VLDB 2026 Research / reviewers in the wild / expert
Oguzhan Özcan
dblp:81/8891
· DBLP profile ↗
21ranked-venue papers
0as first author
7since 2021 · last 2026
0000-0002-4410-3955ORCID · reported
Domains — the database's venue-derived domains; a paper can count in several
Human-computer interaction and ubiquitous computing · 19 · 6 since 2021Graphics, computer vision, multimedia, augmented reality and games · 4 · 1 since 2021Artificial intelligence and machine learning · 1Applied, interdisciplinary, general and emerging computing · 1
| Year | Publication | Venue | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | "How do I matter as a heritage building?" Exploring Heritage Building Agency in the Technology Era through a More-than-Human LensabstractHeritage buildings are increasingly adapted to contemporary needs through technological interventions, yet these approaches remain human-centred, leaving limited recognition of the buildings’ own capacity to shape architectural change. Drawing on critical heritage and more-than-human perspectives, we investigate how heritage buildings can be approached as agentic actors in negotiations of spatial and technological adaptation. Through thing-interviews with ten architects, speaking from the perspective of the heritage buildings they designed, we examine how buildings express self-value, engage with social infrastructures, and “sense” reshaping through material and functional transformations. We extended these insights through a design fiction session with four experts, exploring future scenarios for human-nonhuman connection, fragmented reconfiguration over time. From this, we propose three implications for designing more-than-human futures in intelligent built environments with heritage values: (1) negotiating consent and power asymmetries, (2) framing stewardship through care and companionship, and (3) rethinking authenticity beyond originality. Berk Göksenin Tan, Yagmur Kocaman, Ceylan Besevli, Oguzhan Özcan |
DIS | 4 |
| 2025 | Pick your Foodiebuddy: Travelers' Reflection on a Personal Taste Exploration GadgetabstractDesigning artifacts and interactions to influence everyday food interactions positively is gaining attention in the Human-Food Interaction (HFI) field. Prior HFI research has not yet deeply investigated the complex interactions among travelers in the context of eating while traveling, limiting the knowledge of how to design technologies for this setting. In response, we shift the perspective toward the travel context and reveal design opportunities through a study with 21 travelers. We designed “Foodiebuddy” as a research artifact – a personal mobile gadget that facilitates exploring new tastes – and organized eight walk, talk, and eat tours to investigate the experiential dynamics of eating while traveling. Our study yielded six insights and four design considerations for designing travel food technologies. Our work aspires to form an initial basis for designing artifacts for food exploration while traveling, paving the way for future HFI innovations. Yagmur Kocaman, Oguzhan Özcan |
TEI | 2 |
| 2025 | Two-hand on-skin gesture recognition: a dataset and classification network for enhanced human-computer interaction
Ege Keskin, Oguzhan Özcan, Yücel Yemez |
Vis. Comput. | 2 |
| 2024 | Learning from Users: Everyday Playful Interactions to Support Architectural Spatial ChangesabstractWhile there's growing interest in eliciting situated playful interactions with technologies in different contexts, how these interactions might shape everyday spaces still needs to be fully explored. To address this gap, this article aims to guide the architectural spatial changes by exploring everyday playful interactions of technology-adopted users in domestic spaces. We present our contributions in a two-fold study: First, through an extensive diary study involving 13 technology-adopted residents in gated communities, where distinct boundaries offer increased opportunities for playful interactions, we identified four playful themes: (1) creating and expanding play-spaces, (2) balancing play and comfort, (3) intertwining imagination with spatial experience, and (4) gamifying household interactions. Secondly, by building on these themes, we outline three design implications to inform architectural design processes, aiming to translate everyday playful interactions into tangible spatial changes. These implications include adapting shape-changing and wearable technologies for playful flexibility, embedding new forms of communications within infrastructures, and turning homes into interactive entities with multi-sensory technologies. While these findings provide a starting point for exploring new architectural design possibilities in similar environments, further research with architects, policymakers, and design researchers in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Human-Building Interaction (HBI) fields is essential to actualizing these changes. Cansu Çetin Er, Oguzhan Özcan |
