peter purgathofer
i am associate professor at TU Wien, faculty of informatics, at the human-computer interaction group, part of the institute of visual computing and human-centered technology.
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 ofbill 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.
since 2016, im am member of the board of trustees at the European Forum Alpbach.
office hours: tuesday 10:15-12
find me at
argentinierstr. 8/187
2.stock
1040 wien
fon +43 1 58801 187 23 (f - 93)
purg(a)igw.tuwien.ac.at
@peterpur
teaching
profound discussion of the friction between social and technological development (eg. copyright, privacy, spam, etc.).
a mostly workshop based course where each year another potentially disruptive (or, more moderately, transformative) technology is examined from various perspectives
→ find a comprehensive list of my teaching via the TU course search
→ see all the bachelor and master thesis topics i currently offer.
selected talks & appearences
am 12. november spreche ich im ITA-seminar um 13:30 über die »denkweisen der informatik«, also über konzept, umsetzung und erfahrungen mit unserer neuen informatik-einführungsLVA hier an der TU wien: https://www.oeaw.ac.at/ita/veranstaltungen/seminare/peter-purgathofer-12112019/ueberblick/
am 12.9. halte ich die kenote für den 18. e-learning tag an der fh joanneum, veranstaltet vom institute innovative lernszenarien: https://www.fh-joanneum.at/veranstaltung/18-e-learning-tag-an-der-fh-joanneum/ teilnahme ist kostenlos
i was offered a chance to present intermediary results of our way·key project at the forschungsforum mobilität für alle on 30. nov 2017.
On Nov. 14, I will be sitting on a podium discussing the future of society under the condition of artificial intelligence: https://www.wko.at/service/Veranstaltung.html?id=ff3a0de7-a4ed-463c-bce3-6cc668b04001
the organizers of UXday graz have invited me to give the keynote of the next UXday graz on 11. nov 2017. my talk will be titled »the values of UX«, discussing desingers' responsibilities in the 21st century, with algorithms as the newest material.
i was invited to talk about youth, networks and new media at the 10th annual meeting on political child medicine . details have not been fixed yet, but the event will take place on 11-12 nov 2016 in salzburg.
to offset my strict opposition against e-voting i participate in the endeavour to find other, more interesting forms of online participation. thus, i'll give an impulse talk as well as parttake in the following discussions at the »Users in Focus: Online-Participation« event organized by wirtschaftsagentur and kier communication.
i gave a talk with the rather provocative title »Software will take Over the World« at the Algorithmic Regimes, Generative Strategies Conference on 25. Sept, 2015 at TU Wien. it is available on video.
our (fares kayali and my) talk at the game for change 2012 festival was recorded on video and is available on youtube.
i had the chance to talk about interaction with musical instruments at the ars electronica pixelspaces symposium 2011 [link] and 2012, joining two passions of mine.
things that keep me busy
i inherited a project acquired by wolfgang zagler after his retirement. in this FFG-funded project, we are designing tools that help people with inchoate dementia to navigate the world. more information can be found on the way·key project web pages.
this research project is funded by the BMWFW »sparkling science« program starting in march 2015. the project goal is to collect insight into game based learning for the 14-18 age bracket. a detailled description can be found on the project web space.
pigLAB is a research lab founded and organised by fares kayali and peter purgathofer. it serves as a breeding ground and organisational frame for research and design projects around game based anything. see more of our activities on the pigLAB project page.
since almost 10 years we are exploring new ways to organize and conduct teaching in large without the contraints of how it used to be. the project now answers to the name of »Aurora« - http://aurora.iguw.tuwien.ac.at
peter purgathofer spricht mit... is a podcast i have started publishing on a weekly basis in 2012. the concept is to have long and relaxed talks with experts, mostly in german language. all current episodes are on the podcast site.
selected publications
c. frauenberger, p purgathofer: ways of thinking in informatics. in: “communications of the ACM”, 62, 7 (june 2019), 58-64. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3329674
p. purgathofer, n. luckner: layout considered harmful: on the influence of information architecture on dialogue. in: "learning and collaboration technologies. designing and developing novel learning experiences", springer international publishing, lecture notes in computer science volume 8523 (2014), isbn: 978-3-319-07482-5; s. 216 - 225
naemi luckner, peter purgathofer: explorative design as an approach to understanding social online learning tools. international journal on advances in intelligent systems, vol 7, no 3&4, year 2014.
