Augmenting the Spatial Perception Capabilities of Users Who Are Blind

People who are blind face a series of challenges and limitations resulting from their lack of being able to see, forcing them to either seek the assistance of a sighted individual or work around the challenge by way of a inefficient adaptation (e.g. following the walls in a room in order to reach a door rather than walking in a straight line to the door). These challenges are directly related to blind users' lack of the spatial perception capabilities normally provided by the human vision system. In order to overcome these spatial perception related challenges, modern technologies can be used to convey spatial perception data through sensory substitution interfaces. This work is the culmination of several projects which address varying spatial perception problems for blind users. First we consider the development of non-visual natural user interfaces for interacting with large displays. This work explores the haptic interaction space in order to find useful and efficient haptic encodings for the spatial layout of items on large displays. Multiple interaction techniques are presented which build on prior research (Folmer et al. 2012), and the efficiency and usability of the most efficient of these encodings is evaluated with blind children. Next we evaluate the use of wearable technology in aiding navigation of blind individuals through large open spaces lacking tactile landmarks used during traditional white cane navigation. We explore the design of a computer vision application with an unobtrusive aural interface to minimize veering of the user while crossing a large open space. Together, these projects represent an exploration into the use of modern technology in augmenting the spatial perception capabilities of blind users

Accessible Autonomy: Exploring Inclusive Autonomous Vehicle Design and Interaction for People who are Blind and Visually Impaired

Autonomous vehicles are poised to revolutionize independent travel for millions of people experiencing transportation-limiting visual impairments worldwide. However, the current trajectory of automotive technology is rife with roadblocks to accessible interaction and inclusion for this demographic. Inaccessible (visually dependent) interfaces and lack of information access throughout the trip are surmountable, yet nevertheless critical barriers to this potentially lifechanging technology. To address these challenges, the programmatic dissertation research presented here includes ten studies, three published papers, and three submitted papers in high impact outlets that together address accessibility across the complete trip of transportation. The first paper began with a thorough review of the fully autonomous vehicle (FAV) and blind and visually impaired (BVI) literature, as well as the underlying policy landscape. Results guided prejourney ridesharing needs among BVI users, which were addressed in paper two via a survey with (n=90) transit service drivers, interviews with (n=12) BVI users, and prototype design evaluations with (n=6) users, all contributing to the Autonomous Vehicle Assistant: an award-winning and accessible ridesharing app. A subsequent study with (n=12) users, presented in paper three, focused on prejourney mapping to provide critical information access in future FAVs. Accessible in-vehicle interactions were explored in the fourth paper through a survey with (n=187) BVI users. Results prioritized nonvisual information about the trip and indicated the importance of situational awareness. This effort informed the design and evaluation of an ultrasonic haptic HMI intended to promote situational awareness with (n=14) participants (paper five), leading to a novel gestural-audio interface with (n=23) users (paper six). Strong support from users across these studies suggested positive outcomes in pursuit of actionable situational awareness and control. Cumulative results from this dissertation research program represent, to our knowledge, the single most comprehensive approach to FAV BVI accessibility to date. By considering both pre-journey and in-vehicle accessibility, results pave the way for autonomous driving experiences that enable meaningful interaction for BVI users across the complete trip of transportation. This new mode of accessible travel is predicted to transform independent travel for millions of people with visual impairment, leading to increased independence, mobility, and quality of life

Exploring the Use of Wearables to develop Assistive Technology for Visually Impaired People

This thesis explores the usage of two prominent wearable devices to develop assistive technology for users who are visually impaired. Specifically, the work in this thesis aims at improving the quality of life of users who are visually impaired by improving their mobility and ability to socially interact with others. We explore the use of a smart watch for creating low-cost spatial haptic applications. This app explores the use of haptic feedback provided using a smartwatch and smartphone to provide navigation instructions that let visually impaired people safely traverse a large open space. This spatial feedback guides them to walk on a straight path from source to destination by avoiding veering. Exploring the paired interaction between a Smartphone and a Smartwatch, helped to overcome the limitation that smart devices have only single haptic actuator.We explore the use of a head-mounted display to enhance social interaction by helping people with visual impairments align their head towards a conversation partner as well as maintain personal space during a conversation. Audio feedback is provided to the users guiding them to achieve effective face-to-face communication. A qualitative study of this method shows the effectiveness of the application and explains how it helps visually impaired people to perceive non-verbal cues and feel more engaged and assertive in social interactions

