HCI International 2013 - Posters’ Extended Abstracts

Integrating consumers into the design and development process of IT is a promising strategy for companies. To stimulate this co-production of IT through end-user programming specific user platforms for innovation have been developed. In this paper we illustrate how end-user programming and configurations has been a successful practice throughout the history of the PC – from the early stationary computers in the 80s, via the development of the web, to recent toolkits for end-user configuration of mobile hardware. While this trend has been stable this paper illustrate how corresponding support for end-user programming of mobile applications is still missing. To address this need this paper presents the SATIN platform and its underlying design concepts. We view this as a contribution for advancing the development of innovation platforms and as an illustration of how concept design can help in envisioning the next step in user-driven service design.

While the changes in the focus and characters of service design have been complicated, its qualities regarding intuitively preferred factors, have not been investigated enough. This study shows how design factors affect user’s intuitive preference and what make a user’s attention focused on informational assimilation. Through the experiment, the layout factors and its values are verified. It was investigated (1) which layout factors arouse a user’s attention, (2) how much uers were satisfied with the verified factors. The results shows that (1) elaborate images are the most important layout factor among five considerable factors, to arouse user’s attentions, (2) the elaborate figures affect significantly all affective evaluation values, which were proved its relationship between user’s attentions and the evaluation values through previous study; preference, aesthetic, and pleasure.

This paper presents that politics and the aesthetic meet in creative tensions between art, technology and humanities. The coincidence of politics and the aesthetic comes from the doubleness of technology performed by collaborative action of “We” human-and-technology. The way of technology posing the pairing of politics and the aesthetic in contemporary art opens a new way of understanding of relationships of humans and technology in collaborative action rooted in interdependent perspective.

A software engineering project depends significantly on team performance, software is created by people for people involving human cooperation. In the last years, the tradicional software development approaches are changing and agile methods have received considerable appreciation. Among other attributes, the agilists claim that knowledge sharing is one of the keys to response to common problems and challenges of software development today. The agile principles and values have emphasized the importance of collaboration and interaction in the software development and, by other hand, creative work commonly involves collaboration in some form and it can be understood as an interaction between an individual and a sociocultural context. Agile methods had attained worldwide fame for its ability to increase the productivity of software teams by several magnitudes through empowering individuals, fostering a team-oriented environment, and focusing on project transparency and results. Particularly relevant are the team structure (creative and agile roles) and its functioning (creative techniques used).

HCI system design has largely been focused towards urban areas, the technology and the infrastructure of such environments. Researchers are often unaware of the local, real-word context and the restraints that this can have upon the both the interactional possibilities and use of their systems in rural-settings. Over the past decade, new developments in mobile and ubiquitous computing now make it possible for users to move beyond the urban fringes and into areas that are ’on the edge’ of connectivity. Many modern systems take advantage of the Internet capabilities and being "always connected" to provide rich dynamic content, which sits within this always on and always connected model. Systems where data connectivity is relied upon can become redundant in rural spaces, where often, mobile signal is weak and connectivity unreliable. Popular digital services such as Google Maps work well in urban areas however, such services lack the detailed information required for use in rural areas and expect the user to have a good level of connectivity. This paper draws upon our research in HCI, system development and the issues relating to understanding the design and development of rural systems with real-world communities. We focus our research in this rural setting in order to provide appropriate interaction and reliable methods for improving mapping in rural spaces. We highlight the features of our research through outlining a set of principles and discussing an online and mobile solution to allow people to create mobile digital books, made up with rich multimedia, about the places they visit and activities they engage in.

The purpose of this study is to propose the effective usage of the prototype of focusing on operability. As a result, participants indicated the design aspects and operability aspects when using the High-fidelity prototype more than Medium and Low-fidelity prototype. Also, participants indicated the function aspects when evaluating the Low-fidelity prototype more than High and Medium-fidelity prototype. The results suggested that a High-fidelity prototype is suitable for evaluating design aspects and operative aspects. In this study, the effective usage of prototype was proposed based on the experiments. It is possible to decrease the additional demand in the later phase of the project.

With the emergence of relatively accessible programmable micro-controllers, artistic use and designer application of wearable technologies have increased significantly over the last decade. This paper suggests these creations are more than a mere implementation of emerging technologies for creative practitioners to extend their artistic expression, but a method applicable within research and development. Creative practitioners generally approach their subject matter intuitively and holistically and are therefore capable of facilitating insights where rational approaches may not. Working on the periphery of computer science has the advantage of an outsider perspective, which can result in un-thought of solutions to previously unresolved problems. In this paper we discuss the merits of this approach within wearable and interactive research and describe one such procedure on the basis of a wearable device.

As pocket-size mobile devices are equipped with relatively small screen, when displaying web pages which are designed for personal computers and laptops, viewing poses a great challenge. Due to the limited space, items or components on the screen of pocket-size mobile devices should be much more intuitive so that users can interact with the interface more quickly. Thus, the study posits that m-commerce mandates a completely different approach, namely scenario-based design, to interface design which is task-oriented rather than functional-oriented. The result can be further summarized and compared with prior research which focused on a list of design factors.

The smallest elements of web user interface (UI) like navigation links, buttons, icons, labels, thumbnails, symbols, etc. are defined in this paper as interface signs.The term Ontology is referred to the set of concepts and skills a user should own in order to understand the meaning of an interface sign. Designer should aware of web interface sign ontology to design user-intuitive web interface signs to get an idea what kind of presupposed knowledge end users hold to interpret the web interface signs. The objective of this research is to reveal the set ontologies available in web UI and the complexity associated with different ontological signs to interpret the meaning of web interface sign from semiotics perspective. Towards achieving the research goals a user study was replicated with 26 participants. So far, a preliminary analysis has performed on 13 participants’ data and reports the preliminary outcomes in this work-in-progress paper.

Developers use a variety of methods to evaluate user’s reactions to the website. Research in neuroscience and natural vision processing resulted in the development of automated methods which simulate human attention and are able to provide similar results to eye-tracking. However robust evidence is still missing.

This study contributes and expands on this debate. Eye-tracking studies on cultural differences confirmed that users from different cultures have different expectations and preferences. This study answers the question whether cultural differences in web design could be revealed also by automated attention analysis. Websites of the largest beer producers from different countries with different cultural background were analyzed through automated attention analysis tool to determine whether there is a difference in the number of potential areas of interest and their size. The study confirms that automated tools can depict cultural differences and thus provide fast and inexpensive results for initial assessment of website interfaces.

In this study, it is hoped to propose communicative pattern based on Chinese “Filial Piety” that is more intuitive and interactive and to propose the criteria for innovative technology product design to benefit senior citizens and their family members. An interactive product design:

Grass Tone interactive flowerpot

, which using Kinect as input device is proposed.

Designing kiosk touch screen interfaces challenges our basic knowledge of human-computer interaction. Touch screens are used by people of all ages and educational levels for a wide variety of applications. An empirical study on a kiosk touch screen design was conducted to test the cues and factors influencing user performance by examining design elements and principles from a designer’s perspective and implementing usability testing to investigate end user satisfaction. Using cue-summation theory and simplicity theory as theoretical frameworks, this paper presents the main factors and cues required in designing kiosk touch interfaces with the goal to test user performance and satisfaction.

During the development of a product, it is necessary for a designer to attempt the special needs of devices and also the target users. To help designers with the problem to attend users’ needs, a technique called Personas is applied during the project. Usually, the Personas creation process is manual, lengthy and also it doesn’t have a attendance during the project. With this objective in mind, this paper presents a process to automatize and to address the users needs through Personas during the whole project.

We present a novel sociotechnical analysis framework; a document model and a first attempt at utilizing it in an information systems design context. We argue document analysis (DA) to be a holistic framework that encompasses technical, cognitive and social aspects of the system and may act as boundary objects to communicate the system model effectively between stakeholders, designers and engineers.

This paper presents an attempt to develop a performance-based design expert system intended to automate the checking of building code compliance. The proposed system may be used repeatedly throughout the design phase, from the earliest stages of development to the end of the design process, in order to improve the efficiency and quality of the design and to decrease the occurrences of design misapplication. Two of the critical issues in the development of the rule-based expert system presented here were the data modeling of building codes to be used as a knowledge base, and the algorithm for the application of this knowledge base. Both an object-oriented and a constraint-based approach to these issues are discussed in this paper. This paper gives a detailed overview of “CODE-MAVEN” as well as discussing an intelligence-based intuitive and graphical interface for the system that will also contribute to increased feedback on designs.

This paper presents a study to understand which psychological needs require to be fulfilled to elicit positive experiences with web products. We therefore conducted in-depth interviews with website users to understand which needs are to be fulfilled with five of the most frequently used websites in Germany. The interviews helped to inductively extract 56 need items. These need items were related to established need categories according to [8] and therefore help to specify relevant psychological needs in the area of web products. Results aim to provide a basis for practitioners to understand product requirements as part of user experience centered software engineering.

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) has become progressively more concerned with user experience and emotions. A variety of what experience and emotions is has been expressed in modern years which propose an amount of vital insights but it is unclear on how they inform design. The aim of this paper is to gain a deeper understanding on the techniques to collect and evaluate emotional responses conducted by other researchers. Four evaluation methods were reviewed, namely valence method, self-reported method, experiment method and semantic differential method.

HCI is expected as one of significant technological tools for improving quality of life and solving social issues in the future. This was verified in the ‘The 4

th

Korean Technology Foresight (2020~2035)’ conducted by the KISTEP and National Science and Technology Commission of Korean government last year. In foresight, 652 future technologies were predicted to be developed and practically used until 2020 or 2035, and 40 technologies among them were related to HCI. The aim of this paper is to briefly review HCI technologies from this report, and to find policy implications for national R&D. Characteristics and R&D strategies will be drawn from reviewing the report in terms of different index about technical completion, social propagation, technology level, importance, negative impact, type of R&D agents, domestic and international research collaboration, R&D strategery, and necessity of government investment. The study will provide R&D strategies for R&D and practical implication toward future HCI technologies.

