Human-Computer Interaction. Interaction in Context

Nowadays, there is a significant increase in the number of Bioinformatics tools and databases. Researchers from various interdisciplinary fields need to use these tools. Usability is an important quality of software in general, and bioinformatics tools in particular. Improving the usability of bioinformatics tools allows users to use the tool to its fullest potential. In this paper, we evaluate the usability of two online bioinformatics tools Ori-Finder 1 and Ori-Finder 2 in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction. The evaluation focuses on investigating how easily and successfully can users use Ori-Finder1 and Ori-Finder 2 to find the origin of replication in Bacterial and Archaeal genomes. To the best of our knowledge, the usability of these two tools has not been studied before. Twelve participants were recruited from four user groups. The average tasks completion times were compared. Many usability issues were identified by users of bioinformatics tools. Based on our results, we list recommendations for better design of bioinformatics tools.

We have been developing a liver surgical support system. By matching the depth images of the real liver and the 3D liver model during surgery, the position of the liver, invisible blood vessels and tumors is estimated. The tip position of the surgical knife is measured by single point measurements camera using specific markers. By merging all information, the distance between the knife tip and the target parts such as vessels or tumors is calculated and the proximity of the knife to the target parts is determined. To indicate the proximity, we have been developing a surgical knife attachment with light emitting diodes (LEDs). When the knife approaches to the target parts, the LEDs on the attachment gradually turn on the light. The newly developed attachment becomes compact and lightweight than the previous one. It uses a wireless controller and ArUco markers which can be tracked by an inexpensive USB camera. We conducted experiments to check the performance of ArUco markers and the navigation of the operator using the new attachment. The results showed the new attachment had comparable navigation accuracy to the previous one.

We present an algorithm, based on simulated annealing, that causes a virtual liver to mimic an actual liver. We evaluate its precision using the concordance rate of range images of both virtual and actual livers. This concordance rate is evaluated by superimposing a range image, in which a liver polyhedron standard triangulated language form is put through graphical z-buffering using the computer graphics of a PC and a depth image of the actual liver taken with Kinect v2. However, when the actual liver moves in a translational and rotational manner, we are unable to evaluate how accurately the concordance rate corresponds to the actual movement. In this study, we first manufacture a mechanical system that moves a replica of an actual liver in a translational and rotational manner for measurement. This system has two translational degrees of freedom (i.e., X, Y) and three rotational degrees of freedom (i.e., yaw, roll, pitch). This enables the system to move the replica of an actual liver in an extremely accurate manner. Next, we precisely move the actual liver and investigate how much the simulated annealing-based algorithm moves the virtual liver, and we evaluate its accuracy. Whereas previous experiments were conducted under fluorescent lamps and sunlight, our experiment is conducted in an operating room lit by two shadow-less lamps. The Kinect v2 captures depth images utilizing a shade filter to prevent interference from the infrared light of the shadow-less lamps. The past concordance rate and precision of the amount of translational and rotational movement are also evaluated.

In this study, we constructed and tested the usability of a surgical area-measuring robot-mechanical system, which does not obstruct the movements of doctors, assistants, or nurses during surgery, under two operating lights in an operating room. This study revealed that using the robotic slider to move the camera up and down did not result in excessive vibration or inconsistent depth measurements before, during, and after the movement. For example, if a doctor moves the camera out of the way to move a microscope to the upper part of the surgical area for microsurgery and then brings it back, the system could accurately retain the depth image alignment.

We have developed the liver surgical navigation system composed of three subsystems: the liver position and orientation estimator, the surgical knife position estimator and the liver surgical navigator. These subsystems work separately for estimating the liver position and the knife position, and the liver surgical navigation system will use those positions to navigate surgeons accurately. The liver position is estimated by comparing two depth images; an image come from a depth camera targeting the liver and an image rendered by OpenGL using the Polyhedrons with STL-format data previously scanned from a patient. The knife position is estimated by tracking markers put at the top of the knife. The surgical navigation system holds precise data such as positions of vessels or the surgical steps, and show appropriate navigation data to the surgeons. In this paper, we describe the overview of this system and how we integrated these subsystems into the liver surgery supporting system.

In the last year, we developed some multiple camera system to measure a surgical area and get several capturing results in our laboratory. In this paper, in order to evaluate the multiple camera system, we first check how to calibrate three RGB/Depth cameras based on many landmarks. Then, when a doctor uses a microscope for the microsurgery, he/she raises or lowers the camera. In this case, we evaluate depth changes at each pixel or the average of all pixels within depth image of each camera in distance. In the evaluation method, it is measure the depth values at five different distance. Through this evaluation, we study about the performance of our capturing system.

The m-Health apps have been adopted broadly in both medical and family environment. They hold potential to support the work of medical staff and provide help in individual health care. However, the emphasis on the benefits of mobility and the functionality is not enough. Relatively little empirical research guides for the app development. The m-Health apps should be developed for specific purposes with the consideration of the specific users and using contexts. This paper introduces a research for a m-Health app design in support of information management for multidisciplinary medical team meetings (MDTMs) in order to enhancing meeting efficiency. The contextual design methods were used as the guideline for the design. The app design based on tablet was developed and tested by medical teams in this study. The results indicated that the most medical staffs held positive and supportive attitudes to the m-Health app as an intervention in their medical meetings. The recommended app helped medical staffs including oncologists and nurses etc. to improve their meeting efficiency through information management such as setting up meeting schedule, making records for meetings, updating the patients’ information, etc. The results also revealed that the choices of different mobile platforms should be taken into account when developing m-Health apps since it would greatly influence user experience in utility and usability in the specific contexts. Design recommendations were summarized for future design.

