Design, User Experience, and Usability: Understanding Users and Contexts

A form prompt message refers to the prompt message generated when a user accesses to a form. At present, the research on the approach to design the form prompt message is not perfect. Therefore, this paper provides a method to design the form prompt message based on behavior path. The first part of the paper combs through the existing interactive behaviors and the basic theories of prompt message design, then analyzes the interaction among behavior and path, hint and memory load, and plans a hierarchical model of interactive behavior combined with the existing GOMS model. Moreover, this paper discusses the influence of the importance, frequency and circumstance property on evaluating the priority of prompt message, and sorts out a hierarchy diagram of form prompt message based on interactive behavior. Finally, experiments are carried out with this approach to verify the validity of the hierarchy design approach presented in this paper.

Usability is a core concept in HCI and is a common quality attribute for the design and evaluation of interactive systems. However, usability is a fluid construct and requires context-specific frameworks to be clearly defined and operationalized. Academic search user interfaces (SUIs) include the search portals of academic and research libraries, digital data repositories, academic data aggregators, and commercial publishers. In addition to information lookup, academic SUIs serve scientific information seeking in learning, exploration, and problem-solving.Researchers in library and information science (LIS) have intensively studied information seeking behavior. In recent years, exploratory search has gained attention from LIS researchers and experimental SUI features are prototyped to support information seeking. In the meantime, many academic and research libraries have conducted usability evaluation and adopted discovery systems as part of SUIs. However, there is a lack of context-specific usability models for guiding academic SUI implementation and evaluation.This study takes the perspectives of information seeking tasks and usability contextualization to propose a formative conceptual framework of academic SUI usability. Information seeking tasks from information seeking and behavior models are integrated based on the exploratory search paradigm. Information seeking tasks are mapped to the layered usability construct to shows how academic information seeking tasks may be supported to achieve high usability. Future studies should focus on developing contextualized academic SUI usability models with measurement metrics to guide the empirical implementation and evaluation of academic SUIs.

Modern machine tools have become highly automated versatile production systems, often showing deficits in intuitive control opportunities. To match human-machine interfaces to increasing functionality requirements, the software complexity can be reduced by task-oriented human-machine interface design. Content of this paper is the evaluation of task-orientation and its influence on usability dimensions in a field and laboratory investigation. For this purpose, a function-oriented software for cutting machines, currently used in production, was compared to a task-oriented prototype by means of the IsoMetricsS. Results show an effect of task-orientation on conformity with user expectations and learnability in the laboratory study. Furthermore performance measurement shows that task-orientation leads to decreasing execution times.

Video editors are facing the challenge of montage editing when dealing with massive amount of video shots. The major problem is selecting the feature they want to use for building repetition patterns in montage editing. It is time-consuming when testing various features for repetitions and watching videos one by one. A visualization tool for video features could be useful for assisting montage editing. Such a visualization tool is not currently available. We present the design of ViVid, an interactive system for visualizing video features for particular target videos. ViVid is a generic tool for computer-assisted montage and for the design of generative video arts, which could take advantage of the information of video features for rendering the piece. The system computes sand visualizes the color information, motion and texture information data. Instead of visualizing original feature data frame by frame, we re-arranged the data and used both statistics of video feature data and frame level data to represent the video. The system uses dashboards to visualize multiple dimensional data in multiple views. We used the project of Seasons as a case study for testing the tool. Our feasibility study shows that users are satisfied with the visualization tool.

Radial visualization is an important technique to depict serial periodic data. Circle clock design is intuitive to encode 24-hour cyclical data. However, the biggest limitation of the design is the accuracy of reading time points on circle. Dodecagon is another way to represent time series data. We empirically evaluated the effectiveness of circle and dodecagon clock design in perceiving specific points in time. A post-testing interview was also conducted to understand participants’ strategies to read the times. Results show that dodecagon is more accurate than circle in terms of reading time points. Dodecagon was voted as a powerful approach to read the time points and circle was regarded as a better beautiful visualization method.

Many health professionals in developing countries carry out tasks which require a higher level of education than they have. To help such undereducated health workers filling correct data in patient information systems, data fields were furnished with tooltips for guiding users. In a previous study with questionnaires and interviews, health workers preferred tooltip contents being normal values of the data with medical explanation as the second best. The experiment reported in this paper set out to test these content alternatives and also aimed at finding health workers’ use of tooltips and possible effects on data correctness. In order to resemble the work setting, each of the 15 undereducated health workers participating was given a tablet PC with the patient information system and booklet of 22 cases to be entered over a period of two weeks. They were given a one hour introduction to the system. Their use of the tablet was recorded, and after completing, the participants were interviewed. The health workers opened tooltips frequently for the first cases, and thereafter the use dropped. Reasons given were that they learnt the data field during the first cases, and thereafter they did not need the tooltips so often. The number of correct data entries increased over time. The group with medical explanation tooltips performed better than the group with normal value tooltips, thus the preferred tooltip in the questionnaire gave a lower performance than the second alternative. While the experiment demonstrated that tooltips improved performance, it did not quantify the effect.

The core of information visualization and visual selection is the mapping from abstract data to visual structure. The aim of information visualization doesn’t lie in visualization itself, its ultimate aim is to collect information on the basis of visualization so as to offer support to decision making. Under the complex driving environment, Designers have to continue their research during the process of interface design. They can explore the implications and presentation methods of interface interaction inside the car in order to form an on-board interaction design system based on visual selection. This can also realize information sharing between cars and X (people, cars, roads and backstage) and possess functions like strong sensation for complex environment, intelligent decision and mutual control. At the same time, on-board interaction equipment will have more diversified tasks. For example, the alternation of interaction and decision-making between multiple tasks like reality conformation, cluster display, gesture interaction, speech recognition, body sensation and eye tracking. At present, the new direction for interaction design is the analysis of multitask visual selection so as to realize secure, comfortable, energy-saving and efficient driving and finally the invention of a new generation of on-board interaction design system which can perform on human behalf. Through multi-view and multi-task learning, this paper gave an analysis of on-board interface design and concluded design scheme and suggestion with optimal user experience. By combing reasonable analysis of human intelligence and sensible interface design, this paper can provide new ways of thinking and methods for future on-board interface design.

