Advances in Usability, User Experience and Assistive Technology

Early stage prototyping gains ever more importance in product development and User Experience (UX) evaluation. Especially in innovative technology and service domains (e.g., VR, AR, IoT) with increasing relevance of experiential aspects, early prototyping and evaluation is crucial to assess a product idea’s success potential. A central question is which prototyping approach best represents the product idea and allows its valid yet cost- and time-efficient evaluation. While low-fidelity prototyping supports low-cost adjustments, a potential biasing factor are idealization tendencies: UX evaluation subjects may idealize unspecified product aspects following their imagination, possibly reducing results’ validity. This study (N = 255) examines effects of prototype fidelity within early product development comparing different product concept representations systematically. Results imply that the lower the fidelity, the more people idealize a product idea, having numerous implications for prototype use in UX design and research. Practices to counteract idealization tendencies and optimize low-fidelity prototyping are discussed.

Ensuring that mobile applications are as usable as possible is an important area of Human-Computer Interaction research. Part of that research effort is to consider how traditional, tried-and-tested usability evaluation approaches might be applied to newer technologies, including mobile applications. The contribution of this work is to further the work of other researchers by discovering if heuristic evaluation is commonly applied to mobile applications by Human-Computer Interaction practitioners. Additionally, the authors empirically test the suggestion that Nielsen’s heuristics may be generic enough for the usability evaluation of mobile applications.

Documentation is an important artifact of the design process, especially when designing robust applications developed by companies with offices across the world. The documentation phase of the design process is how designers communicate their work to different teams, yet this phase is not described in the UCD process. While documenting, designers face several challenges, like identifying the right amount of information different stakeholders need. To overcome this and other challenges, the Interaction Design Team at Kronos analyzed the design process and interviewed different stakeholders to understand their expectations of the design documentation. As a result of these interviews, we changed our design process and the way we document. In this case study, we share on how we evolved our documentation, how it impacted our design process, and how it impacted our communication with stakeholders.

Teams draw from many disciplines in working to design usable and error-tolerant systems. Anthropology is one such field, and ethnographic methods are often used and modified for this purpose. Linguistics expertise is commonly described as helpful; however, Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Computational Linguistics (CL) methods have rarely been described for aiding design efforts. Computational ethnography is described as using large bodies of data to provide insight into the routine of users for use in subsequent design efforts. Narrative text is often a subset of this data; NLP/CL methods are well-matched for analyzing bodies of existing user language. Sharing our previous and new thoughts on these methods in the facilitation of design team understanding can contribute to the discussion on computational ethnography. Both computational ethnography and linguistics can provide insight into error-tolerant system design.

Social norms are the informal understandings that govern the behavior within a society and are crucial for the feeling of togetherness and social cohesion. However, technology-mediated behavior often stands in conflict (e.g., parallel smartphone use undermining the norm of full attention for the conversation partner). Under the umbrella term ‘disrespectful technologies’, the present research discusses potential conflicts between technology use and social norms. We present four general types of frequent social norm conflicts, illustrate these by examples from research in different fields of HCI and a user survey, and discuss possibilities to address these in design. Altogether, we see the integration of social norm considerations in the user centered design approach as a long-term goal in HCI, with important consequences on an individual and societal level.

The use of icons is ubiquitous in today’s computing world. A handful of icon characteristics have been found to predict icon performance. Visual complexity, concreteness, familiarity, and aesthetic value have all been shown to affect performance in searching for and locating icons. We replicate previous studies that examined icon characteristics’ effects on search time but use our own up-to-date icon stimulus set taken from existing mobile application icons. Our results verify most previous findings. The results on icon attractiveness, however, contradict findings that the advantage provided by attractiveness is only present when the icon is already difficult to find. We find the opposite—that simple icons alone are afforded an advantage by also being attractive. These confounding findings provide insight into the fundamental differences between mobile icons and icons traditionally used in search experiments.

Would the user able to make decisions rationally? If not, how, then, are your decisions actually made? What happens if the decision is made on the basis of intuition? Situations involving judgment and decision-making are daily in the lives of human beings, including in matters of consumption. The judgment and decision-making are complex functions that imply in the analysis of the characteristics of each of the options for a particular decision-making task, as well as the estimation of the consequences of the choice to be made and the origin of these studies is Microeconomics. In cognitive psychology, decision-making studies have been devoted to investigating how human beings make decisions in reality, not following rules, but seeking rationality within limits. This article aims to bring to light some discussions that elucidates more clearly how these decision making processes can be efficient.

Usability studies found that mobile users suffer from poor user experience which might explain the low spending of mobile-based commerce (m-commerce). This study focuses on identifying the usability heuristics to apply when evaluating the usability of m-commerce mobile apps. An integrated approach is applied considering the general usability heuristics developed by Nielsen, the Google Android design guidelines and Apple human interface guidelines. The proposed 13 heuristics are: “Visibility”, “Matching-Real-World”, “User-Control”, “Error-Prevention”, “Recognition”, “Flexibility-and-Efficient Use”, “Minimal Design”, “Diagnose-and-Recover”, “Help”, “Performance”, “Information–and-Visual-Hierarchy”, “Natural-Interaction”, and “Dynamic-Engagement”. Four usability experts test empirically the developed mobile usability heuristics against two mobile apps that are used for secondhand retailing where users can sell and buy used items. Usability violations are identified and severity is ranked. Mobile apps usability is an ever evolving and dynamic research playground. Many of research challenges posed by lack of a comprehensive tool to understand the usability in the context of m-commerce. This is the contribution of the present paper.

The reason why there are many kinds of handle shapes for the single handle faucets is because there are no design guidelines for their usability. This study is on making a design guideline for the new single handle faucet which is now developing at TAKAGI CO., LTD. in Japan. First, a questionnaire survey on the usability of 10 basic handle shapes was developed. We made the test subjects evaluate those handle’s usability in 5 levels, and compared them to find out which component improves their usability. Secondly, 4 advanced handle shapes were developed using the results of the basic shape questionnaire survey. We made the test subjects evaluate those handle’s usability in 5 levels and by the image words we selected which may have a connection between the handle’s appearance. Furthermore, we used the principle component analysis to find out which image word has a strong mutual relation between the appearance of the handle and their usability. Consequently, we were able to find out the component which will improve the handle’s usability, and the image words which may have a strong mutual relationship between the appearance of the handle and their usability.

This paper provides an overview of the process of evaluating competing products from the perspectives of human factors and ergonomics, safety considerations, overall usability, and design characteristics. The project was conducted by faculty and students at a major university in U.S. and the product in question was a lift that is used for installation of servers in data centers. We conducted an in-depth study of three competing products on the basis of a series of criteria that were determined before the project was started. We developed a methodology for observation, testing and evaluation for the products, and in this paper, we will discuss the results of our study. In addition to the analysis, we also created a series of design recommendations for product development that built upon our findings. While this paper focuses on the specific case study of server lifts, the learnings from this study could have wide applications in terms of the methodology of how to evaluate the competitive products, how to develop test regimens, how to conduct observations to test usability, how to conduct analysis, and how to make recommendations. While there is a clear impact of this study in industry, it can also have value in education in helping students understand how to test competitive products, and how to learn from the testing to design their products for the future.

Parents and caregivers often struggle to successfully manage data from a variety of sources in a myriad of formats regarding their children’s education. To address challenges that have been identified by previous research, a MyStudentScope (MSS) was designed with the integration of proposed solutions and recommendations from subject matter experts in education. In order to ensure that the system can fully meet users’ needs, a user study was conducted investigating participants’ perceptions of MSS. Because parents tend to use paper-based methods to archive and retrieve information regarding their children’s education, the task performance through the use of the MSS web portal was compared to the paper-based methods. Situations parents/caregivers may encounter related to their children’s education and extracurricular activities were simulated during the study. We present findings based on analysis of user responses and provide recommendations for improvement of the MSS design.

Computerized encoding and posting of grades every end of an academic period is designed to provide convenience to teaching personnel with huge number of students like in the case of a state university. The initial assessment of usability experience showed that the rating was significantly below satisfactory level. Thus, the researchers conducted a usability test to evaluate the effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction of the users. A three-phased usability test involved pre-task survey, scenario and tasks performance and post-task survey. The respondents evaluated the system in terms of different usability measures such as consistency, error tolerability, learnability, memorability, efficiency and likeability. The result primarily revealed that manual encoding and importing worksheet both occupied most of the performance time. In addition, learnability and memorability had the lowest satisfactory rating among respondents. As a result, this lead to the development of ergonomic interventions to enhance the usability experience of grade encoding system.

