Smart Kitchens for People with Cognitive Impairments: A Qualitative Study of Design Requirements

Individuals with cognitive impairments currently leverage extensive human resources during their transitions from assisted living to independent living. In Western Europe, many government-supported volunteer organizations provide sheltered living facilities; supervised environments in which people with cognitive impairments collaboratively learn daily living skills. In this paper, we describe communal cooking practices in sheltered living facilities and identify opportunities for supporting these with interactive technology to reduce volunteer workload. We conducted two contextual observations of twelve people with cognitive impairments cooking in sheltered living facilities and supplemented this data through interviews with four employees and volunteers who supervise them. Through thematic analysis, we identified four themes to inform design requirements for communal cooking activities: Work organization, community, supervision, and practicalities. Based on these, we present five design implications for assistive systems in kitchens for people with cognitive deficiencies

Connecting in the Kitchen:An Empirical Study of Physical Interactions while Cooking Together at Home

Recent research has explored the role technology might play in future kitchens, including virtually dining together, recipe sharing, augmented kitchen furniture, reactive cooking utensils and gestural interaction. When people come together in a kitchen to cook it is about more than just production of sustenance – it is about being together, helping each other, exchanging stories, and contributing to the gradual emergence of a shared meal. In this paper we present a digital ethnography of how people coordinate and cooperate in their kitchens when cooking together for the purpose of inspiring the design of social natural user interactions for technologies in the kitchen. The study is based on 61 YouTube videos of people cooking together analyzed using the frameworks of proxemics and F-formations. Our findings unfold and illustrate relationships between people’s spatial organization, their cooking activities and physical kitchen layouts. Based on these we discuss the kitchen as a design space and particularly the opportunities for social natural user interaction design. Author Keywords F-formations; proxemics; natural user interaction; cooking together; digital ethnography; digital kitchens; the home ACM Classification Keywords H5.3 Computer-supported cooperative wor

Construção de ambientes educacionais com realidade aumentada: processo centrado no usuário

Nos últimos anos, uma proliferação de novas tecnologias vem surgindo para melhorar/facilitar o ensino e a assimilação das informações. Uma dessas tecnologias é a Realidade Aumentada - RA que enriquece o ambiente físico (real) com objetos virtuais. No entanto, é notavelmente maior a complexidade em projetá-los e usá-los do que interfaces/softwares 2D, onde o usuário, na maioria das vezes, já está habituado com as tecnologias. Projetistas de ambientes educacionais com RA precisam de diretrizes para tornar esses sistemas mais usáveis e diminuir assim a carga cognitiva, pois as orientações convencionais para construção de softwares, somente estão disponíveis para ambientes 2D. Dessa forma, este trabalho tem o objetivo de apresentar uma investigação que resultou em uma metodologia de Análise de Requisitos, específica para construção de objetos educacionais com RA, que visa estudar o modo como o usuário se comporta com as novas tecnologias usadas em RA (câmeras, capacetes, marcadores) e a junção do real com o virtual, construindo uma metodologia totalmente centrada no usuário

Attention-Based Applications in Extended Reality to Support Autistic Users: A Systematic Review

With the rising prevalence of autism diagnoses, it is essential for research to understand how to leverage technology to support the diverse nature of autistic traits. While traditional interventions focused on technology for medical cure and rehabilitation, recent research aims to understand how technology can accommodate each unique situation in an efficient and engaging way. Extended reality (XR) technology has been shown to be effective in improving attention in autistic users given that it is more engaging and motivating than other traditional mediums. Here, we conducted a systematic review of 59 research articles that explored the role of attention in XR interventions for autistic users. We systematically analyzed demographics, study design and findings, including autism screening and attention measurement methods. Furthermore, given methodological inconsistencies in the literature, we systematically synthesize methods and protocols including screening tools, physiological and behavioral cues of autism and XR tasks. While there is substantial evidence for the effectiveness of using XR in attention-based interventions for autism to support autistic traits, we have identified three principal research gaps that provide promising research directions to examine how autistic populations interact with XR. First, our findings highlight the disproportionate geographic locations of autism studies and underrepresentation of autistic adults, evidence of gender disparity, and presence of individuals diagnosed with co-occurring conditions across studies. Second, many studies used an assortment of standardized and novel tasks and self-report assessments with limited tested reliability. Lastly, the research lacks evidence of performance maintenance and transferability.Comment: [Accepted version] K. Wang, S. J. Julier and Y. Cho, "Attention-Based Applications in Extended Reality to Support Autistic Users: A Systematic Review," in IEEE Access, vol. 10, pp. 15574-15593, 2022, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2022.314772

