Today, user-centered and participatory design methods have become indispensable in modern HCI research and user-centered development. Use of such methods can help us to gain realistic insights into current practices, co-produce sustainable concepts and solutions and understand how digital tools can be appropriated in a more sustainable way.
For this reason, the Chair of Information Systems, especially IT for the Ageing Society, is organizing an introduction to the topic of qualitative research on Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020 from 2 p.m. until 4 p.m.
We cordially invite you to be there!
The iDESkmu consortium also consists of the BSV Hamburg e.V., HAVI Solutions GmbH & Co. KG and other experts in the field of accessibility.
One of the aims of this project is to sensitize companies to the advantages of developing and using accessible software and to show how companies, developers and employees with and without (visual) disabilities can benefit from accessible software.
For this project, the University of Siegen is looking for co-researchers in the region and throughout Germany who will support the project with the opportunity to do research with them, examine working practices and conduct interviews through to completion, as well as continuous exchange and independent research.
The consortium is supported by a company from the region that raises awareness and tests software for accessibility: bitfarm Archiv GmbH
Together with Heino Schneider, managing director of bitfarm, the project team has already carried out field research at and with the company, the analysis of which has provided valuable insights for the project and its further course. Thanks for that!
It is gratifying to see that there are already companies in the region who have thought about the issue of accessibility or will do so now.
If you would like to know more or support us with the project, please do not hesitate to contact us
Prof. Dr. Claudia Müller will take part in the virtual expert exchange on the topic “Socially just transition towards sustainable development: The role of digital technologies on social development and well-being of all” from August 4 to 8, 2020, at the invitation of Daniela Bas, Director of the Division for Inclusive Social Development of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. She represents the topics “Ageing & Digitisation” as deputy chairperson of the 8th Ageing Report Commission of the Federal Government as well as “Participation-oriented and sustainable technology design”.
Richard Paluch, research associate in the research area of Business Informatics, in particular IT for the Aging Society, was selected by the German Society of Audiology (DGA) for the Publication Prize 2019. He will be awarded the prize during the online conference on September 3, 2020.
We assign a project or final thesis to students of HCI or Business Informatics with the main focus on the usability and interface analysis of CrypTool (www.cryptool.org) and the improvement of the user experience. The exact design can be worked out in close cooperation with Prof. Esslinger and the supervisors. The goal would be to evaluate the current versions of CrypTool (CT2, JCT and/or CTO) and to work out, implement and evaluate suggestions for improvement. The work can also be carried out as a project work with subsequent final thesis.
The different topics revolve around the topic of “accessibility†in the context of IT workplaces and include field studies and technical (further) developments of supporting tools.
Our Collaborative Research Center Cooperative Production of User Autonomy in the Context of the Ageing Society is writing a master thesis with the title:
Collaborative and participatory design of media of cooperation for caring communities – Participatory website design for caring community project in Switzerland
The existing cooperation of the Junior Professorship IT for the Ageing Society at the University of Siegen with the research group Ageing at home of the Careum Hochschule Gesundheit (Zurich, Switzerland) offers the opportunity to write a final thesis on the participatory design of a project website within the framework of subproject A05 – Cooperative Production of User Autonomy in the Context of the Ageing Society of the SFB Media of the cooperation.
The final thesis will be carried out in cooperation with the Swiss project CareComLabs, which has already established 3 Living Labs in Switzerland. The participatory approach is central here. Together with actors of the emerging caring communities, their internet presence will be designed. In addition to the design of the website, the conception, implementation and reflection of the participatory design process are also part of the final thesis.
Offer for various projects and bachelor and master theses with blockchain
Any type of project or thesis
for the following modules (Bachelor & Master):
Wirtschaftsinformatik
Human Computer Interaction
Shared mobility is an emerging, environmental friendly alternative to individual transport and could be one of the driving forces behind the urgently required mobility transformation. The main idea is that individuals no longer own their personal vehicles, but instead have on demand access to cars, bicycles, scooters or rides from shared mobility providers.
Rural areas are mostly dominated by private transport and a personal car is usually unavoidable. In most places, public transport is usually less well developed and often even further reduced for cost reasons. Here, shared mobility services could increase the mobility of people, but currently are rare and, if existent, isolated from one and another. One of the main reasons is that shared mobility providers, for economic reasons, follow a top down approach where they reduce their offerings with decreasing population density. At the same time installation hurdles for non profit seeking providers are large, especially regarding the technical infrastructure required to operate such a service.
To address the before mentioned challenges of shared mobility in rural areas, as well as to facilitate and support the adoption and provision of more services, we are currently developing an open, blockchain based platform that enables peers to share vehicles in rural areas.
Related tasks are:
design of blockchain based services
development of smart contracts for Ethereum
we expect programming skills but not necessarily in Solidity
programming of microcontrollers and their connection to the blockchain
Literature:
3Blue1Brown: But how does bitcoin actually work? work?(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBC nXj3Ng4)
Nakamoto , S. ( Bitcoin: A peer to peer electronic cash system. Manubot
Shaheen , S., Cohenand , A., & Zohdy , I. (2016). Shared mobility: current practices and guiding principles
Wüst , K.: and Gervais, A.: Do you need a Blockchain? 2018. Do you need a Blockchain? 2018 Crypto Valley Conference on Blockchain Technology (CVCBT) (2018), 45 54
DEMAND ANALYSIS AND PREDICTION IN THE CONTEXT OF SHARED MOBILITY SERVICES USING DATA SCIENCE METHODS AND MACHINE LEARNING
Various projects and bachelor and master theses
Shared mobility services such as nextbike, DriveNow, TIER or Uber are experiencing a rapid growth worldwide. In many cities, shared mobility services with bicycles, cars and e-scooters are central components of alternative mobility strategies to tackle traffic-related problems.
However, as a result of the rapidly growing fleets, operators of modern services are facing existential challenges. At the same time, the services must be designed to be economical, customer-friendly, environmentally friendly and in cooperation with public authorities. For planning and efficient operation, precise estimations of future mobility demand are required.
Existing approaches to forecasting demand in the context of shared mobility services, however, mostly focus on station-based systems and cannot address the complex spatial and temporal dependencies resulting from the flexible provision of vehicles without fixed stations.
Methods from the fields of data science and machine learning offer the opportunity to leverage the large amounts of data generated by the ever faster growing fleets and provide a basis for efficient operation and successful optimization of the offerings.
The book is an exploration of the theoretical, conceptual and methodological foundations of human-centred design. Specifically, it critically examines the notion of ‘practice’ and argues for an understanding of the concept which emanates from engagement with design problems rather than simply from social scientific theory. The contributors to the book in their various ways all subscribe to a systematic account of how practice- oriented studies can inform design.
Using the perspective of ‘grounded design’, it pursues a long term view of the design process, arguing for user engagement from the very earliest stages of design policy, including methods for understanding user practices to inform initial design policies up to and including processes of appropriation as technologies are embedded in contexts of use. Grounded design is a perspective which also deals with the vexed problem of appropriate generalization in design studies and the kinds of cross-comparison that can usefully be done. The book contains a number of case studies which exemplify these themes, some of which are rooted in the use of technology in organizational contexts, others of which deal with design in contexts such as care of the elderly, firefighting and multicultural education.
![accessibility experts at work](https://www.wineme.uni-siegen.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Accessibility-experts.jpg")
![the application is inspected with a magnifier](https://www.wineme.uni-siegen.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Accessibility-experts2.jpg")
![Every check step and its results are documented](https://www.wineme.uni-siegen.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Accessibility-experts3.jpg")
