This thesis explores home energy management (HEM), an emerging field for interface design and sustainability. Section 1 introduces HEM’s broader context. In Section 2, I review the literature surrounding HEM. Section 3 outlines the usability study on the ecobee Smart Thermostat, to evaluate the technology’s ease-of-use, and better understand users’ experience with current HEM technology. Section 4 describes a “Critical Making” workshop, where participants investigated HEM through material interaction and discussion. Section 5 describes and evaluates the potential design spaces gleaned from previous sections. In Section 6, I return to the literature to investigate key concepts underlying the design intervention for the chosen design space. Section 7 describes my design intervention and experimental evaluation. In Section 8, I present the study results, which suggest enhanced display labelling had a significant and directional effect on user-selected temperatures. In Section 9, I discuss these results, study limitations, and make conclusions and recommendations.

This thesis explores home energy management (HEM), an emerging field for interface design and sustainability. Section 1 introduces HEM’s broader context. In Section 2, I review the literature surrounding HEM. Section 3 outlines the usability study on the ecobee Smart Thermostat, to evaluate the technology’s ease-of-use, and better understand users’ experience with current HEM technology. Section 4 describes a “Critical Making” workshop, where participants investigated HEM through material interaction and discussion. Section 5 describes and evaluates the potential design spaces gleaned from previous sections. In Section 6, I return to the literature to investigate key concepts underlying the design intervention for the chosen design space. Section 7 describes my design intervention and experimental evaluation. In Section 8, I present the study results, which suggest enhanced display labelling had a significant and directional effect on user-selected temperatures. In Section 9, I discuss these results, study limitations, and make conclusions and recommendations.

Durch die Entwicklung von Computermaus und Desktop-Metapher in den 70er Jahren wurde der Rechner Teil des Arbeitslebens. Viele Innovationen beruhten nicht nur auf dem Erhöhen der Rechenkapazität, sondern auf dem Paradigmenwechsel von textbasierten zu grafik-basierten Systemen. Heutzutage durchdringen Rechner wesentliche Teile unserer Alltagsgestaltung. Neben Smartphones stellen Tablets und Bewegungssensoren neue Geräteklassen mit neuartigen Bedienparadigmen dar. Entwicklungszyklen werden immer kürzer. Entwickler zukünftiger Benutzerschnittstellen, also heutige Studierende, müssen auf Paradigmenwechsel und sich schnell ändernde Problemstellungen vorbereitet werden. Neue Lehrkonzepte versuchen das zu leisten. Der Bildband stellt den Ablauf und die Ergebnisse der Werkstatt dar, eines praxisorientierten Lehrangebotes zur Entwicklung neuartiger Mensch-Computer Schnittstellen.

Trust is a core construct of our social lives, influencing how we interact with other individuals that are part of our social circle. Whether at work, in teams, or with friends and family, trust influences how much information we exchange with the other individuals and how we interact as a dyad. Defined as risk acceptance behaviour in situations where there is dependency between the parties, trusting another person means accepting some risks to benefit from the social integration of tasks and knowledge. In an institutional environment, trust is a core component of teamwork dynamics, having a strong influence on team effectiveness and performance. Teams are the backbone of current industry, research, healthcare, and business domains. Teams have the power to increase the momentum of projects and tasks, and may also benefit from the collective body of knowledge brought by experts from different fields. Teamwork also brings new constraints to the interpersonal dynamic; for instance, a lack of interpersonal trust can deeply impact the performance and effectiveness of a team. Without trust, communication and interaction between team members can be significantly impaired, limiting the ability of a team to perform and to become effective. As teams move to non-collocated work, the development of trust is restricted by the limited media richness of communication channels. The perceptual mechanisms that compose the major part of the trust development process become constrained, as behavioural cues are not readily available through Computer Mediated Communication Systems (CMCSs). For this reason, virtual teams can suffer from low, fragile, and delayed trust, impairing team effectiveness and performance. Given the increasing prevalence of non-collocated teams, there is a need for the development of a toolset for understanding, measuring, and fostering trust in distributed teamwork environments. The existing literature provides only a partial understanding of the trust formation process and does not encompass a detailed description of the perceptual mechanisms that would help explain trust formation and allow the design of interventions tailored at targeting trust. I started by developing a model that explains trust formation and the perceptual mechanisms involved in this process, in which I also incorporate the distinction between intuitive trust and calculative confidence. The Human Factors Interpersonal Trust State Formation Model developed in