Professor Steve Gill

PhD BA (hons) FHEA
e: sjgill@cardiffmet.ac.uk
t: 029 2041 6732
w: paipr.wordpress.com

Specialist Subject Areas

Product Design, Information Ergonomics, Computer Embedded Products, Physicality in Design

Qualifications

PhD (2009)
BA (Hons) Design for Industry (1993)
BTEC National Diploma in Art & Design (1989)

Biography

Steve is a product designer with 18 years experience in industry and academia. He has designed or product managed around 50 products to market and has published 35+ academic journal and conference papers. He is currently co-writing a book with Prof. Alan Dix of University of Lancaster.

Steve heads the Programme for Advanced Interactive Prototype Research (PAIPR) team developing new methods for the design development of information appliances such as mobile phones and medical devices. PAIPR has worked closely with academic partners such as the University of Lancaster and those in blue chip industry such as Sony-Ericsson. PAIPR was recently involved in a major project investigating the nature of physical interaction and its effects on design with the help of a £270K Research Council grant.

Current research

Steve is an applied researcher. He heads the Programme for Advanced Interactive Prototype Research (PAIPR), is a member of the Experiential Research Atelier (ERA) and a founder member of the Wales Institute of Research in Art & Design (WIRAD). He has a number of interests including physicality, rapid prototyping of computer embedded products, user led and user centred design and interaction design. All of these share a common theme in that they are all avenues being explored by Steve and his team in pursuit of better, more integrated design methodologies for computer embedded products and information appliances.

Principal Publications and/or Exhibitions

Click here to view Professor Gill’s papers and publications on Cardiff Metropolitan University’s DSpace repository.

Journal Articles & Book Chapters

• (2010) Dix, A., Gill, S., Ramduny-Ellis, D. and Hare, J. ‘Design and Physicality – Towards an Understanding of Physicality in Design and Use’, In Designing for the 21st Century: Interdisciplinary Methods and Findings. London: Gower. pp172-189.

• (2010) Ramduny-Ellis, D., Hare, J., Dix, A., Evans, M., and Gill, S. ‘Physicality in Design: An Exploration’, in The Design Journal, Volume 13, Issue 1, January 2010, pp48-76.

• (2009) Gill, S. ‘Six Challenges Facing User-Orientated Industrial Design’, Design Journal 12.1

• (2009) Ramduny-Ellis, D., Dix, A., Gill, S., and Hare, J. (editors) Special Issue on Physicality and Interaction (editorial). Interacting with Computers. Volume 21, Issues 1-2, January 2009, pp. 64-124.

• (2009) Dix, A., Ghazali, M., Gill, S., Hare, J., and Ramduny-Ellis, D. (2009) ‘Physigrams: Modelling Devices for Natural Interaction’, in Formal Aspects of Computing Journal, Springer doi: 10.1007/s00165-008-0099-y.

• (2008) Gill, S., Walker, D., Loudon, G., Dix, A., Woolley, A., Ramduny-Ellis, D. and Hare, J. ‘Rapid Development of Tangible Interactive Appliances: Achieving the Fidelity/Time Balance’. In Hornecker, E., Schmidt, A., and Ullmer, B. (eds) Special Issue on Tangible and Embedded Interaction, International Journal of Arts and Technology, Volume 1, No 3/4 pp 309-331

• (2008) Gill, S., Loudon, G., Walker, D., ‘Designing a design tool: working with industry to create an information appliance design methodology’; In Journal of Design Research (JDR), Volume 7, Issue 2 p97-119 DOI: 10.1504/JDR.2008.020851

• (2007) Johnson, P., Griffiths, R. and Gill, S. The 24-hour Product – From Concept to Interactive Model In Less Than a Day, International Journal of Design Engineering – Vol. 1, No.1 pp. 56 – 70

• (2003) Gill, S.: Developing Information Appliance Design Tools for Designers; Personal and Ubiquitous Computing Volume 7, Springer Verlag, London 2003

Selected Conference Contributions

• 2009 WIRAD Emerging Researchers Symposium, Gregynog (Organiser and Programme Committee Chair)

• 2008 Physicality Workshop, DIS Conference, (Programme Committee Member and Reviewer)

• 2007 Tangible and Embedded Interaction Conference, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA (Programme Committee Member and Reviewer)

• 2007 2nd Workshop on Physicality, University of Lancaster, (Programme Committee Member and Reviewer)

• 2006 2nd SPED/PDR Symposium, UWIC, (Organiser)

