Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'HCI Systems'

This item is not the definitive copy. Please use the following citation when referencing this material: Dillon, A. (2001) Usability Issues in Hypermedia. In: W. Karwowski (ed). Encyclopedia of Human Factors and Ergonomics. London: Taylor and Francis. 1. Introduction: Hypermedia is a general term used to describe the presentation of graphical, textual, audio and video information in nodes (chunks) that can be linked together and accessed in a manner determined by the immediate interests of the user. Originating as an idea for mechanized information access and organization that better reflected the natural workings of the human mind by Vannevar Bush (1945), the potential of the computer to provide the best means of supporting hypermedia was recognized early on by thinkers such as Ted Nelson and Doug Engelbart (for a historical overview see Conklin, 1987). The move toward hypermedia-based digital documents holds with it the promise of user-controlled, immediate access to the world of published information and stored data. While originally a specialist application domain, in the last few years the World Wide Web has brought to everyoneâ s desktop the power and problems of hypermedia interaction. Yet from the outset, human factors researchers have noted a range of user issues that prevent the simple transition from analog to digital resources

The fields of HCI and MIS share many concerns but have traditionally not shared literatures, theories and results. This special issue is a first attempt at bridging the disciplinary divide. In this paper, the history of both fields is briefly outlined and reasons for the independence of eachare examined. The criteria for paper inclusion are outlined and each paper is briefly introduced.

This thesis seeks to identify reasons why HCI techniques are unsuitable for application in real world design projects. User-oriented systems design and evaluation require that many considerations such as the psychology of users, the applications and target tasks be born in mind simultaneously. A selection of influential HCI design and evaluative techniques from HCI research literature are reviewed and characterised in terms of their analytic scope. Two studies of systems designers' approaches to user-oriented design and evaluation were carried out in order to gain a clearer picture of the design process as it occurs in applied and commercial projects. It was found that designers frequently lack adequate information about users, carrying Out, at best, informal user-evaluations of prototypes. Most notably HCI design and evaluative techniques, of the type common in the literature, are not being used in applied and commercial design practice. They seem to be complex, often limited in scope, and possessed of inadequate or unrepresentative views of the design process within which they might be applied. It was noted that design practice is highly varied with only a small number of common goal directed classes of activity being identified. These together with observed user-oriented information sources and design constraints provide a useful schema for viewing applied and commercial design practice. A further study of HCI specialists' practice in commercial environments was undertaken, in order to identify particular user-oriented design approaches and HCI techniques suitable for application in practice. The specialists were able to describe desirable, and undesirable properties of the techniques they used which made it possible to identify a list of specific desirable features for HCI techniques. A framework for assessing applicability of HCI techniques was developed from the findings of the thesis. This is demonstrated using an example project from the design studies and may prove valuable in supporting design, evaluation, critiquing and selection of HCI techniques.

This thesis proposes creating an interactive learning environment for Human Computer Interaction (HCI) to facilitate access to, and learning of, important design knowledge. By encapsulating HCI knowledge into reusable claims stored in a knowledge repository, or claims library, this learning environment aims at allowing students to effectively explore design features to limit their reliance on intuition to mold their interfaces, help them address proper design concerns, and evaluate alternatives for their designs. This learning approach is based on active learning where students create their own knowledge by gathering information. However, building adequate development records from which students can gather HCI knowledge is critical to support this approach. This thesis explores using effective reusable design components to act as design records to create an interactive learning environment for students learning HCI design. An initial prototype for the learning environment introduces claims as an encapsulation mechanism for design features from which students can gather HCI knowledge. Pilot testing outlines the accessibility, applicability and reusability problems associated with this approach. To solve theses issues, a taxonomic organization of an improved form of claims (reference claims), is introduced to share core design knowledge among students. A taxonomy is designed as a way to expose students to important design concerns as well as a method to categorize claims. Reference claims are introduced as improved claims inspired by reference tasks to expose students to design alternatives for design concerns. A detailed taxonomy and a set of reference claims for the domain of notification systems demonstrate how existing theories of design can be translated into reference claims to create an interactive learning environment. An experiment illustrates the applicability and reusability of reference claims for various designs within a particular domain. Finally, an evaluation assesses the benefits of this learning environment based on reference claims in terms of improving student designs and increasing the amount of HCI knowledge they reuse. Results show that by exposing students to valuable concerns and alternatives for the design of interactive systems, an interactive learning environment based on reference claims can improve studentsâ understanding of the design scope and lead to an increased use of existing HCI knowledge in their designs.
Master of Science

A set of systems are considered where there are multiple agents simultaneously active within real-time a environment. These systems are termed SMART systems and are found in domains as diverse as office administration, process control and aviation. Such systems place particular demands on agents that are not present in non-SMART systems. Actions may be time constrained in two ways: i) an action appropriate at one time may not be appropriate at another; ii) the time available for a required action may approximate to the time in which an agent is able to perform that action. In order to be able to function in such environments agents, both human and computer, must be aware of time constraints and the actions necessary to ensure that they do not compromise system goals.

People are used to working routines that are taught and transferred from one to another, routines such as how to interact with an information system and how to use it in a specific context. While user experience and usability have been two issues of interest within the field of HCI, there is a lack of research exploring usage and behavior while interacting with complex error-sensitive systems, in so much as an action that couldn’t be undone once performed. This thesis explores the error-sensitive aspects of complexity within interactions of the administering of medical prescription activities at an intensive healthcare unit. The aim is to investigate the interactions of computer-supported cooperative work environments used for information transformation activities for medical prescriptions. The results reveal a number of HCI-related issues in which clinicians socially bypass system interactions by making incomplete data inputs while assuming a given level of understanding of other employees.

This dissertation documents a journey into the design of Ummeli with a community of semi-­‐literate job seekers in Khayelitsha, Cape Town whose primary access to the internet was through their mobile phones. Working closely with this community over many months, we developed Ummeli, a suite of tools that allow the user to build their CVs; browse and apply for employment and training opportunities; recommend and post jobs; get employment tips and connect to other job seekers. To design Ummeli, Ethnographic Action Research (EAR) was embraced, not as a methodology, but as a research approach, a foundation from which to incorporate participatory approaches to designing Information communication technologies for development (ICT4D). User Centered Design (UCD) was incorporated as a design approach. Ummeli was built by a combination of insights drawn from a lived-­‐in experience, and employing UCD informed methods of participatory design (PD). Here we employed Human Access Point (HAP) a form of PD that allows for a member of the community to be a proxy for the design process. Learn to Earn, an NGO based in Khayelitsha became the HAP, and took the critical role in that they, highlighted, translated, evaluated and represented what was most crucial for the community; their input allowed Ummeli to match the community’s need. In the process, we came across concepts such as Umqweno, which represents yearnings and desires, replacing our own perception systems requirements. Siyazenzela, representing a communal participatory approach to doing life; and Ubuntu, which captures the spirit behind Africa’s communal identity, which were all adopted into the original EAR framework. In this document we set out to demonstrate what it means to be a “reflective practitioner” as we adopted appropriated and reconfigured aspects of participatory UCD methods to fit culturally relevant contexts. The process allowed for constant reflections leading to “aha” moments. In the end, we had created Ummeli, with over 80,000 users, and developed Mediated Design, a culturally indoctrinated xii participatory approach to designing interactive system with and for semi-­‐literate people.

The ever increasing capabilities of mobile devices such as smartphones and their ubiquity in daily life has resulted in a large and interesting body of research into context awareness { the `awareness of a situation' { and how it could make people's lives easier. There are, however, diculties involved in realising and implementing context aware systems in the real world; particularly in a mobile environment. To address these diculties, this dissertation tackles the broad problem of designing and implementing mobile context aware systems in the eld. Spanning the elds of Articial Intelligence (AI) and Human Computer Interaction (HCI), the problem is broken down and scoped into two key areas: context sensing and interactive intelligence. Using a simple design model, the dissertation makes a series of contributions within each area in order to improve the knowledge of mobile context aware systems engineering. At the sensing level, we review mobile sensing capabilities and use a case study to show that the everyday calendar is a noisy `sensor' of context. We also show that its `signal', i.e. useful context, can be extracted using logical data fusion with context supplied by mobile devices. For interactive intelligence, there are two fundamental components: the intelligence, which is concerned with context inference and machine learning; and the interaction, which is concerned with user interaction. For the intelligence component, we use the case of semantic place awareness to address the problems of real time context inference and learning on mobile devices. We show that raw device motion { a common metric used in activity recognition research { is a poor indicator of transition between semantically meaningful places, but real time transition detection performance can be improved with the application of basic machine learning and time series processing techniques. We also develop a context inference and learning algorithm that incorporates user feedback into the inference process { a form of active machine learning. We compare various implementations of the algorithm for the semantic place awareness use case, and observe its performance using a simulation study of user feedback. For the interaction component, we study various approaches for eliciting user feedback in the eld. We deploy the mobile semantic place awareness system in the eld and show how dierent elicitation approaches aect user feedback behaviour. Moreover, we report on the user experience of interacting with the intelligent system and show how performance in the eld compares with the earlier simulation. We also analyse the resource usage of the system and report on the use of a simple SMS place awareness application that uses our system. The dissertation presents original research on key components for designing and implementing mobile context aware systems, and contributes new knowledge to the eld of mobile context awareness.

