Mobile phone interaction techniques for rural economy development - a review

Rural communities, especially in developing countries, are often neglected in terms of facilities and services that aid their social and economic development. This is evident even in software development processes, in that these groups of users or potential users’ are often not taken into consideration. The resultant effect is that they may not use it or use it sparingly. The objective of this study is to identify the various researches on interaction techniques and user interface design as a first step to the design of suitable mobile interactions and user interfaces for rural users. This research project is also aimed at socio-economic development and adding value to mobile phone users in Dwesa, a rural community in South Africa. This paper presents a literature survey of interaction techniques and user-interfaces. An analysis of the interaction techniques with respect to their suitability, availability of technologies, user capabilities for implementation in a rural context is discussed. Descriptive statistics of users’ current phones interaction facilities in the rural community which briefly illustrates users’ experiences and capabilities in different interaction modes is also presented.KEY WORDS: Interaction Techniques, Mobile phone, User Interface, ICT, Rural Development

Collaborating with a Mobile Robot: An Augmented Reality Multimodal Interface

Invited paperWe have created an infrastructure that allows a human to collaborate in a natural manner with a robotic system. In this paper we describe our system and its implementation with a mobile robot. In our prototype the human communicates with the mobile robot using natural speech and gestures, for example, by selecting a point in 3D space and saying “go here” or “go behind that”. The robot responds using speech so the human is able to understand its intentions and beliefs. Augmented Reality (AR) technology is used to facilitate natural use of gestures and provide a common 3D spatial reference for both the robot and human, thus providing a means for grounding of communication and maintaining spatial awareness. This paper first discusses related work then gives a brief overview of AR and its capabilities. The architectural design we have developed is outlined and then a case study is discussed

Using Haar-like feature classifiers for hand tracking in tabletop augmented reality

We propose in this paper a hand interaction approach to Augmented Reality Tabletop applications. We detect the user’s hands using haar-like feature classifiers and correlate its positions with the fixed markers on the table. This gives the user the possibility to move, rotate and resize the virtual objects located over the table with their bare hands.Postprint (published version

"Move the Couch Where?": Developing an Augmented Reality Multimodal Interface

This paper describes an augmented reality (AR) multimodal interface that uses speech and paddle gestures for interaction. The application allows users to intuitively arrange virtual furniture in a virtual room using a combination of speech and gestures from a real paddle. Unlike other multimodal AR applications, the multimodal fusion is based on the combination of time-based and semantic techniques to disambiguate a users speech and gesture input. We describe our AR multimodal interface architecture and discuss how the multimodal inputs are semantically integrated into a single interpretation by considering the input time stamps, the object properties, and the user context

An Augmented Reality Human-Robot Collaboration System

InvitedThis article discusses an experimental comparison of three user interface techniques for interaction with a remotely located robot. A typical interface for such a situation is to teleoperate the robot using a camera that displays the robot's view of its work environment. However, the operator often has a difficult time maintaining situation awareness due to this single egocentric view. Hence, a multimodal system was developed enabling the human operator to view the robot in its remote work environment through an augmented reality interface, the augmented reality human-robot collaboration (AR-HRC) system. The operator uses spoken dialogue, reaches into the 3D representation of the remote work environment and discusses intended actions of the robot. The result of the comparison was that the AR-HRC interface was found to be most effective, increasing accuracy by 30%, while reducing the number of close calls in operating the robot by factors of ~3x. It thus provides the means to maintain spatial awareness and give the users the feeling of working in a true collaborative environment

La realidad aumentada en la educación: catalogación de aplicaciones educativas

Se presenta una visión general de la Realidad Aumentada (RA), su evolución y tecnología utilizada para tracking, visualización e interacción. En relación a la incorporación de RA en la educación, se desarrolla una indagación sobre diferentes formas de instrumentos educativos tales como libros aumentados, juegos y teatro. Se realiza una recopilación sistemática de experiencias educativas que utilizan RA publicadas recientemente en diferentes niveles educativos, temáticas y países. Además, se efectúa una búsqueda, selección y catalogación de aplicaciones de RA disponibles en el mercado, que puedan ser de utilidad en el ámbito de la educación. En la catalogación se consideran criterios generales, técnicos y didácticos, como área temática, nivel educativo y tipo de interacción entre otros campos. La recopilación se vuelca en una tabla que puede consultarse on-line, aplicando los criterios de clasificación como filtros de búsqueda. Se considera que la herramienta de consulta de aplicaciones de RA generada resulta un aporte concreto para los docentes que deseen incluir actividades educativas mediadas por tecnología de RA a sus clases.Facultad de Informátic

