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Intention: Within the research project EnerSHelF (Energy-Self-Sufficiency for Health Facilities in Ghana), i. a. energy-meteorological and load-related measurement data are collected, for which an overview of the availability is to be presented on a poster.
Context: In Ghana, the total electricity consumed has almost doubled between 2008 and 2018 according to the Energy Commission of Ghana. This goes along with an unstable power grid, resulting in power outages whenever electricity consumption peaks. The blackouts called "dumsor" in Ghana, pose a severe burden to the healthcare sector. Innovative solutions are needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy and health access.
Usability und User Experience (UX) haben als Design-Aspekte in der Produktentwicklung zunehmend an Bedeutung gewonnen. Daher ist es sinnvoll, die organisationale Kompetenz zur Entwicklung von Produkten mit einer positiven UX zu stärken. Veränderungen in Organisationen sind jedoch mit großem Aufwand verbunden. Deshalb müssen Organisationen entscheiden, welche Aktivitäten zur Veränderung der eigenen Kompetenz durchgeführt werden sollen und welche nicht. Die bisherige Forschung hat sich weitgehend auf die Anwendbarkeit bestimmter Methoden im Projekt- und Produktkontext konzentriert. Um geeignete Aktivitäten zur Verbesserung der organisationalen UX-Kompetenz zu identifizieren, wurden 17 UX-Professionals befragt. Diese UX-Professionals haben mindestens zehn Jahre Erfahrung durch die Arbeit in mehreren Unternehmen und durch die Übernahme einer Führungsrolle im Bereich UX gesammelt. Aus diesen Interviews wurden 13 mögliche Maßnahmen zur Steigerung der UX-Kompetenz von Organisationen abgeleitet. Dazu gehören beispielsweise die Erhöhung der Kompetenz einzelner Mitarbeiter, das Teilen von UX-Erfolgsgeschichten oder das Ermöglichen von User Research.
Organisationen wollen Produkte mit guter User Experience herstellen. Durch die Evaluation der organisationalen UX-Gestaltungskompetenz können Organisationen erkennen, wie stark ihre momentane UX-Gestaltungskompetenz ausgeprägt ist und wie die Kompetenz gezielt gesteigert werden kann. Für die Abbildung der aktuellen Kompetenz werden ein Fragebogen zur theoretischen Kompetenz und ein Fragebogen für die Produktevaluation kombiniert. Durch diese Kombination wird die Kompetenz der Organisation aus der Handlungs- und der Ergebnisperspektive betrachtet. Für die Erarbeitung von Handlungsfeldern zur Verbesserung der Kompetenz werden qualitative Interviews durchgeführt und mit den Ergebnissen der quantitativen Erhebungen verknüpft. Durch einen anschließenden Ergebnisworkshop erarbeiten sich die Mitglieder der Organisation einen effizienten Weg zur Steigerung der organisationalen UX-Kompetenz.
UX-Professionals stehen vor der Aufgabe ihre Fertigkeiten und Kenntnisse kontinuierlich auszubauen. Eine Möglichkeit dies zu tun sind Communities of Practice, also Gemeinschaften von Personen mit ähnlichen Aufgaben und Schwerpunkten sowie einem gemeinsamen Interesse an Lösungen. Sie agieren weitgehend selbstorganisiert und dienen dem Austausch und der gegenseitigen Unterstützung. So entstehen ein gemeinsamer Wissensschatz sowie ein Netzwerk zwischen allen UX-Interessierten. Der Aufbau einer Community of Practice für UX-Professionals wurde in einem mittelständigen Unternehmen über 18 Monate begleitet und ausgewertet. Die Ergebnisse führten zu Handlungsempfehlungen, um Hindernisse beim Aufbau zu reduzieren und einen Mehrwert für alle Beteiligten herbeizuführen.
Die Globalisierung führt zu immer komplexeren, für die Einzelnen kaum nachvollziehbaren Wertschöpfungsketten in der Lebensmittelindustrie. Zugleich eröffnet die Digitalisierung neue Möglichkeiten, Informationen entlang der Kette zu sammeln, und so mehr Transparenz und Vertrauen für den Verbraucherbeziehungsweise die Verbraucherin zu schaffen. Jedoch finden Verbraucherinformations-Apps wie fTRACE bisher nur eine geringe Verbreitung. Daher haben wir in einer qualitativen Studie mit 16 Teilnehmer/-innen Bedürfnisse und Nutzungshürden von Verbraucher/-innen im Zusammenhang mit Verbraucherinformations-Apps analysiert. Es zeigt sich, dass das Vertrauen in die Informationen, sowie der einfache Zugang dazu für Verbraucher/-innen zentral sind. Durch die gut sichtbare Bereitstellung der Informationen am Point-of-Sale, sowie der automatisierten Informationsversorgung z. B. mittels digitaler Kassenzettel in Kombination mit weiteren Verbraucher-Services kann die Bekanntheit und Akzeptanz von Rückverfolgbarkeitssystemen weiter gesteigert werden.
Stakeholder-Analyse zum Einsatz IIoT-basierter Frischeinformationen in der Lebensmittelindustrie
(2019)
Eine Herausforderung bei der Implementierung des industriellen Internet of Things (IIoT) besteht darin, Mehrwerte in Wertschöpfungsketten zu identifizieren, um darauf aufbauend Lösungen nutzerzentriert zu gestalten. Dieser Beitrag stellt das Forschungsprojekt FreshIndex vor, bei dem diese Herausforderung durch eine Kombination aus Stakeholder-Analyse und User-Centered-Design-Methoden adressiert wurde. Ziel des Projekts ist es, eine IIoT-basierte Lösung zum Monitoring der Kühlkette in der Lebensmittelindustrie zu entwickeln. Hierzu ist es wichtig zu wissen, welche Nutzer/-innen mit den Daten in Berührung kommen und welche Erfahrungen, Fähigkeiten, Anforderungen und Wünsche sie mitbringen. Die Berücksichtigung dieser Aspekte ist relevant für den Erfolg der Konzeption, Implementierung und des Betriebs eines IIoT-Systems. So können nützliche und handhabbare Produktideen generiert und Anwendungen gestaltet werden, die von Mitarbeiter/-innen und Konsument/-innen angenommen werden. IIoT schließt somit die lokale Verwendbarkeit von Daten entlang der Wertschöpfungskette ein und beschränkt sich nicht auf zentrale Verfügbarkeit von Daten.
