HCI International 2014 - Posters’ Extended Abstracts

In this paper we present a web application that exploits OpeNER Cloud Services. Ent-it-UP monitors Social Media and traditional Mass Media contents, performing multilingual Named Entity Recognition and Sentiment Analysis. Since consumers tend to trust the opinion of other consumers, reviews and ratings on the internet are increasingly important. Given the huge amount of data flowing in the web, it has become necessary to adopt an automatic data analysis strategy, in order to understand what people think about a certain product, brand or topic. The goal of Ent-it-Up is to carry out statistics about retrieved entities and display results in a communicative, intuitive and user friendly interface. In this way the final user can easily have a hint about people opinions without wasting too much time in analyzing the huge amount of User-Generated Content.

Usability of computer games is essential for the competitive game development market. Heuristic evaluation is one of the frequently used methods for this purpose. In this study, heuristic evaluation of Guild Wars 2 was conducted. Heuristics that were specifically developed for computer games from the literature were extracted for the evaluation under five categories. These were ease of playability and learnability, decent visual design and adequate interaction with the player, adequate satisfaction level of game content, game play and game mechanics, adequate fictionalized and supportive game narrative and adequate communication components and socializing opportunities. Six evaluators evaluated the game based on the given heuristics. The participants reported some usability issues which should be resolved.

The main idea developed here is how to involve people to promote a new behavior to economize water as supported by the local authorities process. Usually, the population is affected by the cities policies when they are subject to fines related to high water use during times of crisis. Then the local authorities impose solutions without consultations of concerned communities. This top-down process is often considered as imposed by the mayor or the local authority and may lead to bad feeling by the population and is not corresponding to a new societal behavior in the social web era. We will suggest a new way to involve the population using the social media as a new approach to imply them in this process. This information can be conveyed and shared with the public in such way to support mayor or authorities policies. In other way we will propose a new approach using social media processes as a node in the first hand to encourage the population to participate to the debate and to fit a new solution encouraging all population to get part of the policies adopted based on a bayesian approach.

Photo Polling (PP) Wall is an interactive polling system in which community members can express and share their ideas on certain subjects through public displays, mobile devices, and social network services. The PP wall system will be a combination of multimedia services (sound effect), public display, mobile web service and client & server. With these features, we propose the PP wall system as an experimental platform for developing other interactive contents.

Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer payment system and digital currency, has seen much growth and controversy in the four years since its introduction. Yet, despite Bitcoin’s growing importance, little is known about its users. Our research explores what type of people use this domain and what concepts they tend to emphasize in their language. We analyzed over 50,000 messages from over 6,000 users of the social networking community, Twitter. Our analyses show a consistent pattern that people interested in Bitcoin are far less likely to emphasize social relations than typical users of the site. Specifically, Bitcoin followers (1) are less likely to mention family, friends, religion, sex, and emotion related words in their tweets and (2) have significantly less social connection to other users on the site. These findings offer the first empirical look at what exactly makes Bitcoin users distinct from others and can have implications for the future of the currency.

Media plays a key role in ensuring freedom of expression which is an essential foundation for democracy. The emerging e-society poses pressing challenges for accessibility to public media on the Web. In this project we focus on The Norwegian Broadcasting Cooperation’s Website, NRK.no and study the possible accessibility issues and solutions using heuristic evaluation and focus group interviews with users.

As online SNS market has rapidly grown in recent years, the user preference has shifted from open SNS to private SNS which provides closer, more private communication space. Also, the age group of users has expanded to those in their 50s and above, forming a network with real-names and social relationships on a daily basis. Based on various ties, achievement, and social status built offline, the seniors are integrating their online and offline identity. Thus, this study has examined their private SNS usage patterns to explore how the SNS influences their interpersonal and social relationships, in terms of adding new characteristics. The ultimate goal of this study is to improve and enhance the social relationships of seniors offline through private SNS to boost their life satisfaction by expanding their social ties.

In this paper, we discuss a mobile, context-aware platform for people to request and/or carry out microtasks in urban spaces. The proposed platform is based on our analysis of the activities of people in urban spaces including public transport environments, and considers various contextual factors to recommend relevant microtasks to citizens.

Military intelligence communities need to collect, process and disseminate information as quickly and efficiently as possible, for example in answering requests for information by commanders. Currently, the flow of information between the field and intelligence communities is hampered by disparities in the integration of the various components of the information chain. We propose to create a hub for information exchange called SOPHIE, where information from heterogeneous sources comes together. This hub proactively notifies military users to relevant information based on their profile. In addition, users can search or browse available information products and consult experts to receive quick answers to their information requests.

Is it possible to utilize psychological profiling through social network analysis to identify potential corporate insider threats? This research will aim to provide corporate information security teams with techniques capable of recognizing the signs of an insider threat.

Information can be delivered to a target person with maximum efficacy via a specific information transferer. We developed a compass system that established an anonymous method to analogize in-city acquaintances and used location information and each visitor’s smartphone to detect analogically the significant influencers of a target person. Based on the data regarding information transferred between group members and their location history, we derived a model for estimating how acquaintances influence each other in a social group and for locating influencers.

This poster will detail step-by-step instructions for building a virtually augmented classroom curriculum for an undergraduate college course. Information will be provided on choosing a virtual environment, defining the parameters of a virtual course assignment, training students and instructors on using a virtual environment, setting up the virtual environment (e.g., installing applications, running a private or public server, hosting solutions, etc.), and grading a virtual assignment. Best practices will be discussed and the results of a qualitative study using undergraduate students and a virtual course assignment will be presented.

In this study which was carried out by Ege University, it was evaluated mass distance learning activities, both calitatively and cantitatively.

A fundamental objective of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is to design a system that provides the user with a positive experience. This is achieved by matching the experience with the user’s personal aims and goals. This study adopts a Virtual Environment setting for teaching the Islamic prayer to primary school children.

In this paper, we present a novel idea of converting pedagogical text documents to visual learning objects by automatically extracting nouns and semantic keywords from the text documents, and representing these keywords as a word cloud. A word cloud contains words that are weighted based on frequency, time, appearance, etc., depending on the concept they are used for. Each word in the word cloud would correspond to a visual representation of that word. A visual representation may contain drawings, figures, images, etc. that explains the given concept. The extracted keywords are used to query the Internet to find the corresponding visual representation of a given word. The idea is to bring text documents to life by creating a visual representation of the important concepts from the text documents. This paper is a work in progress.

It is required for a clinic engineer to have highly professional knowledge as well as skills for the operation of medical machines. Such knowledge and skills are normally difficult to master only by teaching and practicing at universities with limited time. Therefore, it is expected to have new training system supported by advanced computer system using the information and communication technology (ICT). In this study, a training system with ICT for clinical engineer was constructed. With the system, several problems in operating medical machines were made clear, and solutions and proposals for such problems were given with examples.

This paper examines building of the course ontology for describing and organizing hyperlinked pedagogical content. The ontology is used to structure and classify multimedia learning objects (MLO) in hyperlinked pedagogical platform called HIP, and to assist students to search for lectures and other teaching materials in a reasonable time and more efficiently. In addition, this paper proposes a new approach to improve the classification performance by enhancing the information representation model using concepts from the pedagogical course domain ontology. The model will automatically estimate weight of concepts within the ontology, and it will combine the weight with concepts’ importance which is calculated using Term Frequency Inverse Document Frequency –

tf*idf

algorithm. This paper is a work in progress. We are in process of creating and implementing the course ontology and an experiment will be conducted to evaluate the classification performance in terms of efficiency and effectiveness for the approach proposed in this paper.

Learning process in arithmetic word problem consists of three learning steps; extracting key numbers from problem text, creating equations, and deriving the answers of equations. When learning with computer using digital learning tools, learners sometimes are not able to concentrate on the learning since they have to move their eyes frequently between several learning tools, such as a tool that displays problem text and a memo tool. This research aims at developing a learning interface that consists of textbook window and memo window and a support functions that realize smooth learning with minimum eye movements between them. In the textbook window, learners can select key numbers by selecting them using a mouse. Selected numbers are copied to the memo window automatically. After learners create equations and derive answers in memo window, descriptions in memo window are copied to the textbook window automatically. Based on these functions, learners’ unnecessary eye movements between two windows can be reduced.

