Human Information Interaction/ HCI
Designing systems that augment knowledge workers' capacity to process large amounts of information and make informed decisions

PARC's multidisciplinary approach in this area combines theories of cognition, visual perception, and sensemaking with semantic analysis and machine learning techniques. Our researchers work closely with clients and partners to understand their information challenges and develop new solutions that respect existing user behavior.

Applications

PARC's pioneering history in UI research includes the GUI (graphical user interface), first commercial mouse, and 2D/ 3D visualizations and interactions.

Some current examples of PARC's systems in human information interaction include:

• Entity Workspace — an intelligent workspace that helps knowledge workers identify patterns and relationships in unstructured information, and recommends new topics to explore based on predictions of user interest.
   
• 3Book — a 3D virtual book display for rapidly navigating, skimming, and reading large documents, which includes a dynamically reorganizing book index customized to user interests.

These prototype systems can serve as the starting point for custom applications in business intelligence, intelligence analysis, education, and other industry domains.