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In comparison to all types of injury, those to the brain are among the most likely to result in death or permanent disability. Some of these brain-injured people cannot communicate, recreate, or control their environment due to severe motor impairment. This group of individuals with severe head injury have received limited help from assistive technology. Brain-Computer Interfaces have opened up a spectrum of assistive technologies, which are particularly appropriate for people with traumatic brain injury, especially those who suffer from “locked-in” syndrome. The research challenge here is to develop novel interaction paradigms that suit brain-injured individuals, who could then use it for everyday communications. The developed interaction paradigms should require minimum training, reconfigurable and minimum effort to use. This thesis reports on the development of novel interaction paradigms for Brain-Body Interfaces to help brain-injured people to communicate better, recreate and control their environment using computers despite the severity of their brain injury. The investigation was carried out in three phases. Phase one was an exploratory study where a first novel interaction paradigm was developed and evaluated with able-bodied and disabled participants. Results obtained were fed into the next phase of the investigation. Phase two was carried out with able participants who acted as development group for the second novel interaction paradigm. This second novel interaction paradigm was evaluated with non-verbal participants with severe brain injury in phase three. An iterative design research methodology was chosen to develop the interaction paradigms. A non-invasive assistive technology device named Cyberlink™ was chosen as the Brain-Body Interface. This research improved previous work in this area by developing new interaction paradigms of personalised tiling and discrete acceleration in Brain- Body Interfaces. The research hypothesis of this study ‘that the performance of the Brain-Body Interface can be improved by the use of novel interaction paradigms’ was successfully demonstrated.

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I det moderna samhället är vår interaktion med tjänster konstant och erbjuder möjligheter för en rikare vardag. Ett exempel är att statliga myndigheter tillhandahåller sina tjänster digitalt för att förenkla och förbättra samhällsservicen till medborgare. Samtidigt innebär interaktion med digitala tjänster en utmaning för användarna. Dessa utmaningar kan vara orsaken till att användare av Konsumentverkets digitala tjänst Budgetkalkylen uttryckt möjligheter för förbättring. I detta examensarbete används teori inom användarnytta, användbarhet och kognitiv belastning för att undersöka interaktionen mellan användare och Budgetkalkylen. Detta för att bidra med förbättringsförslag för ökad användarnytta, användbarhet samt minimal kognitiv belastning. Teorin beskriver hur den kognitiva belastningen av vårt arbetsminne påverkar användbarheten hos ett system. Användbarheten, som är av vikt då den skapar förutsättningar för bra samspel med en produkt, bildar tillsammans med nyttan produktens användarnytta. Med användarnytta menas att systemet erbjuder de funktioner och information som möjliggör måluppfyllelse för användaren. För att undersöka detta har en kvalitativ undersökning genomförts där intervjuer och användartester använts som insamlingsmetoder. Datainsamlingen utfördes med studenter som inte tidigare använt tjänsten. Resultatet visar att det fanns delar av interaktionen som utgjorde hög kognitiv belastning och minskade systemets användbarhet. Att dela upp uppgifterna och informationen i mindre steg, ge tydliga instruktioner och anpassa designen efter användarens kunskapsnivå anses minska den kognitiva belastningen. Nyttan låg i att skapa en helhetssyn över sin ekonomi, där hälften mer proaktivt ville sätta upp sparmål och den andra hälften ville använda den mer reaktivt. Litteratur som beskriver att kognitiv belastning påverkar användbarheten fick stöd genom denna undersökning. Metoden för att undersöka den kognitiva belastningen för att finna brister i interaktionen fick samtidigt stöd. / In modern society, our interaction with services is continuous and offers opportunities for a richer everyday life. One example is that state agencies provide their services digitally to simplify and improve community services to citizens. At the same time, interaction with digital services poses a challenge for users. These challenges can be the reason why users of the Swedish Consumer Agency’s service Budgetkalkylen expressed opportunities for improvement. In this thesis, usefulness, usability and cognitive load is used to examine the interaction between users and the service Budgetkalkylen. This is to contribute with proposals for improvement concerning usefulness, usability and cognitive load. The theory describes how the cognitive load on our working memory affects the constituents of the usability of a system. Usability, which is important when interplay with a product is of concern, form together with utility the products usefulness. The usefulness of a system is the reason why a product is used to achieve goals. To investigate this, a study with a qualitative approach has been conducted containing interviews and user testing. The data collection was carried out with students who had no prior experience with the service. The result shows that parts of the interaction that constituted high cognitive load reduced the usability of the service. Splitting up the tasks and information in smaller steps, giving more clear instructions and adapting the instructional design to the users level of knowledge is considered to reduce the cognitive load. The utility was expressed as a means to create a holistic view of their finances. Some wanted more proactivity through being able to set up saving goals and some wanted to use it more reactively. Literature describing that cognitive load affects usability was supported by this study. The method of examining the cognitive load to find definices in the interaction was also supported. / <p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>

This thesis covers research on group learning by using a computer as the medium. The computer software provides the basic blending of the students??? contributions augmented by the effects generated for the specific learning domain by a system of agents to guide the process of the students??? learning. The research is based on the approach that the computer as a medium is not an end point of the interaction. The development of agents in based on Human- Computer-Human interaction or HCH. HCH is about removing the idea that the role of the computer is that of an intelligent agent and reducing its role to that of a mixer, with the ability to insert adaptive electronic (software) components that add extra effects and depth to the product of the human-human interactions. For the computer to achieve this support, it must be able to analyse the input from the individuals and the group as a whole. Experiments have been conducted on groups working face to face, and then on groups using software developed for the research. Patterns of interaction and learning have been extracted from the logs and files of these group sessions. Also a pattern language has been developed by which to describe these patterns, so that the agent support needed to analyse and respond appropriately to each pattern can be developed. The research has led to the derivation of a structure that encompasses all the types of support required, and provides the format for implementing each type of support. The main difficulty in this work is the limited ability of computers to analyse human thoughts through their actions. However progress is made in analysing the level of approach by students to a range of learning concepts. The research identified the separate patterns that contribute to learning agents development and form a language of learning processes, and the agents derived from these patterns could in future be linked into a multi-agent system to support learning.

The golden generation have a wealth of experience and knowledge from throughout their lifetimes that younger generations wish to retain. In our technology filled world an obvious means of collecting this information is electronically. Digital library col- lections are increasingly used by libraries and large institutions to record their large amounts of information but they can also be used for personal collections. Seniors are often willing and keen to impart their years of experience upon people of the younger generation but time is not always on their side as they grow older. Throughout a lifetime a person could collect large amounts of papers, diaries, pho- tos and media but the time it takes to organise these documents can be long and exhausting and the person's health is not always at its best in old age. Greenstone is a suite of software for creating digital libraries, which are organised collections of documents. Greenstone has the ability to distribute collections either using a server or CD-ROM, and provides advanced searching and organization tools. While Greenstone is a versatile and useful tool in creating digital collections, its in- terface is not designed for senior users. Seniors are commonly perceived to have more physical and mental disadvantages as they get older. These disadvantages can dramatically affect how usable seniors find a piece of software. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how usable the current Greenstone interface is for use by seniors and to re-design the interface so that Greenstone may be more easily used by senior users. This thesis focuses upon what types of documents and descriptive data seniors would like to include in a collection about their life. This is to ascertain exactly what parts of the interface must be improved when it comes to metadata and classifiers. The results of this investigation also helped in the creation of a customised metadata set for senior users use.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2005. / "December 2005." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 49-55). Online version available on the World Wide Web.