Over the last decades, different kinds of design guides have been created to maintain consistency and usability in interactive system development. However, in the case of spatial applications, practitioners from research and industry either have difficulty finding them or perceive such guides as lacking relevance, practicability, and applicability. This paper presents the current state of scientific research and industry practice by investigating currently used design recommendations for mixed reality (MR) system development. We analyzed and compared 875 design recommendations for MR applications elicited from 89 scientific papers and documentation from six industry practitioners in a literature review. In doing so, we identified differences regarding four key topics: Focus on unique MR design challenges, abstraction regarding devices and ecosystems, level of detail and abstraction of content, and covered topics. Based on that, we contribute to the MR design research by providing three factors for perceived irrelevance and six main implications for design recommendations that are applicable in scientific and industry practice.
CCS CONCEPTS• Human-centered computing → User interface design; Mixed / augmented reality.
Since almost the onset of computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), the community has been concerned with how expertise sharing can be supported in different settings. Here, the complex handling of machines based on experience and knowledge is increasingly becoming a challenge. In our study, we investigated expertise sharing in a medium-sized manufacturing company in an effort to support the fostering of hardware-based expertise sharing by using augmented reality (AR) to ‘retrofit’ machines. We, therefore, conducted a preliminary empirical study to understand how expertise is shared in practice and what current support is available. Based on the findings, we derived design challenges and implications for the design of AR systems in manufacturing settings. The main challenges, we found, had to do with existing socio-technical infrastructure and the contextual nature of expertise. We implemented a HoloLens application called RetrofittAR that supports learning on the production machine during actual use. We evaluated the system during the company’s actual production process. The results show which data types are necessary to support expertise sharing and how our design supports the retrofitting of old machines. We contribute to the current state of research in two ways. First, we present the knowledge-intensive practice of operating older production machines through novel AR interfaces. Second, we outline how retrofitting measures with new visualisation technologies can support knowledge-intensive production processes.
3D printers are no longer found only in industry, universities or makerspaces but now are increasingly used in domestic settings. Personal fabrication will increase in the coming years, and 3D printing will play an important role in this process. Due to technology and price development, 3D printers are becoming established among casual users at home. However, there are still many hurdles in the use of 3D printers that interfere with their appropriation in everyday life. In this paper, we investigate how chatbots can overcome these hurdles and support onboarding to 3D printing. Furthermore, we explore how chatbots can be used as a human–machine interface and facilitate interaction with 3D printers for both novice and expert users. In a research-through-design approach, we have created a fully functional chatbot that introduces users to 3D printing and helps them perform typical tasks when operating 3D printers.
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