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INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS

AAU1/...Department of Informatics Systems2/Research Group Interactive Systems3/Teaching4/Master?s Specialization Human-Computer Interaction

Master’s Specialization Human-Computer Interaction

Starting with winter se­me­ster 2019, Uni­ver­sity of Kla­gen­furt offers a new Master’s de­g­ree pro­­gram in in­for­ma­tics. The pro­gram is taught in Eng­lish. It allows you to spec­­i­­a­­lize in one of eight areas of in­­for­­ma­­tics. One of these spec­i­al­i­zation areas is Human-Com­puter In­­ter­­ac­tion. The In­­ter­­ac­tive Sys­­tems Re­­search group (David Ahl­ström, Martin Hitz, and Gerhard Leit­ner) co­­ord­­i­­nates the spec­i­al­i­zation and teaches most of its cour­­ses.

If you are in­­te­r­es­t­ed in spec­­i­­al­i­­zing in Human-Com­puter In­­ter­­ac­tion dur­ing your Master’s studies, or if you plan to take some of the cour­ses in our spec­i­al­i­za­tion, you have arr­i­ved at the right page!

We very much wel­come gra­d­u­­a­tes from the Bach­­elor’s de­­gree pro­­gram at our uni­ver­sity and in­­com­ing stu­d­ents from other uni­­ver­­si­­ties in Aus­­tria or world-wide who hold a Bach­­elor degree in in­for­ma­tics, com­­pu­ter science, or a si­­mi­­lar field to join our spe­c­i­a­l­i­­zation in Human-Com­puter In­­ter­­ac­tion!

QUICK LINKS ON THIS PAGE

What is Human-Computer In­ter­action?

Courses in Our Spec­i­ali­zation Human-Computer Interaction

Contact for Spec­i­ali­zation Human-Computer In­ter­ac­tion

Writing a Master’s Thesis in Human-Computer Interaction

Details of the Master’s Program

Useful Links Around the Master’s Program

WHAT IS HUMAN-COMPUTER IN­TER­AC­TION?

Human-Computer In­­ter­­­ac­­­tion is about un­der­stand­ing how peo­ple use tech­no­logy and about shap­ing the way peo­ple in­ter­act with di­gi­tal pro­ducts. The avai­la­bi­li­ty of spec­i­a­lists who un­der­stand human be­ha­vior with tech­no­logy and who know how to de­ve­lop and design high-quality and user­fri­endly di­gi­tal so­lu­tions is of grow­ing stra­te­gic im­por­tance for both small and large com­pa­nies in the IT sec­tor. In the in­ter­disc­i­pli­nary field of Human-Computer In­­ter­­­ac­­­tion we com­bine prin­cip­les from in­for­ma­tics, psych­o­logy, and design to ex­plore new and better ways to le­ver­age and adapt tech­no­logy. The goal is to learn and under­stand how to create in­tu­i­tive, usa­ble, and de­sir­able soft­ware pro­ducts and ser­vices.

COURSES IN OUR SPE­CIA­LI­ZATION IN HUMAN-COM­PU­TER IN­TER­AC­TION

Currently, the core of our our spec­­i­­al­i­­zation in Human-Computer In­­­ter­­­ac­­­tion con­sists of four cour­ses: three lec­tures with work­shop parts and one sem­i­nar. The sem­i­nar and one of the lec­tures with work­shop parts we org­a­nize acc­or­d­­ing to the curr­ent de­mand, either in the win­ter or in the sum­mer se­mes­ter. The other two cour­ses are off­ered in every win­ter re­spec­tively sum­mer se­me­ster.

User Experience Engineering

ECTS: 4
Course type: Lecture with work­shop
Offered in: Winter Semester
Recommended semester: 1 or 3
Teacher: Gerhard Leitner

In this course you will deepen your know­ledge in usa­bi­lity and acquire prac­ti­cal skills in user ex­per­i­ence en­gi­neer­ing (the course builds on the­o­re­ti­cal basics typ­i­cally cov­ered in in­tro­duc­tory cour­ses in Human-Computer In­ter­ac­tion such as in our bach­elor cour­ses In­ter­ac­tive Sys­tems I, Vi­s­ual De­sign for In­ter­ac­tive Sys­tems, and Meth­ods and Prac­t­i­ces in In­ter­ac­tive Sys­tems). The focus of the course is to learn and prac­tice how var­i­ous usa­bi­lity and user ex­per­i­ence en­gi­neer­ing methods should be applied in a soft­ware de­ve­lop­ment life­cycle to en­sure a high level of usa­bi­lity and user ex­per­i­ence in the re­sult­ing pro­duct.

Togehter with a group of fellow stu­dents, you will first con­cept­ua­lise and plan a ‘dig­i­tal tool’ which sol­ves a common every­day pro­blem (such as “I always for­get where on my PC I’ve stor­ed this and that di­gi­tal photo – could there be a so­lu­tion to supp­ort me?”). In an iter­ative pro­cess – within which the in­vol­ve­ment of po­ten­tial users is of cen­tral im­por­tance – your group then de­vel­ops, eva­lu­ates, and opt­i­mizes a pro­to­type of your in­tend­ed so­lu­tion.

What you learn and practice in this course will help you to appropriately integrate usability engineering and user ex­per­i­ence en­gi­neer­ing meth­ods in your fu­ture pro­jects, a pre­re­qu­i­site for suc­cess­ful IT de­ve­lop­ment.

Mobile Human-Computer In­ter­action

ECTS: 4
Course type: Lecture with work­shop
Offered in: Summer Semester
Recommended semester: 2
Teacher: Gerhard Leitner

Mobile devices are not just smaller desk­top com­pu­ters, but dis­tinct tools which are de­signed for spec­i­fic pur­po­ses and are used in other con­texts than desk­top com­pu­ters. De­spite the diff­e­rence to the con­ven­tio­nal desk­top com­pu­ter, mo­bile de­vices or, more con­cre­tely, their soft­ware and user in­ter­faces are often de­signed accord­ing to con­ven­tio­nal in­ter­ac­tion con­cepts and faulty ass­ump­tions about the usage si­tu­a­tions (such as that the user is fully focused on only one ac­ti­vity or task and work­ing in a sta­ble or sta­ti­o­nary po­si­tion). This is likely to re­sult in an un­sa­tis­fac­tory user ex­per­i­ence for the user. Accor­dingly, to avoid such sub­op­ti­mal out­comes in your fu­ture pro­jects, in this course you will learn how to:

  • evaluate diff­er­ences in the con­text of use,
  • analyse the po­ten­tials of var­i­ous in­put and out­put mo­da­li­ties (such as speech and ges­tures),
  • apply the acqu­i­red know­ledge in pro­to­typ­i­cal in­ter­face so­lu­tions for mo­bile de­vices, and
  • evaluate the so­lu­tions with appro­pri­ate meth­ods.

