Simon Richir

Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Arts et Métiers | ENSAM · Laboratoire Arts et Métiers ParisTech d’Angers (LAMPA)

It is essential to ensure that the mental workload during a maintenance activity is not too high, in order to protect the integrity of maintenance operators and aviation safety. In particular, anticipating human error, which remains one of the consequences of the variability of the mental workload, leads us to define an appropriate method for measu...

As more of our lives are spent using electronic devices, it comes as a natural deduction that those digital tools could be used to maintain people’s health. Gamified exercise or exergames are indeed promising means to motivate the population to get physically active and even cognitively active if paired with the appropriate games. Considering the g...

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (2010) states that 15-20% of workplace accidents are maintenance-related, and 10-15% of these incidents result in fatalities. Due to the specialized expertise and knowledge required for this task, maintenance activities induce significant occupational stress (Sugiharto, 2019). Recognizing the necess...

The perception of virtual human faces is impacted by several interrelated factors, such as shapes, materials, textures, shading or animation. Previous research demonstrated that animation flaws and inconsistencies tend to be less accepted on realistic characters compared to stylized ones. To further investigate the relationship between stylization...

Simulators have been used for a long time in industry, but their use is expanding due to technological improvements. In this paper we have identified three categories of use: training, design and testing. For each of these uses, we provide examples of projects conducted and indications of relevant use cases. We also underline that for these three c...

Virtual reality (VR) provides users with the ability to substitute their physical appearance by embodying virtual characters (avatars) using head-mounted displays and motion-capture technologies. Previous research demonstrated that the sense of embodiment toward an avatar can impact user behavior and cognition. In this paper, we present an experime...

Virtual reality (VR) sketching has many advantages for product design and tends to be more and more used among designers and non-designers (end-users). Nevertheless, few studies have focused on the skills needed to use VR sketching for non-designers especially VR novices in VR software. This study focuses on identifying the cognitive impact of VR s...

This experiment was designed to investigate the potential contribution to the sense of embodiment of a wristband worn by the participants both in the real and in the virtual environments. In addition, two virtual limb models were compared following a mixed between-within subjects design: an organic hand and a non-organic prosthesis matching the pro...

The sprint SCRUM methodology is an agile framework that is commonly used in software development. Service Prototyping is a service development approach that enables stakeholders to create, evaluate and communicate service ideas before they even exist. The sprint SCRUM methodology can be particularly useful for Service Prototyping because it allows...

It is commonly accepted that the more an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is recent the more it is suitable for young people and unsuitable for older people. However, several facts suggest that this idea is no longer valid and will not be in the future. User-centered design methods are increasingly used in companies, ICT tends to be m...

Nowadays, both text-based and 3D online applications rely on conversational agents and autonomous characters to interact with users. Previous experiments demonstrated that perceived agency, that is to say, one’s belief in interacting with a computer- or another human-controlled entity could impact social interaction. At present, theories and result...

Creativity is key in the early phases of innovation processes. With the rapid evolution of technologies, designers now have access to various tools to support this activity. Virtual reality (VR) takes over multiple domains, especially during conception. However, is VR really facilitating creativity in the initial ideation phases? We compare two ske...

The emergence and the development of digital technologies (social media, 3D scanners, virtual reality) offer new opportunities to develop more participative design approaches. The present study experiments with non-designer participants a co-creation and co-design process of furniture based on 3D scan, virtual reality sketching, and modeling tools....

Inspired by the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) movement, the Do-It-Together (DIT) collaborative approach was successfully trialed in 2018, hence opening the door to the application of User Driven Innovation for realizing product individualization. In the meantime, other megatrends like digitization, social media, sustainability, the circular economy, and col...

La transformation numérique des entreprises est à la fois un enjeu de compétitivité et une étape complexe pour les grands groupes et les industries. Les technologies immersives décrit cette transformation qui entre dans une nouvelle ère. Le développement des technologies immersives, comme la réalité virtuelle et la réalité mixte ou augmentée, révol...

