Please see http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/~carette/McMasterComputingDescription.pdf for a full description.
The heart of the position is to identify all of the issues relating to usability at different scales, then help design (and implement) a set of domain-specific languages which capture the constraints of user-interface features with respect to scale.
– From the psychology and user-interface literature, identify cognitive issues relating to scale perception, and capture these in a formal model. Examples: Fitts’ Law, Hick’s Law and the Steering Law;
– Identify examples of such concerns, and pre-existing solutions, from existing software which works at multiple scales; put an emphasis on solutions concerning gaming software;
– Relate these models and solutions to design constraints for features in software;
– Embody these design constraint into a set of domain specific languages; and
– Provide interpreters for these languages.
Potential applicants (or anyone curious about the project) can contact Jacques Carette ( carette AT mcmaster DOT ca) for further details.