Exploring Future Work - Co-Designing a Human-robot Collaboration Environment for Service Domains
(2020)
There has been increasing interest in the application of humanoid robots in service domains like retail or care homes in recent years. Here, most use cases focus on serving customer needs autonomously. Frequently, human intervention becomes necessary to support the robot in exceptional situations. However, direct intervention of service operators is often not possible and requires specialized personnel. In a co-design process with 13 service operators from a pharmacy, we designed a remote working environment for human-robot collaboration that enables first-time experiences and collaboration with robots. Five participants took part in an assessment study and reported on their experiences about the utility, usability and user experience. Results show that participants were able to control and train the robot through the remote control environment. We discuss implications of our results for future work in service domains and emphasize a shift of focus from full robot automatization to human-robot collaboration forms.
This article concerns the design and development of Information- and Communication Technology, in particular computer systems in regard to the demographic transition which will influence user capabilities. It is questionable if current applied computer systems are able to meet the requirements of altered user groups with diversified capabilities. Such an enquiry is necessary based on actual forecasts leading to the assumption that the average age of employees in enterprises will increase significantly within the next 50-60 years, while the percentage of computer aided business tasks, operated by human individuals, rises from year to year. This progress will precipitate specific consequences for enterprises regarding the design and application of computer systems. If computer systems are not adapted to altered user requirements, efficient and productive utilisation could be negatively influenced. These consequences constitute the motivation to extend traditional design methodologies and thereby ensure the application of computer systems that are usable, independent of user capabilities.
IT-accessiblity is often treated as an orphan in companies. Even though the proportion of disabled people is substantial and people become older and more susceptible to disabilities. Besides cost factors, companies often do not have a plan how to implement and control IT-accessibility successfully. However, most companies are familiar with IT-maturity frameworks to evaluate and improve their own IT-infrastructure. It would facilitate dealing with IT-accessibility, if IT-maturity frameworks consider IT-accessibility and provide recommendations and solutions for a successful implementation. Therefore, this article conducts a review of an acknowledged IT-maturity framework with regard to its capability to enable implementation of IT-accessibility in an organization. The first part of this article will illustrate the motivation and background for the authors concern with such a topic. Afterwards the authors will introduce the reader to the reviewed IT-maturity framework and provide basic knowledge on IT-accessibility. The main part of the article will deal with the review of the applied IT-maturity framework and outline examples of critical capabilities for successfully implementing IT-accessibility in an organization. The final section will derive implications and close with planned future research activities in this field.
This paper presents the outcomes of an exploratory field study that examined the social impact of an ICT-based suite of exergames for people with dementia and their caregivers. Qualitative data was collected over a period of 8 months, during which time we studied the daily life of 14 people with dementia and their informal and professional caregivers. We focus on the experiential aspects of the system and examine its social impact when integrated into the daily routines of both people with dementia themselves and their professional and family caregivers. Our findings indicate that relatives were able to regain leisure time, whilst people with dementia were able to recapture certain aspects of their social and daily activities that might otherwise have been lost to them. Results suggest that the system enhanced social-interaction, invigorated relationships, and improved the empowerment of people with dementia and their caregivers to face daily challenges.
As a result of ageing societies, the prevalence of dementia, and accordingly the need of care is increasing rapidly. Here, the use of ICT-based technologies may facilitate and promote a self-sustaining life-style for people with dementia and their caregivers. The presented poster describes early findings from the project MobiAssist and outlines the ICT-based training system. The system aims to increase the physical and cognitive capabilities of people with dementia, relief the caregivers and improve wellbeing of involved parties.
Dementia not only affects the cognitive capabilities, especially memory and orientation, but also physical capabilities, which are associated with a decrease of physical activities. Here, ICT can play a major role to improve health, quality of life and wellbeing in older adults suffering from dementia and related stakeholders, such as relatives, professional and informal caregivers. The aim of the presented system is to increase physical and cognitive capabilities of people with dementia and their caregivers to support them in daily life activities, reduce the strain of the caregivers and improve both their wellbeing.
There has been increasing interest in designing for dementia in recent years. Empirical investigation is now needed of the long-term role of caregivers in appropriating ICTs into the complex daily life of people with dementia (PwD). We present here the outcomes of a 4-month evaluation of the individual, social and institutional impact of a videogame-based training system. The everyday behavior and interactions of 52 PwD and 25 caregivers was studied qualitatively, focusing on the role played by caregivers in integrating the system into daily routines. Our results indicate that the successful appropriation of ICT for PwD depends partly on the physical, cognitive and social benefits for PwD, but especially on the added value perceived by their social care-network. We discuss the need for design in dementia to develop more socially embedded innovations that can address the social actors involved and thus contribute to practical solutions for professional and private care.
The aim of this paper is to assess the objectives of farmers’ challenges in enhancing biodiversity. The so-called “trilemma” (WBGU 2021) of land use stems from the multiple demands made on land for the benefit of mitigating climate change, securing food and maintaining biodiversity. The agricultural sector is accused of maladministration: it is blamed for causing soil contamination, animal cruelty, bee mortality and climate change. That is why farmers are seen as key actors at all levels. They are, however, also key players when it comes to overcoming the problems of the future. Their supportive role is urgently needed, but farmers find themselves caught between a “rock” and a ”hard place”. Consumers are calling for sustainable, environmentally friendly production and inexpensive food products that do not contain pesticide residues, demanding enough food for all. Farmers are restricted by the wants and needs of consumers who are influenced by interest groups and are exposed to direct and indirect influencing factors and their interdependencies. They are also tasked with balancing the scrutiny of the critical public on the one hand, and the control exercised by eager authorities on the other.
As part of the DINA (Diversity of Insects in Nature protected Areas) project, a trans- and interdisciplinary research study, we collected and surveyed the data of farmers who are farming within or close to the 21 selected nature protected areas included in the DINA project. Data was collected as part of a mixed method approach using a semi-structured questionnaire. The methodological and strategic approach and interdependencies of issues demonstrate the complexity of today’s problems. To investigate this, we first used the data collection method using questionnaires with closed and open questions. The conflicts and obstacles farmers face were evaluated, and the results show farmers’ willingness and the importance of appreciation shown to farmers for implementation of biodiversity measures. The paper proposes some follow-up activities (quantitative study) to verify the objectives. The results will later lead to recommendations for policymakers and farmers in all German nature protected areas.
