Location:

address: PLUS Center, University of Salzburg Sigmund-Haffner-Gasse 18, 5020 Salzburg, Austria
tel: +46 662 8044 4800
fax: +43 662 6389 4800
web: http://www.icts.sbg.ac.at

Description of participant

The Centre for Advanced Studies and Research in Information and Communication Technologies & Society (PLUS) is established as an independent interfaculty research and study centre within the University of Salzburg to drive interdisciplinary work and activities. The central vision is to face the challenges of the interrelationship between technology and society on several levels (from the individual level to the organizational level and the societal level as a whole) and deliver interdisciplinary solutions for the fields of business, technology, science, and policy. The PLUS Centre offers a framework towards building inter- and trans-disciplinary relationships applicable to the challenges of the upcoming information and knowledge based society. It's the PLUS Centre’s philosophy to explicitly focus on the problems where individual disciplines are reaching their limits.

The Human-Computer Interaction & Usability Unit of the PLUS Center of the University Salzburg deals with specific questions related to design, development, and evaluation of existing and emerging interaction systems and interaction environments. Staff members with various interdisciplinary backgrounds e.g. computer science, psychology, communication science, design, information management) are working on the following research priorities:

• Mobile Interfaces
• Intelligent and Emotional Interfaces
• Web Interfaces
• Social Interfaces
• Multimodal Interfaces
• Ambient Interfaces
• User Experience Methods and Tools

The Internet & Society (eTheory) area of competence sees its main responsibility in the groundwork for the theoretical foundations of the new subject PLUS. This area cooperates closely with the other two fields of work of the PLUS Center in order to coordinate the foundations for the analysis of the political processes around ICTs and to integrate them into a larger whole (for example, the development of the foundations for policy consulting in the field of ePolicy and for HCI- and usability-studies). The central interest here is in trans-disciplinary and in studying the effects of ICTs on society. A further focus is on the economic, political and cultural factors that influence the genesis of these technologies. In particular, it is the responsibility of the Internet & Society area of competence to analyse theories of the information society, social theories, theories of technology, and cross-disciplinary and philosophical theories, in so far as these theories are suited to substantiate the subject of PLUS. Together, they make up the new field of eTheory.

Key researchers

Manfred TSCHELIGI (*1961) is professor for Human-Computer Interaction & Usability at the University of Salzburg. He holds a master's degree in business informatics and a PhD in social and economic sciences (with a specialisation in applied computer science). He has been Associate Professor for Applied Computer Science at the University of Vienna (Institute for Computer Science and Business Informatics) and is co-founder of CURE (Center for Usability Research & Engineering) in Vienna. Manfred Tscheligi has been active in the area of Interactive Systems, Human-Computer Interaction and Usability Engineering for around 20 years. He has done pioneer work in this field and established it in Austria (both, in university education, as a research field as well as an industrially applied field). Manfred Tscheligi is a member of different expert groups and very active in the international research scene. He was General Conference Co-Chair of CHI2004 (ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human-Factors in Computing Systems) and will be conference chair for MobileHCI 2005 (which will be held in Salzburg). He is author of several publications, is a distinguished speaker at conferences and seminars. He is also member of the Special Editorial Board on Applications of "Interacting with Computers" (Elsevier) , member of the Editorial Board of the Book Series “Human-Computer Interaction" (Kluwer) and member of the Editorial Board of “interactions” (ACM). He has been responsible for more than 150 national and international projects (basic research, applied research, industrial co-operations) and several national and international initiatives. Among these he has been responsible for the participation in 12 (3 are still ongoing) EC projects (including: MAYPOLE-Connecting People in Shared Activities (LTR-I3), FIRM-Delivering Information for Company Foundation (Info2000), EMMUS-European MultiMedia Usability Services, UsabilityNet (IST), EDUCAT (IST), OmniPaper (IST), CONSENSUS (IST), XAudio (IST), Tacit (IST), WalkonWeb (IST), Liasion (IST)).