There are two main aspects of safety and effectiveness in laparoscopic surgery. The first is ensuring an appropriate operation field and maintaining this throughout the procedure. The second is finding the correct tissue plane and applying appropriate traction and counter-traction. To accomplish these requirements, surgeons must know the appropriate pressure to apply to the target organ or tissue. For example, weak operation of the forceps in the left hand during laparoscopic surgery leads to poor visibility owing to a small operational field. Furthermore, poor traction at the point of incision on the dissected plane decreases the dissection efficiency. In contrast, when excessive force is applied, there is an increased risk of organ injury or bleeding from capillary vessels during traction; this is clearly detrimental to the overall safety of the procedure. It is difficult for surgeons to master a feeling for the appropriate pressure to apply. Imitating the techniques of skilled surgeons is essential; however, surgical techniques cannot be imitated on first sight. With the aim of assisting this learning process, we developed Forceps Guiding Correct Operation (FOGCOP), new laparoscopic forceps with sensors. Although they are the same shape as Maryland dissecting forceps, FOGCOP can measure the pressure applied on the shaft of the forceps in three axis directions (X, Y, and Z) and on the jaw. The measured pressures are displayed in real time. Surgeons can insert this device into a 5-mm trocar in the same manner as normal forceps. We conducted experiments to verify the effectiveness of the device. 30 students with no experience of laparoscopic surgery participated in this study. Using a training box, students performed a task to press and pull a rubber plate. We compared the performance of a group of students using FOGCOP (group 1, n = 10) with that of a group using conventional forceps (group 2, n = 10). The results suggest that the feedback provided by FOGCOP may be useful for understanding the force delivered by forceps. To verify the usefulness of the device, FOGCOP was also used in laparoscopic nephrectomy of a pig, a procedure that is part of the training course for laparoscopic surgery. It was possible to dissect a tissue plane in the same manner as with conventional forceps. However, the wire from the sensor sometimes interfered with operation. In future, we intend to upgrade FOGCOP by including a wireless sensor, to improve operability to be closer to that of normal forceps, and to allow this device to be used as an educational tool.

In the context of the Internet of Things (IoT), every device have sensing and computing capabilities to enhance many aspects of human life. There are more and more IoT devices in our homes and at our workplaces, and they still depend on human expertise and intervention for tasks as maintenance and (re)configuration.Using biophilic design and calm computing principles, we developed a nature-inspired representation, BioIoT, to communicate sensor information. This visual language contributes to the users’ well-being and performance while being as easy to understand as traditional data representations. Our work is based on the assumption that if machines are perceived to be more like living beings, users will take better care of them, which ideally would translate into a better device maintenance. In addition, the users’ overall well-being can be improved by bringing nature to their lives.In this work, we present two use case scenarios under which the BioIoT concept can be applied and demonstrate its potential benefits in households and at workplaces.

Within today’s environment of relentless urban growth, socio-technical approaches towards enhancing wellbeing within the urban have started gathering momentum. Situated in this context, the research paper presents an approach to actively instigate physiological and psychological behavioral change within people for promoting wellbeing via context aware augmentation of physical environments. This involves harnessing a trans-disciplinary approach wherein, the domains of data sciences, HCI, embedded robotics, computational simulation and user-centric interaction design merge in order to promote real-time responsive augmentation (physical, ambient, social and structural) of the built environment. The paper elaborates upon two projects: RoboZoo and FLUID, both built and tested in The Netherlands, representing two different scales; Small scale: object/product scale, which operate within urban open public space and Large scale: indoor public installation.

The aim of this project is to create a relaxing product to release East-Asian international students’ stress in order to be in a better health. The direction of this project focuses on handling the students’ negative emotions produced by stress to avoid negative consequences happening such as depression. This project begins in secondary research about stress followed by case studies of the existing products along with an interview with the target users. The case studies use the KJ method to find the design elements of existing relaxing products. Moreover, there is deeply understanding of the students’ stress and the effective method of releasing the students’ stress through the interview of East-Asian international students. After the research, the author transfers the information from research into design rationales and decides the design direction of this project with the design rationales. The design direction of this project is to design an interactive robot to increase the interaction between the students and their family to achieve the goal of relaxation. There is an initial focus group to gain the user’s feedback from after the initial design, and a redesign with the feedback. Finally, there is a final focus group to evaluate the final design and the final design uses the user’s feedback as the reference to amend and develop in the future.

Continuous participation in stroke rehabilitation programs enables function recovery and quality of life. However, research showed that stroke rehabilitation services do not necessarily meet the needs and the expectations of stroke patients. To address this issue, in this study, patient needs was assessed from the perspective of customer value. Customer value was defined using the service dimensions in SERVQUAL. Contextual Inquiry (CI) was conducted with three stroke patients and their therapists. Critical incidents (i.e., service gaps) were identified and categorized by the service dimensions. A follow-up survey was conducted with 11 stroke patients and 11 therapists to obtain subjective ratings on the critical incidents to provide quantitative insight that corroborated the findings from the CI in improving current stroke rehabilitation services. Results of the CI revealed that most occurred critical incident was related with reliability when therapists provided instructions on the rehabilitation activities. Results of the survey showed that (1) for stroke patients, all service dimensions were equally important; responsiveness was the least satisfied dimension; (2) Therapists believed that all service dimensions were addressed by their services; assurance was the most important dimension. The perceptual differences of the two groups on customer value led to recommendations on the current rehabilitation services. The outcomes of the study provided insight on critical stroke patient needs and contributed to the design of stroke rehabilitation therapy services.

