Traditional academic disciplines often use the Ladder of Abstraction to move from observation to concepts and theory, treating downward movement primarily as the application of knowledge to explain phenomena. In design, however, moving downward is an act of making, where abstract knowledge is materially expressed through artefacts. This paper introduces Designerly Descent Down the Ladder of Abstraction (D3LA), a multi-rung model that articulates how theoretical commitments are systematically transformed into situated design decisions. Through a case of designing a virtual reality (VR) scenario, we show how a social science concept of indirect obedience descends from a metatheoretical vision to design modules, diegetic mechanics, and concrete VR design.

VR storyworlds unfold through changes in rules, affordances, and cues over time, yet many design tools describe them in relatively static terms. We present TRC (Temporal, Rules and Cues), a three layer framework for analyzing and planning dynamic change in VR. TRC maps change episodes around a focal transition point called (t0) using a prepare, change and consolidate structure aligned with feedforward, action, and feedback. The framework is informed by work on attention, multisensory cueing, agency, and plausibility, and is intended to help designers examine when change occurs, what changes, and how that change is signaled and stabilized. We apply TRC to five commercial VR onboarding sequences and an extended case analysis of A Fisherman’s Tale. Across cases, we found recurring patterns, including short feedforward before high cost rule changes, triggers placed at taught affordances, and rapid cross modal confirmations that stabilize a new rule state. We also report a 20 participant formative Creativity Support Index study, which provides preliminary evidence that TRC externalizations were perceived as helpful for exploration and for the results worth effort item during early stage analysis and planning. Contributions include the TRC framework, a mapping protocol and codebook, an analysis template with metrics, a compact pattern/risk library, and initial evidence of perceived creativity-support value.

The global trend toward longer life spans presents an opportunity to promote active and healthy aging. Physical exercises like Qigong support holistic well-being by integrating physical, cognitive, and emotional health. However, traditional programs lack adaptability to accommodate age-related changes in physical and cognitive abilities, which can limit accessibility and engagement for older adults. Virtual Reality (VR) offers a novel solution by creating immersive, customizable environments. In our study, we designed a VR-based physical exercise tutorial (VRPET) system and assessed the efficacy of using an adaptive self-avatar (i.e., a virtual representation of the user) to enhance user exercise performance and attitudes, while examining its impact on perceived workload. We conducted a two-phase mixed-methods investigation: (1) A formative phase involving focus group interviews (n=14), a consultation with a Qigong master on movement standardization, and a heuristic evaluation (n=5) to establish design requirements; (2) A user study (n = 30) that compared the self-avatar versus non-self-avatar conditions to assess their effects on perceived workload, exercise performance, and attitude metrics. Despite a significant dip in exercise performance ( p =0.03) and a non-significant increase in perceived workload ( p =0.58), participants expressed a preference for the self-avatar’s real-time feedback when scaffolded appropriately. Multi-modal analysis revealed auditory cues as most effective, followed by tactile and visual feedback. Based on these findings, we propose the ACT Framework (Adaptive, Cultural, Targeted) for developing age-appropriate VR exercise systems. Furthermore, we distill our iterative process into a tripartite validation workflow, advocating for a methodology that harmonizes user desirability, expert safety, and HCI usability. These evidence-based insights advance the design of therapeutic VR interventions that can support healthy aging populations.

Research on VR often isolates constructs on separate scales, obscuring how users themselves link presence, agency, realism, fictionality, temporal structure, and embodiment during play. We address this gap with a qualitative, participant-level mapping of user-articulated associations across nine constructs defined a priori from theory and standardized for analysis: presence (PI; feeling "there"), visual realism, physical realism, fictionality, agency, temporal structure, narrative comprehension, attentional guidance, and embodiment. Fifty-seven design-trained participants played two commercial VR games (A Fisherman's Tale; Moss on Quest 2/3) and answered openended prompts. Using codebook thematic analysis, we binarized construct mentions per participant and computed normalized co-occurrences (Jaccard) with bootstrap 95% CIs and permutation baselines; metrics are descriptive, valenceagnostic, and non-causal. Findings: Presence co-occurred most with layered attentional guidance and embodiment, exceeding its association with visual fidelity. A"design-side" cluster linked visual and physical realism with temporal pacing and guidance; visual realism clustered more with fictionality and narrative discourse than with presence. These patterns refine theory toward coherence, guidance, and embodiment-centered pathways to sustaining place illusion and engagement, consistent with claims that internal consistency and sensorimotor contingencies outweigh photorealism. Methodologically, the participant-level, normalized map makes qualitative associations inspectable and comparable via effect sizes with uncertainty, complementing solo-construct scales and supporting reuse on other construct sets. Practically, the results recommend prioritizing consistent world rules and physically plausible interactions, scaffolding agency with multimodal diegetic cues, and providing robust, synchronous self-representation.

