Using the hybrid simulation for early user evaluations of pervasive interactions

Abstract

To reach a good user-friendliness, knowledge about user requirements is crucial in the development process of a product. The sooner the knowledge is achieved via user evaluations, the more money and time can be saved. In this paper we investigate an approach called hybrid simulation for the early stages evaluation of mobile applications where real mobile phones are used as interaction devices to a virtualised simulation of a pervasive environment. On the first sight, the method is cheap, easy and quick to use as well as more realistic compared to a virtual simulation only approach. In order to receive a more detailed insight in potential benefits and problems of the method, we performed a user study and compared results of a traditional laboratory study with the results of a study performed with the hybrid simulation.

Investigating the Effects of Location-Based Advertising in the Supermarket: Does Goal Congruence Trump Location Congruence?

“…In the field of human-computer interaction (HCI), however, this has been a familiar challenge for some time, giving rise to a new line of research where lab studies have been extended with virtual environments (Hühn et al 2012). This offers participants a dynamic and interactive context during their experience while researchers retain a controllable and malleable experimental setting (Leichtenstern André and Rehm 2010).…”

On the use of virtual environments for the evaluation of location-based applications

“…These shortcomings on both field and lab studies, point out the need of an approach that provides on the one hand a controllable setting and on the other hand a rich context users can relate to and interact with while keeping costs, time and organizational effort as low as possible [20,24,36].…”

“…Ubiwise [5] is one of the first research efforts to evaluate pervasive applications with the assistance of a VE. Since that first attempt there have been several other prototypes presented with the same approach [5,24,32,34,36,38,39].…”

“…This offers participants a dynamic and interactive context during their experience while researchers gain a controllable and malleable research setting [24]. Although very promising, the aforementioned studies are mostly limited to usability studies.…”

Utilizing Virtual Environments for the Evaluation of Lighting Controls

“…In the field of ubiquitous computing, where the context and environment play an important role, the use of virtual environments have been applied previously with promising results (Barton & Vijayaraghavan, 2002;Hühn, Khan, Lucero & Ketelaar, 2012;Leichtenstern, André & Rehm, 2010;Snowdon & Kray, 2009). The application domains varied from exploring the interface of a camera in a room (Barton & Vijayaraghavan, 2002), to evaluating location-based advertisement in a supermarket (Hühn et al, 2012), to researching whether users would apply different mobile interaction techniques in smart living rooms (Leichtenstern et al, 2009), to mobile navigation support for pedestrians in the countryside (Snowdon & Kray, 2009).…”