Für das IT-Service-Management, also für die Maßnahmen zur Planung, Überwachung und Steuerung der Effektivitat und Effizienz von IT-Services, existieren Standardprozessmodelle wie beispielsweise ITIL oder MOF. Kleine und mittlere Unternehmen (KMU) können für das IT-Service-Management oftmals nicht die IT-Service-Management-Prozesse aus ITIL oder MOF nutzen, da der zusätzliche administrative Aufwand zur Nutzung für diese Unternehmen meist nicht rentabel ist. Dies ist ein entscheidender Wettbewerbsnachteil, da die Aufgaben und Themen im IT-Service-Management für KMU der in großen Unternehmen sehr ähnlich sind.
Die Autoren ermitteln in diesem Beitrag typische Anforderungen an das IT-Service-Management in KMU, entwickeln anschliesend ein für KMU geeignetes Prozessmodell für das IT-Service-Management, das sich aus ITIL ableitet, und beschreiben abschließend die exemplarische Einführung in einem Unternehmen.
Sustainable development needs sustainable production and sustainable consumption. During the last decades the encouragement of sustainable production has been the focus of research and policy makers under the implicit assumption that the observable increasing ‘green’ values of consumers would also entail a growing sustainable consumption. However, it has been found that the actual purchasing behaviour often deviates from ‘green’ attitudes. This phenomenon is called the attitude-behaviour gap. It is influenced by individual, social and situational factors. The main purchasing barriers for sustainable (organic) food are price, lack of immediate availability, sensory criteria, lack or overload of information as well as the low-involvement feature of food products in conjunction with well-established consumption routines, lack of transparency and trust towards labels and certifications.
Sustainability is a key issue in current research activities and programs. In this conjunction three major functions of research have been identified: Basic research, knowledge reservoirs, and knowledge transfer. With regard to a transmission to the private sector, knowledge transfer is the most important factor. In this process, universities of applied sciences can play an important part as they typically have a long-standing experience in linking science and business in their teaching and research. Another important agent in the process of knowledge transfer are networks and clusters. Their strength lies integrating the different competencies of its partners and using them to a mutual benefit.
The International Centre for Sustainable Development (IZNE) – with a major focus on responsible business and sustainable food – takes the advantage of being part of a University of Applied Sciences (Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, BRSU), and being a member of several regional and international clusters and networks. These co-operations aim to establish and strengthen linkages between science and business, in particular by investigating research needs for business and business relevant research activities. Moreover, IZNE established and expanded regional and international co-operations of its own to get more transparency about regional and international value-added chains in the food sector and the issue of responsible business.
Current global challenges such as climate change, lack of resources, desertification, land degradation as well as loss of biodiversity can ultimately be due to human actions. Reasons are excessive production and consumption of goods and services, along with using and consuming natural resources, causing emissions and waste products. Demand in the form of consumption and supply in the form of production are closely intertwined.
Die Vorteile, Nutzer aktiv, früh und langfristig in ntwicklungsprozesse zu integrieren, um Fehlentwicklungen zu vermeiden und Nutzerbedürfnisse zu adressieren, sind nicht nur in der akademischen Forschung bekannt. Prozesse und Strukturen in Unternehmen der IKT-Branche sind bereits häufig agil implementiert. Dennoch schaffen es kleine und mittlere Unternehmen (KMU) oftmals nicht, die Potentiale einer Nutzerintegration konsequent auszuschöpfen. In Fallstudien wurden drei unterschiedliche KMU analysiert, wie sie die Stimme des Nutzers im Entwicklungsprozess berücksichtigen. Unterschiedliche Strategien der Nutzerintegration, die sich in Rollen und Werkzeugen, in Anforderungen und Problemen an das Nutzersample, Methoden und Datenaufbereitung widerspiegeln, werden beleuchtet. Unser Beitrag soll helfen, Herausforderungen und Probleme von KMU auf der Suche nach angemessenen und passgenauen Wegen der Nutzerintegration zu verstehen und Lösungen zu gestalten.
Within qualitative interviews we examine attitudes towards driverless cars in order to investigate new mobility services and explore the impact of such services on everyday mobility. We identified three main issues that we would like to discuss in the workshop: (I) Designing beyond a driver-centric approach; (II) Developing mobility services for cars which drive themselves; and (III) Exploring self-driving practices.
The design of self-driving cars is one of the most exciting and ambitious challenges of our days and every day, new research work is published. In order to give an orientation, this article will present an overview of various methods used to study the human side of autonomous driving. Simplifying roughly, you can distinguish between design science-oriented methods (such as Research through Design, Wizard of Oz or driving simulator ) and behavioral science methods (such as survey, interview, and observation). We show how these methods are adopted in the context of autonomous driving research and dis-cuss their strengths and weaknesses. Due to the complexity of the topic, we will show that mixed method approaches will be suitable to explore the impact of autonomous driving on different levels: the individual, the social interaction and society.
The alternative use of travel time is one of the widely discussed benefits of driverless cars. We therefore conducted 14 co-design sessions to examine how people manage their time, to determine how they perceive the value of time in driverless cars and to derive design implications. Our findings suggest that driverless mobility will affect both people’s use of travel time as well as their time management in general. The participants repeatedly stated the desire of completing tasks while traveling to save time for activities that are normally neglected in their everyday life. Using travel time efficiently requires using car space efficiently, too. We found out that the design concept of tiny houses could serve as common design pattern to deal with the limited space within cars and support diverse needs.
Vertrauen ist das Schmiermittel der Shareconomy. Einen zentralen Mechanismus hierfür stellen Crowd-basierte Reputationssysteme dar, bei denen Informationen und Bewertungen anderer Nutzer dazu dienen Vertrauen aufzubauen. Die Vernetzung zu teilender Gegenstände bietet hierbei neue Potentiale, um die Reputation eines Anbieters oder Nachfragers zu bewerten und einzuschätzen. In diesem Beitrag untersu-chen wir daher das Potential eines IoT-basierten Reputationssystems im Kontext von Peer-to-Peer Car-sharing, bei dem Informationen und Bewertungen mittels Sensorik während der Nutzung des Fahrzeugs erhoben und ausgewertet werden. Hierzu wurden zwei Fokusgruppen mit insgesamt 12 Personen durch-geführt. Die Ergebnisse deuten an, dass datenbasierte Reputationssysteme das Vertrauen nicht nur vor, sondern auch während der Vermietung und in der Nachkontrolle für Ver- und Entleiher steigern können. Jedoch sollten bei der Gestaltung solcher Systeme die Prinzipien der mehrseitigen Sicherheit wie Spar-samkeit, Verhältnismäßigkeit, Transparenz und Reziprozität beachtet werden.