This paper is aimed to present the development process and status quo of knowledge sharing in the Internet age in China, and explore and analyze the factors which have an effect on knowledge sharing. By means of in-depth interview and questionnaire, purposes, behavior modes, and emotional experience of users on different knowledge sharing platforms were found. This paper also conducts an analysis for competitive products in view of five products of knowledge sharing in China, and explores the development process and the status quo of existing products of knowledge sharing in the Internet age in China. The experience design model of knowledge sharing is further created, and the selection of knowledge sharing platforms is discussed in this paper.

This study aimed to investigate the effect of different loading symbols and durations on waiting time perception of online video viewers. 60 young adults participated in this study and gave subjective ratings on waiting time perception through a 7-point Likert scale for 48 loading symbols (3 durations × 4 progress functions × 2 shapes × 2 embellishments). Results showed that duration and the progress function significantly influence the viewers’ waiting time perception, while shape and embellishment do not. Loading symbols with the repetitive and linear progress functions are perceived longer than those of the power and inverse power progress functions. To indicate loading progress and to use manipulated progress functions are recommended, and design factors such as shape and embellishment are considered to be less effective. The findings of this study may serve as a useful input for loading symbol designers in creating better loading symbols.

In the wake of the development of first-person engagement and crowdsourcing content creation, images are given abundant subjective dimensions of information, especially emotional ones. This research tried to purpose an approach for the image emotional semantic retrieval based on cognitive quantification model by using tags. In this research “Daqi”, a typical Chinese emotional experience, is taken as an example to construct an emotional quantification model of it through semantic association analysis and statistical data analysis. The results of verification experiments indicated that it is practical and effective to rank images and recommend tags in image emotional retrieval system based on cognitive model. It is foreseeable that the theory of this research can be applied to other social digital resources, like music or video.

Recommender system has been widely used and showcased its successful stories in e-business area for the last decade. It assists in making profits within a lot of companies by recommending their products that the customers would be interested in. Compared to many successful stories in e-business and industries, however, a recommender system has not been fully exploited in non-profit activities where people need information that is unbiased, accurate, up-to-date and mostly relevant to their interest, especially in politics. Even though choosing a right candidate with appropriate and accurate information is required to voters, it is not easy for them to keep up with the political issues due to the massive amounts of online media and its speed. To address these issues, we suggest a politician recommender system by using two widely used filtering: collaborative filtering and content-based filtering. In order to build the recommendation system, we first collect public profile of current congress members in Korea and people’s preference ratings to these politicians. These data are preprocessed and used in filtering methods to recommend politicians that a user would be favorable for. We compare the experimental results, and combine the two filtering whether the hybrid approach shows better performance than two individual methods. We anticipate this saves people’s time and effort to obtain information to support their decision and makes people actively participate in political issues.

Smartphone Technology grew up with mobile application. Mobile applications help users to conveniently access useful services. To instantly access desired information, bunch of apps are placed on the home screen which results in the visually complex user interface. In this paper, due to the lack of literature on wallpaper, we investigated which types of wallpaper people choose on their devices. We examined more than 200 participants for specific reasons of setting wallpaper and asked whether people concern the wallpaper occlusion. Based on the survey result, we present the prototype of home screen user interface which automatically organize objects on the screen. Additionally, we conducted focus group interview to get deeper insights on wallpaper and our prototype. Implicit meanings of setting wallpaper were covered. Finally, we discuss several implications of the prototype and limitation of the study.

Current trends in the development of educational applications bring new challenges that require both a rapprochement and an understanding of the elements implicit in the interaction of this type of system and the individuals who use them. One of the most relevant aspects in this interaction is user satisfaction; as a result, it is necessary to establish a broader and more precise definition of user satisfaction in the e-learning context, at the same time giving thought to the different constructs that characterize the software systems dedicated to learning. This article presents a proposal that extends the concept of satisfaction of use in e-learning environments through the ISO/IEC 25010 standard.

Accessibility standards across the world have changed drastically since the 1970s, with many social reforms, building access requirements, and information technology being modernized to accommodate the needs of the differently abled. This paper seeks to analyze how the United Nations (UN) Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) has affected the social atmosphere of various states around the world that have implemented the CRPD to various degrees. This social atmosphere consists of three core components: socio-political perceptions, laws, and information access standards within each sovereign state. Each are aspects that directly affect the quality of life afforded to persons with disabilities that are citizens of these states.

Augmented mugs are mostly used as non-interactive displays showing images, or providing information about the liquid content. However, there has not been sufficient research on what kind of affordances mugs could offer as tangible interfaces and how people might use them in face-to-face social settings. To fill this gap, we examined Turkish coffee fortune-telling, a socio-cultural practice based on deliberate physical interaction with coffee cup for reading and creating stories out of coffee ground shapes. First, we organized coffee cup reading sessions with 18 fortune-tellers whose analysis yielded 11 characteristics reflecting user behavior with cups. A follow-up cross-cultural study served as a first step for understanding the potential generalizability of these findings. Our main contribution consists of the characteristics we derived and the related potential interaction techniques we discuss for augmented mugs with an inner display. We also contextualize our findings by two scenarios in which the mug is used as a tangible interface in social interaction settings.