A Thesis submitted for the co-tutelle degree of Doctor in Physics at Universidade Nova de Lisboa and Université Pierre et Marie Curie
One active topic in Atomic Physics is the study of highly charged ions (HCI). These physical systems have a strong Coulomb field that provides a unique opportunity to investigate and validate relativistic, Quantum ElectroDynamics (QED), and many-body e ects. Moreover, fundamental test on symmetries and parity violation gives clues to the physics beyond the Standard Model. Thus, nowadays, a primary goal of Atomic Physics is the existence of precise experimental data and accurate theoretical calculations for these systems. In this thesis I focus on the investigation of forbidden radiative transitions in HCI. The main emphasis of this work is on atomic transitions, in which the selection rules forbids the emission of electric dipole photons. In this special type of radiative transition, the electron decays mainly through the emission of a single magnetic dipole photon, or two electric dipole photons. Both types of decay are investigated either experimentally or theoretically. The two-photon decay is only theoretically investigated, using a full relativistic formalism,in HCI with one or two electrons. Several physical e ects in the two photon decay, such as resonances, the Dirac’s negative continuum or angular correlations are considered. Related with the decay, two-photon excitation is also investigated. According to these evaluations, I stress the importance of relativistic and nondipolar e ects. Moreover, a new approach based on the B-polynomials basis set is employed on two-photon transitions. The second part of the work is devoted to the precise measurement of transitions in highly charged Ar with two to four electrons. For that matter, I describe the technical features of a double crystal spectrometer used to perform those measurements in HCI for the first time. This kind of spectrometer is able to perform absolute and precise measurements with an accuracy never achieved in these systems, which enables a comparison with recent QED calculations. I describe a Monte-Carlo code developed with the purpose of studying several systematic errors, as well as testing the various methods of retrieving physical quantities from raw data. Finally, I present the first absolute 2 ppm measurements on HCI with this spectrometer, paying special attention on the forbidden magnetic dipole transition in He-like Ar.
Accõess Integradas Luso-Alem˜as (Contract no A-19/09); Fundação de Ciências e Tecnologia (FCT)- contract SFRH/BD/37404/2007 ; Programa Operacional Potencial Humano (POPH/FSE) and European Union social fund

När vi inledde vårt uppsatsskrivande var Landstinget i Värmland i färd med att införa ett nytt standardsystem för vårdinformatik. Systemet var Cambio Cosmic, och vi fick uppdraget att utvärdera dess användbarhet.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka om användarna anser att systemet är anpassat till dem. Vi ville även se om systemet Cambio Cosmic brister i användbarheten ur teoretisk synpunkt, samt om några förändringar skulle kunna göras för att förbättra dessa eventuella brister.

Utvärderingen utfördes i två steg. Först genomfördes en heuristisk utvärdering av systemet, under vilken vi själva utvärderade Cambio Cosmic enligt elva på förhand fastställda användbarhetsprinciper. Med den heuristiska utvärderingens resultat som bas, utformade vi sedan ett användningstest som genomfördes med sex testpersoner. Resultaten från användningstesterna och den heuristiska utvärderingen ställdes sedan mot varandra för att kunna fastställa huruvida Cambio Cosmic hade brister i användbarheten eller inte.

Utvärderingen gav två bilder av Cambio Cosmic. Ur heuristisk synpunkt visade sig systemet brista i användbarheten. Dock gav användningstesterna en annorlunda bild av systemet. Testpersonerna var positivt inställda till systemet, och hade överseende med de brister som de stötte på. De förändringar som skulle kunna göras i Cambio Cosmic för en ökad användbarhet rör framförallt enhetlighet och misstagsförhindrande, då främst i modulen Tidbok.

In 2005, Landstinget in Värmland was about to implement a new system for healthcare administration. The system was Cambio Cosmic, and we were assigned to evaluate its usability.

The purpose of this essay is to study whether the users consider the system to be adapted to them. We also wanted to see if Cambio Cosmic had any usability deficiencies from a theoretic point of view and, if so, what could be done to correct those flaws.

The evaluation consisted of two steps. First, a heuristic evaluation was carried out, during which we ourselves evaluated the system based on eleven principals for usability. From the result of the heuristic evaluation, we designed usability tests that were carried out using six test users. We compared the results from the two evaluations in order to determine whether Cambio Cosmic had usability deficiencies or not.

The evaluation gave two images of Cambio Cosmic. From a heuristic point of view, the system clearly had usability deficiencies. The usability tests, however, presented a different view. The test users were sympathetic towards the system, and showed indulgence for deficiencies they encountered. The changes that could be made for an increased usability are mainly regarding consistency and standards and error prevention.

SAAB has a project under development for a network system with connected nodes, where the nodes are both information consumer and producer of different communication types. A node is an equipment or an object that are used by the army e.g. it can be a soldier, military hospital or an UAV. The nodes function as a part of a mission e.g. a mission can be Defend Gotland. The aim of this project is that the user will rank different missions from the one with the highest priority to the lowest. This will affect the network in a way that the communication between the nodes at the mission with the highest rank will be prioritised over the communication between the underlying missions. A user can via the GUI rank the missions, and then set the associated settings for them. Via the GUI the user should be able to work at three different levels. The first is to plan upcoming missions. The second one is in real time see if the system delivers the desired conditions. The last one is to simulate if the system can deliver the desired conditions. This thesis investigated various HCI models that could be used to create a GUI, to reduce the risk of a user configuring the system incorrectly. The study showed that there are no HCI models that take account for misconfigurations, and therefore a new model was created. The new model was used and evaluated by creating a prototype of a GUI for SAAB’s project and was tested on a potential user. The test showed that the new model reduced the risk of misconfigurations.
SAAB har ett projekt för utveckling av ett nätverkssystem med anslutande noder, med noder som kan vara både informationsproducent och konsument för olika kommunikationstyper. En nod är en sak eller ett objekt inom försvaret t.ex. kan det vara en soldat, militärt sjukhus eller en obemannad farkost. Varje nod tillhör ett uppdrag, tex att försvara Gotland. Målet med projektet är att man ska kunna gradera de olika uppdragen och därmed gradera vilken prioritet dessa noder har i nätet. Noder som tillhör ett uppdrag med hög gradering kommer prioriteras över de underliggande uppdragen i nätverket. En användare kan via ett grafiskt användargränssnitt gradera uppdragen och konfigurera tillhörande inställningar. Via det grafiska användargränssnittet kan en användare även planera, gradera och konfigurera inställningar för kommande uppdrag samt simulera om det går att genomföra. Användaren ska även i realtid kunna se om de önskade inställningarna inte kan leva upp till de önskade kraven, och därmed kunna åtgärda detta.  Detta arbete undersökte olika MMI-modeller som kan användas för att skapa ett grafiskt användargränssnitt som minimerar risken att användaren konfigurerar systemet på ett felaktigt sätt. Studien visade sig att det inte finns några MMI modeller som tar hänsyn till felkonfigureringar, och en ny modell skapades. Den nya modellen användes och utvärderas genom att skapa en prototyp av ett grafiskt användargränssnitt för SAAB:s projekt, som testades på en potentiell användare. Testet visade att den nya modellen minskar risken för felkonfigureringar.

In the future network-based Swedish Defence (NBD), attaining information superiority will be of great importance. This will be achieved by a network of networks where decision-makers, information- and weapon-systems are linked together. As a part of the development of NBD, we have performed a study of user interface design for a future network-based tool package for analysis of sensor systems, referred to as the C2SR-system.

This thesis was performed at Ericsson Microwave Systems AB, Sensor and Information Networks, during the autumn 2002. A pre-study concerning the requirements of usability, trustworthiness and functionality of a userinterface for the C2SR-system was performed. Officers representing the future users in the NBD played an important role when gathering these requirements. Another important part of the pre-study was the evaluation of software that contains parts of the functionality necessary for the C2SR-system.

On the basis of the results from the pre-study, we have designed a user interface to the future C2SR-system. To demonstrate the most important conclusions, a prototype was implemented.

Building design is becoming an increasingly complex process. Technological advances in building materials and construction methods have necessitated the specification of more rigourous regulatory constraints to which the designer must adhere. Although a diverse range of sophisticated computer based design tools, addressing the formal functional requirements of building design, exist to assist the designer in the decision making process, as a result of their sophistication, such tools often require considerable specialist knowledge of the methodologies employed before they can realistically be utilized on a routine basis. As a result a growing interest has developed in intelligent user-interfaces in an attempt to make complex application software more accessible, maintainable and extendible. However, owing to inconsistencies between front-ends, the current trend in user interface management systems tends to propagate the encapsulation of application functionality within a static, esoteric style of dialogue; restricting interaction to the lowest common user level and therefore denying the designer unrestricted access to the embedded methodologies required for creative solution synthesis. By adopting a communications view of the user-interface, this thesis illustrates how a dynamically adaptable user-interface, coupled to a multi-level knowledge based system consisting of surface level models derived from human laws, with deep models of reasoning, employing non-procedural, opportunistic knowledge acquisition mechanisms, may be utilised to accommodate the dynamically varying nature of the design process. The resulting object oriented framework is an intelligent design support system which isolates the user from the low level aspects of CAD tool management; enabling experts from different sub-disciplines to access the functionality of a comprehensive range of design tools in manner suited to their individual conceptual vocabulary, level of expertise, and idiosyncratic design procedures. Although the framework described within this thesis is generally applicable across a range of domains, specific examples of user stereotypes and dialogue templates used to illustrate the principles behind the system are derived from building performance assessment and prediction.

Many countries have formulated their eHealth visions and billions of dollars have been spent on supporting the eHealth development throughout the world. An important part of the development is the electronic patient record (EPR). To enable sharing and increase cooperation between care providers, most Swedish county councils have decided to use a region-wide EPR. The health professionals often experience numerous problems and consider the region-wide EPR to be too generic and require them to tailor their practices instead of the system evolving towards supporting their needs. The aim of the PhD research is to gain knowledge of adoption when deploying and using region-wide health IT systems. This is accomplished by studying, analysing and reflecting upon what region-wide health IT systems are and how professionals use them in their practice. In the research a grounded theory method has been used, which means that the empirical data, not theories and hypotheses, have driven the research process. The data-gathering methods have been interviews, observations, participating in meetings, questionnaires, seminars and conducting literature reviews. In order to be able to improve the adoption, a set of four key principles has been identified: (1) Evolving systems-Engaged users, (2) Treat IT deployment and usage as part of organisational development, (3) Identify, respect and support differences, and (4) Identify what must be customised and what can be centralised. These four principles challenge the traditional way of developing enterprise-wide IT and emphasise the importance that users must engage in the development, procurement and deployment process to identify their similar and unique needs and procedures. It is crucial that both the similarities and uniqueness are respected and supported. The similarities can be supported by a centralised, standardised solution, while uniqueness requires a customised solution. In order to accomplish that, the IT deployment and usage needs to be treated as an important part of the on-going organisational development, and the IT systems must evolve, i.e., be continuously developed in order to engage the users to participate.

