Here is the media response to the experiment:

Interview with Michael Bonfert.

Report from Buten und Binnen

You can listen to the reports here:

Robert Porzel at Radio Bremen Zwei

Michael Bonfert at Radio Bremen Eins

Michael Bonfert at Cosmo

Robert Porzel at SWR3

To the Digital Customer Experience - Challenge (https://app.ekipa.de/challenge/digital-customer-experience/brief)

https://fg-enc.gi.de/veranstaltung/game-jam-serious-games-und-gamification-mensch-und-computer-2019/

Wellcome to our group, Ioannis!

“Breaking The Experience: Effects of Questionnaires in VR User Studies” goes deeper in the physiology of presence and investigates how the question-asking itself can break the VR experience (DOI: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/3313831.3376144, Video preview: https://youtu.be/iHdW3nphCZQ )

Twitter - https://twitter.com/MUHAI_org

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/muhai_org/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/muhai.org/

Everyone is cordially invited to share and subscribe to this exciting material.

We warmly congratulate him on passing the exam so successfully!

Bastian Dänekas joined us last November as support for our part of the project KI-SIGS and is working in parallel on his doctoral thesis on "Developing and researching methods to measure quality of strenght exercises and give dynamic feedback".

Thomas Mildner received a scholarship in the Graduate School "Empowering Digital Media" from January 2021 and is researching the topic "Assessing Hands-Off Interfaces to Teach and Practice within Neurosurgical Environments."

As of today (01.06.2021), Laura Spillner will support the colleagues in the MUHAI project and will also start her doctoral thesis with us.

We are happy about our new colleagues, welcome them warmly and wish them (belatedly) a good start.

Dr. Maximilian A. Friehs is a cognitive neuroscientist with a PhD in Psychology from the University of Trier (Germany), where he also completed his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science studies. He currently works as an Assistant Professor at the School of Psychology at University College Dublin (Ireland). During the last years he collaborated with researchers around the globe on a multitude of projects; some of the most frequent collaborators include the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Saskatchewan (Canada) and the Lise-Meitner Research Group Cognition & Plasticity at the Max-Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Germany). His research mainly focusses on the modulation of (prefrontal) neural processes via external influences such as acute stress, medication or non-invasive brain stimulation (e.g., TMS and tDCS). Additionally, he works on applied research in the area of sports and video games. For more information on his research visit his GoogleScholar profile (https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=XpWv-i8AAAAJ&hl=en). In his talk he will focus on the effects of non-invasive brain stimulation as a form of cognitive enhancement and the influence of motivation on (game) performance. Furthermore, he will outline some upcoming research projects.

The dissertation explores how interaction design can sustain engagement with interactive systems. Involving emotional, cognitive and behavioral components of engagement and is looking at engagement from the perspectives of user experience intensity, as well as user behavior. At the macro level, these three strands of research pursue a holistic view of user experience and provide concrete but generalizable starting points for the design of engaging interactive systems. At the micro-level, this dissertation extends existing theories and demonstrates the effects of individual elements on user behavior and the intensity of the experience with interactive systems.

We warmly congratulate Mr. Alexandrovsky for passing the exam so successfully!

https://media.suub.uni-bremen.de/handle/elib/5333

We congratulate Susanne very much and are glad that she supports us also as a PostDoc our working group.

A warm welcome to Robin!

With in-person meetings possible again, the first Student Theses Club will take place this Thursday, March 24th, 4-5pm, at the Master Studio in MZH, 6th Floor.

With in-person meetings possible again, the first Student Theses Club will take place this Thursday, March 24th, 4-5pm, at the Master Studio in MZH, 6th Floor. The idea of this club is to give you a regular chance, outside of regular supervision, to discuss your current problems and get feedback from peers that may struggle with similar issues as you, perhaps having overcome them and are now able to share experience.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact  Thomas Mildner.

We are really excited and looking forward to discussing your amazing topics soon! See you there!

The project runs in collaboration with the HCI working group of the University of Bremen. Contact persons are Bastian Dänekas and Nadine Wagener

The publications are all available in the ACM Digital Library and the presentations are uploaded to YouTube.

Zargham et al. - "I Didn't Catch That, But I'll Try My Best": Anticipatory Error Handling in a Voice Controlled Game
ACM: dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3491102.3502115
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch

Zargham et al. - "I Want It That Way'": Exploring Users' Customization and Personalization Preferences for Home Assistants
ACM: dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3491101.3519843
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch

Muender et al. - Haptic Fidelity Framework: Defining the Factors of Realistic Haptic Feedback for Virtual Reality
ACM: dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3491102.3501953
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch
 
Muender et al. - Evaluating Soft Organ-Shaped Tangibles for Medical Virtual Reality
ACM: dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3491101.3519715
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch

Putze et al. - Understanding HCI Practices and Challenges of Experiment Reporting with Brain Signals: Towards Reproducibility and Reuse
ACM: dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3490554
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch

Within the scope of her thesis Katharina is going to explore different eHealth components (e.g. electronic health record, mobile health apps) as well as their (potential) interaction. In this context, she wants to identify untapped opportunities regarding the user experience and - if possible - offer appropriate solutions.

A very heartly welcome, Katharina!

Warm welcome to you, Kamyar!

Anke successfully defended in June her thesis "Empowering Surgeons - A Multimodal Interaction Approach to Improve Computer-Assisted Surgical Planning and Interventions", which summarises her research efforts to support surgeons in their daily work.