User Requirements Elicitation (URE) is a critical stage in the development of software systems. It is aimed at defining the information needs the system has to fulfill and the services it is expected to provide. The term “elicitation” points out the delicate role of the analyst, who has to take an active listening attitude in the dialogue with system stakeholders and intended users, being able to seek, uncover and elaborate requirements. The success of the process largely depends on the analyst’s communication skills and expertise, since URE is communicative, interdisciplinary and practical in nature. Despite a variety of techniques and approaches to URE are proposed, there is not at the moment a systematic training method. In the paper, a behavioral simulator reproducing a lifelike URE conversation is presented, which was developed exactly to train URE skills. The didactical idea backing the simulator is an interaction between user and game, based on a narrative and relational model developed by one of the leading companies in the field. The effectiveness of the simulator was verified through an experiment, whose design, implementation and results are described. The experiment intended to verify the internal validity, that is if users playing systematically with the simulator improved their performance with the simulator itself, as well as the external validity, that is if users also enhanced their URE skills. Results showed users’ improvements in both aspects.

Face recognition, as an important biometric technique for personal identification, has been widely used in many departments as government, public security, banking, securities, taxation and army. However, most previous research paid more attention on technology in accuracy and speed and ignored user experience, which was our focus. We evaluated user experience of our and competing products, furthermore, quantitatively analyzed comfortable subjective duration of three stages called face detection, blink detection and picture-taking, adopting tolerance experiment and usability test. The result revealed that comfortable subjective duration of three stages were 1–2.5 s, 0.8–1.8 s, 0–0.7 s. Combined with the result of usability test, we optimized UE/UI design to enhance the user experience.

Improving wayfinding system design is a challenge facing hospitals today, and as such this study seeks to improve the design of wayfinding systems by understanding patient routing patterns, wayfinding strategies, and wayfinder tool preference. The methodology of this study has three stages: The first is to administer the Wayfinding Strategies and Related Capabilities Survey [1] to a Taiwanese sample, and then to conduct a factor analysis to isolate important factors. Test subjects included 178 Taiwanese from different professional and education backgrounds. The second stage is based on the ratings of five wayfinding tools used by subjects (Google Maps, map signage, Hand-drawn maps, bystander assistance, and directional signage). A correlation analysis of the helpfulness of the tools and the factors isolated in stage 1 is conducted to separate the subjects into different wayfinding personas. The third stage is conducting interviews of exemplars of the personas found in the second stage. A factor analysis is conducted on the results of the survey, and important survey items are identified. Subjects are divided into one of the following 8 wayfinding personas based on their Wayfinding Ability and Wayfinding Strategy (survey or map strategy): Improvisational, Helpless, Capable, Brute Force, Orienteer, Road-Blind, Map Consultant, and Map-Blind. We advise that prospective designers of smart devices should, in addition to the current functions of Google Maps, consider the habit of hospital users to seek help, as well as the needs of the visually impaired.

User experience design requires communication to share design information and to integrate specialised knowledge to optimise design performance. Personal experience during communication process will influence individual participation, the output of communication and design performance. Defined by absorption into stories, narrative transportation will lead changes in beliefs and attitudes, which is potentially beneficial to design communication. This paper explores the role of narrative transportation in the communication of user experience design through literature review and experiments. The role of narrative transportation is positive proved by the increased effectiveness of design communication. It also provides a support of the importance to use storytelling in user experience design and implies the necessity of tools supporting storytelling.

The process of digitalization challenges universities worldwide, in particular the universities’ IT. Using ITIL and the ITSM-focused application of software requirements engineering as a basis, qualitative interviews with students were conducted to gather information on service requirements. Three service categories clearly dominate the students’ wishes for IT support: study organization, online literature and software provision. As regards the study organization, a centralized platform granting access to all relevant information and services (e.g. schedule, exam administration, certificates, study progress, contact information) is particularly important. From the students’ point of view, IT should enable them to focus on the content of their studies, provide support for organizational problems, and grant easy access to resources, such as literature and software, while at the same time require little effort.

For our democracy to be truly representative, all adults who wish to vote need to be able to vote successfully and independently. But 42% of adult Americans read at Basic or Below Basic levels, according to the National Adult Literacy Survey, and PEW research shows that citizens with lower literacy levels vote at much lower rates than citizens with higher literacy levels. Similarly, adults with disabilities vote at much lower rates than adults without disabilities. Prior research has identified some of the barriers that affect voting access for adults with disabilities; this in-depth ethnographic study explores the barriers that affect voting access for adults with lower literacy skills. Understanding these barriers sheds light on the human implications of current voting system controversies. While this research focuses on activities related to voting, the barriers, behaviors, and coping strategies observed also have implications for the design of other public services. The research joins a growing body of data-driven insight into how to design information and services for this 42% of American adults. It also provides insights that are useful for other populations who don’t read well, such as English Language Learners, and for older adults who sometimes experience reduced functional literacy.

Within the design of technology, the notion of the user, and user-centered design, has become a guiding principal for creating successful products. However, the concept of “user” is a non-trivial notion. HCI has historically viewed “the user” as an abstract concept, that is to say, it has been a reductive definition. As the field has become increasingly transdisciplinary the definition of “the user” has evolved overtime to reflect more breadth and depth. However, this is not always the case within industry practice. In this paper we present a situation and case study where, in industry, the reductive notion of the user posed distinct impediments to progress, how we were able to identify those and blend academic thinking into an industry approach to more success than either alone.