Proc. ACM Hum. Comput. Interact. | 2 |
| 2023 | Exploring Users Interested in 3D Food Printing and Their Attitudes: Case of the Employees of a Kitchen Appliance Companyabstract3D Food Printing (3DFP) technology is expected to enter homes in the near future as a kitchen appliance. On the other hand, 3DFP is perceived as a non-domestic technology by potential users and domestic users’ attitudes and everyday habits received less attention in previous 3DFP research. Exploring their perspective is needed to reflect their daily kitchen dynamics on the design process and discover possible new benefits situated in the home kitchen. On this basis, this study focuses on finding potential 3DFP users and explores their attitudes towards using 3DFP technology in their home kitchens through a two-stage study: First, we prioritized potential users based on their relationship with food through a questionnaire and found six factors that positively affect their attitude towards 3DFP: cooking every day, ordering food less than once a month, eating out at least a couple of times a month, having a mini oven, a multicooker, or a kettle, liking to try new foods, thinking that cooking is a fun activity. Second, we conducted semi-structured interviews with seven participants to discuss the possible benefits and drawbacks of 3DFP technology for their daily lives in the kitchen. Results revealed two new benefits that 3DFP at home may provide: risk-free cooking and cooking for self-improvement. We discuss the potential implications of these two benefits for design and HCI research focusing on how to facilitate automation and pleasurable aspects of cooking into future 3DFP devices. Yagmur Kocaman, Asli Ermis-Mert, Oguzhan Özcan |
Int. J. Hum. Comput. Interact. | 3 |
| 2022 | Designing Physical Objects for Young Children's Magnitude Understanding: A TUI Research Through Design JourneyabstractMagnitude understanding, an understudied topic in Child-Computer Interaction, entails making nonsymbolic ‘more-less’ comparisons that influence young children's later math and academic achievements. To support this ability, designing tangible user interfaces (TUIs) demands considering many facets, ranging from elements within the physical world to the digital design components. This multifaceted activity brings many design decisions often not reflected in research. Therefore, we present this reflection via our research through design process in developing a vital design element, the physical form. We share our (i) physical object design criteria elicitation for magnitude understanding, (ii) hands-on making process, and (iii) preliminary studies with children engaging with objects. With our insights obtained through these steps, we project how this physical object-initiated research inspires the TUI in the upcoming steps and present design takeaways for CCI researchers. Ceylan Besevli, Tilbe Göksun, Oguzhan Özcan |
IDC | 3 |
| 2021 | Snowflakes: A Prototyping Tool for Computational JewelryabstractSmart-jewelry design has many layers such as comfort, ergonomics, fashionability, interactivity and functionality that create a complex design process, making the form exploration challenging. Various wearable prototyping tools were developed to overcome this challenge; however, they are usually textile-based and do not target smart jewelry design. To bridge this gap, we developed Snowflakes that differentiates from existing tools by 1) allowing designers to explore different jewelry forms, 2) incorporating external materials such as leather, 3) creating form factors that fit body parts with flexible connectors. In this paper, we explain the design process of Snowflakes which is inspired by 7 design parameters (limbs, materials, grip, fastener, decoration, placement, form) extracted through the examination of non-smart jewelry. We also demonstrate three reimplementations and design concepts implemented with Snowflakes. Our exploration with Snowflakes contributes to the wearable community in terms of smart-jewelry visual expressions, interaction modalities, and merger of traditional and computational materials. Oguz Turan Buruk, Çaglar Genç, Ihsan Ozan Yildirim, Mehmet Cengiz Onbasli, Oguzhan Özcan |
