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

User-centered Web design essentially impacts a website’s success and therefore directly or indirectly influences a classic or digital enterprise’s prosperity. “Conformity with user expectations” as one of seven dialogue principles according to the ISO 9241-110 standard is one critical success factor as it regards efficient and effective task completion. Over the past ten years, numerous recommendations for designing Web elements have been published, and some of them deal with conformity of user expectations. However, there are cultural differences concerning how design principles should be applied on Web elements. In this paper, we outline examples of their implementation, followed by discussing the results of an eye tracking study, which indicates that not all recommendations for design principles provided in related work - especially from the Anglo-American area - are valid for European end users and, finally, that their validity may change over time.

The purpose of this paper is to identify some of the possible contributions of the entitled Philosophy of Design to the processes involved in the User Experience methods. After a brief introduction on User Experience principles and methods, we will make a brief overview of the history of research in Design. Moving on we shall review some of the main precepts of Philosophy of Design and, finally, make evident the scientistic and pragmatic predominance of the User Experience methods.

Heuristics give some general principles or reflections that should be taken into account when an interface is being developed. Heuristic evaluation should end with a set of recommendations or advices directed to the responsible of the application or web site. Interaction patterns have reached a certain level of maturity. Designers and developers are offered different pattern catalogues that help them to design usable interfaces and better interactions. In this paper, a method to use interaction patterns in heuristic evaluation is proposed. The idea is to establish a correspondence between each heuristic and one or more interaction patterns. After presenting this correspondence, the paper illustrates the concepts by showing a real case.

One key drawback when evaluating usability return on investment (ROI) is that the assessment criteria are often subjective, making it difficult for members of a development team to buy in to the need to support usability-derived redesign recommendations. It is thus necessary to convey to the development team the importance of design for usability in a format that is universally understandable. The use of measurable usability requirements to assess usability ROI was found to be an effective approach to align design with operational performance and at the same time justify the need for redesign to the development team. This approach should result in better development team cohesion, as well as superior end product performance, which captures and supports the needs of end users and other stake holders alike. In the current effort, this alignment process is described, and the utility of the approach is demonstrated by its application in a field case study of the successful design of a software application.

Design is a power weapon of modern companies. It is important to have excellent designers for the industry. The purpose of this study is to explore the learning problems, and the resources that students used to overcome problems in undergraduate industrial design studio courses. The survey with open type questionnaires was used to collect data. There were 189 undergraduate industrial design students from 3 universities participating in this study. The results demonstrated that the most difficulties design tasks included concept generation, design presentation, and design research. The learning resources used to solve the learning problems included 4 categories: people, object, method, and environment. This information can increase the understanding of the learning process of students, and provide the reference for teaching planning and the setting of the learning resources in design education.

Nowadays, ergonomics tries to imagine and to create new methods based on social situations to understand users’ needs when these end-users are issued from different cultures. Because these needs are socially and culturally determined, new technology cannot be designed without understanding how it is embedded in its socio-cultural context. The aim of this paper is to present the Expert Community Staff (ECS) method, an innovative participatory method to enlarge real users’ needs. First, we present the theoretical background of this method. Second, we present the methodological implications for the design. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of this new participatory method are discussed.

Creativity needs freedom. This must be considered by project managers and senior managers of HCI design organization. The improvement of quality through job enrichment and at the same time saving costs demands personal skills, expertise, motivation and creativity. Creating task models leads to a qualitative high-grade HCI design. Usage-centered design is based upon a user interface derived from a series of models containing interrelated task cases. Nevertheless, creative processes must have been installed. As creativity needs freedom to increase quality and efficiency in general, this should be widely applied. Job-enrichment achieved through expertise, motivation, creativity as well as thorough better planning is an essential step for creating qualitative HCI design.

This study is about an Internet-based web service realization to collect data using mass collaboration to put in place Organic User Interface (OUI). As mass collaboration draws attention as a means of collaboration, and its effects are proven, a number of studies have suggested applications and problem-solving skills based on mass collaboration. This study introduces cases of experimenting with mass collaboration, and suggesting an example of system structure design that cares for interaction design.

A huge shift in design in the industry has widened the design scope from pursuing usability and visual attraction to covering user’s comprehensive experience. One of the most important aspects of the user experience design is providing positive and enjoyable experience to the users. While both tangible and intangible approaches are important, only a few practical studies have focused on the intangible aspects such as emotion and human needs. This paper describes the importance of the fulfillment of the user’s needs for differentiated enjoyment of user experience design, and suggests a practical design method. The authors propose an experience design process and method, which helps to generate innovative design concepts based on the user’s psychological needs.

This article attempts to argue that social, political and economic perspectives supported by a cultural understanding of societies and regions are the cornerstones for a more comprehensive external analysis. Extreme trends and developments in nations´ political, economical and social situation are a source for innovation in the development of user interface designs. As social, political and economical developments in a society are difficult to change overnight; various case studies have illustrated the potential role of interface design in improving the negative aspects of these developments, usually represented by extreme cultural trends. A bottom-up analysis of the case studies resulted in the six (6) preliminary categories, which function as a guide for a broader approach in terms of future external analysis and goal finding. However at this moment, it cannot be guaranteed that design concepts generated from a cultural difference perspective are more innovative than others.