this thesis helps explain the situational variability of interpersonal trust, a very important characteristic to consider when using the knowledge about trust formation to inform design. This model explains how researchers and practitioners can develop designs and interventions to foster trust based on increasing the perception of trust-building cues. Similarly, good trust metrics must capture both a measurement of trust between two people and provide information about how each trust cue influences the formation of the trust state. With the intent of incorporating situational sensitivity to a trust metric, I designed the Quick Trust Assessment Scale (QTAS), based on the NASA-TLX structure, using a combination of direct rating of subjective subscales of trust, with a pairwise comparison of each pair of subscales. I evaluated the QTAS using Crombach’s Alpha and Factor Analysis. The results showed high internal validity and identified one component for extraction from the metric, since this component focused on measuring a construct outside the interest of the QTAS. The QTAS is the first trust metric to be developed that includes a component to measure the situational variability of trust. The next component of this thesis focuses on identifying and testing ways to foster trust in a specific other through electronic communication. To achieve this objective, I initially conducted an ethnographic study to identify how team members foster trust in face-to-face collaborations and which trust cues are most often exchanged. In this study, I identified the effect of a third party on fostering trust (liaison) and five behaviours, or trust building cues, that were most used: recommendation, validation, expertise, social network, and benevolence/willingness to help. These five behaviours were later converted into interface design objects (trust tokens), in the form of badges, to be used in CMCSs and social network environments, acting as surrogates for the missing trust cues. The trust tokens were tested on simulated social network interfaces to identify the effects of multiple latent factors. Results showed that the use of the trust tokens is independent of gender, age, education level, and personality type. However, use was dependent on the type of risk the participants were facing and their cultural background. Although trust tokens are effective in fostering trust behaviour, there was not a unified solution for every type of situation. In order to further validate the situational dependence of trust decisions, I have evaluated two major variables of interest. Through experimental manipulation, I demonstrated the influence of (1) situational risk and (2) cultural background on the use of trust cues. These findings are of relevance for the design of systems that support the development of interpersonal trust as they raise the awareness of the highly variable nature of trust. In order for designers, researchers, and practitioners to successfully influence trust behaviour in teamwork environments, they need to include interpersonal trust as a variable of interest in the design requirements of systems that support teamwork, as well as carefully consider the impact of their interventions, as their interventions will influence variably, depending on the situation and target population. Ultimately, this research program demonstrates the importance of including interpersonal trust as a variable of interest in and as a requirement for the design of systems that support teamwork and collaboration.

The research addresses current shortcomings of autonomous service robots operating in domestic environments by considering the concept of a semi-autonomous robot that would be supported by human remote operators whenever the robot cannot handle a task autonomously. The main research objective was to investigate how to design the human-robot interaction for a robotic system to assist elderly people with physical tasks at home according to this conceptual idea. The research procedure followed the principles of human-centered design and is structured into four phases: In the first phase, the context of use of the system to be designed was determined. A focus group study yielded characteristics and attitudes of several potential user groups. A survey determined the demands of elderly people and informal caregivers for services a semiautonomous assistive robot may provide. An ethnographic study investigated the living conditions of elderly people and determined technical challenges for robots operating in this type of environment. Another ethnographic study investigated the work environment in teleassistive service centers and determined the feasibility of extending their range of services to incorporate robotic teleassistance. In the second phase, two studies were carried out to understand the interaction requirements. The first study determined common types of failure of current autonomous robots and required human interventions to resolve such failure states. The second study investigated how the human assistance could be provided considering a range of potential interaction devices. In the third phase, a human-robot interaction concept with three user groups and dedicated user interfaces was designed. The concept and user interfaces were refined in an iterative process based on the results of evaluations with prospective users and received encouraging results for user satisfaction and user experience. In the fourth and final phase the utility