Comparative User Study Research Articles

Pre-Occupancy evaluation of buildings in VR: development of the prototype and user studies

The overarching goal of this project is to enable pre-occupancy evaluation in architecture. This project uses computational techniques and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies to develop and test an innovative method for decision-making enabled by collaborative multi-sensory pre-occupation of designs. A gaming engine was used to develop an immersive VR environment that allowed users to explore architectural spaces within a range of time-specific spatial conditions. This paper presents comparative user studies between VR and paper-based evaluation approaches. Two experimental streams were carried out including architecture professionals and students. This manuscript presents background studies, proposed methods, and results of user testing. Significant differences in responses between architecture practitioners and architecture students were identified, including satisfaction levels of visual and acoustic qualities of architectural spaces; and the ease of using VR for pre-occupancy assessments. The professional population was also more likely to change their original choice after being immersed in the VR experience.

Visual notations for viewing RDF constraints with UnSHACLed

The quality of knowledge graphs can be assessed by a validation against specified constraints, typically use-case specific and modeled by human users in a manual fashion. Visualizations can improve the modeling process as they are specifically designed for human information processing, possibly leading to more accurate constraints, and in turn higher quality knowledge graphs. However, it is currently unknown how such visualizations support users when viewing RDF constraints as no scientific evidence for the visualizations’ effectiveness is provided. Furthermore, some of the existing tools are likely suboptimal, as they lack support for edit operations or common constraints types. To establish a baseline, we have defined visual notations to represent RDF constraints and implemented them in UnSHACLed, a tool that is independent of a concrete RDF constraint language. In this paper, we (i) present two visual notations that support all SHACL core constraints, built upon the commonly used visualizations VOWL and UML, (ii) analyze both notations based on cognitive effective design principles, (iii) perform a comparative user study between both visual notations, and (iv) present our open source tool UnSHACLed incorporating our efforts. Users were presented RDF constraints in both visual notations and had to answer questions based on visualization task taxonomies. Although no statistical significant difference in mean error rates was observed, all study participants preferred ShapeVOWL in a self assessment to answer RDF constraint-related questions. Furthermore, ShapeVOWL adheres to more cognitive effective design principles according to our performed comparison. Study participants argued that the increased visual features of ShapeVOWL made it easier to spot constraints, but a list of constraints – as in ShapeUML – is easier to read. However, also that more deviations from the strict UML specification and introduction of more visual features can improve ShapeUML. From these findings we conclude that ShapeVOWL has a higher potential to represent RDF constraints more effective compared to ShapeUML. But also that the clear and efficient text encoding of ShapeUML can be improved with visual features. A one-size-fits-all approach to RDF constraint visualization and editing will be insufficient. Therefore, to support different audiences and use cases, user interfaces of RDF constraint editors need to support different visual notations.

Deceptive Decision-Making under Uncertainty

We study the design of autonomous agents that are capable of deceiving outside observers about their intentions while carrying out tasks in stochastic, complex environments. By modeling the agent's behavior as a Markov decision process, we consider a setting where the agent aims to reach one of multiple potential goals while deceiving outside observers about its true goal. We propose a novel approach to model observer predictions based on the principle of maximum entropy and to efficiently generate deceptive strategies via linear programming. The proposed approach enables the agent to exhibit a variety of tunable deceptive behaviors while ensuring the satisfaction of probabilistic constraints on the behavior. We evaluate the performance of the proposed approach via comparative user studies and present a case study on the streets of Manhattan, New York, using real travel time distributions.

Parental stress and life satisfaction: A comparative study of social services users and nonusers from a gender perspective.

The psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Parental Stress Scale (PSS) scale have not been verified on the Spanish population. Similarly, the literature on gender differences and parental stress is inconclusive, and there is little evidence of their relationship with life satisfaction. To analyze the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the PSS scale, (2) to examine possible gender differences, and (3) to study the relationship between parental stress (PS) and parental rewards (PR) and satisfaction with life (SWL) attending to the possible moderating effect of gender. These objectives were examined in samples comprising Social Services Users (SSU) (N = 525; 78.3% female; Mage = 38.3) and non-SSU users (N = 421; 41.1% male; Mage = 37.08). A CFA corroborated a two-factor structure: PS and PR. In the SSU sample, mothers showed higher PS and lower PR. However, PR was also higher in mothers from the non-SSU sample compared to fathers. PR and PS were directly related to SWL in the SSU sample. However, gender moderated the relationship between PR and SWL in the non-SSU sample in the case of mothers. The results are discussed considering gender roles and the characteristics of both samples.

