The venerable desktop metaphor is beginning to show signs of strain in supporting modern knowledge work. Traditional desktop systems were not designed to support the sheer number of simultaneous windows, information resources, and collaborative contexts that have become commonplace in contemporary knowledge work. Even though the desktop has been slow to evolve, knowledge workers still consistently manage multiple tasks, collaborate effectively among colleagues or clients, and manipulate information most relevant to their current task by leveraging the spatial organization of their work area. The potential exists for desktop workspaces to better support these knowledge work practices by leveraging the unifying construct of activity. Semantically-meaningful activities, conceptualized as a collection of tools (applications, documents, and other resources) within a social and organizational context, offer an alternative orientation for the desktop experience that more closely corresponds to knowledge workers' objectives and goals. In this research, I unpack some of the foundational assumptions of desktop interface design and propose an activity-centered model for organizing the desktop interface based on empirical observations of real-world knowledge work practice, theoretical understandings of cognition and activity, and my own experiences in developing two prototype systems for extending the desktop to support knowledge work. I formalize this analysis in a series of key challenges for the research and development of activity-based systems. In response to these challenges, I present the design and implementation of a third research prototype, the Giornata system, that emphasizes activity as a primary organizing principle in GUI-based interaction, information organization, and collaboration. I conclude with two evaluations of the system. First, I present findings from a longitudinal deployment of the system among a small group of representative knowledge workers; this deployment constitutes one of the first studies of how activity-based systems are adopted and appropriated in a real-world context. Second, I provide an assessment of the technologies that enable and those that pose barriers to the development of activity-based computing systems.

Interface colour scheme design is complex, but important. Most software allows users to choose the colours of single items individually and out of context, but does not acknowledge colour schemes or aid in their design. Creating colour schemes by picking individual colours can be time-consuming, error-prone, and frustrating, and the results are often mediocre, especially for those without colour design skills. Further, as colour harmony arises from the interactions between all of the coloured elements, anticipating the overall eff ect of changing the colour of any single element can be difficult. This research explores the feasibility of extending artistic colour harmony models to include factors pertinent to user interface design. An extended colour harmony model is proposed and used as the basis for an objective function that can algorithmically assess the colour relationships in an interface colour scheme. Its assessments have been found to agree well with human evaluations and have been used as part of a process to automatically create harmonious and usable interface colour schemes. A three stage process for the design of interface colour schemes is described. In the fi rst stage, the designer speci es, in broad terms and without requiring colour design expertise, colouring constraints such as grouping and distinguishability that are needed to ensure that the colouring of interface elements reflects their semantics. The second stage is an optimisation process that chooses colour relationships to satisfy the competing requirements of harmonious colour usage, any designer-specified constraints, and readability. It produces sets of coordinates that constitute abstract colour schemes: they de fine only relationships between coloured items, not real colours. In the third and fi nal stage, a user interactively maps an abstract scheme to one or more real colour schemes. The colours can be fi ne-tuned as a set (but not altered individually), to allow for such "soft" factors as personal, contextual and cultural considerations, while preserving the integrity of the design embodied in the abstract scheme. The colours in the displayed interface are updated continuously, so users can interactively explore a large number of colour schemes, all of which have readable text, distinguishable controls, and conform to the principles of colour harmony. Experimental trials using a proof-of-concept implementation called the Colour Harmoniser have been used to evaluate a method of holistic colour adjustment and the resulting colour schemes. The results indicate that the holistic controls are easy to understand and eff ective, and that the automatically produced colour schemes, prior to fi ne-tuning, are comparable in quality to many manually created schemes, and after fi ne-tuning, are generally better. By designing schemes that incorporate colouring constraints specifi ed by the user prior to scheme creation, and enabling the user to interactively fi ne-tune the schemes after creation, there is no need to specify or incorporate the subtle and not well understood factors that determine whether any particular set of colours is "suitable". Instead, the approach used produces broadly harmonious schemes, and defers to the developer in the choice of the fi nal colours.

