Designing and evaluating information spaces: a navigational perspective.

Navigation in two and three dimensional electronic environments has become an important usabilityissue.Research in to the use of hypertext systems would appear to suggest that people suffer from avariety of navigational problems in these environments. In addition users also encounter problems in 3Denvironments and in applications software. Therefore in order to enhance the ease of use from the pointof view of preventing errors and making it more pleasurable the navigating in information spaceapproach to HCI has been adopted.The research presented in this thesis examines whether the study of real world environments, in particularaspects of the built environment, urban planning and environmental psychology are beneficial in thedevelopment of guidelines for interface design and evaluation. In doing so the thesis examines three mainresearch questions (1) is there a transfer of design knowledge from real to electronic spaces? (2) canconcepts be provided in a series of useful guidelines? (3) are the guidelines useful for the design andevaluation of electronic spaces?Based upon the results of the two main studies contained within this thesis it is argued that thenavigational perspective is one which is relevant to user interface design and evaluation and thatnavigation in electronic spaces is comparable to but not identical with actions within the real world.Moreover, the studies pointed to the validity of the core concepts when evaluating 2D and 3D spacesand designing 3D spaces. The thesis also points to the relevancy of the overall design guidance in 2Dand 3D environments and the ability to make such information available through a software tool

Pervasive Gaming as a Potential Solution to Traffic Congestion: New Challenges Regarding Ethics, Privacy and Trust

The following paper presents a review of the ethical, privacy and trust aspects relating to pervasive gaming in particular within the domain of traffic congestion. The paper deals explicitly with the challenges involved that fall between the gaps standard ethical practice and scientific research when studies comprise of those in the lab (where collection and use is heavily controlled) and those which take place in the wild where there is the requirement to share data possibly with external parties. Also where the nature of such work is at the borders of the concept of traditional study and a commercial running prototype. Document type: Part of book or chapter of boo

Lightweight palm and finger tracking for real-time 3D gesture control

peer reviewedWe present a novel technique implementing barehanded interaction with virtual 3D content by employing a time-of-flight camera. The system improves on existing 3D multi-touch systems by working regardless of lighting conditions and supplying a working volume large enough for multiple users. Previous systems were limited either by environmental requirements, working volume, or computational resources necessary for realtime operation. By employing a time-of-flight camera, the system is capable of reliably recognizing gestures at the finger level in real-time at more than 50 fps with commodity computer hardware using our newly developed precision hand and finger-tracking algorithm. Building on this algorithm, the system performs gesture recognition with simple constraint modeling over statistical aggregations of the hand appearances in a working volume of more than 8 cubic meters. Two iterations of user tests were performed on a prototype system, demonstrating the feasibility and usability of the approach as well as providing first insights regarding the acceptance of true barehanded touch-based 3D interaction

The place probe: exploring a sense of place in real and virtual environments.

This paper describes the design, application, and refinement of a qualitative tool designed to study sense of place. The Place Probe incorporates a range of stimuli and techniques aimed at articulating a person's sense of place. It has been developed, used, and undergone three revisions. The paper describes the background to the choice of measures that were included in the Place Probe and describes its application in both a physical place and a virtual representation of that place. This enables a comparison of the experiences. An analysis of the results reveals a similarity of reported experience, however the extremes experienced in the physical place were less pronounced in the virtual representation. The Place Probe has been refined in light of the results of the empirical work and now incorporates both qualitative and quantitative data on the experience of place

Workshop Introduction: Computer Entertainment in Cars and Transportation

This workshop deals with the potential that entertainment systems and games hold for the transportation context. Travelling by car, bus, plane or by foot can be frustrating and full of negative experiences, but also holds great potential for innovative entertainment application. New off the shelf technology offers great potential beyond old-fashioned rear seat entertainment systems with the sole purpose of keeping kids quiet. The richness of contextual factors and social situations have so far not sufficiently been exploited, which is why this workshop aims at discussing potentials for gaming in transportation

Acceptance of augmented reality for laboratory safety training: methodology and an evaluation study

This paper presents a proof-of-concept Augmented Reality (AR) system known as “SMARTLab” for safety training in hazardous material science laboratories. The paper contains an overview of the design rationale, development, methodology, and user study. Participants of the user study were domain experts (i.e., actual lab users in a material science research department, n = 13), and the evaluation used a questionnaire and free-form interview responses. The participants undertook a virtual lab experiment, designed in collaboration with a domain expert. While using the AR environment, they were accompanied by a virtual assistant. The user study provides preliminary findings about the impact of multiple dimensions, such as Performance Expectancy, Emotional Reactivity, and Spatial Presence, on SMARTLab acceptance by analyzing their influence on the Behavioral Intention dimension. The findings indicate that users find the approach useful and that they would consider using such a system. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the SMARTLab assessment data suggests that a) AR-based training is a potential solution for laboratory safety training without the risk of real-world hazards, b) realism remains an important property for some aspects such as fluid dynamics and experimental procedure, and c) use of a virtual assistant is welcome and provides no sense of discomfort or unease. Furthermore, the study recommends the use of AR assistance tools (a virtual assistant, an attention funnel, and an in-situ arrow) to improve usability and make the training experience more user-friendly

Comparative Accuracy and Cost-Effectiveness of Dynamic Contrast Enhanced Computed Tomography and Positron Emission Tomography in the Characterisation of Solitary Pulmonary Nodules

Abstract Introduction: Dynamic contrast-enhanced computed tomography (DCE-CT) and Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography (PET/CT) have a high reported accuracy for the diagnosis of malignancy in solitary pulmonary nodules. The aim of this study was to compare the accuracy and cost-effectiveness of these. Methods: In this prospective multicentre trial, 380 participants with a solitary pulmonary nodule (8-30mm) and no recent history of malignancy underwent DCE-CT and PET/CT. All patients underwent either biopsy with histological diagnosis or completed CT follow-up. Primary outcome measures were sensitivity, specificity, and overall diagnostic accuracy for PET/CT and DCE-CT. Costs and cost-effectiveness were estimated from a healthcare provider perspective using a decision-model. Results: 312 participants (47% female, 68.1±9.0 years) completed the study, with 61% rate of malignancy at 2 years. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive values for DCE-CT were 95.3% [95% CI 91.3;97.5], 29.8% [95% CI 22.3;38.4], 68.2% [95% CI 62.4%;73.5%] and 80.0% [95% CI 66.2;89.1] respectively, and for PET/CT were 79.1% [95% CI 72.7;84.2], 81.8% [95% CI 74.0;87.7], 87.3%[95% CI 81.5;91.5) and 71·2% [95% CI 63.2;78.1]. The area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AUROC) for DCE-CT and PET/CT was 0.62 [95%CI 0.58;0.67] and 0.80 [95%CI 0.76;0.85] respectively (p<0.001). Combined results significantly increased diagnostic accuracy over PET/CT alone (AUROC=0.90 [95%CI 0.86;0.93], p<0.001). DCE-CT was preferred when the willingness to pay per incremental cost per correctly treated malignancy was below £9000. Above £15500 a combined approach was preferred. Conclusions: PET/CT has a superior diagnostic accuracy to DCE-CT for the diagnosis of solitary pulmonary nodules. Combining both techniques improves the diagnostic accuracy over either test alone and could be cost-effective. (Clinical trials.gov - NCT02013063)

Gamifying the Commute

The seminar outlined the I-GEAR project which examines the use of gamification to reduce traffic congestion. Topics included user interfaces for gamified applications, requirements capture methodologies and a sample gamified application