Computational Design of Kinesthetic Garments

AbstractKinesthetic garments provide physical feedback on body posture and motion through tailored distributions of reinforced material. Their ability to selectively stiffen a garment's response to specific motions makes them appealing for rehabilitation, sports, robotics, and many other application fields. However, finding designs that distribute a given amount of reinforcement material to maximally stiffen the response to specified motions is a challenging problem. In this work, we propose an optimization‐driven approach for automated design of reinforcement patterns for kinesthetic garments. Our main contribution is to cast this design task as an on‐body topology optimization problem. Our method allows designers to explore a continuous range of designs corresponding to various amounts of reinforcement coverage. Our model captures both tight contact and lift‐off separation between cloth and body. We demonstrate our method on a variety of reinforcement design problems for different body sites and motions. Optimal designs lead to a two‐ to threefold improvement in performance in terms of energy density. A set of manufactured designs were consistently rated as providing more resistance than baselines in a comparative user study.

Artificial Intelligence and Impression Management: Consequences of Autonomous Conversational Agents Communicating on One’s Behalf

Abstract Artificially intelligent communication technologies (AICTs) that operate autonomously with high degrees of conversational fluency can make communication decisions on behalf of their principal users and communicate with those principals’ audiences on their behalf. In this study, we explore how the involvement of AICTs in communication activities shapes how principals engage in impression management and how their communication partners form impressions of them. Through an inductive, comparative field study of users of two AI scheduling technologies, we uncover three communicative practices through which principals engaged in impression management when AICTs communicate on their behalf: interpretation, diplomacy, and staging politeness. We also uncover three processes through which communication partners formed impressions of principals when communicating with them via AICTs: confirmation, transference, and compartmentalization. We show that communication partners can transfer impressions of AICTs to principals themselves and outline the conditions under which such transference is and is not likely. We discuss the implications of these findings for the study of technological mediation of impression management and formation in the age of artificial intelligence and present propositions to guide future empirical research.

Embodied Gambling—Investigating the Influence of Level of Embodiment, Avatar Appearance, and Virtual Environment Design on an Online VR Slot Machine

Slot machines are one of the most played games by players suffering from gambling disorder. New technologies like immersive Virtual Reality (VR) offer more possibilities to exploit erroneous beliefs in the context of gambling. Recent research indicates a higher risk potential when playing a slot machine in VR than on desktop. To continue this investigation, we evaluate the effects of providing different degrees of embodiment, i.e., minimal and full embodiment. The avatars used for the full embodiment further differ in their appearance, i.e., they elicit a high or a low socio-economic status. The virtual environment (VE) design can cause a potential influence on the overall gambling behavior. Thus, we also embed the slot machine in two different VEs that differ in their emotional design: a colorful underwater playground environment and a virtual counterpart of our lab. These design considerations resulted in four different versions of the same VR slot machine: 1) full embodiment with high socio-economic status, 2) full embodiment with low socio-economic status, 3) minimal embodiment playground VE, and 4) minimal embodiment laboratory VE. Both full embodiment versions also used the playground VE. We determine the risk potential by logging gambling frequency as well as stake size, and measuring harm-inducing factors, i.e., dissociation, urge to gamble, dark flow, and illusion of control, using questionnaires. Following a between groups experimental design, 82 participants played for 20 game rounds one of the four versions. We recruited our sample from the students enrolled at the University of Würzburg. Our safety protocol ensured that only participants without any recent gambling activity took part in the experiment. In this comparative user study, we found no effect of the embodiment nor VE design on neither the gambling frequency, stake sizes, nor risk potential. However, our results provide further support for the hypothesis of the higher visual angle on gambling stimuli and hence the increased emotional response being the true cause for the higher risk potential.

Mobile Contactless Fingerprint Recognition: Implementation, Performance and Usability Aspects.

This work presents an automated contactless fingerprint recognition system for smartphones. We provide a comprehensive description of the entire recognition pipeline and discuss important requirements for a fully automated capturing system. In addition, our implementation is made publicly available for research purposes. During a database acquisition, a total number of 1360 contactless and contact-based samples of 29 subjects are captured in two different environmental situations. Experiments on the acquired database show a comparable performance of our contactless scheme and the contact-based baseline scheme under constrained environmental influences. A comparative usability study on both capturing device types indicates that the majority of subjects prefer the contactless capturing method. Based on our experimental results, we analyze the impact of the current COVID-19 pandemic on fingerprint recognition systems. Finally, implementation aspects of contactless fingerprint recognition are summarized.

