How are we going to work in the future?

Ilona Heldal is professor of Informatics and Interactive Systems at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL). She has a broad research interest spanning from human-computer-interaction to innovation and knowledge management. She is involved in evaluating concrete technologies for user experiences in specific contexts. Most of her research is empirical and conducted in close collaboration with industry partners in Sweden, UK, Hungary, Romania. She has a Ph.D. from Chalmers University of Technology 2004 within developing usability evaluation methods for Collaborative Virtual Environments, worked as Associated Professor at Uppsala University and as Professor at the University of Skövde. At HVL, she is leading the group Collaboration, Innovation and Graphics with research interests in interdisciplinary projects on the following topics: visualization, simulation, and serious games, computer-supported collaborative work, introducing information technology (IT) systems for co-work, innovation, knowledge transfer, and IT adoption in organizations. Her current research projects are from the application domains health informatics and emergency management training. She is Editor of the International Journal of Virtual Reality and member in the board of directors of the Information Systems for Crisis and Response Management (ISCRAM) group.

Abstract:
Virtual Reality, Simulation, and Serious Games (SSG) technologies and applications have made significant progress in the last centuries for different work purposes. For example, engineers and architects design virtual prototypes to experience and test out their suggestions, teachers use simulations to illustrate complex processes, and their pupils use games to get more involved in learning. While the number, diversity, and realism of representations of SSG technologies and applications get improved, and the excitement to apply them is increasing, the value of them for practical use by many users, especially for collaborative work, is often missing.

This talk focuses on using SSG for collaboration. I will present barriers to overcome and current challenges for SSG development, introduction, and adoption. These barriers and challenges are from the fields of innovation, user experience studies, and presence. Empirical examples come from collaborative projects with organizations engaged in developing and using SSG for health, learning or emergency training. Let’s talk about visions for the future by looking back to the history of SSG in the past 20 years.