Based on the developmental transitions proposed by Stafylidou and Vosniadou (2004), three training sessions were created using the Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools. The purpose was to compare the effects of two external representations on fraction understanding and interpretation, compared to a control group that received no training. The participants in the experimental groups were trained in creating external and symbolic representations for fractions using pies or number lines. Results indicated that participants in the experimental groups had greater improvement from pretest to post-test than the control group. The number line experimental group had greater improvement in tasks testing fraction equivalence and fraction interpretation as measure than the pie experimental group. Based on the results of the classroom experiment and the resulting User Requirements, the proposed interface was further reinforced with various sessions concerning fraction operations, including addition and subtraction. Special emphasis was placed on user-friendly and ergonomic interaction.

This study was primarily interested in dynamic interactions between instructors and an e-learning Management System (Blackboard) with specific focus on the discussion board forum. We examined how instructors seek information to assess students’ input in an e-learning discussion board forum and determined which pedagogical features need to be improved to facilitate instructional activities. The findings suggest that the ability to easily track and respond to students’ post is the most important instructional activity to instructors while reading student posts and replying to students are the most frequent instructional activities. Interacting with students and facilitating group discussion are the most difficult instructional activities. Therefore, this study indicated that Blackboard discussion board designers may need to improve discussion board pedagogical features to make interaction with students and facilitating group discussion more convenient and accessible for instructors who must now forage for the information they need to assess student contributions.

One of the most promising recent advancements in education has been the extensive inclusion of technology. Educational technology focuses profoundly on how to encourage teachers to integrate technology in the curriculum; however, teachers do not often apply technology as it should be according to its affordability. Two of the teachers’ reasons for not using technology in the class are typically related to their beliefs and knowledge. The aim of the present review was to understand the relationship between teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and knowledge with the integration of technology to improve technology use in education. We developed a model to support the integration of technology and students in classrooms by focusing on teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and knowledge. According to this study, the roles of teachers are facilitating students in acquiring technology-related knowledge, motivating them for using technology, and creating situation where students should integrate technology in learning.

The term acculturation refers to the result of the processes of adopting the cultural traits or social patterns of another group. Although not all groups undergo acculturation in the same method, the underlying hypothesis is that there will be two main components to how acculturation takes places. It is projected that attitudes and behaviors are the two main components that determine the level of acculturation (Berry, 2005). Using this principle, there will be multiple trials of experimentation to prove or disapprove this hypothesis. Ultimately, this paper will focus on defining a measure of acculturation and reporting how our experimentation methods will affect international students with acculturation.

This paper describes our project to construct wireless Comput-er-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) classroom under non-wired settings in Japan. In 1990s, so-called CALL system began to be introduced into Japanese educational settings. The system was mainly wired desktop-based system. After two decades, administrators of the system have to decide what to do with the system; replace or abolish. It is needless to say that it costs extremely a lot for replacement. In the current paper, a new possibility is suggested: change into the wireless CALL classroom, where tablet computers will be used under wireless circumstances. We would like to describe out system model and point out some issues on login.

The objective of this study is to reveal the relationship between affective factors and musical learning in computer-aided learning situation. Musical learning is a dynamic, integrated process which encompasses cognitive, psychomotor, and affective learning domains. While most studies on computer-aided musical learning tend to highlight cognitive and psychomotor factors, this study focuses on affective factors and experimentally investigates how these factors can influence visual, auditory, and audiovisual learning efficiency. This study contributes to computer-aided musical learning research by focusing on affective factors, which have been previously neglected in this field of study, proposing a new model of computer-aided musical learning systems. Additionally, by adopting affective computing methods to a platform specially optimized to create interactive sound, this study provides a new possibility of quantification of emotional changes when experiencing and learning music.

There is a need to find out how to enhance the effect of a generally successful inquiry approach in schools. In our study, we hypothesized that supporting students’ reflection could have a positive effect on their general inquiry knowledge, transformative inquiry skills, and domain-related knowledge. A scenario-based complex technology-enhanced learning environment called Science Created by You was used by 54 students (age, 14–18 years). The results demonstrated that students’ general inquiry knowledge, transformative inquiry skills, and domain-related knowledge all improved statistically significantly; however, no changes were found in reflective activities—in analyzing inquiry, in assessing the value of analysis, and in considering alternative solutions. Indeed, students’ domain-related skills were associated with reflection. The students with a higher level of knowledge analyzed their inquiry more often, and they considered more often alternative solutions of inquiry. No associations were found between domain-related knowledge and inquiry knowledge or skills.

We give the electronic textbook (e-textbook) that the student can edit. When the student understands hearing the teacher’s explanation, leaving only an important term, and obscuring the part where it explains it on the e-textbook, they remakes the textbook into them notebook. Because work to copy the content of the blackboard disappears and the teacher’s explanation can be heard enough, the student can be expected to acquire knowledge in a short time. The WEB application that remakes the e-textbook into the notebook has developed. Now added the function of self-study work at home. The function makes problem-solving exercise automatically with reduced e-textbook content. The marked up items on e-textbook collect for selector that use in exercise. The student keep trying problem-solving exercise by new problem. The function provides learning opportunities for self-study work.

The use of interactive white boards has become more and more popular in educational settings. Despite their superior features to traditional counterparts, it is known that they are very expensive. Therefore, in this study, a lower cost interactive whiteboard application is developed by using Microsoft’s Kinect which provides a natural interaction mechanism that eliminates the need of various interaction devices. However it has some problems in transforming the real world coordinates into virtual environment in addition to its robustness problem in detection and recognition. A solution is developed for fixing the transformation of the coordinates and robustness of the image processing issues and implemented to provide a lower cost interactive whiteboard in this research.

In this paper, we present a project aiming at designing a low-cost technological setup for translating real-life lectures into a 3D virtual world. We present the design of the first prototype where we record the voice of a lecturer, presentation slides, and use a motion-capture technique to grasp gestures. Based on these data, we create a scene in a 3D virtual world, display the slides, play the recorded sound, and animate the lecturer’s avatar. We discuss evaluation results and discovered limitations, and outline solutions. In addition, we propose the major types of learning scenarios for the use of the designed system.

This work describes the experimentation on the application of evaluation methodologies for creating metrics that evaluate the experience of the users of the Metalogue system as they learn and using them to validate the effective ability of the system to assess them. Pilot scenarios were formulated in order to effectively train the system to train the users on metacognitive skills learning. Usability design common approaches, such as focus groups and user experience needfinding sessions were used to collect the data.

At the present time, it exists a debate about neutrality of the resources, but far from this controversy, what is clear is that people who employ them, give them value and meaning in the context in which it is used. The use that teachers give them, are not exempt from neutrality, so we have to practice them in the proper use thereof. This reflection leads us to consider the initial teacher education and with it, the continuous learning, both of them necessary and essential so that their educational work can be of quality. As can be gleaned from the skills mentioned by several authors, in the application of ICT in education is necessary a technical training and a pedagogical training. We must accompany the accessibility of such resources with the educational use of them. We will be then really using an education that uses ICT in their methodology in teaching and learning. ICT opens a new way to access information and a great communicative bridge for contact and learning. But for the teachers being able to carry out this work properly, they must first know the procedure, so they should be one of the leading figures involved in the process of teaching and learning, therefore it can be updated in the knowledge that the ICT demands, a proper use to it. To check the level of ICT training of teachers in service, we have applied a questionnaire on several dimensions related to ICT in the classroom: knowledge of these resources, teaching methodology, resource selection, evaluation and training received. The study sample consists of 147 teachers from four regions and 9 Spanish provinces. The sample used has been a purposive sampling, selecting teachers who have attended a training course on the use of ICT. The results show several differences in the knowledge of the ICT in the Spanish territory and a high demand for specific training adapted to the reality of each center.

This paper explores the opportunities and challenges of integrating technology to support mathematics teaching and learning in creative engineering disciplines. We base our discussion on data from our research in the Media Technology department of Aalborg University Copenhagen, Denmark. Our analysis proposes that unlike in other engineering disciplines, technology in these disciplines should be used for contextualizing mathematics rather than introducing and exploring mathematical concepts.

