Elisângela Brito Pessoa Vilar

• Ph.D in Ergonomics and Human Factors
• Researcher at Faculty of Architecture - University of Lisbon

Disorientation has many costs. It may lead to physical fatigue, stress, and frustration and can also jeopardize people's safety. Designing wayfinding aids to fit people's needs can facilitate their environmental knowledge acquisition and, therefore, improve their wayfinding performance. The scope of this article is human wayfinding in unfamiliar bu...

This study examined the relative influence of environmental variables (corridor width and brightness) and signage (directional and exit signs), when presented in competition, on participants' route-choices in two situational variables (everyday vs. emergency), during indoor wayfinding in virtual environments. A virtual reality-based methodology was...

Understanding the influence of external information at a lower level of awareness during the processes of route selection could be a key factor to predict user's movements within complex buildings, avoiding wayfinding problems and improving egress in emergency situations. This study aims to verify whether corridor intersection configuration attribu...

Previous studies suggest significant differences between navigating virtual environments in a life-like walking manner (i.e., using treadmills or walk-in-place techniques) and virtual navigation (i.e., flying while really standing). The latter option, which usually involves hand-centric devices (e. g., joysticks), is the most common in Virtual Real...

Color and light color stimuli have already been proven to be able to impact humans on a psychological and physiological level. Although, depending on the context it can have different degrees of influence, which means that color impact can end up being so subtle it becomes irrelevant, or so strong it ends up being a key factor to consider. Understa...

Haptics, the science of touch and tactile feedback, enhances the user experience by adding a tangible dimension to virtual interactions. Haptic technologies seek to allow the natural extension of the human’s sensation and perception, creating a more efficient and realistic environment for the human user. The haptics and tactile interactions domain...

All over the world, there is a lot of our history that is still inacces- sible to everyone. From historical facts, cultural patterns, and music, to paintings, sculptures, and buildings, many of these cultural and architectural heritages have restricted access or are hidden behind private patrimony. In this context, this applied research is focused...

The way car controls are displayed has been changing over time, as physical controls are being replaced by touchscreens and touch interfaces. This allows the creation of a more clean and aesthetically pleasing interface and reduces costs, but also creates the potential to increase the drivers’ distraction and error as controls may be harder to find...

Even with some exemplars of autonomous shuttles that perform simple paths already being available to be used by the general population, with the rising popularity of autonomous vehicles, it is important to understand whether the population is willing to use such transport in multi-lane highways. Thus, this study investigates the acceptance of auton...

This paper aims to present the application of a User Experience (UX) design process in developing a web documentary based on promoting empathy among social groups, with the broader concern of contributing to the fight against prejudice and discrimination against immigrants in European countries. The Human-Centred Design methodology was used as the...

Virtual reality has become popular recently, and many Colleges now have immersive labs. However, the application of this tool still needs to be widely consolidated, mainly in teaching theoretical subjects related to the field of design, such as the History of Architecture and Urbanism. In addition, only some publications still discuss the advantage...

The International Organization for Standardization evacuation alarm (ISO 8201: 2017) is ineffective in initiating evacuation, particularly when people are engaged in pre‐evacuation activities, and it is not easy to conduct experiments for evaluating evacuation behavior due to ethical and cost issues. A virtual building emergency where alarms went o...

This study combined the Human-centered design (HCD) approach with the immersive VR techniques to design and evaluate a new evacuation alarm system with improved warning efficiency for building emergency evacuation, considering the negative influence of pre-emergency activity. Four main HCD design activities were performed, the context-of-use, user...

Currently, consumers already have predefined outfits coming more and more often from various sources, which rely on classification through trends in color, fabric, styling, and other parameters that limit the consumer to combinations that might not satisfy them on other emotional levels. It’s noticeable that fashion retailing doesn’t always rely on...

This paper aims to present a study about people’s acceptance of using the Metaverse technology. The education context is the focus of intervention justified by the massification of distant learning powered by the new challenges faced by this sector during the lookdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, with technological development, a new par...

