HCI in Business, Government and Organizations. Interacting with Information Systems

In this paper, we review the development of the Advanced Nuclear Interface Modeling Environment (ANIME). ANIME was developed over the course of four years to support prototyping of distributed control system (DCS) interfaces for the Human System Simulation Laboratory (HSSL), a full-scale control room simulator at Idaho National Laboratory. Originally, ANIME consisted of software code developed to facilitate formative design of replacement control systems for legacy control rooms at nuclear power plants. ANIME was found to be an effective tool to test design concepts prior to formal system specification and deployment. ANIME, which is based on Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) libraries, allowed rapid application development that could be evaluated using operator-in-the-loop studies in the HSSL. These software tools for modernizing control room interfaces were also used to develop the novel Computerized Operator Support System (COSS) interface, which allows advanced prognostics and visualization. Over time, additional opportunities led to the development of a more extensive library of tools, including support for microworld simulation.

How can different types of emails be perceived by readers as different leadership styles? Is email content understood as a part of leadership? How can emails develop or destroy the e-leadership? This research tries to answer these questions. It studies the influence on what work and their involvement in their job represents for employees through the different kinds of e-communications used by supervisors. Three scenarios that represent three different kinds of e-communications sent by email from a direct supervisor were designed to relate to Transformational, Transactional and Laissez-Faire leadership styles. A questionnaire measuring (a) motivation to succeed on a project, (b) emotional commitment to superior, (c) perceived performance and (d) perceived interpersonal justice were associated with the three scenarios. Scenarios and questionnaires were submitted to 51 employees. They had to put in the state of mind of the employee who receives the three kinds of e-communication, then they had to answer the questionnaire. The results show that there are real differences in the perception of leadership. Emails sketching characteristics of transactional and transformational leaderships had significantly higher scores than emails drawing on a “Laissez-faire” type leadership; i.e. (a) motivation to achieve and succeed in a project, (b) emotional commitment, (c) perceived performance of the employee, and (d) perceived interpersonal justice become higher when the emails seem to be more related to transactional and transformational e-leaderships. Hence, this paper underlines the important effect of leaders’ e-communication on the subordinates’ perceptions about their own work through the measurement of perceived performance and motivation, but also their hierarchical relationship through their perceived interpersonal justice and their emotional commitment.

Along with the industrial progress and the improvement of life quality, the product functionality and usability have become the basic demands. The modern users lay more emphasis on pleasure, special use experience and memory empathy brought by the products. Miryoku engineering is a research which helps designers better understand customers’ specific perceptual cognition and then catch a relatively accurate preference of customers. Miryoku engineering advocators suggested a new perspective on human emotions, i.e. the use of adjectives to represent various emotions. In this study, firstly using the Evaluation Grid Chart of Miryoku Engineering, the author interviewed participants who were over 30 years old and had studied industrial design for more than five years, to catch the personal cognition of attractiveness of E-scooter. In order to make the attractive factors more representative, the author used the KJ Method to simplify the items. These evaluation items were selected to form the questionnaire in the next step. Attractive factors of E-scooter appearance were led into “Fuzzy Kano Model”(FKM) and entitled with particular “quality attributes” to explore the relationship between attractive factors and customer satisfaction. 10 attractive factors were selected as evaluation index items, participant feelings were investigated with bidirectional questionnaire, influences of attractive factors on consumer satisfaction were verified through calculating.

The paper is focusing on human–robot cooperation in work environments from the perspective of genuine sociological insights regarding human–robot interaction. Due to the typical range of application of robots, aspects of work safety were so far mainly emphasized as an issue of avoiding somatic harm. However, when it comes to social robots and to the design of settings of straight human-robot cooperation cognitive aspects should be taken into consideration. A crucial aspect for human-robot interaction (HRI) in work environments is avoiding strong routinization and a strong reduction in the human’s attention. Especially if the robot is assuming a large workload the stated problem could arise and pose danger to safety. Systematically induced crisis in terms of confronting the humans with credible contingency in the form of small amounts of unexpected behavior could be a very effective solution. The humans cooperating with robots are not involved in a behavioral crisis in an everyday sense; the term “crisis” is used in a ethnomethodological meaning to describe a robot behavior that slightly surprises the human user. To achieve this goal and the intended benefit, the robot simply must act in such a way that is somewhat different from the human’s expectations. When expectations do not meet with such surprise after a fair amount of interaction experience, humans automatically tend toward routinization.

