Why proband15 - Team, Values and Publications

Philipp Maruhn

After my studies, Sports Science and then Ergonomics - Human Factors Engineering, I worked as a research assistant at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore in the field of Future Mobility (BMW Future Mobility Research Lab). Subsequently, I worked as a research assistant at the Chair of Ergonomics at the Technical University of Munich as part of my doctoral studies. In publicly funded research projects, I evaluated AR and VR technologies to study pedestrian behavior. I then used these technologies for clients from industry to develop new display and interaction concepts.

Lorenz Prasch

I studied cognitive science in Tübingen and then Ergonomics - Human Factors Engineering in Munich. After my master's thesis in Delft (Netherlands), I finally completed my doctorate on the topic of creativity at the Chair of Ergonomics. Among other things, I led the Future Work research group and was involved in numerous research and teaching activities as a research associate. For example, I helped to develop a novel control concept for cranes, a measurement method for creativity, and a cooperative assistance function for autonomous vehicles.

Who is proband15?

Our origin story

Now that you have come so far, we don't want to deprive you of the story behind our company name. In his research, Philipp dealt with the perception and estimation of distances in virtual environments. So he put VR goggles on his test persons, who then had to estimate how many meters away a virtual object is. One of these participants was Lorenz, who stood out from the results with his particularly poor estimations. Instead of dismissing the data as an outlier, however, a closer look at the data revealed that Lorenz's binocular depth perception was flawed. Here's the thing, a deep analysis can yield insights far beyond the original research questions. And what subject number did Lorenz have? Of course the 15.

Awards

What we have been recognised for

proband15 GmbH has won the Munich Innovation Award twice. In 2022 the winning entry was our concept for digitalising Munich's municipal cemeteries — a central information platform with augmented-reality navigation to individual graves; we received the award on 19 July 2022 at the Munich Urban Colab from Deputy Mayor Katrin Habenschaden. In 2025 the award followed in the challenge "Unlocking open data potential for Munich" for Datengartln, a platform that makes the city's open data browsable. In both cases the work continued after the ceremony: the concepts were developed into working applications together with the city.

