TangiWheel: disseny i implementació d'un control d'exploració de col·leccions sobre superfícies interactives

Aquest treball presenta el disseny i la implementació de TangiWheel, un control per a l'exploració de col·leccions en forma de menú de pastís circular. El seu disseny està orientat a les superfícies interactives que permeten l'ús tant de dits com d'elements tangibles per realitzar les interaccions. A més, TangiWheel incorpora un estil d'interacció nou en aquest tipus de control que combina l'ús dels dits i dels tangibles. Per demostrar l'adequació del disseny i la comoditat de les interaccions possibles en aquest menú, s'han realitzat una sèrie d'experiments amb usuaris on s'ha arribat a la conclusió que la modalitat d'interacció híbrida resulta, per regla general, més avantatjosa que la tàctil o la tangible per separat.García Sanjuan, F. (2012). TangiWheel: disseny i implementació d'un control d'exploració de col·leccions sobre superfícies interactives. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/16514.Archivo delegad

Factores para la diferenciación de usuarios sobre mesas interactivas. Estudio de un enfoque basado en interacciones simultáneas

[EN] Differentiating between users that interact simultaneously on a tabletop could be beneficial for collaborative tasks. Hence, the applications could support more effectively several territoriality-oriented features and they could provide a more efficient space management or a better presentation of the contents. This work presents a series of software factors which could be used to obtain such differentiation. Also, we design a novel algorithm for the controls segmentation according to their owner based on one of those factors: the simultaneous manipulation of controls. This is a potential differentiating factor that has remained unexplored so far, and in combination with others may become relevant to successfully accomplish such differentiation task. Basically it relies on the idea that users manipulate digital elements with a single hand, and therefore, if two controls are being used at the same time, they most likely belong to different users. On the generic algorithm, three different versions have been implemented that include several heuristics to address the problem. The comparison under a simulated experiment shows that the heuristic involving more knowledge on distances on user controls performed better according to different goodness functions. The results show this factor promising to further development and refinement of the approach by expanding it with other potential factors to eventually build a robust user differentiation subsystem[ES] Diferenciar entre los usuarios que están trabajando simultáneamente entorno a una superficie interactiva podría ser beneficioso para tareas colaborativas. Así, las aplicaciones podrían soportar de manera más efectiva ciertos aspectos orientados a la territorialidad, a la gestión eficiente del espacio disponible y a la representación de los contenidos. En este trabajo se comenta una serie de factores software que podrían usarse para realizar dicha diferenciación, y se diseña un algoritmo para la agrupación de controles según su dueño basado en uno de estos factores: la manipulación simultánea de controles. Este factor no ha sido explorado en detalle hasta este momento, y, mediante su combinación con otros factores, podría resultar relevante para el objetivo buscado. Básicamente, se basa en la idea de que los usuarios suelen manipular los elementos de interfaz con una sola mano y, por lo tanto, dos controles que están siendo manipulados al mismo tiempo es muy probable que pertenezcan a usuarios distintos. Se han realizado tres versiones diferentes del algoritmo anterior, cada una basada en una heurística diferente. La comparación de las mismas bajo un experimento simulado muestra que la heurística que involucra más información sobre la distancia física entre los controles se comporta mejor de acuerdo a una serie de métricas definidas. Los resultados se muestran relevantes para seguir explorando y refinando este enfoque, expandiéndolo con otros factores potenciales, y así conseguir construir un subsistema de diferenciación potente y robusto.García Sanjuan, F. (2013). Factores para la diferenciación de usuarios sobre mesas interactivas. Estudio de un enfoque basado en interacciones simultáneas. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/44577Archivo delegad

Evaluating Simultaneous Visual Instructions with Kindergarten Children on Touchscreen Devices

