Show: all, bachelor theses, master theses, project theses, diploma theses, PWAL
| Type | Advisor | Title |
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| MT/BT/PT/DT |
Abschlussarbeiten im Bereich Usable Security and Privacy
Students interested in topics related to usable security and privacy have the opportunity to do their master theses / bachelor theses / practical research project (Einzelpraktikum) at the Research Institute CODE (Bundeswehr University Munich). We offer a large variety of topics, including but not limited to:
If you are interested in working with us, please get in touch with Dr. Ken Pfeuffer. Details |
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Interaktionsverhalten auf Smartphones
Liebe Studieninteressierte, im Rahmen eines Forschungsprojektes untersuchen wir das Interaktionsverhalten mit Smartphones. Dazu suchen wir Teilnehmer für eine kurze Online-Studie (Bearbeitungsdauer: 5 Minuten). Um an der Studie teilzunehmen, rufen Sie bitte den folgenden Link mit ihrem Smartphone auf: Bei Rückfragen wenden Sie sich bitte an Kai Lebruschka. Besten Dank für die Teilnahme! Details |
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| BT/MT | Dr. Yomna Abdelrahman |
Usable Security in VR/AR
Problem StatementUsable security for virtual and augmented reality systems (VR/AR) is an area that is relatively underexplored. This thesis aims to investigate the feasibility of authentication mechanisms for VR/AR, while considering the usability and security aspects, specifically potential attacks. Tasks
Preferred (but not necessary) qualification
Details |
| BT/MT | Dr. Yomna Abdelrahman |
Usable Security in Smart Homes
Problem StatementOur homes are currently equipped with ubiquitous computing services, be it our smart phones, smart TVs, Alex, or lifelogging devices. The availability of these devices offers novel opportunities for user authentication, as well as raises privacy concerns and potential novel security attacks. This thesis, aims to explore the raised opportunities and challenges from the availability of smart devices in our daily vicinity. Tasks
Preferred (but not necessary) qualification
Details |
| BT/MT | Dr. Yomna Abdelrahman |
Self Perception in VR
Problem StatementRendering the userâs body in virtual reality increases immersion and presence â the illusion of âbeing thereâ. Recent technology enables determining the pose and position of the body to render them accordingly while interacting within the virtual environment. However, it is unclear how users perceive different avatar styles. Additionally, how any manipulation in the avatars representation would influence the usersâ states. In this thesis, we aim to explore the influencing factors of avatar perception. Tasks
Preferred (but not necessary) qualification
Details |
| BT/MT | Dr. Yomna Abdelrahman |
Unobtrusive Stress Detection in Virtual Reality
Problem StatementIn the 21st Century, mental health disorders like stress, anxiety and depression have become a part of our daily lives. Current digital systems are largely blind to usersâ stress states. Systems that adapt to users' states show great potential for creating novel user experiences. However, most approaches for sensing stress, involve obtrusive technologies, such as physiological sensors attached to users' bodies and not yet adapted to VR/AR. In this thesis, we aim to explore unobtrusive sensors for detecting stress, while considering VR/AR setups. Tasks
Preferred (but not necessary) qualification
Details |
| BT/MT | Dr. Yomna Abdelrahman |
Stress-aware User Interfaces in Virtual Reality
Problem StatementIn the 21st Century, mental health disorders like stress, anxiety and depression have become a part of our daily lives. Current digital systems are largely blind to usersâ stress states. Systems that adapt to users' states show great potential for creating novel user experiences. In this thesis, we aim to explore unobtrusive sensors for detecting stress and approaches of stress management in VR/AR setups. Tasks
Preferred (but not necessary) qualification
Details |
| BT/MT | Florian Bemmann |