Information systems (IS) users may learn to use IS through training, but may not be able to solve IS problems that arise. This may be because of limited skills and knowledge of IS problem-solving strategies to resolve these issues. Although previous IS research has studied various aspects of training and trainers as well as the influence on performance outcomes, research has not specifically focused on training problem-solving techniques or behaviors. Considering the potentially negative outcomes from being unable to resolve IS problems, such as inaccuracies or inefficiencies in performance outcomes, this research proposes to address this gap. Research studies have demonstrated that behavioral interventions, such as prompting and transfer of stimulus control, have influenced the use of desired behaviors in specific as well as novel situations. Prompting encourages the desired behavior to be utilized, the desired behavior can then be reinforced for continuous use, and prompting is eventually removed and stimulus control is transferred to a natural stimulus (e.g., IS problem). This research intends to evaluate the effectiveness of prompting and transfer of stimulus control to enhance users’ sense of empowerment, efforts to solve IS problems, and performance outcomes. Therefore, this study intends to provide insights on methods of improving IS users abilities to solve IS problems by increasing users’ sense of empowerment and problem-solving behaviors when utilizing software applications with the use of specific behavioral interventions (i.e., prompting and transfer of stimulus control).

In this paper, we examine the link between the virtual world attributes and real world economic variables. Specifically, we employ three cyber game attributes: playtime, in-game level and achievement (in terms of accomplished ‘missions’) as the measurements of cyber games participation. We explore the spatial variation of cyber game participation with respect to real world variables including gross regional product per capita, household dispensable income, unemployment rate, number of movie theaters per capita, etc. Moreover, we also study the effects of environmental variables such as precipitation, air pollution etc. on cyber games participation. Using the game data from a very popular cyber game in China and prefecture-level data in 2011, our empirical results show that the income and the availability of other leisure activities are negatively associated with cyber game participation.

The proliferation of psychological and psychophysiological metrics, data collection techniques, and data analysis strategies used throughout psychological research of operator performance presents cross-study synthesis complications. Currently, the lack of defined and established standardizations in psychological and psychophysiological research continues to present challenges to researchers studying an array of interrelated constructs. Without standardizations, differences in measurement implementation, data reduction techniques, and the interpretation of results make it difficult to directly compare studies and reach unequivocal conclusions while synthesizing literature and transfer laboratory findings to field-ready applications.

One of the challenges associated with the use of physiological signals as an evaluation tool in measuring user experience (UX) is their reduced usefulness when they are not specifically associated with user behavior. To address this challenge, we have developed a new evaluation tool which contextualizes users’ physiological and behavioral signals while interacting with a system. We have conducted interviews with 11 UX practitioners, from various industries, to evaluate the usefulness of our tool. Through these interviews we gained a better understanding of the challenges facing industry practitioners when using physiological measures and assessed the functionalities provided by our tool.

A human readiness levels (HRL) scale provides a framework to factor in the human dimension during technology development. This framework promotes careful consideration of the human as a part of the system throughout the product lifecycle. Insufficient attention to the human component of the system can lead to added costs, delayed deliverables, system failure, and even the loss of human life in high-consequence systems. We make the economic and technical justification for using an HRL scale by evaluating a reactive case study within a national laboratory. We create a historical technology readiness level (TRL) adoption roadmap to forecast a potential HRL adoption roadmap. We identify characteristics of organizations that are most likely to adopt the scale and conclude by recommending several project management tactics to ensure successful implementation.