Experiments in Human-Com­pu­ter In­ter­ac­tion

ECTS: 4
Course type: Lecture with work­shop
Offered in: Summer Semester
Recommended semester: 2
Teacher: David Ahlström

Human-Computer Interaction deals with phe­nom­e­na sur­round­ing humans inter­act­ing with com­put­ing devices or dig­i­tal en­viron­ments, such as desk­top com­puters, smart­phones, drones, vir­tu­al reality in­stal­la­tions, and smart homes. One of the corner­stone methods in HCI-research (and in many other em­pir­i­cal re­search dis­ci­plines) is the experiment. In an ex­per­i­ment, we can ob­serve and mea­sure dif­fer­ent as­pects of in­ter­action. This course pro­vides know­ledge, skills, and tech­niques nec­es­sary to con­duct pur­pose­ful ex­per­i­ments (a.k.a. user studies) in Human-Computer Inter­action. Central topics in­clude:

  • empirical research in HCI (re­search mo­ti­va­tion and ques­tions),
  • ex­per­i­ment ter­mi­nol­o­gy and ex­per­i­ment de­sign con­sid­er­a­tions,
  • qual­i­ty of ex­per­i­ments (inter­nal/external va­lid­ity, re­peata­bil­ity), and
  • con­duct­ing ex­per­i­ments and data anal­y­sis (hy­pothe­sis test­ing / in­fer­ence statis­tics)

Based on one or two ex­ample pro­jects, we will to­gether di­scuss and prac­tice the main act­i­vi­ties be­hind HCI-experi­ments. We will also work through some of the ‘secrets’ be­hind success­ful re­search writ­ing. Pick­ing up on the intro­duct­ory to­pics covered in the course Sci­en­ti­fic Writ­ing, this part of the course pro­vides par­tic­i­pants with further rec­om­men­da­tions and guid­ance for their up­com­ing Mas­ter’s pro­ject.

Seminar in Human-Com­pu­ter In­ter­ac­tion

ECTS: 4
Course type: Seminar
Offered in: Summer Semes­ter or Win­ter Se­me­ster
Pre-requisites: Seminar Scientific Writing
Recommended semester: 2 or 3
Teacher: David Ahlström, Martin Hitz, or Gerhard Leit­ner
Next Opportunity: Summer Semester 2022

This seminar aims at mak­ing you fa­m­i­­li­ar with the re­­search area Human-Com­put­er In­­ter­­ac­­tion and so pre­­par­ing you for your up­­coming Master’s the­sis pro­­ject on a to­pic in this area.

Each year we se­lect a new ge­­ne­­ral theme for the semi­nar. As a par­t­i­­ci­­pant, you will – typ­i­cally – se­­lect and fo­­cus on one aspect of the ge­ne­­ral theme and first prac­­­tice how to search for, read, and un­­der­­stand re­­lated scien­­ti­­fic pub­­li­­ca­tions. In a se­­cond phase, you will prac­­tice how to sum­­ma­rize, pre­­sent, and cri­­ti­­cally di­­scuss the re­­le­­vant scien­­ti­­fic work you have found (by writ­­ing a semi­­nar pa­per and by oral­ly pre­­sent­­ing your pa­per). The sem­i­nar typ­i­cally follows the main steps ne­cess­ary when con­tri­bu­ting to a scien­ti­fic con­fe­rence.

Most of the final sem­e­ster of your Master’s stu­dies you will de­vote to your Master’s pro­ject. We re­com­mend that you start look­ing for po­ten­tial thesis to­pics that you find in­te­rest­ing and that you di­scuss these to­pics with one of us (David Ahl­ström, Martin Hitz, or Gerhard Leit­ner) al­ready dur­ing the first half of the se­mes­ter be­fore your thesis-semester. Having settled on a to­pic be­fore the thesis-semester starts will give you a va­lu­able speedy start!

Further below you will find in­for­ma­tion about suit­able thesis to­pics and add­i­tio­nal de­tails about writing your Master’s the­sis in our spec­i­al­i­zation Human-Com­pu­ter In­­­ter­­­ac­­­tion.

When you start work­ing on your Master’s pro­ject you will also join our Re­search Sem­i­nar (which often goes under its Ger­man name, Pri­va­tiss­i­mum).

Research Seminar (Privatissimum)

ECTS: 2
Course type: Seminar
Offerend in: Summer and Win­ter Se­mes­ter
Rec. Semester: 3 and 4
Teacher: David Ahl­ström, Martin Hitz, and Gerhard Leit­ner.

All Master’s and PhD stu­dents who work on their the­­sis pro­­ject in our re­­se­arch group re­­gu­­lar­­ly join to­­get­her in a rat­her in­­for­­mal sett­ing in our Re­­search Sem­­i­­nar. Next to the in­­di­­vi­­du­al guid­­ance you get from your the­­sis su­­per­­vi­­sor, this sem­­i­­nar is a great opp­­or­­tu­n­i­ty for you to di­s­cuss your pro­­ject and to re­ce­ive in­­put and feed­­back from add­­i­­tio­­nal per­­sons. Fur­ther­­more, our sem­­i­­nar gives you the opp­­or­­tun­­i­­ty to both prac­­tice your pre­­sen­­ta­­tion and ar­gu­­men­­ta­­tion skills as well as to get to know what your fel­low stud­ents are work­­ing on and the meth­ods they em­ploy.

The sem­i­nar also ser­ves to pass on ex­­per­­i­­en­ces and know­­ledge among the par­­ti­­ci­­pants and to joint­ly find and di­s­cuss ans­­wers and so­­lu­­tions to ques­t­i­ons and pro­­blems re­­la­­ted to the on­­going pro­­jects.

