Dr. Jarek Beksa

Since 2009 he has designed and developed over 40 applications, spanning from games and stories for kids to B2B applications. Jarek's vision is sound - literally. He is passionate about accessibility, sound engineering, user experience, games and interactive storytelling. In years 2013 and 2014, he led the Gamification Lab’s applied research project focused on accessible user interfaces at Leuphana University in Lüneburg, Germany.

In 2014, he was awarded The Vice Chancellor scholarship at Auckland University of Technology and moved to New Zealand for PhD studies on accessible audio games. He is a creator of award-winning Audio Game Hub and Blind Cricket simulator and the innovative Sonnar Library service on Amazon Alexa and Google Home platforms.

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Research Interests:

Design methodologies including UX design, critical design and systems thinking.
Voice User Interfaces
Usability Study
Audio in Games

Research/Industry Projects:

Jarek’s most recent project “Sonnar Library” is a global audiobook streaming platform for organizations serving people with reading disabilities.
He is also running a start-up concentrated in development accessible games and voice applications (www.sonnar.nz)

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Notable Research Outputs:

Adapting videogame interfaces for the visually impaired: a case study of Audio Game Hub
Beksa, J., Garkavenko, A., Fizek, S., Vodanovich., S., & Carter, P. (2016). In J. Gołuchowski, M. Pańkowska, C. Barry, M. Lang, H. Linger, & C. Schneider (Eds.), Information Systems Development: Complexity in Information Systems Development (ISD2016 Proceedings). Katowice, Poland: University of Economics in Katowice. ISBN: 978-83-7875-307-0.

Audio games: investigation of the potential through prototype development
Beksa, J., Fizek, S., & Carter, P. (2015). In P. Biswas, C. Duarte, P. Langdon, & L. Almeida (Eds.), A multimodal end-2-end approach to accessible computing (pp. 211-224). (Human–Computer Interaction Series). London: Springer-Verlag. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4471-6708-2_11

Playing with sound and gesture in digital audio games
Fizek, S., Woletz, J., & Beksa, J. (2015). In A. Weisbecker, M. Burmester, & A. Schmidt (Eds.), Mensch und Computer 2015 Workshopband (pp. 423-429). (Mensch & Computer – Tagungsbände / Proceedings; Vol. 2015). Berlin: de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110443905-061

Multiplatform audio game
Beksa, J., Majewski, K., & Sadowski, R. (2011). Audio Engineering Society Conference: 41st International Conference: Audio for Games. Retrieved from http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=15763

Website: www.auidiogamehub.com, www.sonnar.nz