Frank Heidmann

• Prof. Dr.
• University of Applied Sciences Potsdam

This paper presents an approach to designing companion technologies for mental health based on a case study on social anxiety disorder (SAD). We highlight the potential of an irritating dimension of user experience and propose including irritating qualities in companions as a strategy to disrupt patterns of behavior and thought, support perspective...

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is one of the most commonly diagnosed anxiety disorders and a health concern that has a significant impact on the affected individuals’ quality of life. Although there is a need to develop methods and tools to support those affected by SAD, it is especially challenging to conduct participatory design with this psycholo...

With design having more impact than ever, there is an increased need for critical inquiries into design research and education that engage designers to question established disciplinary assumptions. One prevailing myth is the convenience ideal: the obsession with comfort, efficiency, smoothness, and smartness that relates to a trend of envisioning...

With relational perspectives, we examine the potential of traversing cultural collections along the richness of individual facets and relations through the process of developing an exploration-centered visualization. Cultural collections can contain thousands of artifacts, of which each typically possesses a diverse set of properties and individual...

There is a prevalent obsession in design-oriented disciplines and in the technological industry with comfort, efficiency, smoothness and smartness, which relates to a trend of envisioning super-convenient futures. In this paper, we raise convenience as a topic for inquiry within critical design practice and affirm the importance of questioning the...

We see more cartographic products in our digital world than ever before. But what role does cartography play in the modern production of cartographic products? In this position paper, we will argue that the democratization and diffusion of cartographic production has also led to the presumed “fading relevance” of cartography. As an argument against...

With relational perspectives we explore the potential of a new type of approach for the exploration of cultural collections. Cultural collections can contain thousands of artifacts, of which each typically possesses a diverse set of properties constituting a unique relationship to the rest of the collection. Therefore, to create an appropriate repr...

We will explore four plausible futures and experiment on a speculative approach to investigate "wicked problems" [14]. Grounded in the field of design fiction, this work combines insights from the climate impact research community, technology meta trends, and plant science, all of which work as a basis for the exploration of relationships between h...

The University of Applied Sciences FH Potsdam is known for its wide-ranging design education: Product and communications designers have been trained here since 1992, interface designers since 2003. In order to highlight the potentials as well as the difficulties and limitations of inquiry-based learning in the discipline of design, several design p...

Climate change severely affects Alpine regions. Adaptation to climate change is needed in order to deal with these impacts, but the implementation of national adaptation strategies is inhibited by multiple obstacles. Regional strategic frameworks are just emerging, adaptation is of little priority to local agendas and policy mainstreaming is limite...

When a hazard event strikes, the reachability of affected areas is a significant factor that can determine if the situation becomes a disaster. Decision makers have to react quickly while under stress to tasks that depend on the road network, such as management of relief operations, planning of evacuation routes, or food and first aid distribution....

The assessment of natural hazards and risk has traditionally been built upon the estimation of threat maps, which are used to depict potential danger posed by a particular hazard throughout a given area. But when a hazard event strikes, infrastructure is a significant factor that can determine if the situation becomes a disaster. The vulnerability...

In this paper we present a brief summary of an online survey we conducted in 2014. 135 participants successfully completed this survey, whereby 46% of the subjects were females and 54% males. We found out, that nowadays many users fall back on using smartphones in order to orientate themselves in unknown environments. In terms of analog navigation...

Dieser Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit den Herausforderungen eine Anforderungsanalyse im hoch technologischen Umfeld der IT-Security durchzuführen, bei dem keine der üblichen ethnografischen Methoden wie teilnehmende Beobachtung u.a. möglich waren. Im Umfeld von IT-Sicherheitsexperten besteht grundsätzlich Skepsis bzgl. möglicher Datenerfassungen, die...

The growing amount of available data is creating a need for mass-data visualizations in many areas. The mapping of large spatial data sets is not only of interest for experts anymore but moves into the domain of public applications with regard to the latest advances in web cartography. This creates a need for usable and understandable interactive t...

This poster is looking at how users utilize mobile applications that offer an interface for finding locations and how the way of interaction changes depending on the users' intent. Through the analysis of existing interfaces we identified 5 location search patterns. In a further evaluation of the existing patterns we tried to identify which pattern...

Mobile handheld computing devices are becoming a more important part of our digital infrastructure. Web-based map services and visualisations for spatial data are being optimised for use on these new mobile devices. Despite the fast development of mobile devices, compared to laptop and desktop computers they remain slower in terms of processing pow...

Karten dienen seit Jahrtausenden als Repräsentationen räumlichen Wissens. Aufgrund ihrer herausragenden Fähigkeit zur Visualisierung von Geoinformationen gehörten sie allzeit zu den begehrtesten Artefakten der jeweils Herrschenden. Neben der Visualisierung von Geoinformationen dienten sie zur Kommunikation politischer und oftmals ideologischer Stan...

Being engaged with real-world tasks -- when hands are busy -- also means not being able to use mobile devices. Trying to overcome this problem we present NeuroPad, an iPad-application that connects a commercially available low-cost neuro headset with an iPad. The read physiological signals are used for controlling different functionalities in a tou...

Mobile Endgeräte wie Smartphones drängen auf den Massenmarkt. Mit der ständigen Datenverfügbarkeit und innovativen Applikationen sind auch Möglichkeiten zur Förderung von nachhaltigen Lebensstilen verbunden. Es gibt bereits erste Smartphone-Apps zum Thema ökologische Nachhaltigkeit.

