Playing outdoors in nature with peers has been attributed most importance for children's healthy development but is increasingly marginalized because of the attractiveness of screen-based play. Careful merging of digital technology into outdoor play environments rich on nature elements could potentially help bridge digital play with more traditional play activities outdoors. A systematic comparison was made of outdoor play in more or less green settings, with and without digital installations or traditional play equipment. The separate and combined role of digital artefacts, play equipment and natural elements, were investigated, with particular focus on the effects of merging digital materials into nature. A group of children aged 6-8 were involved in a field study in a three-week period playing in a traditional playground, a forest and in a forest with digitally enhanced play artefacts. Children ' s play behavior was evaluated using a behavioral tracking method, a questionnaire and a contextual interview with the children, and a physical activity measure, in combination with inventories including maps to document the design, and the ecological and physical status of the settings. The study documents differences in children's play behavior across the three settings. It differs most between the digital forest setting and the forest setting regarding the play categories imaginative play, physical play and rule play and the digital forest setting stands out when it comes to expressive play. It is discussed how particular attributes in the physical environment influence the overall play flow and the interactive effects of natural material and digital material. Ecologically, the forest and the forest with digitally enhanced artefacts were more diverse than the traditional playground, but the natural material present was important for play in all settings.

AI-empowered and algorithm-driven automated financial advisory systems, also known as Robo-advisors, have been rapidly implemented by service providers and customers in financial service markets. Yet, few empirical studies investigate customers’ experience interacting with fully functional Robo-advisors in real-life scenarios. Also, it is still unknown how the design of the automated system can affect customers’ perception and adoption of this new technology. To mitigate these gaps, 24 participants with different levels of experience and understanding of financial investment were asked to use a Robo-advisor from a retail bank and perform the tasks. By conducting observations and retrospective post-test interviews, we find that participants do not fully perceive the social aspects supposed to be provided by Robo-advisors. The overarching problems are, among others, a lack of transparency and incomprehensible information. This results in distrust of the results generated by this system, which negatively affects customers’ adoption of the investment advice provided by the Robo-advisor. The potential of interactive data visualization is also detected. This work contributes to the understanding of customers regarding their perception and adoption based on their use of a functional Robo-advisor and proposes design takeaways for transparent and comprehensible automated advisory systems in financial service contexts.

In this paper we present a study on the effects of auditory- and haptic feedback in a virtual throwing task performed with a point-based haptic device. The main research objective was to investigate if and how task performance and perceived intuitiveness is affected when interactive sonification and/or haptic feedback is used to provide real-time feedback about a movement performed in a 3D virtual environment. Emphasis was put on task solving efficiency and subjective accounts of participants’ experiences of the multimodal interaction in different conditions. The experiment used a within-subjects design in which the participants solved the same task in different conditions: visual-only, visuohaptic, audiovisual and audiovisuohaptic. Two different sound models were implemented and compared. Significantly lower error rates were obtained in the audiovisuohaptic condition involving movement sonification based on a physical model of friction, compared to the visual-only condition. Moreover, a significant increase in perceived intuitiveness was observed for most conditions involving haptic and/or auditory feedback, compared to the visual-only condition. The main finding of this study is that multimodal feedback can not only improve perceived intuitiveness of an interface but that certain combinations of haptic feedback and movement sonification can also contribute with performance-enhancing properties. This highlights the importance of carefully designing feedback combinations for interactive applications.

Outdoor play is becoming an increasingly marginalised activity in the urban landscape. Even in HCI, research on interactive solutions for outdoor play has largely been limited to special areas and in particular playgrounds. But children play everywhere, and especially play close to home is central in children's play activities. In this article we draw upon knowledge about designing for children's play in interaction design as well as in landscape architecture, to study how interactive play installations can be integrated in outdoor environments of a residential area. We present a field study in which digitally enhanced play installations were installed, in dialogue with the landscape, in between the buildings of a residential area. We focus on how emerging play activities made use of the installations as well as of the surrounding landscape in expected as well as unexpected ways. Based on the observations, we discuss how residential play is special, and how this affects how to design for it.