Exploring Hand-Based Haptic Interfaces for Mobile Interaction Design

Visual attention is crucial in mobile environments, not only for staying aware of dynamic situations, but also for safety reasons. However, current mobile interaction design forces the user to focus on the visual interface of the handheld device, thus limiting the user's ability to process visual information from their environment. In response to these issues, a common solution is to encode information with on-device vibrotactile feedback. However, the vibration is transitory and is often difficult to perceive when mobile. Another approach is to make visual interfaces even more dominant with smart glasses, which enable head-up interaction on their see-through interface. Yet, their input methods raise many concerns regarding social acceptability, preventing them from being widely adopted. There is a need to derive feasible interaction techniques for mobile use while maintaining the user's situational awareness, and this thesis argues that solutions could be derived through the exploration of hand-based haptic interfaces. The objective of this research is to provide multimodal interaction for users to better interact with information while maintaining proper attention to the environment in mobile scenarios. Three research areas were identified. The first is developing expressive haptic stimuli, in which the research investigates how static haptic stimuli could be derived. The second is designing mobile spatial interaction with the user's surroundings as content, which manifests situations in which visual attention to the environment is most needed. The last is interacting with the always-on visual interface on smart glasses, the seemingly ideal solution for mobile applications. The three areas extend along the axis of the demand of visual attention on the interface, from non-visual to always-on visual interfaces. Interactive prototypes were constructed and deployed in studies for each research area, including two shape-changing mechanisms feasible for augmenting mobile devices and a spatial-sensing haptic glove featuring mid-air hand-gestural interaction with haptic support. The findings across the three research areas highlight the immediate benefits of incorporating hand-based haptic interfaces into applications. First, shape-changing interfaces can provide static and continuous haptic stimuli for mobile communication. Secondly, enabling direct interaction with real-world landmarks through a haptic glove and leaving visual attention on the surroundings could result in a higher level of immersed experience. Lastly, the users of smart glasses can benefit from the unobtrusive hand-gestural interaction enabled by the isolated tracking technique of a haptic glove. Overall, this work calls for mobile interaction design to consider haptic stimuli beyond on-device vibration, and mobile hardware solutions beyond the handheld form factor. It also invites designers to consider how to confront the competition of cognitive resources among multiple tasks from an interaction design perspective.Visuaalisen huomiokyvyn säilyttäminen mobiililaitteita käytettäessä on tärkeää sekä ympäröivien tilanteiden havainnoimisen että käyttäjän turvallisuuden kannalta. Nykyiset mobiilikäyttöliittymäratkaisut kuitenkin vaativat käyttäjää keskittämään huomionsa mobiililaitteen ruudulle, mikä rajoittaa käyttäjän kykyä käsitellä ympäristöön liittyvää visuaalista informaatiota. Eräs paljon käytetty ratkaisu tähän ongelmaan on esittää informaatiota laitteen värinän avulla. Värinäpohjainen esitystapa on kuitenkin hetkeen sidottu ja siten ohimenevä, eikä sitä ole välttämättä helppo havaita käyttäjän liikkeellä ollessa. Toinen tapa hyödyntää ns. älylaseja visuaalisen informaation esittämiseen. Tämän tavan etuna on läpinäkyvä näyttöpinta, joka ei vaadi keskittämään katsetta erilliseen laitteeseen. Älylasien tyypilliset syötemuodot kuitenkin aiheuttavat ongelmia niiden sosiaaliselle hyväksyttävyydelle, mikä estää niiden laajempaa käyttöönottoa. Niinpä tämän tutkimuksen lähtökohtana on tarve uudenlaisten mobiilikäyttöliittymien suunnittelulle siten, että käyttäjän huomio säilyy ympäristössä. Väitöskirjatutkimuksessa esitetään, että ratkaisu voi pohjautua käsin kosketeltavaan haptiseen rajapintaan. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on tuottaa mobiilitilanteisiin multimodaalisia käyttöliittymiä, joiden avulla käyttäjä voi vuorovaikuttaa informaation kanssa menettämättä huomiotaan ympäristöstä. Tutkimus keskittyy kolmeen tutkimuskohteeseen. Ensimmäisessä kehitetään ilmaisuvoimaisia haptisia ärsykkeitä tarkastelemalla staattisten haptisten ärsykkeiden suunnittelun mahdollisuuksia. Toinen kohde liittyy tilaan perustuvan vuorovaikutuksen suunnitteluun tilanteessa, jossa käyttäjä vuorovaikuttaa ympäristöön liittyvän informaation kanssa liikkeellä ollessaan, jolloin ympäristön visuaalinen havainnointi on tärkeää. Kolmannessa tutkimuskohteessa kehitetään uudenlainen syötemuoto älylaseille. Nämä kolme tutkimuskohdetta voidaan esittää osina jatkumoa, joka perustuu laitteen vaatiman visuaalisen huomion määrään täysin ei-visuaalisista täysin visuaalisiin käyttöliittymiin. Jokaisen tutkimuskohteen osalta kehitettiin vuorovaikutteisia prototyyppejä: kaksi muotoa muuttavaa mekanismia mobiililaitteiden täydentämiseksi uusilla palautemuodoilla sekä haptinen hansikas, joka mahdollistaa vuorovaikutuksen ilmassa suoritettavien eleiden ja haptisen palautteen avulla. Kaikkien kolmen tutkimuskohteen tulokset korostavat käsin kosketeltavien haptisten rajapintojen etuja käytännön sovelluksissa. Ensinnäkin muotoa muuttavat rajapinnat voivat tuottaa staattisia ja jatkuvia ärsykkeitä, joita voidaan hyödyntää mobiilivuorovaikutuksessa. Toiseksi haptisen hansikkaan mahdollistama suora vuorovaikutus ympäröivien maamerkkien kanssa auttaa säilyttämään visuaalisen huomion ympäristössä ja voi saada aikaan mukaansatempaavamman käyttökokemuksen. Kolmanneksi älylasien käyttäjät hyötyvät haptisen hansikkaan anturien mahdollistamasta huomaamattomasta elevuorovaikutuksesta. Tämä väitöskirja kehottaa mobiilikäyttöliittymien suunnittelijoita ottamaan huomioon muut kuin kädessä pideltävät laitemuodot sekä haptisten ärsykkeiden mahdollisuudet laajemmin kuin laitteen sisäänrakennetun värinäominaisuuden kautta. Väitöstutkimus myös pyytää suunnittelijoita ja muotoilijoita pohtimaan vuorovaikutussuunnittelun näkökulmasta, miten kohdata monisuorittamistilanteissa käyttäjän kognitiivisten resurssien välinen kilpailu

