Deliverable 4.1 ARETE Use Scenarios

D4.1 is the first deliverable of WP4 – User-centred Interactive Design. It consists of an introduction (Section 1) and a conclusion (Section 4), which sandwich two major sections reporting on the work that WP4 has conducted in the period of Month 1 to 14.

Section 2 presents the empirical tasks of WP4, utilizing a range of established Human-centred Design (HcD) concepts and methods, which are briefly described in Section 2.1. In Section 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4, we describe the processes and outcomes of co-designing digital artefacts of Pilot 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Specifically, given the lack of access to end-users, the HCI team have assumed the role of proxy users and applied usability heuristics to evaluate the interaction design of mock-ups and prototypes, thereby providing feedback and improvement suggestions.

Section 3 presents the analytical tasks undertaken in WP4, namely a systematic literature review (SLR) on research studies pertaining to AR educational tools (ARETs) with a focus set on usability and user experience (UX) (Section 3.1). The range of publication year is 2000- 2020. With the search string comprising the key terms - augmented reality, education, learning, design, evaluation and school – 714 records have been returned by the four databases (Section 3.2). After a series of screening/filtering steps, the final batch of 48 articles have been analysed and synthesized (Section 3.3 – 3.5). Examples of intriguing findings include (Section 3.5 - 3.6): (i) the application domains of the ARETs reviewed were largely STEM; (ii) only one study involved parents at home, who were untrained to provide support, resulting in frustration in all parties involved; (iii) the majority of the studies deployed markers despite the increasing sophistication of the markerless technology, which remains costly; (iv) the collaborative learning mode for the ARETs was predominant, but the empirical evidence of its effects as compared to the individual mode was lacking; (v) the number of attempts on applying AR to support children with special needs to learn remained disappointingly low. Implications of these and other insights for ARETE use scenarios have been drawn (Section 3.7).

Overall, despite the negative impacts of the pandemic, thanks to the ongoing close collaborations among the partners, WP4 achieved its main goal in the first project year, albeit regrettably not to its full extent.