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News
15 May 2025
Clinical study shows effectiveness of our VR experience for chronic pain
The system, shown in this video, combines virtual reality with triple biofeedback to make it easy for patients to practice and learn breathing techniques. The clinical study, published by the ACR (American College of Rheumatology), was conducted in collaboration with the rheumatology clinic of Udine Hospital, showing that the system reduces pain and the impact of disease on daily life in patients with fibromyalgia.
[Download the paper]
04 February 2025
Paving new paths in eating disorder therapy with augmented reality
Augmented Reality (AR) can now be used for the first time in food exposure therapy for eating disorders, thanks to the FARE project— a collaboration between our lab and the Humane Technology Lab. Our innovative AR system integrates interactive virtual foods into patients' real-world environments, enhancing both realism and ecological validity, as described in the paper just published by the Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking journal.
[Download the paper]
14 January 2025
VR exergame to improve wellbeing in fibromyalgia
We developed an innovative educational game in Virtual Reality to guide fibromyalgia patients in performing physical activity, as illustrated in this video. A pilot study of the exergame that just appeared in the Digital Health journal describes promising improvements in pain management, mental well-being, and motivation, making exercise both enjoyable and effective.
[Download the paper]
2 December 2024
Designing VR experiences on mobile devices for hospital education
In our latest research, we focused on hospital hygiene procedures, and evaluated four different designs to leverage Virtual Reality training on tablets and smartphones. The results have been just published in the prestigious IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies and focus especially on how to best embed the traditional e-learning test questions into the virtual experience.
[Download the paper]
15 May 2024
VR Biofeedback for anxiety mitigation: not just a placebo
We created a biofeedback experience that allows users to control several elements and events in virtual reality through breathing (speed and depth), heart rate, and skin conductance as shown in this video. A study that has just appeared in the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies shows that our VR biofeedback has anxiety mitigation effects superior to placebo and also increases sense of presence in VR.
[Download the paper]
02 April 2024
Our most recent VR Medical Education system goes in real use
The Virtual Reality system has been adopted in institutional courses to train nurses and doctors in pre-hospital management of myocardial infarction. A study on the experience of course participants was published today in the special issue on Virtual Reality for Medical Education of the international journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.
[Download the paper]
10 January 2024
Out-of-the-lab study of our VR system for oral exam anxiety
A sample of undergraduate students autonomously used our application in their homes over three weeks. The results, just published by the Behaviour and Information Technology journal, indicate that they perceived the application as valuable not only for practicing oral exams but also for handling emotional aspects associated with the exam. Moreover, the application helped to increase confidence and awareness of preparation level among some participants.
[Download the paper]
16 November 2023
Our game about assisted evacuation improves knowledge and perceived control
Our lab proposed and evaluated a public serious game that targets the inclusivity goal of safe evacuation for all, teaching players how to assist persons with disabilities in emergencies. The results, just published in the IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, showed that the game was more effective than printed materials for knowledge retention over time, and retention was better also for player's perceived control over assisted evacuation, which affects the likelihood that the learned content will be applied in the real world.
[Download the paper]
10 October 2023
The first desktop VR system for oral exam anxiety
Test anxiety can considerably affect students’ academic performance. Our lab has built the first desktop VR system that allows users to expose themselves to oral exam scenarios, in which a virtual character acts as examiner. A study just appeared in the Multimedia Tools and Applications journal, evaluating the feasibility of using the application, and showing that it can elicit different levels of anxiety by changing the behavior of the virtual examiner.
[Download the paper]
11 May 2023
VR headsets foster acquisition and retention of spatial knowledge
Our new study, published today by the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, shows that virtually visiting a reproduction of a real-world environment using a VR headset can produce better spatial abilities (distance estimation and understanding of spatial relations) in users, compared to a tablet. Interestingly, the benefits were affected by the type of environment (aircraft cabin or large airport area) and the locomotion technique used to explore it (steering or teleport).
[Download the paper]
20 April 2023
Luca Chittaro gives the PERSUASIVE 2023 Opening Keynote
Today, the head of our lab gave the opening keynote speech at the 18th International Conference on Persuasive Technology, in the Netherlands. The talk discussed design and evaluation of Virtual Reality and Serious Game Experiences for a safer world, including case studies from aviation safety, mass emergency preparedness, and assisted evacuation.
[Read the abstract]
31 March 2022
The largest study of video games for learning
We have completed a massive study on learning with video games. With more than 400,000 users analyzed around the world, it is the largest scientific study ever to appear on the subject. We focused on educating the public about aviation safety, and the results have appeared in the IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.
[Download the paper]
03 February 2022
A physical training app for paraplegic users
A clinical study, published today in the Digital Health Journal, has evaluated the physical exercise app we developed for paraplegic users. The study was carried out by the Spinal Unit of the IMFR "Gervasutta" hospital, and highlighted the advantages of introducing an app in physical maintenance programs for paraplegic patients.
[Download the paper]
06 April 2021
Training with VR headsets, smartphones or traditional materials?
Our latest study, just published in the IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies, compares the effectiveness of the same training content delivered through immersive VR (headset), non-immersive VR (smartphone), and traditional printed pictorials. Both VR content delivery methods produced greater knowledge gain, 2-weeks retention as well as trainee's confidence than traditional printed pictorials. Moreover, immersive VR produced more engagement than the other two methods.
[Download the paper]
12 January 2021
VR with touch and force for cardiopulmonary resuscitation training
We created a system that maximizes realism of CPR training, as shown in this video. The trainee feels all the sensations (visual, auditory, tactile and force) of real emergency scenarios involving a cardiac arrest victim. The experience is effective for training, as shown in the study published by the International Journal of Biomedical Informatics.