[EN] A myriad of educational applications using tablets and multi-touch technology for kindergarten children have been developed in the last decade. However, despite the possible benefits of using visual prompts to communicate information to kindergarteners, these visual techniques have not been fully studied yet. This article therefore investigates kindergarten children¿s abilities to understand and follow several visual prompts about how to proceed and interact in a virtual 2D world. The results show that kindergarteners are able to effectively understand several visual prompts with different communication purposes despite being used simultaneously. The results also show that the use of the evaluated visual prompts to communicate data when playing reduces the number of interferences about technical nature fostering dialogues related to the learning activity guided by the instructors or caregivers. Hence, this work is a starting point for designing dialogic learning scenarios tailored to kindergarten children.This work is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and funded by the European Development Regional Fund (EDRF-FEDER) with Project TIN2014-60077-R; by VALi+d program from Conselleria d¿Educació, Cultura i Esport (Generalitat Valenciana) under the fellowship ACIF/2014/214, and by the FPU program from Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport under the fellowship FPU14/00136Nácher, V.; García-Sanjuan, F.; Jaén Martínez, FJ. (2020). Evaluating Simultaneous Visual Instructions with Kindergarten Children on Touchscreen Devices. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction. 36(1):41-54. https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2019.1597576S4154361Allen, R., & Scofield, J. (2010). Word learning from videos: more evidence from 2-year-olds. Infant and Child Development, 19(6), 649-661. doi:10.1002/icd.712Cristia, A., & Seidl, A. (2015). Parental Reports on Touch Screen Use in Early Childhood. PLOS ONE, 10(6), e0128338. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0128338Derboven, J., De Roeck, D., & Verstraete, M. (2012). Semiotic analysis of multi-touch interface design: The MuTable case study. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 70(10), 714-728. doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2012.05.005Egloff, T. H. (2004). Edutainment. Computers in Entertainment, 2(1), 13-13. doi:10.1145/973801.973822Fernández-López, Á., Rodríguez-Fórtiz, M. J., Rodríguez-Almendros, M. L., & Martínez-Segura, M. J. (2013). Mobile learning technology based on iOS devices to support students with special education needs. Computers & Education, 61, 77-90. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2012.09.014Furió, D., González-Gancedo, S., Juan, M.-C., Seguí, I., & Rando, N. (2013). Evaluation of learning outcomes using an educational iPhone game vs. traditional game. Computers & Education, 64, 1-23. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2012.12.001Hanna, L., Risden, K., & Alexander, K. (1997). Guidelines for usability testing with children. Interactions, 4(5), 9-14. doi:10.1145/264044.264045Honomichl, R. D., & Chen, Z. (2012). The role of guidance in children’s discovery learning. WIREs Cognitive Science, 3(6), 615-622. doi:10.1002/wcs.1199Hourcade, J. P. (2007). Interaction Design and Children. Foundations and Trends® in Human-Computer Interaction, 1(4), 277-392. doi:10.1561/1100000006Ioannou, A., Zaphiris, P., Loizides, F., & Vasiliou, C. (2013). Let’S Talk About Technology for Peace: A Systematic Assessment of Problem-Based Group Collaboration Around an Interactive Tabletop. Interacting with Computers, 27(2), 120-132. doi:10.1093/iwc/iwt061Keenan, T., Ruffman, T., & Olson, D. R. (1994). When do children begin to understand logical inference as a source of knowledge? Cognitive Development, 9(3), 331-353. doi:10.1016/0885-2014(94)90010-8Levine, S. C., Huttenlocher, J., Taylor, A., & Langrock, A. (1999). Early sex differences in spatial skill. Developmental Psychology, 35(4), 940-949. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.35.4.940Nacher, V., Garcia-Sanjuan, F., & Jaen, J. (2016). Interactive technologies for preschool game-based instruction: Experiences and future challenges. Entertainment Computing, 17, 19-29. doi:10.1016/j.entcom.2016.07.001Nacher, V., Jaen, J., & Catala, A. (2016). Evaluating Multitouch Semiotics to Empower Prekindergarten Instruction with Interactive Surfaces. Interacting with Computers, 29(2), 97-116. doi:10.1093/iwc/iww007Nacher, V., Jaen, J., Navarro, E., Catala, A., & González, P. (2015). Multi-touch gestures for pre-kindergarten children. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 73, 37-51. doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2014.08.004Nacher, V., Jurdi, S., Jaen, J., & Garcia-Sanjuan, F. (2019). Exploring visual prompts for communicating directional awareness to kindergarten children. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 126, 14-25. doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2019.01.003Neumann, M. M. (2017). Parent scaffolding of young children’s use of touch screen tablets. Early Child Development and Care, 188(12), 1654-1664. doi:10.1080/03004430.2016.1278215Pecora, N., Murray, J. P., & Wartella, E. A. (Eds.). (2009). Children and Television. doi:10.4324/9781410618047Plowman, L., Stevenson, O., Stephen, C., & McPake, J. (2012). Preschool children’s learning with technology at home. Computers & Education, 59(1), 30-37. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2011.11.014Smith, S. P., Burd, E., & Rick, J. (2012). Developing, evaluating and deploying multi-touch systems. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 70(10), 653-656. doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2012.07.002Van der Meij, H., & van der Meij, J. (2014). A comparison of paper-based and video tutorials for software learning. Computers & Education, 78, 150-159. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2014.06.003Vatavu, R.-D., Cramariuc, G., & Schipor, D. M. (2015). Touch interaction for children aged 3 to 6 years: Experimental findings and relationship to motor skills. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 74, 54-76. doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2014.10.00