This study presents a study project which objective is to identify the challenges of access to information faced by people with visual impairment when interacting with digital information environments. The research circumstances are presented from the visual impairment perspective, studies of users oriented to the visually impaired, Assistive Technology for people with visual impairment and digital accessibility. Considering the scope and the objective of the research, a descriptive study is being developed using the mixed method as methodological approach, which will have the qualitative method as the main guide of the project, and a secondary database, in which the quantitative method will be incorporated within the qualitative method in order to play a supporting role in the procedures. As a research method, the survey will be adopted using the interview technique, using the semistructured script as an instrument to collect data about the target audience and their preferences, thoughts and behaviors. Pre-tests were performed to improve the instrument for collecting data and adding value to the intended objectives. After a preliminary analysis it was verified that the introduction of digital resources brought benefits to the life of the visually impaired people. However, difficulties were also identified. It is hoped that this research highlights the importance of knowing the particularities and needs of visually impaired users so that the development of interfaces and digital resources become increasingly accessible and inclusive.

Consumers could derive benefit from the preference fit through the online customization. However, consumers’ preferences are often ill defined and sometimes unstable. Many methods are discussed to solve this problem in online customization. In this research, the authors propose a new method to examine whether the inhabited space would have different influences on consumers’ perception of preference fit in an online customization context. Also, the mediating role of psychological distance between the consumers and the products is examined. Using subjects from a Chinese university, they report a study involving real customization tasks on a well-known Chinese customization website. The study arrives at the conclusion that the configurator with a higher inhabited space will help the consumers to customize more preferred products, which would be partial mediated by the psychological distance between the consumers and the customized products. The results would offer insightful guidelines to customization websites.

The aim of this study is to verify if teenagers’ actual navigation through webpages match with their self-declared preferences (in terms of tourist attractions), and if these preferences are in line with the official DMO data about most viewed pages. Particularly, self-declared attractions are confronted with the contents visualized during navigation, thus making possible to understand to what extent the exposure to certain themes influence preferences towards certain attractions. Results from this comparison suggest that contents that teenagers pay attention to during navigation are not always what they declare to prefer as tourist attraction.In a second stage, a comparison with the official DMO data showing the most viewed pages is carried out in order to verify if there are any commonalities in terms of preferred attractions. Results show commonalities in terms of preferences: outdoor/sports and events/concerts are the preferred themes across all sources. But results also show discrepancies. In fact, at the same time, according to each type of approach used, the ranking of preferred themes changes. Therefore, results suggests that a multi-source approach helps to eliminate possible biases that may occur if only one approach is adopted.

Education of deaf children has always been a challenge due to communication problems, that’s why different teaching and learning strategies must be taken into account in order to address language issues and make use of the visual input to overcome the loss of the auditory one. Storytelling is one of such strategies that’s been proven to be effective in teaching and learning processes of hearing children. Therefore, a systematic literature review was conducted to identify how this technique has been used in the education of deaf children and how could interactive storytelling engage children with learning processes in different areas of knowledge. A total of 623 studies were found in different databases but just 24 of them were selected for this review.

Among Chinese netizens, young women account for a relatively high percentage and become active users. As living standard improves, their focus have changed from the basic needs of life to the improvement of the quality of life and happiness, especially spending a lot of time on interest developing. Some Internet giants and many online educational institutions have paid attention to it, and released a number of online education products for young women to develop interests. In this research, we defined “Young women” in China and “Interest Developing” according to available data. We performed a detailed analysis in the group of “young women”, including their demographic characteristics, living styles, needs on interest developing, and specific learning processes. Then we took Baidu’s product for young women as an example, in comparison with other products on the Chinese market, to explore the design concepts, design style and operational activities of online interest-developing products. Finally, we summarized the strengths and weakness of existing products, and see what this industry is really achieving or how it’s trending. This research hopes to help design interest-developing products for Chinese young women, and even.

Technology has a profound impact on the well-being of young people with autism. Through technology, they are able to socialise, learn and gain sensory relief, creating positive communication experiences and self-conceptions. Using qualitative participatory methods, this research illustrates how The Lab, a technology club for young people with autism, enables individuals on the spectrum to socialise beyond the perceived limitations of their disability through the use of technology. The findings of this research suggest that technology can provide young people with the avenue to learn, practice and define their own sociality, defying the medicalised notion of autism.

This study aims to improve excessive usage of slang and indiscriminate language habit of Korean adolescents, and the consequent social problem called ‘Cyber Bullying’. A desk research is conducted to examine adolescents’ language habit and the reality of cyber bullying, and the problems of current systems is analyzed to propose a new service design that can compensate the defects. Not only that, through analysis on the traits of teenagers that use lots of swear words and psychological characteristics of adolescents, a smartphone keypad and application are developed that help adolescents to check their language habit and improve it by themselves in everyday life since adolescents tend to feel resistance about coercive external interference. Teenagers can correct their language habit as soon as they type swear words by immediate feedbacks and given substitutable words, and also can recognize their habitual usage of swear words by the accumulated data of usage. The significance of this study is improving teenagers’ language habit by using refined expressions instead of violent slangs, and to prevent secondary problems which can result from negative language habit.

Play is an essential social, emotional, and intellectual developmental activity for children, including those with autism. Parents, educators, and therapists of autistic children strive to create opportunities for children to engage in mutual play with peers. Among other benefits, play enables children to develop the ability to see the world through someone else’s eyes, a process described by the “Theory of Mind” (ToM), a concept formulated by developmental psychologists. This awareness of another’s perspective has been identified as particularly challenging for people with autism. To examine the potential for technology to support play and ToM skills, we interviewed parents of children with autism about their current play practices. We found that parents struggle to implement in-person playdates due to the challenges of finding appropriate nearby peers and busy schedules filled with medical and therapy appointments. To explore alternatives to in-person playdates, we conducted an exploratory study in which pairs of autistic and neurotypical children interacted via two remote technologies: Microsoft Skype and Microsoft IllumiShare, a shared surface system. Our interaction analysis revealed that, through embodied interaction with real and virtual objects, the children engaged in mutual and parallel play. However, at times, the constraints of the technology impeded joint attention and perspective-taking. We contribute empirical findings based on interaction analysis of neurodiverse playmates playing remotely with tangible objects in a shared surface environment. We recommend design considerations for remote technologies to support mutual play and ToM skills.

