Paweł Woźniak

Utrecht University | UU · Department of Information and Computing Sciences

Photography has been pivotal in culture for decades and its importance has increased with the rise of digital technology. However, the exploration of picture taking within the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community does not seem to match its cultural and technological significance. Recognizing this discrepancy, we sought to understand areas of...

Adolescence is a period of growth and exploration, marked by influential relationships with peers and parents. These relationships are essential for teenagers' well-being, highlighting the need to support their interpersonal interactions. Emotional expression is key in resolving conflicts that can frequently arise. This paper investigates the poten...

People are increasingly eager to know more about themselves through technology. To date, technology has primarily provided information on our physiology. Yet, with advances in wearable technology and artificial intelligence, the current advent of consumer neurotechnology will enable users to measure their cognitive activity. We see an opportunity f...

Reflection is widely regarded as a key design goal for technologies for well-being. Yet, recent research shows that technologies for reflection may have negative consequences, in the form of rumination, i.e. negative thought cycles. Understanding how technologies support thinking about oneself, which can take the form of rumination and reflection,...

The modern workplace has been optimized towards increasing productivity, often at the cost of long-term worker wellbeing. This systemic issue has been acknowledged in both research and practice, but has not yet been solved. There is a notable lack of practical methods of incorporating physical activity and other wellbeing practices into productive...

Wearable personal trackers offer exciting opportunities to contribute to one's well-being, but they also can foster negative experiences. It remains a challenge to understand how we can design personal informatics experiences that help users frame their data in a positive manner and foster self-compassion. To explore this, we conducted a study wher...

Remote health monitoring (RHM) provides various benefits to older adults, but its use is still limited. Remote monitoring may help in avoiding emergencies and prolong users’ independence. To understand how to design systems which support older adults, we studied a large-scale remote health monitoring system. The system used fitness-grade smartwatch...

Technologies have become an integral part of physical activity. Yet, the majority of popular programs do not focus on promoting a genuine understanding of how sport affects our bodies. As apps and trackers persuade users to exercise more, lack of body awareness can be detrimental to health. In this work, we propose and evaluate the concept of in-se...

Exploring the great outdoors offers physical and mental health benefits. Hiking is healthy, provides a sense of accomplishment, and offers an opportunity to relax. However, a nature trip is not always possible, and there is a lack of evidence showing how these beneficial experiences can be replicated in Virtual Reality (VR). In response, we recruit...

Playing together is crucial to the unique and invaluable bond between grandparents and grandchildren. However, co-located interactions and play can be limited due to time, distance, or pandemic-related restrictions. To facilitate distributed play, we developed MagiBricks, a system comprised of 3D-printed smart toy bricks and baseplates that provide...

While walking meetings offer a healthy alternative to sit-down meetings, they also pose practical challenges. Taking notes is difficult while walking, which limits the potential of walking meetings. To address this, we designed the Walking Talking Stick---a tangible device with integrated voice recording, transcription, and a physical highlighting...

This paper analyses Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) literature reviews to provide a clear conceptual basis for authors, reviewers, and readers. HCI is multidisciplinary and various types of literature reviews exist, from systematic to critical reviews in the style of essays. Yet, there is insufficient consensus of what to expect of literature revi...

The prospect of machine consciousness cultivates controversy across media, academia, and industry. Assessing whether non-experts perceive technologies as conscious, and exploring the consequences of this perception, are yet unaddressed challenges in Human Computer Interaction (HCI). To address them, we surveyed 100 people, exploring their conceptua...

While walking meetings offer a healthy alternative to sit-down meetings, they also pose practical challenges. Taking notes is difficult while walking, which limits the potential of walking meetings. To address this, we designed the Walking Talking Stick -- a tangible device with integrated voice recording, transcription, and a physical highlighting...

The ever-increasing number of computing devices around us results in more and more systems competing for our attention, making cognitive workload a crucial factor for the user experience of human-computer interfaces. Research in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) has used various metrics to determine users’ mental demands. However, there needs to be...

Personal tracking devices are equipped with more and more sensors and offer an ever-increasing level of accuracy. Yet, this comes at the cost of increased complexity. To deal with that problem, fitness trackers use derived metrics---scores calculated based on sensor data, e.g. a stress score. This means that part of the agency in interpreting healt...

Physical activity is entering the virtual realm. Zwift is an at-home cycling system that is enjoying increasing popularity, yet the specifics of the experience of a virtual cyclist have not been studied to date. Building virtual sports systems can make physical activity accessible to more diverse user groups. To understand how and why users engage...

