Physics governs everyday interaction, yet in Virtual Reality (VR) the fidelity of such interactions can diverge from reality. We investigate how Physical Fidelity (virtual object behavior) and Action Fidelity (virtual hand behavior) of physics-driven interaction shape user experience. In a within-subject study (n = 34), participants performed gamified tasks under three conditions: No-Physics (lower Physical and Action Fidelity), Object-Physics (higher Physical, lower Action Fidelity), and Full-Physics (higher Physical and Action Fidelity). Results show that higher Physical Fidelity reduces task efficiency and increases overall workload, with the No-Physics condition outperforming the others in these metrics. When combined with higher Action Fidelity, although efficiency gets even worse in some cases, the Full-Physics condition enhances body ownership and interaction quality. The hybrid Object-Physics condition consistently ranks lowest across all qualitative measures. Interpreting these results through the Interaction Fidelity Model, we offer design implications for VR applications.

Figure 1: Original illustration visualizing the process of this research: Each puzzle piece represents an integral part of the board game creation process, and the aim of this work is to discover the way the pieces connect with each other.

Tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) are a highly entertaining activity, offering players the opportunity to immerse themselves in imaginary worlds and engage in collaborative storytelling.Beyond their recreational value, they have also emerged as a potentially powerful tool for education.By providing a hands-on, experiential approach to learning, TTRPGs can foster critical thinking, problemsolving, and a deeper understanding of historical events and contexts.This paper explores their potential as a once-off time limited activity for history education, focusing on how historical information can be integrated into gameplay.We conducted a study with 16 adult players across four groups, using a TTRPG adventure prototype set in the Archaic Era of Ancient Greece.The sessions aimed to assess learning outcomes and gather feedback on participants' preferences for the inclusion of historical information and the right balance between facts and fiction.The results reveal implications for the design of in-game mechanics as well as supporting, physical and digital, content, to promote learning objectives, offering insights for both educators and game designers.Understanding players' interaction with historical content in a role-playing context can help create more engaging and effective TTRPG-based educational experiences.

Tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) offer a unique and immersive game experience, allowing players to collaborate and be creative while they step into imaginary worlds. TTRPGs are at their core a deeply social endeavor, fostering social connection among players. TTRPG play, however, can also harbor tensions and conflict, resulting in a negative experience and hindering the overall enjoyment of the game. One of the identified causes of conflict are the feelings of unfairness experienced by players. Our study employed a combination of an on-line questionnaire with 57 responses and the analysis of 528 comments from 3 relevant YouTube videos to explore the multifaceted nature of game master unfairness in TTRPGs from the perspective of the players. The study reveals that GM unfairness is pervasive in the game with 73% of the responders reporting at least one incident. Its most common forms include controlling and restricting agency, unequal player treatment, favouritism and unbalanced and discriminatory in-game scenarios. Our findings provide valuable insights into the dynamics of unfairness in TTRPGs, highlighting the need for supporting GMs to promote more equitable and inclusive gaming environments and proposing concrete suggestions to this end.

A social approach for remote visits is hybrid visits, where a remote visitor joins a visitor physically present in the museum, allowing simultaneous engagement with its content and collection. Hybrid visits remain relevant post-pandemic, as health or distance may still limit museum access. In this work, we aim to harness the power of cooperative games in the context of a hybrid visit by designing a game-based experience for a museum to enhance sociality and engagement with its collection. We present preliminary evaluation outcomes on how asymmetry may promote sociality and engagement in tandem with informal learning and we conclude with the design implications that will inform the following iterations of our game prototype.

Physics-based hand interaction in VR has been extensively explored, but almost none of the solutions are usable. The only exception is CLAP, a custom soft body simulation offering realistic and smooth hand interaction in VR. Even CLAP, however, imposes constraints on virtual hand and object behavior. We introduce HPTK+, a software solution that utilizes the physics engine NVIDIA PhysX. Benefiting from the engine’s maturity and integration with game engines, we aim to enable more general and free-hand interactions in virtual environments. We conducted a user study with 27 participants comparing the interactions supported by both libraries. Results indicate an overall preference for CLAP, but no significant differences in other measures or performance, except variance. These findings provide insights into the libraries’ suitability for specific tasks. Additionally, we highlight HPTK+’s exclusive support for diverse interactions, positioning it as an ideal candidate for further research in physics-based VR interactions.

