Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Tampere, 1999. / Description based on contents viewed Apr. 19, 2007; title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references (p. 58-67).

Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. School of Technology, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 119-121).

This thesis focuses on the different aspects of role-play as an approach for user-centred design of mobile information technology (IT). This is done through development of a sequence of workshops and reflecting on the outcome. The motivation for the thesis has been to develop an understanding of the important conditions for involving end-users in the process of understanding user needs and exploring requirements for mobile IT. The need for new methods to understand mobile IT and the focus on user involvement in the traditions of participatory design and user-centred design established the background for the work. Most of the workshops were carried out in a hospital context. The overall research approach has been to work iteratively by carrying out a set of smaller studies, so-called workshops. The research design was flexible, characterized by a design that evolves, develops and unfolds, as the research proceeds. The current state of the knowledge on role-play called for a qualitative approach with a focus on understanding important issues concerning user role-plays. The overall research subject of this thesis is: Develop understanding of key premises for using role-play with low-fidelity prototyping to involve end-users in exploring user needs and requirements for mobile IT. This research subject was further divided into three specific research questions: What are the important issues related to planning and running of role-play design workshops with end-users? What do system developers perceive as the strengths and limitations of such role-play workshops as a system development method? What is the role of the workshop facilitators in such role-play work­shops? Five categories of issues of importance for planning and running of role-play workshops with end-users were identified: practicalities, user role-playing, idea generation, workshop resources and roles in the workshop. The system developers regarded the approach as useful for several reasons including enhancing user involvement, helping developers understand the context of use, and creating a focus in a project. The developers also called attentions to limitations of using role-play; such as a narrow user view on the system that does not take system development premises into account. One of the issues that emerged as a particularly important factor in the workshops was the role-play facilitator’s skills in leading the role-play part and the idea generation process. A framework developed by Yardley-Matwiejcsuk proved useful for understanding how to develop and rehearse these kinds of role-play. The thesis contributes with an understanding of different aspects regarding role-play workshops with end users in the field of Human-Computer Interaction.

Visual search is an important component of many human-computer interactions and a critical task in a variety of domains. These include screening for prohibited items in x-ray imagery of luggage in airports, identifying anomalies in medical imagery, and looking for unusual activity and changes over time in satellite imagery. Unlike many other human-machine interface tasks where a small error rate is quite acceptable, a crucial element of visual search tasks in these application areas is that a single mistake can have catastrophic consequences. Thus, any improvements in technology, interfaces, or human processes that can be made to aid visual search would be invaluable in these safety critical areas. Furthermore, even when one does not consider consequential activities such as cancer screening and airport security, most human-computer interactions involve some search component, and the impact of even small improvements is magnified by a high frequency of use. This thesis explores how some of these issues affect individuals' and teams' ability to perform visual searching tasks. Considerations such as group size and display configuration are examined, as are novel interfaces that aid search on tabletop and wall displays. The overarching goal of this work is to provide system designers with immediately implementable advice and guidelines on how to improve their systems in respect to visual search and to outline further research in this critical area.

The research in this dissertation developed and evaluated a new method for menuing interaction that is intended to be better suited than current methods with respect to mobile eyes-free scenarios. The earPod prototype was developed and then evaluated in a series of four experiments. In the first two experiments, earPod was first compared against an iPod-like (visual) interface and then against a fuller set of competitive techniques that included dual vs. single modality presentations, audio vs. visual modalities, and radial vs. linear mappings. The third experiment consisted of a longitudinal study designed to understand the learning patterns that occurred with these techniques. The fourth experiment examined performance in a conventional (single task) desktop setting and in a driving simulator (i.e., a dual task situation where participants carried out the driving task while interacting with the mobile device). The results of these experiments, comparing earPod with an iPod-like visual linear menu technique on fixed-sized static menus, indicated that earPod is comparable both in terms of speed and accuracy. Thus it seems likely that earPod should be an effective and efficient eyes-free menu selection technique. The comprehensive 3x2 study implemented in Experiment 2 showed that the benefit of earPod was largely due to the radial menu style design. While performance using it was comparable in both speed and accuracy with the visual linear menus, its performance was slower than for a visual radial style menu. In the multi-task simulated driving condition in Experiment 4, where concurrent tasks competed for visual attention, the eyes-free earPod interface was found to be beneficial in improving performance with respect to the safety related driving parameters of following distance and lateral movement in the lane. Thus auditory feedback appears to mitigate some of the risk associated with menu selection while driving. Overall, the results indicated that not only should earPod menuing be able to provide safer interaction in dual task settings, but also that, with sufficient training, audio only menu selection using innovative techniques such as those employed by earPod can be competitive with visual menuing systems even in desktop settings.

Loosely coupled workgroups are common in the real world, and workers in these groups are autonomous and weakly interdependent. They have patterns of work and collaboration that distinguish them from other types of groups, and groupware systems that are designed to support loose coupling must address these differences. However, they have not been studied in detail in Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), and the design process for these groups is currently underspecified. This forces designers to start from scratch each time they develop a system for loosely coupled groups, and they must approach new work settings with little information about how work practices are organized. <br><br> In this dissertation, I present a design framework to improve the groupware design process for loosely coupled workgroups. The framework has three main parts that add a new layer of support to each of the three stages in the general groupware design process: data collection about the target work setting, analysis of the data, and system design based on the analysis results. The framework was developed to provide designers with support during each of these stages so that they can consider important characteristics of loosely coupled work practice while carrying out design for the target group. The design framework is based on information from CSCW and organizational research, and on real-world design experiences with one type of loosely coupled workgrouphome care treatment teams. <br><br> The framework was evaluated using observations, interviews, and field trials that were carried out with multidisciplinary home care treatment teams in Saskatoon Health Region. A series of field observations and interviews were carried out with team members from each of the home care disciplines. The framework was then used to develop Mohoc, a groupware system that supports work in home care. Two field trials were carried out where the system was used by teams to support their daily activities. Results were analyzed to determine how well each part of the design framework performed in the design process. The results suggest that the framework was able to fill its role in specializing the general CSCW design process for loosely coupled groups by adding consideration for work and collaboration patterns that are seen in loosely coupled settings. However, further research is needed to determine whether these findings generalize to other loosely coupled workgroups.