This paper presents findings from an exploratory study on the effect of auditory feedback on gaze behavior. A total of 20 participants took part in an experiment where the task was to throw a virtual ball into a goal in different conditions: visual only, audiovisual, visuohaptic and audio- visuohaptic. Two different sound models were compared in the audio conditions. Analysis of eye tracking metrics indicated large inter-subject variability; difference between subjects was greater than difference between feedback conditions. No significant effect of condition could be observed, but clusters of similar behaviors were identified. Some of the participants’ gaze behaviors appeared to have been affected by the presence of auditory feedback, but the effect of sound model was not consistent across subjects. We discuss individual behaviors and illustrate gaze behavior through sonification of gaze trajectories. Findings from this study raise intriguing questions that motivate future large-scale studies on the effect of auditory feedback on gaze behavior. 

Children's outdoor play is fluent and fluctuating, shaped by environmental features and conditions. The article reports on a project where interaction designers and landscape architects work together to develop solutions for integrating interactive play in outdoor environments. Here we report on a schoolyard trial, where interactive play technology was installed as an integral part of the schoolyard environment, and discuss the interplay between technology and the environment. We highlight in particular how the interactive technology contributed to the versatility of play activities, but also how the nature setting and the availability of natural materials contributed to the play activities around the interactive artefacts. 

Children's outdoor play is fluent and fluctuating, shaped by environmental features and conditions. The article reports on a project where interaction designers and landscape architects work together to fuse their knowledge into working solutions for integrating interactive play in outdoor environments. We report on a schoolyard trial, where interactive play technology was installed as an integral part of a schoolyard environment, and discuss the interplay between technology and the environment that was partly natural forest and partly constructed playground. We highlight in particular the importance of the adaptability of the natural environment, how the combination of interactive technology and natural environment can contribute to the versatility of play activities, and how the interactive technology can both be useful for presenting invitations to play in such adaptable places, and enhance the adaptability for play in otherwise impoverished places.

The DigiFys project explores the design of interactive landscapes for children's outdoor play. The project combines landscape architecture with design of interactive technology, working towards designs that support children in their everyday play activity, close to home. In the creative lab session, we want to co-design the play landscape together with local children. The focus is on acquiring a perspective on similarities and differences between the children's play culture in Sweden where the project originates, and Malaysia.

Spatial haptic interfaces have been around for 20 years. Yet, few affordable devices have been produced, and the design space in terms of physical workspace and haptic fidelity of devices that have been produced are limited and discrete. In this paper, an open-source, open-hardware module-based kit is presented that allows an interaction designer with little electro-mechanical experience to manufacture and assemble a fully working spatial haptic interface. It also allows for modification in shape and size as well as tuning of parameters to fit a particular task or application. Results from an evaluation showed that the haptic quality of the WoodenHaptics device was on par with a Phantom Desktop and that a novice could assemble it with guidance in a normal office space. This open source starting kit, uploaded free-to-download online, affords sketching in hardware; it “unsticks” the hardware from being a highly-specialized and esoteric craft to being an accessible and user-friendly technology, while maintaining the feel of high-fidelity haptics.

The purpose of the study was to investigate which supervisory approach afforded the most efficient learning method for undergraduate students in oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMS) using a computerised third molar surgery simulator. Fifth year dental students participated voluntarily in a randomised experimental study using the simulator. The amount of time required and the number of trials used by each student were evaluated as a measure of skills development. Students had the opportunity to practise the procedure until no further visible improvements were achieved. The study assessed four different types of supervision to guide the students. The first group was where they were supported by a teacher/specialist in OMS, the second by a teaching assistant, the third group practised without any supervision and the fourth received help from a simulator technician/engineer. A protocol describing assessment criteria was designed for this purpose, and a questionnaire was completed by all participating students after the study. The average number of attempts required to virtually remove a third molar tooth in the simulator was 1.44 times for the group supervised by an OMS teacher; 1.5 times for those supervised by a teaching assistant; 2.8 times for those who had no supervision; and 3.6 times when support was provided only by a simulator technician. The results showed that the most efficient experience of the students was when they were helped by an OMS teacher or a teaching assistant. In a time and cost-effective perspective, supervision by a teaching assistant for a third molar surgery simulator would be the optimal choice.