PIS
LAB

Personal Informatics System Lab

Study the individual. Design for everyone.

We study the person inside the system—then build interfaces, environments, and embodied agents that can sense, explain, adapt, and remain under human control.

Explore our projects
Abstract blue orbital forms representing an adaptive intelligent system

Our research loop

Sense.
Understand.
Adapt.

  1. 01Individual
    signals
  2. 02Human
    states
  3. 03Adaptive
    systems

From human variation to intelligent systems that respond with care.

Cognitive collaborationMultimodal sensingAdaptive XRTangible intelligenceHuman factorsPersonalized systems
01 Idea

Superintelligence
serves the individual.

Personal Informatics begins with the individual.

PIS Lab studies how people perceive, understand, anticipate, and direct intelligent systems. Through interaction design, we turn computational capability into human capability—creating products, environments, intelligent hardware, and agents that respond to individual needs and support a harmonious human–AI relationship.

Researcher examining transparent layers that externalize an intelligent system's reasoning
Design principle Understanding people and designing interaction turns intelligence into human capability.
  1. 01

    Perceivable

    Critical change reaches the right person at the right moment.

  2. 02

    Understandable

    Evidence, boundaries, and uncertainty form a usable mental model.

  3. 03

    Predictable

    People can inspect possible consequences before they commit.

  4. 04

    Controllable

    Questioning, steering, overriding, and recovery remain explicit.

02 Working systems

Ideas tested
in real systems.

We do not begin with a technology category. We begin with a human situation—then combine psychology, AI, design, and engineering until the whole loop works.

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03 How we work

Insight emerges
through interaction.

Every project begins by inventing an interaction, puts it in front of people, builds a model from what emerges, and returns that knowledge to a product that can serve individuals better.

  1. 01

    Prototype

    Invent a visual, auditory, tangible, or embodied interaction, then build enough of it to test the idea.

  2. 02

    Observe

    Put people inside the prototype and study the behavior, strategies, breakdowns, and new questions that emerge.

  3. 03

    Model

    Turn observations into a working model that explains the new problem and guides the next design decision.

  4. 04

    Personalize

    Refine the prototype into a product, validate it in use, and adapt the service to individual needs.

04 In the studio

Research happens
by building.

Everyone in the lab moves from a research question to a working prototype, then uses live interaction to make assumptions, system behavior, and human response testable.

Human–robot interaction Testing reciprocity and timing in embodied interaction.
Immersive environments Prototyping social and spatial interaction at human scale.
Eye-tracking experiments Examining visual attention and scan paths in simulated tasks.
Adaptive XR training A height-exposure slice linked to real-time human-state feedback.
05 People

Different disciplines.
One working table.

Psychology, human factors, AI, interaction design, and robotics meet through shared projects—not parallel silos.

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Join the lab

Bring a hard
human problem.

We welcome students, collaborators, and partners who want to turn complex human conditions in the age of superintelligence into research that can be built, tested, and used.

poly.zhsun@outlook.com