Field of Excellence «Interaction»

The Field of Excellence «Interaction» specialises in the training of versatile experts in the area of interaction and game design. With its distinct character, both areas offer a highly specialised field to develop a unique academic profile.

Interactive Design

Head: Prof. Dr. Karmen Franinović | Assistance: Moritz Kemper

Embodied Interaction
Embodied Interaction investigates social and phenomenological aspects of situated and embodied experience. We explore and design responsive materials, interactive environments, tangible interfaces and context-aware services that are sustainable and engage with social and personal stories.

Sonic Interaction
Sonic Interaction Design explores ways in which sound can be used to convey information, meaning, and aesthetic and emotional qualities in interactive contexts. We are investigating new roles that interactive sound can play in allowing us to extract meaning from and respond to physical activities, the people performing them and their levels of skill and manners of action.

Banking Experience
In this focus area we work in collaboration with the institute SDFB on concepts and solutions to further develop opportunities for interaction between financial service providers and their clients. For additional information see www.sdfb.ch

Legal Experience
The emergence of new social practices in digital spaces «social media» increasingly poses questions relating to the ways in which law can be a visible and concrete experience. The topic Legal Experience opens new interdisciplinary horizons between legal studies and design.

Professional goals: Interaction Designer, User-Interface Designer, User Experience Designer, Web Designer, Software Designer, Information Architect, Design Manager.

Collaborations: Berkman Center for Internet and Society, BMW AG, Car2Go, Mercedes-Benz Cars, ETH Zurich, Frogdesign, IDEO, Art University Linz, Siemens AG, University of St. Gallen, University of Zurich, Virtual Identity, Volkswagen AG.

Game Design

Head: Prof. Ulrich Götz | Assistance: Mela Kocher

Four trend-setting focus areas offer an in-depth engagement with topical issues in Game Design. Applications for Game Design relate to the selection of one of the following focus areas.

Collaborative Worlds
Gaming is more than entertainment. It is an opportunity to progress the collaborative production of knowledge in real and virtual worlds. This focus area explores and develops new social networks situated in the interface between real and artificial worlds.

Game Production
The iterative process of variation and applied scientific reflection in the focus area Game Production results in a fully developed game. Experimental prototypes condense story telling, graphics, sound and technology into a high-quality game.

Ludic Game Art
Ludic Game Art creates contents for mobile toys, smartifacts, i-phones and internet, game fashion augmented reality and alternate reality games. Innovative design goes beyond the application of conventional games and creates new interfaces and forms of expression for our society.

Serious Games
This focus area explores and develops games, which are urgently required in fields such as medicine, therapy, communication, evaluation, and science. New strategies of inclusion and motivation define Serious Game Design as a future trend area of game development.

Professional goals: Art Director, Game Artist, Game Concept Lead, Game Project Lead, Independent Game Developer, Cultural Producers, Media Artists, Serious Game Designer.

Keywords:Interactive Environments, Multisensory interaction, Tangible Interface, Responsive Materials, Ubiquitous Computing, Social Software, Web 2.0, Context-aware Services, User Experience Design, Human Factors, Auditory feedback, Soundscapes Animation & 3D-Modelling, Artificial Intelligence, Alternate Reality Games, Augmented Reality, Collaborative Platforms, Game Art, Gameplay, Gameproduction, Pervasive Games, Procedural Programming, Serious Games, Sound Design, Game Mechanics, Game Systems, Personal Storytelling, Teamwork, Visual Design.