Research

Martin Hitz

Professor

Martin is heading the group and currently working on his contributions to the group’s textbook project on ‘User-Centered Practice Patterns for Interactive Systems’. He is also drafting a ‘Curated Collection on Human-Technology Interaction in Tourism’ for JITT and editing a Special Issue on ‘Human-Smarthome Interaction’ for Sensors. His research ideas find their way into the work of his colleagues, especially the more junior ones. The last dissertations completed under his supervision dealt with natural, intuitive and calm interaction.

David Ahlström

Associate Professor

further information

David’s main research interests revolve around the design and empirical evaluation of novel user interfaces and interaction techniques for mobile devices and head-mounted display environments, such as map navigation, menu, and image browsing interfaces, and in-air hand gestures, vibration-based input, and touch-commands.

Gerhard Leitner

Associate Professor

Gerhard’s research areas are human system interaction, usability and user experience, with a special focus on smart homes, specific user groups (elderly, private home owners) and specific goals (active and assisted living, comfort enhancement, efficient and easy configuration and control).

Julian Schwazer

University Assistant

Julian’s research interests focus on designing and evaluating intelligent user interfaces for extended reality (XR) technologies, specifically exploring how these interfaces can improve user experience and task performance in safety-critical scenarios.

Anton Josef Fercher

Predoc Scientist

In his current research, Anton investigates new ways to support (end-) users in the do-it-yourself configuration process of Smart Homes. Here his special focus lies on the application of augmented reality based interfaces to provide users with technical background and guidance, as well as possibilities of risk-less exploration on demand.

Mahmoud Sadeghi

Predoc Scientist

Mahmoud explores different possibilities and strategies of using evolutionary algorithms to implement graphical user interfaces which automatically change themselves across time according to the user’s current activities and needs.

Selected Publications

2025
Sadeghi, M. and Ahlström, D. (2024):
Exploring Standard and Novel Interactions on a Multi-Touch-Enhanced Mouse.
In Proceedings of the 20th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (VISIGRAPP 2025) – Volume 1: GRAPP, HUCAPP and IVAPP, pp. 551–560.
2024
Ahlström, D. with Faleel, S., Kwon, S., and Irani, P. (2024):
Validating Eyes-Free Affordance of On-Finger Hand Proximate User Interfaces in In-Situ Scenarios.
In 2024 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR), IEEE, pp. 1283–1292.

Hrast, T., Ahlström, D., Hitz, M. (2024):
Observations and Considerations for Implementing Vibration Signals as an Input Technique for Mobile Devices..
In 2024 Multimodal Technologies and Interaction, 8(9), 76.
2023
Felfernig A., Atas M., Stettinger M., Tran T. N. T., Leitner G. (2023):
Biases in Group Decisions.
In: A. Felfernig, L. Boratto, M. Stettinger, M. Tkalčič (Hrsg.): Group Recommender Systems . An Introduction (Signals and Communication Technology (SCT), Band 2). Cham: Springer International Publishing AG, 28.11.2023, pp. 153 – 163.
2022
Leitner G. (2022):
The Role of Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) in Change Management..
In: M. Karmasin, S. Diehl, I. Koinig (Hrsg.): Media and Change Management . Creating a Path for New Content – Formats, Business Models, Consumer Roles, and Business Responsibility Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 15.02.2022, pp. 443 – 465.
2021
Ahlström, D. with Hasan, K., Mondal, D., Khatra, K., and Neustaedther, C. (2021):
CoAware: Designing Solutions for Being Aware of a Co-Located Partner’s Smartphone Usage Activities.
In Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2021, Canadian Information Processing Society, pp. 46-55.
2020
Ahlström, D. with Hasan, K., Mondal, D., and Neustaedther, C. (2020):
An Exploration of Rules and Tools for Family Members to Limit Co-Located Smartphone Usage.
In Proceedings of the 11th Augmented Human International Conference, (Winnipeg, Canada, 27 – 28 May 2020), ACM Press, Article no.: 7, pages 1-8.
2019
Hitz, M., Königstorfer, E., and Peshkova, E. (May, 2019):
Exploring Cognitive Load of Single and Mixed Mental Models Gesture Sets for UAV Navigation. In: Proc. iHDI workshop @ CHI 2019, Glasgow, May 5, 2019. Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’19, Stephen Brewster, Geraldine Fitzpatrick, Anna Cox, Vassilis Kostakos, eds., ACM), 2019.
More
The complete list of publications of the research group IAS can be found here: List of Publications.

Research Videos

Peshkova, E., Königstorfer, E., Ahlström, D., Hitz, M., and Leitner, G. (2018):
Exploring Cognitive Load of Single and Mixed Mental Models Gesture Sets for UAV Navigation.

Hasan, K., Ahlström, D., Kim, J., and Irani, P. (2017):
AirPanes: Two-Handed Around-Device Interaction for Pane Switching on Smartphones.
In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Denver, Colorado, USA, 06 – 11 May, 2017), ACM Press, pp. 679-691.

