About the person
With my research, I want to help people with impairments and disabilities to lead self-determined and meaningful lives. I am interested in both technological solutions and the limitations of these solutions. I work according to the principle of inclusive design - if we make technologies as accessible as possible, more people can use them in more situations.
I am an Honorary Fellow at the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, where I am anchored in Design Informatics(Opens in a new tab) and Social Computing(Opens in a new tab) .
Research
Current projects
- Green Social Prescribing - Nature on prescription(Opens in a new tab)
- AED Wirkt - Making defibrillators easily accessible - saving lives (Opens in a new tab)
- IMMERSE(Opens in a new tab) - Clinical use of experience sampling methods
- Deficiency reporters - reporting problems in urban and rural areas so that they can be rectified
Some of the projects have already been completed, but data is still being analyzed and published.
Long-term collaborations
I have long-term collaborations with a number of researchers in the context of theses and dissertations.
- Usable Security and Privacy - Kami Vaniea(Opens in a new tab) , University of Waterloo; Jingjie Li(Opens in a new tab) , University of Edinburgh
- Chatbots for digital participation - Stefan Hillmann(Opens in a new tab) , TU Berlin
- Design for Health and Wellbeing - Haoming (Guobin) Xia(Opens in a new tab) , University of Liverpool
- Women's health - Katie Siek(Opens in a new tab) , Indiana University; Rosemary Townsend(Opens in a new tab) , University of Edinburgh
- Technology in cognitive neuropsychology - Sarah MacPherson(Opens in a new tab) , University of Edinburgh
- Social Computing - Walid Magdy(Opens in a new tab) , University of Edinburgh
- Nutrition - Christina Chung(Opens in a new tab) , University of California Santa Clara
- eHealth for disadvantaged populations - Stewart Mercer(Opens in a new tab) , University of Edinburgh
- Global Health (especially perinatal) - Robert Ssekitoleko(Opens in a new tab) , Makerere University; Milton Musaba(Opens in a new tab) , Busitema University; Jimmyy Opee(Opens in a new tab) , Gulu University,
Publications
Publications (external directories)
Teaching
Project, Bachelor's and Master's theses
I supervise project, Bachelor's and Master's theses that match my interests (see above and see specific topics below).
What types of work do I supervise?
I specialize in work that focuses on usability, accessibility and user studies (user testing, co-design). I am also happy to supervise work that takes a qualitative approach and analyzes social media data and secondary analyses of existing relevant data sets. Work involving participants is submitted to the Ethics Committee of the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, UK, where I am an Honorary Fellow. Preparing the ethics application is part of the work.
How do I supervise?
Once we have developed a topic together, you will produce a document of approximately 4 pages in which you define the topic, briefly embed it in the relevant literature, and plan the approach. When this document is ready and the ethics application has been submitted (for work with users), you should register.
We meet every 1-2 weeks in small groups of students who work on similar topics and help each other. Outside of the meetings, there is a Discord. I provide little support with programming, but I provide more support with aspects that are often neglected during studies, such as scientific writing, planning and conducting experiments, or content analysis.
It is important to me that you think your work through carefully. I think it is good if you show in the written paper and in the colloquium that you have learned from problems and mistakes during your work.
How many places are there?
I supervise up to 15 students per semester to ensure a good quality of supervision.
What specific topics are there?
You are welcome to come up with your own ideas! If you need inspiration, here are a few suggestions.
Defect notifier: Almost every German municipality offers residents a way to report defects and problems via app and/or web. However, these solutions are extremely diverse, have problems with accessibility as map applications, and often use confusing categories. From accessibility testing to heuristic evaluation, from semi-automated scanning and categorization of web pages to user testing, from systems that automatically analyze free text to systems that analyze messages for hotspots, the possibilities are almost limitless.
First aid in the event of cardiac arrest: There are many technical solutions to ensure that people can be resuscitated as quickly as possible in the event of cardiac arrest. In around 20% of all cases, an automated external defibrillator can get the heart beating regularly again. First-aider apps such as Mobile Rescuer or CorHelper support control centers in alerting helpers on site who can arrive before the emergency services. In your work, you could investigate important socio-technical aspects of these technologies, or you could work on a system that helps with the placement of new AEDs.
Readability of URLs: Even computer scientists are surprisingly bad at judging what a URL does and where exactly it leads to. In experimental work, we investigate possible causes.