Damien Masson

damien.massonumontreal.ca
Université de Montréal,
Pavillon André-Aisenstadt,
Office 2349

Bonjour, I am Damien 👋. I am an Assistant Professor in Human-Computer Interaction at the Université de Montréal, where I co-lead the Montréal HCI group. I am also an associate academic member of Mila and an IVADO professor. Previously, I completed a postdoc at the University of Toronto and received my PhD from the University of Waterloo.

I am looking for talented students (PhD, master's, or undergraduate) to join my group. If you are interested in collaborating, please read this.

Most of my work focuses on building systems that prioritize thoughtful interaction design to effectively solve tasks. Often, this involves going beyond traditional UI and interaction seen in software today. My current research interests include (but are not limited to):

Designing intelligent systems (see supercharging trial-and-error and DirectGPT)
Visualizing information (see Charagraph and ChartDetective)
Augmenting digital documents (see Chameleon, Statslator, and my PhD thesis)

International Publications

CHI '24 AR: 26.3% (1060/4028)

Honorable Mention Award (top 5%)

DirectGPT: A Direct Manipulation Interface to Interact with Large Language Models

Damien Masson, Sylvain Malacria, Géry Casiez, Daniel Vogel
Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

PDF Website Video Code Data DOI Bibtex

@inproceedings{directgpt,
    author = "Masson, Damien and Malacria, Sylvain and Casiez, G\'ery and Vogel, Daniel",
    title = "DirectGPT: A Direct Manipulation Interface to Interact with Large Language Models",
    year = "2024",
    isbn = "979-8-4007-0330-0/24/05",
    publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery",
    address = "New York, NY, USA",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642462",
    doi = "10.1145/3613904.3642462",
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems",
    numpages = "16",
    location = "HHonolulu, HI, USA",
    series = "CHI '24"
}

UIST '23 AR: 25.1% (121/483)

Statslator: Interactive Translation of NHST and Estimation Statistics Reporting Styles in Scientific Documents

Damien Masson, Sylvain Malacria, Géry Casiez, Daniel Vogel
The 36th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

PDF Website Video Code Data Presentation DOI Bibtex

@inproceedings{statslator,
    author = "Masson, Damien and Malacria, Sylvain and Casiez, G\'ery and Vogel, Daniel",
    title = "Statslator: Interactive Translation of NHST and Estimation Statistics Reporting Styles in Scientific Documents",
    year = "2023",
    isbn = "979-8-4007-0132-0/23/10",
    publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery",
    address = "New York, NY, USA",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1145/3586183.3606762",
    doi = "10.1145/3586183.3606762",
    booktitle = "The 36th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology",
    numpages = "14",
    location = "San Francisco, CA, USA",
    series = "UIST '23"
}

CHI '23 AR: 27.6% (880/3182)

Charagraph: Interactive Generation of Charts for Realtime Annotation of Data-Rich Paragraphs

Damien Masson, Sylvain Malacria, Géry Casiez, Daniel Vogel
Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

PDF Website Video Code Presentation DOI Bibtex

@inproceedings{charagraph,
    author = "Masson, Damien and Malacria, Sylvain and Casiez, G\'ery and Vogel, Daniel",
    title = "Charagraph: Interactive Generation of Charts for Realtime Annotation of Data-Rich Paragraphs",
    year = "2023",
    isbn = "978-1-4503-9421-5/23/04",
    publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery",
    address = "New York, NY, USA",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581091",
    doi = "10.1145/3544548.3581091",
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems",
    numpages = "18",
    location = "Hamburg, Germany",
    series = "CHI '23"
}

CHI '23 AR: 27.6% (880/3182)

Best Paper Award (top 1%)

ChartDetective: Easy and Accurate Interactive Data Extraction from Complex Vector Charts

Damien Masson, Sylvain Malacria, Daniel Vogel, Edward Lank, Géry Casiez
Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

PDF Website Video Code Presentation DOI Bibtex

@inproceedings{chartdetective,
    author = "Masson, Damien and Malacria, Sylvain and Vogel, Daniel and Lank, Edward and Casiez, G\'ery",
    title = "ChartDetective: Easy and Accurate Interactive Data Extraction from Complex Vector Charts",
    year = "2023",
    isbn = "978-1-4503-9421-5/23/04",
    publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery",
    address = "New York, NY, USA",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581113",
    doi = "10.1145/3544548.3581113",
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems",
    numpages = "17",
    location = "Hamburg, Germany",
    series = "CHI '23"
}

CHI '22 AR: 24.6% (637/2579)

Supercharging Trial-and-Error for Learning Complex Software Applications

Damien Masson, Jo Vermeulen, George Fitzmaurice, Justin Matejka
Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

