Advances in Human Factors and Systems Interaction

Because of the trend towards smaller batch sizes and customer-specific products, employees in assembly have to absorb and process more and more information. With the help of assistance systems, the process of information absorption and processing can be designed in a more economical and human-oriented way. Despite the potentials of such systems, companies pay too little attention to the informational design of assembly systems, resulting in a number of significant deficits in information management. To identify such deficits in operational practice, a questionnaire has been developed. This allows the potential use of informational assistance systems for an assembly system to be estimated. In this article, results from an exploratory factor analysis of the developed instrument will be presented and interpreted as a basis for the further development of the questionnaire.

Nowadays requirements and challenges for production systems have led to an increasing importance of flexible assembly processes. Arising technologies in the context of Industry 4.0 provide previously unknown possibilities for human-oriented automation. To exploit those possibilities effectively, the research project A4BLUE aims to develop and evaluate sustainable and adaptive workplaces that are human-centered and best automated for dynamic environments. As part of the research project, a methodology is developed to determine the optimal automation configuration in relation to context and situation. The present work provides an overview of the methodological approach, implemented as a software prototype within the A4BLUE Adaptive Framework. The methodology takes into account the aspects of worker satisfaction as well as economic factors by adding a systematic, process-related logic to validated approaches. In the present paper, the cost-based module of the methodology is outlined based on process characteristics and manufacturing targets of assembly systems.

As the number of variations increases and batch sizes grow smaller, it can be difficult to fulfill quality and productivity requirements in manual assembly, as employees must record, process and interpret more information, then convert that information into action. Conventional instruction manuals in the form of text, tables or drawings quickly reach their limits. Innovative assistance systems are essential for keeping up with these changes, as they instruct and support employees in line with their specific situations. The goal of this article is to use a case study to illustrate the problems with providing information in manual assembly, and to suggest a potential solution in the form of an informational assistance system. The company considered in the case study stands out for its large production areas where complex, customer-specific truck bodies are mounted manually.

Understanding the properties of particles plays a vital role in assessing the component cleanliness and its origin in the manufacturing process. We propose a classification method using deep convolutional neural networks. Using a dataset of 70,000 annotated images, we achieve a accuracy of 97.7% for a binary classification in metal and non-metal particles comparable to state-of-the-art polarized light microscopy according to VDA 19-1 and ISO 16232. Manual follow-up checks in a cleanliness laboratory are not required due to the robustness of the classification system.

The Toyota Production System became well-known in the 90s and stands for highly efficient processes. The success of the production system stems from its methods and its focus on human factors. For some years, production research has focused on the topic of digital manufacturing. This technology-oriented approach is pursued quite independently of the Toyota Production System. As a result, technical solutions may prove incompatible with the Lean philosophy. Therefore, operational practice must link the Lean philosophy with new technologies in order to make work processes and material flows productive and ergonomic simultaneously. As a part of their education in industrial engineering at the Ostwestfalen-Lippe University of Applied Sciences and Arts, students learn all current Lean methods by means of business games. One of these has been supplemented with information technology components. The objective of this article is to introduce this business game and to explain its didactic concept.

In the course of digitization, the availability of machinery and equipment data is becoming an increasingly important productivity factor. Mobile devices have the potential to provide maintenance-relevant information at any given time, context-specific and in real time. However, currently available industrial tablets are poorly accepted by maintenance workers. This paper shows that mobile assistance systems created in a user centered design process with maintenance workers included in the design process are significantly better accepted than current commercial alternatives. The presented prototype is a first comprehensive approach to a mobile assistance system that covers the requirements of maintenance workers in a production setting. The paper provides details on how the prototype developed and evaluated in course of the research holds potential to save time and thus increase productivity by obtaining information through the system. Furthermore, it is shown that the prototype provides a basis for useable mobile devices in an industrial context.

Manual assembly needs to be able to react fast and flexible on product modifications at an increasing number of product variants. Cognitive assistance systems and smart devices can increase the efficiency and quality of this product assembly. However, both need to be validated for shop floor application in order to secure the operator’s acceptance. Moreover, available assistance systems force operators to a predefined assembly path and do not support dynamic deviations. Hence, the present paper focuses on the evaluation of smart devices for assembly workstations and the development of a cognitive assistance system for dynamic repair processes. In a comparative study, a smartwatch, a wristband with gesture control and a voice control are compared with an IR remote control and evaluated using defined criteria. Furthermore, different smart devices are connected to an assistance system, which reacts flexibly to a specific error and acts situationally to deviations using a precedence graph.

