Sven Kratz

I am a Senior Research Engineer at Snapchat's HCI Group, based in Seattle.

I am passionate about inventing new interactive technologies that improve the users’ experience and empowers them with new and exciting capabilities. I am a full-stack interactive systems engineer and who invents interactive artifacts from electronics up to the UI software. I have a keen interest in applying AI and machine learning to create new interactive applications and experiences, by allowing machines to understand human gestures, activities, mental and physical states. As a Human-Computer Interaction researcher, I value the importance improving the usability and UX of new technologies through studying actual users. My work has resulted in multiple patents and has been published at top venues in the field.

Prior to joining Snapchat, I worked as a Senior UX engineer building UI for self-driving trucks at Kodiak Robotics. From 2017-2018, I was member of the Future Experience Team at Harman International. Before that, I worked as a research scientist at FX Palo Alto Laboratory (FXPAL). During my Ph. D. studies, I worked as a research assistant at Media Informatics and Human-Computer Interaction Group at the University of Munich , Germany, where I obtained my Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2012. From 2008–2011, I worked as a a junior researcher and Ph.D. student within the Quality and Usability Group at Telekom Innovation Laboratories, TU Berlin, Germany. I interned at the Microsoft Applied Sciences Group in the summers of 2010 and 2011. I hold a Diplom degree in Computer Science from RWTH Aachen University, Germany.

My Resume

Peer-Reviewed Publications

2022

[P32]

Lei Zhang, Tianying Chen, Olivia Seow, Tim Chong, Sven Kratz, Yu Jiang Tham, Andrés Monroy-Hernández, Rajan Vaish, Fannie Liu
Auggie: Encouraging Effortful Communication through Handcrafted Digital Experiences
arXiv preprint arXiv:2207.07771,

[bib]

2019

[P31]

Daniel Avrahami, Mitesh Patel, Yusuke Yamaura, Sven Kratz, Matthew Cooper
Unobtrusive activity recognition and position estimation for work surfaces using rf-radar sensing
ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems (TiiS),

[bib]

2018

[P30]

Sebastian Günther, Sven Kratz, Daniel Avrahami, Max Mühlhäuser
Exploring audio, visual, and tactile cues for synchronous remote assistance
Proceedings of the 11th PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments Conference,

[bib]

[P29]

Daniel Avrahami, Mitesh Patel, Yusuke Yamaura, Sven Kratz
Below the Surface: Unobtrusive Activity Recognition for Work Surfaces using RF-radar sensing
ACM Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2018), Tokyo, Japan

[bib]

2017

[P28]

Sven Kratz, Tony Dunnigan
ThermoTouch: a New Scalable Hardware Design for Thermal Displays
ACM International Conference on Interactive Surfaces and Spaces (ISS), Brighton, United Kingdom

[bib]

[pdf]

2016

[P27]

Wijko Rijnsburger, Sven Kratz
Personalized Presentation Annotations Using Optical HMDs
Multimedia Tools and Applications (MTAP), Springer

[bib]

[P26]

Sven Kratz, Fred Ferreira
Immersed Remotely: Evaluating the Use of Head Mounted Devices for Remote Collaboration in Robotic Telepresence
IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), New York, NY

[bib]

[pdf]

[P25]

Best Paper

Jim Vaughan, Sven Kratz, Don Kimber
Look Where You're Going: Visual Interfaces for Robot Teleoperation
IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), New York, NY

[bib]

[pdf]

[P24]

Honorable Mention

Sven Kratz, Jason Wiese
GestureSeg: Developing a Gesture Segmentation System using Gesture Execution Phase Labeling by Crowd Workers
The 8th ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems (EICS 2016), Brussels, Belgium

[bib]

[pdf]

[P23]

Matthew Cooper, Jacob Biehl, Gerry Filby, Sven Kratz
LoCo: boosting for indoor location classification combining Wi-Fi and BLE
Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Springer

[bib]

2015

[P22]