An augmented reality (AR) technology was applied in connection with a method of projection mapping to display physical quantities on real experimental settings. Physical quantities such as force and velocity were visualized by AR objects and projected onto real objects in an experiment. This image projection onto real objects was found to be effective in such a case where a user manipulates the real object resulting in changes of the magnitudes of physical quantities and the object position. The time delay between the motion of projected AR objects and the video images of real objects was measured on a simple rotating bar object. It was found that the phase delay between the AR objects and the projected image of the real object increased with the angular velocity of the object. The present method seems to be most relevant to static or quasi-static content in which user manipulation is included.

This study aims to help learners read mathematical proofs. Mathematical proofs consist of propositions and are logically structured. The structure is based on inferences, i.e., a proposition as consequence is derived from propositions as premises. However, the structure is not always represented explicitly in proofs written in natural language, which prevents learners from understanding the proofs. Therefore, we develop a system that allows mathematics teachers or content providers to create diagrams illustrating logical structures of proofs based on natural deduction to provide learners a visual aid that improves their understanding. The diagrams created by our system display natural deduction and arrange additional information (e.g., symbol definitions or explanation to assist understanding) as comments. Further, the system has a function to add buttons to show/hide parts of the proof based on individual learners’ requirements. Further, we introduce the basic components of a diagram and the method to create it.

Digital publication is a useful and authoritative resource for knowledge and learning. How to use the knowledge in digital publication resources so as to enhance learning is an interesting and important task. Most of the recommender systems use users’ preferences or history data for computation, which cannot solve the problems such as cold start, scarcity of history data or preferences data. A semantic recommender system is presented in this paper based on encyclopedic knowledge from digital publication resources, without considering history data or preferences data for learning the knowledge of a specific domain. Semantic relatedness is computed between concepts from the encyclopedia. The related concepts are recommended to users when one concept is reviewed. The method shows potential usability for domain-specific knowledge service.

Applications being designed for disabled people so far are showing three main issues:

specific target user group

,

specialized user interface (UI)

and

interdependence problem

. In addition, three essential criteria do also affect the application’s usability, namely

time

,

efficiency

and

costs

. In order to overcome these problems, we propose a different perspective of User-Centered Design (UCD) by dividing and analyzing the UI architecture design process over three interdependent spaces: User, Need and application. Finally we provide the reader with an algorithmic guideline towards minimizing the interdependence issue between interaction modalities.

In this paper we present an iPhone application that facilitates the operation of detecting colors for blind and visually impaired people in real-time. In order to detect colors, we take the input from the device camera then we process pixel values to produce the color using HSL color space, the detected color will be displayed as label on screen as well as uttering it. Moreover, the application can view a set of colors that match a specific color to help blind people choosing clothes before promenading. We tested the application on a set of blind and visually impaired people to evaluate the application accuracy and usability. Our evaluation showed that the application provides high detection accuracy of colors in different lighting conditions. Furthermore, the application satisfies its users’ needs.

In recent years the number of free/open source Arabic Assistive Technology (AT) software has increased, yet they are scattered and hard to find. In order to provide Arab users with easy access to Arabic AT software, AT repositories are created. In this paper we report our experience in creating ACCESS - an Open Source/Freeware AT software repository for Arabic speaking users.

This paper shows the interface development process for learning objects interface of the “Accessible WebGD” – a Virtual Environment of Education-Learning. This environment is destined for people without disabilities and deaf or blind people. Thus, in the interface it will have different technological resources, for example, LIBRAS interpreter for deaf people; media with high contrast for people with low vision; narration and didactic materials in braille for blind people; and others accessible and inclusive actions.

Video games have become a tool for motivating players in performing tasks they would not otherwise perform. We present the use of video games controlled through XBOX KINECT, to facilitate rehabilitation of children with cerebral palsy. Specific movements to promote children’s rehabilitation of reduced balance and postural control were used with video games suitable for children between the ages of 5 – 12 years old. To evaluate the rehabilitation and motivation potential of the video games, a pilot study with 7 children between the ages of 9 – 12 years old was performed. The children played the aforementioned video games for 6 weeks, twice per week. Physiotherapists used the Paediatric Balance Scale to assess clinical their balance and postural control in 14 dynamic and static tasks before and after the experiment. The results are promising, both in terms of motivating children to attend their rehabilitation sessions, and in terms of rehabilitation potential.

Web authors have a hard time understanding and applying accessibility guidelines. The guidelines are considered too technical, without providing sufficient support for problem solving. This results in bad usability of Web applications for people who rely on accessibility. In the field of designing Web applications and interfaces, the concept of personas, as a representation of the target audience, is well established. Personas are typically used to describe the user on a personal level, with their needs, preferences and habits. In this poster, we illustrate a new workflow approach for accessibility evaluations. We propose persona-based representations of accessibility guidelines for acceptance tests of Web applications, for web authors to gain understanding on the needs of people with disabilities and thus improve the accessibility of Web applications.

A GPS-based smartphone application for blind users is proposed which will allow them to record pedestrian routes to frequently visited destinations (e.g., supermarket, neighborhood mosque, etc.) and to retrieve them later for autonomous navigation. Unlike similar systems, which simply provide a route to a specified destination based on existing GPS maps which may not contain detailed information especially about pedestrian paths and alleys, our software is unique in that it will allow users to record a customized path to a particular destination based on personal considerations such as whether the area surrounding the route is well-lit and well-populated, the unevenness of the terrain and the absence of hazards (such as traffic intersections). A distress call option and auditory cues about user-specified obstacles will also be provided. The objective is to develop a low-cost, portable solution based on easily accessible technology to assist blind users in their daily outdoor mobility tasks.

This paper introduces a Proof of Concept to demonstrate the feasibility and benefit of exploiting existing home management devices for disabled users. The model we present exploits an integrated platform exposing an API which can be utilized by a variety of User Interface approaches, including accessible Smartphones/tablets or more specialised hardware/software combinations. Future research will investigate the extent to which provision of suitable control technology can enhance feelings of wellbeing in disabled users, increase their independence, and enhance a sense of control over their living environment.

Given their visual nature, nonverbal social cues, such as facial and head movements, are largely inaccessible to individuals who are blind, limiting the information gleaned during interactions. While social assistive aids have explored some nonverbal cues, such as detecting and communicating facial expressions, relatively few nonverbal cues have been explored. A thorough and systematic study has yet to investigate the importance and usefulness of many nonverbal social cues for individuals who are blind. This work takes this first step by beginning to explore the nonverbal cue of agreement/disagreement as indicated by head/body movements including head nod, head shake, leaning forward and leaning backward. To facilitate the investigation of the usefulness of nonverbal cues for individuals who are blind, we propose the use of a Wizard of Oz experiment to rapidly evaluate nonverbal communications using existing technologies rather than building new and complete systems. We first explore the usefulness of agreement/disagreement nonverbal cues using our existing Social Interaction Assistant platform in which most of the seemingly automated processes were manually performed by a wizard without the knowledge of participants. We conducted an experiment with 11 individuals who are blind or visually impaired involving one-on-one interactions with trained interviewers. Results show the potential of agreement/disagreement nonverbal cues within the social interactions of individuals who are blind.

A system is presented that offers a set of complementary services based on text-to-speech technology. The services and the underlying system that supports them are described. These services include: (a) a service for automatic document-to-speech conversion via e-mail, (b) an open library of audio books, and (c) a dynamic audio news service. The system seeks to maximize the availability and the social impact of text-to-speech technology, making its benefits widely available to the public through open services that address important daily needs of persons with visual impairments and reading difficulties.

This paper outlines the design, implementation, and evaluation methodology of a location-aware application intended as an aid to blind users who navigate urban spaces. The application is used in the context of a soundwalk whose purpose is to enable these users to indicate their level of emotional involvement with particular sounds emanating from specific areas of the city and provide a backdrop to the users’ generation of place meaning based largely on auditory cues.

