Individual Projects

You can find here some information on selected researches conducted by this group.

Pandemic Displays

We study how people perceive and consider hygiene on shared touchscreens, and how touchscreens could be improved through hygiene-related functions.

PriView

We present and evaluate a concept to visualize privacy-invasive devices in users’ vicinity. In particular, we contribute (a) a mobile application, capable of detecting smart devices using a thermal camera and (b) a VR application presenting suitable scenarios

Effects of Body Normalizations on Behavioral Biometrics

In this paper we investigate how well users can be identified in VR in realistic, task-driven scenarios using spatial movements. In particular, we investigate the role of users’ physiology by virtually altering and normalizing their body proportions, showing that by doing so the identification accuracy can be enhanced by 38%.

SpatialProto

This paper presents SpatialProto, an in-situ spatial prototyping system for mixed reality, which lowers the barrier for designers to engage in spatial prototyping. SpatialProto lets users record animated objects of the real world, extract relevant elements, and directly place and transform these recordings in their physical environment.

Hidden Interactions

We present and explore the concept of hidden interaction techniques which supports interaction in situations in which the use of personal devices is not socially acceptable or where nearby people present a privacy risk. In particular, two applications are presented and evaluated. HiddenHaptic conveys information through vibrotactile cues on smartphones. HiddenWrite allows text messages to be composed on smart watches.

Behavioral Biometrics in VR

We investigate body motion as behavioural biometrics for virtual reality. In particular, we look into which behaviour is suitable to identify a user.

ARtention

We present ARtention, a design space for gaze interaction specifically tailored for in-situ AR information interfaces. It highlights three important dimensions to consider in the UI design of such gaze-enabled applications: transitions from reality to the virtual interface, from single- to multi-layer content, and from information consumption to selection tasks.

SenseHandle

We developed SenseHandle, a system to unobtrusively measure users’ interactions with door handles, thus, enabling authentication on demand.

ActPad

We present ActPad, a desk pad, capable of sensing capacitive touch input on its electrodes and on connected objects.

TangibleSphere

We demonstrate how this physicality can be brought to VR by means of TangibleSphere – a tracked, low-cost physical object that can (a) be rotated freely and (b) is overlaid with a virtual display.

Intentional Behavior Modifications

This paper presents the first study on understanding users’ ability to modify their typing behaviour when entering passwords on smartphones.

Device Confidence and Re-Authentication in Continuous Authentication

We developed a novel approach to enable users to anticipate the need for re-authentication with two indicators: (1) a long term indicator shows the current DCL and its development over time, and (2) a short term indicator announces that re-authentication is imminent.

EyeGaze in Security and Privacy Applications

We present a holistic view on gaze-based security applications. In particular, we canvassed the literature and classify the utility of gaze in security applications into a) authentication, b) privacy protection, and c) gaze monitoring during security critical tasks.

Virtual Field Studies

We investigate the feasibility of using virtual reality (VR) as a test-bed to evaluate deployments of public displays. Specifically, we investigate whether results from virtual field studies, conducted in a virtual public space, would match the results from a corresponding real-world setting.

Designing Voice Assistant Personalities for Automotive UIs

This paper investigates personalized voice characters for incar speech interfaces. In particular, we report on how we designed different personalities for voice assistants and compared them in a real world driving study.

Personal Mobile Messaging in Context

We augment text messaging with information about users and contexts. We present and reflect on lessons learned from three field studies, in which we deployed augmentation concepts as prototype chat apps in users’ daily lives.

Thermal Attacks

We investigate in details the viability of exploiting thermal imaging to infer PINs and patterns on mobile devices.

SnapApp

SnapApp is a novel unlock concept for mobile devices that reduces authentication overhead with a time-constrained quick-access option.

ResearchIME

We present a data logging concept, tool, and analyses to facilitate studies of everyday mobile touch keyboard use and free typing behaviour.

SmudgeSafe

SmudgeSafe is a graphical authentication mechanism that mitigates smudge attacks by applying geometric transformations to images.

Authentication in VR

As a first step towards seamless VR authentication, this paper investigates the direct transfer of well-established concepts (PIN, Android unlock patterns) into VR.

Your Eyes Tell

A common objective for context-aware computing systems is to predict how user interfaces impact user performance regarding their cognitive capabilities. We address this by exploiting the fact that cognitive workload influences smooth pursuit eye movements.

EyePACT

We present EyePACT, a method that compensates for input error caused by parallax on public displays. Our method uses a display-mounted depth camera to detect the user’s 3D eye position in front of the display and the detected touch location to predict the perceived touch location on the surface.

CueAuth

We rigorously compare modalities for cue-based authentication on situated displays. In particular, we provide the first comparison between touch, mid-air gestures, and calibration-free gaze using a state-of-the-art authentication concept.

Shoulder Surfing in the Wild

We present the results of a user survey in which we investigate actual stories about shoulder surfing on mobile devices from both users and observers.

Graphical Passwords

Common user authentication methods on smartphones, such as lock patterns, PINs, or passwords, impose a trade-off between security and password memorability. Image-based passwords were proposed as a secure and usable alternative.

TextPursuits

We show how reading text on large display can be used to enable gaze interaction in public space.

EyeScout

We present EyeScout, an active eye tracking system that combines an eye tracker mounted on a rail system with a computational method to automatically detect and align the tracker with the user’s lateral movement.

GravitySpot

We present GravitySpot – an approach that makes sweet spots flexible by actively guiding users to arbitrary target positions in front of displays using visual cues.

TapScript

We introduce a dynamic font personalisation framework, TapScript, which adapts a finger-drawn font according to user behaviour and context, such as finger placement, device orientation and movements - resulting in a handwritten-looking font.

Cruise Control for Pedestrians

We propose actuated navigation, a new kind of pedestrian navigation in which the user does not need to attend to the navigation task at all.

EngageMeter

We present EngageMeter – a system that allows fine-grained information on audience engagement to be obtained implicitly from multiple brain-computer interfaces (BCI) and to be fed back to presenters for real time and post-hoc access.

Emotion Actuator

We propose EmotionActuator, a proof-of-concept system to investigate the transmission of emotional states in which the recipient performs emotional gestures to understand and interpret the state of the sender. We call this kind of communication embodied emotional feedback, and present a prototype implementation.

Looking Glass

We designed an interactive installation that uses visual feedback to the incidental movements of passersby to communicate its interactivity.

Audience Funnel

We explore cylindrical displays as a possible form of such novel public displays. We present a prototype and report on a user study, comparing the influence of the display shape on user behavior and user experience between flat and cylindrical displays.