Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion, Jul 15, 2017
In this paper we propose an interactive genetic algorithm to evolve maze levels for computer game... more In this paper we propose an interactive genetic algorithm to evolve maze levels for computer games. We represent a maze with a cellular automaton and the genetic algorithm evolves the cellular automata rules applied to a starting maze level state. Users then rate the fitness of a subset of the generated population using an image of the top-down view of the maze. After ten generations, users then play through the best evolved maze within a maze runner type game using a first person perspective. User ratings show that our IGA was able to evolve highly rated mazes.
Teleportation is a popular locomotion technique that lets users safely navigate beyond the confin... more Teleportation is a popular locomotion technique that lets users safely navigate beyond the confines of available positional tracking space without inducing VR sickness. Because available walking space is limited and teleportation is faster than walking, a risk with using teleportation is that users might end up abandoning walking input and only relying on teleportation, which is considered detrimental to presence. We present redirected teleportation; an improved version of teleportation that uses iterative non-obtrusive reorientation and repositioning using a portal to redirect the user back to the center of the tracking space, where available walking space is larger. A user study compares the effectiveness, accuracy, and usability of redirected teleportation with regular teleportation using a navigation task in three different environments. Results show that redirected teleportation allows for a better utilization of available tracking space than regular teleportation, as it requires significantly fewer teleportations, while users walk more and use a larger portion of the available tracking space.
Virtual Reality (VR) has come a long way since its inception and with the recent advancements in ... more Virtual Reality (VR) has come a long way since its inception and with the recent advancements in technology, high end VR headsets are now commercially available. Although these headsets offer full motion tracking capabilities, locomotion in VR is yet to be fully solved due to space constraints, potential VR sickness and problems with retaining immersion. Teleportation is the most popular locomotion technique in VR as it allows users to safely navigate beyond the confines of the available positional tracking space without inducing VR sickness. It has been argued that the use of teleportation doesn't facilitate the use of natural walking input which is considered to have a higher presence because teleportation is faster, requires little physical effort and uses limited available tracking space. When a user walks to the edge of the tracking space, he/she must switch to teleportation. When navigating in the same direction, available walking space does not increase, which forces users to remain stationary and continue using teleportation. We present redirected teleportation, a novel locomotion method that increases tracking space usage and natural walking input by subtle reorientation and repositioning of the user. We first analyzed the positional tendencies of the users as they played popular games implementing teleportation and found the utilization of the tracking space to be limited. We then compared redirected teleportation with regular teleportation using a navigation task in three different environments. Analysis of our data show that although redirected walking takes more time, users used significantly fewer teleports and more natural walking input while using more of the available tracking space. The increase in time is largely due to users walking more, which takes more time than using teleportation. Our results provide evidence that redirected teleportation may be a viable approach to increase the usage of natural walking input while decreasing the dependency on teleportation.
Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion
In this paper we propose an interactive genetic algorithm to evolve maze levels for computer game... more In this paper we propose an interactive genetic algorithm to evolve maze levels for computer games. We represent a maze with a cellular automaton and the genetic algorithm evolves the cellular automata rules applied to a starting maze level state. Users then rate the fitness of a subset of the generated population using an image of the top-down view of the maze. After ten generations, users then play through the best evolved maze within a maze runner type game using a first person perspective. User ratings show that our IGA was able to evolve highly rated mazes.
Virtual Reality (VR) has come a long way since its inception and with the recent advancements in ... more Virtual Reality (VR) has come a long way since its inception and with the recent advancements in technology, high end VR headsets are now commercially available. Although these headsets offer full motion tracking capabilities, locomotion in VR is yet to be fully solved due to space constraints, potential VR sickness and problems with retaining immersion. Teleportation is the most popular locomotion technique in VR as it allows users to safely navigate beyond the confines of the available positional tracking space without inducing VR sickness. It has been argued that the use of teleportation doesn't facilitate the use of natural walking input which is considered to have a higher presence because teleportation is faster, requires little physical effort and uses limited available tracking space. When a user walks to the edge of the tracking space, he/she must switch to teleportation. When navigating in the same direction, available walking space does not increase, which forces users to remain stationary and continue using teleportation. We present redirected teleportation, a novel locomotion method that increases tracking space usage and natural walking input by subtle reorientation and repositioning of the user. We first analyzed the positional tendencies of the users as they played popular games implementing teleportation and found the utilization of the tracking space to be limited. We then compared redirected teleportation with regular teleportation using a navigation task in three different environments. Analysis of our data show that although redirected walking takes more time, users used significantly fewer teleports and more natural walking input while using more of the available tracking space. The increase in time is largely due to users walking more, which takes more time than using teleportation. Our results provide evidence that redirected teleportation may be a viable approach to increase the usage of natural walking input while decreasing the dependency on teleportation.