Context-awareness endows mobile devices and services with the capability of interacting with users in an efficient, intelligent, natural and smart fashion. Consequently, context-awareness makes a significant difference to mobile HCI. However, the challenges brought by context-awareness to users of mobile devices are rarely examined in depth. In this paper, previous conceptions of context and their contribution to context-awareness in mobile HCI is scrutinized and a preliminary context-computer interaction (CCI) model is advanced to illustrate the interaction characterized by mobile context-awareness. Furthermore, the paper examines the limitations of information processing models and review alternative models of context. We also address user experience challenges related to the enablement of mobile context-awareness and highlight avenues for future research issues. Specifically, we found that context-awareness has been employed broadly in developing applications and services on mobile platform, has had a huge impact on mobile user experience, and has altered the interaction between humans and computers by giving the latter a more active role to play. The significance of context-awareness in the usage of mobile systems calls for systematic and in-depth appreciation of its impact on mobile HCI.

The positive significance of consumers involving in enterprise NPD has been generally realized. But the involvement condition in each stage of the NPD and involving modes remain to be further research. This paper USES field experience and questionnaire survey to research consumers involving in Chinese SMEs NPD. Main content includes typical stages of NPD, which NPD stages consumers are involved in and should be involved in, and involving mode in each NPD stage, etc. Based on the investigation results, a case study of integrated consumers into wardrobe, umbrella stand and clothes rack design is carried out on a Chinese furniture enterprise. Customer is involved in multiple stages of NPD, in which crowd- sourcing model based on web2.0 has been applied. The application introducing customer in stages of NPD has been achieved good results.

The aim of this study is to develop an integrative understanding of the factors fostering communication activities in co-innovation networks. Participants in these social networks must communicate actively to foster collaboration and idea generation, but communication may not develop naturally, even if the platform provides the software features to do so. This study clarifies the mechanism underlying the relationship between co-innovation platform affordances and communication. We explored the role of sociotechnical affordances, social experience, and desire for learning that are believed to influence individuals’ continuous communication intentions. We outline how social technology affordances that enable socialization may affect actors experience and behavior and ultimately the co-innovation outcomes. We conclude with a discussion of future explorations of this perspective.

The organizational stability of Parliaments comes in direct contradiction with rapid progress in digital technology in recent decades, particularly in the ICT domain. By participating in a series of networking activities through European funded research programs, the Hellenic Parliament and the Austrian Parliament have placed themselves in the forefront of parliamentary innovation. This paper will focus on these activities and relevant findings on their impact, citizen adoption and application-to-end-user acceptance, where end users are parliaments and citizens alike. A range of technological challenges that modern Parliaments face and discrete actions of parliamentary innovation will also be shown. Finally, the paper will present the prospects that arise from the use of the latest ICT technologies in Parliaments. We shall also examine limitations in the use of such tools and shall propose potential areas of technological research and innovation for parliamentary application.

The goal of the study is to fulfill the gap and examine the usability of a well-known e-learning program, Moodle, from the perspective of course instructors. In particular, the study put emphasis on analyzing the difficult tasks for expert and novice users. A multiple data collection method was used to understand the difficult tasks and the possible reasons behind them. Participants were recruited from across disciplines in a university setting. Overall, 8 teaching assistants (TA) who have past Moodle teaching experience and 8 TAs with non-Moodle experience were recruited. A round of 18 usability tasks was carried out, post-task interviews were conducted, and finally a survey with 25 questions was administered to the participants. The research identified five main types of difficulties that experts and novices encountered. Essentially, failed connection between users’ conceptual model and the structuring and labeling of the interface brings the greatest difficulty for both groups of users. Past experiences and knowledge that experts retrieved from pre-existing cognitive categories were found not applicable for problem solving. Experts were not able to recognize features and meaningful patterns on Moodle. Lastly, the complicated editing system embedding in the interface was difficult for novices to figure out ways to complete needed tasks. The findings of the study bring further understandings and implications for online platform designs as well as for advancing and supporting the development of intelligent interactive systems in future applications.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as disruptive innovation attract attention from both researchers and practitioners. This research selected ten popular MOOCs websites and explored primary sponsors, customer segments, and revenue models of each case. The paper further discussed the impact of MOOCs on higher education.