[Download the paper]
02 December 2020
Moving around in large virtual worlds
When a VR world is larger than the user's physical room, the user cannot physically walk anywhere. Our lab has compared three different ways of moving without walking. In the study, published by the IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, teleport came up well: better than joystick in performance, usability and motion sickness, without decreasing sense of presence.
[Download the paper]
17 July 2020
Mobile apps for sexual dysfunction
Our lab has contributed to a sexual health research project, whose results have just appeared in the Sexual Medicine journal. The study shows for the first time that mobile apps can be a useful adjunct in the therapy of sexual dysfunction.
[Download the paper]
10 June 2020
Luca Chittaro gives the ITS 2020 Keynote Speech
Today the director of our lab gave the Keynote Speech of the 16th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems. The talk focused on Learning and Retention through VR and Serious Games, and used aviation safety as a paradigmatic example. The PDF file is here and the slides are here.
[See the PDF]
5 June 2020
The BBC features one of our VR experiences
The host of the CrowdScience programme played one of our emergency simulations during the show. The full show is available on the BBC web site. Our emergency sim starts at 12:00 of the broadcast.
[Listen to the show]
11 May 2020
Emotion Appeals from Virtual Characters
In our new research, we explored how a virtual flight attendant can appeal to different user's emotions, using fear and/or humor in delivering a safety briefing. The results of the study, just published in the IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies, show that the virtual character is able to influence user's mood, and the effect extends to the liking of the entire application.
[Read the full paper]
02 March 2020
Our Prepare for Impact app surpasses 8 Million downloads!
Prepare for Impact is our serious game that reproduces the experience of real-world aircraft emergencies from the passenger's viewpoint. The app has today surpassed 8 million downloads (Android and iOS combined). The app was also covered by news sources such as TIME and Popular Mechanics.
[Download Prepare for Impact]
26 August 2019
Selecting menu items in VR headsets
A paper just published in the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction presents our new usability study of menu interaction techniques that can be used in special virtual reality contexts, like some motor disabilities or some public VR installations, where hand controllers or gesture recognition are not viable.
[Read the paper]
22 July 2019
Keynote Speech on Digital Loneliness
The director of our lab has given the keynote speech on digital loneliness at the 21st IFOTES International Congress of emotional support helplines. The video of the full speech can be watched at this link.
[Watch the keynote]
10 June 2019
Tangible user interfaces for Mindfulness
We have created and evaluated a Tangible/Embodied Interface, in which Interaction with a real natural element (water) augments the user experience of a mindfulness app. We describe the findings in a paper just appeared in the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction.
[Read the paper]
20 May 2019
Arcade games for aviation safety awareness
Two new studies show how our "Plane Troubles" mobile arcade game can foster aviation safety awareness in the general public. The paper has appeared today in the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies.
[Read the paper]
27 March 2019
Our lab in the new FAA Advisory Circular
The new Advisory Circular on Safety Briefings cites our papers as reading materials and points to the mobile and VR apps developed by our lab in active collaboration with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the United States.
[Read the FAA circular]
04 March 2019
Our Prepare for Impact app surpasses 5 Million downloads!
Prepare for Impact is our serious game that reproduces the experience of real-world aircraft emergencies from the passenger's viewpoint. The app has today surpassed 5 million downloads (Android and iOS combined). The app was also covered by news sources such as TIME and Popular Mechanics.
[Download Prepare for Impact]
07 February 2019
Qatar Airways and our AVIETRA start-up
Qatar Airways disclosed today that it chose software by our AVIETRA start-up for its innovative Virtual Reality (VR) cabin crew training initiative. The announcement was made at the ATD Conference on the Future of Learning, in Florida.
[AVIETRA web site]
06 August 2018
Virtual Reality clarifies location of empathy area in the brain
In a collaboration with neuroscientists, just published in the Neuropsychologia journal, we tested one of our VR emergency evacuation experiences in which users received a request for help from a seriously injured virtual human. Analysis of images of users' brains revealed that users who risked in the VR world to try to save the virtual human had enlarged right anterior insula (an area of the brain that is believed to play a role in empathy) than those who did not.
[Read the full paper]
20 March 2018
EU project about training of drone professionals awarded to our lab
The purpose of the DroneRules PRO project is to assist the drones industry in adjusting to new legislative requirements on privacy and data protection. Our HCI Lab will be in charge of all software development in the project consortium, that will deploy an advanced on-line course, blending e-learning and serious games.
02 March 2018
Existential Video Games
In a new paper in the Entertainment Computing journal, we define the genre of Existential Video Games, that is games which aim at encouraging existential reflection, dealing with human concerns such as death, isolation, and meaninglessness of life. The paper also carries out a study with 43 participants who were asked to play an existential video game. Results show that the video game effectively elicited reflections in the majority of players about their own mortality.
[Read the full paper]
08 February 2018
The EmoPaint app for emotion expression and detection
The International Journal of Human-Computer Studies has just published the user evaluation of the EmoPaint app we created together with University of Zaragoza. The study reveals that the app is easy to use and able to detect user's emotions. Moreover, the app improves recognition accuracy of the considered set of 14 emotions over a traditional method (Affect Grid with Circumplex model). The EmoPaint app can be downloaded for Android and Apple devices.
[Read the full paper]
02 January 2018
Training transfer from interactive 3D worlds to the real world
Our latest study, published by the Safety Science journal, shows that aviation safety knowledge acquired through smartphone-based 3D worlds transfers to the real world. Moreover, participants who learned from the mobile 3D world were faster and made much less errors in the real world than participants who studied traditional materials that described the procedure.