IMIS (Integrated Mobile Information System for Diabetic Healthcare) aims at providing healthcare on both stationary and mobile platform, which is based on Engström’s triangle model in Activity Theory. It focuses on the need for communication and information accessibility between care-providers and their shared patients. Based on the identified need in the target area, IMIS has decided to construct a network-based communication system to support communication and accessibility to patients’ journal. Since the system integrates various roles from the heath care organization, it is a challenge to provide a useful software program to the group members. In order to facilitate the application and enhance the Human-Computer interaction of the system, agent technology is applied to increase the flexibility factor so that the system could be self-adapted to a wider range group of users.

Besides, this thesis also introduces the approach of using social-psychology — Activity theory in HCI, and discuss the integration of these different disciplines. The Multi-agents System is applied with Gaia methodology from micro perspectives. From the macro perspective Activity theory constructs the coordination mechanism of the different agents. A prototype is applied based on the different model of our research.

Affärssystem som inte har tydliga användargränssnitt tenderar att göra användarvänligheten sämre, vilket i sin tur kan leda till att delar av systemet inte nyttjas effektivt. Det kan därför vara lämpligt att ha en specifik och tydlig processbeskrivning för utveckling av system med hänsyn till användarvänlighet. I detta projekt undersöktes möjligheten att ta fram en processbeskrivning för IT-projekt vid framtagning av ett nytt gränssnitt i ett system. Mer konkret så är frågan som ska besvaras i denna rapport följande: ”Hur ska en utvecklingsmetod eller utvecklingsprocess för IT-system se ut för att tillvarata vetenskapliga, teoretiska och tekniska aspekter på Människa-Dator Interaktion (MDI)?” En fallstudie i detta projekt har utförts på företaget GMP-Systems AB. För att komma fram till ett resultat, och för att få svar på frågeställningen, så har en litteraturstudie på aspekter inom MDI utförts. Dessutom har en analys huruvida teknisk implementation av detta kan åstadkommas med hjälp av ramverk. Vidare har intervjuer genomförts, samt tester där användaren har fått interagera med systemet. Resultatet av feedbacken har sedan analyserats. Detta för att senare kunna bygga prototyper till systemet. I resultatdelen levereras en utvecklingsmetod och en processbeskrivning som är kopplad till den litteraturstudie och de erfarenheter som erhållits från projektets fallstudie. Till företaget GMP-Systems levereras en prototyp, en use-case model[1] med user-stories[2] samt ett sekvensdiagram[3]. [1] Use-Case Model är en beskrivning på åtgärder och handlingar som en användare kan utföra, och definierar interaktionen mellan rollerna i ett system för att utföra ett mål.[2] User-stories är ett verktyg inom systemutveckling för att kunna ta fram en beskrivning av önskad funktionalitet som ofta utgår utifrån ett användarperspektiv.[3] Ett sekvensdiagram visar metodanrop mellan objekt i en tidsbegränsad situation och vilken ordning.
Business systems lacking a clear interface and subsequently a diminished usability, can lead to limited usage or no usage of parts of the system. It may therefore be critical to have a process outlined for the development of such system and its interface to ensure that all parts of the system are used.   The objective of this case study was to investigate whether it is possible to develop a process description for IT projects at the initial stages of the development phase of a new interface in a system. More specifically, the question investigated in this report follows:  “How should a development method or development process for IT systems look to seize scientific, theoretical and technical aspects of Human Computer Interaction (HCI)?” A case study of the project was carried out at the company GMP-Systems AB. A literature-study on aspects of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) was carried out to arrive at a result and answer the question. Further, an analysis was conducted to consider whether the technical implementation of such process can be accomplished by adopting frameworks. In addition, interviews were conducted with users that have interacted with the system, and an analysis was carried out on the feedback provided to develop prototypes for the system. A development method and process description linked to the literature and the experience gained from the projects case study is outlined in the result section. To the client, GMP-Systems, a prototype, a use-case model[1] with user-stories[2] and a sequential diagram[3] will be delivered.  Keywords: HCI, evaluation method, Angular JS, Knockout JS, React, Moqups, process description, development method. [1] Use-Case model is a description of actions that a user can perform and defines the interaction between the roles of a system to accomplish a goal[2] User stories are a tool in system development to provide a description of the desired functionality, often from an end user perspective.[3] A sequential diagram shows how objects operate with one another and in what order.

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) handlar om att utveckla produkter med god användbarhet. Med användbarhet menas att system ska vara lätta att använda och lära. Jakob Nielsen är en av förgrundsfigurerna när det gäller riktlinjer för hur detta ska uppnås. Han har utvecklat tio kriterier som kan användas för att ett så bra system som möjligt ska kunna utvecklas.

På senare år har forskare börjat se till, inte bara tekniska aspekter utan även till de känslor som användaren kan tänkas uppleva under det att denna interagerar med en webbsida. Ett flertal forskare har utvecklat teorier kring begreppet Flow. Detta handlar om de känslor som uppstår när en användare till exempel sitter vid datorn. Dessa känslor kan vara tidlöshet, kontroll och fridfullhet som resulterar i att en användare stannar kvar på webbsidan en längre tid. Tiden som en användare spenderar på en webbsida är en viktig aspekt för ett företag som säljer produkter eller tjänster och att designa för Flow kan därför vara en fördel gentemot de företag som inte gör det.

Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi är forskare inom psykologi och var den som grundade begreppet Flow. Det var för ca 15 år sedan han först presenterade sin teori och denna hade han kommit fram till efter att studerat personer som spenderade mycket tid och energi på en aktivitet som inte gav dem någon finansiell vinning utan endast stor tillfredsställelse. Csikszentmihalyi är idag förgrundsfigur inom Flow-begreppet och vi har i detta arbete använt mycket av hans teorier eller andra forskares teorier som grundats på hans forskning.

Vår frågeställning i detta arbete handlar om att utvärdera Nielsens tio kriterier för god användbarhet. Tanken är att med arbetet var att dessa ska utvärderas och eventuellt utvecklas. Vi utvärderade Aftonbladets webbsida med hjälp av Nielsens tio kriterier. Därefter fick en grupp respondenter svara på en enkät där frågorna var utformade efter Flow-teorin.

Vi kom fram till att vissa av Nielsens kriterier inte behövde omformuleras men ett av dem kompletterades för att passa för Flow. Vi har även identifierat en brist i HCI-kriterierna och därför tillfört ytterligare ett kriterie som vi anser behövs för att underlätta för Flow.

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) is about developing products with good usability. Usability means that systems should be easy to use and learn. Jakob Nielsen is a well renowned scientist when it comes to guidelines and how these should be reached. He has developed ten guidelines for designers to accomplish good usability.

In recent years scientists have started to look at, not only the technical aspects, but also the emotions that the user can have during the interaction with a website. Several scientists have developed theories regarding the concept of Flow. This is about the emotions that occur when someone is using a computer. Such emotions can be a lost sense of time, control and peacefulness which results in the user remaining on the webpage during a long period of time. The time a customer remains on a webpage is crucial to a company that is selling products or services and therefore designing with Flow in mind can be an advantage towards companies that has not done this.

Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi is a scientist in psychology and was the one that first came up with the theory about Flow. He first presented it fifteen years ago and the research he made to come up with the theory was to study people that spent a lot of time and energy on activities that did not give them any financial gain but only great satisfaction. Csikszentmihalyi is today a prominent figure in Flow-theory and we have in this essay used a lot of his theories or other scientist’s theories based on his research.

Our research questions in this thesis are about evaluating Nielsen’s ten guidelines for good usability. Our purpose is to evaluate and possibly develop these guidelines.

We evaluated Aftonbladet´s website using the ten guidelines. Thereafter a group of respondents were asked to answer our survey where the questions were based on the Flow theory.

Our conclusion was that several of Nielsen’s guidelines did not need to be reformulated, but one of them however was further developed to also include Flow. We have also identified a gap in the HCI guidelines and therefore added another guideline ourselves that we feel is needed to ease the ability of Flow.

