Karin Coninx

Defining Common Frameworks

ReHappy

Intense and frequent motor training is essential in persons with neurological disorders as there ... more Intense and frequent motor training is essential in persons with neurological disorders as there are MS and stroke. Technology-based rehabilitation has been proven to be beneficial for specific patient groups, as it shows to be effective on muscle strength and active range of motion of the upper limbs. Personalized training in technology-supported rehabilitation setups using motivational techniques such as serious games have the potential to make repetitive training efforts more endurable. Most neurological rehabilitation approaches suffer from a strict separation between training scenarios and activities in daily living, but have difficulties to bridge the gap between exercising on a functional level and performing on the level of activities in daily living. To improve the integration of motor skill training in a daily living context we propose an approach and proof-of-concept implementation of the training device ReHappy, a tangible character that engages patient in performing additional training that complements the daily activities.

Extending a Dialog Model with Contextual Knowledge

Springer eBooks, Nov 22, 2007

Designing and exploring multimodal interaction techniques, such as those used in virtual environm... more Designing and exploring multimodal interaction techniques, such as those used in virtual environments, can be facilitated by using high-level notations. Besides task modelling, notations have been introduced at the dialog level such as our notation NiMMiT. For advanced interaction techniques, there is not yet an established approach to decide when to stop detailing the task model and continue modelling at

Integrating Serious Games and Tangible Objects for Functional Handgrip Training

We present Handly, an integrated upper-limb rehabilitation system for persons with a neurological... more We present Handly, an integrated upper-limb rehabilitation system for persons with a neurological disorder. Handly consists of tangibles for training four hand tasks with specific functional handgrips and a motivational game. These persons need intensive personalized therapy in order to sustain or enhance their abilities and aptitude in daily activities. Conventional approaches require intense support by a therapist or usage of expensive robots, both of which are not a sustainable model of training. Handly combines tangibles specifically designed for repetitive task-oriented motor skill training of typical daily activities with serious gaming, thus offering a comprehensive approach. A feedback mechanism guides the user and an accessible game environment stimulates individual training. We performed an initial evaluation of Handly with eight persons with Multiple Sclerosis. We show that a tangible-virtual environment for intensive upper-limb rehabilitation is feasible and that this approach is highly appreciated by the patients.

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Gestu-Wan - An Intelligible Mid-Air Gesture Guidance System for Walk-up-and-Use Displays

Springer eBooks, 2015

We present Gestu-Wan, an intelligible gesture guidance system designed to support mid-air gesture... more We present Gestu-Wan, an intelligible gesture guidance system designed to support mid-air gesture-based interaction for walk-upand-use displays. Although gesture-based interfaces have become more prevalent, there is currently very little uniformity with regard to gesture sets and the way gestures can be executed. This leads to confusion, bad user experiences and users who rather avoid than engage in interaction using mid-air gesturing. Our approach improves the visibility of gesture-based interfaces and facilitates execution of mid-air gestures without prior training. We compare Gestu-Wan with a static gesture guide, which shows that it can help users with both performing complex gestures as well as understanding how the gesture recognizer works.

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Untangling Design Meetings

Design meetings with multidisciplinary stakeholders are instrumental for design projects. However... more Design meetings with multidisciplinary stakeholders are instrumental for design projects. However, design teams face the challenges of synthetizing large amounts of information, often in a limited time, and with minimal common ground. We investigate these challenges through in-the-wild observations of six design meetings in three different projects, with professional design teams that follow a user-centered design methodology. We found that all the observed design meetings had a similar structure consisting of particular phases, in which design activities were organized around artefacts. These artefacts were used as input to disseminate and gather feedback of previous design outcomes, or as output to collect and process a variety of perspectives. From these findings, we synthetize practical guidelines to optimize artefact-based interactions during design meetings.

Investigating the Possibility of Adaptation and Personalization in Virtual Environments

Springer eBooks, 2009

Abstract. The complex nature of virtual environments customarily hinders users to interact in a n... more Abstract. The complex nature of virtual environments customarily hinders users to interact in a natural, intuitive and optimal way. Different user characteristics are hardly taken into account when designing 3D user interfaces for virtual environments. We envision that user interaction in virtual environments can be enhanced by integrating adaptation and personalization into 3D user interfaces. Through our research, we aim to provide adaptive and personalized 3D user interfaces for enhancing user interaction in virtual environments ...

