Design, User Experience, and Usability. Theory, Methods, Tools and Practice

This paper provides insights into Chinese consumers’ behavior, attitude, and preference for travel planning and research, hotel selection and on-property spending patterns. Challenges and opportunities are discussed and practical recommendations are made for global hotel companies to create and execute their multi-channel eCommerce strategy by focusing on culturally savvy website localization and wise online marketing.

There are numerous excellent studies devoted to blog design; however few of these can explain the interaction between evaluation criteria in a systematic way. The purpose of this study is to explore the causal relationships between the criteria for blog design. Since design is a multiple criteria decision-making problem, this study uses the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory method (DEMATEL). The DEMATEL method is used to simplify and visualize the interrelationships between criteria in making a decision. This study adopted seven important criteria that influence blog design: Aesthetic Layout, Multiple Layout Style Choice, Ease of Management, Ease of Registration, Storage Capacity, System Stability, Friendliness to Beginners. According to the results of DEMATEL analysis, the impact-relations map was obtained. The author hopes that this study will make a useful contribution to better understanding blog design.

Digital ethnography is an approach to presenting real-world cultures using the features of digital environments and techniques of narrative. Digital ethnography projects exploit the computational and expressive power of new media to allow audiences to not only learn about, but to also experience something of the culture as well. This approach employs the distinctive features of digital environments such as immersion and interactivity to create new ways to tell cultural stories and enact the research process. This paper presents experiences from a collaborative work where multidisciplinary scholars are involved in creating a cultural website called PeruDigital that presents the culture and history of Peru festivals and related folklore forms for K-12 grade students and individuals interested in Hispanic culture. In addition, this research reflects how digital ethnographers, HCI researchers, and digital media producers are work together in order to create an effective interactive cultural media model.

A quantitative research surveying 390 people with different levels of expertise in computer usage was conducted to understand user behavior from three perspectives: How users make sure that the sites they are using are safe, How users deal with forgotten passwords, How secure is the “security questions”. The finding shows users’ pattern of behavior in checking security when viewing a web application, the way they deal with numerous passwords and retrieval of the forgotten password by using the security question. The research concludes that most people would be able to answer a variety of security questions for other people in their entourage. Users seem to have significantly different behaviors statistically by age group and level of expertise.

We propose two design concepts for the user-friendly manual and compare them in an experiment. The first concept, which focuses on user comprehension, is to use one picture of the completed wiring. The second concept is to uses a series of steps from left to right with the goal of making the user follow the order. Trials show that participants presented with material based on the first concept tend to follow their own mental-model rather than the manual. Material based on the second concept also failed to make users follow the order. Some implications for the refinement of manual design are derived based on the results.

This research paper presents the design and user evaluation of an add-in software program referred to as Organic Bookmark Management (OBM). This system will complement the Bookmark and History functions by enabling users to navigate more efficiently using organic visual graphical cues. The findings from formative user studies conducted by this research have defined web usage and analysis of web browsing in terms of navigation patterns. Evaluation of the OBM alternative to the normal “hub and spoke” navigation structure of traditional Bookmarks and History functions will be conducted. The main difference between this schema and conventional designs is that it maintains a complete and consistent visual display of previously bookmarked and visited pages based on an organic metaphor. Implementation decisions and present results of usability studies in which we deploy the prototype are discussed. The results show that OBM brings qualitative improvement to the browsing experience of users.

In this research the effectiveness of the time estimation as the measure for the efficiency relating to the cognitive workload, which was a component of the usability, was examined through the usability tests experiment. Sixteen subjects were required to carry out two tasks according to the two scenarios with the low and high usability websites of the local governments. The result of time estimation revealed that the efficiency of the high usability website was higher than the low usability website, the same as the results of the other measures. From the results of this experiment it was suggested that the time estimation could be an effective measurement for the efficiency relating to the cognitive workload which was a component of the usability.

Web accessibility for old users has become a serious issue, especially in Japan. The problems involve cognitive as well as physical characteristics. Cognitive problems are well-handled by the metaphor approach, especially for older users when Web browsing. In order to investigate the impact of his approach, we conducted experiments with 11 old subjects and 10 young subjects. They were asked to search for a target in a Web site via the book metaphor interface and with a common Web browser interface. Although there were no differences in the task success rates or the task completion time between the two interfaces, there was a difference in the browsing time per Web page. The results of a questionnaire show that many old users prefer the metaphor interface. With the book interface, they selected the strategy of look and click because it lessens the demands placed on working memory.

This study explored differences in eye movement on a Web page between members of two different cultures to provide insight and guidelines for implementation of global Web site development. More specifically, the research examines whether differences of eye movement exist between the two cultures (American vs. Korean) when viewing a Web page, and if so, whether their eye movements are affected according to the level of Web page complexity. This study employed eye tracking methods and several eye movement metrics were measured.

In this paper, we described an innovative web history visualization and tagging tool – Trails, which is designed and developed to help people understand their browsing history and habits better. We gathered users’ impressions of using Trails, including comparison with traditional web history views, perceived usefulness, privacy concerns, and suggestions to improve the system.

Car accident statistics indicate that the pedestrians are the majority of the road traffic victims due to drivers’ lack of adequate visibility on the road. In this paper, the effects of human natural sounds in drivers’ awareness were investigated in order to increase pedestrian safety by carrying out a study on introducing a 3D sound system into drivers. All studies with collected results showed strong positive support to the design of using 3D sound system to present the pedestrians’ situation to car drivers.

Pervasive games have been proposed as a suitable way to support learning, especially in places rich in information, as for example museums and cultural heritage sites. This paper reports on the work performed to identify guidelines that help designers in developing games able to provide an effective learning experience in such contexts. Such guidelines complement other proposals available in the literature. The presented contribution is a first step of a wider work aimed at deepening our understanding of pervasive educational games, with a special emphasis on games in the cultural heritage domain, in order to inform the designers of such challenging applications.