[Read the full paper]
20 December 2017
Studying the effectiveness of Mobile 3D Maps in real, large and complex buildings
In a user study published by the IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems, we have compared different versions of mobile 3D maps. Users walked in a real, large, complex building, finding locations with the help of a smartphone app. 3D third-person perspective maps obtained better results than both 3D first-person perspective and traditional 2D maps.
[Read the full paper]
02 November 2017
Our cabin safety training projects presented at EATS 2017
This week, Prof. Luca Chittaro gave a speech at the 16th European Airline Training Symposium (EATS 2017) about Cabin Safety Training Based on Mobile, Gaming and Virtual Reality Technologies.
[Read the abstract]
26 October 2017
Even a little interactivity counts in safety briefings
The Transportation Research journal has just published the controlled study in which we compared the Safety Briefing Card and Safety Briefing Video media in the aviation domain, showing that adding even a very basic level of interactivity to the Video media improves training effectiveness.
[Read the full paper]
05 October 2017
EmoPaint app publicly released
We've just released EmoPaint - Paint Your Emotions!, a novel app for body sensation and emotion awareness, that we have created in collaboration with the University of Zaragoza (Spain). EmoPaint can be freely downloaded on Android and Apple devices.
15 June 2017
Australian Aviation Authority describes our Air Safety World as "perfect app"
In its flagship aviation safety magazine, CASA (the Civil Aviation Safety Authority of the Australian Government) has mentioned our Air Safety World as a "perfect app". Air Safety World makes passenger safety instructions clearer, more fun, and more effectively remembered by passengers.
[Read the full article]
07 June 2017
Our Air Safety World app launches successfully
Air Safety World provides passengers with the world's first interactive airline safety briefings and lots of gamified flight safety experiences. Its user base is growing very rapidly (over 100,000 users just in the first 4 weeks), and the app is being covered by general media such as The Independent and Travel+Leisure as well as specialized aviation media.
[Try the app!]
19 May 2017
Our Motorbrain article is nominated Editor's Choice by a prestigious journal
In a collaboration with neurophysiologists, we created the MotorBrain app to measure neuromotor performance with a smartphone. Our published study, nominated Editor's Choice by Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, shows that the app is able to detect performance differences due to aging.
[Download full paper]
03 April 2017
Our lab carries out the world's first study of Terror Management Theory in Virtual Reality
In a paper just published by the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, we study exposure to mortality cues in virtual reality experiences, showing that it has an effect on users' attitudes towards risk. A full copy of the paper can be downloaded from our web site.
[Download full paper]
23 February 2017
Neuroanatomical study of VR users
A multi-disciplinary collaboration with our lab showed that users of a virtual reality world who behaved altruistically towards virtual characters had a larger insula in the brain. The study has been published today by the Neuropsychologia journal.
[Read the full paper here]
02 January 2017
Our Prepare for Impact app surpasses ONE MILLION downloads in first 9 months!
Prepare for Impact is a serious game that reproduces the experience of real-world aircraft emergencies from the passenger's viewpoint. It was published for Android and iOS in March 2016 and has surpassed 1 million downloads in its first 9 months. The app was also covered by news sources such as TIME and Popular Mechanics.
[Download Prepare for Impact]
14 November 2016
Using a mobile mindfulness app for mitigating worry
In our latest study on mindfulness apps, we carried out a qualitative analysis with users over a 5-weeks usage period. The study, just published on the Interacting with Computers journal, indicates that several participants experienced decentering from their worries when using the app, and identifies new design opportunities for mindfulness apps.
[Download full paper]
17 May 2016
How are mindfulness meditators affected by Virtual Reality?
Our lab has carried out the first study about how mindfulness meditators differ from non-meditators in perceiving virtual reality experiences. The results, published by the Computers in Human Behavior journal, show that midfulness meditators are much less affected by virtual reality: physiological measurements as well as their questionnaires after exposure to scary virtual experiences indicate an emotional deactivation that was not found instead in non-meditators.
[Read the full paper]
19 April 2016
HCI Lab releases the source code of its Unity Virtual Camera Computation library
HCI Lab releases the Unity source code for its automatic viewpoint computation library, described in this IEEE TVCG paper, and employed in one of our aviation safety applications. The library is available at this Github repository.
[Download library]
04 March 2016
Special issue on Interactive Persuasive Systems
Head of our lab is co-editor of the special issue on "Interactive Persuasive Systems" of the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction. The special issue focuses on design and evaluation aspects, with a special emphasis on the ways persuasion concepts and theories are exploited, adapted or augmented in interactive systems.
[See the table of contents]
25 January 2016
Learn more about our aviation safety projects
Today, we published a web site that illustrates our research on safety for aircraft passengers. The web site also includes demos and videos of some of the apps we developed.
[Visit the web site]
20 January 2016
On-line evaluation in the large of a mobile mindfulness app
In a paper just published by the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, we study what 2997 users did in the 4 weeks after downloading a mobile mindfulness app from on-line stores. A full copy of the paper can be downloaded from our web site.
[Download full paper]
09 December 2015
Stress detection using physiological sensors
Two of our lab members have written a comprehensive introduction to this topic that has been just published by IEEE Computer. You can download the full paper here.
[Download full paper]
14 October 2015
Luca Chittaro appointed as ACM Distinguished Speaker
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is the world's largest educational and scientific computing society. ACM's Distinguished Speaker program provides universities, corporations, and agencies direct access to top technology leaders and innovators from the computing industry.
[Go to ACM DSP site]
01 September 2015
Serious Games can Improve Terror Attack Preparedness, Even If You Don't Play Them
In a study just published by the Computers in Human Behavior journal, we explored video games as terror attack preparedness materials for the general public. In addition to showing that playing a serious game greatly increased players' knowledge about preparedness, our research showed that passively watching someone else play the game was as effective as actively playing it in terms of learning preparedness knowledge. The difference between the two conditions concerned psychological effects on threat appraisal: perception of personal vulnerability to terror attacks and their severity increased more in those who actively played the game.
