interactive. media. research.
Corona virus pandemic information: Following our university's recommendations, we have suspended or moved online all public events (Open Fab Lab Tuesdays, Aachen Maker Meetup, Cocoaheads), and are working from home. You can reach us via email, phone, and Zoom. Our classes in the Winter semester take place online. With fightcorona.ac, we have established a regional initiative to help system-critical institutions with emergency supplies using 3D printing, lasercutting, and other rapid digital fabrication techniques. (Last updated Oct 29, 2020).
Headed by Prof. Dr. Jan Borchers, we work in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Grounded in Computer Science, we develop and study new interaction theories, techniques, and systems in areas like personal digital fabrication and personal design, tangible, mobile, and wearable user interfaces, interactive textiles, multitouch tables and interactive surfaces, augmented reality, interaction with AI, and visual coding environments. Our goal is to make the Brave New World of interactive technologies useful by making it usable. Since starting in October 2003, we have become one of Germany's best-published research groups at CHI, the premier international academic conference in the field.
We're part of the Computer Science Department and the HCI Center at RWTH Aachen University, Germany's top-ranked University of Technology and one of Germany's Excellence Universities. Our group is an Endowed Chair of the German B-IT Foundation.
Our Presentations at ACM CHI 2020
This year, we presented four full papers at ACM CHI, the world's premier conference on Human-Computer Interaction:
GazeConduits:
Calibration-Free Cross-Device Collaboration through Gaze and Touch
Paper by Voelker et al.
HeadReach:
Using Head Tracking to Increase Reachability on Mobile Touch Devices
Paper by Voelker et al.
Heatmaps, Shadows, Bubbles, Rays:
Comparing Mid-Air Pen Position Visualizations in Handheld AR
Paper by Wacker et al.
TRACTUS:
Understanding and Supporting Source Code Experimentation in Hypothesis-Driven Data Science
Paper by Subramanian et al.
News & Events
- We supported ROCK YOUR LIFE! Aachen e.V. with their preparations for their digital winter festival by lasercutting multiple tangram games in our Fab Lab. (Dec 18, 2020)
- Our ARPen is the Day 1 surprise in the AR/VR in Education advent calendar. :)
- Prof. Borchers will be on a research sabbatical during the upcoming summer semester, from Apr 1 until Sep 30, 2021. We still offer most of our courses nevertheless.
- Our Centre Guide, the mobile audio guide for Aachen's Centre Charlemagne museum, is now in the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store, in time for the new exhibition on Charles V who was coronated exactly 500 years ago on Oct 23, 1520. (Oct 8, 2020)
- Prof. Borchers holds a series of usability workshops for RWTH Aachen University's SAP development team. This is part of our initiative to improve the usability of RWTH's software systems. (Sep 23, 2020).
- RWTH is Germany's #1 in Computer Science Research. (Aug 26, 2020)
- In our practical lab, Multimodal Media Madness, our Bachelor students have developed impressive extensions for Ultimaker's open-source 3D printing software Cura, simplifying everyday tasks and enabling new ways to use your 3D printer. All plugins are available to download, complete with short product videos, user guides, source code, and full documentation. (Jul 16, 2020)
- We are coorganizing a workshop on Otherware, a term we are introducing to describe the new class of AI-infused interactive systems that require a rethinking of the interaction with them, beyond naïve anthropomorhism. (Jun 3, 2020)
- The City of Aachen was kind enough to feature us in their excellent thank-you video in times of Corona, for our fightcorona.ac initiative. (Apr 27, 2020)
- Earlier news & events...
Usability for Everybody in 18 Minutes
Teaching WS 2020/2021
Teaching SS 2020
FLApp
FLApp, our mobile Future Lab Aachen App for iOS and Android that launched in 2017, takes you on a walking tour through Aachen's inner city. But instead of historical facts, you'll find out about the latest discoveries and inventions made by engineers and scientists at each location, some using Augmented Reality.
Interested in HCI?
- Jan's Top Ten list of HCI books
- What makes a good PhD student? (Jan, Jan 25, 2006)
- HCI Journals and their Impact Factors (Jan, Jan 30, 2006)
- Other HCI- and Media Computing-related groups at RWTH Aachen University
- Join our low-traffic HCI Announcements list to be informed about HCI-related events at our chair, at RWTH Aachen University and in the area.
Media Computing Group / Lehrstuhl Informatik 10 (Medieninformatik und Mensch–Computer–Interaktion) • Prof. Dr. Jan Borchers • RWTH Aachen University • Ahornstr. 55 • 2nd floor • Room 2208 • 52074 Aachen • Germany • +49 (0)241 80-21051 • Contact & Directions
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