Harshada Patel

Factors of collaborative working: a framework for a collaboration model.

The ability of organisations to support collaborative working environments is of increasing importance as they move towards more distributed ways of working. Despite the attention collaboration has received from a number of disparate fields, there is a lack of a unified understanding of the component factors of collaboration. As part of our work on a European Integrated Project, CoSpaces, collaboration and collaborative working and the factors which define it were examined through the literature and new empirical work with a number of partner user companies in the aerospace, automotive and construction sectors. This was to support development of a descriptive human factors model of collaboration - the CoSpaces Collaborative Working Model (CCWM). We identified seven main categories of factors involved in collaboration: Context, Support, Tasks, Interaction Processes, Teams, Individuals, and Overarching Factors, and summarised these in a framework which forms a basis for the model. We discuss supporting evidence for the factors which emerged from our fieldwork with user partners, and use of the model in activities such as collaboration readiness profiling.

Health and safety implications of virtual reality : A review of empirical evidence

For the last 10 years a number of papers have been written that discuss human factors issues associated with virtual reality (VR). The nature of these papers has gradually evolved from speculation and anecdotal report to empirical research. Despite developments in VR technology, some participants still experience health and safety problems associated with VR use-termed VR-induced symptoms and effects (VRISE). The key concern from the literature is VR-induced sickness, experienced by a large proportion of VR participants, but for the majority these effects are mild and subside quickly. This paper makes a number of recommendations regarding the future direction of research into health and safety implications of VR, including the need to take into account the way in which VR is being used when conducting empirical research: first, to ensure that studies consider both effects and their consequences, second, to ensure that empirical trials reflect the actual likely context of VR use; third, to consider interactions between effects: and finally, to consider ways in which effects can be managed.

A method for involving children with autism in design

COSPATIAL is a 3-year collaborative, technology-focused project exploring the use of collaborative virtual environments (CVE) and shared active surfaces (SAS) for supporting social competence for children with autism spectrum conditions (ASC). The UK team are developing CVE technology through a user centered design approach to inform design decisions and review prototype development. Teachers are involved throughout the design process to ensure that the technology developed is useful and effective. Involving children with ASC is also an important aspect of our design process. However, there are few published methods and guidance to support this involvement. This paper presents a method for involving children with ASC in the design of CVE.

Participatory design approach with children with autism

Abstract The COSPATIAL (Communication and social participation: collaborative technologies for interaction and learning) pro-ject explores how we can develop effective and useful educational technologies in the form of shared active surfaces (SAS) and collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) to support the enhancement of social skills for children with autism spectrum conditions (ASC). The UK design team comprises of technology developers, design engineers, educational psychologists as well as teachers from both mainstream and autism specialist schools. A user centred design approach is being used to make decisions and review prototype development using CVE technology. The involvement of teachers throughout the entire process is crucial, but in order to understand the primary user further and design optimally it is also desirable to directly involve the end users in the design process. This paper describes the participatory design approach for elicitation of user requirements and CVE design that is being used with typically developing children and how these methods have been adapted to facilitate involvement of children with ASC.

Human centred design of 3-D interaction devices to control virtual environments

It is commonly acknowledged that user needs should drive design, but often technical influences prevail. Currently, there are no standard interaction devices or interfaces used in 3-D environments, and there is a lack of specific best practice guidelines to develop these. This paper discusses the process of collecting feedback on prototype designs for VR/VE interaction devices from both expert users and non-expert users, and demonstrates how the information gained from human centred evaluation can be used to further the design process. Experiment 1 examined the usability of two magnetically tracked interaction devices with three different types of menus (Sphere, Linear and Fan). Quantitative and qualitative analysis was carried out on the results, and usability problems with the menus and devices are discussed. The findings from this experiment were translated into general design guidance, in addition to specific recommendations. A new device was designed on the basis of some of these recommendations and its usability was evaluated in Experiment 2. Feedback from participants in Experiment 2 demonstrated that the design recommendations emerging from Experiment 1 were successfully applied to develop a more usable and acceptable device.

Multimodal astronaut virtual training prototype

A few dedicated training simulator applications exist that mix realistic interaction devices-like real cockpits in flight simulators-with virtual environment (VE) components. Dedicated virtual reality (VR) systems have been utilized also in astronaut training. However there are no detailed descriptions of projection wall VR systems and related interaction techniques for astronaut assembly training in zero gravity conditions. Back projection technology tends to have certain advantages over head mounted displays including less simulation sickness and less restricted user movement. A prototype was built to evaluate the usefulness of projection technology VEs and interaction techniques for astronaut training. This was achieved by first constructing a PC cluster-based general purpose VE software and hardware platform. This platform was used to implement a testing prototype for astronaut assembly sequence training. An interaction tool battery was designed for the purposes of viewpoint control and object handling. A selected training task was implemented as a case study for further analysis based on laptop usage in the Fluid Science Laboratory (FSL) inside the Columbus module in the International Space Station (ISS). User tests were conducted on the usability of the prototype for the intended training purpose. The results seem to indicate that projection technology-based VE systems and suitably selected interaction techniques can be successfully utilized in zero gravity training operations.