CHI | 5 |
| 2019 | MaR-T: Designing a Projection-Based Mixed Reality System for Nonsymbolic Math Development of Preschoolers: Guided by Theories of Cognition and LearningabstractRecent developmental studies state that nonsymbolic number representation (i.e., more-less comparisons) is important for math development, and children's judgment about such non-numerical magnitudes can be affected by sensory properties (i.e., volume, space). Yet, to our knowledge, there are no tangible based systems for training this math concept. Building on theories of cognition and learning, we developed MaR-T, a projector-camera setup. This paper is a step towards investigating the effects of projection-based mixed-reality (MR) system with tangibles on nonsymbolic number representation of 3- to 5-year-old children. We present our user studies with a total of 14 participants, conducted to observe their interaction with the setup and the possible effects of our design on learning. The results indicate that MaR-T can provide active, engaging, and social learning, and our insights can inspire other interaction design and education studies. Ceylan Besevli, Elif Salman, Tilbe Göksun, Hakan Urey, Oguzhan Özcan |
IDC | 5 |
| 2019 | Specifying Relevant Textural Properties for Unobtrusive Feedback on Sports PerformanceabstractTextural changes can be promising to give feedback on sportspeople's performance who needs less attention demanding modalities. However, previous research does not address which textural property's change would be more appropriate to give information in specific contexts, i.e. sports performance feedback. We focus on sport towels as a case to understand how to give feedback on sports performance through changes in textural properties. We address the gap by conducting experiments with 32 sportspeople to investigate (1) the textural properties (i.e. roughness) that can be perceived by sportspeople through a towel and (2) that can convey information on sportspeople's performance (i.e. smooth texture - good performance). The results indicate that hardness and bendability are appropriate to convey information about sportspeople's performance. To the best of our knowledge, this result is the first to explore that a change in the state of a textural property is able to give a specific feedback. Hayati Havlucu, Aykut Coskun, Oguzhan Özcan |
TEI | 3 |
| 2019 | Exploring Projection Based Mixed Reality with Tangibles for Nonsymbolic Preschool Math EducationabstractA child's early math development can stem from interactions with the physical world. Accordingly, current tangible interaction studies focus on preschool children's formal (symbolic) mathematics, i.e. number knowledge. However, recent developmental studies stress the importance of nonsymbolic number representation in math learning, i.e. understanding quantity relations without counting(more/less). To our knowledge, there are no tangible systems based on this math concept. We developed an initial tangible based mixed-reality(MR) setup with a small tabletop projector and depth camera. Our goal was observing children's interaction with the setup to guide our further design process towards developing nonsymbolic math training. In this paper, we present our observations from sessions with four 3-to-5 year old children and discuss their meaning for future work. Initial clues show that our MR setup leads to exploratory and mindful interactions, which might be generalizable to other tangible MR systems for child education and could inspire interaction design studies. Elif Salman, Ceylan Besevli, Tilbe Göksun, Oguzhan Özcan, Hakan Urey |
TEI | 4 |
| 2018 | Flow State Feedback Through Sports Wearables: A Case Study on TennisabstractFlow state is a psychological state of optimal performance. To experience flow state, one needs to receive unambiguous feedback. Previous studies have described activities with internalized feedback modalities (e.g. visual). However, they do not offer any appropriate feedback modality for the activities that may benefit from external feedback, such as opponent-based sports. Addressing the issue, we adopted a research through design process and considered tennis as our case, in which players can benefit from attaining flow [1]. This pictorial reveals our approach to design 6 wearable device concepts under 3 design themes as future directions for design practitioners and researchers. Hayati Havlucu, Terry Eskenazi, Baris Akgün, Mehmet Cengiz Onbasli, Aykut Coskun, Oguzhan Özcan |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 6 |