The Graphic Design Program at the University of South Florida, Saint Petersburg utilizes Socratic Questioning to develop lifelong learners. In today’s society lifelong learners continually are re-examining their knowledge and developing their critical thinking skills. The Graphic Design Program teaches the Socratic Questioning methodology so students are able to develop higher-level thinking in their design work. This implementation of higher-level questioning allows the students to critically analyze their ideology of design.

This paper discusses how the notion and practice of ethnography differs for practitioners with different disciplinary backgrounds, especially in a context where ethnography exits academia to enter industry contexts. The paper is divided into four sections. The first provides background to specific experiences and briefly over-views existing literature. In the second part we compare our experiences through an industry case study. The third section proposes a taxonomy, suggesting a number of implications, and providing recommendations on how to integrate cross-disciplinary approaches to expand the scope of conducting user research. The final section wraps up our propositions and provides a number of recommendations.

This article is a field report about usability and internationalization based on the example of Japan. It will explain, based on examples, how proper internationalization improves the usability of software.

The current ISO 20282 standard is intended to provide a test method that can be used to assess the ease of operation of walk-up-and-use products and consumer products. The standard is currently being revised to improve the cost-effectiveness of the test method, to broaden the scope to include aspects of usability that go beyond ease of operation, and to more clearly define how to obtain reliable results. But the challenge remains to provide a standard that will be cost-effective and useful to manufacturers, purchasers and test houses.

Recent advances in technology led to common use of large screen in daily use. Applications of large displays are categorized in three groups; private, semi-public and public applications. Private and semi-public displays allow visualization and manipulation of large amounts of data at once. The increase in display size leads to an increase in data amount, which in result causes users to adopt a complex way of use. These changes arise the need for research in usability, interaction and user performance aspects of large displays. This study evaluates the effect of physical display size and resolution on GUI designers’ perception and implementation of usability guidelines. Results suggest that subjects perform better on large displays for visual search and comparison tasks such as checking alignment, visual format similarities, etc. Reading related evaluations, on the other hand, are not supported by the larger displays.

Precise use of terminology must be a key component in the communication amongst the product team and with end users. It is not a simple goal to have standardized terms used throughout a lengthy development process in which many people with different expertise and at different locations are involved. Terminology tools and processes used by trained terminologists enable precise use of terminology throughout the product life cycle, in all content management systems and by all contributors to the content supply chain.

Using the usability ISO product standard 9241/110 as an example, the author will show that standard software manufacturers can lay the foundation for the requirements described in usability ISO standards. However, the final fulfillment of these standards comes through customization commitments from the customer buying and using the standard software.

The introduction and manifestation of software quality according to ISO 9241 series in the enterprise ecosystem depends on many factors. Most of them are not technical ones but merely organizational and process-dependent. They become therefore hard to assess for an enterprise organization. It is essential to unveil these uncertainties, to address them and to solve them in a most constructive way that replaces the “angst” inside an organization seeking compliance with ISO 9241 series standards where applicable.

Since websites are accessible from all parts of the globe and across many nationalities and cultures, the challenge for designers is how to make them suitable for international use. While it may not be possible to appeal to all users that may access a website, it is possible to maximize its acceptability and effectiveness internationally. This paper describes published guidelines for achieving a certain degree of international and cross-cultural acceptance without necessarily requiring a large amount of work and effort. It also describes a study conducted on colour association with a sample of users from different countries, and how the results might assist designers.

Business developers worldwide seek to develop sustainability software with a user experience that provides usability, usefulness, and appeal. This paper describes the research and analysis that led to a design philosophy and a set of principles that were then “tested out” in a series of short prototype applications intended to make more compelling and engaging business applications incorporating sustainability and taking advantage of people’s interests, expertise, and experience with sustainability.

Usability standards play an important role in Europe, where companies are legally obligated to ensure that the workplace meets software ergonomic standards. Therefore, usability can be a critical factor in a company’s decision about which enterprise software solution to implement. In this paper, we provide a real-world case study where meeting ISO standards and providing usability data to a customer heavily influenced a competitive sales deal.

In setting out to perform summative usability testing on a new suite of more than 100 enterprise software applications for 400 different user roles, we faced a number of challenges in terms of staffing, scheduling, and resources. ISO 25062 provided a valuable organizing framework to plan, scope, and implement our testing effort. In this paper, we discuss the considerations and steps that we took in test planning and management, including our prioritization strategy and creation of an automated data collection system to minimize impact on staffing resources and the usability engineering workload.

The goal of this study was to determine the level at which touch screen latency becomes annoying for common tablet tasks. Two types of touch screen latency were manipulated for three applications: Web page browsing, photo viewing, and ebook reading. Initial latency conditions involved an initial delay in the screen’s visual response to touch inputs but with no delay after the beginning of a touch input. Continuous latency involved continuous delay for the duration of a touch input. Both types were tested from 80 to 780 ms. Touch inputs included resizing with multitouch input, panning, scrolling, zooming, and page turning. Results showed a statistically significant main effect for application, but differences were small. Continuous and initial latency showed little difference in ratings except with ebook reading. Trend graphs show levels of user ratings by latency duration.

