Expansive body postures, known as power poses, are believed to boost self-confidence and enhance psychological as well as physical performance. This offers an opportunity to harness these benefits through game mechanics. To address this, a Mixed Reality (MR) exergame prototype was developed and tested in an A/B testing approach with 42 participants to assess self-efficacy using the Generalised Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES) and player experience via the Player Experience Inventory (PXI), supplemented by qualitative responses. Although power poses did not yield significant differences between groups, a notable overall increase in self-efficacy was observed after gameplay. The findings highlight the potential of Mixed Reality exergames to enhance self-efficacy and suggest that narrative integration may further optimize the effect of power poses.

This paper presents Tone, a wordless, interactive music learning app designed for educational use in schools. It was developed through an iterative, human-centered design process in collaboration with music educators and universities. As an hybrid between app and game, Tone combines puzzle-based ear and rhythm training with creative composition tasks. The app is built to be instantly accessible-without requiring language, prior music knowledge, or technical setup. Early feedback from educators and learners shows strong engagement and usability, alongside valuable critique regarding content diversity and notation style. This demo showcases Tone's current prototype and outlines future directions for inclusive, engaging music learning.

Autonomous vehicles can behave unexpectedly, as automated systems that rely on data-driven machine learning have shown to infer false predictions or misclassifications, e.g., due to stickers on traffic signs, and thus fail in some situations. In critical situations, system designs must guarantee safety and reliability. However, in non-critical situations, the possibility of failures resulting in unexpected behaviour should be considered, as they negatively impact the passenger’s user experience and acceptance. We analyse if an interactive conversational user interface can mitigate negative experiences when interacting with imperfect artificial intelligence systems. In our quantitative interactive online survey (N=113) and comparative qualitative Wizard of Oz study (N=8), users were able to interact with an autonomous SAE level 5 driving simulation. Our findings demonstrate that increased transparency improves user experience and acceptance. Furthermore, we show that additional information in failure scenarios can lead to an information dilemma and should be implemented carefully.

In a fully autonomous driving situation, passengers hand over the steering control to a highly automated system. Autonomous driving behaviour may lead to confusion and negative user experience. When establishing such new technology, the user’s acceptance and understanding are crucial factors regarding success and failure. Using a driving simulator and a mobile application, we evaluated if system transparency during and after the interaction can increase the user experience and subjective feeling of safety and control. We contribute an initial guideline for autonomous driving experience design, bringing together the areas of user experience, explainable artificial intelligence and autonomous driving. The AVAM questionnaire, UEQ-S and interviews show that explanations during or after the ride help turn a negative user experience into a neutral one, which might be due to the increased feeling of control. However, we did not detect an effect for combining explanations during and after the ride.

Within the ongoing process of defining autonomous driving solutions, experience design may represent an important interface between humans and the autonomous vehicle. This paper presents an empirical study that uses different ways of unimodal communication in autonomous driving to communicate awareness and intent of autonomous vehicles. The goal is to provide recommendations for feedback solutions within holistic autonomous driving experiences. 22 test subjects took part in four autonomous, simulated virtual reality shuttle rides and were presented with different unimodal feedback in the form of light, sound, visualisation, text and vibration. The empirical study showed that, compared to a no-feedback baseline ride, light, and visualisation were able to create a positive user experience.

In this paper we present The Remediation of Nosferatu, a location based augmented reality horror adventure. Using the theory of fictional universe elements, we work with diverse material from Nosferatu's horror genre and vampire themes as a case study. In this interdisciplinary research we intertwine traditional storytelling and scriptwriting skills with interaction design methods. For the game setting, we create hybrid spaces merging the fictional universe and the physical environment into one pervasive experience, centering around a variety of augmented reality activities played out at sunset. Focusing on the phenomenological world of 21 participants, we analyse triangulated data by distinguishing between a range of more "open" and "closed" styles of interactions. Our study illustrates how Speculative Play may enable non-linear storytelling elements within a transmedia fictional universe. We believe our approach can be more generally useful for designing future rich, enjoyable and meaningful transmedia experiences.