L'informatique ubiquitaire et la variété croissante des plates-formes et dispositifs changent les attentes des utilisateurs en termes d'interfaces utilisateur. Les systèmes devraient être en mesure de s'adapter à leur contexte d'utilisation, à savoir, la plate-forme (par exemple un PC ou une tablette), les utilisateurs qui interagissent avec le système (par exemple, les administrateurs ou les utilisateurs réguliers), et l'environnement dans lequel le système s'exécute (par exemple une pièce sombre ou en extérieur). La capacité d'une interface utilisateur à s'adapter aux variations de son contexte d'utilisation tout en préservant son utilisabilité est appelée plasticité.La plasticité fournit aux utilisateurs différentes versions d'une interface utilisateur. Bien qu'elle enrichisse les interfaces utilisateur, la plasticité complexifie leur développement: la cohérence entre plusieurs versions d'une interface donnée (une pour chaque contexte d'utilisation) devrait être assurée. Étant donné le grand nombre de versions possibles d'une interface utilisateur, il est coûteux de vérifier ces exigences à la main. Des automatisations doivent être alors fournies afin de vérifier la plasticité.Cette complexité est accentuée quand il s'agit de systèmes critiques. Les systèmes critiques sont des systèmes dans lesquels une défaillance a des conséquences graves (par exemple, décès ou blessures de personnes, dommages à l'environnement, perte ou endommagement de l'équipement, etc.). La complexité de ces systèmes se reflète dans les interfaces utilisateur, qui doivent maintenant non seulement fournir des moyens corrects, intuitifs, non ambiguës et adaptables pour les utilisateurs pour atteindre un but, mais qui doivent aussi faire face aux exigences de sécurité visant à assurer que les systèmes sont raisonnablement sûrs avant d'être mis sur le marché.Plusieurs techniques existent afin d'assurer la qualité des systèmes en général, qui peuvent être également appliquées pour les systèmes critiques. La vérification formelle fournit un moyen d'effectuer une vérification rigoureuse, qui est adaptée pour les systèmes critiques. Notre contribution est une approche de vérification des systèmes interactifs critiques et plastiques à l'aide de méthodes formelles. Avec l'utilisation d'un outil performant, notre approche permet :- La vérification d'ensembles de propriétés sur un modèle du système. Reposant sur la technique de "model checking", notre approche permet la vérification de propriétés sur la spécification formelle du système. Les propriétés d'utilisabilité permettent de vérifier si le système suit de bonnes propriétés ergonomiques. Les propriétés de validité permettent de vérifier si le système suit les exigences qui spécifient son comportement attendu.- La comparaison des différentes versions du système. Reposant sur la technique "d'équivalence checking", notre approche vérifie dans quelle mesure deux interfaces utilisateur offrent les mêmes capacités d'interaction et la même apparence. Nous pouvons ainsi montrer si deux modèles d'une interface utilisateur sont équivalents ou non. Dans le cas où ils ne sont pas équivalents, les divergences de l'interface utilisateur sont listées, offrant ainsi la possibilité de les sortir de l'analyse. De plus, l'approche permet également de montrer qu'une interface utilisateur peut contenir au moins toutes les capacités d'interaction d'une autre interface utilisateur.Nous présentons également dans cette thèse trois études de cas industriels dans le domaine des centrales nucléaires dans lesquelles l'approche a été appliquée. Ces études de cas montrent ainsi de nouvelles applications des méthodes formelles dans un contexte industriel
The advent of ubiquitous computing and the increasing variety of platforms and devices change user expectations in terms of user interfaces. Systems should be able to adapt themselves to their context of use, i.e., the platform (e.g. a PC or a tablet), the users who interact with the system (e.g. administrators or regular users), and the environment in which the system executes (e.g. a dark room or outdoor). The capacity of a UI to withstand variations in its context of use while preserving usability is called plasticity.Plasticity provides users with different versions of a UI. Although it enhances UI capabilities, plasticity adds complexity to the development of user interfaces: the consistency between multiple versions of a given UI should be ensured. Given the large number of possible versions of a UI, it is time-consuming and error prone to check these requirements by hand. Some automation must be provided to verify plasticity.This complexity is further increased when it comes to UIs of safety-critical systems. Safety-critical systems are systems in which a failure has severe consequences. The complexity of such systems is reflected in the UIs, which are now expected not only to provide correct, intuitive, non-ambiguous and adaptable means for users to accomplish a goal, but also to cope with safety requirements aiming to make sure that systems are reasonably safe before they enter the market.Several techniques to ensure quality of systems in general exist, which can also be used to safety-critical systems. Formal verification provides a rigorous way to perform verification, which is suitable for safety-critical systems. Our contribution is an approach to verify safety-critical interactive systems provided with plastic UIs using formal methods. Using a powerful tool-support, our approach permits:-The verification of sets of properties over a model of the system. Using model checking, our approach permits the verification of properties over the system formal specification. Usability properties verify whether the system follows ergonomic properties to ensure a good usability. Validity properties verify whether the system follows the requirements that specify its expected behavior.-The comparison of different versions of UIs. Using equivalence checking, our approach verifies to which extent UIs present the same interaction capabilities and appearance. We can show whether two UI models are equivalent or not. When they are not equivalent, the UI divergences are listed, thus providing the possibility of leaving them out of the analysis. Furthermore, the approach shows that one UI can contain at least all interaction capabilities of another.We also present in this thesis three industrial case studies in the nuclear power plant domain which the approach was applied to, providing additional examples of successful use of formal methods in industrial systems

Den moderna kommunikationen har medfört verktyg och funktioner som har skapat nya standarder för hur vi kommunicerar både privat och inom organisationer. Tidigare forskning presenteras i studien för att visa vad andra forskare har fokuserat på inom området sociala intranät. Det finns två studier som sträcker sig igenom hela vår uppsats. Den första studien presenterar faktorer som påverkar implementering av ett socialt intranät och som kan påverka användandet. Den andra studien, introducerar begreppet affordance. Ett begrepp som används för att beskriva hur människor utnyttjar ett fenomen beroende på hur de uppfattar och antar vad fenomenet kan göra för dem. Studien kan vara av intresse för andra verksamheter och organisationer som har ett socialt intranät och vill få förståelse vad som kan orsaka minskat användande av dess funktioner. Undersökningen har tillämpats på ett fallföretag. Företaget är ett medelstort utvecklingsbolag som finns på flera geografiska platser. Företaget expanderar och fler kontor är på väg att öppna, intranätet är därför en viktig komponent för företagets fortsatta expansion. Detta gör att det interna samspelet av innehåll, kommunikation och aktiviteter är högprioriterat för fallföretaget. Syftet med studien är att beskriva varför anställda inte utnyttjar sig av de sociala funktionerna som finns på fallföretagets intranät. För vår empiri valde vi en kvalitativ ansats i form av intervjuer för att besvara uppsatsens frågeställning. Informanter valdes ut efter aktivitet på intranätet och efter arbetsroll. Undersökningen utfördes på fallföretagets huvudkontor. Från empirin har vi fått fram olika orsaker som påverkar användandet av fallföretagets intranät. Med hjälp av analysen har vi identifierat att det finns en sammankoppling mellan uppfattning och utnyttjande av sociala funktioner. Analysen visar att det i stort sett förekommer skillnader i alla affordance mellan införandet av vad intranätet syftar till och hur anställda uppfattar och utnyttjar sig av funktionerna. Det har resulterat i att vi har upptäckt ett mönster som vi med hjälp av en cirkelmodell vill öka förståelsen för. Cirkelns syfte är att hjälpa företag att identifiera orsaker/problem som kan finnas i organisationen och som kan påverka hur anställda utnyttjar och använder sig av sociala intranät. Vi har kommit fram till fyra dimensioner som kan undersökas för att förklara och beskriva anställdas uppfattning och användande av sociala funktioner ur ett affordance perspektiv.

I dagens samhälle ses digitalisering som en självklarhet. Den ställer dock krav på organisationeroch människor att anpassa sig för att kunna ta del av de många fördelar som följer. Inom skolansker en del av digitaliseringen genom införandet av så kallade lärplattformar, eller LMS. Dessasystem har som funktion att underlätta såväl undervisning som kommunikation mellan olikaparter. Många ställer sig dock kritiska till dessa system och anser bland annat att de utgör enbelastning för pedagoger inom skolan. Denna undersökning har fokuserat påanvändarupplevelsen av LMS. Målgrupperna har varit pedagoger inom för- och grundskolan,fritidshem samt vårdnadshavare. Undersökningen har utgått från olika UX-modeller och teorierinom interaktionsdesign samt användaracceptans. Datainsamlingen har skett med hjälp avintervjuer och enkäter. Undersökningen har visat att även om flera interaktionsdesignsprincipersaknats i aktuellt LMS har framförallt det organisatoriska stödet inom skolan varitstort nog att överbrygga konsekvenserna av detta. Inom användargruppen vårdnadshavare harsamma stöd saknats, men då användandet varit mindre omfattande och mer sporadiskt än inomskolans verksamhet har upplevelsen trots detta framstått som god.

Software engineering is a fundamentally collaborative activity, yet most tools that support software engineers are designed only for single users. There are many foreseen benefits in using tools that support real time collaboration between software engineers, such as avoiding conflicting concurrent changes to source files and determining the impact of program changes immediately. Unfortunately, it is difficult to develop non-trivial tools that support real time Collaborative Software Engineering (CSE). Accordingly, the few CSE tools that do exist have restricted capabilities. Given the availability of powerful desktop workstations and recent advances in distributed computing technology, it is now possible to approach the challenges of CSE from a new perspective. The research goal in this thesis is to investigate mechanisms for supporting real time CSE, and to determine the potential gains for developers from the use of CSE tools. An infrastructure, CAISE, is presented which supports the rapid development of real time CSE tools that were previously unobtainable, based on patterns of collaboration evident within software engineering. In this thesis, I discuss important design aspects of CSE tools, including the identification of candidate patterns of collaboration. I describe the CAISE approach to supporting small teams of collaborating software engineers. This is by way of a shared semantic model of software, protocol for tool communication, and Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) facilities. I then introduce new types of synchronous semantic model-based tools that support various patterns of CSE. Finally, I present empirical and heuristic evaluations of typical development scenarios. Given the CAISE infrastructure, it is envisaged that new aspects of collaborative work within software engineering can be explored, allowing the perceived benefits of CSE to be fully realised.

Event Condition Action rule engines have been developed for some time now. Theycan respond automatically to events coming from different sources. Combination ofdifferent event types may be different from time to time and there for it is hard todetermine how the rule engine executes its rules. Especially when the engine is givena large rule set to work with. To determine the behavior is to run tests on the ruleengine and see the final results, but if the results are wrong it can be hard to see whatwent wrong. ruleViz is a program that can look at the execution and visually animatethe rule engine behavior by showing connections between rules and composite events,making it easier for the operator to see what causes the fault. ruleViz is designed toembrace Human Computer Interaction (HCI) methods, making its interfaceunderstandable and easy to operate.