Reducing study drop-off rate with fun fact memes on user's log data
Description:Longitudinal studies in the wild face high drop-off rates. Also, most mobile sensing applications that passively log user data over multiple weeks lack any type of benefit for the user, except monetary compensation. Thus, one currently ongoing effort in the PhoneStudy mobile sensing project is to leverage a user's logged data and present it in a way that triggers an intrinsic motivation to stay in the study. In this work, your task is to evaluate whether fun fact memes created from the user's log data. We want to find out whether they are entertaining and curiosity-fostering enough, to reduce the drop-off rate of longitudinal mobile sensing studies. Your work consists in:
You need:
Details |
| Daniel Buschek |
User Interface Design for Visualization & Control of Measurements in Cell Research
We're looking for a practical research student for user research and UI design in the context of an interdisciplinary research project at the intersection of Physics, Biology, and Computer Science. You will be working as part of a team of researchers and students from these domains. Tasks:
Requirements:
The project is initially offered as an Einzelpraktikum for Master students (Media Informatics, MCI) for one or two semesters (6/12 ECTS, respectively). Interested?Send your application with transcript of records and examples of your UI design work via email to Dr. Daniel Buschek. Details |
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| Daniel Buschek, Emanuel von Zezschwitz |
Einzelpraktikum Effizienzanalyse Mobiler Authentifizierung
Effizienz ist ein wichtiger Faktor der Usabilityforschung. Im Allgemeinen beschreibt die Effizienz eines Systems den Aufwand, welchen ein Nutzer erbringen muss, um eine bestimmte Aufgabe zu erfüllen. Effizienz wird meist in Zeit gemessen und evaluiert. Die wissensbasierte Authentifizierung (bspw. PIN) stellt ein Beispiel für eine solche Aufgabe dar. Als Maß der Effizienz dient hier in der Regel die Zeit, welche für die korrekte Eingabe eines Passwortes/PIN benötigt wird. Neue Erkenntnisse deuten jedoch darauf hin, dass es neben der aktiven Eingabe weitere Phasen gibt, welche sowohl die gemessene als auch die gefühlte Effizienz des Mechanismus beeinflussen. Dabei ist neben der reinen Existenz dieser Phasen auch das Verhältnis der Phasen zueinander maßgebend für die User Experience. In diesem Einzelpraktikum soll der Einfluss der verschiedenen Authentifizierungsphasen auf die Effizienz untersucht werden. Dafür sollen mehrere Modifikationen eines PIN-Eingabesystems entwickelt und im Feldtest studiert werden. Aufgaben:
Bei Erfolg des Projektes besteht die Möglichkeit an einer internationalen Publikation mitzuwirken. Details |
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| MT | Dennis Dietz |
Self-made tracking system for sports analysis in VR
DescriptionThis projects purpose is to investigate in building a full body tracking system based on self-made trackers which are usable by the HTC VIVE and its Lighthouses. We want to compare the original HTC VIVE tracker with a varying amount of self-made trackers in order to use it for VR sport analysis. Tasks
Preferred qualification
Suggested Reading
Details |
| MT | Heiko Drewes |
Advanced Interaction with Gaze-based Head Gestures for Augmented Reality
Gaze-based head gestures are a hands-free interaction technique using the occulo-vestibular reflex. A bachelor thesis showed already that this interaction technique works for checking checkboxes and answering dialogs.
This thesis should research whether advanced interaction, such as drag & drop operations, using scrollbars and manipulation of 3D objects, is possible with gaze-based head gestures. Tasks
Details |
| MT | Heiko Drewes |
Detecting Smooth Pursuit Targets in Videos
The eye does smooth pursuit movements when following moving objects and such movements can be used for gaze-based interfaces. Typically the pursuit targets are generated by software. In contrast this thesis should research the detectibility of pursuit targets in a video.