The number of young adults becoming overweight leading to obesity is on an unceasing rise. Attempts have been made to tackle this epidemic throughout the UK through varied technology platforms including video games and more recently through ubiquitous mobile applications. With a significant increase of smartphone usage, mobile applications have become the ideal platform to reach out to young adults. This paper addresses the obesity epidemic and the fundamental value of healthy living through the development of an app which encourages eating a balanced diet and particularly increasing the time spent exercising by incorporating it into an individual’s daily routine. It focuses on tackling the common barriers currently preventing individuals from increasing their level of physical activity and aims to provide a solution to the problem domain by implementing persuasive design principles, models and frameworks in an android mobile application to successfully change or modify behaviors and attitudes within young adults to increase the time spent on exercise and a healthy lifestyle.

There used to exist a vision of telemedicine in which healthcare became universally connected. mHealth is a manifestation of that vision. However, studies that demonstrate theoretical user acceptance factors of mHealth are limited. We are still just neophytes in this area of research with the full potential of mHealth being an unknown. Through the use of literature review and qualitative we examined the effectiveness of mHealth use in a clinical setting, the factors inhibiting the proliferation of mHealth technologies, and the future expectations of mHealth. In this qualitative study twenty random patients between the ages of 25–94 were surveyed on their usage and expectations of mHealth related apps. Of the twenty patients that were sampled, only five had reported of past experience with mHealth related applications. Of those five with past experience in use of mHealth apps, only two reported to have continued with mHealth use on a daily basis. Reasons cited for discontinuation of use included difficult to understand interface, failure to provide precise diagnosis, and time required for data entry. Concerns that patients had for mHealth included security risks, ease of use, and accuracy of disease prediction. Key features that patients expect for the future of mHealth included medical record consolidation, easier appointment scheduling and prescription refills, integration with wearable health monitoring devices, and facilitation of direct patient-to-patient and physician-to-patient communications. Future studies of mHealth will require a greater sample size to verify the validity of these concerns and find solutions to meet the future expectations of mHealth.

Obesity has become a major public health issue in most countries around the world. In addition, adolescent obesity is increasing in an alarming rate all over the world. Many attempts have been made to address this issue that ranges from doing exercise to following a diet plan to playing games. While the existence of the above works indicates the past and ongoing efforts to combat adolescent obesity, they are clearly not enough since it is still rising. Researchers have found that adolescent obesity controlling has a lot to do with combating unhealthy cravings that needs strong will power and motivation at such an age. Often, young people and their caregiver struggle to find healthy and nutritious recipes that would fulfill the craving of young people. In order to motivate unfit adolescents towards healthy eating, our research tries to provide them with alternative tasty yet healthier food options using a mobile application. In this paper, we present the design and development details of a mobile application, Healthy Hankerings, which has the potential to help deal with adolescent obesity by motivating its users to choose a healthier food option when they have craving for unhealthy or junk food. To find a healthy recipe, the application uses a recognition algorithm, a decision tree based learning algorithm that considers user’s meal intake history and current cravings. To evaluate our application, we also present the usability study of the prototype in this paper.

The office sitting position of the staff is closely related to the design of the office chair. We use the dynamic capture system of Microsoft Kinect sensor to study office sitting posture, in order to capture sitting posture and form three-dimensional coordinate data and RGB images, and then with the help of GBR and FCM methods to cluster Kinect data in MTATLAB data analysis software, getting the average sitting posture and sitting position type and transformation rules. The results show that there are four types of office posture. The data shows that these four types of postures can be divided into skill posture, adaptive posture and initiative attitude, and then analyzed corresponding task scene, office tasks and office equipment. Category 1 posture scenario is using computer, which belongs to the skill posture. Category 2 posture scene is mobile working, which is initiative attitude; Category 3 posture scene is to talking on the phone, belonging to the adaptive posture; Category 4 pose is a rest scene, belonging to the adaptive posture. The time of Category 1 of changing sitting position is 11.6 min; The time of Category 2 of changing sitting position is 13.7 min; the time of Category 3 of changing sitting position is 2.8 min; the time of Category 4 of changing sitting position is 17.2 min.

This paper presents a mobile gamified application encouraging positive coping strategies for patients of serious and possibly fatal illnesses. The application concept is based on the analogy between one’s lifetime memories and future bucket lists and a journey in the sea of remembrance, traveling back and forth between past and present positive moments and future wish-lists, whilst being aware that life as water, goes on. This concept was co-designed by a team of UX researchers, engineers, and domain experts applying the principles of Eudaimonic design. The iterative development process brought to the final prototype: a multimedia diary with a gameful interface, which is thoroughly described, along with the relative heuristic and empirical evaluations, in this paper.