Italian Opera is renowned the world over. It has recently been proposed for nomination to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and still, though confronted with sustainability issues, cooperates in typifying Italy as a cultural tourism destination. This paper focuses on Italian Opera Houses, comparing their mobile web strategies, in terms of the mobile friendliness of their websites and their m-commerce models, in the frame of a global and generational competition. Besides, availability of English content for an international audience is specifically considered. Results confirm some general trends in web communication and marketing – namely a predominance of responsiveness within technical solutions, and outsourcing among e-commerce policies – and highlight weak points. The study was based on a systematic process and free web tools, that can be used for other sorts of cultural heritage institutions, like theatres, museums, art collections, or historic sites.

Wearable technology devices (WTDs) record exercise activity and capture vital health statistics. These details can be shared with healthcare providers to monitor patients, manage chronic illness and save lives. The adoption of these devices continues to grow, but so does their abandonment. Within the context of healthcare, protection motivation theory (PMT) explains that individuals seek to protect themselves from health threats that they perceive to be severe. We combine this theory with the unified theory of adoption in order to investigate the factors that motivate individuals to adopt WTD to manage their health. The results of the quantitative study show that consumers need to be convinced that the data collected from these devices can lead to improved health outcomes.

Virtual doctor visiting technology has expanded dramatically around the world, which has the potential to alter the delivery of healthcare, the quality of patient experiences, and the cost of healthcare. In this study, we conducted a content analysis of the online reviews of five popular mobile healthcare systems. 257 patients’ reviews of virtual consultation experience were collected and analyzed by two coders independently. This study aims at exploring why people are willing to see doctors online, examining different dimensions of healthcare quality, and recommending design features of virtual consultation systems. The results of the research show that there are different dimensions of healthcare quality in the context of virtual consultation as compared to traditional doctor visits. We generated nine factors of healthcare quality based on the content analysis, of which two factors related to convenience and consultation time (e.g., the time spent for registration, time spent for making an appointment, etc.) are most important in influencing people’s satisfaction towards using virtual consultation systems. In addition, we found three critical limitations of current virtual consultation systems, which include insurance, customer service and follow-up service. The results shed light on how to improve patients’ satisfaction with virtual consultation systems that would be of interest to healthcare providers. This study also broadens the academic body of healthcare quality in the context of virtual consultation that can contribute as the basis for future research.

By 2018, mHealth apps would have been downloaded by 50% of the more than 3.4 billion global smartphone and tablet users. As existing challenges to adoption are allayed, empirical evidence for factors that most predict successful adoption of mHealth apps will be useful to inform and guide the trajectory of mHealth development. To date, most research has looked into clinician perception of mHealth apps. However, only 2% of mHealth apps target healthcare providers/insurance, while the remainder target patients and other consumers [1]. This study was conducted to examine the following: What factors predict adoption of mHealth apps? Participants (n = 11) between ages of 18 to 65 were recruited. A cross-sectional, qualitative interview methodology was used to investigate the research question. The UTAUT2 model for technology adoption and continued use was used to inform the interview guide. Closed coding, thematic analysis and co-occurrence analysis were performed to identify factors. Performance expectancy, effort expectancy and habit were the most relevant constructs that predict adoption of mHealth apps. Flexibility of app to personal preferences positively contributes to performance expectancy. Usage of a specific feature is influenced by user’s assessment of relevance to subjective overall health, or interest. Perception of limited features/value may lead to user boredom and use discontinuation. Social influence and hedonic motivation were the least directly implicated factors. Most participants were unwilling to purchase apps before a trial period. Emergent factors include trust for technology/information, required time for interaction with app, privacy of personal information/data, and app-generated feedback.

E-learning has received considerable attentions in both universities and enterprises. However, a few related studies have advocated the benefits of social features as an important factor of E-learning but have not explored much further. In this work, we utilize social support theory to argue that embedding the social features into e-learning system is necessary and appropriate. Collectively, potential direction of e-learning has been simple summarized from theoretical and practical prospect. We hope our reviews on current literatures can benefit both scholars and practitioners.