In this paper we address the problem of coverage area with multi-robot system by giving an autonomy level to single robot as well as the team. The coverage concept is based on Voronoi algorithm and it applied to extract the minimum number of views from the supervised environment. Human Robot Interface was developed to allow user to selects minimum points’ locations where robots have to achieve the supervision task. Moreover, user can access at any time through the interface watching video streams feedback coming from robots and semi-autonomous robots can locally correct their paths if probability collusion, with the environment, is predicted based on new adapted Active Counter Model. However, failed robots can easily request help from user, where, this last acts overcoming the robot from its unlikely situation. The coverage strategy that we proposed combines the real robot motion (by consideration motion error and process the correction method) and the human robot interaction as well as the supervision paradigms.

In the everyday capturing and sharing of digital images, one is rarely confronted with the notion of this media being any different than its analog counterpart. With the exception of an occasional compressed artifact, the medium remains transparent to the pictorial content it contains—that is until an error or glitch occurs, providing a brief glimpse into the inherent properties of the medium itself. However, through advancements in error detection techniques, these artifacts are seen with less and less frequency, thus further removing the message from its medium. What if the glitch was caused intentionally? What range of innovative visual possibilities might unfold as the digital image is pushed beyond its ideal state? In pursuing these questions, the term precise mishandling was coined to describe a method of carefully and thoroughly manipulating the structural code found within a digital image, meanwhile observing the reaction this had on the pictorial surface. Utilizing the most common file format for digital images, the JPEG, this paper follows the discovery of a technique for generating innovative imagery through the cross-media visualization of text.

The ability for an interaction with a user to adapt over time can aid in the creation of more engaging user experiences as well as helping to drive business growth through strategic application. These adaptations may take two broad forms: active and passive, with each exhibiting certain characteristics depending on context of use. Each of these models is rooted in the system model for adaptation, a 4-step cycle of information gathering, induction and response that forms the foundation for designing the nature of an adaptive system. In this paper, we describe the nature of adaptation, explore various contexts of use with modern examples and describe potential strategic business application for this interaction methodology.

This paper is to clarify the usefulness of imaging methods, such as imaging figures or words, for realization of effective Brain Computer Interaction (BCI). We design some experiments in which subjects engage in imaging figures or words. Event Related Potentials (ERPs) are measured through the experiments. Some variables of ERPs are introduced for the data analysis of our experimental. We consider ERPs as vectors of various components. Using the norms of the vectors, we discuss which imaging methods are suitable.

Multitouch technology on tabletop displays allows children to interact with digital objects in collaborative activities. This paper explores both evolutions in hardware and opportunities in software toward supporting the engagement of children, with consideration of impact on user interfaces. We outline a demonstration of our Multitouch Education Table (MET), a portable hardware system and virtual card game suite targeted for use by elementary school students.

With the emergence of new types of design media, design products are becoming more diverse. However, the user’s habits of designing are difficult to accompany with the design media to convert. This study analyzes the behavior of users to offer an optimized design method for designers using new design media. Therefore, in this paper, furniture catalog is adopted as a study case, for an analysis of used habit of 2D paper-typed catalog. Then, an experiment is setup with a virtual catalog which is designed by 3D interactive software and induced with original used habit. Subjects participate in this experiment and make use of the certain catalog. Finally, two kinds of evaluations, usability evaluation and Heuristic Evaluation, approach to the analysis of new media design. In conclusion, the designer could have a better design method during crossing media-dimension.

Most of the modern operating systems come with accessibility and screen reading features. They also have with basic word processing applications. However, many of the languages are still not supported in the screen reading application and neither do they come with features such as translation and transliteration (phonetic). Many plugins are available to overcome these barriers, but the visually impaired users and/or users without administrative privilege will not be able to install those in the local computer. This paper discusses about implementation of a rich internet application that enables users to have access to a free online word processor which can translate, transliterate and speak out words (in different languages) that have been typed, which can be very helpful for learners of foreign languages and visually impaired users.

This paper presents a guideline for a hospital guidance system that provides outpatients with guidance about their process and location. When visiting general hospitals, outpatients often encounter difficulties in understanding the hospital process and in knowing where to go next during that process. To address this issue, we initially conducted an ethnographic interview of fifteen outpatients to determine their needs, interviewed hospital staff to discover exceptional cases, and then analyzed the hospital process for outpatients to uncover any timing difficulties so as to specify the proposed guidance service. Considering the findings of the user study and the result of a domain analysis, we formulated the outpatient guidance service. The outpatient guidance system is presented here as an example.

In this paper, we conducted an experiment on what impacts the distance between the user and computer screen as well as the size of FOVs would give on the spacial awareness of 3D virtual worlds. One of the interesting findings is that the distance between the subject and computer screen plays an important role in the spacial awareness of 3D virtual worlds. The spacial awareness is improved when we see the computer screen in the distance.

Creating and experiencing visual innovation in HCI is based on the historical property of images, and builds on users’ visual experiences with certain prior imagery. Historicity of digital visuality seems to be crucial but ignored by most approaches in designing visual experience. This paper suggests to take into account not only aspects from image theory but also art history and science studies that suggest ways of dealing with the historicity of images for successfully creating “new” visual form. Furthermore HCI’s own history bears opportunities to connect to the epistemics of visuality derived from the past.

