About me

Barrett Ens is an Associate Professor in the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science at the University of British Columbia (Okanagan Campus). He is an emerging leader in the rapidly growing field of Immersive Analytics, which bridges expertise across the areas human-computer interaction, data visualisation, augmented reality and virtual reality. Before joining UBCO, Barrett was a member of the Embodied Visualisation research group in the Department of Human-Centred Computing at Monash University and Course Director of the Bachelor of Information Technology degree. He recevied a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Manitoba in 2016. During this program, he also completed two research internships with the User Interface Research Group at Autodesk Research. He later worked as an NSERC Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Empathic Computing Lab at the University of South Australia.

Research Interests

Barrett’s current research focuses on enabling next-generation user interfaces for emerging display and interaction technologies. With an aim of creating useful interface designs for engaging and productive experiences, his research explores how to take advantage of human spatial abilities for manipulating and understanding information beyond the confines of traditional flat screens. Maturing technologies such as augmented reality, digital twins and wearable computing devices allow us to begin integrating computing activities into the physical world. This fundamental change in interface design will provide new opportunities to interact with smart environments, explore large data sets, and solve everyday problems.

Seleted Publications

MobileHCI 2023
Drawing Connections: Designing Situated Links for Immersive Maps
Zeinab Ghaemi, Barrett Ens, Ulrich Engelke, Bernhard Jenny
Pre-print Video Publisher

CHI 2023
User-Driven Constraints for Layout Optimisation in Augmented Reality
Aziz Niyazov, Barrett Ens, Kadek Ananta Satriadi, Nicolas Mellado, Loic Barthe, Tim Dwyer, Marcos Serrano


CHI 2023
GestureExplorer: Immersive Visualisation and Exploration of Gesture Data
Ang Li, Jiazhou Liu, Maxime Cordeil, Jack Topliss, Thammathip Piumsomboon, Barrett Ens
Video Repo

CHI 2023
DataDancing: An Exploration of the Design Space For Visualisation View Management for 3D Surfaces and Spaces
Jiazhou Liu, Barrett Ens, Arnaud Prouzeau, Jim Smiley, Isobel Kara Nixon, Tim Dwyer


ISS 2022
Effects of Display Layout on Spatial Memory for Immersive Environments
Jiazhou Liu, Arnaud Prouzeau, Barrett Ens, Tim Dwyer
Pre-print Video Publisher

Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 2022
Proxemic maps for Immersive Visualization
Zeinab Ghaemi, Ulrich Engelke, Barrett Ens, Bernhard Jenny
Pre-print Publisher

VR 2022
TimeTables: Embodied Exploration of Immersive Spatio-Temporal Data
Yidan Zhang, Barrett Ens, Kadek Ananta Satriadi, Arnaud Prouzeau, Sarah Goodwin
Pre-print Video Publisher

CHI 2022
Tangible Globes for Data Visualisation in Augmented Reality
Kadek Satriadi, Jim Smiley, Barrett Ens, Maxime Cordeil, Tobias Czauderna, Benjamin Lee, Ying Yang, Tim Dwyer, Bernhard Jenny
Pre-print Video Publisher Repo

VIS 2022
RoboHapalytics: A Robot Assisted Haptic Controller for Immersive Analytics
Shaozhang Dai, Jim Smiley, Tim Dwyer, Barrett Ens, Lonni Besancon
Pre-print Video Publisher

New Frontiers in Cloud Computing and Internet of Things, 2022
Digital Twin of a Cloud Data Centre: An OpenStack Cluster Visualisation
Sheridan Gomes, Adel N Toosi, Barrett Ens
Pre-print Publisher

Computers and Graphics, 2022
Cognitive load considerations for Augmented Reality in network security training
Bradley Herbert, Grant Wigley, Barrett Ens, Mark Billinghurst
Pre-print Publisher

CHI 2021
A design space exploration of worlds in miniature
Kurtis Danyluk, Barrett Ens, Bernhard Jenny, Wesley Willett
Pre-print Video Publisher

CHI 2021
Quantitative data visualisation on virtual globes
Kadek Ananta Satriadi, Barrett Ens, Tobias Czauderna, Maxime Cordeil, Bernhard Jenny
Pre-print Video Publisher

CHI 2021
Grand challenges in immersive analytics
Barrett Ens, Benjamin Bach, Maxime Cordeil, Ulrich Engelke, Marcos Serrano, Wesley Willett, Arnaud Prouzeau, Christoph Anthes, Wolfgang Büschel, Cody Dunne, Tim Dwyer, Jens Grubert, Jason H Haga, Nurit Kirshenbaum, Dylan Kobayashi, Tica Lin, Monsurat Olaosebikan, Fabian Pointecker, David Saffo, Nazmus Saquib, Dieter Schmalstieg, Danielle Albers Szafir, Matt Whitlock, Yalong Yang
Pre-print Video Publisher

Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies 2021
On-road virtual reality autonomous vehicle (VRAV) simulator: An empirical study on user experience
Xin Zou, Steve O'Hern, Barrett Ens, Selby Coxon, Pascal Mater, Raymond Chow, Michael Neylan, Hai L Vu
Pre-print Publisher

IEEE VIS 2020
Uplift: A Tangible and Immersive Tabletop System for Casual Collaborative Visual Analytics
Barrett Ens, Sarah Goodwin, Arnaud Prouzeau, Fraser Anderson, Florence Y. Wang, Samuel Gratzl, Zac Lucarelli, Brendan Moyle, Jim Smiley, Professor Tim Dwyer
Pre-print Video Publisher

ISS 2020
Maps Around Me: 3D Multiview Layouts in Immersive Spaces
Kadek Ananta Satriadi, Barrett Ens, Maxime Cordeil, Tobias Czauderna, Bernhard Jenny
Pre-print Video Publisher

For a full list of publications, please follow the Google Scholar link above.