A Comparative Study of Users versus Non-Users’ Behavioral Intention towards M-Banking Apps’ Adoption

The banking sector has been considered as one of the primary adopters of Information and Communications Technologies. Especially during the last years, they have invested a lot into the digital transformation of their business process. Concerning their retail customers, banks realized very early the great potential abilities to provide value added self-services functions via mobile devices, mainly smartphones to them; thus, they have invested a lot into m-banking apps’ functionality. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought out different ways for financial transactions and even more mobile users have taken advantage of m-banking app services. Thus, the purpose of this empirical paper is to investigate the determinants that impact individuals on adopting or not m-banking apps. Specifically, it examines two groups of individuals, users (adopters) and non-users (non-adopters) of m-banking apps, and aims to reveal if there are differences and similarities between the factors that impact them on adopting or not this type of m-banking services. To our knowledge, this is the second scientific attempt where these two groups of individuals have been compared on this topic. The paper proposes a comprehensive conceptual model by extending Venkatech’s et al. (2003) Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) with ICT facilitators (i.e., reward and security) and ICT inhibitors (i.e., risk and anxiety), as well as the recommendation factor. However, this study intends to fill the research gap by investigating and proving for the first time the impact of social influence, reward and anxiety factors on behavioral intention, the relationship between risk and anxiety and the impact of behavioral intention on recommendation via the application of Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) statistical techniques. The results reveal a number of differences regarding the factors that impact or not these two groups towards m-banking app adoption; thus, it provides new insights regarding m-banking app adoption in a slightly examined scientific field. Thus, the study intends to assist the banking sector in better understanding their customers with the aim to formulate and apply customized m-business strategies and increase not only the adoption of m-banking apps but also the level of their further use.

A Comparative Evaluation of Mechanical Vibration and Ultrasonic Vibration on Smartphones in Tactile Code Perception

To improve touchscreen accessibility, it has been proved efficient to integrate tactile feedback into touchscreen devices. Two typical techniques can be used to offer tactile feedback on smartphones, namely, <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">mechanical vibration</i> (MV) and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ultrasonic vibration</i> (UV). However, (a) whether MV and UV are equally perceived and evaluated on usability is unknown, and if not, (b) which technique/feedback provides better usability and satisfaction. In this study, a comparative user study was conducted to evaluate user performance on tactile codes perception generated by MV and UV techniques. 10 tactile codes were designed using the two techniques, and 16 sighted and 5 visually impaired people were invited to take part in a tactile code perception experiment. Tactile codes perception accuracy, response time, and satisfaction on the MV and UV were recorded during the experiment. The experimental results show that the user perception performance of MV was significantly better than UV for both sighted and visually impaired participants. Participants obtained an accuracy approximately 3% higher, with the response time at least 3 s faster, and user satisfaction significantly higher (6.1 vs. 4.6 on a 7-point Likert rating scale) when using MV. Both sighted and visually impaired participants assessed MV with a higher preference over UV. Our results suggest that MV fits better to applications that require precise tactile code perception, for which UV may not be as suitable due to its lower recognition efficiency.

Managing personal finance by robo-advice users during the Covid-19 pandemic and in the post-pademic period. A comparative analysis of Poland and Slovakia

Design/methodology/approach: This article aims to compare the behaviour of Polish and Slovak robo-advice users in the area of personal finance management during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as their expected saving, expenditure and investment action after the end of the pandemic. An important aspect of the analysis is a comparison of how the respondents use the PFM application for personal finance management. The article was based on a literature analysis, statistical data, as well as our own pioneering empirical study conducted in September 2021 among clients of the Slovak brokerage house Finax in Poland and Slovakia, which was the first entity in Poland to offer a robo-advice service. A number of statistical methods were used to analyze the collected statistical material: Mann-Whitney U Test, Pearson’s Chi-square test, Linear Regression Analysis, Kendall’s tau correlation analysis. Findings: The COVID-19 pandemic did not adversely affect the personal finance of Polish and Slovak robo-advice users and they differed in terms of investment methods during the pandemic as well as their investment plans after the pandemic. Polish and Slovak robo-advice users used spreadsheets plus special banking and non-banking applications to manage their personal finance. Sociodemographic variables did not largely explain how Poles and Slovaks used the application to configure personal finance. During the pandemic, saving was associated with the use of an application to configure personal finance and the awareness of the existence of such an application among both Poles and Slovaks. Research limitations/implications: The conclusions of the study can be used by financial institutions, FinTechs, robo-advisors and PFM application providers for managing the home budget. Originality/value: The novelty of the article is the first comparative study of robo-advice users in Poland and Slovakia on personal finance management during the COVID-19 pandemic and financial plans in the post-pandemic period. Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, robo-advice, personal finance management, PFM applications.