This paper presents the analysis of two poles in the spectrum of image creation: the primal drawing process and the coding process in the field of generative design. The reflection upon these design processes is conducted in order to answer the question of how it is possible to overcome individually, socially and culturally determined visual schemata.

Due to massive amount of data, the description of audiovisual media by metadata nowadays can benefit by the support of (semi-)automatic methods during the annotation process. The presented tool enables the user to mark, interactively segment and track preselected objects. An integrated shot detection splits the video into disjoint parts, for instance to circumvent the semi-automated tracking of objects across shot boundaries. Arbitrary application dependent custom image processing chains can be created in conjunction with the research framework AMOPA. Created data is exported in compliance to MPEG7-DAVP.

The introduction of robotic and mechatronic devices in motor rehabilitation after stroke offers new possibilities to support the re-learning of motor skills. One of these new fields in rehabilitation research is the visual augmentation of movement-related parameters. So far, the effects of augmented feedback on the learning outcome are only vaguely assessed and more clinical studies are needed. This paper describes the first step of a user-centered approach to develop visually augmented feedback applications for the use in clinical studies.

Research on pain experienced after Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) has revealed that not only are there several types of pain present in the same individual with this kind of trauma, but also that people who suffer such an injury can describe the characteristics of the same type of pain in different ways. Making it possible, therefore, to more precisely describe pain experience could prove to be vital for an increased quality of life. Accordingly, fifteen individuals with pain after SCI were asked to describe their pain experience using a 3 Dimensional (3D) model of the human body that could be used as an aid in communicating their pain. The results of this study suggest that the consensus of the participants approved the ability of the 3D model to more accurately describe their pain, an encouraging outcome towards the use of 3D technology in support of post SCI pain rehabilitation.

Videogame worlds can be read like built environments, so the approaches used to plan real environments may help the design of virtual worlds. In this way, this paper presents a pilot study that the main objective is to investigate affordances of the environment that can influence people’s path selection, namely the corridor width. The main hypothesis is that the corridor width will influence people’s preference regarding the path they choose in order to escape from a building (in an emergency situation). Stereoscopic images projected in a screen were presented using a constant stimulus method combined with a two-forced choice method to collect user’s responses. Findings suggests that there is a tendency to bear right when users are in an “T” intersection where the right and left corridors are equal, and they tend to turn to the larger corridor regardless its direction.

This paper presents a process of concept development for a new physical activity monitoring device. It forms part of a collaboration project between a Finnish health-technology company and Aalto University’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering. There are two main objectives in this project; to develop and validate concepts for the company’s product and to evaluate user interfaces that were built on the basis of these concepts. This will result in a set of new ideas for using and improving the service. The paper presents the results from the first and second phases of this three phase project. The first phase focuses on requirements from the health-technology company and how these were considered. Through an iteration process a set of three concepts were derived. In phase 2, these three concepts are visualized via storyboards. In phase 2, prototypes that were designed on the basis of the requirements are also assessed.

Whether through natural ability or educational training, designers possess advanced knowledge of visual form. Designers acquire most of this special knowledge through experience creating visual objects such as drawings, color symbols, and layouts. Although designers immerse themselves creating effects for visual perception they mostly do so without awareness of the causes of these effects. Designer’s form knowledge is more tacit than explicit. Perceptual scientists on the other hand have explicit knowledge of perception of visual form. They have identified physiological processes that directly relate to designers, such as: pop-out, visual illusions, and mental images. The question is less whether designers should be aware of these findings than how the growing understanding of visual perception and cognition can stimulate visual innovation and design practice. This paper reports on initial attempts to integrate this knowledge into design education at the University of Cincinnati.

Human factors engineering methodology is important for design of complex systems, such as control rooms and distributed control systems. Available methodologies are however seldom adapted to industrial needs, which limits the use of the existing human factors engineering research base. In this paper we argue that human factors engineering methods have to be developed and adapted to the engineer working under industrial project constraints. Otherwise human factors engineering is unlikely to achieve a broad industrial impact. The paper suggests how the industrial viability of methods can be improved by applying a use centered approach to method development.

Sustainability is becoming increasingly important in today’s corporate world. Businesses with dedicated sustainability programs are seeing a positive impact on their bottom-line, employee satisfaction as well as their brand image. However, sustainability is ever changing and businesses need to keep up with these changes for future success of their organizations. The evolving nature of this field offers great prospects for user researchers; particularly for those working in an enterprise software company such as SAP that offers a suite of sustainability products to help companies run their businesses more sustainably. Drawing examples from our research this paper will discuss the new roles, responsibilities, and unique opportunities user researchers have; and how we can bring about a positive impact in the field of sustainability.

In a global marketplace, UX research often needs to span multiple target markets to ensure usable products for all users. While there is some literature on methods for international UX research, less attention has been paid to practical aspects of planning and conducting multi-cultural research studies. In this paper, we provide suggestions for leading international research based on our experience as part of a network of UX research companies spanning 30 countries and 5 continents. We address all stages of a typical project lifecycle, from planning and conducting research to analysis and interpretation of insights, with a focus on formative usability testing projects.

