Project Summary
An Open Source platform for the rapid development of multimodal interactive systems as a central tool for an iterative user-centred design process. More information are available in this web site as well as in the OI flyer (pdf version here )
The aim of OpenInterface is to design and develop an open source platform for the rapid development of multimodal interactive systems as a central tool for an iterative user-centred design process.
Numerous multimodal laboratory prototypes embedding innovative modalities have been developed since R. Bolt’s seminal demonstrator of 1980. While scientific understanding and empirical knowledge of multimodal interaction have burgeoned, very few devices in everyday life, such as mobile phones, are multimodal. The gap between research and industry is too wide.
It is now time to make a step change in the domain of multimodal interaction. This project promises to deliver that change, through the OpenInterface platform. A central part of that change is:
- to ground the development of multimodal interactive systems in a scientific understanding of multimodal interaction. In our case this will be achieved through reusable software components in the platform that are directly defined from theoretical results on multimodality;
- to provide a tool for implementing a truly iterative user-centred design process; and
- to turn the results into industrial standards by way of the platform.
OpenInterface will provide a clear path for transferring research results to industry by adopting an incremental approach to extending current multimodal standards. The impact of OpenInterface will therefore be to speed up technology transfer between research and industry.
From the industrial point of view, OpenInterface will extend existing industrial standards with novel interaction modalities and new forms of multimodality.
From the research point of view, OpenInterface will enable the reuse of well-defined pure or combined modalities as building blocks. The OpenInterface platform will be the instrument for this bi-directional push-pull approach on multimodal interaction between research and industry.