Can Competitive Digital Games Support Real-Time Music Creation?

This article presents practice-based research exploring the interplay of real-time music creation and competitive gameplay. Musically creative video games, apps, and sound art are first surveyed to highlight their characteristic avoidance of competitive game elements. The relationship between play, games, and musical activity is then examined with reference to theoretical perspectives from ludomusicology and game studies, revealing a series of mechanical and aesthetic design tensions emerging between competitive gameplay and music creation. Two original music games are presented to explore this interplay across contrasting design approaches: EvoMusic engenders an abstract competitive dialogue between the player and system for authorial control, while Idea presents a more explicit ludic framework with goals, progression, danger, and victory. The games are evaluated in a comparative user study to capture the player experience of composing within competitive game settings. Participant responses revealed conflicting expectations for ludic and compositional experiences. Idea was the preferred game, yet its strong ludic elements distracted from or disincentivized music creation; EvoMusic offered more focused music creation yet also a weaker gameplay experience for lacking these same competitive elements. This relationship reflects the theoretical design tensions suggested by ludomusical scholarship. Further, a majority of participants characterized EvoMusic as being simultaneously competitive and creatively stimulating. The implication is that competitive games can support music creation for certain players, though it remains challenging to satisfy expectations for both within any one system. Design recommendations are drawn from these insights, and the potential for future research into creative music games is discussed.

AdaptiBrush

Virtual reality drawing applications let users draw 3D shapes using brushes that form ribbon shaped, or ruled-surface, strokes. Each ribbon is uniquely defined by its user-specified ruling length, path, and the ruling directions at each point along this path. Existing brushes use the trajectory of a handheld controller in 3D space as the ribbon path, and compute the ruling directions using a fixed mapping from a specific controller coordinate-frame axis. This fixed mapping forces users to rotate the controller and thus their wrists to change ribbon normal or ruling directions, and requires substantial physical effort to draw even medium complexity ribbons. Since human ability to rotate their wrists continuously is heavily restricted, the space of ribbon geometries users can comfortably draw using these brushes is limited. These brushes can be unpredictable, producing ribbons with unexpectedly varying width or flipped and wobbly normals in response to seemingly natural hand gestures. Our AdaptiBrush ribbon brush system dramatically extends the space of ribbon geometries users can comfortably draw while enabling them to accurately predict the ribbon shape that a given hand motion produces. We achieve this by introducing a novel adaptive ruling direction computation method, enabling users to easily change ribbon ruling and normal orientation using predominantly translational controller, and thus wrist, motion. We facilitate ease-of-use by computing predictable ruling directions that smoothly change in both world and controller coordinate systems, and facilitate ease-of-learning by prioritizing ruling directions which are well-aligned with one of the controller coordinate system axes. Our comparative user studies confirm that our more general and predictable ruling computation leads to significant improvements in brush usability and effectiveness compared to all prior brushes; in a head to head comparison users preferred AdaptiBrush over the next-best brush by a margin of 2 to 1.

A Comparative Study of Interaction Time and Usability of Using Controllers and Hand Tracking in Virtual Reality Training

Virtual Reality (VR) technology is frequently applied in simulation, particularly in medical training. VR medical training often requires user input either from controllers or free-hand gestures. Nowadays, hand gestures are commonly tracked via built-in cameras from a VR headset. Like controllers, hand tracking can be used in VR applications to control virtual objects. This research developed VR intubation training as a case study and applied controllers and hand tracking for four interactions—namely collision, grabbing, pressing, and release. The quasi-experimental design assigned 30 medical students in clinical training to investigate the differences between using VR controller and hand tracking in medical interactions. The subjects were divided into two groups, one with VR controllers and the other with VR hand tracking, to study the interaction time and user satisfaction in seven procedures. System Usability Scale (SUS) and User Satisfaction Evaluation Questionnaire (USEQ) were used to measure user usability and satisfaction, respectively. The results showed that the interaction time of each procedure was not different. Similarly, according to SUS and USEQ scores, satisfaction and usability were also not different. Therefore, in VR intubation training, using hand tracking has no difference in results to using controllers. As medical training with free-hand gestures is more natural for real-world situations, hand tracking will play an important role as user input for VR medical training. This allows trainees to recognize and correct their postures intuitively, which is more beneficial for self-learning and practicing.

