From Avatars to Allies: Exploring Team Collaboration in the Metaverse

This paper explores the application of virtual reality (VR) technologies in the metaverse for team collaboration, focusing on its advantages over traditional videoconferencing. We examine the opportunities the metaverse offers for virtual teams’ collaborative tasks and the factors that enable effective team collaboration. A lab experiment comparing Meta Horizon Workrooms (a VR platform for virtual meeting rooms) with Zoom demonstrated higher immersion, social presence, and collaboration scores for the virtual environment among the participants. Furthermore, we identify that the metaverse offers novel possibilities for virtual interaction and enables greater focus on tasks and team members compared to videoconferencing. We conclude that the metaverse successfully enhances virtual team collaboration, promoting innovative teamwork and knowledge sharing. However, further exploration of this technology, including attention to nonverbal communication and suitable usage scenarios, is suggested. These findings provide organizations with a foundation for considering the implementation of VR collaboration platforms in the metaverse

VR-Informationssystem zur Bestimmung der benutzerorientierten Anforderungen für VR-Systeme im Kontext der virtuellen Produktentwicklung

Neue technologische Softwaresysteme müssen nutzerorientiert, profitabel, flexibel und gleichzeitig performant entwickelt werden. Durch den rasanten Fortschritt innovativer Technologien führt dies oftmals zu einem Defizit im Informations- oder Kommunikationsfluss zwischen beteiligten Stakeholdern. Im Kontext von Virtual Reality (VR)-Anwendungen kommt erschwerend hinzu, dass diese innovative Technologie und deren Funktionsumfang noch unzureichend beschrieben ist. Dies führt einerseits dazu, dass VR-KundInnen ihre Wünsche und Visionen bezüglich eines VR-Systems nicht entsprechend der aktuellen technischen Möglichkeiten ausrichten und formulieren können. Andererseits haben VR-EntwicklerInnen die Herausforderungen, kunden-orientiert zu konzipieren und zu kommunizieren und dabei das volle Potenzial auszuschöpfen, das mit VR-Technologien erbracht werden kann. Es fehlt an einem strukturierten Hilfsmittel, mit dem VR-KundInnen sowohl bei einer ersten Konfiguration eines gewünschten VR-Systems assistiert werden und relevante Informationen bereitgestellt bekommen als auch VR-EntwicklerInnen eine Übersicht für eine optimale Erstgesprächsvorbereitung sowie eine unmittelbare Entscheidungsgrundlage für eine Auftragsannahme erhalten. Das Ziel dieser Arbeit besteht in der Unterstützung des frühzeitigen Informationsaustausches zwischen VR-KundInnen und VR-EntwicklerInnen. Hierzu erfolgt die Entwicklung eines VR-Informationssystems, dessen Einsatz der VR-Systemrealisierung vorgelagert ist und das gewünschte VR-System spezifiziert. Durch die Bereitstellung aller VR-Spezifikationen und zugehöriger Metainformationen soll es VR-KundInnen möglich sein, Wissen über VR zu erwerben, ein gewünschtes VR-System zu konfigurieren und Schwerpunkte zu priorisieren. VR-EntwicklerInnen sollen im Sinne einer kundenorientierten VR-Systementwicklung das volle Potenzial von VR ausschöpfen können und im gesamten Softwareentwicklungsprozess unterstützt werden. Dabei wird der Rahmen des VR-Informationssystems auf den Einsatz von VR in der Produktentwicklung begrenzt.New technological software systems shall be developed in a user-oriented, profitable, flexible and, at the same time, in a high-performance manner. However, due to the rapid progress of innovative technologies, this often leads to a deficit in the information flow or the communication between the stakeholders involved in the early development. In the context of Virtual Reality (VR) applications, an additional challenge is that these innovative technologies and their range of functions are yet described insufficiently. On the one hand, this means that VR customers cannot streamline and formulate their wishes and visions from the VR system keeping in view the current technical possibilities. On the other hand, VR developers face the challenge of designing and communicating in a customer-oriented manner and thereby exploiting the full potential that can be offered from VR technologies. Currently, there is no structured tool available with which VR customers can be assisted with the initial configuration of the desired VR system and the acquisition of relevant information as well as the VR developers can be assisted with an overview for optimal preparation for an initial meeting and an immediate basis for decision making about accepting a development order. The goal of this work is to support the early exchange of information between VR customers and VR developers. For this purpose, a VR information system is developed with upstream use in the VR system implementation and it specifies the desired VR system. By providing all VR specifications and associated meta-information, VR customers shall be able to acquire knowledge about VR, configure the desired VR system and prioritize areas of focus. VR developers should be able to exploit the full potential of VR to develop a customer-oriented VR system and be supported in the entire software development process. The scope of the developed VR information system is limited to the use of VR in product development

