News

We were pleased about the article in the Badische Neueste Nachrichten (BNN) reporting insights from the feasibility study of the heat companion research project conducted by Niklas Heyden of the Institute for Information Systems (WIN), human-centered systems lab. The heat companion research project provides citizens with a portable environmental sensor and a companion smartphone app to record micro-climate data (temperature, humidity, air quality) in their daily routines.

In the upcoming winter semester, the human-centered systems lab will offer one B.Sc. and two M.Sc. electives lectures. The B.Sc. Lecture “Enterprise Systems for Financial Accounting & Controlling (EFA)” will be offered by Dr. Christian Fleig (Lidl) and introduce foundations enterprise system concepts using the example of SAP S/4HANA.

The KIT had a very successful award session at “Internationale Tagung Wirtschaftsinformatik 2025” (#WI25) - demonstrating our academic quality and adding to KIT’s reputation within the community. Two out of the three best papers were contributed by KIT teams:

Digital products and services are no longer simply tools,but are becoming increasingly integrated into everyday life and our working environment. This central role also brings with it a responsibility to design digital products and services in such a way that they do not negatively impact health and well-being of their users. At the same time, digital products and services are playing an increasingly important role in the healthcare sector – be it through the ePA (electronic patient record), which enables the exchange of medical data, through mental health bots, or through wearables and fitness apps.

As part of our speaker series "Decision & Design", Prof. Pierre-Majorique Léger from HEC Montreal gave a talk at the KD2Lab on September 12, 2025. As AI becomes deeply embedded in daily life, it enhances efficiency but also risks encouraging uncritical reliance on its recommendations, especially when user interfaces prioritize automation and simplicity. Drawing on a series of NeuroIS experiments, he argued in his talk for a shift from “Don’t make me think” to “Make me think,” highlighting the need for user interface designs that foster critical engagement and responsible AI use.

We are delighted to receive the Honorable Mention Award at the Mensch und Computer (MuC) 2025 conference in Chemnitz for our demo paper "Worldhat: A Humanoid Social Robot Interpreter for Multilingual Dyadic Conversations", a joint work by Sandra Müller, Martin Feick and Alexander Maedche from the human-centered systems lab (h-lab) of the Institute for Information Systems (WIN).

In partnership with EnBW , students worked on a highly relevant challenge in designing Human-AI Interaction for enhancing customer experiences for services & sales. 8 student groups showcased their unique prototypes and research journeys, all grounded in the human-centered design process. A diverse range of thoughtful, creative, and practical prototypical solutions, each shaped by the group’s individual lens on the problem space, were presented.

The Institute for Information Systems (WIN) will be present with one full paper and one late-breaking work paper at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. UIST is the premier forum for innovations in human-computer interfaces and brings together people from diverse areas, including graphical & web user interfaces, tangible & ubiquitous computing, virtual & augmented reality, multimedia, new input & output devices, human-centered AI, and CSCW.

The summer school introduced students to the foundations of biosignal-adaptive GenAI systems through an introduction lecture. Subsequently, the participants worked in teams to develop a GenAI-based learning system that processes biosignals capturing gaze and heart activity data to deliver personalized learning experiences. During the summer school, three teams developed impressive working prototypes following a human-centered design process.

As organizations collect ever-increasing amounts of data from more and more disparate sources, the demand for personnel with skills in data science continues to grow. Simultaneously, the field of data science is complex and has evolved over time, making it difficult for organizations to identify what job roles and associated skills they need to conduct data science successfully. This lack of clarity leads to the misconception that one person, the so-called data science unicorn, can do it all.

In collaboration with psychotherapists from University of Greifswald, Florian Onur Kuhlmeier, Leon Hanschmann and Alexander Maedche at the human-centered systems lab (h-lab) of the Institute for Information Systems (WIN) are exploring how to train AI systems to provide cognitive behavioral therapy to young people with depression. The team developed a chatbot using large language models that learns therapeutic techniques similar to how human therapists are trained, using, treatment manuals, artificial users and feedback from trained psychotherapists.

Two industry talks offered valuable insights into the use of AI agents in two distinct business domains: software development at SAP and customer service at Allianz. We were excited to welcome Prof. Dr. Tobias Schimmer and Dr. Philipp Hoffmann from SAP SE, as well as Dr. Peyman Toreini and Magdalena Feldmeier from Allianz Kunde & Markt GmbH. The talks highlighted current challenges and benefits of introducing agentic information systems for internal stakeholders, such as software developers, and the combination of internal/external stakeholders, such as customer service employees and customers.