Continuous artificial locomotion in VR typically involves users selecting their direction using controller input, with the forward direction determined by the Head, Hands, or less commonly, the Hip. The effects of these different sources on user experience are under-explored, and Feet have not been used as a direction source. To address these gaps, we compared these direction sources, including a novel Feet-based technique. A user study with 22 participants assessed these methods in terms of performance, preference, motion sickness, and sense of presence. Our findings indicate high levels of presence and minimal motion sickness across all methods. Performance differences were noted in one task, where the Head outperformed the Hand. The Hand method was the least preferred, feeling less natural and realistic. The Feet method was found to be more natural than the Head and more realistic than the Hip. This study enhances understanding of direction sources in VR locomotion and introduces Feet-based direction as a viable alternative.

In this paper we present the results of our research exploring the possible challenges board game creators might face while developing and playtesting games and we identify user requirements for their ideal digital game development platform. Our goal is to gain insights into the game development process and foster a deeper understanding of the creators’ perspectives and needs to inform our design of an effective digital tool to support them. We proceeded in two stages: (a) researching the web for designers’ views on the creation process, as well as reviews of commonly used digital tools, and (b) creating a questionnaire based on the information acquired in step (a) and organising a user study. 16 board game developers participated in the study, whose valuable feedback along with the data gathered from the online research will set a strong foundation for the development of an innovative platform.

Tabletop role playing games (TTRPGs) offer players the possibility to create and enact the actions of a character in a fictional storyworld. TTRPG are great for immersing players in the game world with proven potential for transformative learning, as they promote perspective taking and a deeper understanding of the storyworld. In this work we aim to explore TTRPGs as an activity supporting the education of history in secondary education, by recording the view of educators on the benefits and challenges of the game. History teachers play a key role in teaching students how to examine historical phenomena and recognize the importance of history in understanding the societies of today. We interviewed 7 educators to explore how they promote historical empathy in their lessons and their views on the potential of TTRPGs as educational tools. Our results indicate a positive outlook by educators regarding the implementation of TTRPGs in the classroom, also discussing challenges such as the use of violence, historical inaccuracy and anachronism. The findings are hopeful in terms of the potential acceptance of the game genre by the teachers and they can be used as the initial step towards guidelines for a TTRPG game design tailored to the needs of secondary education.

Virtual grasping is one of the most common and important interactions performed in a Virtual Environment (VE). Even though there has been substantial research using hand tracking methods exploring different ways of visualizing grasping, there are only a few studies that focus on handheld controllers. This gap in research is particularly crucial, since controllers remain the most used input modality in commercial Virtual Reality (VR). Extending existing research, we designed an experiment comparing three different grasping visualizations when users are interacting with virtual objects in immersive VR using controllers. We examine the following visualizations: the Auto-Pose (AP), where the hand is automatically adjusted to the object upon grasping; the Simple-Pose (SP), where the hand closes fully when selecting the object; and the Disappearing-Hand (DH), where the hand becomes invisible after selecting an object, and turns visible again after positioning it on the target. We recruited 38 participants in order to measure if and how their performance, sense of embodiment, and preference are affected. Our results show that while in terms of performance there is almost no significant difference in any of the visualizations, the perceived sense of embodiment is stronger with the AP, and is generally preferred by the users. Thus, this study incentivizes the inclusion of similar visualizations in relevant future research and VR experiences.

Tabletop role playing games (TRPGs) offer players the possibility to create and enact the actions of a character in a fictional game world, guided by a human “game master” (GM). The GM is the storyteller and facilitator who co-creates dynamically the world with the players. In this sense, creativity is a key aspect of TRPGs, both for the players and the GMs, confirmed by a number of existing studies. In this work we focus on the perspective of the GMs on creativity through a user study with 17 participants. They provide feedback on different aspects of creativity as expressed while preparing or executing a story. Our results, among others, highlight the importance of the creative aspects of the game for the GMs as motivation for assuming this role as well as their view of the game as a dynamic co-creation process where the player group dynamics are also a key factor.