Typically, during the course of a se­­me­s­ter we will fo­cus on your work in two or three of our se­m­i­­nar sess­­i­ons. For these occ­a­s­i­ons we will ask you to pro­­vide an over­­view of your pro­­ject, to re­­port on the cur­r­ent pro­­gress, and to pre­­pare a pre­­sen­­ta­­tion about any aspecs of your pro­­ject that you like to them­a­­tize and di­s­cuss in more de­­tail.

CONTACT FOR SPE­CIA­LI­ZATION HUMAN-COM­PU­TER IN­TER­AC­TION

Please do not hesitate to cont­act David Ahl­ström if you have any ques­tions or need furt­her in­for­ma­tion about our spec­i­ali­zation in Human-Com­puter In­­­ter­­­ac­­­tion.

David Ahlström
+43 (0)463 2700 3514

David.Ahlstroem [at] aau.at

Room S.2.71 (view map)

IF YOU PLAN TO JOIN OUR SPEC­­I­­AL­I­­ZA­TION, WE WOULD VERY MUCH APP­­RE­­CI­­ATE IF YOU LET US KNOW! THIS WOULD HELP US TO CO­OR­DI­NATE OUR UP­COM­ING AC­TI­VI­TIES!
Just send David an email or come by his office!
WRITING A MASTER’S THE­SIS IN HUMAN-COMPUTER IN­TER­AC­TION

The last sem­ster of you Master’s stu­dies you will spend work­ing on your Master’s pro­ject. One of us, David Ahl­ström, Martin Hitz, or Gerhard Leit­ner, will be your su­per­vi­sor and ad­vice you through­out the pro­ject.

With your Master’s pro­ject you will de­mon­strate that you poss­ess the ne­cess­ary know­ledge and skills to app­roach and solve a re­search pro­blem or quest­ion within the field of Human-Computer In­­­ter­­­ac­­­tion. The very first step you should take con­cern­ing your Master’s pro­ject is to find a su­i­table to­pic and su­per­vi­sor for your pro­ject.

Finding a Topic

Please step back for a mo­­ment and think of the cour­­ses you have com­­plet­­ed dur­ing your Bach­­elor’s stu­­dies. The more you found the to­­pic co­ver­ed in a course fun and in­­te­r­es­t­ing, the eas­­ier it was to com­­plete the cour­se with a good grade, right? Sim­­i­­lary, the more en­thu­s­i­­as­tic you are about the to­pic of your thesis, the more you will en­joy work­­ing on your Master’s pro­­ject – and the faster you will finish! Since you will need to work very fo­­cuss­ed on your pro­­ject for a longer period of time, do make your­­self a favor and choose a to­pic that you find in­­te­­rest­­ing.

Accrodingly, we re­­com­­mend that you start think­­ing about poss­­i­­ble to­pics that you might like. Do this well ahead in time. Ideally, you start to work on find­­ing a to­pic at least three months be­­fore the be­­ginn­­ing of the se­­me­s­ter you have re­­ser­v­ed for your Mas­ter’s pro­ject.

What To Do?

  • Think about in­­te­­rest­­ing iss­­ues re­­lat­ed to Human-Computer In­­ter­­ac­­tion that you have en­­count­­er­­ed in the cour­­ses you have al­ready fin­­i­­shed.
  • Get in­spi­ra­tion from pre­­vious Master’s pro­­jects that we have su­­per­­vised (for ex­am­ples see below, search the uni­­ver­­sity li­b­rary, ask us). This will give you a gen­­e­ral im­­press­­ion of what di­­rec­­tion your fu­ture pro­­ject can take.
  • Take a look at the open Master’s pro­­jects list­ed below. Per­­haps one or two seem in­­te­­rest­­ing to you!
  • Do not hes­i­tate to con­­tact us so that we can di­s­cuss and find a suit­­able pro­­ject for you!

When we have agreed on a to­pic you need to ‘re­gister’ your thesis-work in the Cam­pus-sys­­tem follow­­ing the pro­­ce­­dure and re­­qu­i­re­­ments de­­scrib­ed here. Ideally, you have com­­plet­­ed this be­fore your thesis-semester starts. When the start of your thesis-semester app­­ro­aches it is also time to re­g­is­ter for our Re­search Sem­­i­­nar (see above).

Now the work can start. To give you an in­i­tial idea about your up­coming work, what you will be doing, and how your work will be struc­tured, think about your Master’s pro­ject as being di­vid­ed into three rough phases:

Phase 1: Orienting Yourself

Usually, in the first phase of your pro­­ject your main goal is to fa­­mi­­li­­a­­rize your­­self with your to­pic. This ty­p­i­­cally in­­clu­des both fre­­quen­t­ly dis­c­uss­ing with your su­­per­­vi­­sor about the to­pic and read­­ing about the to­pic. Doing so you learn what other peo­ple have al­ready done in your topic area. Hav­ing a good over­­view of the to­pic area is im­­por­­tant. This helps when it comes to narr­o­w­ing down your to­pic into a con­­crete research ques­t­ion (some­­times it is also called a re­­search pro­b­lem). A re­search ques­t­ion is often quite li­mit­ed. The goal with your pro­­ject is to find the ans­­wer to this ques­t­ion (or find­­ing a so­­lu­­tion if you call it a re­­search pro­­blem).

Having a sui­t­able and in­­te­­rest­­ing re­­search ques­t­ion, the next step is often to search the re­­search li­t­e­­ra­ture in a more fo­­cussed way to find out what other peo­ple have done to tackle ques­t­ions si­m­i­­lar to your re­­search quest­­ion. This gives you a good idea about how others have app­­ro­ached re­lated re­­search quest­­i­ons. What meth­­ods have they used to find their ans­­wers? How have they de­scr­i­bed their ans­­wers, and – im­por­tant­ly – what ans­­wers do they pro­­vide?

What you have learned in this phase of your Master’s pro­­ject about your to­pic and about how to app­roach re­s­earch ques­t­ions si­­mi­­lar to yours typ­­i­­cally ends up in an ‘In­tro­­duc­­tion’ chap­­ter and in a ‘Re­lated Work’ chap­­ter in your Master’s the­­sis. In these chap­­ters you will set the stage for the rest of your the­­sis. In these chap­­ters you will:

  • explain your re­search quest­ion and mo­ti­vate why it is im­por­tant to try to find the answer,
  • outline how you in­tend to tackle your re­search quest­ion and jus­ti­fy your app­roach, and
  • summarize your li­te­ra­ture stu­dies to in­tro­duce your read­ers to your to­pic and to con­vince them that your quest­ion has not been ans­wered before.

