Joatan Preis Dutra :: Projects
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Projects and Research Statement


Research Statement | AR: Cultural hARitage | Game: StreetDroids | Short-term projects

Research Statement

I see myself as a transdisciplinary researcher. Being initially from the humanities field, then shifting to design and digital media, made my academic portfolio positively interdisciplinary. In some of the research projects I developed, I aimed to align culture and technology, emphasising UX/UI, screen design and usability aspects. One example is the cultural hARitage project, which dealt with Augmented Reality and Cultural Heritage. Another example was my PhD project, in which I developed mobile app guidelines for world heritage sites recognised by UNESCO in urban scenarios. One of my main interests is exploring different ways the relation between users and public spaces can occur, from getting cultural context-aware information to enhanced way-finding.

Designing screen interactions is an ever-evolving field that changes fast with technological advances. It is clear that, nowadays, we live in a mediatised society, and the urban media interactions are intrinsic amalgamated into our social behaviour. Still, new challenges arrive every time a new service or technology is present to users, and designers must know how to make these interactions smoothly..

Another subject that I have explored is urban communication design through studies about the relation and interaction between digital media and urban spaces. But also, how the public visual communication is displayed in urban scenarios, such as pictograms and icons, affects the wayfinding and general use.

Besides my academic activities, I had the opportunity of being involved in collaborative projects, from short to long periods of development, collaborating with universities and institutions spread around the globe. I can mention institutions such as:

  • Central European University - Austria (2022);
  • White City Center - Israel (2019);
  • University of Split - Croatia (2019);
  • Edinburgh Napier University - UK (2019);
  • Cyprus Institute (2017);
  • Universidade Lusófona - Portugal (2017);
  • Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences - Netherlands (2016);
  • Università degli Studi di Milano - Italy (2015);
  • University of Thessaly - Greece (2014);
  • iMAL Center for digital cultures and technology - Belgium (2014);
  • University at Buffalo - USA (2013);
  • TU Wien - Austria (2009)
More details about these short-term projects can be found at 'workshops'.

Summarising, the topics that I am interested (but not limited) to research could be described as:

  • Interface Design Usability for different scenarios (Apps, AR, VR, Games, eTourism, etc.)
  • Mobile Design and Context-Aware/Location-Based interaction
  • Digital Media Interaction in Urban/Open Air scenarios
  • Pictorial Visual Urban Communication
  • Cross-platform Media Design
Along with my academic networking, were developed short-term projects, and long-term projects (listed below).
On below projects I played the role as administrator and designer leader.


UX/UI guidelines for world heritage sites' apps

Cultural Heritage on Mobile Devices: Building guidelines for UNESCO world heritage sites' apps.
Germany - 2016-2021

One of the outcomes from this research is to create guidelines for the use of mobile apps applied on cultural heritage sites from UNESCO, taking Weimar (Classical Weimar, and Bauhaus sites) as practical example. This research deals with User Interface guidelines for different target groups, according with their age, interests and needs.

UX-UI Bauhaus
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cultural hARitage

Augmented Reality & Cultural Heritage
Belgium / Greece / Germany - 2014-2018

The target content for this project is a combination of augmented reality technology with cultural heritage content. The content can be applied for different city backgrounds, from UNESCO's World Heritage Sites to Mythology, as can be seen on the developed project on Belgium, Greece and Germany.

cultural hARitage
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StreetDroids

Context-Aware Mobile Game
Bremen / Germany - 2011

The StreetDroids is an open mobile game where the users/players can contribute to its expansion by an available web-editor, being able also to apply the created missions on different games scenarios, taking place in the real environment, following the concept of pervasive gaming or real world mission games.

StreetDroids
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Short-term projects

Along with the PhD and Master studies, several short-term projects were developed, with a variety of interdisciplinary topics such as Games for Cities, ICTs for Sustainable Tourism, Smart Cities, Urban Media and Digital Media.

Click for details and production