Sven Kratz, Daniel Avrahami, Don Kimber, Jim Vaughan, Patrick Proppe, Don Severns
Polly Wanna Show You: Examining Viewpoint-Conveyance Techniques for a Shoulder-Worn Telepresence System
Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2014), Industrial Case Studies, Copenhagen, Denmark

[bib]

[pdf]

2014

[P21]

Barry Kollee, Sven Kratz, Tony Dunnigan
Exploring Gestural Interaction in Smart Spaces using Head Mounted Devices with Ego-Centric Sensing
Proceedings of the 2nd ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction, Honolulu, HI, USA

[bib]

[pdf]

[P20]

Jacob Biehl, Matthew Cooper, Gerry Filby, Sven Kratz
LoCo: A Ready-to-Deploy Framework for Efficient Room Localization using Wi-Fi
Proceedings of the 2014 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2014), Seattle, WA, USA

[bib]

[P19]

Sven Kratz, Don Kimber, Weiqing Su, Gwen Gordon, Don Severns
Polly: "Being There" through the Parrot and a Guide
Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2014), Industrial Case Studies, Toronto, ON, Canada

[bib]

[pdf]

[P18]

Tanvir Aumi, Sven Kratz
AirAuth: Evaluating In-Air Hand Gestures for Authentication
Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2014), Toronto, ON, Canada

[bib]

[pdf]

2013

[P17]

Sven Kratz, Patrick Chiu, Maribeth Back
PointPose: Finger Pose Estimation for Touch Input on Mobile Devices using a Depth Sensor
Interactive Tabletops and Systems (ITS) 2013, St. Andrews, Scotland, UK

[bib]

[pdf]

[P16]

Sven Kratz, Michael Rohs, Georg Essl
Combining Acceleration and Gyroscope Data for Motion Gesture Recognition using Classifiers with Dimensionality Constraints
IUI '13, Santa Monica, CA, USA

[bib]

[pdf]

[P15]

Katrin Wolf, Robert Schleicher, Sven Kratz, Michael Rohs
Tickle: A Surface-Independent Interaction Technique for Grasp Interfaces
TEI '13, Barcelona, Spain

[bib]

2012

[P14]

Sven Kratz, Dennis Guse, Michael Rohs, Jörg Müller, Gilles Bailly, Michael Nischt
PalmSpace: Continuous Around-Device Gestures vs. Multitouch for 3D Rotation Tasks on Mobile Devices
AVI '12, Capri Island, Italy

[bib]

[pdf]

[P13]

Gilles Bailly, Jörg Müller, Michael Rohs, Daniel Wigdor, Sven Kratz
ShoeSense: A New Perspective on Gestural Interaction and Wearable Applications
CHI'12, Austin, Texas, USA

[bib]

2011

[P12]

Christine Kühnel, Tilo Westermann, Fabian Hemmert, Sven Kratz, Alexander Müller, Sebastian Möller
I'm home: Defining and evaluating a gesture set for smart-home control
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies,

[bib]

[P11]

Robert Schleicher, Alireza Sahami Shirazi, Michael Rohs, Sven Kratz, Albrecht Schmidt
Worldcupinion experiences with an android app for real-time opinion sharing during soccer world cup games
International Journal of Mobile Human Computer Interaction (IJMHCI),

[bib]

[P10]

Alireza Sahami Shirazi, Michael Rohs, Robert Schleicher, Sven Kratz, Alexander Müller, Albrecht Schmidt
Real-Time Nonverbal Opinion Sharing through Mobile Phones during Sports Events
Proceedings of CHI 2011, Vancouver, Canada, May 7-12, 2011. Note,

[bib]

[P9]

Sven Kratz, Michael Rohs
Protractor3D: A Closed-Form Solution to Rotation-Invariant 3D Gestures
IUI '11, Palo Alto, CA, USA

[bib]

[pdf]

2010

[P8]