For her thesis, Anke developed and tested various research prototypes to improve surgery planning and the execution of interventions. She used tangibles, 3D models, virtual reality, gesture control, electroluminescence displays, and new kinds of navigational feedback. In combination with methods from human-computer interaction, such as user-centered and participatory design, focus groups, and user studies, she integrates these technologies into applications to empower surgeons rather than restrict or replace them. One goal was to increase the surgeons' autonomy and thereby provide empowerment to the surgeons.

Congratulations, Anke, and great to have you with us!

We are pleased to host this important conference in Bremen!

The large-scale hydrogen research project funded by the BMBF is concerned with setting up a hydrogen center in Bremen's industrial port, known as a hydrogen hub. The Bremen steel mill, which is currently still responsible for 58 percent of local CO2 emissions, plays a special role in this. The switch to clean hydrogen is thus an essential contribution to achieving Bremen's climate targets.

Our research assistant Michael Bonfert contributes to the project through the interaction design of the digital transformation platform. Innovative technologies such as virtual reality and haptic interfaces will be used to visualize complex data and strengthen strategic collaboration, raising interesting research questions for human-computer interaction.

Rachel is interested in exploring the possibilities of using smartphones with all their included sensors and cameras in combination with VR applications.

Vino's background is in Culture and Media studies. In the last few years my work has been mainly focused on the political economy of various technologies, such as Google's ReCAPTCHA. At the Digital Media Lab I'll be working on dark patterns in conversational agents.

Welcome to both of you and we're glad to have you with us!

His dissertation investigates the theoretical foundation of natural interaction with haptic feedback in VR and applies these concepts in the design of VR applications in two diverse application scenarios to enable non-technical professionals to interact with complex 3D content themselves. The Thesis is available online: https://doi.org/10.26092/elib/1819

Congratulations on the excellent result, Thomas!

The GGJ is an annual event that takes place simultaneously all over the world and where players develop a computer or board game within 48 hours. You don't have to be a professional game developer. Creativity and a good portion of enthusiasm are important.

Time and place: 03-05 Feb 2023; Uni Bremen, MZH 1380/1400 (follow the signs)
Discord: https://discord.gg/C2QtkZg8Ga
Registration: globalgamejam.org/2023/jam-sites/global-game-jam-bremen"

Participation is free of charge!

We are pleased to have welcomed Mr. Bovenschulte with us.

Johanna has a master's degree in foreign language linguistics and additionally studied computational linguistics. Her research interests are in natural language processing (NLP) and human-robot interaction. She is currently working on sentiment analysis and knowledge graphs for the development of emotion-sensitive chatbots.

We warmly welcome Johanna to our team!

Congratulations to the authors on this great success!

Thank you Johannes, and it was great to see you again!

Thomas Mildner will give talks on "About Engaging and Governing Strategies: A Thematic Analysis of Dark Patterns in Social Networking Services", where the underlying paper was awarded an Honorable Mention, and on "Dark Patterns and the Emerging Threats of Deceptive Design Practices".

From the context of the BMBF-funded project VIVATOP, Anke Reinschlüssel and Thomas Münder are presenting at the interactivity "Versatile Immersive Virtual and Augmented Tangible OR - Using VR, AR and Tangibles to Support Surgical Practice".

Michael Bonfert will present the paper VRisbee: How Hand Visibility Impacts Throwing Accuracy and Experience in Virtual Reality, which he co-authored, at a poster session.

In addition, our colleagues Tanja Döring, Rainer Malaka, Michael Bonfert, Thomas Mildner, Robert Porzel and Nima Zargham are co-authors on a number of other papers.

We are happy about your success, and have fun at the German Party!

The content of the talk is announced as follows:

Abstract:

Over the past years a global and highly professional cyber crime industry has established itself, making user-centred attacks an omnipresent threat for society. Companies, organisations and individuals struggle to keep up and protect themselves effectively from an ever growing number of sophisticated attack vectors. Reasons are, among others, a general lack of awareness and understanding of such threats, inherently complex and difficult-to-understand security and privacy mechanisms, and users struggling to habituate secure behavior in cyber space.

Yet, humans are not as helpless as it seems, as many examples of secure behavior in the real world demonstrate. Based on examples from our research, I will demonstrate how natural security behavior can be supported in the digital world through the design and development of security user interfaces that are aware of human behavior and physiology. I will showcase how technologies for human augmentation allow a detailed understanding on humans’ responses to security-related situations to be obtained and leveraged so as to target opportune moments, enable contextualised means for protection, and increase users’ security literacy.

Congrats, Tanja! We're very pleased for you.

Congratulations on your success from the whole AG!

As these agents are more and more integrated in our daily routines and while creating emotional bonds with them, the number of questions relating to human-agent communication grows, e.g.: How do humans relate to artificial entities that are acknowledged the position of social agent? How can we then identify malicious design strategies in these agents – often called dark patterns? What is the necessity for and the effects of present and future design features, across different modalities and social contexts, in social agents?

We wish you a successful workshop with questions answered and interesting outcomes!

The HCI Summer School is organised by the Digital Media Lab and HCI Group from the University of Bremen, together with UCL London, as part of the Excellence Chair of Prof. Yvonne Rogers (UCL). It will create a physical space for budding interaction PhD students in HCI to address this challenge over three days. Through learning, sharing, and socialising, the school hopes to foster new collaborations and perspectives within the era of digital well-being.

We expect over 40 attendees from more than 15 Universities and Institutions around the world, including Germany, US, UK, Switzerland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Israel. Keynote lectures will be given by Oren Zuckerman (Reichman University, Israel), Katherine Isbister (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Amid Ayobi (University College London, United Kingdom). The rich programme additionally includes interactive sessions, hands-on workshops, decompression activities as well as mentoring.

