Advanced human-computer interaction methods for the control of technical systems

Until today humans using computers to control technical systems must learn how to use and interact with a system that only understands numerical input and produces numerical output. This requires a high level of abstraction and causes a loss of necessary "feeling" how the real process works. With multimedia computing technology we are now able to reduce the level of abstraction again. By using all major human senses in combination, that are, auditory, visual, haptic and olfactory modalities, we are able to implement simple and intuitive control applications for technical equipment. This requires new strategies for the design of human computer interaction. The state of development and use of multimodal interactive user interfaces are presented. Aspects and issues of human engineering concerned with the different modalities are discussed and new paradigms of human computer interaction are introduced.