Forschungsprojekte

This page predominantly lists funded research projects and dedicated PhD projects. Besides of these, we conduct research via theses student work and individual (unfunded) projects, e.g. on the design of interactive toys for children, alternative visions for smart homes, museum installations, neurodiversity, ambient and pervasive displays, etc. 

Social Virtual Reality provides extended potential for remote interactions between partners across a distance, families and friends.How can interactions that foster social intimacy be further improved in virtual spaces? This is the focal point of the GROOVE research project that teams from the professorships of HCI, VR and Usability at BUW will work on together with researchers from the Technischen Universität Ilmenau, Brandenburg Labs GmbH and Consensive GmbH. GROOVE is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) over the »Nähe über Distanz - Mit interaktiven Technologien zwischenmenschliche Verbundenheit ermöglichen« funding programme. The HCI team leads the 3-year GROOVE project. 

The German long name is 'GROOVE - Erlebte Synchronisation für Verbundenheit und Nähe in sozialer virtueller Realität'. University announcement page.  
Project Web Page: https://www.uni-weimar.de/en/media/research/projekte/groove/ 

Any technology created carries the values embedded in its design. Technological innovations from male-dominated teams often result in products that overlook or neglect the perspective, experience and needs of female and non-binary users - as well as that of other non-represented or marginalized user groups. Some of these issues can be traced to the design and development process and practices. In this project, we explore the influence of embedding Feminist Values in technology design and development, focusing on methodology. First step approaches the exploration of the current field of methodology and applications, while the goal is to explore and potentially develop effective approach to designing technology with Feminist Values in focus from idea and requirements exploration up to product design, test and launch.
This is the PhD project of M.Sc. Margarita Osipova supervised by Prof. Eva Hornecker. Current project members: B.Sc. Konstantina Marra.  Publications:

• Osipova, Hornecker. Exploring the potential for Smart City technology for Women’s Safety. Proc. of Academic Mindtrek Conference (Mindtrek ’23),  ACM NY 2023, 17 pages.
• Sarkar, Marra, Osipova. Exit Violence: Comparing Usability of Physical and Visual Alarm Buttons in SOS App in the Context of Domestic Violence. Mensch und Computer 2023 - Workshopband. GI e.V.
• Jeon, Ebeling, Osipova: Empowering Safety Technology for Women’s Solo Journeys: Insights from a Story Completion Study. Mensch und Computer 2023 - Workshopband. GI e.V.

Participation Call for December23/January-March24:

We invite experts working with Feminist Values in research and industry (our focus is not limited to just gender-related, gender specific or FemTech, as long as your work – ongoing or former – covers at least a perspective or practical use of Feminism or Feminist Values in relation to technology). Contact us for participating via email to margarita.osipova[at]uni-weimar.de with a topic “Feminism and Technology”. You can also email her with questions, ideas and recommendations, or collaboration proposals.

In January 2018 we received a small grant from VolkswagenStiftung aimed to support preparation for a full funding proposal on 'rethinking care robotics' (which was successful). As part of the preparations, we (Prof. Sattler, Product Design program and us) co-taught a student project on technology in care. Our future project partners traveled to Weimar for proposal discussions, and were also invited into the student project and for the Bauhaus.Interaction Colloqium, all helping us to immerse deeper into the topic. We also attended a conference on care technology ('Zukunft der Pflege') in Oldenburg with the entire project group, which was a great experience for all.  

Michaela Honauer's PhD project investigated wearables and e-textiles in the specific domain of professional stages that have predefined infrastructures and expertise-based hierarchies (e.g. theatre, ballet, opera). Next to the technical challenges for particular use cases, Michaela searches for solutions that help to integrate the production and staging processes of interactive costumes into traditionally grown structures. Her practice-based research is ethnographically motivated and tries to establish working routines and connections to practitioners as well as theatre, opera and ballet houses. Michaela defended her PhD in mid 2022 and is now a PostDoc at the Univ. of Twente. 

• Honauer. Beyond costume tradition and physical computing: Characterizing the profile of interactive costume creators. Digital Creativity 2021, DOI: 10.1080/14626268.2021.1922459
• Honauer, Wilde, Hornecker. Overcoming Reserve – Supporting Professional Appropriation of Interactive Costumes. Proc. of ACM DIS ’20, 2189–2200. ACM DL. pdf.    (BEST PAPER AWARD)
• Honauer, Hornecker. Challenges for Creating and Staging Interactive Costumes for the Theatre Stage. Proc. of Creativity & Cognition 2015 (C&C'15). ACM, pp. 13-22. ACM DL 
• Honauer. Designing (Inter)Active Costumes for Professional Stages. In. Schneegass, Amft (eds.) Smart Textiles. Springer Intern. Publishing 2017, 10.1007/978-3-319-50124-6 chapter 13, p. 279-302
• Honauer. Designing Interactive Costumes: Challenges and Prospects to Integrate Computational Clothing in the Performing Arts. ACM DIS 2017 Doctoral Consortium, ACM DL.
• Honauer, Wiegert, Sohaib, Cárdenas Monsalve, Zhao, Effenberg, Alshomary, Hornecker. Mermaids do not exist? Interactive Costumes do! Proc. of ACM MUM 2017, 535-540. Arts Track, ACM DL
• Martinez, Honauer, Sandhaus, Hornecker. Smart Textiles in the Performing Arts. In: Textiles, Identity and Innovation. Proc. of 1st Int. Textile Design Conference (D-­TEX 2017), Lisbon, 2‐4 Nov. 2017, 
• Honauer. 2018. Designing a Remote-Controlled Interactive Dance Costume. Proceedings of Int. Conf. on Movement Computing (MOCO’18), 6 pages. ACM DL 

