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Serious games are increasingly used to facilitate stakeholder discussion and collaboration. Much attention is given in the game design literature on how to choose and design a serious game’s scope, content, mechanics, and link to reality in order to achieve the game’s intended learning outcomes. In this paper, we focus on how a serious game’s interface and the interaction it elicits contributes to achieving learning outcomes. We do so in the context of the Virtual River, a serious game focused on river management. Following the design and evaluation of a paper prototype of the Virtual River, a design challenge arose as the highly simplified models of reality used was perceived as a black box by non-expert participants, while expert participants perceived it as oversimplified and unrealistic. As hydrodynamic models used in river management practice are in itself perceived by non-experts as a black box, we decided to look for ways to simplify the interaction with such models in the game. Here, we present a tangible user interface for the Virtual River. The interface enables participants to get a better grip on the hydrodynamics of a river system. The system is set up as a discussion platform where the game board and its tangible game pieces help participants express their thoughts and ideas. We argue that using tangible interaction in Virtual River contributes to social learning outcomes by providing hypotheses based on literature and present how we intend to test these hypotheses.

User involvement can help designers reach beyond functionality and usability, and identify the user’s deeper needs for a pleasurable product experience. In practice, direct user involvement can be limited by a lack of knowledge of appropriate techniques, confidentiality constraints or limited access to end-users. Alternatively, personas can be used as a substitute for direct user involvement. Personas, however, often end up as posters in the hallway of a design department without being used, for instance because personas are not sufficiently realistic, or because the personas are insufficiently communicated within the design department. This paper presents a case study featuring Virtual Personas. This application allows designers to create and review use scenarios in a virtual world, featuring digital avatars. Although the application has been successfully deployed, it was found that additional effort is required for designers to really reach beyond the level of functionality and usability.

Synthetic Environments (SE) facilitate an easy setup of various virtual realities since they are component-based and relatively easy maintainable. Through three stages, involving various types of stakeholders, the feasibility of SEs for cooperative product design (CPD) was explored: 1) Semi-structured group interviews with 19 engineers and designers assessed SE's potential for CPD; 2) Implementation of a SE; 3) Comparison of a SE with its real counterpart, through: a) an experimental task and b) questionnaires to determine the task performance, the mental workload, the experienced spatial presence, involvement, and realness. 16 participants had a similar task performance, mental workload, and involvement but differed in experienced realism (F(1,30)=5.11, p=.03) and spatial presence (F(1,30)=7.02, p=.01). This research emphasizes the benefit of SE for CPD, which can increase the communication, speed and quality of CPD. Hence, a first step is made towards a new era of CPD.

When applying automated driving as a means for congestion assistance, developers need to account for regular and sudden transitions between automation and manual control. To assess then the ability to retrieve human control, we tested within a driver simulator experiment how Situation Awareness (SA) gained during time-critical take-overs, and based on a simulation freeze technique (SAGAT) and SA queries (SART), could be measured. The results show that drivers are able to build up SA in these time-critical situations. With regard to measurement method, only SART showed positive correlation with successfulness in retrieving control. Nonetheless, the applied measurement method showed to allow future selection of support types drivers are in need for when retrieving control after automation.

Commercial cars are increasingly equipped with automated functions to increase traffic safety and driver comfort. However, in order for these benefits to actually arise, it is crucial that the automation is used appropriately. This means that the automation should only be used in traffic situations and conditions that it was designed for (i.e. its Operational Design Domain or ODD). If the automation is used outside its ODD, traffic safety can be jeopardized. Alternatively, if it is not used within its ODD, potential benefits of the automation are lost. To be able to use the automation appropriately however, drivers need to have an accurate understanding of its functions, operation, capabilities and limitations. This research first explores how drivers are currently supported in understanding and appropriately using automated car functions. This is achieved through nation-wide surveys among car buyers and car sellers, and a review of the HMI (Human Machine Interface) in car currently available partially automated cars. Based on these results, an adaptive Digital In-Car Tutor is proposed to support driver’s understanding and appropriate use of car automation. An observation study among driving instructors is conducted to gain inspiration for such a Digital In-Car Tutor and investigate tutoring strategies in a real-world and driving related context. Finally, the results of all studies are used to design and evaluate an adaptive Digital In-car Tutor prototype. In conclusion, this thesis reveals that drivers are currently insufficiently supported in understanding and appropriately using partially automated cars. It is crucial that immediate and thorough measures are taken to avoid a negative impact on both traffic safety and the adoption of car automation. Our research further shows that a Digital In-car Tutor that is adaptive to the (complexity of the) driving situation positively affects appropriate automation use. While additional research is necessary with regards to the practical implementation, this research provides a solid base for the improvement of in-car driver support aimed at helping drivers to understand and appropriately use their car’s automation.

