Publications

I publish my research findings at various conferences, journals or scientific workshops. An overview of my research can be found in my PhD thesis. A list of all publications can be found here as well. Further, I am the inventor of several pending and granted patents.

PhD Thesis

My PhD thesis is titled Sensor-supported, Unsupervised Observation Techniques for Field Studies and presents a set of unobtrusive field observation techniques. The thesis was reviewed and accepted for publication by Prof. Dr. Susanne Boll and Prof. Charlotte Magnusson. I successfully defended on July 17, 2014. A PDF version can be downloaded: PDF (300 dpi image resolution, 16.5 MB) or PDF (150 dpi image resolution, 5.2 MB).

Motivation

We live in a mobile era and ubiquitous applications and interactive services surround us everywhere. To design and develop targeted and successful applications for these environments a detailed understanding of the users and their mobile context is needed.

Problem

Traditional lab studies and lab-based observation methods are mostly unsuited to investigate mobile applications, their users and the users’ experiences in such mobile and highly dynamic settings. Consequently, more and more research is done in field studies, where the users, applications and services are investigated in their natural environments. Common field observation methods, such as shadowing, are facing three essential challenges, i.e., situatedness, obtrusiveness, and scalability, and are in most cases unable to meet all of them. While mobile technologies continue to disappear, field observation techniques often still require the presence of human observers and observation tools, like video cameras.

Opportunity

In the last years, research has identified unsupervised observation techniques as promising approach for field studies. Popular examples for these techniques are logging, the Experience Sampling Method (ESM), and diary studies. In such techniques the human observer is replaced by sensors or self-reporting techniques, which are typically hosted on a mobile phone. However, although they inherently overcome many limitations of traditional field study observation techniques, they still fail to meet the three key challenges fully.

Approach & Outcome

In this thesis I investigate to what extent the sensing and computation capabilities of smart phones can improve unsupervised observation techniques. I demonstrate that the information gain of logging can be increased, if statistical analysis is applied and the sensor data is combined with static, environmental information. Further, I show that situation-aware self-reporting techniques, such as ESM, can trigger inquiries in opportune moments and, therefore, are perceived less obtrusive and are more likely to be answered. Finally, I illustrate that properly prepared and presented in situ information can serve as a valuable key resource for post hoc studies, like follow-up interviews.

Contributions

I contribute a novel, sensor-based observation approach, which has shown its benefits and advantages in a set of structured field studies of different complexities and dynamics. Further, I contribute the Virtual Observer, a holistic observation framework and reference implementation of my observation approach, which facilitates use and application of my method in other contexts and domains. Both, the novel observation approach and its reference implementation, will enable researchers to conduct unobtrusive, scalable field studies that feature convincing situational details.

Research Articles

Until today, I have co-authored 50 research papers. I am the first author of 4 journal articles, 10 conference papers, and 4 workshop papers. According to Google Scholar my h-index is 16. Some PDFs might be pre-prints and therefore slightly differ from the final print version.

2017

  • Okoshi, Tadashi; Exler, Anja; Voit, Alexandra; Weber, Dominik; Pielot, Martin; Poppinga, Benjamin; Henze, Niels; Gehring, Sven; Böhmer, Matthias; Kim, Seungjun; Pojovic, Veljko – UbiTtention: 2nd International Workshop on Smart & Ambient Notification and Attention Management, Workshop in conjunction with UbiComp 2017, Maui, Hawaii, USA.
  • Timmermann, Janko; Poppinga, Benjamin; Heuten, Wilko;  Boll, Susanne – HeartBeat: Tactile Support for Keeping a Target Heart Rate. EAI Endorsed Transactions on Pervasive Health and Technology, Volume 3, Issue 10.