Han, T., Ahlström, D., Yang, X., Byagowi, A., and Irani, P. (2016):
Exploring Design Factors for Transforming Passive Vibration Signals into Smartwear Interactions.
In Proceedings of the 9th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (NordiCHI ’16) (Gothenburg, Sweden, 23 – 27 October, 2016), ACM Press, Article 35.

Further research videos are available on our Youtube Channel

Data from Our Experiments

This page provides access to log files with raw data from user experiments conducted by the members of the Interactive Systems research group at Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt. Please, do not hesitate to contact us for more information about our experiments and the corresponding data files and publications! We value scientific repeatability/verification and aim to extend the list with data from future experiments.

Source Code

Hitz, M. and Szölgyenyi, M. (February, 2025):
On the Closest Pair of Points Problem. Submitted for publication.

Data

Hitz, M., Königstorfer, E., and Peshkova, E. (May, 2019):
Exploring Cognitive Load of Single and Mixed Mental Models Gesture Sets for UAV Navigation. In: Proc. iHDI workshop @ CHI 2019, Glasgow, May 5, 2019. Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’19, Stephen Brewster, Geraldine Fitzpatrick, Anna Cox, Vassilis Kostakos, eds., ACM), 2019.

Data

Peshkova, E. and Hitz, M. (2017):
Coherence evaluation of input vocabularies to enhance usability and user experience.
In Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems (EICS ’17) (New York, USA), ACM Press, pp. 15-20.

Data

Peshkova, E., Hitz, M., Ahlström, D., Alexandrowicz, R. W., and Kopper, A. (2017):
Exploring intuitiveness of metaphor-based gestures for UAV navigation.
In 26th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) (Lisbon, 2017), IEEE, pp. 175-182.

Data

Peshkova, E. and Hitz, M. (2017):
Exploring user-defined gestures to control a group of four UAVs.
In 26th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) (Lisbon, 2017), pp. 169-174.

Data

Peshkova, E., Hitz, M., and Ahlström, D. (2016):
Exploring User-Defined Gestures and Voice Commands to Control an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.
In International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment (2016), Springer, Cham, pp. 47-62.

Data

Ahlström, D., Hasan, K., and Irani, P. (2014):
Are You Comfortable Doing That?: Acceptance Studies of Around-Device Gestures in and for Public Settings.
In Proceedings of the 16th international conference on Human-computer Interaction with mobile devices and services (MobileHCI ’14) (Toronto, Canada, 23 – 26 September, 2014), ACM Press, pp. 193-202.

Data

Ahlström, D. and Hitz, M. (2013):
Revisiting PointAssist and Studying Effects of Control-Display Gain on Pointing Performance by Four-Year-Olds.
In Proceedings of Interaction Design and Children (New York, U.S.A., 24 – 27 Juni, 2013), ACM Press, pp. 257-260.

Data – Video

Kaufmann, B. and Ahlström, D. (2013):

Studying Spatial Memory and Map Navigation Performance on Projector Phones with Peephole Interaction.

In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’13) (Paris, France, 24 – 27 Juni, 2013), ACM Press, pp. 3173-3176.

Data – Video

Hasan, K., Ahlström, D., and Irani, P. (2013):
AD-Binning: Leveraging Around-Device Space for Storing, Browsing and Retrieving Mobile Device Content.
In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Paris, France, 24 – 27 Juni, 2013), ACM Press, pp. 899-908.

Data – Video

Kaufmann, B. and Ahlström, D. (2012):
Revisiting Peephole Pointing: A Study of Target Acquisition with a Handheld Projector.
In Proceedings of the 14th international conference on Human-computer interaction with mobile devices and services (MobileHCI ’12) (San Francisco, CA, US, 21 – 24 Sept., 2012), ACM Press, pp. 211-220.

Data – Video

Ahlström, D., Hudelist, M.A., and Schoeffmann, K. (2012):
A User Study on Image Browsing on Touchscreens.
In Proceedings of the 20th ACM International conference on Multimedia (Nara, Japan, 29 Oct. – 2 Nov., 2012), ACM Press, pp. 925-928.

Data

Ahlström, D. and Schoeffmann, K. (2012):
A Visual Search User Study on the Influences of Aspect Ratio Distortion of Preview Thumbnails.
In Proceedings of the IEEE international conference on Multimedia and Expo Workshops (Melbourne, Australia, 9 – 11 July, 2012), IEEE, pp. 546-551.

Data

Cockburn, A., Ahlström, D., and Gutwin, C. (2012):
Understanding Performance in Touch Selections: Tap, Drag and Radial Pointing Drag with Finger, Stylus and Mouse.
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 70:218-233.

Data

Ahlström, D., Cockburn, A., Gutwin, C., and Irani, P. (2010):
Why it’s Quick to be Square: Modelling New and Existing Hierarchical Menu Designs.
In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Atlanta, GA, USA, 10 – 15 April, 2010), ACM Press, pp. 1371-1380.

Data

Ahlström, D. (2005):
Modeling and Improving Selection in Cascading Pull-Down Menus Using Fitts’ Law, the Steering Law and Force Fields.
In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Portland, Oregon, USA, 2 – 7 April, 2005), ACM Press, pp. 61-70.