Multi-modal Interaction in Biomedicine - Ambient Intelligence for Scientific Discovery - page 199

Fig. 9. A Personal Space Station - an experimental setup [24].
6 Conclusions and Discussion
In this chapter we introduced our findings related to the development of biomed-
ical applications in different projection modalities. The case study for this re-
search was a simulated environment for vascular reconstruction - the VRE sys-
tem.
The heuristic usability evaluation that we conducted recently and the first
results of user profiling indicate that the human-computer interaction depends
to a great extent on a projection modality chosen for deploying interaction and
visualization capabilities. It becomes especially crucial if we talk about biomed-
ical applications. As clinicians are usually unfamiliar with modern computer
technologies, it is very important to make the process of their interaction with
an application as intuitive as possible.
In this chapter we introduce the concepts of a multi-modal interaction and
projection modalities. We discuss two interaction styles of the VRE system based
on VR and desktop - the Virtual Operating Theatre and a Personal Desktop
Assistant. Although, both VR and desktop solutions are viable alternatives for
the VRE users, the results of user profiling show that none of them can satisfy
all potential users. That is why we decided to combine virtual and desktop