Demos

Gesture-Enabled Remote Communication and Collaboration (GECCO) is a collaborative project with the University of Twente that aims to improve remote collaborative urban planning. Based on existing work at both sides, we are developing new tools for gesture-enabled remote communication and collaboration over tabletop systems with especial emphasis on architectural design and urban planning. A key goal is to create and evaluate an easy-to-use approach that enables different stakeholders to collaborate over a distance and in real-time while working on complex urban planning projects.

Deictic expressions – such as uttering 'this tool' and pointing at a hammer – are important and frequent elements of everyday communication. They are used, for example, when conveying location and orientation information, or when identifyin gobjects. Pointing gestures exist among all known cultures, languages and ethnicities, but they depend on parties to be collocated. When communicating across distances, deictic expressions are usually lost. This demo introduces an approach for communicating deictic pointing across distances by simulating the sender hand posturein the receiver's hand using electrical muscle stimulation (EMS).

As part of the HCI team at ITI, we designed and developed ARCADIA, a Mixed-Reality platform strategically co-designed with therapists to enhance emotional regulation and self-compassion. ARCADIA comprises several gamified therapeutic activities, with a strong emphasis on fostering patient motivation. Through a dual study involving therapists and mental health patients, we also validated the fully functional prototype of ARCADIA. We observed encouraging results in terms of system usability, user engagement, and therapeutic potential. These findings led us to believe that the combination of Mixed Reality and gamified therapeutic activities could be a significant tool in the future of mental health.