Augmented Tangible Surfaces to Support Cognitive Games for Ageing People

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19695-4_27The continuous and rapidly increasing elderly population requires a revision of technology design in order to devise systems usable and meaningful for this social group. Most applications for ageing people are built to provide supporting services, taking into account the physical and cognitive abilities that decrease over time. However, this paper focuses on building technology to improve such capacities, or at least slow down their decline, through cognitive games. This is achieved by means of a digitally-augmented table-like surface that combines touch with tangible input for a more natural, intuitive, and appealing means of interaction. Its construction materials make it an affordable device likely to be used in retirement homes in the context of therapeutic activities, and its form factor enables a versatile, quick, and scalable configuration, as well as a socializing experience.This work received financial support from Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the National Strategic Program of Research and Project TIN2010-20488, and from Universitat Politécnica de Valencia under Project UPV-FE-2014-24. It is also supported by fellowships APOST D/2013/013 and ACIF/2014/214 within the VALi+d program from Conselleria d’Educació, Cultura i Esport (GVA).García Sanjuan, F.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Catalá Bolós, A. (2015). Augmented Tangible Surfaces to Support Cognitive Games for Ageing People. En Ambient Intelligence - Software and Applications. Springer. 263-271. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-19695-4_27S26327

Multi-Display Environments to Foster Emotional Intelligence in Hospitalized Children