Amateur ballet practicing, body image and eating behaviors: a comparative study of classical ballet dancers, gym users and sedentary women

BackgroundBallet dancers are a risk group for body image (BI) distortion, dissatisfaction and eating disorders (ED), but few studies have investigated these aspects in amateur adult practitioners. This study aimed to evaluate if amateur female adult classical ballet dancers presented different BI and behaviors for ED than gym users and sedentary women.MethodsThis is a cross-sectional study where classical ballet dancers (n = 19) were compared to gym users (n = 19) and sedentary women (n = 19). Body mass index (BMI) was assessed, and a figure rating scale was applied to assess BI distortion/dissatisfaction. The body shape questionnaire (BSQ) was used to measure BI concern. The eating attitudes test (EAT-26) and the bulimic investigatory test, Edinburgh (BITE) were used for behaviors toward anorexia and bulimia.ResultsBMI was significantly lower in ballet dancers than gym users and sedentary women (F, p = .04). BI distortion did not differ among the studied groups. BI dissatisfaction was lower (X2, p = .041) in ballet dancers (75.0%) and gym users (70.6%) compared to sedentary women (100%). Correspondence analysis showed ballet dancers were mostly not concerned with BI, which was not observed among the other groups. The EAT-26 did not differ between the studied groups. The BITE score was lower (Tukey’s post hoc test, p = .005) in the ballet dancers [mean 5.3 (5.6)] compared to the sedentary women [mean 10.9 (4.8)].ConclusionsData suggest that amateur classical ballet practicing is associated to better BI and fewer behaviors for ED in the studied population. The lower BMI in ballet dancers might explain these findings, and further studies should explore these associations.

Evaluation of Three Feasibility Tools for Identifying Patient Data and Biospecimen Availability: Comparative Usability Study.

BackgroundTo meet the growing importance of real-word data analysis, clinical data and biosamples must be timely made available. Feasibility platforms are often the first contact point for determining the availability of such data for specific research questions. Therefore, a user-friendly interface should be provided to enable access to this information easily. The German Medical Informatics Initiative also aims to establish such a platform for its infrastructure. Although some of these platforms are actively used, their tools still have limitations. Consequently, the Medical Informatics Initiative consortium MIRACUM (Medical Informatics in Research and Care in University Medicine) committed itself to analyzing the pros and cons of existing solutions and to designing an optimized graphical feasibility user interface.ObjectiveThe aim of this study is to identify the system that is most user-friendly and thus forms the best basis for developing a harmonized tool. To achieve this goal, we carried out a comparative usability evaluation of existing tools used by researchers acting as end users.MethodsThe evaluation included three preselected search tools and was conducted as a qualitative exploratory study with a randomized design over a period of 6 weeks. The tools in question were the MIRACUM i2b2 (Informatics for Integrating Biology and the Bedside) feasibility platform, OHDSI’s (Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics) ATLAS, and the Sample Locator of the German Biobank Alliance. The evaluation was conducted in the form of a web-based usability test (usability walkthrough combined with a web-based questionnaire) with participants aged between 26 and 63 years who work as medical doctors.ResultsIn total, 17 study participants evaluated the three tools. The overall evaluation of usability, which was based on the System Usability Scale, showed that the Sample Locator, with a mean System Usability Scale score of 77.03 (SD 20.62), was significantly superior to the other two tools (Wilcoxon test; Sample Locator vs i2b2: P=.047; Sample Locator vs ATLAS: P=.001). i2b2, with a score of 59.83 (SD 25.36), performed significantly better than ATLAS, which had a score of 27.81 (SD 21.79; Wilcoxon test; i2b2 vs ATLAS: P=.005). The analysis of the material generated by the usability walkthrough method confirmed these findings. ATLAS caused the most usability problems (n=66), followed by i2b2 (n=48) and the Sample Locator (n=22). Moreover, the Sample Locator achieved the highest ratings with respect to additional questions regarding satisfaction with the tools.ConclusionsThis study provides data to develop a suitable basis for the selection of a harmonized tool for feasibility studies via concrete evaluation and a comparison of the usability of three different types of query builders. The feedback obtained from the participants during the usability test made it possible to identify user problems and positive design aspects of the individual tools and compare them qualitatively.