For over 20 years, Laval Virtual has been identifying the latest XR trends and leading a growing international community operating in all sectors of activity. In 2016, as an international XR facilitator, Laval Virtual designed the Visionaries Think Tank: a 2-days exclusive prospective workshop for Scientists, Academics, Investors, Authors, Philosop...

Research showed that immersive technologies can significantly improve the design process. However, it is important to consider the ease of implementation of solutions (e.g. price, simplicity). Therefore, the objective of this study was to analyze the uses of two types of virtual environments that are relatively simple to implement: a basic model of...

In the age of digitalization and servitization, information and data are valuable resources. Organizations can leverage the available data with their current knowledge to be able to generate more information and potentially induce more revenue. Smart services are very relevant at the moment in the industrial manufacturing sector. Services add its v...

Innovation is made of different tasks from strategic positioning to the first phases of production. One of the main activities is the generation of ideas through different creativity phases. These creativity activities are carried out in numerous conditions and with different tools having more or less context and interactions. This study focuses on...

This study presents two experiments addressing the representation of scientific data, in particular airflows, with a user-centered design approach. Our objective is to provide user feedback to data visualization designers to help them choose an air flow representation that is understandable and attractive for non-experts. The first study focuses on...

This document presents the proceedings of the VRIC - ConVRgence conference held on April 12-14, 2022. The conference was held in the Laval Virtual World. We would like to thank the authors who submitted their research works, as well as the reviewers for their contributions. Simon Richir, Arts et Métiers Institute of Technology, Scientific Director...

Effective collaboration in immersive virtual environments requires to be able to communicate flawlessly using both verbal and non-verbal communication. We present two experiments investigating the impact of facial anthropomorphism on the sense of body ownership, avatar attractiveness, social presence and performance in two collaborative tasks. In t...

This document presents the proceedings of the VRIC - ConVRgence conference held on July 7-9, 2021. The conference was organized again this year in a particular context, that of the COVID-19 health crisis, and the usual dates were shifted from March to July to allow for a hybrid format both in-situ in Laval, and in the Laval Virtual World. We hope t...

Exploring service ideas and their alternatives, especially at the earlier design stages is a complex process representing a challenge for every industrial service provider. Prototypes could be designed in different conventional forms, such as verbal, physical, digital, or more immersive forms based on the use of extended reality technologies. This...

While there is a plethora of publications devoted to the benefits of visualization; its drawbacks, apparently, did not receive the same attention. Nonetheless, a list of potential drawbacks exists in the current body of knowledge, which, unfortunately, do not directly address the facilitation of ideas generation by different design stakeholders, in...

Healthcare simulators are learning environments that offer many training opportunities. The integration of expressive virtual patients in these simulators encourages the exchanges and provokes emotional reactions in the learner, which promotes memorization and learning. Based on these elements, we assume that the facial expressiveness of a virtual...

Whether it is for evolution, competitiveness or problem solving, innovation is necessary to a company's survival. Thus, it is essential to understand these process and what affect them in order to improve innovation. In this paper we focus on the ideation steps (generating ideas and proposing new concepts). We developed an experimental protocol in...

Numerous studies have shown a beneficial effect of exposing people to natural landscapes and plants on their well-being and attentional functioning. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of a natural virtual environment on creativity in a task consisting of sketching ideas of creative solutions to a problem. The participants in t...

The field of Virtual Reality has been developing at a steady pace, and VR is finding new uses as a support for creative tasks. The objective of this study is to propose a theoretical model describing the links between user experience and creativity. Pre-existing theoretical links have been identified in relevant scientific literature. Two experimen...

The purpose of this study was to model an enhanced design methodology applied to the conception of an innovative product in a SME environment. This approach includes C-K theory in a context of disruptive innovation. In general, the industrial design process consists of four major steps: the ego-design phase where the designer conceptualizes a user...