Nowadays, virtual voice assistants, are present in various devices – from smartphones to smart speakers and, soon, in all electronic appliances. In this context, it is a significant increase in the user experience with them to make them more engaging. Virtual assistants usually have the same voice tone to give users information. Thus, companies are...

Occupant behavior is one of the most critical determinants of occupant safety in buildings emergency. Traditional alarms developed according to ISO regulations did not work well in an emergency situation. For example, the 11 September attack to the twin towers in New York, were most of occupant died because they didn’t leave their workplace or take...

In a linear narrative, in the planning process, are used illustrations, normally to study the worlds landscapes, villages, houses, tools as also the characters, and the Storyboards, that explore the action and movement, exploring visually how events are depicted in time and movement, and seen from where (camera behavior). In Games or Gamification,...

New features related to manipulating multimedia content on applications such as Youtube and Whatsapp allow users to adapt video and sound speed to their preferences. This feature is also being used for e-learning platforms. However, changing video and sound speed could influence how content is perceived and retained by users. Thus, this pilot study...

The current manuscript verifies the use of virtual reality (VR)-based methodology as a helpful way to study human behavior during the pre-evacuation period, considering the influence of pre-emergency activity (competitive tasks). Two conditions with different engagement levels (i.e., low and high) were set up, and sixty company workers were distrib...

Biodiversity loss has been an issue mentioned for many years, but now, more than at any other time in history, action is needed. In terms of sustainability, design has long integrated several aspects that concern themselves with biodiversity, such as eco-design, bio-design, and sustainable design. But it is necessary to develop tools that designers...

This paper aims to present the process of personas development for a digital solution to increase empathy among social groups. It is a part of a research focusing on promoting empathy in university students related to external groups through a web-based platform, with the broader concern of contributing to the fight against prejudice and discrimina...

The aim of this study was to delve into the acceptability of smart contact lenses, to understand their viability on the market. We identified that the technology is being developed but the reaction it will have on potential buyers is not yet known. To achieve this, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model was used and ad...

There is an increasing need to promote and disseminate cultural heritage. Tourism explores cultural heritage in many different contexts. However, in cemetery tourism, the approaches are scarce. Thus, a cemetery needs to be seen and also accepted as art, culture, and knowledge. This paper aims to present a pilot study to develop a VR-based experienc...

An increasing number of retailers are considering merging online with offline channels so that they can interact with each other by the omnichannel strategy. In this context, this paper presents a study to examine the user acceptance of an interactive shopping assistance to help customers during the shopping experience through a mobile application....

The levels of fatigue, sleepiness and mental effort in workers could compromise transport system’s security. The objective of this observational field study was to analyze the variation of fatigue, sleepiness and mental effort by shift (morning, afternoon, night), difficulty of work station, age group and consecutive days of work in train traffic c...

This article presents a workflow for virtual reality application with multiple users in face-to-face architecture classes. The problem posed is that the application of collaborative VR (with interaction through avatars) in physical classrooms is still little discussed. Thus, the work suggests that the immersive tool is integrated with the others al...

One of the main barriers to non-sedentary behavior is the fact that professional work needs to be done while seated. Since non-sedentary tasks must be performed repeatedly, one should not solely exercise outside of work, as this can lead to a long period of sedentary lifestyle during working hours. In this study, a solution was thought up, HeroFit,...

Serious Games (SG) are a powerful and versatile tool for teaching and learning. However, traditional SG offer weak mechanics and are unattractive for the user. The purpose of this article is to develop and analyze the effectiveness of using a game, which is both a SG and an entertainment game, for teaching didactic content in the Design area. The d...

Emotion is an important aspect to understand the human experience concept, but is also a complicated and subjective concept to teach. It can easily become abstract for students, particularly, the Three Levels of Processing, proposed by Norman. Thus, it becomes challenging for many university professors to be able to teach in an innovative way. This...

We evaluated a way in which the horizontal information painted on the road for the exit to a locality is being implemented, where the name is written inverting the automatic processes of reading. For example, the road exit to “New York” is placed in two lines and is written from top to bottom and from left to right, in the first line “YORK”, and in...

The research in ergonomics and human factors is changing dramatically, due to the constant challenges of the technology and organizations. In line with those challenges, new research Centers in ergonomics appear, to give solutions and to propose new methodologies to study the implication of those changes in the Human safety, health and wellbeing an...

