Research Associate / Senior Research Associate in Inclusive Co-design

The role

This is an exciting opportunity for a Research Associate / Senior Research Associate position to join the Diverse-Ability Interaction Lab (Dive Lab), led by Dr Oussama Metatla, within the Bristol Interaction Group (BIG) at the University of Bristol.

In the Dive Lab, we study interactions between disabled and non-disabled people to design, engineer and evaluate technologies that support more inclusion in human society. Our projects span a wide range of groups, domains, and contexts, including visual impairments, neurodiversity, and cognitive and physical impairments in education, work, and leisure.

The postholder will join a multidisciplinary team working on the inclusiveXplay project (supported by an ERC-selected Consolidator Grant, funded by UKRI), to investigate how cross-sensory and embodied cognition informs the design of novel technologies that can support early motor, cognitive and social development of blind and visually impaired (BVI) preschool-aged children when they interact with their sighted peers.

The postholder will lead the co-design aspects of the inclusiveXplay project: to engage with children, parents, and practitioners through design research to generate orienting concepts, scenarios and prototypes of meaningful cross-sensory social play experiences inclusive of both BVI and sighted preschool age children.

What will you be doing?

You will explore co-design approaches to establish requirements for cross-sensory social play technology targeting the early motor, cognitive and social development of preschool age children.

You will use child-centred design methodologies, contextual inquiries, design research, iterative co-design and prototyping, and case study evaluation.

This will contribute to creating a contextual understanding of best practice in supporting early development, generate conceptual design and build early prototypes of cross-sensory social play technology grounded in end user experience and practice.

You should apply if

You are interested in designing novel interactive cross-sensory technology using a range of design methodologies, and in collaborating with engineers, experimental psychologists to:

• Lead the design of novel interactive cross-sensory displays that leverage a wide range of sensory material as design material for interactions.
• Design, plan, and execute contextual inquiries and iterative co-design research, prototype development and evaluation.
• Collect design research data capturing contextual knowledge and design experiences.
• Translate findings into orienting design concepts and prototypes for testing with end users in other inclusiveXplay project activities, e.g., engineering cross-sensory shape-changing displays, and experimental studies of cross-sensory cognition.
• Write up and submit research findings to top publication venues.

Please read the Job Description for details.

Additional information

For informal queries please contact Dr Oussama Metatla; o.metatla@bristol.ac.uk

To find out more about what it's like to work in the Faculty of Engineering, and how the Faculty supports people to achieve their potential, please see our staff blog:

https://engineeringincludesme.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/

Interviews are anticipated to be held on 22 May 2024.

Our strategy and mission

We recently launched our strategy to 2030 tying together our mission, vision and values.

The University of Bristol aims to be a place where everyone feels able to be themselves and do their best in an inclusive working environment where all colleagues can thrive and reach their full potential. We want to attract, develop, and retain individuals with different experiences, backgrounds and perspectives – particularly people of colour, LGBT+ and disabled people - because diversity of people and ideas remains integral to our excellence as a global civic institution.

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