The primary purpose of this study was to determine if WebVR enhances the knowledge retention regarding mechanical components of high-risk moving machinery, specifically elevators. There were 23 participants divided into a treatment group and comparison group. The treatment group used WebVR to take a virtual elevator machine room tour while the comparison group studied printed images of the same elevator machine room. These alternative activities were conducted prior to a field trip to a real elevator machine room. Gains in knowledge pre to post were measured and compared between the treatment and comparison groups. The research findings showed an overall gain in knowledge for the participants in the elevator bootcamp. More in depth analysis showed the treatment group exhibited significant gains for six of the ten knowledge areas while the comparison group exhibited significant gains in three of the ten targeted knowledge areas. The treatment group gained more knowledge on components higher than eye-level while the comparison group scored better on components that were below eye-level or on the floor. Both groups were seen actively engaged in the field trips. The treatment group members exposed to the virtual reality elevator machine room frequently referred to what they saw in the WebVR while the comparison group did not refer to their printed images while on an actual tour of the elevator machine room. Virtual reality training of this type has the potential to improve basic knowledge and safety trainings. Added, it provides trainings to large numbers of people across the globe who would otherwise not receive such training. This type of training has the potential to save the lives of workers in high risk electro-mechanical spaces and similar settings in different industries.

The Virtual Reality (VR) market has grown considerably in recent years. It is a technology that requires high performance in order to provide a good sense of presence to users. Taking VR to the web would open up a lot of possibilities but also poses many challenges. This thesis aims to find out whether VR on the web is a real possibility by exploring the current state of performance and usability of VR on the web and comparing it to native VR. The thesis also aims to provide a basis for discussions on the future of VR on the web. Two identical VR applications were built to make the comparison, one built for the web and one built for native Android. Using these applications, a two-part study was conducted with one part focusing on performance and the other on the user experience. The performance evaluation measured and compared performance for the two applications, and the user study used two separate questionnaires to measure the users experienced presence and VR sickness. The performance study shows that the web application is clearly lagging behind the native application in terms of pure performance numbers, as was expected. On the other hand, the user study shows very similar results between the two applications, contradicting what would be expected based on performance. This hints at successful mitigation techniques in both the hardware and software used. The study also suggests some interesting further research, such as investigating the relationships between performance, VR sickness, and presence. Other possible further research would be to investigate the effect of prefetching and adaptive streaming of resources, and how it could impact VR on the web.

Due to constantly increasing amount of data, the need for more efficient data center management solutions has increased dramatically. Approximately 40% of the costs for data centers is associated with cooling, making temperature management of data centers vital for data center profitability, performance, and sustainability. Current data center hardware management software lack a visual and contextual approach to data center monitoring, overlooking the hierarchical and spatiotemporal data structures of data center data in its design. This study compared two potential data center temperature visualizations — 3D visualization in virtual reality (VR) and 2D visualization on 2D screen — in terms of time to task completion, accuracy rate, and user satisfaction. Results of a within-subject user study with 13 data center specialists indicated that users perceived three-dimensional data center racks and devices more efficiently in VR than in a 2D visualization, whereas a two-dimensional graph was interpreted more efficiently and accurately on a 2D screen. The user satisfaction of both implemented visualizations scored over 80 in a System Usability Scale (SUS) survey, showing that the implemented visualizations have significant potential to improve data center temperature management. / På grund av den ständigt ökande mängden av data, har behovet till effektivare datacenterhanteringslösningar ökat dramatiskt. Cirka 40% av kostnaderna för datacentrar används till kylning, vilket gör temperaturhanteringen till en kritisk del av datacentrets lönsamhet, prestanda och hållbarhet. Nuvarande datacenterhanteringsprogramvaror saknar visuella och kontextuella tillvägagångssätt för datacenterövervakning och förbiser de hierarkiska och spatiotemporala datastrukturerna för datacenterdata i programvarudesign. Denna studie jämförde två potentiella datacentertemperaturvisualiseringar — en tredimensionell visualisering i virtuell verklighet (VV) och en tvådimensionell visualisering på en 2D skärm — i jämförelsen beaktas tid till uppgiftens slutförande, antalet riktiga svar och tillfredsställelse av användaren. Resultatet av användarstudien med 13 datacenterspecialister antydde att användare uppfattar tredimensionellaelektronikrack och enheter snabbare i VV än med 2D-visualisering, medan en tvådimensionell graf tolkas snabbare och noggrannare på en 2D skärm. Användartillfredsställelse av båda visualiseringarna fick över 80 poäng i SUS mätningen, vilket antyder att de genomförda visualiseringarna har en stor potential för att förbättra datacentertemperaturhanteringen.

The market for virtual reality products has grown rapidly the last few years, and as the demand grows, the supply should naturally follow. More games, applications and also web sites for virtual reality are going to have to be designed and produced to support this demand. However, the guidelines and the literature for designing user interfaces specifically for virtual reality are few and often outdated. The purpose of this thesis is to help contribute to determine how to design user interfaces for virtual reality, when one is making selection with fuse-based clicks. In this thesis, a prototype for a TV-platform is designed and produced in WebVR, using the framework A-Frame. The prototype is then evaluated with usability tests and redesigned as according to an iterative design process. The evaluations showed that items were easily clicked by mistake and often unknowingly. Furthermore, the test user participants often failed to notice user interface objects if the objects were not placed in the centre areas of the user interface. The conclusion suggests that navigation paths within the user interface could mitigate accidental clicks, and auditory feedback could help users notice the accidental clicks. Moreover, between 700ms to 1000ms, but closer to 1000ms, could be an appropriate fuse time to facilitate ease of making selections at the cost of speed efficiency.