School of Computing Science

Dr Florian Weidner

  • Lecturer in HCI (School of Computing Science)

email: Florian.Weidner@glasgow.ac.uk

Office 402a, Lilybank Gardens 8, Glasgow, Glasgow City, Scotland, United Kingdom, G12

Import to contacts

ORCID iDhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-8677-3503

Biography

I am a Lecturer at the University of Glasgow (I joined in March 2025). My research focuses on interaction in AR/VR—particularly with agents and using gaze as a primary input cue. Before that, I was a postdoctoral researcher at Lancaster University (2023–2025) with Prof. Hans Gellersen. I worked on multi-sensory XR in the GEMINI ERC project, exploring AR experiences that integrate gaze behaviour and body movements.

From 2021 to 2023, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the Virtual Worlds and Digital Games Group at Ilmenau University of Technology, Germany, where I focused on multi-sensory XR and virtual humans. I completed my PhD there in 2021, investigating XR’s impact, possibilities, and limitations for future in-vehicle user interfaces.

Research interests

My research examines how extended reality (XR) systems can support meaningful and effective human activity, with a particular focus on the following three areas:

  • Productivity in XR. I investigate how interaction techniques in XR can support productive work activities, such as information manipulation, system control, and task execution. This includes studying efficient input modalities and their coordination with users’ natural movements and behaviours to reduce effort, increase precision, and enable sustained XR use in everyday work contexts.
  • Social XR. I study social interaction in XR environments, with an emphasis on communication mediated through avatars and virtual humans. My work examines how non-verbal cues, such as gaze and eye contact, can be represented and interpreted to support natural, engaging, and effective social interaction, as well as how technical properties of XR systems shape social experience and communication quality.
  • Everyday Objects in XR. I explore how familiar real-world objects can be integrated into XR experiences to support interaction, control, and embodied engagement. This research focuses on leveraging everyday physical artefacts to provide tactile feedback, increase realism, and enable intuitive interaction techniques that bridge physical and virtual environments.

Research groups

  • Glasgow Interactive Systems (GIST)

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2026 | 2025
Number of items: 10.

2026

Arevalo Arboleda, S. et al. (2026) Exploring Mediated Communication with Older Adults: Comparing AR Avatars, Telepresence Robots, and Face-to-Face Interaction. In: 2026 ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences (IMX '26), Athlone, Ireland, 09-11 Jun 2026, pp. 1-13. ISBN 9798400724480 (doi: 10.1145/3788851.3805002)

Prummer, Franziska, Hu, Jinghui, Weidner, Florian ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8677-3503 and Gellersen, Hans (2026) Prediction of Eye Dominance in VR. In: ETRA '26: 2026 Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications, Marrakesh, Morocco, 1-4 June 2026, ISBN 9798400725197 (doi: 10.1145/3797246.3804831)

Li, Guanlin, Weidner, Florian ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8677-3503, Gellersen, Hans, Wang, Haopeng, Khan, Anam Ahmad and Hu, Jinghui (2026) StrainGain: Neck Strain Amplifies Head Pointing in VR. In: 7th Workshop on Novel Input Devices and Interaction Techniques (NIDIT) 2026, Daegu, Korea, Republic of, 21-25 March 2026, pp. 362-367. ISBN 9798319505293 (doi: 10.1109/vrw70859.2026.00071)

Wang, Haopeng, Gerbert, Alexandra, Weidner, Florian ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8677-3503, Abdrabou, Yasmeen, Khan, Anam Ahmad, Lee, Hock Siang and Gellersen, Hans (2026) Exploring Relative Mapping for Parabolic Ground Pointing in VR: Lessons Learned and Future Directions. In: 7th Workshop on Novel Input Devices and Interaction Techniques (NIDIT) 2026, Daegu, Korea, Republic of, 21-25 March 2026, pp. 1065-1066. ISBN 9798319505293 (doi: 10.1109/vrw70859.2026.00207)

Chen, Yuzheng, Wang, Haopeng, Lee, Hock Siang, Weidner, Florian ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8677-3503, Hu, Jinghui and Gellersen, Hans (2026) The Interaction of Cursor Warping and View Manipulation in Multi-Display XR Environments. In: ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2026), Barcelona, Spain, 13–17 April 2026, ISBN 9798400722783 (doi: 10.1145/3772318.3791759)

Khan, Anam Ahmad, Weidner, Florian ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8677-3503, Rhee, Jungwoo, Abdrabou, Yasmeen, Bianchi, Andrea, Velloso, Eduardo, Gellersen, Hans and Newn, Joshua (2026) Gaze and Speech in Multimodal Human-Computer Interaction: A Scoping Review. In: ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2026), Barcelona, Spain, 13–17 April 2026, ISBN 9798400722783 (doi: 10.1145/3772318.3791662)

2025

Arefin, Mohammed Safayet, Biener, Verena, Nijhum, S.M. Rashidul Hasan, Weidner, Florian ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8677-3503, Grubert, Jens and Swan II, J. Edward (2025) The State of Replication at IEEE ISMAR and IEEE VR: A Scoping Literature Review (2010 – 2024) and Online Survey. In: IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR 2025), Daejeon, South Korea, 8 -12 October 2025, pp. 770-781. ISBN 9798331587611 (doi: 10.1109/ISMAR67309.2025.00086)

Wang, Haopeng, Weidner, Florian ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8677-3503, Abdrabou, Yasmeen, Pfeuffer, Ken and Gellersen, Hans (2025) HeadDepth: Gaze Raycasting with Head Pitch for Depth Control. In: IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR 2025), Daejeon, South Korea, 8 -12 October 2025, pp. 370-380. ISBN 9798331587611 (doi: 10.1109/ISMAR67309.2025.00048)

Arboleda, S. A. et al. (2025) Robot, avatar, or human: the impact of partner representation and task on the communication experience. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 9(7), CSCW472. (doi: 10.1145/3757653)

Li, Guanlin, Weidner, Florian ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8677-3503, Hu, Jinghui and Gellersen, Hans (2025) Quantifying neck muscle activity during head fixation in VR. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 6, 1682866. (doi: 10.3389/frvir.2025.1682866)

This list was generated on Sun Jun 14 21:10:06 2026 BST.
Jump to: Articles | Conference Proceedings
Number of items: 10.

