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Dr. Shengdong ZHAO
MIMS UC Berkeley, PhD University of Toronto

Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
School of Computing
National University of Singapore

Office: AS6-04-06
Phone: (+65) 6516-8413
Email:email


 

 


Headlines

Brief Bio

My name is Shengdong ZHAO [Sheng], or  ShenChineseName.jpgin Chinese. I am an assistant professor of the Computer Science Department at the National University of Singapore (NUS). I started the HCI research group (NUS-HCI) at the National University of Singapore. I had my PhD in computer science from the University of Toronto, working with Professor Mark Chignell. My master degree is from School of Information Management & Systems, University of California, Berkeley

I worked with Takeo Igarashi on a paper-based programming interfaces for home robots in the second half of 2008. The research results will be published at ACM CHI2009 conference. During the summer of 2005 and 2006, I worked with Ken Hinckley and Maneesh Agrawala at Microsoft Research, Redmond on two gesture-based projects (Zone and Polygon Menus and InkSeine). The research results led to two full papers at the ACM CHI conference, and three US patent applications. The InkSeine application is now available for public downloadInkSeine received a great review from GottaBeMobile.com. In addition to my Microsoft experience, I have worked as a research associate for Professor Monica Schraefel at University of Toronto (Monica is now a Professor at University of Southampton, U.K.), as a graduate student researcher for Professor Robert Wilensky on the Multivalent Document Browser project at University of California, Berkeley, and as a computer system engineer at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. I have also briefly worked for two startup companies (SeeUthere.com, and Space Machine Inc).

My research field is HCI (Human Computer Interaction). I am interested in using HCI methods to solve challenging real world computing problems in many areas, including mobile HCI (particularly eyes-free interaction), human-robot interaction, HCI and computer security, information visualization, gesture and pen based interface, and interface and interaction for the elderly. My dissertation is on mobile eyes-free interfaces. I designed an eyes-free menu selection technique called earPod, and showed its effectiveness. earPod has received media coverage from MIT Technology Review, May 2007.

Funded Grants

Schedule

Upcoming travels

Note: to see the duration of a specific event, please click on a particular time to view its detail. For example, click on the text "9:30 am busy" will reveal additional information such as "Thu, February, 9:30 am - 11:30 am".

Teaching

CSC4249 (Fall 2009): Design of Advanced User Interfaces

Please take a look at the course information page before you sign up for this module (Note: this page page may not be the final course website. It only provides basic information about this course. The actual course webpage is setup at IVLE).


CSC3248 (Spring 2009): The Design of Interactive Media
Lectures: Thursday, 16:00 - 18:00, COM1/204, School of Computing
Tutorial: Tuesday, 14:00 - 17:00, COM1/209, School of Computing

Course projects demonstration (Spring 2009)

Publications   

Refereed (Full) Conference Papers:

MagicCards.JPG 10.
new Shengdong Zhao, Koichi Nakamura, Kentaro Ishii, Takeo Igarashi (2009). Magic Cards : A Paper Tag Interface for Implicit Robot Control. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). pp. 173-182.
[Selected media coverage: Nikkei Sangyo Shinbun on May 22 (Japanese Industrial Newspaper); Japanese nation-wide TV on May 29.]
PPT slides of my presentation at CHI 2009
Magic Cards project homepage
 
 
 
laser robot 9.
new Kentaro Ishii, Shengdong Zhao, Masahiko Inami, Takeo Igarashi and Michita Imai (2009). 
Designing Laser Gesture Interface for Robot ControlProceedings of the IFIP conference on Human-Computer interaction (INTERACT). pp. 479-492.

 

 

inkSeine.JPG 8.
Ken Hinckley, Shengdong Zhao, Raman Sarin, Patrick Baudisch, Edward Cutrell, Michael Shilman, Desney Tan (2007). InkSeine: In Situ Search for Active Note Taking. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). pp. 251-260.
  • Summary: Prototype that supports active note taking by coupling a pen-and-ink interface with an in situ search facility that flows directly from a user’s ink notes.
  • movie (52 MB wma, 720x480, 29.970 fps, 3:45)
  • PPT slides of my presentation at CHI 2007 (Joint presentation with Ed Cutrell)
  • Chi Madness Slides
  • InkSeine homepage

 

earPod 7.
Shengdong Zhao, Pierre Dragicevic, Mark H. Chignell, Ravin Balakrishnan, Patrick Baudisch (2007). earPod: Eyes-free Menu Selection with Touch Input and Reactive Audio Feedback. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). pp. 1395-1404. [Selected Media Coverage: MIT Technology Review, May 2007]
  • Summary: Presents the design and evaluation of earPod: an eyes-free menu technique using touch input and auditory feedback. Results indicate that earPod is a promising technique comparable in performance to visual menus.
  • movie (4 MB wma, 720x480, 29.970 fps, 1:04)
  • PPT slides of my presentation at CHI 2007 
  • earPod homepage

 

Adaptive Hybrid Cursor 6.
Xiangshi Ren, Jinbin Ying, Shengdong Zhao, Yang Li (2007). The Adaptive Hybrid Cursor: A Pressure-based Target Selection Technique for Pen-based Interfaces. Proceedings of the Interact 2007 Conference (INTERACT). pp. 310-323.
  • Summary: Presents the Adaptive Hybrid Cursor, a novel target acquisition technique that assists a user in a target selection task by automatically adapting the size of the cursor and/or its contexts (the target size and the selection background) based on pen pressure input.

