed by the authors. Nine blind users and a low-vision participant composed sentences with the six methods. Speed and error rates are presented and preference data are analyzed, showing the approval of two Braille methods and a positive reception to one of the QWERTY methods, followed by the Voice Input. Each modality has its own set of strengths and weaknesses, which suggests room for improvement before the widespread adoption of smartwatch text entry as a reliable and accessible method for blind people.

• Luna, M.M., Nascimento, H.A.D., Quigley, A. et al. Text entry for the Blind on Smartwatches. Univ Access Inf Soc (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-022-00870-2

Feb 2022

ACRA is an informal alliance of The Australian National University (ANU) School of Computing, The University of Melbourne School of Computing and Information Systems, University of New South Wales School of Computer Science and Engineering, and The University of Sydney School of Computer Science. 

This alliance encourages publication of quality peer-reviewed research, in both conferences and journals. The ACRA group aligns with the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) and the Leiden Manifesto for Research Metrics. 

This alliance advocates practical and robust approaches for evaluating research, aligned to those of DORA. Venue impact factors and rankings are not measures of the scientific quality nor impact of an article’s research. We strongly discourage inclusion of such rankings in job applications, promotion applications, and other career(-progression) and evaluation  processes. We acknowledge that such rankings may serve as a guide for early career researchers, or newcomers to a research area, towards finding quality publications. However, venue rankings have limited value in comparing one research area with another, they do not discriminate specialist from generalist venues, nor the distinct values of different venues, and they often replicate information contained in standard bibliometric tools. 

This ACRA grouping  proposes that career processes support academics and assessment panels in: 

• evaluating research in context, providing scope for applicants to highlight their key publications and the quality and impact of these key publications; 
• encouraging evaluators to read an applicant’s key publications; 
• recognising that, occasionally, some of the best research, especially in emerging or interdisciplinary fields, might be announced in peer-reviewed workshops. 

To assist our colleagues in transitioning, we advocate that research leaders offer specific support for writing research quality and impact cases. As an example first step, the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) proposes consideration of the importance of the research problem solved, the approach taken and properties of the solution, the output describing such an approach, and how the approach in the research output has been built on or applied, including concrete evidence of impact. 

Proposed wording for announcements and documentation includes: “Applicants are actively encouraged not to include conference/journal/venue rankings, but should instead focus on the impact of their research outputs in describing the excellence of their research”. 

I have been appointed the technical program chair (TPC) for the ACM EICS conference on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems 2022, which is devoted to engineering usable and effective interactive computing systems. ​

ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors for which I was General Co-Chair, had over 5100 delegates making it the largest conference ever held in the field of HCI.– https://chi2021.acm.org​

This year I was delighted to join the UNSW crew who joined the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival parade.

• I went three days without Google search. This is what happened (Canberra Times)
  “There are thousands of jobs here in Google. Will Google then divest from Australia? What about other big players, will they see Australia as being less open to innovation and creativity, and that the only way we can solve our problems is by closing the doors? That’s not how we work effectively together with companies like this,” Professor Quigley says.
• Three days, no Google search … just imagine
  Professor Quigley says the fear that Google might leave should make web users think more critically about the information they receive online.

“[It’s] actually a skill everyone needs, from children in school, to older people who are using this to make decisions about who they’re going to vote for,” he says.

In other words, we need a world where everyone thinks more carefully about the information they find on the internet. 

Imagine that.

I received an ACM SIGCHI Recognition of Excellent Service that I gave to the UIST – ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology.

Today I presented at a session on Computer Graphics in Japan, The destination of SIGGRAPH Asia 2021. This session featured talks by invited academics and industry professionals on the latest trends, projects, and events happening in Japan including SIGGRAPH Asia 2021.