This paper introduces the notion of epistemic debt as an analytical tool for understanding and managing the effects of technical ignorance in smart manufacturing. Drawing on the concepts of technical and social debt from software engineering, the metaphor of epistemic debt refers to the implied long-term costs of rework (e.g., redesign, replacement, reconfiguration or systems and/or organizational structures) caused by a lack of understanding and/or means of knowing the internals of complex software-based manufacturing systems essential to the value chain and core business of an organization. After defining the concept, we identify three of its sources and propose strategies for coping with epistemic debt in manufacturing.

On the threshold of the 4th industrial revolution this survey is aimed to survey technology and employees behavior interaction, due to the fact that previous research has shown that this topic is not surveyed enough. For instance, recent advances in ICT have allowed manufacturing enterprises to use remotely controlled decentralized manufacturing processes and have led to development of different types of interfaces in the framework of industry 4.0. This paper examines data collected in 119 industrial companies. Modern technology latent variable is described by technological dimensions such as level of automation, level of IT application, and technological level against competitors, while employees behavior concept is described by employees’ pro-activity/reactivity, interpersonal relations, collectivism/individualism and decentralization. Statistical examination included descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, factor and reliability analysis. Results show that variables are appropriately described with significant correlation between examined constructs. It could be concluded that upgrading of technological levels forces employment of proactive people with soft culture in industrial companies.

Holistic approaches for designing and developing enterprises and production systems are well-proven for years. They are still crucial when digitalization is introduced. Digitalization brings new opportunities regarding the collection, transfer, processing, providing and usage of data. An integrated application of these new opportunities for handling data can support holistic approaches and leads to what is defined as Industry 4.0, Industrial Internet of Things or Smart/Advanced Manufacturing. This contribution emphasizes on describing three basic elements of holistic approaches for managing productivity in production companies: Deriving goals for all management levels, designing work for reaching defined goals and continuous improvement for considering further potentials. The opportunities of digitalization for supporting each of these elements are elaborated in detail. Finally, a holistic implementation of digitalization by the help of a stepwise approach is described which can be supported by a detailed checklist.

Today’s requirements and challenges on production systems have led to an increasing importance of flexible assembly processes. At the same time, arising technologies in the context of Industry 4.0 offer the opportunity to tap previously unknown potentials. These provide both opportunities and risks for the most flexible and important resource in the production: the workers. Within the EU research project A4BLUE, Smart Workplaces are developed in order to raise productivity and quality, while sustaining and enhancing worker satisfaction. Enabled through both a software framework for adaptation management and contextual worker assistance as well as hardware solutions (e.g. automation mechanisms such as smart tools or co-operative robots) for physical support, the workplaces adapt to the workers’ specific characteristics considering both process and environmental variability. The presented research work provides an overview about the Frameworks’ software components and the application to a use case at the RWTH Aachen University.

Analysing manual work is an important task in industrial companies with high labour costs and labour intensive work processes. Industrial Engineer s can use the results of these analyses to identify potentials and improve productivity to maintain and improve competitiveness. To obtain goal-oriented results the processes need to be analysed in detail. One method that yields detailed information is the MTM-1-method. However, it requires a lot of effort and special knowledge. This presents a big hurdle, especially for companies with small production quantity. One option to reduce the effort and the required knowledge is using motion capture technology. This technology is capable to record human motions and to translate them into data that can be processed digitally. Known representatives are 3D cameras and motion capture suits. They track positions and postures of the human body, thus allowing conclusions about human movements. This paper presents an approach to detect body motions in accordance to MTM-1 using motion capture data from 3D cameras. The detected motions are then analysed with respect to productivity to show improvement potential.

This paper describes the research hypothesis that motion data can be utilized to derive MTM analyses. As a first step, manual assembly tasks are recorded with motion capture systems to generate motion data. These motion data are used as a training data set for an end-to-end deep learning architecture for motion classification. The result of this classification is the assignment of data sequences to corresponding basic motions of MTM-1. The paper also describes the prerequisites for an automatic generation of MTM analyses by considering an adaptation of the original MTM methodology to fit for an automatic approach, the acquisition of motion capture data and the automatic annotation of motion data.

There is a desire for an integrated tool to measure the impact of military clothing and equipment on mobility, lethality and survivability. This study was a first step to develop such a test platform. Twenty Soldiers executed the test in three levels of encumbrance. Mobility was measured via obstacle completion timing. Lethality tasks included static and dynamic shooting engagements, with traditional marksmanship measures and cognitive decision-making. Quantification of body exposure and exposure to threat time comprised survivability measures. Preliminary results indicated that as encumbrance increased, mobility, lethality and survivability were altered. Obstacle completion times increased, marksmanship precision and vertical stability during the static elements improved, and shooting efficiency and threat elimination during the dynamic elements decreased. By expanding on this methodology, we create additional capabilities for the US Army and our international partners. Lessons learned from this study will allow for improvements to the test platform as it is developed.

