Projects

An early modern age drama in VR

History shapes culture through a collection of memories that define our present. Engaging in playful and immersive experiences is a powerful way to learn, and games effectively explore complex themes and challenge players.

"Saving Anna" is a narrative learning game set during the witch hunts of the early modern era. Players follow the story of Anna, a young day laborer, navigating suspicion and prejudice in a society driven by fear and beliefs. Her survival depends on the choices players make in response to these pressures.
The game evolved from a basic tabletop role-play into a virtual reality experience, developed using Unity. Three themed user studies ensured the game’s quality and highlighted its educational potential.

Targeted at high school and undergraduate students, "Saving Anna" invites players to individually explore the roots of witch hunts and then engage in class discussions to deepen their understanding of the societal, political, and environmental factors involved.

Reclaiming digital sovereignty and intentional technology use

Digital overload, especially among Zillennials, leads to chronic stress, decision fatigue, and anxiety. This project promotes digital mindfulness to counteract attention span depletion, information overload, and poor time management, aiming to create healthier interactions with technology.

The project introduces interventions like Focus Cover and Phone Parking, alongside the "Option Control" platform and Digital Addicts Anonymous (DAA) meetings. These initiatives support digital habit management, promote digital sovereignty, and facilitate community exchanges.

"Option Control" features a blog, podcast, and social media campaigns to explore tech habits and encourage balanced usage. Rather than advocating for a digital detox, it focuses on open conversations about setting boundaries and maintaining healthy digital consumption.

While primarily targeting Zillennials, young professionals, and students, these solutions also cater to educational institutions, workplaces, and the general public. By reclaiming digital sovereignty, the project aims to improve well-being, boost productivity, and build a network of support for intentional technology use.

A journey towards women’s financial empowerment

Women face significant pay, pension, and investment gaps that impact their economic well-being and equality. This project aims to empower women to overcome these gender-specific financial barriers through awareness, information, partnerships, and targeted recommendations.

The financial platform addresses these gaps by offering personalized strategies and essential knowledge, helping users confidently navigate financial challenges and secure their future.

An interactive tool provides tailored advice, guiding users through financial concepts. It includes exploring financial personalities, using specialized calculators, and receiving actionable strategies to bridge economic gaps, ultimately enhancing financial literacy and independence.

Designed to empower women, the platform promotes financial confidence, independence, and long-term economic security.

Which inner voice should guide you?

Working in a self-managed organization where all 30 employees have full decision-making power presents unique challenges in making effective choices. Through my thesis, I explored group decision-making dynamics and became intrigued by the inner voices that shape our decisions.

These internal voices significantly influence our choices. Inspired by research on their origins and effects, I created the AI-supported exhibit "Voices in Your Head" to explore the complexity of these voices and their impact.

The exhibit integrates Azure Vision AI for visitor detection, OpenAI’s ChatGPT for conversations, Azure Speech AI for voice recognition, and Google Cloud Text-to-Speech for vocal output, providing an immersive, multi-dimensional experience.

Targeted towards adults curious about their inner dialogues, the exhibit is not recommended for individuals with a history of auditory hallucinations related to conditions like psychosis or schizophrenia.

An interactive museum experience for school children that utilizes artificial intelligence

Museums are vital to public education and must adapt to meet society's changing needs. In collaboration with the Ritterhaus in Bubikon, we developed an immersive exhibition design that integrates cutting-edge technology and promotes audience participation.

The centerpiece of this project is the "PastPhone," an AI-powered device that allows users to engage in voice-based conversations with people from the Middle Ages. It uses a large language model trained on historical texts to create realistic and engaging "time travel" dialogues.

Designed with natural language interaction, this experience is especially engaging for children, enhancing knowledge retention and fostering a deeper connection to historical characters and themes.

This project helps museums maintain social relevance and appeal to a broad audience, with a particular focus on creating compelling experiences for schoolchildren. It also aids teachers by supporting lessons on current issues and streamlining preparation.

A game that turns GenZ into nature freaks

Biodiversity is declining, yet many remain indifferent. To foster its protection, it’s essential to cultivate a deep emotional connection to nature.

"Anura League" is a mobile game designed to engage young people in biodiversity conservation. This location-based adventure RPG combines trading card elements with real-world flora and fauna, integrating local animals and plants into gameplay.

Similar to Pokémon Go, players explore their surroundings to find and identify real animals and plants using image recognition. These discoveries are turned into digital trading cards that can be used to compete with friends.

Targeted at GenZ (ages 12 to 19) in urban areas, "Anura League" aims to spark interest in biodiversity through immersive and interactive experiences.

Unlocking collaboration of designers and engineers

Machine learning technologies often lack user experience considerations, leading to undesirable or unusable digital products and services. Project Nestor, a structured process for interdisciplinary and collaborative product development, facilitates innovative and tailored user experiences. 
An open-access website guides users through the project process. Worksheets provide detailed information on various stages. A forum invites users to exchange ideas and questions. 
Nestor supports project managers/leaders to engage UX Designers and Machine Learning Engineers towards a common goal.

Dealing with digital time: an investigation of behavioral changes for a long-term, self-determined change.

The smartphone is used for entertainment, working, communicating and passing the time. The highest art lies in not being distracted by the smartphone's illuminated, vibrating and displaying surface. This challenge has resulted in a concept for an app to sensitise us to a more conscious use of digital time. The Offbe app is intended to help us reduce our use of digital devices more consciously. It is an easy-to-use wellbeing app that can be used to take a break from digital devices without stress.

Thesis project

This thesis is dedicated to the topic of fictional world-building. A practical example is used to investigate how object design can contribute to the visual credibility of an imaginary world.
The success of a fictional world depends mainly on its credibility. But at what point does a fictional world seem plausible? And which factors are decisive for this? The center of the present work is creating an imaginary, retrofuturistic world for a video game. Cable racing"", a fictional motorsport phenomenon on the dried-up seabed of the Atlantic, forms the basis for this. The design of this imaginary world concept was used to examine how object design can be explicitly used to convey a fictional creation credibly.