The contributions of presence and ergonomics to the digital factory

Presence and Ergonomics are key elements in the development of virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) systems and environments. This paper describes the contributions of these human factors to the digital factory within the DiFac (FP6-2005-IST-5-035079) European Commission funded research project. For Presence, the main contribution is the construction and validation of a new questionnaire called Flow for Presence Questionnaire. This paper presents the concept of Presence, describes the development of the questionnaire and discusses the initial findings. For ergonomics the focus is on placing end-users at the core of the development process. Industrial partners have been involved from the beginning of DiFac to ensure that the final solution meets their requirements. This approach should also increase their acceptance of the final solutions by increasing their sense of ownership. However, in recognition of the constraints on end-users´ time, the development process has also included expert evaluations of the technologies.