Clinical patient evaluations are important in determining motor performance. Commonly, these evaluations are performed by physiotherapists and include the pain assessment, range of motion, muscle strength and functionality. Recent studies have shown to be effective in quantifying the patients and the healthy subjects’ motor performance. Several telerehabilitation assessments may be conducted with or without devices in order to aid in diagnosis, to determine treatment goals and to evaluate treatment outcomes. On the other hand, the clinical assessment is thought to be highly variable affecting the reliability. This work presents several reflections about the differences between the assessments performed by physiotherapists and the evaluation carried out by a web-based telerehabilitation platform. We analyze the human factors that could have affected the assessments performed by physiotherapists.

RehabVisual allows for the monitoring of the entire clinical interaction with a patient, integrating evaluation and intervention, through the reaction to a set of visual stimulation videos. These functionalities allow for a standardization of the evaluations; the monitorization of the baby’s abilities over time, as well as the analysis of their evolution; and the creation of a more systematic, protocolized visual stimulation interaction. The use of the platform was tested, through the application of a variety of usability tests, which were performed by occupational therapists at D. Estefânia Hospital and Rehabilitation Medicine Center of Alcoitão. The efficiency of the tool, in a population of six infants younger than 18 months of age, displaying clear developmental alterations due to preterm birth, was also evaluated during occupational therapy. Throughout the therapy program, the occupational therapist selected, for each baby, specific stimuli that were in line with that baby’s behaviour in previous sessions. After using the platform for a while, all feedback from therapists was highly positive. In addition, the possibility to use it throughout the whole paediatrics service was thoroughly appreciated.

This paper presents the T2P model, which is a model of team contexts modified and extended from the previous model. T2P stands for Team, Task, and Place—the major elements of team contexts. This model describes and characterizes a team context with the attributes of these elements and the relationship among them. This paper also presents the criteria to assess the similarity between different team contexts and shows a few experimental results to support the validity of these criteria and the descriptive power of the model.

It is said that the eyes are the windows of the soul. Although rather poetic, such a statement becomes clearly more relevant if we acknowledge that dynamic changes in pupillary dimensions convey a great amount of information, regarding the general psychological and neurophysiological condition of the observed person. Most commonly used pupillometers are rather expensive, and may require highly controlled experimental setups to be used. Those can limit greatly the applicability of the devices in practise. Based on a basic smartphone and a cardboard support, originally proposed for virtual reality applications, we developed a portable pupillometer, which can be used in natural, as well as controlled stimuli conditions. The proposed device fits the category of monocular video pupillometers, meaning that it continuously measures one of the user’s eyes, while the other may receive pre-determined visual stimulation. To help validating the use of the pupillometer, we measured the evolution of pupillary dimensions during a standard “ice bucket” hand test. The results followed quite accurately the behaviour reported in literature, with increases of pupillary diameters in the order of 15% to 20%, as a result of placing or removing the subject’s hand. Recorded pupillary reaction response times were about 2.6 s, which suggest an interplay between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system controlling activity.

School zones are dynamic environments with regulations for motor vehicles and pedestrians that vary by locality. It is critical that drivers follow local rules to ensure the safety of children entering and leaving the school zone. This combination of a dynamic environment and critical safety requirements will be a challenge for fully automated vehicles (FAV), which often do not perform reliably when faced with uncertainty. However, to date there has been little research addressing the operation of FAVs in school zones. In response, this work identifies key research needs surrounding FAV deployments near schools and on school routes, with an emphasis on K-8 student safety. The research needs were informed by interviews with traffic safety researchers and school transportation professionals who identified common transportation issues related to school zones and FAV deployment. The results can be used by developers and community stakeholders to plan for future FAV deployments.

Pedestrian behavior is based on both cognitive processes and the construction of social knowledge and representations. The results of various studies we have conducted showed that pedestrian compliance with road rules varied according to crossing regulation, built environment, gender and age. They also addressed the role of rule perception and internalization. Finally, they showed how informal learning, through observation, of road rules can explain the construction of conventional level rules, the application of which is contextual. These different elements demonstrated how knowledge of social norms can be an issue for the autonomous vehicle.

Contexts as diverse as control rooms, driving and picking in logistic systems provide the backdrop to the potential of attention guiding to improve human performance. Due to recent technological progress in the field of head-mounted displays for augmented reality, attention guiding in mobile and context-sensitive situations has become widely applicable. Accordingly, the gap in existent literature concerning design, development and in particular evaluation and comparison of attention guiding techniques is surprising. Our literature reviewed showed that most studies were conducted within specific use cases and accordingly were using a specific technique. In order to start building knowledge on the comparison of techniques, we review the literature and run a focus group. From both, we derive pointers for the design and development of a universal testing environment to evaluate attention guiding techniques. We build a prototype with selected evaluation methods and test both the environment and two combined attention guiding techniques.