Publications

Our contributions to international research journals and conferences

2023
- Maruhn, P., Prasch, L., Gerhardinger, F., Häfner, S. (2023). Introducing VR personas: an immersive and easy-to-use tool for understanding users. i-com, 22(3), 215-223.
- Adam, C., Prasch, L., Nevermann, S., Bengler, K. (2023). Teaching Engineers Creativity: A Recursive Process Model for Higher Education. GfA Frühjahrskongress 2023, Hannover.
- Maruhn, P. (2023). Revisiting Street Crossing Simulators. Doctoral dissertation, Technische Universität München.
2022
- Prasch, L. (2022). Creativity--a human factors challenge. Doctoral dissertation, Technische Universität München.
- Prasch, L., Top, F., Schmidtler, J., Bengler, K., Fottner, J. (2022). User-Centered Interface Design and Evaluation for Teleoperated Cranes with Boom Tip Control. In: Harris, D., Li, WC. (eds) Engineering Psychology and Cognitive Ergonomics. HCII 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 13307. Springer, Cham.
- Herzog, O., Forchhammer, N., Kong, P., Maruhn, P., Cornet, H., & Frenkler, F. (2022). The Influence of Robot Designs on Human Compliance and Emotion: A Virtual Reality Study in the Context of Future Public Transport. ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (THRI), 11(2), 1-17.
2021
- Maruhn, P. (2021). VR Pedestrian Simulator Studies at Home: Comparing Google Cardboards to Simulators in the Lab and Reality. Front. Virtual Real. 2:746971.
- Pala, P., Cavallo, V., Dang, N. T., Granie, M. A., Schneider, S., Maruhn, P., & Bengler, K. (2021). Analysis of street-crossing behavior: comparing a CAVE simulator and a head-mounted display among younger and older adults. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 152, 106004.
- Pala, P., Cavallo, V., Dang, N. T., Granie, M. A., Schneider, S., Maruhn, P., & Bengler, K. (2021). Is the street-crossing behavior with a head-mounted display different from that behavior in a CAVE? A study among young adults and children. Transportation research part F: traffic psychology and behaviour, 82, 15-31.
- Prasch, L., & Bengler, K. (2021, June). User Needs for Digital Creativity Support Systems in an Occupational Context. In Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (pp. 667-674). Springer, Cham.
- Maruhn, P., & Hurst, S. (2021, June). Effects of Avatars on Street Crossing Tasks in Virtual Reality. In Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (pp. 215-223). Springer, Cham.
- Reinhardt, J., Prasch, L., & Bengler, K. (2021). Back-off: Evaluation of Robot Motion Strategies to Facilitate Human-Robot Spatial Interaction. ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (THRI), 10(3), 1-25.
- Schneider, S., Maruhn, P., Dang, N. T., Pala, P., Cavallo, V., & Bengler, K. (2021). Pedestrian crossing decisions in virtual environments: behavioral validity in CAVEs and head-mounted displays. Human factors, 0018720820987446.
2020
- Maruhn, P., Dietrich, A., Prasch, L., & Schneider, S. (2020, March). Analyzing pedestrian behavior in augmented reality—proof of concept. In 2020 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR) (pp. 313-321). IEEE.
- Prasch, L., Maruhn, P., Brünn, M., & Bengler, K. (2020). Creativity Assessment via Novelty and Usefulness (CANU)–Approach to an Easy to Use Objective Test Tool. In Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Design Creativity (ICDC 2020) (pp. 019-026).
- Fottner, J., Bengler, K., Top, F., & Prasch, L. (2020). Entwicklung eines intuitiven Steuerungskonzepts für Lasthebemaschinen.
2019
- Dietrich, A., Maruhn, P., Schwarze, L., & Bengler, K. (2019, September). Implicit communication of automated vehicles in urban scenarios: effects of pitch and deceleration on pedestrian crossing behavior. In International Conference on Human Systems Engineering and Design: Future Trends and Applications (pp. 176-181). Springer, Cham.
- Maruhn, P., Schneider, S., & Bengler, K. (2019). Measuring egocentric distance perception in virtual reality: Influence of methodologies, locomotion and translation gains. PloS one, 14(10), e0224651.
2018
- Prasch, L., Geßler, F., Reinhardt, J., & Bengler, K. (2018, November). You do the talking. Passengers are happy when the automation decides on cooperation. In 2018 21st International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC) (pp. 1611-1616). IEEE.
- Prasch, L., & Bengler, K. (2018, August). Ergonomics in the age of creative knowledge workers–define, assess, optimize. In Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (pp. 349-357). Springer, Cham.
- Radlmayr, J., Ratter, M., Feldhütter, A., Körber, M., Prasch, L., Schmidtler, J., ... & Bengler, K. (2018, August). Take-overs in level 3 automated driving–proposal of the take-over performance score (tops). In Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (pp. 436-446). Springer, Cham.
- Otherson, I., Conti-Kufner, A. S., Dietrich, A., Maruhn, P., & Bengler, K. (2018). Designing for automated vehicle and pedestrian communication: Perspectives on eHMIs from older and younger persons. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Europe, 135-148.
- Körber, M., Prasch, L., & Bengler, K. (2018). Why do I have to drive now? Post hoc explanations of takeover requests. Human factors, 60(3), 305-323.
- Schneider, S., Maruhn, P., & Bengler, K. (2018, February). Locomotion, non-isometric mapping and distance perception in virtual reality. In Proceedings of the 2018 10th International Conference on Computer and Automation Engineering (pp. 22-26).
- Top, F., Prasch, L., Schmidtler, J., & Fottner, J. (2018). Intuitive Steuerung von teleoperierten Kranen in Bau und Industrie. In Tagungsband zur 7. Fachtagung Baumaschinentechnik.
2017
- Fank, J., Knies, C., Diermeyer, F., Prasch, L., Reinhardt, J., & Bengler, K. (2017). Factors for user acceptance of cooperative assistance systems: A two-step study assessing cooperative driving. In 8.
2016
- Prasch, L. & Tretter, S., (2016). Ich bin dann mal raus. Die Bedeutung der Erklärbarkeit von Übernahmeaufforderungen für das Vertrauen in hochautomatisierte Fahrsysteme. In: Prinz, W., Borchers, J. & Jarke, M. (Hrsg.), Mensch und Computer 2016 - Tagungsband. Aachen: Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V.. DOI: 10.18420/muc2016-mci-0270

Our values

You can't spell human factors without ergonomics.

Less babbling, more doing!

Don't ask to ask, just ask

Look, I made this!

Science is not an elite club