This paper presents a study using a virtual reality-based methodology that aims to investigate the effect of nature-like surroundings on interview anxiety. For this, sixty-three volunteers were asked to participate in a study in which a job interview was simulated in a virtual environment. An experimental condition – an office with a nature-like su...

Within ergonomic design research, virtual reality (VR) is increasingly taking up more space, but studies relating color to emotions within virtual reality environments are still scarce. In this sense, we conducted a systematic literature review of studies that relate emotion and color in order to understand which are the most pertinent characterist...

This paper presents an evaluation of the architect’s acceptance of new proposal toll, that will be integrated in a BIM environment, to be used to optimize in the space organization in function of the energetic performance of a building, in comparison to the traditional solutions alternatives. This evaluation used the social psychology to evaluate t...

Disorientation is an usual issue in many situations, namely during emergency into complex buildings. It may cause a lack of crucial time mainly during early evacuation stages, increasing the chance of harming. This exploratory study aims to investigate the influence of others over a personal route-choice decision during wayfinding into a complex bu...

Understanding the influence of affordances during the processes of route selection could be a key factor to improve egress in emergency situations. Previous studies [1], showed that in a T-type corridor, the brightness acted as factor of attraction improving the affordance of that corridor in an emergency egress situation Here, we test this effect...

This chapter focuses on the development and adoption of new Multimedia, Computer Aided Design, and other ICT technologies for both Architecture and Computer Science curricula and highlights the multidisciplinary work that can be accomplished when these two areas work together. The authors describe in detail the addressed educational skills and the...

Virtual reality (VR) has been used successfully in several studies, namely in the area of safety warnings design. However, regarding cybersickness, this technology it is not innocuous. We report results concerning cybersickness related with awareness of the secondary effects of VR before doing an experiment. Two groups of participant were found. A...

Understanding and predicting people’s displacement movement is particularly important for professionals involved in planning complex buildings (e.g., hospitals, convention centers, subway stations and university campus). An interesting approach to consider when studying human wayfinding behavior within buildings, namely considering the detection of...

Wayfinding difficulties may lead people to avoid places; it also can make them late for important occurrences such as business meetings or flights, which may cause loss of opportunity and money. Additionally, as settings grow in dimension and complexity, emergency evacuation emerges as a key problem, and wayfinding becomes a matter of life and deat...

This chapter focuses on the development and adoption of new Multimedia, Computer Aided Design, and other ICT technologies for both Architecture and Computer Science curricula and highlights the multidisciplinary work that can be accomplished when these two areas work together. The authors describe in detail the addressed educational skills and the...

This chapter focuses on the development and adoption of new Multimedia, Computer Aided Design, and other ICT technologies for both Architecture and Computer Science curricula and highlights the multidisciplinary work that can be accomplished when these two areas work together. The authors describe in detail the addressed educational skills and the...

Empirical evidence has verified that anxiety is an inherent part of the interview process, and in today’s stressful work environment it also has the potential of interfering with the ultimate goal of the interview: to recruit the most suitable person for the job and organizational fit. The objective of this study was to validate three virtual envir...

Warnings inform persons at risk about hazards and promote a safe behavior. For a warning to achieve its purpose it is essential that it is effective. Virtual Reality can be assumed as the most adequate methodology to use in this context as it overcomes the methodological, financial and ethical limitations. A pilot study was conducted to evaluate a...

When conducting a Virtual Reality-based study one important feature that needs to be assured is valid is the narrative context. Our objective was to validate a job interview anxiety provoking narrative. One experiment with a between-subject design was conducted. Participants were instructed to read a job interview-context narrative and then self-re...

There are plenty of studies on social influence in various segments of research, but too few in the ergonomic design and communication area, and a lack of studies have evaluated the influence of others for our making decision. There are already works that study the effectiveness of safety signals in emergencies, evaluating which the people prefer t...

When conducting a Virtual Reality-based study two important features need to be assured are valid: the narrative context and virtual environments. Our objective was to validate a job interview anxiety provoking narrative and also three virtual environments (i.e., a business waiting room, an office with the presence of plants and a window view of na...

