Technology Interaction Experience (TInX)
Technology is an indispensable part of human life. It solves practical problems and at the same time has an influence on our performance, our attitudes and our well-being, which is why we can no longer separate humans and technology today, but speak of a common socio-technical system. Within this system, humans, machines and the environment interact in complex ways. Therefore, technology research cannot be solely about the product and the users, but must also take into account aspects such as resource consumption and environmental pollution. Technology design that is not only user-centred but also human-centred, experience-centred and sustainable is called human technology.
The working group Technology Interaction Experience -TinXof the Professorship of Technical Design at TU Dresden combines expertise from the fields of human-machine interaction, interaction technology and user experience. TInX has set itself the goal of unfolding technological potentials while taking social and ecological sustainability into account, and of developing technologies for future well-being that are adapted to people through design.
Within the professorship, the human-centred development of technical products, systems and services, taking into account user perspectives and requirements, has always been a focus. TInX aims to advance this approach by incorporating the aspects mentioned above. Our researchers come from different disciplines, so that knowledge from areas ranging from industrial design and engineering practice to psychology flows into our research and teaching. We also have a laboratory for researching human-machine interaction with prototypes we have created ourselves.
TInX is dedicated to the three fields of action listed below, each of which pursues individual demands and objectives.
TInX pursues a comprehensive and fundamental understanding of human technology in the three research fields of user experience, human-machine interaction, and interaction technology. It also includes understanding the relationships between human factors and technology design.
By modeling socio-technical systems, we aim to provide the essential foundation for describing user experience, the associated effects on human-machine interaction, and human-technology system performance in general. This allows us to conduct empirical studies to investigate the effects of design interventions in such systems. At the applied research level, this knowledge helps us to improve system and interaction technology design.Based on these findings, we aim to further develop TInX methods and tools for interdisciplinary practice in human technology development.
TInX aims to apply our fundamental knowledge to design practice in the context of inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration.
In practice, our main interest lies in transferring theoretical TInX knowledge into easily applicable tools and methods by acquiring design practice knowledge in projects from applied research and industry. To achieve this, we create product visions, prototypes and demonstrators in real-world contexts. This facilitates the marriage of two major development paths we see in practice today - the technology-centric approach and the human-centric approach. Humane Technology is connected to the implications of both while extending them to include society- and environment-centered design. Meanwhile, we are rethinking the role of the TInX designer, whose activities may move beyond technical and user research tasks toward knowledge transfer and communication.
TInX is dedicated to promoting a multi-directional transfer of knowledge about design research and its implications, as well as practical or tacit knowledge during design practice, while maintaining an ongoing dialogue with society.
We believe that communicating, conveying and publicising TInX principles and practices are crucial. On the one hand, we refer to scientific publications and educational activities at our university. For the latter, our goal is to increasingly incorporate aspects of the transdisciplinary approach of TInX into our teaching concept. On the other hand, we are investigating how science and technology communication can be used to more consistently enable public participation in the research and development of human technologies.