Online reviews are an important factor in the pre-purchase phase of tourist products, but lack social cues to enable an evaluation of the source’s trustworthiness, leading to uncertainty towards the source itself. Drawing upon generational theory, generations differ in their attitudes towards the credibility of online information and their touristic purchase behaviors. A differentiation between actively and passively sought cues regarding source (e.g. profile pictures) and message characteristics (e.g. trustworthiness) is made, in order to better understand the attitudes towards online reviews. An eye tracking study with ten participants of Generation Y and seven of Generation Baby Boomer was conducted on the travel site Tripadvisor.com. Results show that Generation Y and Generation Baby Boomer differ significantly in their attitude towards user generated content. Generation Baby Boomer relies less frequently on reviews than Generation Y, reads reviews less frequently and seeks for elements indicating the level of source credibility. For both generations, message characteristics including factors such as the quality of the language, the length of a message and the congruence with personal interests represent the most important cues in the evaluation of source credibility. Generation BB does not pay attention to source characteristics at all but derives some of them, such as travel interests or the experience of a reviewer, from message characteristics.

The emergence of the Internet and web technologies has made unprecedented effect on the tourism industry. To keep the competitive advantages in the tourism industry, most travel agencies have built their own websites for promotion, marketing, and online transactions. Nowadays, thousands of electronic tourism websites become accessible, providing a variety of online information and services online. Usability has been recognized as a vital factor in the success of tourism websites because usability has been shown to change users’ attitudes, achieve users’ satisfaction. However, there are limited studies exploring gender differences in usability of tourism websites. It can be arguable that gender differences significantly influence usability design of tourism websites. Thus, this study aims to assess the usability of current tourism websites from a gender difference perspective. The results show significant differences of usability perception between genders. More specifically, the common usability that males require most includes visibility of system status, user control and freedom and efficiency of use. The usability that females require most covers aesthetic design, help and documentation and security and privacy. These findings can provide deep insights into gender differences in usability to support tourism website design.

Engaging the public to decrease their carbon footprint via energy feedback has become a significant topic of both study and practice and understanding how to best leverage technology for this purpose is an ideal question for the field of HCI to address. One common example is Home Energy Reports (HERs) and Business energy reports (BERs), which are paper or electronic reports that display a consumer’s energy use alongside various benchmarks and “tips” to help (and persuade) them to save energy. While HERs and BERs show great promise, average savings hover around 1–3% with the potential savings in the average home and/or business closer to 15–20%, leaving potential room for improvement. This paper presents a mixed-methods research framework that is being used to improve BER user experience and energy savings. It blends inductive research methods from the fields of design and HCI with deductive methods drawn from psychology and behavioral economics to develop and test hypotheses and translate findings into real-world application. After introducing the framework, a case study is presented in which these steps are followed over two years of research with one BER product across multiple utility pilots. Implications for both energy feedback specifically as well as suggestions on how this framework can be applied across the broader field of usability are discussed.

Destination Management Organizations (DMO) being the central units in destination management within European destinations face increasing pressure due to effects of globalization. At the same time, effects of digitalization combined with methods summarized by the umbrella term of Business Intelligence create opportunities to tackle these challenges. Höpken et al. (2011) described how destinations can evolve to so-called knowledge destinations. With the help of a Destination Management Information System (DMIS) managers of DMOs as well as its various stakeholders are provided with holistic decision support when working on strategic development of the destination. The objective of this study is to conceptualize a novel DMIS user interface and evaluate its usability. The study (1) defines different analysis perspectives and corresponding performance indicators enabling a powerful decision support for destination managers and tourism stakeholders, (2) defines interaction paths along different abstraction levels to support drill-down analyses, and (3) evaluates the usability and understandability of the DMIS interface in the south-western Swedish destination Halland.

Technology developing always impacts environment. Designers must consider the balance between technical innovation and environmental protection when creating an innovative product. This paper presents a systematic-innovation design method for green product based on the QFD approach and TRIZ tools. Conceptual design is considered to be one of the pivotal components in New Product Development (NPD) process which has a significant impact on downstream NPD activities. Despite the recognized importance of conceptual design, there is a lack of a systematic and effective innovation creating process for green product. To address this gap, a useful and powerful design method of systematic innovation is created for green product, depending on the capability of QFD detailed problem analysis and the prowess of TRIZ innovative idea generation. The proposed design method was developed with QFD-I and an eco-contradiction matrix identifying the contradiction between customer needs and eco-efficiency elements for deriving TRIZ invention principles. The related specific solutions are conducted from these invention principles. The eco-innovative product could be created depended on these specific solutions. A case study of the innovative garden eco-light design was demonstrated for the applicability of this method and the results validated the feasibility and effectiveness.

