interactive. media. research.
We have moved! Our new address is Im Süsterfeld 9, top floor, right wing (directions).
Our group, headed by Prof. Dr. Jan Borchers, works 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, mobile, wearable, and shape-changing user interfaces, soft robotics, interactive textiles, handheld augmented reality, interaction with AI, deceptive design, 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 CHI'25 Contributions
We regularly present our work at ACM CHI, the world's premier conference on Human-Computer Interaction. Here's what we shared there in 2025:
Groups vs. Booking Websites:
Investigating Collaborative Strategies Against Deceptive Patterns
Late-Breaking Work by Preuschoff et al., CHI '25
Don't Detect, Just Correct:
Can LLMs Defuse Deceptive Patterns Directly?
Late-Breaking Work by Schäfer et al., CHI '25
The Deceptive Dungeon:
Bringing Deceptive Patterns to the Physical World
Winner of the Student Game Competition, Wallerius et al., CHI '25
Global and Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Dark Patterns and Deceptive Design Practice
Special Interest Group by Seaborn et al., CHI '25
Lost in Translation:
A Cross-Cultural Examination of Linguistic Inaccessibility in HCI
alt.CHI Paper by Vigh et al., CHI '25
Leveraging Digital Accessibility Using Generative AI
Workshop Position Paper by Schäfer et al., CHI '25
News & Events
- Our Work in Progress paper "If They Have No Choice, They'll Accept!": How Children and Adolescents Assess Deceptive Designs received the Best Work in Progress Award at ACM IDC'25. Congratulations René Schäfer, Sarah Sahabi, Lucia Karl, and Sophie Hahn! (Jun 26, 2025)
- Our Deceptive Dungeon, a student project developed in our Media Computing Project course, is the winner of the Student Game Competition at ACM CHI'25 in the Transformative & Transgressive Play category. Congratulations to all the students who realized this project, especially Julian Wallerius, Pascal Raabe, and Erik Østlyngen who presented the game at CHI, and to PhD student René Schäfer who supported the course! (May 1, 2025)
- Our position paper Leveraging Digital Accessibility Using Generative AI was accepted to the Generative AI and HCI workshop at CHI 2025 (GenAICHI). Congratulations to René Schäfer, Sarah Sahabi, and Paul Preuschoff! (Mar 24, 2025)
- Our Late-Breaking Work Groups vs. Booking Websites: Investigating Collaborative Strategies Against Deceptive Patterns was accepted to ACM CHI'25. Congratulations Paul Preuschoff, Sarah Sahabi, René Schäfer, Lea Schirp, and Marcel Lahaye! (Feb 22, 2025)
- Our Late-Breaking Work Don't Detect, Just Correct: Can LLMs Defuse Deceptive Patterns Directly? was accepted to ACM CHI'25. Congratulations René Schäfer, Paul Preuschoff, Rene Niewianda, Sophie Hahn and Kevin Fiedler! (Feb 22, 2025)
- Our Deceptive Dungeon was accepted as a finalist in the Student Games Competition at ACM CHI'25. Congratulations to Julian Wallerius, Pascal Raabe, Erik Østlyngen, and all other involved students! Also, thank you to René Schäfer and Prof. Borchers who supervised the course and the final steps of the project. (Feb 21, 2025)
- Our Special Interest Group (SIG) proposal Global and Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Dark Patterns and Deceptive Design Practice in collaboration with Katie Seaborn, Colin Gray and others was accepted to ACM CHI'25. Join us at CHI, and congratulations René Schäfer ! (Jan 31, 2025)
- Our alt.CHI paper Lost in Translation: A Cross-Cultural Examination of Linguistic Inaccessibility in HCI, a collaboration with authors from various countries led by Eszter Vigh and Ellen Weir from the University of Bristol was accepted to ACM CHI'25. Congratulations René Schäfer and Sophie Hahn! (Jan 31, 2025)
- Prof. Jan Borchers won the Special Edition Faculty Science Slam (video) at the 20th anniversary of RWTH's Science Night. (Nov 8, 2024)
- Earlier news & events...
Usability for Everybody in 18 Minutes
Teaching Summer 2025
Designing Interactive Systems 2
Current Topics in HCI
FLApp
FLApp, our mobile Future Lab Aachen App for iOS and Android, is the city's official science-focused walking tour through Aachen's inner city. But instead of historical facts, you'll learn about the latest discoveries and inventions made by engineers and scientists at each location, with some locations 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 Medieninformatik und Mensch–Computer–Interaktion (Informatik 10) • Prof. Dr. Jan Borchers • RWTH Aachen University • Im Süsterfeld 9 • 2nd floor • Room 2.86 • 52072 Aachen • Germany • +49 (0)241 80-21051 • Contact & Directions • Imprint