This study explores the effects of the perspective-taking of non-player characters (NPCs) on enhancing game immersion in prosocial virtual reality (VR) games. Prosocial games are games focusing on helping others. Game researchers have been keen to investigate factors that influence the immersive experience in digital games. Previous studies show that VR allows people to take the perspective of others, inducing empathy and prosocial behaviour in the real world. In this lab-based study, we explore whether and how taking the perspective of other game characters – NPCs in a prosocial VR game – influences players’ in-game empathy towards NPCs and game immersion. Participants first experienced either a robot’s perspective of being destroyed by fire in VR or read a text description about the same event. Then, they participated a prosocial VR game in which they saved robots. The findings show that perspective-taking experiences indirectly enhance participants’ game immersion via the effects of closeness with the destroyed robot and empathy towards the four robots protected by the player. This indirect effect is moderated by players’ weekly exposure to video games. These results suggest that VR-based perspective-taking of NPCs can indirectly enhance gameplay experiences in prosocial VR games. Theoretical and game design implications are discussed.

One of the most critical social functions of museums is education. At the same time, a museum is also a space where audiences can benefit directly from it with learning. This paper proposes a design framework that addresses multimodality in interactive exhibitions on abstract knowledge. In contrast to previous research, this study emphasizes the differences between the traditional exhibition and interactive formats in which application narrating by oneself and dialogue into abstract knowledge. The study explores metacognition, animation, embodied interaction, and blending theory, with a project on design practice: Tibet Planetarium in Lhasa – an International Planetarium, serving as a case study of the combined implementation of these theories. First, we put forward a theoretical framework for the informal learning goals of design. Based on the context of interaction and promoting abstract knowledge, a design approach to interaction is proposed, and its application is introduced.

Abstract Mesh simplification programs create three‐dimensional polygonal models similar to an original polygonal model, and yet use fewer polygons. They produce different graphics even though they are based on the same original polygonal model. This results in a test oracle problem. To address the problem, our previous work has developed a technique that uses a reference model of the program under test to train a classifier. Using such an approach may mistakenly mark a failure‐causing test case as passed. It lowers the testing effectiveness of revealing failures. This paper suggests piping the test cases marked as passed by a statistical pattern classification module to an analytical metamorphic testing (MT) module. We evaluate our approach empirically using three subject programs with over 2700 program mutants. The result shows that, using a resembling reference model to train a classifier, the integrated approach can significantly improve the failure detection effectiveness of the pattern classification approach. We also explain how MT in our design trades specificity for sensitivity. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Mesh simplification is a mainstream technique to render graphics responsively in modern graphical software. However, the graphical nature of the output poses a test oracle problem in testing. Previous work uses pattern classification to identify failures. Although such an approach may be promising, it may conservatively mark the test result of a failure-causing test case as passed. This paper proposes a methodology that pipes the test cases marked as passed by the pattern classification component to a metamorphic testing component to look for missed failures. The empirical study uses three simple and general metamorphic relations as subjects, and the experimental results show a 10 percent improvement of effectiveness in the identification of failures.

Software with graphics rendering is an important class of applications. Many of them use polygonal models to represent the graphics. Mesh simplification is a vital technique to vary the levels of object details and, hence, improve the overall performance of the rendering process. It progressively enhances the effectiveness of rendering from initial reference systems. As such, the quality of its implementation affects that of the associated graphics rendering application. Testing of mesh simplification is essential towards assuring the quality of the applications. Is it feasible to use the reference systems to serve as automated test oracles for mesh simplification programs? If so, how well are they useful for this purpose? We present a novel approach in this paper. We propose to use pattern classification techniques to address the above problem. We generate training samples from the reference system to test samples from the implementation. Our experimentation shows that the approach is promising