With favourable socio-economic and political conditions, tourism has registered an impressive growth both at the international and domestic level. According to the figures released by UNWTO (2016), the total number of international tourist arrivals worldwide was 1.186 billion in 2015, forecasting to reach 1.8 billion in 2030 with a growth of 3.3% a year. Supporting this phenomenon, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), particularly the Internet, play a major role at every stage of the tourism experience. As a consequence, Destination Marketing/Management Organizations (DMOs) should leverage on good-quality websites to answer visitors’ needs and prevail over competitors. Especially for National Tourism Organizations (NTOs), given their role in promoting the destination abroad, the elaboration of online marketing strategies should also take into account culture-bound preferences and needs of reference publics. Within this context, the concept of cultural calibration refers to any technology that transforms contents and tools that people use to communicate with each other in an effort to match with their culture-dependent expressions. Despite the recognized effects of culture on online behavior and willingness to travel, content managers often have to rely on common sense when designing country-specific website editions. In addition to that, differently from eLearning, ecommerce, and online marketing areas, little research has been done regarding software design for adaptation activities in the eTourism context. Consequently, the objective of this paper is to provide a design concept for a software for cultural calibration of destination websites. Its relevance for researchers and practitioners is also presented, together with the evaluation of its functionalities and possible applications.

Based on cultural heritage plays about throwing action, we made a public interactive artwork by throwing pseudo-balls, “deBallution.” Audience members participated in interactive artwork not only for pleasure but also as part of their cultural heritage, maintaining and also disrupting social orders and structures. First of all, this research extracted the audience’s basic activities from cultural archetypes. Then, it applied audience activities to a basic model of public interactive artwork for playing on a media façade to participating in collective performance for disruptive social structures. The interactive artwork concept is to catch audience members’ throwing movements on a virtual screen and drawing various generated kaleidoscope images to predict points from the audience throwing on the screen. We made prototype “deBallution” and then exhibited it and evaluated user tests. Through evaluation results for the prototype, we revised “deBallution” artwork contents for developing artistic values and produced overall interactive artwork.

This paper aspires to shed light on creative cultural product design by referring to document research and conducting on-the-site investigation. During the process, we also had profound discussion, conducted survey on user groups through questionnaire and explored user need. Cultural elements consist of aesthetic consciousness, code of conduct and moral value while design properties consist of physical, logical and emotional aspects. They are closely related with each other and make up a traditional design model for cultural experience so as to support creative cultural product design. By referring to Nanjing Museum and studying its cultural elements, we came up with a design strategy which can be applied to design practice.

This paper presents the results of the first of two experimental interventions in human computer interaction within the context of curating and evaluating digital interactive art. This study is situated within a larger inquiry of detecting and understanding human activity (namely engagement, experience and discursive language) regarding human-computer interaction at the cross-disciplinary research facility, the Creative Robotics Lab at the University of NSW. The methodology and engagement frameworks sit within a practice-based research approach to creative practice. Here art and technology lead the inquiry, highlighting the importance of HCI methods such as evaluation, reflection and iterative approaches to the refinement of one’s own appreciative system. The research process is then situated within the scope of HCI interactive scenarios and the experimental user interface.

In order to design an expansion for an existing government system that satisfies the strategic requirements of having public value, legitimacy, and feasibility, the expanded system must create something real and substantial that the target population can make use of. Our User Experience (UX) framework helps to identify areas where public value, legitimacy, and feasibility are strong, and also need more attention. We show how we used a hybrid approach that combines usability evaluation, focus groups, and online surveys to identify the user and stakeholder experiences that drive design forward in a way that leads to the success and stability of the implemented expansion.

This paper evaluates user’s consumption and interaction with video on demand focused on the Globo Play app provided by Brazil’s largest TV network: TV Globo. Globo Play stands as an answer to the video on demand request addressed by Globo in a market scenario filled with world competitors like Netflix and Youtube. Cooperative evaluation and SUS results pointed out that there still is much to do in order to improve and to meet user’s requirements in what concerns quality of interaction, according to pervasive information architecture guidelines. User sessions indicated non-attendance to some usability issues as well. We came to the conclusion that the new world of ubiquity and pervasiveness probably does not make the traditional aspects of usability and user’s experience disappear.

This paper consists on a simplified methodology proposal for thermal comfort evaluation inside short-haul urban busses using dry and wet bulb temperature readings paired with the air relative humidity and then compare each situation to a predefined comfort zone based on common literature parameters. To demonstrate the method application, readings were made in the morning, noon and late afternoon over 65 working days during late winter through mid-spring seasons in the city of Juiz de Fora – Brazil.

In this paper we describe the design process of a multi-bot conversational system to assist people to make more informed decisions about finance. Several user activities were held to understand the experience of investment decisions, the opportunities to design financial cognitive advisers, and the user perceptions of such systems. Valuable information was gathered from four user studies which assisted the project team to decide what would be the best approach to help people to make more informed decisions about investments using technology. The user studies findings highlighted that financial decisions are made based on information people receive from friends, news, and social networks, which led us to explore intelligent systems that would gather such information and play the role of financial advisers in a multiparty conversational system. We discuss the main design implications of our studies in the context of a prototype called CognIA and conclude discussing several challenges of designing conversational systems.

Mobile application redesign requires the accurate use of design methods and guidelines, as well as detailed evaluation. In the context of alternative and environmentally friendly transportation supported by mobile applications, the redesign process can help enhancing the user experience resulting in a greater adherence of the citizen. To illustrate this scenario and inspire designers to further consider the user experience aspects, we present a case study of the redesign of Bicicletar, a Brazilian bike-sharing application. Our main goal is to analyze how the User Experience (UX) with this outdoor mobility application may affect the design choices in the User Interface. Overall, our iterative redesign process comprised: (1) UX evaluation of the application in the real usage context; (2) redesign of the application through a high-fidelity prototype; and (3) prototype validation. The results showed that the user experience problems regarding the identification and interaction with the main features of Bicicletar affected the perceived usability of the application. On the other hand, the redesigned prototype improvements on the user interface positively affected not only the user experience but also how the users trust the application. The present research is a starting point for the implementation of improvements in Bicicletar and in over 10 variations of this application in other Brazilian states, benefiting the local community, and serving as a reference for the redesign of other mobile applications.