Sven Kratz, Ivo Brodien, Michael Rohs
Semi-automatic zooming for mobile map navigation
MobileHCI '10, Lisbon, Portugal

[bib]

[pdf]

[P7]

Georg Essl, Michael Rohs, Sven Kratz
Use the Force (or something) - Pressure and Pressure-Like Input for Mobile Music Performance
Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2010), Sydney, Australia

[bib]

[P6]

Craig Stewart, Michael Rohs, Sven Kratz, Georg Essl
Characteristics of pressure-based input for mobile devices
CHI '10, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

[bib]

[P5]

Sven Kratz, Michael Rohs
A $3 gesture recognizer: simple gesture recognition for devices equipped with 3D acceleration sensors
IUI '10, Hong Kong, China

[bib]

[pdf]

[P4]

Sven Kratz, Michael Rohs
Extending the Virtual Trackball Metaphor to Rear Touch Input
Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces (3DUI 2010), Waltham, MA, USA

[bib]

[pdf]

2009

[P3]

Christian Kray, Michael Rohs, Jonathan Hook, Sven Kratz
Bridging the gap between the Kodak and the Flickr generations: A novel interaction technique for collocated photo sharing
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies,

[bib]

[P2]

Sven Kratz, Michael Rohs
HoverFlow: Expanding the Design Space of Around-Device Interaction
MobileHCI '09, Bonn, Germany

[bib]

[pdf]

[P1]

Honorable Mention

Sven Kratz, Rafael Ballagas
Unravelling Seams: Improving Mobile Gesture Recognition with Visual Feedback Techniques
Proceedings of the 27th international conference on Human factors in computing systems (CHI 2009), Boston, MA, USA

[bib]

[pdf]

Demos, Posters and Workshop Papers

2016

[W22]

Sven Kratz, Tony Dunnigan
ThermoTouch: Design of a High Dynamic (Temperature) Range Thermal Haptic Display
CHI 2016 Late Breaking Results, San Jose, CA

[bib]

[pdf]

2015

[W21]

Sven Kratz, Maribeth Back
Towards Accurate Automatic Segmentation of IMU-Tracked Motion Gestures
CHI 2015 Extended Abstracts, Seoul, Korea

[bib]

[W20]

Jennifer Marlow, Daniel Avrahami, Jacob Biehl, Scott Carter, Cooper Matthew, Don Kimber, Sven Kratz
'Good Enough' is not Good Enough: Challenges of Social Interaction in Video-Mediated Telepresence
Presented at "Everyday Telepresence" workshop at CHI 2015, Seoul, Korea

[bib]

[W19]

Sven Kratz, Jim Vaughan, Ryota Mizutani, Don Kimber
Evaluating Stereoscopic Video with Head Tracking for Immersive Teleoperation of Mobile Telepresence Robots
10th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, Portland, OR, USA

[bib]

[pdf]

2014

[W18]

Don Kimber, Patrick Proppe, Jim Vaughan, Sven Kratz, Don Severns
Telepresence from a Guide's Shoulder
Second Workshop on Assistive Computer Vision and Robotics at ECCV2014, Zurich, Switzerland

[bib]

[W17]

Tanvir Aumi, Sven Kratz
AirAuth: Towards Attack-Resilient Biometric Authentication Using In-Air Gestures
CHI 2014 Extended Abstracts, Toronto, CA,

[bib]

[pdf]

2013

[W16]

Sven Kratz, Patrick Chiu, Maribeth Back
PointPose demo: using a depth camera for finger pose estimation on touch-based mobile devices
Proceedings of the 2013 ACM international conference on Interactive tabletops and surfaces,

[bib]

[pdf]

[W15]

Sven Kratz, Jim Vaughan, Maribeth Back
VoroPoint: Improving Gesture-Based Target Selection on Large Displays
Adjunct Proceedings of the International Symposium on Pervasive Displays 2013, Mountain View, CA, USA

[bib]

[pdf]

2012

[W14]

