Chris Bevan | Human-Computer Interaction Research
I'm a mixed-methods HCI specialist producing human-centred, cross-disciplinary R&D with partners from academia, industry and the creative sector.
I've produced award winning research on a range of topics including virtual reality, pervasive computing, social robotics & cybersecurity. I collaborate with many amazing people and institutions including VR City, Queen Mary University of London, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, Bristol Digital Games Lab, Jongsma and O'Neill, Friday Sundae Studios & The Guardian.
I teach immersive technologies as part of the Bristol Interaction Group at the University of Bristol's school of Computer Science. I am also a visiting research fellow of the CREATE Laboratory in the University of Bath's department of Psychology.
Current & Recent Projects
On a Quest to Learn: Creating an AI-powered Quest System for Museums to Deliver Increased Visitor Engagement (CultureQuest) — Exploring new ways for people to interact with museum content through character driven quests.
AI in Antiquity — Exploring AI-powered interactive experiences to help students to engage with the ancient past
Game Conscious Dialogue — What is Game Conscious Dialogue (TM), and what does it mean for the way we design and play video games?
Immersive Experiences for Design Fiction – Theatre and Virtual Reality (eVRafter) — What are the ethical dimensions of offering a digital afterlife in virtual reality?
The Virtual Reality Oracle (VRO): An Immersive Experience of the Ancient Greek Oracle at Dodona — A virtual reality recreation of divination at the ancient oracle of Zeus at Dodona.
Past Projects
Jul 17–Jun 20. Virtual Realities: Immersive Documentary Encounters (VRDocs).
Oct 13–Jan 17. Being There: Humans and Robots in Public Spaces.
Nov 11–Mar 15. SID: An Exploration of Super-Identity.
Mar 10–Feb 11. Plug Back Into Science.
Oct 06–Aug 09. Cityware: Urban Design and Pervasive Systems.
Jan 02–Jan 05. Mobile Bristol.
Publications
"It didn't look the way I had imagined": Students engaging with the past through an immersive virtual reality experience of ancient Greek divination (2026). Computers & Education: X Reality.
CultureQuest: Deploying AI-powered Characters in Museum Spaces to Reimagine Visitor Engagement (2025). In Fantastic Futures 2025.
Using Narrative 360° Video as a Tool to Promote Breast Self-examination (2024). Virtual Reality.
Imagine That! Imaginative Suggestibility Affects Presence in Virtual Reality (2023). In CHI '23: Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
Developing Arts Based Methods for Exploring Virtual Reality Technologies: A University - Industry Case Study (2021). Research for All.
Evaluating Prototype Augmented and Adaptive guidance system to support Industrial Plant Maintenance (2021). In International Conference on Mobile Human-Computer Interaction (MobileHCI '21).
Space Vision: Developing a Game for Vision Screening and Home-Based Monitoring (2021). In CHI PLAY '21.
Did you see what I saw?: Comparing attentional synchrony during 360 degree video viewing in head mounted display and tablets (2020). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.
The Sugargotchi: An Embodied Digital Pet to Raise Children's Awareness of their Dental Health and Free Sugar Consumption (2020). CHI PLAY '20 Extended Abstracts Proceedings of the 2020 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play Companion Works In Progress.
'You wouldn't get that from watching TV!': Exploring audience responses to virtual reality non-fiction in the home (2020). Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies.
Behind The Curtain Of The "Ultimate Empathy Machine": On The Composition Of Virtual Reality Nonfiction Experiences (2019). In In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Proceedings (CHI 2019), May 4–9, 2019, Glasgow, Scotland UK.
Use of a Non-Human Robot Audience to Induce Stress Reactivity in Human Participants (2019). Computers in Human Behavior.
Did You See What I Saw?: Comparing User Synchrony When Watching 360 Video In HMD Vs Flat Screen (2019). In 2019 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR).
Using Design Fiction to Explore the Ethics of VR 'In the Wild' (2019). Proceedings of the 2019 ACM International Conference on Interactive Experiences for TV and Online Video (TVX19).
What can the first years of VR nonfiction tell us about its future? Looking back on Virtual Reality nonfiction: 2012-2018 (2019). Immerse.
A Mediography Of Virtual Reality Non-Fiction: Insights And Future Directions (2018). In Proceedings of the 2018 ACM International Conference on Interactive Experiences for TV and Online Video (TVX '18).
Designing Games For Vision Screening: Lessons Learned From Observing Preschool Video Game Play (2018). In Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play Companion Extended Abstracts (CHI PLAY '18 Extended Abstracts).
Investigating Social Evaluative Threat (SET) Using A Robotic Stress Testing Panel (2017). Psychosomatic Medicine.
Evaluating a mobile spontaneous eye blink tracker for use in tele-presence HRI as a low bandwidth social communicative cue (2016). In 25th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN '16).
Different strokes for different folks? Revealing the physical characteristics of smartphone users from their swipe gestures (2016). International Journal of Human-Computer Studies.
Predicting sex as a soft-biometrics from device interaction swipe gestures (2016). Pattern Recognition Letters.
Shaking Hands and Cooperation in Tele-present Human-Robot Negotiation (2015). In In Proceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI '15).
Workshop on Designing and Evaluating Social Robots for Public Settings (2015). International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2015.
Who am I? Representing the self offline and in different online contexts (2014). Computers in Human Behavior.
What does your profile really say about you?: privacy warning systems and self-disclosure in online social network spaces (2013). In CHI '13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '13).
Factors In The Emergence And Sustainability Of Self-Regulation (2013). In AISB Convention. Social Coordination: Principles, Artefacts and Theories. Exeter, UK.
Being there: humans and robots in public spaces (2013). In G. Herrmann, M. J. Pearson, A. Lenz, P. Bremner, A. Spiers, & U. Leonards (Eds.), Social Robotics: 5th International Conference, ICSR 2013, Bristol, UK.
Influence of User Choice on Perception of Wireless Connection Genuineness and Security (2011). In In Proceedings of the First Workshop on Pervasive Urban Applications (PURBA) in conjunction with the Ninth International Conference on Pervasive Computing (San Francisco, June, 12-15).
Human to Computer Trust in Urban Pervasive Computing (2011). A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Supervisors: Eamonn O'Neill (Computer Science), Danaë Stanton Fraser (Psychology) & Tim Kindberg (HP Labs).
Plug Back Into Science (2011). E&T Education.
Authenticating Public Wireless Networks with Physical Evidence (2009). In IEEE International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob '09).
Authenticating ubiquitous services: a study of wireless hotspot access (2009). In In Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Ubiquitous computing (UbiComp '09).
Mobile service audio notifications: intuitive semantics and noises (2008). In In Proceedings of the 20th Australasian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction: Designing for Habitus and Habitat (OZCHI '08).
Measuring trust in wi-fi hotspots (2008). In In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '08).
Breaking The Campus Bubble: Informed, Engaged, Connected (2007). In In Proceedings of the 21st British HCI Group Annual Conference on People and Computers (BCS-HCI '07).
Walking the GPS Line : Insights on the use of shape walking as a game mechanic (2006). In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Digital Interactive Media Entertainment and Arts (DIME-ARTS 2006).