© Owner/Author 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in Interacción '15 Proceedings of the XVI International Conference on Human Computer Interactionhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2829875.2829880Long-term and frequent hospitalized children are under high loads of emotional stress, which affects their well-being in addition to the illness they are suffering. This thesis proposes and will focus on an approach to use Multi-Display Environments (MDE) in pediatric hospitalization contexts to improve patients’ emotional intelligence so they can deal with the negative emotions produced by their situation.This work is supported by Spanish MINECO (TIN2010-20488 and TIN2014-60077-R), from Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV-FE-2014-24), and from GVA (APOSTD/2013/013 and ACIF/2014/214).García Sanjuan, F.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Catalá Bolós, A. (2015). Multi-Display Environments to Foster Emotional Intelligence in Hospitalized Children. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2829875.2829880SGal, E., Bauminger, N., Goren-Bar, D., et al. Enhancing Social Communication of Children with High-functioning Autism Through a Co-located Interface. AI & Society 24, 1 (2009), 75--84.Hornecker, E., Marshall, P., Dalton, N.S., and Rogers, Y. Collaboration and Interference: Awareness with Mice or Touch Input. CSCW '08, ACM (2008), 167--176.Kaminski, M., Pellino, T., and Wish, J. Play and Pets: The Physical and Emotional Impact of Child-Life and Pet Therapy on Hospitalized Children. Children's Health Care 31, 4 (2002), 321--335.Mandryk, R.L., Inkpen, K.M., Bilezikjian, M., Klemmer, S.R., and Landay, J.A. Supporting children's collaboration across handheld computers. CHI EA '01, ACM (2001), 255--256.Morris, M.E., Marshall, C.S., Calix, M., Al Haj, M., MacDougall, J.S., and Carmean, D.M. PIXEE: Pictures, Interaction and Emotional Expression. CHI EA '13, ACM (2013), 2277--2286.Ohta, T. and Tanaka, J. Pinch: an interface that relates applications on multiple touch-screen by `pinching' gesture. ACE '12, Springer-Verlag (2012), 320--335.Ohta, T. Dynamically reconfigurable multi-display environment for CG contents. ACE '08, ACM (2008), 416.Rick, J., Marshall, P., and Yuill, N. Beyond One-size-fits-all: How Interactive Tabletops Support Collaborative Learning. IDC '11, ACM (2011), 109--117

Tangibot: A tangible-mediated robot to support cognitive games for ageing people A usability study

[EN] The ever increasing elderly population requires a revision of technology to make it usable and meaningful for them. Most applications take into account their reduced physical and cognitive abilities in order to provide assistive services, but this paper focuses on building technology to improve these capacities through cognitive games. We present Tangibot, a tangible-mediated robot aimed at enabling more intuitive and appealing interactions. A usability study conducted on subjects at three different levels of cognitive impairment (none, mild, and severe) reveals that it is usable and engaging for users with no or mild cognitive impairment, and even though it is less usable for persons with severe impairment, it triggers positive emotional reactions among them, which makes it promising for their use in therapeutic activities.This work is supported by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and funded by the European Development Regional Fund (EDRF-FEDER) with Project TIN2014-60077-R. It is also supported by fellowship ACIF/2014/214 within the VALi+d program from Conselleria d'Educacio, Cultura i Esport (Generalitat Valenciana), and by fellowship FPU14/00136 within the FPU program from Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport.García Sanjuan, F.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Nácher-Soler, VE. (2017). Tangibot: A tangible-mediated robot to support cognitive games for ageing people A usability study. Pervasive and Mobile Computing. 34:91-105. doi:10.1016/j.pmcj.2016.08.007S911053