The purpose of this paper aims to proposal a new idea to know the customers with using Chinese input method on smartphone better based on the big data analysis. Nowadays, China has the largest group of smartphone users. Everyday hundreds of millions of people get used to using their smartphones shopping, texting and searching for information and so on. A more efficient Chinese input method will definitely enhance their user experience and speed up the transactions. Furthermore, based on the massive user’s behavior data analysis through Baidu Index, it can be identified the target-users attribute for the Chinese input method, and advance a more user-friendly Chinese input method of smartphones considering the social-cultural factors affecting users. So, it’s meaningful to cluster the users and specify the user-based design features. Firstly, the most popular Chinese input method tools are introduced. Secondly, the research on the Chinese input method is analyzed to find the current research limitation. Thirdly, considering the limitation of the research on the Chinese input method, a big data analysis platform-Baidu Index is selected in order to research on the people’s attributes and geographical distribution of using smartphone’s Chinese input method. The conclusion and discussion are at the end of the paper.

Traditional studies in uncertainty visualization often require naive participants to complete complex, domain-specific tasks in order to examine how effectively a visualization conveys uncertainty to support decision making. However, without assessing whether participants understand such tasks, it can be difficult to determine whether differences in performance are due to a given visualization or to varying degrees of comprehension. Although training is commonly administered to non-experts, to date, training has not been a focal point in uncertainty visualization research. In this paper, we evaluated how variations in training, coupled with assessments of knowledge acquisition and application, can inform uncertainty visualization research. Overall, we found significant performance differences based on training condition, illustrating how training influences task comprehension, which in turn influences decision making. This study serves to highlight training as a critical component of uncertainty visualization studies by quantifying performance variations due to training.

Agricultural tractors are used for a multitude of work scenarios with appropriate implements. This leads to a large number of changing operating scenarios. However, the human-machine-interface (HMI) is mainly static and consequently a compromise solution for all possible operating scenarios. Therefore, it is often challenging drivers to understand the operating logic, the operating procedures, and the assignment of control elements (CE) to functions. This reduces efficiency and can lead to operating errors. An approach to avoid the previously mentioned ambiguities is an HMI comprising adaptive control elements that adapt to the operating scenario. This paper shows the automated and objective analysis of the operation of a state of the art tractor in 14 scenarios. Based on this, it is shown how the concept for an adaptive HMI can be derived from the analysis results.

HUD’s technology has been more mature, the market is relatively stable, but penetration is still not high, while the more sophisticated WSD is still the concept stage. Based on the HUD/WSD technology, the research will build a simulation WSD driving simulation system, based on the OLED display, virtual traffic scene simulation software, ADAS and simulation cockpit, to test the visual guidance of distance, brightness, chromaticity and contrast of different images to the driver, to explore the information presentation mode to increase the driver’s emotional cognition and driving performance. Finally, a development of a prototype of an all-window windshield display based on different target groups and the assessment of usability will provide. As a reference to other researchers, it will further improve the combination of driving assistance and the market, provide driver protection.

Public self-service equipment has a fixed use environment, complex product function, broad age group of users and other remarkable features compared to other products. This paper takes the increased amount of information and complicated operation of self-service equipment nowadays as the breakthrough point to conduct theory, case study and evaluation. This article studies the human-computer interaction factors in public self-service equipment from two aspects: appearance function design and interface interaction design. taking the bank self-service bank card machine as an example, and several simulation interface interactive systems are designed, then through the eye-tracking for testing, to analyze the data from the tests, according to the theoretical and experimental research results, the appearance and interactive interface of bank self-service card machine are designed. The results of this article greatly enhance the users’ interactive experience, and achieve the optimization and upgrading of human-computer interaction, the theoretical results of this article are of reference, the experimental results are repeatable, which are conducive to different disciplines of reference and using for reference.

This study highlights issues concerning the visual and tactile ergonomic comfort inside a vehicle, specifically in a human-technology system. Therefore, we evaluated a HUD in an imported vehicle sold in Juiz de Fora (Brazil), analyzing the pros and cons for users, who tend to show increased use of their spatial perception, which may alter their visual perception. Moreover, this study covers the symbolic as well as the technological evolution of motor vehicles in Brazil. Based on literature review, documentary analysis and a case study, this work reflected upon the technology available in Brazil in a vehicle with a factory-installed HUD.

Medical errors are an important area of study given their impact on patient safety. While new health technologies are created to reduce these errors, improperly designed solutions may unintentionally contribute to them. Current methods used by manufacturers to identify design issues, such as usability testing and heuristic evaluations, may not uncover issues that only arise when the product is exposed to a breadth of users, scenarios, and environments. Other methods, such as the System Usability Scale (SUS), have the potential to quickly assess a product’s overall usability but provide little insight into specific aspects of the design that need improvement. Therefore, additional methods for gathering usability data, to complement current ones, need to be investigated. This study begins this investigation by evaluating the feasibility of an in-situ usability survey to provide insight into an infusion system’s design issues. The findings and implications for health technology manufacturers are discussed.

E-commerce became very important in recent years. About 40% of the customers state that they prefer online shopping over retail shopping. When searching for items in an online shop, the appearing result lists are an important part of the users’ experience. The users’ experience, in turn, is a crucial factor for a business’ success. This online-study examines the search efficiency and perceived aesthetics of two different result list designs. A grid design, which shows more than one item in a row and a list design, which displays only one item per row. Participants completed a visual search task on a fictitious website using their own devices. Reaction times measured search efficiency and the VisAWI questionnaire assessed perceived aesthetics. Results showed that the grid design led to faster reaction times and higher values in perceived aesthetics than the list design. Implications of the results and future studies are discussed.

Visibility in user interfaces (UI) is a critical element of making a product usable. However, the visibility of modern user interfaces can be compromised in a number of distinct ways. Firstly, some user interface controls have no visible attributes at all, from a visibility perspective they are effectively ‘missing’. Secondly, if an element is present then it can be ‘missed’, thirdly, if it is seen it may be ‘misunderstood’ by the user. Previous work has seen the development of a model to represent this. This model is used to inform the development of an evaluation tool called vis-UI-lise that can be used to assess the visibility of user interfaces. It presents UI visibility as a series of 5 hurdles between the user and the interface that have to be overcome for a successful interaction. The output from this highlights to designers what the key issues are to help drive further development to improve usability.

Comfort has been an increasingly important issue in air travel. Passenger comfort is clearly a key variable in research on user acceptance of transportation systems, and it is related to passenger’s satisfaction and the willingness to fly again. After realizing its importance in capturing and retaining customers, a growing number of airlines are focusing on comfort. How to improve the experience of passenger comfort has become a major strategic goal for the airline management. This paper regards the passenger comfort in the aircraft cabin during the flight as an experience shaped by interaction between individual and the flight contextual situation. The aim of this study is prioritizing the factors affecting the passenger comfort experience, and sorts these factors into different categories. Firstly, the paper undertakes a systematic literature review to distinguish key critical factors affecting the aircraft passenger comfort, then classifies the factors into five categories by Kano model. At last, the managerial implication is given based on the result. The findings of this research provide important implications for the designers and airline managers and help them better understand the passenger comfort experience. The result can be used as a reference of symmetrically designing the aircraft interior and reasonably allocating the human and material resource.

This paper demonstrates the results of workshop “UX Skillrow Evaluation” workshop, promoted by the Laboratory of Ergonomics and Design (LED) of the University of Florence in collaboration with Technogym, a leading-edge company that develops fitness equipment for any physical activity. The workshop aimed to define the current levels of usability and experience of use of rowing “Skillrow”, through method of investigation and practice of Human-Centered Design and User Experience approaches. The predominant aim of work was to identify usability and user experience of rowing Skillrow and its user interfaces. Following this, to identify the potential, project proposals were conducted, brainstorming and focus group activities. During testing twenty-one users participated, aged between 22 and 30. The research goals were: measurements of current usability level and user experience of product-system interfaces, and definition of critical issues and implementation of the current user interfaces. Finally, the results from the evaluation phases allowed to get qualitative data on the levels of effective usability of the product, the components and its graphic interface. In the form of scenario-based design, solutions to improve the current high levels of usability of the user interface were also developed.

There have been a lot of research and explanation on Smartphone screen size and user experience of numerous Smartphones. This study considers the difference between neck flexion angle and its effects on human ergonomics while using two Smartphones with different screen sizes and display features (iPhone X and Samsung S8+). This study also collects user experience data through a questionnaire to generate the most ergonomic model among the Apple Inc.’s iPhone X and Samsung S8+. 8 participants were considered for this study. A digital goniometer was used to analyze participant’s neck flexion angle while using both the Smartphones (iPhone X and Samsung S8+). A paired t-test of means was performed. Neck flexion angle was highly flexed for the participants while using iPhone X than compared to the neck flexion angle while using Samsung S8+. Participants felt more comfortable using both Smartphones. However, ‘True-tone’ technology in iPhone X eased the stress level of eyes according to the users. This study suggests a large screen smartphone with ‘True-tone’ or similar technology, which can be an iPhone X but with a larger screen size.

This study proposed an investigation method that analyzes mouse locus data based on geometrical method. Moreover, we considered that the correspondence between the geometric features of the locus data of the mouse and the state of the user operation.

