UCLA Engineering Professor Featured in Wall Street Journal on Work-From-Home Tech

Xiang “Anthony” Chen, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering whose research centers on how humans interact with computers, was highlighted in a March 9 Wall Street Journal article on the evolution of laptop technologies for the work-from-home era. Chen, who leads the UCLA Human-Computer Interaction Research Group, shared that more people will adapt to using multiple screens and alternative technologies working remotely. An excerpt from the article is quoted below.

More, and better, screens

Screen sizes of individual devices are unlikely to get bigger, but the total amount of screen real estate will increase. People will prefer using multiple monitors for better multitasking — to access other applications while videoconferencing, for example.

People will benefit from software that can flexibly migrate their work across multiple screens, ranging from situated workstations to laptop computers to mobile devices. For instance, people might want to move their meeting to a different device to enable a walk outside or a move to the kitchen.

If there is a strong demand for working outside, software interfaces will have to become more adaptive, adjusting contrast and brightness.

We will need longer-lasting batteries to power brighter screens. And computer processors and operating systems need to be smarter to allocate resources from elsewhere if maximizing screen brightness is a higher priority. We might even see alternate display technologies (such as head-mounted retinal displays) that can avoid the impact of outdoor light.

—Xiang “Anthony” Chen, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, UCLA Samueli School of Engineering