Traditionally automotive UI focusses on the ergonomic design of controls and the user experience in the car. Bringing networked sensors into the car, connected cars can provide additional information to car drivers and owners, for and beyond the driving task. While there already are technological solutions, such as mobile applications commercially available, research on users’ information demands in such applications is scarce. We conducted four focus groups to uncover what kind of information users might be interested in to see on a second dashboard. Our findings show that besides control screens of todays’ dashboards, people are also interested in connected car services providing context information for a current driving situation and allowing strategic planning of driving safety or supporting car management when not driving. Our use cases inform the design of content for secondary dashboards for and especially beyond the driving context with a user perspective.
Focus on what matters: improved feature selection techniques for personal thermal comfort modelling
(2022)
Occupants' personal thermal comfort (PTC) is indispensable for their well-being, physical and mental health, and work efficiency. Predicting PTC preferences in a smart home can be a prerequisite to adjusting the indoor temperature for providing a comfortable environment. In this research, we focus on identifying relevant features for predicting PTC preferences. We propose a machine learning-based predictive framework by employing supervised feature selection techniques. We apply two feature selection techniques to select the optimal sets of features to improve the thermal preference prediction performance. The experimental results on a public PTC dataset demonstrated the efficiency of the feature selection techniques that we have applied. In turn, our PTC prediction framework with feature selection techniques achieved state-of-the-art performance in terms of accuracy, Cohen's kappa, and area under the curve (AUC), outperforming conventional methods.
An Experimental Field-Study on Active and Passive Work Breaks in a Stressful Work Environment
(2017)
Work breaks are known to have positive effects on employees’ health, performance, and safety. However, prior research has focused mainly on their timing, duration, and frequency but less on break activities. Moreover, most studies examined work breaks in rather repetitive and physical demanding work. Thus, we conducted an experimental field study with a sample of employees’ working in a stressful and cognitive demanding working environment and examined how different types of work breaks (boxing, deep relaxation, and usual breaks) affect participants’ mood, cognitive performance, and neuro-physiological state.
AI systems pose unknown challenges for designers, policymakers, and users which aggravates the assessment of potential harms and outcomes. Although understanding risks is a requirement for building trust in technology, users are often excluded from legal assessments and explanations of AI hazards. To address this issue we conducted three focus groups with 18 participants in total and discussed the European proposal for a legal framework for AI. Based on this, we aim to build a (conceptual) model that guides policymakers, designers, and researchers in understanding users’ risk perception of AI systems. In this paper, we provide selected examples based on our preliminary results. Moreover, we argue for the benefits of such a perspective.
Voice assistants (VA) collect data about users’ daily life including interactions with other connected devices, musical preferences, and unintended interactions. While users appreciate the convenience of VAs, their understanding and expectations of data collection by vendors are often vague and incomplete. By making the collected data explorable for consumers, our research-through-design approach seeks to unveil design resources for fostering data literacy and help users in making better informed decisions regarding their use of VAs. In this paper, we present the design of an interactive prototype that visualizes the conversations with VAs on a timeline and provides end users with basic means to engage with data, for instance allowing for filtering and categorization. Based on an evaluation with eleven households, our paper provides insights on how users reflect upon their data trails and presents design guidelines for supporting data literacy of consumers in the context of VAs.
Durch die Digitalisierung befindet sich die Mobilitätsbranche im starken Umbruch. So wird man bei der Verkehrsmittelwahl zukünftig wohl auch auf selbstfahrende Autos zurückgreifen können. Die Studie erweitert die Verkehrs- und Nutzerakzeptanzforschung, indem unter Berücksichtigung relativer Teilmehrwerte tiefergehend analysiert wird, wie sich die neuen Verkehrsmodi autonomer Privat-PKW, autonomes Carsharing und autonomes Taxi aus heutiger Sicht in den bestehenden Verkehrsmix einsortieren. Hierzu wurde auf Basis der Nutzerpräferenztheorie eine Onlineumfrage (n=172) zu den relativen Mehrwerten der neuen autonomen Verkehrsmodi durchgeführt. Es zeigt sich, dass Nutzer im Vergleich zum PKW bei den autonomen Modi Verbesserungen im Fahrkomfort und in der Zeitnutzung sehen, in vielen anderen Bereichen – insbesondere bei Fahrspaß und Kontrolle – hingegen keine Vorteile oder sogar relative Nachteile sehen. Gegenüber dem ÖPNV bieten die autonomen Modi in fast allen Eigenschaften Mehrwerte. Diese Betrachtung auf Teilnutzenebene liefert eine genauere Erklärung für Nutzerakzeptanz des automatisierten Fahrens.
Digitisation has brought a major upheaval to the mobility sector, and in the future, self-driving cars will probably be one of the transport modes. This study extends transport and user acceptance research by analysing in greater depth how the new modes of autonomous private cars, autonomous carsharing and autonomous taxis fit into the existing traffic mix from today's perspective. It focuses on accounting for relative added value. For this purpose, user preference theory was used as a base for an online survey (n=172) on the relative added value of the new autonomous traffic modes. Results show that users see advantages in the autonomous modes for driving comfort and time utilization whereas, in comparison to conventional cars, in many other areas – especially in terms of driving pleasure and control – they see no advantages or even relative disadvantages. Compared to public transport, the autonomous modes offer added values in almost all characteristics. This analysis at the partwor th level provides a more detailed explanation for user acceptance of automated driving.
Shared Autonomous Vehicles: Potentials for a Sustainable Mobility and Risks of Unintended Effects
(2018)
Automated and connected cars could significantly reduce congestion and emissions through a more efficient flow of traffic and a reduction in the number of vehicles. An increase in demand for driving with autonomous vehicles is also conceivable due to higher comfort and improved quality of time using driverless cars. So far, empirical evidence supporting this hypothesis is missing. To analyze the influence of autonomous driving on mobility behavior and to uncover user preferences, which serve as an indicator for future travel mode choices, we conducted an online survey with a paired comparison of current and future travel modes with 302 German participants. The results do not confirm the hypothesis that ownership will become an outdated model in the future. Instead they suggest that private cars, whether traditional or fully automated, will remain the preferred travel mode. At the same time, carsharing will benefit from full automation more than private cars. However, findings indicate that the growth of carsharing will mainly be at the expense of public transport, showing that more effort should be placed in making public transportation more attractive if sustainable mobility is to be developed.