Web-based applications are characterised by a variety of features requiring new approaches of evaluation. Special characteristics of web applications are the focus on information transfer, the inclusion of broad anonymous user groups, as well as the use of most diverse, even mobile end devices. This article introduces an evaluation methodology for...

This paper presents Muse, a visualization of institutional co-authorship of publications. The objective is to create an interactive visualization, which enables users to visually analyze collaboration between institutions based on publications. The easy to use multitouch interaction, and the size of the interactive surface invite users to explore t...

We introduce Venice Unfolding, a case study on tangible geo-visualization on an interactive tabletop to enable the exploration of architectural projects in Venice. Our tangible user interface consists of a large display showing projects on a map, and a polyhedral object to browse these data interactively by selecting and filtering various metadata...

Safety-critical applications require high degrees of usability and error tolerance. Supporting the situation awareness of operators has become a central topic in the design of control center applications. In order to evaluate the prototype of the control center screens of a decision support system for tsunami early warning we compiled a heuristic f...

Whether it be DVD-players, automatic ticket machines, cell phones, PDAs, machines, computers or even airplane cockpits, an increasing number of products at home and at work have a user interface, in other words a place where humans and machines meet. Direct contact with interactive technology was previously limited to the workplace. Now, there is h...

Today numerous telecommunication services are implemented and brought to users. Common for these services is that their interfaces differ tremendously. As a consequence users have to learn the usage of each interface. Amorelation provides the new approach of meshed interaction design patterns (MIDP) that enable service usage in a consistent way for...

Zusammenfassung Die ubiquitäre technologische Unterstützung eines generationenübergreifenden Lebens und Arbei-tens im intelligenten Haus der Zukunft ist seit einigen Jahren ein zentrales Anwendungsfeld der Mensch-Computer-Kooperation. Dabei nimmt die Benutzungsschnittstelle als zentrales Akzeptanzkriterium für Smart Home Applikationen kontinuierlic...

This Chapter describes a reference scenario that has been extracted from current practices regarding the use of Electronic Patient Records (EPR) in Germany, and in particular the ClinicCoach application developed by the company HIG Coachit. The application is an EPR (or otherwise described as an Electronic Health Record – EHR) and was first impleme...

A universally designed system has many and various requisites. The system needs to be accessible and usable by as many users and in as many contexts as possible. To ensure that it adheres to universal design (UD) and accessibility principles, it needs to be tested. The evaluation of such a system must also be multivariate otherwise the many aspects...

Universally accessible design aims to eliminate the barriers that standard design often presents to many groups in the world’s population. In this Chapter, we look at how standards can promote universal access and design for the field of health telematics. We first discuss why standards are important and essential in the successful implementation o...

The WebSCORE Expert Screening is designed in order to address the specific requirements of web application evaluation. It takes an holistic perspective on web application quality that goes beyond traditional usability issues. On the other hand, it is a low budget service as it follows a structured and standardized evaluation scheme.

This paper describes the interface conception for a mobile, location-based map application, and the user-centred design approach used to validate design principles. We suggests design guidelines for interactive maps that were used for prototypes for a mobile fair guide. Abstract and simplified visualizations were combined with interactive linking t...

This paper describes the user-centred approach that the Fraunhofer IAO usability engineering team took for a smart home project called LIVEfutura. The major research issues were to see what would people find useful for the home and how to support their needs. The approach that the team followed essentially incorporated three factors (physical, cogn...

We have developed a Wizard of Oz simulation tool which allows scenario-based simulation of speech systems for the conduction of empirical studies with future users. This paper focuses on the adequate integration of recognition errors as they are an important feature of speech-based applications. The presented solution considers the aspects of relia...

This paper describes the first phase of user-centred design for a mobile, location-based fair guide which is developed in the research project SAiMotion.

This paper describes the first phase of user -centred design for a mo- bile, location-based fair guide which is developed in the research project SAiMo- tion. The user requirements analysis based on a usage scenario and a formalized use case model developed in the beginning. A focus group and interviews were conducted to gain empirical insights on...

Web-basierte Applikationen sind durch eine Vielzahl von Charakteristika gekennzeichnet, in deren Folge neue Evaluationsansätze erforderlich sind. Besondere Eigenschaften bei Web-Applikationen sind die Orientierung auf Informationsvermittlung, die Einbeziehung breiter anonymer Nutzergruppen sowie der Einsatz unterschiedlichster, auch mobiler Endgerä...

This paper describes the first phase of user-centred design for a mobile, location-based fair guide which is developed in the research project SAiMotion. The user requirements analysis based on a usage scenario and a formalized use case model developed in the beginning. A focus group and interviews were conducted to gain empirical insights on the p...

Fig. 1. Interaction sequence with the tangible object, starting with a) selecting one of the facets, b) choosing a specific entry from the radial menu, and c) browsing through further metadata and media of a selected project Abstract—In this paper we introduce a case study on tangible geo-visualization on an interactive tabletop to enable the explo...

The potential of smart living environments can only be tapped if the user is recognized as the key player in his networked environment. In LIVEfutura 1 the development of a fully integrated home environment is driven by a user-centred design approach to shift the focus in the development process on the user and task requirements. Networking, integr...

This paper presents Muse, a visualization of institutional co-authorship of publications. The objective is to create an interactive visualization, which enables users to visually analyze collaboration between institutions based on publications. The easy to use multitouch interaction, and the size of the interactive surface invite users to explore t...

Zugl.: Trier, Univ., Diss., 1999.