Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) has considerable and increasing health effects as it raises both the mother’s and offspring’s risk for short- and long-term health problems. GDM can usually be treated with a healthier lifestyle, such as appropriate dietary modifications and engaging insufficient physical activity. While telemedicine interventions requiring weekly or more frequent feedback from health care professionals have shown the potential to improve glycemic control amongst women with GDM, apps without extensive input from health care professionals are limited and have not shown to be effective. We aimed to improve the efficacy of GDM self-management apps by exploring desirable features in a review. We derived six desirable features from the multidisciplinary literature and we evaluated the state of implementation of these features in existing GDM apps. The results showed that features for increasing competence to manage GDM and for providing social support were largely lacking.

Stroke is one of the most common cause of long-term disability in the world, significantly reducing quality of life through impairing motor functions and cognitive abilities. Whilst rehabilitation exercises can help in the recovery of motor function impairments, stroke survivors rarely exercise enough, leading to far from optimal recovery. In this paper, we investigate how upper limb stroke rehabilitation can be supported using interactive tangible bimanual devices in the home. We customise the rehabilitation activities based on individual rehabilitation requirements and motivation of stroke survivors. Through evaluation with five stroke survivors, we uncovered insight into how tangible stroke rehabilitation systems for the home should be designed. The evaluation revealed the special importance of tailorable form factor and supporting self-awareness and grip exercises in order to increase the independency of stroke survivors to carry out activities of daily living.

As location-based digital cultural heritage applications are beginning to be applied outside ‘traditional’ cultural heritage sites, there is an increased need to consider their use amongst people who may be interested in the cultural heritage of a site, but have that interest as a tangential, opportunistic, aspect of their visit. We outline why this is important, and present issues in evaluating it. We then introduce Explore: a mobile, location-based, digital cultural heritage application for the Finnish recreational island of Seurasaari. By considering how the common visitor trajectory of a museum visit can be mapped onto a visit to the island, we were able to evaluate Explore with participants who were not primarily there to access cultural heritage. Evaluation with 45 participants over 5 days identified how the low immersion techniques used allowed participants to fit accessing cultural heritage around their visit, how participants managed group tension between those more and those less interested in Explore, as well as issues around considering the use of cultural heritage applications as a tangential purpose of a visit.

Technologies that augment face-to-face interactions with a digital sense of self have been used to support conversations. That work has employed one homogenous technology, either 'off-the-shelf' or with a bespoke prototype, across all participants. Beyond speculative instances, it is unclear what technology individuals themselves would choose, if any, to augment their social interactions; what influence it may exert; or how use of heterogeneous devices may affect the value of this augmentation. This is important, as the devices that we use directly affect our behaviour, influencing affordances and how we engage in social interactions. Through a study of 28 participants, we compared head-mounted display, smartphones, and smartwatches to support digital augmentation of self during face-to-face interactions within a group. We identified a preference among participants for head-mounted displays to support privacy, while smartwatches and smartphones better supported conversational events (such as grounding and repair), along with group use through screen-sharing. Accordingly, we present software and hardware design recommendations and user interface guidelines for integrating a digital form of self into face-to-face conversations.

Head and eye movement can be leveraged to improve the user's interaction repertoire for wearable displays. Head movements are deliberate and accurate, and provide the current state-of-the-art pointing technique. Eye gaze can potentially be faster and more ergonomic, but suffers from low accuracy due to calibration errors and drift of wearable eye-tracking sensors. This work investigates precise, multimodal selection techniques using head motion and eye gaze. A comparison of speed and pointing accuracy reveals the relative merits of each method, including the achievable target size for robust selection. We demonstrate and discuss example applications for augmented reality, including compact menus with deep structure, and a proof-of-concept method for on-line correction of calibration drift.

Stroke is a significant cause of long-term disability, impairing over 10 million peoples motor function, primarily on one side of the body every year. Whilst effective rehabilitation exercises can help recover and maintain some affected motor function, stroke survivors often do not carry out enough of these. Instead relying on their 'good'; side to carry out tasks. However, this leads to poor recovery limiting the ability to carry out everyday bimanual tasks (such as dressing or cooking). We present work that seeks to support stroke survivors to engage in bimanual rehabilitation through interaction with augmented tangible objects that can be used to control everyday devices. Through a user-centered design process, we uncovered how bimanual rehabilitation can be supported. This led to the development of the ActivSticks device that allows bimanual rehabilitation and interaction with other devices and services.

We present results of an investigation into the role of seasonality in mobile cultural heritage applications. 45 participants in 26 groups used one of two applications when visiting the Finnish recreational island of Seurasaari. Each provided summer and winter content, but varied in how this was presented. We uncovered how users consider seasonality in content, seasonal preferences, as well as how different media becomes more or less interesting if shown in or out of season. We present design considerations for future researchers to consider seasonality in cultural heritage applications.