A lot to look forward to!

On Wednesday, we welcome the participants of the Summer School here in the Digital Media Lab for a short lab tour and a demo session. The VR prototypes of the VIVATOP project, the heart rate zone feedback by Bastian Dänekas, the SelfVReflect application by Nadine Wagener, and a demo of the height anxiety simulator 'The Plank' presented by Michael Bonfert will be demonstrated.

We hope everyone enjoys their visit to the Lab.

This year's summer series "Six Questions for..." features six of its alumni. One of them is Michael Bonfert, former PHD student of the graduate school, who now works in our project HyBit. Michael talks about questions concerning the design of objects, social interactions and one's own body in virtual reality (VR).

Welcome to our group, Leon!

At the Explainable AI (XAI) workshop Laura gave a presentation on the paper '"Finding Uncommon Ground: A Human-Centered Model for Extrospective Explanations"; Laura Spillner, Nima Zargham, Mihai Pomarlan, Robert Porzel and Rainer Malaka'.

Rachel presented the paper ' "My, my, how can I resist you?" - Examining User Reactions to Bogus Explanations of AI; Laura Spillner, Rachel Ringe, Robert Porzel, Rainer Malaka' at the workshop "Ethics and Trust in Human-AI Collaboration: Socio-Technical Approaches".

Great success, you both!

Rainer Malaka , director of the graduate college "Empowering Digital Media", which is also funded by the Klaus Tschira Foundation, was a member of the jury at this year's Explore Science school competitions in Bremen's Bürgerpark. Pupils had built bridges out of paper and precision scales, constructed windmills that drive other windmills, and made kaleidoscopes.

12,000 children, young people and adults visited the event - a great success

Work from the following courses will be presented:

• Embodied Interaction; Lecturers: Dr. Robert Porzel and Prof. Dr. Rainer Malaka
• Current Topics in HCI; Lecturers: Prof. Dr. Tanja Döring and Dr. Susanne Putze
• Aplied Computer Sciene in Sports; Lecturers: Dr. Robert Porzel, Dr. Tim Laue and Bastian Dänekas

The event will take place on 20/09/2023 from 1 pm till 3:30 pm in room MZH 6200. Visitors are welcome to view and have the students' work explained.

She will work there as a developer in the field of NLP together with her colleague Dr. Jan Fliessbach (University of Potsdam) and Prof. Dr. Lucia Tovena and Dr. Damien Fleury (Université Paris Cité) for one week each in the next two years.

On the one hand, the PaCoCo project aims to explore non-canonical uses of questions in French by using Opus OpenSubtitles as a massive parallel corpus. Furthermore, the project will expand and refine the workflow for using OpusTools (Aulamo et al. 2020) in combination with OpuSearch (Fliessbach & Rockstroh) to analyze the corpus data.

We warmly congratulate her to her success.

Her work can be found at doi.org/10.26092/elib/2689 .

The abstract of her thesis says as follows:

"Designers and developers have to consider many factors when creating Serious Games (SGs), including entertainment and education. After playing games, SGs aim to improve players' or learners' skills (s). In a pedagogical sense, SGs should teach players/participants. SGs should entertain players throughout the game. Thus, SGs must motivate players. Developers must analyze functional demands to select game elements for learning objectives. Developers should also consider non-functional factors like delight and entertainment to promote long-term user engagement. Another issue is that SGs are tailored to learning objectives, which makes recreating and reusing their output difficult and costly. Multiplayer cooperative SG development needs additional work. First, the gameplay must meet conventional multiplayer game needs like player participation and interaction and SG design restrictions like learning content, flexibility, and personalization. Second, players collaborate to achieve a goal in cooperative games. Design must consider both. The developers must consider embedded instructional content, mechanics that engage many players, and mechanics that encourage cooperation throughout the game. Existing research and methods are suggested to solve the challenges of building serious games. However, due to the necessity to address the remaining gaps in usability and utility, only a few of these methods were implemented in actual projects.

The main goal of this research is to investigate systematic ways to develop multiplayer cooperative SGs. This thesis aims to develop a systematic method for decreasing the effort required to develop SGs while retaining the game's entertaining and educational purposes.

It presents the findings of an investigation on the effects of game elements on player experience in multiplayer cooperative entertainment and serious games. The lessons learned from producing cooperative serious games, as well as the results of user research conducted for developing "The M-SG framework," a framework to support multiplayer cooperative serious games. To fulfill the primary purpose of this thesis, a user evaluation of the framework was conducted.

The results indicate that the M-SG framework can benefit the research of multiplayer cooperative serious games and improve the reuse of games from previous projects by modifying the games' premises. These findings show the value of the M-SG framework as a tool for supporting the development of cooperative serious games."

Fenja holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the University of Bremen and a Master's degree in Data and Computer Science from the University of Heidelberg. During her stay in Heidelberg, Fenja worked for the "Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS)" in the Astroinformatics group and has always had a great interest in working with astronomical data. Insofar she is interested in machine learning methods to analyze astronomical data and software applications that combine artificial and human intelligence to create exploratory approaches to data processing.

Welcome, Fenja! We are pleased that you are with us.

Serious games have long been studied in HCI for their potential to support learning, behavioral change, motivation to exercise and many other areas beyond entertainment. One such area is psychotherapy. Specifically for the treatment of phobias, studies suggest that the inclusion of video games can positively influence the course of therapy. In his dissertation, Georg examines this connection between games that enable creative self-expression and psychotherapy for the treatment of phobias. His thesis can be found at https://media.suub.uni-bremen.de/handle/elib/7664.