Designing Accessible Nonvisual Maps

Access to nonvisual maps has long required special equipment and training to use; Google Maps, ESRI, and other commonly used digital maps are completely visual and thus inaccessible to people with visual impairments. This project presents the design and evaluation of an easy to use digital auditory map and 3D model interactive map. A co-design was also undertaken to discover tools for an ideal nonvisual navigational experience. Baseline results of both studies are presented so future work can improve on the designs. The user evaluation revealed that both prototypes were moderately easy to use. An ideal nonvisual navigational experience, according to these participants, consists of both an accurate turn by turn navigational system, and an interactive map. Future work needs to focus on the development of appropriate tools to enable this ideal experience

Mobile gaze interaction : gaze gestures with haptic feedback

There has been an increasing need for alternate interaction techniques to support mobile usage context. Gaze tracking technology is anticipated to soon appear in commercial mobile devices. There are two important considerations when designing mobile gaze interactions. Firstly, the interaction should be robust to accuracy problems. Secondly, user feedback should be instantaneous, meaningful and appropriate to ease the interaction. This thesis proposes gaze gesture input with haptic feedback as an interaction technique in the mobile context. This work presents the results of an experiment that was conducted to understand the effectiveness of vibrotactile feedback in two stroke gaze gesture based mobile interaction and to find the best temporal point in terms of gesture progression to provide the feedback. Four feedback conditions were used, NO (no tactile feedback), OUT (tactile feedback at the end of first stroke), FULL (tactile feedback at the end of second stroke) and BOTH (tactile feedback at the end of first and second strokes). The results suggest that haptic feedback does help the interaction. The participants completed the tasks with fewer errors when haptic feedback was provided. The feedback conditions OUT and BOTH were found to be equally effective in terms of task completion time. The participants also subjectively rated these feedback conditions as being more comfortable and easier to use than FULL and NO feedback conditions