As development and productization of complex technology for new markets is challenging, it is crucial to get valid information about the intended future users and represent that information in a proper way to technical experts and project management. This case study describes experiences from using the “engaging personas and narrative scenarios” approach [1], [2] for defining requirements for next-generation industrial robots. We found that additional steps were necessary to supplement the methodology to fit the development of complex industrial robots, namely globalization, validation of personas among end users, prioritization of personas, creation of common vocabulary, identification of business critical scenarios and identification of safety critical situations. The main benefit from using personas and scenarios was their role as communication catalyst and how the descriptions facilitate building a common vision within the project team.

The Enterprise Support Desk (ESD) is the combination of people, hardware, deployed software agents, and software displays, which maintain the health of the enterprise service based operations. It is both pro-active and re-active. It is required to be integrated with hardware and software health monitoring systems deployed by the enterprise services provider. The objective of this paper is to provide the basic architecture being employed by the USAF enterprise system.

The emergence of Cloud Computing promotes a rapid business application development (RBAD in short) paradigm, which enables non technical developers to create applications using the interactive and feature-rich tools via browser without caring about the underlying infrastructure. In this paper, we review the RBAD platforms in marketplace with various dimensions. To better understand their feasibility compared to the traditional software development, we conducted a user study with 12 participants creating application on 3 selected RBAD platforms. Analyzing their behaviors and feedback from different development perspectives, we design a conceptual business application model for RBAD platform, identify the best practice and gaps, and propose 6 design recommendations for RBAD system.

This paper offers examples of how one User Experience (Ux) team has supported corporate innovations in enterprise software using a variety of design-innovation practices. It describes tactical and strategic design and usability activities that have been used to drive a variety of innovation activities - including incrementally refining existing products, unifying the look and feel of acquired products, and exploring and visualizing new products for existing and new users.

Multinational companies worldwide seek to improve product/service development-teams operating in different countries. One of their objectives is to improve collaboration, communication, and cooperation among teams. Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. (AM+A) recommended countries and locations in which to undertake research into teamwork within a company, accounting for cultural differences and approaches to teamwork/leadership

If a large company like SAP is selling business software, they face several challenges when you try to introduce new processes or change existing ones to increase the usability of your software. You need to get the right people with the right skills, you need to have the budget to run dedicated activities like user research or usability tests, and you need support from other internal organizations and management. The organizational part is relatively easy to address; a much harder challenge is to change people’s mindset and thinking. It is not enough to introduce a new process and tell everyone to execute on that new process. You need a large commitment from the people executing the processes in order to change their behavior and the way they do things if such a large change is to happen. At SAP we are in the middle of such a change process and want to show you which challenges we have encountered and how we have dealt with these situations. We will also deep-dive into a concept which we call “User Experience Advocates (UxA)”.

This paper aims to explore the use of scenario approach in training curriculum for industrial design students. Over-reliance on internet and ignorance of user’s need are critical issues to be addressed among design students. It is of interest to incorporate Scenario Approach to education content to overcome students’ failure to grasp the key points of a design. We investigated differences in views on scuba lighting equipment between design students and expert users. Two groups of 23 participants respectively from the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) and an industrial design department were recruited. Questionnaire was used for collection of data in this study. Narrative statistical analysis and independent variable t-tests were used to interpret the raw data. The findings indicate that design students and expert divers place their primary focuses on completely different factors. Overall, the students put a great deal more emphasis on appearance of lighting equipment than did the expert divers. Divers rated multiple functionality and weight among the most important factors in design. The students sampled largely overlooked these two key points. Results of this study are critical to industrial design instructors. It is suggested that students must come to understand usage patterns and cognitions of users prior to preparing a design project. Students can gain such understanding through application of Scenario Approach combined with real-life experience of the equipment. In addition, due to the wide range of materials available on the Internet, and their unregulated nature, the quality of information that design students access online varies wildly. Furthermore, because the Internet is convenient, online information may be overused and misapplied by design students.

This paper describes the challenges of introducing design and innovation best practices into large companies focusing on enterprise software products. It proposes a theory for why existing companies tend to focus primarily on technical development factors while largely ignoring ease-of-use of the resulting solutions, and yet have been commercially successful to date. It also proposes that the market circumstances that have enabled this situation are likely to change as the market continues to mature. It then suggests methods for existing vendors to adapt to those changes and outlines the risks of not doing so.

This paper outlines the changing attitudes of business leaders towards sustainability and the opportunities this presents to product and information designers. Smart business leaders are beginning to understand the importance of sustainable practices to their success. Resource scarcity, increased regulation, and need to safeguard their brand reputation are a few of the key drivers for this mind shift. Just as businesses have to reconsider the way they do business, designers have to re-think aspects of the way they design to participate fully in the creation of a sustainable world. We have to be prepared to rethink our design process, our materials, our product lifecycle, and our notion of customer experience. Information designers and product designers have to work together to create the next generation of sustainability products. While product designers play a direct role, information designers play just an important role by gathering critical information across the enterprise and presenting them in a consumable way to allow decision makers to make informed sustainable choices.