Design Principles of Mobile Information Systems in the Digital Transformation of the Workplace - Utilization of Smartwatch-based Information Systems in the Corporate Context

During the last decades, smartwatches emerged as an innovative and promising technology and hit the consumer market due to the accessibility of affordable devices and predominant acceptance caused by the considerable similarity to common wristwatches. With the unique characteristics of permanent availability, unobtrusiveness, and hands-free operation, they can provide additional value in the corporate context. Thus, this thesis analyzes use cases for smartwatches in companies, elaborates on the design of smartwatch-based information systems, and covers the usability of smartwatch applications during the development of smartwatch-based information systems. It is composed of three research complexes. The first research complex focuses on the digital assistance of (mobile) employees who have to execute manual work and have been excluded so far from the benefits of the digitalization since they cannot operate hand-held devices. The objective is to design smartwatch-based information systems to support workflows in the corporate context, facilitate the daily work of numerous employees, and make processes more efficient for companies. During a design science research approach, smartwatch-based software artifacts are designed and evaluated in use cases of production, support, security service, as well as logistics, and a nascent design theory is proposed to complement theory according to mobile information system research. The evaluation shows that, on the one hand, smartwatches have enormous potential to assist employees with a fast and ubiquitous exchange of information, instant notifications, collaboration, and workflow guidance while they can be operated incidentally during manual work. On the other hand, the design of smartwatch-based information systems is a crucial factor for successful long-term deployment in companies, and especially limitations according to the small form-factor, general conditions, acceptance of the employees, and legal regulations have to be addressed appropriately. The second research complex addresses smartwatch-based information systems at the office workplace. This broadens and complements the view on the utilization of smartwatches in the corporate context in addition to the mobile context described in the first research complex. Though smartwatches are devices constructed for mobile use, the utilization in low mobile or stationary scenarios also has benefits due they exhibit the characteristic of a wearable computer and are directly connected to the employee’s body. Various sensors can perceive employee-, environment- and therefore context-related information and demand the employees’ attention with proactive notifications that are accompanied by a vibration. Thus, a smartwatch-based and gamified information system for health promotion at the office workplace is designed and evaluated. Research complex three provides a closer look at the topic of usability concerning applications running on smartwatches since it is a crucial factor during the development cycle. As a supporting element for the studies within the first and second research complex, a framework for the usability analysis of smartwatch applications is developed. For research, this thesis contributes a systemization of the state-of-the-art of smartwatch utilization in the corporate context, enabling and inhibiting influence factors of the smartwatch adoption in companies, and design principles as well as a nascent design theory for smartwatch-based information systems to support mobile employees executing manual work. For practice, this thesis contributes possible use cases for smartwatches in companies, assistance in decision-making for the introduction of smartwatch-based information systems in the corporate context with the Smartwatch Applicability Framework, situated implementations of a smartwatch-based information system for typical use cases, design recommendations for smartwatch-based information systems, an implementation of a smartwatch-based information system for the support of mobile employees executing manual work, and a usability-framework for smartwatches to automatically access usability of existing applications providing suggestions for usability improvement

Integração de usabilidade no paradigma de IoT em telesaúde: Automatização ao serviço da usabilidade

