From carrying grocery bags to holding onto handles on the bus, there are a variety of situations where one or both hands are busy, hindering the vision of ubiquitous interaction with technology. Voice commands, as a popular hands-free alternative, struggle with ambient noise and privacy issues. As an alternative approach, research explored movements of various body parts (e.g., head, arms) as input modalities, with foot-based techniques proving particularly suitable for hands-free interaction. Whereas previous research only considered the movement of the foot as a whole, in this work, we argue that our toes offer further degrees of freedom that can be leveraged for interaction. To explore the viability of toe-based interaction, we contribute the results of a controlled experiment with 18 participants assessing the impact of five factors on the accuracy, efficiency and user experience of such interfaces. Based on the findings, we provide design recommendations for future toe-based interfaces.

Mid-air gestures, widely used in today’s Augmented Reality (AR) applications, are prone to the “gorilla arm” effect, leading to discomfort with prolonged interactions. While prior work has proposed metrics to quantify this effect and means to improve comfort and ergonomics, these works usually only consider simplistic, one-dimensional AR interactions, like reaching for a point or pushing a button. However, interacting with AR environments also involves far more complex tasks, such as rotational knobs, potentially impacting ergonomics. This paper advances the understanding of the ergonomics of rotational mid-air interactions in AR. For this, we contribute the results of a controlled experiment exposing the participants to a rotational task in the interaction space defined by their arms’ reach. Based on the results, we discuss how novel future mid-air gesture modalities benefit from our findings concerning ergonomic-aware rotational interaction.

Advancements in haptics for Virtual Reality (VR) increased the quality of immersive content. Particularly, recent efforts to provide realistic temperature sensations have gained traction, but most often require very specialized or large complex devices to create precise thermal actuations. However, being largely detached from the real world, such a precise correspondence between the physical location of thermal stimuli and the shown visuals in VR might not be necessary for an authentic experience. In this work, we contribute the findings of a controlled experiment with 20 participants, investigating the spatial localization accuracy of thermal stimuli while having matching and non-matching visual cues of a virtual heat source in VR. Although participants were highly confident in their localization decisions, their ability to accurately pinpoint thermal stimuli was notably deficient.

Thermal feedback has been studied for navigation purposes with directional cues and a variety of other use cases. Yet, to date, systems providing thermal feedback were primarily designed for the upper body, targeting hands and arms in particular. As these parts are often occupied with other tasks, there is a need to extend the design space of thermal feedback to other body parts. To close this gap, we assess thermal feedback on the user’s feet. This research explores if creating stimuli representing any direction on a circle with only four actuators is possible. To evaluate this concept, we conducted a user study asking the participants to indicate the perceived direction after getting a hot or cold stimulus by direct actuation using one actuator or phantom actuation using two actuators. The results indicate that the detection accuracy was higher for cold signals. In addition, the results showed higher recognition for stimuli linked to actuator distribution than phantom sensation due to spatial summation.

Zusammenfassung: Hintergrund: Für Deutschland sind kaum Daten zur Implementierung schulischer Tabakkontrolle bekannt, die sowohl die Perspektive von Lehrer- als auch von Schüler*innen einbeziehen. Ziel der Studie ist es, den Zusammenhang zwischen implementierter schulischer Tabakkontrollpolitik und der wahrgenommenen Raucherprävalenz auf den Ebenen des Schulpersonals und der Jugendlichen zu untersuchen. Methoden: Die wiederholte Querschnittsstudie (2013 und 2017) basiert auf gepoolten Angaben von 13- bis 17-jährigen Jugendlichen (N = 2393) und Schulpersonal (N = 85) aus 25 Schulen in der westdeutschen Metropolregion Hannover. In linearen Regressionsmodellen werden durchschnittlich marginale Effekte (AMEs) mit 95 %-Konfidenzintervallen (KI95 %) und robuste Standardfehler für die wahrgenommenen Tabakprävalenzen getrennt für die von Lehrer- und Schüler*innen bewertete schulische Tabakkontrollpolitik (Skala 0–6) unter Kontrolle soziodemografischer, schul- und rauchspezifischer Variablen berichtet. Ergebnisse: Die Jugendlichen nehmen durchschnittlich eine Raucherprävalenz von 30 % ( $$\overline{x}=30,2$$x ‾ = 30,2 ; s: 24,0) für ihre Schule wahr. Eine strikte schulische Tabakkontrolle ist konsistent mit einer geringeren schulischen Raucherprävalenz assoziiert, sowohl aus Sicht von Lehrer- (AME: −3,54 KI95 % −6,49 bis −0,58) als auch der Schüler*innen (AME: −1,69 KI95 % −2,52 bis −0,86). Die Anzahl rauchender Freunde (z. B. „die meisten“ +14 %: AME: 14,13 KI95 % 10,46–17,80) und der Schultyp sind die relevantesten Determinanten für eine hohe schulische Raucherprävalenz. Nichtgymnasiale Schulformen berichten eine 15 % (AME: 15,03 KI95 % 10,13–19,93) höhere Raucherprävalenz im Vergleich zu Gymnasien. Diskussion: Progressive schulische Tabakkontrollpolitiken sollten den Fokus auf nichtgymnasiale Schulformen, Risikogruppen und jene Schulen legen, die Tabakkontrolle nicht strikt durchsetzen.