Within the broad range of the various types of chatbots, “bots of conviction” (BoCs) shift the focus from offering information to provoking reflection. In this paper we present the design of a “social” BoC, i.e. one designed to engage not one user but a group of participants in reflective dialogue, with the bot and each other. Our social BoC is designed as a digital experience to support history education for high school students (ages 14-18) and was evaluated with a total of 15 teenagers split into 5 groups. The goal was to assess the efficacy of our approach as a tool to promote historical empathy through dialogue. Our findings highlight the BoC's role in engaging the students in constructive dialogue with each other; and the ways in which it guided perspective taking and collective reflection about the past, while at the same time foregrounding connections to the present.

This work investigates how to digitally mediate perspective sharing and face-to-face conversations within groups of museum visitors. We use the case of a storytelling group game and explore the potential of mobile technology as a tool to facilitate perspective sharing activities. Using information asymmetry, a "Social Mediator" role is introduced: players' choices get displayed only to a single group member, who thus undertakes a leading role. The findings of an experience prototyping user study with playtesting in situ show that participants effectively and naturally carried out the pertinent dialogue facilitation activities. We identify behavioral patterns and discuss the insights they offer, showcasing how they shaped the mobile design for the particular use-case. We conclude that the distribution of the Social Mediator role between participants could successfully facilitate perspective sharing within groups and reflect on its potential and limitations in different collocated game experiences.

Many studies have been conducted in the past few years that focus on interaction and embodiment in the field of virtual reality. However, despite the recent widespread use and continuing rise of controller-based head-mounted display (HMD) hardware for VR, there is little research on the use of handheld controllers in this context. We explore the effects of different virtual hand representations on interaction and the user’s sense of embodiment, extending the work of Argelaguet et al. in 2016, in this case using controllers. We designed an experiment where users perform the task of selecting and moving a cube from and to specific positions on a table inside an immersive virtual environment, interacting with three representations: the abstract shape of a Sphere, the 3D model of the Controller, and a realistic human-looking Hand. For each representation, users were asked to perform the same task with and without obstacles (Brick Wall, Barbed Wire, Electric Current). Statistical analysis of the results show that although no significant differences were identified in the sense of agency, the users’ performance with the Sphere was significantly worse compared to the other two, and in the case of the positioning task the Controller outperformed the others. Additionally, the Hand generated the strongest sense of ownership, and it was the favorite representation.

Can a chatbot enable us to change our conceptions, to be critically reflective? To what extent can interaction with a technologically 'minimal' medium such as a chatbot evoke emotional engagement in ways that can challenge us to act on the world? In this paper, we discuss the design of a provocative bot, a 'bot of conviction', aimed at triggering conversations on complex topics (e.g. death, wealth distribution, gender equality, privacy) and, ultimately, soliciting specific actions from the user it converses with. We instantiate our design with a use case in the cultural sector, specifically a Neolithic archaeological site that acts as a stage of conversation on such hard themes. Our larger contributions include an interaction framework for bots of conviction, insights gained from an iterative process of participatory design and evaluation, and a vision for bot interaction mechanisms that can apply to the HCI community more widely.

Choreomorphy is inspired by the Greek words "choros" (dance) and "morphe" (shape). Visual metaphors, such as the notion of transformation, and visual imagery are widely used in various movement and dance practices, education, and artistic creation. Motion capture and comprehensive movement representation technologies, if appropriately employed can become valuable tools in this field. Choreomorphy is a system for a whole-body interactive experience, using Motion Capture and 3D technologies, that allows the users to experiment with different body and movement visualisations in real-time. The system offers a variety of avatars, visualizations of movement and environments which can be easily selected through a simple GUI. The motivation of designing this system is the exploration of different avatars as "digital selves" and the reflection on the impact of seeing one's own body as an avatar that can vary in shape, size, gender and human vs. non-human characteristics, while dancing and improvising. Choreomorphy is interoperable with different motion capture systems, including, but not limited to inertial, optical, and Kinect. The 3D representations and interactions are constantly updated through an explorative co-design process with dance artists and professionals in different sessions and venues.

Computers have become part of our homes and day-to-day lives. This paper presents selected results of an interview-based user study focused on information management on the personal computer. We focus on the Desktop, confirming results of previous studies as well as revealing new issues and ensuing design suggestions. While even basic competence users inventively appropriated the desktop, some features, in particular user-defined shortcuts, appeared counter-intuitive, and were underused. Users are still dissatisfied with their information organization and the challenge is to provide tools that support rather than replace the users 'flexible and creative use of the current desktop.