Syfte – Att se hur olika processer vid framtagningen av ett gränssnitt kan påverka kvaliteten på ett gränssnitts användarvänlighet. Metod – Fallstudie med intervjuer och kontextuella observationer och en designprocess som använder flera iterationer av prototyper. Slutligen en analys där arbetsprocessen vid gränssnittens utveckling tolkas och gränssnittens kvalitet utvärderas utifrån ett antal definierade faktorer. Resultat – Studien visar att en designprocess med ett fokus på användarvänlighet kräver mycket förarbete och tar längre tid för att få fram ett resultat medan en designprocess där användarvänlighet ej är i fokus ger ett snabbare resultat men som ger problem i efterhand på grund av lägre kvalitet på gränssnittets användarvänlighet Implikationer – Studien visar att även om en process som fokuserar på användarvänlighet kräver extra arbete och resurser i början, i slutändan ger ett betydligt högre resultat som sparar framtida arbete. Studien bekräftar därmed andra teorier om hur användarvänlighet i gränssnitt kan och bör tas fram. Begränsningar – Studien saknade möjlighet till tester i gränssnittets slutliga miljö och baseras därför på teorier framtagna utifrån ISOs definition av Quality in use istället för användartester som skulle kunnat ge en trovärdigare kvalitetsuppskattning. Studien studerar endast två olika processer för framtagning av ett gränssnitt. / Purpose – To see how different processes during the development of a User Interface affect the quality of its user-friendliness. Method – Case study with interviews and contextual observations and a design process where several iterations of prototypes was used. Lastly an analys where the process used during the development is studied and the quality of the User Interface is valued from a number of defined factors. Findings – The study shows that a design process with a focus on user-friendliness requires a lot of work beforehand and takes longer before an actual result kan be achieved while a process where user-friendliness is not a focus gives faster results but creates problems in the future because of a lower quality on the user-friendliness of the User Interface. Implications – The study shows that a while process with a focus on user-friendliness takes more resources and time in the beginning it produces a higher quality of work which saves time and resources in the future. The study therefor other studies of how a user-friendly User Interface can and should be developed. Limitations – The study lacked an opportunity to do testing in the User Interface’s real environment and is instead based on theories based on ISO’s definition of Quality in use instead of user tests which could have given a more credible result. The study also only studies two different processes and their result.

The question of the relationship between, and the importance of usability and aesthetics, in the field of user interface design, has been debated back and forth. It has also been looked at from different perspectives since Raskin (1994) wrote his article on intuitive design. Several experiments have also been conducted over the last twenty years to find out exactly how much each factor matter, what the ultimate user preference is, and if it can be stereotyped. The more complex part of the discussion, however, seems to be the definitions: exactly what is aesthetics, what is usability and how do they affect each other? To find out, I explored the context of these factors from multiple perspectives, to draw the larger conclusions about what affects what. How accurate is the concept of halo when it comes to interface design; can a less aesthetic interface discourage users from exploring its content? Moreover, can a highly usable interface convince its users that the web page is also aesthetically pleasing? In this paper I will explain the ideas of aesthetic and intuitive design based on two fields of study; human computer interaction design and interaction design. That is in the pursuance of understanding user preference and the design decisions behind one of the most popular interfaces on the internet today.

Augmented Reality, eller förstärkt verklighet som det heter på svenska, är en teknologi som funnits i någon form sedan mer än 30 år tillbaka. Förstärkt verklighet system bygger och lägger virtuella objekt på vår syn av verkligheten, antingen genom video eller en genomskinlig display. Trots sin långa historia har det bara nyligen kunnat börja utvecklas i någon betydande mening, därför att den är starkt begränsad av processor- och display-teknik. Förutom tekniska begränsningar möter den också begränsningar i form av användarens kapacitet att bearbeta information som ett system matar ut. Om mängden information överskrider kapaciteten blir användaren överbelastad, ett tillstånd som kallas för Information Overload, vilket resulterar i att användaren får svårt att ta in och begripa information. Detta kan åthjälpas genom att utöva god design av användargränssnittet, som är en viktig del i alla system. Militären är mycket intresserade i teknologin i hopp om att det ska ge dem en bättre överblick på slagfältet. Den miljö som råder på ett slagfält kan dock vara mycket stressande, vilket ökar risken för Information Overload och gör det till en större utmaning att designa ett användbart system. Denna uppsats syftar att samla information om förstärkt verklighet, Informaion Overload och gränssnittsdesign på ett ställe och applicera det på ett militärt projekt, för att undersöka vilka utmaningar som uppstår när man designar för militärt bruk, utifrån traditionella riktlinjer och principer.

