ATH in other semesters:
SS19 SS18 SS17 SS16 SS15

Lecture Advanced Topics of HCI

Lecturer: Prof. Florian Alt
Hours per week: 2 Lecture + 2 Project
ECTS credits: 6 (Lecture + Project)
Module: Vertiefende Themen der Medieninformatik und Mensch-Maschine-Interaktion für Master
Target Group: Medieninformatik (Master), Mensch-Maschine-Interaktion (Master)

Dates and Locations

Lecture:
Date: Wednesday, 16-18h
Location: Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1
Room: D Z005
Project:
Project meetings: Supervisors will suggest regular meetings.
Final presentation: The final presentation of projects will take place in September 2015.

News

01.06.2015: We set the deadline for submitting papers and the date for final presentations of the projects. ALL groups need to submit their paper by 13th September 2015 through UniWorX. The final presentation will take place on 29th September 2015 (Room tbd). Visiting students and participants who are going to study abroad in the winter term will have the chance to present their work in the last session of the lecture on 29th July 2015.
10.03.2015: Applications for the lecture are possible from 1st April via UniWorX. Note that the number of participants in this course will be limited to 24.

Course Overview

The course "Advanced Topics in HCI" introduces foundations and current trends from different research areas in Human-Computer Interaction. Topics covered in the course include, but are not limited to, interactive surfaces, usable privacy and security, group mirrors, e-learning, brain-computer interfaces, eye tracking, interaction with mobile devices, and automotive user interfaces (see below for the complete agenda).

The course consists of two parts:

Lextures: All lectures will be held by the scientific staff of the LFE Medieninformatik. During these lectures, participants will receive an introduction to active research areas in HCI as well as to ongoing research projects in the department. The lectures also serve as a basis for the adjoint research project.
Research Project: Following the lecture, participants will work on scientific projects in groups of two (appr. 2 weeks full time commitment). The scientific staff will provide topics and supervise participants during the project work. All projects include a concept phase as well as an implementation and/or evaluation phase. Projects may also include data analysis. The outcome of each project will be documented in the form of a scientific paper (4-6 pages in ACM SIGCHI format). There will be no regular sessions for the project work - rather participants are expected to meet with their supervisors on a regular basis. All participants are expected to present their projects during a seminar day at the end of the term (15 minutes scientific talk, followed by 5 minutes discussion).

Course Material

Templates

The following templates are to be used for the project.

Template for scientific paper: Word, LaTeX
Template for scientific presentation: Powerpoint / Keynote

Readings

Participation in the course requires a basic understanding of scientific working. Optimally, students attended the course "Scientific Working and Teaching (SWAL)" .

"How to write a scientific paper" (slides from SWAL)
"How to give a scientific presentation" (slides from SWAL)
"How to review a scientific paper" (slides from SWAL)
Oates, Briony J. Researching information systems and computing. Sage, 2005.

Lecture

Date	Presenter	Topic	Slides
15.04.2015	Florian Alt	Introduction / Distributing Topics	slides
22.04.2015	no lecture
29.04.2015	Florian Alt	Pervasive Displays - Understanding the Future of Digital Signage	slides
06.05.2015	Simon Stusak	Data Physicalization - Exploring the Potential of Physical Visualizations	slides
13.05.2015	Sarah Tausch	Group Mirrors	slides
20.05.2015	Daniel Buschek	Certainly Uncertain but Probably Predictable: Modelling User Behaviour in Mobile HCI	slides
27.05.2015	Mohamed Khamis	Usable Gaze-based Interaction	slides
03.06.2015	Henri Palleis	Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces
10.06.2015	Axel Hösl	Through-the-Lens Controls	slides
17.06.2015	Mariam Hassib	Brain Computer Interfaces & Physiological Sensing	slides
24.06.2015	Hanna Schneider	mHealth - Addressing our Unconscious Self	slides
01.07.2015	Emanuel von Zezschwitz	Usable and Secure Authentication on Mobile Phones	slides
08.07.2015	Tobias Stockinger	Usable Security and Privacy - Establishing and Breaking Trust on the Web	slides
15.07.2015	Maria Fysaraki	Computer-facilitated Collaboration and Argumentation - Combining Learning and HCI Research Topics
22.07.2015	Bastian Pfleging	Automotive User Interfaces	slides

Projects

Präsentationstag, 29. Juli 2015

Time	Students	Supervisor	Topic	Paper/Slides
16:15-16:35	Xaver Löffelholz, Peter Arnold	Simon Stusak	Collaborative Problam Solving with Physical Visualizations	paper, slides
16:35-16:55	Miriam Mayer, Ronge Alexandra	Hanna Schneider	Achieving Goals Using mHealth Technologies	paper, slides
16:55-17:15	Nefzger Matthias, Daniel Elsner	Tobias Stockinger	The MirrorMeter	paper, slides
17:15-17:35	Patrick Proppe Peter von Niebelschütz	Florian Alt	Automotive User Interfaces	paper, slides
17:35-18:00	Thomas Wimmer, Linh Nguyen Vo, Alexander Klimczak	Mohamed Khamis	Eye-tracking based Interaction	paper, slides

