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SituationAdapt: Contextual UI Optimization in Mixed Reality with Situation Awareness via LLM ReasoningZhipeng Li, Christoph Gebhardt et al. · 2024Mixed Reality is increasingly used in mobile settings beyond con­ trolled home and ofce spaces. This mobility introduces the need for user interface layouts that adapt to varying contexts. However, existing adaptive systems are designed only for static environments. In this paper, we introduce SituationAdapt, a system that adjusts Mixed Reality UIs to real-world surroundings by considering envi­ ronmental and social cues in shared settings. Our system consists of perception, reasoning, and optimization modules for UI adaptation. Our perception module identifes objects and individuals around the user, while our reasoning module leverages a Vision-and-Language Model to assess the placement of interactive UI elements. This en­ sures that adapted layouts do not obstruct relevant environmental cues or interfere with social norms. Our optimization module then generates Mixed Reality interfaces that account for these consid­ erations as well as temporal constraints. For evaluation, we frst validate our reasoning module’s capability of assessing UI contexts in comparison to human expert users. In an online user study, we then establish SituationAdapt’s capability of producing context- aware layouts for Mixed Reality, where it outperformed previous adaptive layout methods. We conclude with a series of applications and scenarios to demonstrate SituationAdapt’s versatility. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for proft or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the frst page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specifc permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from permissions@acm.org. UIST ’24, October 13–16, 2024, Pittsburgh, PA, USA © 2024 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. ACM ISBN 979-8-4007-0628-8/24/10 https://doi.org/10.1145/3654777.3676470 CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Mixed / augmented reality; Virtual reality; Interactive systems and tools.

UX of AI & PersonalizationResearch Papers

CulturAI: Exploring Mixed Reality Art Exhibitions with Large Language Models for Personalized Immersive ExperiencesNicolas Constantinides · 2024Mixed Reality (MR) technologies have transformed the way in which we interact and engage with digital content, offering immer- sive experiences that blend the physical and virtual worlds. Over the past years, there has been increasing interest in employing Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies to improve user experience and trustworthiness in cultural contexts. However, the integration of Large Language Models (LLMs) into MR applications within the Cultural Heritage (CH) domain is relatively underexplored. In this work, we present an investigation into the integration of LLMs within MR environments, focusing on the context of virtual art exhi- bitions. We implemented a HoloLens MR application, which enables users to explore artworks while interacting with an LLM through voice. To evaluate the user experience and perceived trustworthi- ness of individuals engaging with an LLM-based virtual art guide, we adopted a between-subject study design, in which participants were randomly assigned to either the LLM-based version or a con- trol group using conventional interaction methods. The LLM-based version allows users to pose inquiries about the artwork displayed, ranging from details about the creator to information about the artwork’s origin and historical significance. This paper presents the technical aspects of integrating LLMs within MR applications and evaluates the user experience and perceived trustworthiness of this approach in enhancing the exploration of virtual art exhibitions. Results of an initial evaluation provide evidence about the positive aspect of integrating LLMs in MR applications. Findings of this work contribute to the advancement of MR technologies for the development of future interactive personalized art experiences. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing →Mixed / augmented reality; User studies; • Computing methodologies →Artificial intelligence. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the owner/author(s). UMAP Adjunct ’24, July 01–04, 2024, Cagliari, Italy © 2024 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). ACM ISBN 979-8-4007-0466-6/24/07 https://doi.org/10.1145/3631700.3664874