It has been demonstrated that virtual reality (VR) exposure can affect the subjective experience of different situations, cognitive capabilities or behavior. It is known that there is a link between a person’s physiological state and their psychological self-report and user experience. As an immersive experience can affect users’ physiological data...

Effective collaboration in immersive virtual environments requires to be able to communicate flawlessly using both verbal and non-verbal communication. We present an experiment investigating the impact of anthropomorphism on the sense of body ownership, avatar attractiveness and performance in an asymmetric collaborative task. Using three avatars p...

Innovation is defined by a range of activities having different goals but driven by the same purpose. For example, in the ending phases, the aim will be to put forward precise concepts, while upstream of innovation, the activities are defined by the will to investigate the subject and increase the area of knowledge and concepts helpful for the conc...

Different variants of brainstormings and brainwritings exist and are regularly used in companies. Several phenomena of social influence in the idea generation stage have been highlighted. The hypothesis of this research was that under specific conditions, social influence biases the idea selection stage. An experimental study was conducted with 30...

Designing useful emerging technologies (e.g., Virtual Reality) needs that multidisciplinary teams composed of engineers, graphic designers and ergonomists. These designers with heterogeneous and various backgrounds have to dialog together to satisfy users’ needs in the software design. This depends on their representations and viewpoints. This pape...

In this paper, we argue in favour of using an immersive Virtual Environment (VE) in order to improve human capabilities. We develop this idea in order to advance the potential of VEs in enhancing humans. Training with VEs has proven in some cases to be more efficient than training in real world situations in terms of the reduction of time consumpti...

This issue gathers all the articles presented at the scientific conference ConVRgence (VRIC) which took place during Laval Virtual World 2020 (April 22-24).

Many studies have shown that physical activity, especially walking, tends to stimulate certain cognitive functions, including divergent creativity. The objective of this study was to understand whether some of this gain comes from the perception of movement, and not merely physical activity itself. 32 participants carried out divergent and converge...

This study presents a user test in order to ascertain the advantages and disadvantages of three different text input methods in immersive virtual environment: individual Speech-to-Text, collective Speech-to-Text and a virtual keyboard named Drum-Like Keyboard. We measured participants' user experience, especially related to usability and utility, i...

Find the articles presented at the 3 days scientific conference ConVRgence (VRIC) which take place during Laval Virtual 2019 (April 20-22).

Editorial of the third issue of IJVR Volume 19 – October 2019

For years, Immersive Technologies and 3D printing, demonstrated their capacity to quickly build product prototypes in order to reach a common understanding among all stakeholders, especially potential users. Service prototyping is a novel agile process intended to accelerate the service development, while improving the overall anticipated service e...

Special Issue - Best Papers of Virtual Reality International Conference (VRIC'19)

The aim of this article is to propose a design methodology for the production of parts in additive manufacturing (AM). The AM process allows new features (e.g., multi-material, fixed assemblies, complex shapes), and this paradigm shift requires the accompaniment of designers to take account of these characteristics. In response to this problematic,...

Lors d’activités de créativité, les stimuli externes à la tâche peuvent être considérés comme potentiellement inspirants ou à l’inverse gênants. L’hypothèse de la présente étude était que les activités créatives, lorsqu’elles sont réalisées avec une contrainte temporelle, sont négativement affectées par l’apparition de stimuli externes. Après une p...

Cette étude présente un test utilisateur afin de déterminer quels sont les avantages et inconvénients de différents modes de saisie de texte en environnement virtuel immersif : la reconnaissance vocale individuelle, la reconnaissance vocale collective et le clavier virtuel surnommé Drum-Like Keyboard. Nous avons mesuré l’expérience utilisateur des...

Improving the expressiveness of virtual humans is essential for qualitative interactions and development of an emotional bond. It is certainly indicated for all applications using the user's cognitive processes, such as applications dedicated to training or health. Our study aims to contribute to the design of an expressive virtual human, by identi...