Serious games are increasingly developed and applied in environmental management as tools to collaboratively explore complexity. Yet, the research, design and implementation of serious games is still largely driven by technical aspects as a result of advances in computational power and in the gaming industry. Less attention has been given to research the extent to which the design of serious games can cater to the needs and desires of stakeholders with diverse backgrounds. The aim of this thesis is therefore to explore how a human centered design of serious games contributes to foster exploring complexity, facilitating stakeholder participation and stimulating social learning in environmental management. In this thesis, the design, application and evaluation of the Virtual River Game is described. First, the scope and background of the game was researched by conducting interviews with various stakeholders to gain an understanding of Dutch river management challenges and stakeholder perspectives on these. Second, the state-of-the-art in evaluating social learning outcomes of serious games to collaboratively explore complexity was analyzed and used as both design guidelines and an assessment framework for the game. Third, a novel, hybrid interface design was developed that, based on tangible interaction, has a physical game board with a bidirectional link to computer models that are widely used in practice. Fourth, the final prototype of the Virtual River Game was played in five sessions with both domain experts (river management professionals) and non-experts (non-professionals and laymen) to evaluate to what extent the game: (1) enables these stakeholders with diverse backgrounds to collaboratively explore river management complexity; and (2) stimulates social learning. The four main contributions of this thesis are: (1) applying a human centered design process to the design of serious games; (2) developing a novel interface design that uses a physical game board linked to environmental computer models to make the models accessible and transparent; (3) adding the ability to experiment with the design of management interventions as a game mechanic over selecting predefined interventions; and (4) creating the interface design as a platform to customize existing or develop new serious games with a spatial component.

In flexible endoscopy a flexible tube with a steerable camera is used to inspect the internal patient tracts and to perform small surgical interventions. In current practice the physician is faced with usability problems. Often assistance is required to manipulate the flexible endoscope and the instruments. As a consequence the physician lacks force feedback on tissue and endoscope interaction, communication errors easily occur, and two persons are required to perform a relatively simple procedure. In addition, current experiments to perform more advanced therapeutic procedures by using steerable instruments are limited by the lack of availability of intuitive and user-friendly tools. This thesis describes the development and evaluation of a robotic flexible endoscope that allows a single physician to perform diagnostic and therapeutic procedures in an intuitive and user-friendly way. The robotic modules interact with standard available endoscopy equipment and the setup can be customized to the clinical requirements of a specific procedure. The main focus of the research was directed to the usability of handling all degrees of freedom of the endoscope and the instruments. A fully functional system was realized that is prepared for clinical practice because of the integration of safety and cleanability aspects, and its easy positioning close to the patient. In general, feedback on the experimental setups indicate that the robotic flexible endoscope for diagnosis, existing therapy, as well as experimental therapy is highly appreciated by novice and expert participants. Novices are enthusiastic about the ease with which the degrees of freedom are operated, whereas experts value the clinical opportunities that robotic control provides.

In the present thesis, advanced driver assistance systems are viewed as instances of cognitive support systems when the driving task is shared between driver and assistance systems that monitor and infer driver’s behavior, complement the driver with information and warnings or even co-control the vehicle. It is suggested to support the design and research process of such systems with humans simulating the support behavior (emulation, cf. Wizard of Oz technique). Accordingly, the potential of emulation as a simulation alternative and research tool was validated and explored experimentally. On the one hand, emulation enables short, premature and flexible design iterations, including the ability to explore design solutions without the need for a fully functioning prototype (e.g. bypassing the difficulty or inability to automate perceptual abilities). On the other hand, it suggests an approach where humans observing or assisting other humans become the subject at hand, i.e. the innate human ability to monitor and infer other’s needs and intentions might provide valuable information about the cues and strategies that are used in human-human cooperation. Such insights might have the potential to contribute to the development of new technologies, both in terms of sensing human behavior in a variety of situations and in terms of providing relevant information or support (in various modalities).