Enhancing Driving Safety through User Experience Evaluation of the C-ITS Mobile Application: A Case Study of the DARS Traffic Plus App in a Driving Simulator Environment.

The paper evaluates the DARS Traffic Plus mobile application within a realistic driving simulator environment to assess its impact on driving safety and user experience, particularly focusing on the Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS). The study is positioned within the broader context of integrating mobile technology in vehicular environments to enhance road safety by informing drivers about potential hazards in real time. A combination of experimental methods was employed, including a standardised user experience questionnaire (meCUE 2.0), measuring quantitative driving parameters and eye-tracking data within a driving simulator, and post-experiment interviews. The results indicate that the mobile application significantly improved drivers' safety perception, particularly when notifications about hazardous locations were received. Notifications displayed at the top of the mobile screen with auditory cues were deemed most effective. The study concludes that mobile applications like DARS Traffic Plus can play a crucial role in enhancing road safety by effectively communicating hazards to drivers, thereby potentially reducing road accidents and improving overall traffic safety. Screen viewing was kept below the safety threshold, affirming the app's efficacy in delivering crucial information without distraction. These findings support the integration of C-ITS functionalities into mobile applications as a means to augment older vehicle technologies and extend the safety benefits to a broader user base.

People-Centred Development of a Smart Waste Bin.

The study presented in this article focuses on the role of a smart waste bin (waste container) designed for waste management and explores what types of interventions people consider more appropriate in promoting environmentally responsible behaviour-based on norms or on an individual's emotions. The smart waste bin development process was people-centred and paid particular attention to human experiences, allowing for various interaction modalities. By incorporating various sensors for waste volume and weight measurement in conjunction with presence and user identification capabilities, the experience was personalised. User feedback was collected by an extensive survey, consisting of four systematic sections, where values, attitudes, norms, perceived behavioural control, behavioural intention and actual behaviour were examined. The survey was completed by 194 respondents. The results showed that participants at the declarative level show a high level of environmental awareness and are very much willing to handle waste appropriately. Additionally, the results of the R&D process indicated that relatively cheap and efficient technological solutions can be developed to support waste management and sustainable lifestyles if the human-centred approach is taken into account.

Suitability and Comparison of Questionnaires Assessing Virtual Reality-Induced Symptoms and Effects and User Experience in Virtual Environments.

Although virtual reality (VR) has already achieved technological maturity, there are still some significant drawbacks for technology acceptance and broader user adoption, presenting research challenges. Thus, there is a need for standard, reliable, and quick assessment tools for Virtual Reality-Induced Symptoms and Effects (VRISE) and user experience in VR Assessing VRISE and user experience could be time consuming, especially when using objective physiological measures. In this study, we have reviewed, compared, and performed a suitability assessment of existing standard measures for evaluating VRISE and user experience in VR We have developed a first-person VR game with different scenes and different conditions. For assessing VRISE symptoms, we have used the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ) and Fast Motion Sickness Score (FMS). For assessing user experience, we have used the short version of the User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ-S). We have also used a novel Virtual Reality Neuroscience Questionnaire (VRNQ) for assessing VRISE and user experience aspects. The result has shown that FMS and VRNQ (VRISE section) are suitable for quick assessment of VRISE and that VRNQ (User experience section) is suitable for assessing user experience. The advantage of FMS and VRNQ questionnaires is that they are shorter to fulfill and easier to understand. FMS also enables to record the VRISE levels during the virtual experience and thus capturing its trend over time. Another advantage of the VRNQ is that it also provides the minimum and parsimonious cut-offs to appraise the suitability of VR software, which we have confirmed in our study to be adequate.

Suitability of Inexpensive Eye-Tracking Device for User Experience Evaluations.