La realidad aumentada en la educación: catalogación de aplicaciones educativas

Se presenta una visión general de la Realidad Aumentada (RA), su evolución y tecnología utilizada para tracking, visualización e interacción. En relación a la incorporación de RA en la educación, se desarrolla una indagación sobre diferentes formas de instrumentos educativos tales como libros aumentados, juegos y teatro. Se realiza una recopilación sistemática de experiencias educativas que utilizan RA publicadas recientemente en diferentes niveles educativos, temáticas y países. Además, se efectúa una búsqueda, selección y catalogación de aplicaciones de RA disponibles en el mercado, que puedan ser de utilidad en el ámbito de la educación. En la catalogación se consideran criterios generales, técnicos y didácticos, como área temática, nivel educativo y tipo de interacción entre otros campos. La recopilación se vuelca en una tabla que puede consultarse on-line, aplicando los criterios de clasificación como filtros de búsqueda. Se considera que la herramienta de consulta de aplicaciones de RA generada resulta un aporte concreto para los docentes que deseen incluir actividades educativas mediadas por tecnología de RA a sus clases.Facultad de Informátic

Enhancing collaborative learning in an augmented reality supported environment

Master'sMASTER OF ENGINEERIN

Mobile phones interaction techniques for second economy people

Second economy people in developing countries are people living in communities that are underserved in terms of basic amenities and social services. Due to literacy challenges and user accessibility problems in rural communities, it is often difficult to design user interfaces that conform to the capabilities and cultural experiences of low-literacy rural community users. Rural community users are technologically illiterate and lack the knowledge of the potential of information and communication technologies. In order to embrace new technology, users will need to perceive the user interface and application as useful and easy to interact with. This requires proper understanding of the users and their socio-cultural environment. This will enable the interfaces and interactions to conform to their behaviours, motivations as well as cultural experiences and preferences and thus enhance usability and user experience. Mobile phones have the potential to increase access to information and provide a platform for economic development in rural communities. Rural communities have economic potential in terms of agriculture and micro-enterprises. Information technology can be used to enhance socio-economic activities and improve rural livelihood. We conducted a study to design user interfaces for a mobile commerce application for micro-entrepreneurs in a rural community in South Africa. The aim of the study was to design mobile interfaces and interaction techniques that are easy to use and meet the cultural preferences and experiences of users who have little to no previous experience of mobile commerce technology. And also to explore the potentials of information technologies rural community users, and bring mobile added value services to rural micro-entrepreneurs. We applied a user-centred design approach in Dwesa community and used qualitative and quantitative research methods to collect data for the design of the user interfaces (graphic user interface and voice user interface) and mobile commerce application. We identified and used several interface elements to design and finally evaluate the graphical user interface. The statistics analysis of the evaluation results show that the users in the community have positive perception of the usefulness of the application, the ease of use and intention to use the application. Community users with no prior experience with this technology were able to learn and understand the interface, recorded minimum errors and a high level of v precision during task performance when they interacted with the shop-owner graphic user interface. The voice user interface designed in this study consists of two flavours (dual tone multi-frequency input and voice input) for rural users. The evaluation results show that community users recorded higher tasks successes and minimum errors with the dual tone multi-frequency input interface than the voice only input interface. Also, a higher percentage of users prefer the dual tone multi-frequency input interface. The t-Test statistical analysis performed on the tasks completion times and error rate show that there was significant statistical difference between the dual tone multi-frequency input interface and the voice input interface. The interfaces were easy to learn, understand and use. Properly designed user interfaces that meet the experience and capabilities of low-literacy users in rural areas will improve usability and users‟ experiences. Adaptation of interfaces to users‟ culture and preferences will enhance information services accessibility among different user groups in different regions. This will promote technology acceptance in rural communities for socio-economic benefits. The user interfaces presented in this study can be adapted to different cultures to provide similar services for marginalised communities in developing countrie

Arguably augmented reality : relationships between the virtual and the real

This thesis is about augmented reality (AR). AR is commonly considered a technology that integrates virtual images into a user’s view of the real world. Yet, this thesis is not about such technologies. We believe a technology-based notion of AR is incomplete. In this thesis, we challenge the technology-oriented view, provide new perspectives on AR and propose a different understanding. We argue that AR is characterized by the relationships between the virtual and the real and approach AR from a fundamental, experience-focused view. By doing so, we create an unusually broad and diverse image of what AR is, or arguably could be. We discuss the fundamental characteristics of AR and the many possible manifestations it can take and propose new, imaginative AR environments that have no counterpart in a purely physical world. Computer Systems, Imagery and Medi