This is an example of an organization overview proposal from a university setting.
HCI Research in Paderborn, Germany
Gerd Szwillus
Universität - GH - Paderborn, D-33095 Paderborn, Germany
Tel. ++49 5251 60-2077
Email: szwillus@uni-paderborn.de
KEYWORDS
3-D-Interaction, Visualization, Virtual Reality, CSCW, Task Analysis,
Work Analysis, User Interface Specification, User Interface Evaluation,
User Interface Development Tools, Graphical Constraints, Pen-Based Interfaces
ABSTRACT
Research and development in Human-Computer Interaction in Paderborn is housed within two corporations:
the Computer Science Department of the University of Paderborn and the CADLAB Institute, a joint R&D-Institute
of the University and the SIEMENS-NIXDORF INFORMATIONSSYSTEME AG (SNI). SNI has evolved from the traditionally
Paderborn based computer company NIXDORF AG, by becoming part of the SIEMENS trust. CADLAB is half funded from
SNI and half funded from the University. Its main goal is to provide an effective knowledge and technology
transfer between the two organizations. The University of Paderborn has about 18000 students in a large number
of mostly technically and pedagogically oriented departments. Paderborn itself is a small city with about 120000
inhabitants, and is situated right in the middle of the united Germany.
Two effects led to the concentration on HCI topics: At the University a number of faculty positions were filled with
people oriented towards HCI, and at CADLAB the need for "usable" user interfaces for application software was an
increasingly more important challenge. In addition, the Heinz Nixdorf Institute - a foundation of the deceased company
leader Heinz Nixdorf of the NIXDORF COMPUTER AG - is about to install a group to work on "Virtual Reality" research and
development in the near future.
THE ENVIRONMENT
CADLAB resembles a research department of a company, in that it concentrates on application-oriented research and
development. It runs a large number of externally funded (national, international) projects. Between the CADLAB
and the University a close cooperation is established. Half of the steering committee of CADLAB is filled with
professors from the University, the other half recruits from the industrial partner, SNI. The steering committee
decides about projects, directions, and themes. Additionally, members of CADLAB write diploma theses and
dissertations with professors at the University, and professors act as counsellors within CADLAB for special
topics. This close cooperation leads to intensive mutual influence between the two organizations.
The primary interest of CADLAB is the development of "good" user interfaces for their products; the University
supplies ready access to the relevant literature and latest research results, techniques, concepts, and tools.
The primary interest of the University is HCI research with strong practical background and implications; from
CADLAB's practical tasks the University people learn about relevant topics and problems of HCI development.
This "black-and-white"-picture, however, is only part of the truth: At CADLAB basic research is done as well
as practical tool development - at least the development of prototypes - is performed at the University.
This will be especially true for the new research group about virtual reality establishing itself in 1994,
which is supported by the Heinz-Nixdorf-Institute. This union of scientists from the university will deal
intensively with this upcoming topic from very basic research to practical tool development.
In the computer science curriculum of the University teaching of HCI is included in several ways. There are
regular classes about user interface development, scientific visualization, and "computer science and society",
and frequently given special lectures and seminars on topics such as visual programming, man-machine-communication,
or user interface development tools. Additionally, there is a regular programming practicum dealing with user
interface design and implementation. Overall there are 20 computer scientists working in HCI, this includes
6 people at CADLAB and 14 at the university, the last number including 4 professors. Additionally, some PhD
students and a large number of computer science students join this group by working on dissertations or diploma theses.
THEMES OF HCI RESEARCH
Representation Issues
Prof. Keil-Slawik's approach to HCI is centered around issues of human cognition, and socio-psychological issues.
Computers are considered as support for human information processing by providing an external memory. Cultural
and historical aspects of the cooperation between the human and the machine are enlightened. Within this
framework the group works on the challenging problem of the creation of user interfaces based on 3-D-representations.
Emphasis is on the cognitive and psychological issues rather than on design or construction of these systems.
Research topics include new metaphors for supporting 3-D interaction; CSCW within a 3-D-hyperspace, a generalization
of the hypertext/hypermedia concept, including computer-based teaching within this framework.
Task Analysis and Work Analysis
Dr. Tauber, a faculty member of the University of Paderborn, is working on the very early phases of software
engineering in general and user interface analysis in special. His main focus is on the integration of task
analysis and work analysis into object-oriented software engineering and the development of languages to
represent human tasks and work. His is a psychological view on software engineering and HCI, such as the
description of human activities in object oriented domain models, methods of data gathering in object oriented
analysis, and visual query languages. He is currently working on psychological issues of CSCW, where he studies
visual metaphors and languages for the specification of coordination and conversations. Recent student projects
deal with generic concepts for modelling CSCW and basics of CSCW architectures.
Visualization
Prof. Domik and her group are working in the area of scientific visualization. Their interests range from defining
a general visualization model, and proving the validity of that model, to specific applications of visualizations
in science and engineering. This work includes detailed description techniques of the data to be visualized to
enable a selection of expressive visualizations of this data, as well as defining the abilities, disabilities and
desires of the user in a coherent user model. Most recent work concentrates on interaction in 3-D-representations
of scientific data. The group works on the improvement of 3-D-representations of data and models by investigating
the medium of virtual reality.
User Interface Construction
The group of Prof. Szwillus has developed an interface builder, called Motifation, which allows the interactive
creation of user interfaces based upon the OSF/Motif widget set. The group is now working on a generalization,
referred to as Objection, which deals with general, user-defined graphical objects instead of predefined widgets.
An important concept of this work are graphical constraints, which are used for the declarative specification of
graphical layout. The practical work has led to the design and implementation of constraint solving systems,
treating graphical constraint expressions, and executing on parallel architectures. Additionally, the object-oriented
modeling of dialogues has led to conceptual work within the group, resulting in the "object kernel" specification
technique. Again, constraints - in a more general sense this time - are used extensively within this approach to
declaratively model properties of user interface software. As member of the CADLAB advisory board, Prof. Szwillus
is also closely involved in the HCI-work done at CADLAB.
Diagram Editing
The implementation of CAD applications is the classical domain for CADLAB, hence graphical diagram editors have
to be produced frequently and quickly. This remains true even under CADLAB's new strategy of supporting concurrent
engineering of systems in a more general sense, known under the term Computer Aided Concurrent Engineering (CACE).
The development of an object-oriented graphical editor framework EDIS has evolved as a project from earlier
approaches within CADLAB. Second, the integration of pen-based input technology into diagram editing has led
to the diagram editor framework Handi. Both approaches will be combined into a new editor development system,
called AES, which is under development at the moment.
Interesting Products
The two most prominent products from the HCI activities in Paderborn are Motifation and Handi.
Motifation is an interface builder for the interactive creation of user interfaces made up from widget of
the OSF/MOTIF widget set. Main characteristics of this system are (1) its full support of all widgets of
Motif with all their attributes, and (2) its easy-to-use drag and drop style of user interface creation.
During editing the interface can be tested immediately, and the connection to the application allows
modification of the interface even after the application code has been edited. Motifation now is commercially available.
Handi is an editor framework, based on the UniDraw/InterViews system, which supports the pen-based
creation of diagrams. The recognition is based on gestures rather than symbols, and the system gives an
immediate feedback about the recognition results. With the Handi-system it is very easy to create an editor
for a new type of diagram, as it includes a simple schematic way of defining the interpretation of given or
"new" gestures. Handi will be made available within CADLAB's advanced editing system AES.