Virtual Reality (VR) promises to benefit training and education by offering ubiquitous risk-free access to handson experiential learning. This paper presents an evaluation of a VR-based occupational safety training application for forestry work, assessing the VR system’s impact on training effectiveness, including skill transfer to real world settings. 73 participants experienced two learning scenarios covering different task types and settings. They were either assigned to the VR training or relied on traditional forestry training materials only.Our results confirm the positive effects of VR-based training on participants’ experience as well as successful skill transfer to real-world challenges, as evidenced by participant feedback on a broad range of experience measures. In addition, our study extends existing work by examining how varying VR training quality affects both subjective experience and objective performance outcomes in terms of learning transfer. Our findings indicate that better technical quality of the VR training indeed can translate to significantly improved performance during skill application in subsequent test situations. Surprisingly, we could not detect a similarly pronounced effect when analyzing participants’ subjective experience ratings. We reflect on these findings and discuss methodological implications for experience assessment in the context of VR-based training and education.

Access to art and cultural heritage is an important aspect of the well-being of humans. Within the BeauCoup project, we aim to create solutions to improve access to cultural heritage for older adults with and without impairments. In this paper, we present tangible, interactive postcards, which were developed in a user-centered design process within the project. These digital tangible postcards are a cheap, ubiquitous and easily transportable solution to make artworks - especially paintings - interactively accessible to people with visual impairments. We describe the developed solutions and will strive to discuss with the community the general concept, improvements and further application areas.

Investigating application areas for utilizing robots to support human workers is a continuing concern within human robot collaboration. In this paper, we focus on surface repair and finishing processes in which robots support skilled workers in task execution. We conducted a user study which investigates novel, pen-based human robot interaction modalities for collaborative spot repair processes in a Virtual Reality (VR) setting. Our findings show that participants preferred a test condition in which all interaction with the robot took place directly on the work piece. Furthermore, the interaction modality had an impact on objective performance indicators. These findings are discussed in the context of designing intuitive interfaces for collaborative robots in industrial settings.

The impact of COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of sports and physical activity for maintaining people’s mental well-being. In this domain, promising use cases for social robots have been identified. However, current research lacks a systematic approach for implementing, analyzing and understanding the contribution of robotic embodiment and proximity for persuasive and motivation technologies. In this work, we investigate how social robots could be used, in real-world training scenarios, to support trainers in conducting exercises while positively motivating trainees. Two use cases were designed to meet the needs of health and competitive oriented trainees. Qualitative and quantitative results from a field study show positive effects of the robot on trainees in terms of acceptance and intrinsic motivation. In addition, our findings highlight directions for further improvement of the design of social robots in sports and physical scenarios.

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.

Although software products are becoming increasingly accessible and assistive tools like screen readers becoming widely available, people with low vision still face insufficient support when it comes to consumption of digital video content. In this paper, we present an accessible desktop video player software, which allows people with low vision to adapt the presentation of digital videos according to their specific needs. For visual enhancement, we implemented a broad range of image manipulation techniques, like adaptation of contrast, color manipulation (e.g. inverting, grey scale transformations) and edge detection algorithms for sharpness optimization. Based on the feedback from low vision users, we discuss how to implement enhancement filter configuration and how to consider several input modalities.

In this paper, we investigate the impact of real-time video enhancement techniques on video Quality of Experience (QoE) for users with low vision. To this end, we present the results of a lab-based user study, in which participants with low vision utilize a web-based media player to configure individual video quality enhancement filters (e.g. increased contrast, strong edge enhancement and lowered brightness) depending on types of content. Additionally, for each test participant we measured the visual performance to describe how low vision impacts video QoE. Our results show, that individual video quality filters positively impact the experience of the quality dimensions detail, text and content. Furthermore, we discuss insights from qualitative feedback from participants regarding overall utility and User Experience (UX) aspects of real-time video enhancements.