In the recent twenty years, people have developed a close relationship with digital technology in conducting sports and training. Initially, approximately 1995–2005, the first wave of Sport IT included technology as GPS watches and pulse measurement equipment connected to rudimentary digital services, designed by the brand delivering the watch and only available for the single user’s needs. In the second wave, between years 2006–2010, APIs and platforms started to emerge, facilitating the data to flow between artefacts, services, brands and facilities. Aesthetics in information visualization and other User experience (UX) aspects become popular and the audience becomes broader. The third wave, in the interval of 2011 and forward, could be described as the maturing wave. People now become fanatic about showing results to others – in sport platforms and on general social media. Further, what symbolizes this wave is that the focus in use becomes more on hi-fi information rather than low-fi data. In the third wave, the usage is widely spread and covers a wide range of requirements from a wide range of users.The paper gives a more thorough description of the three waves of Sports IT when it comes to applications and user cases. A thorough description of related work for each wave is given with the main goal to pinpoint where research has given fruitful insights and contribution. In order to give a deeper understanding of the waves, one detailed example of a typical digital service of each wave is presented. Finally, the phenomenon of Sports IT and digital wellness is discussed based on findings shown earlier in the paper.

Different body segments have different thermal characteristics and sleeping postures change unconsciously during the night. Thus, the movements of the extremities should be taken into consideration in a bedding system design. The design guidelines propose in this study is enhance pressure balance, the physiological balance of microclimate, and improvement of distal skin blood circulation. An innovative mattress design has been developed in this study. The proposed mattress has a five-layer sandwiched structure. Twelve healthy participants had general level in BMI were recruited in 3-day sleep monitoring including one habit adjustment night in simulated laboratory condition to evaluate the original and design mattresses. The consequence indicated mattress design considered thermal comfort efficiently on the basis of position change improved sleep efficient, loss sleep disturbance by loss mean activity and arousal time.

Different people define ‘interaction’ in the context of digital interactive art in different ways. The confusion comes from the fact that the meaning of interaction is different in different fields. Medical science, social science, information technology all define interaction in a way that is different from the meaning in the other field.In this article, we would like to point out how interaction and interactivity is defined in different fields that has some sort of relevance and applicability in the area of digital interactive art and how these varied definitions are related and what they mean when applied in the context of digital interactive art. In particular, we would like to identify the various types of interactions and communication that take place and have some meaning and significance in the context of a digital interactive art installation.

This paper introduces the concept of cross-generational system, which indicates an information technology system designed to allow different generations interacting through centuries or, even, millennia. In the era of digital immortality and advances in artificial intelligence, there will be not only the problem of preserving and accessing data, but the emergence of digital clones will bring new challenges for technology development, interaction design and ethics. This paper provides an overview of societal transformation towards digital immortality, then describes the vision of cross-generational system design, investigates the relative future challenges and proposes the eventual socio-ethical questions.

The objective of the paper is to critically reflect on how research through design (RtD) can be used to gain knowledge of a new design context within HCI. We use the design research triangle presented by Fallman [1] as the framework for analyzing and to reflect upon the RtD process. The design context to which this new knowledge was applied to is within the area of dance and technology. Our design inquiry, therefore, using the term we coined – addhance, seeks to either add a sort of novel experience, or enhance a dance performance. We, thus, taking an RtD approach, explored how the dancers could compose music by moving their bodies. We designed a Kinect based system that captures dancer’s movements and translates them into music. Intending to addhance the choreography, enlighten dancers’ movements and bring a new disrupted workflow of both creating and enjoying a dancing performance.

Based on the present situation of digital communication of cultural heritage at home and abroad, this article compares, analyzes and summarizes the current typical methods of digitized communication. At the same time, from the perspective of “interpretation and deduction”, combining with the scientific nature illustrated and artistry induced in the process of strategic analysis communication of experience design, typical theories and methods on digitalized communication of cultural heritage are analyzed and induced.This article will explore the design method system of digitized communication of cultural heritage from the perspective of science and technology. The obtained data and information are of scientific and technological value. It will also provide scientific and methodological guidance for the status quo of the present cultural heritage. And from the point of view of creation, the artistic and cultural values behind the heritage will be reasonably and artistically induced and communicated.

Some perceive AI as encroaching on human capacities, perchance affecting their perceptions of AI. Applying Schema theory, this study examines whether and to what extent human judges are biased in ascribing “creativity” to the artwork of artificial intelligence. To begin to examine whether an artist’s perceived identity (i.e., as an artificially intelligent agent (AI) or human) might produce different reactions in judging the same artwork, participants blocked by subject characteristics (e.g., graduate, undergraduate) were randomly assigned to one of two types of focus groups. The groups differed only in that they were led to believe the same artwork was the product of a human or the product of an AI artist, triggering very different identity schemas about the artist. Participants were asked to (a) define art; whether AI can (b) make art and (c) if given art (which was the same in all groups) is “art.” Both focus groups types similarly associated art with expression, creativity, providing a message, and broadly conceived the boundaries of what was art. They differed in that the “Human Artist group” had an interactive view of art (perceiving, providing feedback) but the “AI Artist group” said any sense (visual, auditory, etc.) stimulus was art. The “Human Artist group” thought AI could make art while the “AI Artist group” disagreed. Both types of focus groups believed that the given art piece is art. Implications of findings for applications and theory are discussed.