Tasks
Details |
| BT/MT | Michael Froehlich |
Towards Usable Blockchain Interfaces - Interaction Concepts for Key Management
Problem StatementPublic key cryptography is a concept frequently used in computer science - however recent increase in popularity of blockchain systems (e.g. Bitcoin, Ethereum) now requires users outside of this domain to deal with private/ public key cryptography. The goal of this thesis is to look at public key cryptography from an HCI perspective and analyze interaction concepts for key management. How do (end-) users interact with blockchain systems? How do they deal with the challenges of public key cryptography? And which novel interaction concepts â building on existing work â can be developed to reduce complexity of key management? Tasks
Preferred qualification
Links
Details |
| BT/MT | Michael Froehlich |
Towards Usable Blockchain Interfaces - Understanding Seed Phrase Storage in Practice
Problem StatementAn increasingly popular method to generate private/ public key pairs for cryptocurrency wallets is Hierarchical Deterministic Key Generation based on a series of random words. These words (mnemonics) can be stored and subsequently used to (re-)generate the original private key file, in case it is lost. The goal of this thesis is to analyze how users actually store these phrases in practice, to look at the benefits and drawback of different strategies and ultimately develop a new concept for improved handling of mnemonics. Tasks
Preferred qualification
Links
Details |
| BT/MT | Ceenu George |
Visualizing dance movements in VR
DescriptionIn this project, we would like to explore how VR can be used to enhance Dance experiences. From a performer perspective, the VR setting may be used to further visualize movements for example. From the observer perspective, it would be interesting to see whether these enhancements are viewed simply on a digital screen or through an HMD as well. Can it happen synchronously or only one-after-the-other? The aim of this thesis is to explore this topic. Tasks
Requirements
Details |
| BT/MT | Ceenu George |
Ergonomics of VR/AR Interactions for Usable Security
DescriptionIn this project, we would like to create a design space for usable security interactions in AR/VR that are also ergonomically appropriate. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how current interactions affect our body long-term and whether they need improvement. Tasks
Requirements
Details |
| MT/BT | Ceenu George |
Interrupting a HMD user in a mixed collaborative setting
DescriptionHMDs are used in collaborative settings, whereby the HMD user is often confronted with real world users that are not actively participating in the virtual or augmented reality. We are interested how these two different sets of people (HMD users vs. real world users) interact with each other, for example during interruption. Tasks
Requirements
Details |
| MT | Linda Hirsch |
Exploring attention-aware and unobtrusive interfaces integrated in public places
Public places are visited by a multitude of visitors with different intentions what the place should be used for. While one person wants to relax, another would like to know more about the cultural and historical context of it. A potential solution could be unobtrusive and attention-aware interfaces. We want to explore technical solutions and designs that tackle the aforementioned issue.
Tasks:
Requirements:
Suggested Reading:
Details |
| BT | Linda Hirsch |
Connecting a range of historic places at place and time of today
Visiting a cultural heritage site, the visitors are normally required to put the site into context by themselves. Thereby, many sites share history, events or public figures that passed by them. This project wants to connect the historically existing sites of today that share a common story.
Tasks:
Requirements:
Suggested Reading:
Details |
| BT | Linda Hirsch |
Integrated, interactive interfaces providing information about the deceased
Graveyards are places to mourn the deaths, but also public places used as a recreation area. While navigation and information apps exist, that provide more details about the place, the interaction with personal devices interrupts the experience and changes the perception of it. Nonetheless, visitors might be interested in their surroundings and keen to learn more. Interesting information is apparently anecdotes about the deceased or details about the graveyard development. How can this information be provided without interrupting or destroying the current character? How should the design of natural and hidden interfaces be for integrated, interactive technology in a graveyard?
