User experience observations on factors that affect performance in a road-crossing training application for children using the CAVE

Abstract

Each year thousands of pedestrian get killed in road accidents and millions are non-fatally injured. Many of these involve children and occur when crossing at or between intersections. It is more difficult for children to understand, assess and predict risky situations, especially in settings that they don't have that much experience in, such as in a city. Virtual Reality has been used to simulate situations that are too dangerous to practice in real life and has proven to be advantageous when used in training, aiming at improving skills. This paper presents a road-crossing application that simulates a pedestrian crossing found in a city setting. Children have to evaluate all given pieces of information (traffic lights, cars crossing, etc.) and then try to safely cross the road in a virtual environment. A VR CAVE is used to immerse children in the city scene. User experience observations were made so as to identify the factors that seem to affect children's performance. Results indicate that the application was well received as a learning tool and that gender; immersion and traffic noise seem to affect children's performance. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.