Phase 2: Tackling the Question

The second phase of your Master’s pro­ject is the main phase. Here you tackle your re­search ques­tion by doing what you need to do to find its ans­wer! Ob­viously, which exact ac­ti­vi­ties are in­cluded in this phase heavily de­pend on your re­search ques­tion and what is needed to find its ans­wer. Thus, the ac­ti­vi­ties vary from pro­ject to pro­ject. But in ge­ne­ral, if you choose to do a Master’s pro­ject in our Human-Computer In­ter­ac­tion spec­i­al­i­zation in this phase of your pro­ject you will most pro­ba­bly do a subset of the follow­ing:

  • design and build a piece of soft­ware (desk­top, mo­bile, other)
  • create various user in­ter­face pro­to­types (desk­top, mo­bile, other)
  • collect opi­nions from peo­ple (using in­ter­views, a quest­ion­naire, or a focus group)
  • collect user data (using a usa­bi­lity study or a con­trolled user ex­per­i­ment)
  • analyse collected in­for­ma­tion and/or data
  • com­pile your find­ings into con­vinc­ing pre­sen­ta­tions

Your activities and what you have learned – that is, the ans­wer to your re­search ques­tion – in this phase of your Master’s pro­­ject you will most pro­bably pre­sent in a series of chap­ters in your Master’s thesis. Ty­pi­cally, first a chap­ter de­voted to your soft­ware and a chap­ter where you de­scribe your data collec­tion method. These chap­ters are typ­i­cally foll­owed by an ‘Ana­lysis’ chap­ter and a ‘Re­sults’ chap­ter where you re­port on how you ana­lysed your data and how you in­ter­pret the re­sults.

Phase 3: Reflecting on Your Work

In this phase you will pri­ma­rily cri­ti­cally re­flect on the out­come of the pre­vious phase (the ans­wer…) and on what you have done. Was the out­come of your pre­vious ac­ti­vi­ties as you ex­pect­ed? Where there any sur­prizes, and why? What im­pli­ca­tions do your find­ings have, and what can other peo­ple learn from read­ing about your efforts? How can they ‘use’ your ans­wer to the re­search ques­tion? Why does it matter? These are all very im­por­tant and pur­pose­ful quest­ions. And in the end of your pro­ject you will have the ans­wers! Your re­flec­tion and di­scussion typ­i­cally ends up in a chap­ter named ‘Discussion’.

Finally, it is likely that through­out your work some other new quest­ions re­lat­ed to your to­pic will pop up. Such iss­ues you would typ­i­cally air in a chap­ter called ‘Future Work’. Who knows, per­haps one of the quest­ions is suit­able for one of your fellow stu­dents to cover in a Master’s pro­ject the follow­ing year!

In prac­tice, these three phases nor­mal­ly over­lap. And you most pro­bab­ly will work on se­ver­al issues and ac­ti­vi­ties in pa­rallel, in an ite­ra­tive way. The exact pro­cess also vary from pro­ject to pro­ject. Accor­ding­ly, it is diff­i­cult to pro­vide exact num­bers re­gard­ing the time you will spend on diff­e­rent ac­ti­vi­ties, such as pro­gramm­ing, read­ing, and writ­ing. How­ever, the num­bers below can serve as a rough es­ti­ma­tion.

• literature reading: 10–20%
• programming: 20–40%
• data col­lection and an­a­lysis: 20–30%
• writing and proof read­ing: 25–35%

The thesis itself will be ty­pi­cal­ly 60–80 pages long, but should not ex­ceed 100 pages. When you have fi­n­i­­shed writ­­ing your the­sis and you and your su­­per­­vi­­sor agree that your pro­ject is fi­n­i­­shed, you need to off­­i­­ci­­ally flag your Master’s the­sis as be­ing com­­pl­e­t­ed. You do this by up­­load­­ing your the­sis do­­cu­­ment in the Cam­pus-sys­­tem fol­l­o­w­ing the pro­­ce­­dure de­­scr­i­b­ed here. If you are also fi­nish­ed with all your cour­ses, it is also time to re­gi­ster for the fi­nal ex­a­mi­na­tion (see below).

Open Master Theses Projects in Human-Com­pu­ter In­ter­ac­tion

Currently, we are par­­ti­­cu­­larly in­­te­r­est­ed in work­­ing with you on one the follow­­ing Master’s pro­­jects.

CursorRec: A Recording Software to Track and Save Cursor Event Data

Contact: David Ahlström
Tech­nologies & Tools: Python or Java

This pro­ject first aims to create a record­ing soft­ware that runs un­ob­tru­sive­ly in the back­ground on a desk­top com­put­er and logs all cur­sor move­ments and clicks along with the cor­re­spond­ing spa­tial and tem­po­ral in­for­ma­tion. When the record­ing software is ready, the fol­low­ing steps in­clude col­lect­ing cur­sor data from a group of vol­un­teers and con­duct­ing a pat­tern anal­y­sis of the record­ings.

By only focusing on the first part, this pro­ject is also suitable as a Bach­e­lor pro­ject.

Vibration-Based Interactions for Desktop Computers

Contact: David Ahlström
Tech­nologies & Tools: Java • Android

Project image showing accelerometer escalation graph.

In this pro­ject, we will ex­plore aug­ment­ing desk­top com­put­ing with vi­bra­tion data sam­pled by an ac­celero­meter in a smart­phone po­si­tioned on the table next to the key­board and the mouse. The first step includes iden­ti­fy­ing and chart­ing out the dif­fer­ent vi­bra­tion pat­terns that emerge when the user works with the key­board and the mouse. The second step aims at devis­ing and test­ing pur­pose­ful ways to cap­i­tal­ize on this knowl­edge.

By excluding the second step, this pro­ject can be adapt­ed into a Bach­e­lor pro­ject.

Typeface Readabilty & Eye-Tracking

Contact: David Ahlström
Tech­nologies & Tools: Java • An­droid • Eye-tracking

Eye-Tracker

In the graphic de­sign com­­mun­­i­ty and in the usa­­bi­­li­­ty com­­mun­­i­ty there is an on-going di­s­cuss­ion about how fast and easy peo­ple can read text on com­­pu­­ter mo­n­i­­tors and smart­­phone screens. The read­­a­­bi­­li­ty of a text piece is in­­flu­en­c­ed by se­­ve­ral fac­t­ors. Such as the letter size, text and back­­ground co­lor, the row length, and the shape of the in­­di­­vi­­dual cha­r­ac­t­ers mak­­ing up the text.