The megatrends towards both a digital and a usership economy have changed entire markets in the past and will continue to do so over the next decades. In this work, we outline what this change means for possible futures of the mobility sector, taking the combination of trends in both economies into account. Using a sys-tematic, scenario-based trend analysis, we draft four general future scenarios and adapt the two most relevant scenarios to the automotive sector. Our findings show that combing the trends from both economies provides new insights that have often been neglected in literature because of an isolated view on digital technology only. However, service concepts such as self-driving car sharing or self-driving taxis have a great impact at various levels including microeconomic (e.g., service and product design, business models) and macroeconomic (e.g., with regard to ecological, economical, and social impacts). We give a brief outline of these issues and show which business mo dels could be successful in the most likely future scenarios, before we frame strategic implications for today’s automobile manufacturers.
The development of fully automated vehicles is becoming more and more present in the social discussion. The image of fully automated cars is determined by automobile manufacturers and placed in the context of individual traffic. In contrast to fully autonomous private cars, fully automated public transport is already operating in some cities and is to be expanded in the future. Autonomous public transport offers great potential for the development and promotion of sustainable mobility concepts. However, the user acceptance is important for the enforcement and widespread use of these technical innovations. An online study on the acceptance of fully automated public transport based on quantitative data of a sample of N = 201 is presented. The results show a high level of familiarity with the topic and a very high level of overall intention to use fully automated public transport in the future.
Sharing economies enabled by technical platforms have been studied regarding their economic, legal, and social effects, as well as with regard to their possible influences on CSCW topics such as work, collaboration, and trust. While a lot current research is focusing on the sharing economy and related communities, there is little work addressing the phenomenon from a socio-technical point of view. Our workshop is meant to address this gap. Building on research themes and discussion from last year’s ECSCW, we seek to engage deeper with topics such as novel socio-technical approaches for enabling sharing communities, discussing issues around digital consumer and worker protection, as well as emerging challenges and opportunities of existing platforms and approaches.
Das Konzept des Living Lab ist eine in der Wissenschaft anerkannte Innovations- und Forschungsmethodik. Im betrieblichen Kontext - insbesondere in kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen (KMU) – wird sie bislang jedoch kaum genutzt. Um die Nutzung im kommerziellen Kontext von Smart Home zu erforschen, wird im Forschungsprojekt SmartLive aktuell ein Living Lab zum Thema aufgebaut, bei dem Unternehmen, Forscher sowie ca. 30 teilnehmenden Haushalte die alltägliche Nutzung von kommerziellen, sowie experimentell entwickelten Lösungen untersuchen und neue Interaktionskonzepte gemeinsam erarbeiten. Ferner wurden mit den teilnehmenden Unternehmen Interviews zu deren Entwicklungsprozessen, deren Einstellung zu Usability und User Experience (UUX), sowie den Potenzialen und Möglichkeiten eines Living Labs für KMU geführt. Ziel der Interviews ist es, darauf aufbauend UUX-Dienstleistungen zu identifizieren, die rund um ein kommerziell betriebenes Living Lab angeboten werden können. Hierbei wurde zunächst das Kompetenz-Netzwerk als ein wichtiges Asset eines Living Lab hervorgehoben, da es eine projektförmige Kooperation fördert. Zudem wurde der Bedarf nach flexiblen Dienstleistungen ähnlich einem Baukastensystem deutlich, mit dessen Hilfe relativ kurzfristig als auch nachhaltige innovative Konzepte erprobt, Marketingstrategien entwickelt sowie prototypische Entwicklungen hinsichtlich UUX und technischer Qualität evaluiert werden können.
In the course of growing online retailing, recommendation systems have become established that derive recommendations from customers’ purchase histories. Recommending suitable food products can represent a lucrative added value for food retailers, but at the same time challenges them to make good predictions for repeated food purchases. Repeat purchase recommendations have been little explored in the literature. These predict when a product will be purchased again by a customer. This is especially important for food recommendations, since it is not the frequency of the same item in the shopping basket that is relevant for determining repeat purchase intervals, but rather their difference over time. In this paper, in addition to critically reflecting classical recommendation systems on the underlying repeat purchase context, two models for online product recommendations are derived from the literature, validated and discussed for the food context using real transaction data of a German stationary food retailer.
Data emerged as a central success factor for companies to benefit from digitization. However, the skills in successfully creating value from data – especially at the management level – are not always profound. To address this problem, several canvas models have already been designed. Canvas models are usually created to write down an idea in a structured way to promote transparency and traceability. However, some existing data science canvas models mainly address developers and are thus unsuitable for decision-makers and communication within interdisciplinary teams. Based on a literature review, we identified influencing factors that are essential for the success of data science projects. With the information gained, the Data Science Canvas was developed in an expert workshop and finally evaluated by practitioners to find out whether such an instrument could support data-driven value creation.
Due to ongoing digitalization, more and more cloud services are finding their way into companies. In this context, data integration from the various software solutions, which are provided both on-premise (local use or licensing for local use of software) and as a service, is of great importance. In this regard, Integration Platform as a Service (IPaaS) models aim to support companies as well as software providers in the context of data integration by providing connectors to enable data flow between different applications and systems and other integration services. Since previous research has mostly focused on technical or legal aspects of IPaaS, this article focuses on deriving integration practices and design-related barriers and drivers regarding the adoption of IPaaS. Therefore, we conducted 10 interviews with experts from different software as a services vendors. Our results show that the main factors regarding the adoption of IPaaS are the standardization of data models, the usability and variety of connectors provided, and the issues regarding data privacy, security, and transparency.
The corporate landscape is experiencing an increasing change in business models due to digitization. An increasing availability of data along the business processes enhance the opportunities for process automation. Technologies such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are widely used for business process optimization, but as a side effect an increase in stand-alone solutions and a lack of holistic approaches can be observed. Intelligent Process Automation (IPA) is said to support more complex processes and enable automated decision-making, but due to the lack of connectors makes the implementation difficult. RPA marketplaces can be a bridging technology to help companies implement Intelligent Process Automation. This paper explores the drivers and challenges for the adoption of RPA marketplaces to realize IPA. For this purpose, we conducted ten expert interviews with decision makers and IT staff from the process automation sector.