 

  5.  
Patrick Baudisch, Desney Tan, Maxime Collomb, Daniel Robbins, Ken Hinckley, Maneesh Agrawala, Shengdong Zhao, and Gonzalo Ramos (2006). Phosphor: Explaining Transitions in the User Interface Using Afterglow Effects. Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST). pp. 169-178.
  • Summary: Proposes to use Phosphor objects to instantly show the outcome of user interactions while explaining the change in retrospect. A framework of transition designs for widgets, icons, and objects in drawing programs has been proposed and evaluated. 

 

4.
Shengdong Zhao, Maneesh Agrawala, Ken Hinckley (2006). Zone and Polygon Menus: Using Relative Position to Increase the Breadth of Multi-stroke Marking Menus. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). pp. 1077-1086. [Acceptance rate: 118/506 or 23%]
  • Summary: Zone and Polygon menus are two new variants of multi-stroke marking menus that consider both the relative position and orientation of strokes. Our menus are designed to increase menu breadth over the 8 item limit of status quo orientation-based marking menus. We also discuss hybrid techniques that may further increase menu breadth and performance.
  • movie (22 MB wma, 720x480, 29.970 fps, 5:02)
  • PPT slides of my presentation at CHI 2006.
  • CHI Madness
    Faster, higher, stronger is the spirit that makes Olympic Games so exciting to watch, but I am not good at any of the sports, so I decided to become a coach. In this year's world Marking Menu competition, we lead our athletes: "Zone Menu" and "Polygon Menu", after intensive training, practicing, sweating, suffering, and crying, win the game by excellent speed, accuracy, and menu configuration. Behind every athlete, there is a story! To listen to the touching stories of Zone and Polygon Menus, please come to the live broadcast event at 9:30 am prime time on channel "Menus". See you there! 

3.
Shengdong Zhao, Michael J. McGuffin, Mark H. Chignell (2005). Elastic Hierarchies: Combining Treemaps and Node-link Diagrams. Proceedings of IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization (InfoVis). pp. 57-64. [Acceptance rate: 31/114 or 27%]
  • Summary: Considers hybrid graphical representations that combine node-link and treemap diagrams for the purposes of tree visualization. The concept of elastic representational space is introduced. A theoretical analysis yields a taxonomy of various potential hybrid combinations, and a prototype system is implemented to experiment with these.
  • movie (28 MB avi, DivX 6.0 encoded, 720x480, 29.970 fps, 5:00)
    Although the prototype does support some animated transitions, performance problems during the capturing of the video resulted in these animations not being very apparent in the video.
  • PPT slides of my talk at InfoVis 2005
  • PPT slides of my talk on an overview of Tree and Treemap visualizations (2003).

2.
Shengdong Zhao, Ravin Balakrishnan. (2004). Simple vs. Compound Mark Hierarchical Marking Menus. Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST). pp. 33-42. [Acceptance rate: 36/170 or 21%. Received 5,5,5,5 from all reviewers - the highest review score in UIST 2004.]
  • Summary: Simple mark technique (multi-stroke marking menu) is a variant of hierarchical marking menus where items are selected using a series of straight lines, rather than the single "zig-zag" compound mark used in the traditional design. Study shows multi-stroke marking menu increase menu depth, and is faster and more accurate than the traditional compound mark technique while requiring less input space. 
  • PPT slides my presentation at UIST 2004
 
1.
Monica C. Schraefel, Yuxiang Zhu, David Modjeska, Daniel Wigdor, Shengdong Zhao. (2002) Hunter Gatherer: Interaction Support for the Creation and Management of Within-web-page Collections. Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on World Wide Web (WWW). pp. 172-181.
  • Summary: Hunter Gatherer is an interface that lets Web users carry out three main tasks: (1) collect components from within Web pages; (2) represent those components in a collection; (3) edit those component collections. Our research shows that while the practice of making collections of content from within Web pages is common, it is not frequent, due in large part to poor interaction support in existing tools. We engaged with users in task analysis as well as iterative design reviews in order to understand the interaction issues that are part of within-Web-page collection making and to design an interaction that would support that process.