In this pro­ject you will first de­­ve­­lop a soft­­ware pac­k­age that pro­­vi­des the func­­ti­o­­na­l­ity that is ne­cess­ary to con­­duct a user study on read­­a­bil­ity. This in­­clu­des func­­ti­o­­nal­ity to con­­fi­­gure diff­­e­­rent test cases (by de­­fi­n­ing com­­bi­­na­­tions of var­­i­ous text att­­ri­­bu­tes such as letter size, color, and type­­face), func­­ti­o­­nal­­i­ty to pre­­sent the diff­­e­­rent test cases to study par­­ti­­ci­­pants, and to log the time par­­ti­­ci­­pants need to read text in the diff­­e­­rent test cases.

In the second part of this pro­­ject you will gain in­­sights and ex­­per­­i­­ence in con­­duct­­ing user ex­­per­­i­­ments, sta­­ti­s­ti­­cal data ana­­ly­sis, and in using eye­­track­­ing tech­­no­­lo­­gy. To­­gether, we will use your ex­­per­­i­­men­tal soft­­ware and con­­duct one user ex­­per­­i­­ment using our lab’s new eye­­track­­ing sy­s­tem from Ergo­­neers. After that, we will ana­­lyse the re­sults from the ex­­per­i­­ment.

Selection of Moving Screen Targets

Contact: David Ahlström
Technologies & Tools: Java

Moving Targets

In many app­­li­­­ca­t­ions – such as in air-traffic con­­trol, in vi­deo sur­­veil­l­ance, and in com­­pu­­ter games – the user needs to quick­ly and acc­u­­ra­­te­­ly se­­lect ob­­jects that are mov­­ing across the screen. Se­­ve­­ral pre­­vious re­­search pro­­jects have pro­posed var­i­­ous tech­­ni­­ques that can ass­ist the user when click­­ing on mov­­ing screen ob­­jects. The aim with this pro­­ject is to com­­pare such tech­­ni­­ques and to build a the­o­­re­­ti­­cal model that math­e­­ma­­ti­­cally de­­scri­bes and pre­­dicts how fast users can se­­lect tar­­gets that are mov­­ing across the screen (de­­pend­­ing on the size of the tar­­get and its mov­­ing speed).

A first version of a Java app­li­­ca­­tion that pro­­vi­des the ne­­cess­ary func­­ti­o­n­a­l­i­ty to con­­duct user ex­per­i­­ments on se­lec­­tion of mov­ing screen ob­­jects has al­­ready been de­­ve­l­op­ed. You will first ex­­tend this app­­li­­ca­­tion with add­­i­­tio­­nal func­­ti­o­n­ality and then de­sign and con­­duct a user ex­­per­i­­ment that allows you to 1) ver­i­­fy pre­vi­ously re­­ported re­­search re­­sults on the effec­t­i­ve­­ness of var­­i­ous tech­­ni­­ques that sup­­port the se­­lec­­tion of mov­­ing screen ob­­jects, and 2) em­­pi­­ri­­cally build and ver­­i­­fy a pre­­dic­­tive per­­for­­mance mo­del that ex­­plains how fast users can se­­lect mov­­ing screen ob­­jects.

Accordingly, with this pro­­ject you have the opp­­or­­tu­n­i­­ty to deepen your pro­­gramm­­ing skills (using Swing, Java’s GUI tool­­kit) and you will gain ex­­per­i­­ence in how to de­sign, con­­duct, and ev­a­­lu­­ate user ex­­per­i­­ments, and in theo­­re­­ti­­cal mo­dell­­ing of user per­­for­­mance.

Evaluating Non-Standard Menu Designs

Contact: David Ahlström
Technologies & Tools: Java • SPSS (for sta­­ti­s­ti­­cal ana­­ly­sis)

Menu Designs

In Human-Computer inter­action re­search – as well as in many other di­sci­pli­nes – new scien­­ti­­fic know­­ledge and tech­­no­­lo­­gi­­cal ad­­van­ces are often based on em­­pi­­ri­­cal re­­se­arch where new ideas and theo­­ries are ex­­plo­r­ed through hypo­­the­sis test­­ing and con­­trol­led ex­p­er­i­­ments. How­ever, cri­­ti­­cal voices with­­in the HCI re­­search com­­mun­­i­ty ques­t­ion the value and use of con­­trol­led ex­­per­i­­ments in HCI.

In this project we will con­­tri­­bute to this di­sc­uss­ion by re­­doing – rep­li­cat­ing – a series of ‘fa­m­ous’ user ex­­peri­ments from the HCI li­­te­r­a­ture. We will fo­cus on ex­­per­i­­ments that have stu­­died the usa­­bi­­li­ty of non-standard drop‐down menus and how easy and fast users can na­v­i­­gate menu struc­­tu­res and se­­lect the con­­tain­­ing menu items.

For this pur­pose, a first ver­sion of a ‘menu test suite’ app­­li­­ca­tion has been de­­ve­l­oped. After fur­­ther de­­ve­l­op­­ment and ad­­ap­­ta­­tions we can start re­­pli­­cat­ing pre­­vious menu ex­p­er­i­­ments. This in­­clu­des care­­fully stu­dy­­ing the de­sc­rip­­tions of the pre­v­i­ous ex­­per­i­­ments, then run­n­ing the ex­­per­i­­ments with a group of com­­pu­­ter users, and fi­n­ally ana­­lyz­­ing our re­­sults and com­­par­­ing these with pre­­vi­ous­­ly re­­ported re­­sults.

Accordingly, in this pro­­ject you will ac­quire skills and ex­­per­i­ence in de­­sign­­ing, con­­duct­­ing, and eva­­lu­­at­­ing user ex­­per­i­­ments.

Measuring the Complexity of User Interfaces

Contact: Martin Hitz

The goal of this work is to de­fine com­plex­i­ty mea­sures of a user in­ter­face (UI) which are cor­rela­ted with usa­b­i­lity att­ri­bu­tes and to con­struct a tool that allows a UI de­vel­oper to assess these att­ri­bu­tes for a given (im­ple­men­ted) UI in order to tell the diff­er­en­ces (ad­van­tag­es/dis­ad­van­tag­es) be­tween com­pet­ing UI de­signs.