Diseño de una interfaz de realidad mixta para la cocina del futuro

La multinacional BSH se encuentra trabajando en múltiples proyectos dedicados al diseño de la cocina de las próximas décadas. Uno de los ámbitos de trabajo es la creación de interfaces innovadoras que se consigan adaptar a tecnologías futuras y logren mejorar la experiencia de cocinado del usuario. Por tanto, junto a BSH y el grupo de investigación Graphics and Imaging Lab de la Universidad de Zaragoza nace este proyecto, cuyo objetivo es diseñar una interfaz de realidad mixta para la cocina del futuro.El trabajo busca explotar las virtudes de la realidad mixta para conseguir que el usuario reciba información y pueda interactuar con la cocina de manera sencilla, poco intrusiva y adaptada al entorno, además de mejorar su experiencia teniendo las manos completamente operativas durante el proceso de cocinado. Por ello se fija el alcance de este proyecto al diseño conceptual, interactivo y estético de la interfaz, así como a la realización de un vídeo demostrativo como prototipo de la misma.<br /

Ambient Intelligence for Next-Generation AR

Next-generation augmented reality (AR) promises a high degree of context-awareness - a detailed knowledge of the environmental, user, social and system conditions in which an AR experience takes place. This will facilitate both the closer integration of the real and virtual worlds, and the provision of context-specific content or adaptations. However, environmental awareness in particular is challenging to achieve using AR devices alone; not only are these mobile devices' view of an environment spatially and temporally limited, but the data obtained by onboard sensors is frequently inaccurate and incomplete. This, combined with the fact that many aspects of core AR functionality and user experiences are impacted by properties of the real environment, motivates the use of ambient IoT devices, wireless sensors and actuators placed in the surrounding environment, for the measurement and optimization of environment properties. In this book chapter we categorize and examine the wide variety of ways in which these IoT sensors and actuators can support or enhance AR experiences, including quantitative insights and proof-of-concept systems that will inform the development of future solutions. We outline the challenges and opportunities associated with several important research directions which must be addressed to realize the full potential of next-generation AR.Comment: This is a preprint of a book chapter which will appear in the Springer Handbook of the Metavers

Augmented reality for order picking using wearable computers with head-mounted displays

Order picking - the task of assembling orders in a warehouse is still the biggest expenditure in modern warehouses, therefore it is worth it focusing new research on the improvement of technologies and strategies which support this task. The recent development and the enhanced availability of head-mounted displays (HMDs) prompts further research regarding HMDs as a supporting technology for industrial applications. Based on research in related topics and the precise analysis of the use case we composed a concept for a system that supports the order picking process with the use of HMDs. In order to evaluate the concept a prototype that implemented the features of the concept, was built. The range of functionalities contains real time visual user guiding, visual task support, context and much more important step awareness that exempts the user from additional work steps and instant feedback in case of wrong actions of the user which enables direct reaction to errors. Tough a comparative user study, we compared the prototype with two traditional order picking methods and another order picking support system that uses projections for user guiding. The results show, that our prototype shows the lowest occurrence of long therm errors with the downside of a higher task completion time. However the study proved that the concept is worth being taken into consideration and be improved in further research.Komissionierung, die Aufgabe, Bestellungen in einem Lager zusammenzustellen, ist immer noch der größte Kostenpunkt in modernen Warenlagern. Deshalb lohnt es sich, Forschung auf die Verbesserung von Technologien und Strategien, die diese Aufgabe unterstützen zu fokussieren. Der jüngste Aufstieg und die verbesserte Verfügbarkeit von Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) fordert Nachforschung im Bezug auf HMDs als unterstützende Technologie für industrielle Anwendungen. Basierend auf Forschung in verwandten Themen und der genauen Analyse des Anwendungsfalles haben wir ein Konzept zusammengestellt, welches den Komissionierprozess mit Hilfe von HMDs unterstützt. Um dieses Konzept auszuwerten wurde ein Prototyp gebaut, der die Eigenschaften des Konzepts umsetzt. Der Umfang der Funktionalitäten umfasst visuelle Echtzeitbenutzerführung, visuelle Aufgabenunterstützung, Bewusstsein für den aktuellen Kontext und, viel wichtiger den momentanen Arbeitsschritt, was den Benutzer von zusätzlichen Arbeitsschritten befreit und sofortige Rückmeldung im Falle falscher Handlungen des Benutzers, was direkte Reaktion auf Fehler ermöglicht. Dieser Prototyp wurde in einer Benutzerstudie mit zwei traditionellen Systemen zu Komissionierungsunterstützung und einem weiteren System, das Projektionen zur Benutzerführung benutzt verglichen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass mit unserem Prototyp am wenigsten Langzeitfehler auftreten, was eine längere Zeit zur Erledigung der Aufgabe zur Folge hat. Die Studie hat bewiesen, dass dieses Konzept in zukünftiger Forschung mit beachtet werden sollte und sich eine Weiterentwicklung lohnt