2016

  • Myounghoon, Jeon; Politis, Ioannis; Shlandover, Steven; Sutter, Christine; Terken, Jacques; Poppinga, Benjamin – Towards Life-Long Mobility: Accessible Transportation with Automation. Automotive UI, 2016, Ann Arbor, USA.
  • Voit, Alexandra; Poppinga, Benjamin; Weber, Dominik; Böhmer, Matthias; Henze, Niels; Gehring, Sven; Okoshi, Tadashi; Pejovic, Veljko – UbiTtention: Smart & Ambient Notification and Attention Management. Workshop at UbiComp, 2016, Heidelberg, Germany.
  • Weber, Dominik; Poppinga, Benjamin; Sahami Shirazi, Alireza; Pielot, Martin; Gehring, Sven; Okoshi, Tadashi; Henze, Niels – Smarttention, Please! 2nd International Workshop on Intelligent Attention Management on Mobile Devices. Workshop at MobileHCI, 2016, Florence, Italy.
  • Timmermann, Janko; Poppinga, Benjamin; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – HeartBeat: Tactile Support for Keeping a Target Heart Rate. EAI Endorsed Transactions on Pervasive Health and Technology, 2016.

2015

  • Poppinga, Benjamin; Pielot, Martin; Henze, Niels; Oliver, Nuria; Church, Karen; Sahami Shirazi, Alireza – Smarttention, Please! Intelligent Attention Management on Mobile Devices. Workshop at MobileHCI, 2015, Copenhagen, Denmark.
  • Fortmann, Jutta; Poppinga, Benjamin; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – Real-Life Experiences with an Adaptive Light Bracelet. British HCI, 2015, Lincoln, UK. PDF
  • Poppinga, Benjamin – Sensor-Supported Unsupervised Observation Techniques for Field Studies. Dissertation. OlWIR Verlag für Wirtschaft, Informatik und Recht, ISBN-13 978-3-95599-019-0. PDF

2014

  • Poppinga, Benjamin; Fortmann, Jutta; Müller, Heiko; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – IllumiMug: Revealing Imperceptible Characteristics of Drinks. Poster at NordiHCI, 2014, Helsinki, Finland. PDF
  • Poppinga, Benjamin; Sahami Shirazi, Alireza; Henze, Niels; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – Understanding Shortcut Gestures on Mobile Touch Devices. MobileHCI, 2014, Toronto, Canda. PDF
  • Poppinga, Benjamin; Pielot, Martin; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – Unobtrusive Observation of Cycling Tourists in the Wild. International Journal of Mobile Human Computer Interaction (IJMHCI). 6(4), pp. 22–41.
  • Boll, Susanne; Heuten, Wilko; Poppinga, Benjamin; Müller, Heiko; Fortmann, Jutta; Timmermann, Janko; Meyer, Jochen – Interaktive Systeme für die persönliche Gesundheit (engl. Interactive Systems for Personal Health). Informatik Spektrum, Issue 5/2014. Springer
  • Timmermann, Janko; Poppinga, Benjamin; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – HeartBeat Demonstrator: Tactile Support for Keeping a Target Heart Rate. Demo at Pervasive Health, 2014, Oldenburg, Germany.
  • Poppinga, Benjamin; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – NavMem Explorer: An Orientation Aid for People with Mild Cognitive Impairments. Pervasive Health, 2014, Oldenburg, Germany. PDF
  • Poppinga, Benjamin; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – Sensor-based Identification of Opportune Moments to Trigger Unobtrusive Notifications. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 13(1), pp. 22–29. IEEE Xplore, PDF

2013

  • Kumar, Chandan; Poppinga, Benjamin; Häuser, Daniel; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – Assessing End-User Interaction for Multi-Criteria Local Search with Heatmap and Icon-based Visualizations. MAPINTERACT, 2013, Orlando, USA.
  • Poppinga, Benjamin; Oehmcke, Stefan; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – Storyteller: In-Situ Reflection on Study Experiences. Demo at MobileHCI 2013, Munich, Germany. PDF
  • Timmermann, Janko; Poppinga, Benjamin; Pielot, Martin; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – TimedNavigation – A Time-based Navigation Approach. Demo at MobileHCI 2013, Munich, Germany. PDF
  • Kumar, Chandan; Poppinga, Benjamin; Häuser, Daniel; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – Geovisual Interfaces To Find Suitable Urban Regions For Citizens: A User-Centered Requirement Study. Workshop on Human Interfaces for Civic and Urban Engagement (HiCUE). Adjunct Proceedings of UbiComp 2013, Zurich, Swizerland. PDF
  • Müller, Heiko; Fortmann, Jutta; Poppinga, Benjamin; Aliakseyeu, Dzmitry; Mason, Jon; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – Need a Light? Workshop on Mobile Light Information Displays. In conjunction with MobileHCI, 2013, Munich, Germany.
  • Fortmann, Jutta; Stratmann, Tim Claudius; Poppinga, Benjamin; Boll, Susanne; Heuten, Wilko – Make Me Move at Work! An Ambient Light Display to Increase Physical Activity. Pervasive Health, 2013, Venice, Italy. PDF
  • Müller, Heiko; Poppinga, Benjamin; Pielot, Martin; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – Keeping Groups Together with a Public/Private Light Display. Interactive City Lighting Workshop in conjunction with CHI, 2013, Paris, France. PDF

