News

The Cyprus Interaction Lab hosted the COST action “Play for Children with Disabilities (LUDI)” in 4-5 June 2015 in Limassol. The meeting was held from 4-5 June 2015, with active involvement of Cyprus Interaction Lab (https://www.cyprusinteractionlab.com/) of the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts at the Cyprus University of Technology. The action includes up to two academics from every European country. Cyprus is represented by the dean of the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts of the Cyprus University of Technology, Professor Panayiotis Zaphiris. This Action aims at the creation of a novel and autonomous field of research and intervention on play for children with disabilities.The multi-disciplinary cooperation of researchers and practitioners in the fields of psycho-pedagogical sciences, health and rehabilitation sciences, humanities, assistive technologies and robotics as well as the contribution of end-users’ organizations will grant the right to play even for children with disabilities, and finally establish play …

Cyprus Interaction Lab and the Women Power project team (winning project of the Mahallae program – funded by the UNDP) welcomed an audience of 80 people, who attended their successful ‘Womenpower Fair’ last Wednesday, April the 29th. The fair aimed to ‘inspire, empower and link women mentors and mentees’, and focused on the current state of gender-related issues in Cyprus as well as the challenges that women are faced with, in terms of social, career and personal development. The WomenPower team had the privilege to host a number of women in key positions and roles within the Cyprus political, scientific, academic and trade scenes. The event commenced with keynote speaker – former foreign minister Erato Kozakou Marcoullis, who talked about “breaking the glass ceiling in decision-making positions” (view presentation) and continued with a number of notable and inspiring talks with a global appeal to women from different generations and various …

The overarching aim of this summer school course is to improve participants’ understanding of significant research methods commonly or increasingly used in the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Together with a shift of emphasis from usability engineering to user experience (UX) design where users’ values, feelings and needs are regarded as important as their task-oriented performance, HCI appears to have become a cauldron in which research methods from associated disciplines are brewed. Lecturers of the summer school course include: – Dr. Chee Siang Ang, University of Kent – Dr. Duncan Brumby, UCLIC, University College London, UK – Dr. Jettie Hoonhout, Philips Research, Netherlands – Dr. Yiannis Laouris, Future Worlds Center, Cyprus – Dr. Fernando Loizides, Cyprus Interaction Lab, Cyprus – Rajiv (Raj) Arjan, Google, UK The course will cover topics like: 1. Data collection approaches: experiments, interviews, questionnaires, observations, structured dialogue design. 2. Data analysis: quantitative data analysis (including …

The Cyprus University of Technology and Talinn University jointly offer a new online MSc course in Interaction Design. The two departments bring together an impressive experience and knowledge in Interaction Design, Human Computer Interaction and Online Learning. The course aims to provide an online learning platform for students internationally, who are interested in Interaction design and wish to contribute to and participate in its multi-disciplinary community. All course modules are offered in english, with an emphasis on practice-based learning through research, design and implementation for different projects, both individually and collaboratively. We are currently accepting applications for entrance in September 2015. The applications deadline is set for the 1st of July 2015. The tuition fees are €4100 for the entire program. Please visit the Msc Interaction Design website to find out more information about the course.

Digital Synergy for empowering women: the official launch of WomenPower Platform With the aim of promoting social change and enhancing the participation of women in society, the Cyprus Interaction Lab of the Cyprus University of Technology has launched WomenPower, the winning project in the category “Women and Dialogue” of the Mahallae program (funded by the UNDP). The We-Me platform is implemented as part of the Mahallae Challenges, supported and funded by UNDP-ACT. The ultimate goal of the platform is to strengthen the voice of women, allowing for greater participation in economic, political, and social activity and the establishment of equal opportunities. A synergy of modern technologies helps strengthen the voice of young women through the development of a community of mentors and apprentices. The Womenpower platform will be open to different generations of women, allowing young women to receive support from women with more experience. WomenPower is aimed mainly at …

The Cyprus Interaction Lab has secured the prestigious Human Computer Interaction Conference, INTERACT. The field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) has been extremely successful for the last thirty years, especially when it comes to changing computing to the benefit of end users. Advanced mobile, ubiquitous and pervasive computing have dramatically changed the way we interact with information, which makes human factors an essential part of computer science and informatics in all areas of our daily life. INTERACT is among the world’s top conferences in Human-Computer Interaction. Starting with the first INTERACT conference in 1990, this conference series has been organised under the aegis of the Technical Committee 13 on Human-Computer Interaction of the UNESCO International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP). The conference will be held in Pafos in 2018. The Cyprus Interaction Lab of the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts of the Cyprus University of Technology studies the interaction of people with technology in various …