Once highly automated vehicles become available, drivers will be freed to perform activities other than driving when automated driving mode is activated. Such activities could include relaxing, reading, exercising, or working. The work of professional drivers such as truck drivers can be expected to be especially affected by this technology and to change accordingly as highly automated trucks enable the completion of other working related tasks during automated driving. But will such mobile working places be accepted by truck drivers? In this paper, we report on a survey (N=23) assessing technology acceptance towards Future Workplaces in highly Automated Trucks (FWAT). Results show that a majority of drivers is rather skeptical about FWAT, but that acceptance can be expected to strongly vary. Our paper provides some guidance on how to explain this variance and presents relevant acceptance factors for future FWAT usage.

Currently, we witness dramatically increasing interest in immersive media technologies like Virtual Reality (VR), particularly in omnidirectional video (OV) streaming. Omnidirectional (also called 360-degree) videos are panoramic spherical videos in which the user can look around during playback and which therefore can be understood as hybrids between traditional movie streaming and interactive VR worlds. Unfortunately, streaming this kind of content is extremely bandwidth intensive (compared to traditional 2D video) and therefore, Quality of Experience (QoE) tends to deteriorate significantly in absence of continuous optimal bandwidth conditions. In this paper, we present a first approach towards subjective QoE assessment for omnidirectional video (OV) streaming. We present the results of a lab study on the QoE impact of stalling in the context of OV streaming using head-mounted displays (HMDs). Our findings show that subjective testing for immersive media like OV is not trivial, with even simple cases like stalling leading to unexpected results. After a discussion of characteristic pitfalls and lessons learned, we provide a a set of recommendations for upcoming OV assessment studies.

A quarter of the world population will be using smartphones to access the Internet in the near future. In this context, understanding the quality of experience (QoE) of popular apps in such devices becomes paramount to cellular network operators, who need to offer high-quality levels to reduce the risks of customers churning for quality dissatisfaction. In this paper, we address the problem of QoE provisioning in smartphones from a double perspective, combining the results obtained from subjective laboratory tests with end-device passive measurements and QoE crowd-sourced feedback obtained in operational cellular networks. The study addresses the impact of both access bandwidth and latency on the QoE of five different services and mobile apps: YouTube, Facebook, Web browsing through Chrome, Google Maps, and WhatsApp. We evaluate the influence of both constant and dynamically changing network access conditions, tackling in particular the case of fluctuating downlink bandwidth, which is typical in cellular networks. As a main contribution, we show that the results obtained in the laboratory are highly applicable in the live scenario, as mappings track the QoE provided by users in real networks. We additionally provide hints and bandwidth thresholds for good QoE levels on such apps, as well as discussion on end-device passive measurements and analysis. The results presented in this paper provide a sound basis to better understand the QoE requirements of popular mobile apps, as well as for monitoring the underlying provisioning network. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper providing such a comprehensive analysis of QoE in mobile devices, combining network measurements with users QoE feedback in laboratory tests, and operational networks.

Despite the fact that novel QoE based charging mechanism are vitally needed, the complex interrelation of payment and quality perception has been examined only marginally so far. In this paper we want to describe a comprehensive experiment which investigates the intricate interplay of content selection, quality decisions & evaluation and payment strategies in the context of a video on demand scenario. Beside depicting methodological challenges and providing recommendations for further empirical work, we also compare current findings with our previous work to reveal new sights and research attempts.

Strongly rising interest in Quality of Experience (QoE) research together with the current economical struggle of Network Service Providers (NSPs) are about to lead towards monetization of QoE overtaking outright quality optimization in importance. While there is still a significant lack of quantitative studies for backing QoE-based charging recommendations, the present work presents results and conclusions from a recent empirical user study explicitly measuring the maximum willingness-to-pay of end users for High Definition (HD) Video on Demand (VoD) services. Beyond the observation of unexpectedly high expenditures by test subjects, we focus on phenomena with respect to market entrance pricing strategies, which may be explained by anchoring effects well-known in psychology. Thus, the present work provides valuable clues on how to approach VoD markets in an optimal and economically efficient way.