UX of AI & PersonalizationResearch Papers

MineXR: Mining Personalized Extended Reality InterfacesHyunsung Cho · 2024Extended Reality (XR) interfaces offer engaging user experiences, but their effective design requires a nuanced understanding of user behavior and preferences. This knowledge is challenging to obtain without the widespread adoption of XR devices. We intro­ duce MineXR, a design mining workflow and data analysis platform for collecting and analyzing personalized XR user interaction and This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International 4.0 License. CHI ’24, May 11–16, 2024, Honolulu, HI, USA © 2024 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). ACM ISBN 979-8-4007-0330-0/24/05 https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642394 experience data. MineXR enables elicitation of personalized in­ terfaces from participants of a data collection: for any particular context, participants create interface elements using application screenshots from their own smartphone, place them in the envi­ ronment, and simultaneously preview the resulting XR layout on a headset. Using MineXR, we contribute a dataset of personalized XR interfaces collected from 31 participants, consisting of 695 XR widgets created from 178 unique applications. We provide insights for XR widget functionalities, categories, clusters, UI element types, and placement. Our open-source tools and data support researchers and designers in developing future XR interfaces. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Mixed / augmented reality; Systems and tools for interaction design. CHI ’24, May 11–16, 2024, Honolulu, HI, USA Cho et al.

UX of AI & PersonalizationResearch Papers

An Outlook into the Future of Egocentric VisionChiara Plizzari · 2023What will the future be? We wonder! In this survey, we explore the gap between current research in egocentric vision and the ever-anticipated future, where wearable computing, with outward facing cameras and digital overlays, is expected to be integrated in our every day lives. To understand this gap, the article starts by envisaging the future through character-based stories, showcasing through examples the limitations of current technology. We then provide a mapping between this future and previously defined research tasks. For each task, we survey its seminal works, current state-of-the-art methodologies and available datasets, then reflect on shortcomings that limit its applicability to future research. Note that this survey focuses on software models for egocentric vision, independent of any specific hardware. The paper concludes with recommendations for areas of immediate explorations so as to unlock our path to the future always-on, personalised and life-enhancing egocentric vision.

UX of AI & PersonalizationResearch Papers

User-Driven Constraints for Layout Optimisation in Augmented RealityAziz Niyazov · 2023Automatic layout optimisation allows users to arrange augmented reality content in the real-world environment without the need for tedious manual interactions. This optimisation is often based on modelling the intended content placement as constraints, defined as cost functions. Then, applying a cost minimization algorithm leads to a desirable placement. However, such an approach is lim- ited by the lack of user control over the optimisation results. In this paper we explore the concept of user-driven constraints for augmented reality layout optimisation. With our approach users can define and set up their own constraints directly within the real-world environment. We first present a design space composed of three dimensions: the constraints, the regions of interest and the constraint parameters. Then we explore which input gestures can be employed to define the user-driven constraints of our design space through a user elicitation study. Using the results of the study, we propose a holistic system design and implementation demon- strating our user-driven constraints, which we evaluate in a final user study where participants had to create several constraints at the same time to arrange a set of virtual contents. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing →Interactive systems and tools. ACM Reference Format: Aziz Niyazov, Barrett Ens, Kadek Ananta Satriadi, Nicolas Mellado, Loïc Barthe, Tim Dwyer, and Marcos Serrano. 2023. User-Driven Constraints Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from permissions@acm.org. CHI ’23, April 23–28, 2023, Hamburg, Germany © 2023 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-9421-5/23/04...$15.00 https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3580873 for Layout Optimisation in Augmented Reality. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’23), April 23–28, 2023, Hamburg, Germany. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 16 pages. https: //doi.org/10.1145/3544

