Dmitry Alexandrovsky - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Dmitry Alexandrovsky

Frontiers in Virtual Reality

During the COVID-19 pandemic, online meetings became common for daily teamwork in the home office... more During the COVID-19 pandemic, online meetings became common for daily teamwork in the home office. To understand the opportunities and challenges of meeting in virtual reality (VR) compared to videoconferences, we conducted the weekly team meetings of our human-computer interaction research lab on five off-the-shelf online meeting platforms over 4 months. After each of the 12 meetings, we asked the participants (N = 32) to share their experiences, resulting in 200 completed online questionnaires. We evaluated the ratings of the overall meeting experience and conducted an exploratory factor analysis of the quantitative data to compare VR meetings and video calls in terms of meeting involvement and co-presence. In addition, a thematic analysis of the qualitative data revealed genuine insights covering five themes: spatial aspects, meeting atmosphere, expression of emotions, meeting productivity, and user needs. We reflect on our findings gained under authentic working conditions, deri...

Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

We present VRBox--an interactive sandbox for playful and immersive terraforming that combines the... more We present VRBox--an interactive sandbox for playful and immersive terraforming that combines the approach of augmented sandboxes with virtual reality technology and mid-air gestures. Our interactive demonstration offers a virtual reality (VR) environment containing a landscape, which the user designs via interacting with real sand while wearing a VR head-mounted display (HMD). Whereas real sandboxes have been used with augmented reality before, our approach using sand in VR offers novel and original interactive features such as exploring the sand landscape from a first person perspective. In this demo, users can experience our VR-sandbox system consisting of a box with sand, multiple Kinect depth sensing, an HMD, and hand tracking, as well as an interactive world simulation.

arXiv (Cornell University), Oct 12, 2022

During the Covid-19 pandemic, online meetings became common for daily teamwork in the home office... more During the Covid-19 pandemic, online meetings became common for daily teamwork in the home office. To understand the opportunities and challenges of meeting in virtual reality (VR) compared to videoconferences, we conducted the weekly team meetings of our human-computer interaction research lab on five off-the-shelf online meeting platforms over four months. After each of the 12 meetings, we asked the participants (N = 32) to share their experiences, resulting in 200 completed online questionnaires. We evaluated the ratings of the overall meeting experience and conducted an exploratory factor analysis of the quantitative data to compare VR meetings and video calls in terms of meeting involvement and co-presence. In addition, a thematic analysis of the qualitative data revealed genuine insights covering five themes: spatial aspects, meeting atmosphere, expression of emotions, meeting productivity, and user needs. We reflect on our findings gained under authentic working conditions, derive lessons learned for running successful team meetings in VR supporting different kinds of meeting formats, and discuss the team's long-term platform choice.

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Feb 1, 2017

arXiv (Cornell University), Apr 24, 2021

Figure 1: The three input methods for open questions investigated in our user study.

CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts

Home assistants are becoming a widespread product, but they mostly come as a compact device and o... more Home assistants are becoming a widespread product, but they mostly come as a compact device and offer very few customization and personalization features, which often leads to dissatisfaction. With the technological advancements, these systems are becoming more adaptable to the users' needs and can better imitate a human personality. To achieve that efficiently, understanding how different users envision their desired assistant is crucial. To identify people's customization and personalization preferences and their desired personality for a home assistant, we designed a set of storyboards depicting a variety of possible features in a domestic setting and conducted a user study (N = 15), including a series of semi-structured interviews. Our quantitative results suggest that users prefer an agent which is highly agreeable and has higher conscientiousness and emotional stability. Furthermore, we discuss users' customization and personalization preferences for a home assistant, which could be considered when designing the future generation of home assistants. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Natural language interfaces; User studies.