Regina BERNHAUPT (*1971) is working as assistant professor at the HCI Unit of the ICT&S-Center, working on her habilitation in the area of usability evaluation methods. Currently she is on a sabbatical leave. She holds a masters degree in psychology and in computer science from the Salzburg University. In 2002 she finished her technical dissertation in computer science in the field of intelligent systems (time coded artificial neural networks). She teaches programming courses, user interface techniques and design and human-computer interaction at the Salzburg University and the applied University of Salzburg. She is leading several projects in the area of home entertainment (interactive TV, games, new ways of entertainment) and is responsible for new forms of usability and user experience evaluation in various contexts like mobile interfaces and ambient technologies.

Astrid WEISS (*) is currently working as a research assistant at the HCI Unit of the ICT&S Center. She holds a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Salzburg (2005). During her study she specialised on methodologies of empirical social research. She joined the ICT&S Center in 2006 and was engaged in the iTV4all project, which focuses on the development of new forms of interaction techniques within the context home, especially on new concepts of iTV services combined with more intelligent remote controls Current research foci are HCI methodologies, human-robot interaction and social interfaces.

Axel BAUMGARTNER (*) is currently working as a research assistant at the HCI unit. He studies Applied Computer Sciences at the University of Salzburg with focus on HCI. His current research interest is technology assessment and forecasting methodologies for the evaluation of new technologies.

Daniela WURHOFER (*) joined the ICT&S team in October 2007 and is currently working as a research assistant at the HCI Unit of the ICT&S Center. She holds a master’s degree in psychology (2006) and a bachelor’s degree in Applied Computer Science (2007). She is currently engaged in the CITIZEN MEDIA project and in the ROBOT@CWE project.

Thomas MIRLACHER (*) is currently working as a project assistant within the ICT@HOME project at the HCI Unit of the ICT&S-Center at the University of Salzburg. He holds a bachelor and master degree in Applied Computer Sciences from the University of Salzburg. He was involved in several national and international projects, covering the range from satellite communication, robotics, embedded systems to multimedia processing in both University and Industry. The center of his research interests are human-computer interfaces, in particular in combination with Ambient Intelligence, personalization, embedded and ubiquitous technologies.

David WILFINGER (*) is a research assistant at the HCI Unit of the ICT&S Center. He is studying Information Design at the University of Applied Science (FH Joanneum) in Graz and is currently writing on his master thesis at the ICT&S Center. He is focusing on Interaction Design and User Interface Design and is working in the field of iTV and Interaction at Home.

Michael LANKES (*) Lankes is working as a research fellow and doctoral candidate at the HCI unit of the ICT&S-Center Salzburg. He joined the ICT&S Center in March 2007. Michael Lankes holds a masters degree in Multimedia Art from the University of applied sciences Salzburg. After his study he worked as a freelance 3D artist and as an illustrator. Afterwards he was involved  in various projects at the Ars Electronica Futurelab (researcher in virtual environments) and Sony DVDCE (interface designer).His main research interest is focused on affective interfaces in games.

Stefan RIEGLER (*) is currently working as a research assistant at the HCI Unit of the ICT&S Center. He is currently doing his bachelor at the University of Salzburg in Informatics. He specializes on HCI. He joined the ICT&S Center in 2007 and was engaged in the Navigator project, which focuses on the development of new forms of interaction techniques with the TV. Currently he is working in various projects such as "Tschiepsi Cool", an educational computergame, especially designed to the HCI-needs of children.

Daniel SCHWAIGER (*) is currently working as a project assistant at the HCI Unit of the ICT&S Center. He studies applied computer sciences at the Paris Lodron University Salzburg focusing on ICT&S and HCI. He joined the ICT&S Center in march 2007. He focuses on technical implementation of prototypes and research in user experience, new interaction techniques and games.

Kristijan MIHALIC (*) (until end of January 07)
Sabine HÖSCH (*) (until end of September 07)
Bernd PLODERER (*) (until end of February 07)

Role of partner

The PLUS Centre is concerned with the interactions and the interplay between humans and robots on several layers from the individual to the society. It will analyse the requirements, give design recommendations and evaluate the robotic systems regarding usability, user experience and acceptability in enhanced collaborative work environments. In this way it will contribute to the design and development of human-centred, usable and sociable acceptable robotic work environments.