Abschlussarbeiten

Wir bieten jederzeit eine Auswahl an studentischen Abschlussarbeiten rund um die Themen Interface Design, Interaction Design und User Experience Research an. Um einen ersten Eindruck von unseren Themen und aktuellen Forschungsarbeiten zu bekommen, informieren Sie sich gerne vorab mit einem Blick in unsere wissenschaftlichen Publikationen und entsprechenden Beiträgen der Konferenzen: CHI, DIS, MAB, TEI, UIST, MUM, MuC, IIS.

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Prototyping public urban interfaces is a challenge for interface designers. Eight challenges in the realm of media façades are addressed by Dalsgaard et al. in [1]. This thesis topic addresses callenge number 3. Increased demands for robustness and stability, by looking into existing solutions of so called Fieldbus Networks (e.g. CAN-Bus, ...) and applying those to media architectural interfaces. Furthermore, the distributed approach bears the potential of easing challenges of prototyping by product designers. By transferring concepts and technologies from automotive industry to urban interaction design (UIxD), we expect to overcome recurrent challenges in this discipline.

References
[1] Dalsgaard, Peter & Halskov, Kim. (2010). Designing urban media façades: Cases and challenges. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings. 4. 2277-2286.

Understanding and analyzing real world situations is a difficult task. Often direct observation methods are the most fruitful qualitative research methods, but may miss out certain aspects, due to the limitations of the perceptual abilities of the researcher when “in the field”.

Video can support findings and provide a good data basis. However, in Urban HCI when analyzing Interactive Installations environmental lighting is often very low and conventional video tracking algorithms do not work. Hence, we have developed a half-automated tracking software that is used to analyze video material. The software under development is called “Comprende Mapper” and is a 60% finished program written in JAVA that has to be turned into a production software. A number of custom fuctions for video Analysis have been integrated, of which some need refactoring. Other need better visualization techniques which yet have to be invented.

References
[1] Greenhalgh, Chris & French, Andy & Tennent, Paul & Humble, Jan & Crabtree, Andy. (2008). From ReplayTool to Digital Replay System.
[2] Brundell, Patrick & Tennent, Paul & Greenhalgh, Chris & Knight, Dawn & Crabtree, Andy & O'Malley, Claire & Ainsworth, Shaaron & Clarke, David & Carter, Ronald & Adolphs, Svenja. (2008). Digital Replay System (DRS)-a tool for interaction analysis. Proceedings of the 2008 International Conference on Learning Sciences (Workshop on Interaction Analysis).

Public interfaces in HCI research are rarely speaking the language of architecture and thus lack the materiality and form of what our city is made of. This thesis topic aims at creating a physical interface for a public display situated at Bamberg's central bus station. In collaboration with the smart city initiative, a novel way of interaction shall be invented based on an early conceptual design.

References
[1] Linda Hirsch. 2019. Designing interactive interfaces by keeping the natural beauty of public places. In Adjunct Proceedings of the 2019 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and Proceedings of the 2019 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers (UbiComp/ISWC '19 Adjunct). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 969–972.
[2] Hirsch, Linda & Butz, Andreas & Mall, Christian. (2021). Do Touch This: Turning a Plaster Bust Into a Tangible Interface.
[3] Hamed S. Alavi, Elizabeth F. Churchill, Mikael Wiberg, Denis Lalanne, Peter Dalsgaard, Ava Fatah gen Schieck, and Yvonne Rogers. 2019. Introduction to Human-Building Interaction (HBI): Interfacing HCI with Architecture and Urban Design. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. 26, 2, Article 6 (April 2019), 10 pages.

Generative künstliche Intelligenz ermöglicht uns eigene Vorstellungen über einen Sachverhalt oder Wunsch schnell zu visualisieren. Diese neue Möglichkeit birgt das Potential Kommunikationsprozesse im Entwurf, der Problemfindung oder der Bedarfsermittlung zu verbessern in dem Missverständnisse reduziert werden. Namhafte Designagenturen nutzen Illustratoren in Erstgesprächen um in Wort und Bild gleichzeitig Anforderungen zu ermitteln und schneller zu einem gemeinsamen Verständnis für einen Entwurf zu gelangen. Ein Bürgerbeteiligungsprozess kann von einer solchen Strategie, der erhöhten Kommunikationsbasis, besonders profitieren, da die Diversität an Denkmustern und die dadurch resultierenden Missverständnisse besonders hoch sind. Dieses Projekt beschäftigt sich mit neuen Wegen der Bedarfsermittlung in öffentlichen Bürgerbeteiligungsprozessen unter zuhilfenahme generativer künstlicher Intelligenz, sowie gruppenzentrierter Interaktionstechniken.
 

The sociologist Richard Sennett introduced the concept of the "permeable membrane" in the context of urban studies and social interaction. Sennett's idea revolves around the notion of boundaries in urban environments and how they influence human interactions. Facades constitute the boundary of public an private and shall remain for most cases with this function. However, there are cases in which Facades are required to become inviting for the public. This project wants to investigate interaction techniques of doublesided public displays in shop windows, promoting the idea of the permeable membrane: Flexible Boundaries, Urban Design, Social Integration, Balancing in- and out-flow.