Human-Centered Computing
The Human-Centered Computing (HCC) research group at InIT focuses on innovative natural interaction concepts between users and digital information. These interactions are increasingly mobile and multimodal and include new modalities such as gestures, voice input and output as well as mixed reality interactions in addition to the classic interaction options. As today's users place high demands on the usability and user experience of mobile applications and services in particular, these must be developed in a user-centered and participatory manner from the outset and continuously evaluated with users in terms of usability. When developing interaction concepts, it is also important to ensure that the interaction is accessible for as many users as possible, including those with disabilities or older people.
Immersive Technologies
In Mobile Computing and Visual Computing we explore the latest interaction modalities (speech, gestures, augmented reality, virtual reality) on the one hand and deal with the user-centered development of innovative mobile applications and services with special requirements on the other hand. The sensor technology and interaction possibilities of today's and future mobile devices are used to achieve an optimal user experience.
Speech and sound (sonification) are important modalities of Natural User Interfaces, especially for applications with limited screen interaction (like smartwatches or hands-free AR). Deep-learning-based speech recognition has made tremendous progress in recent years, and promising applications are now possible, such as live-captioning of videos or conversational assistants.
The "AR Cloud" concept addresses web-based persistent enrichment of indoor and outdoor spaces. We develop collaborative AR/VR applications to make the content of the "Metaverse" actively designable for users and smartly experienceable thanks to "Scene Understanding".
Current Research Projects and Topics
In the Innosuisse flagship project "Data-driven transformation of surgical education for proficiency-based performance", a completely new concept for the practical training of surgeons is being developed, based on innovative virtual and augmented reality simulators.
ICT-Accessibility
ICT-Accessibility focuses on the research and development of ICT-based solutions to reduce barriers for people with disabilities and older people, whether through barrier-free user interfaces, barrier-free access to digital information or barrier-free mobility. In doing so, we are increasingly using AI-based approaches.
Current Research Projects and Topics
In the project "Accessible Scientific PDFs for all", which is jointly funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and Innosuisse, we are researching how scientific PDF documents can be made accessible so that the scientific research literature can also be made accessible to people with visual impairments. This involves researching innovative deep-learning-based approaches to recognize formulas in PDFs and convert them into a readable and navigable form.
In addition, we are researching in various projects in the area of "Accessible Mobility" how people with mobility impairments can easily find accessible routes from a starting point to a destination and be guided safely along this route on the way.
In two projects funded by swissuniversities, we are looking at how to make studying accessible for people with impairments through the use of digital technologies. In collaboration with universities, we conduct joint PhDs in the field of accessibility.
We also like to evaluate websites and mobile apps for accessibility and develop tools and plugins to make digital documents accessible.
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AR Patterns
The project will develop a platform that focuses on Augmented Reality (AR) Patterns and aims to improve collaboration between UX designers and software developers. The goal is to create and operate a public catalogue of AR Patterns that covers both technical and UX aspects. The resulting community platform promotes ...
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Accessible Graphics: Semantic graphic description in PDFs for visually impaired people
The goal of this project is to research and develop deep-learning based methods to automatically extract the data visualized in a chart, in order to generate a semantic description of the chart graphics for visually impaired readers using their screen readers.
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MaM Monitoring of AV-Media
The monitoring of print and online media has been taking place more or less automatically for a long time. Since an ever greater proportion of new content is produced first or even exclusively for audiovisual (AV) media, the importance of monitoring these AV media has soared. Since the monitoring of AV media can ...
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Darvishy, Alireza; Hutter, Hans-Peter; Mosimann, Roland,
2022.
Towards personalized accessible routing for people with mobility impairments [paper].
In:
Miesenberger, Klaus; Kouroupetroglou, Georgios; Mavrou, Katerina; Manduchi, Roberto; Covarrubias Rodriguez, Mario; Penáz, Petr, eds.,
Computers Helping People with Special Needs.
Joint International Conference on Digital Inclusion, Assistive Technology & Accessibility (ICCHP-AAATE 2022), Lecco, Italy, 11-15 July 2022.
Cham:
Springer.
pp. 215-220.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science ; 13341.
Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08648-9_25
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Darvishy, Alireza,
2022.
Verifying screen reader accessibility of apps developed using Google Flutter [paper].
In:
Zallio, Matteo, ed.,
Human Factors in Accessibility and Assistive Technology.
13th AHFE International Conference on Human Factors in Accessibility and Assistive Technology (HFAAT), New York, USA, 24-28 July 2022.
AHFE International.
pp. 45-52.
Available from: https://doi.org/10.54941/ahfe1001641
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Darvishy, Alireza; Hutter, Hans-Peter; Seifert, Alexander,
2021.
Altersgerechte digitale Kanäle.
Wiesbaden:
Springer.
ISBN 978-3-658-35500-5.
Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-35501-2
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Hutter, Hans-Peter; Roth, Stephan; Darvishy, Alireza,
2021.
Service für barrierefreie Ferien im Bodenseeraum [paper].
In:
Kempter, Guido; Ritter, Walter, eds.,
Grenzüberschreitende Reallabore für Assistenztechnik : Beiträge zum Usability Day XIX.
uDay XIX : Grenzüberschreitende Reallabore für Assistenztechnik, Hard am Bodensee, 24. Juni 2021.
Lengerich:
Pabst Science Publishers.
pp. 90-101.
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Darvishy, Alireza; Roth, Stephan; Hutter, Hans-Peter,
2021.
Sprachassistent für Hotelinformationen [paper].
In:
Kempter, Guido; Ritter, Walter, eds.,
Grenzüberschreitende Reallabore für Assistenztechnik : Beiträge zum Usability Day XIX.
uDay XIX : Grenzüberschreitende Reallabore für Assistenztechnik, Hard am Bodensee, 24. Juni 2021.
Lengerich:
Pabst Science Publishers.
pp. 102-108.