In a packed auditorium the Cyprus University of Technology welcomed last week Rajiv Arjan, User Experience Researcher of Google UK, as the keynote speaker at the annual event for World Usability Day organized by Cyprus Interaction Lab. The audience included a total of over 300 participants, including several undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, academics, teachers and professionals from many sectors in the Economy and Technology industries. During his welcome speech, the Dean of the School of Fine and Applied Arts, Professor Panayiotis Zaphiris, touched on the modern trends in user-centered design and underlined the continuous need for a global and multidisciplinary range of methods in the design of end products and services that are both usable and accessible to everyone. Rajiv Arjan in his presentation “User Experience at Google” highlighted the basic principles of human-centered design practiced at Google, the full implementation of which contributed so decisively to the company …

The Cyprus Interaction Lab of the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts of the Cyprus University of Technology organizes the annual World Usability Day seminar, with the support of the Pedagogical Institute of Cyprus, the Cyprus Computer Society, the Cyprus SIGCHI and the contribution of Google UK. Keynote Presentation: “User Engagement and Google”, Raj Arjan, User Experience Researcher, Google Wednesday – 12 November 2014 – 18:00 – 20:30 Amphitheater 1, Tassos Papadopoulos Building, Cyprus University of Technology Participation is free of charge and a certificate of attendance will be provided to the participants at the end of the event. Please reserve your seat at: http://tinyurl.com/pjkx55g Download the invitation

This study examines how the use of tabletop technology might be able to promote peaceful attitudes and mitigate conflict in a school environment. The participants were twenty (20) K‐12students (grades 3‐6) at a public elementary school in the eastern Mediterranean.The school is characterized by large numbers of foreign students (i.e., minority enrollment), high drop‐out rate and increased incidences of conflict (verbal and physical), violence and delinquency. Students worked in conflicting groups of four students each on various learning and game activities around an interactive tabletop, over the span of three weeks. Analysis of student interviews, triangulated with findings from video data, revealed that tabletop technology can become a means for communication and collaboration, give the chance for students in conflict to share a common space, and help shape better attitudes and relationships among them, which extends beyond the duration of the intervention. The study provides insights on the use of …

The ‘creative workshop’ series was successfully launched on Wednesday, September the 24th, co-organized by the Cyprus Interaction lab and the Sustainable Energy Lab of the Cyprus University of Technology. Professor Panayiotis Zaphiris, dean of the School of Fine and Applied Arts, initiated the “creative workshops” stating that it consists of a series of open dialogue meetings (occurring monthly) and which focus on themes such as creativity and innovation and their impact on education, society and research. Next, Dr. Alexandros Charalambides inspired the audience with his speech titled “From idea to product“, by presenting how the ENERMAP project progressed and matured through various stages, until it received funding. The ENERMAP platform (www.enermap.eu) aims to record and map energy-efficient buildings across Europe as well as promote the most effective energy-related practices in the building sector. Finally, Dr. Stylianos Yiatros closed the event by announcing the subject of the next workshop – to …

Cyprus Interaction Lab (Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts) and the Sustainable Energy Laboratory (Department of Environmental Science and Technology) of the Cyprus University of Technology, invite you to a series of ‘creativity workshops’ The “creativity workshops”  series consist of open meetings for dialogue on issues related to creativity and innovation as well as their impact on education, society and research. Visit our facebook page

Organized by Prof. Panayiotis Zaphiris (Dean of School of Fine and Applied Arts and Director of the Cyprus Interaction Lab, of the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts), Prof. David Lamas (Institute of Informatics, Tallinn University, Estonia) and Dr. Effie Lai-Chong Law (University of Leicester, UK) the summer school on Research Methods in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) took place with big success at Tallinn University, Estonia from the 25th to the 31st of July 2014. Attended by 36 PhD students and practitioners specializing in HCI from more than 20 different countries it gave a chance to all attendees for training, discussions and social activities. The course was primarily designed to assist PhD students and practitioners to better understand the major research methods in the area of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and allow them to combine and use these methods in order to tackle their research objectives. The course included lectures …

