Technological and social development affects our interaction with the environment: interactive systems are embedded in our environment, information flow increases, and interaction becomes more complex. In order to address challenges of the complex environment, to respond to needs of various users, and to provide possibilities to test innovative interactive systems, it is important to investigate processes that underlie human-computer interaction, to provide models and concepts that enable us to experiment with various types of complex systems, and to design and build tools and prototypes that demonstrate the ideas and techniques in a working system.

The aim of the group is to pursue research on natural interaction, and to explore means and possibilities for its realization in intelligent interactive systems. The work draws especially on advances in dialogue modelling, human-computer interaction (Constructive Dialogue Management, speech interfaces, language technology) and research in human-human communication, and attempts to bridge the gap between recent advances in interface design, modelling and technology. The main activities of the group focus on building computational models of natural interaction, prototyping and experimenting with various flexible interactive systems. Applications can vary from different service providing systems (intelligent bus stop, interactive multimodal maps) to cultural heritage applications (interactive museum interfaces, multimodal tourist information). Special attention is paid to the Design for all standards for accessibility.

On the basis of its expertise concerning technical, machine learning and interaction modelling, the group seeks collaboration with content producers, industrial designers, communication researchers, and computer scientists, to design complex interactive systems and to develop techniques, methodologies, tools and resources for building systems that would adapt themselves to various situations and user needs.

The group’s objectives:

• Research on rich and natural human-computer interaction, cooperative dialogue management, multimodal interfaces, user modelling

• Design and develop adaptive and learning interactive systems taking into account human communication, cognitive processing and technological advancement

• Advance knowledge of machine learning methods and techniques to model, implement and evaluate research ideas, techniques, and complex systems

• Support Design-for-all principles in designing complex interaction systems

• Provide research environment and tools to experiment and develop ideas of interaction