introduction
Hosted by Dr. Stephen Gilbert and the Virtual Reality Applications Center at Iowa State University, XR Advance welcomes extended reality experts to present innovative research in a series of videos.
During the June 2017 VR Workshop & Summit sponsored by the NSF, community leaders identified 8 research areas of focus. XR Advance explores recent research and collaboration within the XR community while highlighting these core research areas.
Research Areas
User-Centric hierarchical benchmarks
"Establishing standards for XR products will ease comparison and shape new goals.”
Determining quantifiable methods for assessing the entire user experience is essential to improving the effectiveness of extended reality. To span platforms with optimal scope, these standards should be agnostic to hardware and software systems.
optimizing the human-machine interface
"XR should deliver a personalized, natural experience to every user regardless of shape or size.”
User interfaces and interaction techniques work in tandem to permit inputs, interpret actions, and relay results to the user. If these systems can adapt to all users, no matter the ergonomics, they will offer personalized, natural interaction with virtual surroundings.
Identifying Internal States & Traits
"If the system knows how you feel, it can adapt accordingly.”
Understanding the emotional and physiological states of users in real-time is critical to developing and assessing adaptive systems as well as improving general XR usability. Deciphering the internal states of users will produce beneficial methods of amplifying the user experience.
DETECTING Physical States
"Are you pointing at a particular product? Greeting a colleague? The system should know.”
To establish self-efficacy and develop a state of flow in an extended reality environment, systems should inspect a user’s posture, gait, expressions, and other physical attributes to spawn a facsimile avatar which dynamically embodies the user.
Dynamic Content Generation
"The digital environment adapts to your choices in real time.”
Conventional content design often delivers a one-size-fits-all solution or limits a user's choices. With live sensors and adaptive software that composes content on the fly based on users' moods and actions, designers could create dynamic XR content that automatically personalizes the experience.
Cybersickness
“XR should automatically acclimate if you start to feel sick.”
Cybersickness refers to a cluster of symptoms associated with participating in a computer-generated environment and ranges from a brief bout of nausea to days of feeling dizzy and disoriented. Users may experience cybersickness differently based on their individual sensitivity, adaptivity, and decay rate. An XR environment must address cybersickness using a personalized adaptive approach, including the causes, how to best measure the indicators, how the symptoms may be alleviated, and what factors determine an individual's susceptibility.
Spatial Cognition
“It’s even tougher to ask for directions in XR.”
Navigation systems should understand the spatial capabilities of a user and adapt the amount of assistance granted based on the situation. Travel through virtual environments should promote precise movement and assist the user in forming a spatial mapping while eluding cybersickness and physical boundaries.
Social and Behavioral Factors
“XR developers should accommodate social norms and understand the psychological impact of their designs.”
The impacts of XR interaction on the social behavior and naturalistic involvement of users are largely unknown. Current virtual environments rely on developers and users to structure and mediate social interactions without defined healthy behavior. Adaptive systems should support social functions and generate experiences which are inclusive and safe.
This site was developed at Iowa State University’s Virtual Reality Applications Center. Image credits: Emily Oldham
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