ABOUT MY RESEARCH
Bridging Worlds: Towards meaningful interactions between humans and intelligent systems
My research is driven by a fundamental question: How do we design interfaces and behaviours that allow humans to trust, understand, and collaborate with increasingly autonomous systems? As we transition from traditional screens to spatial computing and embodied AI, the interaction is no longer just through a flat surface, but through the environment itself.
My work traverses across the intersection of Human-Computer (HCI), Spatial Computing (AR/VR), and Applied AI. I design, develop, and investigate systems that facilitate communication between humans and machines or artefacts, whether that machine is an automated vehicle on a city street, an augmented control room environment, a social robot in a hospital ward, or an artefact in a museum.
RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
My research spans two complementary directions focused on the future of human-machine ecology:
1. Designing and Investigating Novel Interactions
In my PhD research as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie ESR (SHAPE-IT project) at the TU Delft, I designed, developed, and evaluated a series of Augmented Reality interfaces that support pedestrian interactions with automated vehicles. I employed a methodology of increasing ecological validity, progressing from online surveys to CAVE simulators and high-fidelity AR HMD experiments to understand how design variables, like iconography, colour, text, and spatial mapping, influence pedestrian alertness and trust. The work also pioneered the use of Diminished Reality to remove visual occlusions in hazardous scenarios and utilised Large Language Models to streamline the evaluation of qualitative experimental data. My findings culminated in a set of empirical guidelines for safe, transparent AV-pedestrian interactions.
I am currently leading technical design efforts at the Erasmus MC and TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering as part of the NURTURE project, where I am investigating how we can leverage and design AI and robotics solutions to facilitate the work of nurses. I am particularly interested in applying my human factors, design, and CompSci experience and in conjunction with the nurses co-design solutions to the opportunities that were identified.
Furthermore, I apply my expertise in this field to museums, where I have experience designing AR and tangible interfaces that are used to better understand the artefacts on display.
2. Investigating Human Perceptual Attention
Another aspect of my research is investigating human attention during interactions. During my PhD research, I made use of eyetrackers to understand how people interacted with automated vehicles, with and without being exposed to the interfaces I had designed.
Subsequently, in my first postdoc, I designed a series of AR interfaces and employed eyetracking to investigate how the physical effort required to access information (moving the eyes, head, or the entire body) impacts visual attention and task performance. Using the Magic Leap 2, I developed an experimental framework to quantify embodied sampling, measuring how users monitor complex data across distributed world-locked displays versus head-locked interfaces. The work contributed to the SEEV model of attention by establishing a motor-based effort scale, providing critical design guidelines for AR and control room environments that prioritise the centralisation of vital information to optimise human mental resources
I also actively engage with museums to run eyetracking studies to better understand how visitors engage with the works on display. I have actively collaborated with the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where we studied how people observe the Nightwatch (1642) by Rembrandt.
PUBLICATIONS
Third International Workshop on Worker-Robot Relations: Futuring Worker Empowerment through Worldbuilding around Human-Robot Interactions
Wilbert Tabone, Benedetta Lusi, Alessandro Ianniello, J. Micah Prendergast,
Deborah Forster, Olger Siebinga, Maria Luce Lupetti, Eva Verhoef, Dave
Murray-Rust, Marco C. Rozendaal, Ann M. Pendleton-Jullian, David
Abbink
21st ACM/IEEE International
Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), Edinburgh, Scotland 2026
The Road Ahead - Advancing Interactions between Autonomous Vehicles, Pedestrians, and Other Road Users
Avram Block, Swapna Joshi, Wilbert Tabone, Aryaman Pandya, Seonghee Lee, Vaidehi Patil, Nicholas Britten, Paul Schmitt
32nd IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), Busan, South Korea, 2023
An Overview of Interfaces for Automated Vehicles (inside/outside)
Natasha Merat, Yue Yang, Yee Mun Lee, Siri Hegna Berge, Nikol Figalova, Sarang Jokhio, Chen Peng,Naomi Mbelekani, Mohamed Nasser, Amna Pir Muhammed, Wilbert Tabone, Liu Yuan-Cheng, Jonas Bärgman
Deliverable D2.1 in the H2020 MSCA ITN project SHAPE-IT, 2021
Methodological Framework for Modelling and Empirical Approaches
Nikol Figalova, Naomi Yvonne Mbelekani, Chi Zhang, Yue Yang, Chen Peng, Mohamed Nasser, Liu Yuan-Cheng, Amna Pir Muhammed, Wilbert Tabone, Siri Hegna Berge, Sarang Jokhio, Xiaolin He, Amir Hossein Kalantari, Ali Mohammadi, Xiaomi Yang
Deliverable D1.1 in the H2020 MSCA ITN project SHAPE-IT, 2021
Vulnerable road users and the coming wave of automated vehicles - Expert perspectives
Wilbert Tabone, Joost De Winter, Claudia Ackermann, Jonas Bärgman, Martin Baumann, Shuchisnigdha Deb, Colleen Emmenegger, Azra Habibovic, Marjan Hagenzieker, Peter A Hancock, Riender Happee, Josef Krems, John D Lee, Marieke Martens, Natasha Merat, Don Norman, Thomas B Sheridan, Neville A Stanton
Transportation research interdisciplinary perspectives, 2020
PhD Research
My PhD research explored how automated vehicles will interact with pedestrians in the urban environment through augmented reality technology. Nine distinct AR interfaces were designed, developed, and evaluated to assess how different design elements (symbols, text, colour) and distinct mappings of the AR (on the road, on the vehicle, or head-locked) would affect comprehension, and ultimately whether the pedestrian would trust and be convinced to cross in front of an automated vehicle displaying a safe message.
Using increasing levels of ecological validity, from an online questionnaire to a CAVE simulator and an AR HMD experiment, the evaluation also explored how different AR anchoring (and mapping) positions affect pedestrians' crossing initiation times and the intuitiveness of the message. The thesis also explores the use of diminished reality (removal of information) to assist pedestrians in occluded scenarios and the utilisation of Large Language Models in evaluating qualitative data in experiments. The outcomes of the thesis are guidelines based on empirical evidence on how to design effective AR interfaces that promote safe and transparent interactions between pedestrians and automated vehicles.
The research was carried out at the Delft University of Technology (Department of Cognitive Robotics) and the University of Leeds (Institute of Transport Studies), where I was a visitor. The PhD formed part of the SHAPE-IT Project, a Marie Curie ITN.
My work was deemed excellent by the European Commission's (European Research Executive Agency) final external review.
Current Research
As a postdoctoral researcher, I am currently studying how applied AI and robotics may assist nurses in their work. In this position, I am the human-robot interaction expert within a transdisciplinary team of postdocs working from different angles on the same problem: how technology can enhance the future of work. Furthermore, I am investigating the use of spatial computing and worldbuilding as tools that will inform the studies that I conduct throughout the project.
Positions:
Postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Nursing Science, Erasmus Medical Centre.
Postdoctoral researcher at StudioLab, Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, TU Delft.
Current project:
Facing the nursing shortage: innovating for a better future (NURTURE). Collaboration between Convergence and FRAIM.