This paper describes the adaption and customization of usability engineering methods for the interface design of a solar control unit. The design of a nontraditional interface, constrained access to representative users and a lack of common interface standards were domain-related issues to overcome. Due to limited resources, a Guerilla HCI approach was established. Traditional low-cost methods like prototyping and simplified usability testing were applied and adapted to fit in the domain-specific context. Good feedback indicates suitability of modified discount methods in the new domain.

This paper describes a preliminary study of factors that influence the usability of end-user composition interfaces for smart environments. Three early GUI prototypes were tested in a usability laboratory, and transcriptions from the test subjects’ comments during the experiment were analyzed in search of recurring areas of concern. Four usability factors were identified: (1) predictability of composition model, (2) readability of composition representation, (3) overview and means for planning compositions, and (4) attractiveness and desirability.

Due to advances in display technologies and continuous decrease in large display prices, more users are choosing larger displays or multiple monitors for personal and professional use although standard size desktop monitors are still widely used. As programmers use a larger display surfaces to read and understand their code, current code editors are designed for standard monitor sizes and they do not exploit the extra space that comes with a larger display. In this paper, we discuss the use of a large display for code reading and test whether code reading can be improved by utilizing larger screen space.

User experience design professionals have established tools and processes for creating user interfaces. However some new interaction paradigms differ so greatly from their predecessors that established methodology is inadequate. Mobile augmented reality (AR) is one such paradigm. Viewing and interacting with 3D registered graphics that are overlaid in the user’s camera view creates novel design challenges.

This paper describes the shortcomings of current user centered design methodology when applied to the creation of user experiences for mobile AR. We address the challenges of designing a seamless 3D mix of real-world and virtual experiences along with the complexity arising from the location-based nature of the content.

Finally, new tools and methodologies are presented for researching, designing, rapid prototyping, and user testing of mobile AR user experiences, with the intent of helping designers overcome the unique challenges inherent to this new interaction paradigm.

There is growing interest in user experience studies in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Interaction Design. Many researchers focus on designing technology to enhance user experience, specifically for engagement, joy, and collaboration. In order to explore user engagement, we developed three different WiiArts applications:

Illumination

,

RippleCast

, and

ChromaFlow

. We performed data analysis based on the video data collected from three different art exhibitions in three different countries: the USA, Germany, and South Korea. In this paper, we present the results of our observations that identified users’ engagement time, the number of people in a drawing collaboration session, and their drawing patterns. Then, we discuss the design implications for user engagement in terms of interactivity, collaboration, and creation. We conclude that both situated interaction and collaborative creation should be considered for designing technology for enhancing user engagement.

A versatile wearable computer for drivers (VWCD) was proposed that can extend in-vehicle multi-modal display spaces. In the first development phase, LEDs, mini video displays, earphones, and vibrators were included as visual, auditory and tactile displays, and were all attached to an eyeglass frame. One electrocardiographic electrode was attached to the VWCD to obtain the driver’s heart rate signal at the posterior auricular artery, and a gyro sensor was used to track the driver’s head position. Finally, a Bluetooth device was included to enable communication between VWCD and its mobile phone platform.

Data saturation of satellite navigation systems (already a problem with location based services) will become particularly acute in the emerging area of networked electric vehicles (NEV). Sophisticated energy management and navigation software may solve a technology integration challenge, but it will leave unresolved the usability implications for drivers and fleet operators. These include navigation data specific to commercial electric vehicles; delivery scheduling, routes, times, traffic congestion avoidance, range & charge levels etc. Many are time dependent factors that complicate interaction with a map based navigation system. They also risk augmenting driver stress and distraction induced errors. This Paper has two objectives. Firstly we examine the problem of information saturation of navigation systems. Secondly we undertook a series of user tests to evaluate an alternative NEV navigation system. The DHS solution is a compressed data feed delivering ”just in time” multimodal prompts embedded in the map route. The test results demonstrated improved driver comprehension and reduced driver glance away time from road to navigation system.

A literature review has indicated that the remote control, the main physical artifact of interaction with the television system, in its current form is not adequate to the interaction between users and applications of Interactive Digital Television (iDTV), especially in a scenario of diverse user profiles as found in Brazil. This paper describes participatory practices carried out with the intention of defining a new physical artifact of interaction for iDTV. Based on the results of these participatory practices and previous research results, we provide a definition of an artifact that can be adapted to diverse contexts of use.

This paper examines the issues associated with the localisation of emergency vehicles. A combinatory warning system is then proposed that aims to provide drivers of both civilian and emergency vehicles with a different sequence of auditory cues as well as an in-cabin warning when an emergency vehicle is in the close vicinity. For the early testing of this hybrid alert system, we used the modelling techniques currently available to the UK emergency services in order to estimate the concurrent efficiency of the siren’s auditory warnings.

This whitepaper examines the applicability of gesture-based user interfaces in notional Command-and-Control (C2) environments of the United States Army. It was authored by a team of Human Factors Engineers at The MITRE Corporation, a not-for-profit research and development organization funded by the United States Government. Since MITRE resides in a not-for-profit advisory position to their federal sponsors, the research team was able to take an unbiased perspective driven solely by identified issues, the search for improved workflows, and practical opportunities for technology development. The goal of the effort was to inform the US Army community so that it can make responsible, needs-driven decisions regarding gestural interface technologies, and avoid the potential pitfalls that may arise from technology-centered or profit-driven decisions.

