Visit to the Mensch und Computer conference
The Mensch und Computer conference has been bringing together the German-speaking HCI community - scientists, practitioners and UX experts - since 2001. This year's MuC once again felt like a class reunion: It offered the opportunity to cultivate existing networks, make new contacts, engage in enriching discussions and develop fresh research ideas.
Meinald Thielsch, Maike Ramrath and Norman Jung from the industrial and environmental psychology team travelled together to Chemnitz, where the conference celebrated its 25th anniversary. Maike presented the Product Aesthetics Inventory (PAI), an instrument for measuring the product aesthetics of interactive systems, which is a useful addition to existing user experience assessment methods. Information on the use of the PAI and related publications can be found at: https: //aupsy.uni-wuppertal.de/de/instrumente/pai.
Together with Johannes Bondzio from UX2B, she also led a workshop at the Barcamp on the topic of biases in UX research. The participants discussed perception biases in usability tests and surveys, reflected on typical biases in everyday research and developed strategies to minimise their effects.
We are already looking forward to the next "Mensch und Computer" in Duisburg in 2026!
