Oliver Nowak

Research Assistant

Room 2.83
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+49 241 80-21074

I was a research assistant at the Chair of Computer Science 10, RWTH Aachen University. In my research, I focused on developing design guidelines for integrated controls in everyday objects in the home to control smart home devices.

Research Projects

 

 

Where am I? Investigating Compound Textile User Interfaces for Eyes-Free Use

TEI 2026

 

Groups and AI: How Access to Generative AI Influences Creative Teamwork

MuC 2025

 

Towards Textile User Interface Design Guidelines for Eyes-free Use

DIS WiP 2025

 

Investigating Eyes-Free Recognition and Distinguishability of Textile Icons in Pairs

TEI 2025

 

Mappings in the Home: Selecting Home Appliances in 3D Space

CHI LBW 2024

 

What's That Shape?: Investigating Eyes-Free Recognition of Textile Icons

CHI 2023

 

Shaping Textile Sliders: An Evaluation of Form Factors and Tick Marks for Textile Sliders

CHI 2022

 

Evaluating Menu Techniques for Handheld AR with a Smartphone & Mid-Air Pen

MobileHCI 2020

 

ARPen: Mid-Air Object Manipulation Techniques for a Bimanual AR System with Pen & Smartphone

CHI 2019

Software Projects

Mein Karlspreisträger

Interactive Exhibit

An Interactive Exhibit for the Charlemagne Prize.

Kieke App

Museum Guide

This app guides visitors through Freilichtmuseum am Kiekeberg. AR features bring history to life and allow unique memories.

Centre Charlemagne App

Museum Guide

The Centre Guide is a mobile app for iOS and Android that guides you through the permanent and temporary exhibitions of the Centre Charlemagne, Aachen's city museum. I develop and maintain the Android version.

FLApp

The Future Lab Aachen App

This mobile tourist guide showcases scientific activities in the city center with multimedia and AR content. I develop and maintain the Android version of the app.

Teaching

Thesis Supervisions

Publications

2026

• Oliver Nowak, Maurice Schwarze, Lennart Becker, Jürgen Steimle and Jan Borchers. Where am I? Investigating Compound Textile User Interfaces for Eyes-Free Use.  In Proceedings of the Twentieth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, TEI '26, pages 14, Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, March 2026.
  

2025

• Paul Preuschoff, Raghad Zaghal, Oliver Nowak and Jan Borchers. Groups and AI: How Access to Generative AI Influences Creative Teamwork.  In Proceedings of the Mensch und Computer 2025, MuC '25, pages 407–421, Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, August 2025.
  
• Oliver Nowak, Erik Müller, Sarah Sahabi and Jan Borchers. Towards Textile User Interface Design Guidelines for Eyes-free Use.  In Proceedings of DIS '25 Companion: Companion Publication of the 2025 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, Funchal, Madeira, DIS Companion '25, Association for Computing Machinery, July 2025.
  
• Oliver Nowak, René Schäfer, Elisabeth Jane Buttkus, Lea Emilia Schirp, Heiko Müller and Jan Borchers. Investigating Eyes-Free Recognition and Distinguishability of Textile Icons in Pairs.  In Proceedings of the Nineteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, TEI '25, pages 13, Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, March 2025.
  

2024

• Oliver Nowak, Lennart Becker, Sebastian Pettirsch and Jan Borchers. Mappings in the Home: Selecting Home Appliances in 3D Space.  In Extended Abstracts of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI '24, pages 7, Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, May 2024.
  

2023

• Jan Borchers, Anke Brocker, Sebastian Hueber, Oliver Nowak, René Schäfer, Adrian Wagner, Paul Miles Preuschoff and Lea Emilia Schirp. The Aachen Lab Demo: From Fundamental Perception to Design Tools.  In Extended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA '23, pages 4, Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, April 2023.
  
• René Schäfer, Oliver Nowak, Lovis Bero Suchmann, Sören Schröder and Jan Borchers. What’s That Shape? Investigating Eyes-Free Recognition of Textile Icons.  In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI '23, pages 12, Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, April 2023.
  

2022

• Oliver Nowak, René Schäfer, Anke Brocker, Philipp Wacker and Jan Borchers. Shaping Textile Sliders: An Evaluation of Form Factors and Tick Marks for Textile Sliders.  In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI '22, Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, April 2022.
  

2020

• Philipp Wacker, Oliver Nowak, Simon Voelker and Jan Borchers. Evaluating Menu Techniques for Handheld AR with a Smartphone & Mid-Air Pen.  In Proceedings of 22nd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, MobileHCI '20, pages 10, ACM, New York, NY, USA, October 2020.
  

2019

• Philipp Wacker, Oliver Nowak, Simon Voelker and Jan Borchers. ARPen: Mid-Air Object Manipulation Techniques for a Bimanual AR System with Pen & Smartphone.  In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI '19, pages 619:1–619:10, ACM, New York, NY, USA, May 2019.
  
• Oliver Nowak. ARMenus: An Evaluation of Menu Interfaces in Pen-based AR Applications on Smartphones. Master's Thesis, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, February 2019.