We evaluated user performance and user experience with two novel input methods for mobile devices... more We evaluated user performance and user experience with two novel input methods for mobile devices: Minuum and MessagEase. Subjects used a Qwerty keyboard to give a performance baseline. We compared input speeds, error rates, and keystroke counts among all three inputs to understand what factors discourage continued use or widespread adoption of new keyboard formats. It was found that MessagEase performed poorly upon initial exposure in terms of speed and error rate at 1482 mSec per character and 35.75% errors per line. Being 82.8% slower and 81.1% more error prone than Qwerty, there was a strong correlation between negative opinions of MessagEase and user performance. For Minuum, the performance gap was less significant at 32.1% slower speeds and 50.9% greater error rate. Accordingly Minuum was correlated with a better overall user experience compared to MessagEase. keywords: Soft Controls; Empirical Study; HCI; Mobile User Experience; Mobile Keyboards; Touchscreen
Proceedings of the 31st Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, 2018
Teleportation is a popular locomotion technique that lets users safely navigate beyond the confin... more Teleportation is a popular locomotion technique that lets users safely navigate beyond the confines of available positional tracking space without inducing VR sickness. Because available walking space is limited and teleportation is faster than walking, a risk with using teleportation is that users might end up abandoning walking input and only relying on teleportation, which is considered detrimental to presence. We present redirected teleportation; an improved version of teleportation that uses iterative non-obtrusive reorientation and repositioning using a portal to redirect the user back to the center of the tracking space, where available walking space is larger. A user study compares the effectiveness, accuracy, and usability of redirected teleportation with regular teleportation using a navigation task in three different environments. Results show that redirected teleportation allows for a better utilization of available tracking space than regular teleportation, as it requires significantly fewer teleportations, while users walk more and use a larger portion of the available tracking space.
Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion, Jul 15, 2017
In this paper we propose an interactive genetic algorithm to evolve maze levels for computer game... more In this paper we propose an interactive genetic algorithm to evolve maze levels for computer games. We represent a maze with a cellular automaton and the genetic algorithm evolves the cellular automata rules applied to a starting maze level state. Users then rate the fitness of a subset of the generated population using an image of the top-down view of the maze. After ten generations, users then play through the best evolved maze within a maze runner type game using a first person perspective. User ratings show that our IGA was able to evolve highly rated mazes.
Teleportation is a popular locomotion technique that lets users safely navigate beyond the confin... more Teleportation is a popular locomotion technique that lets users safely navigate beyond the confines of available positional tracking space without inducing VR sickness. Because available walking space is limited and teleportation is faster than walking, a risk with using teleportation is that users might end up abandoning walking input and only relying on teleportation, which is considered detrimental to presence. We present redirected teleportation; an improved version of teleportation that uses iterative non-obtrusive reorientation and repositioning using a portal to redirect the user back to the center of the tracking space, where available walking space is larger. A user study compares the effectiveness, accuracy, and usability of redirected teleportation with regular teleportation using a navigation task in three different environments. Results show that redirected teleportation allows for a better utilization of available tracking space than regular teleportation, as it requires significantly fewer teleportations, while users walk more and use a larger portion of the available tracking space.
Virtual Reality (VR) has come a long way since its inception and with the recent advancements in ... more Virtual Reality (VR) has come a long way since its inception and with the recent advancements in technology, high end VR headsets are now commercially available. Although these headsets offer full motion tracking capabilities, locomotion in VR is yet to be fully solved due to space constraints, potential VR sickness and problems with retaining immersion. Teleportation is the most popular locomotion technique in VR as it allows users to safely navigate beyond the confines of the available positional tracking space without inducing VR sickness. It has been argued that the use of teleportation doesn't facilitate the use of natural walking input which is considered to have a higher presence because teleportation is faster, requires little physical effort and uses limited available tracking space. When a user walks to the edge of the tracking space, he/she must switch to teleportation. When navigating in the same direction, available walking space does not increase, which forces users to remain stationary and continue using teleportation. We present redirected teleportation, a novel locomotion method that increases tracking space usage and natural walking input by subtle reorientation and repositioning of the user. We first analyzed the positional tendencies of the users as they played popular games implementing teleportation and found the utilization of the tracking space to be limited. We then compared redirected teleportation with regular teleportation using a navigation task in three different environments. Analysis of our data show that although redirected walking takes more time, users used significantly fewer teleports and more natural walking input while using more of the available tracking space. The increase in time is largely due to users walking more, which takes more time than using teleportation. Our results provide evidence that redirected teleportation may be a viable approach to increase the usage of natural walking input while decreasing the dependency on teleportation.
Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion
In this paper we propose an interactive genetic algorithm to evolve maze levels for computer game... more In this paper we propose an interactive genetic algorithm to evolve maze levels for computer games. We represent a maze with a cellular automaton and the genetic algorithm evolves the cellular automata rules applied to a starting maze level state. Users then rate the fitness of a subset of the generated population using an image of the top-down view of the maze. After ten generations, users then play through the best evolved maze within a maze runner type game using a first person perspective. User ratings show that our IGA was able to evolve highly rated mazes.
Virtual Reality (VR) has come a long way since its inception and with the recent advancements in ... more Virtual Reality (VR) has come a long way since its inception and with the recent advancements in technology, high end VR headsets are now commercially available. Although these headsets offer full motion tracking capabilities, locomotion in VR is yet to be fully solved due to space constraints, potential VR sickness and problems with retaining immersion. Teleportation is the most popular locomotion technique in VR as it allows users to safely navigate beyond the confines of the available positional tracking space without inducing VR sickness. It has been argued that the use of teleportation doesn't facilitate the use of natural walking input which is considered to have a higher presence because teleportation is faster, requires little physical effort and uses limited available tracking space. When a user walks to the edge of the tracking space, he/she must switch to teleportation. When navigating in the same direction, available walking space does not increase, which forces users to remain stationary and continue using teleportation. We present redirected teleportation, a novel locomotion method that increases tracking space usage and natural walking input by subtle reorientation and repositioning of the user. We first analyzed the positional tendencies of the users as they played popular games implementing teleportation and found the utilization of the tracking space to be limited. We then compared redirected teleportation with regular teleportation using a navigation task in three different environments. Analysis of our data show that although redirected walking takes more time, users used significantly fewer teleports and more natural walking input while using more of the available tracking space. The increase in time is largely due to users walking more, which takes more time than using teleportation. Our results provide evidence that redirected teleportation may be a viable approach to increase the usage of natural walking input while decreasing the dependency on teleportation.
We evaluated user performance and user experience with two novel input methods for mobile devices... more We evaluated user performance and user experience with two novel input methods for mobile devices: Minuum and MessagEase. Subjects used a Qwerty keyboard to give a performance baseline. We compared input speeds, error rates, and keystroke counts among all three inputs to understand what factors discourage continued use or widespread adoption of new keyboard formats. It was found that MessagEase performed poorly upon initial exposure in terms of speed and error rate at 1482 mSec per character and 35.75% errors per line. Being 82.8% slower and 81.1% more error prone than Qwerty, there was a strong correlation between negative opinions of MessagEase and user performance. For Minuum, the performance gap was less significant at 32.1% slower speeds and 50.9% greater error rate. Accordingly Minuum was correlated with a better overall user experience compared to MessagEase. keywords: Soft Controls; Empirical Study; HCI; Mobile User Experience; Mobile Keyboards; Touchscreen
Proceedings of the 31st Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, 2018
Teleportation is a popular locomotion technique that lets users safely navigate beyond the confin... more Teleportation is a popular locomotion technique that lets users safely navigate beyond the confines of available positional tracking space without inducing VR sickness. Because available walking space is limited and teleportation is faster than walking, a risk with using teleportation is that users might end up abandoning walking input and only relying on teleportation, which is considered detrimental to presence. We present redirected teleportation; an improved version of teleportation that uses iterative non-obtrusive reorientation and repositioning using a portal to redirect the user back to the center of the tracking space, where available walking space is larger. A user study compares the effectiveness, accuracy, and usability of redirected teleportation with regular teleportation using a navigation task in three different environments. Results show that redirected teleportation allows for a better utilization of available tracking space than regular teleportation, as it requires significantly fewer teleportations, while users walk more and use a larger portion of the available tracking space.
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