In China, there are many large ITC enterprises and many roles in these enterprises, but UX of working software are not good because many products are developed without UCD method for many reasons. The author gives a way to simplify users by personas through user research and concludes some rules to make design more satisfied by Chinese users because Chinese special culture and its rapid growth, all workers want to improve their skills and ability in order to work more efficiently and find more opportunities for better future.

This paper discusses a process used to enable the TV industry toward major changes around the consumption, navigation and sharing of content. A chronographic description of key milestones – from ethnographic research to concept design and customer impact – is provided. The illustrated case study is grounded in the context of a large silicon manufacturer, where notions of change-through-design, innovation and customer impact have distinct connotations and set boundaries, especially when compared with medium sized firms, original equipment manufacturers or academic contexts.

E-invoicing has benefits that are quite valuable to any enterprise, for example, cost savings, automated accounting procedures and increased efficiency of the workforce. This paper reports the results of a study that focused on the ease of use, learnability and low usage of e-invoices in SMEs. The study was conducted with 12 Finnish small and medium enterprises (SME). The paper demonstrates use habits related to the e-invoicing systems and presents positive and negative comments from the users. According to the users, the benefits of e-invoicing are on a rudimentary level. On the negative side, the SMEs cannot realize all the benefits of e-invoicing.

Companies need to understand what their products and services do for their customers. But how can we encourage the organizations that we work for to concentrate more on the needs of their customers and end users? How can we inspire each other to deliver more innovative products?

In this paper, we will discuss the impact of Design Thinking, facilitated by User Experience Design (UxD) on different levels and divisions of an organization and show how UxD can help support an organization’s shift towards customer centricity.

Could technologies transform software industry and drive the salience of user experience as differentiation strategy. However the current product augmentation paradigm conditions company’s ability to design and market an experience product. Without new perspective on product augmentation a company may not succeed in communicating the value of user experience to its customers. Thus the differentiation strategy may be jeopardized. The paper proposes the transformation of traditional view of augmentation. The new model reflects the need for designing user experience prior to product or service development. Companies must build new capabilities to build a successful user experience differentiation strategy.

With a backdrop of global resource depletion, climate change, and environmental degradation, there’s growing pressure on businesses (especially big business) to change course, to conduct themselves sustainably. Given SAP’s mission to not just sell software, but to “help the world run better,” it is well positioned to advance the cause of sustainable business. This paper summarily defines the topic of Sustainability Performance Management and the objectives of a business software product designed for the space. In greater detail, it addresses the research methods, design process, and development collaboration model employed during the development of SAP Sustainability Performance Management (SuPM).

Sustainability, in a general sense, is the capacity to maintain a certain process or state indefinitely[1]. In this paper, I will discuss 3 phases from survival, growing to sustainable to keep up user-centered design process within organization and develop it in a sustainable way. However, running a design process in the organization level could not just happen without any culture context. This paper proposes the major focuses in these three phases, especially reuse and renewal of user experience design assets internally and externally and illustrates some examples and ideas in context of Chinese culture.

This study evaluated the hypothesis that design aspects of the user interface of the applications and the capabilities and constraints of different mobile devices could affect mobile user experience in social network sites (SNS). For this purpose a qualitative mobile usability test, based on a multi-method approach, was carried out with a sample of 25 Turkish university students who were experienced mobile SNS users. The tests were conducted with two different smartphones: Iphone and Blackberry. The participants were observed during the task executions and additional data was collected by the “think aloud” procedure, eye-tracking and video recording of the participants. A short debriefing interview was also made to gain a detailed insight into the user experience. The findings revealed significant mobile usability problems caused specifically by the user interface features of the applications and limitations of each device and enable to propose guidelines to improve user experience in mobile SNS.

Recommender Systems (RSs) are software tools and techniques providing suggestions for items, such as movies, CDs, or travels, to be of use to a user. In general, a recommendation can be more compelling and useful if the context of the user is known. For instance, in a travel recommender, the season of the travel, or the group composition, or the motivation of the travel are all important contextual factors that, as a traveler normally does, should be taken into account by a system to generate more relevant recommendations. In this paper we show how a context-aware mobile recommender system for places of interest (POIs) selection can generate more effective recommendations than those produced by a non context-aware version, i.e., those normally provided to the city visitors by the local tourist office. Here we mainly focus on the HCI solutions and in particular in the explanation of the recommendations that are perceived by the user as an important element of the graphical interface.

An interface for filtering large video repositories for generating personalized playlists via navigation and selection of moods and emotion on a mobile device.

Mobile web and native apps bring different pros and cons to the table. Intuit recently embarked on a journey to create a mobile web version of its online business banking solution. In developing this product, the team attempted to get the best of both worlds by creating a system that would recognize a device class and adapt content to better fit it, providing a more consistent user experience while still taking advantage of the wide accessibility gained by utilizing the mobile web.

This paper investigates the integration of hand-held haptic devices in daily work activities in the form of personal digital assistants (PDAs) and smart phones that help professionals perform their tasks in a more effective way. Such devices provide significant advantages of high portability, availability and familiarity, since their users already use them as mobile phones. The aforementioned issues will be studied in the context of a Tennis Coaching Assistant, an application running on an iPhone that provides management and scheduling capabilities for tennis trainers and allows a comprehensive overview of the execution of on-court drills and coaching programs. The paper describes the usability evaluation methodology applied and documents the results focusing on interaction difficulties and practical obstacles reported by the users as well as suggestions for future versions of the application, which generally received quite positive feedback.

