HCI Homework 2: Body Interfaces and the Ultimate Display

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Lecture 4 - An HCI researcher: Pedro Lopes Link to heading

Pedro Lopes leads the Human Computer Integration Lab at the University of Chicago. His work studies interfaces that connect to the body through touch, muscle stimulation, and other sensations. The computer can provide physical feedback instead of only showing instructions on a screen.

Two recent projects make this approach quite concrete:

Generative Muscle Stimulation, CHI 2026. The system uses a person’s view and body pose to generate physical assistance for everyday tasks. It constrains the generated instructions using joint limits and knowledge about muscle stimulation. This makes context important: the same object can require different actions in different situations.
Myo Action, CHI 2026. Muscle signals trigger stimulation that assists an action the person has already started. The aim is to speed up movement while preserving the person’s decision to act.

The interesting HCI question is control. Assistance should be easy to interrupt, and the person should understand when the system is acting. A technically effective movement could still feel wrong if it happens unexpectedly.

SEMG on WANG Zhaofeng · Course Portfolio

HCI Homework 2: Body Interfaces and the Ultimate Display

Lecture 4 - An HCI researcher: Pedro Lopes Link to heading