Tasks:
Requirements:
Suggested Reading:
Details |
| BT/MT | Ville Mäkelä |
On-Body Gestures
DescriptionMid-air gestures enable new and exciting ways of interacting with technology, especially because devices can be interacted with from a distance. Typically, gesturing follows the pointing metaphor, wherein one or both arms are extended to point towards the device, e.g., a display. However, a persistent problem is the expressive and novel nature of the interaction: users may feel uncomfortable gesturing in places wherein they receive unwanted attention. Additionally, prolonged gesturing can lead to fatigue. The aim of this project is to investigate new approaches to gestural interaction that could make the interaction less visible and less tiresome. In particular, the aim is to investigate gestures that are carried out by holding the arm against the body, instead of reaching out with the arm. Tasks
Requirements
Details |
| MT | Christian Mai |
Evaluierung und Konzeptionierung einer öffentlichen VR Installation im Deutschen Museum (München)
Voll immersive Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) wie die Oculus Rift oder die HTC Vive ermöglichen ein direktes Erleben digitaler Daten. Virtuell kann man unter Verwendung dieser Technologien an Orte reisen, die weit entfernt sind, zerstörte Städte als digitale Replikaten erkunden oder Technologien wie den ein Mondfahrzeug erleben. Das deutsche Museum nutzt Virtual Reality um in ihrer Ausstellung den Besucher Dinge zugänglich zu machen. So kann man dort Exponate in ihrem ursprünglichen Kontext erleben, wie etwa die Flugmaschine von Lindbergh.Eine besondere Herausforderung die sich im Museumsalltag ergibt ist der Betrieb des Systems im Zusammen spiel mit den Benutzern. Die internationalen Besucher aller Altersklassen bilden dabei eine sehr diverse Gruppe aus oft naiven Nutzern gegenüber VR Technologie. Die für Museumsinstallationen verfügbaren HMDs stammen aus dem Konsumerbereich und haben den Nachteil, dass sie rein technologisch für Heimanwendungen entwickelt wurden. Zudem ist der Dauerbetreib von HMDs für hohe Besucherzahlen eine Herausforderung, die in den letzten Jahrzehnten Entwicklung von HMD basierten Systemen keine Rolle gespielt hat.Die ausgeschriebene Masterarbeit besteht daher aus drei Teilen.Im ersten Teil wirst du in Zusammenarbeit mit dem deutschen Museum das Nutzererlebnis ind er aktuellen Ausstellung analysieren. Als Grundlage dienen hier für Methoden die aus der Forschung zu Public Displays. Besonders wichtig ist dabei die Analyse nicht auf die Zeit in VR zu begrenzen. Der Nutzerstrom an einer solchen Installaion beginnt mit dem Moment in dem der Nutzer auf das System aufmerksam wird und endet nach der Nutzung des HMDs, wenn der Kunde sein Erlebnis an andere kommuniziert. Dieser Ergebnisse sollen mit einer Literaturrecherche zu Methoden und Gestaltungsrichtlinien von öffentlichen Installationen verbunden werden. Das Ergebnis dieser Analyse ist eine Kategorisierung der Probleme und deren Priorisierung.Im zweiten Teil wirst du zu den erkannten Herausforderungen neuartige Lösungskonzepte erarbeiten. Hierbei können deine Interessen und Fähigkeiten einen wichtigen Einfluss auf das Ergebnis nehmen. Denn im dritten Teil geht es um eine prototypische Umsetzung der erarbeiteten Konzepte für die Installation von VR Hardware im halb öffentlichen Raum. Du wirst die Konzepte in der offizielle VR-Ausstellung des deutschen Museums implementieren und unter realen Bedingungen evaluieren. Aufgaben:
Ihre Kompetenzen:
Details |
| MT | Changkun Ou |
Understanding and Evaluating Human Preferences in 3D Modeling
DescriptionMesh simplification intends to preserve the visual appearance of a 3D model while reducing its number of faces. Due to the rise of mobile computing and VR applications, mesh simplification becomes a critical phase in 3D modeling for reducing the rendering complexity of a model. A 3D model designer initially starts with a high-quality model and then simplify its faces using modern 3D software, such as Blender, Maya and etc. However, aggressively using mesh simplification function in the software quickly leads to visible defects, for instance, holes in the grid, jagged edge, and other similar errors. Thereby a designer must carefully dealing with these result and sometimes manually fix these errors. In this thesis, you will perform user-centered research to investigate elicitation process, uncertainty and ambiguity of human preferences while mesh simplification in 3D modeling. TasksYou should:
Requirements
Note that the thesis initially starts with biweekly meetings for literature and development discussion in the first two or three monthsand then switch to weekly meeting for user study and result evaluation discussion. Interested?Send your application with a transcript of records, examples of your designed models or programming projects (GitHub page is ideal) via email to Changkun Ou. Initial Reading List