Entertainment Computing – ICEC 2017

Locomotion in virtual reality (VR) remains challenging due to limitations of common input methods... more Locomotion in virtual reality (VR) remains challenging due to limitations of common input methods. Sedentary input devices may endanger immersion, real-to-virtual world perception dissonance can lead to simulator sickness, and physical input devices such as framed walking dishes are often complex and expensive. We present a low-cost, easy to use, easy to manufacture, and easily portable device for locomotion in VR based on a hoverboard metaphor. Building on related work and our own iterative VR locomotion system designs we hypothesize that hoverboarding can provide a compelling and intuitive method for short-and long-distance locomotion in VR with a potential to reduce simulator sickness due to consistent and stable locomotion that corresponds well to the physical proprioception of the users while navigating VR. We discuss design iterations of our device prototypes, promising results from an early explorative evaluation, as well as ongoing continued work.

Engagement has become a fundamental research topic in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Extending... more Engagement has become a fundamental research topic in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Extending the notion of traditional usability, HCI has focused on the hedonic properties of interactive systems. In particular, gameful design and multimodal interaction received much attention in the literature. However, despite a significant and growing body of research on engaging design, many interactive systems for learning, training and, health intervention suffer from low participation and massive attrition. The present work tackles this gap and investigates how interaction design can support a sustainable engagement with interactive systems. As engagement is a manifold construct that involves affective, cognitive and behavioral components. In this thesis, it is conceptualized from the perspectives of experience intensity and in terms of user behavior. These two perspectives are addressed in three threads of research: (i) game design for user engagement: effects of game elements on engagem...

This workshop position paper presents ongoing research on using smart tangible objects for algebr... more This workshop position paper presents ongoing research on using smart tangible objects for algebra learning. While mathematical manipulatives have played an important role in children's mathematics development for decades, employing tangible objects in the classroom has been rarely explored yet. In our work, we investigate the potentials of using smart objects for algebra learning. Our smart tiles are based on traditional algebra tiles, passive mathematical manipulatives used in many schools in Northern America, and we currently extend these by 1.) multimodal input and output capabilities, 2.) dynamic constraints and 3.) adaptivity and feedback. In this paper, we give an overview on the overall system concept, the interaction with the tangible objects and their current design, as well as on the potentials of actuated smart objects for future interaction.

Augmented sandboxes are often used as educative tools to create, explore and understand complex m... more Augmented sandboxes are often used as educative tools to create, explore and understand complex models. For the use case of a water cycle simulation, we extend the interaction space of augmented sandboxes into virtual reality to overcome limitations of current systems that include non-interactive 2D projections and shadow problems. We present our ongoing research and the prototypical setup of our VR sandbox consisting of a triple Kinect setup, depth sensing, VR, and hand tracking using Leap Motion. The setup shall help us to explore the space of haptic redirection. Further, we discuss our water cycle simulation use case and interaction scenarios that facilitate VR interaction and visualization.

Developing a sense of rhythm is a central but difficult task in music education. Even otherwise e... more Developing a sense of rhythm is a central but difficult task in music education. Even otherwise enthusiastic music students might avoid the training of their rhythm skills due to the tedious and repetitive nature of exercises. In this work we explore how a gamification approach to rhythm learning can improve the capacity of entrainment in players. Based on insights from music didactics and neuroscience we developed Jump‘n’Rhythm, a serious game for training rhythmical timing skills.

Computerund Videospiele sind ein äußerst vielfältiges Themengebiet, welches insbesondere für den ... more Computerund Videospiele sind ein äußerst vielfältiges Themengebiet, welches insbesondere für den Bereich derMenschComputer-Interaktion in den letzten Jahren als Forschungsgebiet zunehmend an Relevanz gewonnen hat. Neben der wissenschaftlichen Theorie ist insbesondere die praktische Erfahrung mit der Konzeption und der technischen Realisierung von Serious Games und Gamification essentiell, um diese Ansätze in der Umsetzung eigener Forschungsideen sinnvoll anzuwenden. Daher plant die Fachgruppe Entertainment Computing im Rahmen eines Workshops auf der Mensch und Computer einen Serious Game Jam zu organisieren. Den Teilnehmenden soll dadurch ermöglicht werden, innerhalb eines Tages beispielhaft eigene Ideen für Serious Games oder Gamification zu konzipieren und in schnelle Mock-Ups und Prototypen umzusetzen.