The re­search part of the work con­si­sts (at least) of the foll­ow­ing steps:

  • R1) Find out which data stru­ctur­es de­scr­ib­ing the UI (such as the Do­cu­ment Object Model DOM) are access­i­ble in var­i­ous de­vel­op­ment en­viron­ments and se­lect­ing a pro­to­typ­ical one as the ob­ject of in­ter­est for the sub­se­quent steps.
  • R2) Re­search into the li­ter­ature on com­plex­i­ty of UIs and its re­lat­i­on­ships to usa­bi­li­ty.
  • R3) I­dent­i­fy a poss­i­ble set of attr­i­butes to be mea­sured within the result of Step R1 in order to come up with a set of mea­sures est­i­mat­ing the usa­bi­li­ty attr­i­butes of the in­ter­face under study.

Once this step is com­ple­ted, the follow­ing pract­i­cal tasks need to be com­pleted:

  • P1) Build a pro­to­typ­i­cal mea­sure­ment tool.
  • P2) Cor­relate the mea­sure­ments of var­ious UIs (using the result of P1) with sub­ject­i­ve and ob­ject­i­ve usa­bi­li­ty mea­sure­ments on these UIs (user tests).

Engineering Voice-Based Conversational Interfaces

Contact: Martin Hitz

The proliferation of voice-based conversational user interfaces is increasing. We all use Alexa, Siri, Hey Google, or specific interfaces such as dialog systems in our car to communicate with smart environments.

The goal of this work is to analyze and compare software development kits (SDKs) for creating custom conversational user interfaces. The result of the study is a guide that addresses questions such as

  • What are the advantages and disadvantages of the available SDKs?
  • Which system should be used under which circumstances?
  • What is required to implement a speech-based conversational user interface with a particular SDK?

The research part of the work consists of (at least) the following steps:

R1) Find out which systems offer SDKs for developing custom conversational user interfaces.

R2) Identify the key characteristics that can be used to differentiate between these systems.

R3) Compare the systems based on these characteristics.

R4) Classify the systems in terms of their suitability for some archetypical sets of requirements.

To demonstrate the practicability of the analyzed systems and to underpin the work related to R3 and R4, a hypothetical conversational interface is to be designed and implemented with all the SDKs under study.

Managing Smart Home Intelligence

Contact: Martin Hitz or Gerhard Leitner

The notion of “smart homes” starts with individual services that replace standard analog activities with their digital counterparts, such as shutting or opening the blinds by remote control or Alexa commands instead of manual performance. Real “smartness”, however, requires the context (situation) dependent interplay of different devices. Examples:

  • Turning on the heating should imply shutting the windows.
  • When the desired room temperature is higher than the current temperature and the outside air temperature is higher than the room temperature, then the windows should be opened unless nobody is at home.
  • Between 6 and 7:30, if somebody opens the door of the sleeping room, the coffee machine in the kitchen should be started.

Smart home systems offer more or less comfortable environments to define such “intelligent behavior”. The goal of this work is to analyze and compare such smart home behavior definition environments (“SHBDE” in what follows). The result of the study is a guide that addresses questions such as

  • What are the most relevant SHBDE on the market?
  • What is their expressive power?
  • How easy are they to use for different user groups (at least: laymen, experts) in terms of ease of formulation, ease of maintenance, and ease of documentation?

The research part of the work consists of (at least) the following steps:

R1) Find out which systems offer non-trivial SHBDEs.

R2) Identify the key characteristics that can be used to differentiate between these systems (Expressive power, ease of use…).

R3) Compare the systems based on these characteristics.

R4) Classify the systems in terms of their suitability for some archetypical sets of requirements.

To demonstrate the practicability of the analyzed systems and to underpin the work related to R3 and R4, several hypothetical use cases are to be designed and implemented with all the SHBDEs under study.

In addition, the question of automatic adaptation to standard rituals arises. Considering the coffee machine example above, it is clear that the exact timing of such rituals varies: The times of getting up, using the bathroom etc. vary (working days, weekends, vacations). Then the system should derive a probability on the basis of individual events (time of day, opening of the bedroom door, operation of the faucet in the bathroom) whether the coffee machine should be switched on or not. That leads to

R5) Design machine learning approaches to allow for automatic adaptation to rituals of the smart home inhabitants.

Examplary Master Theses

To get a better idea about what a suc­cess­ful Master’s thesis in our spec­i­al­i­zation looks like, you can down­load any of the follow­ing theses from the uni­ver­sity li­brary.

Demi Dauerer:
Evaluation of Scrolling Tech­ni­ques for a Mouse with a Touchscreen

Martina Soldo (in German):
Nutzungspotentiale neuer Smart De­vic­es für ver­netzte Haus­geräte

Martin Gratzer:
3MF: A Service-Oriented Mo­bile Mul­ti­mo­dal In­ter­ac­tion Fra­me­work

Anton J. Fercher:
Pervasive Visualization of Energy Con­sump­tion

Bonifaz Kauf­mann:
Design and Implementation of a Toolkit for the Ra­pid Pro­to­typ­ing of Mo­bile Ubi­qu­i­tous Com­pu­ting

INFORMATION ABOUT THE IN­FOR­MA­TICS MAS­TER’S PRO­GRAM

The Master’s de­gree pro­gram in in­for­ma­tics at Uni­ver­sity of Kla­gen­furt is a four-semester long pro­gram (120 ECTS points). Cour­ses in the pro­gram are taught in English. The pro­gram has a focus on app­li­ed in­for­ma­tics and the aim is to qual­i­fy grad­u­ates for the top-quality de­ve­lop­ment of com­pu­ter-ass­i­sted so­lu­tions to var­i­ous pro­blems and app­li­cation areas. The Master’s de­gree pro­gram extends on our Bach­e­lor’s de­gree pro­gram (or a si­mi­lar Bach­elor’s pro­gram from an­other uni­ver­sity), where stu­dents have been train­ed in the fun­da­men­tal tech­ni­ques and meth­ods used in com­pu­ter science.

The Master’s de­gree pro­gram in in­for­ma­tics at Uni­ver­sity of Kla­gen­furt is struc­tured in six blocks, as follows.