Recently, technology-enhanced learning research has increasingly focused on emergent technologies such as augmented reality. Educational researchers of traditional handicraft have used emergent technologies to inject affective and cognitive learning in teaching. However, numerous studies have highlighted content display of traditional handicraft in teaching based on emergent technologies. As far as we know very little work emphasized personalized learning and experience based on augmented reality in traditional handicraft. In order to address these problems, the researchers present an AR-based experiential learning method for traditional handicraft, with the purpose of shifting the pattern of learning from content-centered to experience-centered. Our approach is Augmented Reality-based Personalized Learning Pattern (ARPLP) for traditional handicraft, and it can be divided into four phases. In addition, a case of Cantonese Porcelain is presented to support this pattern in experience interface of application. The results of research produced an experience interface framework of traditional handicraft based on ARPLP, it contributes to the value of augmented reality as well as experiential learning of students for Cantonese Porcelain.

This paper focuses the shift in human culture and society, delivered by the digital revolution. Due to an expected dematerialization of the most future products and services the contradiction between the classical value of a commodity, negotiated in the traditional exchange systems and the digital economy will further increase. This again will contribute to dramatic changes in production, rendering gigantic industrial complexes obsolete, which puts the personal creativity as an eternal, never expiring source of inspiration, art, design and high elaborated products into the focus. Starting from this point we want to explore how future-oriented education can meaningfully interlink the widely chaotic processes of art and design production, the absolute necessary fuzziness of an artist’s mind with the cool and sometimes unforgiving logic of the digital machines. We are deeply convinced that this is not a matter of interface-design anymore. That’s why we want to go beyond any conventions and rethink higher education in the domain of art and design related creativity, virtuosity and intellectuality under the impact of the digital revolution from the beginning. By conducting an analytic review of the mindsets and methods applied here, we are expecting to face the major challenge in defining the criteria, which are allowing us to establish and to sustain a dynamic balance between the needs of the carbon beings and the possibilities of their siliconized representations - far apart from buzzword centered platitudes.

The purpose of research on innovative applications of Augmented Reality technology in digital display for intangible cultural heritage is to promote the way to display and disseminate for collections. We explored the relationship between AR technology and digital display, and then the model of digital display for intangible cultural heritage is designed, and the current status was analyzed. This paper examines how to build a model of a digital display with the example of Cantonese furniture that embodies and reflect history, society, culture, technology, function, and style requirements of different content. Finally, the most important, it is how to practice in actual program combined with AR technology. The conclusion is to provide a reference to disseminate the cultural soft power and to construct digital public service platform through a study on innovative applications of AR technology.

Smartphones have become commodity tools and exist in large multiple in all parts of the population. The typical use of navigation applications focus on aiding users with no impairments. Guidance applications with enhancing features, and facilitating for i.e. people with visual impairments, focus on voice-based feedback. In this paper we focus on the use of haptic feedback as a tool and guidance for navigation, through utilising the vibration mechanism available in mobile phones. Through the development of a prototype application we illustrate how haptic feedback can be used to guide users in cases of visual impairment or hindrance. The preliminary results display a novel contribution to multi-modal navigation and exemplifies active use of receptors for smartphone feedback interpretation.

Several parts of our modern lives are today taking place in networks where both humans and machines are key actors. With this development follows the increased need and importance of investigating related consequences and understand how we best can design technological systems to support efficient and productive human-machine networks. This paper presents the use of a human-machine network approach to nuance how we think of the interactions and collaboration that takes place in human-machine networks. Specifically, we study the complex network involved in crisis management, and show how such a network’s characteristics may have implications for, and affect collaboration. The study is based on the analysis of in-depth interviews with both system provider representatives and end-users of a collaborative tool for crisis management. Three directions in which the design and development of crisis management systems should be guided are proposed.

We investigate whether the behavior of pointing at a map by an image-based avatar helps a user understand a route in an image-based avatar navigation system. We also evaluate whether this behavior is preferred by the user. Existing avatar-based methods inform the user of a route by this behavior while talking. However, the existing methods do not consider how to incorporate a map. Thus, we consider how to inform the user of a route using an image-based avatar that indicates the route by pointing at a map. In the experiments, after users interacted with the system, we conducted a route depiction test to determine whether a user was able to correctly understand the route on a map and performed a questionnaire-based subjective assessment to determine whether the user liked the image-based avatar system. The results of the experiments show that the pointing behavior significantly increased the likeability of the system but did not help the user understand the route.

Due to ever-shortening product life cycles and multi variant products the demand for flexible production systems that include human-robot collaboration (HRC) rises. One key factor in HRC is stress that occurs because of the unfamiliar work with the robot. To reduce stress induced strain for assembly tasks we propose an adjustment of cycle times to the human’s performance, so that the stress that is exerted on the working person by a waiting robot is minimized. For an autonomous adaptation of the cycle time, the production system should be aware of the human’s actions and assembly progress without the need to inform the system manually. Therefore, we propose an activity recognition in assembly based on a machine learning technique. A convolutional neural network is used to distinguish between different activities during the assembly by analyzing motion data of the hands of the working person. The results show that the network is suitable for distinguishing between nine different assembly activities like screwing with a screwdriver, screwing with a hexagon wrench or general assembly and further activities.

