Research is influenced by new technologies just like most aspects of our everyday life are. Technological innovations not only alter and extend what we can analyze but also how we can analyze it. In this two-week course students will have the great opportunity to learn about research in the digital age, old and new phenomena that can be investigated and digital as well as digitized research methods that may be used for this purpose. Further, the students will undertake a small research project and thereby easily learn how to properly collect, process and analyze data. The goal of this workshop is to broaden the students’ knowledge of research methods, raise their awareness for the chances and challenges new technologies pose to research and improve their methodological and statistical skills in a comprehensible and hands-on manner.

Exploring the usefulness of interactive visualizations or visual analytics systems is a challenging task, however, using eye tracking to track the users’ eye movements can be of great help to identify certain design flaws in the visual stimuli. On the challenging side, such eye tracking experiments generate another kind of data with a spatio-temporal nature worth analyzing. Hence, visual analytics can be a great support to find insights in such eye movement datasets with the goal to finally help to improve the shown stimuli. The problematic issue with this interdisciplinary field is the fact that we need profound knowledge about many related scientific disciplines to really solve the occurring problems – knowledge about visualization, human-computer interaction, visual analytics, eye tracking, user evaluation, data science, usability, and many many more.

This elective will help you understand different methods of digital storytelling, forms of presentation and elements of success will enable you to develop their own successful multimedia stories.

In 2023, the focus was on the challenges of using interactive visualizations and visual analytics systems. Eye tracking, which traces users’ eye movements, emerged as a useful tool to identify design flaws in visual stimuli. However, eye tracking experiments generate complex spatio-temporal data, requiring analysis through visual analytics to enhance the stimuli. This interdisciplinary field demands extensive knowledge in visualization, human-computer interaction, visual analytics, eye tracking, data science, and usability.

In 2023, this course offered an introduction to chatbots and their interaction with artificial intelligence. It delved into how chatbots simulate human-like conversations and their utilization in diverse industries.

In 2023, this course focused on creating web browser games using Unity, a platform suitable for various media. It guided participants in designing and developing a web game with Unity, emphasizing that no programming skills were required. The course utilized plugins like Bolt for visual implementation, enabling all participants to create prototypes or implement their ideas.