PDF Video Presentation DOI Bibtex

@inproceedings{10.1145/3491102.3501895,
    author = "Masson, Damien and Vermeulen, Jo and Fitzmaurice, George and Matejka, Justin",
    title = "Supercharging Trial-and-Error for Learning Complex Software Applications",
    year = "2022",
    isbn = "9781450391573",
    publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery",
    address = "New York, NY, USA",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3501895",
    doi = "10.1145/3491102.3501895",
    abstract = "Despite an abundance of carefully-crafted tutorials, trial-and-error remains many people’s preferred way to learn complex software. Yet, approaches to facilitate trial-and-error (such as tooltips) have evolved very little since the 1980s. While existing mechanisms work well for simple software, they scale poorly to large feature-rich applications. In this paper, we explore new techniques to support trial-and-error in complex applications. We identify key benefits and challenges of trial-and-error, and introduce a framework with a conceptual model and design space. Using this framework, we developed three techniques: ToolTrack to keep track of trial-and-error progress; ToolTrip to go beyond trial-and-error of single commands by highlighting related commands that are frequently used together; and ToolTaste to quickly and safely try commands. We demonstrate how these techniques facilitate trial-and-error, as illustrated through a proof-of-concept implementation in the CAD software Fusion 360. We conclude by discussing possible scenarios and outline directions for future research on trial-and-error.",
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems",
    articleno = "381",
    numpages = "13",
    keywords = "conceptual model, technique, learning by exploration, software learning, design space, trial-and-error",
    location = "New Orleans, LA, USA",
    series = "CHI '22"
}

UIST '21 AR: 26% (95/367)

Relevance and Applicability of Hardware-Independent Pointing Transfer Functions

Raiza Hanada, Damien Masson, Géry Casiez, Mathieu Nancel, Sylvain Malacria
The 34th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

PDF Website Video Code Presentation DOI Bibtex

@inproceedings{10.1145/3472749.3474767,
    author = "Hanada, Raiza and Masson, Damien and Casiez, G\'{e}ry and Nancel, Mathieu and Malacria, Sylvain",
    title = "Relevance and Applicability of Hardware-Independent Pointing Transfer Functions",
    year = "2021",
    isbn = "9781450386357",
    publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery",
    address = "New York, NY, USA",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1145/3472749.3474767",
    doi = "10.1145/3472749.3474767",
    booktitle = "The 34th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology",
    pages = "524–537",
    numpages = "14",
    keywords = "computer mouse, pointing task, transfer function",
    location = "Virtual Event, USA",
    series = "UIST '21"
}

CHI '20 AR: 24% (760/3126)

Chameleon: Bringing Interactivity to Static Digital Documents

Damien Masson, Sylvain Malacria, Edward Lank, Géry Casiez
Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

PDF Website Video Code Presentation DOI Bibtex

@inproceedings{10.1145/3313831.3376559,
    author = "Masson, Damien and Malacria, Sylvain and Lank, Edward and Casiez, G\'{e}ry",
    title = "Chameleon: Bringing Interactivity to Static Digital Documents",
    year = "2020",
    isbn = "97814503670802004",
    publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery",
    address = "New York, NY, USA",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376559",
    doi = "10.1145/3313831.3376559",
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems",
    articleno = "Paper 6312",
    numpages = "13",
    keywords = "augmented documents, feature matching, interactivity",
    location = "Honolulu, Hawaii US",
    series = "CHI '20"
}

IJHCS '19

Design and evaluation of braced touch for touchscreen input stabilisation

Andy Cockburn, Damien Masson, Carl Gutwin, Philippe Palanque, Alix Goguey, Marcus Yung, Christine Gris, Catherine Trask
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies

DOI Bibtex

@article{COCKBURN201921,
    author = "Cockburn, Andy and Masson, Damien and Gutwin, Carl and Palanque, Philippe and Goguey, Alix and Yung, Marcus and Gris, Christine and Trask, Catherine",
    title = "Design and evaluation of braced touch for touchscreen input stabilisation",
    journal = "International Journal of Human-Computer Studies",
    volume = "122",
    pages = "21 - 37",
    year = "2019",
    issn = "1071-5819",
    doi = "10.1016/j.ijhcs.2018.08.005",
    url = "http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1071581918304609",
    keywords = "Touch interaction, Vibration, Turbulence, Target selection, Aviation, Vehicles",
    abstract = "Incorporating touchscreen interaction into cockpit flight systems offers several potential advantages to aircraft manufacturers, airlines, and pilots. However, vibration and turbulence are challenges to reliable interaction. We examine the design space for braced touch interaction, which allows users to mechanically stabilise selections by bracing multiple fingers on the touchscreen before completing selection. Our goal is to enable fast and accurate target selection during high levels of vibration, without impeding interaction performance when vibration is absent. Three variant methods of braced touch are evaluated, using doubletap, dwell, or a force threshold in combination with heuristic selection criteria to discriminate intentional selection from concurrent braced contacts. We carried out an experiment to test the performance of these methods in both abstract selection tasks and more realistic flight tasks. The study results confirm that bracing improves performance during vibration, and show that doubletap was the best of the tested methods."
}

UIST '17 AR: 23% (73/324)

WhichFingers: Identifying Fingers on Touch Surfaces and Keyboards Using Vibration Sensors

Damien Masson, Alix Goguey, Sylvain Malacria, Géry Casiez
Proceedings of the 30th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

PDF Website Video Code Data Presentation DOI Bibtex

@inproceedings{10.1145/3126594.3126619,
    author = "Masson, Damien and Goguey, Alix and Malacria, Sylvain and Casiez, G\'{e}ry",
    title = "WhichFingers: Identifying Fingers on Touch Surfaces and Keyboards Using Vibration Sensors",
    year = "2017",
    isbn = "9781450349819",
    publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery",
    address = "New York, NY, USA",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1145/3126594.3126619",
    doi = "10.1145/3126594.3126619",
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the 30th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology",
    pages = "41–48",
    numpages = "8",
    keywords = "vibration sensor, touch interaction, finger identification",
    location = "Qu\'{e}bec City, QC, Canada",
    series = "UIST '17"
}

International Publications

National Publications

Demos

PhD Thesis