The increasing spread of mobile technologies provides educators and developers with more opportunities for creating a wider range of education tools. In this paper we propose a game-based language learning system called ADVENTURE to improve the learners’ skills for language learning and self-motivation to learn. Firstly we introduce a focus group conducted to understand learners’ needs and language learning behavior, then we review some of the background research works in the field of gamification and language learning. Following the research finding and user study, the paper presents the design and development of ADVENTURE which creates immersive experience for language learners. The application adds not only the gamification elements included game mechanism and the aesthetics but also the elements in the process of learning. The final output reaches the target of improving the learning efficiency and interesting the progress of learning.

Smart Interactive Textiles combine the warmth and omnipresence of textiles in our everyday lives with the benefits of modern information and communication technologies. The potential of innovation is not only based on technical ingenuity, but also on the consideration and embedding of peoples’ fears, requirements, desires, and wishes regarding these innovative technologies. Thus, the development of smart interactive textiles requires the expertise of various disciplines. Foremost, appropriate conductive yarns must be selected and integrated into conventional fabrics. Sensors and actuators must be embedded in textiles in a way that they could be used as a user interface. The design of these textiles should meet human needs and should enable an intuitive, easy to learn, and effective interaction. To meet these requirements, potential users should be part of the development and evaluation processes of innovative smart textiles. In this article, we present a research framework that integrates several interdisciplinary perspectives (interface design, textile technology, integration and automation, communication and human factors). We realized three functional smart textile demonstrators (curtain, chair, jacket). We report on the results of this interdisciplinary research project as well as the research questions and key findings of the individual partners. In summary, this article demonstrates that interdisciplinary cooperation, user-centered and participatory design, and iterative product development are necessary for successful innovative technologies.

Smartglasses are in use at manifold workplace settings. A relatively new scenario is the usage of the glasses while driving forklift-trucks. The adaption of methodologies for a data-based risk assessment – in terms of distraction and line-of-sight obstructions – is the aim of the study. The prohibition of the specific use of the glasses is a possible result on one hand. On the other hand the development of recommendations for a safe adoption of the devices to the workplace, is a more likely consequence.

With the increasing prevalence of recommendation engine in social media, more research attention have been shifted towards understanding how can we influence better product evaluation from social media users. Multiple aspects of the design of the social media website have been extensively examined. However, in this study, we take a novel perspective by looking at the influence of users’ actual physical behavior (bodily movement) during a viewing session. Three experiments are designed to examine how different trackpad orientations (natural vs. reversed) of laptop influence consumers’ evaluation and memory of the recommended product displayed in social media. We predict that natural trackpad orientation will cause distinct perceptions of information processing fluency, resulting in differences in their evaluations and memories of the products online. The results are expected to show that when using natural scrolling, the high level of processing fluency are more likely to induce more positive evaluations but worse memory. In addition, we will demonstrate that shopping motivation will moderate the relationship. When consumers are conducting goal-oriented online shopping, the superior (inferior) effect of fluency on evaluation (memory) for natural orientation over reversed orientation will be weakened.

Forklift drivers are required to work as quickly as possible while simultaneously being aware of humans crossing in front of the forklift. Many accidents in warehouses occur due to driver stress or negligence, some of which result in human injury. To reduce or prevent these accidents, solutions have been proposed to attempt to predict upcoming collisions. Since they are configured too sensitively, they display too many warnings, which causes them to be turned off by drivers. The research reported in this paper aims to reduce those accidents by using the latest camera technologies in combination with computer vision methods. A time-of-flight camera is used, which provides 2D as well as 3D data. The 2D data is used to detect humans in the driving path by using a support vector machine. Distinguishing between humans and other factors such as the storage facility allows a two-level warning system to be realized. The aim of this system is to allow warnings to be configured more sensitively when persons are in sight. The 3D data is used to calculate possible collisions and to segment the 2D image. The results presented in this paper focus on how the person detection with a support vector machine can be realized and optimized.

