Building Multi-modal Interfaces for Smartphones.

Smartphones are the central component of our modern, connected life. We carry them from the moment we wake up till the time we go to bed. Continuous technology innovation has created ever more sophisticated phones. Their small size belies a complexity that is largely unknown to the user -- making it almost impossible to discover and use these expanded capabilities. Designers are forced to make tradeoffs between adding more capabilities and burying the functionality in menu hierarchies. Users are frustrated when forced to accept either of these choices. This is the fundamental limitation of modern touch based interfaces to smartphones. On the path to solving this problem, it is natural to ask "How can we make it easier for users to learn and use the new features". We believe this is the wrong question to ask and took a fundamentally different approach. Dr. Injong Rhee will discuss this problem, its ramifications to multimedia and future outlook.