Durante os últimos anos os países desenvolvidos têm sofrido um shift demográfico fomentado pelo aumento da população idosa e pela redução da taxa de natalidade. A proeminência destes fatores nas sociedades atuais despoletou desafios de natureza societal, técnica e económica em várias áreas de atuação. Nessas áreas, destaca-se a área de saúde pela sua sensibilidade e relevância para o quotidiano de utilizadores com necessidades especiais (pessoas idosas, deficientes motores, entre outros). Nesse sentido, para mitigar os desafios impostos nos sistemas de saúde, têm-se adotado tecnologias de informação e comunicação para o dimensionamento de soluções dedicadas, que visam satisfazer necessidades específicas – os ecossistemas AAL (Ambiente de Vida Assistida). Apesar do seu atual estado de desenvolvimento, enfrentam múltiplos desafios relacionados com a autonomia, robustez, segurança, integração, interação humano-computador, armazenamento de dados e usabilidade, que condicionam a sua aceitação junto dos principais intervenientes [1][2][3][4]. O foco do desenvolvimento desta tipologia de ecossistemas sobre o paradigma tecnológico fomentou o desenvolvimento de aplicações específicas centralizadas sobre a mitigação de lacunas técnico-científicas [5][6][7][8], e é apontado como um dos motivos para os seus atuais níveis de adesão. A maximização da sua introdução no mercado impõe que o seu dimensionamento se centralize sobre o utilizador final, em termos de design, requisitos funcionais e não funcionais; e contemple o contexto de integração e continuidade de cuidados inseridos num sistema complexo, por contabilização da diversidade multidimensional dos utilizadores, da natureza das tarefas, do contexto de utilização e das plataformas tecnológicas [5]. Neste contexto, a usabilidade e a utilidade percecionada adquirem um papel de destaque, devido à sua estreita relação com o público-alvo. A necessidade crescente a nível empresarial de minimização do tempo necessário à colocação de produtos no mercado tem motivado a colocação da usabilidade do produto dimensionado em segundo plano [9][10][11]. Fator que aliado à morosidade do processo de análise e ao número de dependências, existência de profissionais na área, de utilizadores finais disponíveis para testar os protótipos dimensionados, entre outras, inviabiliza um estudo extensivo da usabilidade do produto antes, durante e após o seu desenvolvimento. No sentido de mitigar as lacunas identificadas no processo em termos de tempo de execução e dependências explícitas, visar-se-á dotar equipas de desenvolvimento de uma ferramenta que analise o produto dimensionado em tempo real ao nível das linhas orientadoras definidas na literatura. Para quantificar as linhas orientadoras especificadas, impor-se-á a sua parametrização baseada na informação existente na literatura. Nesse sentido, a tese visa compilar os parâmetros necessários a quantificar as linhas orientadoras definidas na literatura: Jakob Nielsen, Gerhardt‐Powals, Shneiderman, Weinschenk e Barker, e Tognazzini. Através da parametrização definir-se-á a base para traduzir linhas orientadoras em lógica a utilizar no dimensionamento de uma ferramenta de análise de usabilidade em tempo real das interfaces. Ferramenta que conferirá aos intervenientes diretos no ciclo de desenvolvimento, os programadores, uma forma objetiva de analisar a usabilidade do produto dimensionado sem requerer a intervenção de entidades externas a título inicial.In the past few years there has been a significant growth of the elderly population in both developing and developed countries. This event provided new economic, technical and demographic challenges to current societies in several areas and services. Among them the healthcare services can be highlighted, due to its impact in people daily lives. As a natural response an effort has been made by both the scientific and industrial community to develop alternatives, which could mitigate the current healthcare services bottlenecks and provide means in aiding and improve the end-user life quality. Through a combination of information and communication technologies specialized ecosystems have been developed, however multiple challenges arose, which compromise their adoption and acceptance among the main stakeholders, such as their autonomy, robustness, security, integration, human-computer interactions, and usability. As consequence an effort has been made to deal with the technical related bottlenecks, which shifted the development process focus from the end-user to the ecosystem’s technological impairments. Despite there being user related issues, such as usability, which remains to be addressed. Therefore, this thesis focuses over the ecosystem’s usability through the analysis of the process used to check the ecosystem’s compliance level with the usability guidelines subset from Jakob Nielsen and Rolf Molich, from Ben Shneiderman, from Weinschenk and Barker and from Tognazzini; and the identification of the quantifiable parameters for each principle that could aid in the heuristics evaluation process by maximizing its objectivity improve its overall accuracy. Through this quantification the base ground is set up to translate the broad guidelines defined in the literature to business rules that can be used to create a tool to check an interface usability overall status in real time. Tool which will provide the main entities in the development cycle an objective approach to check the usability of the product/service created without the intervention of real users in the initial stage of the project