Congratulations on your successful doctorate, Georg!

This year, after Corona, the GGJ finally took place again in the usual rooms in the PC lab of Faculty 3. We had 50 participants, who each created a game in nine teams. The winning game, The Adventures of Farty McFartface, was a perfect match for this year's jam motto, Make me Laugh. And thanks to the pizza donation from Contact-Software and game vouchers from BeamNG, all the jammers were motivated to keep going throughout the jam marathon.

A big praise and thank you to our organizers, donors and also to all participants.

We congratulate Michael heartily to his success!

Short abstract of Michael's work:

Immersive experiences created with multisensory and interactive virtual reality (VR) technology can feel incredibly realistic. Many factors of the system and the user determine the fidelity of VR interactions, that is, how closely an interaction resembles the reference interaction to be simulated. The human-computer interaction (HCI) research presented in this dissertation is a step towards unraveling and better understanding the different aspects of interaction fidelity in VR that cover user input, computer simulation, sensory feedback, and the user's experience.

Combining theoretical, methodological, and empirical research, I present and discuss nine papers focusing on object manipulation and embodiment in the context of interaction fidelity. The presented Interaction Fidelity Model enables a systematic assessment of eight fidelity components with precise definitions and a thorough discussion of their implications. Integrating the HCI loop and previous theories, the model's human-centered perspective can be universally applied to all interactions with any VR system. Furthermore, the specialized Haptic Fidelity Framework allows a detailed assessment of 14 factors determining the fidelity of haptic interfaces.

On this theoretical basis, a series of user studies are analyzed, covering findings on haptic feedback and perception for object manipulation, body visibility in VR sports, visual realism of virtual humans, embedding questionnaires into virtual environments for user research, and VR meetings of an academic team. The quantitative and qualitative analyses demonstrate significant effects of varying interaction fidelity on user performance, task load, sense of body ownership, perceived realism, usability, and user experience. The iterative user research contributes hardware and software prototypes, such as an in-VR questionnaire tool for participants' self-reports, a grip-based interaction technique for force-feedback gloves, a handheld controller with adaptive trigger resistance, and experimental environments built with Unity.

This thesis provides guidelines, illustrative examples, research artifacts, and educational material for designing realistic VR applications, improving how we comprehend and reflect on interaction fidelity in VR research and development. An extensive research agenda highlights promising directions for future investigations of the complex construct of interaction fidelity.

As a member of the TZI, we from the Digital Media Lab presented eight projects: With applications such as the virtual planning and intraoperative support of liver operations via the visualization of astronomical data such as galaxy point clouds or forms of interaction in the construction of a hydrogen industry as well as the secure design of smart home environments a wide range of areas for scientific, private and public interest were addressed. An overview or further information on the exhibits can be found in the event's invitation flyer or by email from the TZI office.

The event was a complete success with around 220 interested participants from local industry and science. And our project team members enjoyed presenting their work. Good work, group!!!

Before joining the Digital Media Lab, Iddo acted as Chief Design & Technology Officer and co-headed a NeuroHCI research group at Reichman University's Institute for Brain, Cognition & Technology. At the institute he was responsible for the HCI aspects of the research work, design and technology development, and oversaw research projects through all stages from conceptualization through design and development to behavioral and neuroimaging experiments.

Iddo has a broad interest which shows in the selection of his favorite topics like: NeuroHCI, Neuroscience, Sensory substitution, Muti-modal interactions, Haptics and Shape-changing interfaces, Social robotics and Human-robot Interaction.

We warmly welcome Iddo to our team

We sincerely congratulate Nima on his success.

Thomas Mildner first-authored the paper „Listening to the Voices: Describing Ethical Caveats of Conversational User Interfaces According to Experts and Frequent Users“. Nima Zargham’s first-author paper “”I Know What You Mean": Context-Aware Recognition to Enhance Speech-Based Games” received the Honourable Mention Award. And Carolin travelled to the beautiful Hawaii to present her two first-authored papers “Experiencing Dynamic Weight Changes in Virtual Reality Through Pseudo-Haptics and Vibrotactile Feedback” and “Exploring Mobile Devices as Haptic Interfaces for Mixed Reality”.

Great success! Congratulations to Caro, Thomas and Nima!

Thomas Mildner started on Friday, June 21 with his dissertation "Mitigating Dark Patterns Through Responsible Design Ethical Design Considerations for User-Centred Technology". On Monday, June 24, it was on to Nadine Wagener's thesis "Making Space for Self-Care: Designing VR Applications to Empower Everyday Well-Being". And on Tuesday, Nima Zargham defended his thesis "Expanding Speech Interaction for Domestic Activities" as well as Evropi Stefanidi her dissertation "Designing for Diverse Needs: Technology-supported Well-being and Empowerment of Children and their Care Ecosystem".

What a great result! Congratulations to you all. And we are very proud of you!

We presented her a selection of our projects in this context:

Vivatop: A system to support surgeons. The project, which was originally funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, aimed to design applications using VR/AR and 3D printing to effectively support the planning and execution of operations as well as training and further education scenarios.

AI-supported fitness training: In a study called Big Three 100, movement data from the bench press, squat and deadlift exercises is being collected, which will later be used as training data for research into AI assistance systems in weight training.

hyBit (Hydrogen for Bremen's Industrial Transformation): Students from the EnergyShift project, a bachelor project and part of the hyBit research project, have presented applications in the field of climate change: At a touch table, users can explore Bremen's city center and determine where it makes sense to install solar cells. Another application uses an AR app to provide users with information on energy consumption and generation in typical residential buildings.

