My research focus can best be described as ‘Beyond the Desktop’ Interaction Design. This concerns understanding how users interact with novel hybrid environments and designing such settings.

There's two parts to this: ‘Beyond the Desktop’ refers to systems that are not sitting on a desktop, not purely screen-based, that are integrated into physical environments, tangible, mobile, or wearable, taking on the form of large interactive displays that users interact with through movement, and that often address non-traditional domains (such as museums, outdoor work, games, etc.). Within this, Tangible Interaction has been at the core of my research pretty much from the beginning. Over time my interests broadened out to Ubiquitous Computing and anything that could be described as related to 'Embodied Interaction'.

Interaction Design refers to a focus on designing (or analysing) interaction that includes aesthetic aspects of the interaction experience as well as functional requirements and the embedding of systems in use situations. In terms of methods and approaches it favours iterative and explorative ways of working.

I am particularly interested in issues of social interaction and collaboration in these contexts. ‘Beyond the Desktop’ systems, which are often mobile, public or tangible, are considered a good candidate for supporting such kinds of social interaction. With my attention on how exactly interface design affords and structures these interactions my work tends to cross boundaries between HCI, CSCW and Interaction Design.

Methodical approach

Especially with novel technologies like UbiComp, we need to have a good understanding of the use context in order to create useful and usable systems. The challenges are often not so much in the technology, but rather in how to integrate it into existing practice or how to create novel practices that make use of the technology. We need to understand the application context as well as the new possibilities.

I guess I am pretty pragmatic and non-orthodox in my appropriation of methods, from User-Centered Design to more ethnographically influenced approaches, field studies, explorative prototyping, and engaging in Co-Design in partnership with users. I have done quite a lot of  'interaction analysis' of video data (as described by e.g. Jordan & Henderson), but also worked with interviews, group discussions, in-situ experiments with users, and integrated statistical data analysis of logfiles in some of my studies.

an older attempt to sort and visualize my research interests: Tangible Interfaces/Interaction & Augmented Reality My collection of  web-resources on Tangible and Graspable Interfaces and my publications    also www.tangint.org wiki also: Tangible Computing Class lectured SS 2004, Vienna Co-editor of www.tangint.org (community wiki on Tangibles) Cooperation and Social Interaction                           & CSCW.... Video-based interaction analysis (in German) Entry and Access – How Shareability Comes About (DPPI 2007, with Paul Marschall & Yvonne Rogers) Taken together -> Designing Tangible Interfaces/Interaction for Cooperation PDC'02 Workshop " Designing Tangible Interfaces to Support Participation" Eden, Hornecker, Scharff. Multilevel Design and Role Play: Experiences in Assessing Support for Neighborhood Participation in Design   Proc. of DIS'02 . ACM PhD-thesis 2004:  "Tangible User Interfaces als kooperationsunterstützendes Medium" E-CSCW 2005 paper A Design Theme for Tangible Interaction: Embodied Facilitation  © Springer CHI 2006 full paper with Jacob Buur Getting a grip on tangible interaction: a framework on physical space and social interaction.   © ACM, (2006) Media Informatics / Interactivity / 'Beyond the Desktop' Interaction Design       Mensch&Computer paper about the Sensoric Garden installation in Bremen (in German)    E-CSCW 2005 paper A Design Theme for Tangible Interaction: Embodied Facilitation pdf  © Springer    The Chawton House Experience – Augmenting the Grounds of a Historic Manor House    Learning from Interactive Museum Installations About Interaction Design for Public Settings (OzCHI 2006)    Teaching: Interaction Design and Experimentelle Gestaltung (experimental design) (TU Vienna) Further Research interests What is Informatics?  Computers & Society - FIfF (Forum Informatiker für Frieden und gesellschaftliche Verantwortung) - Arbeitstagungsreihe "Theorien der Informatik" User-Centered and Participatory Design Requirements for In-Situ Authoring of Location Based Experiences. Proc. of MobileHCI '06. ACM, pp. 121-128 UbiComp in Opportunity Spaces: Challenges for Participatory Design. Proc. of PDC 2006. ACM. pp. 47-56     “In MY situation I would dislike THAAAT!” Role Play as Assessment Method for Tools Supporting Participatory Planning. Proc. of PDC 2002. CPSR. pp. 243-247. Professional Responsibility in Informatics Practice research in cooperation with Peter Bittner, Humboldt-University of Berlin Critical Computing 2005 paper A Micro-Ethical View On Computing Practice IFIP'2002 paper "Responsibility and the Work of IT-Professionals" Bittner, Hornecker, Twisselmann, Weber. Die berufliche Situation informatisch Handelnder in der ethischen Reflexion GI-Jahrestagung 2003. working group 'Responsibility' (Verantwortung) of the German Society of Informatics The didactics of teaching informatics (computer science) in Higher Education (my diploma thesis) diploma thesis (1994, in german) Programmieren als Handwerkszeug im ersten Semester(1998) and Teaching/Learning (in general, e.g. CSCL)