An information environment is a context in which content is editorially reviewed and curated, such as museums, exhibitions, archives, or scientific online portals. Users navigate these environments independently and based on their own interests. The IWM investigates how such environments should be designed to capture attention, inspire trust, and encourage long-term understanding.
Key topics include:
The IWM is currently creating a real-world laboratory for research in museum contexts, the MuseumsLab. Exhibition situations can be analysed and further developed in a controlled environment. Eye tracking, motion analysis, and other multimodal methods provide precise insights into attention and comprehension processes.
The Multimodal Interaction lab conducts research into the interaction of digital information on the basis of different sensory and motoric modalities. The focus is on the multimodal handling of multiple information resources and on the use of sensor-based interaction modalities, such as multi touch or brain-computer interfaces.
The Realistic Depictions lab focuses on the processes underlying information processing and knowledge acquisition when viewing vivid static and dynamic visualizations, such as illustrations, videos or virtual environments.
In the Aesthetics and Learning lab, we aim to understand how aesthetic experiences can be a source of learning and what can be learned from aesthetic experience. The lab takes a blended approach that aims to transfer findings from controlled experimental laboratory settings to ecologically valid real-life informal learning settings with a particular focus on museums.
The Perception and Action lab investigates processes of human perception and action in digital knowledge environments. These environments are often dynamic (e.g. educational videos), agentic/social (allowing interaction with human and digital agents), and noisy (e.g., containing misinformation and opposing opinions).
The research of the Knowledge Construction lab focuses on media settings in which groups work together on a joint knowledge artefact (e.g., a knowledge platform). In these settings, knowledge is usually not exchanged directly between users but via the artefact (the media platform) and the processes that take place there. In such situations, new knowledge develops at both the individual and the group levels.