Präsentationstag, 29. September 2015, Raum: Hauptgebaeude, A U115

Time	Students	Supervisor	Topic	Paper/Slides
09:00-09:25	Martin Lurz, Peter Sammer, Matthias Schlenker	Daniel Buschek	Modeling User Behavior	paper, slides
09:25-09:50	Sikorska Julie, Carola Mayer, Eva Geiger	Maria Fysaraki	Exploring Design and Usability Aspects of Collaborative Learning Systems	paper, slides
09:50-10:15	Sarah Aragon, Katharina Sachmann, Manuel Demmler	Henri Palleis	Evaluation of a touch-based 3D-modeling prototype	paper, slides
10:15-10:35	Schaperai Badri, Sandro Kurpiers	Hanna Schneider	User Motivation to Use mHealth Technologies	paper, slides
10:35-11:00	Pause
11:00-11:25	Alexander Schenker, Christian Guerrero, Moufounda Arthur	Axel Hösl	Follow-focus with Arduino	paper, slides
11:25-11:45	Anischenko Konstantin, Philipp Eigelsberger	Mariam Hassib	Brain Emoticons in a Chat	paper, slides
11:45-12:05	Moritz Laass, Ina Lieder	Mariam Hassib	Brain Emoticons in a Chat	paper, slides
12:05-12:25	Sulyvan Weppe, Natalie Kurz	Florian Alt	PDSurvey - A platform to collect feedback from public display users	paper, slides
12:25-12:45	Peter von Niebelschütz	Florian Alt	Automotive User Interfaces	paper, slides

Topic Overview

Pervasive Displays - Understanding the Future of Digital Signage

Fueled by falling display hardware costs and rising demand, digital signage and pervasive displays are becoming ever more ubiquitous. Such systems have traditionally been used for advertising and information dissemination with digital signage commonplace in shopping malls, airports and public spaces. While advertising and broadcasting announcements remain important applications, developments in sensing and interaction technologies are enabling entirely new classes of display applications that tailor content to the situation and audience of the display. As a result, signage systems are beginning to transition from simple broadcast systems to rich platforms for communication and interaction.

This lecture provides an introduction to this emerging field. We begin by describing the history of pervasive display research, providing illustrations of key systems, from pioneering work on supporting collaboration to contemporary systems designed for personalized information delivery. We then consider what the near-future might hold for display networks - describing a series of compelling applications that are being postulated for future display networks. Creating such systems raises a wide range of challenges and requires designers to make a series of important tradeoffs. Furthermore, we will discuss four key aspects of pervasive display design: audience engagement, display interaction, system software and system evaluation. Finally, a series of case studies of display systems is presented.

Jörg Müller, Florian Alt, Daniel Michelis, and Albrecht Schmidt. 2010. Requirements and design space for interactive public displays. In Proceedings of the international conference on Multimedia (MM '10). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1285-1294. PDF
Nigel Davies, Sarah Clinch, and Florian Alt. 2014. Pervasive Displays. Understanding the Future of Digital Signage. Synthesis Lectures. Morgan and Claypool Publishers.

Data Physicalization: Exploring the Potential of Physical Visualizations

Advances in digital fabrication and technologies such as shape-changing displays enable a novel area of research for the representation of data. On the contrary to traditional visualizations which map data to pixels, data physicalizations use geometry or material properties to encode data. This lecture gives a first overview of the emerging research field of data physicalization by introducing the current state of research and highlighting its possible benefits (e.g. an active perception with multiple senses) and challenges (e.g. fabrication, evaluation).

Group Mirrors

The lecture will give a short introduction to the field of CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work). After introducing general concepts of group work, group dynamics and CSCW, the lecture will go into detail in four particular research areas. The first part, CSCL (Computer Supported Cooperative Learning), addresses the application of technical systems to support learning, starting with theoretical foundations of human learning and discussing the beginnings of technical systems to support learning as well as current approaches. The second and third part discuss awareness support tools and group mirrors which are systems that try to improve collaboration by displaying (subtle) information to groups with the goal to increase awareness for instance about other group members' activities. The last part will provide examples of current trends in the field of CSCW.

Grudin, J. (1994). Computer-supported cooperative work: History and focus. Computer, 27(5), 19-26.
Dourish, P., and Bellotti, V. (1992, December). Awareness and coordination in shared workspaces. In Proc. CSCW (pp. 107-114). ACM.

