4,053 research outputs found

    Emotional Qualities of VR Space

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    The emotional response a person has to a living space is predominantly affected by light, color and texture as space-making elements. In order to verify whether this phenomenon could be replicated in a simulated environment, we conducted a user study in a six-sided projected immersive display that utilized equivalent design attributes of brightness, color and texture in order to assess to which extent the emotional response in a simulated environment is affected by the same parameters affecting real environments. Since emotional response depends upon the context, we evaluated the emotional responses of two groups of users: inactive (passive) and active (performing a typical daily activity). The results from the perceptual study generated data from which design principles for a virtual living space are articulated. Such a space, as an alternative to expensive built dwellings, could potentially support new, minimalist lifestyles of occupants, defined as the neo-nomads, aligned with their work experience in the digital domain through the generation of emotional experiences of spaces. Data from the experiments confirmed the hypothesis that perceivable emotional aspects of real-world spaces could be successfully generated through simulation of design attributes in the virtual space. The subjective response to the virtual space was consistent with corresponding responses from real-world color and brightness emotional perception. Our data could serve the virtual reality (VR) community in its attempt to conceive of further applications of virtual spaces for well-defined activities.Comment: 12 figure

    Heuristic Evaluation for Serious Immersive Games and M-instruction

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    © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016. Two fast growing areas for technology-enhanced learning are serious games and mobile instruction (M-instruction or M-Learning). Serious games are ones that are meant to be more than just entertainment. They have a serious use to educate or promote other types of activity. Immersive Games frequently involve many players interacting in a shared rich and complex-perhaps web-based-mixed reality world, where their circumstances will be multi and varied. Their reality may be augmented and often self-composed, as in a user-defined avatar in a virtual world. M-instruction and M-Learning is learning on the move; much of modern computer use is via smart devices, pads, and laptops. People use these devices all over the place and thus it is a natural extension to want to use these devices where they are to learn. This presents a problem if we wish to evaluate the effectiveness of the pedagogic media they are using. We have no way of knowing their situation, circumstance, education background and motivation, or potentially of the customisation of the final software they are using. Getting to the end user itself may also be problematic; these are learning environments that people will dip into at opportune moments. If access to the end user is hard because of location and user self-personalisation, then one solution is to look at the software before it goes out. Heuristic Evaluation allows us to get User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) experts to reflect on the software before it is deployed. The effective use of heuristic evaluation with pedagogical software [1] is extended here, with existing Heuristics Evaluation Methods that make the technique applicable to Serious Immersive Games and mobile instruction (M-instruction). We also consider how existing Heuristic Methods may be adopted. The result represents a new way of making this methodology applicable to this new developing area of learning technology

    Collaboration for Social Innovation: Developing Social Learning Spaces in the UK Higher Education

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    This paper concerns initial work on social innovation that investigates the role of collaboration as a catalyst for change applied in the context of social learning spaces in the United Kingdom‟ higher education. From a policy viewpoint the paper addresses the issue of social technologies as a means of social practice. Secondly, it focuses on the impact a whole system change process can have upon university students and staff in establishing social learning spaces. Thirdly, it tackles leadership and how this can be effectively utilised within the field under consideration. Reference to specific cases of British Universities regarding use of social learning spaces is made and emphasis is given on the role of collaboration in pursuing innovative ideas. Semi-structured interviews and collection of secondary data are the research methods used. Finally, suggestions on how social learning spaces could be further improved are highlighted

    Virtual Factory:a systemic approach to building smart factories

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    Step away from the CAD station: A hands-on and immersive approach to second year teaching of Mechanical Engineering design

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    The purpose of this paper is to present a new methodology to enhance creativity within the context of learning and teaching in an engineering design module in the College of Engineering at Swansea University. The challenges to introducing creativity into an engineering undergraduate course are explored, with the main intervention—Virtual Reality for concept development—investigated through pre- and post-intervention surveys, student interviews and a focus group. Additional interventions to enhance creativity are discussed and future improvements to module design put forward

    Understanding VR/AR in marketing & sales for B2B: an explorative study

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    Abstract. The research explored the impact of immersive reality technologies, particularly VR and AR, in marketing and sales for the B2B sector. Study interests were fuelled by both an industrial hype and vehement investments on these technologies, especially in the last five years. However, the potential of these technologies is still unexplored and widely misunderstood by businesses as the innovations are slowly taking off. Additionally, existing literature showed a need to clearly define various simulated realities in the continuum, including VR and AR, as well as a general misunderstanding of the potential of immersive reality technologies, and a shortage of studies covering holistically different VR/AR applications in marketing, especially for the B2B sector. Therefore, this research aims to bridge the gap between managerial and academic’ understanding by providing a holistic framework explaining the impact of immersive reality technologies in B2B marketing and sales and provide a clear distinction between VR and AR in the Virtuality-reality continuum. This research also aims to assist marketers and managers in embracing these technologies to better meet the needs of future generations. The study adopted a qualitative exploratory approach allowing researchers to gain an in-depth understanding of the topic from an industrial perspective. The study used an abductive thematic analysis approach to analyse empirical results and ten semi-structured interviews with eleven VR/AR providers for primary data collection. Results were structured based on four main themes, namely: VR and AR definitions, customer technology adoption factors, VR/AR impact and applications on B2B marketing, and last, VR/AR impact on sales performance outcomes. This study contributes to the existing literature by proposing a tentative definition for each terminology “VR” and “AR” separately that merges academic perspectives and industry insights. Overall, empirical study suggests that immersive reality technologies can affect both marketing activities and sales performance outcomes for the B2B sector. However, successfully embracing these technologies calls for collaboration to overcome financial, technical and social barriers while also enhancing aspects like the user experience to step out of the still immature VR/AR market. VR and AR together have an impact on marketing for B2B by enhancing customization, non-verbal communication, learning and experiential marketing while also creating memorable experiences that stick in the minds of the consumer. Concerning the customer’s purchasing journey, this study extends existing literature to cover all customer purchasing stages, including the pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase. Results emphasize the pre-purchase phase as the most impacted by immersive reality technologies, followed by post-purchase and purchase stages, respectively. Finally, this study suggests that the use of VR/AR as sales support tools can yield positive efficiency returns through higher task performance and a reduction in sales-related costs, and positive effectiveness returns through greater customer and social engagement, stronger collaborative business relationships and the enhancement of proactive (sales planning) and reactive (adaptive selling) behaviours in the sales process

    User-centred design of flexible hypermedia for a mobile guide: Reflections on the hyperaudio experience

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    A user-centred design approach involves end-users from the very beginning. Considering users at the early stages compels designers to think in terms of utility and usability and helps develop the system on what is actually needed. This paper discusses the case of HyperAudio, a context-sensitive adaptive and mobile guide to museums developed in the late 90s. User requirements were collected via a survey to understand visitors’ profiles and visit styles in Natural Science museums. The knowledge acquired supported the specification of system requirements, helping defining user model, data structure and adaptive behaviour of the system. User requirements guided the design decisions on what could be implemented by using simple adaptable triggers and what instead needed more sophisticated adaptive techniques, a fundamental choice when all the computation must be done on a PDA. Graphical and interactive environments for developing and testing complex adaptive systems are discussed as a further step towards an iterative design that considers the user interaction a central point. The paper discusses how such an environment allows designers and developers to experiment with different system’s behaviours and to widely test it under realistic conditions by simulation of the actual context evolving over time. The understanding gained in HyperAudio is then considered in the perspective of the developments that followed that first experience: our findings seem still valid despite the passed time
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