There are growing concerns over the user friendliness and other usability issues of South African Universities Web Portal Interfaces (UWPIs), which obviously will negate the user acceptance of the UWPIs. The main objective of this study is to select and use appropriate usability and user acceptance criteria to evaluate South African web portal interfaces for their usability and user acceptance and to suggest improvement on them. The study applied a triangulation of Ubiquitous computing Evaluation Areas (UEAs) and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as a theoretical research model for this study. Multiple regression and stepwise regression analysis were used. The results suggest that Interaction and Invisibility of UWPIs are the most important measures, which have a huge impact on user acceptance and usability respectively. The results of the study will provide guidelines for the development and design of UWPIs to meet their usability and user acceptance standards or needs.

Log files are interesting.

As mobile devices become more central in our lives, accessibility and utility for users becomes essential. The widespread availability of mobile devices introduces a number of challenges to traditional software engineering including: 1. mobile user interfaces differ from traditional interfaces; and, 2. the diversity of mobile platforms. As part of a larger research effort, this poster presents the design, implementation and initial testing of a mobile application aimed at helping the child-to-adult-care transition process for children with chronic disease. Based on recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the application will help guide patients through four main components of transition: 1. assess transition readiness; 2. plan the transition; 3. implement the transition; and, 4. help document the transition. The design, implementation and testing of a mobile application may ease the transition process. By leveraging modern cross-compilation tools, this application can be implemented on multiple mobile platforms. This will lead to a variety of users, including those who may be differently-abled, to have a more fluid transition to their new health care providers.

In this study, the verification of the questionnaire for the level of mental model building was examined from viewpoint of the actual users’ operation. The user testing is conducted to grasp the level of mental model building. The validity of the questionnaire was investigated in terms of (a) operation time of the digital camera, (b) operation errors of the digital camera and (c) Structural model / Functional mode (the test result for measurement the level of mental model building after the operation). Then, the correlation between the score of the user testing and the questionnaire score was calculated. As the result, the significant correlation is confirmed between each score and the questionnaire score. Then, we believed the proposed questionnaire can be measured the users’ mental model building level in the user-interfaces operation.

Natural Language Processing (NLP) systems must be both secure and usable, but this remains an elusive objective. This work considers the relationship between usability and security in NLP systems. Development and lifecycle practices are discussed with the goal of a more integrated, comprehensive process for NLP system development.

Though many have proposed heuristics, maximums, and guidelines to describe the various aspects of heuristic usability analysis, none offer a comprehensive variable set that is both valid and reliable. This paper proposes an eight-variable criteria-set through which usability inspections can be performed. Each variable will be compared with prior work and a precise definition through which each variable can be identified will be proposed.

Security and usability have traditionally been at odds in the design process [1]. In spite of this, the usability of security is widely recognized as a key component of security effectiveness[2-4] Design principles for good security have been designed by security experts [5]. Similarly principles for designed usability have also been created by usability experts [6-8]. In both cases the design principles were defined for the traditional workstation environment, instead of the mobile environment. This study examines both security and usability design principles for conflict or convergence, specifically in relation to a mobile environment. The resulting framework of combined security-usability principles identifies which design principles are critical for success in the mobile environment.

Recently, Japan (also world-wide countries) has become aged society, and wide variety welfare device and system have been developed. But evaluation of welfare system and device are limited only stability, intensity and partial operability. So, evaluation of usefulness is insufficient. Therefore, we will attempt to establish the standard to evaluate usefulness for objectively and quantitatively on the basis of including non-verbal cognition. In this paper, we measure load of sitting and standing movement to use EMG (Electoromyogram) and 3D Motion Capture and set a goal to establish objective evaluation method. We think that establishing objective evaluation method is necessity to develop useful welfare device. We examined possibility of assessing load and fatigue from measuring brain activity to use NIRS (Near Infra-Red Spectoroscopy).

Mobile Internet gains popularity due to the increasing use of smartphones having wireless network capabilities. However, the current click interaction method (hereafter,

CC

) hinders user experience when the size of the target hyperlink to be selected is small. The present study developed a two-step click interaction method (called

Press

and

Flick;

hereafter

PF

) for smartphone and evaluated its effectiveness by GOMS model. GOMS results indicate that the PF has a substantial benefit compared to the CC when a click error is occurred. The PF can enhance usability and user experience (UX) by reducing click error and providing a joyful interaction.

Problems with software programs can have negative consequences on a user’s mood and efficiency. While the focus in research was on identifying the causes and the severity of frustration in the context of computer problems the present survey examines the strategies users employ in case of problems with software programs. Specifically, we were interested in what kind of assistance is used, in which order, and what kind of help would be preferred.

Our results show that the preferred and chosen approaches depend on factors like age, gender and perceived expertise. Furthermore the results indicate that there is a need for improvement concerning help systems integrated into software products.

This paper compares the difference between the commercialized gesture trackingbased interface and the traditional computer mouse through a usability testing. It is then examined the possibility of applying this technological difference to a variety of content. To achieve this, Kinect sensor device, which is one of the commercialized gesture tracking-based interface, has been used and evaluated its performance through Fitts’ law. Fitts’ law is mainly used in human-computer interaction, which is an authorized tool to evaluate a cursor click and movement on the computer screen. In this paper, three factors – distance, width, and angle – between cursor and target are used to define the index of difficulty into 96 steps. The response time between two randomly selected cursor positions is then measured for each step. By comparing the measured time values, the possibility of using gesture tracking as an alternative interface to the computer mouse is verified.

Current techniques for usability evaluation are costly, time-consuming, subjective, and often require operation logs, which are difficult to obtain from electrical products. To overcome these limitations, we developed a usability evaluation method that is applicable for various types of interfaces and involves extracting the video-recorded fingertip movements of a user during operation through image processing, and then evaluating usability based on several measurable parameters. Specifically, users’ hand movements are first video recorded during the operation of either an actual product or a reproduced interface on a touch screen, and then operation time, and the distance and patterns of the moving locus, including stationary time and frequency of directional changes, are then extracted using image processing. To evaluate the usability of the interface, the ratio between novice and expert users for the parameters of operation time and distance traveled by the moving locus is used. Here, we conducted a comparative usability experiment using facsimile interfaces of two different manufacturers to evaluate the performance our method.

Quality in use plays an essential role in a wide acceptance of software applications. It includes two complementary concepts: usability and user experience. With an aim to assure the quality in use of websites, researchers have proposed various metrics, but without guidelines for their use. Additionally, research on this topic in the context of Web 2.0 applications is fairly modest. In this paper, we introduce a framework composed of three dimensions related to categories of the quality in use, functions of Web 2.0 applications, and agile software development methods. The proposed framework can be used for the classification of metrics as well as for a sound and systematic evaluation of the quality in use of Web 2.0 applications.

Previous studies show that traditional usability evaluation methods can be problematic for collecting feedback on visual design [1]. Desirability studies have been used by usability practitioners to collect feedback on the affective response to interactive systems, but none allow end users to contribute feedback in the language of visual design experts. We describe how we adapted two traditional user research techniques (card sort, directed storytelling) to collect feedback on visual design. We then compare and contrast the kinds of data gathered from these methods with data gathered in a think-aloud exercise. A mixed-methods research strategy that includes methods adapted for visual design offers a path to engaging end users in a conversation that results in concise and actionable feedback for visual designers.

Completely Automated Public Turing Tests to Tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA) is one of the important security mechanisms to avoid spamming and hacking on websites. This study focuses on identifying the usability dimensions of text-based CAPTCHA based on multi-method approach. Research methods of Think-Aloud protocol, factor analysis and equation modeling are applied. Analytical work shows that usability of CAPTCHA is formed of (i) content; (ii) format; (iii) distortion and (iv) services. The scale is used to evaluate the usability of ReCAPTCHA, JCAPTCHA and GIMBY. The main contribution of the study is constructing a scale, systematically, to quantitatively evaluate the usability of text-based CAPTCHA.

This presentation will provide a study of usability aspects for four Video Streaming Devices (VSD’s) including Apple TV, Vizio Co-Star Google TV, Hisense Pulse Google TV, and Roku 3devices. The objective is to show the evaluation of user experience on these devices across multiple usability dimensions; and compile a list of what works best and what needs to improve in each device to compile a list of guidelines for designing better-optimized UX.

We employ Cognitive Walkthrough techniques to evaluate the usability aspects of each device. We selected a group of common tasks to make our evaluation more objective, and comparison more precise. We hope that these results can be used as a checklist for UX designers when designing Video Streaming Devices.

This study shows how the use of various measures of eye movement can serve to portray dynamic decision-making (DDM) in a coherent fashion. We extracted eye movement metrics relative to 1) scanpath, 2) eye fixations, and 3) pupillary response, to characterize DDM during the process of risk assessment. Results from Experiment 1 revealed that incorrect classifications were associated with 1) less efficient information search, 2) difficulties in making sense of critical information, and 3) a low level of cognitive load. In Experiment 2, we used eye tracking to assess the impact on DDM of introducing a decision support system. The addition of a temporal-overview display seems to affect processing time in DDM as indexed by shorter scanpaths and fixations during classifications. These findings illustrate how event-based eye movement measures can reveal characteristics and limitations of the ongoing cognitive processing involved in DDM and also contribute to usability testing.

The use of information technology such as dynamic geometry software in mathematics teaching has become more popular and essential. There are several benefits of using this software. In spite of the benefits, they have some difficulties in terms of usability, so users have some problems while using them in learning mathematics. The purpose of this study is to investigate the usefulness of these software interfaces. For this purpose, firstly, we selected two dynamic geometry software. One of them is GeoGebra and the other one is Geometer’ Sketchpad. After selecting, 6 tasks designated using this software. In usability test, the participants tried to do task. While doing the tasks, in order to analyze the process, the participants were observed and their eye movements were recorded with eye tracker system. Then their opinions about software asked. Finally all data were analyzed, and discussed.

Today’s technological world requires that individuals are capable of using Information and Communications Technology (ICT) effectively. In fact, more and more services are offered using technology, e.g. communication with family and friends, carrying out business, and interacting with governments.

To close the gap between "the technology-empowered communities and the technology-excluded communities" an initiative called the e-training caravan is presented in this paper. This initiative aims to enable the segments of society from dealing with telecommunications and information technology effectively, bridging the digital divide and raising awareness of the importance of ICT for all individuals. This initiative focuses on population of rural areas and low-income areas. In this paper we discuss the e-training caravan initiative proposed by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) in Saudi Arabia, and highlight its objectives and training program. We also discuss the results obtained after running the caravan for one year along with the encountered barriers.