[pt] Um dos requisitos para a usabilidade de um sistema interativo é que os usuários adquiram o conhecimento, denominado de modelo de usabilidade, sobre como aplicar as soluções-em-potencial concebidas pelo designer às tarefas do seu domínio. A abordagem da Engenharia Semiótica apresenta uma perspectiva na qual um sistema interativo é um artefato de metacomunicação através do qual o designer envia uma mensagem que comunica o modelo de usabilidade para o usuário. Partindo desta perspectiva e baseado nos conceitos de semiótica das teorias de Charles S. Peirce e de Umberto Eco desenvolvemos modelos teóricos que descrevem o modelo de usabilidade como sendo o conteúdo da mensagem do designer, a interface de usuário como a sua expressão e o design como sendo uma atividade de produção de signos apoiada por um sistema semiótico, composto por uma linguagem de especificação e por regras que correlacionam as mensagens especificadas aos widgets dos principais padrões e ferramentas de interfaces de usuário. / [en] Interactive systems usability could be enhanced if users learn all the knowledge - the usabilty model - that capability them in applying designer`s potential solutions to domain tasks. The Semiotic Engineering approach perceives interactive systems as metacommunication artifacts that send a message from designer to users whose expression is the lower-level messages exchanged between user and system and whose content is the usability model. Starting from this perspective and based on semiotic theory concepts from Charles S. Peirce and Umberto Eco we present conceptual models to the interface as the expression and to the usability model as the content of designer`s message. We also develop a semiotic system to support user interface design. The system is composed by a specification language and rules that maps specified messagens to user interface widgets. Our emphasis here is not in aesthetics aspects of user interfaces, but in the interactive and performing nature of the interface message as it is carried throughout the computational medium. / [es] Uno de los requisitos para el uso de un sistema interactivo es que los usuarios adquieran conocimiento (denominado de modelo de usabilidad) sobre como aplicar las soluciones-en-potencial concebidas por el diseñador a las tareas de su dominio. El abordaje de la Ingeniería Semiótica presenta define un sistema interactivo como un artefacto de metacomunicación a través del cual el diseñador envía un mensaje que comunica el modelo de usabilidad para el usuario. Partiendo de esta perspectiva y considerando los conceptos de semiótica de las teorías de Charles S. Peirce y de Umberto Eco, desarrollamos modelos teóricos que describen el modelo de usabilidad como el contenido del mensaje del diseñador; la interfaz de usuario como su expresión y el diseño como una actividad de producción de signos apoyada por un sistema semiótico, compuesto por un lenguaje de especificación y por reglas que correlacionan los mensajes especificados a los widgets de los principales padrones y herramientas de interfaces de usuario.

Masters of Science / The focus of this research is to establish whether there is a difference in the way the genders perceive the visualization of mathematics, with specific reference to set theory. The influence of the computing experience of students on their perceptions was also investigated. Interfaces were created for the teaching of set theory for learners in the first class of secondary school. Since the mother tongue of most the pupils is Dari the interface was made available in both Dari and English. The interfaces were used to gather the data for the research / South Africa

School websites are useful in providing an additional environment to educate and impart culture to the collectivity. They reflect the collective phenomenon of behaviour and traditional ideas, and at the same time, reflect the efforts made by the educators to teach cultural identity, values and social skills. The work of renowned anthropologist Geert Hofstede (1991) on cultural dimensions has contributed to the study and reassessment of current theories on software and websites, which interact with the cultures of societies in which they function, and are still relevant to the constant evolution of technology (communication tools) in the educational environment. The aim of this research is to explore how cultural dimensions are reflected on ORT school websites in Israel. This study in a relatively new field offers educators an insight into new options and innovations offered by school websites, and provides reflections on their use in cultural education. In this context, the importance of this research lies in its contribution to the pedagogical dialogue on culture, and as it is reflected on school websites. This study applies Hofstede's (1991) work, in which he classifies cultural characteristics prevalent in global organizations into five "cultural dimensions": power distance, individualism&collectivism, masculinity&femininity, uncertainty avoidance, and time orientation, and design expert Aaron Marcus' (2001) interpretation and application of this model to website designs worldwide. The subject of this study consists of 54 Ort school websites operating in Israel. The findings on ORT school websites echo Hofstede's characteristics on the reflection of power distance in Israeli culture. However, my findings on Hofstede's three other dimensions – collectivism vs. individualism, masculinity vs. femininity, and uncertainty avoidance – illustrate a more complex picture, with the elements reflected in differing patterns. ORT school websites reflect both elements of culture as defined by Marcus (2001) and elements of standardization of website design. In recent years, there has been an upsurge in the software available globally to create and design websites, all using the same basic tools and elements of design. In conclusion, schools' attempts to impart culture as part of their social education policies is reflected in the contents and design of their websites. / Dissertation (MEd (Curriculum Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Curriculum Studies / unrestricted

