Per Ola Kristensson

Hi! I am a computer scientist interested in interdisciplinary research intersecting the human-computer interaction (HCI) and machine learning fields. I am an EPSRC Research Fellow at the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge and a Junior Research Fellow at Darwin College, Cambridge.

A more detailed bio is available below.

I have two overall research goals:

1. To create user interfaces that enable people to be more creative, expressive and satisfied in their daily lives.
2. To understand the design space of user interfaces that are based on machine learning and other uncertain reasoning methods.

News

• July 12, 2010 There is an article in The Economist on my work on efficient touch-screen correction interfaces for speech recognition (with Keith Vertanen).
• June 23, 2010 Nuance's acquisition of ShapeWriter is reported in the media.
• May 28, 2010 Nuance Communications, Inc. has acquired ShapeWriter, Inc., a company I co-founded in 2007.
• February 3, 2010 I have been awarded a 3-year EPSRC Postdoctoral Fellowship that I will take up in the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge.
• More...

Contact

The best way to reach me is via email:

   kristensson @ acm.org

Alternatively you can write to me at:

   Dr Per Ola Kristensson
   Darwin College
   Silver Street
   Cambridge CB3 9EU
   United Kingdom

Research

My overall research interest is to understand how pattern recognition and machine learning methods can enable new user interfaces that are more efficient, fluid and fun to use.

Click here for a research overview.

This paper explains my primary research trajectory:

Abstract: "For text entry methods to be useful they have to deliver high entry rates and low error rates. At the same time they need to be easy to learn and provide effective means of correcting mistakes. Intelligent text entry methods combine AI techniques with human-computer interaction (HCI) theory to enable users to enter text as efficiently and effortlessly as possible. Here I sample a selection of such techniques from the research literature and set them into their historical context. I then highlight five challenges for text entry methods that aspire to make an impact in our society: localization, error correction, editor support, feedback, and context of use."

• Kristensson, P.O. 2009. Five challenges for intelligent text entry methods. AI Magazine 30(4): 85-94. (pdf)

Research interests

• human-computer interaction
• pattern recognition
• information visualization
• end-user programming

Research Highlight: ShapeWriter and Gesture Keyboards

One of the most significant research contributions I have made so far is the work on gesture-based text entry for touch-screen keyboards (together with Dr Shumin Zhai). This technology enables users to write quickly on their mobile phones by sliding or swiping the finger over a touch-sensitive on-screen keyboard. I helped commercialize the first product in this space, known as ShapeWriter (previously known at various stages as HSK, SHARK, SHARK² and IBM Shorthand-Aided Rapid Keboarding). It enables users to write quickly by gesturing shapes of words on a touch-sensitive keyboard. For instance, to write the word "the" the user pushes down the finger on the T key, slides to the H and E keys, and then lifts up the finger on the E key. This input paradigm recognizes the shape of this gesture using a pattern recognizer. During practice, the shapes of words builds up in users' muscle memory which enables users to quickly recall the shapes for words without looking much at the keyboard (similar to how you remember your ATM code).

The first publication on ShapeWriter and similar gesture keyboard technology is my master's from August 2002. Thereafter I co-authored a number of academic papers on it published in the best venues in human-computer interaction (the ACM CHI and UIST conference proceedings). The first press coverage was in San Jose Mercury News in April 2003. The first public release was available on IBM alphaWorks in 2004 (covered by numerous press articles). I wrote all the code for that release. The idea was later commercialized by ShapeWriter, Inc, a company I co-founded in 2007. I was the Director of Engineering of this company (2007-2010) and I worked fulltime in Beijing for six months in 2007-2008 to set up and manage our engineering office. I am also the sole author of the pattern recognition algorithm that was behind all the company's products. We released ShapeWriter on multiple platforms, such as Google Android and the iPhone. We won a Google Android Developer Challenge ADC50 award in early 2008. Shortly after that we released ShapeWriter on the Apple AppStore. The iPhone version was selected by Time Magazine in 2008 as a top-11 iPhone application. Between 2003-2009 there have been more than 100 press articles on ShapeWriter. In May 2010, Nuance Communications, Inc. acquired ShapeWriter, Inc. Hence we completed a cycle of research-commercialization-acquisition in about eight years.

Some recognitions and awards

• A list of international press articles referencing me or my work (2003-2010).
• In 2008, Time Magazine selected ShapeWriter as a Top iPhone Application and ranked it the 8^th best iPhone application in the world (in the article ShapeWriter is referred to as "WritingPad").
• In 2008, ShapeWriter was one of the winners of the Google Android Developer Challenge 2008 ADC50 Awards.
• In 2007, I was featured in Swedish media after my doctoral dissertation defense.
• In 2005, I won the Best Doctoral Consortium Contribution Award at CHI 2005, the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Academic service

• Program Committee Member, ACM International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2011).
• Judge, ACM Student Research Competition 2010, Grand Finals.
• Program Committee Member, British Computer Society (BCS) 24^th Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI 2010).
• Associate Chair, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2010).
• Faculty Member, CHI 2010 Doctoral Consortium, at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2010).
• Judge, CHI 2010 Student Research Competition (part of the ACM Student Research Competition), at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2010).
• Program Committee Member, ACM International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2010).
• Technical Co-Chair, British Computer Society (BCS) 23^rd Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI 2009).
• Co-Organizer and Panelist, CHI Special Interest Group Meeting on Usable Intelligent Interactive Systems, at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2009).
• Judge, CHI 2009 Student Research Competition (part of the ACM Student Research Competition), at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2009).
• Program Committee Member, ACM International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2009).
• Reviewer, CHI (2004-2009; distinction for exceptional review 2004), UIST (2003-2009), IUI (2009), InfoVis/IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (2009), ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) (2004-2010), CSCW (2008-2010), Human-Computer Interaction (2004), SIGGRAPH Sketches (2006), ICMI (2005, 2009), Graphics Interface (2005), DUX (2005), MobileHCI (2006), NordiCHI (2008), IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering (2008), Behavior & Information Technology (2009), IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part A (2010), International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (2010).

University service

• Fellow and Member of the Governing Body, Darwin College, Cambridge, 2008-.
• Executive Committee Member, Cambridge University Entrepreneurs, 2008-2009.

Recent University Teaching (Michaelmas term, 2009)

• Lecturer, Research Methods for the MPhil ACS (three lectures).
• Guest Lecturer, Human-Computer Interaction (one lecture).
• Supervisor, Part II Dissertation and Human-Computer Interaction.

Bio

Dr Per Ola Kristensson is an EPSRC Research Fellow at the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge and a Junior Research Fellow at Darwin College, Cambridge. He did his doctoral work at Linköping University, Sweden and IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, USA (Ph.D. Computer Science 2007). Prior to his current position (2008-2010) he was a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellow at Prof. David MacKay's Inference Group at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge and the Schlumberger Interdisciplinary Research Fellow at Darwin College, Cambridge. His research interests are in the intersection of human-computer interaction and machine learning. Together with Dr Shumin Zhai he pioneered gesture keyboard technology for touch-screens and co-founded ShapeWriter, Inc. to commercialize the technology in 2007. He was the Director of Engineering of this company (2007-2010) and worked fulltime in Beijing, China in 2007-2008 to set up and manage the engineering office with about ten employees. The company was acquired by Nuance Communications, Inc. in 2010.

Fun stuff

My academic genealogy.