Volume 15, Issue 2 - Special Issue: "Smart Glasses"

The idea of augmented or virtual reality in combination with head mounted display is being discussed already since at least 1968. However, for a long time, this topic was discussed mainly within the academic research area with only limited effect or uptake in the work place. Primary reason for this was the missing availability of robust and affordable hardware as well as the limited mobile graphics capabilities. This has changed recently with the availability of numerous affordable devices in combination with applications from the entertainment and gaming area. This Special Issue on Smart Glasses presents a mix of recent research papers and reports to provide an overview of ongoing research and developments in work place environments. In the remainder of this introductory paper we present an overview of the history of Smart Glasses and their applications over the last decades. We also clarify the term Augmented Reality in this historic context. Then we present a topology of current products as well as their intended application areas. Finally, we introduce the papers of this issue within this context.

Many companies in the industrial sector are currently facing massive changes in order to optimize processes and enable new customer demands (e. g. mass customization of products). Often, these changes are related to a modernization of existing infrastructure to enable cyber-physical systems and smart factories (so called Industry 4.0). These structural changes have effects on business processes and business models. Consequently, the factory workers need to adapt to the changing infrastructure and therefore, it is necessary to analyze how factory workers can be supported during their day-to-day work in the changed environment. Thus, an important aspect is the analysis of human computer interaction interfaces which aim at assisting factory workers. One promising human computer interface solution between cyber-physical systems and factory workers are smart glasses, as this technology is suited for assisting humans hands-free. Since prior research on application scenarios of smart glasses in the industrial sector is limited, the aim of our research is to identify relevant application scenarios. Therefore, we conducted a qualitative, explorative study by interviewing 21 domain experts. Based on this, we derived 15 application scenarios which can be used by both, research and practice, to develop and evaluate new human computer interaction interfaces for industrial applications.

Emergency Medical Services (EMS) can be confronted with complex and challenging situations with many casualties that require special procedures and organizational structures. In order to keep control and records, incident commanders use paper-based notes, lists and forms. The increasing availability of smartglasses leads to the research question, whether they can support members of EMS and improve processes and efficiency. In this contribution, we describe use cases for smartglasses in emergency medicine, such as the triage in incidents with many casualties and the recognition of hazardous materials in accident contexts. We describe results from interviews with 10 members of EMS and civil protection units in Germany and from prototypical applications that have been developed and evaluated together with domain experts. The prototypical applications described in this contribution have shown promising results with respect to usability and acceptance.

For a better understanding of how different disorders affect motor function, a uniform, standardized and objective evaluation is a desirable goal for the clinical community. We explore the potential of Augmented Reality (AR) combined with serious gaming and free hand tracking to facilitate objective, cost-effective and patient-friendly methods for evaluation of upper extremity motor dysfunction in different patient groups. In this paper, we describe the design process of the game and the system architecture of the AR framework to meet these requirements. Furthermore, we report our findings from two pilot studies we conducted with healthy people aged over 50. First, we present a usability study ( n  = 5) on three different modalities of visual feedback for natural hand interaction with AR objects (i. e., no augmented hand, partial augmented hand and a full augmented hand model). The results show that a virtual representation of the fingertips or hand improves the usability of natural hand interaction. Secondly, a study about game engagement is presented. The results of this experiment ( n  = 8) show that there might be potential for engagement, but usability needs to be improved before it can emerge.

Due to hygienic regulations and mobility requirements, medical professionals show great interest in wearable devices allowing for hands-free interaction and ubiquitous information access. Smartglasses like the prototype “Google Glass” have already been evaluated in pre-hospital as well as clinical medical care. Based on laboratory studies according to the reliability of voice and gesture recognition and field studies during four surgeries in the department of paediatric surgeries, we discuss usability and acceptance of smartglasses for photo-enriched documentation during surgeries. While technical limitations (e. g. poor camera quality) have to be overcome, usable solutions for human-smartglasses interaction by voice and gesture recognition seem to be possible midterm. Surgeons and other members of surgical teams are curious about smartglasses in their working environment. This can be a starting point for a wider use, if user interface and interaction design for smartglasses are further explored and developed in a user-centered process meeting their requirements. In this regard, transmodal consistency is recommended as a design principle for applications supporting multiple input and output modalities.

Smart glasses are a new family of technological devices that share several characteristics with conventional eyeglasses. Yet, little is known about how individuals process them. Drawing upon categorization theories and prior research on technology acceptance, the authors conduct two empirical studies to show that (a) smart glasses are perceived as technology but vary in their degree of fashion, (b) the perception of smart glasses determines the factors that explain adoption intention, and (c) a majority of consumers process smart glasses as a combination of fashion and technology (“fashnology”), whereas a smaller number of consumers perceive them exclusively as technology or fashion, respectively.

Security has evolved into an essential quality factor of software systems. However, security features in software applications are often time-consuming, error-prone and too complicated for common users. This is mainly due to a limited consideration and integration of usability. As a consequence, users either circumvent security features or do not utilize them at all. Usable security is an advanced quality topic and an important research area of software systems. This area combines usability and security with the objective of making the use of security features in software effective, efficient and satisfying. In order to meet this challenge, the research project USecureD aims at supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in facilitating the selection and incorporation of usable security by developing, evaluating and collecting principles, guidelines, patterns and tools for merging usability and security engineering. During the initiation phase of the USecureD project, an online study (N = 118) in conjunction with 10 interviews and 2 workshops have been conducted in order to identify the relevance and requirements of usability, security and usable security with a specific focus on SMEs. The obtained results are presented and derived implications are discussed in this paper.

In 2020, German companies will spend close to €850 million on Virtual and Mixed Reality hardware and solutions based on smart glasses. The lion’s share will be spent on innovative applications. This text provides some guidance in this rising market by categorizing the available smart glasses and head-mounted displays into five categories and the potential business application fields into a further eight categories. Finally, it presents a matrix of suitable devices per application field.