With information abundance the user's desktop is often cluttered with files and folders. Existing tools partially address the clutter problem. Time2Hide enhances desktop functionality by allowing icons that are not used for a long time to gradually fade and merge with the background. This aims to alleviate the problem of icon clutter. Users can also perform spatial searches, defining areas of the desktop they wish to search for icons; can reveal one or more hidden files or can go back in time animating the desktop and its changes. With Time2Hide users can still use the desktop as a place for storing files and folders, without worrying about the possible clutter and without being afraid that the files might be moved to an unknown location. The new desktop has been implemented and evaluated. Evaluation results reveal that such an enhanced desktop can significantly support users and propose suggestions for further improvements.

Hierarchically structured data collections often need to be visualized for the purposes of digital information management and presentation. File browsing, in particular, has an inherent hierarchical structure and plays an important role in the context of personal information management (PIM). A multitude of file browsers are nowadays available, offering different functionalities, while users adopt diverse practices and habits for browsing activities. In this paper, we investigate these aspects to obtain insights into their advantages and disadvantages and suggest solutions in the area of PIM, as well as in other domains employing similar visualization paradigms. The presented study focuses on the two most widespread visualizations used by file browsers, the indented list and zoomable interface paradigms, and assesses their effectiveness for various tasks and contexts, both by exploiting results on existing evaluations on hierarchy visualizations and folder hierarchy visualizations in particular, and by conducting an interview-based user study.

The on-going progress in the area of digital libraries has lead to the beginning of a digitization effort in Historical Archives, as well. The requirements of historical research, which works with histories of entities and incomplete information, create the need for supplementary tools to support users in handling the digitized content. This work is based on a user study of historian information retrieval methods in order to create a set of tools for the context of historical archives, which will facilitate historical data storage, management and visualization.

The recent progress of the World Wide Web has created new needs for information sharing in virtual communities. WhereRU is a multiuser GPS position reporting system that allows users to make their location publicly available as well as associate it with information on places, persons and events that may later also serve as reminders of the their experiences when traveling.

The need for effective ontology visualization for design, management and browsing has arisen as a result of the progress in the areas of semantic Web and personal information management. There are several ontology visualizations available through existing ontology management tools, but not as many evaluations to determine their advantages and disadvantages and their suitability for various ontologies and user groups. This work presents selected results of an evaluation of four visualization methods in Protege.

The visualization of hierarchies is very important for digital information management and presentation systems. Especially in the context of personal information management, file browsers play a very important role. Currently the most common file browser visualizations are windows explorer and the simple zoomable visualization offered by Microsoft windows. This work explores the issue of file browser visualization through a user study based on interviews and an experiment.

Most ontology development methodologies and tools for ontology management deal with ontology snapshots, i. e. they model and manage only the most recent version of ontologies, which is inadequate for contexts where the history of the ontology is of interest, such as historical archives. This work presents a modeling for entity and relationship timelines in the Protégé tool, complemented with a visualization plug-in, which enables users to examine entity evolution along the timeline.

Digital libraries and historical archives are increasingly employing visualization systems to facilitate the information retrieval and knowledge extraction tasks of their users. Typically, each organization employs a single visualization system, which may not suit best the needs of certain user groups, specific tasks, or properties of document collections to be visualized. In this paper, we present a context-based adaptive visualization environment, which embeds a set of visualization methods into a visualization library, from which the most appropriate one is selected for presenting information to the user. Methods are selected by examining parameters related to the user profile, system configuration and the set of data to be visualized, and employing a set of rules to assess the suitability of each method. The presented environment additionally monitors user behavior and preferences to adapt the visualization method selection criteria

The continuing need for more effective information retrieval has lead to the creation of the notions of the semantic Web and personalized information management, areas of study that very often employ ontologies to represent the semantic context of a domain. Consequently, the need for effective ontology visualization for design, management and browsing has arisen. There are several ontology visualizations available through the existing ontology management tools, but not as many evaluations to determine their advantages and disadvantages and their suitability for various ontologies and user groups. This work presents the preliminary results of an evaluation of four visualization methods in Protege