We have developed and evaluated a touch panel interface that provides tactile feedback depending on the surroundings. We attempt to provide map information for blind people and make the car navigation system replace the white cane for blind people. In the study, we emphasis on providing tactile feedback for blind users that reflects the surroundings. The design of the interface to tactile feedback is that the touch panel moves up and down with a touch position. Those movements provide the tactile feedback. In order to achieve the tactile feedback method, we have placed four servo motors at the four corners of the touch panel. The motors move up and down the panel. From the evaluation experiments, we have observed that it is possible for a blind user to recognize map information by touching the panel.

This paper reports on a study into the establishment of a medical sign language database.

When visiting a medical institution, hearing-impaired patients are sometimes accompanied by a sign language interpreter. The interpreter’s job is to correctly interpret the doctors’ explanations. However, a problem arises in that medical sign language varies considerably in style from one region to another and has not been standardized.

We compiled a list of medical sign language with an emphasis on standardization of meanings and movements. For compiling the sign language terms, we consulted medical professionals, sign language interpreters and native signers. We tried to ensure that the resulting medical sign language include common expressions that can be easily understood by non-professionals. We also produced sign language instructions for medical terms that are hard to understand based on sign language alone, as well as other difficult terms.

This paper proposes a new NVSG element model with a focus on the linguistic structure of sign language. Morphemes in sign language consist of elements such as hand shape , movement and line of sight. An NVSG element description method is a method of describing morphological structure in an independent hierarchical structure.

Approximately 1,500 words have been described using the description method. After being described, the hierarchical structure of morphemes becomes easily comprehensible visually at a word level. Describing each element also allows us to search for a word from the word structure.

In the future, we intend to verify the possibility of sign language description in languages other than Japanese.

Various studies stated that elderly community is the focus of many research discussing aging society or technology products developed for their assistance. Several technologies have been developed to cover different aspects in the elderly life. This study analyzes research papers published in the field of elderly technologies, covering the years 1992 through 2013. Our study involved analyzing 208 publications in terms of: research areas and technologies. Based on the previous overviewed research, this paper provides a brief insight about the different research and technologies developed for elderly people and explore their trends and future research directions.

In this short communication we describe our methodological framework for developing an extended digital environment for the elderly. The core of our approach is based on probing elderly needs via storytelling to be interpreted in a wide sense. The probe consists of activities to be carried out by the experiment group, such as taking pictures, making a collage, writing a diary.

The United Nations predicts the rate of population aging in the 21st century will exceed that of the previous century. For fulfill the need of the elderly, this research conducted a design project of the smart wearable system (SWS) to demonstrate three directions: integration and connection, in-depth interaction, and elderly-care awareness. Three commonly parts of the body wearing smart devices are investigated – wrist, upper arm, and the neck. The subjects were meant to wear the designed prototypes in a certain time and then fill in the questionnaire. The opinions and suggestions about the new and better add-on design guideline were collected; the data is integrated to conclude that the devices attached to the wrist are mostly accepted. A new proposal was created for a more reasonable and comprehensive interaction based on this study of the mental perception of the elderly and reading usability.

Senior citizens often feel excluded from the digital world, leading to social isolation and preventing them from using personalized services to improve the quality of their lives. This can be caused by their limited skills with and passive attitudes towards the use of technologies. We tested a question-answer (Q&A) card interface to help senior citizens actively expose their personal experience, knowledge, and interests. A total of 50 senior participants answered 30,944 questions in six categories during the three months of our experiment, which indicated the Q&A interface effectively reduced the barriers for senior users to expose their profile information online. We also discuss some ways to analyze the collected data to investigate the profiles of senior citizens for the support of other new services.

There are various technology products or IT services which can support elderly at home. However, most of them are designed without considering the individual preferences, needs and situations of elderly people. This study attempt to explore the concepts of elderly product design based on the theory of Emotional Design and aims at exploring solutions on how to meet the needs of the elderly through more humanistic aspects: “attractive” and “customized” technology products. Consequently, this study proposes the 3D printed “personalized” interactive flowerpot design for the elderly, called WATERS.

Due to increasing technologization and demographic changes, more and more elderly people are facing the challenge of using information and communication technology (ICT). ICT can be an essential facilitator for positive aging by promoting the participation of elderly in society, as well as activating their cognitive and motoric resources. However, elderly people often struggle to use technical devices and therefore miss the benefits of digital age. Feelings of helplessness and fear towards technology are often reinforced by previous experiences that have been perceived as frustrating. We believe that adding game elements to an ICT application can overcome some of the motivational barriers which older adults face by providing pleasurable experiences and hedonic value to the interaction with technology.

In the course of focus groups older adults appeared to be very open towards gameful interaction design. Through an extensive interview study which we conducted subsequently, we investigated the potential advantages and requirements of this approach and whether it is to be used to assist the elderly.

We will present the results of a critical review of research published in a range of peer-reviewed conferences in the period 2005 - 2012 on the use of technology to support older people. We explore what problems faced by older people are being addressed by the research; whether the research is motivated by user needs; the methodologies used; the levels of target user involvement in the research; and the outcomes achieved. Eight major topics of research have been identified: mobility and wayfinding; communication and social interaction; interaction with technology; using the web; access to and exploration of information; education; support for daily living; and games and play. In addition, we have categorized the research into four main types: research that proposes technologies for older people; research to understand the use of technology by older people and their attitudes to technology; research on guidelines, standards or other information to support developers and researchers; and research that on methodologies for working with older people in the development of new technological solutions. Important gaps and weaknesses in the current research portfolio are explored. The review will provide an overview of the state of the art of technologies for promoting independent living and wellbeing of older people, which should be useful for researchers, developers and practitioners in the field.

The proportion of elderly people in German society has been increasing for decades. As a result Germany, and other industrial countries as well, are currently facing large demographic changes in terms of age structure and population size, changes that will only increase in the future. Furthermore, especially in bigger cities, the traditional family structures with more generations living together are disappearing.

Starting from these observations, the project

Barrierefreie Cloud für Senioren - WirlmKiez

(translated: A barrier-free Cloud for Seniors - We in our neighbourhood), funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research, aims to develop a platform where elderly people can get in touch with and help each other with everyday problems and issues. We plan to realise a virtual neighbourly help especially for elderly people who have no or very little social contact. Persons using the platform will be able to either provide support to others (”I can help to hang curtains”, ”I can help gardening”, ...) or they can request for help (”I need to go to hospital for 4 days, who can take care of my cat”). The app will run on computers, smartphones, and tablets and will be very simple to use and appropriate for seniors. Its main features are creating a proposal or request by using natural language. Behind the scenes we will use shallow information extraction (IE) to extract the core information. After this we store the extracted information plus additional meta information like time and location on a central server (cloud). In the final step a generated request or proposal is offered to adequate users of the system, e.g. people who live nearby and are able to help or need help and connecting the persons in the end.

Mobile devices nowadays are equipped with sensors and technologies that enable context evaluation. Those devices are not expensive in such a way that everyone can buy a smart phone easily. So, developing mobile context-awareness applications for helping dependent persons to deal with their everyday tasks is crucial. This paper aims to develop a new identities management system that runs on the dependent person’s mobile device. This system will assist dependent persons by giving them information, advices, instructions and helps regarding their activities of daily living. The main idea is to use a simple communication way to identify objects and subjects in the surrounding context of the assisted person. In this paper, we propose efficient identification mechanisms that take benefits from our well understanding of the context. Our approach simplifies the use of the interaction between dependent persons and the system. Hence, unlike usual approaches, the identity of a given entity will not be universal by widely tailored it to the current person’s context. In the case where the context is shared by many entities with the risk of identification ambiguity, our identification could use different means such as colors or locations towards others for identification of entities.

Interactive animation has its own uniqueness, and apart from games, with artistic expression of traditional animation at the same time, reinforces the audience’s participation, and opera interact. Based on handheld mobile devices, making interactive animated short film by created with a lot of new features. First consideration in the animated feature for the structures of branch development, after that interactive participative forms that appropriately and cleverly designed, thereby strengthening the expression of works .When you are using Unity3D tool to achieve specific interactive tasks, such as animated elements resource limitations and interface design are also factors that in the creation of to be considered.