Mobile gaze interaction : gaze gestures with haptic feedback

There has been an increasing need for alternate interaction techniques to support mobile usage context. Gaze tracking technology is anticipated to soon appear in commercial mobile devices. There are two important considerations when designing mobile gaze interactions. Firstly, the interaction should be robust to accuracy problems. Secondly, user feedback should be instantaneous, meaningful and appropriate to ease the interaction. This thesis proposes gaze gesture input with haptic feedback as an interaction technique in the mobile context. This work presents the results of an experiment that was conducted to understand the effectiveness of vibrotactile feedback in two stroke gaze gesture based mobile interaction and to find the best temporal point in terms of gesture progression to provide the feedback. Four feedback conditions were used, NO (no tactile feedback), OUT (tactile feedback at the end of first stroke), FULL (tactile feedback at the end of second stroke) and BOTH (tactile feedback at the end of first and second strokes). The results suggest that haptic feedback does help the interaction. The participants completed the tasks with fewer errors when haptic feedback was provided. The feedback conditions OUT and BOTH were found to be equally effective in terms of task completion time. The participants also subjectively rated these feedback conditions as being more comfortable and easier to use than FULL and NO feedback conditions

The cockpit for the 21st century

Interactive surfaces are a growing trend in many domains. As one possible manifestation of Mark Weiser’s vision of ubiquitous and disappearing computers in everywhere objects, we see touchsensitive screens in many kinds of devices, such as smartphones, tablet computers and interactive tabletops. More advanced concepts of these have been an active research topic for many years. This has also influenced automotive cockpit development: concept cars and recent market releases show integrated touchscreens, growing in size. To meet the increasing information and interaction needs, interactive surfaces offer context-dependent functionality in combination with a direct input paradigm. However, interfaces in the car need to be operable while driving. Distraction, especially visual distraction from the driving task, can lead to critical situations if the sum of attentional demand emerging from both primary and secondary task overextends the available resources. So far, a touchscreen requires a lot of visual attention since its flat surface does not provide any haptic feedback. There have been approaches to make direct touch interaction accessible while driving for simple tasks. Outside the automotive domain, for example in office environments, concepts for sophisticated handling of large displays have already been introduced. Moreover, technological advances lead to new characteristics for interactive surfaces by enabling arbitrary surface shapes. In cars, two main characteristics for upcoming interactive surfaces are largeness and shape. On the one hand, spatial extension is not only increasing through larger displays, but also by taking objects in the surrounding into account for interaction. On the other hand, the flatness inherent in current screens can be overcome by upcoming technologies, and interactive surfaces can therefore provide haptically distinguishable surfaces. This thesis describes the systematic exploration of large and shaped interactive surfaces and analyzes their potential for interaction while driving. Therefore, different prototypes for each characteristic have been developed and evaluated in test settings suitable for their maturity level. Those prototypes were used to obtain subjective user feedback and objective data, to investigate effects on driving and glance behavior as well as usability and user experience. As a contribution, this thesis provides an analysis of the development of interactive surfaces in the car. Two characteristics, largeness and shape, are identified that can improve the interaction compared to conventional touchscreens. The presented studies show that large interactive surfaces can provide new and improved ways of interaction both in driver-only and driver-passenger situations. Furthermore, studies indicate a positive