Social-network service (SNS) is a service that allows user to strengthen personal relationships with friends, colleagues, and other people on the web, build new people, and build a broader human relationship. Also, SNS has been used for socializing and entertainment purposes, and information sharing all over the world. This study was to suggest basic data for user convenience/satisfaction of ‘smartphones’ and ‘i-Phone’ application. Findings showed that the users should be interested and satisfied in using SNS. Facebook showed twice the users with ‘Very Satisfied’ compared to those of ‘KakaoTalk’ in ‘i-Phone’ users. Overall results, ‘KakaoTalk’ seemed to have better usability than ‘Facebook’ in the Aged user. As a result, ‘KakaoTalk’ is superior to Facebook in terms of accessibility, application and use when using smartphone, and ‘mobile phone model’ and ‘Age’ could have a significant influence on ‘usability’ and ‘convenience’.

Due to the sensation of frustration caused by both technological changes and the lack of knowledge required to interact with new technologies, some confusing experiences with mobile computing systems tends to discourage the use of new interfaces. Therefore, it is necessary to offer products and services that can be fully controlled by users, transforming complex processes into simple and objective interactions. For this, initially a preparation of the case study to define the object to be evaluated, which concluded that an analysis of the use of the search tools of the Android system could meet the requirements of the proposed work. This work has as a premise to create a combination of usability assessment techniques which allowed adding eye tracking data from the users’ experience to the experiments with traditional research methods. At the end of the study, it was possible to evaluate the contribution of each technique applied.

A set of usability evaluation index and model of Self-service laundry service system of colleges and universities are presented based on the Service system usability studies research summarized, combined with quantitative and qualitative methods in this paper. The usability evaluation model of the service system is used to further improve the practical operation of the usability evaluation of service system. Relevant theories of usability evaluation and service quality are referenced, through methods of user questionnaire survey and expert group discussion, the usability evaluation index of college students’ self-service laundry service system was constructed from two dimensions of product and service, and multiple linear regression method is used to construct usability evaluation model, which is proved to be effective. The research shows that the availability evaluation model of University self-service laundry system obtained by this method has definite effectiveness.

When managing software development projects, it is common to have some problems during the iterations of the project. This work presents an analysis and review of agile methodologies and some of the most well-known project management techniques, all these methodologies and techniques contextualized in the computational scope. Based on this information was possible to propose a new model more comprehensive that allows the mitigation of some recurring problems in the progress of software projects and give to final users good results. It was detailed a case study of an innovative project entitled “Calculadora CUG”, where the combination of referenced techniques and concepts were introduced in the development process allowing more flow to some of the features of the project pointed out by the client (first final user) and to create, in a way, more efficient releases in involvement with the user.

The present study sought to contribute in improving the experience of the applicants in the adoption process, more specifically in the waiting period, between entering the National Register of Adoption (NRA) and the implementation of adoption itself, with the arrival of the expected child. This process has been investigated from the perspective of Design Anthropology which has the necessary means for a more in-depth research of such a complex problem.

User-role in recent online service had been diversified into provider and receiver, and significance of interaction between users had been grown. This is an explanatory study to understand both user-roles’ difference of emotional response toward information on website based on online outsourcing platform. By using Brunswik’s Lens Model, it compares each user-roles’ assessment about information elements, depicted the similarity and difference of emotional response to provide insights for information design of platform which have various user-role.

Cost reduction and operational efficiency improvement are important issues for corporate management. Hence, in this work, we focus on the time span of a momentary User Experience (UX). To our knowledge, there is no case study on incorporating the objective indicators based on individual experience and on improving the quality of teamwork. We propose a method to improve work by customizing the information presented to the users participating in a teamwork based on the experience and satisfaction of each user. As a method of evaluation, we use the user experience questionnaire. In addition, we perform a customer satisfaction analysis. We can extract the evaluation terms that largely improve the ease of viewing the screen and operability using this analysis. Moreover, from the evaluation terms, we can extract specific items that need to be improved preferentially as knowledge for the next design. Therefore, it is possible to improve both the work and user experience when sharing information.

With the rapid development of market economy, enterprises acquire competitive advantage through improving customers’ loyalty. It is the key factor cannot be ignored to grasp the user value accurately. We extracted the central effective user value, established the product service system quickly to satisfy the users’ needs and enhance the competitiveness of enterprises. Firstly, the user journey diagram was drawn to analyze the mental activities, by which we got the value requirements, and transformed it through the positive creative design thinking. Secondly, according to the positive value factors, the ‘human-object’ three-dimensional ecosphere was constructed, then we built the product service model. Finally, the intelligent air-housekeeper product service system verified the validity of the model and methods, and satisfied the value demands of users. Meanwhile, the model has provided some references for other products design, and it is benefit to improve the core competitiveness of product service.

Responsiveness is an important factor to be considered in human-computer interfaces. With the advent of touch screen based smartphones and the evolve of more responsive technology, the user-acceptable levels of response time have changed considerably. However, previous studies have focused more on computers than on smartphones. The goal of this study was to explore the relationship between response time and user perception in the context of smartphone interactions. Different response times from 300 to 5400 ms were manipulated for four common task types in three applications, this simulation enables us to collect users’ subjective evaluations and physiological measures including pupil dilation and galvanic skin response. The applicability of Web-Fechner Law is demonstrated when the response time is in milliseconds. Results also showed statistically significant effects from task type and loading animation. Users have lower tolerance when they swipe to switch pages and have greater tolerance on interfaces with a loading animation, which provide the developers with clearer design requirements guidance.

Considering that the process of perception is directly linked to the previous experiences of users, there is an entire process of selection, organization and interpretation of data that requires attention and dedication. This article, from a doctoral thesis, highlights that during the design process, it is necessary that there is respect for the perception of individuals who will use or evaluate the products or services offered. Thus, we used objective and subjective tools to evaluate the perception of users in a service field, in order to identify whether these results tend to the same or not, and from that, how does the identification of problems and solutions to facilitate the user’s own understanding. A cross-sectional observation study with 1 evaluation and 2 reevaluations, with 31 users in the physiotherapy area, was carried out in a SUS (Unified Health System) outpatient clinic, in which they were initially interviewed and followed by a subjective self-assessment of strength and function and an objective measure of force in the three moments. With this it was possible to observe that, when the user does not know the service and/or the product, one cannot have the correct perception of these, demonstrating how important it is to evaluate the perception of the individuals in general.

This study focuses on determining usability problems resulting from the usage of coffee and tea preparation machines by elderly users. Both product types are widely available in Turkish market with international and local brands. However they are not widely used by elderly users due to various personal and social causes. The study consists from two data collection techniques. In the initial stage of the research, a face-to-face questionnaire study is conducted with 15 elderly users. All the participants were young-elderly users aged between 65–74 years. The second part of the study consist from an observation study. The data obtained from the questionnaire and the observation was used to document all the errors resulting from the usage of the products that are the focus of this study. Later these errors are classified according to universal design principles in order to obtain error categories to be a basis to formulate the heuristics to be used as the theoretical basis for the heuristic evaluation of hot drink preparation devices.

The study mainly discusses the difference between the comfort and visual fatigue in the process of reading with the two different mobile phone screens under the different conditions of the general mobile phone screen and the mobile electronic ink screen, in addition to test the performance difference between the electronic ink screen and the general mobile phone screen. This study simulated the ambient light conditions of the office, randomly selected 20 subjects from18 to 40 years old to explore the difference of reading task performance, flicker fusion frequency, visual fatigue subjective perception and electroencephalogram EEG, etc. under different conditions between the general mobile phone screen and mobile electronic ink screen, and also test the performance difference of them. The experiment adopted within-subjects design, the independent variables was different mobile phone screen (general screen, electronic ink screen), the dependent variable is the performance of the reading task. In summary, the reading experience of mobile phone with electronic ink screen is better when reading, and it is not easy to appear the phenomenon of visual fatigue, and the effect of user experience is better.

According to the characteristics and needs of the visually impaired, an innovative design method for visually impaired groups with barrier-free products under the guidance of modern interactive design concepts is proposed to address barriers and problems when interacting with the products, and to create interactive products for visually impaired people with barrier-free products.The study investigated and analyzed the characteristics and needs of typical visually-impaired people in daily life, studied current market conditions and problems of barrier-free products, developed a visually-impaired barrier-free product design under interactive design concepts. The barrier-free products for the visually impaired should be guided by the interactive design concept and interact innovative design from the perspectives of touch, hearing, taste and smell.