Sven Kratz, Rohs Michael, Felix Reitberger, Moldenhauer Joerg
Attjector: An Attention Following Wearable Micro-Projector
The First Workshop on Kinect in Pervasive Computing, in conjunction with Pervasive 2012, Newcastle, United Kingdom

[bib]

[pdf]

2011

[W13]

Qian Qin, Michael Rohs, Sven Kratz
Dynamic ambient lighting for mobile devices
UIST '11 Adjunct, Santa Barbara, California, USA

[bib]

[W12]

Dennis Guse, Niklas Kirschnick, Sven Kratz, Sebastian Möller
Gesture-based User Authentication for Mobile Devices
Proc. MobileHCI 2011, Workshop on Body, Movement, Gesture and Tactility in Interaction with Mobile Devices, SE-Stockholm

[bib]

[W11]

Sven Kratz, Tilo Westermann, Michael Rohs, Georg Essl
CapWidgets: Tangible Widgets versus Multi-Touch Controls on Mobile Devices
Work in Progress, CHI 2011, Vancouver, Canada, May 7-12, 2011,

[bib]

2010

[W10]

Michael Rohs, Sven Kratz, Robert Schleicher, Alireza Sahami, Albrecht Schmidt
WorldCupinion: Experiences with an Android App for Real-Time Opinion Sharing during World Cup Soccer Games
Research in the Large: Using App Stores, Markets and other wide distribution channels in UbiComp research. Workshop at Ubicomp 2010, Copenhagen, Denmark

[bib]

[W9]

Benjamin Baehr, Michael Rohs, Sven Kratz
A Tabletop System for supporting Paper Prototyping of Mobile Interfaces
PaperComp 2010: 1st International Workshop on Paper Computing. Workshop at Ubicomp 2010, Copenhagen, Denmark

[bib]

[W8]

Sven Kratz, Fabian Hemmert, Michael Rohs
Natural User Interfaces in Mobile Phone Interaction
Workshop on Natural User Interfaces at CHI 2010, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

[bib]

2009

[W7]

Georg Essl, Michael Rohs, Sven Kratz
Squeezing the Sandwich: A Mobile Pressure-Sensitive Two-Sided Multi-Touch Prototype
Demonstration at the 22nd Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST), Victoria, BC, Canada,

[bib]

[W6]

Johannes Schoening, Michael Rohs, Sven Kratz, Markus Löchtefeld, Antonio Krüger
Map Torchlight: A Mobile Augmented Reality Camera Projector Unit
CHI '09, Boston, MA, USA

[bib]

[W5]

Sven Kratz, Michael Rohs
Unobtrusive Tabletops: Linking Personal Devices with Regular Tables
Workshop Multitouch and Surface Computing at CHI'09, Boston, MA, USA

[bib]

2008

[W4]

Christian Kray, Michael Rohs, Jonathan Hook, Sven Kratz
Group Coordination and Negotiation through Spatial Proximity Regions around Mobile Devices on Augmented Tabletops
3rd IEEE Workshop on Tabletops and Interactive Surfaces (IEEE Tabletop 2008),

[bib]

[W3]

Sven Kratz, Michael Rohs
Navigating Dynamically-Generated High Quality Maps on Tilt-Sensing Mobile Devices
Workshop on Mobile and Embedded Interactive Systems (MEIS at Informatik 2008), Munich, Germany, September 11, 2008,

[bib]

2007

[W2]

Sven Kratz, Rafael Ballagas
Gesture recognition using motion estimation on mobile phones
Proc. of 3rd International Workshop on Pervasive Mobile Interaction Devices (PERMID'07),

[bib]

[W1]

Rafael A Ballagas, Sven Kratz, Jan Borchers, Eugen Yu, Steffen P Walz, Claudia O Fuhr, Ludger Hovestadt, Martin Tann
REXplorer: a mobile, pervasive spell-casting game for tourists
CHI'07 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems,

[bib]