The problems focused upon by this research primarily revolved around the collaborative human workflows that occur within Command-and-Control environments. Specifically, the effort targeted US Army-based C2 environments, such as a notional fixed command center, a mobile command center, and the environment of the dismounted soldier in the battlefield. The primary issue is that the currently-implemented technologies, while independently sufficient, present constraints when distributed personnel are collaborating across them. The research team addressed this cross-platform issue by adhering to a Systems Engineering framework that required a holistic approach to the “system” of distributed C2 personnel and their technologies. The goal for the final output was to demonstrate how these technologies may come together as a system to support a more efficient, dynamic, and effective operational workflow than today’s reality.

After carefully examining the field of current and emerging gestural interface technologies, and mapping them against available HCI-related research findings, the team concluded that US Army personnel may indeed benefit from effectively and appropriately implemented technologies from this domain. At a high level, gestural technologies offer C2 personnel an ability to conduct more efficient and collaborative workflows across distributed environments. The exact details of these workflows, including the key users, actions, and technology paradigms, are outlined in the content of the whitepaper. In an effort to be as prescriptive as possible, the research team decided that it would be valuable to include a sizable section within the whitepaper dedicated to instructing the user on how to implement gestural technologies for C2 application. In this section, they outline the key design patterns to selecting proper solutions and developing effective interaction design frameworks. The nature of this instructional portion ranges from highlevel design principles and best practices down to detailed visual demonstrations of recommended gestures.

Alumni events and homecomings provide opportunities to reconnect and reminiscence with old friends and colleagues, i.e., they aim to reinforce connections between community members. Although these events explicitly foster social interaction, the first step in engaging with others can still be difficult. To help “break the ice”, we have built

USIAlumni Faces

, a ‘yearbook’ application running on a public display that is operated via a gesture interface. We deployed USIAlumni Faces at a large university alumni event, which gave us the opportunity to observe and understand learning techniques for gesture interfaces and their role in supporting the emergence of social interaction in public spaces. We found that gesture-based interfaces support the natural diffusion of interaction patterns in public spaces through the observe-and-learn model, and that sensory-motor patterns can aid social interaction in public, as they act as conversation starters between both strangers and acquaintances.

Over the next ten years, electric power utilities will be required to invest billions of dollars to meet public policy goals for a greener, smarter electricity grid. Renewable generation portfolio standards, electric vehicle infrastructure, advanced metering infrastructure, and the replacement of aging grid assets are some of the factors driving these new investments. The Grid Intelligent Planning Framework using GridLAB-D is an advanced forecasting solution that allows utility business and engineering experts to collaborate on forecasting models, and thereby to reduce the time needed for a capital investment planning cycle. This solution facilitates wise and timely investment decisions as the pace of change accelerates in the electric power industry.

This research integrated ideas regarding affordance into a method for creative design, including five major steps: 1) Observe behavior; 2) Note down events happening or issues; 3) Figure out pattern; 4) Obtain messages of behavior perception; and 5) Reinforce message and naming. In this research, an “

Another Hand

” plate was designed to demonstrate the applicability of this method. In the application process, first, the researchers observe the dining environment, and discovered that it was difficult for people to scoop up the last few bits of food on the plate; therefore, they need the aid of extra tableware to finish their food. Then, observing users, we discovered that the spoon might turn around the plate. Next, we transform the idea into the design of the wedge to stop the food from moving. So the diner can finish the last bits of food using a natural eating motion. Lastly, with “

Another Hand

” plate as an example, we observed the process of 10 people eating with this plate. It was discovered that users could use this wedge to help scoop the food at 64.2% of the dining time. Hence, this invention won the final list design award of I.D.E.A. held in the USA in 2008. This research intends to review and revise this design method for better design for the reference of other inventors.

The purpose of this research intends to integrate the strengths of axiomatic design (AD) theory and theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ). This study establishes a systematic product design model by adopting some major tools from AD and TRIZ such as functional requirements, design parameters, design matrix, contradiction matrix and inventive principles. Furthermore, the proposed model’s efficiency is analyzed and evaluated by a case study of a Handheld GPS product. Results indicate that the design model which combines with two theories can find out the usability problems and solutions efficiently. When applying the proposed model on product redesign or new product development may avoid the cost waste and increase the design efficiency and usability during the product design and development processes.

In psychology, users’ enthusiasm for products or services is categorized as a kind of intrinsic motivation. One theory states that enthusiasm is evoked when users perceive an adequate gap between their own characteristics and those of an object from the viewpoints of emotion, cognition, and ability. This study develops a method for computing an adequate psychological gap based on the characteristics of each user. We experimentally produce a service that makes each user feel the effect of the gap, and conduct a scientific evaluation. In particular, by focusing on the case of a museum, this study constructs an application to provide different sets of information to enable each user experience an adequate psychological gap with an optical see-through head-mounted display (OSD), and effectively evaluates whether this evokes user enthusiasm.

This article extends the analysis of a usability test of C2PC, a US Marine Corps command and control software product. The study revealed the C2 operators were able to perform simple tasks, but had difficulty combining those simple tasks into realistic tasks. These differences highlight the need to both consider the complex interactions during HCI design and for using complex scenarios when testing complex systems. Poor human-information interaction (HII) is reflected in designs which fail to support effectively rolling up the individual tasks into the complex interactions that people must perform. Usability tests show basic tasks can be accomplished but these systems fail to support people solving open-ended, unstructured, complex problems which require extensive and recursive decision-making or problem solving This paper discusses how the issue appears in many software products, causing problems in effectively communicating information. It considers the broader design issues for complex information spaces.