of two specific user interface features was investigated experimentally. The first experiment investigated the utility of providing remote operators with global 3D environment maps during robot navigation and identified beneficial usage scenarios. The second experiment investigated the utility of stereoscopic display for remote manipulation and robot navigation. Results suggested temporal advantages under stereoscopic display for one of three investigated task types and potential advantages for the other two. / Forskningen behandlar problem med autonoma robotar som agerar i hemmiljö. Specifikt studeras konceptet semi-autonoma robotar, vilket innebär att robotarna stöds av mänskliga operatörer när de inte klarar uppgifter på egen hand. Syftet med forskningen är att undersöka design av människa-robotinteraktion för robotsystem som stöder äldres behov av hjälp med fysiska uppgifter i hemmiljö. Forskningen är användarcentrerad och har strukturerats i fyra faser: I den första fasen undersöktes användarkontexten för systemet. I en fokusgruppsstudie utforskades karakteristika och attityder för flera potentiella användargrupper. Kraven på en semi-autonom robot för att assistera äldre och informella vårdgivare fastställdes. En enkätstudie undersökte levnadsvillkor hos äldre för att utforska tekniska utmaningar dessa omgivningar ställer på robotar. En etnografisk studie undersökte arbetskontexten på servicecenter för teleassistans och undersökte genomförbarhet i att utöka tjänsteutbudet till att även inkludera teleassisterade robotar. I den andra fasen utfördes två studier för att få kunskap om interaktionskrav. Den första studien fastställde vanliga typer av fel som inträffar med nuvarande typer av autonoma robotar och de typer av mänsklig assistans som krävs för att hantera dessa fel. Den andra studien undersökte hur mänsklig assistans kan utformas givet en repertoar av potentiella interaktionsanordningar. I den tredje fasen utformades ett interaktionskoncept för människa-robot interaktionen för tre användargrupper med dedicerade gränssnitt. Koncepten och användargränssnitten förfinades i en iterativ process baserat på resultat från utvärderingar med tänkta användare, och resulterade i uppmuntrande resultat vad gäller användarnas uppskattning och tillfredsställelse. I den fjärde och sista fasen studerades nyttan hos två specifika gränssnitt experimentellt. Det första experimentet undersökte nyttan med att ge operatörer på distans globala 3D-kartor under robotnavigeringen och identifierade användarscenarier där detta kan utnyttjas. Det andra experimentet undersökte nyttan med en stereoskopisk display för att manipulera och navigera roboten på distans. Resultaten visar på temporala fördelar med stereoskopisk display för en av tre undersökta uppgiftstyper och potentiella fördelar för de andra två.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:48:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 LirisneiGS.pdf: 852828 bytes, checksum: d8e0d9662bced4742e1d852cf03d78a8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-08-20 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior / This work presents an User Interface (UI) prototypes generation process to the softwares that has a Web browser as a plataform. This process uses UI components more complex than HTML elements. To described this components more complex this work suggest to use the XICL (eXtensinble User Interface Components Language). XICL is a language, based on XML syntax, to describe UI Components and IUs. XICL promotes extensibility and reusability in the User Interface development process. We have developed two compiler. The first one compiles IMML (Interactive Message Modeling Language) code and generates XICL code. The second one compiles XICL code and generates DHTML code / Este trabalho apresenta um processo de gera??o de prot?tipos de Interfaces de Usu?rio (IU) para software que tem como plataforma operacional um navegador Web. Este processo faz o uso de componentes de interface de usu?rio mais complexos que os elementos HTML. Para descrever estes componentes mais complexos este trabalho sugere o uso da linguagem XICL (eXtensible User Interface Components Language). A XICL ? uma linguagem, baseada em XML, para a descri??o de componentes de IU e de IUs. A XICL permite reusabilidade e extensibilidade no desenvolvimento de interfaces de usu?rios. Foram desenvolvidos dois compiladores, um que gera c?digo XICL a partir de c?digo IMML (Interactive Message Modeling Language) e outro que a partir de XICL gera DHTML

Around one percent of the Swedish population is defined as visually impaired and ten percent of them are classified as blind (Funka, n.d.; SRF, 2017a). A study shows that the prevalence of nearsightedness will increase to around half the population in the world in 2050 (Holden et. al., 2016). This suggests an increased need for solutions that work for people with reduced vision, not only for visually impaired but for a large group of the population. The aim of the project is to conceptualize a technological mainstream solution that supports people when shopping for groceries. The focus is on making this solution accessible for people with low vision. The project was planned based on the human-centered design process described by IDEO.org (2015), with an overall process divided into three phases: inspiration, ideation, and implementation. In the first phase, inspiration, a literature review was done, different field studies and other research