Visual search is an important component of many human-computer interactions and a critical task in a variety of domains. These include screening for prohibited items in x-ray imagery of luggage in airports, identifying anomalies in medical imagery, and looking for unusual activity and changes over time in satellite imagery. Unlike many other human-machine interface tasks where a small error rate is quite acceptable, a crucial element of visual search tasks in these application areas is that a single mistake can have catastrophic consequences. Thus, any improvements in technology, interfaces, or human processes that can be made to aid visual search would be invaluable in these safety critical areas. Furthermore, even when one does not consider consequential activities such as cancer screening and airport security, most human-computer interactions involve some search component, and the impact of even small improvements is magnified by a high frequency of use. This thesis explores how some of these issues affect individuals' and teams' ability to perform visual searching tasks. Considerations such as group size and display configuration are examined, as are novel interfaces that aid search on tabletop and wall displays. The overarching goal of this work is to provide system designers with immediately implementable advice and guidelines on how to improve their systems in respect to visual search and to outline further research in this critical area.

The research in this dissertation developed and evaluated a new method for menuing interaction that is intended to be better suited than current methods with respect to mobile eyes-free scenarios. The earPod prototype was developed and then evaluated in a series of four experiments. In the first two experiments, earPod was first compared against an iPod-like (visual) interface and then against a fuller set of competitive techniques that included dual vs. single modality presentations, audio vs. visual modalities, and radial vs. linear mappings. The third experiment consisted of a longitudinal study designed to understand the learning patterns that occurred with these techniques. The fourth experiment examined performance in a conventional (single task) desktop setting and in a driving simulator (i.e., a dual task situation where participants carried out the driving task while interacting with the mobile device). The results of these experiments, comparing earPod with an iPod-like visual linear menu technique on fixed-sized static menus, indicated that earPod is comparable both in terms of speed and accuracy. Thus it seems likely that earPod should be an effective and efficient eyes-free menu selection technique. The comprehensive 3x2 study implemented in Experiment 2 showed that the benefit of earPod was largely due to the radial menu style design. While performance using it was comparable in both speed and accuracy with the visual linear menus, its performance was slower than for a visual radial style menu. In the multi-task simulated driving condition in Experiment 4, where concurrent tasks competed for visual attention, the eyes-free earPod interface was found to be beneficial in improving performance with respect to the safety related driving parameters of following distance and lateral movement in the lane. Thus auditory feedback appears to mitigate some of the risk associated with menu selection while driving. Overall, the results indicated that not only should earPod menuing be able to provide safer interaction in dual task settings, but also that, with sufficient training, audio only menu selection using innovative techniques such as those employed by earPod can be competitive with visual menuing systems even in desktop settings.

For as long as computers have been around, people have looked for ways to involve them in music. Research in computer music progresses in many varied areas: algorithmic composition, music representation, music synthesis, and performance analysis to name a few. However, computer music research, especially relating to music composition, does very little toward making the computer useful for artists in practical situations. This lack of consideration for the user has led to the containment of computer music, with a few exceptions, to academia. <br /><br /> In this thesis, I propose a system that enables a computer to aide users composing music in a specific setting: soundtracks. In the process of composing a soundtrack, a composer is faced with solving non-musical problems that are beyond the experience of composers of standalone music. The system I propose utilizes the processing power of computers to address the non-musical problems thus preventing users from having to deal with them. Therefore, users can focus on the creative aspect of composing soundtrack music. <br /><br /> The guiding principal of the system is to help the composer while not assuming any creative power and while leaving the user in full control of the music. This principal is a major step toward helping users solve problems while not introducing new ones. I present some carefully chosen tasks that a computer can perform with guidance from the user that follow this principal. For example, the system performs calculations to help users compose music that matches the visual presentation and allows users to specify music, using the idea of <strong>timed regular expressions</strong>, so that a computer can fill arbitrary amounts of time with music in a controlled manner. <br /><br /> A prototype application, called <strong>EMuse</strong>, was designed and implemented to illustrate the use and benefits of the proposed system. To demonstrate that the system is capable of serving as a tool to create music, two soundtracks were created for two sample animations. It is beyond the scope of the work presented here to evaluate if the system achieves the goal of being a practical tool for composers. However, the innovations herein discussed are analyzed and found to be useful for soundtrack composition and for future user-centered computer-music research.

Politeness is a part of student-tutor interactions and research in affective computing has shown that this social convention may also be applicable when a computer plays the role of tutor. This study sought to build on previous work that examined the effect of the politeness of computer feedback through the application of social and cognitive theories. Employing a mixed-factor design, a sample of 150 college students completed a multiple cue probability learning task (MCPL) on a computer that provided feedback phrased in one of three different tonal styles (joint-goal, student-goal and baldon- record). Feedback tone was a within-subjects factor. Subjects received feedback as either text or as audio. Audio feedback was a between-subjects factor and was delivered in one of four different modes male/female human voice or a male/female synthesized voice. The study found gender differences in tone preference as well as a possible impact of the Tone x Mode interaction on learning. Specifically, men were more likely than women to prefer the student-goal style feedback prompts. It is hoped that this research can provide additional insight to designers of learning applications when they are designing the feedback mechanisms that these systems should employ.