Cognitive systems built with artificial intelligence resources (AI-powered systems) can be defined as software systems that learn at scale from their interaction with humans and environments. That kind of system allows people to augment their cognitive potential in order to harvest insights from huge quantities of data to understand complex situations, make accurate predictions about the future, and anticipate the unintended consequences of actions. These systems evolve naturally from such learning, rather than being explicitly programmed. In this approach, humans and computers work more interconnected to achieve unexpected insights. In order to be useful, an AI-powered system must be aware of the users’ goals, so it can help him/her by bringing contextual information from multiple sources, guiding through the series of tasks associated with the goals. The knowledge structuring is a challenge by itself and it has been the focus of knowledge engineering research. Once the knowledge is structured or organized, the challenge falls on UX researchers to investigate users and their tasks and goals with that structured knowledge. Questions like who the users are, what they want or need to do, in which preferred ways, and what are users’ goals can guide UX research on this matter. We argue that an AI-powered system could infer the user’s goals by observing his/her interactions with different systems and considering its knowledge base – about the user, the group(s) s/he is part of, the applications’ domains, the overall context, etc. Based on fieldwork executed for a project where a knowledge-intensive process is analyzed and discussed with support of an AI-Powered System, we propose the Cognitive Reasoning Interface (CoRgI) framework. This paper presents the fieldwork observation that led to the development of the framework, how we conceptualize the framework, and our initial validation of the framework.

The exponential increase in the volume of data, the velocity at which they are created and their vast and progressively expanding varieties can be derived from virtually all aspects of our everyday lives. This situation prompts the need for urgent change in the way data are stored, received, and analyzed. Today, organizations under appreciate the changes, growth and strategic development their Big Data are capable of providing. Organizations also overestimate their own ability to access and interrupt their data in order to derive benefit from it. Big Data problems in organizations have historically been approached with an isolated outlook, rather than viewing issues as co-dependent parts of one another. The purpose of this research is to identify and summarize the general challenges faced by an organizations ability to adequately utilize and capitalize on the opportunities presented by its Big Data. Through the research methods of data collection and multiple case study analysis, this paper proposes a three-step framework model, which focuses on definition, organization and value creation. The proposed framework serves to mitigate Big Data implementation challenges and their involved issues faced by an organization.

Driven by megatrends such as globalization, urbanization, climate change and technological progress, the mobility sector is undergoing a strong process of change which is characterized in particular by the intermodal cross-linking of various public and private mobility services. The aim is to make transport as a whole more environmentally friendly. To meet this challenge “Mobility as a Service” (MaaS) concepts are introduced in the market which offer individualized one-stop access to several bundled travel services based on customer’s needs. The supply of so-called mobility packages requires very close cooperation between the various players on the transport market who use electronic platforms for this purpose. First of all, the paper gives an overview about the research activities and the implementation status of MaaS concepts in different countries. In the following chapters, the general approach and methods for the development of mobility packages are discussed and first results of related research projects in Germany are presented.

HMI is used to refer to human-vehicle interaction design from the perspective of taking car as a machine. However, with the quick increase of demand for smart cockpit, it would put strong constraints to the design of intelligent interactions and connected services if we still design from the perspective of control-oriented interface with a machine. By switching the concept from Human Machine Interaction (HMI) to Human Robot Interaction (HRI) can instead greatly open up the space of innovation for the development of natural interactions with the car as an intelligent system. This also make it possible to further focus on topics such as adaptive learning of the system through smart interaction. Designing from the perspective of human robot interaction is even more important for autonomous vehicles, which can provide to users a more consistent intelligent experience from driving control to in-vehicle functions and connected services. we introduce in this paper our approach in designing human-vehicle interaction from the HRI perspective, which is further composed of three parts: the intelligent sensing, predicting, and decision-making module, the adaptive user interface module, and the intelligent voice module.

We developed a novel node-link style interface that can be introduced into a block-based visual programming language as an alternative representation of named variables. By using our new interface, the programmer no longer needs to decide the name of a variable. Tracking the data flow in the program can be easily achieved. Since keyboard typing is not required, the coding is expected to be more accessible to children and persons with disabilities, and it is also suitable for touch operations on mobile phones and tablets.In our system, as the number of variables increases, the intersections of the links increase, which makes the appearance complicated. To avoid this problem, we implemented improvements in the design, such as emphasizing the focused link list, and making the curves of the links consistent.

This research presents the design and development of holographic environment for multi-user virtual robot training system. During On-the-Job Training (OJT), this proposed system assists the trainer to train the trainee for operating the virtual robot arm at the robot station. It is designed for multiple users to access the same augmented environment including the physics-based simulation at the same time. In the augmented environment, the trainer can demonstrate the operation of the robot through the hologram while the trainee can visualize and operate the virtual robot by interaction with the hologram. The result showed that the same augmented environment was interacted by the trainer and the trainee successfully. Hologram environment was accurately mapped to the real environment. In the future, the proposed system can send a set of commands to control the real robot as similar to the hologram version.

One of the daily routines of the smartphone users is using the mobile applications. Individuals explore the app stores and select a potential app. The selection procedure is affected by the information that the app stores display for each app. Reviews of the apps are an important factor in making decisions to select an app. Likewise, Users experiences and attitudes are affected by the information that they read and see on the interface of apps’ reviews. In our study, we aim to investigate the users’ experiences and attitudes towards mobile apps’ reviews. To achieve our goal, we constructed a survey consists of statements divided into five categories to collect a variety of data about the users’ experience and attitude. The questionnaire’s categories were designed to generate data regarding users’ experiences and attitudes when selecting apps. Likewise, to investigate the criteria that users set to evaluate the apps’ quality. Moreover, participants were asked about their experiences with the comments section in the apps’ reviews. Also, investigating if there are complaints regarding the reviews’ comments. Furthermore, we investigated what users can know from the interface of the mobile apps reviews in the app stores. We had 102 participants in our survey. Our results showed that free apps, especially if there is a need for the app, have the most chance to be installed even with a lower rate. We also found that, besides the apps’ rating and download statistics, users tend to adapt self-judgment for determining the apps’ quality. Regarding the reviews’ comments, users wish there is a way to limit the length of the reviews. Users like the reviews that are short and specific. We found that the current interface design of the review needs revisions to help users to be aware of critical apps-related issues such as apps’ permissions.