The performance of automatic speech recognition highly depends upon the speaker’s intelligibility and is affected by speech intensity and rate. Lombard reflex is an auditory feedback mechanism which is encountered when speakers spontaneously increase their voice in a noisy environment. We studied the feasibility of employing Lombard reflex to improve speech recognition without the speaker’s conscious awareness of the process. Whereas previous studied employed noises to produce this reflex, which may be unpleasant to the speakers, we studied the effects of music-induced Lombard reflex. Twenty speakers were recorded when listening to two music types: a rhythmic dance music or a calm yoga music, as well as to white noise, metronome sound and silence, and the differences in the speakers’ speech rate and intensity while listening to the different sounds were compared. Several cohort trends were observed: Speech intensity was particularly stronger in the rhythmic dance music condition for most subjects. This change was not observed for the metronome sound which had a similar rhythm. Speech rate was decreased for the yoga music condition for female speakers only. An examination of the changes in these prosodic variables for individual speakers yielded that most of them exhibited an increase in speech power and/or a decrease in speaking rate for at least one of the music types. This effect, when further explored, may be implemented in a personalized speech recognition engine, to enhance the usability of voice commands, dictation, and other speech based applications.

Food trays can be found around the world in schools, canteens, and restaurants. While useful for carrying food to a table, the design has caused frustration in countless users. The aim of the research outlined in this paper was to identify design criteria for food trays and produce a redesign to improve the user experience with an emphasis on ergonomics. The investigation focused on four areas: loading, carrying, eating from, and cleaning and storing the food tray. Areas of concern and design criteria were found through materials research, observations, questionnaires, interviews, and prototype testing. Details of the findings and the ergonomically designed prototype are presented in this paper. By investigating food trays from the user and staff perspective, design criteria and a unique design were developed which users felt was more comfortable and fit cleaning and storage requirements.

Customer’s satisfaction is necessary not only to satisfy physical human characteristics, but also to satisfy human aesthetic and emotional characteristics. We surveyed the color, material and design of the mobile phone case, which is the most important point in this paper, and the design satisfaction of the mobile phone case. Findings were as follow that were appropriate for color and material and appearance, depending on demographic variables. And the result of SD method analysis, emotional vocabulary required especially in mobile phone cases appeared ‘modest’, ‘clear’, ‘smooth’, ‘sophisticated’, ‘clean’ and ‘neat’. Also, a result of finding commonality among the types, we have found that there are types preferred not only for color but also for material and appearance. In future studies, it is expected that various methods can be derived from emotional ergonomic design which is stimulated by various generations’ emotions by studying patterns, brand preference trends and colors.

With the popularity of Web 2.0 applications, there is a new trend in the way the Internet is used: creating a more user-centered approach to content management, information sharing, communications, teamwork, and more. Interaction and experience in web design become even more important. Positive user experience allows users to easily and efficiently complete the task, increase intimacy, comfort and sense of success, thereby enhancing customer satisfaction and enhance brand reputation. Website user experience design has become the respectable business occupation of the market, the key to winning customers. At present, most of the design of the Web interface in our country still stays in the imitation stage. Research on the Web user experience is only confined to some fragmented design theories, and there is a big gap compared with the foreign industry. In the face of new technologies and new needs of users, academics and industrial designers face enormous challenges. How to provide a systematic and effective method of development for the design and implementation of website user experience has become the focus of this article. This article is a bold attempt at the integration of psychological, behavioral, artistic and technical multidisciplinary approaches in the design of web user interface. Combined with the experimental analysis of a large number of well-known website examples, this article is validated both theoretically and practically this paper propose the scientific and important design principles and methods.

With the rapid development of sharing economy and mobile Internet technology, a large number of shared products have appeared in many fields in China. Taking shared bicycle for example, which is booming in China nowadays as a typical case to analyze, while for the shared bicycle service in the market are diversiform and immature, which has led to uncertainty, complexity and poor user experience in the process of using shared bicycles for users. This paper demonstrates the current research and development status of shared bicycles and focuses on the user experience of yellow-framed bicycle Ofo, one of the famous shared bicycle brands in China, then analyzes the using process through the user survey, customer journey map and stakeholder map, finally puts forward suggestions and opinions of the improvement of Ofo service.

Compared with the traditional control panel, touch screen provides better user experience for the operator. The heights and angles of touch screen were the main factors in structure design. A device with adjustable heights and angles were designed to provide different heights and angles in this study, and 12 participants with different heights took part in the experiment. The subjective score about heights and the preferred angles of touch screen were recorded during the experiment. Data analyzing results shown the preferred heights were 90 cm–125 cm from ground and the preferred angles at each height can be calculated by the equation y = −0.7345 x + 224.9816. The verification tested the patterns and shown the accuracy. The results can provide reference for the structure design of touch screen on standing posture.

Proton therapy has been developing rapidly in recent years. A better design of the proton therapy center will reduce the cost and improve the treatment effect. In this paper, we propose a new proton therapy service based on the service design theory. By applying service touchpoint optimization, adding new service touchpoints and service procedure optimization, the proposed new proton service has the potential of meeting demands of both patients and the medical stuff. The treatment effect and the treatment experience will be improved in a large extent.

This article presents a case study of ergonomic evaluation of the usability of the Learning Management Systems used at the Instituto Federal de Pernambuco (IFPE), based on the MOODLE platform. In order to identify the usability problems of this system, were performed heuristic usability evaluations with experts and user tests. From the results obtained in the realized evaluations, it was possible to elaborate a list of recommendations based on the Nielsen heuristics to be applied in the interface design of the LMS, aiming to offer a better usability for the users of the system.

The rapid change of the elements of context requires an urgent reflection on “Experience” and “Meaning with Value”. The aim of this article is to critically review User Experience Design (UXD) principles as a multidisciplinary field of study, and contribute by a Manifesto to an inspiring vision of the future. Some authors will be reviewed in order to list and discuss the different ideas to redefine the desirable skills to an enlightened practice and to influence a new ethos of “Be Innovation” to a better world. The article retrieves and revisits a Design Manifesto made on the basis of a strategic vision for Design based on distinctive design competencies. This Manifesto was in the origin of the platform www.inspaedia.com.

The implementation of complex user interfaces within Navy operational and training domains is often challenging. As with other domains, development teams seek a balance between meeting the functional needs of communities while striving for good usability for end users. To increase the usability of interfaces, our team is developing a hybrid survey-based approach that yields benefits from expert led heuristic assessments and domain relevant feedback from end users. The resulting system is a survey containing 200 items assessing the usability of nine heuristic categories. This paper will provide background on the existing methods considered and the resulting survey framework. Further, the preliminary findings on the benefits of this hybrid approach from initial validation studies will be discussed, focusing on the ability of the system to provide developers with valuable quantitative information as well as specific qualitative information meant for fixing, adjusting and enhancing system functions.

An uncontrolled study took place in course settings with 30 3rd year undergraduates. Standard graphical tasks were generated from dedicated software. Subjects used their own and other subjects’ pointing devices. Pointing efficiency was calculated within each 2 to 4 subjects group. Hypothetically, subjects would not experience improved efficiency in pointing and dragging tasks when switching to other devices from their own device. The other devices might share the archetype of the owned device, but differ in dimensions and shape details, or activation thresholds. Reasons are suggested for cases where the hypothesis is not verified in the results. Literature review and prior experimental results tentatively explains the subjects’ improvement in efficiency when changing to unfamiliar pointing devices. Familiarity with the tasks and improved fitness with borrowed device are potential motivators for efficiency gains observed that do not comply with the hypothesis. A snapshot of PC mice used by students is provided.

In the process of driving a car, people often use rotary knob to adjust the temperature of air-conditioning or music volume, etc. This operation is very frequent and necessary. As we all know, when we make changes on the knob, the height, angle, size and operating force of the knob will affect the comfort of the operation knob. Therefore, in order to improve use experience, it is necessary to study the comfortable operating force of knobs. This paper uses MARK-10 force measuring equipment (torque meter, measuring rotating moment), sets the test bench and sets up different knob heights (500 mm, 700 mm, 900 mm), angles (20°, 30°, 40°), sizes (16 mm, 27 mm, 36 mm), operating forces (1N, 3N, 7N) and other parameters range. Then invite 10 subjects to participate in the experiment, recording the subjective evaluation on the different operating force, finding that the subjective score of the 1N and 3N is higher. Based on this research result the appropriate knob operating force which is between 1N and 3N is concluded.

Handle is used in cabinet furniture frequently, and its comfort plays an important role when use cabinet furniture. At present, ergonomic design of handle lack of relevant standards and normative guidance, so it is necessary to conduct related ergonomic experimental researches. Before executing the ergonomic experiment, it is necessary to design the test sample for ergonomic experiments, including the size of the characteristic dimensions of the experimental sample and the number of samples. The main objective of this study is to obtain the recommend value of experimental sample parameters of the typical handles based on the users’ physiological characteristics and experience evaluation.

Noise is one of the most important quality indicators for a refrigerator, which will seriously affect user’s experience and is one of the hot spots of consumer complaints. In this paper, we develop a refrigerator noise evaluation method more effective than A-weighted sound pressure level. Its results are more closely related to the subjective feelings of users. Through the subjective evaluation of the noise quality of different types of refrigerators, we found that, compared with A-weighted sound pressure level, annoyance and loudness of the refrigerator noise are more related with each other. On this basis, we conducted a noise loudness subjective evaluation experiment to determine the function relationship between refrigerator noise annoyance and loudness and to measure the noise loudness threshold user can accept of different types of refrigerators. The evaluation result according the method is better consistent with users’ subjective feeling and the after-sales of the enterprise. The research results of this paper may provide reference for the development of new standard for refrigerator noise evaluation.

