The manipulation of virtual 3D objects is essential for a variety of handheld AR scenarios. However, the mapping of commonly supported 2D touch gestures to manipulations in 3D space is not trivial. As an alternative, our work explores the use of haptic props that facilitate direct manipulation of virtual 3D objects with 6 degrees of freedom. In an experiment, we instructed 20 participants to solve 2D and 3D docking tasks in AR, to compare traditional 2D touch gestures with prop-based interactions using three prop shapes (cube, rhombicuboctahedron, sphere). Our findings highlight benefits of haptic props for 3D manipulation tasks with respect to task performance, user experience, preference, and workload. For 2D tasks, the benefits of haptic props are less pronounced. Finally, while we found no significant impact of prop shape on task performance, this appears to be subject to personal preference.

Nurses frequently transfer patients as part of their daily work. However, manual patient transfers pose a major risk to nurses’ health. Although the Kinaesthetics care conception can help address this issue, existing support to learn the concept is low. We present KiTT, a tablet-based system, to promote the learning of ergonomic patient transfers based on the Kinaesthetics care conception. KiTT supports the training of Kinaesthetics-based patient transfers by two nurses. The nurses are guided by the phases (i) interactive instructions, (ii) training of transfer conduct, and (iii) feedback and reflection. We evaluated KiTT with 26 nursing-care students in a nursing-care school. Our results indicate that KiTT provides a good subjective support for the learning of Kinaesthetics. Our results also suggest that KiTT can promote the ergonomically correct conduct of patient transfers while providing a good user experience adequate to the nursing-school context, and reveal how KiTT can extend existing practices.

Nurses are frequently required to transfer patients as part of their daily duties. However, the manual transfer of patients is a major risk factor for injuries to the back. Although the Kinaesthetics Care Conception can help to address this issue, existing support for the integration of the concept into nursing-care practice is low. We present NurseCare, a mobile system that aims to promote the practical application of ergonomic patient transfers based on the Kinaesthetics Care Conception. NurseCare consists of a wearable and a smartphone app. Key features of NurseCare include mobile accessible instructions for ergonomic patient transfers, in-situ feedback for the risky bending of the back, and long-term feedback. We evaluated NurseCare in a nine participant 'in-the-wild' evaluation. Results indicate that NurseCare can facilitate ergonomic work while providing a high user experience adequate to the nurses' work domain, and reveal how NurseCare can be incorporated in given practices.

Mid-air arm movements are important for various activities. However, common resources for their self-directed practice require practitioners to divide their focus between an external source (e.g., a video screen) and moving. Past research found benefits for egocentric guidance visualizations compared to common resources. However, there is limited evidence about how such visualizations should look and behave. EGuide supports the investigation of different egocentric visualizations for the guidance of mid-air arm movements. We compared two visual appearances for egocentric guidance visualizations that differ in their shape (look), and three guidance techniques that differ by how they guide a user (behavior). For visualizations with a continuously moving guidance technique, our results suggest a higher movement accuracy for a realistic than an abstract shape. For user experience and preference, our results suggest that visualizations with an abstract shape and a guidance technique that visualizes important postures should not pause at important postures.