Sada is an interactive multimedia program for auditory discrimination therapy in the Arabic Language. Sada was designed to extend speech therapy beyond clinical settings and provide patients with a computer-based therapy system which can be used between sessions with speech therapists; at school or at home on an ’on-demand’ basis. The program provides local Arabic dialects and a configurable knowledge-base which allows for extending the therapy and customizing the pronunciation of words for different Arabic-speaking populations. The Sada architecture and its interaction design are described and the advantages of computer-based therapy for auditory perceptual problems are discussed.

People with dementia are a rapidly growing demographic. In a world which is increasingly dependent on computing, this large group of people is becoming technologically isolated, due to the ill-suited design of interfaces. This paper looks at the possible ’roadblocks’ which need to be considered when designing interfaces in order to ensure they are dementia-friendly. By considering the unique needs of a person with dementia, designers can ensure that their software is accessible to this demographic, hence potentially reducing the feelings of technological exclusion.

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is characterized by profound impairments in social interaction and communication. Children with ASD have deficits in core areas of social interactions such as gesture imitation. Gesture imitation is one of the early developed social communication skills and is thought to be linked with concurrent as well as later complex social skills such as language development, play and joint attention skills. Thus early identification of such a deficit and providing appropriate intervention regarding gestural imitation skills are quite important. This work, which is a part of a larger study that aims at building a gesture imitation intervention platform for children with ASD, leverages the intrinsic interest of the children with ASD in robotic technology. In this paper, we discuss the part of the robot-mediated intervention system that deals with gesture recognition and present preliminary recognition results.

This paper and the accompanying poster will present a case study of the development of The Great British Public Toilet Map http://greatbritishpublictoiletmap.rca.ac.uk/ through the use of UK open data. The map acts as an information resource but also as an access point for members of the public to campaign for open data to be released concerning publicly available toilet provision in their local area. In addition, the map also provides members of the public, who may be unfamiliar with the concept of open data and the possibilities for greater e-democracy it may hold, an entry point for engagement through the seemingly mundane, yet essential issue of public toilet provision.

Regardless of the techniques and methods that have been developed to improve web applications, there are still gaps that need to be solved in order to reduce the accessibility barriers. Aiming to contribute to this area, this study presents an controlled experiment to validate an approach which uses Design Rationale. The participants attended an initial training and, after being classified according to their experience and divided into different groups, they were asked to develop a web application. Such process gave rise to useful concerns that were shared among the work teams. This paper reports this experiment and presents relevant contributions to approach accessibility issues.

Interactive technologies such as iPad are considered as perfect learning tool for students with special needs. Lately, educational researchers and technology specialists have coined the idea of using iPad as a learning tool for students with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, our literature review on the subject matter shows that scientific investigations on using iPad with ASD students are scarce. Therefore, academic researchers should organize longitudinal studies examining this subject. In this work in progress submission, we have provided broad overview of our ongoing research focused on investigating as if and how iPad and similar interactive devices could be used for the betterment of students with ASD in Saudi Arabia i.e. supporting students with ASD in learning and play. This work in progress paper pinpoints recent work on this subject covering some of major challenges faced by the iPad for Autism research.

Chats present accessibility problems for screen reader users. This work presents a prototype of an accessible chat for Mobile Devices (MD). The main aim of this research is to remove the accessibility barriers that screen reader users face when they use a chat in a MD. Thus, this prototype is based on the requirements which have been elicited considering background research and with the use of Software Engineering (SE) and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) methods as well as accessibility standards and guidelines.

The main challenges when designing for people with disabilities are that 1) designers have difficulties empathizing with them; 2) designers tend to focus too much on the disability rather than the individual; and 3) people with disabilities have difficulties articulating their desires outside of their disabilities. A new approach is proposed to help designers overcome these problems. This involves getting insights from people without disabilities to understand the underlying desires of people with disabilities. Disabled people are then engaged as experts of their situations and invited to collaborate closely with the designers. This helps designers to focus on what people with disabilities want, instead of what they cannot do, and create solutions that have the greatest relevance and positive impact while maintaining minimal disruption to their everyday lives. The new approach is presented through the design process of “Blindspot”, a white cane that uses smart technology to improve the lives of blind people.

This research aims to define the most significant criteria for guidance on accessible design. It highlights 9 significant areas of guidance which we consider to be very important for the design of accessible, elderly friendly websites and web-applications. These areas look at specific elements of web design, including: structure; navigation; language; multimedia; links; search as well as others. Each of these areas has defined checkpoints which can be used to test the accessibility of a website. The criteria and checkpoints are presented in the form of a user friendly brochure. This brochure is aimed at two target groups: an instrument for website managers and secondly a checklist for web designers.

The present study aimed to investigate the influence of the weight of white canes on upper limb load. Concretely, we conducted quantitative evaluations of the load on upper limb muscles during swinging action of the cane. The white canes used were a new type of white cane newly fabricated using aramid fibers, as well as a conventional type of white cane fabricated using carbon fibers. The results indicated that the newly developed cane reduced the load on the muscles by about 50% in comparison with the conventional type of cane. It became clear that it was possible to sustain the same posture even when used continuously over a long period of time.

This paper describes the design and implementation of an alternative communication device implemented as a mobile application for tablets. The application was developed applying user-centered design techniques and allows children between 3 and 12 years old with severe language impairments improve their communication skills with others. Several prototypes have been developed and evaluated with users. This paper summarizes the results and the advantages versus other apps.

The prevention or elimination of causes of death in early life has resulted in a population consisting of an increasing proportion of elderly people. With this increasing proportion of elderly people, we will encounter many problems like a degenerative disease, the depletion of welfare money like public medical insurance and the lowering growth rate of nation, and so on. In this research, at first every possible expected issue related to aging population was drawn through literature review and expert interview. Then products and service need to tackle aging population issues was drawn. The last step is to draw key technologies to realize these products and services. Among such technologies, we studied which technology belongs to the HCI technology, and carried out survey of the impact of each technology economically or socially. Based on these results, we presented a R&D strategy of the Korean government for the HCI technology development in response to the future aging society.

In the modern society, the access and use of the internet for the individual is a crucial factor. However, the color vision deficiencies experience many difficulties in accessing the web because of their visual defects or when they are using the websites, experience many inconveniences because of the color issues. This study has realized the internet appointment screen colors in 4 general hospitals that have been selected as the best general hospitals in Korea and in the United States in 2012 for the color vision deficiencies perspective. In the websites that have been voted as the best general hospitals, the convenience of approachability was analyzed for the color vision deficiencies and improvements were suggested for an equal access to the web for the color vision deficiencies by considering the certain color guidelines.

When developing technologies for older adults, it is important to have them involved in the design process to identify needs, expectations and requirements correctly and comprehensively. However, communication gaps often exist, which call for the need to have continuous relationships with the target segment. In this study, older adults who have previously participated in a home technology study are interviewed to comfortably talk about their thoughts and experiences. User comments on various technologies are analyzed in relation to various stages of technology use. This paper discusses design implications, as well as topics for future research. The study can be expected to contribute to setting strategic design goals.

The aim of the Ambient Assisted Living Project Social Interaction Screen is to support social interaction of elderly people by easing access to existing Social Networking Services. In this paper, we present the solution that was developed in the project, the elderly interaction and service assistant (elisa). We discuss the design of the prototype and present first results of its evaluation in Germany and Spain. In general, the results showed that elderly participants with different social activeness and technical affinity enjoyed the social interaction with family and friends through a user-oriented tablet interface. Nevertheless, we were unable to convince members of social networks to share their activity streams due to privacy concerns.

We focused on Japanese font types to design better user manuals for elderly people. We used four different Japanese fonts provided by Morisawa consisting of three universal design fonts and a font designed based on “kawaii”. We created three user manual design elements and performed an experiment to reduce the number of candidates of combinations between font types and design elements and refine experimental design.

We work on studying and developing support applications for aged and handicapped people. First, we developed a new communication assistant application for autistic children, ”Let’s Talk!”. We especially focused on an easy and simple manipulation. We also developed a to-do application for kids, “Hanamaru” and a scheduler application for elderly people, “Anshin”. We used ICT infrastructure, especially computer network systems such as SNS (Twitter, Facebook), e-mail, Skype, Line, and a message board on the web site, to collect the requests and opinions of users, and tried to feed it back to improve the applications.

The objective of this article is to present an interface model that enables the integration of deaf, blind and non-disabled people on internet forums, considering their different linguistic features. Therefore we designed a theoretical model that uses Sign Language (LS) Sign Writing (SW), text and speech. The shortage of automatic SL translators makes it difficult to implement the interface and its evaluation, undermining researches in the area of digital accessibility.

Learning mediated by teaching and learning virtual environments (AVEA in Portuguese) contributes to disseminating knowledge in a more pleasurable way to people who have disabilities. However, the technologies used for teaching should satisfy recommendations on usability and accessibility. This article sets out to present a case study regarding evaluating a virtual environment using the technique of interviews with deaf users. The case study enables issues relevant to accessibility as well as possibilities for development and innovation to be identified. Furthermore, the use of the tool of evaluation by interviews prompted reflections related to the specificities required for using the technique with deaf users.

Touch-screen interfaces do not offer tactile cues for the visually impaired users to distinguish interaction controls. As touch based interactions become more pervasive in our everyday lives, they present critical accessibility concerns. The recent advancement of touch screen technology makes design solutions possible. This research investigates the usability of accessible solutions on touch interfaces. Findings from our user study suggest that (1) proper voice feedback enables blind users to navigate touch-screen interface; and (2) different touch gestures have significantly different impacts on blind users’ touch performances, such as efficiency and accuracy.

The population of Japanese people with disabilities is growing day by day. And the population of sign language translator is too few to support them. In general life, people communicate with others through conversation but this is obviously impossible for deaf mute people who use sign language to communicate. So it is necessary to explore a recognition system of sign language which can help the deaf and mute to keep in touch with others. In order to solve that problem, a large amount of researches related to recognition system development and establishment have been reported by previous literatures. However, current paper introduced a novel method for system developing. In this paper, 3D sensors called Kinect were employed for hand gesture dataset’s collection following by data dealing from transformation matrix based on specific formulas. Although the hand gesture can be captured, but there still are a lot of noises left, so PCL (Point Cloud Library) was applied to do the 3D data processing.