Short Papers, Workshop Papers, Posters:

  4. Ransi De Silva, Wei Cheng, Dan Liu, Wei Tsang Ooi, Shengdong Zhao (2009) Towards Characterizing User Interaction with Progressively Transmitted 3D Meshes. ACM Multimedia 2009, Beijing China (short paper).
  3.
Monica Schraefel, Maria Karam, Shengdong Zhao (2003) Listen to the Music: Audio Preview Cues for Exploration of Online Music. Interact 2003, Switzerland. (short paper).
  2.
Monica Schraefel, Maria Karam, Shengdong Zhao. Audio Preview Cues: Interaction Aides for Exploration of Online Music and Beyond. HCI International 2003. (poster)
  1.
Monica Schraefel, Maria Karam, Shengdong Zhao. Interaction design for user-determined, adaptable domain exploration in hypermedia AH2003: Workshop on Adaptive Hypermedia and Adaptive Web-Based Systems. (workshop paper)

Patents:

6. Japan Patent - Patent No. 2009-027282 Robot Control System and Robot Control Method . filed 02/09/2009 (Pending)
5. Japan Patent - Patent No. 2009-015160 Housework Support System and Housework Support Program. filed 01/27/2009 (Pending)
4.
United States Patent - Self-revelation Aids for Interfaces. filed 01/2008 (Pending)
3.
United States Patent - Serial No. 11/733,113 In Situ Search for Active Note Taking, filed 04/09/2007. (Pending)
2.
United States Patent - Application No. 20070168890 Position-based Multi-stroke Marking Menus, filed 01/13/2006. (Pending)
1.
WIPO International Patent - Publication No. (WO/2000/079361) Event Planning Systems, filed 28/12/2000. (Granted 1/2006)


Other Projects:

  4.
OCT2
OCT2 is a new and improved version of the original OCT system (software to manage the conference paper submission and reviewing process) developed by David Gering. OCT2 was used for the CVPR 2003 paper submission and review process and was co-developed by Shengdong Zhao and Kyros Kutulakos. (application)
3.
DInfoBuilder: (Dynamic Information Builder)
DInfoBuilder builds the next generation information management software application. It enables efficient, simple development, maintenance, and transformation of information systems. DInfoBuilder allows non-technical personnel to quickly build a dynamic e-commerce application on the web and wireless platforms. The resulting applications will be platform independent, device independent, database independent. DInfoBuilder will greatly improve the ways information are organized, presented, interoperated, and interacted. (SIMS master project)
2.
Multivalent Browser:
I built the first version of PDF media adapter by porting xPDF's code to Java.
This project has evolved to an open source software application. (code library)
1.
DOE2000 Electronic Notebook:
I worked as a computer system engineer in Lawrence Berkeley National Lab with
Dr. Sonia Sachs on this project for one year. (application)

 

Services

Program Committee

Paper Reviewing

Students

Current Research Assistant

Current PhD students

Current interns

Current undergraduate students

Alumni

Direction to NUS and My Office

Office location

If you are driving or taking a taxi:

From the city

  • Drive along the Ayer Rajah Expressway (AYE) towards Jurong
  • Exit at Clementi Road (AYE Exit 9)
  • Travel southward along Clementi Road for another 500m
  • Turn left into Kent Ridge Crescent (after passing the School of Design & Environment on your left)
  • After 100m, turn right into Kent Ridge Drive
  • Turn left into Computing Drive, and proceed along it to *Carpark 13 (for passengers to alight)
        * As Carpark 13 has been designated for staff parking, external parties using it will have to pay a
        much higher fee. Members of the public visiting the School may wish to park at Carpark 15, the nearest
        visitors' carpark. More about parking on campus may be found here


  • From Jurong
  • Drive along Clementi Road towards Pasir Panjang Road
  • Turn left into Kent Ridge Crescent (after passing the School of Design & Environment on your left)
  • After 100m, turn right into Kent Ridge Drive
  • Turn left into Computing Drive, and proceed along it to *Carpark 13 (for passengers to alight)
        * As Carpark 13 has been designated for staff parking, external parties using it will have to pay a
        much higher fee. Members of the public visiting the School may wish to park at Carpark 15, the nearest
        visitors' carpark. More about parking on campus may be found here
  •    
      If you are taking the bus...
       
      Option 1:
  • Take bus services 95 or 151 towards the direction of Kent Ridge campus
  • Alight at the bus stop outside Central Library
  • Take the internal shuttle bus A1 or B from the same bus stop
  • Alight at the third bus stop after the one at Central Library


  • Option 2:
  • Alternatively, take bus service nos. 10, 33, 95, 151, 189, 200 to the Kent Ridge Bus Interchange.
  • Walk along the covered linkway from the interchange and cross the road to the bus stop outside LT13
  • Take internal shuttle bus service A1 or B and alight at the 2nd bus stop located at Carpark 13
  •    
      If you are taking the MRT...
      From Buona Vista MRT Station, bus services 95 is available at Bus Stop C1.

     

    Miscellaneous

    Place to find useful word templates (include templates for CV and thesis).

    Visitor No. by web counter. © Shengdong Zhao , 2005