The latter was of course of particular interest to Ms. Moosdorf in view of her responsibility for climate and the environment.

Yvonne Rogers is known for her fundamental research in the field of technologies for augmenting and “augmenting” human abilities. She currently holds an "Excellence Chair" at the University of Bremen where she and her team are investigating how personal data can be used in combination with AI techniques from a human-centered perspective to improve the quality of healthcare.

We were very pleased to welcome Yvonne at our Lab.

He's there on invitation from the CAMT, with Supara Grudpan, our former PHD student and now lecturer at CAMT, as his contact person.

Have a great time in Chiang Mai, Rainer!

With a total of 22 research results from many exciting fields, the conference was once again a complete success.

Good success to everyone involved!

Rainer Malaka, director of the graduate college "Empowering Digital Media", which is also funded by the Klaus Tschira Foundation, was involved as a juror in the  student competitions and was impressed by the results, which included earthquake-proof paper towers and chain reactions that address the tipping points of climate change.

The event was once again a great success!

The “cookbook” is a 3-volume collection of articles by Muhai project participants  (with the third volume yet to be published)  presenting research findings from the project. The books are freely available and provide an introduction to the AI topics of Meaning, Understanding and Human-centric AI.

Unfortunately, this will be the last face-to meeting, but there is still time to exchange ideas and finish the good collaboration!

VR researchers at the Digital Media Lab devised the Taxonomy of the Interaction Fidelity Model in cooperation with experts from the University of Hamburg and Virginia Tech, US. It's now published in the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction by Taylor & Francis.

Fidelity describes how closely a replication resembles the original. It can be helpful to analyze how faithful interactions in virtual reality (VR) are to a reference interaction. In prior research, fidelity has been restricted to the simulation of reality—also called realism. Our definition includes other reference interactions, such as superpowers or fiction. Interaction fidelity is a multilayered concept. Unfortunately, different aspects of fidelity have either not been distinguished in scientific discourse or referred to with inconsistent terminology.

Therefore, we present the Interaction Fidelity Model (IntFi Model). Based on the human-computer interaction loop, it systematically covers all stages of VR interactions. The conceptual model establishes a clear structure and precise definitions of eight distinct components. As a communication tool, it helps teams to understand and discuss fidelity in VR. It was reviewed through workshops with fourteen VR experts. We provide guidelines, diverse examples, and educational material to apply the IntFi Model universally to any VR experience and propose foundational research opportunities.

Get free posters. Having the model available in your office, lab kitchen, or meeting room can benefit your team's discussions about your latest development or research. Order your free premium prints (incl. global shipping) here: www.michael-bonfert.de/intfi

Find the full open-access article with illustrations definitions, application examples, free educational material, an expert evaluation, and crucial research opportunities: https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2024.2400377

Ameneh introduced her paper From Pixels to Feelings: Exploring Game Elements for Eliciting Empathy toward Refugees, which analyzes commercial games and their ratings and shows that mechanics such as decision-based consequences and branching narratives promote empathy.

Mehrdad presented his work Empowering User Security Awareness and Risk Assessment within Gamified Smartphone Environment, which aims to enable users to improve awareness and assess risks regarding security through smartphone games.

Congrats for your successful presentations at the conference!

In the context of AI and art, the Kunsthalle Bremen hosted a panel discussion on 22 October entitled “Ohne Holzschnitt keine KI. Künstliche Intelligenz und Bilder: Der Kampf um Vertrauen, Wahrheit und Deutungshoheit”, in which Rainer Malaka from our lab took part.

The question of what consequences, opportunities and challenges AI has for institutions and companies was explored. Can images still be trusted today? Does AI (already) belong in museum collections? What influence does AI have on the creative industry and up-and-coming artists?

Alongside Prof. Dr. Rainer Malaka (University of Bremen), Dr. Yvette Gerner (Radio Bremen), Prof. Dr. Christoph Grunenberg (Kunsthalle Bremen) and Dr. Pia Schreiber (digital agency construktiv) discussed the questions from moderator Pit Noack.

An inspiring debate on a very topical subject.

The workshop was organized in collaboration of the University of Bremen, Technical University of Eindhoven, and University College Dublin, with support by the Klaus Tschira Stiftung and Leibniz Science Campus Digital Public Health.

Challenging Topics like "Responsible Embedding of LLMs in CUIs" and "Ethical Caveats in CUIs and HRI (Human Robot Interaction)" were discussed with focus on risks and opportunities from a human-centred perspective. For further information ask Thomas Mildner.

Thomas presented two of his papers: The first was "Level Up or Game Over," which was based on a former student's thesis, Sam Niknejad, co-authored with Nima Zargham, Susanne Putze, and Rainer Malaka! The second was titled "Finding a Way Through the Social Media Labyrinth". Gian-Luca Savino, Susanne Putze, and Rainer Malaka co-authored this work. For this paper Thomas also received an honorable mention!

Nima and Thomas also organized a workshop on Designing AI Personas.  In this workshop, they discussed what AI agents should look like, how they should communicate, and how they should interact with people. Ultimately, they discussed how the experiential side of AI agents should be designed. It was co-organized with Mateusz Dubiel, Smit Desai, and Hans-Joachim Belz.

Congratulations on your success at this conference, Thomas and Nima!

We are looking forward to seeing you there!

The Global Game Jam 2025 is supported by https://igaming.com/.

She presented her poster with the preliminary results of her work “Accessibility Engineering in the mhealth industry - A multi-case study” which examines the implementation of accessibility in digital health companies using the German market as an example. The full study is due to be published in 2025

The trip was funded by the Early Career Researcher Academy (ECRA) of the Leibniz Science Campus Digital Public Health Bremen (LSC).

