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满足他们信息需求的可穿戴技术来支持灾难应对团队--特别是城市搜救团队。灾难应对的可穿戴设备很有前景，因为响应人员的手经常很忙，他们的感知必须放在周围而不是屏幕上，这使得智能手机、平板电脑或电脑等常见计算设备很难使用。许多原型可穿戴技术可能会有所帮助：平视显示器可以在现实世界中显示数据；音频耳机可以实现与队友和计算机的沟通；臂章可以提供基于触摸的反馈，并允许手势进行沟通和控制；传感器可以检测位置、运动以及人们身体和精神状态的各个方面。然而，可用的可穿戴系统和建造这些系统的设计指南总体上很少，在灾难应对方面就更少了。这项拟议工作背后的关键见解是，训练模拟和计算机游戏的界面大量使用平视显示器和专门的控制器；此外，这些通常共享真实灾难应对场景的元素。该项目将研究这些接口的特点和有效性，以生成可穿戴计算系统的设计指南。该项目团队将与德克萨斯特遣部队一号响应团队密切合作，创建定制的可穿戴系统来支持他们的任务，以及专门构建的混合现实训练模拟，将虚拟模拟与现实世界环境相结合。该团队将与灾难应对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。这项工作本身和学到的经验教训都将被用来改进首席调查员所在机构关于设计混合现实技术和人机交互(HCI)的课程；该负责人和他的机构还致力于扩大对计算机教育和计算机研究的参与。工作将从深入研究灾难应对团队的培训实践和需求开始。该小组将与现有工作队伙伴密切合作，通过对其现有培训做法的人种学观察和与工作队领导人的访谈，制定工作队培训要求的模型，并为支持他们的可穿戴系统设计考虑因素。这些文件将分发给灾害应对小组和人机界面社区。同时，该小组将从现有的培训模拟和计算机游戏中提取设计最佳做法，重点放在那些与灾难应对情景和需求相一致的做法上。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器、用于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--以及人们对使用它们的偏好和能力来提供态势感知。这将产生现有界面的设计目录和设计可穿戴式界面和混合现实界面的最佳做法，连同通过研究工作队确定的要求，将为灾害应对背景下可穿戴式界面和试验床培训模拟的设计提供信息。这些设计活动将涉及与工作队合作伙伴的定期交流，以获得在真实情况下使用界面的反馈，帮助使技术和模拟设计与真实的灾难应对需求保持一致。最后，该团队将通过大量小规模部署和实验来评估界面和开发的试验台，看看它们如何支持情景感知、效率和通信，以及它们对压力和工作负载的影响。大部分工作将用于支持课程和外联活动；这些活动包括根据人机界面课程的工作制定案例和项目，以及利用设计的技术改进关于混合现实的课程。这些资金还将用于支持与当地社区学院开展的混合现实界面开发外联活动，让代表人数不足的群体的学生接触研究和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.