Stavroula Ntoa

Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas | forth · Institute of Computer Science

Serious games have emerged as a powerful tool for achieving targeted outcomes beyond entertainment, such as learning or raising awareness about a topic. Considering their pervasiveness and wide adoption in the educational domain, traditional assessment approaches of these games have predominantly focused on their entertainment value and achievement...

This chapter introduces Intelligent Environments (IEs) and their associated design challenges and presents the AmI Design Process, a novel design framework, and its supporting tools. This framework serves the dual purpose of providing a design methodology as well as a dynamic platform offering the necessary supporting resources. Built upon the user...

Video games can be an effective medium for attaining learning goals, going beyond the function of entertainment. They also offer people an opportunity to virtually explore past an present sites of historic importance. With the growing popularity of video games comes the need for developing more inclusive content, embracing the medium's diverse audi...

This work addresses the lack of methodologies for the seamless integration of 360° videos, 3D digitized artifacts, and virtual human agents within a virtual reality environment. The proposed methodology is showcased in the context of a tour guide application and centers around the innovative use of a central hub, metaphorically linking users to var...

This paper describes the motivation, framework, concepts, method, implementation, and results of the HCII2023 Design Cafe, a dedicated participatory highly interactive design workshop held in Copenhagen in July 2023. Motivated by the ubiquitous challenges our world is facing, this initiative had the goal to explore six main issues from an interdisc...

Video games are maturing as a medium to tell stories inspired by historical struggles and real-life experiences. In this regard, they could work as a mechanism in Transitional Justice pursuit. In this paper, we argue that games can become agents for promoting education, reconciliation and healing. We hence identify means by which museums and video...

Real-time performance is critical for Augmented Reality (AR) systems as it directly affects responsiveness and enables the timely rendering of virtual content superimposed on real scenes. In this context, we present the DARLENE wearable AR system, analysing its specifications, overall architecture and core algorithmic components. DARLENE comprises...

In this paper, we present an interactive guided tour of the House-Museum of Eleftherios Venizelos located in the city of Chania, Crete, Greece. The mobile application is using a mixture of Bluetooth beacons and Augmented Reality (AR) to expand the museum experience both while visiting the museum and when planning for a museum visit. In terms of tou...

In this work, we present our approach towards reviving events, historical figures and artefacts in the context of a physical museum exhibition organized by the National Historical Museum in the Old Parliament House as part of the celebration of 200 years since the beginning of the Greek Revolution. In this context, several interactive systems were...

Digital accessibility is vital for ensuring equal access and usability for individuals with disabilities. However, addressing the unique challenges faced by individuals with disabilities in XR environments remains a complex task. This paper presents an ongoing accessibility framework designed to empower developers in creating inclusive XR applicati...

This work outlines the benefits of an open repository of cultural and touristic content for promoting sustainability in tourism. The repository aims at sharing digital content with individuals, local communities, businesses, and tour operators to promote responsible tourism practices. By providing access to cultural and touristic content, the repos...

Esports has become a juggernaut in mainstream entertainment. For broadcasting and production stakeholders to establish a foothold in this exploding market, live-streaming broadcasts of matches should become more meaningful for fans, and more attractive to newcomers, ensuring their retention. This work describes an end-to-end solution for enhanced l...

In this paper we present the design and implementation of a multimodal solution for the promotion of gastronomic tourism in the municipal area of Heraklion city. The provided solution is comprised of standalone information systems accompanied by a mobile app for the presentation of thematic routes. By facilitating a rich knowledge base and a collec...

In this paper, we present a front-end User Interface for a secure Internet of Things platform that provides management features as a service on top of heterogeneous Internet of Things ecosystems. The proposed platform is capable of monitoring all the connected devices at various levels, such as remaining energy, uptime, network statistics, quality...

We present a mobile application that is bringing to life historic photographs of Heraklion by mapping them in historical routes within the city and offering the visitor a dialogue with its social and historical context. At the same time while visiting the public library where these historic photographs are exhibited, the mobile app enhances the pro...

Overtourism has, in the past years, grown to become a global issue, turning popular tourist destinations into unsustainable places of congestion, creating visitor dissatisfaction, and forever changing the daily life of nearby residents. Action needs to be taken in order to contain this ever-increasing problem, with technological solutions that will...

Advancements in AI and ML approaches are the reason for the current hype of this technology. A lot of products and services, either in consumer-facing solutions, as well as in the industrial context, embrace the advancement of smart algorithms. Designing such systems entails several challenges, including designing for black-box decision-making with...

Overtourism is an ongoing problem observed in popular destinations around the world, requiring solutions that will combat congestion and enhance the quality of life for citizens and the quality of experience for visitors. In order to truly resolve the problem, solutions should combine the management of visitor flows through technological support, a...