effect on visual distraction when additional static haptic feedback is provided by shaped interactive surfaces. Overall, various, non-exclusively applicable, interaction concepts prove the potential of interactive surfaces for the use in automotive cockpits, which is expected to be beneficial also in further environments where visual attention needs to be focused on additional tasks.Der Einsatz von interaktiven Oberflächen weitet sich mehr und mehr auf die unterschiedlichsten Lebensbereiche aus. Damit sind sie eine mögliche Ausprägung von Mark Weisers Vision der allgegenwärtigen Computer, die aus unserer direkten Wahrnehmung verschwinden. Bei einer Vielzahl von technischen Geräten des täglichen Lebens, wie Smartphones, Tablets oder interaktiven Tischen, sind berührungsempfindliche Oberflächen bereits heute in Benutzung. Schon seit vielen Jahren arbeiten Forscher an einer Weiterentwicklung der Technik, um ihre Vorteile auch in anderen Bereichen, wie beispielsweise der Interaktion zwischen Mensch und Automobil, nutzbar zu machen. Und das mit Erfolg: Interaktive Benutzeroberflächen werden mittlerweile serienmäßig in vielen Fahrzeugen eingesetzt. Der Einbau von immer größeren, in das Cockpit integrierten Touchscreens in Konzeptfahrzeuge zeigt, dass sich diese Entwicklung weiter in vollem Gange befindet. Interaktive Oberflächen ermöglichen das flexible Anzeigen von kontextsensitiven Inhalten und machen eine direkte Interaktion mit den Bildschirminhalten möglich. Auf diese Weise erfüllen sie die sich wandelnden Informations- und Interaktionsbedürfnisse in besonderem Maße. Beim Einsatz von Bedienschnittstellen im Fahrzeug ist die gefahrlose Benutzbarkeit während der Fahrt von besonderer Bedeutung. Insbesondere visuelle Ablenkung von der Fahraufgabe kann zu kritischen Situationen führen, wenn Primär- und Sekundäraufgaben mehr als die insgesamt verfügbare Aufmerksamkeit des Fahrers beanspruchen. Herkömmliche Touchscreens stellen dem Fahrer bisher lediglich eine flache Oberfläche bereit, die keinerlei haptische Rückmeldung bietet, weshalb deren Bedienung besonders viel visuelle Aufmerksamkeit erfordert. Verschiedene Ansätze ermöglichen dem Fahrer, direkte Touchinteraktion für einfache Aufgaben während der Fahrt zu nutzen. Außerhalb der Automobilindustrie, zum Beispiel für Büroarbeitsplätze, wurden bereits verschiedene Konzepte für eine komplexere Bedienung großer Bildschirme vorgestellt. Darüber hinaus führt der technologische Fortschritt zu neuen möglichen Ausprägungen interaktiver Oberflächen und erlaubt, diese beliebig zu formen. Für die nächste Generation von interaktiven Oberflächen im Fahrzeug wird vor allem an der Modifikation der Kategorien Größe und Form gearbeitet. Die Bedienschnittstelle wird nicht nur durch größere Bildschirme erweitert, sondern auch dadurch, dass Objekte wie Dekorleisten in die Interaktion einbezogen werden können. Andererseits heben aktuelle Technologieentwicklungen die Restriktion auf flache Oberflächen auf, so dass Touchscreens künftig ertastbare Strukturen aufweisen können. Diese Dissertation beschreibt die systematische Untersuchung großer und nicht-flacher interaktiver Oberflächen und analysiert ihr Potential für die Interaktion während der Fahrt. Dazu wurden für jede Charakteristik verschiedene Prototypen entwickelt und in Testumgebungen entsprechend ihres Reifegrads evaluiert. Auf diese Weise konnten subjektives Nutzerfeedback und objektive Daten erhoben, und die Effekte auf Fahr- und Blickverhalten sowie Nutzbarkeit untersucht werden. Diese Dissertation leistet den Beitrag einer Analyse der Entwicklung von interaktiven Oberflächen im Automobilbereich. Weiterhin werden die Aspekte Größe und Form untersucht, um mit ihrer Hilfe die Interaktion im Vergleich zu herkömmlichen Touchscreens zu verbessern. Die durchgeführten Studien belegen, dass große Flächen neue und verbesserte Bedienmöglichkeiten bieten können. Außerdem zeigt sich ein positiver Effekt auf die visuelle Ablenkung, wenn zusätzliches statisches, haptisches Feedback durch nicht-flache Oberflächen bereitgestellt wird. Zusammenfassend zeigen verschiedene, untereinander kombinierbare Interaktionskonzepte das Potential interaktiver Oberflächen für den automotiven Einsatz. Zudem können die Ergebnisse auch in anderen Bereichen Anwendung finden, in denen visuelle Aufmerksamkeit für andere Aufgaben benötigt wird