The advent of powerful wearable devices and smartphones has enabled a new generation of “in-the-wild” user studies, adaptive behavioral intervention strategies, and context measurement. Though numerous proof-of-concept studies continue to push the limitations of what a behavioral scientist can do with these technologies, there remains a major methodological roadblock separating behavioral theory and application. Avatar-user interaction theory, for example, is not well defined in its formulation, and thus guidelines for intervention designers depend on heuristic methods and designer intuition. Computational modeling has been slow to move into behavioral science in general, but a growing population of behavioral scientists recognize this shortcoming and are eager to apply new technology to their work. In order to help close this disciplinary rift between systems engineers and behavioral scientists, human-computer interaction principles must be applied to make the seemingly inaccessible “magic” of modeling and simulation techniques accessible to behavioral scientists. Thus, this dissertation presents formative work to help bring engineering methodology to human behavior modeling and simulation. Using theories of avatar-user interaction theory, physical activity regulation, and “information overload” as applications to drive toolkit design, usability considerations and interface needed to connect behavioral scientists with dynamical systems modeling are explored. A number of challenges unique to the modeling of human behavior and quirks of extant modeling efforts in behavioral science mean that existing modeling tools do not satisfy the needs of the community, and a novel design to address these shortcomings is presented. Exploration of the fundamental design questions which arise from application of engineering principles to this unique problem will produce quality publications in software engineering, HCI, and behavioral science. Furthermore, both the “behaviorSim” toolkit and the innovative inclusion of modeling and simulation represent significant contributions to the development and application of human behavioral theory.

In today’s computerized society more and more companies choose to utilize new applications that can ease the way of handling the information. For many of us is imperative that the process as efficient as possible if one takes in consideration the size of savings that this new application can bring.

The developer of the evaluated system is SYSteam AB Huskvarna and they are the ones that gave us this assignment. The application that we evaluate is SCM (Secure Connection Manager). It is already used today by big companies such as Telia and Ericsson to search for errors in telephone servers placed all over the country. The reason why this application is used is to increase the efficiency of error searching without traveling to the location of the servers.

The issues that the report focuses on are the system’s usability and efficiency for the user. Since the application is already in use we must be aware that just small adjustments are going to be made afterward.

In order to evaluate an already developed system we interviewed users that are familiar with the application and were willing to be answering our questions.Those users’ opinions have been crucial to us and our evaluation.

The result is a gathering of tables and data which methodically describes every subject in our questionnaire. These subjects are the following: navigation, design, content and efficiency.  Our analyses results show a positive reaction to almost all the subjects treated in the questionnaires. Several opinions and comments during the interviews confirm this statement. 

The theoretical methods used to form this opinion are the heuristics rules that we followed, but also some of the most useful principles from theory books about interaction design.

The conclusion is, as the results of our evaluation show, that the system that we evaluated (SCM) is both efficient and user-friendly.

We would like to thank all the users, which took part in our study, as well as our supervisors both at university and at SYSteam AB Huskvarna. Thank you!

Med dagens mer systematiserade tillvaro är det fler som väljer att införa applikationer i företag som kan underlätta informationshanteringen. För många är det viktigt att detta sker så effektivt som möjligt med tanke på de besparingar som det kan medföra.

De som har utvecklat den studerade applikationen och som också är våra uppdragsgivare är SYSteam AB i Huskvarna. Denna applikation som vi utvärderar heter Secure Connection Manager (SCM). Den används idag av bland annat företag som Telia och Ericsson för att göra felsökningar på telefonväxlar som finns utplacerade i landet. Anledningen till att denna applikation används är att det blir mer effektivt att med hjälp av fjärrstyrning kunna göra felsökningar utan att behöva åka till telestationerna som de tidigare har gjort.

Frågeställningarna som arbetet fokuserar på är om systemet är användarvänligt och effektivt för användaren. Eftersom systemet redan är i drift måste man ha i åtanke att det endast kan ske marginella justeringar i efterhand.

För att kunna evaluera ett färdigt system har vi haft hjälp av ett antal frekventa användare som villigt har ställt upp på att svara på frågor och intervjuer. Dessa testpersoner har varit av yttersta vikt för oss och för vår evaluering.

Resultatet blev en samling tabeller och data som metodiskt beskriver varje element var för sig. De element som frågeguiden är indelad i är navigation, design, innehåll och effektivitet. Analysen gav positiva resultat till de frågeställningar vi hade ställt, förutom elementet innehåll. Flera av de synpunkter och kommentarer som samlades in under intervjuerna förstärkte detta resultat.

De teoretiska metoder som hjälpte oss att bedöma detta var några av de heuristiska regler som finns att följa, men även några av de principer som finns att läsa om i böcker om interaktionsdesign.

Slutsatsen blev att av de resultat vi fick av vår utvärdering konstaterade vi att SCM är både effektivt och användarvänligt.

Vi vill gärna rikta ett tack till alla testpersoner som ställde upp och till våra handledare både på högskolan och på SYSteam AB i Huskvarna. Tack!

As the web continues to evolve, so does our need for achieving an accessible web for people with disabilities. Content management systems (CMSs) have well observed accessibility problems with generated content, and in recent years, several features have been proposed in order to minimize or eliminate these problems. This study investigated CMSs in current use to find common accessibility problems and evaluated a set of features proposed by Acosta, T. et al. in 2018, targeting these problems. The study initially found a general lack of information, guidance and technical support provided by CMSs to editors promoting the generation of accessible content. The results indicate that even editors highly aware of accessibility may not be able to create accessible content due to the limitations of their systems. The study also received positive feedback towards the evaluated features from professionals, indicating that the features are of practical value and may help the editor by minimizing or eliminating common accessibility problems in content generated through CMSs.
Webben fortsätter att utvecklas, och det gör också vårt behov av att göra webben tillgänglig för personer med funktionshinder. Innehållshanteringssystem (CMS) har flera kända tillgänglighetsproblem med dess genererande innehåll och under de senaste åren så har ett antal tillgänglighetsfunktioner föreslagits för att minimera eller eliminera dessa problem. Den här studien undersökte CMS som används idag för att hitta vanliga tillgänglighetsproblem och evaluerade en samling av föreslagna funktioner av Acosta, T. et al. som riktade sig mot dessa problem. Studien fann i början en generell brist på information, vägledning och tekniskt stöd från CMS till redaktörer som främjar skapandet av tillgängligt innehåll. Resultaten visar att även redaktörer som är medvetna om tillgänglighet inte alltid har möjligheten att skapa tillgängligt innehåll på grund av begränsningarna i deras system. Studien fick också positiv återkoppling av de utvärderade funktionerna från yrkesverksamma inom området, vilket indikerar att funktionerna har ett praktiskt värde och kan hjälpa redaktören genom att minimera eller eliminera vanliga tillgänglighetsproblem i innehåll som skapats via CMS.

Visibility aspects of User Interfaces are important; they deal with the crucial phase of human-computer interaction. They allow users to perform and at the same time hide the complexity of the system. Acceptance of new systems depends on how visibility aspects of the User Interfaces are presented. Human eyes make the first contact with the appearance of any system by so it generates the very beginning of the human – application interaction. In this study it is enforced that visibility aspects are essential in application development. Furthermore, it is stressed that with practice of automation, habitual and functional visibility fades and users lose control. Users accept visibility loss only at certain points where it does not impact their skillset and understanding of an application. Although, they prefer control over visibility aspects and automation to strengthen the reception of the User Interface. The environments used in this study are Google Docs, Dropbox and cloudHQ with a case study of collaboration involving five users.

This qualitative study is constructive in its nature and it aims to find how remote workers perceive usability of communication features across different tools and platforms. Answering two main research questions; How do remote users perceive usability of communication features across different communication tools and platforms? and How, according to users, that features can be improved?, this research aims to link them with scholarly literature, find potential knowledge gaps and highlight improvement areas. Learnability, efficiency, universality and general satisfaction are researched within five participants, coming from different sectors and occupations. Usability in IS context connects ICT with HCI. Trends, challenges and solutions in remote work field lead us to different practices in work and knowledge sharing. Thematic analysis brings seven main themes that show satisfactory results in general. However, dissatisfaction is addressed to efficiency and universality with functionality of communication tools and platforms which falls within ICT, and learnability within its human component, HCI. Furthermore, three step solution is proposed: organizational readiness, standards in communication practice and soft skills. Contributions of this research confirm importance of human component that defines usability in remote field. General usability and satisfaction with ICT and its components is confirmed and improvement areas are addressed within HCI. This research serves as a good base for research of usability of same communication features across different channels however, comparing on-site and remote workers within specific fields.

Many studies looked at mobile information needs of users and how to support those needs in the mobile platform and the challenges it holds. In this study I tried to take a different approach in arguing that the uses of the services available on the stationary set up are used with different motivations and goals on the various mobile platform context and therefore designing the mobile versions of those require careful considerations of that. I present the results of a study conducted to investigate how the use of Facebook mobile differ over the stationary and mobile platform and use that as an example to elaborate on the design considerations of similar services.

The purpose of this research is to critically inquire into the appropriateness of the current human computer interaction (HCI) practices in Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD) system design given the contextual constraints and challenges found in developing country contexts. Despite user participation in system design being a buzzword of HCI the form of this participation varies with the different disciplinary perspectives and paradigms and their different methods for engaging users and identifying users' needs. Moreover, a majority of these dominant HCI perspectives are not only rooted in the developed countries context they also mainly focus on organisational management information systems (MIS) and less on information systems (IS) that place emphasis on the socio-economic context of developing countries. Literature review reveal that limited studies focus on the differences brought about by the western influenced methodologies and principles when applied in different contexts and how they affect the user participation process as well as the outcome. Building on past research, this research argues that HCI for ICTD needs to develop new contextualised participatory methods and strategies that consider the broader and complex contexts of the ICTD users. However, shifting the focus to localised forms of HCI in ICTD system design requires a better appreciation of the challenges and constraints encountered when applying the traditional HCI methods and strategies. Based on this argument the research conceptually explores and reflects on the underlying contextual factors and mechanisms present in participatory ICTD system design and the presumed relationships among them. Drawing on this conceptual framework, the research conducts semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and participant observations with three mobile money system design projects in Kenya that engaged the users during the design process to highlight how current HCI practices respond to the multifaceted nature of ICTD system design which present challenges that include social, technical, cultural and infrastructural issues. Findings from this qualitative study provide significant new insights that support the call for contextualised participatory methods and strategies. The findings suggest that there is tension between the underlying assumptions inherent in western HCI methods and strategies and the local context thus justifying the call for the appropriation of the design process. Drawing on the conceptual framework it was found that bias formed from factors such as power relations, diversity in interests for participation and cross-cultural differences moderate the design process and ultimately the participatory outcome. From the knowledge perspective, this research provides an in-depth understanding of the developing country contextual factors that mediate user participation process in ICTD system design. Furthermore, the research extends the knowledge with regards to participatory interventions in the development of IS in Africa. The research also presents a theoretical framework that makes explicit the contextual assumptions and constraints embedded in participatory ICTD system design interventions and how they shape the design process and the participatory outcome. Finally, the recommendations formulated from this research provide HCI designers and practitioners actionable knowledge in regards to reflecting on their current traditional HCI tools and techniques to ensure better localised design processes.

