Stereoscopic 3D user interfaces : exploring the potentials and risks of 3D displays in cars

During recent years, rapid advancements in stereoscopic digital display technology has led to acceptance of high-quality 3D in the entertainment sector and even created enthusiasm towards the technology. The advent of autostereoscopic displays (i.e., glasses-free 3D) allows for introducing 3D technology into other application domains, including but not limited to mobile devices, public displays, and automotive user interfaces - the latter of which is at the focus of this work. Prior research demonstrates that 3D improves the visualization of complex structures and augments virtual environments. We envision its use to enhance the in-car user interface by structuring the presented information via depth. Thus, content that requires attention can be shown close to the user and distances, for example to other traffic participants, gain a direct mapping in 3D space

Improving the Management of Controllers’ Interruptions through the Working Awareness Interruption Tool: WAIT

Interruptions in time-critical, dynamic, and collaborative environments, such as air traffic control (ATC), can provide valuable, task-relevant information. However, they also negatively impact task performance by distracting the operator from on-going tasks and consuming attention resources. This thesis develops and assesses a tool to assist radar air traffic controllers in managing interruptions. Field observations and interviews with air traffic controllers were utilized to develop an understanding of how interruptions occur in real ATC environments, and to identify where opportunities exist to use technology to support the interruption management process. It was identified that operators in these environments could better manage the effects of interruptions if there were indications to one operator of the availability of a collaborator and the urgency of an interruption from a collaborator. Present communication systems do not facilitate the awareness of these functionalities. An initial prototype for providing these functionalities in operational ATC displays was designed. Feedback on the prototypes was solicited through Participatory Design (PD) sessions with air traffic controllers. Based on the refinement of these prototypes, the Working Awareness Interruption Tool (WAIT) was developed to support more efficient and appropriate interruption timing in the context of complex, real-time, distributed, human operator interactions. Variations of the tool demonstrated several ways of showing the availability of the controller to be interrupted (either through manual settings or automatic detection) as well as incorporating a means of conveying the urgency level of the interruption. In order to examine the utility of the tool and to assess the importance and validity of its features, an experiment was conducted in a laboratory-based setting. The results of the experiment show the potential of this tool in an environment representative of air traffic control tasks and communication. Although the sample size was limited, the WAIT facilitated improved performance on both objective measures and self-reported measures, and reduced the distraction effects of interruptions from other operators. These improvements occurred without affecting perceptions of the effectiveness of communications. Questionnaire and interview results showed that participants appear to prefer an automated setting of availability to be shown to other collaborators. Identifying two examples of key features supporting interruption management (communicating availability and urgency) in air traffic control is one of the key contributions of this work. The work also makes a contribution by demonstrating that providing a tool incorporating these features can improve performance in an environment representative of ATC, albeit with naïve participants. Finally, the research makes a contribution by presenting the challenges associated with evaluating interruption management tools that require collaboration between operators in a system

Automatic captions on video calls: a must for the older adults

Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. Work co-financed by the Canary Islands Agency for Research, Innovation and Information Society of the Ministry of Economy, Knowledge and Employment and by the European Social Fund (ESF) Integrated Operational Program of the Canary Islands 2014–2020, Axis 3 Priority Topic 74 (85%). This work has been supported by the PERGAMEX ACTIVE project, Ref. RTI2018- 096986-B-C32, funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation. Spain. Agencia Canaria de Investigación, Innovación y Sociedad de la Información (TESIS2020010113).In recent years, the use of video call or video conference tools has not stopped increasing, and especially due to the COVID- 19 pandemic, the use of video calls increased in the educational and work spheres, but also in the family sphere, due to the risks of contagion in face-to-face meetings. Throughout the world, many older people are affected by hearing loss. Auditory functional diversity can make it difficult to enjoy video calls. Using automatic captions might help these people, but not all video calling tools offer this functionality, and some offer it in some languages. We developed an automatic conversation captioning tool using Automatic Speech Recognition and Speech to Text, using the free software tool Coqui STT. This automatic captioning tool is independent of the video call platform used and allows older adults or anyone with auditory functional diversity to enjoy video calls in a simple way. A transparent user interface was designed for our tool that overlays the video call window, and the tool allows us to easily change the text size, color, and background settings. It is also important to remember that many older people have visual functional diversity, so they could have problems reading the texts, thus it is important that each person can adapt the text to their needs. An analysis has been carried out that includes older people to analyze the benefits of the interface, as well as some configuration preferences, and a proposal to improve the way the text is displayed on the screen. Spanish and English were tested during the investigation, but the tool allows us to easily install dozens of new languages based on models trained for Coqui STT.Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer NatureCanary Islands Agency for Research, Innovation and Information Society of the Ministry of Economy, Knowledge and Employment and by the European Social Fund (ESF) Integrated Operational Program of the Canary Islands 2014–2020, Axis 3 Priority Topic 74 (85%)PERGAMEX ACTIVE project, Ref. RTI2018- 096986-B-C32, funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation. SpainAgencia Canaria de Investigación, Innovación y Sociedad de la Información (TESIS2020010113