dr. A. Karahanoglu (Armagan)

I am a design researcher focused on human-centred experience design in personal health technologies. Currently, I am an Assistant Professor at the University of Twente in the Interaction Design Research Group since February 2017. I hold a PhD from Middle East Technical University (METU), Turkey, where I also worked as a researcher in the Department of Industrial Design and the Product Usability Testing Unit (UTEST). During my PhD, I was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and studied at Carnegie Mellon University's Human-Computer Interaction Institute (USA). I have been an Assistant Professor at TOBB University of Economics and Technology (Ankara, Turkey), where I received two TUBITAK Research grants. 

My research centres on experience and human-centred design, particularly in the context of personal health technologies such as personal informatics and self-tracking tools. I investigate how interaction design can create socially and personally acceptable self-tracking technologies. Currently, I focus on data sensemaking in health management, exploring the role of interaction design in tracking physical activity, exercise, sports, and injury rehabilitation. My work integrates physiology, psychology, and interaction design to craft meaningful data interactions for promoting physical activity and sports engagement. Recently, I aim to answer the following research questions:

• What are the current user practices of meaningful (data) interactions in personal health technologies?
• How can we transform this knowledge into novel personal health technologies?
• What should be the role of designers in this transformation?

For more up-to-date information, please check my website: www.armagank.com

Expertise

• Computer Science

  • Design
  • User
  • User Experience
  • Contexts
  • Models

• Psychology

  • Quality
  • Research
  • Motivation

Organisations

I work on discovering ways to understand people’s experiences with health data better (see this paper and this paper), developing tools to assist tangible tools for recovery (see this chapter) and long-lasting (see this paper), and contributing to understanding people’s data sensemaking practices. My work is also connected to the women's health research theme of TechMed center.

I am interested in the roles of (data) interaction design and interaction technology in health and wellbeing, especially in self-tracking physical activity and sports. My work combines physiology and psychology with interaction design to understand and design meaningful (data) interactions for physical activity and sports engagement. I am the recipient of the NWO-SSH Open Competition XS grant (2022) and one of the co-recipients of the PIHC innovation fund (2023).

My key Recent Publications are as follows:

⭐️ Karahanoğlu, A., Coskun, A., Postma, D, Scheltinga, B., Gouveia, R., Reidsma, D., and Renalda, J. (2024). Is it just a score? : Understanding and Supporting Runners’ Training Load Management Practices Beyond Sports Tracking. In Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’24), May 11–16, 2024, Honolulu, HI, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 18 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642051 (Honorable mention 🏆) pdf link

⭐️ Elvitigala, D., Karahanoğlu, A., Matviienko, A., Vidal, L. V., Postma, D., Jones,M., Montoya, M.F., Harrison,D. Elbaek, L., Daiber, F., Burr, L., Patibanda, R. Buono, P., Hamalainen, P., van Delden, R. Bernhaupt, R., Ren, X.,  van Rheden, V., Zambetta, F., van den Hoven, E., Lallemand, C., Reidsma, D., and Mueller, F. (2024). Grand Challenges in SportsHCI. In Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’24), May 11–16, 2024, Honolulu, HI, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 20 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642050. Forthcoming.

⭐️ Postma, D., van Delden, R., Reidsma, D. & Karahanoğlu, A. (2024). From Metrics to Experiences: Investigating How Sport Data Shapes the Social Context, Self-Determination and Motivation of Athletes, Interacting with Computers, iwae012, https://doi.org/10.1093/iwc/iwae012 (Open access)

⭐️ Postma, D., Karahanoğlu, A., Delden, R., Reidsma, D. (2023). The Cost of Reward: A Critical Reflection on the ‘What’, ‘How’, and ‘Why’ of Gamification for Motivation in Sports. In Companion Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY Companion ’23), October 10–13, 2023, Stratford, ON, Canada. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 3 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3573382.3616102 pdf link

⭐️ Ekhtiar, T., Karahanoğlu, A., Gouveia, R., and Ludden, G. (2023). Goals for Goal Setting: A Scoping Review on Personal Informatics. InDesigning Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’23), July 10–14, 2023, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3563657.3596087 (Honorable mention 🏆) pdf link

⭐️ Coskun, A., & Karahanoğlu, A. (2022). Data Sensemaking in Self-Tracking: Towards a New Generation of Self-Tracking Tools, International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, 39:12, 2339-2360 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2022.2075637 pdf link 

Publications

Research profiles

I teach courses primarily focused on human-centred design, interaction design, creativity and design thinking, and design for behaviour change. I currently contribute to the Industrial Design Engineering (IDE), Creative Technology, and Interaction Technology programs. Since September 2024, I have been coordinating the Human-Technology Relations master's track of the IDE program.

Affiliated study programs

Courses academic year 2024/2025

Courses in the current academic year are added at the moment they are finalised in the Osiris system. Therefore it is possible that the list is not yet complete for the whole academic year.

Courses academic year 2023/2024

Address

University of Twente

Horst Complex (building no. 20), room W254
De Horst 2
7522 LW Enschede
Netherlands

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Organisations