Companion-technology is an emerging field of cross-disciplinary research. It aims at
developing technical systems that appear as “Companions” to their users. They serve as co …

Ambient intelligence (AI) refers to a developing technology that will increasingly make our
everyday environment sensitive and responsive to our presence. The AI vision requires …

A major challenge related to caring for patients with chronic conditions is the early detection
of exacerbations of the disease. Medical personnel should be contacted immediately in …

Many interactive systems offer assistance when users have difficulties in operating or using
them. In spite of the overwhelming variety of assistance techniques available, it is often …

We report new findings about the mental representation of direction concepts and how these
findings may revise for-mal models of spatial reasoning and navigation assistance systems …

The aim of this article is the requirement analysis, design, proof-of-concept implementation
and user evaluation of a novel user interface that is specifically developed to support …

Modern technical infrastructures and appliances provide a multitude of opportunities for
simplifying and streamlining the everyday life. However, many of the systems available …

The presentation of information using multiple modalities influences the perception of users,
their comfort, and their performance in using a computer-based information system. This …

Multimodality allows adaption of human-computer interaction on two different levels: on the
one hand different users with different abilities can interact with information technology …

In this article we identify the general communication patterns of physical devices and define
all interfaces and conflict resolution strategies that are present in any ensemble. Based on …