A very fine success, Kathi!

We congratulate Mehrdad on the successful completion of his PhD!

The SUI is dedicated to research on spatial human-computer interaction, which is particularly crucial for immersive technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Carolin herself is currently working in this field on researching scalable solutions for haptic technologies.

Lisa is part of our hyBit project. Her scientific interest lies in 'Tangible Interaction & Creativity' and 'Human-AI Co-Creation'.

Welcome, Lisa! It's great that you are working with us

We had almost 70 participants in this worldwide hackathon. In 13 teams, they each created a game on the topic of ‘Bubble’. The winning game was ‘Duckslayer’ by The DuckDudes, second place went to ‘Bubble Fall’ by Team Sushi and third place was shared by ‘Soapy Spiral’ by Soapy Squad and ‘Burst the Bubble’ by Team FuckUnity.

Thanks to the pizza donation from Contact-Software and game vouchers from BeamNG, all of the participating jammers were motivated to keep up this hack marathon. And iGaming.com provided strong support with a budget for security (for overnight stay), T-shirts for the organisation team and drinks.

We are delighted that we were able to host this event in Bremen again. And a big thank you to our organisers and donors. And of course to all the participants! You are great!

Press reports can be found under:
KreisZeitung: https://www.kreiszeitung.de/lokales/bremen/bubble-in-der-badewanne-an-der-bremer-uni-93538378.html, 
Nag-News: https://nag-news.de/deutschland/bremen/global-game-jam-in-bremen-entwickle-dein-spiel-in-48-stunden/,
IDW Online: https://idw-online.de/en/event78462,
Bremen News: https://bremennews.de/in-48-stunden-neue-spiele-entwickeln-global-game-jam-an-der-universitaet-bremen/

Iddo Wald's paper “Spatial Haptics: A Sensory Substitution Method for Distal Object Detection Using Tactile Cues” deals with the question of how vibro-tactile feedback can be used to detect the localization of an object in 3D space, and a corresponding proof-of-concept study.

Thomas Mildner's paper "A Comparative Study of How People With and Without ADHD Recognize and Avoid Dark Patterns on Social Media" refers to the theory that people with ADHD react more strongly to the common use of attention-grabbing artifacts. The study examines whether the recognition of these patterns differs significantly between people with and without ADHD.

Thomas' second paper, "Getting Trapped in Amazon's ``Iliad Flow: A Foundation for the Temporal Analysis of Dark Patterns'', describes a temporal analysis and characterization of dark patterns that users try to influence throughout their stay on many apps and websites.

The SIG “Global and Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Dark Patterns and Deceptive Design Practice” by Thomas Mildner deals with the observation that contributions to 'dark patterns' often originate from Western and English backgrounds. In this context, the workshop focuses on intercultural collaboration and knowledge exchange, with the aim of developing culturally sensitive perspectives for research and design ethics, and finding a broad consensus for diverse solutions.

Great success, Iddo and Thomas. Congratulations!

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Here again papers and their respective abstracts

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Spatial Haptics: A Sensory Substitution Method for Distal Object Detection Using Tactile Cues

Authors: Iddo Yehoshua Wald, Donald Degraen, Amber Maimon, Jonas Keppel, Stefan Schneegass, Rainer Malaka

We present a sensory substitution-based method for representing locations of remote objects in 3D space via haptics. By imitating auditory localization processes, we enable vibrotactile localization abilities similar to those of some spiders, elephants, and other species. We evaluated this concept in virtual reality by modulating the vibration amplitude of two controllers depending on relative locations to a target. We developed two implementations applying this method using either ear or hand locations. A proof-of-concept study assessed localization performance and user experience, achieving under 30° differentiation between horizontal targets with no prior training. This unique approach enables localization by using only two actuators, requires low computational power, and could potentially assist users in gaining spatial awareness in challenging environments. We compare the implementations and discuss the use of hands as ears in motion, a novel technique not previously explored in the sensory substitution literature.

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A Comparative Study of How People With and Without ADHD Recognise and Avoid Dark Patterns on Social Media
Authors: Thomas Mildner, Daniel Fidel, Evropi Stefanidi, Pawel Wozniak, Rainer Malaka, Jasmin Niess

Dark patterns are deceptive strategies that recent work in human-computer interaction (HCI) has captured throughout digital domains, including social networking sites (SNSs). While research has identified difficulties among people to recognise dark patterns effectively, few studies consider vulnerable populations and their experience in this regard, including people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), who may be especially susceptible to attention-grabbing tricks. Based on an interactive web study with 135 participants, we investigate SNS users' ability to recognise and avoid dark patterns by comparing results from participants with and without ADHD. In line with prior work, we noticed overall low recognition of dark patterns with no significant differences between the two groups. Yet, ADHD individuals were able to avoid specific dark patterns more often. Our results advance previous work by understanding dark patterns in a realistic environment and offer insights into their effect on vulnerable populations.

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Getting Trapped in Amazon's ``Iliad Flow'': A Foundation for the Temporal Analysis of Dark Patterns
Authors: Colin M Gray, Thomas Mildner, Ritika Gairola

Dark patterns are ubiquitous in digital systems, impacting users throughout their journeys on many popular apps and websites. While substantial efforts from the research community in the last five years have led to consolidated taxonomies and an ontology of dark patterns, most characterizations of these patterns have been focused on static images or isolated pattern types. In this paper, we leverage documents from a US Federal Trade Commission complaint describing dark patterns in Amazon Prime's ``Iliad Flow,'' illustrating the interplay of dark patterns across a user journey. We use this case study to illustrate how dark patterns can be characterized and mapped over time, providing a sufficient audit trail and consistent application of dark patterns at high- and meso-level scales. We conclude by describing the groundwork for a methodology of Temporal Analysis of Dark Patterns (TADP) that allows for rigorous identification of dark patterns by researchers, regulators, and legal scholars.