The demography of the Federal Republic of Germany predicts that the average age of the society rises in future. A generation ago, elderly people died only a couple of years after being retired. Nowadays elderly people enjoy their after work-life for approx. 20 additional years. These are very active and they enjoy traveling, meeting friends or find new purposes in life. The research project “Home Interaction Service” develops new mobile assistants by using Smart Watches for continuously monitoring of physical activities to identify life anomalies and to assist elderly people in their daily life. New algorithm also enables the Smart Watch also to be a new gesture interaction device to control home consumer products and to support new services that might become available in future.

All Greater Good Foundation, in conjunction with students and faculty at the University of Advancing Technology, are using music as a tool to help children and teenagers in difficult circumstances communicate and express themselves visually. The program called, My Music Mosaic, will connect to a musical keyboard which will allow for real time visual/emotional input. My Music Mosaic gets children who have experienced trauma in their lives to share their feelings in a more innovative manner. The team will be making connections to abstract emotions with input like time, sound, and force. Input is then transferred into shapes, transparency, line, three dimensions, size, color and movement on the computer.

Touchless remote interaction empowers users to interact with systems at a distance without the burden of actually coming to physical contact with any tangible object. The research presented in this paper focuses on motion-based interaction in public spaces through hand detection using Microsoft’s Kinect, in order to allow natural interaction in mid-air. The paper presents the development of a system that allows browsing and exploring large collections of multimedia information (images and videos).

Touch devices have become one of the major elements in today’s most electronic products. Touch technology can be divided into different types as resistive, capacitive, infrared, and so on. However, as the amount of detection sensors increases, most types of touch screen suffer from more cost and lower yield when the accuracy of touch location or larger size is required. Therefore, it is essential to design a different kind of touch technology with accurate detection and the cost is not proportional to its size. This paper proposed a kind of touch system using the distance between the object (eg. finger or stylus) and its shadow to determine whether the object touched the screen or not, and locate the touch point. It can be applied to any interactive projection system without using a lot of touch detecting sensor. Therefore, no additional costs are required for a large touch screen. The proposed touch system only requires one camera and one IR source, and cooperates with an interactive projector to detect the occurrence of touching and its location. The proposed system achieves an average detection rate of 97.53% if the tolerance of detected touch coordinates is in ± 10 pixels.

This paper proposes a new modeling methodology about the interaction with the ambient environment such as tables, windows, physical objects and so on. We analyzed interaction factors in existing scenarios that involve the interaction, and then classified the result of analysis. We made modeling elements though the classification results and designed modeling method combining the elements. The modeling method can reduce the time to understand the existing interactions or the interactions that are designed by co-workers. Moreover, we believe that it can be useful when designers make a new scenario or modify the existing scenarios.

The development of Human Computer Interfaces steadily moves away from peripheral devices like mouse and keyboard in certain areas, as is obvious when looking at the evolution of smart-phones, tablet-PCs and touch-enabled operating systems over the last few years. Nowadays we can even witness the transition from touch-based interfaces to touch-free interfaces. One common method to realize such interfaces is to incorporate new state-of-the art 3D cameras (often called ”Time of Flight” cameras). The difficulty lies within the evaluation of the sensor-data, to achieve robust detection and tracking of people within the scene in real-time. We try to solve this task without using expensive knowledge-based approaches by employing standard image-processing algorithms because we wanted to keep the required manpower and development time, as well as costs, as low as possible.

We explore new possibilities for interactive music consumption by proposing an audio-only augmented reality system for social interaction.

We designed and built an Android application that measures the relative position of the device from freely moveable Bluetooth beacons. Based on this information, an algorithm dynamically changes the music that the users hear in their earphones.

We assessed the interactive component of the system in the context of a silent rave party in a controlled experiment by comparing the system positioning readings in interactive and non-interactive control segments. We also directly assessed the user experience using self-report pre/post surveys. Our results suggest that the system facilitated higher levels of user movement in space and enhanced social interactions, thereby displaying the potential of using audio-only augmented reality in future mobile applications.

This manuscript conducts an experiment in usability of shadow cursor for calibrating screen coordinates of tabletop displays. Shadow cursor is a mouse cursor without any visual feedback or an imaginary mouse cursor. To calibrate the screen coordinates properly, users have to move the shadow cursor in an indicated direction correctly. The experiment shows that its accuracy is about ± 5 degrees and the calibration is completed within about 700 milliseconds.

In response to the need for more accessible and engaging informal learning environments (ILEs), researchers have studied sonification for use in interpretation of live aquarium exhibits. The present work attempts to introduce more interactivity to the project’s existing sonification work, which is expected to lead to more accessible and interactive learning opportunities for visitors, including children and people with vision impairment. In this interactive sonification environment, visitors can actively experience an exhibit by using tangible objects to mimic the movement of animals. Sonifications corresponding to their movement can be paired with real-time animal-based sonifications produced by the existing system to generate a musical fugue. In the current paper, we describe the system configurations, experiment results for optimal sonification parameters and interaction levels, and implications in terms of embodied interaction and interactive learning.

In this paper, an emotional speech conversion method using pitch-synchronous harmonic and non-harmonic (PS-HNH) modeling of speech is proposed. The proposed method converts neutral speeches into expressive ones by controlling emotional parameters for each syllable of the neutral speech. To this end, the proposed method first carries out syllable labeling by Viterbi decoding using acoustic hidden Markov models of the neutral corpus. Next, the PS-HNH analysis is performed on the neutral speech to modify the emotional parameters by the linear modification model of target emotion in a syllable-wise manner. Finally, the modified parameters are synthesized back into the emotional speech by the PS-HNH synthesis. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated by a subjective AB preference test for four types of target emotions (fear, sadness, anger, and happiness). It is shown from the preference test that the proposed method give better speech quality than the conventional method that is based on speech transformation and representation using adaptive interpolation of weighted spectrum (STRAIGHT).

To complement visual displays, auditory researchers have developed various auditory cues such as auditory icons, earcons, spearcons, and spindex cues. Even though those auditory cues were successfully applied to a number of electronic devices, they still require some improvements. From this background, the present work introduces more intuitive and fun auditory cues, “Lyricons (Lyrics + Earcons), which integrate the benefits of speech (i.e., accuracy) and earcons (i.e., aesthetics). We categorized functions of electronic products into meta-functional groups and devised a plausible earcon set for each functional group. Nine students conducted the sound card sorting task to match earcons with functional groups and brainstormed to generate lyrics for each functional group. Based on the results, several lyricon sets were created and improvements and application directions were discussed in focus group sessions. The use of lyricons is expected to increase accessibility to electronic devices for multiple users, including novices, older adults, children, and people with vision impairment.

In this paper, a sensitivity evaluation of digital contents with dynamic motion, including linguistic and visual functions, and musical and visual rhythms was performed. In order to improve student’s expressive and utilizing skills by using digital contents with dynamic representations and to support of the design education in the new environment of media, it is necessary to understand sensitivity evaluation of digital contents with motion as the most new form of communications. As a result, it was confirmed that static content with music and content displayed a similar change in sensitivity than music’s in the static digital content with music.

In this study we focus on the effect of the interaction between humans and device when emotion recognition smart device is used. We propose that emotion based smart device is the most effective device in interacting with human when it comes to user-centered device. Forty participants watched Smart TV with three different user interfaces; remote controller, gesture recognition, voice recognition system and emotional recognition system. When they used the TV with the remote controller and voice recognition system, gesture recognition, they were given interesting and sad contents and were to choose any contents they want to see within a limited time. With emotion recognition system, Fraunhofer IIS SHORE

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demo software, participants’ facial expression was automatically detected and they were provided with contents according to their emotions. This research offers a new concept that emotion-based smart device that can interact with humans will be the most effective user interface in HCI. The study will discuss how people feel and how Smart TV will respond accordingly.

Virtual auditory environments (VAEs) can be used to communicate spatial information, with sound sources representing the location of objects. A critical factor in this type of immersive system is the degree to which the participant can interact with the virtual environment. Our prior work has demonstrated that listeners can successfully locate virtual spatialized sounds, delivered over headphones, in a VAE using a mouse and screen to navigate the virtual world. The screen indicates the avatars position on the vertical plane. The present study seeks to determine the effects of plane mapping on listener performance. In the horizontal-plane interface, the listener used a WACOM tablet and pen to navigate the VAE on the horizontal plane. Results suggest that there is no significant performance difference when locating a single sound source. In the multi-source context, it was observed that the time taken to locate the first sound was significantly larger than the time taken to locate the remaining sounds.

In this paper, we present an automated approach for recognizing seven facial expressions including the neutral expression. The approach is based upon efficient feature extraction, feature compression, and an artificial neural network (ANN) classification. In the proposed method, the basic components of face, eyes, eyebrow, and mouth, are first segmented from the whole face using modified Wavelet based salient points. Then, the features of the eye and the mouth are extracted using Gabor-wavelet filters. Afterwards, the dimension of the features is reduced using principal component analysis (PCA). Finally a multi layer perceptron neural network is used to classify the facial expressions. The simulated results show high recognition rate as well as the low computational complexity that makes the proposed algorithm remarkable for accurate and fast facial expression recognition.

In this paper, we describe an algorithm and an interactive content using the idea to experience feeling of bird’s flying by using gesture recognition of a user’s upper body. In the algorithm we assume that gesture is composed of several key poses. So, in order to recognize the user’s gesture, we firstly classify the user pose into the several predefined key poses and then analyze the sequence of the poses. In the key pose recognition procedure, the information of upper-body configuration is estimated by using joint locations of depth image from a Kinect camera. If the user performs a consecutive motion, the content recognizes the key poses and then synthesizes a gesture according to the order of the key poses. The stage of the content is consisted with three parts in order to enjoy the various flight experiences.

Multimodal systems that adapt their interface to the surroundings and the user shall be able to handle uncertain data provided by ubiquitous sensors. This has to be realized for the complete communication cycle and therefore demands collaboration between the system’s output and input processes. In this article we demonstrate how dedicated fission and fusion components that handle uncertainty can be connected via an additional interaction content management component. We present the overall architecture of the resulting adaptive system and discuss the status quo of our implementation.

