Albrecht Schmidt is professor for Human-Centered Ubiquitous Media in the computer science department of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in Germany. He studied computer science in Ulm and Manchester and received a PhD from Lancaster University, UK, in 2003. He held several prior academic positions at different universities, including Stuttgart, Cambridge, Duisburg-Essen, and Bonn and also worked as a researcher at the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems (IAIS) and at Microsoft Research in Cambridge. In his research, he investigates the inherent complexity of human-computer interaction in ubiquitous computing environments, particularly in view of increasing computer intelligence and system autonomy. Albrecht has actively contributed to the scientific discourse in human-computer interaction through the development, deployment, and study of functional prototypes of interactive systems and interface technologies in different real world domains. His early experimental work addressed the use of diverse sensors to recognize situations and interactions, influencing our understanding of context-awareness and situated computing. He proposed the concept of implicit human-computer interaction. Over the years, he worked on automotive user interfaces, tangible interaction, interactive public display systems, interaction with large high-resolution screens, and physiological interfaces.Most recently, he focuses on how information technology can provide cognitive and perceptual support to amplify the human mind. To investigate this further, he received in 2016 a ERC grant. Albrecht has co-chaired several SIGCHI conferences; he is in the editorial board of ACM TOCHI, edits a forum in ACM interactions, a column of human augmentation in IEEE Pervasive, and formerly edited a column on interaction technologies in IEEE Computer. The ACM conferences on tangible and embedded interaction in 2007 and on automotive user interfaces in 2010 were co-founded by him. In 2018, Albrecht was induced into the ACM SIGCH Academy and in 2020, he was elected into Leopoldina, the Germany academy of natural science.
Abstract Making interactive functional prototypes is greatly valuable to research in human computer interaction. Prototypes are a source of inspiration, help in understanding critical issues, provide an effective means for communication and evaluation, and enable reflections on multiple levels. Low-fidelity prototyping is also clearly valuable, but as a community we should realize that this is only a first step. We should not stop there and, instead, we should move on to making real experiences, allowing users to encounter new forms of interactions – not just imagining them. In the session we look at options of how to create prototypes, including (1) repackaged off-the-shelf devices, (2) developing systems based on combining standard devices, (3) creating custom-hardware add-on to standard computing devices, and (4) developing and implementing custom hardware. We dive a bit deeper into how to create custom hardware using the ESP32 and Raspberry Pi Pico Platforms and Micropython. We argue that implementing prototypes supports envisioning, designing, and implementing new interaction technologies.