[Download the paper]
31 July 2015
The US CDC includes one of our papers in its list of "publications with particular relevance".
The included paper concerns serious games for terror attack preparedness. The CDC list can be downloaded at this link. Our full paper can be downloaded from our web site.
[Download full paper]
30 June 2015
Marrying AI and Cinematography to visualize 3D aviation emergency simulations
In a new paper published by the Computers & Graphics journal, we describe our real-time, automatic camera control system that exploits AI techniques to model abilities typical of the camera operator (choosing proper camera positions and angle to shoot some events) and the director (review shots and edit them). This video shows how the system can respond to user's requests by automatically producing different movies of the same simulation of a full Airbus 320 evacuation.
[Download the paper]
05 May 2015
FOX News features our apps in two different reports
The first report, aired on May 3rd, illustrated three of our recent aviation safety apps. In the second report, aired on May 4th, the hosts of Fox & Friends tried live our free Learn to Brace app.
[Watch the TV reports]
22 April 2015
Discovery Channel features our research on Virtual Reality and Memory Retention
In a report titled "Total Recall", Discovery Channel has illustrated today the results of our experiment on VR and memory retention, published in a scientific paper on the IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. Our experiment has shown that using a virtual reality headset to experience risky situations as immersive 3D games improves memory retention of passenger safety instructions. The Discovery Channel report has also showed the Oculus Rift version of the risk experience we have just released.
[Watch the video]
21 April 2015
Our lab releases the world's first virtual reality experience of an airliner water landing
Released for the Oculus Rift and downloadable from Oculus Share, the Emerging Water Landing VR (see video) app allows users to live an immersive experience of an airliner water landing and evacuation. Players can interactively try possible right or wrong passenger's actions and see their effects simulated.
[Watch the video]
31 March 2015
Psychological response to an emergency in virtual reality
In a research carried out in collaboration with a group of psychologists, we studied how victim ethnicity and different types of virtual reality emergencies affect user's behavior. Results are described in a paper that has just been published by the Computers in Human Behavior journal.
[Read the full paper here]
12 December 2014
Learn to wear an airline life vest with our new app
Today we have launched our new Life Vest app, freely available for all major smartphone and tablet platforms (Android, Apple, Windows Mobile). In three different game levels, you interact with the game character to make it wear the life vest properly and to jump out of the plane alive. You can also face time challenges and compare your results with those of other players. The 3D model of the life vest is a high-fidelity reproduction of a real vest used by many airlines.
[See/Download the app]
07 October 2014
Anxiety induction in Virtual Reality
Our laboratory has conducted a study on anxiety induction in Virtual Reality, showing that the exploitation of auditory heartbeat biofeedback is an effective technique for generating anxiety in users. These results appear in a paper that has just been published by the Interacting with Computers journal. It has also been featured in the Science section of Slashdot.
[Read the full paper here]
20 August 2014
Effectiveness of mobile breathing training apps
Hundreds of mobile apps for breathing training are available in on-line stores but no one had evaluated their effectiveness so far. Our lab has thus conducted a study of a mobile breathing training app focusing on users’ physiological parameters as well as subjective perception. Results show how different graphical representations of the breathing process can contribute to the effectiveness of the app. These results have been collected in a paper that has just been published by the Computers in Human Behavior journal.
[Read the full paper here]
24 July 2014
NeuroImage publishes a Virtual Reality experiment carried out at our lab
The fMRI brain study of one of our Virtual Reality experiences that simulates life-threatening situations has been published by NeuroImage, a top neuroscience journal. The experience requires users to survive a serious fire emergency in a building, and puts them in a situation in which they have to choose between saving a virtual character trapped under a heavy cabinet or reaching the exit of the building. The results of the paper show differences in brain activity between users who escaped the building and users who helped the virtual character. These results have been featured on Wired as well as the Science section of Slashdot.
[Read the full paper here]
16 July 2014
Importance of evaluating the Placebo Effect in Affective Computing studies
The International Journal of Human-Computer Studies has just published our recent evaluation of different virtual character control systems based on user's physiology (read the news) that highlights the importance of including a Placebo condition in Affective Computing studies. Our paper has been featured on the Science section of Slashdot.
[Read the full paper here]
12 June 2014
Game characters controlled by user’s emotions
We have conducted a laboratory study to evaluate different methods to control the behavior of a virtual character through user’s physiological signals in a game for relaxation training (see video). The character control system has been featured on popular Web sites like Rock-Paper-Shotgun and the Games section of Slashdot.
[Watch the video]
11 April 2014
Brace for impact with our interactive app
This week our lab has released the Learn to Brace app for all major mobile and desktop operating systems. This first public game for aircraft passengers' safety is generating a lot of interest, and the news is being discusses on several popular Web sites, including Gizmodo, Slashdot and Fark.
[See/Download the app]
03 April 2014
Luca Chittaro's speech is on TED.com
The speech on technostress by our lab director is now available on TED.com. You can watch it here.
[Watch the video]
18 March 2014
Computer-Supported Mindfulness
Our lab is the first to conduct a laboratory study of the effectiveness of mindfulness apps. The paper has been published by the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies and shows that the studied app is more effective than traditional non-interactive methods on a sample of novice meditators.
[Read the full paper here]
01 February 2014
TIME features a virtual reality experiment carried out at our lab
Jeffrey Kluger, Editor at Large for TIME, the weekly news magazine with the largest world's circulation, reflects about the implications of the virtual reality experiment that took place at our lab in cooperation with SISSA Social Neuroscience Lab. His article can be read from TIME website, while the technical description of the experiment is at this link.