In this study we propose a way to motivate healthy people to do indoor physical activities more often. A lack of physical activity is thought to be responsible for an increasing number of patients suffering from lifestyle-related diseases. It is very important that people do physical activities regularly even though they are healthy. Thus we build a prototype system where people see fireworks projected on the wall. These fireworks will become more powerful, graceful and various as they keep doing physical activities. Finally it is shown that progressive fireworks are successfully displayed depending on the amount of time of physical activities.

This paper describes a music player that automatically synchronizes the music playback speed with jogging pace. The importance of jogging is in running long distances at a steady pace, so it will be useful to alert when the pace varies. Focusing on the fact that a number of people jog while listening to music, we propose a method for telling the runner the pace variation by synchronizing the music playback speed with the runner’s pace. Experimental results show that the proposed method facilitates to keep the runner’s steady pace.

In this research, author suggests an interactive and intuitive mobile application to notate dynamic formation change in group dance which is the beauty of dance in conjunction with motion of a single human.Firstly, limitations of traditional notation systems and even less aids on floor plan were discussed. Those limitations results in inefficient and energy-consuming trial-and-error in creative work and inhibit artists’ creativity.This research explores a new potential of digital media for notation of group dance formation. Essential information parameters to be a sound notation are investigated. Beneficial features of interactive digital media, such as synchronization with music which is crucial in dance notation, are discussed. Existing software products in various creating areas gave inspiration in design of interface.The mobile application is designed for users to intuitively draw and edit their own dynamic floor plan. User can record and review and share it highly effectively with other artists.This research is expected to help performing artist and expand their creativity.

When we are doing exercise, we often listen to the music. We wanted to make a music player-based exercise intensive recognizing system. In this study, we focused on the motional aspect of hand and arm. The main concept is speed changing music player. A pedometer is the most common detecting tool for the exercise activities. Detecting swing of the body with smartphone –like a pedometer- to set as a downbeat for synchronizing music. We used smartphone gyroscope sensor to detect the downbeat gesture. Motion sensing with gyroscope is a common way in these days. We set the rotation rate of the pitch-axis at 2rad/s for filtering the unstable sensing of the gyroscope. After filtering, holding smartphone and staring movement can calculate the speed of the movement. Existing similar studies are using MIDI and PC to control

tempo

easily and do something more. In this study, we use only MP3 files, extract from CD. We make single application –

Shake It Up

- without any computer connection. We used time stretch to control the speed of MP3 files

.

After the application is ready, we had a user test to experience

Shake It Up

. Without a guide, all users were easily controlled BPM of the music. Some of them use this application as a music player on jogging with arm band. They said, they can hear the intensity of exercise with the speed of the music. We have to pay attention to the possibility of the future. After the test, we found a sequence of operation was very similar to orchestral conducting. It can be used to music practice tool for conductors. However, still

Shake It Up

cannot sync music file with the hand gesture speed point by point. We are finding out making extra tag files to synchronize and control each detailed point of music.

In recent years the number of rehabilitation patients all over the world is rapidly increasing as society ages and stroke and dementia spread. Continuous rehabilitation helps physical and mental maintenance and recovery. However, the recovery process involves hard and dull work which can result in the patient abandoning the treatment. This problem requires a solution both effective and agreeable. Nowadays, cognitive exercise therapies are widely used to combine mental and physical function recovery. We introduce touch panel ad-hoc developed games into this therapy, motivating the user to actively participate in the rehabilitation and making the whole process reliable and days touch screens are commonly used in daily life, re-moving the need for an initial learning stage. This makes touch screens a perfect inter-face for people all ages, even if their mobility is reduced. In this paper, a prototype touch screen rehabilitation system based on cognitive exercise therapy is developed. Two applications are used to ensure rehabilitation reliability: Whack-a-Mole and Simon games. A usability evaluation test is employed to assess system’s effectiveness. Additionally, two different touch screens were used, tested and evaluated.

In this paper, we will present the design decisions, evaluation and conclusions stemming from the process of making a set of three casual games, characterized by a common design style and simple scenario..

This paper presents the design process of an interactive game that can help to improve the recognition-skills of the children with intellectual disability, so later they can make their way in life easier. This article presents the interactive game, which is based on the traditional logical blocks tutorial. The game has been tested by special education teachers and students with moderate intellectual disabilities. According to teachers’ view the game is useful for teaching students with moderate intellectual disabilities.

Exercising requires the execution of repetitive activities with commitment and motivation that may not be present in all cases. Currently, the advances in mechanical, electronics and computer sciences have resulted in the development of several affordable 3DUIs used in entertainment such as the Wiimote, the Play Station Move, the Kinect and the newer trends like the MYO and the Epoc Emotive. 3DUIs have opened several possibilities of application in the wellbeing area outside physical rehabilitation; applications in entertainment, in exercising and even occupational healthcare are being developed. This project explores the development of game application for encouraging lower member exercises with game mechanics and affordable 3DUIs for impacting most users, whereas they are owners or newcomers to these technological trends. The proposed system integrates a gaming 3DUI with a smartphone for offering a portable and flexible solution that allows monitoring and motivating the user for performing preventive or corrective exercises.

AraMedScanner is a prototype application that mainly helps the visually impaired to identify medicines by scanning their barcode and retrieving their information from a medical database. This paper presents an overview of AraMedScanner’s features and shows preliminary evaluations conducted with blind people. The results of the evaluations revealed the application limitations and leaded to new future improvements.

The current study deals with an empirical approach to an improvement of the patient and doctor relationship of patients undergoing an orthognathic surgery. The aim is the development of an information and communication concept for a smooth and positive treatment for medicine and patient. Such an intervention is a decisive experience and needs to be treated very sensitive. Patients with jaw modulation often suffer from medical-functional as well as psychological problems. Also after surgery, the change of appearance might lead to adjustment disorder. Therefore, a well-elaborated treatment is needed and essential. Retrospective already operated patients were interviewed regarding their expectations, fear, hopes and wishes as well as their individual experience with the surgery. The addition of technical support in form of a 3D scan was also assessed. First results portray a big need of an improved medical education concept as well as an overall positive assessment of the 3D scan.

‘Out of Hours’ (OoH) hospital care involves a small number of doctors covering a very large number of patients. These doctors are working in stressful environments, performing complex tasks and making difficult task prioritisation decisions, yet little data exists to aid in improving the working practices or to ensure junior doctors are adequately prepared for OoH working. Historically, this has been owing to complex and expensive processes to capture this data; however recent advances in indoor positioning technologies has the potential to automate and improve the capture and availability of data that may help alleviate the burden of OoH care on at a personal and hospital level. This paper describes our work to combine cutting edge indoor positioning technologies from OoH working with and a newly deployed in-ward electronic tasking system. Here we describe data collection via traditional methods, clinical tasking systems, and indoor positioning solutions. We further describe our understanding from such data of the effect of physical layout and current working practices on task completion and time spent in transit, which ultimately may inform improvements to working practice within OoH care. Finally we discuss potential relevance to other work domains.

Doctors more often choose to apply pneumatic retinopexy therapy to retinal detachment patients. Successful rate of pneumatic retinopexy depends on can comply with requirement of supine posture. This study is focusing on design and application of how the successful rate of surgery of pneumatic retinopexy can be improved and on the user’ s experience of this aid design. This study did confirm that a recovery table helped reduce burden of necks and shoulders.

In this paper we make a short analysis of the existing cancer care system, and we identify the elements that can improve the quality of treatment for cancer survivors. Through literature reviews and patient interviews we have identified two of the most important: doctor efficiency and patient active involvement. Our findings have shown that to improve both of them, a better communication system between patients and caregivers is required. Our project was made with three design iterations, each including testing sessions with real patients and healthcare personnel. We have used two main heath care theories: patient empowerment and post-traumatic growth. The resulting system has two separate web apps, one for the doctors and one for the patients.

Acoustic conditions in hospitals have been shown to influence a patient’s physical and psychological health. Noise levels in Beitou Armed Forces Hospital were measured among various times. Sound pressure levels were logged every 30-seconds over a period in different locations: at the nurses’ station, in the hallway, and in a patient’s room. Results show that current noise level guidelines were exceeded regularly; despite this the surveys showed most patients were not very annoyed with the noise. Additionally, no relationships were found between a patient’s gender or age to various noise responses. Overall this study did not find very large changes in sound levels in various time periods and overall patient noise perception will be discussed in the further work.