p. purgathofer: the many perspectives of quality of experience. keynote at the QoMEX 5th international workshop on quality of multimedia experience, klagenfurt, 05.05.2013.
peter purgathofer: once again, it’s teaching vs learning. keynote at ICL conference in Piešt’any, 21.9.2011
f. kayali, v. schwarz, g. götzenbrucker, j. pfeffer, b. franz, p. purgathofer: serious beats: transdisciplinary research methodologies for designing and evaluating a socially integrative serious music-based online game. DiGRA 2011, ›Think Design Play‹, conference on play and games, utrecht, sept. 2011.
peter purgathofer: eine kurze geschichte der steganographie. in: manuela brandstetter, marina schmidberger, sabine sommer (hg.): die funktion "verdeckter kommunikation", lit verlag, 2010
diane salter, peter purgathofer: students use of laptops in large lecture classes: distraction, partial attention or productive use? ed-media, toronto, 2010.
p. kotzé, p. purgathofer: developing exercises for teaching computing and information technology: a theoretical framework. vortrag: CSITEd 2007 - computer science and it education conference, mauritius; 16.11.2007 - 18.11.2007; in: csited 2007 - computer science and it education conference, (2007), 14 s.
peter purgathofer: eine kleine geschichte der überwachung. in sandro gaycken, constanze kurz:1984.exe - gesellschaftliche, politische und juristische aspekte moderner überwachungstechnologien. 2008
peter purgathofer: is informatics a design discipline? In: poiesis & praxis. december 2006, volume 4, issue 4, pp 303-314.
→ find a comprehensive list of my officially accounted publications in the TU publication database
other artefacts
yourTurn.fm is the result of a WWTF project, serious beats. yourTurn is a social video DJing game on facebook that was designed by fares kayali and me together with platogo.
i regularily post the slides i use on slideshare.net. be advised however that my slides are not self-explanatory, but composted mostly of full-frame pictures and some quotes.
cool stuff
in summer 2014, i had the priviledge to conduct a seminar at the european forum alpbach together with minoru asada, the renowned robotics researcher and inventor of robot football. we earned good feedback and inspired a funny cartoon.
Biscuit for reddit is a groundbraking iPad client for reddit.com, offering a unique way to follow and participate in the discussions. It is the result of the master thesis of matthias tretter, who collaborated with thomas pamminger of wollzelle and peter purgathofer for the concept and design of the app. It is available on the iOS app store since late 2012.
in sept 2012, futurezone.at mentioned me & the institute as a breeding ground of sorts for small austrian game developers
my colleague and head of the institute where i work, geraldine fitzpatrick, has been named »expert of the month« by derstandard.at in sept. 2010.
:: after a couple years of development, the innovative and fun platformer and yet it moves has been released on april 2nd, 2009. the team developed concept and prototype for this game during one of our courses. in the meantime, the dev team has started a company, broken rules, developing more games. where will this end?
the grimace project is one of the results of the thesis of my diploma student oliver spindler - a very cool implementation of some theories from scott mcclouds groundbreaking book making comics.
untitled
on 2. june 2015 i moderated a panel discussion in the context of the net.25 festivities. my guests were (from left to right) bruce sterling, danese cooper and raphael capurro. the whole session was recorded on video. also, i had a book signed by bruce sterling, as he is one of my heros of contemporary science fiction.
In 2013, i built DIY kindle scanner. It is a technological intervention intended to highlight the futility of copy protection in digital media. The video has enjoyed more than 250k views on vimeo, and was covered in countless major online channels as well as most local newspapers. Also, it was covered in the critical digital media and media arts (print) magazine »neural« as well as in-depth on allThingsD.com.
i am proud to be part of what is allegedly one of the best TV reports ever made on digital games and violence: »computerspiele jenseits der klischees« by catherine radam.
i was invited to TEDx Pannonia 2010 to talk about the radical portfolio. a preliminary recording of the talk is available on youtube, and the slide can be viewed on slideshare. oh, and my TEDx application is also still on youtube.
tim pritlove interviewed me in 2009 in one of his legendary chaosradio express podcasts, CRE131. you can listen to the full version or just a few highlights.
our simulation of the play-off phase of EURO08 at kunsthalle project space within the exhibition games. their present-day role in art and politics is subject of an article on wieninternational.at. additionally, students produced a documentation video (2008).
also, i pretend to be a photographer, media designer and, occasionally, a musician. also, i play pro evolution soccer on a (sometimes hopefully) semi-pro (LOL) level.
master-level full year project with a focus on design theory and design-based research.