methods were carried out. The outcome of the phase was three personas, two scenarios, and a design specification. During the second phase, ideation, the project scope was narrowed down – focusing on physical grocery stores (excluding online stores) and on conceptualizing a smartphone application. An ideation workshop was conducted, followed by concept creation, paper prototyping, scenario writing, user evaluations and a final concept selection. In the last phase, implementation, follow up feedback sessions were held and a simulation test of the final concept was held. Visualizations and presentation of the final concept were done. A list of summarized design principles was created, as support for further work on designing the application for low vision users. The final concept is based on a smartphone application that supports the customer through shopping list management, aisle navigation, item selection and item scanning, for a seamless customer experience for both people with full and low vision. The technology that will be utilized is Pricer AB's electronic shelf labels (ESL) with item positioning, customer navigation, and individual flashing light, combined with the grocery store online database with item descriptions and images. Here follows an example of how the interaction could look like for someone with low vision: He always prepares his shopping list before heading to the store, this way he knows the shopping will be easier for him. In the store, he gets all items on the list presented in the correct order of the store, in that way he knows what to search for. When looking for soy sauce from his shopping list he has trouble remembering where the section is, so he checks it up with the navigation. He realizes that it was just around the corner of where he just passed by. Once at the section he is presented with a list of different soy sauces in the application, matching his location, previous purchases and the soy sauce on his shopping list. He can now select the one that he prefers, and a picture of it appears on the screen, simultaneously a flashing green light appears by the item on the shelf, and he can easily and independently find the way right up to the soy sauce he wants. / Ungefär en procent av Sveriges befolkning är synskadade, och tio procent av dem är så pass gravt synskadade att de kan definieras som blinda (Funka, n.d.; SRF, 2017a). Enligt en studie förväntas närsynthet världen över att öka, och under 2050 vara uppe i hälften av jordens befolkning (Holden et. al., 2016). Detta tyder på ett ökat behov av lösningar som fungerar för personer med nedsatt syn, inte bara för synskadade utan för en stor del av befolkningen. Målet med projektet är att undersöka nuläget och behoven för synsvaga personer när de handlar mat, för att sedan kunna utveckla universell teknisk ­lösning som ska fungera som ett stöd när man handlar mat. Projektet planerades utifrån en människocentrerad designprocess beskriven av IDEO.org (2015), som är indelad i tre faser: inspiration, idégenereringen och genomförande. I den första fasen, inspiration, gjordes en litteraturstudie, flera fältstudier genomfördes, samt andra research metoder. Resultatet här var tre personas, två scenarion och en designspecifikation. Under den andra fasen, idégenereringen, ställdes nya avgränsningar upp för projektet – fokuset riktades nu mot den fysiska butiker (avgränsning från e-handeln) och att målet skulle vara att ta fram en smartphone-applikation. En idéworkshop genomfördes, konceptgenerering, skapande av pappersprototyper, scenarion, utvärdering med användare och ett slutligt konceptval. I sista fasen, genomförande, följdes det slutliga konceptet upp med tidigare deltagare och det slutliga konceptet testades i en simulerad studie. Visualisering och presentation av slutkonceptet gjordes. Designprinciper för utveckling av applikationer för synsvaga sammanfattades, för att fungera som stöd för vidare arbete med utveckling av konceptet. Slutkonceptet bygger på en smartphone-applikation som ska fungera som stöd för kunden, från skapandet av inköpslista, navigering i butiken, val och identifiering av varor och slutligen att scanna varan. I sin helhet skapar detta en komplett lösning i mataffären för både seende och synsvaga kunder. Tekniken som ska utnyttjas för konceptet är Pricer AB's elektroniska hyllkantsetikett-system (ESL-system) med positionering, kundnavigering samt en lysdiod på varje enskild etikett, i kombination med butikens online-databas med produktbeskrivningar och bilder på varorna. Här kommer en beskrivning av hur interaktionen med systemet kan gå till för någon som är synsvag: Han förbereder alltid sin inköpslista innan han går till affärer, eftersom han vet att det underlättar för honom. Väl i butiken får han varorna från inköpslistan presenterade i den ordningen de kommer, vilket förenklar letandeprocessen. När han letar efter sojasås som han har på listan har han svårt att komma ihåg var i butiken han hittar den, så han kollar upp det med navigeringsfunktionen. Han inser då att han missade den just bakom hörnet som han gick förbi. Väl framme vid sektionen får han en lista med olika sojasåser presenterade i applikationen, de baseras på hans position i butiken, tidigare köp och vad han har på inköpslistan. Han kan nu välja den han gillar och får då en bild på varan på sin skärm, samtidigt som en grön lampa blinkar precis där varan är placerad på hyllan. Han kan nu enkelt och självständigt plocka varan han vill ha från hyllan.