• 2006 Joint CSAD/PDR/UWN seminar on joint research strategy, (Organiser)

• 2005 Human Oriented Informatics & Telematics Conference, (Reviewer)

• 2004 2nd International Appliance Design Conference, Hewlett Packard, Bristol, (Reviewer)

Selected Conference Papers / Presentations

• (2010) Gill, S. ‘Translating Rapid Computer Embedded Product Design and Development Research into Teaching Tools and Material’; Abstract in the proceedings of Research Informed Teaching, Delivering Participation, Engagement and Enquiry conference University of Staffordshire, 14th July, 2010

• (2010) Woolley, A., Loudon, G. and Gill, S. ‘Contextual Testing in the Mobile Phone Design Process; A Case Study’ to be published in the proceedings of DESIGN 2010

• (2009) Culverhouse, I., Gill, S., Woolley, A. & Loudon, G. ‘Construct, Deconstruct & Reconstruct: Exploring interactive sketching of information appliances’ in the proceedings of IASDR 2009

• (2009) Hare, J., Gill, S., Loudon, G., Ramduny-Ellis, D. and Dix, A. ‘Physical Fidelity: Exploring the Importance of Physicality on Physical-Digital Conceptual Prototyping’. In Proceedings of INTERACT 2009

• (2009) Culverhouse, I., Gill, S., ‘Bringing concepts to life: introducing a rapid interactive sketch modelling toolkit for industrial designers’. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction pp 359-362

• (2008) Hare, J., Ramduny-Ellis, D., Dix, A. and Gill, S. ‘Exploring Physicality in the Design Process’ in Proceedings of the Design Research Society Conference, Sheffield

• (2008) Wilgeroth, P., Stockton, G. and Gill, S. ‘The Delivery Of Green Design Techniques In An Immersive Learning Environment’ in the Proceedings of International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education 2008, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

• (2008) Dix, A., Sas, C., Ramduny-Ellis, D., Gill, S. and Hare, J. ‘Sociality, Physicality and Spatiality: touching private and public displays in the proceedings of Workshop on designing multi-touch interaction techniques for coupled public and private displays’ in AVI 2008 the International Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces, Naples, Italy

• (2008) Wilgeroth, P., Stockton, G. and Gill, S. ‘The Delivery Of Green Design Techniques In An Immersive Learning Environment’, in Proceedings of International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education 2008, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

• (2006), Recent Technology of Prototyping and Usability Assessment of Information Appliances -from Practical Aspects to Future Trends, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan, (Invited Speaker)

• (2006) International Conference on Physicality, University of Lancaster, Keynote Speaker)

• (2006), Woolley, A., Gill, S. ‘The Contextual Testing of Interactive Product Simulations for New Generation Products’, in Proceedings of 20th European Simulation Modelling Conference, Toulouse, France

• (2006) Wilgeroth P, Gill S. ‘The Unexpected Benefits Of An Integrated Cad/Cam Based Model Making Strategy’, in Proceedings of the Engineering And Product Design Education Conference, Salzburg, Austria

• (2006) Evans, M. and Gill, S. ‘Rapid Development of Information Appliances: Future Approaches for Designers’, in Proceedings of the International Design Conference – Design 2006, Dubrovnik, Croatia

• (2006) Loudon, G., Gill, S. and Walker, D. ‘How Different Prototyping Methods for Information Appliance Design Affect Usability Test Results Poster Presentation’, in Usability Professionals Association Conference, Broomfield, Colorado

• (2006) Woolley, A and Gill, S. ‘Information Ergonomics Lectures for Creative Prototyping’, in Proceedings of HCIEd.2006-1 inventivity: Teaching theory, design and innovation in HCI, Limerick, Ireland Wilgeroth, P Barham, G & Gill, S.; ‘HOW TO ACHIEVE THE IMPOSSIBLE: Team working and professional collaboration can design and produce an interactive prototype for an information appliance in 24-hours’ in The 3rd Engineering and Product Design Education International Conference, Napier, UK

• (2005) Gill, S., Loudon, G., Hewett, B., Barham, G. ‘How to Design and Prototype an Information Appliance in 24 Hours – Integrating Product & Interface Design Processes’ in The proceedings of The 6th international conference on Computer-Aided Industrial Design & Conceptual Design, Delft University of Technology

• (2005) Gill, S., Johnson, P., Dale, J., Loudon, G., Hewett, B. and Barham, G. ‘The Traditional Design Process Versus A New Design Methodology: A Comparative Case Study Of A Rapidly Designed Information Appliance’ in Human Oriented Informatics and Telematics Conference, University of York

