CAREER: Learning from Interfaces for Simulation Environments to Design Wearable Technologies and Mixed-Reality Testbeds for Disaster Response Teams

该项目的目标是通过设计可穿戴技术来满足灾害响应团队的信息需求，为他们提供支持，尤其是城市搜索和救援。用于灾难响应的可穿戴设备很有前景，因为响应者的手通常很忙，他们的意识必须在周围而不是屏幕上，这使得使用智能手机、平板电脑或电脑等普通计算设备变得困难。现有的一些可穿戴技术原型可能会有所帮助：平视显示器可以在显示物理世界的同时显示数据；音频耳机可以实现与队友和电脑的通信；臂章可以提供基于触摸的反馈，并允许手势进行交流和控制；传感器可以检测位置、运动以及人的身体和精神状态。然而，可用的可穿戴系统和构建它们的设计指导通常是稀缺的，在灾难响应的背景下更是稀缺。提出的工作背后的关键见解是，训练模拟和电脑游戏的界面大量使用平视显示器和专门的控制器；此外，这些通常具有真实灾难响应场景的元素。该项目将研究这些接口的特性和有效性，以生成可穿戴计算系统的设计指南。项目团队将与德克萨斯州第一任务小组密切合作，创建定制的可穿戴系统，以支持他们的任务，以及专门构建的混合现实训练模拟，将虚拟模拟与物理世界环境相结合。该团队将与灾难响应合作伙伴验证这些模拟，并使用它们来测试和改进可穿戴技术和团队创建的设计指南。这项工作本身和从中吸取的经验教训都将用于改善首席研究员所在机构有关设计混合现实技术和人机交互（HCI）的课程；领导和他的机构也致力于扩大计算机教育和计算机研究的参与。这项工作将从深入研究救灾队伍的培训实践和需求开始。该团队将与其现有的工作组合作伙伴密切合作，利用对其现有培训实践的民族志观察和对工作组领导人的采访，开发工作组培训需求模型和可穿戴系统的设计考虑因素，以支持他们。这些资料将分发给灾害反应小组和人道主义社会。与此同时，该团队将从现有的训练模拟和电脑游戏中提取最佳设计实践，重点关注那些与灾难响应场景和需求相一致的设计实践。团队成员将分析这些系统使用的交互技术和机制——它们如何通过辅助显示提供态势感知，管理大量单元和功能的界面控制，以及多个参与者的通信设施——以及人们对它们的偏好和使用能力。这将导致现有接口的设计目录和设计可穿戴和混合现实接口的最佳实践，以及通过研究工作组确定的需求，将为可穿戴接口的设计和灾难响应环境的测试平台训练模拟提供信息。这些设计活动将包括与工作组合作伙伴的定期沟通，以获得在实际情况下使用界面的反馈，帮助将技术和模拟设计与实际灾害响应需求结合起来。最后，团队将通过一系列小规模部署和实验来评估接口和开发的测试平台，查看它们如何支持态势感知、效率和通信，以及它们对压力和工作量的影响。大部分工作将用于支助课程和外联活动；这些包括基于HCI课程的工作开发案例和项目，以及利用设计的技术来改进混合现实课程。这些资金还将用于支持与当地社区大学的混合现实界面开发外展活动，让来自代表性不足群体的学生参与研究并使用先进的计算技术。

This project's goal is to support disaster response teams -- particularly urban search and rescue -- by designing wearable technologies that meet their information needs. Wearables for disaster response are promising because responders' hands are often busy and their awareness must be on their surroundings rather than a screen, making it hard to use common computing devices like smartphones, tablets, or computers. A number of prototype wearable technologies exist that might help: head-up displays can show data alongside the physical world; audio headsets can enable communication with both teammates and computers; armbands can provide touch-based feedback and allow gestures for communication and control; sensors can detect location, motion, and aspects of people's physical and mental state. However, usable wearable systems and design guidance for building them is scarce in general and even scarcer in the context of disaster response. The key insight behind the proposed work is that interfaces for training simulations and computer games make heavy use of head-up displays and specialized controllers; further, these often share elements of real disaster response scenarios. This project will study the features and effectiveness of these interfaces to generate design guidelines for wearable computing systems. Working closely with the Texas Task Force One response team, the project team will create custom-built wearable systems to support their mission as well as purpose-built mixed reality training simulations that combine virtual simulation with physical-world settings. The team will validate those simulations with the disaster response partners and use them to test and improve both the wearable technologies and the design guidelines the team creates. Both the work itself and the lessons learned will be used to improve classes at the lead investigator's institution around designing mixed reality technologies and human-computer interaction (HCI); the lead, and his institution, are also committed to broadening participation in computing education and computing research.The work will start with a deep study of training practices and needs for disaster response teams. The team will closely collaborate with its existing task force partners, using ethnographic observation of their existing training practices and interviews with task force leaders to develop models of task force training requirements and design considerations for wearable systems to support them. These will be disseminated both to disaster response teams and the HCI community. In parallel, the team will extract design best practices from existing training simulations and computer games, focusing on those that align with disaster response scenarios and needs. Team members will analyze the interaction techniques and mechanics these systems use -- how they provide situation awareness through ancillary displays, interface controls for managing large numbers of units and functions, and communication facilities for multiple participants -- along with people's preferences for and ability to use them. This will lead to a design catalog of existing interfaces and best practices for designing wearable and mixed reality interfaces that, along with the requirements identified through studying the task force, will inform the design of both wearable interfaces and testbed training simulations for disaster response contexts. These design activities will involve regular communication with task force partners to get feedback on using the interfaces in real situations, helping to align both the technology and simulation designs with real disaster response needs. Finally, the team will evaluate both the interfaces and the developed testbeds through a number of small-scale deployments and experiments, looking at how they support situation awareness, efficiency, and communication, as well as their effect on stress and workload. Much of the work will be used to support both courses and outreach activities; these include developing cases and projects based on the work for an HCI class as well as leveraging the designed technologies to improve a course on mixed reality. These will also be used to support a mixed reality interface development outreach activity with the local community college to expose students from underrepresented groups to both research and to work with advanced computing technology.