A maturidade da área de Interação Humano-Computador (IHC) pode ser atestada pela grande quantidade de conjuntos formados por regras, diretrizes e normas (aqui designados como diretivas) que têm sido formulados por dezenas de autores como guias para o estudo, criação e melhoria de interfaces de usuário. No entanto, esses conjuntos apresentam diferenças significativas entre si: muitas dessas diretivas, incluindo algumas já consagradas no universo da IHC, não pertencem ao mesmo nível de abstração nem formam um conjunto homogêneo de enunciados. Essa falta de unidade, aliada à acelerada evolução das tecnologias digitais, tem contribuído para manter essas diretivas (e a própria disciplina de IHC, segundo alguns) em um estado constante de fragmentação e permanente modificação. Mesmo assim, podem ser encontrados princípios — ou leis essenciais, universais e imutáveis — que são subjacentes às diretivas e que podem delas ser extraídos através de uma metodologia adequada. Para contribuir com esse processo, a presente pesquisa apresenta uma revisão dos critérios utilizados para a compilação de conjuntos de diretivas de usabilidade, além de um método de três etapas para a redução progressiva de um número significativo de diretivas a uma lista simples de princípios de usabilidade. Os resultados deste trabalho incluem um modelo metodológico e um conjunto de sete princípios que podem ser utilizados para a pesquisa a e prática da Interação Humano-Computador. / The maturity of the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) field can be attested by the large number of existing sets of rules, guidelines and standards (called directives herein) that have been formulated by dozens of authors as guidelines for the study, design and improvement of user interfaces. Still, these sets present significant differences among themselves: many of these directives, including some already established in the realm of HCI, do not belong to the same level of abstraction and do not constitute a homogeneous set of statements. This lack of unity, coupled with the rapid evolution of digital technologies, has contributed to maintain these directives (and, according to some, the very discipline of HCI) in a constant state of fragmentation and perpetual change. Even so, it is possible to find among them certain principles — i.e., essential laws that are universal and immutable — which underlie these directives and can be extracted from them using an appropriate methodology. To contribute to this process, this research presents a review of the criteria used to compile these sets of usability directives and a three-step method for the progressive reduction of a significant number of directives to a simple list of usability principles. The results include a methodological framework and seven principles that can be used for the research and practice of Human-Computer Interaction.