UX of AI & PersonalizationResearch Papers

InteractionAdapt: Interaction-driven Workspace Adaptation for Situated Virtual Reality EnvironmentsYi Fei Cheng · 2023Virtual Reality (VR) has the potential to transform how we work: it enables fexible and personalized workspaces beyond what is possi­ ble in the physical world. However, while most VR applications are designed to operate in a single empty physical space, work environ­ ments are often populated with real-world objects and increasingly diverse due to the growing amount of work in mobile scenarios. In this paper, we present InteractionAdapt, an optimization-based method for adapting VR workspaces for situated use in varying everyday physical environments, allowing VR users to transition between real-world settings while retaining most of their personal­ ized VR environment for efcient interaction to ensure temporal consistency and visibility. InteractionAdapt leverages physical afor­ dances in the real world to optimize UI elements for the respectively most suitable input technique, including on-surface touch, mid-air touch and pinch, and cursor control. Our optimization term thereby models the trade-of across these interaction techniques based on Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for proft or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the frst page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specifc permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from permissions@acm.org. UIST ’23, October 29–November 01, 2023, San Francisco, CA, USA © 2023 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. ACM ISBN 979-8-4007-0132-0/23/10...$15.00 https://doi.org/10.1145/3586183.3606717 experimental fndings of 3D interaction in situated physical envi­ ronments. Our two evaluations of InteractionAdapt in a selection task and a travel planning task established its capability of support­ ing efcient interaction, during which it produced adapted layouts that participants preferred to several baselines. We further show­ case the versatility of our approach through applications that cover a wide range of use cases. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Mixed / augmented reality; Virtual reality; User interface management systems.

UX of AI & PersonalizationResearch Papers

ScalAR: Authoring Semantically Adaptive Augmented Reality Experiences in Virtual RealityXun Qian · 2022Augmented Reality (AR) experiences tightly associate virtual con- tents with environmental entities. However, the dissimilarity of different environments limits the adaptive AR content behaviors under large-scale deployment. We propose ScalAR, an integrated workflow enabling designers to author semantically adaptive AR ex- periences in Virtual Reality (VR). First, potential AR consumers col- lect local scenes with a semantic understanding technique. ScalAR then synthesizes numerous similar scenes. In VR, a designer au- thors the AR contents’ semantic associations and validates the design while being immersed in the provided scenes. We adopt a decision-tree-based algorithm to fit the designer’s demonstrations as a semantic adaptation model to deploy the authored AR expe- rience in a physical scene. We further showcase two application scenarios authored by ScalAR and conduct a two-session user study where the quantitative results prove the accuracy of the AR content rendering and the qualitative results show the usability of ScalAR. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License. CHI ’22, April 29-May 5, 2022, New Orleans, LA, USA © 2022 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-9157-3/22/04. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3517665 CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing →Mixed / augmented reality; Virtual reality; Interactive systems and tools.

UX of AI & PersonalizationResearch Papers

AUIT – the Adaptive User Interfaces Toolkit for Designing XR ApplicationsAnna Maria Feit · 2022Adaptive user interfaces can improve experiences in Extended Re­ ality (XR) applications by adapting interface elements according to the user’s context. Although extensive work explores diferent adaptation policies, XR creators often struggle with their imple­ mentation, which involves laborious manual scripting. The few available tools are underdeveloped for realistic XR settings where it is often necessary to consider conficting aspects that afect an adap­ tation. We fll this gap by presenting AUIT, a toolkit that facilitates the design of optimization-based adaptation policies. AUIT allows creators to fexibly combine policies that address common objec­ tives in XR applications, such as element reachability, visibility, and consistency. Instead of using rules or scripts, specifying adaptation policies via adaptation objectives simplifes the design process and This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License. UIST ’22, October 29-November 2, 2022, Bend, OR, USA © 2022 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-9320-1/22/10. https://doi.org/10.1145/3526113.3545651 enables creative exploration of adaptations. After creators decide which adaptation objectives to use, a multi-objective solver fnds appropriate adaptations in real-time. A study showed that AUIT allowed creators of XR applications to quickly and easily create high-quality adaptations. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Systems and tools for in­ teraction design; Gestural input; Mixed / augmented reality; Virtual reality; User interface toolkits.