The Implementation of PANIVE: a PC-Based Architecture for Networked Interactive Virtual Environments

Springer eBooks, 1999

Microcomputers are increasingly becoming capable of supporting high-end multimedia applications. ... more Microcomputers are increasingly becoming capable of supporting high-end multimedia applications. The multimedia extensions in current central processing units, together with the supplementary functionality of audio, graphics and networking plug-in boards, make it possible to realize applications that a very few years ago still needed supercomputer capabilities. As today's off-the-shelf graphics plug-in boards are able to render fully textured 3D scenes at ever-increasing frame rates and resolutions, it becomes possible to implement 3D Networked Virtual Environments (NVEs) using networks of PCs. This chapter reports on our implementation of PANIVE, a PC -based architecture for networked virtual environments.

Help systems for gestural interfaces and their effect on collaboration and communication

Due to limited discoverability and standardization, people often have difficulties with learning ... more Due to limited discoverability and standardization, people often have difficulties with learning and remembering all the gestures of a gestural interface. To overcome these difficulties, help systems are integrated to enable users to quickly explore the available gestures. These systems typically target single-user applications and research is mainly focused on studying the efficiency of various kinds of help. In this paper, we study textual and animated help in a collaborative tabletop game. We not only consider the efficiency of the help systems, but we also examine how they impact collaboration and communication. Our study shows that animated help has a positive effect on the level of collaboration, as users work together to explore and learn the game.

xXX: A Modular System for Manipulating Image Sequences

Publisher Summary This chapter reviews a modular system for manipulating image sequences. An over... more Publisher Summary This chapter reviews a modular system for manipulating image sequences. An overview of the xXX system architecture (software as well as hardware architecture) is define and explains how the user-extensibility is realized. Software extensibility is offered to the users in the form of specific image manipulation effects, specialized editors, and additional bitmap file formats; thus enabling them to finetune the system according to their own specific needs. It is shown what the xXX principles are from the user's point of view and how users interact with the system. The IMAGINE chip is designed specifically to provide high-level performance for graphics and image-processing operations, while maintaining full programmability. Some examples are also given of user-extensible parameter editors. It is shown how a combination of an advanced frame buffer and a high-performance pixel processor board, exploited by a Windows-based environment, can yield a modularly expandable solution for the application at hand.

Exploring the Role of Artefacts to Coordinate Design Meetings

Journal of Interaction Science, Oct 3, 2018

Design artefacts are vital to communicate design outcomes, both in remote and co-located settings... more Design artefacts are vital to communicate design outcomes, both in remote and co-located settings. However, it is unclear how artefacts are used to mediate interactions between designers and stakeholders of the design process. The purpose of this paper is exploring how professional design teams use artefacts to guide and capture discussions involving multidisciplinary stakeholders while they work in a co-located setting. An earlier draft of this paper was paper published in the Proceedings of the European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics (ECCE 2017). This work adds substantial clarification of the methodology followed, further details and photographs of the case studies, and an extended discussion about our findings and their relevance for designing interactive systems. We report the observations of six design meetings in three different projects, involving professional design teams that follow a user-centered design approach. Meetings with stakeholders are instrumental for design projects. However, design teams face the challenge of synthesizing large amounts of information, often in a limited time, and with minimal common ground between meeting attendees. We found that all the observed design meetings had a similar structure consisting of a series of particular phases, in which design activities were organized around artefacts. These artefacts were used as input to disseminate and gather feedback of previous design outcomes, or as output to collect and process a variety of perspectives. We discuss the challenges faced by design teams during design meetings, and propose three design directions for interactive systems to coordinate design meetings revolving around artefacts.

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Proceedings of International Workshop on Model Driven Software Engineering in Ambient Intelligence of European Conference on Ambient Intelligence

The impact of robot-mediated adaptive I-TRAVLE training on impaired upper limb function in chronic stroke and multiple sclerosis

Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, 2017

The current study aimed to investigate proof-of-concept efficacy of an individualized, robotmedia... more The current study aimed to investigate proof-of-concept efficacy of an individualized, robotmediated training regime for people with MS (pwMS) and stroke patients. Method: 13 pwMS and 14 chronic stroke patients performed 36 (stroke) or 40 (pwMS) training sessions with the I-TRAVLE system. Evaluation of upper limb function was performed at baseline, after training and at 3 months follow-up. Clinical outcome measures consisted of active range of motion, Motricity Index, Jamar handgrip strength, perceived fatigue and strength, Wolf Motor Function Test (WFMT) and ABILHAND. Robot-generated outcome measures consisted of movement velocity, range of motion and actual covered compared to straight-line distance. Results: Upper limb function at baseline was more impaired in stroke patients than in pwMS. In pwMS, significant improvements were found after training in active shoulder range of motion, handgrip strength, perceived strength and WMFT activities. No significant change in clinical outcome was found in stroke patients, except for perceived strength. Significant improvement in speed and movement duration was found after training in both groups. At follow-up, clinical outcome deteriorated in pwMS and was maintained in stroke patients. Conclusions: Robot-mediated training resulted in improved movement coordination in both groups, as well as clinical improvement in pwMS. Absence of functional improvements in stroke patients may relate to severe upper limb dysfunction at baseline.