In the contemporary digital era, with universities being at the core of the global changes, boosting and leading them, issues of university digitalisation and organisational communication are topics of particular interest, as well as the presence of artificial intelligence in their policies and strategies and communicating it both to their employees and students. The presented research focuses on issues of university digitalisation, in particular when it comes to organisational communication practices. The relevance of the topic is stipulated by the need to study the existing practices in organisational communication and approaches to the establishment and development of digitalisation policies and strategies and analyse the current practices in the chosen Russian and Finnish universities as part of their digitalisation processes aimed at ensuring their competitiveness in the globalised world.

In recent years, lack of communication among solitary elderly has become a big problem. In order to deal with the above situation, development of a dialogue system for solving the lack of communication of the elderly has been drawing attention in recent years. The concept of the system proposed in this paper is to induce communication in consideration of the situation of elderly people during dialogue. An agent who is friendly to the elderly conducts a conversation taking into account the feelings of the elderly, thereby enabling dialogue close to the elderly.

Human factors is ubiquitous and cannot be avoided completely. The ultimate goal of human factors design is to effectively reduce human errors caused by design. To carry out error prevention design based on human-machine interface design is the core of human factors design. The engineering design phase is an important stage to effectively control and solve design induced human error problem. The key elements of human factors design include five aspects: layout, control device, information display, alerting, automation, following specific design principles and enhancing integration design, to increase the human-machine interface design efficiency, and to apparently reduce the likelihood of human errors. At the same time, human factor evaluation is an effective complementary measure to find design defect. This article puts forward the methods of civil transport aircraft cockpit human factors design and evaluation from the perspective of engineering designers. Practice has proved that the method is feasible and it can provide certain guidance for civil transportation cockpit human factors design field.

At present, the lack of adequate methods to test whether a mobile application is accessible has become a major challenge for accessibility experts. This study was applied to ten mobile applications, the most popular according to PCMAG. We propose to use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 through manual review and automatic review with the Google Play Store Accessibility Scanner validator for the Android. The evaluation results of the mobile applications indicate that the applications are not accessible because they do not comply with the minimum required level proposed by WCAG 2.1. The research proposes suggestions to improve and raise awareness among the designers of mobile applications, in such a way that more inclusive mobile applications accessible to all types of users are built.

When evaluating the learning styles of several individuals using the Honey-Alonso test, some users did not understand the meaning of several of the questions. This may be due to problems of context, tiredness in front of the extension of the test, lack of understanding or disinterest. The Honey-Alonso test consists of four groups of twenty questions each. Each group of questions allows identifying the level that an individual possesses on each one of the four learning styles. These styles are: active, reflective, theoretical and pragmatic. Answering a questionnaire of eighty questions is not an easy task from an andragogical point of view. This article proposes the creation of an educational video game designed with a script based on the questions of the Honey-Alonso test. The answers selected by the player are taken as a condition to determine the order of the next questions presented to the player.

The body posture is not a purely aesthetic problem, due to it can produce a multitude of adverse effects on health, even extremities disorders (injuries) and malfunction of organs. This study focuses on the correct and incorrect detection of the position of the spine and extremities while walking. A database of three patients with lumbago and sciatica, with diagnosis of muscle tension due to poor posture while walking, has been used in this article. These patients underwent physiotherapy treatment and were later filmed taking a short walk of 2 min to see the results. This process was developed for a period of 4 weeks, divided into 2 h of physiotherapy per week and 1 h of compilation of videos with the results obtained. To detect the correct movement of each of the patients, the Kinect Xbox One device was used. It identifies all body points, alignment, speed and angles during the walk. 25 points of human body in three dimensions are detected in real time by the Kinect, which allows to generate a data collection in real time and more efficiently. With the database of patients, a pre-processing of the information is done to identify the most relevant points for our study. A fuzzy model is generated which determines maximum and minimum thresholds for the posture of the back (angle of inclination), shoulders posture (shoulders inclination with respect to the spine), head posture (inclination with respect to horizontal vision) and movement of arms. The model dynamically identifies which position is correct for the movement during the walk, and in addition, the progress that is generated during a time series. This prototype detector is used for rehabilitation of high-performance athletes and is an approximation for the correct posture during long and medium distance races, jumps, among other sports that use the walk as a basis in their workouts. This study was based on the solution of back problems in clinical patients. These preliminary tests have given excellent results in the testing phase, which validates it as an option to prevent injuries in patients with these conditions.