This study aims to improve user experience by seeking users’ needs. We want to design a new attractive mobile library interface with more usability and characters of China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing) and give design criteria of the mobile library. We design the first interface by reviewing current mobile libraries and literature. We interviewed 30 students for three design stages. Finally, we designed a mobile library prototype using Axure RP and give our design guidelines. This study aims to develop suitable interface and functions for the mobile library, using China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing) as a case. We give our design guideline for the mobile library, which is useful to the development of university mobile libraries.

Using a smartphone while walking is dangerous. If smartphones could be used in this environment as “tools for listening,” this would enable people to locate exciting opportunities in the city. This study aims to design a location-based audio guide system that combines music playlists that are tailored depending on the city and recorded commentary depending on the location. We call this system “Street Ongaku and Spot Oshaberi (SOSO)”, which allows the users to select a favorite program according to the situation from multiple SOSO programs and enjoys walking while listening to it. In this paper, the system design and its experimental results are presented.

Few years back, women harassment was not an issue. Nowadays, women harassment is recognize as a legitimate human rights issue and threat to women’s well-being. The #MeToo campaign launched by actor Alyssa Milano to drew the world’s attention to women harassment, with a hashtag that went viral. Harassment is unwanted actions and comments by strangers. Due to the fear of harassment, women are paying to stay safe as women don’t walk independently as men. Pakistani women were among of them. This research will illustrate the harassment problems faced by working women and will examine the available solutions with the context of Pakistani women. There is no evidence that these apps have the power to decrease incidents, despite what the apps developers’ claim. This research will also examine these apps to find out why women still do not feel safer as the apps claims.

New ideas and services are evolving with ever-changing technological development. The relationship between human and machine is constantly shifting the way we think and act. With ultimate goal of building a service model within a shared economy, this paper focuses on finding patterns and defining pitfalls through visual analysis and information design processes so as to implement creative brainstorming at a later stage to solve the problem. This pilot stage investigates targeted users’ interactions and behaviors through onsite observation and survey interviews. Mobility service and line management are raised in order to reshape quality service flow and to design adequate information. With those efforts, we understand the relationship between the community and its users, discuss the measurement and the attributes of information, and synthesize the ways communication with visual elements and forms can serve us better.

The experimental project Fornada, a system for breakfast delivery, is part of the post-graduate interaction design program at Senac, which encourages students to work with project development, and its several research stages, considering market’s opportunities, society’s needs and users’ expectations. This paper describes, based on users’ experience journey planning, the usability evaluation phase, using the Think-aloud Protocol method. The method execution is detailed, following Villanueva (2009) and Renzi and Freitas’ (2014) directives. Results are presented following the sequential interaction with a mobile within the experience journey.

The usability of smartphone’s touch keyboard is often hampered by typing mistakes resulting from the small size of the virtual keys relatively to the user’s finger size. Although this problem has been addressed in various methods, an optimal solution in terms of both accuracy and user experience, however, has not been achieved. We developed an algorithm that predicts users typing intentions based on a statistical geometrical modeling of the touch points area. The algorithm builds a user-adaptive virtual location of the key based on deviations probability computation. An uncertainly measure activates a language statistics engine to enhance the prediction. The algorithm was integrated into the default Android® keyboard and was tested on users. Typing error rate using the implemented algorithms was reduced by 23.1% on average. The proposed method can enhance typing accuracy and user experience and may facilitate and improve the design of smaller and cheaper touch based smartphones.

Research of interactions in virtual systems, including the value for customers considering engagements, usability testing experiences, and the work processed in virtual environments (including in academic environments and transactional workflows) build up the motivation for this research. With digitization rising, our dependency on virtual or on-line interactions continues expanding. According to Internet World State (2017), there are over 3.4 billion worldwide web users, and English is the most common language (26%), followed by Chinese (21%), and then by Spanish (7.7%). More and more parts of our daily life experiences are becoming digital, and promising integration of virtual environments are motivating further growth. Such context is driving significant changes in our human life ecosystems. The International Ergonomics Association (2017) and ISO 6385:2016 (2016) characterize Ergonomics as a discipline committed to understand the human interactions in a system. With application of principles, theory, design methods, and data analyses a vision with primary focus on the human experiences and well-being should be further embraced, considering alternatives to optimize performance of the hosting digital system as well. The insights from software developers on practices and challenges addressing customer experience (including scenarios when customer may not explicitly communicate his/her expectations), coupled with experience using on line education systems and other virtual services are analyzed. In support of this study, over 500 web sites representing variety of organizations are explored with the goal of finding opportunities to improve the overall user’s experience. Through the study we identify factors driving web site performance from the users’ perspective; web designers and architectures should consider these factors to drive excellence in the experience of the virtual journey.

In the recent years, 360° images and video became a popular format for designing, producing, and consuming information. Immersive videos enable users to control the viewing angle at playback, and experience content in a unique fashion. Therefore, understanding how viewers interact with 360° video is crucial for improving their design, production, distribution, and consumption. In this paper, we introduce a model for categorizing 360° video based on the type of points of interest in the scene, and we present a study in which we analyzed heatmaps and changes in the viewing angle to identify the key features of regions of interest, the common interaction patterns within video categories, and the relationship between content design and engagement.

This paper describes a study comparing the use of paper strips with virtual flight strips depicted on a new user interface, the Ramp Traffic Console (RTC), designed for use by ramp controllers to be used in place of paper strips. A Human-In-the-Loop (HITL) experiment was performed as the fifth in a series of six HITL simulation studies designed to evaluate a pushback Decision Support Tool (DST) concept for Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT). Workload and usability were assessed in post-run and post-study questionnaires. In the RTC virtual flight strip condition, post-run questionnaire results show lower workload ratings across all aspects of workload; additionally, a trend is found toward increased usability ratings. Post-study questionnaire results indicate a preference for RTC over paper strips. Additional research is suggested with more training runs and a greater number of participants to increase statistical power. It is also suggested that this new technology be re-evaluated as a part of the ATD-2 field testing activities.

The ultimate goal of graphic development is a more effective interface and better end-user understanding. For this, several methods and theories were developed to give support to the graphic developers in this task, but these are not measured in scientific evaluative form, being supported by conventions. A scientific method is needed to understand how the user assimilates the message developed in a graphic object by the designer. This study focuses on graphic objects developed with a method based only on informational ergonomics. The resulting graphic marks were presented to end users in an online questionnaire that raised their impressions, allowing them to cross-reference the data with the attributes considered in the development. The results showed a correct presentation of the items requested in the briefing by the experimental group, which used the method directed to the development of these graphic brands.

Society has been experiencing a great technological advance in the most diverse areas and, clearly, the development of accessibility for software and applications does not seem to follow this speed. In fact, systems sometimes do not embrace people with some kind of disability, and this is a problem that should be on the agenda of every designer and system designer when thinking about user experience. Chatbots are conversational interfaces on which users communicate with a robotic entity through text, either designed with artificial intelligence or not. However, how does a blind user interact with Chatbots? How should this interaction be carried on? What to expect when users’ needs are challenged by physical barriers worse than what affects the common user? This article aims to present a systematic review of the existing literature on Chatbots, conversational interfaces and the inclusion of accessibility in these interfaces.

This study aimed to identify design and usability issues of a portable corneal topography device, its software and manual. A usability test with a think aloud protocol was carried out by sixteen experienced optometrists. After using the device, the PSSUQ and SEQ questionnaires were applied. The results show a positive mean score for all the usability dimensions, being the top three elements of the higher evaluation the interface quality, usefulness and overall satisfaction. Further, based on the results it is possible to improve the device design by reducing the size of the handgrip and changing the location of control for image capturing. Results also allow enhancing the feedback provided by software when using the device and organise better the information in its manual. Overall, this study strengthens the idea that implementing usability tests as a key element on the design process to recognizing the user’ needs, and thus, improving medical device systems.

The purpose of this project is to develop Parents and Teachers Communication (PTC) application for early childhood. An application development process has three phases. The first phase is application design phase: the questionnaire had been used to investigate the main requirements from the users (teachers and parents). The application’s function comparison was another method which had been applied in design phase. Five school communication applications had been compared to find for strong features in each application. Human factors engineering was used for designing PTC application’s user interfaces in order to understand user capabilities and limitations. The second phase was application coding phase: PTC application was developed under IOS operation system by using the X-CODE program. The third phase was application usability study phase: in this phase, the usability study test was measured in two steps. First, the System Usability Scale (SUS) was distributed to 10 volunteers during application development. Second, another usability test was done by an adopted SUS questionnaire. It was distributed to 6 volunteers after they had experience with PTC application about two week period. Results showed that PTC application had high usability scale during application development (SUS, 85) and after four weeks experience (adopted SUS, 80). SUS during application development showed that PTC application was in excellent usability scale. The adopted SUS questionnaire can be interpreted that users have a great experience with PTC application. Parent-Teacher communication application for early childhood could assist to decrease cap of communication between home and school efficiently.