[Read the TIME article]
08 January 2014
Social Neuroscience publishes a virtual reality experiment carried out at our lab.
The study reproduced critical situations in which user's actions lead to the death of virtual humans (see video). The paper shows that user's behavior in virtual reality becomes more utilitarian with respect to the traditional, less realistic ways of presenting such dilemmas in moral psychology research.
[Read the full paper]
18 October 2013
Time perspective and problematic Internet use in Facebook users.
A study conducted by our lab has linked specific attitudes towards time (Past Negative and Present Fatalistic) of Facebook users with their level of Problematic Internet Use. The results are described in a paper that has just appeared in the Personality and Individual Differences Journal.
[Read the full paper here]
03 September 2013
New physiological measures for affective computing.
In a paper presented today at the 5th International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII 2013), our lab explores if eye-blink startle response, as a measure of stress and negative emotions, could be used in affective computing. We show that eye-blink startle response can be elicited using natural sounds and exploited in interactive applications such as 3D virtual environments.
[Read the full paper here]
05 August 2013
Our lab completes a thorough study about using 3D serious games in a real medical emergency course.
The game concerns Advanced Life Support (ALS) and is used to train nurses and doctors. The study has been published by one of the top international journals in Medical Informatics. You can download a copy of the paper at this link.
[Read the full paper]
12 June 2013
Navigation of 3D virtual environments by autistic children.
Working with a multidisciplinary team, our lab explored how autistic and non-autistic children navigate 3D virtual environments. The results of the study have just appeared in the international journal Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders and you can download the paper at this link.
[Read the full paper here]
08 May 2013
Our lab receives Best Paper Award from Pervasive Health.
Our lab received today the Best Paper Award from Pervasive Health 2013, the 7th International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare. The awarded paper proposes and evaluates a novel mobile exergame based on Digital Audio Storytelling.
[Read the paper]
07 May 2013
Our lab releases the first open-source viewpoint computation library.
The C++ library computes the best viewpoint in a 3D scene to satisfy a set of visual properties, such as size, visibility or angle of selected objects in the scene. It makes no assumptions on the scene and objects, and returns a result in pre-defined time for usage in interactive applications.
[Download source code and demos here]
01 March 2013
Physiological evaluation of mobile video games.
A recent psychophysiological study conducted in our lab has focused on mobile Whac-a-Mole games, investigating user experience as well as desensitization to violence aspects. A journal paper about the study has just appeared and you can download it at this link.
[Read the full paper here]
04 February 2013
Improving mobile apps with Overview+Detail interfaces.
The lack of screen space on mobile devices requires app designers to adopt more sophisticated user interfaces to manage large information spaces. In a new paper that has just been published by the Personal and Ubiquitous Computing journal, we provide a thorough introduction to Overview+Detail interfaces, and illustrate an experiment that advances knowledge about their design space.
[Read the paper here]
24 September 2012
Our lab presents two papers at the MOBILE HCI 2012 International Conference.
The first presentation was a full conference paper about the visualization of large numbers of off-screen objects on mobile devices, while the second was a workshop paper about a study with disabled students to assess their needs with respect to navigation and information services in university buildings.
[Mobile HCI 2012 Web site]
07 June 2012
Head of our lab receives Best Paper Award.
Luca Chittaro received today the Best Paper Award at the 7th International Conference on Persuasive Technology in Sweden. The awarded paper illustrates how to educate airline passengers about aviation safety using video games.
[Read the paper]
31 May 2012
HCI Lab presents iPhone mobile exergame that encourages walking.
We have turned the classic Snake game into a mobile exergame in which the player controls the snake by walking in outdoors playing fields. Today we have released a video and a technical paper about the game.
[Watch the video]
18 May 2012
HCI Lab invited to present at national conference on Non-Conventional Emergencies.
More than 200 members of first response forces (emergency medical responders, firefighters, civil defense, police, military,...) attended the meeting, and our presentation illustrated the virtual reality systems and serious games we are developing for training.
[Brief summary (in Italian)]
08 May 2012
HCI Lab invited to present at National Fire Corps event in Assisi.
The theme of the National Fire Corps meeting concerned how to help people with disabilities in emergency situations, and our presentation illustrated the different systems we are developing to that purpose.
[More on our research]
28 February 2012
Studying natural user interfaces with Electromyography (EMG).
People like "natural" interaction with computers and games but what are its effects on the muscular system? We begin to shed light on this scarcely explored aspect of natural interfaces with a detailed EMG study which will appear in the March Issue of the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. We analyzed users' muscle activity in pointing activities with the Wii controller and compared it with traditional mouse and keyboard interaction.
[Read the full article here]
28 December 2011
The Director's Lens: a smart assistant for shooting CG movies.
A research from our Lab, together with international partners (INRIA Rennes, France, and Millsaps College, USA), has been presented at ACM Multimedia 2011 and ParisFX conferences. The research concerns a smart assistant for shooting CG movies that combines manual and automatic camera control. You can read a brief description of it here and the full technical description here.
[Read the paper here]
02 December 2011
HCI Lab becomes an associate member of V-MusT.
Our lab has joined V-MusT, the EU FP7-funded network of excellence that aims to provide the heritage sector with the tools and support to develop virtual museums that are educational, enjoyable, long-lasting and easy to maintain.
28 October 2011
Personalization in e-health.
Web-based personal medical records offer new opportunities for providing patients with personalized care. In the last years, we have built PRESYDIUM, a system that stores user models of disabled patients and uses them to support emergency medical services in the field by providing information and procedures tailored to the specific patient. Read all about it in a paper that has just appeared in the User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction (UMUAI) Journal.
[Read the paper here]
30 September 2011
Virtual Reality and Autistic Children.
