From the Publisher:
Written by the author of the best-selling HyperText & HyperMedia, this book provides an excellent guide to the methods of usability engineering. Special features: emphasizes cost-effective methods that will help developers improve their user interfaces immediately, shows you how to avoid the four most frequently listed reasons for delay in software projects, provides step-by-step information about which methods to use at various stages during the development life cycle, and offers information on the unique issues relating to informational usability. You do not need to have previous knowledge of usability to implement the methods provided, yet all of the latest research is covered.

Usability Engineering

This paper surveys the field of augmented reality AR, in which 3D virtual objects are integrated into a 3D real environment in real time. It describes the medical, manufacturing, visualization, path planning, entertainment, and military applications that have been explored. This paper describes the characteristics of augmented reality systems, including a detailed discussion of the tradeoffs between optical and video blending approaches. Registration and sensing errors are two of the biggest problems in building effective augmented reality systems, so this paper summarizes current efforts to overcome these problems. Future directions and areas requiring further research are discussed. This survey provides a starting point for anyone interested in researching or using augmented reality.

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A survey of augmented reality

Paul Milgram received the BASc degree from the University of Toronto in 1970, the MSEE degree from the Technion (Israel) in 1973 and the PhD degree from the University of Toronto in 1980 From 1980 to 1982 he was a ZWO Visiting Scientist and a NATO Postdoctoral in the Netherlands, researching automobile driving behaviour From 1982 to 1984 he was a Senior Research Engineer in Human Engineering at the National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR) in Amsterdam, where his work involved the modelling of aircraft flight crew activity, advanced display concepts and control loops with human operators in space teleoperation Since 1986 he has worked at the Industrial Engineering Department of the University of Toronto, where he is currently an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Human Factors Engineering group He is also cross appointed to the Department of Psychology In 1993-94 he was an invited researcher at the ATR Communication Systems Research Laboratories, in Kyoto, Japan His research interests include display and control issues in telerobotics and virtual environments, stereoscopic video and computer graphics, cognitive engineering, and human factors issues in medicine He is also President of Translucent Technologies, a company which produces "Plato" liquid crystal visual occlusion spectacles (of which he is the inventor), for visual and psychomotor research

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A Taxonomy of Mixed Reality Visual Displays

This paper presents our vision of Human Computer Interaction (HCI): "Tangible Bits." Tangible Bits allows users to "grasp & manipulate" bits in the center of users’ attention by coupling the bits with everyday physical objects and architectural surfaces. Tangible Bits also enables users to be aware of background bits at the periphery of human perception using ambient display media such as light, sound, airflow, and water movement in an augmented space. The goal of Tangible Bits is to bridge the gaps between both cyberspace and the physical environment, as well as the foreground and background of human activities. This paper describes three key concepts of Tangible Bits: interactive surfaces; the coupling of bits with graspable physical objects; and ambient media for background awareness. We illustrate these concepts with three prototype systems ‐ the metaDESK, transBOARD and ambientROOM ‐ to identify underlying research issues.

http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~ullmer/papers/tangible-bits.pdf

Tangible bits: towards seamless interfaces between people, bits and atoms

This paper reviews the concepts of immersion and presence in virtual environments VEs. We propose that the degree of immersion can be objectively assessed as the characteristics of a technology, and has dimensions such as the extent to which a display system can deliver an inclusive, extensive, surrounding, and vivid illusion of virtual environment to a participant. Other dimensions of immersion are concerned with the extent of body matching, and the extent to which there is a self-contained plot in which the participant can act and in which there is an autonomous response. Presence is a state of consciousness that may be concomitant with immersion, and is related to a sense of being in a place. Presence governs aspects of autonomie responses and higher-level behaviors of a participant in a VE. The paper considers single and multiparticipant shared environments, and draws on the experience of ComputerSupported Cooperative Working CSCW research as a guide to understanding presence in shared environments. The paper finally outlines the aims of the FIVE Working Group, and the 1995 FIVE Conference in London, UK.

A framework for immersive virtual environments five: Speculations on the role of presence in virtual environments

http://lsc.univ-evry.fr/~davesne/ens/pub/intro_to_AR_full.pdf

Knowledge-based augmented reality

The present invention is directed to a customer contact 100 in which a session monitor 140 identifies and implements multi-customer sessions. A conferencing function 136 connects the plurality of customers 110-118 simultaneously to the same resource and/or to each other. Participation in the sessions can be mandatory or optional. The sessions can be created continually or periodically, such as when the contact center 100 is in an session mode. The sessions can be closed or open to new customers after commencement.

Topical dynamic chat

Methods and apparatus are disclosed for providing a virtual assistant to at least one party of a communication. The virtual assistant is injected into the communication, for example, by a VXML engine. The operation of the virtual assistant is controlled by one or more software modules that are obtained from a proxy node. The software modules allow commands received from or destined for the party to be interpreted. The virtual assistant may optionally be customized based on a selection of the one or more supported external applications. The proxy node provides at least one method for the party that allows the party to access functionality provided by at least one external application. The proxy node interprets signals from the virtual assistant; converts the signals from the virtual assistant into commands for the external application; and converts one or more of commands, messages and data from the external application into signals understood by the virtual assistant.

Method and apparatus for providing a virtual assistant to a communication participant

This paper describes an automated intent-based approach to illustration. An illustrution is a picture that is designed to fulfill a communicative intent such as showing the location of an object or showing how an object is manipulated. An illustration is generated by implementing a set of stylistic decisions, ranging from determining the way in which an individual object is lit, to deciding the general composition of the illustration. The design of an illustration is treated as a goal-driven process within a system of constraints. The goal is to achieve communicative intent; the constraints are the illustrative techniques an illustrator can apply.We have developed IBIS (Intent-Based Illustration System), a system that puts these ideas into practice. IBIS designs illustrations using a generate-and-test approach, relying upon a rule-based system of methods and evaluators. Methods are rules that specify how to accomplish visual effects, while evaluators are rules that specify how to determine how well a visual effect is accomplished in an illustration. Examples of illustrations designed by IBIS are included.

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Automated generation of intent-based 3D Illustrations

A method to easily, quickly and visually identify experts, relevant tags, information associated with the experts, important topics, and emerging trends without some of the disadvantages of the prior art is disclosed. The present invention provides a novel user interface that connects general queries, users, tags, and information sources together.

Doree Duncan Seligmann

Papers

Knowledge-based augmented reality

Topical dynamic chat

Method and apparatus for providing a virtual assistant to a communication participant

Automated generation of intent-based 3D Illustrations

Social Network User Interface