An intelligent toilet was an upgrade product on the ordinary toilet, with all the functions of a common toilet combined with automatic flushing, seat ring heating, hip cleaning, female cleaning and drying with warm air and so on, which attracts the researchers’ interests recently. In the past, there are rarely few user comfort researches about intelligent toilet based on ergonomics. This study focuses on the research method of ergonomics to explore the comfort design of the intelligent toilet from user experience.

This article aims to describe the production process of the educational game “treat well!”, idealized for learning in higher education institutions. Research was done with students of the health courses, which helped to prove the direct effect in the improvement of cognitive functions such as memory, attention, perception, among others. The acquired advantages of technology, when well used are unimaginable, especially when used for education. The barriers encountered by this tool to realize its real application were perceptible, but these were worked on and perfected to find a balance between education and fun. We can infer that this tool, when properly applied, is able to attract and perpetuate information in students in any educational field. In this context, an educational game was developed that serves as a support to the learning process of the students of nursing courses. The goal of this research was to analyze the usability and satisfaction of the educational game “Treat Well!” which teaches the treatment of a simple wound with nursing students. For the development of the project, the methodology used was based on software engineering practices, User Centered Design and Usability and Satisfaction Analysis. The study was also based on a qualitative and quantitative approach with exploratory character and also statistical. The qualitative variable used to capture the perception of users in the study was made in an empirical way of observing the search for relevant and convenient data obtained through experience observed. The quantitative variables used to analyze usability were the effectiveness, time of use and user perception through the Attrakdiff questionnaire. The usability test was performed with high fidelity game prototype with 10 volunteers in a college in Recife Brazil. From the results generated we can understand that improvements can be made to a greater identification and interaction of the user with the proposed game.

The purpose of this research was to construct a Chinese customer satisfaction model for medical services and to identify the key elements that influence customer satisfaction. Eighty seven valid responses from inpatients were collected using a survey questionnaire. Structural equation modeling was employed to estimate and adjust the proposed model. The results showed that perceived quality, expected quality, and information were three important antecedents influencing customer satisfaction, and that perceived quality was the strongest antecedent of customer satisfaction and that loyalty was the strongest consequence. Information had relatively low direct effect on customer satisfaction while it indirectly affected customer satisfaction considerably through the other antecedents of perceived quality and expected quality. This research provides hospital managers with information on the aspects to be emphasized with regarding to customer satisfaction and, also, highlights the importance of increasing customer satisfaction when seeking customer loyalty.

Successful introduction of autonomous cars require autonomous technology that users experience as trustful and useful. The aim of the study reported in this paper was to explore if drivers trust a fully autonomous car and if they experience that in-vehicle tasks can be conveniently carried out when in full autonomous mode. The test was conducted on a test track and an autonomous research car was used. The car was capable of handling the test track driving environment with full autonomy. When in full autonomous mode the participants got to engage in individually selected tasks, such as use media display, read, eat, drink and carry out work tasks with their own portable devices. The results show that participant trust the autonomous car and they find it convenient to conduct in-vehicle tasks while in full autonomous mode.

To implement advanced technology into appropriate design with WOW user experience, an approach of scenario-based User Experience Design (UED) method was proposed for further exploring the application of user experiences in automobile interior lighting innovation. The related literatures of User Experience Design (UED), scenario-based design and scenario-based prototype methods were analyzed. Then, the Scenario-based user experience research was divided into three dimensions including target user, behavior pattern, and user scenario. Through quantitative research and qualitative research, including user observation, interview, and questionnaires as well as data collection and processing, the typical UED scenario model was constructed, and the scenario-based automobile interior lighting system was proposed. Finally, some innovation design concepts and a scale size prototype were developed to verify the effectiveness and practicality of the scenario-based UED research of automobile interior lighting innovation.

With the infrared system, computer vision, ultrasonic array and other kinds of technology rapidly developed for gesture recognition, gesture control as a kind of natural interaction has been a well-respected research topic of in-vehicle interaction. In this paper, we will propose evaluation indices based on the previous works about 3D gesture control usability, and conduct usability experiments in an indoor environment via driving simulator where three kinds of data will be collected during the test, namely distraction while driving, performance of risk and subjective assessment. Then an information entropy method is used to process data. Through this method, 9 usability indicators are obtained to measure the usability of in-vehicle 3D gesture interaction, providing a reference for usability evaluation of in-vehicle gesture control. A set of 3D gesture applications that accord with the habits of Chinese drivers and can be applied to in-vehicle gesture control are also proposed.

The current research assesses the usability of an academic library website. This approach is based on visualization of visual attention and learnability of the website. Ten freshmen students, as novice users, and three librarians, as expert users, participated in this research. Seventeen tasks were developed; these tasks were informational searches, some completed up to two or three times in order to assess the learning curves of participants. The librarians’ task times were treated as the benchmark “golden times” that a novice user would approach with experience. An eye tracker was used to assess usability. It was of particular interest to (1) identify the areas of the library website that are not clear to novice users and (2) to measure the learning curve of various informational searches. The results of this research indicated how quickly novice users learned tasks and which areas of the library webpages attract more attention.

Understanding processes is very important since todays processes are getting more and more complex. Therefore, a visual representation is often helpful. In many cases, the processes are similar and rely on the same components in the same system structure. Current tools lack in particular with respect to the presentation of multiple processes that are based on the same involved structure but slightly differ in the sequence of events. In this paper we introduce a tool for visualizing script-based animated processes. The underlying structure can be reused by only modifying the script containing the process’ events. The highly adaptable visualizations allow a direct and clear view on a process and intuitive functionalities to traverse through its steps. Finally, we show its usage in two case studies from different domains.

This paper reports on an experimental study on industrial information visualization interface to measure the mechanism of information style, information complexity and task complexity on human information processing. Based on eye-tracking method, we conducted an experimental research study. The independent variables were information style, information complexity and task complexity. The dependent variables included time to first fixation and subjective feelings. A total of 40 subjects participated in the experiment. The main findings of this study were as follows: (1) information style, information complexity and task complexity significantly influenced the time to first fixation (P <0.05); (2) there is significant interaction between information style*information complexity, information style*task complexity, information complexity*task complexity (P <0.05); (3) the bullet graph provides more efficient reading than gauges graphs. Furthermore, the research results could provide an approach of using eye-tracking method for evaluation information visualization in relevant industrial areas.

Effectiveness of eye-gaze input methods was examined in click, drag, and menu selection tasks. In a click task, three eye-gaze methods were (c)-(i) eye-gaze input with fixation, (c)-(ii) eye-gaze input with pressing BS key, and (c)-(iii) eye-gaze input with voice (voice1). Method (d)-(i) eye-gaze input with pressing BS key and (d)-(ii) eye-gaze input with voice (voice1) were compared for the drag task. In the menus selection task, the performance was compared between Method (m)-(i) eye-gaze input with voice (voice1) and (m)-(ii) eye-gaze input with voice (voice2: uttering one of the following menu items: “save”, “print”, “cut”, “copy”, and “paste”). The pointing time in the click task increased according to the following order: (c)-(i) eye-gaze input with fixation, (c)-(ii) eye-gaze input with pressing BS key, and (c)-(iii) eye-gaze input with voice (voice1). The pointing accuracy of (c)-(i) was nearly equal to 100% and by far better than that of Method (c)-(ii) and (c)-(iii). Concerning the drag, Method (d)-(i) tended to be faster than Method (d)-(ii). However, the pointing accuracy of both methods was not satisfactory and ranged from 70% to 80%. This indicated that Method (d)-(i) and (d)-(ii) must be further improved when used for the drag task. The pointing time in the menu selection task did not differ significantly between Method (m)-(i) and (m)-(ii). The pointing accuracy of Method (m)-(ii) was by far higher than that of Method (m)-(i) when the target size was small. The larger target size tended to lead to faster and accurate pointing for all three tasks. It seems that the better pointing method differs according to the eye-gaze method. Other than the click task, the pointing accuracy was at most 90%. Therefore, future research should propose an effective method to increase the prediction accuracy for both drag and menu selection tasks.

The use of Assistive Technology (AT) plays a significant role in the advancement of greater independence for individuals with disabilities in their work life. In particular, digital step-by-step support can enable people to perform production tasks that were formerly difficult to accomplish. In this paper, we focused on finding a solution for a specific production process. To this end, we set up a prototype assistive system for performing a cutting task which provides step-by-step support for people with disabilities. In an evaluation study with impaired people, we investigated how our assistive system affects the task efficiency as well as participants’ subjective evaluation of perceived mental effort and system usability. Results show advantages for step-by-step support with regard to users’ task efficiency and subjective evaluation.

