Human-Computer Interaction Design for Emerging Technologies: Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mobile Computer Systems

This thesis deals with interaction design for a class of upcoming computer technologies for human use characterized by being different from traditional desktop computers in their physical appearance and the contexts in which they are used. These are typically referred to as emerging technologies. Emerging technologies often imply interaction dissimilar from how computers are usually operated. This challenges the scope and applicability of existing knowledge about human-computer interaction design. The thesis focuses on three specific technologies: virtual reality, augmented reality and mobile computer systems. For these technologies, five themes are addressed: current focus of research, concepts, interaction styles, methods and tools. These themes inform three research questions, which guide the conducted research. The thesis consists of five published research papers and a summary. In the summary, current focus of research is addressed from the perspective of research methods and research purpose. Furthermore, the notions of human-computer interaction design and emerging technologies are discussed and two central distinctions are introduced. Firstly, interaction design is divided into two categories with focus on systems and processes respectively. Secondly, the three studied emerging technologies are viewed in relation to immersion into virtual space and mobility in physical space. These distinctions are used to relate the five paper contributions, each addressing one of the three studied technologies with focus on properties of systems or the process of creating them respectively. Three empirical sources contribute to the results. Experiments with interaction design inform the development of concepts and interaction styles suitable for virtual reality, augmented reality and mobile computer systems. Experiments with designing interaction inform understanding of how methods and tools support design processes for these technologies. Finally, a literature survey informs a review of existing research, and identifies current focus, limitations and opportunities for future research. The primary results of the thesis are: 1) Current research within human-computer interaction design for the studied emerging technologies focuses on building systems ad-hoc and evaluating them in artificial settings. This limits the generation of cumulative theoretical knowledge. 2) Interaction design for the emerging technologies studied requires the development of new suitable concepts and interaction styles. Suitable concepts describe unique properties and challenges of a technology. Suitable interaction styles respond to these challenges by exploiting the technology’s unique properties. 3) Designing interaction for the studied emerging technologies involves new use situations, a distance between development and target platforms and complex programming. Elements of methods exist, which are useful for supporting the design of interaction, but they are fragmented and do not support the process as a whole. The studied tools do not support the design process as a whole either but support aspects of interaction design by bridging the gulf between development and target platforms and providing advanced programming environments. Menneske-maskine interaktionsdesign for opkommende teknologier Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality og Mobile Computersystemer