UX of AI & PersonalizationResearch Papers

SemanticAdapt: Optimization-based Adaptation of Mixed Reality Layouts Leveraging Virtual-Physical Semantic ConnectionsYifei Cheng∗ · 2021We present an optimization-based approach that automatically adapts Mixed Reality (MR) interfaces to different physical envi- ronments. Current MR layouts, including the position and scale of virtual interface elements, need to be manually adapted by users ∗This work was done while Yifei Cheng was an intern at Tsinghua University. †The corresponding author. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from permissions@acm.org. UIST’21, October 2021, Virtual © 2021 Association for Computing Machinery. ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-8635-7/21/10...$15.00 https://doi.org/10.1145/3472749.3474750 whenever they move between environments, and whenever they switch tasks. This process is tedious and time consuming, and ar- guably needs to be automated for MR systems to be beneficial for end users. We contribute an approach that formulates this challenge as a combinatorial optimization problem and automatically decides the placement of virtual interface elements in new environments. To achieve this, we exploit the semantic association between the virtual interface elements and physical objects in an environment. Our optimization furthermore considers the utility of elements for users’ current task, layout factors, and spatio-temporal consistency to previous layouts. All those factors are combined in a single linear program, which is used to adapt the layout of MR interfaces in real time. We demonstrate a set of application scenarios, showcasing the versatility and applicability of our approach. Finally, we show that compared to a naive adaptive baseline approach that does not 282 UIST’21, October 2021, Virtual Cheng and Yan, et al. take semantic associations into account, our approach decreased the number of manual interface adaptations by 33%. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing →Mixed / augmented reality; Virtual reality; User interface management systems.

UX of AI & PersonalizationResearch Papers

Context-Aware Online Adaptation of Mixed Reality InterfacesDavid Lindlbauer, Anna Maria Feit et al. · 2019We present an optimization-based approach for Mixed Reality (MR) systems to automatically control when and where appli­ cations are shown, and how much information they display. Currently, content creators design applications, and users then manually adjust which applications are visible and how much information they show. This choice has to be adjusted every time users switch context, i.e., whenever they switch their task or environment. Since context switches happen many times a day, we believe that MR interfaces require automation to alleviate this problem. We propose a real-time approach to automate this process based on users’ current cognitive load and knowledge about their task and environment. Our system adapts which applications are displayed, how much informa­ tion they show, and where they are placed. We formulate this problem as a mix of rule-based decision making and combina­ torial optimization which can be solved effciently in real-time. We present a set of proof-of-concept applications showing that our approach is applicable in a wide range of scenarios. Finally, we show in a dual-task evaluation that our approach decreased secondary tasks interactions by 36%. Author Keywords Mixed Reality, Context-Awareness, UI Optimization CCS Concepts •Human-centered computing → Mixed / augmented real­ ity; Virtual reality; User interface management systems; Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for proft or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the frst page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specifc permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from permissions@acm.org. UIST’19, The 32nd Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Tech­ nology, October 20–23, 2019. New Orleans, LA, USA © 2019 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. ISBN 978-1-4503-6816-2/19/10...$15.00 DOI: 10.1145/3332165.3347945

UX of AI & PersonalizationResearch Papers

Walking with Adaptive Augmented Reality Workspaces: Design and Usage PatternsCCS CONCEPTS · 2019Mobile augmented reality may eventually replace our smartphones as the primary way of accessing information on the go. However, current interfaces provide little support to walking and to the va- riety of actions we perform in the real world. To achieve its full potential, augmented reality interfaces must support the fluid way we move and interact in the physical world. We explored how dif- ferent adaptation strategies can contribute towards this goal. We evaluated design alternatives through contextual studies and identi- fied the key interaction patterns that interfaces for walking should support. We also identified desirable properties of adaptation-based interface techniques, which can be used to guide the design of the next-generation walking-centered augmented reality workspaces. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing →Mixed / augmented reality; Graphical user interfaces; Empirical studies in HCI.

UX of AI & PersonalizationResearch Papers

Customizing User Experience with Adaptive Virtual RealityBachar Senno · 2018Virtual reality is becoming more prominent than ever. The improved performance of mobile devices, along with the growing interest in more immersive user experiences, have allowed virtual reality to gain solid standing in this regard: nowadays, a smartphone and a pair of VR goggles are all that is needed for a full VR experience. The uses of VR systems extend beyond home entertainment: in particular, we are tackling the possibility that VR can be used by therapists to aid patients suffering from neuro- developmental disorders (NDD) [1,2]. To that, an adaptive system that can change different aspects of the VR environment, using machine learning techniques, can go a long way in increasing the efficiency of NDD treatments.