Well-designed and conducted usability efforts – “big U Usability including the entire user-centered design process, from requirements gathering through prototype creation and evaluation, through system usability testing, through delivery/cut-live, and to field testing and beyond, and even fundamental usability research – are vital to the creation of human-information systems that actual people can use to carry out their intended tasks. Done poorly, such efforts can be worse than nothing. We have crafted this conference session, “Usability Studies: Rigor or Rigor Mortis?,” to highlight good examples of rigor applied to usability studies, and to illustrate how important a rigorous approach is.

We describe the HCI Browser, a Mozilla Firefox extension designed to support studies of Web information seeking. The HCI Browser presents configurable tasks to the user, collects browser event data as the user interacts with the browser and Web pages, provides mechanisms to record answers that are found, and administers pre- and post-task questionnaires. In this paper, aspects of using and configuring the HCI Browser are summarized and details are given about the events logged, the format of the log files, and how the system is implemented as a Firefox extension. The HCI Browser is open-source software and is available for download at: http://ils.unc.edu/hcibrowser

The objective of this study is to investigate the interactive relationship between product color information and color combination interface on computer screen. In order to achieve the objective, this study takes the cell phone as an example. Also, two customized product color interfaces based on both three dimensional model product model and two dimensional product illustration displays via the marketing approach of experience economy are designed in the study. Furthermore, this study discusses user interface satisfaction of customized product color combination selection. It shows that both the interactive process and the resulting differ in three dimensional model display and two dimensional illustration display. It seems to be the best way for users to get a unique experience and a realistic feeling of the virtual product in 360 degrees with three dimensional model product model for displaying customized product color combination.

This paper presents an approach taken by Citrix to shape a balanced, shared product design effort with engineering. Key points include the rise of hybrid designers skilled in software programming, the use of standard UI components, and collaborative standards council activities. Action items are also noted for interested readers trying to build their own integrated design and development efforts for good software user interfaces.

Web usability evaluation methods have been traditionally considered as detached from the analysis of the actual usages of a web applications. While the former is typically delegated to web engineers or web designers, the latter seems to be a concern only for online marketing experts. Based on our previous research results, in this paper we present a holistic evaluation model that seamlessly integrates usability and usage analysis in the assessment of the communication quality of a web application. Specifically, we apply this model to the analysis of BravoFly website (a Swiss Online Travel Agent) and we illustrate how the results of this integrated evaluation can shed new light in intelligently prioritizing re-design interventions. Implications for online tourism communication managers and researchers in this area are discussed.

A product and its cultural understanding explain the social perception and value of the product and its users. Recent cultural studies show that cultural differences can have influence on the usage and satisfaction of the product through the advent of the Internet and globalization. This study explores such differences in four countries, based on observations on the usage of mobile media. As part of ethnographical method, researchers visited Korea, China, India and the Netherlands, observed and interviewed a total of 48 subjects (12 for each country) in order to analyze the characteristics their use of mobile media. The observations were performed over four sectors of gaining, managing, sharing and enjoying media content, which were further investigated through two times of comprehensive synthesized analysis by local researchers. After the observations, 10 major differences were found over three categories. How to collect and share media content varied depending on each culture. Particularly, content was used for personal entertainment as well as for social networking purpose with varied details. These differences are believed to stem from cultural differences, which would help understand the expected experience and value in each of the countries.

Products are a composition of multiple attributes and should be evaluated in full-profile also in research contexts. Research studies on the use of technological products which only assess the importance of individual attributes do not reflect real-life scenarios of multi-attribute judgments and miss out on information that only becomes apparent in relative terms. In order to study the predictive value and relative importance of six attributes (functionality, cognitive ergonomics, classical ergonomics, quality, aesthetics, and emotional involvement) with respect to the likelihood of use, the method of conjoint analysis was borrowed from consumer research. The study was conducted with 104 participants divided in two groups of low and high self-competence. Group differences were only revealed when attributes were considered jointly, but not in single ratings. An intuitive interface, easy handling, and emotional involvement were greater motivators for the low competence group. Methodological implications are discussed.

Personas are fictitious characters that are created to document the goals, behaviors, desires, and limitations of a real group of users. They are an important part of product development because they help keep focus on key user needs. Currently, most personas focus exclusively on desktop users from one geographic area. A new approach was used to create five personas that emphasize mobile usage and unique cultural traits. The personas were created after conducting ethnographic research in India, Singapore and the United States. The layout of the persona highlights the mobile work style, tasks, and use cases. Instead of setting all personas in a single country, each persona is localized and framed in a detailed cultural context. In addition, we included forward thinking aspects into our personas that projected what mobile users will be doing in the future based on expressed needs and the latest technologies.

Testing the usability of an interface is a critical phase of product development. However, it is often reported that analyzing the data from such testing consumes too many limited resources. We attempted to reduce this consumption by proposing a new technique, Discount Video Data Analysis (DVDA). We compared it with another popular accelerated analysis technique, Instant Data Analysis (IDA). Using IDA, evaluators analyze data after a series of usability tests, whereas DVDA calls for analyzing the data after every test in the series. Immediate analysis decreases the chance that subsequent test data will negatively interfere with evaluators’ recall. Additionally, DVDA produces a video of the testing allowing the users’ emotional responses (e.g., frustration) to be shared with developers who may be resistant to interface modifications. We found evaluators using DVDA identified more usability issues and provided more supportive evidence for each issue than evaluators using IDA.

This paper outlines three design projects that address the implications of current and emerging information technologies for the interests, abilities and psychological condition of the people who use them. It is analysed how these projects address the emerging needs of the “digital natives”: the generation of young people that grows up with digital information technology from an early age on. The origin and usage of the term “design fiction” is explained and a comparison with science fiction is put forth with a special focus on the work within the department. It is shown how design fiction can be used as a “Trojan horse” for communicating unconventional and unforeseen implications to a larger audience.