Studies following the CASA paradigm showed that computers sending social cues elicited social reactions in their human users who e.g. adopted social norms (Reeves and Nass 1996). As these reactions were originally exclusive for human-human interactions, the derived paradigm stated that “computers are social actors” (CASA; Nass et al. 1994) referring to the theoretical concept of media equation, basically saying that “media equals real life” (Reeves and Nass 1996, p. 5). Nass et al. (1999) focused on the norm of politeness. In their experiment they showed that the evaluation of a computer was more positive if the computer itself asked for it compared to another computer asking. Our study adopts this experimental approach. However, as technology has evolved since the 1990's we replaced desktop PCs with smartphones transferring the CASA paradigm to modern devices. In a laboratory experiment, participants (n = 108) interacted with a smartphone which they evaluated afterwards. There were three different settings with (1) the target phone itself (2) another given smartphone or (3) the participants’ own smartphone asking for the evaluation. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences between the first and third setting (F[2,105] = 3.35, p = .04, η2 = .06) with evaluations being significantly better if the target phone itself asked for them. Homogeneous answers were interpreted as an indicator of dishonesty. Results revealed that evaluations on one’s own smartphone were significantly less homogeneous than on the target phone (F[2,105] = 3.20, p = .05, η2 = .06). Moreover, within experimental group 3, the participants’ closeness to their own phone was shown to be significantly negatively associated with the evaluation of the target phone. In sum, results are interpreted as indicators of smartphones eliciting social norms of politeness. Hence, both the CASA paradigm and the integration of a psychological perspective constitute a heuristically fruitful approach for the analysis of users interacting with (modern) devices.

Based on the paradigm of “computers are social actors” (CASA) and the idea of media equation, this study aims to examine whether smartphones elicit social responses originally exclusive for human-human interaction. Referring to the stereotype of gender-specific colors, participants (n = 108) of a laboratory experiment interacted with a phone presented either in a blue (male) or a pink (female) sleeve to solve five social dilemmas with the phone always arguing for one of two options given. Afterwards, participants rated the femininity and the masculinity of the phone as well as its competence and trustworthiness. Furthermore, the participants’ conformity with the choice recommendations the phone made was analyzed.Consistent with gender stereotypes, participants ascribed significantly more masculine attributes to the blue sleeved smartphone and more female attributes to the pink phone. The blue phone was perceived as more competent and participants followed its advice significantly more often compared to the pink sleeved smartphone. Results on how trustworthiness was perceived were only found for male participants who perceived the blue phone to be more trustworthy. In sum, the study reveals both the CASA paradigm and the psychological perspective on users to be fruitful approaches for future research. Moreover, the results also reveal practical implications regarding the importance of gender sensitive development of digital devices.

Text entry on any small mobile devices, such as a smartphone remains challenging and inconvenient. The “lack of realistic tactile feedback” on the touch screens and “the screen sizes wuld limit the key sizes” have not been fully overcome yet. In addition, when entering text, the fingers have to move constantly and quickly to locate letters in a limited area. Therefore, this research aims at “the relationships between finger movement speeds, distances, directions and accuracies while making continuous data entry inside the keyboard areas of the mobile devices”. We developed an App for data entry testing to analyze how the finger movement directions, speeds, distances would affect the falling points of the data entry. The results showed that the directions of the finger movements would affect the touch point positions. It’s more significant along the vertical axis than the horizontal axis. Moreover, only the fingers’ moving speeds and movement distances would affect the taping accuracy, and the fingers’ moving directions would not have influence on the taping accuracy.

A current development in public transport is the transition of paper-based mobility information into public displays at mobility stations. Mobility providers and users can benefit equally from this progress. This paper describes the evaluation of eight interactive public displays at a completely paperless test station in Stuttgart, Germany. The evaluation is based on analytical and empirical methods and covers data of the first year of operation.

Objective Video Quality Assessment (VQA) is often used to predict users visual perception of video quality. In the literature, the performance evaluation of objective measures is based on benchmark subjective scores of perceived quality. This paper shows the evaluation of an algorithmic measure on videos presented on mobile devices. The VQA measure is called Sencogi Spatio-Temporal Saliency Metric (Sencogi-STSM), and it uses a spatio-temporal saliency to model subjective perception of video quality. Since STSM was previously validated with a subjective test conducted on laptop computers, the goal of this work was to verify whether the measure is able to significantly predict users’ perception of video quality also on mobile devices. Results show that, compared to the standard VQA metrics, only Sencogi-STSM is able to significantly predict subjective DMOS. This paper describes Sencogi-STSM’s biologically plausible model, its performance evaluation and the comparison with the most commonly used objective VQA metrics.