2012

  • Henze, Niels; Poppinga, Benjamin – Measuring Latency of Touch and Tactile Feedback in Touchscreen Interaction Using a Mobile Game. Third Workshop on Research in the Large in conjunction with MobileHCI, 2012, San Francisco, USA. PDF
  • Timmermann, Janko; Poppinga, Benjamin; Boll, Susanne; Heuten, Wilko – HapticPulse – Reveal your Heart Rate in Physical Activities. Workshop on Haptic and Audio Interaction Design (HAID), 2012, Lund, Sweden. PDF
  • Poppinga, Benjamin; Pielot, Martin; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – Towards an Objective Comparison of Scanning-Based Interaction Techniques. Workshop on Haptic and Audio Interaction Design (HAID), 2012, Lund, Sweden. PDF
  • Poppinga, Benjamin; Henze, Niels; Fortmann, Jutta; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – AmbiGlasses – Information in the Periphery of the Visual Field. Mensch & Computer, 2012, Konstanz, Germany. PDF (Honorable Mention Paper Award!)
  • Pielot, Martin; Poppinga, Benjamin; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – Tacticycle: Supporting Exploratory Bicycle Trips. Mobile HCI, 2012, San Francisco, USA. PDF
  • Poppinga, Benjamin; Cramer, Henriette; Böhmer, Matthias; Morrison, Alistair; Bentley, Frank; Henze, Niels; Rost, Mattias; Michahelles, Florian – Research in the Large 3.0 – App Stores, Wide Distribution, and Big Data in MobileHCI Research. Workshop at MobileHCI, 2012, San Francisco, USA. Website
  • Müller, Heiko; Fortmann, Jutta; Pielot, Martin; Hesselmann, Tobias; Poppinga, Benjamin; Henze, Niels; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – AmbiX: Designing Ambient Light Information Displays. Designing Interactive Lighting Workshop in conjunction with Designing Interactive Systems (DIS), 2012, Newcastle, UK. PDF
  • Pielot, Martin; Poppinga, Benjamin; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – PocketNavigator: Studying Tactile Navigation Systems In-Situ. ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2012, Austin, USA. PDF
  • Hesselmann, Tobias; Gollücke, Volker; Poppinga, Benjamin; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – Drawing Shapes and Lines: Spawning Objects on Interactive Tabletops. Extended Abstracts. ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2012, Austin, USA. PDF

