RESEARCH
Broadly speaking my research interests include the mobile web and mobile search space, personalization and social applications in a mobile setting, HCI, user experience and user interfaces. My current research focus is on future mobile information access, social mobile applications and mobile HCI. In general my research involves understanding and learning about mobile users and their information needs with the goal of devising new services, novel interfaces, new interaction techniques, etc. that will enrich their experiences and improve their lives. I'm also interested in adapting interactions to human emotions and moods. This is an area I've started to explore in the last year or so.
I've experience in interface and interaction design, programming/development (mostly Java), rapid iterative prototyping --- ranging from low-fidelity paper prototypes to proof-of-concept mobile prototypes - normally on iPhone or Android handsets. I've also experience in designing and carrying out mobile field studies and analysing user behavioural patterns. My research is pretty varied and it involves elements of design, programming/development and hci/user experience, which is why I like it so much :)
CURRENT / RECENT PROJECTS
01 Mobile Information Needs and Mobile Web UsageAt the moment I'm leading a number of projects with the goal of understanding more about the informaton needs of real mobile users. Some of these projects involve offline log analysis of mobile search and browsing patterns with a view to understanding evolving patterns of behaviour. Other projects involve carrying out ethnographic field studies into the types of needs that arise while mobile, the impact of context on those needs and whether/how those needs are satisfied by mobile users. Right now my focus is on understanding the social context to mobile information access, that is the proportion or magnitude of information needs that are social in nature or more appropiately answered by friends/other people compared to being answered by existing seach engines/other online services. I hope to have some results regarding this research theme in the coming months.
 |  | 02 Social Search Browser Social Search Browser (SSB) is a novel, proof-of-concept research prototype designed to enhance the search and information discovery experience of mobile users. The application proactively displays the queries and interactions of other users in a given physical location. The application incorporates social networking capabilities with key mobile contexts such as location and time to encourage discovery of new, interesting content while on-the-move. The prototype also taps into the social dimension to search and information access by allowing friends and other users to answer your queries while you are on-the-move. We've carried out two live field studies of the prototype, both of which have yielded very interesting results. The results of these field studies have enabled us to outline a number of important implications in the design of future mobile information access applications of this nature. And we've successfully published two papers describing the prototypes and the field studies, one at IUI 2010, a second at WWW 2010. See the publications page for more details. We're currently working on a 3rd version of this prototype. | |
 |  | 03 MobiMood MobiMood is proof-of-concept social mobile prototype that supports mood sharing and awareness among groups of friends in mobile settings. Aside from mood, MobiMood also allows users to share other forms of context including location, time and social context (in terms of who I'm with). The application supports sharing of moods in a similar way to microblogging services such as twitter. We carried out an exploratory field study of MobiMood focusing on how mobile users communicate their mood with others, the role that mobile contexts such as location and social interactions play on the mood of users, and the interest of mobile users in learning about the moods of others. We were particularily interested in whether sharing of moods was used as a springdoard to other conversations, either within the application or outside of the applciation. Once again, the results of our field study yielded a number of important implications in the design of social mobile applications. We're currently exploring other avenues to this research. |
ADDRESS
Torre Telefonica - Diagonal 00Plaza de Ernest Lluch i Martin, 5, floor 15
08019 Barcelona - Spain