Abstract This thesis contributes to the field of collaborative information systems and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). It extends the notion of technological support for design activities "in use" beyond providing the flexibility to tailor collaborative software, to provide means to support the appropriation process of these tools in their application fields. Two long-term studies on the evolution of usages of collaborative software in a German authority and in a network of freelancers in the field of consulting form the foundation of this work. Based on the experience there, it was possible to identify user activities that drive the appropriation process and to establish a perspective on the appropriation of a Groupware as a social process. Appropriation can be described as a collaborative effort of end users, who perform "appropriation activities" to make sense of the software in their work context. Besides activities to configure the software to fit into the technological, organisational and individual work context of the users ('Tailoring'), there is a larger area of technology-related communication, demonstration and negotiation activities aimed at establishing a shared understanding of how a software artefact works and what it can contribute to the shared work context. The mutual shaping of the technology and organisational contexts resemble an ongoing design process that end users perform largely without any involvement of professional developers. This perspective is the guiding line for developing means for "Appropriation Support", i.e., means to support the appropriation activities that end users perform. To inform the design of appropriation support measures and functions, current approaches that capture the collaborative dimensions of tailoring, and the necessities of 'discourse ergonomics' for technology-related online communication are explored. The trend to work with a tool 'infrastructure' instead of monolithic Groupware tools is a complicating yet important secondary consideration here, since it demonstrates the necessity to offer support 'beyond one tool' to support a use-oriented perspective on appropriation. The resulting idea of 'Use Discourse Environments' as a main concept for appropriation support which captures the activities of communication, demonstration and negotiation as well as the activity of tailoring (where possible) was implemented and evaluated in two prototypes that refer to the application fields of the initial studies. The idea of integrating online discourse, tool representations and tailoring facilities served as a guideline for the use discourse both in an event notification service as well as in the 'Online Future Workshop' that addressed a shared inter-organisational software development infrastructure. Based on the evaluations, design recommendations for appropriation support are made, and the problematic nature of appropriation activities as 'infrastructural work' versus the 'productive work' that end users consider their main area of work is addressed. The thesis concludes with a vision of collaborative software tools that do not only provide their original services, but also address end users as a 'virtual community of technology practice'.

This thesis analyses the difficulties encountered in the promotion of usability, especially in relation to occupation health issues, when developing IT systems in a public authority. It examines what happens when User-Centred Systems Design (UCSD) approaches are introduced to organisations with in-house systems development for their employees. It studies how stakeholder values affect the outcomes in terms of usability, occupational health, and institutional acceptance. Moreover, new methods are examined and evaluated as potential tools for assisting the adoption of UCSD. These methods are for example Field studies for system developers, Usability coaching for stakeholders and Management views of usability. A stated aim is to influence systems development in practice. Hence an action research paradigm has been employed, carrying out research and change in real life settings, gathering and analysing data using qualitative techniques. This thesis is based on a constructivist perspective, where theories in the areas of learning and organisational change have been used in order to better understand the research questions. The research demonstrates that most people are enthusiastic to, and interested in, UCSD with a focus on the computerised work environment. Many of the stakeholder groups, such as managers, users, project managers and system developers, changed their construct of identity as well as practice when UCSD was introduced. However, this research shows that there are several values that affect systems development and hinder usability work. These include for example value of rationality and objectivity, and differing values and perspectives underpinning descriptions and discourse on work and systems development. Values such as automation, efficiency, and customer satisfaction shape the development of new technology, and ultimately the tasks, work practices integrated in IT systems. Moreover, the results demonstrate that even though many consider usability as important, few take active responsibility for it, as the title of this thesis suggests.

Thesis (Ph.D)--Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010.
Committee Chair: W. Keith Edwards; Committee Member: Blair MacIntyre; Committee Member: David McDonald; Committee Member: Ellen Yi-Luen Do; Committee Member: John Stasko. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

In todays society the amount of connected devices are increasing. Many of these devices are in need of an interface to enable interaction with users. These devices are built for solving tasks of varying degree of difficulty and the need for user-friendly interfaces are highly relevant. Errors is one attribute that needs to be considered when creating a user interface. Therefore, this thesis project investigates how one can design and evaluate a user interface, which is used in a flight test environment, with regards to usability in terms of low error rate. Based on requirements gathered in the requirements elicitation process together with inspiration from the anchor-based subgoaling design principle, a low-fidelity and a high-fidelity prototype is created. To evaluate these prototypes user testing together with the thinking aloud technique is used. Data regarding the number of errors made by each user, if they complete a task or not and the users general thoughts of the prototypes are also gathered. The whole process of implementation and evaluation is done in an iterative manner. The results show that the users are satisfied with the interface, complete or partially complete each task, make few errors and can recover from the mistakes they make. Based on the results, a conclusion from this thesis can be drawn that by using an iterative design, creating prototypes inspired by the anchor-based subgoaling design principle and conducting user tests together with the thinking aloud technique one can create and evaluate a user interface with regards to usability in terms of low error rate.

Nowadays, usability mainly perceived as a basis of the instrumental evaluation of an information system (IS) capability. Notably, rule-of-thumb usability heuristic evaluation (HE) is widely known and used as a cost-efficient and effective inspection-based usability evaluation. However, it is evident in prior research that there is communicative action captured when users interact with a system. Accordingly, socio-instrumental (SI) perspective perceives a particular event of the user’s interaction toward system (social action) is composed of both instrumental aspect and social aspect. Our study aims to explain the completeness of recent HE studies, and also to describe underlying connections between inspection-based usability evaluation and socio-instrumental aspects. We conducted a qualitative systematic review throughout thirteen qualified documents we appraised from filtering out 89 documents which consist of research articles within the last five years and existing professional reports. In a qualitative manner, our study result has identified the qualified documents present a positive degree of completeness. We have also analyzed various usability problems that are connected with specific heuristics and SI aspects. It is evident in this study that the SI perspective has contributed to revealing the communicative rationale behind the user’s social action toward the system. In addition, we, therefore, suggest improvement suggestions for further works to address the shortcomings in the present study.

Mobila applikationer har under senare år fått ett allt större användningsområde. En typ av applikation som blir allt populärare är mobila kartapplikationer. Denna uppsats belyser problematik kring mobila kartapplikationer och den brist som idag råder i fråga om att skapa gränssnitt med bra användbarhet till denna typ av applikationer. Uppsatsen identifierar och undersöker interaktionselement som används i två befintliga mobila kartapplikationer genom en kvalitativ studie. En inledande studie genomfördes för att identifiera interaktionselement i två befintliga mobila kartapplikationer; Yahoo! Go och Eniros mobila karttjänst.  Kartapplikationerna testades i en emulator för mobiltelefon av mindre modell eftersom det ansågs vara svårare att uppnå bra användbarhet desto mindre skärmytan i enheten är. Utifrån teori inom området kategoriserades interaktionselement in i fyra områden. Områdena var: navigering, innehåll, layout och feedback. Teorin sammanfattades i en teoretisk referensram. Undersökningen återkopplade även till användbarhet då det i uppsatsens syfte ingick att lyfta fram designriktlinjer, som utifrån användares perspektiv kan göra mobila kartapplikationer mer lätthanterliga. I studien samlades data in genom ett uppgiftsbaserat test där respondenterna uppmanades att tänka högt i syfte att fånga deras känslor kring gränssnittens olika interaktionselement. Det uppgiftsbaserade testet följdes av en intervju, där frågor som återkopplade till interaktionselement och användbarhet i de testade gränssnitten ställdes. Intervjun återkopplade även till de problem och kommentarer som respondenterna yttrat under testet. Resultatet av observationen och intervjuerna analyserades och ställdes mot den teoretiska referensramen och slutsatser kunde dras för hur olika interaktionselement påverkar i fråga om användbarhet i mobila kartapplikationer. De slutsatserna som kunde härledas var bland annat att scroll bör undvikas och att på vilket sätt knappsatsen utnyttjas av systemet påverkar användbarhet. Slutsatserna sammanställdes och presenterades som riktlinjer för att uppnå en högre användbarhet i mobila kartapplikationer.

Syftet med användbarhet är att på ett enkelt och tillfredställande sätt hjälpa en användare att uppnå ett specificerat mål. En produkts användbarhet påverkas därför av olika faktorer. Faktorer som en dators prestanda, hårdvara, användargränssnitt och upplevd kvalitet är några av de parametrar som bör tas i åtanke när studenten väljer en bärbar dator som ska underlätta och effektivisera studierna. 225 studenter deltog i en enkätundersökning där de uppgav hur mycket olika faktorer påverkade deras val av dator. Resultatet visade att studenter värdesätter laptops med bra prestanda, lång batteritid och tekniska aspekter som passar deras behov. Det mest förekommande syftet med datorerna var att underlätta studenternas studier och faktorer som prestanda, vikt och storlek avgjorde datorns användbarhet för detta ändamål. Studien bekräftade att varumärken associeras med kvalitet och att kvaliteten på produkterna var det som fick studenterna att vara lojala gentemot varumärket. Faktorer som hårdvara, prestanda, användargränssnitt och kvalitet påverkar användarens möjlighet att nå sina mål på ett effektivt sätt och behöver anpassas efter individens funktionella och emotionella behov för att uppnå optimal användbarhet.
The purpose of usability is to help the user reach their goals in a simple and satisfactory manner. A product’s usability is therefore affected by various aspects. Aspects such as performance, hardware, user interface, and perceived quality, are some of the parameters that should be taken into consideration when students choose a laptop that will be beneficial for their studies. 225 students participated in a survey where they rated and explained how much certain aspects affected their choice of laptop. The results showed that students value laptops with good performance, long battery life, and technical aspects that suit their needs. The most common use of the laptops were to aid them in their studies, and aspects such as performance, weight and size of the laptop determined whether or not the laptop would be useful for this purpose. The study confirmed that brands are associated with quality and that product quality was one of the reasons to why students became loyal towards a brand of computers. Aspects such as hardware, performance, user interface, and quality affects the user’s ability to reach their goals in an effective manner, and therefore needs to be suited after the individuals’ functional and emotional needs to achieve optimal usability.