Large sections of the German society are able to buy and consume meat on a daily basis due to progress in the agri-food sector. However, the way meat is produced, traded and consumed increasingly has become an issue that is controversially discussed by the media, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), lobbyists, the industry itself and consumers – often with a negative connotation. The meat industry reacts to this. By creating information campaigns and animal welfare initiatives it aims to stress that it is going to take its corporate social responsibilities (CSR) for consumers and animal welfare seriously. But, the industry’s actions are still criticised as being not sufficient to improve animal welfare levels significantly. Much of this criticism can be observed in online news portals, where articles about the issue get published and commented by readers. This makes online portals a valuable source for information that is to be tapped in this study. It aims to better understand the multifaceted discussions concerning animal welfare initiatives in online portals. By applying qualitative content analysis and web mining techniques to a sample of documents taken from three major German news sites it can be shown that online discussions refer to various aspects of sustainability and corporate social responsibility. Findings also indicate that the discussions are framed by financial aspects.
Although much effort is made to prevent risks arising from food, food-borne diseases are an ever present-threat to the consumers’ health. The consumption of fresh food that is contaminated with pathogens like fungi, viruses or bacteria can cause food poisoning that leads to severe health damages or even death. The outbreak of Shiga Toxin-producing enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) in Germany and neighbouring countries in 2011 has shown this dramatically. Nearly 4.000 people were reported of being affected and more than 50 people died during the so called EHEC-crisis. As a result the consumers’ trust in the safety of fruits and vegetables decreased sharply.
Autonomous driving enables new mobility concepts such as shared-autonomous services. Although significant re-search has been done on passenger-car interaction, work on passenger interaction with robo-taxis is still rare. In this paper, we tackle the question of how passengers experience robo-taxis as a service in real-life settings to inform the interaction design. We conducted a Wizard of Oz study with an electric vehicle where the driver was hidden from the passenger to simulate the service experience of a robo-taxi. 10 participants had the opportunity to use the simulated shared-autonomous service in real-life situations for one week. By the week's end, 33 rides were completed and recorded on video. Also, we flanked the study conducting interviews before and after with all participants. The findings provided insights into four design themes that could inform the service design of robo-taxis along the different stages including hailing, pick-up, travel, and drop-off.
Nachhaltiges Innovationsmanagement in KMU: Eine empirische Untersuchung zu Living Labs as a Service
(2016)
Die neue europäische Umweltstrategie der Integrierten Produktpolitik fordert von produzierenden kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen (KMU) eine eigenverantwortliche und produktbezogene Nachhaltigkeitsstrategie. Obgleich die Gestaltung von IKT-Services in nachhaltigkeitsrelevanten Bereichen ein großes Marktpotential verspricht, birgt das Innovationsmanagement für KMU einige Risiken. Um diese Herausforderungen zu adressieren motiviert diese Arbeit Living Labs, als Innovationsinfrastruktur, um den spezifischen Bedarfen von KMU für ein nachhaltiges Innovationsmanagement gerecht zu werden. Auf der Basis von 15 semi-strukturierten Interviews mit 7 KMU, die IKT-Lösungen in den Bereichen Wohnen und Mobilität entwickeln, wurden Herausforderungen sowie etablierte Strategien für ein nachhaltiges Innovationsmanagement erhoben sowie Potenziale und mögliche Risiken von Living Labs exploriert. Die Studie zeigt KMU spezifische Bedarfe auf, die eine Anpassung des Living Lab Ansatzes als Service-Dienstleistungen erforderlich machen.
Opportunities for Sustainable Mobility: Re-thinking Eco-feedback from a Citizen's Perspective
(2019)
In developed nations, a growing emphasis is being placed on the promotion of sustainable behaviours amongst individuals, or ‘citizen-consumers’. In HCI, various eco-feedback tools have been designed as persuasive instruments, with a strong normative appeal geared to encouraging citizens to conduct a more sustainable mobility. However, many critiques have been formulated regarding this ‘paternalistic’ stance. In this paper, we switched the perspective from a designer’s to a citizen’s point of view and explored how people would use eco-feedback tools to support sustainable mobility in their city. In the study, we conducted 14 interviews with citizens who had used eco-feedback previously. The findings indicate new starting points that could inform future eco-feedback tools. These encompass: (1) better information regarding how sustainable mobility is measured and monitored; (2) respect for individual mobility situations and preferences; and (3) the scope for participation and the sharing of responsibility between citizens and municipal city services.
The Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales, BMA) is supporting 73 projects in Germany using European Union (EU) funds in the amount of € 26 million. By providing the subsidies, the European Commission and the German Federal Government are hoping to implement Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) among German small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The project run by Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University is one of these CSR projects. It is aimed at providing comprehensive information on CSR to the businesses in question and at emphasizing their responsibility along the supply chain.
Critical consumerism is complex as ethical values are difficult to negotiate, appropriate products are hard to find, and product information is overwhelming. Although recommender systems offer solutions to reduce such complexity, current designs are not appropriate for niche practices and use non-personalized intransparent ethics. To support critical consumption, we conducted a design case study on a personalized food recommender system. Therefore, we first conducted an empirical pre-study with 24 consumers to understand value negotiations and current practices, co-designed the recommender system, and finally evaluated it in a real-world trial with ten consumers. Our findings show how recommender systems can support the negotiation of ethical values within the context of consumption practices, reduce the complexity of finding products and stores, and strengthen consumers. In addition to providing implications for the design to support critical consumption practices, we critically reflect on the scope of such recommender systems and its appropriation.
Since stationary self-checkout is widely introduced and well understood, previous research barely examined newer generations of smartphone-based Scan&Go. Especially from a design perspective, we know little about the factors contributing to the adoption of Scan&Go solutions and how design enables consumers to take full advantage of this development rather than being burdened with using complex and unenjoyable systems. To understand the influencing factors and the design from a consumer perspective, we conducted a mixed-methods study where we triangulated data of an online survey with 103 participants and a qualitative study with 20 participants. Based on the results, our study presents a refined and nuanced understanding of technology as well as infrastructure-related factors that influence adoption. Moreover, we present several implications for designing and implementing of Scan&Go in retail environments.
Bisherige Versuche der HCI-Community die Lebensmittelverschwendung oder den CO2-Fußabdruck zu reduzieren, basierten meist auf Persuasive Design Ansätzen. Diese werden jedoch kritisiert, die Alltagswelten und Konsumpraktiken für eine Langzeitwirkung nur unzureichend zu berücksichtigen. Das Problem aufgreifend, untersucht dieser Beitrag die Rolle (digitaler) Medien im Übergang zu einer veganen Ernährungspraktik. Hierfür wurden semi-strukturierte Interviews mit 9 VeganerInnen geführt und vor dem Hintergrund der Praxistheorie analysiert. Die Ergebnisse deuten dabei auf eine intensive Nutzung (digitaler) Medien, insbesondere in der frühen Phase der Änderung der Konsumpraktik. Statt Gamification oder Persuasive Design, zeigt sich Mediennutzung in Form von Irritation, Informationsbereitstellung zur Ausbildung eines vegan-spezifischen Konsumwissens sowie als Vermittler zwischen Gleichgesinnten.