Young children as well as children with special educational needs learn from their environment with social, emotional and physical stimuli. In this context, educational resources and teaching strategies play a main role for them in order to understand the new information. This paper describes the experience of building hybrid interfaces that combine technology with traditional educational resources. A total of 60 teachers divided in two groups completed some tasks which consisted of generating new educative resources with tecnology. Through Design Thinking methodology, teachers designed three hybrid interfaces: 1. Interactive books, combining traditional fairy tales books with mobile devices, where QR codes and NFC tags give life to the stories; 2. Educational Board Games, where augmented reality markers give an extra information to the players; 3. Tangible educational resources, which integrate Makey-Makey device and Scratch with fruit, clay, aluminum foil or water to build laboratory.

It is important to raise awareness among people who create web content about barriers that exist for people with visual disabilities to perceive images. This study had for purpose the implementation of features and controls for insertion of accessible images in two open online editors: TinyMCE and Summernote. TinyMCE is used in content management systems such as WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. Summernote is an open online editor distributed under an open MIT license. The accessibility of TinyMCE was improved in the insertion of images by adding entry fields for the type of image to be inserted, long description and title. As for Summernote, in the option to insert images, entry fields were added for the type of image to be inserted, alternative text, long description and title. Controls were implemented to validate mandatory and optional fields according to the type of image. The purpose is that open online editors comply with Part B of the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines. A discussion is presented about how the original code of the two open online editors was written, how image accessibility was improved and how evaluation was performed via test scenarios, automated tools and usability surveys to both content authors and blind users. The HTML code generated with both editors showed compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Blind users stated that they were able to perceive the images when interacting with web pages created with both editors.

This study focuses on the development of a code to perform an appropriate analysis of nodular cast iron metallography. The platform developed was written in Python programming language and used the Open Source Computer Vision library (OpenCV) for the image processing. The OpenCV tool was applied in order to convert the color photo of the metallography to a grayscale image and hence enable the segmentation of the gray phases to calculate the percentage of carbon within the cast iron test specimen. The categorized microstructural phases were perlite, ferrite and graphite. For validation of the platform and the methodology, the obtained results were contrasted with the Architecture Street Furniture (ASF) ductile iron chart, from there the percentage of differences between the model developed and the baseline specimens were among 2 to 18% for ferrite, 0.4 to 2.2% for pearlite and 2.1 to 12.1% for graphite. Furthermore, the obtained nodularity from the study cases were compared using examples from the ASTM A247 norm and the differences were between 1.4 to 8.1%.

The functional capabilities of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have dramatically expanded, placing substantial attentional and information processing demands on UAV operators. This study utilized a high-fidelity UAV flight simulation to explore the potential for DFAs in UAV control to reduce operator workload and support overall situation awareness. Three levels of UAV automation (LoAs) were compared, including DFA and static high and low level of automation. This research extended a preliminary investigation by Zhang et al. (2018). The present research addressed the limitations of the preliminary study by increasing the sample size and comparing effects of LoAs during ‘easy to hard’ and ‘hard to easy’ task difficulty transitions. Results of this study demonstrated the presence of “out-of-the-loop performance” issues under high LoA. Results also showed some support for use of DFAs to address out-of-the-loop problems in UAV operations. Findings of this study provide some guidance for design of DFAs in UAV control.

The US government considers aviation to be a critical infrastructure as reflected in government publications developed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The Patriot Act of 2001 defined the transportation systems sector as one of the assets essential to the physical and economic security of the nation. Aviation represents a large part of the US economy and pilots are integral to its operations. Some airline operators have declared bankruptcy citing the inability to hire enough qualified pilots. Concerns about pilot shortages have grown because the expected growth in air traffic in the coming decades will require many more pilots. Pilot unions are concerned that low pilot pay and the cost of training to earn a commercial license is making it unaffordable for prospective pilots. Cyber security vulnerabilities are likely to increase as the NexGen air traffic control system comes online and more automation is used in the aviation system. GPS jammers are not hard to obtain and might impact safety while a broad scale attack on the GPS satellite infrastructure would devastate an automated transport system. Cockpit crew composition has shrunk as technology was developed to reduce the number of crew required. This increased the criticality of the crew that remains when automated navigation equipment fails, reaches its design limits, or acts in a manner the crew is unprepared for a dilemma is looming where the aviation industry to both working to reduce the necessity of human pilots by increasing use of automation while at the same time developing new programs and incentives for people to make piloting a career. Will perspective pilots see this trend “too” soon and cause a drastic drop in available pilots before the industry has no need for them? With an unknowable timeline, the process leading to a pilotless airliner will continue until fully autonomous commercial passenger transports are a reality. Aviation, and humanity, will be forever changed.

