Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is a constantly moving field. On the one hand, changes in computing technologies extend their possible uses and modify the conditions of existing ones. On the other hand, users adapt to new technologies and adapt them to their own needs. Various problems and opportunities regularly stem from this co-evolution, and among them, it is not always easy to differentiate the news from the real significant new. Loki proposes to get back to fundamental HCI questions that have lately been eclipsed by technological changes, and to revisit them in today’s context.

We are focusing on how such tools can be designed and engineered, and propose as a long-term goal to specify and create new technology dedicated to interaction: the Interaction Machine. In the short to medium term, we will investigate this revision of interactive systems along three levels of dynamics of interaction. Research on micro-dynamics will focus on low-level problems related to interaction such as studying transfer functions, latency compensation and tactile feedback. Research on meso-dynamics will focus on augmenting the interaction bandwidth and vocabulary. Research on macro-dynamics will focus on real-time activity monitors and better system adaptability for skills acquisition while using those systems. Overall, understanding the phenomena that occur at each of these levels and their relationships will help us to acquire the necessary knowledge and technological bricks to reconcile the way interactive systems are engineered with human abilities.