Valeria Orso

Designing a Willing-to-Use-in-Public Hand Gestural Interaction Technique for Smart Glasses

Smart glasses suffer from obtrusive or cumbersome interaction techniques. Studies show that people are not willing to publicly use, for example, voice control or mid-air gestures in front of the face. Some techniques also hamper the high degree of freedom of the glasses. In this paper, we derive design principles for socially acceptable, yet versatile, interaction techniques for smart glasses based on a survey of related work. We propose an exemplary design, based on a haptic glove integrated with smart glasses, as an embodiment of the design principles. The design is further refined into three interaction scenarios: text entry, scrolling, and point-and-select. Through a user study conducted in a public space we show that the interaction technique is considered unobtrusive and socially acceptable. Furthermore, the performance of the technique in text entry is comparable to state-of-the-art techniques. We conclude by reflecting on the advantages of the proposed design.

Measuring User Acceptance of Wearable Symbiotic Devices: Validation Study Across Application Scenarios

Wearable devices detecting users’ psycho-physiological parameters and providing related feedback are an important component of intelligent systems adapting to users’ cognitive and affective states. However, issues related to perceived comfort and privacy might compromise users’ intention to use them in real contexts. To measure users’ acceptance of these devices, we built a questionnaire that includes key dimensions of the TAM model [7, 15], such as perceived usefulness, effort expectancy, psychological attachment, facilitating conditions, and some dimensions that are especially relevant to wearable symbiotic systems (e.g., perceived comfort, and perceived privacy). This questionnaire was administered to 110 respondents with reference to three devices (i.e., smart -shirt, portable EEG system, and eye-tracking glasses) and six usage scenarios (dangerous work, heavy work, sport, homecare, research, retail).

A Wearable Multimodal Interface for Exploring Urban Points of Interest

Locating points of interest (POIs) in cities is typically facilitated by visual aids such as paper maps, brochures, and mobile applications. However, these techniques require visual attention, which ideally should be on the surroundings. Non-visual techniques for navigating towards specific POIs typically lack support for free exploration of the city or more detailed guidance. To overcome these issues, we propose a multimodal, wearable system for alerting the user of nearby recommended POIs. The system, built around a tactile glove, provides audio-tactile cues when a new POI is in the vicinity, and more detailed information and guidance if the user expresses interest in this POI. We evaluated the system in a field study, comparing it to a visual baseline application. The encouraging results show that the glove-based system helps keep the attention on the surroundings and that its performance is on the same level as that of the baseline.

The role played by the concept of presence in validating the efficacy of a cybertherapy treatment: a literature review

The present paper considers the existing research in cybertherapy, which is a psychological therapy carried out with the use of a mediated environment, and examines the way in which the users’ sense of presence in the mediated environment can be of relevance for the validation of the intervention. With this purpose, a collection of 41 papers reporting the measurement of presence in the context of a cybertherapy treatment has been identified and examined. The general relevance of presence in cybertherapy and the measurement techniques adopted in the studies collected here are described and discussed. The way in which presence corresponds to establishing internal validity, convergent or predictive validity and external validity of a treatment is examined. In conclusion, a checklist to apply when planning a validation study is proposed, to improve the way in which presence is used.

Overlaying social information: The effects on users’ search and information-selection behavior

Abstract Previous research investigated how to leverage the new type of social data available on the web, e.g., tags, ratings and reviews, in recommending and personalizing information. However, previous works mainly focused on predicting ratings using collaborative filtering or quantifying personalized ranking quality in simulations. As a consequence, the effect of social information in users information search and information-selection behavior remains elusive. The objective of our research is to investigate the effects of social information on users’ interactive search and information-selection behavior. We present a computational method and a system implementation combining different graph overlays: social, personal and search-time user input that are visualized for the user to support interactive information search. We report on a controlled laboratory experiment, in which 24 users performed search tasks using three system variants with different graphs as overlays composed from the largest publicly available social content and review data from Yelp: personal preferences, tags combined with personal preferences, and tags and social ratings combined with personal preferences. Data comprising search logs, questionnaires, simulations, and eye-tracking recordings show that: 1) the search effectiveness is improved by using and visualizing the social rating information and the personal preference information as compared to content-based ranking. 2) The need to consult external information before selecting information is reduced by the presentation of the effects of different overlays on the search results. Search effectiveness improvements can be attributed to the use of social rating and personal preference overlays, which was also confirmed in a follow-up simulation study. With the proposed method we demonstrate that social information can be incorporated to the interactive search process by overlaying graphs representing different information sources. We show that the combination of social rating information and personal preference information improves search effectiveness and reduce the need to consult external information. Our method and findings can inform the design of interactive search systems that leverage the information available on the social web.