In the new data-intensive science paradigm, data infrastructures have been designed and built to collect, archive, publish, and analyze scientific data for a variety of users. Little attention, however, has been paid to users of these data infrastructures. This study endeavors to improve our understanding of these users’ data usage models through a content analysis of publications related to a frequently cited project in the data-intensive science, Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We find that 1) Content analysis of scientific publications could be a complementary method for researchers in HCI community; 2) although SDSS produced a large volume of astronomical data, users did not fully utilize these data; 3) users are not only consumers of scientific data, they are also producers; and 4) studies that can use multiple large scale data sources are relatively rare. Issues of data provenance and usability may prevent researchers from doing research that combines such data sources. Further HCI study of detailed usability issues associated with data infrastructures in the new paradigm is eagerly needed.

This article aims to present the method of usability evaluation called Scenario and Task Based Interviews (STBI). The method was proposed to add flexibility to field usability testing, so that they could be applied to the context of The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). IBGE is the institute of Brazilian central Administration that performs the Census and other important official demographic and economic data collection. This evaluation technique was specifically designed to be implemented with the participation of interviewers who use PDA (personal digital assistants) to perform data collection for statistical research in Brazil. The authors analyzed the usability of the application developed for PDA to support the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (Continuous PNAD). The method proposed in this paper represented a mix of four approaches to usability evaluation.

Legible text and graphics presented on computer displays and projection screens are essential for benefit of human-computer interaction. Legibility of characters depends on the display brightness, luminance contrast of characters, character size, font types, color, viewing distance and angle, and observer’s acuity level. In sign and display industry, a legibility index, defined as the viewing distance divided by the character height, has been widely used for legibility evaluation. However, this index fails to examine all major factors other than geometry. To enhance human-computer interaction, a quantitative legibility evaluation method, which takes into account all major affecting factors, is needed for quick and reliable guidance, goal of this study. This study thus developed a legibility assessment protocol based on a redefined legibility index as the inverse square root of the solid angle subtended by the target, a legibility equation, and innovative camera-aided high dynamic range photogrammetric techniques the author recently developed.

The objective of this study was to find the relationship between body-seat pressure distribution and driver comfort ratings of dynamic seating experience. A total of 38 participants performed four short-term driving sessions in a commercialized vehicle. These sessions involved two driving environments (lab vs. field-based). Body-seat interface pressure data were recorded continuously during driving, and the comfort ratings of the whole body and local body parts were measured after each session. Several body-seat pressure distribution variables were proposed to improve sitting comfort.

Pop-up menus enable more efficient interface operation. Inspired from empirical inference, observation, and literature reviews, this study investigated the operation efficiency of pop-up menus through examining human’s superior physical characteristics of visual search and mouse movement. A new style of menu type, Elliptic-Pie Menu, was proposed and examined on operation efficiency against traditional linear menus and (circular) pie menus while different item lengths were also analyzed. The study revealed: (1) Menu type is a significant factor of the operation efficiency; (2) Short items turn out to be more efficient than long items do; (3) Linear Menu presents the highest operation efficiency, whereas Circular-Pie Menu delivers the lowest error rate; (4) Elliptic-Pie Menu occurs significant improvement of operation efficiency with the use of short items.

Online privacy mechanisms have not been effective in ensuring end-users’ privacy. One of the main reasons is the un-usability of these mechanisms. Although past socio-psychological studies have highlighted the need for privacy in interpersonal interactions and social relationships, approaches to designing online privacy have often not considered privacy as a communication process. In this study the principles of communication privacy management (CPM) are used within semiotic inspection to examine online privacy mechanisms. We found that privacy as a communication process breaches many of the principles of CPM. We conclude that this might explain why end-users do not interact with online privacy mechanisms effectively.

METU kiosks are established at common points of METU campus to meet the immediate internet needs of students however they are not used at expected level. In this study, usability of METU kiosks is evaluated to identify design problems that may discourage users from using kiosks. For the evaluation, series of user trials were conducted based on some common tasks. Evaluation results show that there are critical usability problems with the design of input devices mounted on kiosk. Users generally had problems while typing with keyboard, while moving pointer using trackball mouse and while clicking using touch screen. In addition, no significant difference is observed between inexperienced and experienced users in terms of their overall success during trials. Specific examples for these usability problems and related recommendations are provided in this paper.

As ubiquitous media is developing rapidly, new HCI challenges emerge. In this paper, we address usability issues related to the transfer of content between fixed and mobile devices, as well as channel switching delays on mobile devices. We first provide an extensive review of the field. We then evaluate four relatively novel approaches for initiating a transfer of video content from a mobile phone to a TV screen. Seen from a user’s point of view, familiarity and comfort are found to be important decision factors when selecting a preference among the proposed methods. Furthermore, we identify a threshold level above which people appear to be annoyed when switching between TV channels on a mobile device, and investigate factors that may influence the perceived acceptability of such delay.

Ali Wangwang is an instant messenger that is used by sellers and buyers to get an agreeable dealing about goods listed on Taobao.com. Buyers from Taobao.com stated that they used Ali Wangwang to communicate with sellers before almost every transaction. The objective of this study was to understand the primary factors that affect the user experience of buyers using Ali Wangwang. We designed self-reported questionnaires with questions focusing on users’ overall satisfaction and evaluations of the messenger’s interface and function, privacy protection, spam messages control and other related properties. We found that properties related to ease-of-use were the most significant factors in predicting user satisfaction.

