Abstract: Many daily activities we want to finish as fast and smoothly as possible. The same applies when we use our computing devices. Examples range from low-level actions, such as selecting the “Print” item from the “File” menu or clicking on desktop icons, to higher level activities and more complex tasks, such as finding the favorite holiday photo in the personal collection, or to use a smartphone to navigate a city map or to browse a long list of products before deciding on a purchase. Throughout the years, the desire for interaction efficiency has motivated the Human-Computer Interaction research community to seek and explore new interaction mechanisms and user interface techniques that improve on the state of the art. In this talk I will present a handful of past projects in which we have applied the experimental method to arrive at insights regarding novel user interface design solutions.

CV: David Ahlström received his M.Sc. degree from Stockholm University and his Ph.D. from the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt where he works in the Interactive Systems Group at the Department of Informatics Systems. His research is focused on the design and evaluation of interactive human-computer user interfaces with the aim to improve every day activities of computer use.

Abstract: People spend about 70% of the time in their homes sleeping, eating, doing housework, entertaining,  etc.  Therefore, it is not surprising that people try to make their homes as fullfilling as possible. Technological progress has provided a huge variety of possible enhancements to the quality of life, through so-called „smart“ devices and “smart” functionality. Although smart appliances for the home have been available on the market for decades, they haven’t reached a critical mass in the private home sector. In this talk the potential reasons for this are discussed and examples of state-of-the-art smart functions are provided and evaluated from different scientific perspectives, with a specific focus on the overlap area between computer sciences and psychology – human computer interaction. On the basis of the human-centric design approach, we propose a new concept: “the Wise Home”. The wise home differentiates itself from the smart home by being more supportive to the requirements and needs of humans, rather than over the assumption of responsibility based on a misunderstanding of what it means to be “smart”.

CV: Gerhard Leitner is assistant professor in the Interactive Systems Research Group (Prof. Martin Hitz) at the University of Klagenfurt. He holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Psychology from Vienna University, and a PHD in the interdisciplinary field of Human Computer Interaction from the University of Klagenfurt. Mr. Leitner worked as a usability consultant at the CURE Institute (Center for Usability Research and Engineering) and within the Kabel New Media network of excellence for companies such as ZDF, OEBB, and Raiffeisen. His current research interests are Usability and User Experience in regard to ambient intelligence with a specific focus on smart living environments.

Vortragstermine und Themen

6. März 2013, 17.00 Uhr, HS 2 — Ass.-Prof. DDipl.-Ing. Dr. Stefan Rass — Security Infrastructures for Data- and Identity-Protection

• Security Infrastructure Design
• Security Risk Management
• Redactable Signatures
• Anonymous Communication

17. April 2013, 17.00 Uhr, HS 3 — Ass.-Prof. Mag. Dr. David Ahlström — From Menu Selection to Off-Screen Interaction with Eight-Hundred Seventy-two Study Participants

• Understanding Human-Factors in Computer use
• Novel User Interfaces and Interaction Mechanism
• Human-Computer Interaction Performance Studies

24. April 2013, 17.00 Uhr, Z 1.09 — Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Martin Pinzger — The Knowledgeable Software Engineer

• Software Evolution
• Software Metrics
• Fine-Grained Source Code Changes
• Change- and Bug Prediction
• Recommender Systems for Software Engineering

15. Mai 2013, 17.00 Uhr, HS 2 — Ass.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Gerhard Leitner — The (Smart) Home of the Future – from the Perspective of Human Computer Interaction

• Current State of Smart Home Technology and Research
• Ambient Assisted Living
• Energy saving
• Remote Control
• Automation vs. Alternative Interfaces
• The goal: Wise instead of Smart

5. Juni 2013, 17.00 Uhr, HS 2 — Univ.-Prof. DI Dr. Martin Horn — Modern Automotive Control Systems

• Active Suspension
• Throttle control
• Driver assistance systems
• Automotive control

19. Juni 2013, 17.00 Uhr HS 2 — Ass.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Angelika Wiegele — Efficient Algorithms for Hard Problems: Semidefinite Optimization for Binary Quadratic Programming

