Background: Spending time in natural environments is beneficial for human health, but many older adults have limited or no access to natural environments. Virtual reality technology may be a means to facilitate nature experiences, and so, there is a need for knowledge on how to design virtual restorative natural environments for older adults. Objective: The aim of this study was to identify, implement, and test older adults’ preferences and ideas regarding virtual natural environments. Methods: A total of 14 older adults (mean age 75, SD 5.9 years) participated in an iterative process to design such an environment. We used think-aloud protocols and qualitative content analysis and established questionnaires that targeted usability, affective aspects, and side effects. These data guided the design decisions for incremental implementations of a prototype. Results: The participants’ preferences included trueness to reality in terms of rendition and behavior; traces of human activity and natural processes that trigger the imagination and provide believability; the ability to roam, explore, and interact with the environment; and a familiar, relatable environment that evokes memories. The iterative design process resulted in a prototype featuring many of the participants’ ideas and preferences, including a seated locomotion technique, animals, a boat ride, the discovery of a boat wreck, and apple picking. The questionnaire results indicated high perceived usability, interest, and enjoyment; low pressure and tension; moderate value and usefulness; and negligible side effects. Conclusions: We suggested 3 principles for virtual natural environments for older adults: realness, interactivity, and relatedness. Virtual natural environments should also provide a diversity of content and activities to accommodate the heterogeneity in older adults’ preferences. These results can contribute to a framework for designing virtual natural environments for older adults. However, these findings need to be tested and potentially revised in future studies.

Single-cell RNAseq is a routinely used technique to explore the composition of cell populations, and they are often visualised using dimension reduction methods where the cells are represented in two or three dimensional space. Many tools are available to do this but visualising and cross-comparing these representations can be challenging, especially when cells are projected onto three dimensions which can be more informative for complex datasets. Here we present CellexalVR ( www.cellexalvr.med.lu.se ), a feature-rich, fully interactive virtual reality environment for the visualisation and analysis of single-cell experiments that allows researchers to intuitively and collaboratively gain an understanding of their data.

Background: Cancer rehabilitation is central for helping patients and relatives create a functional everyday life based on the changes in life conditions. The needs are highly individual and include physical, mental, and social challenges. Cancer rehabilitation programs offer coping strategies, including guidelines on how to handle emotions. Objective: This paper presents a participatory design activity where patients in cancer rehabilitation use a virtual smash room, which is a virtual environment where the user can break things, mainly porcelain or glass items such as vases or plates. The objective is to understand attitudes to, and some effects of, using this application, as well as eliciting ideas of other virtual environments that would be desired. Methods: The virtual environment presented here, the virtual smash room, was designed at the request of a patient with cancer who wanted a tool for venting frustration. In this virtual environment, the user can break porcelain, vases, and plates. Patients participating in a week-long cancer rehabilitation program tested the virtual smash room and reported their experiences through a questionnaire. The questionnaire comprised three sections: (1) a subset of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI), (2) a subset of the Virtual Reality Symptoms Questionnaire (VRSQ), and (3) a free-text response section. Results: A total of 101 responses were gathered. The results from the IMI questions showed that the participants found the virtual experience enjoyable (mean 4.52, maximum 5, SD 0.73), and it helped them retain their focus (mean 4.44, maximum 5, SD 0.74). The VRSQ revealed that there were only minor symptoms related to general discomfort (5.9%, n=6), fatigue (5.9%, n=6), nausea (3.0%, n=3), and tired eyes (8.9%, n=9), while several participants experienced dizziness (22.8%, n=23). Since only postmeasurements were gathered, nothing could be concluded about the prevalence of these symptoms before testing. The free-text responses indicated that the user group had many ideas for other virtual environments to use in cancer rehabilitation. Conclusions: This study presents a concept of using virtual reality in the cancer rehabilitation process and exemplifies activities of patient participation in the design process. Virtual reality has potential in being both distracting and enjoyable, while certain aspects of cybersickness might be especially important to consider for a user group already experiencing physical and mental issues. The results will act as input in the process of further designing virtual applications in digitally reinforced cancer rehabilitation.

This paper presents a suggested methodology based on virtual reality (VR) technology that enables people with cognitive disabilities to communicate their knowledge and experiences of public transport systems. The users interacted with the VR system b