With increased popularity of large tiled displays, a range of user interaction techniques have been explored in HCI, but gesture-based interaction mechanisms for tiled displays are still under investigation. This paper presents the design and implementation of gestural interaction techniques using Kinect sensors, designed for supporting natural user interaction for tiled display system. In particular, the Kinect interaction manager aggregates user skeleton data from the sensors, analyzes positions and changing user postures to recognize user gestures and triggers the Kinect handler to generate gestural interaction events that can be used for tiled display applications. We have built two tiled display applications with this interaction mechanism and it shows promising results in terms of user experience and performance.

Though the human-computer interaction (HCI) design of mobile devices and various applications become diversified, the HCI design of the tablet computer desktop no longer satisfies the needs of users. This paper describes a new Shake-Screening Human-Computer Interaction Type (SSHIT) for solving these problems. The aims of SSHIT are to optimize the management and selection mode of applications on the tablet computer desktop and propose a 3D virtual environment facilitates user interaction in ambient intelligence environments. Meanwhile, SSHIT can be also adapted for screening function for various mobile devices and applications.

The purpose of our study is to construct a system where a user can register his/her own arm gestures as templates and entered gestures are recognized precisely on a real-time basis. In order to realize them, we propose the following method: (1) 3D positions of both user’s wrists are captured by using a Kinect sensor. (2) Sequences of motion vectors of both wrists are detected from the time series 3D position data. (3) The entered gesture is recognized based on the similarity between the entered gesture and each template. The similarity can be calculated by applying continuous DP matching to the sequences of motion vectors of them. The templates are gestures which are recorded by the user before the recognition process. In our experiments, good results were obtained.

This work explores ways to unobtrusively capture biometric data, calculate metrics important to the user, and deliver the metrics in ways that empower people to lead more mentally balanced lives. An initial experiment explored how one type of biometric data (EEG) could be unobtrusively collected and analyzed in real time to differentiate user task engagement for single and dual tasks. We found statistically significant differences in mean engagement values across tasks, with a higher engagement mean when participants were asked to monitor a constantly updating news-feed than when they were asked to complete a math test, or the two simultaneously. Similar biometric inputs could be used to explore mental state from cognitive variables like interruption. Future work focuses on how devices worn or carried by the user can provide on-demand information about daily mental activity, balanced by web dashboards that can provide a rich contextual viewport.

In this paper, we examine the concept of challenge in video games and argue that the current way of defining challenge is faulty in nature. Since challenge should be considered a core component to any digital video game, it is of importance that we understand the concept of challenge in-depth while designing games. With challenge being generally defined by its level of difficulty, we propose to define challenge by how challenge should be designed instead and have defined six characters by which a proper challenge should adhere. The goal of this paper is to clarify the concept of challenge and to redefine it according to the way challenge is created, not through the height of its difficulty.

The goal of this study is to investigate how decision making takes place in social contexts by emotion and cognition. This study had two kinds of tasks; Need for Cognition (NFC) and Iowa Gamble Tasks (IGT/ modified IGT). The results show a significant main effect in the NFC conditions as well as interaction between types of NFC and types of IGT in significant ways. In other words, in the IGT, differences between types of NFC did not appear, whereas they did appear significantly in the mIGT, which was manipulated to include social contexts. These results can be used to estimate that when two types of NFCs make a decision, social contexts can work as a social facilitator (to the NFC-high) or as a social inhibitor (to the NFC-low) respectively.

Assessment of mental workload is an important aspect of many human factors and HCI applications. Not surprisingly, a number of workload measures have been proposed. This study examined the sensitivity, convergent and concurrent validity of several subjective self-report and EEG workload measures. Most measures displayed adequate sensitivity to task difficulty manipulations, but relatively modest convergent and concurrent validity. Overall, we believe these result serve to aid human factors practitioners in selecting measures of workload for varied applications.

The premise of this paper is to promote the results from a small study which sought to evaluate the effectiveness of three different prototype mobile applications, in promoting well being by the reminiscing of positive memories. Interviews were carried out with mental health professionals, including psychotherapists and psychiatric nurses, who were questioned on their opinions as to the effectiveness of the proposed app after using the prototype. The results indicate a significant interest in the proposed tool, with all professionals recognizing the effectiveness of positive reminiscing and indicating a willingness to take part in subsequent prototype evaluation developments.

The ownership of mobile devices rapidly expand which results to the behavior of reading is transformed. A central feature to the success of mobile publications is the design of an effective interface to link text to image information. However, the suitability of the prevalent information formats in supporting various mobile reading tasks is not known. Using the cognitive fit theory as the theoretical framework, we developed a research model to investigate the fit between information format and reading task, and examined its influence on mobile user’s reading performance and perceptions of reading experience. As the information format has been shown to affect readers’ mobile reading behavior, even when the information content is held constant, the practical implications for mobile publication designers include providing both types of information format on their mobile publications and matching the appropriate information format to the individual reader’s task.

Individual decision-making behaviors are affected by context probability, success experiences and individual difference. Experiment on difference of individual decision-making behaviors is designed to explore the rules. Subjects are tested as type A or B behavior pattern before participated in experiment. Decision-making tendency is main analyzed option. The conclusions show that given probability leads subjects’ decision-making behaviors in extreme probability states, last outcome and individual differences also impact subjects in average probability states. The causations about subjects’ decision-making behaviors match choice’s probability, correct-unchanged tendency was more than other tendencies, and difference with type A or B behavior pattern are discussed.

The error prevention effects of “point and call checks (P&C Checks)” are known and used in several industries in Japan. We investigated whether or not “pointing” had an error prevention effect and if the effect is due to eye focusing. Participants performed tasks under different experimental conditions: (1) with pointing, (2) without pointing. The density of the dots were controlled (high or low). This task had two subtasks. One, focusing on the only target dots and two, remembering the dots which have been counted. The result indicated that only in low density condition the number of counting error in “with pointing” conditions was significantly fewer than that in “without pointing” condition. The result supported the memory enhancing effect of pointing.

The traditional approach to cognitive engineering involves reducing workload by providing operators with immediately accessible relevant information. We suggest that such immediate access may not always improve human performance. Somewhat counter-intuitively, making some information harder to access by slightly increasing the time, physical and mental effort to view it can induce a more memory-based planning strategy that can improve performance. Studies are described that find increasing access cost leads to improved recall, more efficient problem solving, and resilience to interruption. Implications for cognitive engineering are discussed.

Metacognitive ability demonstrated in algebra word problem solving for primary school pupil is directly not applicable to more complicated and advanced problem solving such as electronic circuit. The aim of this study was to analyze the metacognitive process when solving basic problems concerning electronic circuit. In spite of mastering scientific knowledge and formula necessary for the solution,the lower performance group could not reach a higher score like higher performance group. We judged that this difference of performance must be due to the lack in metacognitive ability, especially the plan and the control and execution abilities.Thus, the importance of meta-cognitive ability,especially the plan ability was identified in the problem solving of basic electric circuit.

Our study indicates that combined measures of brain activity and eye movement are useful parameters for quantifying the attention devoted to memory storage. We measured eye movements with an Eye Tracker and prefrontal cortex activity using a wearable Optical Topography in 18 participants performing a visual working memory task. We used these measures to calculate a combined index of brain activity and eye movement, which revealed that increased brain activity and higher fixation counts were related to improved task performance.

Distraction while driving is a serious problem that can have many catastrophic consequences. Developing a countermeasure to detect the drivers’ distraction is imperative. This study measured Electroencephalography (EEG) signals from six healthy participants while they were asked to pay their full attention to a lane-keeping driving task or a math problem-solving task. The time courses of six distinct brain networks (Frontal, Central, Parietal, Occipital, Left Motor, and Right Motor) separated by Independent Component Analysis were used to build the distraction-detection model. EEG data were segmented into 400-ms epochs. Across subjects, 80% of the EEG epochs were used to train various classifiers that were tested against the remaining 20% of the data. The classification performance based on support vector machines (SVM) with a radial basis function (RBF) kernel achieved accuracy of 84.7±2.7% or 85.8±1.3% for detecting subjects’ focuses of attention to the math-solving or lane-deviation task, respectively. The high attention-detection accuracy demonstrated the feasibility of accurately detecting drivers’ attention based on the brain activities. This demonstration may lead to a practical real-time distraction-detection system for improving road safety.

There have been numerous studies related to useful field of view with regard to ensuring safety during activities and preventing recognition failures that can result in human error. As a result, the form of the useful field of view has been determined and methods for its measurement have been proposed. Most studies have assumed a fixed gaze, however, thus failing to consider the useful field of view during eye movement. The present research takes an experimental approach toward discovering the effects of eye movement speed and direction on useful field of view, limiting eye movement speed to 30°/s. As a result, the direction of gaze movement, increases in speed, and the direction of the recognized object with respect to the focal point cause variation in the narrowing of the useful field of view.

Human can quickly recognize the state of object surface. This sensation is called “Sense of Material”. When simulating materials with CG, the method of complex physical model is mainstream. However, this method causes large production time and cost so we propose simple material models based on human visual characteristics called “Tri-Contrast Perception Model” and “Binocular Parallax Model”. The results of discriminant analysis to some material samples, we found that binocular parallax is important affect for sense of material.

This study evaluates the relationship between eye gaze and mouse cursor movements in a debugging task. 9 students with relevant programming experience participated in this study. Debugging difficulty was manipulated (error types; lexical, logical and syntactic) in order to measure the effects on debugging performance (accuracy and reaction time), eye gaze and mouse cursor behavior (frequency and duration of visits of target areas vs. non-target areas). Performance data showed that lexical errors are easier to find than logical errors. Mouse cursor behavior was a significant indication of the level of difficulty and therefore performance. The general pattern of mouse movements was comparable with eye gaze patterns. This study indicates that mouse data does add relevant information on top of eye gaze. These results support the idea of using mouse tracking as an alternative for inferring intentions.

An innovative navigation interface with haptic support is developed based on the idea of multimodal interaction and adaptive control elements. Thereby, for people with visual impairments interaction with the interface, e.g. indication of directions is facilitated and haptic distinction between different menus is made possible. Due to the additional haptic feedback a safe and efficient transmission of information can be ensured during use. Apart from that the use of adaptive control elements partly compensates for the lack of information based on the impaired visual channel and enables the user to experience a more immersive way of interaction.

