Research projects Human-Computer Interaction

Ongoing Human-Computer Interaction research projects.

The research project ABC for Meaningful Meetings will explore how physical meeting places can contribute to increased social interaction and strengthening of community, thereby breaking loneliness. The project, which runs over four years, is funded by Vinnova within the framework of the call Social sustainability in the physical environment and is carried out in collaboration between Uppsala University, Linnaeus University, the real estate company Sankt Kors and the non-profit association Gyllene Skräp which works to convey knowledge about sustainable development through experiences and educational tools.

ABC for Meaningful Meetings – to reduce loneliness and increase well-being in the local environment

The Method Cards for Movement-based Interaction Design (MeCaMInD) project explores how we can make an actionable method card toolbox in the fields of interaction design and sport and movement. It is run as a collaboration and outreach Erasmus+ project, with partners in the domains of physical education and movement interaction design.

Mecamind

The digitalisation of everyday life does not stop at the most intimate areas of healthcare, such as sexual health, fertility, and reproduction. Today, many people use apps to track menstrual cycles, detect (in)fertile phases, or virtually follow foetal development. In other words, digital technologies allow for a novel external management of the reproductive system. In this project the project team study health care professionals, pregnant individuals, and the apps themselves in order to map out this new and unexplored area of reproductive health.

Controlling the Uncontrollable: The Impact of Reproductive Health Apps on Experiences of Pregnancy, Healthcare Professionals’ Work and Data Governance

In this project, the project team investigate how machine learning can support the personalisation of out-of-clinic physical training. The researchers combine current research into open-ended tools for instructed physical training, with approaches to interactive machine learning to make tools adaptable to the individual.

Interactive Machine Learning for Personalised Physical Training

A large challenge today is to ensure that children have possibilities to be physically active outdoors. Play environments in residential areas and at schools are not prioritized in today's society in contrast to play areas that children cannot go to by themselves. Accessible and well known play environments are especially important for children with special needs physically or cognitively. The aim of this project is to increase knowledge in society about how play environments with a high play value can be built in the city that are accessible for all children.

Sustainable urban play environments

In the domain of motor skill training, the project researches how playful training can be designed to be short and long-term effective and engaging. The target group chosen for study are children with sensory processing disorders (SPD), related to bodily awareness and movement mastery issues. The goal is to support the development of proprioceptive skills through playification, a strategy similar to gamification but with less emphasis on challenge, and more on the playful re-negotiation of activities within the participant group.

Improving children’s proprioceptive skills and motoric abilities through interactive playful training

The project will develop new concepts and techniques to create responsive and adaptable IoT-enhanced play-environments, with a focus on public areas. These are based on learning for sustainable development and value-based issues such as inclusion and equality.

Playful Internet of Things

The project aims to increase public health through physical activity among young people. With the help of Internet of Things (IoT) technology and so-called gamification, the project aims to promote increased physical activity among young people based on their own premises and wishes. Through IoT technology public sports facilities and outdoor areas will become more inclusive and attractive for more audiences. The goal is to bring young people into sports and outdoor activities in public facilities using new methods to get them in motion and physical activity.

FOSF – IoT public health through sports and outdoor life

Museums serve as our collective memory, preserving and interpreting our shared culture and identity. The central challenge of the GIFT project is to create designs that facilitate meaningful interpersonal experiences. GIFT focusses on hybrid experiences, realised through mixed reality designs that overlay physical visits with digital content as a way to complement, challenge or reframe the experience of museum visits.

The GIFT research project

This project investigates the changing opportunities that digital technology offers for family social life. The Network Society is an expression aiming to explain how our lives today are affected by new digital technologies. In the network society, researchers agree that a number of changes have occurred in how society is organised. Globalization, individualization, and freer markets are some examples of processes that together with internet and digital technologies have allowed these changes. Yet, we still do not understand what these developments mean for our everyday lives.

Social Relationships in the Network Society

In this project the researchers have focused on play concepts that can work as an alternative design material when play environments are planned and built. This play concept supports the procurer in building play environments with a high play value as the design material requires certain qualities such as vegetation and natural materials. More details about the project “Digital and Physical Play Environments” in the national database Swecris.

Project leader and contact at the Department of Informatics and Media, Annika Waern.

The purpose of this project is to understand what happens when religious discourse, which has traditionally been characterized by hierarchies and structured practices, moves into contexts which are said to be anti-hierarchical and unstructured, and which explicitly aim at co-construction of meaning.

Ancient rituals in contemporary landscapes: An exploration of religious practices in social media

Purpose and goal: The project called The Mission's main goal was to implement and test a game to enhance Learning in the science center by adding a layer of digital technology. Through this Project the organisation has created a very promising product with a high future potential. This game makes the exhibit more attractive, broadens the target visitor group and creates a better platform to increase the interest in science and technology for all the exhibits displayed on Tomtits. The Mission is a great example of a product that fills a demand that has long been missing in the science center scene.

More details about the Vinnova funded project “The mission – curiosity unleashed” in the national database Swecris.

Project leader and contact at the Department of Informatics and Media: Annika Waern.