Useful LinkDetails |
| BT/MT | Dr. Ken Pfeuffer |
3D drawing on 2D pen-and-touch devices
Problem StatementA stylus allows designers and artists to provide artistic digital designs. Modern tablets (Surface Pro, IPad) support a stylus, allowing users to design anywhere. However, creating 3D models can be difficult on 2D displays. 3D modelling requires users to navigate a lot in 3D space - even for drawing simple 3D lines. This project investigates how this process can be more efficient. The idea of this project is to better merge the two processes of navigation and creation. In this project, the goal is to explore new methods of 3D input in 2D design applications, by using both stylus and multitouch input of the user. The two main work-tasks will be 1) creating a basic drawing prototype with new interaction methods, and 2) to explore what kind of new interactions are possible. Tasks
Preferred (but not necessary) qualification
Details |
| MT | Dr. Ken Pfeuffer |
Gaze user interface for augmented reality
Problem StatementCompanies such as Oculus, Apple, or Microsoft are working on AR devices that may become an integral part in the daily life of the future. How the user interface may look like is still an open question, it may involve novel methods of input. In this project, we explore the use of eyes for interaction with the digital augmented information. How can the eyes be utilised to interact with digital information that are laid over the real world? In general eye based interaction has been long investigated in the field of human-computer interaction. The eyes are one of the fastest input modalities, and work in unity with the users hands. Future AR devices, through glasses, have a high potential to have eye-tracking integrated and it is therefore imaginable that the eyes play an integral part in the interaction with the augmented reality. The project is exploratory, and strongly focuses on the interaction design and building of prototypes. It involves iterative prototyping from basic ideas to mature user interfaces with close feedback rounds with the team (e.g., 1 or 2 times per week). It is also possible to get hands-on support on the implementation from team members. Ideas can be generated quickly with the team, and evaluated quickly with small prototypes. The goal is to create the most dynamic, fastest, and world-class user interface for AR. Inspirations can come from various media, e.g. Minority Report, IronMan, or Ready Player One. Tasks
Preferred qualifications
Suggested reading
Details |
| MT | Radiah Rivu, Prof. Dr. Florian Alt |
Social Gatherings in Virtual Reality
Problem StatementVirtual Reality is gaining more and more importance in our daily lives as we allow ourselves to be immersed in a simulated environment. Among its many useful application, VR can be used to carry out meetings among group of people or even be used in E-learning where the participants can be aided. Gatherings can also extend to examples such as 'Skype Session with family', 'Gathering with friends' etc. During such group meetings, where the environment is essentially a multi user environment involving interaction between participants, it is important that each participant can be completely immersed in the environment and for that, interaction and visualization techniques need to be developed. The aim of the thesis is to explore the interaction and visualization techniques for social gatherings. Tasks
Preferred (but not necessary) qualification
Interested students should get in touch with Radiah Rivu (radiahrivu_at_gmail.com) Details |
| MT | Beat Rossmy |
Interfaces for Generative Music Performance
Generative music systems are becoming more and more relevant nowadays. In the near future Artificial Intelligences will become evenly equal partners in music making scenarios. Therefore we have to find ways to interact with systems that are able to make their own decisions and have their own creative mind. Established communication with human musicians are eye-contact, gestures, verbal expressions.How can we communicate with digital musicians, how can they communicate with humans?
Tasks:
Requirements:
Suggested Reading:
Details |
| MT | Beat Rossmy |
Irreversible Actions as a Design Strategy
User interfaces facilitate interaction with digital content. Concepts such as "Undo" make it possible to reverse actions that did not have the desired effect. But what would interfaces and the corresponding interactions look like if irreversible actions were central components of interaction design? In this thesis a design exploration should be performed that focusses on materials like paper which affordances lead to actions such as tearing, crumpling, folding, punching holes, etc.. How can familiar concepts such as punch cards or origami help to design intelligible interaction metaphors, that create commitment to the actions we as users perform with technology? What impact will such concepts have on prospective actions?
