About Me

I am passionate about making information and technology accessible, enjoyable, and useful. I am currently a Research Scientist at Microsoft, where I investigate novel interactions and visualization techniques that will advance the state of the art of how we collect, experience and share information over the Internet.

I completed my Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Toronto, where I worked with Professor Ravin Balakrishnan at the Dynamic Graphics Project Lab in topics involving human-computer interaction, interaction design, information visualization and computer graphics.

Recent Publications

Design Study of LineSets, a Novel Set Visualization Technique

Alper B., Henry-Riche N., Ramos G., Czerwinski M.- In IEEE TVCG (Proceedings of Infovis 2011), to appear.

We present LineSets, a novel visual representation of sets consisting on a continuous curve connecting all elements of a set. We demonstrate that this technique has advantages over concave shapes techniques present an application of our technique in the context of a data analysis task in a map.

Air pointing:
Design and evaluation of spatial target acquisition with and without visual feedback

Cockburn, A. , Quinn P., Gutwin C.,  Ramos G., Looser J. - Int. J. Human-Computer Studies 69

We explore the design space for air pointing interactions, and present a framework that helps designers understand input dimensions and resulting interaction qualities. We test our framework by designing and comparing three air pointing techniques. Our results and the organising framework provide a foundation for innovation and understanding of air pointing interaction.

ImageFlow: Streaming Image Search youtube

Jampani V., Ramos G., Drucker S. - Microsoft Research Technical Report MSR-TR-2010-148

ImageFlow is a novel image search user interface that explores a different alternative to the traditional grid/list presentation of image search results. ImageFlow shows image results where we map semantic features to the canvas' spatial dimensions in a way that allows for several levels of en-gagement – from passively viewing a stream of images, to seamlessly navigating through the semantic space and actively collecting images for sharing and reuse.

Content-Aware Dynamic Timeline for Video Browsing

Pongnumkul S., Wang J., Ramos G., Cohen M. - UIST 2010

When videos have more frames than pixels in the player's timeline slider, frames become inaccessible and scrolling actions cause sudden jumps in a video’s continuity. We propose a content-aware dynamic timeline control that decouples video speed and playback speed and allow salient shots to be presented at an intelligible speed.

Mobile Task Flow in Context: A Screen Shot Study of Smartphone Usage

Karlson A., Iqbal S., Meyers B., Ramos G., Lee K., Tang J. - CHI 2010

Using a survey and a screenshot-based diary study we investigated the types of barriers people face when performing tasks on their mobile phones, the ways they follow up with such suspended tasks, and how frustrating the experience of task disruption is for mobile users. We distill a classification of barriers the completion of mobile tasks and discuss how the guidelines can be extended to mitigate disruptions to mobile taskflow.