Fraunhofer-Institut für Angewandte Informationstechnik FIT

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  • Publication
    What people do with consumption feedback: A long-term living lab study of a home energy management system
    ( 2015)
    Schwartz, T.
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    Stevens, G.
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    Jakobi, T.
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    Denef, S.
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    Ramirez, L.
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    Wulf, V.
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    Randall, D.
    One of the great societal challenges that we face today concerns the move to more sustainable patterns of energy consumption, reflecting the need to balance both individual consumer choice and societal demands. In order for this 'energy turnaround' to take place, however, reducing residential energy consumption must go beyond using energy-efficient devices:More sustainable behaviour and lifestyles are essential parts of future 'energy aware' living.Addressing this issue from an HCI perspective, this paper presents the results of a 3-year research project dealing with the co-design and appropriation of a Home Energy Management System (HEMS) that has been rolled out in a living lab setting with seven households for a period of 18 months. Our HEMS is inspired by feedback systems in Sustainable Interaction Design and allows the monitoring of energy consumption in real-time. In contrast to existing research mainly focusing on how technology can persuade people to consume les s energy ('what technology does to people'), our study focuses on the appropriation of energy feedback systems ('what people do with technology') and hownewly developed practices can become a resource for future technology design. Therefore, we deliberately followed an open research design. In keeping with this approach, our study uncovers various responses, practices and obstacles of HEMS use.We show that HEMS use is characterized by a number of different features. Recognizing the distinctive patterns of technology use in the different households and the evolutionary character of that use within the households, we conclude with a discussion of these patterns in relation to existing research and their meaning for the design of future HEMSs.
  • Publication
    Landmarke: An ad hoc deployable ubicomp infrastructure to support indoor navigation of firefighters
    ( 2012)
    Ramirez, L.
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    Dyrks, T.
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    Gerwinski, J.
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    Betz, M.
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    Scholz, M.
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    Wulf, V.
    Indoor navigation plays a central role for the safety of firefighters. The circumstances in which a firefighting intervention occurs represent a rather complex challenge for the design of supporting technology. In this paper, we present the results of our work designing an ad hoc ubicomp infrastructure to support navigation of firefighters working in structure fires inside the zone of danger. We take a wider approach, complementing the technical questions with the development of effective navigation practices based on technology available today. We provide an overview of the complete design process, from the theoretical and empirical underpinnings to the construction and evaluation of three iterations of the platform. We report the results of our evaluation and the implications and tensions uncovered in this process, and we discuss the challenges and implications of it for the design of ubicomp for firefighters.
  • Publication
    Analyzing political activists' organization practices
    ( 2011)
    Saeed, S.
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    Rohde, M.
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    Wulf, V.
    Designing ICT support for transnational networks of social activists is a challenge due to diverse organizational structures, cultural identities, political ideologies, and financial conditions. In this paper we present empirical findings on ICT usage in the organizing process of the European Social Forum (ESF) covering a period of almost 3 years. The European Social Forum is a platform for political activists involved in the anti-globalization movement. During our data collection period, the 5th and 6th European Social Fora were held in Malmo (2008) and Istanbul (2010). The paper describes complex social practices in organizing ESF events. We use the term fragmented meta-coordination to denote this type of practice. Mundane IT applications, such as a mailing list and a content management system, play a central role in enabling different aspects of fragmented meta-coordination. The findings also indicate how lacking resources, organizational distribution, and technical limitations hamper the preparation process and reduce the transparency of political decision making. Our analysis highlights central organizational and technological challenges related to ICT appropriation in transnational networks of social activists.
  • Publication
    Supporting business process experts in tailoring business processes
    ( 2011)
    Dörner, C.
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    Yetim, F.
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    Pipek, V.
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    Wulf, V.