Block Required Subjects • 34 ECTS

This block con­­tains two cate­­gor­ies: in­­for­­ma­­tic cour­­ses (22 ECTS points) and non-infor­­matic re­­la­ted cour­­ses (12 ECTS points). All cour­­ses are man­­da­­tory.

Informatic Courses
Data Engineering • lec­ture w. work­shop • 4 ECTS • rec. se­­m­e­­ster: 1
Distributed Com­pu­ting In­fra­struc­tu­res • lec­ture w. work­shop • 4 ECTS • rec. se­­m­e­s­ter: 1
Advanced Soft­ware En­­gi­­neer­­ing • lec­ture w. work­shop • 4 ECTS • rec. se­­m­e­s­ter: 1
Arti­fi­cial In­tell­i­gence & Mach­ine Learn­ing • lec­ture w. work­shop • 4 ECTS • rec. se­­m­e­s­ter: 2
Com­piler Con­struc­­tion • lec­ture and prac­­ti­cal cour­se • 2 ECTS + 4 ECTS • rec. se­­m­e­s­ter: 2
Non-Informatic Courses
Scien­ti­fic Writ­ing • sem­i­nar • 4 ECTS • rec. se­­m­e­s­ter: 2
Technology Assessment • lec­ture w. work­shop • 4 ECTS • rec. se­­me­s­ter: 3
Selection of either
Reflecting on the Limits of For­mal Scien­ces • lec­ture w. work­shop • 4 ECTS • rec. se­­m­e­s­ter: 3
or
a course from the elec­tive pro­­gram Fem­­i­­nist Sci­ence/­Gen­­der Stu­­dies • 4 ECTS • rec. se­­m­e­s­ter: 3

Block Elective Subjects • 32 ECTS

In this block you will se­lect and com­ple­te a to­tal of 32 ECTS points from the eight fields listed below. At least 16 of these 32 ECTS points need to be from one and the same field – this field is called your ‘spec­i­ali­za­tion’.

You can chose from:

Art­i­fi­cial In­tell­i­gence • Bus­i­ness In­for­ma­tion Sys­tems • Data Sci­ence and En­gi­neer­ing • Dis­tri­bu­ted Sys­tems • Human-Computer In­­­ter­­­ac­tion • Infor­ma­tion and Sys­tem Se­cur­ity • Mul­ti­me­dia Sys­tems • Soft­ware En­gi­neer­ing

If you chose to spec­ia­lize in Human-Computer In­­­ter­­­ac­tion you will take the cour­ses User Experience Engineering, Mob­ile Human-Computer In­ter­ac­tion, Selected Topics in Human-Computer Interaction, and Sem­i­nar in Human-Computer In­ter­ac­tion, as de­scrib­ed above.

If you chose to spec­­i­a­­lize in Human-Computer In­­­­ter­­­­ac­­tion and you have com­plet­ed our Bach­elor’s cour­ses In­ter­ac­tive Sys­tems II, Vis­­ual De­sign for In­ter­ac­tive Sys­tems, and Meth­­ods and Prac­t­i­­ces for In­ter­ac­tive Syst­ems you have al­ready cov­ered the basics and are ready to start with the Master’s cour­ses. If you did not com­plete these Bach­elor’s cour­ses during your Bachelor’s stud­ies you are also very much wel­come to join! We though re­com­mend that you se­lect as many of the named Bach­elor’s cour­ses as possible with­in block Pro­ject or Supp­le­men­tary Sub­jects (see next block)!

The official curr­i­cu­lum re­com­mends that you com­ple­te the cour­ses in this block dur­ing your first, se­cond, and third sem­e­ster.

Block Project or Supplementary Subjects • 18 ECTS

De­pend­ing on your earl­ier stud­ies and pre­vious ex­per­i­ences, in this block (18 ECTS) you will eith­er com­plete an in­tern­ship in a re­search group at the uni­ver­sity or an in­tern­ship at a soft­ware comp­any – see Study Var­i­ant I below – or you will com­plete a set of supp­le­­men­tary com­­puter sci­ence cour­­ses – see Study Var­i­ant II below.

If you have already com­­ple­ted an in­tern­ship dur­ing your Bache­lor studies you have to go with Study Variant II, if you did not do an internship you can choose bet­ween Study Var­i­ant I and Study Var­i­ant II.

Study Variant I – Project

The project variant of this block con­sists of either mak­ing an in­tern­ship at one of the com­puter science re­search groups at the uni­versity to work on a re­search pro­ject or to make an in­tern­ship at a soft­ware comp­any. Opting for doing an internship at our re­search group (Interactive Systems) is likely the best choice for you to do in this block if you are interested in gaining deep insights and skills in Human-Computer In­ter­action! Working with us on one of our research projects will give you plenty hands-on experiences and serve as a very good preparation for your upcoming Master project.

After the in­tern­ship (17 ECTS) is comp­let­ed, you will write a pro­ject re­port and also pre­sent and dis­cuss your pro­ject and your ex­per­i­ences in the course Re­view of Stu­dents’ In­tern­ships (Ger­man: Pro­jekt­über­greif­ende Auf­arbeit­ung; 1 ECTS).

If you are in­­te­rest­­ed in do­­ing your in­­tern­­ship at our re­­se­arch group in a pro­ject re­lated to Human-Computer In­­ter­­ac­tion, please do not hes­i­tate to con­­tact us (David Ahlström, Martin Hitz, or Gerhard Leitner) for further in­for­ma­tion and arr­an­ge­ments!

If you opt for Study Variant I, the official curr­­­i­­cu­­lum re­­com­­mends that you com­p­lete your in­­tern­­ship in your third se­­mes­ter.
Study Variant II – Supplementary Subjects

The supp­le­men­tary sub­jects var­i­ant of this block con­sists of com­ple­ting 18 ECTS points among the mandatory cour­ses and the elective courses off­ered in the Applied Informatics Bach­elor’s pro­­gram.

The intention with the supplementary courses is to give you the opportunity to visit courses from the Bachelor-level to obtain introductory knowledge and skills which may be helpful (or even necessary) for the Master-level courses you select in block Elective Subjects (see the previous block).