This study proposes the use of Think Aloud and Focus Group methods for evaluating the usability of the Intelligent Police Patrolling System (I-Pat). The study was conducted with twenty-one students of computer engineering. The study included two evaluation methods. First, the application of Think Aloud using audio recordings, image capturing and questionnaires. Second, the application of a Focus Group for brainstorming. The total number of the usability problems identified was fifteen. Comprehensiveness (46%) and layout (43%) problems were the most frequently found. The study showed that the problems encountered were due to the lack of understanding of the system’s functions, so it is recommended increasing the users’ levels of knowledge about the system. The application of these methods caused the students to find a greater number of errors than when applying a single method, allowing them to generate a report with usability improvements according to the reported errors.

The analysis of past disaster response operations led to recommendations for improving disaster management, namely on the areas of situational awareness, decision support, and organizational agility. Information technologies offer solutions with the potential to answer these recommendations. This was the reason for launching the THEMIS (disTributed Holistic Emergency Management Intelligent System) project, which followed the UCD approach. THEMIS is an Intelligent System that applies Artificial Intelligence methodologies in support of disaster managers and first responders. The paper addresses the activities regarding designing and testing the user interaction of a digital prototype developed for disaster managers, describing the procedures adopted, the test conditions, test population, and the evolution of prototypes based on test findings. The paper also addresses the use of eye-tracking to support the analysis of tests, helping on the identification of user errors or problems faced while performing the tasks established in a validated test script.

The effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction are key indicators of the Usability of a system. The outcome of the knowledge management process associated with the development of intelligent systems is determinant in this regard. The paper describes the use of the Delphi method to identify the level of fitness that subject matter experts (SMEs) recognize on different types of response units to perform specific disaster response tasks, with the purpose of expliciting the knowledge required for the inference process of the THEMIS intelligent system. Since the SMEs involved in this elicitation process had different levels of experience on different domains of disaster management, to help reaching consensus the Delphi method was modified to weight the level of experience expressed by the SMEs. This variant of the Delphi method is presented, discussing the approach adopted in each step of the iterative process, the obtained results, and the followed validation process.

The intent of this paper is two-fold: (1) find a method to reduce human errors in the pre-flight phase, and (2) reduce the accident rate during take-off. This paper recognises task analysis as one of the most effective methods based on the character of this paper and the methods in AMC25.1302. This paper will adopt the task analysis method to analyze the specific work task. Through the analysis of the FMC (Flight Management Computer) operation task based on the CS25.1302, it can be known that FMC is a kind of common equipment which can achieve the intended function. However, in the process of the FMC operation, there are still some defects, such as the information tips, information check and information modification. In comparing the old to the new airworthiness requirements of FMC, the CS25.1302 is identified as easily discovering such problems. Before the CS25.1302, such problems were not effectively dealt with.

The need for sustainable development has been widely recognized as important by governments, as well as by enterprises, and has become a popular topic in various disciplines, including ergonomics and industrial engineering. Sustainable development can only be achieved if impacts on current and future generations of humans are focused according to the three dimensions of sustainability (environment, social and economic). The paper presents a system-of-systems approach to sustainable production planning and controlling in manufacturing enterprises. The results of the paper can be used as a basis to support and improve the outcome of such process discussions with company managers, experts, and employees’ representatives.

Automated lip reading (ALR) is a new mode of human-computer interaction and can directly recognize the speech content from the lip motion image sequences of the speaker. Using ALR based on convolutional neural network to realize the control of the set-top box to power on/off, change the channel and adjust the volume is a challenging and useful work. The paper uses a coupled three-dimensional convolutional neural network (3D-CNN) architecture that calculates the similarity between the captured lip instruction characteristic image and the standard image after training. We identify the control commands, change the channel and adjust the volume to achieve new control mode for set-top boxes. The experimental accuracy of lip-reading recognition is obviously improved compared to other similar methods. We are making a meaningful exploration for the practical use of ALR and our results and application experience can be easily extended to other machines and smart home systems.

This paper discusses workers’ perception of human-work and work-organization in a digitized production-drilling activity in mines and its associated learning that could lead to the creation of harmony between the technical and the social system in the design of the mining-work environment. Underlined by the systemic structural activity theory, data was collected in a digitized mine through interviews and observations of workers engaged in production drilling activities. Using the systemic analytic approach, the workers’ perceptions of their digitized-world of work were analyzed functional. It was found that the workers perceive the mutuality of the exchanges, interactions, and understanding with the human-work and work organization design as lacking quality inputs from them, but which knowledge remains tacit and are not shared. It is concluded that by understanding workers’ perception of the human-work and work-organization designs of their autonomized work environment, an optimized work-system, entailing sociotechnical systemic characteristics can be formulated.