Airsteroids: Re-designing the Arcade Game Using MarkAirs

© Authors 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in ACM, In Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Interactive Tabletops & Surfaces (pp. 413-416). http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2817721.2823480This paper presents Airsteroids, a multi-player redesign of the classic arcade game Asteroids. The redesign makes use of handheld devices such as tablets and Smartphones and of MarkAirs, an around-device interaction (ADI) with fiducial markers that reduces occlusion on the screens and interference between users’ interactions.This work received financial support from Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the National Strategic Program of Research with Projects TIN2010-20488 and TIN2014-60077-R, and from Universitat Politècnica de València under Project UPV-FE-2014-24. It is also supported by fellowship ACIF/2014/214 within the VALi+d program from Conselleria d’Educació, Cultura i Esport (Generalitat Valenciana).García Sanjuan, F.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Catalá Bolós, A.; Fitzpatrick, G. (2015). Airsteroids: Re-designing the Arcade Game Using MarkAirs. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2817721.2823480SAmartya Banerjee, Jesse Burstyn, Audrey Girouard, and Roel Vertegaal. 2011. Pointable: An in-air pointing technique to manipulate out-of-reach targets on tabletops. Proc. of ITS'11, 11--20. http://doi.org/10.1145/2076354.2076357Daniel Gallardo and Sergi Jordà. 2013. SLFiducials: 6DoF markers for tabletop interaction. Proc. of ITS'13, 401--404. http://doi.org/10.1145/2512349.2514914Otmar Hilliges, Shahram Izadi, Andrew D. Wilson, Steve Hodges, Armando Garcia-Mendoza, and Andreas Butz. 2009. Interactions in the air: adding further depth to interactive tabletops. Proc. of UIST'09, 139--148. http://doi.org/10.1145/1622176.1622203Brett Jones, Rajinder Sodhi, David Forsyth, Brian Bailey, and Giuliano Maciocci. 2012. Around device interaction for multiscale navigation. Proc. of MobileHCI'12, 83--92. http://doi.org/10.1145/2371574.2371589Hamed Ketabdar, Kamer Ali Yüksel, and Mehran Roshandel. 2010. MagiTact: Interaction with mobile devices based on compass (magnetic) sensor. Proc. of IUI'10, 413--414. http://doi.org/10.1145/1719970.1720048Sven Kratz, Michael Rohs, Dennis Guse, Jörg Müller, Gilles Bailly, and Michael Nischt. 2012. PalmSpace: Continuous around-device gestures vs. multitouch for 3D rotation tasks on mobile devices. Proc. of AVI'12, 181--188. http://doi.org/10.1145/2254556.2254590Nicolai Marquardt, Ricardo Jota, Saul Greenberg, and Joaquim A. Jorge. 2011. The continuous interaction space: Interaction techniques unifying touch and gesture on and above a digital surface. Proc. of INTERACT'11, 461--476. http://doi.org/10.1007/978--3--642--23765--2_32Roman Rädle, Hans-Christian Jetter, Nicolai Marquardt, Harald Reiterer, and Yvonne Rogers. 2014. HuddleLamp: Spatially-aware mobile displays for ad-hoc around-the-table collaboration. Proc. of ITS'14, 45--54. http://doi.org/10.1145/2669485.2669500Martin Spindler, Sophie Stellmach, and Raimund Dachselt. 2009. PaperLens: Advanced magic lens interaction above the tabletop. Proc. of ITS'09, 69--76. http://doi.org/10.1145/1731903.173192

Tangibot: A collaborative multiplayer game for pediatric patients

[EN] Background Previous research has studied the effects of games in pediatric wards, but none of it has focused on the impact of the hospital¿s school staff on the psychosocial state of the children nor on the gameplay itself. Objectives To present the Tangibot application and evaluate its impact on the children¿s psychosocial state in the short term and the impact of the teacher on their psychosocial state, communications and coordination during the activity. Methods A study was conducted in a hospital classroom with 20 participants, who participated twice in the game: one with the teacher playing along and another without her. An observational scale was used by two evaluators in order to assess the impact on the children. Results and conclusions The study revealed that the teacher has an impact on the children¿s communication and coordination procedures but has no impact on the psychosocial state of the participants. The teacher¿s impact was found to be positive about communications. Dialogue management significantly improves when the communication includes the teacher, which means speaking turns are observed more consistently. Information pooling also improves, and the participants ask the teacher more questions. Consensus is also reached more often and more easily, but this does not reflect on the performance, as the time management is evidently worse when the teacher is present, as is also the joint task orientation. On the other hand, it was found that the teacher does not have an impact on the psychosocial state of the participants during the game, and that it is the game itself which changes their state over time. In the case of affection, which reflects the participants¿ emotions of joy or boredom, their state improved significantly after a few minutes of play. The same thing occurred for physical activity, interest in the activity and interaction between peers, which increased in value in the first part of the game, although physical activity and interaction were reduced towards the end. No changes were found throughout the game in the number of complaints, nervousness or satisfied comments, which remained very low for all these aspects, showing that the game distracted them from their various symptoms. Based on these results, future work will explore the effects of gamification on the overall hospitalization perception, with special focus on the social opportunities during the hospital stay, to provide ways for the children to meet others during their treatment, to make the experience less painful and reduce their feelings of isolation. Some game strategies should also be evaluated to determine the ones that provide the best opportunities to improve the children¿s hospital experience.This work is funded by the European Development Regional Fund (EDRF-FEDER) and supported by Spanish MINECO with Project TIN2014-60077-R-AR. The work of Jorge Montaner is supported by a national grant from the Spanish Ministry for Education (FPU17/03333). Special thanks to the staff of La Fe Hospital in Valencia who have collaborated in the experiment.Montaner-Marco, J.; Carrión-Plaza, A.; García Sanjuan, F.; Jaén Martínez, FJ. (2019). Tangibot: A collaborative multiplayer game for pediatric patients. International Journal of Medical Informatics. 132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2019.103982S13