    Supporting end users to adapt business processes is rather uncommon in the context of large Enterprise Resource Planning systems. We present our new business process modeling environment, called SiSO, that enables business process experts to model and adapt business processes. SiSO enhances the descriptions of services that are provided by Service-Oriented Architectures. These enhanced descriptions focus on organizational-specific information, which makes it easier for business process experts to understand the capabilities of services in their organizational context. The information includes descriptions of services' functions, ratings, and keywords. SiSO's graphical user interface employs the box-and-wire UI design technique to enable business process experts to model business processes in the context of Enterprise Resource Planning systems. SiSO was qualitatively evaluated with six employees of three different companies and found useful in two application fields: (a) the visualization and automation of business processes and (b) the creation of calculations using data from different systems and sources. We think that enabling business process experts to create individual business processes is an important challenge for the design of future Enterprise Resource Planning systems.
  • Publication
  • Publication
    Expert recommender: Designing for a network organization
    ( 2007)
    Reichling, T.
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    Veith, M.
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    Wulf, V.
  • Publication
    Sports over a distance
    ( 2007)
    Mueller, F.F.
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    Stevens, G.
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    Thorogood, A.
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    O'Brian, S.
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    Wulf, V.
    Sport is a domain full of movement-based interactions. These interactions typically have positive health effects as well as an impact on social bonding. We have investigated ways in which computer augmented devices can lead to new sport experiences and explored opportunities to combine physical activities with remote social bonding. Three prototypes have been implemented which showcase movement-based interaction in sports. "Breakout for Two" allows geographically distant users to play a physically exhausting ball game together. "FlyGuy" gives users a hang-glide experience controllable through body movement. "Push'N'Pull" uses isometric exercise equipment over a network to encourage users to complete a cooperative game whilst performing intense muscular actions. A comparison of these applications shows that such movement-based interaction in a networked environment allows players in different locations to achieve a work out and also to socialize. Based on these projects, we conclude with practical design implications for future Exertion Interfaces.
  • Publication
    Tailoring infrastructures: Supporting cooperative work with configurable email filters
    ( 2005)
    Pipek, V.
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    Won, M.
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    Englert, R.
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    Wulf, V.
    In fragmented work settings like network organizations or virtual organizations, monolithic approaches to implement support for collaboration would require the actors involved to agree on the usage of the approach or tool under consideration. As the autonomy of actors in these settings makes this hard to achieve, we suggest an exploration and an increase in the end-user tailorability of basic software infrastructures to enable even actors in theses settings to tailor their collaboration support to their needs. An example for this strategy is illustrated by using email as a basic groupware technology. We use server-based email filters to improve the coordination of work processes and increase group awareness in these settings, and focus on making it easy for end users to understand and tailor the technology according to their needs. We use and enhance concepts from the discussion on the "tailorability" of CSCW systems (a visual filter composition language, a component-based architecture and additional support for exploration and documentation) to implement and evaluate our prototype.
  • Publication
    iManual - Mobile Endgeräte als kontextsensitive integrierte Bedien- und Hilfesysteme
    ( 2005)
    Klann, M.
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    Humberg, D.
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    Wulf, V.
    This article describes the iManual-concept at Fraunhofer FIT which deals with the use of mobile devices as context-aware integrated control and help systems for in principal arbitrary wirelessly connected consumer or industrial products. Following the premise of designing the interface of various IT-based products in a way that facilitates learning and respects user expectations, we explore the design space that is created by combining control and help functions by way of mobile devices. On the way, we discuss various potentials of this approach to enhance the corresponding products and services. Based on a review of the state of the art on intelligent help systems and mobile interfaces we describe the iManual concept and a prototypical implementation for a PDA-based control and help system for the navigation system of the BMW 7. We conclude with a discussion of limitations and opportunities for extension of the approach and corresponding further work.
  • Publication
    Computer supported collaborative sports
    ( 2004)
    Wulf, V.
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    Moritz, E.F.
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    Henneke, C.
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    Al-Zubaidi, K.
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    Stevens, G.
    We present the newly emerging research field of Computer Supported Collaborative Sports (CSCS). By applying innovative input and output technologies, it enables players to experience sportive activities in a shared computerized environment. Important dimensions in the design space of CSCS applications are discussed. Finally we present the FlyGuy, a prototypical realization of a CSCS device.