Effective tacton parameters of stimuli have been identified for a young population of computer users. However, studies have shown that the detection of vibrations degrades as a natural part of the aging process. This work used stimulus parameters similar to those which have been shown to be effective in a young population, and conducted a comparison study between 40 test subjects composed of a young population of computer users between 18 and 25 years old and an older population of computer users between 55 and 75 years old. The study compared both groups’ recognition rates of modulated sinusoidal waveforms and found that the older group had a significant decrease in recognition rates of modulated sinusoidal waveforms.

Perceiving depth and spatial relations between objects in virtual environments is challenging and can be facilitated by the rendering process in 3D graphics applications. Often the perspective projection is not sufficient to visualize all necessary information because the projected image can lead to position and orientation ambiguity. Therefore, additional indicators are needed to improve the visualization of information about spatial relationships and the structure of the scene. For this purpose, we introduce a toolbox that applies color as an interactive design tool. Within this toolbox, six algorithms can be used to dynamically modulate the coloring of single objects or the scene as a whole. For evaluation, we report a study that tested whether object coloring as implemented in the toolbox can change apparent depth.

In our experiment, we studied the searching sequence of humans, i.e. how humans solve the game tree. We created a controlled environment of maze game to simulate the situation where the player is not allowed to observe the entire map freely. We use “fog-block” to cover the intersection of a maze. Thus, the maze becomes an “imperfect information maze.” We give additional information to hint on the path that the player should choose. Then we observed the change in players’ behavior. We found that hints affect searches making it best fit path towards hint.

Previously, we conducted a psychological experiment to measure sensitivity to hardness using a white cane. The Results showed that participants had higher sensitivity to hardness when using the white cane compared to when actually tapping the target with their fingertip. This suggests that the white cane acts to provide enhanced feedback on hardness. In this study, we investigated the relationship between vibration and sense of hardness using white canes. We measured frequency of vibration of the ferrule of the cane by acceleration sensor when the cane contacted with target. And using psychological experiments, we then had participants estimate their sense of hardness for each hardness degree. It was found that there is a correlation between the hardness sense and frequency of vibration.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between teenager’s emotional states while watching 3D on TV using active (shutter) and passive (filter) glasses and specific physiological indices. The physiological measures include electroencephalography (EEG) for beta wave at occipital lobe (O

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and O

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regions), electrooculography (EOG) for eye blinking rate from the dominate eye, and subjective evaluation. Eighteen healthy teenager’s (9 used active glass and 9 used passive glasses) aged 18.72±0.56 years were participated. The subjects were exposed to 3D visuals for 45 min each. The relative beta band power was comparatively higher while using passive glasses. The eye blink rate was comparatively higher while using passive glasses. Subjective evaluation scores were comparatively higher while using active glasses. The contrary results between physiological responses and psychophysical were observed. Further experiments need to be performed by considering more subjects, higher viewing duration and light weight glasses.

Understanding the mechanism of human visual processing is important as a foundation for human computer interaction research, because many interactive systems are primary relying on visual information. In this paper, we report a new visual illusion caused by phased shifted light projection using our customized digital micromirror projector that appears to be related to human eyes’ saccades and microsaccades. We examine the cause of this illusion, and propose possible applications using this effect.

In this report, the easy figure which consists of a line segment and its combination is virtually expressed by the movement sense of the localized sound on a virtual sound screen. In order to create a psychological simple figure, the system which used together the movement sense of localized sound and the input tactile sense guide is proposed.

Anti-slip strip is one of the most popular slip-resistant products indoor and outdoor, especially on the ramp. By using anti-slip strip the roughness of floor can be increased, the COF will be increased and the risk of slips and falls will be reduced at the same time. This study wants to find out the effects of slip-resistance under different floor contamination conditions while using the emery anti-slip strip. The anti-slip strips covered by steel grit provide valid slip-resistance effect. However, the slip-resistance effect will be limited when the floor covered by oil and the grooves of footwear have been wear away. In total, to provide valid slip-resistance effect, keeping the floor dry, installing the anti-slip strips, wearing tread shoes are some useful processes to reduce the risk of falling and slipping.

With diversity of mobile services (e.g., messenger, and social network service) on smartphone, the demand of text input using a soft keyboard is increasing. However, studies on subjective and physiological responses of users for various touch locations are lacking. The present study investigated the ergonomic responses according to touch locations of a soft keyboard on smartphone. The experiment of the present study measured perceived discomfort using Borg’s CR-10 scale and electromyography on forearm (abductor pollicis longus, and extensor digitorum communis) and thumb (abductor pollicis brevis, and first dorsal interossei) muscles. Perceived discomfort was significantly varied from 0.7 (extremely weak discomfort) to 2.5 (weak discomfort) depending on touch locations. %MVC at abductor pollicis brevis was significantly varied from 10% to 23% according to touch locations. The experimental results of the present study can be utilized in the ergonomic design of a soft keyboard.

This paper describes the design and implementation of a 1- DOF servo-actuated stylus, which is used as an end effector in a desktop haptic device. The desktop haptic device is part of a multimodal system aimed for the assessment, training and rehabilitation of the arm, forearm and hand while the user perform several tasks. Patients will use the haptic device which carries out the servo-actuated stylus in order to draw simple and complex sketches, in this way, the patient is able to feel the virtual sketch by using the haptic device, which acts as a virtual guide taking advantages of its force feedback capabilities. The therapist is able to control the 1-DOF-stylus rotation according to the requirements of the patient.

This paper presents an unusual mouse control technique, designed to be used with a keyboard-type device, rather than a dedicated manual pointing device. Unlike ordinary keyboard-based mouse replacements, it does not rely on pointer movements across the screen. Instead, clicks are emulated at the position directly chosen by the user (who recursively selects regions and sub-regions to do that). As a consequence, target selection becomes a user-friendly step-by-step process, not requiring any time-critical interaction.

This study aim was to compare the computer exposure and forearm musculoskeletal symptoms among three computer use groups by an external logger. 30 participants were recruited in this study and divided into three groups: 10 computer-document (CD) processors, 10 computer-aided design (CAD) draftsmen, and 10 online gamers. Computer use of each participant was recorded for 10 consecutive days. Questionnaire survey was conducted to collect musculoskeletal complaints in participants’ upper limbs right after data collection period. Quantitative parameters computed using recorded data were daily keystrokes, mouse clicks, wheel scrolling counts, mouse movement and dragged distance. Experimental results showed that the online gamers had the significantly higher keyboard activities than typical keyboard users, CD processors. Also, it had the higher mouse activities than the typical mouse users, CAD draftsmen. However, musculoskeletal complaint in their upper limbs was not greater than that of CD processors and CAD draftsmen. There existed a complicate relationship between cumulative hazards and computer uses. Experimental results indicated that computer use duration alone could not accurately represent the workloads of various computer tasks. Adequate tools are needed for quantifying user computer exposure and providing detailed information for various computer tasks.

This manuscript conducts an experiment in properties of pointing performance for laser pointer interaction. Fitts’s Law is used to evaluate pointing performance of traditional pointing devices like mouses and touchpads but it is not suitable to evaluate it for laser pointer interaction. This manuscript introduces a model function to express and parameterize pointing performance of a Nintendo Wii-based pointing device. The result shows that the obtained model function can express it by the error ratio of about 3%.

Intuitively operated touch-sensitive screens are becoming more prevalent in our daily lives. Particularly, the rapidly growing demand for tablets, which are beginning to be used in the educational and medical environments, is said to be leading the market. However, it has been pointed out that it is hard to slide a finger easily on the tablet screen when operating the device, making it difficult to use the device. The present study investigates the relationship between the surface property of a tablet touch-sensitive screen and the easiness of sliding a finger on the screen, and evaluates the influence of the surface property on the operability based on the experimental results.

Occupational health affections related to ergonomics result in musculoskeletal problems that affect the locomotion apparatus through the muscles, tendons, ligaments and nerves, yielding to numerous cases of work absence. The World Health Organization (WHO) has acknowledged occupational health problems associated with excessive computer work resulting in the execution of repetitive tasks and sedentary cycles. With increased use of mobile electronic devices (laptops, smartphones and tablets) and initiatives as bring your own device, work time has increased recently and users do not take care of their posture or joints during usage of these devices. Recommendations on taking active pauses and do exercises for avoiding occupational health problems are promoted with videos, animations, reminders, guides and surveys, however use of this tools or taking time for active pauses is not done by several users. This project addresses the problem through an application for reminding the pause and monitor user exercises using Kinect.

This paper first explored the possibilities of redefining computer break software for advanced function and redesigning the interface for more proper and effective delivery of the informed message, and then discussed the potentiality of drawing the targeted health information online for advanced uses on updated information. It presents an example of how we can create an interactive interface to better motivate users to adopt the program, and how we can fetch online the targeted health information and then present it in a local computer via break software.

Musculoskeletal modeling is a powerful tool for analyzing human biomechanics during active movement. It has the ability to determine important kinetic data during motion such as muscle force, muscle activity and knee joint force. However, validation of these models need further study to determine the quality of their predictions. In the past, we validated the GaitLowerExtremity model (GLEM) of the AnyBody modeling system (AMS) by a series of experiments, where subjects walked normally, while their movements and EMG were measured. The movements were used by AMS to predict muscle activity, and these predictions were then compared by EMG activities. Although visual inspection showed a good comparison, quantitative comparison results were rather disappointing. We think that a more prescribed movement could result in a better comparison such as during one legged forward hopping (FH) and side jumping (SJ). In this study two variables were used to quantify muscle activity, number of onsets and offsets. The Kappa value (K) was calculated to determine the level of agreement. During FH, for all variables, 7 muscles showed a positive agreement and only one muscle showed a negative agreement. During SJ, for all variables, all muscles showed a positive agreement. This result demonstrates that during more prescribed movements, AMS predicts muscle activity much better than compared to our previous validation study during normal walking, even though some differences between AMS and EMG still did existed.

This research explored the characteristics on two dimensional touched position distributions in each key of a touch screen QWERTY keyboard through the experiment. The results of the experiment revealed that the mistyping ratio was more than 5% and it suggested the necessity of an approach for key input performance improvement. The results also revealed that the center of distribution of the key touched position tended to be positioned in the low part of the key regardless of keys and the mistyping concentrated under the bottom of the key area. A new approach that the key input performance could be improved by using these characteristics of key touched position and mistyping was proposed.