Entertainment Computing and Serious Games, 2019

The design of cooperative games is challenging due to the requirements of cooperation between the... more The design of cooperative games is challenging due to the requirements of cooperation between the players. The major need of the design is to provide an environment that enables players to achieve the game goal in a cooperative fashion. The game premise which is the story behind the game is one of the dramatic elements and impacts the engagement of players. In this paper, we investigate the effect of game premise on the engagement of the players and the cooperation between the players. Hence, to understand this effect, we developed three versions of the Pandemic game with three premises namely positive, negative, and neutral. Using these game versions, we conducted an experiment to see how game premise affects the player experience. The results show that premise can significantly influence the players' intrinsic motivation, the connection with the game and the cooperation strategies.

Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2021

Many serious games are most effective when played regularly; however, little is known about how i... more Many serious games are most effective when played regularly; however, little is known about how individual game elements support player adherence over time. This work draws on evidence from existing frameworks and game design theories as well as from the design of casual games to investigate how individual game mechanics affect player attrition in a serious game. We implemented a math-learning game in which we could individually layer various game mechanics, and over the course of 3 weeks, 99 participants played one of six versions: Baseline, Rewards, Novelty, Completion, Waiting, or Blocking. We compared the game versions by analyzing the players’ performance as well as behaviour. Using survival analysis, we identified that the addition of Completion and Blocking mechanics facilitated the strongest sustained engagement. These findings are congruent with existing theories of player experience and promote the development of guidelines on designing for sustained engagement in serious games.

Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2021

Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, 2019

Player experience research tends to focus on immersive games that draw us into a single play sess... more Player experience research tends to focus on immersive games that draw us into a single play session for hours; however, for casual games played on mobile devices, a pattern of brief daily interaction---called snacking ---may be most profitable for companies and most enjoyable for players. To inform the design of snacking games, we conducted a content analysis of game mechanics in successful commercial casual games known to foster this pattern. We identified five single-player game dynamics: Instant Rewards, Novelty, Mission Completion, Waiting, and Blocking. After situating them in theories of motivation, we developed a game in which game mechanics that foster each dynamic can be included individually, and conducted two studies to establish their relative efficacy in fostering the behavioural pattern of snacking, finding significant potential in Novelty and Waiting. Our work informs the design of games in which regular and brief interaction is desired.

Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, 2018

Augmented sandboxes have been used as playful and educative tools to create, explore and understa... more Augmented sandboxes have been used as playful and educative tools to create, explore and understand complex models. However, current solutions lack interactive capabilities, missing more immersive experiences such as exploring the sand landscape from a first person perspective. We extend the interaction space of augmented sandboxes into virtual reality (VR) to offer a VR-environment that contains a landscape, which the user designs via interacting with real sand while wearing a virtual reality head-mounted display (HMD). In this paper, we present our current VR-sandbox system consisting of a box with sand, triple Kinect depth sensing, a virtual reality HMD, and hand tracking, as well as an interactive world simulation use case for exploration and evaluation. Our work explores the important and timely topics how to integrate rich haptic interaction with natural materials into VR and how to track and present real physical materials in VR. In a qualitative evaluation with nine experts from computer graphics, game design, and didactics we identified potentials, limitations as well as future application scenarios. CCS Concepts •Human-centered computing → Virtual reality; Empirical studies in interaction design;

Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, 2020

Overcoming a range of challenges that traditional therapy faces, virtual reality exposure therapy... more Overcoming a range of challenges that traditional therapy faces, virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) yields great potential for the treatment of phobias such as acrophobia, the fear of heights. We investigate this potential and present playful user-generated treatment (PUT), a novel game-based approach for VRET. Based on a requirement analysis consisting of a literature review and semistructured interviews with professional therapists, we designed and implemented the PUT concept as a two-step VR game design. To validate our approach, we conducted two studies. (1) In a study with 31 non-acrophobic subjects, we investigated the effect of content creation on player experience, motivation and height perception, and (2) in an online survey, we collected feedback from professional therapists. Both studies reveal that the PUT approach is well applicable. In particular, the analysis of the user study shows that the design phase leads to increased interest and enjoyment without notably influencing affective measures during the exposure session. Our work can help guiding researchers and practitioners at the intersection of game design and exposure therapy. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Human computer interaction (HCI); Virtual reality.