Several research studies have shown that training using simulations is a good strategy to promote the performance of students and work teams [1]. The effectiveness of the training, in terms of transfer, using simulations, has been proved for pilots (flight simulators) and surgeons (virtual reality systems) [2]. These simulations, based in expensive...

This paper presents usability tests results with real users during the prototype development phase of two applications for seniors care, AALFred and SmartCompanion. To this aim, usability testing was performed considering a Living Lab approach. Seniors were invited to use the applications in an environment that simulates the one they would use the...

Research shows that the activation of aging stereotypes has significant effects over older people’s performance across multiple domains. The significance of these results has promoted interventions to change ageist representations in society. However, little is known about the activation of the reversed “outcome-stereotype” link. Therefore, in this...

This study aims to explore how people behave when they have to find a location within a complex building and are confronted with situations where directional signage (i.e., explicit information) is in opposition to environmental affordances that naturally direct users towards a specific path, creating a situation with conflicting information (e.g.,...

This paper focuses on the objective study of emotions, namely, fear induced by architectural spaces, by sensing and statistically analysing some physiological signals of users experiencing Virtual Environments (VE). For this, a virtual building was designed considering the presence of stairs and ramps as architectural elements that could affect use...

Emergencies (e.g., fire egress) into complex buildings are stressful situations which can provoke unexpected, undesired and sometimes unsafety behaviors in the users. Thus, the main objective of this pilot study was to investigate the relative influence of new technology-based exit signs, when compared to the conventional static ISO-type counterpar...

Successful cases of professional reintegration were achieved when adequate conditions were created for the adaptation of the worker with disability to the working environment and to the professional activity, allowing them to carry out all their functions without any restriction. In this sense, this paper presents a methodology for professional int...

Many studies have shown the ability of interior design elements (e.g., artwork, nature, home elements) to elicit positive emotions on hospital users thereby enhancing the healing process. Nevertheless, it is not clear whether such elements can affect users’ emotional responses during a VR experience. In this study we explored the influence of inter...

This paper aims to explore the strength of environmental variables (i.e., corridor width and brightness), in directing people to indoor locations during emergency situations. The existence of contradictory information was manipulated by inserting posted signs pointing to the opposite direction to the one suggested by the environmental variables. A...

Many features of a Virtual Reality system can influence the immersion and the sense of presence. Navigation is one of those features, since proprioceptive and vestibular cues can have a positive impact on immersion and sense of presence. This is especially important for studies about human behavior, where behavioral responses should be as close as...

Recent researches suggest that Virtual Reality (VR) is amongst the best tools for examining behavioral compliance with warnings, therefore overcoming some ethical and methodological constrains that have been limiting this type of research. Yet, such evaluation using VR requires both usable and engaging virtual environments (VEs). This study examine...

Many studies have shown the ability of interior design elements (e.g., artwork, nature, home elements) to elicit positive emotions on hospital users thereby enhancing the healing process. Nevertheless, it is not clear whether such elements can affect users’ emotional responses during a VR experience. In this study we explored the influence of inter...

This paper aims to explore the strength of environmental variables (i.e., corridor width and brightness), in directing people to indoor locations during emergency situations. The existence of contradictory information was manipulated by inserting posted signs pointing to the opposite direction to the one suggested by the environmental variables. A...

Many features of a Virtual Reality system can influence the immersion and the sense of presence. Navigation is one of those features, since proprioceptive and vestibular cues can have a positive impact on immersion and sense of presence. This is especially important for studies about human behavior, where behavioral responses should be as close as...

Recent researches suggest that Virtual Reality (VR) is amongst the best tools for examining behavioral compliance with warnings, therefore overcoming some ethical and methodological constrains that have been limiting this type of research. Yet, such evaluation using VR requires both usable and engaging virtual environments (VEs). This study examine...

Understanding and predicting people´s displacement movement is particularly important to avoid wayfinding problems as well as to improve egress in emergency situation within complex buildings (e.g., hospitals, convention centers, subway stations and university campus). Environmental cues (i.e., affordances) can act as attractiveness factor wich can...

