The Bridges platform is getting to the heart of the evaluation
20 people tested the informal learning scenario at the Foundation of the Hellenic World
On 16 May and 6 June 2022, two different test sessions of the Bridges platform were held at the Foundation of Hellenic World, in Athens (Greece).
In total 20 people, organised in several groups, were involved in this activity, which is crucial for the project.
Guests, who are not part of the consortium, donned the Bridges’ kit and immersed themselves in an Ancient Greek house. The goal of these visits was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Bridges platform from the end-user’s perspective, starting from the on-boarding phase all the way through to the ending of the experience.
Multiple parameters of the experience were evaluated: from the wearability of the technical equipment to the accuracy of the historical reconstruction.
Fig. 1 – BRIDGES project: one of the evaluation tests at the FHW
After the XR experience, the participants sat down at the table together with designers and developers to exchange ideas and discuss further possible implementations of the platform.
Fig. 2 – BRIDGES project: one of the moments of the round table with testers, designers and developers.
Important feedback and suggestions were collected, part of which will be implemented in the next releases of Bridges, in order to let future users have a smooth and fully immersive experience.
One of the main aspects that emerged was the need to create a gradual entry from the real world to the XR world, so that users can feel accompanied, introduced and familiarised with the new reality they are moving into.
Fig. 3 – BRIDGES project: participants at the entrance of the room devoted to the XR experience
In general, all participants liked the quality of the BRIDGES graphics and positively commented on the richness of the textures used for rooms and objects encountered during the XR experience.
The sessions also helped to understand how to make the historical characters more realistic and the interaction between them and the visitors’ avatars and between objects and the visitors’ avatars more fluid and natural.
Fig. 4 – BRIDGES project: participants in the room are interacting with objects
Fig. 5 – BRIDGES project: people are interacting with each other in XR
Another important element assessed by the participants was the freedom and confidence with which they were able to move between physical and virtual space. They suggested how to increase the degree of interaction between the real space in which they physically moved and the virtual space in which they experienced history.
Fig. 6 – BRIDGES project: participants in the room are interacting with walls
Participants suggested in which direction to develop sounds and smells, even though these two senses have not yet been implemented in the current version.
The evaluation sessions have only just begun, stay tuned!
Fig. 7 – BRIDGES project: staff and testers during evaluation activities June 2022
