Maria Roussou

• Computer Science
• Associate Professor at National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

In this paper, we present an interaction mechanism devised to address collaboration challenges in a multi-user social VR experience: how to engage users in starting and maintaining a conversation, establish a synchronized flow of collaborative and coordinated action, and leverage familiar cues to achieve social interaction. We propose the ’high fiv...

In this work we present the Narralive Unity Tool, a tool for the Unity Engine that supports the development of branching narrative experiences with multiple endings through a node-based graph and a set of automation features. The tool was designed with the objective to bridge the gap between intuitive branching narrative design and multimedia rich...

Recent work in HCI has explored the use of ICTs for the mobilisation and organisation of values-led communities and social movements. This paper extends this line of work by exploring the design of a communication system for informal, place-based citizen collectives-also referred to as Social Solidarity Movements. The distinctive characteristics of...

Recent studies in Virtual Reality highlighted the importance of avoiding Breaks inPresence that occur when experiment participants alternate between the virtualand physical environment to fill in questionnaires or interact with the evaluator.In this paper, we report on a within-groups experiment comparing threemeans of communication between the eva...

Over the past decades, 360-degree virtual tours have been used to provide the public access to accurate representations of cultural heritage sites and museums. The COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to a rise in the popularity of virtual tours as a means of engaging with locations remotely and has raised an interesting question: How could we use suc...

Virtual grasping is one of the most common and important interactions performed in a Virtual Environment (VE). Even though there has been substantial research using hand tracking methods exploring different ways of visualizing grasping, there are only a few studies that focus on handheld controllers. This gap in research is particularly crucial, si...

In recent years eXtended Reality (XR) technologies have matured and have become affordable, yet creating XR experiences for training and learning in many cases is still a time-consuming and costly process, hindering widespread adoption. One factor driving effort is that content and features commonly required by many applications get re-implemented...

Digital storytelling has been established as an effective approach for promoting visitor engagement in cultural heritage contexts. Interactive digital storytelling is however not as prevalent in this field. In this work we attempt to gain insight for the added value that interaction in the form of enhanced user agency brings to a cultural heritage...

The annotation of animated motion-captured segments is a challenging, interdisciplinary task, especially when it comes to characterizing movement qualitatively. The lack of intuitive, easy-to-learn-and-use frameworks is considered to be one of the biggest challenges in this process; another is the lack of approaches able to motivate a wide audience...

Social interaction has been recognized as positively affecting learning, with dialogue–as a common form of social interaction–comprising an integral part of collaborative learning. Interactive storytelling is defined as a branching narrative in which users can experience different story lines with alternative endings, depending on the choices they...

In this work we explore the effect of personality traits on user interaction in virtual reality (VR), on the less widely studied aspect of task performance during object manipulation. We conducted an experiment measuring the performance of 39 users interacting with a virtual environment using the virtual hand metaphor to execute a simple selection...

Aiming at bridging the gap between the recent advancements in eXtended Reality (XR) research and real-world scenarios, in this paper we describe the first steps of an iterative user-centered methodology developed to elicit user requirements and to design the scenarios for a multi-sensory collaborative XR platform, in the framework of the BRIDGES pr...

Digital storytelling in cultural heritage has been recognized as an effective technique for communicating heritage interpretation to the public. This chapter reports on the iterative design, development, and evaluation of a mobile digital storytelling experience for the Athens University History Museum. The experience combines a visually rich, illu...

A growing body of research testifies to the capacity for archaeological and other cultural heritage sites to generate wonder, attachment, personal transformation and restoration, family bonding and community building amongst their visitors. Using evaluation data from two related European Commission‐funded research projects, CHESS and EMOTIVE, we di...

Digital storytelling in cultural heritage contexts has been recognized as a direction that cultural heritage institutions, including museums and historical sites, need to invest in to attract and engage their audiences. The term-interactive storytelling‖ is often used to characterize existing digital applications, whether these incorporate narrativ...

Can a chatbot enable us to change our conceptions, to be critically reflective? To what extent can interaction with a technologically “minimal” medium such as a chatbot evoke emotional engagement in ways that can challenge us to act on the world? In this paper, we discuss the design of a provocative bot, a “bot of conviction”, aimed at triggering c...

A multitude of challenges comes into play when attempting to design (and evaluate) an interactive digital storytelling experience for use by visitors in a museum. This paper reports on the evaluation of the prototype mobile-based storytelling “guides” designed, developed and deployed as part of a research project at the Acropolis Museum in Athens,...

In this paper, we firstly critique the state of the art on Virtual Museums (VM) in an effort to expose the many opportunities available to enroll these spaces into transformative and engaging cultural experiences. We then outline our attempts to stretch beyond the usual VM in order to connect it to visitors in a measurably emotional, participatory,...