This paper presents four different tangible interactive prototypes designed to support the continuation of balance rehabilitation at home. The interactive prototypes are designed to provide a more enjoyable and experience when performing balance rehabilitation exercises. Early results from preliminary tests with stroke survivors and rehabilitation professionals are promising. The aim of the designs is to allow people at different levels of rehabilitation to engage into balance training and perform the exercises according to their current skills.

In this paper we outline the initial stages of a human centered design process aimed at the design of novel technology (tangible interactive objects) for stroke survivors. We found it useful to support standard methods, such as interviews and focus groups, with a video prototype in order to make the concept of tangible interaction, which was novel to our users, more clear. In addition we carried out a co-design workshop together with stroke survivors. Based on these activities, we present a set of preliminary design guidelines for tangible interaction for stroke survivors.

We present the results of an investigation into the role of curated representations of self, which we term Digital Selfs, in augmented multi-party face-to-face interactions. Advancements in wearable technologies (such as Head-Mounted Displays) have renewed interest in augmenting face-to-face interaction with digital content. However, existing work focuses on algorithmic matching between users, based on data-mining shared interests from individuals’ social media accounts, which can cause information that might be inappropriate or irrelevant to be disclosed to others. An alternative approach is to allow users to manually curate the digital augmentation they wish to present to others, allowing users to present those aspects of self that are most important to them and avoid undesired disclosure. Through interviews, video analysis, questionnaires and device logging, of 23 participants in 6 multi-party gatherings where individuals were allowed to freely mix, we identified how users created Digital Selfs from media largely outside existing social media accounts, and how Digital Selfs presented through HMDs were employed in multi-party interactions, playing key roles in facilitating strangers to interact with each other. We present guidance for the design of future multi-party digital augmentations in collaborative scenarios.

A recent trend in HCI has been to employ wearable technology (such as Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs)) to help provoke and support face-to-face interaction through the presentation of, usually algorithmically matched, media from user social and digital media accounts. Such approaches could effectively support face-to-face interaction in many situations. However, work fails to consider the existing rich practices in how users manage their identity both face-to-face, and with existing social and digital media services. We present the results of 7 in-depth interviews on how users would wish to employ, manage and present social media in face-to-face encounters over a range of contexts and social relationships. We identified the importance of user control in selecting media, particularly when presenting to strangers, and how users would wish to present media to others. Our work provides guidance on how to more effectively employ existing media in face-to-face interaction.

An effective interaction in augmented reality (AR) requires utilization of different modalities. In this study, we investigated orienting the user in bimodal AR. Using auditory perception to support visual perception provides a useful approach for orienting the user to directions that are outside of the visual field-of-view (FOV). In particular, this is important in path-finding, where points-of-interest (POIs) can be all around the user. However, the ability to perceive the audio POIs is affected by the ventriloquism effect (VE), which means that audio POIs are captured by visual POIs. We measured the spatial limits for the VE in AR using a video see-through head-worn display. The results showed that the amount of the VE in AR was approx. 5°–15° higher than in a real environment. In AR, spatial disparity between an audio and visual POI should be at least 30° of azimuth angle, in order to perceive the audio and visual POIs as separate. The limit was affected by azimuth angle of visual POI and magnitude of head rotations. These results provide guidelines for designing bimodal AR systems.

Significant depth judgment errors are common in augmented reality. This study presents a visualization approach for improving relative depth judgments in augmented reality. The approach uses auxiliary augmented objects in addition to the main augmentation to support ordinal and interval depth judgment tasks. The auxiliary augmentations are positioned spatially near real-world objects, and the location of the main augmentation can be deduced based on the relative depth cues between the augmented objects. In the experimental part, the visualization approach was tested in the “X-ray” visualization case with a video see-through system. Two relative depth cues, in addition to motion parallax, were used between graphical objects: relative size and binocular disparity. The results show that the presence of auxiliary objects significantly reduced errors in depth judgment. Errors in judging the ordinal location with respect to a wall (front, at, or behind) and judging depth intervals were reduced. In addition to reduced errors, the presence of auxiliary augmentation increased the confidence in depth judgments, and it was subjectively preferred. The visualization approach did not have an effect on the viewing time.

In this study the perception of crowds was investigated in urban environment. The images of crowds were viewed non-stereoscopically and stereoscopically with HMD (head-mounted display). The task of the participants was to count the number of persons in the crowds. The results clearly indicate that stereoscopic viewing enhances perception of crowds. The counting task was determined to be easiest with stereoscopic viewing, its error rate was significantly smaller and it was significantly preferred to non-stereoscopic viewing. The viewing method did not differ statistically with respect to the completion time.