Whether in the factory or in front of their screen, humans are often confused by the many technological innovations. They should be a little less, at least in Quebec, thanks to the 18 million funding that HEC Montreal will announce this Friday.
This record funding for HEC will be used by the largest university user experience (UX) laboratory in the world, Tech3Lab. Half comes from the federal government, 25% from the provincial and 25% from 13 partners, including the Société Radio-Canada, Desjardins, Sobeys and Videotron.
“It’s a historic moment,” says Pierre-Majorique Léger, co-director of Tech3Lab, with a smirk. We are in a rather interesting moment in the history of technological development, we are experiencing a transformation in the way of interacting with interfaces of all kinds. »
For the professor in the information technology department, generative artificial intelligences like ChatGPT or Dall-E have disrupted the way we interact with technology. More than US$42 billion was invested this year in this area in the United States, he points out.
“Eighty-five percent of projects are failures. Part of the failure comes from the misunderstanding of how the tool will be used by humans. That’s our job,” he explains.
For example, we examine the movement of the eyes, the expression of emotions, the electrodermal and encephalographic activity, as well as the heartbeat of participants to assess the ease with which they master a website or a factory production module.
The data is combined using a method that earned HEC Montréal its first patent in 2019, thanks to seven researchers including Mr. Léger and Sylvain Sénécal, co-director of the Tech3Lab and professor in the marketing department of HEC Montréal. We can then better understand a user’s reaction to a site, an application or an interface, and list best practices.
The 18 million announced this Friday will be used for two research programs led by MM. Léger and Sénécal, assisted by around ten researchers from HEC. The first program aims to help organizations develop interfaces that will be easy to use, the other to improve and make UX measurements more accessible.
Few large companies in Quebec have the means to set up their own research laboratory in this area, and those that do need experts, underlines Sylvain Sénécal, hence the importance of Tech3Lab. “Some of our largest partners who have their laboratory have recruited our students, it’s part of our mission. For other small companies, for Alloprof for example, it is not in their strategic plan. They can still access the cutting edge of methods, which gives them access they would not otherwise have. »
This symbiosis with private business is one of the prides of Tech3Lab, underlines Mr. Léger, and allows for more effective training. “Instead of training students in an ivory tower, we bring them real problems to solve. Like in a university hospital center where we deal with real patients. »