The key question we address is whether interactivity in a virtual environment (VE) impacts conceptual learning. We developed a Virtual Reality (VR) application to simulate a playground, in which children had to engage in tasks that required solving arithmetical fractions problems. Fifty (50) children were tested in an empirical study with different...

The use of interactive storytelling by museums and heritage sites lends to the creation of experiences that support visitors in engaging emotionally with the objects on display. Finding ways to connect to the cultural content is even more important for visitors of archaeological sites due to the often fragmentary nature of the exhibits, which can l...

This paper presents an observational study of eight families engaging with a bespoke tablet experience produced for a space science centre. It documents the various ways in which family members orientate themselves to the usage of technology in this environment, with a particular focus on the work done to manage the tablet and facilitate the engage...

Digital storytelling is one resource museums have in hand for enriching their offer to audiences and society at large. But how is the museum to author digital storytelling experiences that cater to various needs while maintaining scientific integrity? In this paper, we report on a series of experiences involving the creation of several interactive...

CHESS is a research prototype system aimed at enriching museum visits through personalized interactive storytelling. Aspiring to replace traditional exhibit-centric descriptions by story-centric cohesive narrations with carefully-designed references to the exhibits, CHESS follows a plot-based approach, where the story authors create stories around...

In this work, we present the CHESS research prototype system which offers personalized, interactive digital storytelling experiences to enhance museum visits, demonstrating the authoring and visiting experiences.

A solution for interaction using finger tracking in a cubic immersive virtual reality system (or immersive cube) is presented. Rather than using a traditional wand device, users can manipulate objects with fingers of both hands in a close-to-natural manner for moderately complex, general purpose tasks. Our solution couples finger tracking with a re...

The CHESS project has been working with Cité de l’espace, a space technology centre, to explore the use of tablets and mobile phones to deliver visitor experiences that integrate across multiple experiences. In this paper, we articulate three key challenges present at Cité, describe a prototype experience developed by CHESS, and present a set of ob...

In this paper we present the design of handheld Augmented Reality (AR) experiences that are seamlessly incorporated into interactive museum narratives, specifically for the Acropolis Museum. The experiences start by forming a visitor profile that later dynamically adapts the narrative, including the AR activities, to the user`s behaviour. In this c...

Designing interactive learning experiences for informal educational settings, such as museums, presents challenges due to the particularities of context. In this presentation, the implications of applying user modeling and human computer interaction methods in the design of informal digital learning experiences will be highlighted. The discussion w...

Sets of 'personas' representing archetypical visitors of two very different museums, the Acropolis Museum in Greece and Cité de l'Espace in France, were defined and described as part of a multitude of user-centered design methods used to better understand the needs of visitors and develop for them a personalized mobile storytelling experience. Here...

In this paper, we describe a study carried out to evaluate the players' experience with a collaborative full-body digital game; experience, in this case, is defined as both the feeling of learning and engagement. 97 primary school students (aged 10-11) were observed while interacting in groups with the game, which is installed as a permanent exhibi...

In this paper, we describe the theoretical background, educational design and preliminary evaluation of children's interactions with a set of collaborative full-body digital games, which are set in an informal science education fun park, the Polymechanon. Twelve 10-year olds were observed while interacting in groups with the games, and two of the g...

This paper presents an overview of a CSCL 2009 panel that brings together five researchers whose work attempts to leverage physical embodiment in the design of technologies to support learning. Through a critical examination of distinctive approaches -design rationales, design features, and learner outcomes - the panel seeks to spark discussion ove...

In the past two decades, immersive virtual reality (VR) has attracted the attention of many researchers and educators who predicted that VR would considerably affect how learning and teaching are conducted. However, widespread uptake isn’t yet apparent, and, despite the amount of successful research, we still know little about what exactly constitu...

This paper presents an overview of a CSCL 2009 panel that brings together five researchers whose work attempts to leverage physical embodiment in the design of technologies to support learning. Through a critical examination of distinctive approaches - design rationales, design features, and learner outcomes - the panel seeks to spark discussion ov...

This paper explores the use of Activity Theory for the evaluation of user behaviour in immersive virtual environments. Specifically, the study of user behaviour focuses on interactivity, which is argued to be one of the most important processes that take place between a user and the system in virtual reality. The ultimate intention is to study the...

AND makebelieve creative design and consulting Athens, Greece Abstract. Virtual Reality (VR), as popularized through films and the media at large, has been greatly preceded by its reputation of spectacular promises. VR has had the ability to engender fascination far beyond its commercial prospects and practical limitations, even before it had the o...

In this paper, we describe the application of a participatory design methodology with children, developed within the context of an informal educational institution, specifically the National Gallery of Art in Athens, Greece. A group of 11 year-olds spent part of their summer learning about art conservation in order to design an on-line art educatio...