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SIG: Global and Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Dark Patterns and Deceptive Design Practice
Authors: Katie Seaborn, Colin M Gray, JOhanna Gunawan, Thomas Mildner, René Schäfer, Lorena Sánchez Chamorro, Satoshi Nakamura

Dark patterns and deceptive designs (DPs) refer to user interfaces (UIs) that trick people into interactions that benefit service providers. Today, a wealth of scholarship alongside legal action and rising awareness among the public has emerged worldwide. However, we acknowledge that contributions often stem from work conducted within Western and English contexts. In support of diversifying practice and enabling global and transdisciplinary collaboration, we propose a workshop that centres on cross-cultural engagement. To this end, we have two aims: (i) sharing knowledge on the frameworks, methods, and tools used to understand user awareness, expert opinion, and technical detection in pursuit of global consensus (knowledge-sharing) and (ii) exploring culturally-sensitive perspectives on research and design ethics 
to craft versatile solutions collaboratively (taking action). This hybrid workshop will bring together a diversity of designers, researchers, and legal scholars to construct and share ethical practices that mitigate DPs.

An inspiring discussion on a current and important topic!

Her vision about that topic is, that exploring how human-centred AI can empower us to achieve ever greater feats by developing new AI 'supertools' that don’t just make our tasks more efficient but expand our minds, daring us to think differently, while at the same time helping us break through the barriers that often stall or prevent creative leap.

Intriguing talk with an engaging discussion afterwards. Thanks to Yvonne!

The focus of this year's conference is "Robots for a Sustainable World". Rachel's scientific approach with "MetaMorph" deals with the classification of the morphology of robots, while "Wilhelm Tell" focuses on the learning of affordances of robots in everyday household tasks.

We hope you had a great time in Down Under. And congratulations from your colleages to your success, Rachel!

In the sub-project P2 | Interfaces: Implementation of user-centered communicative AI, our colleagues Laura Spillner,  Johanna Rockstroh, Nina Wenig and Nima Zargham,under the direction of Rainer Malaka are investigating the design and implementation of interfaces of communicative AI as a dimension of its sociomaterial constitution using the example of communicative bots.

We wish all participants a successful project!

The Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability to attribute mental states to other people; it is crucial for effective social interaction. The scientific question behind the project is whether visualizing the “mental state” of the robot (e.g. CPU load, power consumption) can simulate processes that take place in human-human interaction and thus improve the mapping of the ToM to the robot, resulting in an improvement in interaction with robots in terms of sympathy, trust and credibility.

By taking the ToM into account in the development of robots, more natural, intuitive and socially adapted interactions between humans and robots should be evoked.

The people responsible for this project are Robert Porzel and Iddo Wald. Good luck, Robert and Iddo!

Great project and super work!

Lennard is now doing his PHD with us as part of our SynData project. His research interests lie in the field of data quality, machine learning and “Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)”.

Welcome, Lennard! We are very pleased that you are continuing with us!

Mai is interested in user experience design and user behavior, particularly in understanding how people interact with digital systems. Her focus is on how digital environments can be designed to support user decision-making. Currently, her research explores the application of digital nudging in surveys, examining how interface elements of a digital survey can influence user behavior while respecting individual autonomy. She also investigates how various interventions can be tailored to particular personality traits to enhance user engagement. Consequently, the title of her master thesis is "Design and Evaluation of Digital Nudging Techniques for Survey Applications Based on Users' Personality Traits"

A warm welcome to Mai! We enjoy having you with us.

Our colleagues Rainer Malaka, Thomas Eßmeier (Mildner) and Iddo Wald represented us there with a total of three papers and a Special Interest Group (SIG).

What a successful result for you!

In his doctoral thesis, Denis investigated the topic of user behavior in conditional access systems. He analyzed how users perceive authorization systems and their resulting behavior, for example the approach they use to protect their privacy. Subsequently, based on cognitive science findings, case studies were conducted using metaphors on the one hand and categorizations for access control on the other. Build on the categorization version, two models for collaborative platforms were developed, tested and evaluated.

Congratulations on your success, Denis

Izzie completed her Bachelor's and Master's degree in Computer Science at the University of Bremen. During her studies, she already worked in the Digital Media Lab as a student assistant and participated in several research projects in the field of biosignal analysis. Currently, Izzie is involved in the ABS project, which aims to investigate the attribution of Theory of Mind (ToM) in robots by externalizing their internal states in order to improve interaction between human and robots. Her scientific interest focuses on biosignal processing and artifact recognition in relation to multimodal integration of biosignals and affective data processing as well as human-robot interaction.

Welcome to our team, Izzie

Congratulations, Rainer, and all of us from the working group wish you and the entire new Dean's Committee a good start and many successful developments in the coming years.

At RO-MAN - 34th IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, Rachel Ringe presented her paper "Bot Appétit! Exploring how Robot Morphology Shapes Perceived Affordances via a Mise en Place Scenario in a VR Kitchen“ and ”The Fluffy Tightrope - Examining Zoomorphic Robot Interactions for Promoting Active Behavior in a Comfortable Setting." 

