The Role of Head-Up Display in Computer-Assisted Instruction
Kikuo Asai · InTech eBooks · 2008
IntroductionThe head-up display (HUD) creates a new form of presenting information by enabling a user to simultaneously view a real scene and superimposed information without large movements of the head or eye scans (Newman, 1995;Weintraub and Ensing, 1992).HUDs have been used for various applications such as flight manipulation, vehicle driving, machine maintenance, and sports, so that the users improve situational comprehension with the real-time information.Recent downsizing of the display devices will expand the HUD utilization into more new areas.The head-mounted display (HMD) has been used as a head-mounted type of HUDs for wearable computing (Mann, 1997) that gives a user situational information by wearing a portable computer like clothes, a bag, and a wristwatch.A computer has come to interact intelligently with people based on the context of the situation with sensing and wireless communication systems.One promising application is in computer-assisted instruction (CAI) (Feiner, et al., 1993) that supports the works such as equipment operation, product assembly, and machine maintenance.These works have witnessed the introduction of increasingly complex platforms and sophisticated procedures, and have required the instructional support.HUDbased CAI applications are characterized by real-time presentation of instructional information related to what a user is looking at.It is commonly thought that HUD-based CAI will increase productivity in instruction tasks and reduce errors by properly presenting task information based on a user's viewpoint.However, there are not enough empirical studies that show which factors of HUDs improve user performance.A considerable amount of systematic research must be carried out in order for HUD-based CAI to fulfill its potential to use the scene augmentation to improve human-computer interaction.We have developed a HUD-based CAI system that enables non-technical staff to operate the transportable earth station (Asai, et al., 2006).Although we observed that users of the HUDbased CAI system performed slightly better than users of conventional PCs and paper manuals, it was not clear which factors significantly affected performance in operating the system.We here conducted a laboratory experiment in which participants performed a task of reading articles and answering questions, in order to evaluate how readable the display www.intechopen.comHuman-Computer Interaction, New Developments 32 of the HUD is, how easy it is to search information using the system, and how it affects the work efficiency.We then discuss the characteristics of HUD-based CAI, comparing the task performance between the HUD-based CAI and conventional media.Thus, this chapter is a study on the information processing behavior at an HUD, focusing on its role in CAI.Our aim is to introduce the basic concept and human factors of an HUD, explain the features of HUD-based CAI, and show user performance with our HUD-based CAI system.