In this paper we present a user-centered design approach to the development of a Virtual Environment (VE), by utilizing an iterative, user-informed process throughout the entire design and development cycle. A preliminary survey was first undertaken with end users, that is, architects, chief engineers, and decision makers of a real-world architectu...

L’article presenta l’avaluació de dos estudis de cas diferents que fan referència a experiències educatives per adults i nens utilitzant la realitat virtual. Els estudis de cas consisteixen en aplicacions a dos continguts diferents, l’ensenyament de l’arqueologia i de les matemàtiques, desenvolupades ambdues per sistemes de realitat virtual project...

We describe the development and evaluation of a large-scale multimodal virtual reality simulation suitable for the visualization of cultural heritage sites and architectural planning. The system is demonstrated with a reconstruction of an ancient Greek temple in Messene that was created as part of a EU funded cultural heritage project (CREATE). The...

The two essential properties of a virtual reality (VR) experience, especially in entertainment and in formal learning applications, are immersion and interactivity---each of which is advertised widely to attract and motivate participants. In particular, it is commonly considered that a learning environment is more effective if it is interactive. Ho...

The research presented in this paper aims at investigating user interaction in immersive virtual learning environments, focusing on the role and the effect of interactivity on conceptual learning. The goal has been to examine if the learning of young users improves through interacting in (i.e. exploring, reacting to, and acting upon) an immersive v...

This paper presents our observations from the use of high-end projection-based VR in different real-world settings, with practitioners but also novice users that do not normally use VR in their everyday practice. We developed two applications for two different content domains and present case studies of actual experiences with professionals and stu...

The M-PIRO project targets the concept of personalized information objects ─ that is, entities capable of responding to requests for information by taking into account what the requester already knows, what they are most interested in, and how the related information is to be made available. M- PIRO's technology allows textual and spoken descriptio...

Interactivity is regarded as one of the core components of a successful Virtual Reality experience, and is promoted widely for its effectiveness, motivational impact, and significance for learning. The research described in this paper sets out to explore learner interaction in immersive Virtual Environments, focusing on the role and the effect of i...

In this paper we introduce an image-based 3D capture process for the creation and display of photorealistic virtual environments (VEs). The resulting VEs aim to realistically recreate existing real-world scenes that can be dis-played in a range of immersive VR systems using a high-quality, view-dependent algorithm and further enhanced using advance...

This research sets out to explore children's interaction in immersive Virtual Environments (VEs), focusing on the role and the effect of interactivity on learning and concep-tual change. The intention is to examine how interaction and conceptual learning are related in the context of virtual environments developed primarily for informal educational...

In this paper we describe a project that adopts a user-centered approach in the design of virtual environments (VEs) with enhanced realism and interactivity, guided by real-world applications in the areas of urban planning/ architecture and cultural heritage education. In what concerns realism, we introduce an image-based 3D capture process, where...

The topic of this doctoral research is to investigate user interaction in Virtual Environments (VEs), focusing on the role of interactivity in learning through Virtual Reality (VR) technology. The intention is to examine how interaction and conceptual learning are related in the context of virtual environments developed in informal educational sett...

[J05] The development of interactive, participatory, multi sensory environments that combine the physical with the virtual comes as a natural continuation to the computer game industry's constant race for more exciting user experiences. Specialized theme parks and various other leisure and entertainment centers worldwide are embracing the interacti...

We present a real-time hybrid tracking system thatintegrates gyroscopes and line-based vision trackingtechnology. Gyroscope measurements are used topredict orientation and image line positions.Gyroscope drift is corrected by vision tracking.System robustness ...

Start of the above-titled section of the conference proceedings record.

The area of virtual heritage has long been concentrated on generating digital reconstructions of historical or archaeological artefacts and sites with enough fidelity to be truly accurate representations of their real-world counterparts. In some cases, the advancement of tools and techniques for achieving greater visual realism has distracted from...

The global scope of the CREATE project is to develop a mixed-reality framework that enables highly interactive real-time construction and manipulation of photo-realistic, virtual worlds based on real data sources. This framework will be tested and applied to cultural heritage content in an educational context, as well as to the design and review of...

The M-PIRO project targets the concept of personalised information objects---that is, entities capable of responding to requests for information by taking into account what the requester already knows, what they are most interested in, and how the related information is to be made available. MPIRO 's technology allows textual and spoken description...

Access to cultural exhibits is a central issue in museums and exhibition galleries that is recently approached under a new, technological perspective. Although the cultural industries' practices in the cases of museums and cultural exhibits have remained practically unchanged for long, in recent years we are witnessing a gradual adoption of media-t...