UX of AI & PersonalizationResearch Papers

A review of immersive virtual reality serious games to enhance learning and trainingDavid Checa, Andres Bustillo · 2020The merger of game-based approaches and Virtual Reality (VR) environments that can enhance learning and training methodologies have a very promising future, reinforced by the widespread market-availability of affordable software and hardware tools for VR-environ- ments. Rather than passive observers, users engage in those learning environments as active participants, permitting the development of exploration-based learning paradigms. There are separate reviews of VR technologies and serious games for educational and training purposes with a focus on only one knowledge area. However, this review covers 135 proposals for serious games in immersive VR-environments that are combinations of both VR and serious games and that offer end-user validation. First, an analysis of the forum, nationality, and date of publication of the articles is conducted. Then, the application domains, the target audience, the design of the game and its technological implementation, the performance evaluation proce- dure, and the results are analyzed. The aim here is to identify the factual standards of the proposed solutions and the differences between training and learning applications. Finally, the study lays the basis for future research lines that will develop serious games in immersive VR- environments, providing recommendations for the improvement of these tools and their successful application for the enhancement of both learning and training tasks.

Emotional DesignResearch Papers

The Potential of Virtual Reality for the Investigation of AweAnna Esposito · 2016The emotion of awe is characterized by the perception of vastness and a need for accommodation, which can include a positive and/or negative valence. While a number of studies have successfully manipulated this emotion, the issue of how to elicit particularly intense awe experiences in laboratory settings remains. We suggest that virtual reality (VR) is a particularly effective mood induction tool for eliciting awe. VR provides three key assets for improving awe. First, VR provides users with immersive and ecological yet controlled environments that can elicit a sense of "presence," the subjective experience of "being there" in a simulated reality. Further, VR can be used to generate complex, vast stimuli, which can target specific theoretical facets of awe. Finally, VR allows for convenient tracking of participants' behavior and physiological responses, allowing for more integrated assessment of emotional experience. We discussed the potential and challenges of the proposed approach with an emphasis on VR's capacity to raise the signal of reactions to emotions such as awe in laboratory settings.

Emotional DesignResearch Papers

Using a simulated environment to investigate experiences reported during space travel2013Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the "Content") contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

Emotional DesignResearch Papers

Evaluating Grasping Visualizations and Control Modes in a VR GameYuting Ye · 2021A primary goal of the Virtual Reality (VR) community is to build fully immersive and presence-inducing environments with seamless and natural interactions. To reach this goal, researchers are investigating how to best directly use our hands to interact with a virtual environment using hand-tracking. Most studies in this field require participants to perform repetitive tasks. In this paper, we investigate if results of such studies translate into a real application and game-like experience. We designed a virtual escape room in which participants interact with various objects to gather clues and complete puzzles. In a between-subjects study, we examine the effects of two input modalities (controllers vs. hand tracking) and two grasping visualizations (continuously tracked hands vs. virtual hands that disappear when grasping) on ownership, realism, efficiency, enjoyment, and presence.