This work presents a web-based authoring tool that enables museum curators and individuals to make digital collections of exhibits accessible and explorable via the Web. It allows users to create interactive and immersive virtual 3D/VR exhibitions using a unified collaborative authoring environment based on a Human-Centered Design approach with the...

The population ageing problem and the need for finding feasible solutions and tools to support elderly people in self-managing their well-being and maintaining their independence and Quality of Life (QoL) have drawn the attention of the research community of multiple disciplines. In particular, mHealth taking advantage of advances in wearables that...

Intelligent everyday environments are expected to empower their inhabitants, assisting them in carrying out their everyday tasks, but also ensuring their well-being and prosperity. In this regard, the accessibility of an intelligent environment is of utmost importance to ensure that it fulfills user needs, but also that it is usable and useful for...

Virtual humans (VHs) are gaining increasing attention in various fields, including games and cultural heritage and technological contexts including virtual reality and augmented reality. Recently, since VHs can simulate human-like behavior, VHs have been proposed as virtual assistants (VAs) for all sorts of education and training applications, incl...

Overtourism has, in the past years, grown to become a global issue, turning pop-ular tourist destinations into unsustainable places of congestion, creating visitor dissatisfaction, and forever changing the daily life of nearby residents. Action needs to be taken in order to contain this ever-increasing problem, with techno-logical solutions that wi...

Overtourism is an ongoing problem observed in popular destinations around the world, requiring solutions that will combat congestion and enhance the quality of life for citizens and the quality of experience for visitors. In order to truly resolve the problem, solutions should combine the management of visitor flows through technological support, a...

We propose and implement a tool for the access, analysis, and visual exploration of very large relational databases and data warehouses. To this end, we represent the database as a graph in which each table is represented by a tree rooted at the key and in which there is an edge from table T to table T’ if there is an attribute of T which is a fore...

Visualizing human motion is a topic that has gained increasing attention in the domain of cultural heritage, due to the need for capturing intangible dimensions, existing for example in theatrical performances, dances, and crafts. In this respect, virtual humans are typically employed to re-enact human motion, executing movements reproduced through...

In this article, the Mingei Online Platform is presented as an authoring platform for the representation of social and historic context encompassing a focal topic of interest. The proposed representation is employed in the contextualised presentation of a given topic, through documented narratives that support its presentation to diverse audiences....

Background: Augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) are highly disruptive technologies that have revolutionised practices in a wide range of domains, including the security sector. Several law enforcement agencies (LEAs) employ AI in their daily operations for forensics and surveillance. AR is also gaining traction in security, part...

In this work, a novel computational approach for the dynamic adaptation of User Interfaces (UIs) is proposed, which aims at enhancing the Situational Awareness (SA) of users by leveraging the current context and providing the most useful information, in an optimal and efficient manner. By combining Ontology modeling and reasoning with Combinatorial...

Motivated by a combination of social media, technological evolution, as well as new habits and preferences of TV content consumers, there is an increasing demand for enhancement of professional productions with user generated content. Studies have explored the potential and feasibility of this approach, indicating that footage from non-professional...

This chapter focuses on describing how the human-centered design (HCD) process can be revisited and expanded in an artificial intelligence (AI) context, proposing a methodological framework for putting the human in the loop. It explores how exactly the ‘human-in-the loop’ paradigm can be pursued and relevant core AI concepts and approaches. The cha...

The concept of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) provides a vision of the Information Society where the emphasis is on greater user-friendliness, more efficient services support, user-empowerment, and support for human interactions. User-centered design involves two fundamental elements: multidisciplinary teamwork; and a set of specialized methods for acq...

Background: Augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) are highly disruptive technologies that have revolutionised practices in a wide range of domains. Their potential has not gone unnoticed in the security sector with several law enforcement agencies (LEAs) employing AI applications in their daily operations for forensics and surveil...

The three-volume set CCIS 1419, CCIS 1420, and CCIS 1421 contains the extended abstracts of the posters presented during the 23rd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2021, which was held virtually in July 2021. HCII 2021 received a total of 6326 submissions, of which 1439 papers and 238 posters were accepted for publicatio...

The three-volume set CCIS 1419, CCIS 1420, and CCIS 1421 contains the extended abstracts of the posters presented during the 23rd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2021, which was held virtually in July 2021. HCII 2021 received a total of 6326 submissions, of which 1439 papers and 238 posters were accepted for publicatio...

The three-volume set CCIS 1419, CCIS 1420, and CCIS 1421 contains the extended abstracts of the posters presented during the 23rd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2021, which was held virtually in July 2021. HCII 2021 received a total of 6326 submissions, of which 1439 papers and 238 posters were accepted for publicatio...

Due to advances in technology, the topic “AI in HCI” is a growing research area with contributions from several research communities. To better understand the current and potentially future research activities, a workshop “AI in HCI” took place as part of the first AI in HCI conference. The intent of the workshop was twofold: to explore the researc...