Recent publications propose concepts of systems that integrate the various services and data sources of everyday food practices. However, this research does not go beyond the conceptualization of such systems. Therefore, there is a deficit in understanding how to combine different services and data sources and which design challenges arise from building integrated Household Information Systems. In this paper, we probed the design of an Integrated Household Information System with 13 participants. The results point towards more personalization, automatization of storage administration and enabling flexible artifact ecologies. Our paper contributes to understanding the design and usage of Integrated Household Information Systems, as a new class of information systems for HCI research.
With the debates on climate change and sustainability, a reduction of the share of cars in the modal split has become increasingly prevalent in both public and academic discourse. Besides some motivational approaches, there is a lack of ICT artifacts that successfully raise the ability of consumers to adopt sustainable mobility patterns. To further understand the requirements and the design of these artifacts within everyday mobility adopted a practice-lens. This lens is helpful to get a broader perspective on the use of ICT artifacts along consumers’ transformational journey towards sustainable mobility practices. Based on 12 retrospective interviews with car-free mobility consumers, we argue that artifacts should not be viewed as ’magic-bullet’ solutions but should accompany the complex transformation of practices in multifaceted ways. Moreover, we highlight in particular the difficulties of appropriating shared infrastructures and aligning own practices with them. This opens up a design space to provide more support for these kinds of material-interactions, to provide access to consumption infrastructures and make them usable, rather than leaving consumers alone with increased motivation.
In this paper, we present the results of a controlled human experiment where students in a business process modelling course had to model a business process from a case study as part of their coursework. One group could take advantage of the continuous validation feature that is implemented in the bflow modelling tool, i.e. they were provided with alerts about modelling errors. A control group had to create a model for the same case study without using continuous validation. The results of the experiment indicate that the presence of continuous validation indeed has had a positive effect on the number of syntactic errors in business process models.
Measuring the Understandability of Business Process Models - Are We Asking the Right Questions?
(2011)
Befunde und Reflexion zur Studie: Internetnutzung in den Unternehmen der Region Bonn/Rhein-Sieg
(2002)
Current research in augmented, virtual, and mixed reality (XR) reveals a lack of tool support for designing and, in particular, prototyping XR applications. While recent tools research is often motivated by studying the requirements of non-technical designers and end-user developers, the perspective of industry practitioners is less well understood. In an interview study with 17 practitioners from different industry sectors working on professional XR projects, we establish the design practices in industry, from early project stages to the final product. To better understand XR design challenges, we characterize the different methods and tools used for prototyping and describe the role and use of key prototypes in the different projects. We extract common elements of XR prototyping, elaborating on the tools and materials used for prototyping and establishing different views on the notion of fidelity. Finally, we highlight key issues for future XR tools research.
Over the last decades, different kinds of design guides have been created to maintain consistency and usability in interactive system development. However, in the case of spatial applications, practitioners from research and industry either have difficulty finding them or perceive such guides as lacking relevance, practicability, and applicability. This paper presents the current state of scientific research and industry practice by investigating currently used design recommendations for mixed reality (MR) system development. We analyzed and compared 875 design recommendations for MR applications elicited from 89 scientific papers and documentation from six industry practitioners in a literature review. In doing so, we identified differences regarding four key topics: Focus on unique MR design challenges, abstraction regarding devices and ecosystems, level of detail and abstraction of content, and covered topics. Based on that,we contribute to the MR design research by providing three factors for perceived irrelevance and six main implications for design recommendations that are applicable in scientific and industry practice.
Augmented/Virtual Reality (AR/VR) is still a fragmented space to design for due to the rapidly evolving hardware, the interdisciplinarity of teams, and a lack of standards and best practices. We interviewed 26 professional AR/VR designers and developers to shed light on their tasks, approaches, tools, and challenges. Based on their work and the artifacts they generated, we found that AR/VR application creators fulfill four roles: concept developers, interaction designers, content authors, and technical developers. One person often incorporates multiple roles and faces a variety of challenges during the design process from the initial contextual analysis to the deployment. From analysis of their tool sets, methods, and artifacts, we describe critical key challenges. Finally, we discuss the importance of prototyping for the communication in AR/VR development teams and highlight design implications for future tools to create a more usable AR/VR tool chain.
IT–Servicemanagement in KMU
(2006)
As from the beginning of the late 70's an impressive number of innovative electronic payment systems have been developed and tested commercially. However, the resulting variety and complexity of the systems have turned out to be one of the obstacles for the broad acceptance of electronic payment. In this paper we propose a process and service oriented framework, which offers a structural and conceptual orientation in the field of electronic payment. It renders possible an integral view on electronic payment that goes beyond the frame of an individual system. To do this, we have generalized the systems-oriented approaches to a phase-oriented payment model. Using this model, requirements and supporting services for electronic payment can be sorted systematically and described from both the customers' and the merchants' viewpoint. Providing integrated payment processes and services is proving to be a difficult task. With this paper we would like to outline the necessity for a Payment Service Provider to act as a mediator for suppliers and users of electronic payment systems.
Smart heating systems are one of the core components of smart homes. A large portion of domestic energy consumption is derived from HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) systems, making them a relevant topic of the efforts to support an energy transition in private housing. For that reason, the technology has attracted attention both from the academic and the industry communities. User interfaces of smart heating systems have evolved from simple adjusting knobs to advanced data visualization interfaces, that allow for more advanced setting such as time tables and status information. With the advent of AI, we are interested in exploring how the interfaces will be evolving to build the connection between user needs and underlying AI system. Hence, this paper is targeted to provide early design implications towards an AI-based user interface for smart heating systems.
Reducing energy consumption is one of the most pursued economic and ecologic challenges concerning societies as a whole, individuals and organizations alike. While politics start taking measures for energy turnaround and smart home energy monitors are becoming popular, few studies have touched on sustainability in office environments so far, though they account for almost every second workplace in modern economics. In this paper, we present findings of two parallel studies in an organizational context using behavioral change oriented strategies to raise energy awareness. Next to demonstrating potentials, it shows that energy feedback needs must fit to the local organizational context to succeed and should consider typical work patterns to foster accountability of consumption.