More people have their smart mobile devices, more they access web sites via those devices. However mobile web users are not satisfied with experience of mobile web. What are the problems that users confront as they use mobile web? What are the design patterns of existing mobile web sites and what could be the recommended pattern among them? In order to answer these main questions, three different studies have executed: 1) task analysis, 2) in-depth interview, and 3) content analysis. According to findings from the studies, design guidelines for mobile web were finally established.

This paper analyses usability of interface including gesture operation and interaction in HCI (human-computer interaction). We explore the common gestures which are used to read e-books, and summarize the mode of operation of these gestures. This analysis bases on the five indicators that are proposed by Nielsen in 1993 to assess user interface of the interaction e-book. It discusses the interface of e-books that experts read and places emphasis on key points for visibility, button design and operation mode of multimedia button. Heuristic evaluation was adopted to study the gestures operation in reading e-book modes based on mobile devices. The study concludes that operation mode, perception & feedback design, and user’s behavior are important interactions mode for interface design on mobile devices. The paper offers interaction design principles for development and improvement of the interactive e-book.

In this paper, we describe the methodology and the activities of mobile QWERTY research and give examples of different pieces of research and some of the results and insights. To minimize confounding effects of different aspects of QWERTY design, we use virtual keyboard layout tools to construct/replicate different keyboard layout designs so that both human performance and user satisfaction can be captured by systematically varying design parameters in the same testing environment. In addition, we also conduct usability testing by varying specific hardware design parameters and keeping all others constant whenever possible. By using this 2-pronged approach, an empirical performance model of mobile QWERTY keyboard in relation to different design attributes (both perceptual and mechanical) can be built over time. The approach we have adopted in virtual keyboard testing also helps to improve virtual QWERTY keyboard design on touch devices as well as physical QWERTY keyboard layout on devices with physical QWERTY.

Many information devices have high performance and functionality by the progress of information and technology and have made lives of people more convenient. Although high functionality is a cause of the attractiveness, it is difficult to satisfy the user only by this. Therefore, the purpose on this research was the comparisons on

Kansei

factors of attractiveness between initial and long term use of mobile phone. As the results, the four factors which are operability factor, motivation factor, familiarity factor, and accuracy factor were extracted as elements of the attractiveness on initial use. Moreover, the two factors, activeness factor and affinity factor were extracted as elements of the attractiveness on long term use. Therefore, it was suggested that the criteria which evaluate the products change as follows. It evaluates to the detail on initial use, and it evaluates it through the whole on long term use.

Recently, in the IT products area, it has become difficult to distinguish among products by function. Usability is one of the most important user requirements for products. And we assume that the other important factor related to distinctiveness among products is

Kansei

(human sensibility). One of the elements for usability from the viewpoint of

Kansei

is attractiveness. IT product manufacturers need to consider the user’s

Kansei

when developing products. By clarifying the mechanism involved in

Kansei

and by developing a quantitative

Kansei

element evaluation method, we will be able to develop attractive IT products continuously. We targeted long term users, and we ran a subjective evaluation experiment for attractiveness related to usability including a questionnaire concerning the factors that influenced the judgment of the evaluation and we clarified some of the elements of human interface that influenced

Kansei

elements of attractiveness related to usability. The results indicate that when people use mobile phones considering accessibility to some function, they feel “kinetic”, “dynamic”, and “refreshing” and when they use mobile phones considering errors when sending an e-mail or making a call, they feel “three dimensional”, “impressive”, “surprising”, “epoch-making”, and “natural” and want to use them. The results also indicate that when they use mobile phones considering ease of inputting text, they feel “good operability”, “hard to make an error”, “controllable as one likes”, “stress-free”, and “want to keep using”.

This paper describes the theoretical and technical foundations for designing and developing an effective mobile collaborative learning (MCL) environment. The paper suggests a prototype based on client-server side with the support of functional components and working procedures, which help users to obtain contents from a server to meet the pedagogical needs. The proposed prototype provides the best MCL environment for students who want to learn at home and working places through mobiles. Finally, to find valuable hidden issues, the paper introduces a new application, “group” in Android operating system, and then conducts usability test in order to facilitate users for accessing and obtaining the contents in collaboration learning procedures.

Informal self-help groups (merry-go-rounds) are very popular in Africa. Group members come together for informal banking, social welfare, sharing knowledge, news, ideas and tradition, and income generating projects. In Africa groups tend to be geographically isolated particularly in rural areas. This limits interaction between groups yet this could be beneficial e.g. small group savings put together could create a horizontal microloan system for groups and interest financial institutions to deliver services to them. It would also boost local trade and open new markets for entrepreneurs. Networking self-help groups is thus important and implementation through e-solutions would help overcome geographical dispersion challenges. This paper discusses research findings supporting the case for development and design of e-solutions for linking self-help groups. Further it highlights various opportunities for e-solutions by relevant stakeholders for group linkages and provides some design insights based on design guidelines developed by Nokia Research Center, Africa.