This research designs and evaluates app interfaces designed to estimate and record dietary intake. Effect and user’s preference are taken for consideration. Three potential interfaces are proposed, i.e., a) interactive photo interface; (b) a sketching interface, and c) a resizable shape interface. Trials with 38 university students indicate that a) and b) both provide some useful features, but there is a preference for the interactive photo interface. Future research will focus on design enhancements to improve user experiences in different target groups.

Self-monitoring of blood glucose technique provides diabetic mellitus patients a simple and real-time method to monitor their blood sugar at home. In order to understand the interface design problems in home-use glucose meters, the aim of this study was to realize if senior users were able to easily and effectively operate glucose meters via usability evaluation. Five senior users of above 65 years old who never use home-use glucose meters before were recruited to operate typical tasks: a. changing lancet, b. inserting a strip to turn on the meter, c. lancing, d. waiting for the result and e. discarding lancet. The experiment process was recorded for further interview. The results demonstrated that the key factors that caused operation errors were found on lancing device and test strip instead of the glucose meter. Especially for seniors that had memory degradations, they needed side by side assistance to finish the tasks.

Hospital providers need to deliver satisfactory services in a specialized field which involves a great number of stakeholders with different concerns, needs and requirements. Some hospitals’ policies have been focused on providing health and medical services to the public. Less attention has been given to the responsibility to provide useful, accurate health information of high quality to their key publics mainly by facilitating interactive communication with patients, citizens and physicians and community services. To date, hospitals are turning increasingly towards the Internet and have developed their own web presence in order to enhance interactive communication practices. The research evaluated the usability of hospital websites in Nigeria, focusing on two websites in south- west of the country. Evaluation criteria for assessment were developed. The results provided empirical evidence that websites should be easy to use as well as aesthetically pleasing but must be rich in information content.

This article focuses on the problems of development of control systems and medical equipment medical professional interfaces. In our paper we propose a solution to the problem, using gesture language and contact-less motion capture.

The coefficient of friction between shoe sole and floor is the most critical environment factor influencing slipping risks. When the shoes tread on the surface covered by liquid, the slip resistant of floors are reduced by the squeeze-film effect and the risks of falling are increased. The prior researches discussed mostly the relationship between floor roughness and COF, the discussions of the impact of liquid thickness on COF are relatively rare. This study measured the slip resistance effect of tread groove and floor roughness under different liquid thickness by adopting Brungraber Mark II slipmeter. The results showed that the tread groove, floor roughness and liquid thickness are all factors influencing the COF.The COF of non-tread groove footwear decreases significantly while the liquid thickness larger than 1mm or the floor roughness Ra less than 2

μ

m.

The goal of ensuring the safety of technical equipment users lies at the heart of all design requirements classified as essential [3]. To achieve proper compliance with such requirements, it is essential to adopt solutions which meet the needs and expectations of the concerned parties. The choice of solutions must reflect the profiles of users, who are described as the so called human factor, as well as any criteria helpful in achieving the best possible matches for particular worker profiles. Described in terms of ergonomic criteria, the solutions should be seen as an integral part of the design process. By accounting for ergonomic criteria in such a process, it is possible to ensure that the conditions in which technical equipment is operated live up to the desired level of human-friendliness.

The use of a learning support system can give rise to complaints of pains in the shoulder and arm and of asthenopia in many people. The increased feeling of fatigue is considered to be due to prolonged personal computer use, making this type of learning a heavy burden for learners. However, few studies have focused on how to measure the effect of prolonged use of a learning support system on the learner’s physical condition. Evaluation of this type of learning has been attempted using biological data, but optimal measuring methods and data processing have not been established to evaluate the physical effects of this type of learning. The aims of the present study were to measure biological data (brain waves and heart rate) when learners were subjected to a continuous problem solving session that involved calculation, reading, and collation (problem-solving tasks), to analyze the temporal changes that occurred in the measured biological data, to examine the validity of the measurements of mental activities and burden, and to evaluate the effects of taking a break during the session.

In the manufacturing industry, fine processing tasks advance as the products become smaller. These tasks are usually carried out by industrial robots and automation systems to improve the quality and reliability of products. However, there are a lot of tasks such as products finishing and adjusting/inspecting the finished products that workers have to do at their work sites. Therefore, an analysis of the learning process of work with micromotion, performance assessment and workload assessment are important subjects. This study examines the effect of monitor magnification on worker’s motion and workload for positioning as an example of micro-manipulation tasks. We describe motion time and heat rate (HR) to measure workload in the positioning process.

In the manufacturing industry, Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is a very effective tool for improving product quality, productivity as well as safety of employees. In the paper a part of research on implementation of TPM in medium-sized industrial company is introduced. The goal of the paper was analysis of efficiency of promotion of safety and hygiene issues during Autonomous Maintenance pillar implementation.

It is necessary to clarify the method for measuring a comprehensive evaluation from plurality criteria of the physical load when they sitting on a chair, because they cannot access their sitting posture during a continuous working. Further, in order to provide a chair that fits the user, it is important to find simple evaluation method of comfort when sitting on a chair. Further, in order to develop a good chair that fits to the users, it is important to find simple evaluation method on comfortable sitting conditions when sitting on a chair. The aim of this paper is to show some rating factors on comfort or discomfort when sitting on a chair for a long time. The experiment was carried out using an office chair. Body pressure distribution of the buttocks was measured by electrical seat sensor for an hour of one session. In addition, they were interviewed on five items of subjective evaluation every five minutes during an hour sitting situation. According to the experiments, we found that elapsed time and two feature values of the total load area of the body pressure distribution and the ratio of the particularly highly pressure area are effective to predict discomfort. And we derived a regression equation to predict the increase of discomfort using the average pressure distribution when they are sitting.

Companies focused on achieving long-term success analyze their performance in many areas, among which issues of health and safety cannot be overlooked. In the following paper an example of implementation of self-assessment methodology recommended by ISO 9001:2004 for corporate’s safety and hygiene of work area is introduced. Self-assessment of maturity of organization in this area is conducted with reference to strategy and management system, resources, processes of organization and outcomes monitoring, as well as to improvement and self-learning.

Falls in older people constitute one of the major challenges in healthcare. It is important to design technologies that can help prevent falls and improve falls management. Smart home technology could be of importance in this context, but the technology has to be user-centred or adapted to be useful in this particular context. This study assessed usability of paper and interactive prototypes of a smart home touch screen panel. The study implemented five scenarios related to fall risk, fall assessment and exercise guidance, designing a smart home interface for independent living in general and fall management in particular. A usability evaluation showed that older people had positive experiences when using the touch screen interface. The study demonstrated the need for user-centred interfaces for older people in the context of falls prevention.

The requirements of wearing products fitting comfort was continuously increasing and considerable attentions had been paid for a long time. The assessment of the physical dimensions of the human hand provided a metric description to establish human-machine compatibility. Higher accuracy in hand anthropometric measurements could be achieved with the aids of an image analysis system. Scanning of hand surfaces either 2D or 3D was an alternative method for manual measurements. Three-dimensional anthropometry may lead to significant improvement in fitting comfort of wearing products. The purpose of this study was to measure 3D hand anthropometry and compared it with manual methods. For that purpose, 10 hand measurements of the right hand (lengths, breadths, and circumference of hand and fingers) were taken from 1,700 middle and high school students by age ranged from 13 to 19 years old. The hand was measured by manual (using anthropometric sliding, spreading calipers and measuring tape) and using a high-resolution 3D hand scanner (NEXHAND H-100, Knitech, South Korea) with the scanning accuracy ± 0.5 mm. From the scanned data, the hand measurements were extracted using scanning software (Enhand, Knitech, South Korea). Mean and standard deviation for each hand measurements were calculated. T-test statistical test on the data revealed that there was no significant difference between the manual and 3D hand measurements (p > 0.05). Therefore, 3D anthropometry can be replaced with manual methods. The data gathered may be used for ergo-design applications of hand tools and devices. And also it can provide a great help to develop a hand anthropometry database for hand wearing products.

The purpose of this study is detecting unsafe behavior of the person lying on the bed and warning caregivers that a person is falling down from the bed.