Human interaction with a public display presupposes a person’s attention. An Interactive display, hence, aims at attracting attention by e.g. emitting a strong signal that makes the inattentive visitor turn towards it. The challenge in this regard is to reliably determine the attention of passers-by. In this article, we investigate different technical methods for estimating attention in a public display scenario by measuring physical expressive features, from which attention can be derived. In the course of an experimental setup we compare a Support Vector Machine, a neural network using a Multilayer Perceptron and a Finite State Machine and compare the results to a manual reference classification. We carve out strengths and weaknesses and identify the most feasible measuring method with regard to precision of recognition and practical application.

Released in the summer of 2016, Pokémon Go is one of the world’s most downloaded applications. Using augmented reality technology, this game has become the latest craze among young people and adults. However, it has also caused several accidents because of players getting distracted while walking. Following the research that has been conducted on texting while walking, it would be interesting to compare the risks arising from gaming while walking. This research therefore compares dangerous behaviors exhibited in three conditions using a smartphone while walking, Pokémon Go with augmented reality, Pokémon Go without, and texting while walking. We can conclude that playing Pokémon Go, with and without augmented reality, leads to more dangerous behaviors overall than texting. We also observe the appearance of a new risky behavior when playing Pokémon Go that is unseen in texting while walking, abrupt stops.

Prolonged sedentary work is increasingly discussed as a health risk factor for developing musculoskeletal disorders and cardiovascular diseases. Dynamic workstations are a modern concept to combine light physical activity and desk-based office work. Their effects are evaluated under laboratory conditions but research in occupational settings is limited. This pilot study examined the effects of two dynamic workstations, the Deskbike and the activeLife Trainer regarding aspects of lending and usage and physiological effects. Preliminary results for 8 male subjects show general interest in using these stations and an increased heart rate and energy expenditure compared to working while seated.

To minimize the risk of distracted driving, drivers will take compensatory behaviors, such as deceleration and raising mental efforts. Moreover, it has been proved to be significantly different between voluntary and involuntary distractions which worth further exploration. Therefore, this study carried out an experiment of mobile communication distracted behaviors in simulated driving environment among 34 nonprofessional drivers. Independent variables include two triggers of driving distraction and two communication ways of mobile phone with complete within-subjects design. Dependent variables contain four dimensions, including driving behaviors, physiological indexes, mobile phone usage and NASA task load index (NASA-TLX). The results of vehicle driving simulator experiment reveal that drivers will take compensatory behaviors when taking driving distraction tasks, and the degree of compensatory behaviors is significantly different between voluntary and involuntary driving distraction. Generally, drivers would like to compensate more under involuntary driving distraction than voluntary driving distraction. The results of this paper give a new way to improve driving safety.

New forms of technological work assistance can help to handle the increasing amount and availability of information and support the decision-making processes of employees by providing context-sensitive information. When looking at the vision of Augmented Reality especially binocular see-through smart glasses can be useful for this purpose. Therefore, a strong focus should be put on the analysis of information and interaction design as well as its influence on cognitive load and visual comfort when using it in the working environment. Consequently, two systematic reviews are implemented to examine how to ensure the usability of smart devices and which influence factors on human strain exist due to the information and interaction design of smart glasses. The aim of the reviews is to identify the need of further research in the mentioned topics and derive an experimental setup for investigations on binocular see-through smart glasses. Results indicate that the established usability methods and criteria of conventional screen work are still adequate, but they have to be adjusted to the rapid development of new technologies. As potential influence factors on human strain the accommodation-convergence conflict and the positioning of information for primary as well as secondary task instructions are identified. Furthermore, the question arises, if the possibility to individualize the information provision based on users’ needs is helpful to support learning effects and optimize mental strain. Therefore a laboratory study will be carried out, which investigate the described effects. The experimental setup of the study is presented in this paper.

Previous research showed that reaction time (RT) on driving related stimuli did not return to its performance level as per baseline immediately after periods of distraction. In this paper, a Detection Response Task (DRT) experiment is reported, implemented to investigate performance differences across different phases of driver distraction: before, during and post-distraction. Different task types were implemented (cognitive and primarily visual-manual) to venture whether these types were associated with differences in the speed at which drivers were able to respond to visual stimuli during the aforementioned phases.