Accordingly, if you intend to take courses in our Human-Computer In­­­ter­­­ac­tion specialization and you have not yet visited any of our Bachelor courses

  • Vis­ual De­sign for In­ter­ac­tive Sys­tems (Ger­­man: Visu­elle Ge­stalt­ung In­ter­akt­i­ver Sys­teme), 4 ECTS (lec­ture w. prac­ti­cal part)
  • Meth­ods and Pract­i­ces for In­ter­ac­tive Sys­tems (Ger­man: Ent­wick­lungs­me­thod­en für In­ter­ak­tive Syst­eme), 4 ECTS (lec­ture w. prac­ti­cal part)
  • In­ter­active Sys­tems II, 4 ECTS (lec­ture w. prac­ti­cal part)

we recommend that you select at least two of these Bachelor-level courses in this block.

If you have already completed these courses, we en­cour­age you to select among the Bachelor courses listed below. All of the listed courses cover topics relevant and useful to Human-Computer In­­­ter­­­ac­tion. We recommend that you select according to the indicated priority.

Priority I

  • App Development, 2 ECTS (lecture) + 4 ECTS (practical course)
  • Multimedia Apps with iOS, 3 ECTS (lec­ture w. prac­ti­cal part)
  • Introduction to Artificial Intelligence I, 3 ECTS (lec­ture w. prac­ti­cal part)
  • Introduction to Artificial Intelligence II, 3 ECTS (lec­ture w. prac­ti­cal part)

Priority II

  • In­ter­active Multimedia Applications B, 3 ECTS (lec­ture w. prac­ti­cal part)
  • Introduction to Natural Language Processing, 3 ECTS (lec­ture w. practical part)
  • Introduction to Multimedia Techniques, 2 ECTS (lecture) + 4 ECTS (practical course)
  • Morphosyntax and Parsing, 3 ECTS (lecture w. practical part)

If you have already completed all of these courses, please contact us for further recommendations.

If you opt for Study Variant II, the official curr­i­cu­lum re­com­mends that you com­ple­te your supplementary cour­ses in your first and se­cond semester.

If you chose Study Var­­i­­ant II, it is im­­por­­tant that you con­­sult the pro­gram co­or­di­na­tor to make sure that the cour­ses you se­­lect will be app­­rov­ed for this block. We re­com­mend that you con­tact David Ahl­ström to di­scuss your cho­i­ces be­fore con­tact­ing the co­or­di­na­tor!

Block Free Subjects • 6 ECTS

In this block you can chose among nearly all cour­ses that are offe­red at Uni­versity of Klag­en­furt. A min­i­mum of 6 ECTS points have to be comp­le­ted.

If you opt for Study Variant I (see block Pro­ject or Sup­ple­ment­ary Sub­jects above) the off­i­cial curr­­i­­cu­­lum re­­com­­mends that you com­p­le­te your free sub­­jects dur­­ing your first se­­me­s­ter. If you opt for Study Var­i­ant II the off­i­cial curr­­i­­cu­­lum re­­com­­mends that you com­p­le­te your free sub­­jects dur­­ing your third se­­me­s­ter.

Block Master’s Thesis • 30 ECTS

In this block you work on your Mas­ter’s the­sis pro­ject under gui­­dance of a pro­fessor. Your pro­ject is typ­i­cally about a topic re­lat­ed to your spec­i­a­li­za­tion sub-disc­i­pline. In this block you will also visit the Re­search Sem­i­nar (German: Pri­va­tiss­i­mum) or­ga­­niz­ed by your pro­fessor.

The Re­search Sem­i­nar is cred­i­ted with 2 ECTS points and the Master’s the­sis is cred­i­ted with 28 ECTS points.

Final Examination

The Master’s degree program is com­ple­ted with an oral final ex­am­i­na­tion. Du­ring the fin­al exam you will first pre­sent your Master’s Thesis project (ty­pi­cally 20 min­u­tes) then you will ans­wer quest­ions about your work and ques­tions re­la­ted to the sub-disc­i­pline which your pro­ject be­longs to (ty­pi­cally 20 to 30 min­utes). In the last part of the ex­ami­na­tion you will ans­wer quest­ions re­la­ted to one sub­ject of your choice. Here, you can choose a sub­ject related to one of the courses you completed in the block Re­quir­ed Sub­jects, the block Elec­tive Sub­jects, or the block Supp­le­ment­ary Sub­jects.

The exam usually takes about one hour and there are three examiners present (one chair­man, the per­son who su­per­vis­ed your Master’s thesis pro­ject, and an ex­am­i­ner for the add­i­tio­nal sub­ject you se­lect). Please note that you will have to register for your final ex­a­mi­na­tion well in time. The off­i­cial pro­ce­dure and re­quir­e­ments for this re­gi­stra­tion are de­scr­i­bed here.

If every­thing goes well, you will be a gra­d­u­­ate in Civil En­gi­neer­ing – In­for­ma­tics and awar­d­ed the Ger­­man aca­­de­­mic title Dipl.-Ing. (which is eq­u­­i­­va­­lent to a Master’s de­­gree, in­­ter­­na­­tio­­nally).

When you have fin­i­shed your Master’s de­gree you also have the poss­i­bi­lity to contin­ue your aca­de­mic stud­ies and be­come a PhD stu­dent in our re­search group!

If you would like furt­her in­for­ma­tion about our Doc­toral Pro­gram or about work­ing with us on a PhD-pro­ject in Human-Computer In­­te­r­ac­tion, please do not hes­i­tate to con­­tact one of us Martin Hitz, Gerhard Leitner or David Ahlström!

USEFUL LINKS AROUND THE IN­FOR­MA­TICS MAS­TER’S PRO­GRAM

Contact Information:
Master Specialization Human-Computer In­ter­action
Pro­gram Di­rec­tor for the Mas­ter’s De­g­ree Pro­gram In­for­ma­tics
Informatics Stu­dent Re­pre­sen­ta­ti­ves (in Ger­man only)

Bachelor’s Specialization:
Interactive Syst­ems (in Ger­man only)

Curricula:
Master Informatics English ver­sion | Ger­man ver­sion
Bachelor Applied Informatics Ger­man ver­­sion

University’s Webpage:
Master Informatics English version | German version
Bachelor Applied Informatics English version | German version

University’s Webpage About Writing a Master’s Thesis:
English version | German version

University’s Webpage About Finalizing your Master’s Studies:
English version | German version

Further Information:
Study Technology in Klagenfurt
Studying in Klagenfurt
Faculty of Technical Sciences

When You Start Stu­dy­ing in Kla­gen­furt:
Admissions and Examinations Office
Admission Procedure
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