Our lab has joined a multidisciplinary team (integrating expertise from computer science, pedagogy, psychology and psychiatry) to explore the design of virtual reality applications that can be used by autistic children for education and training purposes. For a quick introduction to the research topic, you can read the state of the art we wrote for the Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences journal published by Cambridge University Press.
[Read the full article here]
01 September 2011
Navigating when GPS signal is bad.
Our lab has presented today a full paper at the MOBILE HCI 2011 International Conference about how mobile navigation apps can visualize the uncertainty of GPS positioning. The conference selection process was very strict and only 63 full papers and notes (23%) were accepted out of 276 submissions received.
[Read our paper here]
13 June 2011
Luca Chittaro gives invited tutorial on Mobile App Design at ACM EICS 2011.
The director of our lab presented the tutorial today at the ACM International Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems. The speech dealt with how to build effective interfaces for mobile apps, with a particular focus on visual aspects.
[Download the tutorial outline]
15 April 2011
Facing lack of screen space in mobile visualizations.
When navigating large information spaces on mobile devices, the small size of the display often causes important content to shift off-screen, greatly increasing difficulty of use. We have thoroughly tested three different techniques to face this problem. Read about our findings in the paper that has just appeared in the Interacting with Computers journal.
[Read the paper here]
15 March 2011
The most read magazine in Italy (Focus) devotes an article to our research on serious games.
In a long article in its March issue, Focus (the most read magazine in Italy) presented some of the results of our research on Serious Games and Training: the EMSAVE system for training medical first responders and the Monster&Gold mobile game for fitness training.
[See the article in italian]
28 February 2011
Context-aware fitness games for mobile phones.
Our latest mobile fitness game employs sensors that detect user's speed and heart rate and adapt gameplay to maximize cardiovascular benefits. Read all about it in the journal paper that has been published by IEEE Pervasive and watch the video demo.
[Read the paper here]
29 November 2010
HCI Lab releases a public demo of VEX, a 3D software for designing virtual visits and exhibitions.
Head on to the download page, try the software, and let us know what you think!
30 September 2010
HCI Lab presents its new tool for virtual exhibition design at Le Louvre in Paris.
The presentation took place in the context of the 11th VAST International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, which selected our contribution as a full paper.
[Read the paper here]
10 September 2010
Our lab presents two papers at the MOBILE HCI 2010 International Conference.
The conference selection process was so strict that only 17% of short papers submissions and only 23% of full papers submissions were accepted. Our two papers deal respectively with communication between medical responders and deaf persons and menu selection for blind users on mobile devices.
[Mobile HCI 2010 Web site]
28 June 2010
Our lab presented two papers at Smart Graphics 2010 in Canada.
The topics respectively concern a tool to easily design 3D virtual exhibitions and walkthroughs and a language to express and evaluate visual properties of virtual cameras in 3D worlds.
[Smart Graphics 2010 Web site]
10 June 2010
Persuasion through Virtual Reality.
This week, at the Persuasive 2010 International Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, we have presented our accepted full paper that shows how Virtual Reality can be an effective tool to induce emotions (including anxiety) and change people attitudes towards personal safety topics. The conference selection process was very strict leading to the acceptance of less than a third of the 80 submitted papers.
[Read our paper here]
20 April 2010
Designing multimodal interfaces for mobile devices.
Future interfaces of phones and other mobile devices will be increasingly multimodal. Read Luca Chittaro's introduction and advice on mobile multimodal interfaces in the invited paper just published by Springer's Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces.
[Read the paper here]
26 March 2010
HCI Lab receives honorary mention at the IEEE Conference on Games for Serious Applications.
Our serious game for training medical first responders received the honorary mention as one of the three best full papers of the international conference IEEE VS-GAMES 2010.
[Read the paper here]
19 November 2009
Easily arranging 3D objects in virtual worlds.
Today, at the ACM VRST 2009 Symposium, our lab presents a full paper on the effectiveness of combining a first person and a map view in 3D object arrangement tasks. Our work is one of the 21 full-papers accepted by the conference out of 61 submitted.
[Read the paper]
15 September 2009
The director of our lab gives invited tutorial on Mobile Visualization at Mobile HCI 2009.
Luca Chittaro presented the tutorial today at the Mobile HCI 2009 international conference in Bonn. The speech dealt with how to build effective visual interfaces on mobile devices and the slides have been made available on the Web.
[Download the tutorial slides]
27 July 2009
Our lab has presented two papers at the UMAP 2009 International Conference.
The conference selection process was strict leading to the acceptance of only 47 research papers out of 125 submitted. Our two papers deal respectively with user modeling of disabled persons for improving emergency medical services and filtering of fitness trail content generated by mobile users.
[UMAP 2009 Web site]
23 May 2009
Luca Chittaro delivers keynote speech at IEEE HSI 2009.
The director of our lab gave today the keynote speech at the international IEEE conference on Human-System Interaction. The topic of the speech concerned the role of visualization in mobile human-computer interaction.
13 May 2009
The director of our lab gives keynote speech on Multimodality in the Mobile Context.
Luca Chittaro gave the speech today at the international event on Challenges of Engineering Multimodal Interaction, held at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology in Germany. The speech discussed challenges and opportunities for multimodality on mobile devices.
29 April 2009
Luca Chittaro is invited speaker for the ENEL "Meet the Scientists" initiative.
ENEL is Italy’s largest power company, and Europe’s second listed utility by installed capacity. The event took place today in the city of Livorno. The invited speech dealt with human-computer interaction and computer-mediated communication.
10 April 2009
Our lab heads large project on advanced emergency medical services for the disabled.
Today we made available a web site where you can read about the goals, partners, results of the project, and get the first publications.
[Visit the project Web Site]
11 March 2009
Two (out of 21) full papers accepted by IEEE VS-GAMES 2009 are from our Lab.