The cost and complexity of healthcare delivery to a globally ageing population is driving developments in the field of assistive living technologies. This paper focuses on the concept and the system infrastructure of the MiiHome project, which assists person-centered integrated care in the home. Working closely with a care organization delivering integrated health and social care and the housing sector, the MiiHome project aims to prevent problems before they escalate to the detriment of the person by using digital technologies.

The objective of this research was to develop a “paper-based” prototype design of a device that will eventually be developed to teach braille in a co-design process that involved end-user input throughout the process. Questionnaires aimed to explore the use of assistive technologies to help learn or teach braille. Features of existing assistive technologies were identified by the participants. Taking these features into consideration, seven conceptual design solutions were developed by six designers. A weighted evaluation matrix (WEM) ranked potential designs. A weighting for each design feature was calculated using the frequency of that feature. The responses from each participant group were weighted equally. Two semi-structured interviews were conducted with braille teachers. The design preferred by both the teachers was ranked fifth in the weighted evaluation matrix. Designs that were ranked poorly according to the WEM, were actually ranked highly by the end-users. The co-design process was essential in identifying these differences.

Some individuals with reduced motor function rely on scanning keyboards to operate computers. A problem observed with scanning keyboards is that errors typically occur during the first group or first cell of a group. This paper proposes to reduce such errors by introducing longer dwell-times for the first element in scan sequences. The paper theoretically explores several designs and evaluates their effect on overall text entry performance.

Postural changes are important for the health of patients who are unable to walk, since they avoid complications in the acute stage. Transitions (standing/sitting/lying down) help vital functions remain in normal ranges. In Ecuador, rehabilitation in people with spinal cord injury is not mandatory, which leads to drawbacks, such as the appearance of bedsores and a decrease in muscle strength; both of them are associated with osteotendinous injuries that reduce the individual’s independence. The aim of this study was to quantify changes in vital signs in patients with spinal cord injury in chronic stage when changing from a sitting to a standing position. The sample consisted of 10 patients with dorso-lumbar injury. Results show a significant improvement in blood pressure when standing up. Patients reported great satisfaction of being in a standing position and remarked the potential usefulness of this position to perform daily tasks or work because of the increase in the reach range of their upper limbs.

We conducted interviews with 14 informal family caregivers of elderly Alzheimer’s and dementia patients in the U.S. to understand opportunities to increase the adoption and use of assistive technologies (ATs) in the home. We identified three key themes: (1) Most of the caregivers were interested in adopting assistive technologies, but they did not know where to begin; healthcare providers gave little to no guidance. (2) Caregivers demonstrated a need for assistive technologies that enabled or enhanced remote caregiving, as many were adult children who worked full-time and had to leave their elderly parent at home, unattended during the day. (3) While caregivers rarely adopted assistive technologies designed specifically for caregiving, they often repurposed everyday technologies (e.g., home security systems, calendar applications) to aid in care. These findings provide insights for how we can better support the use of assistive technologies by informal family caregivers.

Touchscreen-based smart devices, such as smartphones and tablets, offer great promise for providing blind and visually-impaired (BVI) users with a means for accessing graphics non-visually. However, they also offer novel challenges as they were primarily developed for use as a visual interface. This paper studies key usability parameters governing accurate rendering of haptically-perceivable graphical materials. Three psychophysically-motivated usability studies, incorporating 46 BVI participants, were conducted that identified three key parameters for accurate rendering of vibrotactile lines. Results suggested that the best performance and greatest perceptual salience is obtained with vibrotactile feedback based on: (1) a minimum width of 1 mm for detecting lines, (2) a minimum gap of 4 mm for discriminating lines rendered parallel to each other, and (3) a minimum angular separation (i.e., cord length) of 4 mm for discriminating oriented lines. Findings provide foundational guidelines for converting/rendering visual graphical materials on touchscreen-based interfaces for supporting haptic/vibrotactile information access.

This paper aims to propose an approach to include a holistic user experience (UX) perspective in the development of an assistive technology for mobility, more precisely an intelligent powered wheelchair (IPW). First, the UX related to the anticipated experience (powered wheelchair users, caregivers, clinicians) was obtained in a previous study in order to define technological and functional specifications. Second, the UX related to the episodic and momentary experience were highlighted within a Living lab approach. In that framework, we tested with end-users an IPW in an ecological setting, a mall. For our next step, we propose a methodology to apprehend the cumulative experience. This study will take into account co-users, i.e. co-workers, other pedestrians, etc., that most studies do not take into account and that, in diverse ecological settings.

Senses help us go through everyday life. Thanks to our natural senses we can orientate in the space, recognize danger or pleasurable experience. In this text we will treat problematics of loss or damage of the Sense of Smell (Olfactory System) and investigate how does this event change everyday life and perception of the world around us. The objective of this text is to show importance of empathy related to the complexity of the pathology and the importance of the design for Assistive Technological (AT) devices; in this particular case, investigate possibilities of technological devices in improving quality of life by increasing one’s capabilities related to Human Mechanisms, where we refer to smell experience. In regard, we will describe the Case Study based on workers’ perception of the risk in Coating Plants, that largely rely on their sense of smell, which as a consequence impacts their health condition.

We present LEXY, a framework for developing multi-actor, natural language, augmentative communication chatbots. The LEXY framework is unique in that it allows for the building of conversational chatbots whose model of the world is constructed conversationally by a caregiver. The resulting chatbot can then conversationally interact with persons with special needs, such as persons on the autism spectrum or with cognitive disabilities. The framework utilizes Amazon’s Lex and Poly allowing for spoken as well as typed conversations.

We propose a mathematical model for voice aging that could be used in the design of an age-adapting Electrolarynx. Voice data from public figures, at the ages of 30, 40, 50 and 60 years old, were acquired from a YouTube corpus. The voice processing consisted of an extraction of 70 Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs) and a computation of their statistical features. ANOVA F-tests were used to determine which of these features change with age. Significant differences between age groups were found only for the first 40 MFCCs. The aging model was then constructed using non-linear regression and an averaged quadratic polynomial fit on these coefficients. Model age-adapted voices were reconstructed from the young dataset speakers’ voices and compared to their voices at older ages. The model was validated by the correlation between speakers’ MFCCs at older ages and the model-aged MFCCs. The average correlation results were in the range of 0.62 to 0.93. The results imply that the first 40 MFCCs are more susceptible to age related changes and that the proposed model has the potential to enhance the Electrolarynx by providing age adaptation as the speaker grows older.

Recent statistics reveal that more than 40 million people of all ages from all over the world suffer amputations, and only 5% of them in need have access to assistive products. Common causes of amputation include congenital deformities, vascular diseases, diabetes, and accidents. A prosthesis is an assistive device that is used to substitute and restore the normal functions of the missing part of body. A prosthesis can be either functional or cosmetic, and can be either attached to the body externally or implanted surgically. Without prosthetic innovations, lower-limb amputees are required to have ordinary ambulatory skills sufficient to perform the basic movement functions and the ability to stand, walk, sit, reach with hands and arms, and manipulate (lift, carry, move) light to medium weights. Unfortunately, some amputees are unable even to stand and use their prosthesis to meet their demand. It has been found that traditional prostheses are mostly passive products with limitations and drawbacks. Recent research suggests that a trend in the utilization of active actuators/prostheses can overcome limitations and drawbacks of passive prostheses. Major functions of active prostheses are real-time intent recognitions, control strategies, torque requirements reduction, and energy saving. This paper presents the design of robotic skeletal system of the lower limb for computerized prosthetic leg development. The major structure of robotic skeletal systems consists of lower-limb joints modules, kinematics sensors and kinetics sensors. By taking advantage of the modern microprocessor-based controllers and low-power transmitters, the new robotic skeleton systems are created with better control performance in nearly real-time basis, lighter weight, higher flexibility, greater range of movement around a join, and better safety. The preliminary experiments are performed to evaluate the new design of robotic skeletal system by measuring sensors data while walking on ground, and climbing up-down stairs. Findings indicate the new design of a robotic skeletal system can provide the useful biomechanics parameters, which can be used for the development of computerized lower limb prosthesis.

This study reports on the development of a customized transradial mechanical prosthesis for a patient with bilateral transradial amputation, with a design process involving interdisciplinary project combining the areas of product design, rehabilitation, rapid prototyping, and ergonomics. The process started with clinical assessment of the patient’s characteristics, functional abilities and needs, as well as interviews exploring patient’s preferences. Next, a first version of the prosthesis was prototyped and tested, and a second phase started aiming to solve the problems and improve the prosthesis design. A second test was then executed, revealing that the second prototype utilized a more appropriate and comfortable coupling with the limb, easy activation of the hand prehension by elbow flexion and met the child’s parameters and expectations. It was possible to manufacture personalized parts for the user faster and more precisely, making them more suitable for development of discrete prostheses, which must be custom fabricated.

