Heuristic Evaluation for Serious Immersive Games and M-instruction

© 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

Characteristics of pervasive learning environments in museum contexts

There is no appropriate learning model for pervasive learning environments (PLEs), and museums maintain authenticity at the cost of unmarked information. To address these problems, we present the LieksaMyst PLE developed for Pielinen Museum and we derive a set of characteristics that an effective PLE should meet and which form the basis of a new learning model currently under development. We discuss how the characteristics are addressed in LieksaMyst and present an evaluation of the game component of LieksaMyst. Results indicate that, while some usability issues remain to be resolved, the game was received well by the participants enabling them to immerse themselves in the story and to interact effectively with its virtual characters

Visualising mixed reality simulation for multiple users

Cowling, MA ORCiD: 0000-0003-1444-1563Blended reality seeks to encourage co-presence in the classroom, blending student experience across virtual and physical worlds. In a similar way, Mixed Reality, a continuum between virtual and real environments, is now allowing learners to work in both the physical and the digital world simultaneously, especially when combined with an immersive headset experience. This experience provides innovative new experiences for learning, but faces the challenge that most of these experiences are single user, leaving others outside the new environment. The question therefore becomes, how can a mixed reality simulation be experienced by multiple users, and how can we present that simulation effectively to users to create a true blended reality environment? This paper proposes a study that uses existing screen production research into the user and spectator to produce a mixed reality simulation suitable for multiple users. A research method using Design Based Research is also presented to assess the usability of the approach

Exploring the Front Touch Interface for Virtual Reality Headsets

In this paper, we propose a new interface for virtual reality headset: a touchpad in front of the headset. To demonstrate the feasibility of the front touch interface, we built a prototype device, explored VR UI design space expansion, and performed various user studies. We started with preliminary tests to see how intuitively and accurately people can interact with the front touchpad. Then, we further experimented various user interfaces such as a binary selection, a typical menu layout, and a keyboard. Two-Finger and Drag-n-Tap were also explored to find the appropriate selection technique. As a low-cost, light-weight, and in low power budget technology, a touch sensor can make an ideal interface for mobile headset. Also, front touch area can be large enough to allow wide range of interaction types such as multi-finger interactions. With this novel front touch interface, we paved a way to new virtual reality interaction methods

TransparentHMD: Revealing the HMD User's Face to Bystanders

While the eyes are very important in human communication, once a user puts on a head mounted display (HMD), the face is obscured from the outside world's perspective. This leads to communication problems when bystanders approach or collaborate with an HMD user. We introduce transparentHMD, which employs a head-coupled perspective technique to produce an illusion of a transparent HMD to bystanders. We created a self contained system, based on a mobile device mounted on the HMD with the screen facing bystanders. By tracking the relative position of the bystander using the smartphone's camera, we render an adapting perspective view in realtime that creates the illusion of a transparent HMD. By revealing the user's face to bystanders, our easy to implement system allows for opportunities to investigate a plethora of research questions particularly related to collaborative VR systems