DECO - designing comfort

We’re happy to announce that the registration for this term’s HCI Seminar “Building Interaction Interfaces” is now open. The topic for this term is the conception and prototyping of an innovative mobile application based on “open data“.

You’ll have the opportunity to develop a prototype application for a mobile platform (iOS, Android, Maemo) utilizing a user-centered design process. We provide a methodological framework and you can show your creativity in the practical implementation.

If you’re interested in participating, please visit the course website for further information about the topic, schedule and registration.

We would be happy to welcome you in our seminar.

After a series of future vision videos in the last years, Microsoft has yet released another concept video about how people might “get things done at work, at home, and on the go” in 5-10 years. Check out the video below or directly head to Microsoft’s webpage.

This semester’s design task of the Human Computer Interaction seminar at DECO was to create, prototype and evaluate a location-aware mobile application that solves one of two given problems:

- Education & Research: How can mobile applications enhance the experience and support people in the fields of education and research?

- Green Living: How can mobile applications support and encourage people to reduce their negative environmental impact?

Seven teams of three students each completed the seminar, resulting in creative and useful mobile applications. The horizontal prototypes, used for the evaluation, were implemented with various tools, including App Inventor and Sencha Touch. However, most of the teams decided to develop native applications using the iOS and Android SDKs.

We proudly present the mobile application concepts of our seven participating student teams:

Freece – an app to support Freecycling between people
Questo! – a location-based social quiz game
Meet’n‘Eat – a cook pooling application
Time Travel – an app to go back in time and learn about the past
vRalley – an app for pupils, students and tourists to explore cities
VocAPPulary – a picture based vocabulary trainer
Tools4Rent – an app to rent tools that are not often used

Note that most screens contain static data used only for the evaluation of the prototypes. The applications are (also if stated otherwise) not available on any store at the moment.

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Your help is needed!

We have just launched an online study on measuring the effect of aesthetics in data visualization. The study is part of a collaborative research project between K.U. Leuven, Vienna University of Technology, and the University of Sydney.

If you have about 10-20 minutes of uninterrupted time please help us by completing the study at Aesthetic Impact. The main task that will be expected from you, is to interact with a visualization, and to describe what you have learned from it.

Please pass around the URL to any person who might be interested in participating. The only thing you need to know is that the study is less about usability, utility or usefulness, and more about measuring what non-trivial and unexpected insights you actually ‘get’ from interacting with a specific data representation.

Should you have any questions about the study, please don’t hesitate to contact us at study@aesthetic-impact.com.

This semester’s design task of the Human Computer Interaction seminar at DECO was to create, prototype and evaluate a location-aware mobile application that uses open data.
Five teams of three students each completed the seminar, resulting in creative, useful and sometimes also provoking use of fictitious open data. As open data in Austria is in its infancy (for more information visit open3.at or gov.opendata.at), teams had difficulties finding existing open (government) data sources. Some teams solved this problem by augmenting their application ideas with user-generated content as the main data source. The horizontal prototypes for the evaluation were implemented with various tools, including Titanium Mobile, Sencha Touch and also native development on iOS and Android platforms.

We proudly present the mobile application concepts of our five participating student teams. Note that most screens contain static data used only for the evaluation of the prototypes. The applications are (also if stated otherwise) not available on any store at the moment.

Continue Reading »

A slideshow by the creative lab @ google about lots and lots of interesting and creative things on the internet.

We’re happy to announce that registration for this term’s HCI Seminar is now open. The topic for this term is the conception and prototyping of an innovative mobile application based on “open data”.

You’ll have the opportunity to develop a prototype application for a mobile platform (iOS, Android, Maemo) utilizing a user-centered design process. We provide a methodological framework and you can show your creativity in the practical implementation.

The introductory discussion will be on Thursday, 14.10.2010, 16:00 in the INSO library (Wiedner Hauptstraße 76/2/2, 1040 Wien). If you’re interested in participating, please visit the course website for further information about the topic, schedule and registration.

We would be happy to welcome you in our seminar.

This video shows an amazing mobile phone concept video from Billy May, a Mozilla Labs community member. Integrated pico projectors extend the phone’s interface with a keyboard or even transform it to a “desktop computer” with keyboard and a small display projection.

For more information about the video visit the website of Mozilla Labs.

The video of TAT’s Open Innovation experiment shows the future of screen technology with stretchable screens, transparent screens and e-ink displays, to name a few.

After the inaugural Student Design Challenge at OZCHI last year, the first IxDA Global Student Competition at Interaction 11 last month, and of course the established Student Design Competition at CHI 2010, there is another chance for students interested in HCI and Interaction Design to participate in a global event:

The UPA Student Design Competition is going into its second year. This year’s design challenge is “Designing for a Sustainable World”. Student teams need to submit a short paper (6 pages maximum) describing their design solution in a first round. Advancing teams will attend the conference in Munich and have the chance to win up to US$1,250. Deadline for paper submissions is 29 March 2010.