Tasks:
Requirements:
Suggested Reading:
Details |
| / | Christina Schneegass, Malin Eiband, Daniel Buschek |
Evaluating the use of a Vocabulary Learning Tool for the Lockscreen in the wild

Smartphones are people's constant companions in their all day life, counting of a multitude of interactions per day. To unlock the smartphone, people commonly employ mechanisms such as pin entry or fingerprint sensing. This work aims to exploit these required interactions by combining it with a vocabulary learning tool, where each unlocking event enables the user to learn a new word of a chosen language. Tasks:
If this project is successful, you will get the chance to contribute to an international publication. Details |
| PT | Sarah Theres Völkel |
The PhoneStudy Research App
DescriptionDeveloping an Android app for predicting personality traits via smartphone usage In the PhoneStudy project, an interdisciplinary team consisting of psychologists, statisticians, and computer scientists develop an Android app, which tracks and logs the userâs smartphone behaviour to predict personality traits. For example, we track the number of usersâ calls, sms, and app usage, which might predict how extraverted the user is. The app will be distributed among participants in spring 2018, which will then use the app for several months. There are several tasks for media informatics students in this project (cf. below), from which you can choose. Please contact me when you are interested in the project and will give you more details. TasksYou can choose between different tasks:
Minimum requirements
Details |
| BT/MT | Sarah Theres Völkel |
How to trick AI - Examining users' coping strategies and mental models to avoid profiling by intelligent algorithms
DescriptionA growing body of research shows that personality traits can be automatically inferred from users' digital texts, e.g. conversations with chat bots or social media posts. Like other personal data, we think that users' personality data might be captured in the future without users' knowledge and out of their control. This raises, in our opinion, ethical and privacy concerns and might potentially lead to misuse. We assume that depending on the context, users might not be comfortable with being profiled and its potential consequences. Together with you, we want to find out, which coping strategies users would employ to avoid being profiled by intelligent algorithms, i.e. how they try to ``trick'' the algorithm.TasksThe thesis comprises of the following tasks:
Details |
| BT | Thomas Weber |
Automatic Processing of User Interaction Data
Usability is an important factor in the development of open source software (OSS).The challenges regarding the evaluation of usability for OSS are for example thatdevelopers work in a distributed manner and during different working hours.In our previous work we have conducted usability studies with the Eclipse 4diac IDE,a framework for distributed industrial automation systems. In these studies we have collected detailed interaction data in ECL format.Manual evaluation of this data is extremely work intesive but can be automated.Your task is to facilitate this automation by creating a processing tool thatextracts the relevant features from the recorded interaction data. Your work consists in:
You need:
Details |
| BT/MT | Thomas Weber |
Visualizing ML Algorithm Configurations
Machine Learning algorithms find spreading use in normal software development.Tuning these algorithms to yield optimal solutions can be a daunting task though,heavily reliant on experience or trial and error. There are essentially three main approaches for this challenge:
Your work consists in:
You need:
Details |
| BT/MT | Thomas Weber |
Communication Software Architecture with Physical Artifacts
Communication is a key challenge when collaborating on large, complex software systems.In this thesis you will explore how phyiscal objects can help developers communicatethe architecture and design of their software to other developers and non-experts. Your work consists in:
You need:
Details |
| MT | Gesa Wiegand |
Driver Intention Prediction
The intent and the steering behavior of the driver is important to prevent accidents on the highway. During the thesis you will collect driver information on the driving simulator and then use this data to predict the drivers driving intent.
This thesis includes:
Details |
BT = bachelor thesis - PT = project thesis - DT = diploma thesis - MT = master thesis - PWAL = practical research course