And we were well represented at Mensch und Computer 2025 in Chemnitz by our colleagues Lisa Hesselbarth, Rachel Ringe, Iddo Wald,Shiyao Zang, our visiting researcher Amber Maimon, and our master's student Anika Borg. They presented the following work there:

• A workshop paper entitled “Join Me - Empirical Means for Gathering Collaborative Affordances” in Rachel's “How to team with your robot” workshop
• A short paper+poster entitled “Tangible Windmills: Exploring Tangible User Interfaces for Urban Infrastructure Planning” introduced by Lisa.
• A short paper+poster entitled “Evaluating Head Gestures for Answering Likert Scales in Virtual Reality: A Comparative Study” presented by Anika.
• A demo titled “BreathClip: A Wearable Respiration Sensor for Interaction Design” shown by Amber, Iddo, and Izzie
• A demo titled “DoggoRoomie – Examining Zoomorphic Robot Interactions For Promoting Active Behavior In A Comfortable Setting” given by Anika and Rachel. 

Great work, you six

A fascinating and important topic! Great work, Karsten and Mehrdad!

The twelfth Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF) took place this year from September 14 to 19. Every year, the HLF brings together distinguished laureates, winners of prestigious prizes such as the Abel Prize, Turing Award, Fields Medal, and Nevanlinna Prize, with promising young scientists from around the world. The aim of the event is to bring together emerging young scientists in the fields of mathematics and computer science with outstanding award winners for interdisciplinary exchange. This year, the focus was particularly on the role of artificial intelligence and the topic of scientific integrity.

Together with his colleagues from the Digital Media Lab at University of Bremen, he analyzed 20 popular mHealth apps to understand how they handle sensitive health data. By combining static/dynamic analysis with privacy policy reviews, they uncovered a clear mismatch between what apps declare and what they actually do. E.g. apps transmitted personal data before users had given consent; data was routinely sent to third countries such as the USA; consent dialogs contained dark patterns, nudging users toward "accept all".

An important topic in today's world. Well done, Mehrdad!

She completed her Bachelor’s degree in English-Speaking Cultures and Linguistics and her Master’s degree in English-Speaking Cultures with a specialization in Multimodal Linguistics at the University of Bremen. Afterwards, she worked as a research associate in the BMFTR-funded project FakeNarratives from 2023–2024, which investigated disinformation strategies in news media. She then joined the Collaborative Research Center EASE – Everyday Activity Science and Engineering, where she contributed to research on human-robot interaction.

Her research generally focuses on digital multimodal discourse, combining computational/digital and empirical approaches to study text, narrative and interactive strategies across audiovisual, graphic, and specifically digital media. In her doctoral project, she analyzes discourse structures and embodiment in digital empathy and mental-health games, aiming to identify design strategies that foster empathy.

We heartily welcome you to our place, Leandra!

Carolin’s visit was kindly supported by the MMMIGS PhD Grant, and she treasures this time as both personally and academically enriching, making it a highlight of her PhD.

We are very happy to have you back with us, Caro!

The IFIP Fellow Award honours individuals who have achieved distinction in the field of ICT and provided exceptional service to IFIP and the global computing community. Rainer Malaka, Professor of Digital Media and Director of the Centre for Computing Technologies (TZI), adds to this with his spezialising on interaction design, AI and entertainment computing.

Congrats, Rainer! We are very proud of you.

Gwen comes from Shanghai, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts in Game Design at the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts. Before pursuing his doctorate, he completed a Master of Science in Serious Games and Virtual Reality at the University of Glasgow. He also has professional experience at leading Chinese game companies such as NetEase Games and Bilibili Games, where he worked as a system and level designer on several large-scale commercial projects. His professional practice has primarily focused on AI system design, player behavior analysis, and game commercialization strategies.

His research at our lab focuses on AI-driven player modelling and adaptive system design in serious games, aiming to enhance player engagement through personalized and dynamic gameplay experiences. His doctoral studies are funded by the China Scholarship Council (CSC).

Welcome, Gwen. We are pleased to have you with us!

He was also interviewed by the Washington Post in October about his dissertation topic, “Dark Patterns.” In the interview, he explained how platforms such as TikTok use targeted engagement strategies to entice users to continue scrolling and the risks this poses to well-being and mental health. The article is available here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/interactive/2025/tiktok-addiction-algorithm-scrolling-mental-health/

Well done, Thomas! Congratulations from all of us!

The Global Game Jam is supported by Idealo!

We look forward to seeing you there!

Welcome!

We had almost 60 participants in this global hackathon. Divided into 13 teams, they each created a game on the theme of  “Mask.” The winning game was “Maske kann auch geil sein” (Masks Can Be Cool Too), followed by “My Attack Survivor Kitten” in second place and “Masker Raider” in third place.

Thanks to soda and pizza donations from Idealo and OpenReply and game vouchers from BeamNG, all participating jammers were able to stay motivated throughout the hack marathon. 

We are delighted to have been able to host this event again here in Bremen. And a big shout-out and thank you to our organizers and donors. And, of course, to all the participants! You are amazing! Until next year!

In the article, Bastian shares his expert opinion on the potential, advantages, disadvantages, and risks of AI tools for training support.

You can read the full article in the Augsburger Allgemeine.

Izzie was part of the full paper presentation for the paper "Synchronizing Biosignals for the User Embodiment in Robots" where she did a big study and answered a lot of interesting questions after the presentation. This Paper was a result of a cooperation between the Ben-Gurion University and the University of Bremen.

They also had the opportunity to promote the CUI2026 conference, which will be held here in Bremen, in May 2026 and tried out various intersting demos from other researchers. 

The conference experience was made even better by the wonderful surroundings in Edinburgh.