Service prototyping is an innovative iterative process envisioned to enhance the service development process while refining the anticipated service experience. Immersive technologies (Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality) application in service prototyping has the potential for empowering the co-creative service development process to...

Service prototyping is an innovative iterative process envisioned to enhance the service development process while refining the anticipated service experience. Immersive technologies, such as: Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR), in service prototyping have the potential to enhancing the co-creation of service ideas...

Owning a radical innovation capacity is a mandatory feature for a mature industrial company that wants to grow. However, this capacity relies on many factors embedded into the whole innovation process, and especially in the Front-End Innovation (FEI) process. Scholars have demonstrated that, a process has to be measurable in order to be potentially...

The first part of this paper presents a theoretical model, named UX-FFE, which combines a user eXperience (UX) approach with an upstream innovation process. The main interest of this UX-FFE model is that it allows to evaluate the social aspect of the upstream innovation process, which may be detrimental to the success of radical innovation projects...

The ability to successfully conduct radical innovations is mandatory for mature industrial companies that want to remain competitive in the global market. This ability relies on several ingredients, namely: (1) the structuring of the innovation process; (2) managerial principles; (3) methodological tools; (4) the presence of a culture of innovation...

The usage of biofeedback in Virtual Reality (VR) is becoming more and more important in providing fully immersive experiences. With the rapid evolution of physiological monitoring technologies it is important to study how different modalities of biofeedback can alter user experience. While previous studies use biofeedback as an additional interacti...

For years, Immersive Technologies and 3D printing, demonstrated their capacity to quickly build product prototypes in order to reach a common understanding among all stakeholders, especially potential users. Service prototyping is a novel agile process intended to accelerate the service development, while improving the overall anticipated service e...

The usage of biofeedback in Virtual Reality (VR) is becoming more and more important in providing fully immersive experiences. With the rapid evolution of physiological monitoring technologies it is important to study how different modalities of biofeedback can alter user experience. While previous studies use biofeedback as an additional interacti...

This study presents the second phase of a series of experiments investigating the impact of avatar visual fidelity on the sense of embodiment and users' behavior in immersive virtual environments. Our main focus concerns the similarity between users and avatars, a factor known as truthfulness. Our experiment requires the participants to control thr...

There are increasing new advances in virtual reality technologies as well as a rise in learning virtual environments for which several studies highlighted the pedagogical value, knowledge transfer and learners’ engaged-behaviors. Moreover, the notion of user experience is now abundant in the scientific literature without there are specific models f...

Virtual Reality (VR) is now an affordable technology that is starting to penetrate the mass market. Providing accessible solutions to enhance VR experiences is crucial. In this paper, we consider a wearable solution as a mean of interaction in VR, to add a biofeedback mechanic. We hypothesized that the use of a biofeedback loop in a VR experience c...

Domain Names are intangible assets used by every Internet users since 1986. Their value, correlated to their importance for the communication field and the information system. But while we are in a period where we connect factories to the Internet, the domain name remains the link between the company and the Internet. It is thus a need for decision...

Les sentiments de présence et d’incarnation sont deux dimensions centrales de l’expérience utilisateur en environnement virtuel immersif. Suite à une revue de littérature portant sur ces deux concepts, nous en proposons une articulation théorique au sein d’un méta-modèle « Présence – Incarnation ». L’introduction de ce modèle aboutit à la propositi...

The ability to successfully conduct radical innovation is mandatory for mature industrial companies that want to remain competitive on the global market. This ability relies on several ingredients, namely: (1) the structuring of the innovation process; (2) managerial principles; (3) methodological tools; (4) the presence of a culture of innovation....

Companies around the world are aiming to improve their decision making, which is specially challenging in new service development. We aim to provide a crucial practice-oriented procedure with a good cost-benefit ratio; through service prototyping. Service prototyping offers an early service experience to enable stakeholders to explore a new service...