This paper presents the findings of an exploratory study comparing two of Brain-Computer Interface approaches, P300 and Motor Imagery, with EEG signals acquired using the Emotiv Neuroheadset. It was conducted to determine the most suitable approach for typing applications based on BCI. Results show that while selection accuracy is similar for both, with mean of 50%, the speed varies greatly, with the former approach being approximately 2 times more efficient in typing. Implications presented in this document are useful for BCI researchers who seek to build brain-controlled Augmentative and Alternative Communication technologies.

This paper describes an eye-controlled game designed for behavioral therapy of ADHD. A user-centered design approach was adopted in the development cycle of these games in close collaboration with domain experts and target user populations. The games have an Arabic language interface and include multimodal interaction. Game scenarios were designed with increasing complexity depicted in visual design, dwell time for controlling elements within the games, and combinations of key presses with eye-control at higher levels of attention training. The visual design, interaction design and the system’s conceptual designs are discussed.

This poster describes a transdisciplinary practical-theoretical on-going research, which address on the discussion about the possible applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques, such as genetic algorithms, which underlie the Maturana and Varela’s autopoietic concept considering the achievement of emergent results as heuristic to creativity. Through human interaction using neuronal bio-feedback it is possible to provide more natural fitness function to such algorithms.

The SRTS is an eLearning iPad app that incorporates both cognitive knowledge and proven neurological biofeedback based on Heart Rate Variability (HRV) Coherence. SRTS uses HRV-controlled games as a way of motivating today’s young soldiers and sailors. The objective is both to minimize the adverse effects of stress and enhance its productive effects in order to help improve immediate performance as well as help prevent the occurrence of future problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The initial phase of the research resulted in a PC-based SRTS demonstration system, as well as positive responses to formal and informal usability and utility studies. The current phase of the project has involved the complete development of the iPad version of the SRTS, and also its operational evaluation for efficacy by the Naval Center for Combat and Operational Stress Control (NCCOSC), US Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED). Many potential customers for SRTS in the Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Army are waiting completion of the NCCOSC efficacy evaluation.

We propose a PC input methodology combining the gaze detection technology and the PupilMouse technology (head movement detection). Both technologies are based on the remote pupil detection technique using video cameras with near-infrared light sources. In the PupilMouse method, a user can move the cursor on the PC display screen smoothly and accurately, based on the movements of the user’s two pupils in the camera image caused by the user’s smooth head movement. The biggest advantage of PupilMouse is to be able to point a very small area without a scattering of the cursor. However, in order to move the cursor largely on the screen, the user must move the head largely. This is a burden for the user. In contrast, the gaze point moves quickly and largely by just looking. However, at present, there is no remote gaze detection system that can detect the gaze point on the PC screen accurately, as a replacement for computer mouse. Moreover, as the ability of the user, it might be very difficult to continue to direct the line of sight exactly to small areas. In the experiment that subjects type twelve Japanese letter string using a software keyboard, the input speed, number of typing mistakes, and the usability were investigated. The results show that the proposed method is comprehensively superior to both the gaze detection method and the PupilMouse method.

In the pupil-corneal reflection detection-based eye-gaze detection method, glasses reflection of near-infrared LED light sources for producing the corneal reflection is misdetected as the pupil when a user wears eyeglasses. To improve the robustness of the pupil detection, we propose novel pupil searching and tracking methods in the gaze detection system using two stereo-calibrated cameras. The pupil searching method first chooses the true pupils from all stereo-matched pupil candidates using the suitable depth range condition, and second chooses the true pair of the right and left pupils under the constraint of the suitable 3-D interpupillary distance. Even if one pupil is not detected in the image of either camera owing to the glasses reflections, the pupil tracking method estimates the 3-D coordinates of the undetected pupil by using the constant interpupillary distance and the temporal continuity of the 3-D coordinates of the moving pupil. The experimental results show that the accuracy of pupil searching and tracking was better than that of the conventional one-camera method.

Simulation based training systems execute our ‘intention to perform’ an action in computer space by means of intermediary physical manipulations, such as pressing keys or directing a joystick. Transferring actions through these traditional input devices place an intermediary between the human operator and the simulation that can negatively affect user performance. To eliminate some of these bottlenecks, we explore the use of brain-computer interface techniques to improve the naturalistic interactivity within a military gaming environment using Second Life. We used a P300 speller approach to map action codes of the game to user actions (e.g., walk or run) within the environment. We report on the results of the study as well as discuss implications for future use of hybrid brain-computer interfaces as part of naturalistic interaction schemas for military training.

An adaptive system for Electroencephalography (EEG) artefact rejection and Electrooculogrum (EOG) gaze estimation is proposed. The system inputs optical gaze information, and accuracy of the EOG gaze classification into an adaptive Independent Component Analysis (ICA) algorithm, for improving EEG source separation. Finally two evaluation methods based on EOG gaze estimation are suggested to assess the performance of the proposed system. The work will be of use to researchers considering using BCI and eye-tracking paradigms in real life applications.

We propose a method for the estimation of point of gaze with neither user- nor environment-dependent parameters. The gaze direction is calculated from the centers of both the pupil and the eye rotation. The center of the eye rotation is determined using the centers of both the pupil and the iris and the edge of the iris when at least four calibration targets, for which only the distances between them are known, are fixated on the screen. The mean horizontal and vertical errors for seven subjects were 0.91 deg and 0.77 deg, respectively. Next, a point-and-click interface, in which a user can move a cursor by a gaze shift and click a computer mouse by a voluntary eye blink or short fixation, was developed. On average, it took 1.2, 0.9, and 0.8 sec to point and click for each target with eye blink, short fixation, and normal hand manipulation, respectively.

In this study, a developed automatic sleep stage classification system with a portable EEG recording device, (Mindo-4s) is implemented by JAVA-based sleep graphical user interface (GUI) in android platform. First, the parameters of the developed sleep stage classification system, including extracting effective sleep features and a hierarchical classification structure consisting of preliminary wake detection rule, adaptive adjustment scheme, and support vector machine, were trained by our existing sleep database, which collected using polysomnogram (PSG), in MATLAB program. Finally, this classification system would be reedited by JAVA language, and the corresponding JAVA-based sleep GUI software was working in android platform and Mindo-4s. The connection between JAVA-based sleep GUI software and the portable Mindo-4s was through Bluetooth communication. The performance of this JAVA-based sleep GUI can reach 72.43% average accuracy comparing to the result from manual scoring. This JAVA-based sleep GUI can on-line display, record and analyze the forehead EEG signals simultaneously. After sleep, the user can received a complete sleep report, including sleep efficiency, sleep stage distribution, from JAVA-based sleep GUI. Thus, this system can provide a preliminary result in sleep quality estimation, and help the sleep doctor to decide someone needs to have a complete PSG testing in hospital. Using this system is more convenient for long–term and home-based daily caring than traditional PSG measurement.

Regular physical activity is associated with enhance health and reduced risk of all-cause mortality. But, most people who repeat the exercise easily feel the boredom and tend to give up. And, there are real risks of injuries or side effects of exercise. We introduce a video game for exercise motivation and aerobics with providing a modified fitness bike as a special controller. This paper aims to make exercise games personalized for safe and effective exercise by introducing intelligent workload control. Intelligent workload control is implemented to customize exercise time and intensity based on exercise prescription. Exercise game will be personalized according to individual physical abilities. And, experimental results will be presented to illustrate the effect of our personalized exercise game.

This paper describes the fundamental study for the research and development of SSVEP-BCI. Experiments were carried out with flash and pattern reversal stimulation. A stimulus size of 4.6x4.6cm/40x40cm, time-frequency characteristics from 5 to 20Hz, and three types of stimulus patterns were investigated. As the result, the condition where SSVEP strongly appeared was the flash stimulation of a 4.6x4.6cm square. Moreover, the frequency band was 7 to 17Hz. SSVEP-BCI which transmits at least five intentions may be able to be developed from this experiment.

Since each ICA algorithm employs a different approach for source estimation, the result of the estimated sources could be changed. The proposed evaluation method applies three different ICA algorithms on EEG datasets including FastICA, Infomax and Extended-Infomax algorithms. The analysis demonstrates that different ICA algorithms do not have a significant effect on the accuracy of the Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier in detecting right and left hand imagery movements.

This paper presents the design of an algorithm based on Ant Colony Optimization paradigm to solve the Software Project Scheduling Problem. This problem consists in deciding who does what during the software project development, finding an optimal schedule for a project so that the precedence and resource constraints are satisfied and the final project cost and its duration are minimized. We present the design of an general ant algorithm to solve it.

Several groups visualize software systems using ”city” metaphors, mapping software onto features such as buildings and roads. This abstract introduces a “living city” metaphor, where programs are visualized as a city populated by users, data structures, threads of execution, and bugs. A living city is a 3D, multi-user virtual world in which the visible artifacts are software and data.

Portfolio selection is a relevant problem in finance and economics. It consists in selecting a portfolio of assets considering a given expected return such that the risk of the portfolio is minimized. Several approaches have been proposed to tackle this problem, which are mainly based on mathematical programming techniques and metaheuristics. In this paper we illustrate how this problem can easily be modeled and solved by a relatively modern and declarative programming paradigm called constraint programming.

For many real world problems, modeled as Constraint Satisfaction Problems, there are no known efficient algorithms to solve them. The specialized literature offers a variety of solvers, which have shown satisfactory performance. Nevertheless, despite the efforts of the scientific community in developing new strategies, there is no algorithm that is the best for all possible situations. Then, several approaches have emerged to deal with the Algorithm Selection Problem. Here, we sketch the use a Choice Function for guiding a Constraint Programming solver exploiting search process features to dynamically adapt it in order to more efficiently solve Constraint Satisfaction Problems. To determine the best set of parameters of the choice function, an upper-level metaheuristic is used. The main novelty of our approach is that we reconfigure the search based solely on performance data gathered while solving the current problem.

Principal Component Analysis, a statistical tool allowing to create a low dimensional subspace basing on input data, finds many applications in biomechanics. The PCA requires the same topology (mesh connectivity, number of nodes) for all objects in database. To achieve this, each new object added to database must be registered. In this article the finishing registration procedure, based on own software and created especially for biological data sets, is presented. The study of registration process for 3D input data (faces and hands) for PCA is discussed.

