In the current issue of the Interactive Design Magazine WEAVE, Stefan Wölwer, Professor at HAWK in Hildesheim, shares his insights about the industries growing demand for innovative, touch and gesture controlled User Interface Design. As Centigrade had already picked up the trend some time ago by working on sophisticated industrial applications, Thomas Immich, CEO at Centigrade, was interviewed for the article’s editorial work.

Centigrade contributes a talk to this year’s GUI&Design conference, which takes place in Fürth/Nürnberg on the 8th and 9th of December.

The conference focuses on the creation of user interfaces with Microsoft technologies such as WPF or Silverlight. Industry experts show how stylish and easy to use applications can be created that provide great user experiences.

On November 10th World Usability Day (WUD) takes place for the seventh time. Public events around the globe deal with current trends and developments in the areas of usability and user experience design. The topic of this year’s WUD is: “Education: Designing for Social Change”. Centigrade contributes to the event in the “Ruhr Metropolis” as sponsor as well as with a talk.

Centigrade will support this year’s “beyond tellerrand” conference as sponsoring partner. The event will take place in Düsseldorf from 20. to 22. November.

The conference is targeted at web enthusiasts and features three days of intensive workshops and talks on the topics of web design and development. What makes the event special is its community spirit and family atmosphere.

In cooperation with Berner & Mattner Systemtechnik GmbH, Centigrade introduces www.touch-interface.de, a domain that revolves around the creation of touch screen interfaces in an industrial context. Site visitors can access information on touch displays, HMI-design and ergonomics as well as on the services that the two companies offer in these areas.

This year’s GUI&Design conference will take place in Fürth/Nürnberg on the 8th and 9th of December. Centigrade supports the event as sponsoring partner.

At the conference, industry experts present software trends of the future based on Microsoft technologies such as WPF or Silverlight. Attendees will learn how to create modern user interfaces that are easy to learn, efficient, well designed and “sexy”.

Besides sponsoring the event, Centigrade will contribute a talk on “Truths and myths about resolution-independent user interfaces”.

Further information on the conference can be found at http://www.gui-design.ppedv.de.

This year, Centigrade celebrates the sixth anniversary of the company’s incorporation.

Thomas Immich, CEO: “Our sixth year has shown a very positive trend. The number of clients making use of our services has increased significantly, which has gone hand in hand with the growth of our team of qualified employees. One of the highlights of the sixth year clearly was the nomination for the German Design Award 2012, which we received for the design of the touch-based user interface of the ‘CMControl’ device, a product of our client OMICRON.”

Dr. Markus Weber, Head of Usability Engineering: “In addition to client projects, we also continued our activities for generating and communicating UX knowledge. To do so, we share our insights in our blog as well as in workshops and publications. Having our work, for example on the usability of animations, picked up by other UX practitioners who use it in their own works is an acknowledgment that we are very pleased with.”

Simon Albers, CEO: “As always, our thanks go to our clients and our team, who made the sixth year a successful one and we are looking forward to starting into a successful seventh year with them.”

The German Design Award is considered to be an outstanding accolade for design agencies contributing to the fields of product and communication design. The nomination and participation itself is an honor, as it is required to be the winner of either a regional competition, a selection process approved by the German Design Council or an international contest. Centigrade was nominated for the German Design Award due to the iF communication design award the company received in 2010 for the design of a Touchscreen HMI.

This year, as in 2009 and 2010, Centigrade supported UXcamp Europe as a sponsor. In addition, several employees of the company participated in the BarCamp. As always, a multitude of top-class sessions on diverse aspects of user experience design was offered. A special surprise awaited the Centigrade employees in the session “The Future of Interfaces”, which dealt with issues that will become more and more important for the design of user interfaces.

For the third year in a row, Centigrade supports “UXcamp Europe”, which takes place in Berlin on the 11th and 12th of June. The conference on user experience issues is conducted as a BarCamp, which means that the organization of sessions is completely participant-driven and participating is free. This is possible thanks to sponsors like Centigrade.

In 2011, Centigrade continues its support for German UPA, the German association of usability and user experience professionals. German UPA has the goal of defining and advancing the occupational field of “usability / UX professional”. In addition, the association supports professionals regarding questions of human-centered design of technology.

Centigrade took part as exhibitor in last week’s embedded world 2011, the biggest trade fair of its kind in the world. The company presented its user experience services and demonstrated award-winning touch screen HMIs for the industrial sector.
Centigrade exhibited in cooperation with its software development partner from Munich, Berner & Mattner, and the two companies were upbeat about the outcomes of presenting at embedded world.

The software experts of Berner & Mattner Systemtechnik GmbH and the UI design specialists of Centigrade GmbH intensify their cooperation in the area of innovative touch interface software solutions. With their cooperation, they support manufacturers of machinery and plants to improve functionality and ease of use of human machine interfaces through modern touch-sensitive interfaces. In doing so, customers increase the attractiveness of their products and significantly reduce costs of errors, support and training. Both companies have established an integrated procedure model and a special infrastructure consisting of state-of-the-art development methods and tools for effective development of human machine interface solutions. The first success of the cooperation is an operating terminal, developed in cooperation with OMICRON electronics, which has been presented with the iF communication design award for outstanding product design.

CMControl touchscreen user interface design received an iF communication design award

Centigrade announced that the company has officially released its new product BizLaf, the pluggable stock look and feel for Java™ Swing-based applications that converts existing applications into professionally looking business applications. Accompanying the product launch, the company’s website has undergone major improvements.

The declared aim of the cooperation between Centigrade and Berner & Mattner is to significantly improve the usability of machine and device control systems via touch interfaces. Together with its partner Berner & Mattner, Centigrade will present specialized development technologies, tried and tested procedure models and award-winning practical examples for the development of intuitive touch software for industrial device control systems for the first time.

From February 2nd to 5th 2011 the sixth Servoy World international conference will take place in Amsterdam, informing about latest topics in user interface oriented rapid application development. Centigrade will participate as an exhibitor and the company’s CEO Thomas Immich will give a conference session on building sexy user interfaces. The session is scheduled for February 4th.

On March 1st, 2011, the annual Games User Research Summit will take place in San Francisco for the second time. The event brings together user-research professionals who work in the games industry, and share experience, knowledge and techniques. Centigrade is proud to support the summit as Platinum sponsor.

Centigrade thanks all its clients and partners for their trust and wishes them a successful start to 2011.

The first technical seminar of the Game Development Initiative Ruhr, which covered the development tool Microsoft Expression Blend®, was a full success. Thomas Immich, CEO Centigrade GmbH, delivered a competent and entertaining introduction to about 30 developers, designers and students, who could work through and build upon most of the hands-on examples at their own laptops.

This press release is currently only available in German.