• (2004) Gill, S. ‘Designing Information Appliances for users to love: Have we got the answer? Poster’ in 2AD Conference, Bristol, UK

• (2003) Gill, S. ‘Developing Information Appliance Design Tools for Designers’ in Personal and Ubiquitous Computing Volume 7, Springer Verlag, London

• (2003) Gill, S. ‘Developing Information Appliance Design Tools for Designers’ in 1AD conference, Bristol, UK

• (2001) Nam, T.J. and Gill, S. ‘A rapid interface design and prototyping method for computer-embedded products’ in ICSID conference, Seoul, Korea

• (2000) Gill, S. ‘An Industrial Designer’s approach to a Virtual Learning Environment’ in IDATER conference, Loughborough, UK

• (2001), The Virtual School: A Virtual Learning Support Environment, 1st Learning & Teaching Conference, UWIC, June 2001, (Presentation)

• (2000) Nam, T.J. and Gill, S. ‘An effective prototyping method for delivering interaction design in industrial design education’ in IDATER conference, Loughborough, UK

• (2000) Gill, S. and Coward, T. ‘Designing a Learning Environment for Three Dimensional Thinkers’ in International symposium on the dimensions of industrial design research conference, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Other Publications

• Griffiths, R and Gill, S., (2010, ‘Top Skills’ Education Supplement) ‘Design 2010: Your Future’

• Gill, S. (2003 March/April edition),’ Industrial Design and the User Interface’ in New Design Magazine

• Gill, S. (2003 October edition), ‘Industrial Choosing a Design Degree’ in Designing Magazine

Awards

UWIC Teaching Fellow (2008 – 2010)

Enterprise Projects and/or Industrial links

2011

• Vision Space applications in medical imaging development (£45K, UWIC Research & Enterprise Investment Fund)

• Prototypes design and manufacture for user testing trials for major Blue chip client (£7.5K, client name withheld for confidentiality reasons)

• Interface design and development for major blue chip client (£36K, client name withheld for confidentiality reasons)

2010

• Patient specific medical devices (£61K, Vice Chancellor’s Doctoral Award)

• Vision Space applications in information appliance design (£54.6K WAG Knowledge Economy Skills Scholarship)

• Vision Space in product design applications (£12.9K Knowledge Economy Skills Scholarship Access to Masters Scheme)

• GPS device for the blind and partially sighted development with Peepo Ltd. (£85K Prince of Wales Innovation Scholarship)

2009

• Continual Professional Development course for Mothercare design team (£2K)

• IE System Commercialisation (£19.2K, UWIC New Enterprise Fund)

• Feasibility Study: Support for manufacturing companies in rapid design and development of computer embedded products (£19.4K, Academics for Business)

• UWIC L&T Fellowship (£4K)

2008

• BARS Award (£36K)

• Patent application support for IE5 (£1.5K, WAG)

2007

• BARS Award (£36K)

2006

• DEPtH: Designing for Physicality (£270K, AHRC)

• Patent application support for IE4 (£1.5K, WAG)

2005

• BARS Award (£36K)

• Patent application support for IE3 (£1.5K, WAG)

2004

• Rapid Information Development System for Designers – Feasibility (£10K Knowledge Exploitation Fund)

• Researching ways of improving the design of digital interface products (£3K, UWIC)

• KTP with Alloy Total Product Design (Academic Leader)

Modules Taught

Current

APD407 – MSc APD Major Project (Computer Embedded Devices)

PD 308 – BA (Hons) Product Design Major Project – Product related (Level 3)

PD 307 – BA (Hons) Product Design Major Project – Systems related (Level 3)

Supervision of Doctoral Research

Current

Ariana Mihoc – Bespoke Medical Devices

Joe Baldwin – Product applications for Vision Space technology

Tavs Jorgenson (University College, Falmouth) – Reconfigurable tooling

Claire Andrews – Lessons for design from the blind and partially sighted

Paul Wilgeroth – Appropriate product specification documents for creative professionals

Beth Gordon – Low tech augmented reality for contextual simulation testing

Jo Hare – Exploring physicality and fidelity

Ian Culverhouse – Ultra fast tangible computer embedded product prototypes

Dimitrios Zampelis – Prototyping for future interaction paradigms

Rachel Eardley – Physicality’s influence on users

John Counsell – Digital scanning and mapping applications in architecture

Completed

Alex Woolley – Contextual issues in information appliance development