In constraint programming, a regular constraint is a special global constraint very useful in scheduling, in particular for the easy modeling of rostering problems. This constraint enforces a sequence of variables to take a value defined by a deterministic finite automaton. In practice, when the user models the problem, regular constraints are programmed in the language of the solving engine, which is in most cases a proprietary language or a classic programming language. However, there exists several modeling languages and very different encoding patterns for the regular constraint, turning the modeling into a tedious task. In this paper, we present a simple GUI for modeling regular constraints that clearly increases the usability for end-users. The tool allows to easily draw finite automata, which are automatically translated to the corresponding code of the regular constraint for the target solving engine.

This paper considers an optimal location problem, called stochastic weighted Weber problem. It is formulated to a stochastic programming problem, and common approach for solving is to utilize the following four criteria: expectation of its objective function value, its variance, achievement probability for a given goal value by the decision-maker, and its fractile. It can be reformulated to a deterministic programming problem, if the locater can give her/his criterion in the above criteria or their highbred type. However, it is often hard to decide her/his criterion. This paper proposes to consider all the four criteria simultaneously. Then, it can be reformulated to four-objective deterministic programming problem, whose objective functions are corresponded to the above four criteria. Since multiobjective programming problems generally have too many Pareto optimal solution, this paper proposes an interactive solution approach for finding a satisficing location for her/him among the set of Pareto optimal solutions.

Thousands of companies have deployed servers and it is necessary to measure, analyze and evaluate the performance of the servers through performance test. Generally, we mainly analyze performance data by drawing different performance charts. First, performance test is time-consuming, including calculating and drawing chart. And it is difficult to combine new performance data with history performance data to draw chart for analysis. Besides, various mistakes may be made by analyzing huge amount of performance data. Another challenge is to support performance test of every new projects and collaborative work in different teams like QA, Development and DBA in the companies. This paper presents a web-based tool called Quality Performance Monitor (QPM) for server performance monitor, supporting visualization of performance test, and demonstrates its superiority to traditional performance test.

This paper presents a gesture-based augmented reality system, which enables users to adjust the size, coordinates, rotation angles, and other parameters via hand gestures. The proposed approach significantly enhances accuracy in identifying hand gestures and labels. To assess the accuracy of product representation, we compared the presentation of products in the forms of internet pictures (IP), augmented reality (AR), full-sized augmented reality (FSAR), and physical product (PP) demonstration. It was found that, in the example of furniture evaluation, augmented reality provided more three-dimensional information than internet pictures; however, internet pictures proved superior in terms of ease of operation and manufacturing. Despite 3D rendering integrated within a real-world environment, augmented reality failed to match the demonstration of physical products with regard to the accuracy of representation.

Enterprises have to increase their competency and ability to respond to the market variation and customer needs. Maintaining long term sustainability for enterprises has been an important topic, especially for traditional manufacturing businesses. With the attention of service around the world, many manufacturing enterprises gradually transform the product-driven business into the service-driven business. Service innovation is an important notion for manufacturing enterprises to apply. Developing a successful process of service innovation is an important event for enterprises. However, although there have been a lot of studies emphasizing the importance of service innovation, there is less research focusing on measuring service innovation. It is difficult for enterprises to systematically measure the effects and performances because different levels of enterprises have diverse choices of the service innovation categories. Consequently, this study is to analyze and define the critical factors of service innovation and build a systematical and quantitative service innovation measurement model by adopting system thinking.

In this paper, we propose a system that facilitates collaborative design by multiple users of on the basis of Interactive Evolutionary Computation (IEC). Further, we conduct numerical simulations in order to analyze the optimized performance of the proposed system. In the simulations, multiple evaluation agents with bit strings are used to evaluate the design plans, instead of real users. The simulation results confirm that the proposed system provides satisfactory optimized performance in order to create a collaborative design.

In many companies, customer service becomes one of the critical factors of the brand evaluation. It is important for the companies to know the customer’s utility functions about the customer service and repurchase of the products considering customer service. One of our main aims of this study is to develop brand selection model which considering utility of the customer service in order to propose promotion method for customer service of the company. In this study, we add some types of the customer services to utility in the models, and develop brand selection models. By the use of the questionnaire survey for the real companies, we confirm the adaptability of the proposed model, and we show the importance of the customer service.

A successful tourism advertisement can attract tourists to a certain country. This paper explored the effective ways of incorporating ads in mobile app for tourism industry. My Travel Malaysia was selected as a case study. A mobile advertising guideline was used for creation of mobile in-app banner ad. A mobile app prototype was developed and embedded with four different ads. A usability testing was carried out with ten participants and all were asked to find a particular hotel room rate. The results revealed that participants were able to recall images banner ad compare to text banner ad but they were also more likely to perceive large image banner ad as app content. However, all participants did not click on these banner ads because not relevant to their tasks.

The products of business use mean the instruments for office work, the machine tools, the medical instruments and the other instruments for professional use that are delivered to offices, factories, hospitals and other facilities. Because the user uses it for occupation, the context of use is confined or restricted. If we would like to design the GUI with good usability logically, we have to specify the context of use of the products of business use. Therefore, we propose the method to clarify the context of use by using the Business User Model (the persona for the products of business use).

Consumers feel heavy burden to find products suited individual preferences owing to large quantity of them on the Web. Therefore, it is necessary to classify products based on subjective preferences. This paper describes the method to model the relationship between subjective visual impressions and objective graphical features through machine learning for each user. The way to describe the visual impression is to use adjectives used by the professional photographers. As graphical feature vectors, we compute Lab color histogram and SURF from product photos. We estimate the subjective visual impression of products and classify them by constructing classifiers for the impression groups using Random Forests. As a result of the experiment, the proposed method achieved 80.1% accuracy on average.

Our purpose is to make a personalized shopping support system in a retail store. In this study, we estimated dominant attributes for each customer through behavior observation of shopping to collecting decision-making data of them with various kinds of products. The dominant attributes are estimated by conjoint analysis of the product attributes and the degree of interest in the product estimated from customer’s behavior. In the experiment with a trial retail store, we achieved success about estimations of 3 of 4 customers. The products recommended by our system also were shown to be better suit for customers.

This paper illustrates how industrial design implementation can be a tool of poverty alleviation, throughout a case study. According to Weis classification, design actions towards social development are: 1. Design for skills development, 2, Design for social enterprise, and 3. Design for development promotion. Based on the aforementioned this document fouses on the first category. The FREE DESIGN BANK (FDB) case is presented: FDB is an on-line platform, a communication instrument between craftsmen and design schools, supported by fair trade strategies. As a result the relationship between FDB and communities vulnerable by poverty is described, from the interaction among the design team and the community, and also the design process and the benefit obtained by the community.

Our everyday consumer lifestyle has been enhanced by embedding stories in our daily life. The stories define the meaning of an artifact appeared in them. In Japan, promoting consumer products with fictional animation stories is recently very common. We believe that analyzing the stories gives us useful insights to design future ambient intelligent services that integrate virtual and real worlds. This paper discusses the analysis of several product promotions that use fictional Japanese animation movies, and presents guidelines for successful promotions. The insights presented in the paper are effective for designing future product promotions.

Purpose of this research is to propose design approach and method for service design with lifestyle change based on human centered design. In addition, another purpose is to propose new system and product for network system. For this purpose, user research for extreme user was done and creates idea beyond current thinking. After making scenario and storyboard, design concept was proposed with prototype and concept movie. Based on this prototype and video, user evaluation was done to evaluate design concept. They base proposed design approach on utilizing extreme user to find new thinking for lifestyle change and to evaluate idea. Result of this research, exercise application named "pinch hitter" for diet was proposed. To continue exercise this application helps user to show the animation of pinch hitter that will exercise instead of real user.

Since the announcement of Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS) in 2003, manufacturers of electrical and electronic equipments are restricted of containing any harmful substances such as: Pb, Cd, Hg, Cr6+, PBB and PBDE, in their products importing to European market, starting from July 1, 2006. How to avoid the use of materials containing hazardous substances has become a major issue in the electrical and electronic industry. The purpose of this research is to establish green supplier’s assessment criteria through a modified Delphi method, and to determine the weights of criteria by the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process. A sequential sampling plan is proposed as inspection exemption guideline based on the MIL-STD-1916 procedure. This could save 12.13% in material inspecting time for the case company.

This paper conducted a pilot experiment planning and compared the relative performance of two types of training method, two types of interface mode and high and low working memory levels of older adults in training to use a product interface. According to the cognitive learning theory and human knowledge system, two kinds of training method were developed. The procedural training method based on the procedural knowledge concept was provided to reduce working memory demands by telling participants which steps to perform and in which order. Generally, this training method was hypothesized to be better for older adults. The declarative training method from the declarative knowledge concept was designed to assist participants in properly allocating their attention but to require them to be more actively involved in determining the specific steps of the task. Although this type of training method might be most supportive of learning for older adults of high working memory level, it might too working-memory demanding for the older adults and hence be ineffective. The major findings were as follows: There was a significant effect of training methods on direct interface mode and hierarchical mode tasks. This study has shown evident relationships of performance as a result of the declarative training method versus the procedural training method in older adults with different cognitive attributes and ability levels.

The Changing Room is a multimedia interactive display system. Digital media is used to make a projection on the walls, the ground and merchandise in the mall’s display space, so customers can experience merchandise in the created context of digital images. Within the display space, the customers’ various acts such as walking around, touching, and staying can trigger the sensors and then a variety of digital information will show up. For instance, directly projecting the relevant sales information around the merchandise, or producing a variety of different visual transition effects, to guide customers to participate in interaction and imagine the scenario or atmosphere by using this product.

It is necessary to provide suitable assistance to each consumer in shopping to choose preferable commodities. Each consumer does shopping with checking dominant features of the commodities according to his own criteria [1]. For example, "I want a cloth of a good material”, “I want a T-shirt in cool color", and so on. We have developed an experimental shopping space equipped with ubiquitous sensors such as cameras and RFID-tag readers. In our experiment, each subject freely walked around the shelves to find the preferable T-shirts. Our system observed typically the time of three actions, "Look at", "Touch" and "Take" a T-shirt. In this study, we have tried to estimate the dominant features with each consumer through suggest the approach to recommend information in consideration of personal dominant features from observation and analysis of shopping behavior to perform suitable assistance.

This study investigates consumers’ emotions elicited by a product with different levels of semantics and their neural responses. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were used to collect emotional signals. As stimuli, products were distinguished into three Semantics categories (i.e. icon, index, and symbol) of possible referential associations.