HCI & Adaptive InterfacesResearch Papers

Full-immersion virtual reality for experiential education: An exploratory user experience analysisChristian Schott, Stephen Marshall · 2021Experiential education is widely considered an effective pedagogy to foster learning for our rapidly changing world. Despite this, residential fieldtrips are on the decline. Recent advances in full-immersion virtual reality (VR) technology offer great potential to make situated experiential education, such as fieldtrips, more accessible to educational institutions, however, research on VR technology's effectiveness in this context is lacking. This article documents exploratory action research which examines the effectiveness of full-immersion VR technology for experiential education by adopting a user experience (UX) analytical frame. Six university staff and five students who participated in a trial of a virtual environment developed for sustainable tourism education, discussed their user experience through semi-structured interviews. The UX lens which distinguished between three UX facets during the analysis, *beyond the instrumental, emotion and affect*, *experiential*, serves to identify research areas requiring attention and assists in the technology's improvement prioritisation. Interviews revealed many positive perspectives thus lending support to VR technology's suitability to foster experiential education, however, several negative experiences were also identified; principally motion sickness. The exploratory findings suggest that more research is warranted to more comprehensively examine VR technology's capacity to foster experiential education and locate VR's place in the education landscape.

HCI & Adaptive InterfacesResearch Papers

Towards Augmented Reality-driven Human-City Interaction: Current Research on Mobile Headsets and Future ChallengesLik-Hang Lee · 2021Interaction design for Augmented Reality (AR) is gaining increasing attention from both academia and industry. This survey discusses 260 articles (68.8% of articles published between 2015 – 2019) to review the field of human interaction in connected cities with emphasis on augmented reality-driven interaction. We provide an overview of Human-City Interaction and related technological approaches, followed by reviewing the latest trends of information visualization, constrained interfaces, and embodied interaction for AR headsets. We highlight under-explored issues in interface design and input techniques that warrant further research, and conjecture that AR with complementary Conversational User Interfaces (CUIs) is a crucial enabler for ubiquitous interaction with immersive systems in smart cities. Our work helps researchers understand the current potential and future needs of AR in Human-City Interaction.

HCI & Adaptive InterfacesResearch Papers

Digital City as a Metaphor for New2020‒ In the era of already spent utopias and ideas about the city the experience of the city is transformed into a new perceptual grammar that is a consequence of the new virtual reality. With the revolutionary computerization of architecture a new architectural discourse was cre- ated that enabled virtual one ‒ cyberspace, producing a new experience of transposed reality. The concept of a digital city does not exist without a virtual community, which on the other hand problematizes the issue of digital city ethics, bearing in mind that its use is conditioned by technical and technological possibilities, which are still not available to everyone. Digitalization of space communicates the newly created virtual dialogue between the user and space, outside of his physical and sensory experience and interaction with space, thus agreeing to the digitalization of the experi- ence of space. By creating a new reality and a new era of the utopia of virtu- al architecture and virtual city, a new, cyberidentity of city was produced. Identity digitization policies in this regard will consciously use methods to promote virtual values, digitizing all aspects of identity, heritage, and even memory, and memory values of the city, producing a new, virtual identity, which largely leads to mutation of its original ‒ existing ‒ built identity. In this way, cities are positioned and valued in relation to the degree of their digitized representation, i.e., the extent to which their digitized identity is present and visible in cyberspace. The digital transition is one of the prior- ities of the "smart city" concept, which indicates that the future of cities is directed towards their digital transformation.

HCI & Adaptive InterfacesResearch Papers

Article Methodologies of Learning Served by Virtual Reality: A Case Study in Urban InterventionsRicardo Torres-Kompen, David Fonsec · 2019A computer-simulated reality and the human-machine interactions facilitated by computer technology and wearable computers may be used as an educational methodology that transforms the way students deal with information. This turns the learning process into a more participative and active process, which fits both the practical part of subjects and the learner’s profile, as students nowadays are more technology-savvy and familiar with current technological advances. This methodology is being used in architectural and urbanism degrees to support the design process and to help students visualize design alternatives in the context of existing environments. This paper proposes the use of virtual reality (VR) as a resource in the teaching of courses that focus on the design of urban spaces. A group of users—composed of architecture students and professionals related to the architecture field—participated in an immersing VR experience and had the opportunity to interact with the space that was being redesigned. Later, a quantitative tool was used in order to evaluate the effectiveness of virtual systems in the design of urban environments. The survey was designed using as a reference the competences required in the urbanism courses; this allowed the authors to identify positive and negative aspects in an objective way. The results prove that VR helps to expand digital abilities in complex representation and helps users in the evaluation and decision-making processes involved in the design of urban spaces.