A presente dissertação é o resultado de uma pesquisa que avalia as vantagens da utilização de nuvens de texto para apresentar os resultados de um sistema de busca na web. Uma nuvem de texto é uma técnica de visualização de informações textuais e tem como principal objetivo proporcionar um resumo de um ou mais conteúdos em uma única tela. Em uma consulta na web, os resultados aparecem listados em diversas páginas. Através de uma nuvem de texto integrada a um sistema de busca é possível a visualização de uma síntese, de um resumo automático, do conteúdo dos resultados listados em várias páginas sem que elas tenham que ser percorridas e os sites acessados individualmente. A nuvem de texto nesse contexto funciona como uma ferramenta auxiliar para que o usuário possa gerenciar a grande carga de informação que é disponibilizada nos resultados das consultas. Dessa forma os resultados podem ser vistos em contexto e, ainda, as palavras que compõem a nuvem, podem ser utilizadas como palavras-chave adicionais para complementar uma consulta inicial. Essa pesquisa foi desenvolvida em duas fases. A primeira consistiu no desenvolvimento de uma aplicação integrada a um sistema de buscas para mostrar seus resultados em nuvens de texto. A segunda fase foi a avaliação dessa aplicação, focada principalmente em buscas exploratórias, que são aquelas em que os objetivos dos usuários não são bem definidos ou o conhecimento sobre o assunto pesquisado é vago. / This dissertation presents the results of a research that evaluates the advantages of text clouds to the visualization of web search results. A text cloud is a visualization technique for texts and textual data in general. Its main purpose is to enhance comprehension of a large body of text by summarizing it automatically and is generally applied for managing information overload. While continual improvements in search technology have made it possible to quickly find relevant information on the web, few search engines do anything to organize or to summarize the contents of such responses beyond ranking the items in a list. In exploratory searches, users may be forced to scroll through many pages to identify the information they seek and are generally not provided with any way to visualize the totality of the results returned. This research is divided in two parts. Part one describes the development of an application that generates text clouds for the summarization of search results from the standard result list provided by the Yahoo search engine. The second part describes the evaluation of this application. Adapted to this specific context, a text cloud is generated from the text of the first sites returned by the search engine according to its relevance algorithms. The benefit of this application is that it enables users to obtain a visual overview of the main results at once. From this overview the users can obtain keywords to navigate to potential relevant subjects that otherwise would be hidden deep down in the response list. Also, users can realize by visualizing the results in context that his initial query term was not the best choice.

[pt] A presente tese tem por objetivo geral fornecer à luz de metodologias de Design em Situações de Ensino-Aprendizagem, o uso de recursos inclusivos para o desenvolvimento de narrativas digitais bilíngues para crianças surdas, de forma participativa. Aborda questões históricas acerca do oralismo e gestualismo, como a aquisição da linguagem na mais tenra idade é fundamental para o desenvolvimento cognitivo infantil e as dificuldades encontradas no ensino simultâneo da Língua Brasileira de Sinais, a LIBRAS e do português escrito. Apresenta uma reflexão sobre como a tecnologia pode ser usada como mediadora para a aprendizagem de conteúdos socioculturais, assim como o desenvolvimento de habilidades sensório-motoras e cognitivas no processo de crescimento da criança. Desenvolve-se como um estudo de caso com a criação de uma história interativa digital bilíngue, concebida e desenvolvida pela equipe do Laboratório Interdisciplinar Design/Educação, do Departamento de Artes e Design, da PUC-Rio (LIDE | DAD | PUC-Rio), contemplada pela Chamada Universal 14/2013 - CNPq, que tem as etapas para a sua construção descritas. Ao final, disponibiliza orientações para a construção de narrativas interativas digitais com os objetivos acima descritos, a fim de fomentar o campo do Design em Parceria com a Educação, ampliando o alcance de projetos desta natureza para este público. / [en] The goal of this research is to provide, based on methodologies of Design in Teaching-Learning Situations, the use of inclusive resources for the development of bilingual digital narratives for hearing-impaired children, in a participatory way. It will address historical questions about oralism and gesturalism, how the acquisition of language at an early age is fundamental for children s cognitive development and the difficulties to simultaneous teaching of the Brazilian Sign Language, LIBRAS and written Portuguese. It presents a reflection about how the technology can be used as mediator for the learning of socio-cultural contents, as well as the development of sensory-motor and cognitive abilities in the process of the child s growth. And we will design a bilingual digital interactive story, conceived and developed by the team of the Interdisciplinary Design / Education Laboratory, Department of Arts and Design, PUC-Rio (LIDE | DAD | PUC-Rio), contemplated by the Universal Call 14/2013 - CNPq, and the steps will described. At the end, it provides guidelines for the construction of interactive digital narratives with the objectives described above, in order to foster the field of Design in Partnership with Education, expanding the reach of projects of this nature for this public.