AUGMENTED TOUCH INTERACTIONS WITH FINGER CONTACT SHAPE AND ORIENTATION

Touchscreen interactions are far less expressive than the range of touch that human hands are capable of - even considering technologies such as multi-touch and force-sensitive surfaces. Recently, some touchscreens have added the capability to sense the actual contact area of a finger on the touch surface, which provides additional degrees of freedom - the size and shape of the touch, and the finger's orientation. These additional sensory capabilities hold promise for increasing the expressiveness of touch interactions - but little is known about whether users can successfully use the new degrees of freedom. To provide this baseline information, we carried out a study with a finger-contact-sensing touchscreen, and asked participants to produce a range of touches and gestures with different shapes and orientations, with both one and two fingers. We found that people are able to reliably produce two touch shapes and three orientations across a wide range of touches and gestures - a result that was confirmed in another study that used the augmented touches for a screen lock application

From wearable towards epidermal computing : soft wearable devices for rich interaction on the skin

Human skin provides a large, always available, and easy to access real-estate for interaction. Recent advances in new materials, electronics, and human-computer interaction have led to the emergence of electronic devices that reside directly on the user's skin. These conformal devices, referred to as Epidermal Devices, have mechanical properties compatible with human skin: they are very thin, often thinner than human hair; they elastically deform when the body is moving, and stretch with the user's skin. Firstly, this thesis provides a conceptual understanding of Epidermal Devices in the HCI literature. We compare and contrast them with other technical approaches that enable novel on-skin interactions. Then, through a multi-disciplinary analysis of Epidermal Devices, we identify the design goals and challenges that need to be addressed for advancing this emerging research area in HCI. Following this, our fundamental empirical research investigated how epidermal devices of different rigidity levels affect passive and active tactile perception. Generally, a correlation was found between the device rigidity and tactile sensitivity thresholds as well as roughness discrimination ability. Based on these findings, we derive design recommendations for realizing epidermal devices. Secondly, this thesis contributes novel Epidermal Devices that enable rich on-body interaction. SkinMarks contributes to the fabrication and design of novel Epidermal Devices that are highly skin-conformal and enable touch, squeeze, and bend sensing with co-located visual output. These devices can be deployed on highly challenging body locations, enabling novel interaction techniques and expanding the design space of on-body interaction. Multi-Touch Skin enables high-resolution multi-touch input on the body. We present the first non-rectangular and high-resolution multi-touch sensor overlays for use on skin and introduce a design tool that generates such sensors in custom shapes and sizes. Empirical results from two technical evaluations confirm that the sensor achieves a high signal-to-noise ratio on the body under various grounding conditions and has a high spatial accuracy even when subjected to strong deformations. Thirdly, Epidermal Devices are in contact with the skin, they offer opportunities for sensing rich physiological signals from the body. To leverage this unique property, this thesis presents rapid fabrication and computational design techniques for realizing Multi-Modal Epidermal Devices that can measure multiple physiological signals from the human body. Devices fabricated through these techniques can measure ECG (Electrocardiogram), EMG (Electromyogram), and EDA (Electro-Dermal Activity). We also contribute a computational design and optimization method based on underlying human anatomical models to create optimized device designs that provide an optimal trade-off between physiological signal acquisition capability and device size. The graphical tool allows for easily specifying design preferences and to visually analyze the generated designs in real-time, enabling designer-in-the-loop optimization. Experimental results show high quantitative agreement between the prediction of the optimizer and experimentally collected physiological data. Finally, taking a multi-disciplinary perspective, we outline the roadmap for future research in this area by highlighting the next important steps, opportunities, and