The First International IEEE Conference in Serious Games will be held this month in the UK, and the two papers we will be presenting concern respectively a serious game for personal fire safety training and task modeling in serious game design for medical first responders.
10 September 2008
Luca Chittaro delivers keynote speech at IFIP World Computer Congress.
The director of our lab is one of the keynote speakers of the 20th World Computer Congress organized by IFIP. The congress was attended by 2000 participants from 70 countries. The topic of the speech concerned Interaction with Visual Interfaces on Mobile Devices.
[Read the abstract of the speech]
01 September 2008
Our lab presents two different papers at the MOBILE HCI 2008 International Conference.
The conference selection process was very strict leading to the acceptance of less than a third of the 210 submitted papers. Our two papers deal respectively with web/map navigation and 3D evacuation instructions on mobile devices.
[Mobile HCI 2008 Proceedings]
04 June 2008
Evacuation support based on location-aware 3D maps.
Last week, at the Mobile Response symposium in Bonn, Germany, we presented our mobile system that supports the user in the evacuation of buildings. The system provides the user with evacuation instructions by using 3D representations of the building and determines the position of the user in the building by employing active RFID technology.
[Watch the video]
28 March 2008
Maps and web page navigation on mobile devices.
Recently, we have investigated a few techniques that support user navigation of maps and web pages on small-screen devices. Read about our findings in the paper that has just appeared in the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies.
[Read the paper here]
03 March 2008
Wearable Systems for Outdoor Fitness Training.
Our lab has proposed a context-aware and user-adaptive wearable system for outdoor fitness training, which exploits position and physiological sensors as well as a 3D virtual trainer to provide users with tailored advice and exercises. You can read the details in the paper that has just appeared in the Artificial Intelligence in Medicine journal, Special issue on Wearable Computing and Artificial Intelligence for Healthcare Applications.
[Read the paper here]
04 February 2008
Interactive visual analysis of geographic data on mobile devices.
Geographic data is often crucial to support users' activities in the field. Our lab has developed a highly interactive interface based on visual dynamic queries that allows users to manage geographic data on mobile devices. Read all about it in the paper that has just appeared in the Journal of Visual Languages and Computing.
[Read the paper here]
03 January 2008
Visual analysis of users' mobile browsing behaviors.
Our lab has developed a system that visually highlights various aspects of how users browse an information space on a mobile device. You can read in detail about it in the paper published by IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, and chosen by the magazine as its January/February 2008 Highlight.
[Read the paper here]
01 October 2007
Navigation support and user differences in 3D Virtual Environments.
In a paper that has just appeared in the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, we have studied some new navigation aids for 3D Virtual Environments as well as the effects of past user experience with 3D environments on the effectiveness of these aids.
[Read the paper here]
13 August 2007
Adaptive 3D Educational Virtual Enviroments.
Our lab has developed a system, based on a well-known adaptive hypermedia framework, able to create a 3D virtual environment that selects and personalize interactive learning content for users. You can read in detail about it in the paper that has just appeared in the IEEE Intelligent Systems magazine, Special issue on Intelligent Educational Systems.
[Read the paper here]
04 July 2007
Videogames that adapt to your heart rate.
Last week, at the Smartgraphics symposium in Kyoto, Japan, we have presented our videogame architecture that adapts to the player's heart rate (see the video). The system has generated a lot of interest, and the news is being featured by lots of popular Web sites, including Engadget, Wired, Joystiq, The Feed, and many others.
[Read our technical paper]
15 April 2007
HCI Lab faculty edit special issue on "Web 3D Technologies for Learning, Education and Training".
Luca Chittaro and Roberto Ranon are guest editors of the special issue of the Computers & Education journal on the different aspects of using Web 3D technologies for building learning, educational and training applications.
[Read the introduction]
12 April 2007
The new Web: 3D, Adaptive, Mobile and Spatial.
Read all about state-of-the-art solutions and technologies for creating new Web applications that include 3D, Adaptive and Map-based features in two different invited textbook chapters written by HCI Lab members. One is about Adaptive 3D Web Sites and the other about map-based applications for mobile devices.
19 December 2006
Visual analysis of people's movements.
Our lab has developed a system that traces, visualizes and provides insights on users' movements in virtual as well as real places. You can read in detail about it in the paper that has just appeared in the IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, Special issue on Visual Analytics.
[Read more]
26 October 2006
The major italian financial newspaper devotes a long article to our MOPET project.
In a long article, the Sole 24 Ore newspaper presented today MOPET (Mobile Personal Trainer), our innovative mobile application that assists and guides users in outdoor fitness trails, monitoring life parameters through wireless sensors and teaching fitness exercises by means of a 3D character.
[See the article in italian]
15 September 2006
Two (out of 20) full papers presented at the MOBILE HCI 2006 International Conference are from our Lab.
The conference selection process was very strict leading to the acceptance of only 24% of the submitted full papers. One of our two papers is about mobile fitness applications, the other is about visualizing off-screen objects on mobile.
[Mobile HCI 2006 Web site]
13 June 2006
Head of our lab on italian national TV.
Luca Chittaro was invited by national channel RAI 2 to present our mobile guides project on a major live show ("Piazza Grande"), where he was interviewed by popular TV host Giancarlo Magalli.
05 June 2006
Watch the "Visualization in a Mobile World" broadcast on IEE TV.
The keynote speech given by Luca Chittaro at IEE ICCSA 2006 in Glasgow can now be freely watched on the IET TV on-line television service.
[Go to the IET TV page]
06 May 2006
Virtual earthquake!
We have applied advanced Virtual Reality and simulation techniques to reproduce the effects of the 1976 earthquake that hit the Friuli region in Italy. The project also produced a movie that you can watch on the Web.
