University of Patras - Electrical & Computer Engineering Department - HCI group
Contact person: Nikolaos Avouris
avouris [at] upatras.gr
is professor of Human-Computer Interaction at the University of Patras, Greece. He holds MSc and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Manchester (UK). He has over 30 years of work and research experience in Human-computer interaction, software technology and Interactive Systems Design, with special emphasis on learning and mobile technologies. He has supervised over 20 PhD theses, and designed and taught many undergraduate and postgraduate courses in computer science and human-computer interaction. He has coordinated research in interactive systems design and evaluation, and acted as senior researcher in collaborative research projects. He is author/editor of 7 books and over 200 scientific papers. He has been keynote speaker in international conferences and serves in the editorial board of scientific journals. He has been involved in management of research at institutional level.
Description of the smart city learning group operating in the affiliated institution
The University of Patras is the third largest University of Greece with over 20,000 students and 24 departments. The Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Group of the University of Patras has a history of 20 years. It is active in researching Human-Computer Interaction, Collaborative Technologies and Human Interaction with mobile devices. Its research focus is in Human-Centred Design of Interactive Computer technologies —that is, to develop technologies based on an understanding of how people interact with and communicate through computing technology. It departs from an understanding of human social, and cultural issues in order to make technology useful and usable, enhancing human experience. We put special emphasis in problems related to learning and interacting with cultural heritage environments through interactive media. Special focus is given to mobile applications in city centres with emphasis on urban games.
Competences
The HCI Group has a proven competence in design of mobile applications in particular location based games. In order to design such systems, the HCI Group uses methods and tools based on user-centred approaches. In addition the group can play the role of usability evaluator and user study expert during design of interactive systems and in particular mobile applications. Particular emphasis is given to mobile and location-based games with focus on tourism and cultural heritage.
Relevant achievements, best practices, products
The portfolio of achievements of the HCI Group include: Design of prototypes in the form of location-based games for a number of sites of cultural heritage, these include the Museum of the Greek national poet D. Solomos in Zakynthos, the museum of Science and Technology in Patras, the Benaki Museum in Athens, the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, etc. In addition city games have been designed and built and won distinctions, these include CarnivalScrabble to be played in a city centre during carnival time, CityScrabble that won innovation award during Athens hackathon, invisiblecity,etc. In addition the group has developed tools for usability evaluation and web applications design, like Autocardsorter, ISEtool, ActivityLens, tools for collaborative problems solving like Synergo, etc.
On going challenges
Currently the main challenge of the group is to create theoretical models for game playing experience evaluation, spanning various cases, like 3D video games, location-based games, etc.
A second objective is related with connecting communities with specific cultural heritage assets and cultural heritage locations and development of tools to support the process.
A third objective is related with authoring and experiencing location-based narratives and collaborative stories.
Relevant publications
• D.Chalvatzaras, N.Yiannoutsou, C.Sintoris, N.Avouris
'Do you remember that building? Exploring old Zakynthos through an augmented reality mobile game'
Proc. 8th International Conference on Interactive Mobile Communication Technologies and Learning, IMCL2014, Thessaloniki, November 2014
• Sintoris C., Yiannoutsou N., Avouris N.
'A game design workshop to support the elaboration of game ideas'
In Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. (HCI International 2014), Streitz and P. Markopoulos (Eds.), DAPI 2014, LNCS 8530, pp. 66–75, 2014, Crete, Greece
• Ioannidis, I, Papachristos, E., Katsanos, C., Karousos, N., Fidas, C., Avouris. N.
'SONETA: A social media trend geo-analysis tool'
In Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction.(HCI International 2014), LNCS 8531 (pp. 186-196), Crete, Greece: Springer Verlag, 22-27 June, 2014
• Avouris Nikolaos, Sintoris Christos, Yiannoutsou Nikoleta
'Learning in the City through Pervasive Games'
In proceeding of: 2nd International Hybrid City Conference, At Athens, Greece, Volume: The Hybrid City II: Subtle rEvolutions, 5/2013
• Christos Sintoris, Nikoleta Yiannoutsou, Soteris Demetriou, Nikolaos Avouris
'Discovering the invisible city: Location-based games for learning in smart cities'
IxD&A, N. 16, 2013, pp. 47 - 64