We describe a usability evaluation of a teleconsultation model for primary care physicians (PCPs) with patients with autism spectrum disorders and a developmental-behavioral pediatrician (DBP) with relevant expertise. Six PCPs participated in a total of 12 consultations with a DBP. Detailed observations and user ratings and comments were collected. Standard usability metrics were used, and the communication quality and interactions of the two participating parties (PCP and DBP) were examined. High post-task and post-study ratings (including System Usability Scale, Communication Quality, and attitudes toward teleconsultation process scores), as well as the positive comments from participants, indicated that the teleconsultations were successful, and demonstrated the effectiveness of this type of communication, particularly for validating PCPs’ ideas and strengthening their confidence in talking with families, providing new ideas and redirected their thinking, and connecting PCPs with location-sensitive resources. PCPs found value in the opportunity to connect with an ASD specialist in a timely and efficient manner. Most indicated that the video element of the consultation enhanced clarity and understanding, attention, engagement, and collegiality, while acknowledging drawbacks such as reduced ability to multitask compared to consultations by phone. Recommendations for enhancements of the teleconsultation process focus on supporting PCPs in getting started with Zoom; providing ground rules and establishing procedures; creating information sharing/summary templates for the teleconsultation process; and fostering communication quality in a mediated environment.

Community participation and reaction during evacuation is rarely an individual and isolated process and the outcomes are systemic. Ineffective evacuation information can easily attribute to delayed evacuation response. Delays increase demands on already extended emergency personal, increase the likelihood of traffic congestion, and can cause harm to self and property. From an information design perspective, addressing issues in cognitive recall and emergency psychology, this project examines evacuation messaging including written, audio, and visual presentation of information, and demonstrates application of design principles and the role of visual communication for Southern California tsunami evacuation outreach. The niche of this project is the inclusion of cognitive recall of visual presentations of information based on quantitative data of a 4-year cognitive recall study that included over 300 participants as the driving influence in how the messaging was developed, distributed to the community, and formal design decisions were made. The outcome of this work feeds into a current project, Visual Standards for Tsunami Evacuation Information, an open-source tool for communities to create and self-sustain tsunami evacuation information specific to location. The project will act as a hub that provides a “starter kit” for community decision-makers and emergency management that are hoping to create cohesive and branded tsunami evacuation information in place for their city and counties.

Electronic Prior Authorization (Electronic PA) is a fast and efficient way of ensuring that prior authorization, needed for medical drug and treatment dispensing, is accurately and promptly completed, supporting quick delivery of medications to patients. Electronic PA (ePA) solutions are the next big revolution in healthcare industry after the introduction of electronic health records. ePA is a time saver for prescribers as well as a cost-saving solution to insurance companies and Medicare services. ePA is new to the industry and due to a knowledge gap among medical professionals and their IT solution providers, ePA applications lack sophisticated components to ease the workflow. Instead of being time-saving, broken ePA processes become time consuming. A research study identified common gaps around the PA process by interviewing and gathering feedback from key stakeholders in the process. The results of the study have demonstrated how a new electronic solution that was developed working with the stakeholders has helped close some of the identified gaps. The resulting solution, SmartPA, provides a secure, reliable interface in support of medical standards, as well as enhancing the PA workflow process.

Currently, design and research targeting the elderly people are still in their fledgling days. Problems are resolved mainly through knowledge and experience of the designers. But when it comes to the technological and theoretical contradictions occurring in solving the complicated ones, ambiguity and instability between the problems and solutions arise. Besides, the solutions are mostly open-ended and unfinished. This paper, with the elderly as the test subjects and through questionnaires distributed after the subjects take the subway, conducts cognitive evaluation of the Beijing Subway Station signs based on Semantic Differential (SD) and establishes an evaluation method that is systemic and readily available. Such a method is conducive to delivering stable designs.

ATM interfaces nowadays present serious issues in usability and accessibility, frustrating users’ interaction and leading them to make operational mistakes. For this reason, we present the development of graphical interfaces for ATMs of BBVA Continental Bank, which follows a process of user-centered design. The priority was to identify the real needs of users based on the context, and to understand how they interact with the interfaces. In order to validate our proposal, we established a model and a functional prototype. Later, we evaluated this new design with a usability test. Based on the defects that were found, we applied changes to improve the interfaces. Finally, after an in-depth analysis, we concluded that the designed interfaces were suitable for implementation in the ATMs of BBVA Continental Bank, due to the process followed and the acceptance by users.

In the clinical setting, documenting evidence-based decision making is, increasingly, an important and time-consuming part of work. In the abstract, few health and medical professionals doubt the value of evidence-based medicine and practice. Evidence-based medicine and practice as a concept is well-researched, documented in health and medical literature, and has gained wide acceptance among researchers and practitioners alike. There are significant financial incentives for implementing evidence-based practice models. However, there are also challenges to implementation. During the clinical patient encounter, the need to attend to the knowledge work of documenting evidence-based decisions can distract if not disrupt work. There is understandably considerable resistance to new technology among providers in mission-driven clinics when the need to document evidence causes profound changes in work practice and, just as importantly, changes in the way they identify as being a healthcare provider.In this article, we draw on a user experience research project of evidence-based practice in a mission-driven organization, a family medicine clinic. Our experience design research is a response to adaptive challenges in these healthcare providers’ work lives. We document design challenges posed by technologies implemented to align work practice with evidence and to produce a record of evidence-based decisions, with particular emphasis on electronic medical records. We discuss three themes drawn from this research and the implications of these for UX researchers and practitioners.