[Visit the Virtual Earthquake Web site]
02 May 2006
HCI Lab releases new 3D software for free download.
H-Animator is a visual tool for easily modeling animations of virtual humans based on the X3D and H-Anim standards. MobiX3D Player is a software for displaying interactive X3D content on PDAs.
11 March 2006
Visualizing information on mobile devices.
Luca Chittaro writes the first introductory paper about this new exciting topic and is chosen for the Cover Feature of the March issue of IEEE Computer, the flagship magazine of the IEEE Computer Society.
[Read the paper here]
02 March 2006
HCI Lab launches the new version of its mobile guide at BIT 2006.
BIT (International Tourism Exchange) is the world's largest exhibition of Italian products and services for the travel industry, and attracts over 150'000 visitors from about 100 countries every year. The new version of our mobile tourist guide is now available for mobile phones as well as PDAs.
02 December 2005
Head of our lab interviewed by BusinessWeek.
BusinessWeek is the world's largest business magazine. Luca Chittaro was among the experts interviewed for an article about the user's experience in e-commerce.
19 October 2005
HCI Lab at SMAU 2005.
We showcased some of our projects at the 42nd International Exhibition of ICT & Consumer Electronics, that this year attracted 170000 visitors. Our free immersive simulator of the Frecce Tricolori jet and our mobile guide received significant attention and were featured on TV and newspapers reports about the Exhibition.
05 September 2005
A successful presence of our Lab at INTERACT 2005, with 3 full papers accepted.
The conference is one of the most important and selective HCI events in the world: this year, only 70 full papers have been accepted out of 264 submitted. We will be presenting our latest work on mobile input, mobile guides, and visualization of navigation.
26 July 2005
Learn to fly an aerobatic jet with our free MB-339 PAN package.
In a joint press conference with Frecce Tricolori (the aerobatic team of the Italian Air Force), the HCI Lab released today a free multi-platform simulation that allows you to learn flying their jet. Watch the video and the screenshots.
[Visit the MB-339 PAN Web site]
06 June 2005
HCI Lab students place 1st at the Imagine Cup 2005 italian finals.
They will represent Italy in the Software Design category at the world finals in Yokohama, Japan, this summer. The Imagine Cup is a Microsoft-sponsored technology competition to let developers showcase their innovation. Our winning students presented a project called TellMe that integrates mobile and 3D technologies to assist users with certain disabilities in communicating.
04 April 2005
BBC News reports about one of our projects.
In a news story about Web3D, BBC News mentions a project by University of Udine in Italy in which visitors to the city can use their own portable digital-capable machines to download 3D graphics of tourist sites.
[More technical details about the project]
04 March 2005
Two (out of 18) papers accepted at the ACM Web3D 2005 Symposium are from our Lab.
One paper is about controlling humanoid characters, the other is about location-aware 3D visualization on mobile devices.
[Web3D 2005 Proceedings]
14 October 2004
A business idea by our lab is selected for the finals of the Italian Innovation Award
Only 3 (out of 95) projects were selected in the regional contest. Our project is named Mobile 3D and includes a detailed business plan for a spin-off company that would deal with innovative exploitation of 3D graphics and mobile devices for tourist support.
07 August 2004
LET-Web3D Workshop to be held in Udine.
The HCI Lab announces the first edition of the Web3D Workshop in Learning, Education and Training, that will be held in Udine September 30-October 1, 2004. For more information, visit the LET-Web3D website.
11 May 2004
Virtual humans...with personality!
We developed a system to give personality traits to 3D virtual characters and make them behave accordingly (as human beings do). The work has been accepted among the very best papers (22% rate of acceptance) of Computer Animation & Social Agents (CASA) 2004 Conference and published in the Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds Journal.
[more on this paper]
02 May 2004
Two (out of 22) full papers accepted at the Advanced Visual Interfaces (AVI) 2004 Conference are from our Lab.
They deal with different HCI aspects of 3D Virtual Environments: one is about studying users' behaviours in 3D spaces, the other is about navigations aids.
[AVI2004 web site]
07 January 2004
HCI Lab helps clinicians in the analysis of medical data.
In the last three years, we have worked closely with clinicians to develop a visual data mining system that visualizes large temporal databases in a hemodialysis center. Some of the latest developments of this project are described in the special issue on Visual Data Mining of the Journal of Visual Languages and Computing.
[more on this project]
17 September 2003
Mobile HCI 2003 (organized by our lab) concludes successfully.
With 122 papers submitted from 26 different countries, and a selection rate of 33% for full papers and 49% for short papers, the fifth edition of the conference featured a very high quality technical program.
[more on the Mobile HCI 2003 Web site]
26 February 2003
Fly with the Italian aerobatic team in our latest Web3D production.
In a joint press conference with Frecce Tricolori (the aerobatic team of the Italian Air Force), the HCI Lab launched today a 3D Web site that puts you on their jets while they perform amazing aerobatic manouvres.
27 January 2003
Two (out of 18) papers accepted at the ACM Web3D 2003 Symposium are from our Lab.
One paper is about cloth simulation, the other is about intelligent characters.
[Web3D 2003 Proceedings]
23 October 2002
The HCI Lab presents a product at SMAU.
The product is a Computer Supported Cooperative Work system for x-ray cristallography experiments, developed in cooperation with Elettra Synchrotron Light Laboratory, Trieste.
[more]
16 September 2002
Mobile HCI 2003 to be held in Udine.
The HCI Lab announces the fifth edition of the Mobile HCI Conference, that will be held in Udine in September 2003. For more information, visit the Mobile HCI 2003 web site.
[more on this]
13 September 2002
The new Web site of the HCI Lab is on line.
Have a nice browsing.