Anaëlle Hily
Background
She started her studies at the Université de Lorraine (UL) with a bachelor in biomedical engineering, and later obtained her engineering diploma from the ENSGSI (École Nationale Supérieure en Génie des Systèmes et de l’Innovation) along with a Master degree in innovation management and industrial design. She is now conducting an industrial PhD with the TEA company, under the supervision of the ERPI and 2LPN (Laboratoire Lorrain de Psychologie et Neurosciences) laboratories.
Title of the thesis
Systematic design and evaluation of immersive environments for project support in Living Lab mode
Abstract
The fields of applications in which virtual reality technologies are used are diversifying. The rapid progression of technologies and their greater accessibility has led to an increase in their use, particularly in research and industry.
Studies have already highlighted the concrete results that the use of VR technologies can bring in terms of time and resource savings. They are used to train people to perform specific tasks, to raise their awareness in emergencies, or to provide shared collaborative spaces, accessible even remotely, in which it is possible to carry out design reviews.
From a research point of view, virtual reality provides new experimental advantages, especially for studies regarding neuropsychology where it is thus possible to provide secure environments whose variables are precisely controlled and therefore reproducible.
However, the environments developed are rarely based on a standardized theoretical framework that accompanies the design phases by involving the end user of the application. Once developed, the validation of the environments created also remains very variable from one developer to another. If the use of a well-executed virtual environment provide numerous profitable results, it has yet to be determined on what relies its efficiency and how to evaluate it.
At the origin of these shortcomings is the difficulty to understand the user experience (UX) while evolving in an immersive environment. Until now, most of the UX studies used self-report questionnaires, but research and industry both need objective indicators that allow real-time observation, in order to precisely identify the areas that need to be improved in order to create a high-performance application.
In this context, this thesis intends to propose a theoretical framework to support the design and evaluation stages of immersive environments used in a living lab approach. To do so, we aim at identifying indicators to evaluate UX in virtual reality and propose a method to optimize the design of immersive environments. This thesis benefits from a multidisciplinary environment involving experts in technology, neurosciences and engineering, thanks to an industrial partner (The TEA company) and a research co-direction (ERPI and 2LPN laboratories from the UL).
Funding
CIFRE thesis co-financed by the TEA company and the ANRT
Thesis Directors
Pr. Mauricio Camargo (ERPI) Pr. Jérôme Dinet (2LPN)