Volume 22, Issue 2 - Special Issue: Augmenting Usability Evaluation; Guest Editors: Gerrit Meixner, Markus Dahm, Patrick Harms and Abbey Campbell

User experience evaluation is becoming increasingly important, and so is emotion recognition. Recognizing users’ emotions based on their interactions alone would not be intrusive to users and can be implemented in many applications. This is still an area of active research and requires data containing both the user interactions and the corresponding emotions. Currently, there is no public dataset for emotion recognition from keystroke, mouse and touchscreen dynamics. We have created such a dataset for keyboard and mouse interactions through a dedicated user study and made it publicly available for other researchers. This paper examines our study design and the process of creating the dataset. We conducted the study using a test application for travel expense reports with 50 participants. We want to be able to detect predominantly negative emotions, so we added emotional triggers to our test application. However, further research is needed to determine the relationship between user interactions and emotions.

Three-dimensional user interfaces that are controlled by the user’s bare hands are mostly based on purely gesture-based interaction techniques. However, these interfaces are often slow and error prone. Especially in the field of immersive 3D modelling, gestures are unsuitable because they complicate and delay the modelling process. To address these problems, we present a new gesture-free 3D modelling technique called “3D touch-and-drag”, which allows users to select vertices by approaching them and to terminate operations by moving the 3D cursor (e.g. the forefinger) away from the constraint geometry (e.g. a straight line or a plane). Our proposed technique makes it possible to transfer the existing 3D modelling concepts (“3D widgets”) to virtual environments, as shown by an experimental 3D modelling tool. The gesture-free bare-hand interaction also improves the possibility of tactile feedback during 3D manipulation. We compared different modelling techniques for controlling the 3D widgets. We found that controller-based techniques are significantly faster than finger-tracking-based techniques. The 3D touch-and-drag technique is about as fast as gesture-based interactions. Mouse interaction in a two-dimensional GUI is only slightly faster than the 3D modelling techniques. Since our proposed technique has proven to be at least equivalent to gesture-based interaction techniques in terms of accuracy and efficiency, its further development using more accurate tracking techniques seems promising to exploit the advantages of hands-free and gesture-free interaction for immersive 3D modelling.

Digital skills, particularly programming, have become a vital prerequisite for succeeding in today’s work life. Developing those skills is, however, a challenging task, as it requires perseverance, effort, and practice. To teach coding, individualized tutoring adapted to the novice programmers’ state of knowledge has evolved as the most promising learning strategy. However, offering sufficient learning support while practicing coding tasks is a challenge due to resource constraints. Following a three-cycle design science research approach, we developed a chatbot-based digital tutor that can support novice programmers using individualized, automated conversations based on adaptive learning paths and in-depth code analyses. In this article, we present the final version of the digital tutor software and report the findings of introducing it in a field setting over two entire lecture periods. We show that digital tutors can effectively provide individualized guidance in moments of need and offer high learning satisfaction in a long-term learning setting. This article expands the state of research by presenting insights into how students interact with a digital tutor over an entire lecture period. This also provides insights on how to design digital tutors for developing skills.

Given the threatening consequences of anthropogenic climate change, it is vital to modify energy-intensive daily routines to minimize individual energy consumption. However, changing daily routines is challenging due to their abstract, future-oriented nature and the comfort they provide. Interactive technologies can play a crucial role in facilitating this process. Instead of relying on rhetorical persuasion through information and appeals, we propose two design approaches within the research agenda of the MOVEN research group: (1) employing friction to disrupt routines, and (2) advocating for the interests of natural entities using counterpart technologies. Regarding the disruption of routines, we explore the use of humor as a design element to dampen the resulting resistance (i.e., psychological reactance). Moreover, we reflect on the opportunities of counterpart technologies as a new interaction paradigm in the context of sustainability. Finally, we discuss the potentials and limitations of individual behavior change for a holistic, sustainable transformation.