The interaction lab of the Fraunhofer IAO offers researchers and industrial partners a joint platform for the development and testing of concepts for innovative forms of interaction.

A central, end-to-end and transparent management information system with relevant visualization options is provided for »Visual project management in product development«. This application reveals in real time where discrepancies exist within a complex development project and suggests how processes can be improved. The use of relevant visualization, presentation and simulation technologies creates transparency and informs decision-makers about the status and progress of the project’s development. The visualization and integration options in VISUM enable complex aspects and multi-dimensional data records to be displayed in a semantically integrative way and to present them in a display format which is easy for the decision-maker to understand.

Automats, for example, have in various projects been made more user-friendly, prompting the development of new concepts for the design of display windows and innovative applications involving speech interaction or multi-touch technologies.

The interaction lab fulfils several functions at the same time:

• As a showroom, it can be used to present experimental interaction techniques. Customers can participate and operate the exhibits themselves as they are intuitive to use.
• Being a modern laboratory makes it possible for customers and partners to jointly research new approaches and methods for interaction technologies. In this way, ideas can be quickly realized and tested under laboratory conditions.