Chronic pain (CP) significantly affects participation in meaningful occupations. It is a public health problem that comes with substantial social and economic costs (Dagenais et al., 2008; Dahlhamer et al., 2018; Geurts et al., 2018; Treede et al., 2015; Willems et al., 2018). Creating a successful intervention for CP is challenging due to the subjectivity of the pain experience and the complexity of factors associated with pain behavior (Newton et al., 2013; Polacek et al., 2020; Van Huet et al., 2012). This doctoral project details the development of the Sustained-pain Treatment through Augmented Reality Occupation-based Protocol (STAR-OP), a novel treatment protocol that offers practical solutions for an outpatient occupation-based CP intervention. The STAR-OP addresses critical issues for the CP population, including expectation management, home assignments adherence, and the generalization process from clinical practice to the client's home environment. The STAR-OP program uses Augmented Reality technology to facilitate a gradual generalization process, Motivational Interviewing techniques to enhance the therapeutic relationship's effectiveness, and the educational content of the Lifestyle Redesign® protocols presented through an occupational perspective (A. Simon & Collins 2017). The STAR-OP program evaluation examines the effectiveness of the STAR-OP, via a multiple-baseline, single-subject design, institutional review board (IRB)-approved study to be conducted at Lowenstein Rehabilitation Center in Israel.

There are different ways to interact with different hardware, therefore it is important to have an understanding about what factors that affect the experience when designing interactions and interfaces. This study focuses on exploring how auditory and vibrotactile feedback are perceived by the users when they interact in a virtual AR environment. An application was developed to the AR glasses Magic Leap with different interactions, both passive and active. An experimental study was conducted with 28 participants that got to interact in this virtual environment. The study included two parts. First the participants interacted in the virtual environment where they did a think aloud. Thereafter they were interviewed. There were a total of three test cases. One with only auditory feedback, one with vibrotactile feedback, and a third that had both auditory and vibrotactile feedback. Seven of the 28 participants acted as a control group that did not have any feedback to their interactions. The study shows that using only vibrotactile feedback creates different impressions depending on earlier experiences with the same AR environment. Using only auditory feedback created an atmosphere that were close to reality. Having both feedbacks active at the same time reduced the noticed feedback and some interactions were here not even noticed at all. Passive interactions were more noticed than active interactions in all cases. / Det finns flera olika sätt att interagera med olika hårdvaror och därför är det viktigt att ha en förståelse kring vilka faktorer som påverkar upplevelsen när man designar för diverse gränssnitt och interaktioner. Den här studien fokuserar på att utforska hur auditiv och vibrationsåterkoppling uppfattas av användaren när de interagerar i en virtuell AR-miljö. En applikation var utvecklad till AR-glasögonen Magic Leap One med olika aktiva och passiva interaktioner.En experimentell studie genomfördes med 28 deltagare som fick interagera i en virtuell miljö. Studien bestod av av två delar. Först fick deltagarna interagera i en virtuell miljö där de gjorde en think aloud. Efter detta blev de intervjuade. Det var totalt tre testfall, ett hade endast auditiv återkoppling, ett hade vibrationsåterkoppling och det sista hade både auditiv och vibrationsåterkoppling. Sju av de 28 deltagarna agerade kontrollgrupp och de hade ingen återkoppling på deras interaktioner.Studien visade att bara använda vibrationsåterkoppling skapade olika intryck beroende på de tidigare erfarenheterna i samma AR-miljö. Att endast använda auditiv återkoppling skapade en atmosfär som vara nära verkligheten. Att ha båda återkopplingarna aktiva samtidigt reducerade den totala märkta återkopplingen och några interaktioner hade inte någon person som noterade någon av dem. Passiva interaktioner var mer uppmärksammade än aktiva interaktioner i alla testfallen.

This master thesis is a case study, in the experience industry, of prototypes in the early stage of the innovation process – the front end of innovation. The innovation is augmented reality (AR) that adds digital made graphics or information in the user's environment. To answer the research questions and to fulfill the purpose of this thesis, which is to gain an understanding of the role of a prototype in an innovation process, a prototype was created. The designing tools used for developing the prototype were brainstorming and storyboarding. The prototype presents a concept of using AR-glasses at an ice hockey venue. A workshop was carried out for evaluating the finished prototype, using the "thinking hats"-method. The conclusion of this study is that a prototype can be used as a starting point for further creativity by creating a common perspective of a technology at the front end of innovation. Further on, it was discovered that a prototype can be good to use earlier in their innovation process, to accelerate the process. In the process of designing the prototype, it was shown that the creation is iterative, rather than linear.