| 2018 | Extracting Design Guidelines for Wearables and Movement in Tabletop Role-Playing Games via a Research Through Design ProcessabstractWe believe that wearables and movement are perfect fit for enhancing tabletop role-playing (TTRPG) experience, since they can provide embodied interaction, are perceived as character-costumes, enhance ludic properties and increase the connectedness to the imaginary game worlds. By providing these improvements, they can increase the immersiveness and player/character relationship which are critical for an ideal TTRPG experience. To investigate this underexplored area, we conducted an extensive research through design process which includes a (1) participatory design workshop with 25 participants, (2) preliminary user tests with Wizard-of-Oz and experience prototypes with 15 participants, (3) production of a new game system, wearable and tangible artifacts and (4) summative user tests for understanding the effects on experience with 16 participants. As a result of our study, we extracted design guidelines about how to integrate wearables and movement in narrative-based tabletop games and communicate how the results of each phase affected our artifacts. Oguz Turan Buruk, Oguzhan Özcan |
CHI | 2 |
| 2018 | Through the Glance Mug: A Familiar Artefact to Support Opportunistic Search in MeetingsabstractDuring collocated meetings, the spontaneous need for information, called opportunistic search, might arise while conversing. However, using smartphones to look up information might be disruptive, disrespectful or even embarrassing in social contexts. We propose an alternative instrument for this practice: Glance Mug, a touch-sensitive mug prototype that listens to the conversation and displays browsable content-driven results on its inner screen. We organized 15 pairs of one-to-one meetings between students to gather user reflections. The user study revealed that the mug has the potential for supporting instant search and affords sufficient subtlety to conceal user actions. Yet, it provoked some anxiety for the users in maintaining eye contact with their partners. Our main contributions are the context-aware mug concept tested in a real-life setting and the analysis through Hornecker and Buur's Tangible Interaction Framework that discusses its design space, and its impact on the users and social interaction. Ahmet Börütecene, Idil Bostan, Ekin Akyürek, Alpay Sabuncuoglu, Ilker Temuzkusu, Çaglar Genç, Tilbe Göksun, Oguzhan Özcan |
TEI | 8 |
| 2017 | Evaluation of a Mixed Reality Head-Mounted Projection Display to Support Motion Capture Acting
Daniel Kade, Rikard Lindell, Hakan Urey, Oguzhan Özcan |
ACE | 4 |
| 2017 | Hands as a Controller: User Preferences for Hand Specific On-Skin GesturesabstractHand-specific on-skin (HSoS) gestures are a trending interaction modality yet there is a gap in the field regarding users' preferences about these gestures. Thus, we conducted a user-elicitation study collecting 957 gestures from 19 participants for 26 commands. Results indicate that (1) users use one hand as a reference object, (2) load different meanings to different parts of the hand, (3) give importance to hand-properties rather than the skin properties and (4) hands can turn into self-interfaces. Moreover, according to users' subjective evaluations, (5) exclusive gestures are less tiring than the intuitive ones. We present users' subjective evaluations regarding these and present a 33-element taxonomy to categorize them. Furthermore, we present two user-defined gesture sets; the intuitive set including users' first choices and natural-feeling gestures, and the exclusive set which includes more creative gestures indigenous to this modality. Our findings can inspire and guide designers and developers of HSoS. Idil Bostan, Oguz Turan Buruk, Mert Canat, Mustafa Ozan Tezcan, Celalettin Yurdakul, Tilbe Göksun, Oguzhan Özcan |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 7 |