This paper presents a process to evaluate a new feature which allowed users to do gestures in a fingerprint sensor located at the bottom of smartphones. The idea was, with these gestures in the fingerprint sensor, users could perform all functions available on a typical Android navigation bar (go back, go to home screen and open the recent apps), so that the navigation bar could be hidden from all screens, allowing the users to enjoy a larger screen in all apps. The whole evaluation process was remotely performed at the end of the development process, with 115 participants receiving a smartphone containing not only the new feature to be evaluated but also a few embedded apps to collect logs, let users raise any issues they found and answer user satisfaction surveys after some time using the feature. The findings from this evaluation process were useful to refine the feature, enhance the user experience and make all stakeholders more confident about the user’s acceptance before releasing it to market.

Credibility is considered one of the most important Human-Computer Interaction design attributes that are responsible for the success of e-commerce websites. In web design, research has shown that visual aesthetics is one of the strongest determinants of the perceived credibility of websites. However, there is a dearth of knowledge regarding which of the two main dimensions of visual aesthetics (classical aesthetics and expressive aesthetics) is the stronger determinant of perceived credibility. To bridge this gap, we conducted an empirical study of 526 subjects from five continents to investigate which of the two dimensions of visual aesthetics has a stronger influence on perceived credibility using a utilitarian mobile website as a case study. Our results show that classical aesthetics significantly influences perceived credibility more strongly than expressive aesthetics does. The findings generalize across age and gender and different levels of user interface aesthetics. Our findings underscore the need for website designers to pay special attention to classical aesthetics features (e.g., simplicity, clarity, orderliness, cleanness and pleasantness) rather than expressive aesthetics features (complexity, richness, novelty and special effects) when designing utilitarian systems. A classically pleasing website is more likely to be perceived credible than an expressively arousing website.

This study proposes two conceptual products using wearable devices (smartwatches) for the purpose of emotional management. One is designed with Slow Technology, and the other is designed with Personal Informatics. Questionnaire survey method was used in this study. The questionnaire consists of two types, AttrakDiff and INTUI. Subjects filled out the questionnaires after watching two videos of conceptual products. The questionnaire data were analyzed by the independent sample and paired sample t-test in order to find the differences of ideas and user experience (pragmatic quality, hedonic quality, attractiveness, and intuition) about these two kinds of products. It is important to find out that the Slow Technology products are inferior to Personal Informatics products in pragmatic quality and intuition, but superior in hedonic quality and attractiveness. This study suggests that the wearable devices can be integrated with furniture and appliances to provide a material basis of intelligent decoration transformation for users with the help of recorded information and data. Before the emotion identification technology gets mature, this study can be a pilot study for future product design strategy, preparing for Slow Technology products’ going to the public to improve user’s emotions.

Intermodal mobility services are enabled by the complex orchestrations of different service providers and resources. Looking at users, service providers aim to offer users a great holistic experience across the entire journey. For designing the holistic mobility experience, methods and tools must be provided that address the emerging challenges. This article examines the method experience map to apply it to the field of mobility. The goal is to create assistance for the design activities: Understanding existing experience, exploring service ideas and communicating service concepts. Based on a best practice analysis, the article investigates the structure of currently used experience maps. Building on these results, a two-stage expert study is conducted in order to provide a framework for the creation and analysis of a mobility experience map. Finally, the article discusses the implications for the analysis of the holistic experience using the mobility experience map.

The sharing activities of smart devices have been proved to occur commonly among users and discussed by many studies. In contrast to sharing behaviors of personal computer, smartphone sharing is impromptu. It occurs pervasively like on the street between strangers or at home between family members. The variety of sharing behaviors requires the investigation of the most impact factors for smartphone sharing, which underlies the design of usable privacy user interface. This work investigates and analyzes the influencing factors of smartphone users sharing decisions based on CART algorithm of Decision Tree. The data for analyzing is based on a survey involving 165 participants’ responses. Results indicated the features belonging to the sharing attitudes and behaviors impacted users’ sharing decisions mostly.

Lifelog means using wearable devices to record human’s life automatically which can help users recall. More and more lifelog cameras with multiple sensors become available to the public. To view the vast amount of lifelog photos captured by the devices, the manufacturers provide supporting viewer systems. However, current systems only enable users to view the photos in time order by installing the specialized software. Previous research stated that memories can be recalled by memory cues, such as where the event happened, who was involved. In this research, we intend to find out the most important memory cues that help people recall and create a new lifelog viewer system to help users recall past more efficiently without increase the burden on users. To find out which cues appear more in events remembered by people, we conducted several experiments. The proposed new lifelog viewer system can recognize object, location, face and time information in lifelog photos automatically and show photos according to these memory cues information instead of in time order. With the system, users can retrieve photos of past events via these multiple memory cues. We also conducted a preliminary user study to evaluate, the results show the validity of the proposed system.

Tactile interaction on smartphones is becoming increasingly important in assistive technologies and special purpose applications. Although various tactile techniques exist, the development of effective and user-friendly tactile applications lacks design guidance. This work describes a distinct model that guides designers and developers in developing tactile interfaces on smartphones. The model has three distinct parts, namely, quantifying tactile stimuli, clustering, and tactile application experiment. We review existing techniques for processing each part and discuss their advantages and disadvantages. And we implement a tactile application on a TPad (Tactile Pattern display) phone on the basis of the design procedure of the model to demonstrate its usage. Results show that the workflow of the model can guide developers in implementing efficient tactile applications.