Adaptive information density for augmented reality displays

Augmented Reality (AR) browsers show geo-referenced data in the current view of a user. When the amount of data grows too large, the display quickly becomes cluttered. Clustering items by spatial and semantic attributes can temporarily alleviate the issue, but is not effective against an increasing amount of data. We present an adaptive information density display for AR that balances the amount of presented information against the potential clutter created by placing items on the screen. We use hierarchical clustering to create a level-of-detail structure, in which nodes closer to the root encompass groups of items, while the leaf nodes contain single items. Our method selects items and groups from different levels of this hierarchy based on user-defined preferences and on the amount of visual clutter caused by placing these items. The number of presented items is adapted during user interaction to avoid clutter. We compare our interface to a conventional AR browser interface in a qualitative user study. Users clearly preferred our interface, because it provided a better overview of the data and allowed for easier comparison. In a second study, we evaluated the effect of different degrees of clustering on search and recall tasks. Users generally made fewer errors, when using our interface for a search task, which indicates that the reduced clutter allowed them to stay focused on finding the relevant items.

Lost lab of professor millennium: creating a pervasive adventure with augmented reality-based guidance

This paper presents a pervasive adventure production called Lost Lab of Professor Millennium that experimented with different kinds of interaction techniques evaluating how they affected the adventure experience. The paper further reflects on the practical organization of the production targeted for schools and students between 12 and 15 years of age. Groups of up to four teenagers navigated through thirteen different kinds of pervasive computing experiences in checkpoints sharing a device providing augmented reality (AR) (MapLens) on a physical map and an adaptive marker-based AR guidance. Based on a Professor who lost her technologies, the story of the adventure provided a unifying narrative also through her fish Linus guiding groups through a variety of tasks in the checkpoints. The production was evaluated with direct observations, different kinds of video recordings, interviews and questionnaires. The evaluation revealed how groups shared the devices and performed collaborative interactions with the devices. The production received positive feedback from all stakeholders, but in terms of feasibility had some drawbacks. The evaluation indicated that the marker-based AR guidance techniques is practical, reliable and easy-to-use, and can be also used as a storytelling or story enhancing technique.

Investigating Tactile Stimulation in Symbiotic Systems

The core characteristics of tactile stimuli, i.e., recognition reliability and tolerance to ambient interference, make them an ideal candidate to be integrated into a symbiotic system. The selection of the appropriate stimulation is indeed important in order not to hinder the interaction from the user’s perspective. Here we present the process of selecting the most adequate tactile stimulation delivered by a tactile vest while users were engaged in an absorbing activity, namely playing a video-game. A total of 20 participants (mean age 24.78; SD = 1.57) were involved. Among the eight tactile stimuli selected, we found that the most frequently chosen stimulus was the one stimulating the back of the participant from the upper to the lower area.

Developing a Symbiotic System for Scientific Information Seeking: The Mindsee Project

This paper describes an approach for improving the current systems supporting the exploration and research of scientific literature, which generally adopt a query-based information-seeking paradigm. Our approach is to use a symbiotic system paradigm, exploiting central and peripheral physiological data along with eye-tracking data to adapt to users’ ongoing subjective relevance and satisfaction with search results. The system described, along with the interdisciplinary theoretical work underpinning it, could serve as a stepping stone for the development and diffusion of next-generation symbiotic systems, enabling a productive interdependence between humans and machines. After introducing the concept and evidence informing the development of symbiotic systems over a wide range of application domains, we describe the rationale of the MindSee project, emphasizing its BCI component and pinpointing the criteria around which users’ evaluations can gravitate. We conclude by summarizing the main contribution that MindSee is expected to make.

The role of location-based event browsers in collaborative behaviors: an explorative study

Events play an important role in touristic activities, they are usually planned in group, involving collaborative behaviours. Mobile technology is a useful tool for such activities. Augmented reality used in handheld devices can enhance the tourist experience. In this work, we present three mobile apps for the exploration of cultural events in a city: one based on 2D maps; one based on AR technology and a Hybrid one that integrates both approaches. In addition, we report on the impact that the different technology has on collaborative behaviors.