The ways people express their opinions and sentiments have radically changed in the past few years thanks to the advent of social networks, web communities, blogs, wikis and other online collaborative media. The distillation of knowledge from this huge amount of unstructured information can be a key factor for marketers who want to create an image or identity in the minds of their customers for their product, brand, or organisation. These online social data, however, remain hardly accessible to computers, as they are specifically meant for human consumption. The automatic analysis of online opinions, in fact, involves a deep understanding of natural language text by machines, from which we are still very far. Hitherto, online information retrieval has been mainly based on algorithms relying on the textual representation of web-pages. Such algorithms are very good at retrieving texts, splitting them into parts, checking the spelling and counting their words. But when it comes to interpreting sentences and extracting meaningful information, their capabilities are known to be very limited. Existing approaches to opinion mining and sentiment analysis, in particular, can be grouped into three main categories: keyword spotting, in which text is classified into categories based on the presence of fairly unambiguous affect words; lexical affinity, which assigns arbitrary words a probabilistic affinity for a particular emotion; statistical methods, which calculate the valence of affective keywords and word co-occurrence frequencies on the base of a large training corpus. Early works aimed to classify entire documents as containing overall positive or negative polarity, or rating scores of reviews. Such systems were mainly based on supervised approaches relying on manually labelled samples, such as movie or product reviews where the opinionist’s overall positive or negative attitude was explicitly indicated. However, opinions and sentiments do not occur only at document level, nor they are limited to a single valence or target. Contrary or complementary attitudes toward the same topic or multiple topics can be present across the span of a document. In more recent works, text analysis granularity has been taken down to segment and sentence level, e.g., by using presence of opinion-bearing lexical items (single words or n-grams) to detect subjective sentences, or by exploiting association rule mining for a feature-based analysis of product reviews. These approaches, however, are still far from being able to infer the cognitive and affective information associated with natural language as they mainly rely on knowledge bases that are still too limited to efficiently process text at sentence level. In this thesis, common sense computing techniques are further developed and applied to bridge the semantic gap between word-level natural language data and the concept-level opinions conveyed by these. In particular, the ensemble application of graph mining and multi-dimensionality reduction techniques on two common sense knowledge bases was exploited to develop a novel intelligent engine for open-domain opinion mining and sentiment analysis. The proposed approach, termed sentic computing, performs a clause-level semantic analysis of text, which allows the inference of both the conceptual and emotional information associated with natural language opinions and, hence, a more efficient passage from (unstructured) textual information to (structured) machine-processable data. The engine was tested on three different resources, namely a Twitter hashtag repository, a LiveJournal database and a PatientOpinion dataset, and its performance compared both with results obtained using standard sentiment analysis techniques and using different state-of-the-art knowledge bases such as Princeton’s WordNet, MIT’s ConceptNet and Microsoft’s Probase. Differently from most currently available opinion mining services, the developed engine does not base its analysis on a limited set of affect words and their co-occurrence frequencies, but rather on common sense concepts and the cognitive and affective valence conveyed by these. This allows the engine to be domain-independent and, hence, to be embedded in any opinion mining system for the development of intelligent applications in multiple fields such as Social Web, HCI and e-health. Looking ahead, the combined novel use of different knowledge bases and of common sense reasoning techniques for opinion mining proposed in this work, will, eventually, pave the way for development of more bio-inspired approaches to the design of natural language processing systems capable of handling knowledge, retrieving it when necessary, making analogies and learning from experience.

This PhD thesis puts forward the results of research activities I have carried out at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science of the University of Cagliari since March 2011. My work can be placed in the general field of Human-Computer Interaction and, more precisely, in the relative new and trending area of Persuasive Computing. Broadly speaking, a persuasive system is a system designed to change some habits or behaviors of the users by means of persuasion. My research activity sets out to address fundamental questions related to the application of mobile persuasive technologies to real-life problems, including: Are mobile technologies able to persuade people to a more physically active lifestyle? Are currently available systems actually effective? How can user experience design be improved in this class of softwares? How can human to device interaction be improved to favor users during their physical activities? Are these systems really effective over long time periods? The research activity this thesis presents, aimed at answering at previous questions through the study of the effects of mobile persuasive systems designed to foster people to a more active lifestyle. In literature, we can find many examples of prototypal persuasive mobile system. The results they reported are encouraging but, almost always, they are deducted from qualitative studies over short periods of time. This work endeavors to overcome these limitations through the development of a real world complex software platform designed to encourage people to a more active lifestyle. Users interact with the platform mainly through two Android-based applications freely available on the market. Thanks to our platform, our experimentations can rely on a conspicuous base of real users and a huge amount of automatically recorded statistics for potentially unlimited periods of time.

Traditional SPICE simulation tools and applications of circuit theory lack real-time interaction and feedback. The goal of this thesis was to create an interactive physical environment to allow the manipulation and simulation of discrete electrical components in near-real-time while optimizing and streamlining the human-computer interaction (HCI) elements to make the user experience as positive and transparent as possible. This type of HCI and near-real-time simulation feedback would allow for the instant realization of how the parameters of each discrete component or hardware module affect the overall simulation and response of the circuit. The scope of this thesis is to research, design and develop two real-time interactive SPICE simulation tools and analyze the real-time benefits and HCI elements of both simulators, principally the user interface design itself. The first real-time interactive simulator (TouchSPICE) uses multiple embedded processors (touchscreen hardware blocks) and a host computer to build and simulate a circuit. The second real-time interactive simulator (ReActive-SPICE) uses a single host computer with integrated software to build and simulate a circuit, much like LTspice™ and PSpice™ without the real-time aspects. As part of the study, 20 students were asked to create circuits utilized in undergraduate-level labs using TouchSPICE and ReActive-SPICE for the sole purpose of providing feedback on the two user interfaces. Students were asked to complete a survey before, during and after circuit creation to provide a basis for judging the intuitiveness, efficiency and overall effectiveness of the HCIs. Conclusions based-off the surveys support the hypothesis that both TouchSPICE and ReActive-SPICE were more intuitive and overall simpler than traditional SPICE simulation tools. Feedback collected showed TouchSPICE to have a more intuitive user interface while ReActive-SPICE proved to be more efficient. ReActive-SPICE was further developed and enhanced to improve the user interface as well as the overall circuit creation and real-time simulation processes.

This thesis focuses on defining a set of design strategies to develop and assess video games that foster physical activity, commonly referred to as exergames. Regular physical activity is essential for a good development of children and exergames have the potential to be used as an adherent and fun tool. This should result in more healthy children and compensate for the current lack of physical activity due to sedentary behaviors. This thesis focuses both on quantity as well as quality of physical activity. Concerning quantity, we focus on aerobic activity, while quality refers to richness and diversity of movement within conditional and coordinative capacities. This thesis is a first step to design exergames as public health tools by bridging the notions of playability and efficacy of exergames. We define an interdisciplinary protocol to design multiplayer exergames in collaboration with physical activity experts. A parameter, the Interaction Tempo, and evaluation methods to control the amount of physical activity are presented and validated. We provide strategies to achieve the aforementioned quality of physical activity in exergames and a robust evaluation method to assess it during a play session. We finally explore the influence and limitations that the body attitude can have on the intensity and affective state.
Aquesta tesi se centra en la definició d'un conjunt d'estratègies de disseny per a desenvolupar i avaluar els videojocs que fomenten l'activitat física, comunament coneguts com a exergames. L'activitat física regular és essencial per a un bon desenvolupament dels nens i els exergames tenen el potencial de ser utilitzats com una eina divertida i que fomenti l'adhesió al programa d'exercici. Això ha de resultar en nens més sans i compensar l'actual falta d'activitat física a causa dels comportaments sedentaris. Aquesta tesi es focalitza tant en la quantitat com en la qualitat de l'activitat física. Per al que fa a la quantitat, ens centrem en l'activitat aeròbica, mentre que la qualitat es refereix a la riquesa i diversitat del moviment dins de les capacitats condicionals i coordinatives. Aquesta tesi és un primer pas per dissenyar exergames com a eines de salut pública a través de crear una relació entre les nocions de jugabilitat i l'eficàcia dels exergames. Definim un protocol interdisciplinari per a dissenyar exergames multi jugador en col•laboració amb experts en activitat física. Es presenta i valida el Tempo d'Interacció, un paràmetre per a controlar la quantitat d'activitat física, com també mètodes d'avaluació d'aquesta. Proporcionem estratègies per aconseguir la qualitat, abans esmentada, de l'activitat física en exergames i un mètode d'avaluació sòlida per a avaluar-la durant una sessió de joc. Finalment explorem la influència i limitacions que l'actitud del cos pot tenir sobre la intensitat i estat afectiu.

The main purpose of my work is to investigate multisensory perceptual learning and sensory integration in the design and development of adaptive user interfaces for educational purposes. To this aim, starting from renewed understanding from neuroscience and cognitive science on multisensory perceptual learning and sensory integration, I developed a theoretical computational model for designing multimodal learning technologies that take into account these results. Main theoretical foundations of my research are multisensory perceptual learning theories and the research on sensory processing and integration, embodied cognition theories, computational models of non-verbal and emotion communication in full-body movement, and human-computer interaction models. Finally, a computational model was applied in two case studies, based on two EU ICT-H2020 Projects, "weDRAW" and "TELMI", on which I worked during the PhD.