Three members of the Cyprus Interaction Lab of the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts have been awarded the ‘Best Social Impact Award’ at the Cyprus Digital Championship 2014 competition. The team consists of Fernando Loizides, Iosif Kartapanis and Francesca Sella. The team are developing a mobile application called Mi.L.A (Minority Languages and Autism) which assists children with autism in developing cognitive and communication abilities. The development of the application has many facets and a part of it will be to be used in places where the access to therapy in limited of unavailable. The application specifically targets languages that are in the minority in terms of mobile device material for autism. “We recognize that there is lack of applications that cater for children with autism for minority languages. This is reasonable, from a business perspective since there are more ‘clients’ speaking non-minority languages which will buy or use an application. …

Womenpower (WE-ME)is the winning concept of Mahallae (funded by UNDP) under the “Women and Dialogue” challenge. The project is funded with $30,000 for a period of ten months (June 2014-May 2015). Aim of the project: the project intends to link women mentors and mentees together through an online community platform to be developed following a user-centered approach. More specifically WE-ME aims at helping young women to receive support and advice in regards to self-improvement, in order to increase their self-esteem, personal and social power and solidarity. It is expected to provide women with practical advice on how to deal with difficulties in their personal and professional life in order to overcome the glass-ceiling effect and promote gender equality. Moreover, the platform will also allow its members to organize local WE-ME Mentoring/supporting- meetings, seminars and/or fairs and a yearly WE-ME Mentoring-conference to be organized in Euro-Mediterranean region. These events are expected …

The 1st International Conference on Learning and Collaboration Technologies was completed with great success. The conference was part of 16th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI International 2014), which was held at the Convention Center of Creta Maris hotel, Hersonissos, Heraklion, Crete, from June 22nd to 27th, 2014. The HCI International is one of the largest international and interdisciplinary conferences in information and communication technologies. This year the conference attracted approximately 2,000 participants from 67 countries, coming from the academic and research community as well as professionals from the field of Information Technology and Telecommunications who presented original scientific papers and technological advances that were exposed in the exhibition area of the Conference. The conference program included two thematic areas: “Human-Computer Interaction” and “Human Interface and Management of Information” as well as 12 conferences affiliated with HCII 2014. One of these conferences was the 1st International Conference Learning and Collaboration …

On May 28, 2014, a total of 21, 4-graders from the Lanitio Primary School in Limassol visited the Cyprus Interaction Lab (CIL) of the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts at the Cyprus University of Technology. During their visit at CIL, students had the opportunity to discover the learning possibilities of multi-touch, interactive tabletops. Students, worked in teams, with existing mutli-touch learning apps for Windows 8, as well as custom-built applications developed at CIL for educational use. This visit offered students the opportunity to learn collaboratively, using this emerging technology, embracing an alternative learning experience and giving them a glimpse of what to expect in education in the years to come. The educational visit was organized by Dr. Maria Zeniou, teacher at Lanitio Primary School and visiting researcher at the Cyprus Interaction Lab.

On March 27, 2014, a total of 15 undergraduate students from the School of Sciences (program of Computing) of UClan Cyprus visited the Cyprus Interaction Lab (CIL) of the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts at the Cyprus University of Technology. At CIL, students interacted with three multi-touch, interactive tabletops and discovered their possibilities for collaboration and learning. Students, in teams, worked with existing mutli-touch apps for Windows 8, as well as our own custom-built applications developed for educational use. The educational visit was organized by the UClan Lecturer, Josephina Antoniou, and the UCLan Cyprus Student Support office.

Research methods in HCI Degree course | July 25 – July 31, 2014 The overarching aim of this summer school course is to improve participants’ understanding of significant research methods commonly or increasingly used in the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Visit the course webpage >

The Cyprus Interaction Lab (CIL) of the Cyprus University of Technology is happy to discuss your project idea and act as the Hosting Lab for proposals you might plan to submit to the HORIZON 2020 funding program. The Research Hosting program allows researchers and practitioners in the area of Human Computer Interaction and Instructional Technology to host their projects at the CIL Lab and get full access to its facilities and equipment for the purpose of completing their project.

The Cyprus Interaction Lab is a supporter of two conferences on mobile computing: iPads in Higher Education (ihe 2014) is the world’s 1st international research conference about iPad use in Higher Education (HE). You are invited to join scholars, learning technologists and practitioners from across the globe to share insights into teaching practice and student learning in an interdisciplinary and collaborative interchange of experience. The conference seeks to provide a common forum for the varied forms of research on the use of iPads HE, and to explore innovative models of learning using the iPad.  The conference takes place in Paphos, Cyprus between 20-22 March 2014 Industry/Public Sector-Academy on Mobile Computing is the first conference in Cyprus where industry, public sector and academia come together to discuss the potential of mobile computing research and practice in Cyprus.  The conference takes place on January 29th 2014.