However, in the dark room at night, the detection ability of previous system is low, because the brightness adjustment processing of a Web camera is not able to adjust brightness of the dark room.

In this paper, we propose a new detection system using Kinect. Kinect has a depth sensor consisted of infrared leaser. And, Kinect is able to measure distance between Kinect and an object in the dark room. Moreover, the behavior of an old person is extracted from measured data by Kinect. By using Kinect, it is considered that the awakening behavior detection system is able to be used in the dark room at night.

In this paper, the awakening detection system using Kinect is shown. And, in experiment, the capability of the proposed system have been verified.

From the result of the experiment, the detection rate of the safe behavior have been 94%. And, the detection rate of the unsafe behavior have been 80%.

This paper presents a systematic review of technologies designed and developed for urban and architectural planning. The usability and user experiences of urban planning systems designed with mixed reality, virtual reality, tangible interaction, and direct manipulation tabletop interfaces are examined. Emphasis in this review is on the design implications of different interaction modalities in supporting decision making in applied scenarios of urban planning. The human factors engineering process for urban planning decision support systems takes into account the perceptive space, comfort, and productivity of planners and decision makers. Tactile fusion of human perception and action is examined in urban planning decision support systems that are designed with virtual and tangible interaction. Case studies describing applied scenarios of urban planning are reviewed with a critique of navigation design, human perception, collaboration support, and visualization of decision scenarios. The human factors for designing systems that support clear representations of urban planning states across all sensory modalities are reported.

In this paper, we introduce a decision support system (DSS) platform (City Schema) that is designed to connect a tangible interface within a 3D modeling environment (City Form) with a simulation engine for analyzing the data of the urban, transportation, energy and water systems of the city (City Analytics) to support collaborative city planning. This DSS connects two completely independent systems into one integrated system. The first system is a physical 3D model of a city with a tangible user interface that supports interactive and collaborative activities and provides users with direct manipulation interaction and intuitive interfaces. The second system is an urban modeling design tool which is a simulation engine that has several simulation modules such as operational energy, mobility, daylight, transportation and others. The DSS we present here can be used to describe a real world problem and identify possible solutions to the modeled problem through the computation of many scenarios/alternatives so that users of the DSS can evaluate, compare and select a potential solution. Our City Schema DSS consists of: database management component, simulation modules management component, and an interactive user interface with dynamic visualization and decision scenario simulations. Human factors for supporting multi-user co-located collaboration to assist decision makers in making better decisions are examined. Design implications of different interaction modalities for decision support systems and their impact on providing intuitive and engaging user experiences are discussed.

With the travel industry entering the experience economy era, improving tourism experience has become more important than ever. Technology is a good tool to improve traveling in ways such as weather predicting or tour guiding. However, the environment of eco-tourism is different from the general using environment of traditional tourism. Therefore, in order to apply technological products to eco-tourism, this paper proposes some HCI design suggestion from the perspective of UX like usability, information architecture and interaction design. We define two main design target groups as ‘Normal tourists’ and ‘Narrators’. Expert system can be applied to the illustrating system for normal tourists while narrators need only a clear view of the system to make sure they find out the information of species they already know to give information to tourists.

The top management staff of a company which applies a quality management system are interested in ensuring that the system safeguards a proper functioning of processes, achieves the objectives of these processes, and triggers perfecting mechanisms in a proper manner. Application of risk management in this system may provide some contribution to the fulfilling of the expectations of the management.

Facing any new product or new technology, a diffusion method, which can suggest exponential growth to some asymptote is important for both technical innovation and business decision. This paper produces the new study to examine and evaluate the diffusion models on mobile market. In order to evaluate two classic diffusion models, this paper chooses to use the existing 3G cellular mobile product data in UK as the sample data. This paper yields which diffusion model has the good prediction and good description features on different stage of product growth.

Manufacturing enterprises have been recently trying to create new value through a strategic alternative such as Product Service System because of the limitation of product growth, the keen competition of price and so on. Manufacturing enterprises have many risks to extend their business field over their core ability, with not enough the service domain knowledge, human resources and investment costs. This study suggested the framework that is needed for manufacturing enterprises to penetrate into a service business domain.

We conducted an investigation for the tourists at Niseko in Japan in order to build the as-is activity models of them. As a result, we could clarify the two types of tourist activities; one is to focus a steady life and another is to enhance a tourism experience. Both types of activities use often rent-a-car although each pattern of using transportation is different a little. In addition they collected by themselves the main information by using word of mouth.

Based on the results we are planning to envision the mobility services for them.

The intention of this paper is to investigate the interactive development among Free Trade Zones (FTZs). We take the ACBZs as an example type of FTZs. We adopt the System Dynamics Method to analyze the interactive development dynamic of ACBZs by using Vensim. We find that the increasing demand on efficiency of trading and producing are the two types of intrinsic motivation in the interaction. We also discuss the possible models from port, industry and customs aspects. The analyzing on causal relationship between each index, and drawing causal loop diagrams, and the establishing of flow diagram mode give a practicable study way on this kind of interactive development.

Several railway simulators exist but none of them allow the design of rail infrastructure with the possibility to simulate other rail functions such as train driving, train supervision or train planning by using the designed infrastructure. The proposed tool consists in taking into account an existing physical platform called COR&GEST for rail driving and traffic supervision, and in developing supports to design any rail infrastructure in order to simulate driving, supervision or planning activity on predefined infrastructures. The resulting platform is called MissRail, a multimodal and multifunction simulation system for research and training in railway.

This study proposed the mapping framework that was the intermediate layer between these two toolkits. The main attribute of mapping framework is that it is built up on the basis of scenario; thus, it plays the role of making the two toolkits correspond with the task based on a scenario as an output interaction as to the input of behaviors conducted by customers that are principle agents of the customer journey map and an output interaction as to the outcome actually conducted by the functions of system in the system map. It gives us an expectation that it would be usefully utilized for identifying problems later rather than merely visualizing intangible services.

This article fits in a broader context of a qualitative research seeking for traces or signs of expression, presence and representation of the self from the perspective of teachers as end-user developers of virtual learning environment interfaces. We chose Moodle as the environment to conduct this work and we counted with the voluntary participation of nine teachers with different profiles concerning the area, educational model and target audience. Questionnaire and interview were applied and testimonies were collected, uncovering three ways of self-expression and representation: expression through written language, interface customization and through the content. We focus this paper on the communication practiced via Moodle by means of written language.

While gesture recognition methods have been employed with success to real word applications, there are yet several issues that requires to be solved for larger Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) applications. one of such issues is the real time sign language recognition. The goal of this paper is to bring the HCI performance nearby the human-human interaction, by modeling a sign language resognition system based on prediction in the context of dialogue between the system (avatar) and the interlocutor, to make a ludic application. The main recognition method include an empirical tracking method which dynamically changed according to each stage of the dialogue.

In our work, we are interested in exploring how people build a protocol of communication. We used the context of the SDT (Sociable Dining Table) to explore the emerging protocol. SDT integrates a dish robot put on the table and behaves according to the knocking emitted by the human. In a first experiment, we observe the protocol acquisition’s process that occurs in the human-human interaction. By analyzing the latter experiment, we obtained implications that helped to understand how to facilitate the communication through knocking in the human-robot interaction and how to implement the SDT’s model. In a human robot interaction (HRI), we validated our model and we showed that it allows the proliferation of a personalized protocol just like in the human-human interaction.

One of the important challenges for achieving a spoken dialogue system in noisy environments is to make the system’s speech audible for the user. Although there have been many studies on speech recognition in noisy environments, very few attempts to improve the audibility of the system’s speech. In this paper, we develop a spoken dialogue system that has three functions: real-time volume adjustment, utterance delay, and re-utterance. Experimental results have shown that these three functions improve the audibility of the system’s utterances.

An important role for the communication management in human communication is head nods, e.g. as nonverbal feedback signal. Based on a Japanese study with virtual agents, have showed that the using head nods in virtual agents elicited more verbal output from the user, we look into the use of head nods in communications between user and a humanoid robot, Keepon robot and a virtual agent resembling a cat that the user encounters for the first time.

