Development and Specification of Virtual Environments

This thesis concerns the issues involved in the development of virtual environments (VEs). VEs are more than virtual reality. We identify four main characteristics of them: graphical interaction, multimodality, interface agents, and multi-user. These characteristics are illustrated with an overview of different classes of VE-like applications, and a number of state-of-the-art VEs. To further define the topic of research, we propose a general framework for VE systems development, in which we identify five major classes of development tools: methodology, guidelines, design specification, analysis, and development environments. Of each, we give an overview of existing best practices

Exploring individual user differences in the 2D/3D interaction with medical image data

User-centered design is often performed without regard to individual user differences. In this paper, we report results of an empirical study aimed to evaluate whether computer experience and demographic user characteristics would have an effect on the way people interact with the visualized medical data in a 3D virtual environment using 2D and 3D input devices. We analyzed the interaction through performance data, questionnaires and observations. The results suggest that differences in gender, age and game experience have an effect on people’s behavior and task performance, as well as on subjective\ud user preferences

A Health Monitoring Application to Support Informal Caregivers of People with Cognitive Impairment

Informal caregivers of people with cognitive impairment are often concerned about the health and wellbeing of their loved ones, leading to frequent care-related visits, check-ups, and conversations. Results from focus groups we held in daily care showed a strong need for support in terms of information about the health and wellbeing of the person with cognitive impairment (PwCI). The health monitoring application developed in this study, called HELMA, aims to offer a solution by monitoring the health and wellbeing of the PwCI in the long term and informing the informal caregivers. HELMA is an eHealth application that uses short frequent online monitoring questions to provide informal caregivers with information about the following health and wellbeing domains: physical; mental; social; and environmental. The next step is to evaluate HELMA on a large scale with end-users in daily practice