Exploring visual prompts for communicating directional awareness to kindergarten children

[EN] Although a myriad of educational applications using tablets and multi-touch technology for kindergarten children have been developed in the last decade, most of these applications do not fully exploit multi-touch technology since the game world used is limited to the screen only. Considering a larger digital space in tablet-based educational scenarios would be beneficial since it would enable the design of engaging activities driven by curiosity, exploration, discovery and decisions on where the next action is situated in the digital virtual space by directional awareness. This paper therefore investigates kindergarten children's abilities to use a virtual world beyond the screen and evaluates three different types of visual prompts for communicating directional awareness. The results obtained show, firstly, that these specific users are able to use the space beyond the screen boundaries and that the evaluated prompts can effectively communicate information to kindergarten children. The paper also makes a set of recommendations to help designers choose the appropriate type of prompt for their application requirements.This work received financial support from Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and was funded by the European Development Regional Fund (EDRF-FEDER) in the project TIN2014-60077-R (SUPEREMOS). This work is also supported by a pre-doctoral fellowship within the FPU program from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports to V. Nacher (FPU14/00136) and from GVA (ACIF/2014/214) to F. Garcia-Sanjuan.Nácher-Soler, VE.; Jurdi, S.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; García Sanjuan, F. (2019). Exploring visual prompts for communicating directional awareness to kindergarten children. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. 126:14-25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2019.01.003S142512

Evaluating a tactile and a tangible multi-tablet gamified quiz system for collaborative learning in primary education

[EN] Gamification has been identified as an interesting technique to foster collaboration in educational contexts. However, there are not many approaches that tackle this in primary school learning environments. The most popular technologies in the classroom are still traditional video consoles and desktop computers, which complicate the design of collaborative activities since they are essentially mono-user. The recent popularization of handheld devices such as tablets and smartphones has made it possible to build affordable, scalable, and improvised collaborative gamifled activities by creating a multi-tablet environment. In this paper we present Quizbot, a collaborative gamifled quiz application to practice different subjects, which can be defined by educators beforehand. Two versions of the system are implemented: a tactile for tablets laid on a table, in which all the elements are digital; and a tangible in which the tablets are scattered on the floor and the components are both digital and physical objects. Both versions of Quizbot are evaluated and compared in a study with eighty primary-schooled children in terms of user experience and quality of collaboration supported. Results indicate that both versions of Quizbot are essentially equally fun and easy to use, and can effectively support collaboration, with the tangible version outperforming the other one with respect to make the children reach consensus after a discussion, split and parallelize work, and treat each other with more respect, but also presenting a poorer time management.We would like to thank Universitat Politecnica de Valencia's Summer School for their collaboration during the development of this study, as well as Colegio Internacional Ausias March for their support in the development of educational content.This work is supported by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and funded by the European Development Regional Fund (EDRF-FEDER) with Project TIN2014-60077-R. It is also supported by fellowship ACIF/2014/214 within the VALi+d program from Conselleria d’Educació, Cultura i Esport (Generalitat Valenciana), and by fellowship FPU14/00136 within the FPU program from Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and SportGarcía Sanjuan, F.; El Jurdi, S.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Nácher-Soler, VE. (2018). Evaluating a tactile and a tangible multi-tablet gamified quiz system for collaborative learning in primary education. Computers & Education. 123:65-84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.04.011S658412