Trevor Hogan's PhD project investigated tangible and multi-sensory data representation and the role of embodiment in the user experience of physical data artefacts, taking a phenomenological perspective. > tactiledata.net.  
We are continuing this collaboration together with Uta Hinrichs following Trevor's PhD graduation and are now investigation physicalization, that is physical data representations (see other entry). key publications: 

• Hogan, Hinrichs, Hornecker. The Visual and Beyond: Characterizing Experiences with Auditory, Haptic and Visual Data Representations. Proc. of ACM DIS 2017, 797-809. author pdf and ACM DL
• Hogan, Hinrichs, Jansen, Huron, Gourlet, Hornecker, Nissen. Pedagogy & Physicalization: Designing Learning Activities around Physical Data Representations. Workshop. Companion Proc. of ACM DIS'17. 345-347. ACM DL. Workshop website
• Hogan; Hornecker. Towards a Design Space for Multisensory Data Representation. Interacting with Computers Vol. 29, Issue 2, March 2017, pp. 147–167, First published online: May 20, 2016;  pdf-version, doi:10.1093/iwc/iww015 
• Hogan, Hornecker. Feel it! See it! Hear it! Probing Tangible Interaction and Data Representational Modality. DRS2016, Design Research Society Conference in Brighton, UK. 
• Hogan, Hinrichs, Hornecker. The Elicitation Interview Technique: Capturing People’s Experiences of Data Representations. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (online first 2015, print in 2016)
• Hogan, Hornecker. Blending the repertory grid technique with focus groups to reveal rich design relevant insight. Proc. of DPPI'13, Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces, ACM 2013, 116-125. Author version.
• Hogan, Hornecker. In Touch with Space: Embodying Live Data For Tangible Interaction. Proc. of TEI'13, ACM, 275-278. Author version.

Patrick Tobias Fischer's PhD work investigated how spatial configurations and architectural elements influence the use of public interfaces. Tobias submitted and defended his PhD at the University of Strathclyde in 2016. He continued this work at BUW, and for several years we explored how public interfaces can foster shared encounters, how to evaluate such interfaces, and engaged in a series of design-evaluation experiments.      > Plazapuck preview      key publications: 

• Fischer, Hornecker. Urban HCI: Spatial Aspects in the Design of Shared Encounters for Media Faccades. Proc. of CHI 2012. ACM. pp. 307-316. pdf
• Fischer, Zöllner, Hoffmann, Piatza, Hornecker. 2013.  Beyond Information and Utility – Transforming Public Spaces with Media Facades. Computer Graphics and Applications, IEEE, 33, 38-46.  IEEE Explore DL, author version.
• Fischer, von der Heide, Hornecker, Zierold, Kästner, Dondera, Wiegmann, Millan, Lideikis, Cergelis, Verde, Drews, Fastnacht, Lünsdorf, Merat, Khosravani, Jannesar. Castle-Sized Interfaces: An Interactive Façade Mapping. Proc. of Pervasive Displays 2015 (PerDis'15), ACM 2015, pp. 91-97. doi
• Memarovic, Gehring, Fischer. 2015.  ELSI Model: Bridging User Engagement around Interactive Public Displays and Media Facades in Urban Spaces. Journal of Urban Technology Vol. 22, Issue 1, 2015, pp. 113-131. DOI:10.1080/10630732.2014.942169 journal site
• Sahibzada, Hornecker, Echtler, Fischer. Designing Interactive Advertisements for Public Displays. Proc. of ACM CHI 2017. 1518-1529 ACM DL
• Fischer, Hornecker. 2017.  Creating Shared Encounters Through Fixed and Movable Interfaces. In: Nijholt (ed).  Playable Cities. The City as a Digital Playground. Springer Singapore, pp 163-185
• Fischer, Hornecker (2017). Media Architecture for Shared Encounters. In: Wiethoff, Hußmann (Eds.) Media Architecture. Using Information and Media as Construction Material. de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, Age of Acess Series Vol. 8. 2017. p. 5-23
• Fastnacht, Fischer, Hornecker, Zierold, Ornelas Aispuro, Marschall. The Hedonic Value of Sonnengarten –Touching Plants to Trigger Light. Proc. of MUM 2017, 507-514. Video Track. ACM DL