A measure called i-bar is presented, which is the inverse of the mid-range derived from data on trials-to-criterion in tasks that require practice. This measure is interpreted as a conjoint measurement scale, permitting: (a) evaluation of sensitivity of the principal performance measure (which is used to set the metric for trials to criterion); (b) evaluation of the learnability of the work method (i.e. the goodness of the software tool); (c) evaluation of the resilience of the work method. It is possible to mathematically model such order statistics using negative binomial and logistic growth equations, and derive methods for generating prediction intervals. This approach involves novel ways of thinking about statistical analysis for "practical significance." The is applicable to the study of the effects of any training or intervention, including software interventions designed to improve legacy work methods and interventions that involve creating entirely new cognitive work systems.

This study examines the design characteristics of government web interfaces from three Arab countries using Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. Organizational and graphical elements from 30 ministry websites from Egypt, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia were examined using content analysis. Element frequency scores were correlated with Hofstede’s dimensions and interpreted based mainly on the model developed by Marcus and Gould. The results suggest that Hofstede’s model of culture does not fully reflect the design characteristics of Arabic interfaces.

“Different UI, Same UX” is a design concept originated from UX research on content and information services in multi-screens, also known as 3-Screens. The biggest UX challenge in such an environment is that it is composed of different devices in different interfaces that need to work together to provide one integrated service. In a heterogeneous environment like this, “Different UI” emphasizes creating UIs that fit each device and therefore put less weight on consistency. At the same time, “Same UX” highlights to need to maintain one coherent branded UX identity across devices; coherence being a higher-level of consistency. This paper introduces how these two priorities can be reconciled into one design concept. The paper elaborates on the definition of “Different UI, Same UX” with a number of baseline ideas. Several industry examples that we believe illustrate this concept are also discussed.

This study was designed to develop a methodology measuring the user experience with mattress both in the past and showroom, and to eventually recommend a healthy and comfortable mattress for individual user. Five mattresses with different hardness were used to find the most compatible mattress with individual subject’s physical and psychological condition. User experience such as lying on the mattress in showroom was analyzed by quantitatively measuring Electromyography of low back muscle, heart rate change, and oxygen saturation level. In addition, the whole body pressure distribution was measured to examine the dermal discomfort. A questionnaire was used to record the past personal experience and preference on mattress. A selection rule with the finally chosen four independent variables and mathematical scale was developed to find the best mattress for individual. Furthermore, a regression analysis was performed to predict the level of muscle relaxation in order to have the least measuring process in the showroom. The Body-Mattress Compatibility Score (BMCS) indicating the proper level of hardness was computed in this study and compared with subjective satisfaction score for validation, and it was found that ten out of twenty subjects showed the same score, and other ten subjects showed only one score difference.

The work described in this paper presents an automated, eye movement-driven approach (EMA) that allows for the identification of time intervals in which a user is experiencing difficulties in locating interface components required for completion of a task. Due to the substantial amount of visual search exhibited during these time intervals, this type of the user behavior is referred to as excessive visual search (ES). In this work we propose and evaluate several ES detection algorithms as part of the EMA. Empirical results indicate that it is possible to identify ES with a certain degree of accuracy (51-61% on average), warranting future research that would allow for increased accuracy in ES identification and reduction of misclassification errors. Practical application of EMA should allow the reduction of the amount of time required for manual detection of usability problems present in graphical user interfaces.

In usability testing, experimenters need to perform a pre-training, so as to control software-use experiences of subjects. The pre-training in usability testing is very important because subjects’ software-use experiences have a large effect on a result of a subjective evaluation of software. This paper aims to evaluate the software-use experiences quantitatively using EEG. We have conducted experiments to observe the relationships between subjects’ software-use experiences and EEG in using software. As a result, we found that there was a significant difference between them.

Nowadays, new technology continually is turning up and it has incorporated different interactive systems. In a parallel way, people use these technologies and they have to use IS to resolve their tasks without taking into account technology complexities. We consider that the user experience includes a lot of different paradigm that are able to provide users with a positive experience. In this context, our work is focused on enhancing one of the most used usability evaluation techniques. It is an inspection technique that allows carrying out usability reviews without the need of end users. It is called heuristic evaluation. The most difficult task in the heuristic evaluation method is choosing the most suitable set of heuristics for specific interfaces because usability experts have to consider all heuristics and they have to choose the best heuristics for a specific interface. So, the expert evaluator has to know all heuristic and all parts of interactive systems perfectly to find a closed set of heuristics. To make this step easier , we consider that if we have an interactive system component classification, we will be able to detect what components have our interactive system and, to choose the best usability heuristic for each interactive system component. Therefore, we present IS categorization that we will use to decide what heuristics are the best for specific IS according to the main aims of heuristic evaluation.

In order to evaluate usability, we often interview the users with using questionnaire sheets. However, conventional processing methods for questionnaire data are so simple that we cannot mine maximum information from the users’ opinions. This paper proposes a new method for deeper analysis of the user opinions. Using the vector quantization method, we can classify users into groups reflecting their skill grade. Also, by observing learning curves of the tasks, we can evaluate hardness of mastering each task and detect the defects of the work-flow to be improved. This paper explains the idea and mechanics of the method with referring an actual example, which is a questionnaire investigation for workers in a real office to examine usability problems on their works. The result of data analysis pointed out several very hard defects in the work-flow system, on which not only the novices but the experts are also facing difficulties. Those very hard defects cannot be solved by experience or training, because the experts cannot cope with them. Thanks to the vector quantization analysis, we can distinguish between difficult points that can be solved by workers’ experience and such very hard defects that require drastic reforms for improvement from.

Within the world of automation the trend of model-driven object oriented (oo) engineering has brought up fundamental questions about the applicability of these programming paradigms for Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) software. The authors present the results of previously conducted experiments on the usability of the classic procedural paradigm (IEC 61131-3) in machine and plant automation compared to model based approaches for PLC programming, in particular Unified Modeling Language (UML) and domain specific modeling languages. Extrapolating these experiments, we propose a way of enhancing usability evaluations by two means: First we present an improved modeling tool. Second, in order to determine the complexity of the tasks required to develop a PLC-program and to create constant boundary conditions for experimental studies, we propose using Hierarchical Task Analysis (HTA) on both model-driven oo and the state of the art programming approach, concerning typical scenarios. Finally the results of our work are discussed.