With the Development of Artificial Intelligence, there are different ways to interact with vehicles besides graphical user interface (GUI). Technology such as speech recognition, gesture recognition, facial expression recognition, and gaze tracking has gradually gained application in vehicle interaction. The advances in autonomous driving technology will also lead to the transformation of vehicle functions from transportation to multi-sensory space. Users can get a comprehensive experience based on sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell in future vehicles. Therefore, an exploration of the future vehicle interaction design combined with vehicle technology is needed. The objective of this paper is to deliver a vehicle multi-sensory user interaction design model based on the MINDS method [1]. This paper starts with the function analysis based on user requirement. On this basis, a connection between user and innovative services can be illustrated which enhances the user experience. Then an interaction sketch offered a detailed view of how users interact with vehicles and how technology impacts interaction. Finally, a new vehicle interaction model can be created by integrating the scenarios, technology, and users.

This contribution summarizes the results achieved from a summative usability study considering the efficiency, effectiveness, and subjective satisfaction of final users when using Air Quality, a new mobile software for Public Air Quality information. Fifty-one participants tested the user interfaces of a prototype of the application. We use the IBM Computer System Usability Questionnaire (CSUQ) in order to assess the user experience (UX). The Microsoft Desirability Toolkit is also applied as complementary tool. We present experimental results based on subjective appreciations and self-reported feed-back. It suggests a favorable trend towards the usability of the application. Nevertheless, we have found that the quality of the information is a deficiency in the mobile application. We analyze some recommendations to improve the mobile application.

This paper summarizes the heuristic evaluation carried out to the ePHoRt, a web-based platform that aims at improving the rehabilitation of patients after an arthroplasty. The development of the interfaces is carried out by an agile, collaborative and user-centered methodology. The heuristic evaluation was performed by four experts, considering four ergonomics principles as follows: user guidance, user support, user control and freedom, and user support. The results have allowed us to obtain a series of recommendations that could be applied to improve the functionalities and the user interface of our tele-rehabilitation platform.

Global industrialization, urbanization and technological development have been rapidly changing the atmospheric composition. Air pollution is one of the most critical concerns to human and environmental health, causing respiratory, cardiovascular diseases and incidents of cancer, responsible for seven million premature deaths every year. While most of the major cities have some level of air quality monitoring, the data reported on the official websites are not easily accessed, and are rarely communicated to the citizens, mainly limited to the newspaper and television reports of extreme pollution events. A more efficient way to stay informed of the risks of exposure to bad air quality is a mobile application that can be accessed from anywhere. In this study, we evaluate available open source mobile phone applications for Android and iOS systems. Specifically, we analyze the usability and accessibility functions of the applications in the most populous and most contaminated South American capital cities.

At present, advances in technology, the use of smartphones and access to the Internet pose significant challenges in the area of accessibility of mobile applications. This study identified the lack of clear policies and methods for assessing accessibility in apps as a significant challenge for web accessibility experts.On the other hand, the heuristic evaluation concept proposed by Nielsen and Molich is an inspection method based on the evaluation of an interactive system. To reduce accessibility barriers, in this research we propose a heuristic method based on Brajnik’s Barrier Walkthrough. The method helps to propose some improvements to evaluate accessibility in mobile applications between a heuristic method and the Web Content Accessibility Guide 2.1. As a case study, we applied this evaluation to users with low vision who use mobile applications under the Android operating system that helps users monitor the air we breathe. The results of this research can help future works about the development of accessible mobile applications.

This work describes the architecture details of a remote- controlled mobile robot prototype that allows to monitor the real-time concentrations of Sulfur Dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Carbon Monoxide (CO), tropospheric Ozone (O3), carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) that could seriously affect human’s health after a violent natural or human caused phenomena. Parameters such as temperature and humidity will also be monitored in order to understand the conditions of the people to be rescued from dangerous environments. In order to establish the air quality inside a collapsed structure after a disaster and how it could affect the health of rescuers and the people at risk, the measurements will be displayed inside a user-friendly interface which will be able to generate real-time graphics of these parameters and the possible consequences of being exposed to high concentrations of pollution or heat. Additionally, a task model is provided to describe the interaction among the system and the final users. The data acquired by the robot are transmitted through a point to point network based on elements of low consumption and cost. These elements let the robot transmit the information to a computer, which through the graphic user- friendly interface will indicate the parameters of air quality in a friendly way for the end user.

Currently, the accelerated evolution of technology and the adoption of new platforms in the field of telerehabilitation pose considerable challenges in the field of web accessibility. Web accessibility aims to make web pages usable by the maximum number of people, regardless of their knowledge, personal abilities or the technical characteristics of the equipment used to access the Web. This paper presents the accessibility evaluation of ePHoRt, a web platform that aims to improve the rehabilitation of patients after a total or partial hip replacement operation known as arthroplasty. The accessibility method is based on the Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology 1.0 that considers the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1. We evaluate first the accessibility of ePHoRt using the WAVE automatic tool. Then, manual inspection was performed. Based on the results, we present recommendations to ensure that the application is accessible and inclusive. The results can serve for future work related to web accessibility in telerehabilitation platforms.