Reducing energy consumption is one of the most pursued economic and ecologic challenges concerning societies as a whole, individuals and organizations alike. While politics start taking measures for energy turnaround and smart home energy monitors are becoming popular, few studies have touched on sustainability in office environments so far, though they account for almost every second workplace in modern economics. In this paper, we present findings of two parallel studies in an organizational context using behavioral change oriented strategies to raise energy awareness. Next to demonstrating potentials, it shows that energy feedback needs must fit to the local organizational context to succeed and should consider typical work patterns to foster accountability of consumption.
Kleinere, günstigere und effizientere Sensoren und Aktoren sowie Funkprotokolle haben dazu geführt, dass Smart Home Produkte in zunehmend auch für den privaten Massenmarkt erschwinglich werden. Damit stehen Hersteller und Anbieter vor der Herausforderung, komplexe cyber-physische Systeme für Jedermann handhabbar zu gestalten. Es fehlen allerdings empirische Erkenntnisse über die Rolle von Smart Home im Alltag. Wir präsentieren Ergebnisse aus einer Living Lab Studie, in der 14 Haushalte mit einer am Markt erhältlichen Smart Home Nachrüstlösung ausgestattet und über neun Monate empirisch begleitet wurden. Anhand der Analyse von Interviews, Beobachtungen und Co-Design Workshops in den Phasen der Produktauswahl, Installation, Konfiguration und längerfristigen Nutzung zeigen wir Herausforderungen und Potentiale von Smart Home Systemen auf. Unsere Erkenntnisse deuten darauf hin, dass das Smart Home immer noch von technischen Details dominiert wird. Zugleich fehlen Nutzern angemessene Steuerungs- und Kontrollmöglichkeiten, um weiterhin die Entscheidungshoheit im eigenen Zuhause zu behalten.
Smart home systems are becoming an integral feature of the emerging home IT market. Under this general term, products mainly address issues of security, energy savings and comfort. Comprehensive systems that cover several use cases are typically operated and managed via a unified dashboard. Unfortunately, research targeting user experience (UX) design for smart home interaction that spans several use cases or covering the entire system is scarce. Furthermore, existing comprehensive and user-centered longterm studies on challenges and needs throughout phases of information collection, installation and operation of smart home systems are technologically outdated. Our 18-month Living Lab study covering 14 households equipped with smart home technology provides insights on how to design for improving smart home appropriation. This includes a stronger sensibility for household practices during setup and configuration, flexible visualizations for evolving demands and an extension of smart home beyond the location.
New cars are increasingly "connected" by default. Since not having a car is not an option for many people, understanding the privacy implications of driving connected cars and using their data-based services is an even more pressing issue than for expendable consumer products. While risk-based approaches to privacy are well established in law, they have only begun to gain traction in HCI. These approaches are understood not only to increase acceptance but also to help consumers make choices that meet their needs. To the best of our knowledge, perceived risks in the context of connected cars have not been studied before. To address this gap, our study reports on the analysis of a survey with 18 open-ended questions distributed to 1,000 households in a medium-sized German city. Our findings provide qualitative insights into existing attitudes and use cases of connected car features and, most importantly, a list of perceived risks themselves. Taking the perspective of consumers, we argue that these can help inform consumers about data use in connected cars in a user-friendly way. Finally, we show how these risks fit into and extend existing risk taxonomies from other contexts with a stronger social perspective on risks of data use.
In January 2015, German trade and industry announced to support the national animal welfare initiative "Initiative Tierwohl" (ITW) which stands for a more sustainable and animal-friendly meat production. A web content analysis shows that the ITW initiative has been widely picked up and discussed by online media and that user comments are quite heterogeneous. The current study identifies different types of consumers through factor and cluster analysis and is based on an online survey as well as face-to-face interviews. According to our results, the identified consumer groups demonstrate a rather passive comment behaviour on the internet. In fact, the internet was hardly mentioned as an information source for meat production; consumers more frequently referred to brochures, leaflets and personal contacts with sales personnel.
Agricultural activities within the city boundaries have a long history in both developed and developing countries. Especially in developing countries these activities contribute to food security and the mitigation of malnutrition (food grown for home consumption). They generate additional income and contribute to recreation, environmental health as well as social interaction. In this paper, a broad approach of Urban AgriCulture is used, which includes the production of crops in urban and peri-urban areas and ranges in developed countries from allotment gardens (Schrebergarten) over community gardens (Urban Gardening) to semi-entrepreneurial self-harvest farms and fully commercialized agriculture (Urban Farming). Citizens seek to make a shift from traditional to new (sustainable) forms of food supply. From this evolves a demand for urban spaces that can be used agriculturally. The way how these citizens’ initiatives can be supported and their contribution to a resilient and sustainable urban food system increasingly attracts attention. This paper presents an empirical case study on Urban AgriCulture initiatives in the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg region (Germany). Urban AgriCulture is still a niche movement with the potential to contribute more significantly to urban development and constitute a pillar of urban quality of life.
Urban food systems consist of many stakeholders with different perspectives, different interests and different governance tools. This study aimed at developing potential future scenarios for the food system of Cologne by analysing the system with a Delphi approach. In our research-design, the suitability of the Delphi-method was evaluated not only as a tool for future modelling and scenario design, but also as a communication tool among the group of participants on a multi-stakeholder-platform. As a case study, the Food Policy Council of Cologne, Germany was used. Cologne can be seen as a forerunner among German cities in the development of a new urban food policy. Some of the successful steps to re-envisioning food as an urban system include joining the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, the decision of the City Council to become an edible city and the establishment of a Food Policy Council. For the study it was important to capture participants’ visions of a common goal regarding the governance of the urban food system and also to identify mental ‘silos’. It was obvious that the municipality of Cologne together with the Food Policy Council made great efforts towards participatory processes to build a vision for a sustainable and regional food supply. However, many stakeholder-groups in the process still work exclusively among themselves and do not actively practice the confrontation with the viewpoints of other relevant groups. This supports the maintenance of ‘silos’ and leaves little room for face-to-face discussions. Therefore, the primary aim of this study is to explore key components of food provisioning in the future for Cologne while confronting all stakeholders (municipal administration and politicians, farmers and food activists) with the perspectives of all group members. We used a multi-stakeholder Delphi approach with 19 panellists to find out essential components of the municipal regional food provisioning system in Cologne. Unique in this Delphi study is the bringing together of municipal administration, regional urban farmers and food activists. The research is still on-going, but preliminary results show that more communication among all relevant actors, especially horizontally among different city departments, in the urban food system is needed.