Extending the desktop workplace by a portable virtual reality system

Users are increasingly recognizing the potential of virtual reality (VR) technology for applications such as data analysis, design review, product development, production planning, marketing, training, etc. The currently established workflow is to design and construct at a desktop system with CAD or modeling software, and visualize and evaluate the results at one or more VR centers equipped with CAVEs or Powerwalls. Discussions with users of VR installations have shown that there is a demand for smaller and more cost efficient VR installations. We have proposed the concept of a small VR system, PI-casso, based on user requirements, guidelines for office workplaces and some end-user tests which showed important limitations and the ergonomics problems of current VR installations. PI-casso is a compact, fully immersive VR system which complements the classic desktop workplace. In this paper we describe a set of user requirements and the results of the design in forming end-user tests, in addition to the concept and the technical specifications of the newly developed system. The first prototype of PI-casso was demonstrated at HCII 2003, where specialists from the human factors/ergonomics and the VR communities used our system and provided suggestions for improvement. This expert feedback was used to develop the improved versions described in this paper.

Developing speech input for virtual reality applications: A reality based interaction approach

An input device should be natural and convenient for a user to transmit information to a computer, and should be designed from an understanding of the task to be performed and the interrelationship between the task and the device from the perspective of the user. In order to investigate the potential of speech input as a reality based interaction device, this paper presents the findings of a study that investigated speech input in a VR application. Two independent user trials were combined within the same experimental design to evaluate the commands that users employed when they used free speech in which they were not restricted to a specific vocabulary. The study also investigated when participants were told they were either talking to a machine (e.g. a speech recognition system) or instructing another person to complete a VR based task. Previous research has illustrated that when users are limited to a specific vocabulary, this can alter the interaction style employed. The findings from this research illustrate that the interaction style users employ are very different when they are told they are talking to a machine or another person. Using this knowledge, recommendations can be drawn for the development of speech input vocabularies for future VR applications.

Practical evaluations of real user company needs for visualization technologies

The use of visualization technologies by the automotive industry is primarily aimed at increasing competitive advantage. Within the VIEW of the Future project (IST-2000-26089), two automotive companies, PSA Peugeot Citroen and Volvo Technology Corporation, had a need for targeted evaluation of practical issues in their potential use of VR/VE technology. PSA Peugeot Citroen would like to use visualization technology to accelerate and increase the efficiency of their product design cycle. A series of short experiments were conducted to enable PSA Peugeot Citroen to define the technological specifications of a CAVE-type system they would be purchasing to achieve their design goals. The results documented the fidelity of the visualization environment and user experience of the different configuration set-ups. For example, although passive stereo offered more brightness and better representation of colours, PSA Peugeot Citroen employees preferred active stereo due to the distracting ghosting effect present when using passive stereo. Thus PSA Peugeot Citroen chose to implement active stereo in their new system. There is a need for the engineers at the Volvo product companies to present more realistic vehicle components, e.g. car interior parts, in early product development phases. It is not known if the present computer graphics technology can represent vehicle components with high realism in practical applications. In the study reported here, we investigated the perception of visual appearance of virtual surface materials as well as real material samples by Volvo engineers. There was a general loss of information in the VE material representations, e.g. in terms of depth and colour information resulting in dull images. Further research needs to be conducted to examine different methods of producing virtual materials and compare the differently generated virtual materials, in addition to assessing their realism using different types of display technology. This would enable us to find the best method of virtual material production in conjunction with a system which best displays these virtual representations.

Children's incidental recall of colour information

Few researchers have examined adults’ and childrens incidental recall of colour information. This is an important topic of research because eyewitnesses of an event are often asked to report details regarding colour, e.g. of clothing or of a vehicle. The authors examined how well 4-year-olds, 7-year-olds, 10-year-olds and adults recalled and recognized colour information in two experiments. Each participant played a game in which he or she saw differently coloured objects. After a 30-minute delay participants were given a surprise colour recall test and a colour recognition test. Predominantly primary colours were used in Expt 1 and mainly secondary colours were used in Expt 2. In both experiments the adults and children performed well above chance in the recall and recognition tasks, and there were no age differences in performance, thus supporting the hypothesis that colour information is encoded automatically in memory. This result has implications for the recall performance of eyewitnesses.