2011

  • Pielot, Martin; Poppinga, Benjamin; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – 6th Senses for Everyone! The Value of Multimodal Feedback in Handheld Navigation Aids. International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI), 2011, Alicante, Spain. PDF
  • Pielot, Martin; Poppinga, Benjamin; Heuten, Wilko; Schang, Jeschua; Boll, Susanne – A Tactile Compass for Eyes-free Pedestrian Navigation. INTERACT 2011, Lisboa, Portugal. PDF
  • Poppinga, Benjamin; Pielot, Martin; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – Evaluating Mobile Accessible Applications is a Challenge: Can the Virtual Observer be a Proper Solution? Mobile Accessibility Workshop in conjunction with INTERACT 2011, Lisboa, Portugal. PDF
  • Poppinga, Benjamin; Magnusson, Charlotte; Pielot, Martin; Rassmus-Gröhn Kirsten – TouchOver Map: Audio-Tactile Exploration of Interactive Maps. MobileHCI 2011, Stockholm, Sweden. PDF
  • Poppinga, Benjamin; Timmermann, Janko; Heuten, Wilko; Boll, Susanne – Stress Aware: An Investigation of Everyday Real-Time Stress Feedback, Mobile Wellness Workshop in conjunction with MobileHCI 2011, Stockholm, Sweden. PDF
  • Poppinga, Benjamin; Pielot, Martin; Henze, Niels; Boll, Susanne – Unsupervised User Observation in the App Store: Experiences with the Sensor-based Evaluation of a Mobile Pedestrian Navigation Application, Wi: Journal of Mobile Media, Spring 2011, Website.
  • Pielot, Martin; Poppinga, Benjamin; Boll, Susanne – A Tactile Friend Sense for Keeping Groups Together, CHI Extended Abstracts 2011, Vancouver, Canada. PDF
  • Meyer, Jochen; Poppinga, Benjamin – Distributed Personal Archives: Deriving Health Profiles from the Web, 2nd Workshop on Information Access for Personal Media Archives in conjunction with ECIR European Conference on Information Retrieval 2011, 18.04.2011, Dublin, Ireland. PDF
  • Henze, Niels; Pielot, Martin; Poppinga, Benjamin; Schinke, Torben; Boll, Susanne – My App is an Experiment: Experience from User Studies in Mobile App Stores, International Journal of Mobile Human Computer Interaction. PDF

2010

  • Poppinga, Benjamin; Pielot, Martin; Henze, Niels; Boll, Susanne – Unsupervised User Observation in the App Store: Experiences with the Sensor-based Evaluation of a Mobile Pedestrian Navigation Application, Observing the Mobile User Experience Workshop in conjunction with NordiCHI 2010, 17.10.2010, Reykjavik, Iceland. PDF
  • Henze, Niels; Poppinga, Benjamin; Boll, Susanne – Experiments in the Wild: Public Evaluation of Off-Screen Visualizations in the Android Market, NordiCHI 2010, 16. – 20.10.2010, Reykjavik, Iceland. PDF
  • Pielot, Martin; Poppinga, Benjamin; Boll, Susanne – PocketNavigator: Vibro-Tactile Waypoint Navigation for Everyday Mobile Devices, Mobile HCI 2010, 07. – 10.09.2010, Lisboa, Portugal. PDF
  • Poppinga, Benjamin; Boll, Susanne – An Experimenter’s Third Eye: Using the SenseCam as Ground Truth for Unsupervised Evaluations, SenseCam 2010 Symposium, 17. – 18.09.2010, Dublin, Ireland. PDF
  • Pielot, Martin; Vester, Björn; Kazakova, Anastasia; Brammer, Lennard; Poppinga, Benjamin; Boll, Susanne – Natch: A Watch-like Display for Less Distracting Pedestrian Navigation, Mensch und Computer 2010, 12. – 15.09.2010, Duisburg, Germany. PDF
  • Poppinga, Benjamin; Boll, Susanne – Activity Recognition Research is More Than Finding the Ultimate Algorithms or Parameters, How to do good activity recognition research? Workshop in conjunction with Pervasive 2010, 14.05.2010, Helsinki, Finland. PDF
  • Meyer, Jochen; Poppinga, Benjamin; Boll, Susanne – Wellness 2.0 – Sharing Personal Health Experiences, Wellness Informatics Workshop in conjunction with CHI 2010, 20.04.2010, Atlanta, USA. PDF

2009

  • Poppinga, Benjamin; Pielot, Martin; Boll, Susanne – Tacticycle: A Tactile Display for Supporting Tourists on a Bicycle Trip, Mobile HCI 2009, 15. – 18.09.2009, Bonn, Germany. PDF
  • Pielot, Martin; Poppinga, Benjamin; Boll, Susanne – Understanding tourists on a bicycle trip “in the wild”, Mobile Living Labs Workshop in conjunction with Mobile HCI 2009, 14.09.2009, Bonn, Germany. PDF
  • Poppinga, Benjamin – Fix gezeigt: Beschleunigung als neue Art der Interaktion, iX – Magazin für professionelle Informationstechnik, Ausgabe 9/2009

2008

  • Schlömer, Thomas; Poppinga, Benjamin; Henze, Niels; Boll, Susanne – Gesture Recognition with a Wii Controller, Tangible and Embedded Interaction 2008, 18. – 20.02.2008, Bonn, Germany. PDF

2007

  • Poppinga, Benjamin – Beschleunigunsbasierte 3D-Gestenerkennung mit dem Wii Controller, Individuelles Projekt and der Universität Oldenburg. PDF

Patents

Creative thinking and using my ideas to advance society has always been my passion. As a person who works in the industry I file a lot of inventions and patents, helping my employer to have an advancement over competitors.