Pharmaceutical business has started reaching out for e-business in Brazil, trying to better fill the digital gap and reach a higher audience. This type of business doesn’t show the same relation between digital and physical stores, as the Chris Anderson’ long tail theory perceived in bookstore business, but the recent increase of the delivery business has open possibilities and urged the pharmaceutical enterprises to follow. Based on precedent data, a high fidelity prototype was developed and a series of tests were applied to verify its usability and task flow. Conclusion discusses the relation of proposed interaction with users’ expectations, the usability tests with the prototype, the relation between stakeholders’ interests in the project, the influence of this factor in the applied methods and the final outcome, merging research science with market and business demands.

Social meetings and events pose a major part in Brazilian culture and have great importance throughout various interaction contexts: from daily neighborhood social activities to workplace relations. In a country well known by its festivities, to gather people, from small parties to huge events, can bring a certain social impact. Since the beginning of the 3rd wave of computing, the use of digital apparatuses and social medias became gradually part of the Brazilian social processes and directly affect their daily social life and work [1]. Technology has been changing social behavior and the way people interact with each other, with less direct interaction, but never the less connected. This research is part of the project “RatatApp”, a system to help organize collaborative events that can encompass multiple administrators and manage multiple events, users, schedules and finance. Although the whole research comprises many phases, this paper presents the high fidelity prototype-testing phase.

Differently to usability metrics, which tends to focus on specific tasks with specific digital apparatuses and contexts, the pervasive experience permeates different digital devices to build an experience journey with many interaction touchpoints. Each interactive device play a part, sometimes complementary, to help users fulfill their needs or just generate an experience. As user experience develops to pervasive cross-channel interaction, it becomes difficult to relate ecology systems UX problems to formal usability heuristics. A set of UX heuristics was proposed in 2016 and first tested in 2018 with the multi-channel Airbnb system through pervasive testing on 3 different devices: desktop, tablet and smartphone. This paper presents a comparison analysis of heuristic evaluations, using Nielsen’s desktop/tablet heuristics, Inostroza’s smartphone heuristics and Renzi’s UX cross-channel heuristics.

As interaction evolves from the second wave of computing to the third wave of computing, where one user connects to many computers, the physical and digital world becomes more integrated and the user’s experience journey encompass diverse apparatuses to build one whole story. The human-computer interaction turns to human-information interaction, systems become ecosystems, users become intermediaries, static becomes dynamic, dynamic becomes hybrid, horizontality overcomes verticality, product design gradually turns into experience design and experiences become cross-media. As the cross-channel interaction brings the necessity of new concepts and new ideas, a new set of 9 UX heuristics was proposed in 2016 [1] to map cross-channel experiences with new technology and interaction possibilities. This paper presents the evaluation of the system using cooperative evaluation based on the UX heuristics to discuss the system role as part of the UX journey and effectiveness of the UX heuristics.

Apartment complexes in Brazil are usually managed by its residents, as each one represents an equal share in administrative decisions regarding the building they live. According to the housing syndicate survey, applied to apartment complexes administrations, the most common pointed problems are related to communication, behavior, security and payment debts. This paper is part of an extensive research, part of the Interaction Design program project, with building managers and residents, involving observation, interviews, storytelling, cooperative evaluation and think-aloud protocol to help understand and map users’ mental model, their expectations and affordances to integrate the use of digital devices into building managing processes and improve the user experience.

The machine parsing and translation of Chinese complex structures need the involvement of syntactic and semantic knowledge. The application of computational linguistics in parsing and translation helps bilingual system construct the special knowledge database used to revise and post-edit the strings. It is concluded that with the help of advanced bilingual dictionaries and domain-specific corpora, system can effectively analyze the lexical information and thematic relationship, parse the syntactic structure and translate the original sentence to the target one.

The development, implementation, and contracts involving interactive systems in Brazil have direct influence over educators and managers regarding and the digital technology potential. And these factors facilitate to choose, among many possible tools, the ones that have elements to better support learning in school environments. EMIS (Educational Management Integrated System) is a fundamental piece to consolidate quality education. Any ERP is usually capable of integrating diverse data in one system: finance, sales, accounting, stock, debts and income balance, human resources, production processes and logistic activities. However, education related systems surface factors related to classroom dynamics, to students and to teachers. These factors must be contemplated and evaluated as part of the whole context, part of a country with such cultural diversity and lack of resources, such as Brazil. This paper presents the unfolding of the project developed between IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) and FVG (Fundação Getúlio Vargas) to analyze EMIS systems in two public schools for basic education in Brazil.