3D visualization in virtual space simultaneously provides depth information with 2D information visualization ability. Since, web-based e-learning system has become popular alternative framework for improving learning performance and increasing convenience and flexibility to learners. Integrating a 3D medical image visualization into e-learning system aims to accomplish the needs of biomedical engineering education where learners can navigate, browsing, and interact with 3D models of reconstructed medical images. In this paper, we present the usability evaluation results of our web-based 3D medical image visualization comparing with conventional 2D visualization for web-based learning. The experimental results show that 3D visualization method improves learners’ education performance with tasks involving 2D information.

Modern application interfaces for desktop PCs such as web-browsers, word processors, and media players share a standardized task oriented user interface (UI). Despite originating from different manufacturers these applications enable users to switch easily between different programs within the same application class, say between web-browsers. When compared to the standardization across these applications there is little or no standardization for different hearing-aid Fitting Software (FS). As a result, practitioners switching between different FS encounter transition challenges while they dispense hearing-aids from different manufacturers. We present usability findings to advocate an enhanced user-centered design process to alleviate the FS transition challenges faced by a practitioner and to improve system-wide usability within a FS. This article presents two main usability findings based on data from twenty-six practitioners who were new to

Inspire

, Starkey’s FS; these practitioners were advanced users of FS from three top hearing-aid manufacturers. First, there was significant degradation in task performance for new Inspire users while they performed two standardized tasks. New Inspire users took twice as long to complete these two tasks when compared to an average Inspire user. Second, we found that there were three main categories of usability issues in Inspire; these usability issues coupled with the lack of a standardized UI across different FS exacerbated the transition challenges faced by new Inspire users. Our findings highlight the need for a stronger focus on user-centered design principles for FS manufacturers. We believe that user-centered design is one approach to minimize the effects of competitive marketing and business practices in the hearing-aid industry but still deliver an improved usable system to a practitioner.

In previous research, we have developed an innovative usability evaluation methodology that is based on total effort metrics (TEM). In this paper we present a novel framework for using the TEM approach along with pattern recognition techniques for identifying user interface deficiencies. The methodology, referred to as pinpoint analysis, identifies time segments where the user expends excessive effort in a task-completion interaction-session. The pinpoint analysis methodology provides software engineers with information that can be used for addressing specific usability deficiencies such as poor arrangement of interface elements. The paper describes the new methodology and reports on pattern recognition and TEM based pinpoint analysis tool that is in advanced stages of development.

Two studies are described to determine the effect of locality, age, gender, ambient temperature, surface material and surface temperature, on user annoyance during a typing task on notebook computers. The studies were conducted in Oregon and Taiwan, using real computers modified with heaters under the keyboard and palm rests. Computer chassis made from both metal and plastic were studied, and users were exposed to ambient temperatures of both 23 °C and 35 °C. No practically significant effect of locality, age, gender, or ambient temperature was observed, but the ergonomic comfort between metal and plastic surfaces was very different at the same temperature.

To address difficult design issues that emerge throughout the prototyping process, interaction designers must rapidly secure user feedback that is both cost-effective and informative during the early stages of the product’s lifecycle. To do this, the authors devised a hybrid method of mobile experience prototyping referred to as “paper-in-screen.” Ten interaction designers participated in a pilot evaluation study, including a demonstration using the “paper-in-screen” method, hands-on exercise, and a semi-structured interview on the potential and drawbacks of the approach. The study yielded nine themes of qualitative data from which a reflective analysis was performed. Findings suggest considerable support for the method, but also an important contribution to mobile prototyping methodology for interaction designers.

Successful intercultural communication depends on the personal ability to mutually understand the web of belief of the others using empathic capabilities as shown by empirical examples. Only assuming the perspective of a user by the HCI designer to grasp their needs, can lead to good user interfaces of high usability, thereby evoking excellent user experience. Hence, empathy is a key factor for the successful design of intercultural human computer interaction (HCI).

When most people think of “persuasive design” in the context of web design, they think about how to persuade a typical online shopper to buy a cool new gadget, a stylish new handbag, or a popular new book. Persuasive design absolutely plays a role in those scenarios, but convincing people to buy something is only one of the places you might employ the principles of persuasion. When I talk to people in government or non-profit about persuasive design, their typical knee-jerk reaction is “that’s not for me.” When we dig a bit in to their reasoning, it typically comes down to one of two things. They either justify their position by claiming that they are not selling anything, or they take the high moral ground that “persuading” is akin to “tricking” – and, since they are government or non-profit, it’s an extra large no-no to trick somebody. In this paper, I will delve deeper in to the how various principles of persuasion can be used for things other than selling. I will generalize the conversation from its more common domain of retail and selling and explain how the ideas behind persuasive design can and do apply to other domains such as government and non-profit. I will provide numerous examples throughout to persuade the reader.

Recently, some methods of using thermal information on computer interaction are considered. In order to utilize the thermal information more effectively, it is extremely important to understand how to feel the user to use the thermal information. A “mouse” is generally used when the computer is operated the index finger is used for it while coming in contact. Then, the thermal information is presented the point of the index finger through the mouse. The mouse is installed the Peltier device in the part that touches the tip of index finger, and can present the thermal information to the computer assisted user by warming and cooling the Peltier device. In the first experiment, it was experimented by ME (Magnitude Estimation) method to clarify user’s how to feel it and the characteristic to the thermal stimulation. As a result, it was confirmed that the proportion of the degree of the change in user’s sense to the degree of the change in presented thermal information. In the second experiment, it was experimented by using the control knob to understand the tendency of the time progress to how feel the user about the temperature. As a result, some features were found about how to the temporal variation of the temperature stimulus to feel the user.

