Enhanced reality live role playing

Live role-playing is a form of improvisational theatre played for the experience of the performers and without an audience. These games form a challenging application domain for ubiquitous technology. We discuss the design options for enhanced reality live role-playing and the role of technology in live role-playing games

Location-based technologies for learning

Emerging technologies for learning report - Article exploring location based technologies and their potential for educatio

Introduction to location-based mobile learning

[About the book] The report follows on from a 2-day workshop funded by the STELLAR Network of Excellence as part of their 2009 Alpine Rendez-Vous workshop series and is edited by Elizabeth Brown with a foreword from Mike Sharples. Contributors have provided examples of innovative and exciting research projects and practical applications for mobile learning in a location-sensitive setting, including the sharing of good practice and the key findings that have resulted from this work. There is also a debate about whether location-based and contextual learning results in shallower learning strategies and a section detailing the future challenges for location-based learning

Augmenting the field experience: a student-led comparison of techniques and technologies

In this study we report on our experiences of creating and running a student fieldtrip exercise which allowed students to compare a range of approaches to the design of technologies for augmenting landscape scenes. The main study site is around Keswick in the English Lake District, Cumbria, UK, an attractive upland environment popular with tourists and walkers. The aim of the exercise for the students was to assess the effectiveness of various forms of geographic information in augmenting real landscape scenes, as mediated through a range of techniques and technologies. These techniques were: computer-generated acetate overlays showing annotated wireframe views from certain key points; a custom-designed application running on a PDA; a mediascape running on the mScape software on a GPS-enabled mobile phone; Google Earth on a tablet PC; and a head-mounted in-field Virtual Reality system. Each group of students had all five techniques available to them, and were tasked with comparing them in the context of creating a visitor guide to the area centred on the field centre. Here we summarise their findings and reflect upon some of the broader research questions emerging from the project

Using Sound to Enhance Users’ Experiences of Mobile Applications

The latest smartphones with GPS, electronic compass, directional audio, touch screens etc. hold potentials for location based services that are easier to use compared to traditional tools. Rather than interpreting maps, users may focus on their activities and the environment around them. Interfaces may be designed that let users search for information by simply pointing in a direction. Database queries can be created from GPS location and compass direction data. Users can get guidance to locations through pointing gestures, spatial sound and simple graphics. This article describes two studies testing prototypic applications with multimodal user interfaces built on spatial audio, graphics and text. Tests show that users appreciated the applications for their ease of use, for being fun and effective to use and for allowing users to interact directly with the environment rather than with abstractions of the same. The multimodal user interfaces contributed significantly to the overall user experience

Design principles of interactive play systems for children's outdoor play:A designers’ perspective

In recent years, designers around the world have developed a number of interactive play systems to stimulate children's outdoor play. This paper provides a framework for the design principles used by designers of interactive play systems. In addition, the mechanisms by which these design principles could potentially contribute to stimulating children's outdoor play are discussed based on the COM-B model of behaviour change. The COM-B model is adopted to elaborate the design principles and their mechanisms of action. This model provides a basis for designing healthy behaviour change interventions. It defines behaviour as the result of an interaction between three components that generate behaviour: Capability, Opportunity, and Motivation. The contribution of this paper is to identify the design principles and link them to the underlying factors of children's outdoor play in terms of the components of the COM-B model. Clarifying this link elaborates the mechanisms of action of design principles to stimulate children's outdoor play. An in-depth interview approach is used to explore the designers’ perspectives. The findings of this research contribute to the theory of behaviour change and are beneficial for practitioners, and in particular, interactive designers who develop systems that stimulate children's outdoor play.</p

Head Up Games : on the design, creation and evaluation of interactive outdoor games for children

This thesis proposes a new genre of outdoor games for children, namely Head Up Games. The concept was inspired by the observation that existing pervasive outdoor games for children were mostly played head down, as the predominantly screen-based interaction of existing games required constant attention of the children. First, the vision of Head Up Games is described and illustrated with several design cases (Chapter 2). In contrast to the head down games, Head Up Games aim to encourage and support rich social interaction and physical activity, play behaviors that are similar to play behaviors seen in traditional outdoor games (such as tag and hide-and-seek). The design process of Head Up Games poses several challenges. In User Centered Design it is commonly accepted to start the development of a new product using low-fi mock-ups, e.g., paper prototypes, and evaluate these with end-users. In the case of Head Up Games this proved to be difficult, as the emerging game experience is significantly altered when using paper prototypes. Therefore, a study was carried out that used high-fi prototypes, i.e. working, interactive, prototypes, from a very early stage in the design process (Chapter 3). This way, the effect of interactions on the game experience can be addressed earlier and better in the design process. Furthemore, having access to technology early in the design process, allows designers to better explore the design space. However, designers often do not possess adequate skills to quickly prototype interactive products, particularly products that need to be evaluated in an outdoor context. Such a development is often costly and time-consuming. Therefore, the RaPIDO platform was developed (Chapter 4). The platform not only includes the appropriate hardware for creating outdoor games, but is also bundled with software libraries, to allow designers not specifically trained in software engineering to adopt the platform easily. RaPIDO was evaluated using a case study methodology with two Industrial Design master students. The evaluation not only focused on the usability of the platform, but, more importantly, how the use of the platform affected the design process. The main conclusion of the study was that the designers indeed were able to rapidly create mobile games, and that the hardware offered was suitable for creating outdoor games. Furthermore, issues were identified with regard to writing the game software, e.g., managing the complexity of the software. Finally, for evaluating Head Up Games with children two methods were applied: the Outdoor Play Observation Scheme (OPOS) was used to quantify the intended play behavior. Furthermore, GroupSorter was developed to provide a framework to interview a group of children simultaneously, resulting in qualitative comments. Both OPOS and GroupSorter were applied for evaluating three Head Up Games, which are described in Chapter 5

Interactive Experiences in Public Spaces: A Novel Floor Display System Based on Luminous Modular Units

We describe the design of an interactive concrete floor display for public spaces and discuss its implementation and areas of application. The primary purpose of our system is to provide new forms of collaborative interaction in long-term installations in both indoor and outdoor spaces. Our design is an expandable system of interconnected tiles, which control an array of RGB Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) based on user input. The LEDs are built into the tiles and arranged in a manner that simulates pixels on a computer screen, providing a natural visualization mechanism. Each tile acts as an independent node in a network, where motion sensors trigger specific actions and provide interactivity to the surface. A series of applications are illustrated, including promotional advertising and interactive games. The system was installed and evaluated on a university campus for four weeks where hundreds of visitors successfully interacted with the floor

Guidelines for designing augmented reality games

The growing popularity of augmented reality (AR) games in both a research and more recently commercial context has led for a need to take a closer look at design related issues which impact on player experience. While issues relating to this area have been considered, to date most of the emphasis has been on the technology aspects. Furthermore it is almost always assumed that the augmented reality element in itself will provide a sufficient experience for the player. This has led to a need to evaluate what makes a successful augmented reality game. In this paper we present a set of design guidelines which are drawn from experiences of three mixed reality games. The guidelines provide specific guidance on relationships between real and virtual space, social interaction, use of AR technologies, maintaining consistent themes and implicitly address higher level aspects such as presence within a particular augmented reality place