PosterChild: Blend‐Aware Artistic Posterization

AbstractPosterization is an artistic effect which converts continuous images into regions of constant color with smooth boundaries, often with an artistically recolored palette. Artistic posterization is extremely time‐consuming and tedious. We introduce a blend‐aware algorithm for generating posterized images with palette‐based control for artistic recoloring. Our algorithm automatically extracts a palette and then uses multi‐label optimization to find blended‐color regions in terms of that palette. We smooth boundaries away from image details with frequency‐guided median filtering. We evaluate our algorithm with a comparative user study and showcase its ability to produce compelling posterizations of a variety of inputs. Our parameters provide artistic control and enable cohesive, real‐time recoloring after posterization pre‐processing.

Usability testing of radiotherapy systems as a medical device evaluation tool to inform hospital procurement decision-making.

Poor usability designs of radiotherapy systems can contribute to use errors and adverse events. Therefore, we evaluated the usability of two radiotherapy systems through radiation therapists' performance, workload, and experience that can inform hospital procurement decision-making about the selection of appropriate radiotherapy system for radiation therapist use. We performed a comparative usability study for two radiotherapy systems through user testing. Thirty radiation therapists participated in our study, in which four typical operational tasks were performed in two tested radiotherapy systems. User performance was measured by task completion time and completion difficulty level. User workloads were measured by perceived and physiological workload using NASA-TLX questionnaires and eye motion data. User experience was measured by the USE questionnaire. Significantly less task completion time and an easier task completion difficulty level were shown with the Varian Trilogy than with the XHA600E. The study results suggest that higher perceived and physiological workloads were experienced with the XHA600E than with the Varian Trilogy. Radiation therapists reported better user experience with the Varian Trilogy than with the XHA600E. Five paired t-tests regarding user performance, user workload, and user experience between the Varian Trilogy and the XHA600E were performed, showing that the Varian Trilogy radiotherapy system has a better usability design than the XHA600E radiotherapy system. Based on study results, we confirmed that the Varian Trilogy radiotherapy system has a better usability design than the XHA600E radiotherapy system. Furthermore, the study results provide valuable evidence for hospital procurement decision-making regarding the selection of a suitable radiotherapy system for radiation therapists to use.

A VR-based approach in conducting MTM for manual workplaces

Due to current trends in the manufacturing industry, such as mass customization, manual operations contribute drastically to the overall costs of a product. Methods-Time-Measurement (MTM) identifies the optimization potential of manual workplaces, which significantly influences a worker’s productivity. However, traditional MTM requires great efforts to observe and transcribe manual assembly processes. Yet, various digital approaches exist that facilitate MTM analyses. While most of these approaches require the existence of real workplaces or cardboard mock-ups, it would be beneficial to conduct a virtual MTM in earlier phases of production planning. However, the quality of virtual MTM analyses compared to traditional MTM conducted in reality has not been assessed yet. This paper is addressing it by conducting a comparative user study with 21 participants completing the same task both at a real and virtual workplace, which they access via virtual reality technology. Our results show that participants’ MTM-2 values achieved at the VR workplace are comparable to those at the real workplace. However, time study data reveals that participants moved considerably slower in VR and thus needed more time to accomplish the task. Consequently, for the measurement of manual work in VR, it is even necessary to utilize predetermined times, such as MTM-2 since time study data is insufficient. This paper also serves as a proof of concept for future studies, investigating automated transcription systems that would further decrease the efforts conducting MTM analyses.

Comparative evaluation of WIMP and immersive natural finger interaction: a user study on CAD assembly modeling

Virtual and augmented reality allows the utilization of natural user interfaces, such as realistic finger interaction, even for purposes that were previously dominated by the WIMP paradigm. This new form of interaction is particularly suitable for applications involving manipulation tasks in 3D space, such as CAD assembly modeling. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the suitability of natural interaction for CAD assembly modeling in virtual reality. An advantage of the natural interaction compared to the conventional operation by computer mouse would indicate development potential for user interfaces of current CAD applications. Our approach bases on two main elements. Firstly, a novel natural user interface for realistic finger interaction enables the user to interact with virtual objects similar to physical ones. Secondly, an algorithm automatically detects constraints between CAD components based solely on their geometry and spatial location. In order to prove the usability of the natural CAD assembly modeling approach in comparison with the assembly procedure in current WIMP operated CAD software, we present a comparative user study. Results show that the VR method including natural finger interaction significantly outperforms the desktop-based CAD application in terms of efficiency and ease of use.