Articles

Arboleda, S. A. et al. (2025) Robot, avatar, or human: the impact of partner representation and task on the communication experience. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 9(7), CSCW472. (doi: 10.1145/3757653)

Li, Guanlin, Weidner, Florian ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8677-3503, Hu, Jinghui and Gellersen, Hans (2025) Quantifying neck muscle activity during head fixation in VR. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 6, 1682866. (doi: 10.3389/frvir.2025.1682866)

Conference Proceedings

Arevalo Arboleda, S. et al. (2026) Exploring Mediated Communication with Older Adults: Comparing AR Avatars, Telepresence Robots, and Face-to-Face Interaction. In: 2026 ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences (IMX '26), Athlone, Ireland, 09-11 Jun 2026, pp. 1-13. ISBN 9798400724480 (doi: 10.1145/3788851.3805002)

Prummer, Franziska, Hu, Jinghui, Weidner, Florian ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8677-3503 and Gellersen, Hans (2026) Prediction of Eye Dominance in VR. In: ETRA '26: 2026 Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications, Marrakesh, Morocco, 1-4 June 2026, ISBN 9798400725197 (doi: 10.1145/3797246.3804831)

Li, Guanlin, Weidner, Florian ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8677-3503, Gellersen, Hans, Wang, Haopeng, Khan, Anam Ahmad and Hu, Jinghui (2026) StrainGain: Neck Strain Amplifies Head Pointing in VR. In: 7th Workshop on Novel Input Devices and Interaction Techniques (NIDIT) 2026, Daegu, Korea, Republic of, 21-25 March 2026, pp. 362-367. ISBN 9798319505293 (doi: 10.1109/vrw70859.2026.00071)

Wang, Haopeng, Gerbert, Alexandra, Weidner, Florian ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8677-3503, Abdrabou, Yasmeen, Khan, Anam Ahmad, Lee, Hock Siang and Gellersen, Hans (2026) Exploring Relative Mapping for Parabolic Ground Pointing in VR: Lessons Learned and Future Directions. In: 7th Workshop on Novel Input Devices and Interaction Techniques (NIDIT) 2026, Daegu, Korea, Republic of, 21-25 March 2026, pp. 1065-1066. ISBN 9798319505293 (doi: 10.1109/vrw70859.2026.00207)

Chen, Yuzheng, Wang, Haopeng, Lee, Hock Siang, Weidner, Florian ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8677-3503, Hu, Jinghui and Gellersen, Hans (2026) The Interaction of Cursor Warping and View Manipulation in Multi-Display XR Environments. In: ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2026), Barcelona, Spain, 13–17 April 2026, ISBN 9798400722783 (doi: 10.1145/3772318.3791759)

Khan, Anam Ahmad, Weidner, Florian ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8677-3503, Rhee, Jungwoo, Abdrabou, Yasmeen, Bianchi, Andrea, Velloso, Eduardo, Gellersen, Hans and Newn, Joshua (2026) Gaze and Speech in Multimodal Human-Computer Interaction: A Scoping Review. In: ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2026), Barcelona, Spain, 13–17 April 2026, ISBN 9798400722783 (doi: 10.1145/3772318.3791662)

Arefin, Mohammed Safayet, Biener, Verena, Nijhum, S.M. Rashidul Hasan, Weidner, Florian ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8677-3503, Grubert, Jens and Swan II, J. Edward (2025) The State of Replication at IEEE ISMAR and IEEE VR: A Scoping Literature Review (2010 – 2024) and Online Survey. In: IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR 2025), Daejeon, South Korea, 8 -12 October 2025, pp. 770-781. ISBN 9798331587611 (doi: 10.1109/ISMAR67309.2025.00086)

Wang, Haopeng, Weidner, Florian ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8677-3503, Abdrabou, Yasmeen, Pfeuffer, Ken and Gellersen, Hans (2025) HeadDepth: Gaze Raycasting with Head Pitch for Depth Control. In: IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR 2025), Daejeon, South Korea, 8 -12 October 2025, pp. 370-380. ISBN 9798331587611 (doi: 10.1109/ISMAR67309.2025.00048)

This list was generated on Sun Jun 14 21:10:06 2026 BST.

Supervision

Future Students

I am looking for MScR and PhD students interested in exploring interaction in XR, with a particular focus on productivity in XR, Social XR, gaze-based interaction, and interaction with real-world objects (including passive haptics). Applicants with a strong interest in one or more of these areas, or in closely related XR topics, are encouraged to get in touch to discuss opportunities for doctoral study at the University of Glasgow.

More information here: https://florianweidner.de/WorkWithMe.html 

Current students

  • McLean, Iain
    FUSION: Social Interaction in Immersive Environments and Proxemic Social Signals

Teaching

2025/2026: 

  • COMPSCI4025P Individual Project
  • COMPSCI1006 CS1F Computing Science 1F - Computing Fundamentals
  • COMPSCI5060 Human-Centred Security (M)
  • COMPSCI2031 User Interaction

2024/2025: 

  • COMPSCI2031 User Interaction

 

Additional information

https://florianweidner.de/


Headshot of Florian WEidner