HCI & Adaptive InterfacesResearch Papers

SENSORY URBANISM AND PLACEMAKING2019Sensory Urbanism is an experimental prototyping project exploring the potential of immersive Virtual Reality (VR) environments to support the incorporation of sensory and intangible aspects of place. The study investigates how sensory exploration of urban places can be integrated into decision making regarding the future of cities. In the past, numerous studies reported various sophisticated ‘livability’ measures, deeming to determine what makes a city a great place to live in. While a part of these measures can be quantified and be represented as text, graphs or images, most of the qualitative aspects of place are inherently abstract and sensory. These aspects have to be experienced to be understood and therefore they are extremely difficult to communicate using conventional representation means. The proposition explored in this study is that the increasing ubiquity of VR and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies can provide new opportunities to engage with the multi-sensory and temporal aspects of urban place. A mixed media approach was adopted, tapping into a temporal dimension as well as visual, aural and kinesthetic range of human senses. The paper reports on the development of the VR sensory urbanism prototype and the initial pilot study that demonstrated the proof-of-concept.

HCI & Adaptive InterfacesResearch Papers

Virtual Urbanism: A User-Centered ApproachMónica V. Sánchez-Sepúlveda, David Fonseca-Escudero et al. · 2019The cities in which we live are changing rapidly, presenting the scenery to debate future visions of transformative designs and its impact on the city. The decisive influence of new technologies is important for the generation of a new reality from the economic, social and urban point of view. It is a challenge for organizations and society to question the status quo and experiment often. To take advantage of the changes and opportunities offered by the inclusion of digital technologies, accommodation of the digital transformation into the visualization of Urbanism is required. The interests of citizens are coming to the forefront nowadays with the awareness that a livable city does not only consist of good infrastructure and sustainable energy supply but also citizen input and feedback. The main goal of the paper is to present the use of digital transformation in processes of urban design through Virtual Reality in which specialized users can analyze, represent and transmit ideas, problems and solutions for the design of urban space. The hypothesis is based on demonstrating the following two statements: (1) the implementation of virtual gamified strategies in the field of urban design helps to critically evaluate the result of urban design, make decisions and understand the location conditions, dimensions and relationships of urban spaces thanks to enhanced visual technologies. (2) The interactive Virtual Reality system helps for the understanding of three-dimensional space and the human scale immersive perception in Virtual Reality could be a tool to defend the arguments of urban projects. The urban project we work on, promoted by the Barcelona City Council, aims to generate spaces that are designed to meet the needs of the users. The spaces are modeled virtually, intended to be an accessible environment where users (professionals related to the construction and design field) can interact –play– with, to recreate new spaces. These spaces are meant to have maximum realism, including the materials, textures, movements, and even sounds of the environment. The system is tested on the Barcelona Building Construmat Fair using a quantitative method. The data obtained from the assessment exemplify the effectiveness of virtual systems on the urban design process. The results obtained from inquiries to 79 citizens –specialized in the construction and design field –, showed that it is possible to empower Digital Transformation as Virtual Reality systems increase th

HCI & Adaptive InterfacesResearch Papers

Virtual and Augmented Reality in Architectural Design and EducationJulie Milovanovic, Guillaume Moreau et al. · 2017Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality research in the architecture field show a variety of possible uses of systems to accompany designers, laymen and decision makers in their architectural design process. This article provides a survey of VR and AR devices among a corpus of papers selected from conferences and journals on CAAD (Computer Aided Architectural Design). A closer look at some specific research projects highlights their potentials and limits, which formalize milestones for future challenges to address. Identifying advantages and drawbacks of those devices gave us insights to propose an alternative type of system, CORAULIS, including both VR and SAR technologies, in order to support collaborative design to be implemented in a pedagogical environment.

HCI & Adaptive InterfacesResearch Papers