Rich Byrne

HCI Researcher and Software Engineer

I am an experienced Academic Researcher and Software Engineer, with a BSc, MRes, and PhD in Computer Science related fields. My research interests centre around Human-Computer Interaction, games research, and interaction design.

I have also worked as a Senior Software engineer, experienced with leveraging agile frameworks and using the latest technologies to create excitng and novel software systems for a variety of clients.

Please view my Google Scholar profile, or LinkedIn profile for more information.

Research

My research interests include: Digital Vertigo Experiences, Interavtive Rock Climbing, Human-Computer Integration, and Motivational Fitness Applications.

Below are a few select examples of my research projects.

Designing Digital Vertigo Experiences

PhD RMIT University

My PhD research involved investigating Digital Vertigo Experiences.

March 2014 - January 2018

Balance Ninja

PhD Project

Balance Ninja is a two-player vertigo game where players battle against both their own sense of balance and the sensory confusion induced via a Galvanic Vestibular Simulation system that is controlled by the opposing player. The main objective of the game is to cause the opposing player to lose their balance first and score a point.

Directed and Produced by Alex Joseski; Director of Photography: Ben Helweg

AR Fighter

PhD Project

AR Fighter has a similar premise to Balance Ninja and requires players to try and make their opponent lose their balance first and thus win themselves a point, but uses Head Mounted Displays (HMDs) to induce sensory confusion instead of GVS systems. The sensory confusion in AR Fighter is a result of players' visual perception being manipulated by the HMDs, which is in conflict with their sense of balance.

Directed and Produced by Alex Joseski; Director of Photography: Ben Helweg

Peer Reviewed Conference Publications

  • Byrne, R., Marshall, J., & Mueller, F. (2018). Designing Digital Vertigo Experiences. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3387167
  • Joe Marshall, Steve Benford, Richard Byrne, and Paul Tennent. 2019. Sensory Alignment in Immersive Entertainment. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 700, 1–13. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300930
  • Florian Floyd Mueller, Zhuying Li, Richard Byrne, Yash Dhanpal Mehta, Peter Arnold, and Tuomas Kari. 2019. A 2nd Person Social Perspective on Bodily Play. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 638, 1–14.
  • Florian “Floyd” Mueller, Zhuying Li, Richard Byrne, Eshita Arza, Kurra Harshitha, Mario Boot, Tuomas Kari, and Yash Mehta. 2018. Towards a 2nd Person Perspective on Bodily Play. In Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play Companion Extended Abstracts (CHI PLAY ’18 Extended Abstracts). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 539–547. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3270316.3271530
  • Richard Byrne, Joe Marshall, and Florian Floyd Mueller. 2018. AR Fighter: Using HMDs to create Vertigo Play Experiences. In Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY ’18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 45–57. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3242671.3242689
  • Florian “Floyd” Mueller, Richard Byrne, Josh Andres, and Rakesh Patibanda. 2018. Experiencing the Body as Play. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 210, 1–13. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173784
  • Florian “Floyd” Mueller, Chek Tien Tan, Rich Byrne, and Matt Jones. 2017. 13 Game Lenses for Designing Diverse Interactive Jogging Systems. In Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY ’17). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 43–56. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3116595.3116607
  • Richard Byrne, Joe Marshall, and Florian “Floyd” Mueller. 2016. Inner disturbance: towards understanding the design of vertigo games through a novel balancing game. In Proceedings of the 28th Australian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (OzCHI ’16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 551–556. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3010915.3010999
  • Richard Byrne, Joe Marshall, and Florian “Floyd” Mueller. 2016. Balance Ninja: Towards the Design of Digital Vertigo Games via Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation. In Proceedings of the 2016 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY ’16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 159–170. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/2967934.2968080
  • Richard Byrne. 2016. Designing Digital Vertigo Games. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference Companion Publication on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS ’16 Companion). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 25–26. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/2908805.2909419
  • Richard Byrne, Joe Marshall, and Florian Floyd Mueller. 2016. Designing the Vertigo Experience: Vertigo as a Design Resource for Digital Bodily Play. In Proceedings of the TEI ’16: Tenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI ’16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 296–303. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/2839462.2839465
  • Joe Marshall, Steve Benford, Richard Byrne, and Paul Tennent. 2019. Sensory Alignment in Immersive Entertainment. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 700, 1–13. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300930
  • Chek Tien Tan, Richard Byrne, Simon Lui, Weilong Liu, and Florian Mueller. 2015. JoggAR: a mixed-modality AR approach for technology-augmented jogging. In SIGGRAPH Asia 2015 Mobile Graphics and Interactive Applications (SA ’15). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 33, 1. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/2818427.2818434
  • Paula Alavesa, Julia Schmidt, Anton Fedosov, Richard Byrne, and Florian “Floyd” Mueller. 2015. Air Tandem: A Collaborative Bodily Game Exploring Interpersonal Synchronization. In Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY ’15). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 433–438. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/2793107.2810311
  • Richard Byrne. 2015. Vertigo as a Design Resource for Bodily Play. In Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY ’15). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 399–402. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/2793107.2810280
  • Perttu Hämäläinen, Joe Marshall, Raine Kajastila, Richard Byrne, and Florian “Floyd” Mueller. 2015. Utilizing Gravity in Movement-Based Games and Play. In Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY ’15). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 67–77. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/2793107.2793110
  • William Goddard, Richard Byrne, and Florian “Floyd” Mueller. 2014. Playful Game Jams: Guidelines for Designed Outcomes. In Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on Interactive Entertainment (IE2014). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–10. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/2677758.2677778
  • Daniel J. Finnegan, Eduardo Velloso, Robb Mitchell, Florian Mueller, and Rich Byrne. 2014. Reindeer & wolves: exploring sensory deprivation in multiplayer digital bodily play. In Proceedings of the first ACM SIGCHI annual symposium on Computer-human interaction in play (CHI PLAY ’14). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 411–412. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/2658537.2661309
  • Byrne R., Mueller F.. (2014) Designing Digital Climbing Experiences through Understanding Rock Climbing Motivation. In: Pisan Y., Sgouros N.M., Marsh T. (eds) Entertainment Computing – ICEC 2014. ICEC 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8770. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
  • Byrne, Richard, and Parisa Eslambolchilar. "Encouraging an Active Lifestyle with Personal Mobile Devices: Motivational Tools and Techniques." NIMD2010 (2010).

Skills

Programming Languages & Tools
Other Skills
  • DevOps & Cloud Deployment
  • Debugging
  • Cross Functional Teams
  • Agile Development & Scrum

Interests

Certifications