Previous studies suggest significant differences between navigating virtual environments in a life-like walking manner (i.e., using treadmills or walk-in-place techniques) and virtual navigation (i.e., flying while really standing). The latter option, which usually involves hand-centric devices (e.g., joysticks), is the most common in Virtual Reali...

Understanding and predicting people’s displacement movement is particularly important for professionals involved in planning complex buildings (e.g., hospitals, convention centers, subway stations and university campus). Some decisions taken by the visitors while choosing what route to follow can be influenced by some environmental cues which can...

Understanding and predicting people's displacement movement is particularly important for professionals involved in planning complex buildings (e. g., hospitals, convention centers, subway stations and university campus). Some decisions taken by the visitors while choosing what route to follow can be influenced by some environmental cues which can...

Videogame worlds can be read like built environments, so the approaches used to plan real environments may help the design of virtual worlds. In this way, this paper presents a pilot study that the main objective is to investigate affordances of the environment that can influence people’s path selection, namely the corridor width. The main hypothes...

In this paper, we will present a review about the orientation and navigation processes considering the improvement of complex building's design as main aspect to promote the Inclusive Design in built environments. The Ergonomics and User-Centered Design were considered as important issues during the architectural planning phase, as well as the unde...

The main goal of this pilot study is to investigate the ability in developing a cognitive map after an interaction with a simple immersive VR system. The influence of environmental cues in cognitive mapping ability was also investigated. Two experimental conditions were considered, one Neutral (without signs which facilitate the task execution) and...

Vilar, Elisangela Rebelo, F. Teles, Julia

This paper presents a methodology to evaluate the accessibility degree in companies, which was developed in a human centred perspective. For this purpose we considered physical, sensorial and cognitive deficiencies. A guide based on this methodology was created to turn the evaluation into an easy and helpful ergonomic tool. The guide was divided in...

This paper presents a methodology developed to the Usability analysis of a platform to create and publish virtual exhibitions (e-Exhibitions Platform). This methodology was developed considering its application by anybody without large experience in usability testing. The methodology was applied with success in Portugal, Italy and Germany with a sa...

This paper presents a methodology developed to the Usability analysis of a platform to create and publish virtual exhibitions (e-Exhibitions Platform). This methodology was developed considering its application by anybody without large experience in usability testing. The methodology was applied with success in Portugal, Italy and Germany with a sa...

This paper proposes a new methodology to evaluate the accessibility in the companies based on the accessibility legislations of five countries, with Portugal's legislation as the priority. For this, the physical, sensorial and cognitive deficiencies were considered. A guide based on this methodology was created to turn the evaluation into an easy a...

Disorientation has many costs, it can lead to physical fatigue, stress, anxiety, frustration and all of them threaten the well-being and limit mobility and can also place the safety of workers at risk. Additionally, during emergency situations, badly designed buildings and guidance systems for wayfinding are also a potential danger for people due t...

This paper presents a Virtual Reality (VR) system named ErgoVR that has been developed to allow the visualization and evaluation of Human behavioral interaction, with immersive virtual environments, to be used in studies in Ergonomics in Design. ErgoVR is a system that is being developed at Ergonomics Laboratory of Faculdade de Motricidade Humana o...

Previous studies suggest significant differences between navigating virtual environments in a life-like walking manner (i.e., using treadmills or walk-in-place techniques) and virtual navigation (i.e., flying while really standing). The latter option, which usually involves hand-centric devices (e.g., joysticks), is the most common in Virtual Reali...

Previous studies suggest significant differences between navigating virtual environments in a life-like walking manner (i.e., using treadmills or walk-in-place techniques) and virtual navigation (i.e., flying while really standing). The latter option, which usually involves hand-centric devices (e.g., joysticks), is the most common in Virtual Reali...

Teixeira, Luis Vilar, Elisangela Duarte, Emilia Rebelo, F.

Understanding and predicting people's displacement movement is particularly important for professionals involved in planning complex buildings (e.g., hospitals, convention centers, subway stations and university campus). Some decisions taken by the visitors while choosing what route to follow can be influenced by some environmental cues which can a...