Access to cultural exhibits is a central issue in museums and exhibition galleries that is recently approached under a new, technological perspective. Although the cultural industries practices in the cases of museums and cultural exhibits have remained practically unchanged for long, in recent years we are witnessing a gradual adoption of media-te...

This paper analyzes the interactive virtual environments developed at an institution of informal education and discusses the issues involved in developing immersive interactive virtual archaeology projects for the broad public

This paper analyses the direction taken regarding the development of user friendly interfaces and natural modes of interaction for users of varied technical competencies in virtual environments

The M-PIRO project targets the concept of personalised information objects---that is, entities capable of responding to requests for information by taking into account what the requester already knows, what they are most interested in, and how the related information is to be made available. MPIRO 's technology allows textual and spoken description...

Access to cultural exhibits is a central issue in museums and exhibition galleries that is recently approached under a new, technological perspective. Although the cultural industries’ practices in the cases of museums and cultural exhibits have remained practically unchanged for long, in recent years we are witnessing a gradual adoption of media-t...

The use of immersive virtual reality (VR) systems in museums is a recent trend, as the development of new interactive technologies has inevitably impacted the more traditional sciences and arts. This is more evident in the case of novel interactive technologies that fascinate the broad public, as has always been the case with virtual reality. The i...

This paper attempts to review examples of the use of storytelling and narrative in immersive virtual reality worlds. Particular attention is given to the way narrative is incorporated in artistic, cultural, and educational applications through the development of specific sensory and perceptual experiences that are based on characteristics inherent...

This paper attempts to review examples of the use of storytelling and narrative in immersive virtual reality worlds. Particular attention is given to the way narrative is incorporated in artistic, cultural, and educational applications through the development of specific sensory and perceptual experiences that are based on characteristics inherent...

This paper describes the design, evaluation, and lessons learned from a project involving the implementation of an immersive virtual environment for children called NICE (Narrative-based, Immersive, Constructionist/Collaborative Environments). The goal of the NICE project was to construct a testbed for the exploration of virtual reality as a learni...

As part of the iGrid Research Demonstration at INET 2000, we created two Virtual Cultural Heritage environments -- "Virtual Harlem" and "Shared Miletus". The purpose of these applications was to explore possibilities in using the combination of high-speed international networks and virtual reality (VR) displays for cultural heritage education. Our...

. Research in conceptual learning and virtual reality is a relatively young field, but growing rapidly. The increasing development of virtual reality (VR) technologies has matured enough as to expand research from the military and scientific visualization realm into more multidisciplinary areas, such as education, art, and psychology. Consequently,...

The use of immersive Virtual Reality (VR) technology is a relatively recent trend enjoyed almost exclusively by the academic, military, and industrial research and development communities. However, as VR technologies mature, research is expanding from the military and scientific visualisation realm into more multidisciplinary areas, such as educati...

Access to cultural exhibits is a central issue in museums and exhibition galleries that is recently approached under a new, technological perspective. Although the cultural industries' practices in the cases of museums and cultural exhibits have remained practically unchanged for long, in recent years we are witnessing a gradual adoption of media -...

Access to cultural exhibits is a central issue in museums and exhibition galleries that is recently approached under a new, technological perspective. Although the cultural industries' practices in the cases of museums and cultural exhibits have remained practically unchanged for long, in recent years we are witnessing a gradual adoption of media-t...

Shared Miletus is a networked Virtual Cultural Heritage application rst demonstrated at the INET 2000 conference. In this application we sought to explore new tools and techniques, ones that could be useful to create a networked virtual environment which takes the place of a traditional museum. This paper describes the software used to build the en...

Virtual Reality is a novel and innovative technology which allows us, through its applications, to experience abstract concepts and ideas, visit spaces that are unreachable or no longer exist, and examine objects from diverse and unique points of view. Virtual archaeology refers to the use of 3D computer models of ancient buildings and artifacts vi...

An abstract is not available.

As immersive virtual reality increases in popularity, a growing number of institutions incorporate projection-based display systems in their daily function. For the most part, these institutions operate in the academic, research, and industrial domains while the users of their virtual reality systems are specially trained staff members and research...

In this paper we describe a software system for building interactive virtual environments, particularly ones for virtual reality art works. It is meant to allow teams composed of experienced programmers and non-programming designers to work together on projects. It is an object-oriented framework, built upon existing toolkits for VR, real-time grap...

At Wellesley College, very rarely do the Fine Art and Computer Science faculty cross paths. At least that was the case until last year when we taught an experimental course that brought together the work we were doing in our respective corners of ...

Advances in technology have made it possible to create vast, rich, and architecturally intricate virtual worlds. The Mitologies project is an attempt to utilize this technology as a means of artistic expression and for the exploration of historical, political, musical, and visual narratives. Mitologies draws inspiration from a large pool of literar...