Certainly Uncertain but Probably Predictable: Modelling User Behaviour in Mobile HCI

This lecture motivates and introduces HCI research on describing, predicting and simulating mobile user behaviour. A structured overview of related work presents various applications for each of these three areas. Underlying models are included on a conceptual level. A particular focus on touch interaction and text entry, including the presenter's own projects, illustrates reasoning under uncertainty in both sensor data and user intention. The talk concludes with insights derived from the discussed literature. As a practical take-away message, the presentation provides three simple tips on how to start thinking systematically about uncertain data and decisions, in mobile HCI and beyond.

Weir, D., Pohl, H., Rogers, S., Vertanen, K., & Kristensson, P. O. (2014). Uncertain Text Entry on Mobile Devices. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2307-2316). doi:10.1145/2556288.2557412
Schwarz, J., Hudson, S., Mankoff, J., & Wilson, A. D. (2010). A framework for robust and flexible handling of inputs with uncertainty. In Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (pp. 47-56). doi:10.1145/1866029.1866039

Usable Gaze-based Interaction

Eye tracking and gaze-based interaction offer many advantages over traditional interaction modalities. Interacting using the eyes is subtle, quick, intuitive and can be done from a distance. Nevertheless, it is not free of shortcomings. There are several usability issues that slow down the adoption of gaze-based interaction. Examples of issues that accompany the usage of eye trackers are the need for prior calibration, the so-called "Midas touch" and the need to either fix the body/head orientation or wear a head-mounted eye tracker. This research topic is concerned with enabling gaze-based interaction in a manner that is usable enough for users to adopt the technology in their daily lives. Technically we are concerned with enabling gaze-based interaction on mobile devices, public displays and the combination of both.

Päivi Majaranta, and Andreas Bulling. "Eye Tracking and Eye-Based Human-Computer Interaction." In Advances in Physiological Computing, pp. 39-65. Springer London, 2014. PDF
Robert Jacob and Keith S. Karn. "Eye tracking in human-computer interaction and usability research: Ready to deliver the promises." Mind 2.3 (2003): 4.PDF
Robert Jacob (1991) The use of eye movements in human-computer interaction techniques: what you look at is what you get. ACM Trans Inf Sys 9(3):152-169 PDF

Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces

Interactive Surfaces denote a broad topic that includes for example interactive furniture (e.g. tables), interactive walls and floors, arbitrary shaped objects with interactive surfaces or the integration of screens with different form factors. This lecture discusses the history of interactive surfaces and concerns touch technologies, interaction techniques and areas of application.

Pierre Wellner. 1993. Interacting with paper on the DigitalDesk. Commun. ACM 36, 7 (July 1993), 87-96.
Jefferson Y. Han. 2005. Low-cost multi-touch sensing through frustrated total internal reflection. In Proceedings of the 18th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology (UIST '05). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 115-118.

Through-the-Lens Controls

In the filmindustry manufacturers further developed automated tools for camera motion within the last decade. Examples that were already used in film recordings are, for instance, drones as the DJI Inspire 1 (similar to the one used in OK GOs Musich Video I won't let you down), Bot and Dollys IRIS, an industrial robot with a mounted camera (used in Gravity) or the StypeKit AimCrane, a crane that supports the operator in keeping a target in the center of the frame (used in the BBC broadcast of the FIFA Worldcup 2014). These systems are hard to control for classically trained camera operators and have a long learning curve before good results can be achieved. They are mainly remote controlled via joysticks or use special applications like Maya for the programming of the tools. These tools are different from what camera operators are used to and the potential that the introduction of automation offers is not fully exploited. Further, easy to use interfaces are rarely found in practice. In a user-centered design process it is therefore tried to simplify the control of these tools while further exploiting the benefits of an interplay between operator and machine. This approach further favours image-based control over axis-control and aims towards more smaller incremental changes in the production chain (building on top of previous steps) rather than starting from scratch at each step.

J. Chen and P. Carr, "Autonomous Camera Systems: A Survey," in Workshops at the Twenty-Eighth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2014.
C. Lino, M. Christie, R. Ranon, and W. Bares, "The director's lens: an intelligent assistant for virtual cinematography," in Proceedings of the 19th ACM international conference on Multimedia, 2011, pp. 323-332.

Brain Computer Interfaces & Physiological Sensing

A brain-computer interface allows users to control devices without using the normal output pathways of peripherals, instead, by using neural activity generated by the brain. Low-cost, off-the-shelf or open source BCI devices present countless opportunities for utilizing brain signals in a variety of applications from controlling wheelchairs to self-tracking cognitive user states to adaptive gaming environments. This lecture first introduces Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI), their history and their current uses beyond the medical field. We will discuss the potential application areas of BCIs in passive sensing of user mental state, together with other physiological sensors (Eye Tracking, Heart Rate, Electrodermal Activity). We will also discuss the challenges facing the adoption of BCIs in the wild as well as potential solutions.

