During my studies I have done research on many aspects of human computer interaction, like usability, persuasive computing, intelligent interfaces and information retrieval. Below you can find examples of my work.
Published work
Thesis and paper: A Framework for Usability Evaluation of Mobile Mixed Reality Games
This research presents a framework that supports usability experts in determining which method to use when evaluating Mobile Mixed Reality Games (MMRGs). These are games that combine the real and virtual world by means of e.g. a smartphone and require the player to change their geographical location. As some different styles of MMRGs exist, e.g. running versus cunning or multiplayer versus single player, not every method is suitable for each style. The results of the methods are benchmarked against a heuristic evaluation and it is shown that using Instant Data Analysis (IDA), Diary, interaction logs combined with audio diary and retrospective think aloud combined with IDA perform statistically comparable, but that the latter is not favorable based on qualitative merits
The full thesis can be found in the open access library of Utrecht University and the four page poster paper can be found at Springer Verlag.
Paper co-author: Richard Wetzel
Paper: ARe mobile mixed reality games pervasive?
Smartphones have allowed Mixed Reality (MR) and Augmented Reality (AR) to become accessible to consumers, rather than staying academic exercises. Recently a survey of academic, pervasive, MR games has been made. The study presented in this paper looks at mobile MR games available to consumers to see if they are pervasive and how this influences popularity judged by the amount of players. 56%of the games found are pervasive, but only 32% use AR and only 16% are pervasive AR games. No correlation exists between being pervasive or AR and the popularity of the game.
This paper is available from the Workshop on Mobile Gaming 2011 website.
Co-author: Richard Wetzel
Course work
Other examples include end of term papers I have co-authored like:
Intelligent Use Interaction: Motivating to a regular diet – The FoodCoach
Abstract: In this paper we describe a software agent which motivates the user to pursue a healthy diet. Using a smart phone and bar codes for easy input of product information, the FoodCoach creates a profile of its users. The FoodCoach assists the user with their daily diet. It suggests a personal and healthy diet to its user. The suggestions are adaptive to the users feeding habits and the application uses motivation techniques to encourage the user.
Co-authors: Ferdy van Varik, Almar Joling
Paper: Motivating to a regular diet – The FoodCoach
Seminar Content and Knowledge Enigineering: Google vs. Google
Abstract:This paper hopes to find a difference in user preference and performance using different search techniques. The techniques compared are a regular interface, i.e. a text box into which you type search terms and than perform a query, and a regular interface augmented with a tag cloud. This will give the user frequently occurring terms in the results. After having a group of subjects in, we were unable to find a difference between both conditions.
Co-author: Jeroen Hulman
Paper: Google versus Google
Design of Interactive Content: Identifying Requirements For Enhanced Publications
Abstract: Presented in this paper are the requirements for an Enhanced Publication (EP). Results are based on analyses of comments on the internet about Cell’s article of the future, other EPs and the usability experience of the authors.
Also a small exploratory study was done with other areas of expertise. This revealed that the requirements may strongly vary between areas of expertise, but more thorough research is needed to definitively confirm this.
Co-author: Jeroen Hulman
Paper: Identifying Requirements For Enhanced Publications
Prototype: A prototype showcasing the identified requirements
Multimodal Perception and Interaction: The influence of ambient color and odor on Stroop task performance and vigilance
Abstract: Literature has shown a low level link between color and odor. In this paper, we tried to measure the effects of color and odor on user alertness. Secondly, we tried to find out if this effect differs for congruent and incongruent color-odor combinations. Participants performed two different tasks in four different combinations of color and odor. The first task was vigilance task to measure alertness. The second task was a modified Stroop task. The experiments took place in two small rooms with a fixed odor and variable color. Accuracy and reaction times of both tasks were analyzed, but we found neither significant differences nor a Stroop effect. We did find that purple ambient color lowered the reaction time for both tasks. The results are likely influenced by the low number of participants, not perfect consistency in ambient color and odor and the use of a keyboard as input.
Co-authors: Thijs Urlings, Frank Baars, Paul Bouchaut, Ferdy van Varik and Melissa Schoon.
Paper: The influence of ambient color and smell on Stroop task performance and vigilance