Novel input methods for game design often excite users, especially if they extend the way one interacts with the system. Electromyography (EMG) has the inherent potential to provide an intuitive - yet challenging - input channel for interactive systems. While this difficulty in control often limits the scope of applications for EMG in most systems,...

Modern games make creative use of First-and Third-person perspectives (FPP and TPP) to allow the player to explore virtual worlds. Traditionally, FPP and TPP perspectives are seen as distinct concepts. Yet, Virtual Reality (VR) allows for flexibility in choosing perspectives. We introduce the notion of a perspective continuum in VR, which is techni...

Reflection is a commonly addressed design goal in commercial systems and in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research. Yet, it is still unclear what tools are at the disposal of designers who want to build systems that support reflection. Understanding the design space of reflection support systems and the interaction techniques that can foster ref...

Mountain Biking (MTB) is an increasingly popular outdoors activity which offers a unqiue connection to nature along with the health benefits of cardiovascular exercise. Yet, complex MTB technique is an entry barrier that often prevent novices from enjoying the sport. Developing interactive systems, which can support developing MTB proficiency can a...

Supporting interpersonal connectedness and playful activities between users of different ages offers many well-being benefits. Novel interactive artifacts such as smart toys can help to foster connectedness and encourage play even when being geographically apart. Playing, both with peers and older individuals constitutes the most important activity...

Body movements, from a short smile to a marathon run, are driven by muscle activity. Despite the fact that measuring muscle activity with electromyography (EMG) is technically well established, it is highly complex and its use in interfaces has been limited. Easy access to muscle sensing can offer new opportunities to Human-Computer Interaction (HC...

Interactive technologies are getting closer to our bodies and permeate the infrastructure of our homes. While such technologies offer many benefits, they can also cause an initial feeling of unease in users. It is important for Human-Computer Interaction to manage first impressions and avoid designing technologies that appear creepy. To that end, w...

In an increasingly digital world, intelligent systems support us in accomplishing many everyday tasks. With the proliferation of affordable sensing devices, inferring user states from collected physiological data paves the way to tailor-made adaptation. While estimating a user’s abilities is technically possible, such proficiency assessments are ra...

Reflection is an often addressed design goal in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research. An increasing number of artefacts for reflection have been developed in recent years. However, evaluating if and how an interactive technology helps a user reflect is still complex. This makes it difficult to compare artefacts (or prototypes) for reflection,...

Interactive technologies are getting closer to our bodies and permeate the infrastructure of our homes. While such technologies offer many benefits, they can also cause an initial feeling of unease in users. It is important for Human-Computer Interaction to manage first impressions and avoid designing technologies that appear creepy. To that end, w...

The emergence of affordable consumer drones promises new perspectives for interacting with the physical world around us. Affordable, accessible, and easy to operate drones have the potential to overcome geographic boundaries between users living in different locations and subsequently foster connectedness. Yet, the design space of using drones to f...

While the sport of golf offers unique opportunities for people of all ages to be active, it also requires mastering complex movements before it can be fully enjoyed. Extensive training is required to begin achieving any success, which may demotivate prospective players away from the sport. To aid beginner golfers and enable them to practice without...

As science becomes increasingly data-intensive, the requirements for comprehensive Research Data Management (RDM) grow. This often overwhelms scientists, requiring more workload and training. The failure to conduct effective RDM leads to producing research artefacts that cannot be reproduced or reused. Past research placed high value on supporting...

The more people commute by bicycle, the higher is the number of cyclists using their smartphones while cycling and compromising traffic safety. We have designed, implemented and evaluated two prototypes for smartphone control devices that do not require the cyclists to remove their hands from the handlebars - the three-button device Tribike and the...

Users of Internet of Things (IoT) devices are often unaware of their security risks and cannot sufficiently factor security considerations into their device selection. This puts networks, infrastructure and users at risk. We developed and evaluated SAFER, an IoT device risk assessment framework designed to improve users' ability to assess the secur...

Users of Internet of Things (IoT) devices are often unaware of their security risks and cannot sufficiently factor security considerations into their device selection. This puts networks, infrastructure and users at risk. We developed and evaluated SAFER, an IoT device risk assessment framework designed to improve users' ability to assess the secur...

New VR experiences allow users to walk extensively in the virtual space. Bigger tracking spaces, treadmills and redirected walking solutions are now available. Yet, certain connections to the user's movement are still not made. Here, we specifically see a shortcoming of representations of lo-comotion feedback in state-of-the-art VR setups. As shown...

The emergence of affordable consumer drones promises new perspectives for interacting with the physical world around us. Affordable, accessible, and easy to operate drones have the potential to overcome geographic boundaries between users living in different locations and subsequently foster connectedness. Yet, the design space of using drones to f...