Prof. Dr. Eva Hornecker

Willkommen bei der Arbeitsgruppe »Human-Computer Interaction«!

The HCI research group works across technology, social sciences, and design. Our research is driven by the notion of Tangible and Embodied Interaction (TEI), which we address from these angles - building and exploring technology, designing and exploring novel applications, and through extensive user studies. We also engage in reflective and conceptual work that contributes to HCI theory. In the TEI tradition, we are enthusiastic about creating ‘physical computing’ objects - we focus on computational artefacts (or interactive spaces) that are physical, inhabit the same space as users, and require physical interaction. This is complemented by user study research that investigates people’s experience with technology and their embedding in social contexts. 

In our technical and development work, which tends to be design-led and includes material exploration, we utilize electronics, e-textiles and other new materials, and digital fabrication methods. We investigate applications based on (multi)touchscreens, tangible interaction, Augmented Reality, projection-based augmentation, gesture-based interfaces and other UbiComp technologies. 

We do quantitative and qualitative user study work, but have an emphasis on qualitative research methods, such as interviews, observation, video analysis, ethnographic-style participant observation, and field studies. Application contexts for our work include museums, learning environments, control rooms, elderly care, media facades, as well as theatre and performance. Depending on the context, we might focus on usability, or on subjective user experience, or multi-user interaction.