ethnographic observation

This study addresses the lack of scientific reproducibility in immersive virtual geological fieldwork by proposing and evaluating a provenance management tool integrated with a digital laboratory notebook (DLB). The tool enables end-to-end traceability of virtual field workflows through multimodal annotation—capturing interactive behaviors and 3D visualization states across multiple procedural stages. A controlled user study compared its usability, usefulness, and interaction patterns between immersive (VR) and non-immersive (desktop) environments. Results demonstrate that the tool significantly enhances scientific provenance tracking and workflow reproducibility; both user groups rated it highly usable and useful, with VR users reporting marginally higher perceived ease of use—though no statistically significant differences emerged in actual interaction patterns. This work constitutes the first deep integration of DLB into immersive geoscience workflows, providing a scalable methodology and empirical evidence to support reproducibility in virtual research environments.

The exponential growth of academic literature poses dual challenges for researchers: information foraging—i.e., discovering and collecting relevant works—and sensemaking—i.e., organizing and interpreting them. While existing immersive analytical tools demonstrate cognitive advantages in the sensemaking phase, they lack systematic support for information foraging. This paper bridges that gap by integrating information foraging theory into immersive scholarly exploration for the first time. We propose a WebXR-based 3D literature network visualization system featuring multimodal interaction (gaze, gesture, and controller input), exploration guidance mechanisms, and spatial memory augmentation strategies to enable seamless transitions from discovery to structured organization. A formative evaluation with 15 researchers demonstrates significant improvements in exploration fluency, spatial cognitive efficiency, and adaptability to dynamic foraging strategies. Our work establishes a scalable methodological and technical framework for immersive scholarly analytics.

This study addresses the challenge non-programmers face in designing responsive audiovisual interactions for immersive performance. We propose a no-code authoring system built upon a visual logic layer. Methodologically, the system employs a modular architecture that integrates real-time inputs—including pose, spatial position, and speech—and maps them to lighting and sound outputs. To foster deep integration of technology and theatrical practice, we introduce three ensemble collaboration strategies: role rotation, controlled imperfection to stimulate creativity, and technical metaphor as a dramaturgical scaffold. Through six workshops involving eight professional creators, participants developed an improvised, single-audience immersive performance. Results demonstrate that the system significantly lowers the barrier to interactive theatre creation: it enables real-time adjustment during rehearsal and supports improvisational expression—all without coding. The visual logic layer proves both effective and feasible for cross-disciplinary creative practice. (149 words)

This study addresses the limitations of traditional non-interactive media in effectively conveying the embodied and contextual knowledge embedded in intangible cultural heritage, such as Hakka culinary practices. To this end, the authors designed and implemented an immersive VR game, “Hakka Kitchen,” in which users interactively prepare stuffed bitter melon under the guidance of a virtual Hakka chef. Integrating embodied cognition theory with VR game mechanics, the system replaces static content delivery with actionable, context-rich simulations. Experimental results demonstrate that, compared to watching a VR video, the interactive system significantly enhances users’ sensory engagement, imaginative involvement, positive affect, and willingness to share the experience. Furthermore, bodily memory anchors foster deeper cultural empathy toward the artisanal labor inherent in Hakka cuisine.

Expert-centered research—particularly in highly specialized domains such as immersive digital forensics—faces significant challenges, including stringent ethical review requirements, difficulties in expert recruitment, high operational costs, and confounding human factors. This paper draws on a three-year doctoral study to systematically identify and categorize unique barriers across ethical, organizational, and methodological dimensions. We propose a hybrid methodological framework integrating Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and digital forensics perspectives, comprising contextual interviews, participatory design, in-situ prototype evaluation, and reflective journaling, underpinned by a dynamically adaptive research protocol. The study yields 12 high-fidelity, empirically grounded practice guidelines, adopted by three law enforcement agencies. Additionally, an open-source protocol template reduces startup overhead for comparable studies by over 40%, substantially enhancing reproducibility and real-world impact of expert-collaborative empirical research.

This study addresses the lack of effective curatorial strategies for mixed reality (MR) exhibitions in public spaces, which often fail to meaningfully integrate digital content with physical environments to enhance audience experience. Grounded in situationalist principles, the research designed and implemented an MR art exhibition within a campus public setting, employing a mixed-methods approach that combined expert focus groups with audience user studies, behavioral observation, and experiential evaluation. The work presents the first systematic curatorial framework for MR grounded in situationalism, elucidating mechanisms for embedding MR within urban contexts and articulating core experiential design principles. It further distills transferable curatorial strategies and empirically validates the foundational role of situationalist theory in enriching public engagement with MR experiences.

This study addresses the lack of systematic understanding regarding the types and motivations of visual representations in qualitative research. Building upon and extending Verdinelli & Scagnoli’s (2013) work through a data-driven literature review, it conducts a content analysis of articles and their visualizations published between 2020 and 2022 in three leading qualitative methods journals. Integrating epistemological stance classification with visualization-type coding, the study innovatively combines correspondence analysis and cognitive network analysis for the first time. Findings indicate that while visualizations remain underutilized in qualitative research, their typological diversity is increasing, and the choice of graphical representation appears largely independent of the authors’ epistemological positions. These results offer both empirical grounding and methodological innovation for integrating interdisciplinary visualization tools into qualitative inquiry.

This study addresses the imbalance and discontinuity in family co-design processes, which often constrain collective imagination around sustainability. It proposes a “dramatized co-design” framework that integrates applied drama and mixed reality technologies to facilitate three workshops wherein families engage in role-playing, collaborative storytelling, and tangible making. This approach reconfigures parent-child interactions—such as playful status shifts—and dynamically extends these relational dynamics into a mixed reality installation featured in a national touring exhibition. By bridging intimate co-creation with public display, the method fosters more equitable collaboration among family members and expands the social dimensions of participatory design, particularly concerning roles, rhythms, and authority.

This study addresses the limitations of existing human-computer interaction (HCI) research, which predominantly emphasizes task-oriented reflection and struggles to accommodate open-ended, ineffable creative experiences. Integrating interdisciplinary perspectives from HCI, cognitive science, art, and artificial intelligence, this work systematically investigates reflective mechanisms in creative interaction through expert workshops, reflective modeling, and taxonomy development. It specifically tackles how to capture reflection within creative contexts, leverage artistic practices to stimulate ethical reflection, and design creative AI systems that foster critical thinking. The project yields the first reflection framework tailored to creative experience, accompanied by an initial taxonomy, thereby establishing a theoretical foundation for future research and tool development and advancing the integration of creative AI with reflective design.

This study investigates how immersive technologies can effectively foster the knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) essential for team collaboration—such as communication, coordination, trust, and reflection. To this end, we designed and evaluated a colocated, tablet-based virtual reality team training system that innovatively integrates a narrative-driven asymmetric interaction mechanism with a theoretical framework of team KSAs. The design leverages spatial separation, tool asymmetry, and task interdependence to elicit verbal coordination. Task scenarios were modeled through interviews with human resources experts to ensure ecological validity. An experiment with 16 participants demonstrated that users dynamically employed verbal communication, role negotiation, and shared representations to effectively exhibit core team KSAs, thereby validating the feasibility and efficacy of the proposed paradigm.