Becky Spittle

As a driven researcher and PhD student within the Digital Media Technology Lab (DMT Lab) at Birmingham City University, Becky is committed to presenting high-quality, impactful work. Her research is focused on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), most notably how input methods can be best designed and employed for Extended Reality (XR) technologies (i.e. Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR) and Virtual Reality (VR)). Becky is always seeking opportunities to innovate, collaborate and build on professional experience. She is keen to apply her understanding of user-centred research practices, to provide meaningful contributions to the field of HCI which have wider societal impact. She thrives off applying logical thinking and methodical approaches to implement new concepts and solve real-world problems, and is passionate about encouraging design best practices to deliver useful and inclusive technologies.

Throughout her doctoral studies, she has had her research included in top publication venues, namely IEEE International Symposium of Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR) and IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG). She has also been a key member of influential projects. Most recently, she was a facilitator during a series of AR/VR accessibility research workshops funded by Facebook/Meta. The aim of the workshops was to explore the challenges and barriers associated with developing inclusive immersive experiences. The end goal is to map out a research agenda that can accelerate impact in this area over the short-medium term.

Becky has an ever-growing passion for technology. After successfully completing her A-Level qualifications, she moved on to attain a first-class BSc (Hons) degree in Music Technology. For her final year project, she designed and constructed a stereophonic microphone stand to position two pencil microphones into industry standard formations (such as XY and ORTF). This prototype was controlled wirelessly via a mobile application, which communicated with the motorised microphone stand using the Arduino microcontroller/Integrated Development Environment and a Wi-Fi Module.

Following her BSc degree, she received a scholarship to complete an MSc degree in User Experience design. It was during this time she developed skills in Visual Design, User-Centred Research, App and Web Development, Accessible Design and Scientific Research Practices. She also gained a strong interest in Advanced and Immersive Technologies.

For her individual MSc project, she explored how computer vision technologies could be used to enhance user experience when grocery shopping. Becky designed and developed a proof-of-concept mobile AR application prototype, that could detect and recognize objects on a user’s shopping list when walking around a supermarket. She again achieved the highest overall grade of Distinction which led to being offered a fully funded PhD scholarship in September 2020.

Becky is dedicated to learning how societies can best utilise and interface with novel computing systems in the future, hence her strong desire to be involved with the development and widespread adoption of Advanced and immersive technologies.