Enhanced Virtuality: Increasing the Usability and Productivity of Virtual Environments

Mit stetig steigender Bildschirmauflösung, genauerem Tracking und fallenden Preisen stehen Virtual Reality (VR) Systeme kurz davor sich erfolgreich am Markt zu etablieren. Verschiedene Werkzeuge helfen Entwicklern bei der Erstellung komplexer Interaktionen mit mehreren Benutzern innerhalb adaptiver virtueller Umgebungen. Allerdings entstehen mit der Verbreitung der VR-Systeme auch zusätzliche Herausforderungen: Diverse Eingabegeräte mit ungewohnten Formen und Tastenlayouts verhindern eine intuitive Interaktion. Darüber hinaus zwingt der eingeschränkte Funktionsumfang bestehender Software die Nutzer dazu, auf herkömmliche PC- oder Touch-basierte Systeme zurückzugreifen. Außerdem birgt die Zusammenarbeit mit anderen Anwendern am gleichen Standort Herausforderungen hinsichtlich der Kalibrierung unterschiedlicher Trackingsysteme und der Kollisionsvermeidung. Beim entfernten Zusammenarbeiten wird die Interaktion durch Latenzzeiten und Verbindungsverluste zusätzlich beeinflusst. Schließlich haben die Benutzer unterschiedliche Anforderungen an die Visualisierung von Inhalten, z.B. Größe, Ausrichtung, Farbe oder Kontrast, innerhalb der virtuellen Welten. Eine strikte Nachbildung von realen Umgebungen in VR verschenkt Potential und wird es nicht ermöglichen, die individuellen Bedürfnisse der Benutzer zu berücksichtigen. Um diese Probleme anzugehen, werden in der vorliegenden Arbeit Lösungen in den Bereichen Eingabe, Zusammenarbeit und Erweiterung von virtuellen Welten und Benutzern vorgestellt, die darauf abzielen, die Benutzerfreundlichkeit und Produktivität von VR zu erhöhen. Zunächst werden PC-basierte Hardware und Software in die virtuelle Welt übertragen, um die Vertrautheit und den Funktionsumfang bestehender Anwendungen in VR zu erhalten. Virtuelle Stellvertreter von physischen Geräten, z.B. Tastatur und Tablet, und ein VR-Modus für Anwendungen ermöglichen es dem Benutzer reale Fähigkeiten in die virtuelle Welt zu übertragen. Des Weiteren wird ein Algorithmus vorgestellt, der die Kalibrierung mehrerer ko-lokaler VR-Geräte mit hoher Genauigkeit und geringen Hardwareanforderungen und geringem Aufwand ermöglicht. Da VR-Headsets die reale Umgebung der Benutzer ausblenden, wird die Relevanz einer Ganzkörper-Avatar-Visualisierung für die Kollisionsvermeidung und das entfernte Zusammenarbeiten nachgewiesen. Darüber hinaus werden personalisierte räumliche oder zeitliche Modifikationen vorgestellt, die es erlauben, die Benutzerfreundlichkeit, Arbeitsleistung und soziale Präsenz von Benutzern zu erhöhen. Diskrepanzen zwischen den virtuellen Welten, die durch persönliche Anpassungen entstehen, werden durch Methoden der Avatar-Umlenkung (engl. redirection) kompensiert. Abschließend werden einige der Methoden und Erkenntnisse in eine beispielhafte Anwendung integriert, um deren praktische Anwendbarkeit zu verdeutlichen. Die vorliegende Arbeit zeigt, dass virtuelle Umgebungen auf realen Fähigkeiten und Erfahrungen aufbauen können, um eine vertraute und einfache Interaktion und Zusammenarbeit von Benutzern zu gewährleisten. Darüber hinaus ermöglichen individuelle Erweiterungen des virtuellen Inhalts und der Avatare Einschränkungen der realen Welt zu überwinden und das Erlebnis von VR-Umgebungen zu steigern

Haptics Rendering and Applications

There has been significant progress in haptic technologies but the incorporation of haptics into virtual environments is still in its infancy. A wide range of the new society's human activities including communication, education, art, entertainment, commerce and science would forever change if we learned how to capture, manipulate and reproduce haptic sensory stimuli that are nearly indistinguishable from reality. For the field to move forward, many commercial and technological barriers need to be overcome. By rendering how objects feel through haptic technology, we communicate information that might reflect a desire to speak a physically- based language that has never been explored before. Due to constant improvement in haptics technology and increasing levels of research into and development of haptics-related algorithms, protocols and devices, there is a belief that haptics technology has a promising future