challenges. Taken together, this thesis contributes towards a holistic understanding of Epidermal Devices}: it provides an empirical and conceptual understanding as well as technical insights through contributions in DIY (Do-It-Yourself), rapid fabrication, and computational design techniques.Die menschliche Haut bietet eine große, stets verfügbare und leicht zugängliche Fläche für Interaktion. Jüngste Fortschritte in den Bereichen Materialwissenschaft, Elektronik und Mensch-Computer-Interaktion (Human-Computer-Interaction, HCI) [so that you can later use the Englisch abbreviation] haben zur Entwicklung elektronischer Geräte geführt, die sich direkt auf der Haut des Benutzers befinden. Diese sogenannten Epidermisgeräte haben mechanische Eigenschaften, die mit der menschlichen Haut kompatibel sind: Sie sind sehr dünn, oft dünner als ein menschliches Haar; sie verformen sich elastisch, wenn sich der Körper bewegt, und dehnen sich mit der Haut des Benutzers. Diese Thesis bietet, erstens, ein konzeptionelles Verständnis von Epidermisgeräten in der HCI-Literatur. Wir vergleichen sie mit anderen technischen Ansätzen, die neuartige Interaktionen auf der Haut ermöglichen. Dann identifizieren wir durch eine multidisziplinäre Analyse von Epidermisgeräten die Designziele und Herausforderungen, die angegangen werden müssen, um diesen aufstrebenden Forschungsbereich voranzubringen. Im Anschluss daran untersuchten wir in unserer empirischen Grundlagenforschung, wie epidermale Geräte unterschiedlicher Steifigkeit die passive und aktive taktile Wahrnehmung beeinflussen. Im Allgemeinen wurde eine Korrelation zwischen der Steifigkeit des Geräts und den taktilen Empfindlichkeitsschwellen sowie der Fähigkeit zur Rauheitsunterscheidung festgestellt. Basierend auf diesen Ergebnissen leiten wir Designempfehlungen für die Realisierung epidermaler Geräte ab. Zweitens trägt diese Thesis zu neuartigen Epidermisgeräten bei, die eine reichhaltige Interaktion am Körper ermöglichen. SkinMarks trägt zur Herstellung und zum Design neuartiger Epidermisgeräte bei, die hochgradig an die Haut angepasst sind und Berührungs-, Quetsch- und Biegesensoren mit gleichzeitiger visueller Ausgabe ermöglichen. Diese Geräte können an sehr schwierigen Körperstellen eingesetzt werden, ermöglichen neuartige Interaktionstechniken und erweitern den Designraum für die Interaktion am Körper. Multi-Touch Skin ermöglicht hochauflösende Multi-Touch-Eingaben am Körper. Wir präsentieren die ersten nicht-rechteckigen und hochauflösenden Multi-Touch-Sensor-Overlays zur Verwendung auf der Haut und stellen ein Design-Tool vor, das solche Sensoren in benutzerdefinierten Formen und Größen erzeugt. Empirische Ergebnisse aus zwei technischen Evaluierungen bestätigen, dass der Sensor auf dem Körper unter verschiedenen Bedingungen ein hohes Signal-Rausch-Verhältnis erreicht und eine hohe räumliche Auflösung aufweist, selbst wenn er starken Verformungen ausgesetzt ist. Drittens, da Epidermisgeräte in Kontakt mit der Haut stehen, bieten sie die Möglichkeit, reichhaltige physiologische Signale des Körpers zu erfassen. Um diese einzigartige Eigenschaft zu nutzen, werden in dieser Arbeit Techniken zur schnellen Herstellung und zum computergestützten Design von multimodalen Epidermisgeräten vorgestellt, die mehrere physiologische Signale des menschlichen Körpers messen können. Die mit diesen Techniken hergestellten Geräte können EKG (Elektrokardiogramm), EMG (Elektromyogramm) und EDA (elektrodermale Aktivität) messen. Darüber hinaus stellen wir eine computergestützte Design- und Optimierungsmethode vor, die auf den zugrunde liegenden anatomischen Modellen des Menschen basiert, um optimierte Gerätedesigns zu erstellen. Diese Designs bieten einen optimalen Kompromiss zwischen der Fähigkeit zur Erfassung physiologischer Signale und der Größe des Geräts. Das grafische Tool ermöglicht die einfache Festlegung von Designpräferenzen und die visuelle Analyse der generierten Designs in Echtzeit, was eine Optimierung durch den Designer im laufenden Betrieb ermöglicht. Experimentelle Ergebnisse zeigen eine hohe quantitative Übereinstimmung zwischen den Vorhersagen des Optimierers und den experimentell erfassten physiologischen Daten. Schließlich skizzieren wir aus einer multidisziplinären Perspektive einen Fahrplan für zukünftige Forschung in diesem Bereich, indem wir die nächsten wichtigen Schritte, Möglichkeiten und Herausforderungen hervorheben. Insgesamt trägt diese Arbeit zu einem ganzheitlichen Verständnis von Epidermisgeräten bei: Sie liefert ein empirisches und konzeptionelles Verständnis sowie technische Einblicke durch Beiträge zu DIY (Do-It-Yourself), schneller Fertigung und computergestützten Entwurfstechniken