For a variety of reasons, content has been excluded from the discussion of persuasive design, both in academia and practice. This paper argues that content is a missed opportunity to make a digital experience not only inform or instruct but also influence. I explain the causes and consequences of disregarding content, then define the proper role and benefits of content. To improve the results of a persuasive experience, content can and must have a central role in planning, executing, and evaluating the experience.

Apparent usability (AU) and interface aesthetics are the two important factors in HCI, which are affected by the apparent space dimension (ASD). This paper, by making two experiments, explored the influencing mechanism of ASD on them. The results show that: 1) AU is made up of subjective feelings, operation, and cognition; 2) interface aesthetics is made up of impression beauty, material beauty, and hominine beauty; 3) participants’ subjective feelings increase with the addition of ASD; 4) participants have the strongest operational ability in the apparent 2-dimensional space but the weaker in the other two; 5) participants’ cognition for the interactive system decrease with the addition of ASD; 6) interface’s impression beauty increases with the addition of ASD; 7) interface’s material beauty and hominine beauty are both the best in the apparent 2-dimensional space, but not good enough in the other two.

The author’s firm combined information design with persuasion design to design a mobile phone application intended to change people’s behavior about diet and exercise. The objectives were to change people’s behavior and to avoid obesity and diabetes. The paper describes the user-centered user-experience development.

A living environment should be comfortable for all residents. The thermal environment is one of the indices of comfort, but it is difficult to adopt a specific thermal environment suitable for all residents who share a thermal space but have different personal needs. In this research, we propose an air conditioning control method that satisfies the demands of all residents in a given living environment. Control parameters change variously and control of the air conditioning is not easy for a typical real environment because the thermal environment changes dynamically. We propose a method of controlling air conditioners based on biological fluctuation.

Ergonomics has often produced grids to measure the ergonomic quality of goods and services. This paper seeks to establish and validate a grid to focus on the persuasive dimensions of interfaces and their effects; a grid that is robust, reliable, useful, relevant and easy to use for ergonomists, usability engineers and interaction designers. Our purpose is to develop and validate guidelines to measure and assess the persuasive dimensions of user experiences. This research based on a criteria model will become helpful in researching and designing persuasive technology. At first we propose a criteria-based approach to measure persuasive strength of interfaces; this criteria grid includes eight criteria: Credibility, Privacy, Personalization, Attractiveness, Solicitation, Priming, Commitment, and Ascendency. At the end, these criteria are validated by a sample of 30 experts, who confirmed that the proposed categorization of the criteria (from 71.30% to 83.25%).

Usability testing is an important, yet often overlooked, aspect of serious game development. Issues in usability can drastically impact user experience and thus the learning outcomes associated with serious games. The goal of this paper is to provide serious game developers with an approach to efficiently and effectively apply usability testing into their development process. We propose a three-tiered approach to the assessment of game usability with the addition of assessments playability and learning to traditional usability. Learning or training is the main objective of a serious game and enjoyment is often required when trying to elicit the necessary usage to achieve this goal. Step-by-step procedures and associated measures are provided to assess usability, playability, and learning outcomes concurrently with game development, while taking into account the unique goals and limitations of time, personnel, and budget that small development companies often encounter.

Many online advertising and web-based recommendation systems have been developed, however not so many services consider individual’s real activities in the real world for real time recommendation, regarding the experience of particular person. Environmental sensing from mobile devices has become capable of understanding the environment by sensing from mobile devices; though they do not necessary interact with the people directly. We present Experience-based Curiosity Model, a model indicating individual’s real time curiosity within the city regarding how well the individual knows the city. It aims to understand individual’s real time interests by not relying on information the people input intentionally but by understanding behavior data. This paper evaluates the model with this sensor device prototype, and elaborates possibilities when understanding individuals in detail by extracting the curiosity predicted from current behaviors using sensors.

This article focuses on the implied aesthetics resulting from the affordances of 4th generation mobile devices, and in particular: motion-awareness. It draws connections between web standards, open source platforms, and their implications on diverse output media. Motion-awareness is rooted in the possibility to detect and interpret device orientation and acceleration — thus by extension the movements and gestures of individuals interacting with handheld devices. The article introduces the

KETAI

platform, designed to aid mobile applications that rely on motion analysis. Faster and more accurate detection of device attitude, context, and transportation mode enables a variety of novel applications in the traffic, gaming, and heath care sectors.

This study is an exploratory investigation on user’s expectation emotions and design techniques associated with product use. A behavior unitization method has been introduced for dividing product-use behavior into 3 stages: starting, development, and ending. The sub-concepts of expected image in different stages were found by the study. The design elements of each sub-concept has been further analyzed, and the corresponding design techniques were generated through the focus group discussion. There are total 18 combinations of design techniques gained from this study.

Personalization and nostalgic emotion are both human-centered. Human memory and emotions are the core concerns of design. It is important for a designer to involve consumers in the design process at very begging and communicate with them to integrate their emotional factors into design. This study discusses how to apply nostalgic emotional design strategies to personalize a product, grasp consumers’ perception, and transform consumers’ past memories into personalized exclusive symbols. This study adopts the qualitative approach, generalizes relevant literatures, makes verification and evaluation through practical design examples, and proposes the following suggestions: (1) using personal experience as the cut-in point in design; (2) role-playing of " story telling " (consumer side) and "listening to stories" (designer side); (3) integrating various modalities into design of a product. This study aims at constructing a tentative model for nostalgic-emotional design.