The judgment in many of the labor lawsuits involving litigations provoked by musculoskeletal disorders is made through the production of expert evidence produced by judicial experts. Such evidence must naturally be clothed with the most compelling scientific methodologies. In this context, the objective of this study was to discuss the profile of the judicial expert in proceedings carried out in one of the sticks of work in Sergipe (Brazil) combined with the hypothesis of using ergonomic tools to enable the technical arguments of these expert professionals to be demonstrated, in order to demonstrate. That it is possible the use of ergonomic methodologies as a reinforcer of the conclusions of nexo-causal in lides caused by musculoskeletal constraints. In view of the analysis made in this study, it was concluded that it is entirely feasible to include in the labor judicial processes a multidisciplinary methodology of investigation of osteomuscular causal neurosis, shared with investigative tools of an ergonomic nature, and which predominates experts with training in the health area when in Specific processes of dealing with the causal nexus in musculoskeletal constraints.

This article reports a study of heuristic evaluation and hierarchization of the problems found on four distance learning courses offered by the Open University of the Unified Health System in Brazil (UNA-SUS/UFMA). It is part of a broader research on information architecture, interaction design and information design on e-learning courses. The sample was assessed through 88 heuristics and recommendations, followed by the FIP (Frequency, Impact and Persistence) technique to establish the severity of the problems found. The results showed that the sample did not meet (a) the information design principles of consistency, proximity, and hierarchy; and (b) the interaction design criteria of adaptability, explicit control and consistency. The sample also presented weaknesses in the information architecture systems of navigation, labeling and search. The heuristic evaluation followed by the hierarchization of problems have proved to be advantageous at the beginning of the evaluative research project. Recommendations were proposed to improve the distance learning courses.

Citizen science is the engagement of the public in science or monitoring to address real world problems. Citizen science programs have the ability to provide excellent data for researchers at large spatial and temporal scales. Advancements in technology has resulted in a proliferation of citizen science programs and many are dependent on website and smartphone applications to facilitate data collection, data usability and communication of results. Citizen science applications need to be developed so that they are easy to use and any interface issues identified and resolved before release. Usability reports during the development cycle provide evidenced-based prioritization recommendations. In this paper, two case studies are presented. The Call of the Wild application involved the testing of a high fidelity prototype to collect data on work flow and ease of use. The Wild Watch application provided data on task success and SUS scores that supported release readiness. Both projects continue to have improvements identified based on usability testing.

Pedestrian mobility is an important component in urban mobility concepts. Walking is a highly flexible means to reach nearby places, to access public transport, or to bridge the “last mile” between the parking space and one’s office or home. Smart pedestrian mobility devices (PMD) can support pedestrians’ activities, either by offering ride-on functions or assistance in everyday activities (e.g., as a carrier for goods) and thereby enhance pedestrians’ connectivity and flexibility. To ensure a high acceptance and adoption rate of PMD, a design approach is needed that explicitly focuses on users’ interests and requirements. We present a multi-level and iterative participatory design approach for the development of smart mobility devices, that reaches from (a) requirement analysis and use case development, (b) communication design, (c) personalization/identity design, (d) exterior design evaluations, to (e) practical driving experience testing. The application and specific suitability of empirical qualitative and quantitative methods is demonstrated and results regarding (a) general acceptance, perceived benefits, barriers, usage conditions and purchase criteria, (b) visual and auditory signal sets for communication design, (c) usability and learnability evaluations after riding on a prototype are presented. The findings demonstrate a high willingness of users to participate in the design process, but also highly differentiated perceptions and requirements regarding a PMD. Even though still in the prototype stage, PMD yield a high potential to serve as a day-to-day mobility assistant (especially for older people) but also as a fun ride-on device (for younger and physically fit people).

Due to the rapid change in the residential style, about 70% of the population of South Korea reside in multi-unit dwelling today. As many people share the same building as a residential area, the neighboring interlayer noise problem becomes a serious social problem leading to murder, arson attack, etc. However, it is practically impossible to improve the buildings or introduce new building technologies to ones already built to prevent the inter floor noise. When noise occurs, there are no appropriate system or laws for people to impose special sanctions on the perpetrator. Most solutions are either too long in terms of process or indirect. It is necessary to have a process, which solves the problem directly and continuously. The survey results, that targeted people living in apartment houses, show that perpetrators are not aware of the actions that cause noises. Not only that, results show both victim and noise attacker’s lack of awareness of precise standards of interested noise. Above all, anyone living in the apartment houses can be a victim or a perpetrator of inter floor noise problem. Therefore, this study proposes a service in which the perpetrators can monitor, manage and supervise interlayer noises that they create. This service will help perpetrators be more keen to their own noise, ultimately preventing problems caused by interlayer noises. Through the service, it is expected that the number of victims suffering from the noise will be decreased and ultimately, the inter-floor noise complaint rate, which is increasing every year, will be reduced so it prevents neighbor’s conflicts and disputes.

For a successful business negotiation it is essential that all parts involved understand their duties and rights clearly in order to close the deal with mutual trust. The contract is the legal tool that can assure this communication between two or more parties. With the gradual technological advancements and the expansion of services and commerce to the internet, the contract function gets subdued, instead of being use as a tool for legal communication. The fragility of electronic contracts, can be observed by the number of users that contract and pay for services or products without even reading the terms of use. This research debates the role of e-contracts and its relation to Information Design, data organization and usability. These integrated areas of study are the foundation to build an online questionnaire applied to interaction design experts in order to map the interaction flow from specialists’ perspective. The presented results expose usability issues related to information absorption and impact further discussion on the use of graphics to help improve e-contracts.