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Context analysis to support development of virtual reality applications

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Abstract

To develop a usable Virtual Reality system, the prospective context of use of such a system may need to be considered in order to make sure it meets the requirements and restrictions of that context. In this paper, a contextual analysis is described for a virtual reality system to aid medical diagnosis and treatment planning of vascular disorders. Semi-structured interviews were coupled with observations in an ethnographic approach to requirements gathering in the daily work environment of (interventional) radiologists and vascular surgeons. The identified potential usability problems of a fully immersive prototype, coupled with the needs, requirements and real-life environment of the end-users lead to guidelines for the development of a VR application on a semi-immersive desktop environment. The findings lead us to believe that contextual analysis can be a powerful way to inform the design of a VR application by offering an understanding of the context of use and to inform developers of the most appropriate degree of immersiveness of the VR environment.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all of the participants in this study. We appreciate the invaluable help of those who offered their advice. We thank Maarten-Jan Cramer (Utrecht MC), Pascal Slootjes (Rode Kruis Hospital) and Dr. Geelkerken (MC Twente) for providing us with contacts and useful comments. We would also like to acknowledge Robert Belleman, Hans Ragas, Daniela Gavidia, Roman Shulakov and Denis Shamonin (Section Computational Science UvA). This research is partially sponsored by the EU CrossGrid Project IST-2001–32243 and the Token 2000 project Distributed Interactive Medical Exploratory for 3D Medical Images.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section Social Science Informatics, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 15, 1018 WB, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Henriette S. M. Cramer & V. Evers

  2. Section Computational Science, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 15, 1018 WB, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    E. V. Zudilova & P. M. A. Sloot

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  1. Henriette S. M. Cramer
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  2. V. Evers
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  3. E. V. Zudilova
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  4. P. M. A. Sloot
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Correspondence to Henriette S. M. Cramer.

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Cramer, H.S.M., Evers, V., Zudilova, E.V. et al. Context analysis to support development of virtual reality applications. Virtual Reality 7, 177–186 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10055-004-0130-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10055-004-0130-4

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