Forschungsinteressen/Research Interests

Human-Computer Interaction and UX Design, Human-Centered Informatics, Game Design and Positive Impact Games, Digital Culture and Learning, Informatics and Society, Diversity in Informatics

Contact

Sprechstunde/Office hours: Tuesday 10:15-12:00 during the semester; please write email regarding out-of-semester availability.

i am associate professor at the vienna university of technology, faculty of informatics, at the institute of design and assessment of technology, human-computer interaction group.

my research centers around questions of the interplay between design and (software) development, especially the role and place of design in software engineering. also, i’m working in the field of »informatics and society«.

rather than anything else, i would label myself as an »experience designer« in the sense of bill buxtons book, »sketching user experiences«. recently, new projects focus around the concept of »positive impact games«.

on a global level, this means that i’m also deeply interested in the interplay between the co-development of technology and society, and especially in questions of sustainability and resilience of technology.

i'm also »autor« of a podcast, »peter purgathofer spricht mit...«. in each of the 1-2h episodes, i talk to an outstanding person about some topics from our shared fields of expertise.

mini-cv

i majored in informatics in vienna, and have since focussed on the issue of design within informatics. in the course of my work i founded and led the uid-lab, a cooperation with gp design partners, where we worked on numerous national and international design projects between 1996 and 2004. among the clients were ars electronica center, the cd-labor für software research and the german Sparkassen-Informatikzentrum. uid-lab has spun off into a design enterprise and is now part of gp design partners.

i am (co-)winner of an award of distinction at the prix ars electronica 2000 in the category .net, together with erich bergerand volker christian (and many others) for the project telezone.

since early 2005 i am associate professor for interactive systems. my habilitation discusses history, theory and practice of design methodology, focussed on the design of interactive software.

since 2007, i am coordinator for the »media informatics« bachelor and master programs at the vienna university of technology.

in 2012, i co-founded positive impact games lab together with fares kayali.

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