Supporting user appropriation of public displays

Despite their prevalence, public engagement with pervasive public displays is typically very low. One method for increasing the relevance of displayed content (and therefore hopefully improving engagement) is to allow the viewer themselves to affect the content shown on displays they encounter – for example, personalising an existing news feed or invoking a specific application on a display of their choosing. We describe this process as viewer appropriation of public displays. This thesis aims to provide the foundations for appropriation support in future ‘open’ pervasive display networks. Our architecture combines three components: Yarely, a scheduler and media player; Tacita, a system for allowing users to make privacy-preserving appropriation requests, and Mercury, an application store for distributing content. Interface points between components support integration with thirdparty systems; a prime example is the provision of Content Descriptor Sets (CDSs) to describe the media items and constraints that determine what is played at each display. Our evaluation of the architecture is both quantitive and qualitative and includes a mixture of user studies, surveys, focus groups, performance measurements and reflections. Overall we show that it is feasible to construct a robust open pervasive display network that supports viewer appropriation. In particular, we show that Yarely’s thick-client approach enables the development of a signage system that provides continuous operation even in periods of network disconnection yet is able to respond to viewer appropriation requests. Furthermore, we show that CDSs can be used as an effective means of information exchange in an open architecture. Performance measures indicate that demanding personalisation scenarios can be satisfied, and our qualitative work indicates that both display owners and viewers are positive about the introduction of appropriation into future pervasive display systems

AN EXPLORATORY STUDY TO INVESTIGATE THE USE OF AUGMENTED REALITY IN SUPPORTING COLLABORATIVE LEARNING PROCESSES

Collaborative learning mediated by technology was proven as one ofthe efficient learning approaches which benefit in both academic and soft skills. Despite advantages offered by technologies, some obstacles were also created e.g. problem in supporting interaction and communication, disregard of physical and sharing objects' roles. Augmented Reality (AR) offers a unique learning experience by combining the physical and virtual object. The benefits of rich media were enduring and the role of physical material is also considered. However, the literature reveals that there is no design guideline specifically intended for AR based collaborative learning. Hence, this research aims to study and proposed a conceptual framework to guide the development of collaborative AR in learning

Curiosity and experience design: developing the desire to know and explore in ways that are sociable, embodied and playful

Curiosity, as a strong motivator for exploration and discovery, has long been an underexplored but important emotional response in relation to technology. This research considers that it has great potential to improve many aspects of the user experience, especially in today’s screen-saturated context. However, engaging curiosity by novelty and uncertainty may exhaust attentional strength and challenge usability. Thus, the purpose of this research is to find ways to foster the human trait of curiosity and avoid its negative effects. To gain an in-depth understanding of curiosity, the first chapter reviews cross-disciplinary literature to expand its role in improving user experience. This ranges from serving as an attention grabber to including the values that contribute to human survival, thriving, emotional resilience, and personal development. The second chapter identifies problems in the current curiosity-provoking design methods. The chapter also emphasises design for supporting active curiosity and avoiding the creation of purely novel stimuli. This approach is to encourage active curiosity to develop. To this end, the research proceeds to conduct observational studies at a museum to broaden our understanding of factors that influence people’s curiosity and exploration within a screen-mediated context. Based on these observations, I identified that there are three conceptual elements: sociability, embodiment, and playfulness. Through theoretical discussion and reflection upon the design examples, subsequent three chapters explore the relationship between curiosity and each conceptual element. The chapters also suggest several design approaches that embrace curiosity in relation to its social, embodied, and playful nature. These include creating a sense of co-curiosity, allowing the use of covert and overt curiosity-satisfying strategies, increasing bodily exploration affordances of the screen for linking curiosity with embodiment, using metaphors of the body-screen relationship, and developing possibilities and adding enchanting effects for eliciting playfulness to enrich curiosity. In essence, this research enhances our understanding of the user experience from the perspective of curiosity, and these design suggestions also help to embrace users’ active curiosity in developing sociable, embodied, and playful well-being in the age of ubiquitous screens

Systems&design:beyond processes and thinking

El entorno social,el territorio, los productos y las empresas, son ámbitos comunes,en los que se pretende realizar una optimización en la gestión del conocimiento,y desde la que se nos debe permitir observar el mayor número de factores con incidencia en la decisión proyectual necesaria para el diseño de nuevos productos y o servicios.Los retos que plantea la complejidad inherente a estos nuevos tiempos, exige la observación y estudio desde diferentes abordajes e investigaciones, que deberán ser capaces de interpretar las múltiples relaciones complejas, considerando su comportamiento y afectación en el proceso de diseño desde el ámbito complejo de lo multidisciplinar.Hernandis Ortuño, B. (2016). Systems&design:beyond processes and thinking. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/73710EDITORIA