• Semidefinite Programming
• NP-hard Problems
• Combinatorial Optimization
• Branch-and-Bound

26. Juni 2013, 17.00 Uhr, HS 2 — Ass.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Klaus Schöffmann — Visual Content Browsing – Combining Exploratory Search and Automatic Multimedia Content Analysis

• Content-Based Search
• Interaction with Images and Videos
• Visual Content Analysis
• Evaluation of Visual Content Browsing

Abstract:

Multi-objective ant colony optimization (MOACO) algorithms have shown promising results for various multi-objective problems, but they also offer a large number of possible design choices. Often, exploring all possible configurations is practically infeasible. Recently, the automatic configuration of a MOACO framework was explored and was shown to result in new state-of-the-art MOACO algorithms for the bi-objective traveling salesman problem. In this paper, we apply this approach to the bi-objective bidimensional knapsack problem (bBKP) to prove its generality and power. As a first step, we tune and improve the performance of four MOACO algorithms that have been earlier proposed for the bBKP. In a second step, we configure the full MOACO framework and show that the automatically configured MOACO framework outperforms all previous MOACO algorithms for the bBKP as well as their improved variants.

(link: IridiaTr2012-013)

Université Libre de Bruxelles

Der Rückblick zum TEWI-Kolloquium von Dr. Ladislav Samuelis, Kosice, Slovakia am 28.03.2013 beinhaltet die Videoaufzeichnung sowie die Folien:

Video

[iframe height=“350″ src=“http://video.aau.at/video.php?video=ftf_samuelis.mp4″]

Slides

[iframe src=“http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/18107682″ width=“476″ height=“400″ frameborder=“0″ marginwidth=“0″ marginheight=“0″ scrolling=“no“]

Abstract: The talk deals with two questions related to software testing. The first is: Why more testing should be taught? Complex systems and demands for higher software quality require software quality assurance, and generally, more efforts on software testing. The amount of software testing continues to grow. The related literature estimates that software testing effort is 50-60% of the total development effort. We summarize experience of teaching software testing by application of the ISTQB (International Software Testing Qualifications Board) syllabi in the master study programme of software engineering. The second question is: Which theory of software testing do we have to teach? We focus on the approach of Goodenough and Gerhart. We are seeking further theories (Gödel) for their possible inclusion into the syllabi of software testing courses.

Short bio: Ladislav Samuelis is Associate Professor at the Department of Computers and Informatics of the Technical University Košice, Slovakia. He completed his M.Sc. in Computer Engineering at Prague Technical University and Ph.D. in Informatics at the Technical University of Budapest. His research interests include various software engineering topics, with focus on Software Testing, Automatic Program Synthesis, Software Evolution and Didactics in Informatics. Contact him at ladislav.samuelis@tuke.sk.

Der Rückblick zum TEWI-Kolloquium von Dr. Giorgio Brajnik, Università di Udine am 25.01.2013 beinhaltet die Folien:

Abstract: The talk will provide an outline of major model-driven engineering approaches to user interface design: we will cover data-driven approaches as well as task-driven ones, highlighting what are the key requirements

illustrated, and the equation Controller + Model = View will be discussed.
The overall claim will be that UML-IDEA supports a clear meaning for the term “interaction design” whose operationalization should bring a number of advantages: rapid and flexible mix-fidelity prototyping, retargeting of the user interface, usability metrics and development of functional test cases.

CV: Giorgio Brajnik is assistant professor in Computer Science at the University of Udine, Italy. His current interests are design, development and quality assessments of user interfaces, with an emphasis on accessibility, usability and user experience. In the past he worked on tools for testing accessibility, as well as information retrieval user interfaces and qualitative modeling of dynamical systems. He currently teaches “Usage centered design of web applications” and “User experience”. He has been invited several times as visiting professor or panelist, and is member of many conference program committees as well as being a reviewer for different journals. In the past he served as scientific advisor for companies; in July 2012 he cofounded and is President of Interaction Design Solutions, a spin-off of the University of Udine that develops software for rapid prototyping and multiplatform deployment of user interfaces based on innovative model-based development practices. The company also provides consultancy services regarding usability and usage-centered design.