Solving Problems Through Research
What We Offer: Communication and Information Technology, and Mathematics
Virginia Tech is a leader in the deployment of information technology resources. Research areas are fiber optics, wireless communications, human-computer interaction, modeling and hardware description languages, configurable computing, digital library systems, and e-business.
The Center for Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) provides a vital connection between the social and behavioral sciences and information technology. HCI researchers analyze and design user interface technologies, such as real-time collaboration over networks. They integrate and evaluate new applications of technology in human activities.
Wireless @ Virginia Tech is one of the largest wireless research groups in the United States. The new university center encompasses eight centers, groups, and laboratories, including the well-known Center for Wireless Telecommunications, Mobile, and Portable Radio Research Group (MPRG), and the Virginia Tech Antenna Group – bringing together 27 faculty members and more than 100 graduate students focused on wireless.
Other related centers are:
Center for Applied Technologies in the Humanities
Center for Digital Discourse and Culture
Center for Embedded Systems for Critical Applications
Center for Geospatial Information Technology
Center for Information Technology Impacts on Children, Youths, and Families
Interdisciplinary Center for Applied Mathematics
Laboratory for Advanced Scientific Computing and Applications
RoMeLa: Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory
Usability a market advantage
Problem: A small company needed a way to develop easy-to-use user interfaces for their product, which connects non-computer devices to the Internet.
Solution: Develop a process to produce high-usability user interfaces.
A small high-tech company had developed ways to connect many non-computer devices to the Internet, such as cell phones, hand-held computers, and even weather sensors and door sensors. However, the company needed a way to develop easy-to-understand user interface designs.
Virginia Tech Computer Science Professor Rex Hartson specializes in human-computer interaction. He and his students developed a process for designing and constructing interfaces that are almost intuitive from the user's perspective.
The researchers provided a usability engineering process that helped the company build a high-fidelity prototype. And student James Helms wrote his master's thesis as a case study of the problem and solution.