This project is a master’s thesis in Industrial Design that has been conducted in the spring of 2022 at Luleå University of Technology. The project is a cooperation with the company Neava and is about improving their online tool Design Studio. The goal of the project is to improve the online tool from an environmentally friendly perspective, i.e., how information is presented regarding material’s impact on the environment and how energy efficient the house will be when all the choices have been made.  Today, there are two different interfaces of Design Studio. One that is based on specific requirements from a customer, and another that is designed for sellers. None of these interfaces provides the user with information about how the materials are affecting the environment. Today it is important to think about the materials and energy efficiency when new houses are being built to create a sustainable future.  The work has been conducted by the process Design Thinking, which is an iterative process that is performed in five different phases: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. In the first phase, an understanding of the user was created, this was conducted through interviews and a survey. In the second phase, the user was identified, and user needs were established. In the third phase, different ideas and concepts were generated and then evaluated by users. In the fourth phase, a clickable prototype was created in the program Adobe XD. In the fifth phase, the prototype was tested on users and later improved based on the results.  The final result is a clickable prototype that informs the user about the available materials and how they are affecting the environment. The materials are categorized into three different groups: red, yellow, and green. If a material is in the red category, it indicates that the material is the worst for the environment. If a material is in the yellow category, it indicates that the material is okay for the environment. If a material is in the green category, it indicates that the material is the best for the environment. These three colors are connected to the environmental meter, the indicator shows the user how environmentally friendly materials the user has selected and how energy efficient the house will be.

Purpose – As screen time per individual increases, more users of digital devices experience ocular related diseases. The purpose of this study is to gather reasons for the vast popularity Dark Mode gained in contemporary society, by investigating previous design eras. As a general lack of trend analysis within user interface design has been identified, the goal of the study is to lay the foundation for further research in the field of user interface design. Method – The study relies on a qualitative literature review. Publications related to Dark Mode, light-on-dark color schemes and digital trends were analyzed for topic-specific content that was then elaborated to give a critically viewed framework of the emerging trend. Findings – The results of our study indicate that various factors led to creation of the hyped trend, known as Dark Mode. It was first and foremost practicality of the light-on-dark color scheme that paved the way for Dark Mode. All operating systems, many apps, platforms and even websites incorporated it in their design. Being an optional feature, Dark Mode makes it more comfortable for users to use their devices outside the light hours or in environments with bad lighting conditions. With Dark Mode users get a far-reaching personalization tool, that visually changes essentially the whole OS or app. From a psychological point of view this improves user satisfaction, as humans naturally are seeking way to be in control. Being in control of own devices is undoubtedly an important aspect of it. Besides that, Dark Mode houses potential to lower energy consumption of devices and provides users with longer battery times. This, however, only applies to devices with display technology like OLED, where backlighting is at least divided into zones, that can be turned off when not in use. Devices with conventional LED displays cannot benefit from lower energy consumption. Implications – The study indicates that individuals use Dark Mode for a more satisfying user experience as they feel e.g. less eye strain with a dark themed user interface. Editing and coding software is mostly designed in a light-on-dark color scheme, as users often work for long continuous hours on screen, surrounded by dark environment. As screen time per individual increases, more users are experiencing ocular diseases. In counteraction, society demanded dark themed interfaces for operating systems, websites, and apps. As individuals were already using unofficial dark themes on different interfaces, tech companies started releasing system updates to make Dark Mode a choice. As Apple released their user interface update just in 2019, Dark Mode is still a relevant trend discussed in the industry and society. Experts indicate that Dark Mode is here to stay, as it satisfies preferences of many users and makes current OLED screens and future digital devices with appropriate display technology more sustainable. Limitations – The time frame of the study, as well as the Covid-19 pandemic greatly limited the possibilities of conducting the study. Due to the novelty of the trend, there is lack of previous research, which limited the view on the subject to only work available. Keywords – Dark Mode, dark-on-light color scheme, retro trends, user interface design, user experience, digital trends, display, screen, screen time, eye strain