| 2016 | Sensation: Measuring the Effects of a Human-to-Human Social Touch Based Controller on the Player ExperienceabstractWe observe an increasing interest on usage of full-body interaction in games. However, human-to-human social touch interaction has not been implemented as a sophisticated gaming apparatus. To address this, we designed the Sensation, a device for detecting touch patterns between players, and introduce the game, Shape Destroy, which is a collaborative game designed to be played with social touch. To understand if usage of social touch has a meaningful contribution to the overall player experience in collaborative games we conducted a user study with 30 participants. Participants played the same game using i) the Sensation and ii) a gamepad, and completed a set of questionnaires aimed at measuring the immersion levels. As a result, the collected data and our observations indicated an increase in general, shared, ludic and affective involvement with significant differences. Thus, human-to-human touch can be considered a promising control method for collaborative physical games. Mert Canat, Mustafa Ozan Tezcan, Celalettin Yurdakul, Eran Tiza, Bugra Can Sefercik, Idil Bostan, Oguz Turan Buruk, Tilbe Göksun, Oguzhan Özcan |
CHI | 9 |
| 2016 | Head Mounted Projection Display & Visual Attention: Visual Attentional Processing of Head Referenced Static and Dynamic Displays while in Motion and StandingabstractThe Head Mounted Projection Display (HMPD) is a growing interest area in HCI. Although various aspects of HMPDs have been investigated, there is not enough information regarding the effect of HMPDs (i.e., head referenced static and dynamic displays while a user is in motion and standing) on visual attentional performance. For this purpose, we conducted a user study (N=18) with three experimental conditions (control, standing, walking) and two visual perceptual tasks (with dynamic and static displays). Significant differences between conditions were only found for the task with dynamic display; accuracy was lower in walking condition compared to the other two conditions. Our work contributes an empirical investigation of the effect of HMPDs on visual attentional performance by providing data-driven benchmarks for developing graphical user interface design guidelines for HMPDs. Çaglar Genç, Shoaib Soomro, Yalçin Duyan, Selim Ölçer, Fuat Balci, Hakan Urey, Oguzhan Özcan |
CHI | 7 |
| 2016 | Temporal Expressions in Speech and Gesture
Idil Bostan, Ahmet Börütecene, Oguzhan Özcan, Tilbe Göksun |
CogSci | 3 |
| 2015 | Acting 2.0: when entertainment technology helps actors to performabstractMotion capture shoots involve a wide range of technology and entertainment production systems such as motion capture cameras, tracking software and digital environments to create entertainment applications. However, acting in this high-tech environment is still traditional and brings its own challenges to the actors. Good acting and imagination skills are highly needed for many motion capture shoots to deliver satisfying results. Daniel Kade, Rikard Lindell, Hakan Urey, Oguzhan Özcan |
Advances in Computer Entertainment | 4 |
| 2015 | Head-mounted mixed reality projection display for games production and entertainment
Daniel Kade, Kaan Aksit, Hakan Urey, Oguzhan Özcan |
Pers. Ubiquitous Comput. | 4 |
| 2014 | Head-worn mixed reality projection display applicationabstractThe main goal of this research is to develop a mixed reality (MR) application to support motion capture actors. This application allows seeing and exploring a digital environment without occluding the actor's visual field. A prototype is built by combining a retro-reflective screen covering surrounding walls and a headband consisting of a laser scanning projector with a smartphone. Built-in sensors of a smartphone provide navigation capabilities in the digital world. The integrated system has some unique advantages, which are collectively demonstrated for the first time: (i) providing fixed field-of-view (50° in diagonal), fixed retinal images at full-resolution, and distortion-free images that are independent of the screen distance and shape; (ii) presenting different perspectives to the users as they move around or tilt their heads, (iii) allowing a focus-free and calibration-free display even on non-flat surfaces using laser scanning technology, (iv) enabling multiple users to share the same screen without crosstalk due to the use of retro-reflectors, and (v) producing high brightness pictures with a projector of only 15 lm; due to a high-gain retro-reflective screen. We demonstrated a lightweight, comfortable to wear and low cost head-mounted projection display (HMPD) which acts as a stand-a-lone mobile system. Initial informal functionality tests have been successfully performed. The prototype can also be used as a 3D stereo system using the same hardware by additionally mounting polarized glasses and an active polarization rotator, while maintaining all of the advantages listed above. Kaan Aksit, Daniel Kade, Oguzhan Özcan, Hakan Urey |
Advances in Computer Entertainment | 3 |