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Storyboards as a Lingua Franca in Multidisciplinary Design Teams

Collaboration in Creative Design, 2016

Design, and in particular user-centered design processes for interactive systems, typically invol... more Design, and in particular user-centered design processes for interactive systems, typically involve multidisciplinary teams. The different and complementary perspectives of the team members enrich the design ideas and decisions, and the involvement of all team members is needed to achieve a user interface for a system that carefully considers all aspects, ranging from user needs to technical requirements. The difficulty is getting all team members involved in the early stages of design and communicating design ideas and decisions in a way that all team members can understand them and use them in an appropriate way in later stages of the process. This chapter describes the COMuICSer storyboarding technique, which presents the scenario of use of a future system in a way that is understandable for each team member, regardless of their background. Based on an observational study in which multidisciplinary teams collaboratively created storyboards during a co-located session, we present recommendations for the facilitation of co-located collaborative storyboarding sessions for multidisciplinary teams and digital tool support for this type of group work.

HCI Issues About Immersive Modeling

The primary objective of our research is to investigate how immersion can be introduced in the mo... more The primary objective of our research is to investigate how immersion can be introduced in the modeling process in such a way that the modeller's performance is enhanced. Examples of modeling systems are CAD applications, industrial product designs architectural design and the realization of virtual worlds to be used in virtual reality applications. To investigate HCI issues about immersive modeling, a framework for a modeling application has been realized. A hybrid 2D/3D user interface is used to interact with the immersive modeling application 2D interfacing elements such as menus and dialog boxes are presented to the user. Particular interaction scenarios benefit from 3D spatial input and 3D perception. In this paper we elaborate upon human-computer interaction principles and interaction metaphors that play. a role when designing an immersive modeling system.

Extending a Dialog Model with Contextual Knowledge

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

... Once the 'SelectObjects'- task is executed the diagram gets to the 'End'-... more ... Once the 'SelectObjects'- task is executed the diagram gets to the 'End'-state and the interaction technique finishes. ... Extending a Dialog Model with Contextual Knowledge ... De Boeck, J., Gonzalez Calleros, JM, Coninx, K., Vanderdonckt, J.: Open issues for the development of 3d ...

The Implementation of PANIVE: a PC-Based Architecture for Networked Interactive Virtual Environments

Digital Convergence: The Information Revolution, 1999

Microcomputers are increasingly becoming capable of supporting high-end multimedia applications. ... more Microcomputers are increasingly becoming capable of supporting high-end multimedia applications. The multimedia extensions in current central processing units, together with the supplementary functionality of audio, graphics and networking plug-in boards, make it possible to realize applications that a very few years ago still needed supercomputer capabilities. As today's off-the-shelf graphics plug-in boards are able to render fully textured 3D scenes at ever-increasing frame rates and resolutions, it becomes possible to implement 3D Networked Virtual Environments (NVEs) using networks of PCs. This chapter reports on our implementation of PANIVE, a PC -based architecture for networked virtual environments.

CoGenIVE: Building 3D Virtual Environments Using a Model Based User Interface Design Approach

Communications in Computer and Information Science, 2009

Abstract. Although interactive virtual environments (IVE) have the capability to offer intuitive ... more

Integrating Support for Usability Evaluation into High Level Interaction Descriptions with NiMMiT

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2007

Nowadays, the claim that a human-computer interface is user friendly, must be supported by a form... more Nowadays, the claim that a human-computer interface is user friendly, must be supported by a formal usability experiment. Due to its inherent complexity, this is particularly true when developing a multimodal interface. For such a rich user interface, there is a lack of support for automated testing and observing, so in preparation of its formal evaluation a lot of time is spent to adapt the programming code itself. Based on NiMMiT, which is a high-level notation to describe and automatically execute multimodal interaction techniques, we propose in this paper an easy way for the interaction designer to collect and log data related to the user experiment. Inserting 'probes' and 'filters' in NiMMiT interaction diagrams is indeed more efficient than editing the code of the interaction technique itself. We will clarify our approach as applied during a concrete user experiment.

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Investigating the Possibility of Adaptation and Personalization in Virtual Environments

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2009

Abstract. The complex nature of virtual environments customarily hinders users to interact in a n... more Abstract. The complex nature of virtual environments customarily hinders users to interact in a natural, intuitive and optimal way. Different user characteristics are hardly taken into account when designing 3D user interfaces for virtual environments. We envision that user interaction in virtual environments can be enhanced by integrating adaptation and personalization into 3D user interfaces. Through our research, we aim to provide adaptive and personalized 3D user interfaces for enhancing user interaction in virtual environments ...

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