This paper presents the results of user studies on a public transportation mobile ticketing concept. The studies aimed at obtaining a thorough understanding of the diverse user needs in a travel ticket ecosystem, thereby providing relevant and valuable information to guide the development process of a new mobile ticketing system. The user studies were conducted in three phases, starting from analysis of the present ticketing system and ending with evaluation of the new concept generated. The studies were executed in close collaboration between academia and industry, and the results proved to have great impact, as they were used for making strategic choices between technological alternatives and in marketing the development of new mobile financial services to various potential business partners.

Understanding mobile users and their behaviors in context, across multiple countries and cultures, is challenging and costly. However, the reward of creating a mobile application that meets mobile users’ needs (and is actually used - not deleted within days of being downloaded) is priceless to the user in terms of productivity, the employer by keeping data updated, and the developer by producing a successful application.

To develop such applications, mobile HCI professionals need to identify mobile users’ daily mobile habits and tasks completed with their devices. To uncover unexpected uses and a range of contexts, we recommend using a photo diary technique in conjunction with other ethnographic methods. Conducting mobile photo diaries will help mobile HCI professionals in their application decision making process, by giving them additional insights into their users that may have been inaccessible or unthought-of before, and visually rich deliverables to share with management.

For contextual evaluation of context-aware mobile phone applications, it is desired to observe user interaction with them and collect user feedback about them in situ. For this purpose, we designed and built an experience sampling system (ESS) for mobile phones. The resulting ESS is characterized by the following features: event-driven sampling of user context and feedback, real-time monitoring of user experience, and offline tools for data analysis. We conducted user experiments to confirm that the ESS was effective for evaluating mobile phone applications. We report in this paper the design considerations and the implementation detail of the ESS as well as the results of the user experiments with the ESS.

Using the latest trends of the mobile industry and firsthand knowledge gained from working with a premier mobile network operator, this examination focuses on the development of 4G technology as it relates to user experience. It considers the next digital innovations that this technology may inspire, as well as the future of 4G user experiences. This investigation also discusses how shifting business models could benefit some carriers as they evolve into

smart pipes

and take charge to create amazing user experiences for the next generation.

Biometric authentication systems are an important component in more sensitive applications, since, in conjunction with the use of a mobile device, enable so-called “multifactor authentication”, which involves something the user knows (a secret, e.g. password or PIN), something he has (mobile device) and something that he is (a biometric trait). This paper aims to present usability recommendations to be followed during the implementation of applications or services for mobile devices. These recommendations will be presented taking into account international standards and standards already used in other applications and devices. As a result it is expected a set of specific recommendations for the technology that will be adopted in the context of BIOMODAL project.

This study compared the usability of two different speech activated automated telephone services with a group of older adults, aged between 50 and 87. All participants completed a series of information search tasks with a standard numbered menu system, and with a specially developed menu system designed around a spatial metaphor. Automated menu systems presented a significant barrier for older adults with only 59% of participants able to complete all search tasks. Task completion improved when using the spatial metaphor-based version of the service. The spatial ability of participants was related to successful task completion with both services. Time taken to complete search tasks correlated with working memory capacity only in the case of the standard service and not the metaphor-based service. The incorporation of spatial metaphor within automated telephone systems may therefore provide an important aid to navigation when developing future services with older adults in mind.

In order to create a set of Oracle Mobile Applications patterns and guidelines that would reflect the needs of customers both in the US and other global areas, we conducted a set of user feedback sessions on messages with mobile application users in both the UK and the US. Participants were asked to consider scenarios that covered how they expected notifications to work, collaboration scenarios, how messages might display, specific wording alternatives for messages, and expectations for confirmation messages. The information gained from these interviews and sessions was used to validate assumptions, previous research findings, and anecdotal evidence, as well as to explore wants and needs for future releases of mobile applications for enterprise users. This information was then used to create a new set of patterns for mobile messaging, as well as to create guidelines for content of messages for our development teams.

It is necessary to determine the attractiveness level of using mobile phone to ensure user satisfaction. This study measured physiological indices of attractiveness during participants’ initial use of a mobile phone. As physiological indices which concern autonomic nervous system activity, nasal skin temperature, pupil diameter, electroencephalography, blinking, and electrocardiography are listed. These indices were selected because preceding studies have suggested “safety and relaxing” and “feelings induced by desire and interest” as factors related to the attractiveness of mobile phones. The results obtained in these experiments that a device’s attractiveness to users can be evaluated using physiological indices. Thus, the present study showed basic perspectives related to attractiveness from the point of physiological response.

Ubiquitous computing environments are complex systems since they support a variety of different input modalities such as voice, touch and keyboard/mouse input. Especially inexperienced users (e.g., elderly or novel) might be confused with the abundance of interaction opportunities. This paper presents an approach to specify smart user assistance for mobile devices. The mobile application shows performable tasks, explains modalities and commands, and provides interactive exercises in order to get the user familiar with the system interaction. The complexity of the interactive exercises and the selection of most suitable modalities are adapted based on user characteristics. The advantage is that users become acquainted with the use of different modalities step by step.