‘User Experience’ (UX) is a term that has been established in HCI research and practice, subsuming the term ‘usability’. UX denotes that interaction with a contemporary technological system goes far beyond usability, extending to one’s emotions before, during, and after using the system and cannot be defined only by studying the fundamental usabili...

Room-sized immersive environments and interactive 3D spaces can support powerful visualizations and provide remarkable X-reality experiences to users. However, designing and developing applications for such spaces, in which user interaction takes place not only by gestures, but also through body movements is a demanding task. At the same time, cont...

Advances in Cultural Heritage (CH) representation and presentation technologies are explored concerning new potentials brought by the gaming industry. These include the use of digitisation technologies for the creation of realistic digital assets, educational gaming concepts, and immersive technologies. In this context, it is shown how the creative...

With the ever-advancing availability of digitized museum artifacts, the question of how to make the vast collection of exhibits accessible and explorable beyond what museums traditionally offer via their websites and exposed databases has recently gained increased attention. This research work introduces the Invisible Museum: a user-centric platfor...

Improving the well-being and quality of life of the elderly population is closely related to assisting them to effectively manage age-related conditions such as chronic illnesses and anxiety, and to maintain their independence and self-sufficiency as much as possible. This paper presents the design, architecture and implementation structure of an a...

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in HCI, AI-HCI 2021, which was held as part of HCI International 2021 and took place virtually during July 24-29, 2021. The total of 1276 papers and 241 poster papers included in the 39 HCII 2020 proceedings volumes was carefully reviewe...

This two-volume set CCIS 1498 and CCIS 1499 contains the late breaking posters presented during the 23rd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2021, which was held virtually in July 2021. The total of 1276 papers and 241 posters included in the 39 HCII 2021 proceedings volumes was carefully reviewed and selected from 5222 s...

This two-volume set CCIS 1498 and CCIS 1499 contains the late breaking posters presented during the 23rd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2021, which was held virtually in July 2021. The total of 1276 papers and 241 posters included in the 39 HCII 2021 proceedings volumes was carefully reviewed and selected from 5222 su...

Culture is a field that is currently entering a revolutionary phase, no longer being a privilege for the few, but expanding to new audiences who are urged to not only passively consume cultural heritage content, but actually participate and assimilate it on their own. In this context, museums have already embraced new technologies as part of their...

Virtual reality (VR) has re-emerged as a low-cost, highly accessible consumer product, and training on simulators is rapidly becoming standard in many industrial sectors. However, the available systems are either focusing on gaming context, featuring limited capabilities or they support only content creation of virtual environments without any rapi...

This work regards the digital representation of tangible and intangible dimensions of heritage crafts, towards craft preservation. Based on state-of-the-art digital documentation, knowledge representation and narrative creation approach are presented. Craft presentation methods that use the represented content to provide accurate, intuitive, engagi...

This book constitutes the extended abstracts of the posters presented during the 22nd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2020, which was held in July 2020. The conference was planned to take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, but had to change to a virtual conference mode due to the COVID-19 pandemic. From a total of 6326 submi...

This book constitutes the poster papers presented during the 22nd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2020, which was held in July 2020. The conference was planned to take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, but had to change to a virtual conference mode due to the COVID-19 pandemic. From a total of 6326 submissions, a total of 1...

Heraklion Christmas Castle is a joint effort between ICS-FORTH and the Municipality of Heraklion-Crete (Municipal Public Service Enterprise of Heraklion), trying to pioneer and be innovative in the presentation of Christmas customs and ideas by creating a festive neighborhood governed by interactive technology. The approach followed by this researc...

Retail stores and in particular malls are going through a recession period, resulting among others from the change in customers’ shopping habits and the shift towards e-commerce. Proposed strategies to alleviate this situation require manifold solutions, especially for malls, as they constitute ecosystems featuring both commercial and social activi...

ABSTRACT This article aims to investigate the Grand Challenges which arise in the current and emerging landscape of rapid technological evolution towards more intelligent interactive technologies, coupled with increased and widened societal needs, as well as individual and collective expectations that HCI, as a discipline, is called upon to address...

Physical paper, in its various forms (e.g. books, leaflets, catalogues), is extensively used in everyday activities, despite any advancements in digital technology and ICT. Inspired by the popularity of this medium, several research efforts have envisioned and pursued a new era of interactive paper, however several challenges still remain to be add...

Ambient Intelligence constitutes a new human-centered technological paradigm, where environments are oriented towards anticipating and satisfying the needs of their inhabitants. In this context, evaluation becomes of paramount importance. This paper presents UXAmI Observer, an automated user experience evaluation tool for Ambient Intelligence envir...

The Tourism Office of the city of Heraklion is a truly original facility that provides visitors with novel ways to access information through the use of modern technologies and innovative interactive systems developed by ICS-FORTH. This paper presents the innovative technologies employed at the tourist information office in order to enhance the inf...