Tan, Desney, and Anton Nijholt. "Brain-computer interfaces and human-computer interaction." Brain-Computer Interfaces. Springer London, 2010. 3-19.
Wolpaw, Jonathan R., et al. "Brain-computer interfaces for communication and control." Clinical neurophysiology 113.6 (2002): 767-791.

Usable Security and Privacy I - Establishing and Breaking Trust on the Web

In this lecture, we first take a look at the fundamentals of usable security and privacy as well as guidelines for secure interaction design. We also show how trust is established between services and the users on the web. We highlight a number of case studies on various attacks and researchersâ€™ attempts to protect users from Phishing. Furthermore, we point out how to prototype and evaluate novel solutions to integrate usable security in a user-centered design process.

Egelman, S., Sotirakopoulos, A., Muslukhov, I., Beznosov, K., & Herley, C. (2013, April). Does my password go up to eleven?: the impact of password meters on password selection. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2379-2388). ACM. (PDF)
Egelman, S., Cranor, L. F., & Hong, J. (2008, April). You've been warned: an empirical study of the effectiveness of web browser phishing warnings. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1065-1074). ACM. (PDF)

Usable Security and Privacy II - Authentication on Mobile Devices

Da der Mensch an vielen computerbasierten Prozessen beteiligt ist, kann Sicherheit in der digitalen Welt nicht allein durch technische Lösungen realisiert werden. In der Tat stellt grade die Schnittstelle zwischen Mensch und Maschine eine empfindliche Verbindung dar, welche diverse Sicherheitsrisiken birgt. Die Usable Security versucht diese Verbindung sicherer zu machen, indem sie Sicherheitsverfahren bestmöglich an menschliche Bedürfnisse und Fähigkeiten anpasst. Dieser Teil der Vorlesung stellt grundlegende Herausforderungen sowie aktülle Ansätze (bspw. neü Authentifizierungsverfahren) vor und zeigt wie nutzerzentriertes Design die Sicherheit in unserer digitalen Welt erhöhen kann.

Schaub, F., Walch, M., Könings, B., & Weber, M. (2013, July). Exploring the design space of graphical passwords on smartphones. In Proceedings of the Ninth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (p. 11). ACM.
Egelman, S., Jain, S., Portnoff, R. S., Liao, K., Consolvo, S., & Wagner, D. (2014, November). Are You Ready to Lock?. In Proceedings of the 2014 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (pp. 750-761). ACM.

mHealth

According to the WHO, the worldwide prevalence of obesity has nearly doubled between 1980 and 2008 [1]. At least 2.8 million people die each year as a result of being overweight or obese.

mHealth technologies have the potential of improving health and wellbeing in our society of both healthy people and people that are at risk of suffering from diabetes, CVD, and a multitude of other chronic conditions. mHealth applications range from activity, fitness and food intake trackers over disease-specific behavior change interventions to telemedicine, electronic health records, and bedside patient support systems. In 2013, for example, some states in the US introduced a number of mobile applications that alert citizens of health issues, promote exercise-related events, and encourage participation in proactive healthcare activities [2].

However, such behavior change interventions typically target the conscious self, appealing to us as rational beings: It is good for our health and wellbeing in the long term, therefore we will try our best to integrate the suggested products and services into our lives. In a scenario where more and more mHealth applications enter into our lives, we are constantly nudged to think and reflect upon our health and fitness status: for most of us an unpleasant idea. Few of us actually experience pleasure or flow using mHealth technology and, thus, most of us quickly loose interest.

To make mHealth applications work for the broad population, to allow users to benefit from new insights of data-driven personalised medicine and at the same time to live their lives fully, we need to design mHealth technologies that address the unconscious self, making them not only easy but also pleasurable to use.

Computer-facilitated Collaboration and Argumentation - Combining Learning and HCI Research

In this lecture, a short introduction on the foundations of collaborative learning and on how technology is facilitating the collaboration processes as well as the learning outcomes will be given. The special focus will be on systems that facilitate argumentative collaboration. Moreover, examples of design and evaluation methods of learning systems in research will be addressed. Last but not least, a discussion about the next generation of computer supported learning opportunities will conclude this session.

Resta, P. and Laferriere, T. (2007). Technology in Support of Collaborative Learning. Educational Psychology Review, 19, 65-83.
Scheuer, O., Loll, F., Pinkwart, N., & McLaren, B. M. (2010). Computer-supported argumentation: A review of the state of the art. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 5(1), 43-102.