We present the results of a study evaluating the suitability of an inexpensive eye-tracking device for the enhancement of user experience evaluations. Ensuring a comfortable user experience is an important part of the mobile application design process. Evaluation of user experience is usually done through questionnaires and interviews, but it can be improved using eye tracking sensors for user experience studies. We conducted a user experience study of DriveGreen, a mobile application devoted to ecodriving for a transition to a low-carbon society. We used an inexpensive eye-tracking device in addition to standard User Experience Questionnaire and Single Ease Question questionnaires. The results show that the inexpensive eye-tracking device data correlate with data from User Experience Questionnaire and Single Ease Question questionnaires and interviews with users. We conclude that an enhancement of user experience evaluations with inexpensive eye-tracking device is possible.

Estimation of the Driving Style Based on the Users' Activity and Environment Influence.

New models and methods have been designed to predict the influence of the user's environment and activity information to the driving style in standard automotive environments. For these purposes, an experiment was conducted providing two types of analysis: (i) the evaluation of a self-assessment of the driving style; (ii) the prediction of aggressive driving style based on drivers' activity and environment parameters. Sixty seven h of driving data from 10 drivers were collected for analysis in this study. The new parameters used in the experiment are the car door opening and closing manner, which were applied to improve the prediction accuracy. An Android application called Sensoric was developed to collect low-level smartphone data about the users' activity. The driving style was predicted from the user's environment and activity data collected before driving. The prediction was tested against the actual driving style, calculated from objective driving data. The prediction has shown encouraging results, with precision values ranging from 0.727 up to 0.909 for aggressive driving recognition rate. The obtained results lend support to the hypothesis that user's environment and activity data could be used for the prediction of the aggressive driving style in advance, before the driving starts.

Applications of Paper and Interactive Prototypes in Designing Telecare Services for Older Adults.

We present the results of the user studies of the CareMe prototype telecare service for supporting older adults with remote telecare services. The CareMe solution targets older adults who are capable of living independently and outside of a dedicated medical institution or a nursing home, but require occasional medical attention, and formal or informal care. The studies were conducted between November 2013 and March 2014 and followed the participatory design approach. The research questions focused on understanding the difference in the participatory design approach when older adults use paper prototypes vs interactive prototypes, and the difference when older adults use interactive prototypes with poor interface design vs interactive prototypes with rich interface design. In total, 45 older adults living in Slovenia participated in the field trial. They were retired, 32 of whom were nursing home residents and 13 were living independently at home. The study sample's age distribution was between 64 and 91 years. The analysis of the filed trial results indicated the importance of the factors that influence users' decision about how and when they use new technology, i.e., the perceived usefulness and the perceived ease-of-use. Main insights gained from the studies show, that it is very difficult to keep older people focused on the topics of discussion and that they have often difficulties to clearly present/express their ideas. Furthermore, abstract concepts, such as paper only prototypes proved to be challenging to cope with, whereas using real applications and services when trying out scenarios using interactive prototypes provided much better experience and feedback.

An analysis of the precision and reliability of the leap motion sensor and its suitability for static and dynamic tracking.

We present the results of an evaluation of the performance of the Leap Motion Controller with the aid of a professional, high-precision, fast motion tracking system. A set of static and dynamic measurements was performed with different numbers of tracking objects and configurations. For the static measurements, a plastic arm model simulating a human arm was used. A set of 37 reference locations was selected to cover the controller's sensory space. For the dynamic measurements, a special V-shaped tool, consisting of two tracking objects maintaining a constant distance between them, was created to simulate two human fingers. In the static scenario, the standard deviation was less than 0.5 mm. The linear correlation revealed a significant increase in the standard deviation when moving away from the controller. The results of the dynamic scenario revealed the inconsistent performance of the controller, with a significant drop in accuracy for samples taken more than 250 mm above the controller's surface. The Leap Motion Controller undoubtedly represents a revolutionary input device for gesture-based human-computer interaction; however, due to its rather limited sensory space and inconsistent sampling frequency, in its current configuration it cannot currently be used as a professional tracking system.