Realistic Looking Interfaces: In Search Of The Best Ergonomic Metaphors For Remote And Virtual Laboratory Interfaces

In the last few years, remote and virtual laboratories have emerged as viable complements to traditional or legacy laboratories in fulfilling the experimentation component of engineering curricula. In fact, as we argue in this paper, remote and virtual laboratories have the potential to replace many legacy labs if the proper interface paradigms are identified. In this paper, we present the Realistic Looking Interface, which is a type of interface that focuses on the use of a metaphor that the student can more intuitively relate to a real-life laboratory. In essence, a student interacts with the laboratory using a point-and-click mechanism to manipulate graphical objects that have a one-to-one mapping to the real hardware backend. We present two implementation of a Realistic Looking Interface, one using a Java 3D space as a medium, and the other using 2D based flash vector representation. We show that in both cases, students psychologically relate the remote and virtual laboratories to real life ones and demonstrate a higher level of satisfaction with the experimentation process. We conclude that development and evolution of Realistic Looking Interfaces will allow virtual laboratories to eventually replace a large percentage of legacy laboratories.

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