David Beattie

I am currently a senior quantitative user researcher for one of the largest digital asset exchanges, working on behavioural data analysis in the financial sector. Previously, I was a senior research engineer at Ultraleap in Bristol, UK. Prior to joining Ultraleap, I worked at Vodafone Research as a research data scientist with Dr Nuria Oliver. I hold a PhD in human-computer interaction from Glasgow Caledonian University, where I was a member of the ITT Group and advised by Lynne Baillie and Martin Halvey.

I specialise in analysing human attitudinal and behavioural data using statistical modelling and machine learning techniques. My research focuses on understanding user interactions, experiences, and adoption patterns across technologies like augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, telecommunications, and cryptocurrencies. My passion lies in developing intelligent and adaptive user interfaces that directly address individual needs through ambient sensing, context comprehension, and understanding user intention to enhance the overall user experience.

Please feel free to contact me via email if you have any questions.

Apr 1, 2021	Our research, “E-Textures: AI-Enabled Mid-Air Haptic Texture Generation”, has been granted extended funding through the FET Innovation Launchpad.
Jan 1, 2021	Ultraleap along with academic partners Unversity College London, Uni of Copenhagen, and Upna Lab, and industry partners Softserve and Crowdhelix, will be researching neurocognitive models of touch, designing computational models of tactile perception, and creating immersive and intelligent user interfaces to mediate digital tactile experiences. More here: TouchlessAI.
Sep 12, 2020	Our latest paper has been published in the ACM Symposium on Applied Perception ‘20 and describes a method to render mid-air haptic feedback based on visual perceptual judgements of image texture.

SAP

Incorporating the Perception of Visual Roughness into the Design of Mid-Air Haptic Textures

Beattie, David, Frier, William, Georgiou, Orestis, Long, Benjamin, and Ablart, Damien

In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Applied Perception, 2020.

Abs

Ultrasonic mid-air haptic feedback enables the tactile exploration of virtual objects in digital environments. However, an object’s shape and texture is perceived multimodally, commencing before tactile contact is made. Visual cues, such as the spatial distribution of surface elements, play a critical first step in forming an expectation of how a texture should feel. When rendering surface texture virtually, its verisimilitude is dependent on whether these visually inferred prior expectations are experienced during tactile exploration. To that end, our work proposes a method where the visual perception of roughness is integrated into the rendering algorithm of mid-air haptic texture feedback. We develop a machine learning model trained on crowd-sourced visual roughness ratings of texture images from the Penn Haptic Texture Toolkit (HaTT). We establish tactile roughness ratings for different mid-air haptic stimuli and match these ratings to our model’s output, creating an end-to-end automated visuo-haptic rendering algorithm. We validate our approach by conducting a user study to examine the utility of the mid-air haptic feedback. This work can be used to automatically create tactile virtual surfaces where the visual perception of texture roughness guides the design of mid-air haptic feedback.
User Engagement for Mid-Air Haptic Interactions with Digital Signage

Limerick, Hannah, Hayden, Richard, Beattie, David, Georgiou, Orestis, and Müller, Jörg

In Proceedings of the 8th ACM International Symposium on Pervasive Displays, 2019.

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Interactive digital signage is increasingly deployed in urban environments, from airports and train stations, to cinemas and shopping malls, whilst their integration into public spaces introduces new possibilities in multimedia presentation. In this paper, we explore the impact of mid-air haptic feedback on user engagement during gesture-based interactions with digital posters. To that end, a user study with seventeen participants was undertaken with two independent variables: interactivity (high/low), and mid-air haptic cues (on/off), whilst user engagement and emotional affect was measured with respect to various metrics. In this first attempt to understand the significance of mid-air haptic interactions for digital signage, we found increased user engagement levels, comparable to, if not greater than those achieved by content gamification. In particular, our analysis suggests that mid-air haptic feedback significantly improved usability and aesthetic appeal in comparison to digital signage without haptic feedback. Similarly, a higher level of gamification was also found to boost user engagement and helped to offer more compelling experiences with digital signage.