The field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) has suggested various methods for evaluating systems in order to improve their usability and User eXperience (UX). The advent of Web 2.0 has allowed the development of applications marked by collaboration, communication and interaction among their users in a way and on a scale never seen before. Social Systems (SS) (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn etc.) are examples of such applications and have features such as: frequent exchange of messages, spontaneity and expression of feelings. The opportunities and challenges posed by these types of applications require the traditional evaluation methods to be reassessed, taking into consideration these new characteristics. For instance, the postings of users on SS reveal their opinions on various issues, including on what they think of the system. This work aims to test the hypothesis that the postings of users in SS provide relevant data for evaluation of the usability and of UX in SS. While researching through literature, we have not identified any evaluation model intending to collect and interpret texts from users in order to assess the user experience and system usability. Thus, this thesis proposes MALTU - Model for evaluation of interaction in social systems from the Users Textual Language. In order to provide a basis for the development of the proposed model, we conducted a study of how users express their opinions on the system in natural language. We extracted postings of users from four SS of different contexts. HCI experts classified, studied and processed such postings by using Natural Language Processing (PLN) techniques and data mining, and then analyzed them in order to obtain a generic model. The MALTU was applied in two SS: an entertainment and an educational SS. The results show that is possible to evaluate a system from the postings of users in SS. Such assessments are aided by extraction patterns related to the use, to the types of postings and to HCI factors used in system.
A Ãrea de InteraÃÃo Humano-Computador (IHC) tem sugerido muitas formas para avaliar sistemas a fim de melhorar sua usabilidade e a eXperiÃncia do UsuÃrio (UX). O surgimento da web 2.0 permitiu o desenvolvimento de aplicaÃÃes marcadas pela colaboraÃÃo, comunicaÃÃo e interatividade entre seus usuÃrios de uma forma e em uma escala nunca antes observadas. Sistemas Sociais (SS) (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn etc.) sÃo exemplos dessas aplicaÃÃes e possuem caracterÃsticas como: frequente troca de mensagens e expressÃo de sentimentos de forma espontÃnea. As oportunidades e os desafios trazidos por esses tipos de aplicaÃÃes exigem que os mÃtodos tradicionais de avaliaÃÃo sejam repensados, considerando essas novas caracterÃsticas. Por exemplo, as postagens dos usuÃrios em SS revelam suas opiniÃes sobre diversos assuntos, inclusive sobre o que eles pensam do sistema em uso. Esta tese procura testar a hipÃtese de que as postagens dos usuÃrios em SS fornecem dados relevantes para avaliaÃÃo da Usabilidade e da UX (UUX) em SS. Durante as pesquisas realizadas na literatura, nÃo foi identificado nenhum modelo de avaliaÃÃo que tenha direcionado seu foco na coleta e anÃlise das postagens dos usuÃrios a fim de avaliar a UUX de um sistema em uso. Sendo assim, este estudo propÃe o MALTU â Modelo para AvaliaÃÃo da interaÃÃo em sistemas sociais a partir da Linguagem Textual do UsuÃrio. A fim de fornecer bases para o desenvolvimento do modelo proposto, foram realizados estudos de como os usuÃrios expressam suas opiniÃes sobre o sistema em lÃngua natural. Foram extraÃdas postagens de usuÃrios de quatro SS de contextos distintos. Tais postagens foram classificadas por especialistas de IHC, estudadas e processadas utilizando tÃcnicas de Processamento da Linguagem Natural (PLN) e mineraÃÃo de dados e, analisadas a fim da obtenÃÃo de um modelo genÃrico. O MALTU foi aplicado em dois SS: um de entretenimento e um SS educativo. Os resultados mostram que à possÃvel avaliar um sistema a partir das postagens dos usuÃrios em SS. Tais avaliaÃÃes sÃo auxiliadas por padrÃes de extraÃÃo relacionados ao uso, aos tipos de postagens e Ãs metas de IHC utilizadas na avaliaÃÃo do sistema.

Gränssnittsdesign är en av de viktigaste aktiviteterna vid systemutveckling, eftersom gränssnittet utgör den beståndsdel för vilket slutanvändare kommer göra sin primära helhetsbedömning av systemet utefter. Det innebär att gränssnittsdesignarbetet har en avgörande roll för hur systemet kommer att mottas och bedömas vid leverans och upphandlingar av system. Att designa tillfredställande gränssnitt handlar om att ta hänsyn till en rad olika human computer interaction (HCI)-aspekter. Dessa är användbarhet, användarupplevelse samt estetik, det vill säga hur visuellt tilltalande gränssnittet är. Följande tre aspekter kommer på olika sätt påverka hur en användare upplever ett system, vilket i sin tur kommer påverka huruvida en beställare är beredd att investera i ett system. Att utveckla gränssnitt för system innebär ofta att designers och utvecklare måste göra avvägningar kring i vilken mån en designer skall få realisera gränssnittsdesign. Detta eftersom en samansättning av för många visuella gränssnittselement kan få inverkan på systemets prestanda. Stundtals hamnar de två elementen, visuella designattribut och systemkrav, i konflikt med varandra och i de fall där de senare föregår designattribut ställs gränssnittsdesigners inför en utmaning eftersom att de bli begränsade i sitt arbete. Trots detta ställs dock samma krav på att designers skall uppnå tilltalande gränssnitt som väcker känslor av professionalism, samtidigt som systemet skall bibehålla optimal systemprestanda och funktionalitet.Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka hur ett tillfredställande gränssnitt i aspekter av estetik, användbarhet och användarupplevelse kan designas i ett standardsystem när designarbete begränsas till att enbart kunna justera placering och färg av gränssnittselement. Detta har inneburit en designforskningsansats bestående av en iterativ utvecklingsprocess där ett gränssnitt designat och realiserat baserat på av teorin förslagna riktlinjer för gränssnittsdesign som fortfarande har varit möjliga att tillämpa trots designarbetets begränsningar. Gränssnittet har därefter utvärderats genom experiment i form av användbarhetstester och expertutvärdering. Empirisk data från utvärderingarna har därefter analyserats och införlivats i gränssnittet och slutligen har en slutsats genererats och presenterats.Studiens resultat visar att genom en kombination av befintliga teoribaserade riktlinjer kommer designers en god bit på väg för att lyckas design tillfredställande gränssnitt i aspekter av estetik, användbarhet och användarupplevelse. I slutet av studien presenteras detta i form av sju nya riktlinjer. Variabeln användarupplevelse visade sig dock vara svårare att designa för i studiens begränsade kontext. Detta beror på att användarupplevelse är en svår variabel att utvärdera på grund av dess subtila natur. Slutligen presenteras förslag för framtida forskning och på vilket sätt studiens resultat vidare bör beprövas.
User-Interface design is one of the most important aspects of development of a system, as the user-interface is one of the elements that the user primarily will take in consideration when assessing a system. This means that user-interface design plays an important role in how the system will be received and assessed at procurement. A designer has to consider a couple of human computer interaction (HCI)-aspects such as usability, user experience, and aesthetics, in order to design a satisfactory user-interface. These three aspects of human computer interaction affect user experience of a system, which will influence a client’s decision on investment in the system. Designing a user-interface of a system often means that designers and developers have to consider the extent to which a designer can implement their version of the interface. A composition of many visual interface elements can have an impact on the systems performance. Sometimes the visual design attributes can conflict with the system requirements. If designers are challenged system requirements are prioritised because they will be limited in their work. Despite those limitations, the designers are still needed to design an appealing user-interface that can invoke feelings of professionalism, parallel to the system requirement of optimal performance and functionality.The purpose of this study was to explore how an appealing user-interface with regards to aesthetics, usability and user experience can be designed when the design work is limited to only be able to adjust placement and visual appearance in terms of names and colour of UI elements. This has been explored by doing an iterative development process in which an interface has been designed and developed based on guidelines from theory on user-interface design which the authors has been able to implement based on the limitations on the design work. The interface has subsequently been evaluated by experiments in terms of usability tests and an expert evaluation in the form of a heuristic evaluation. The evaluations resulted in empirical data which has been analysed and set against existing theory upon which a conclusion has been generated and presented.The result of the study show that designers are well on the way to successfully design an appealing user-interface in relation to aesthetic, usability and user experience, which the authors presents in the form of seven new guidelines. The variable user experience turned out to be more difficult to design in the study’s limited context. The authors believe that one of the reasons for this is that user experience is difficult to evaluate because of its subtle nature. Lastly we present suggestions for future research and how the results of the study should be further proved.

As Mixed Reality (MR) technologies become more prevalent, it is important for researchers to design and prototype the kinds of user interface and user interactions that are most effective for end-user consumers. Creating these standards now will aid in technology development and adoption in MR overall. In the current climate of this domain, however, the interface elements and user interaction styles are unique to each hardware and software vendor and are generally proprietary in nature. This results in confusion for consumers. To explore the MR interface and interaction space, this research employed a series of standard user-centered design (UCD) methods to rapidly prototype 3D head-worn display (HWD) systems in the first responder domain. These methods were performed across a series of 13 experiments, resulting in an in-depth analysis of the most effective methods experienced herein and providing suggested paths forward for future researchers in 3D MR HWD systems. Lessons learned from each individual method and across all of the experiments are shared. Several characteristics are defined and described as they relate to each experiment, including interface, interaction, and cost.
Ph. D.

Desktops, laptops, smartphones, tablets, and the Kinect, oh my! With so many devices available to the average consumer, the limitations and pitfalls of each interface are becoming more apparent. Swimming in devices, users often have to stop and think about how to interact with each device to accomplish the current tasks at hand. The goal of this thesis is to minimize user cognitive effort in handling multiple devices by creating a context aware hybrid interface. The context aware system will be explored through the hybridization of gesture and touch interfaces using a multi-touch coffee table and the next-generation Microsoft Kinect. Coupling gesture and touch interfaces creates a novel multimodal interface that can leverage the benefits of both gestures and touch. The hybrid interface is able to utilize the more intuitive and dynamic use of gestures, while maintaining the precision of a tactile touch interface. Joining these two interfaces in an intuitive and context aware way will open up a new avenue for design and innovation.