We are developing a voice-interactive CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning) system to provide more opportunity for better English conversation exercise. There are several types of CALL system, we focus on a spoken dialogue system for dialogue practice. When the user makes an answer to the system’s utterance, timing of making the answer utterance could be unnatural because the system usually does not make any reaction when the user keeps silence, and therefore the learner tends to take more time to make an answer to the system than that to the human counterpart. However, there is no framework to suppress the pause and practice an appropriate pause duration.

In this research, we did an experiment to investigate the effect of presence of the AR character to analyze the effect of character as a counterpart itself. In addition, we analyzed the pause between the two person’s utterances (switching pause). The switching pause is related to the smoothness of its conversation. Moreover, we introduced a virtual character realized by AR (Augmented Reality) as a counterpart of the dialogue to control the switching pause. Here, we installed the character the behavior of “time pressure” to prevent the learner taking long time to consider the utterance.

To verify if the expression is effective for controlling switching pause, we designed an experiment. The experiment was conducted with or without the expression. Consequently, we found that the switching pause duration became significantly shorter when the agent made the time-pressure expression.

Current state-of-the-art speaker identification is a well-established research problem but reverberation is still a major issue used in real meeting scenarios. Dereverberation is essential for many applications such as speaker identification and speech recognition to improve the quality and intelligibility of speech signal interrupted by real reverberation environments. The classical approaches were focused on estimating desired speech signal with dereverberation by beamforming which is crucial for hands-free distant-speech interaction. Its performance degradation is caused when beamforming equipment is unable to comply with the restriction of being symmetric in time or synchronous in structure under real condition. In this paper, a new de-reverberated merging feature is presented for text-independent speaker identification issue applied as an important component of Multiple Distance Microphones (MDM) system used in real meeting scenario. This scenario poses new challenges: farfield, limited and short training and test data, and almost severe reverberation. To tackle this, we introduce a dimensionality reduction approach to extract informative low-dimension features from four kinds of MDM-based features. Experimental results on the MDM system processed reverberated signal show the effectiveness of the new approach and the presented performance evaluation demonstrates the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed approach with short test utterances.

A foreign resident of Japan can read and understand the contents of a sentence easily when shown native information in plain Japanese. However, a certain level of skill in Japanese is required to understand plain Japanese. A method is available for displaying native information by machine translation to allow communication with foreign residents. We investigate the difference in the ease of understanding plain Japanese and machine translations (Chinese sentences) for Japanese beginners whose native language is Chinese. Thus, we obtain the following findings: (1) Japanese beginners find machine translations easier than plain Japanese when it comes to understanding the meaning of a sentence. (2) The accuracy of a machine-translated sentence affects the understanding of the meaning of that sentence. However, we find that it is possible to understand the meanings of sentences with low evaluation accuracy in about 60% of cases.

Three different stereoscopic 3D visualisations are compared with the 2D reference currently used at air traffic control (ATC) controller working positions. Using safety critical air traffic scenarios, air traffic controllers (ATCOs), pilots, and two groups of laypersons, one of which with an appropriate training, are asked to judge safety critical scenarios showing two converging aircraft. The cognitive demands that arising in peak-traffic situations are simulated by adding an additional auditory task that has to be conducted in parallel to judging potential conflicts. The results show that the 3D visualizations can enhance the efficiency of the ATCOs without compromising the safety. However, while the judgement certainty of all visualizations is virtually equal in cases of conflict, differences arise due to the dimension on which the aircraft miss each other in case of separation. While advantages of 3D arise when judging vertical distances, 2D better supports the judgment of horizontal distances.

There are many sets of guidelines concerning the accessibility of the web for older adults, but little empirical evidence from studies with older people to support their recommendations. In addition, all the recommendations apply to text in languages using the Latin alphabet. This study investigated the effects of text color and background color on the performance and preferences of younger and older adults on webpages in the Thai language. There were 18 Thai younger participants (19 - 29 years) and 18 Thai older participants (59 - 70 years). There were three combinations of text color and color (black text on white background, white text on black background, and sepia text on off-white background). The text and background color combinations failed to have any significant effects on the performance measures of task completion rate or time spent skim reading webpages. However, for the preference measure, there was a significant difference between combinations of text and background color but no differences between the age groups. There was also a significant interaction between combinations of text and background color and age group. These results form an useful basis for web design guidelines for Thai websites for text and background color for both younger and older users.

LED notification lights are used in smartphones to deliver various information to users, such as missed calls, incoming calls, receiving a new text message, and low battery. This study explores whether the settings of the color and blink frequency of the LEDs notification lights affect smartphone users’ urgency perception in two important information states, i.e., missed calls and incoming calls. We set the blink frequency of LED notification lights high and low, assuming that high frequency blink will be perceived as more urgent notification. As for color, we first set the color of LED indicators as White for both high and low blink frequencies. Then, we changed the color to Red for high frequency blink and Green for low frequency blink to examine whether color has any effect on smartphone users’ urgency perception of the notification. We measured users’ urgency perception by asking participants to evaluate how effective each setting of LED notification lights is in indicating the degree of urgency of the corresponding information state. In an experiment with 30 participants, we found that participants perceived high blink frequency as more intuitive and attractive and therefore more effective than low blink frequency in indicating high urgency in both information states. We also found that the use of color increases users’ overall urgency perception. We further found that users’ urgency perception—both intuitive and attentive—was highest when color was used and the blink rate of notification was high. That is, the urgency perception score was highest when the color was Red and the blink frequency was high. In the post-experiment interviews, participants chose red as the best color to indicate urgency. Given that, we conclude that the use of red color with high blink frequency of the LED notification light is most effective in conveying urgency information.

Although objectively same, feedback can be processed differently because of individual difference. The purpose of this study was to investigate how demographic factor (gender) and other individual difference (regulatory focus) influence afterward performances in computer-based situation. In the experiment, participants performed two phases of task with computer. Each task phase included two task types: cognitive task and creative task. After the first task phase, participants received feedback about their performance. Feedback was presented in two valence conditions: positive and negative. After the feedback, participants performed the second task phase. The participants’ performance was measured by difference between the first and the second phase. As a result, the main effects of feedback valence were non-significant on both task types. However, in creative task, there was an interaction between valence and regulatory focus. Participants having prevention focus performed well after receiving negative feedback. On the other hand, people having promotion focus showed better performance after the positive feedback. Also, the interaction between valence of feedback and gender was marginally significant in creative task. Although, males’ performances were almost same regardless of the feedback valence, females showed better performance after receiving negative feedback. No interaction effects were significant in cognitive task. This study was valuable in that we could reveal how individual differences and valence of feedback affect the performance of creative task on computers.

The increasing dissemination of mobile devices has turned everybody into potential users of mobile applications. Due to the presumed ease of use of these applications along with the uncommon use of their help systems, most do not offer help systems within the applications and those that do are usually accessible only through Internet links. This double presumption that users do not need help because the application is easy to use and users have access to Internet everywhere - may negatively affect not only the use of the application in some (or various) situations, but even worse may cause users’ to misunderstand their goals and possibilities. To explore this topic, we present a user study of 14 users about mobile applications and their (lack of) help systems.

Mobile devices like smart phones are used in various contexts of use. Hence we conducted an explorative field study to determine factors influencing smart phone interaction. The results of the study suggest that a smart phone is often used in a relaxed situation and a familiar environment. In contrast to this, few interactions take place in a stressful situation. In addition to that, the location and the activity of the test participant seem to have an impact on the smart phone interaction.

The main purpose of the research is to understand the current situation of design and development of interactive children’s iPad storybook and analyze the usability. The researcher used the ranking lists search and browsing in Apple Store for browsing various interactive children’s iPad storybook in great number. We screened out six different models to be used in interactive children’s iPad storybook and conducted the analyses of usability. We selected by purposive sampling 16 adults (including eight teachers, four mothers and four fathers) and four six-year-old children (2 boys and 2 girls) who had experiences of using iPad. The subjects at first browsed six interactive children’s iPad storybooks. Then 16 adults filled out the questionnaires, four children were interviewed and their operations were observed to understand their preferences and the uses of the products. The recommendations for future publishers and designers were: a) increase the interactions of story content; b) increase traditional chinese subtitles and voice; c) integrate storybook platforms.