The government of Ecuador has promoted inclusive education in public and private education centers, ensuring that all children can access education and not be discriminated by their disability. Teachers are responsible for planning, support and reorganized the curriculum according to the needs of each child included. The inclusion process for children with cerebral palsy (CP) and speech difficulties have been a little difficult because they cannot communicate properly with the teachers and the evaluation process is not clear and objective. In this paper, through the use of eye tracking technology provide by Irisbond, we present an educational software to evaluate mathematics in children with CP. The software performs the questions in written and audible way, and it allows the students to select and/or match the correct answer; children with CP from 5 to 7 years tested the program and they got a better rating than not using it.

The subjective evaluation and objective test are the main methods to study the thermal comfort sensation of the environment. The Predicted mean votes (PMV) are calculated by thermal environment parameters obtained from the test points in general objective tests. However, the unstable factors of indoor environment make the description and prediction comprehensively and accurately impossible by the traditional methods. Through the physical and physiological characteristics of Chinese population in the Chinese adult human database, 50 percentile male adults’ three dimensional physical data was selected to establish the manikin model. Controlling strategy was formulated according to the heat balance equation and thermal manikin test system was designed to test the exchanged heat between human body and environment in an unsteady and heterogeneous environment. In the specific heat and humidity environment created by the laboratory, the predicted mean vote (PMV) of the current environment was −0.8 by the thermal manikin test system. At the same time, the subjective evaluation tests were conducted in the environment and the thermal sensation vote (TSV) was −0.65. The relative error was only 2.1% between the subjective evaluations and the objective test results of the manikin.

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability characterized by the difficulty to accurately and fluently recognize words due to a deficiency in the phonological component of language. This disability has a global impact and affects around 5% of the population. This study proposes to test if applying an Augmented Reality (AR) interface it may improve the identification of reading-writing disorders in school-age children to anticipate dyslexia diagnosis. Based on this premise, a mobile application that tests two errors of the Specific Dyslexia Exploratory Test (TEDE) has been developed. This software was tested on children from a school located in Quito- Ecuador. The results of this test prove that this software gets a better detection of the reading and writing disorders than using a manual inspection. The main contribution of this work is the validation of the helpfulness of software with an AR interface for the early detection of this learning disability.

Accessibility, as an essential attribute in a society, guarantees an improvement in people’s quality of life. Therefore, it must be present in the most diverse means of social interaction, such as transportation, communication and information. Ensuring that these assemblies are accessible to wheelchairs or people with low mobility generates positive social outcomes and contributes to inclusive and sustainable development in a social setting. This work aims the development of a crowdmapping application based on mobile apps, which enables the user photograph and rate locations in the city that present obstacles for reduced mobility people (accessibility traps) making hard or even impossible for disabled people to bypass them, especially wheelchairs users. Based on the collected data provided by the crowdmapping initiative, the application permits the user visualize heat maps that demonstrate the most accessible places, combine the geographic locations and their rates, and then be able to elaborate the best accessible routes. The proposed mobile app is a powerful tool to help disabled people avoid obstacles in the available paths. Also, this collaborative system is important to easily indicate the current access problems around the city and serve as support to monitoring and maintenance of these locations. An interesting future work might involve expanding the system to other accessibility aspects apart from mobility, such as blind or deaf people.

Even though many visually impaired people have a desire to exercise, they often cannot because they don’t have enough time or facilities. Based on this background, we developed an exercise support system that the visually impaired can use by themselves at home. However, previous systems require a dedicated stationary bicycle that we can’t obtain anymore. Therefore, we developed a new system using Kinect v2, which renders dedicated stationary bicycles obsolete, and any stationary bicycle can be used. We experimentally evaluated our system and described our conclusions.

Current humanlike orbital epitheses are unnoticeable from afar. When bystanders come closer and discover the epithesis, they often react distressed. This can be explained by the uncanny valley effect. Humanlike epitheses fall in the depths of the uncanny valley and potentially evoke negative responses from bystanders. Instead of hiding the epithesis, this study suggests a shift towards empowering designer epitheses located on the left side of the uncanny valley. A literature study was conducted to determine the state-of-the-art on facial epitheses and stigma-free design. In addition, interviews were organized with six anaplastologists and five orbital epithesis wearers. Design workshops with stakeholders allowed to derive three promising design directions for orbital design epitheses. Additionally, lead users identified three specific use cases: professional, personal/casual, and social/festive use. These explorations resulted in a better understanding of future challenges and values.

Objective and significance: This study examines embossed dots graphics produced with a 3D printer. Tactile graphics are materials created for the purpose of providing graphical information to visually impaired people. They are usually made with a braille embosser as embossed dots graphics. Using 3D printing to produce tactile graphics has two benefits. First, tactile graphics made with a 3D printer retain the advantages that literally solid models are hard to achieve. Namely, they are (1) limited in volume and can thus be easily stored (2) can be compiled into books and communicate content that is closely tied to written information. The second is the ability to make use of our cumulative assets in tactile graphics production: techniques and production tools.

Even though employers are increasingly recruiting autistic (The author recognizes the sensitivities around the choice of terms. The use of the term autistic in this paper is based on guidance from the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN). ASAN holds that autism, unlike many other conditions, is a central feature of an autistic person’s identity, not something that they “have.” Therefore person-centric terms like “person with autism” are inappropriate [64]) employees, autistic adults have one of the highest unemployment rates in the United States. This paper presents ongoing research by the author: (a) providing a brief overview of current scientific and societal perspectives on autism; (b) describing an on-going qualitative study of autistic autobiographical writings to gain insight into the autistic experience, challenges faced in society, and barriers to employment; and (c) proposing Technology-Enabled Prosthetic Environments (TEPE) as a design concept for the integration of assistive technology for workplace accommodation.

Computer-controlled prosthetic devices are becoming more popular among people of all ages from all over the world suffer amputations. Only 5% of them in need have access to assistive products. This paper presents an analysis and an assessment of biomechanics of physiological gait and the construction of prosthetic leg. The normal gait patterns are performed to develop dynamic biomechanical models of the computerized prosthetic leg for productive simulation of a transfemoral amputee’s gait under different conditions. The purposes of the current research project are to provide and modify biomechanical models for a better understanding of amputee gait and make changes on prosthetic leg components for improving the ambulatory performance. Three-dimensional finite element analysis and Solidworks Simulation are used to investigate kinetic and kinematic characteristics of gait in patients with limb loss. Findings from the current study reveal that most people with lower limb amputations prefer computerized prosthetic leg to passive prosthetic leg.

In Thailand, there are approximately 2 million people with disabilities and nearly 50,000 people living with lower limb loss. Previous research investigates the quality of life and factors affecting quality of life of transfemoral and transtibial amputees after receiving prosthesis using a method of WHOQOL – BREF – THAI. However, the WHOQOL – BREF – THAI is a questionnaire that is used to investigate quality of life for normal people not for people living with lower limb loss. Recent records show a lack of satisfaction with the traditional passive prosthetic leg and needs of new active prosthesis with different motor functions. The objective of this research is to design and develop a questionnaire, using human-centered design principles for investigating and improving the quality of life of transfemoral and transtibial amputees after receiving prostheses. The new questionnaire is created based upon both prosthesis evaluation questionnaire (PEQ) and trinity amputation and prosthesis experience scales (TAPES). This questionnaire survey explores user’s satisfaction, usability study, product appearance, comfort and pain, and cleansing and handling the prosthesis. A total of 24 subjects are randomly selected. Data collection and analysis are made from a list of patients in Sirindhorn School of Prosthetics and Orthotics and Veterans General Hospital in Thailand. From the amputees’ point of view, defining their needs is one of the most critical factors in the first step for prosthesis design. Veterans has asked for modern prostheses and they believe that modern prostheses can help them feel more comfortable and natural while performing activities of daily living and improve their quality of life. As a result, this research project provides a list of needs of people living with lower limb loss in Thailand. Findings have indicated that user needs assessment is necessary and critical to make a better computerized lower limb prosthesis design and improve user’s satisfaction.

The assistive devices used for vocal rehabilitation by patients after Laryngectomy produce a distinctly robotic sounding speech. This study aims at introducing human-like qualities into the synthetically generated voices. A simplified source filter model, LPC coefficients and line spectral frequencies were used to characterize the vocal tract and manipulate the acoustic properties of speech. Two different mapping functions were employed: A Gaussian mixture model (GMM) and a linear regression model (LR). Objective and subjective testing showed that both mapping functions produced significant changes in the re-synthesised speech, with the LR mapping producing slightly better results. However, the subjective listening tests indicated that re- synthesized voices improved on the synthetic voice but still lacked human quality. This may imply that the vocal tract model contains only partial information pertaining to the subjective perception of artificiality in speech. Future work is aimed at investigating an elaborate model containing the speech production excitation and radiation signals.