Granted Patents

  • DE102017200970B3: Procedures for documenting a journey of a motor vehicle. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2017-01-23. Granted: 2018-04-05. PDF
  • DE102017205626A1: A method of operating a lighting device for one or more motor vehicles and motor vehicle. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2017-04-03. Granted: 2023-03-30. PDF (DE).
  • DE102017210688A1: Sound generating device for a motor vehicle and method for operating such a motor vehicle and with such a. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2017-06-26. Granted: 2021-10-14. PDF
  • EP3385931A1: A method of operating a lighting device for one or more motor vehicles and motor vehicle. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2018-03-29. Granted: 2022-07-27. PDF. Priority to DE102017205626A1.
  • WO2019038141A1: Headlight for a motor vehicle and method for operating a headlight. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2018-08-14. PDF. Priority to DE102017214656A1.
  • DE102018221999B3: Method for operating a lighting system with light from a motor vehicle, use of a lighting device and motor vehicle. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2018-12-18. Granted: 2020-02-13. PDF
  • DE102020101043A1: Method and control circuit for controlling at least one device-external actuator in the vicinity of a user device and a correspondingly configured user device. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2020-01-17. Granted: 2023-01-26. PDF

Pending Patents

  • DE102016219764A1: A method for controlling a user interface, navigation device and motor vehicle with a navigation device. Assigned to AUDI AG. Co-Inventors: Andreas Blattner, Stefan Mayer, Hannes Mögele. Filed: 2016-10-11. PDF
  • DE102017201222A1: Method and system for machine learning. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2017-01-26. PDF
  • DE102019201583A1: User recognition device for determining an identity of a user. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2019-02-07. PDF
  • DE102019201817A1: Verfahren zum Betreiben eines Kraftfahrzeugs, Deponiersystem sowie Computerprogramm. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2019-02-12. PDF
  • DE102019206536A1: Method for configuring a personal assistance device, storage medium, device for electronic data processing, motor vehicle. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2019-05-07. PDF
  • DE102019209352A1: Method of operating a vehicle. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2019-06-27. PDF
  • DE102019211499A1: Method for controlling a selection and playback of event data to a user while driving in a motor vehicle and a data playback system. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2019-08-01. PDF
  • DE102019123612A1: Method for supporting a driver of a motor vehicle in operating the motor vehicle, driving trainer device and motor vehicle. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2019-09-04. PDF
  • DE102019124817A1: Method for operating a motor vehicle. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2019-09-16. PDF
  • DE102019124862A1: Method for operating a motor vehicle and motor vehicle. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2019-09-16. PDF
  • DE102019133983A1: Method for operating a user interface. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2019-12-11. PDF
  • DE102020110273A1: Method and selection system for selecting a vehicle for a ride-sharing service. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2020-04-15. PDF
  • DE102020116714A1: Control unit for a vehicle, system, method and motor vehicle with such a control unit. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2020-06-25. PDF
  • WO2021259533: Controller for a vehicle, system, method, and motor vehicle comprising such a controller. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2021-04-19. PDF. Priority to DE102020116714A1.

Refused/Ceased/Lapsed/Expired Patents

  • DE102017204896A1: A method for displaying a state of a vehicle. Assigned to AUDI AG. Co-Inventors: Sebastian Zieglmeier. Filed: 2017-03-23. PDF
  • DE102017205380A1: A method for providing information to an outside of a motor vehicle comprising a calculating means as well as motor vehicles. Filed: 2017-03-30. PDF
  • DE102017211885A1: A method for requesting a Handelsguts in a communication device of a motor vehicle-external data server device, ordering means and motor vehicle with an order device. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2017-07-12. PDF
  • DE102017214656A1: Headlight for a motor vehicle and method for operating a headlight. Assigned to AUDI AG. Filed: 2017-08-22. PDF