In mobile technologies for health and well-being (mHealth), push notifications are a widely used tool to implement persuasive strategies. However, little research has been carried out to investigate the impact of notifications in such technologies and users' attitudes towards them. In this study, we address this gap by exploring the role of notifications and their customisation in the context of mobile applications that promote social, mental, or physical well-being. Based on observational data collected from 152 participants, we investigate users' attitudes and preferences towards notifications and explore how they differ along demographic dimensions. In addition, we then verified these results with behavioural measures and attitude ratings through a user study (N = 31), which saw participants interacting with a prototype of a mHealth application. Our findings show that customisation of notifications is a desired feature that can be used to improve the persuasive aspect of mHealth applications. Implications derived from our study can provide guidance for researchers and practitioners alike when designing app notifications to create better motivating, meaningful, and persuasive experiences.

eXtended Reality (XR) environments appear to be a promising approach to training in various contexts; however, their potential for safety and medical procedures is still not fully understood. The aim of the presented research project is the user-centered implementation of an XR training for various occupational groups and volunteers of first responder organizations (e.g., physicians, paramedics, health care workers, police officers, firefighters). To achieve this aim, the project has followed three implementation steps: First, multi-stakeholder workshops were conducted to define two use cases for the most promising application areas. Second, based on the previous step, identified use cases were implemented as XR training scenarios. Third, scientific evaluations of the training applications are conducted focusing on subjective and objective performance indicators, learning success, training experience, acceptance, and potential barriers from an end-user perspective. As the last step is still ongoing, this paper puts emphasis on the outcomes of the stakeholder workshops, the respective decisions taken towards selecting two use cases, and the design of the evaluation study.

Training in virtual reality (VR) is widely considered as promising approach to address the rapidly rising demand for adequately trained healthcare professionals. In this paper, we present an experimental study assessing the experience and learning effects of a VR-based training for healthcare professionals (scenario: preparation of an endotracheal intubation). 41 participants from the field of healthcare and nursing were randomly assigned to an intervention group training in VR and a control group training with traditional printed materials. Subsequently, both groups had to apply their newly acquired skills in a real-world practice environment to objectively assess training effectiveness at high validity. Our results demonstrate the added value of the VR training in terms of trainees' significantly reduced time to solve the task in the real-world environment. Moreover, statistical analysis of experience measures (hedonic and pragmatic user experience, sense of presence, VR-induced symptoms, quality of experience, overall satisfaction) confirms participants' appreciation of the quality of the VR-based training. Surprisingly, however, our results do not indicate a significant link between VR training experience and real-world task performance. We discuss implications of these findings and outline a research agenda to better understand the key factors that influence the effectiveness of VR-based training.

Robots are increasingly being used in a wide range of sectors, for example industry, care, and education. To further support this development, flexible and accessible interfaces appear to be a promising avenue allowing users without extensive programming experience to design robot-based applications. While research prototypes of such interfaces already exist, they are limited to specific use cases or application domains. However, approaches to robot programming for end-users that are applicable across different domains would bring significant benefits as robots in different application domains often perform similar tasks. Addressing this gap in existing research, we present a prototype of the ROBxTASK platform for cross-domain robot programming by end-users. The centerpiece of the platform is a visual programming environment (VPE) based on Google Blockly that consists of an extensible set of blocks allowing end-users to define and exchange complex sequences involving robot-based tasks for different application domains. The development of the platform is embedded into an extensive human-centered design process including initial stakeholder workshops and a series of user studies. Upcoming evaluations of revised versions of the platform and its VPE will involve the implementation of use cases by end-users in real-world scenarios.

Haptic qualities of surfaces play an important role for the user's experience with a system. In that context, soft touch surfaces are important as they are often used for surfaces of industrial products. For assessing related experiences, research is often focusing on physical properties of the surfaces rather than the (quality of) experience of the user. Therefore, we set out to analyze how people describe their experience of surface properties in a bottom-up approach. In an Open Profiling study we let people self-describe, cluster and rate surface properties. Based on these ratings we applied a Principal Component Analysis to identify characteristics and related perception dimensions of soft touch surfaces. Furthermore, we complement this with an expert clustering of user self-descriptions. Our analysis shows that descriptions can be categorized in pragmatic and hedonic (and/or affective) dimensions. With this research we contribute to better understanding the quality of material related experiences.