Thesis advisor: James Gips / This paper examines the impact of a multicultural approach on the usability of web and software interface designs. Through the use of an eye-tracking system, the study compares the ability of American users to navigate traditional American and Japanese websites. The ASL R6 eye-tracking system recorded user search latency and the visual scan path in locating specific items on the American and Japanese pages. Experimental results found statistically significant latency values when searching for left- or right-oriented navigation menus. Among the participants, visual observations of scan paths indicated a strong preference for initial movements toward the left. These results demonstrate the importance of manipulating web layouts and navigation menus for American and Japanese users. This paper further discusses the potential strengths resulting from modifications of interface designs to correspond with such cultural search tendencies, and suggestions for further research. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2005. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Computer Science. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Although Internet booking system has reached its peak in the recent years many previous researches say there is always a growing interest in the role and nature of design in HCI principles. Small difference can create a large impact in the business of Internet booking system. The future of any online booking system will be heavily depended on how easy and how friendly the system is designed. In our thesis, we are going to suggest what aspects of usability principles are important in making the user interface of current flight booking systems to reach a high degree of usability. For the above purpose we will find usability flaws in the current user interface design of flight booking systems and highlight the potential factors or aspects that make user interface more acceptable to users. To reach this purpose we will use a case study and analyze using an explanation building technique. The empirical data was collected through satisfaction questionnaire which was based on nine “preset tasks” which are designed depending on various usability principles. In our thesis, we will create an understanding on the aspects of usability principles used to make a user interface more acceptable to the users. This understanding will lead future researches in the betterment of interface design of flight booking system.

O surgimento de diferentes dispositivos computacionais fez crescer a demanda pela possibilidade de utilização de um aplicativo em múltiplas plataformas, exigindo o desenvolvimento de novas técnicas que possibilitem o atendimento desse requisito de forma mais simples. Uma das abordagens propostas para solucionar esse problema é caracterizada pelo uso de interfaces plásticas, que se adaptam ao contexto de uso, e permitem a utilização de uma mesma descrição de interface para diferentes contextos. A adoção de técnicas de desenvolvimento baseado em modelos e de linguagens de descrição de interfaces (como a UsiXML, USer Interface eXtensible Markup Language) permitem a descrição de interfaces de usuário em diferentes níveis de abstração, mas para o desenvolvimento de interfaces plásticas multiplataforma utilizando UsiXML, são necessárias ferramentas que permitam o mapeamento entre cada um desses níveis. Nesse trabalho é apresentado o RenderXML, um renderizador de interfaces de usuário que atua no último nível de abstração da linguagem UsiXML, mapeando descrições de interfaces concretas para interfaces de usuário finais sendo executadas em um dispositivo específico. Além disso, o RenderXML fornece um segundo grau de liberdade ao desenvolvedor, permitindo a conexão da interface de usuário renderizada com lógicas de aplicação desenvolvidas em múltiplas linguagens de programação. Para ilustrar sua aplicação, RenderXML foi usado e testado no desenvolvimento de software multiplataforma, em particular para a criação de livros eletrônicos falados, tema do projeto LIFAPOR, no qual este trabalho está inserido. / The existent of different computing devices has created the necessity of software development for multiple platforms, requiring new techniques that permit the fulfillment of this requirement in a simple way. One of the proposed approaches to solve this problem is characterized by the use of plastic user interfaces, which adapt themselves to an use context, and allow the utilization of the same user interface description in multiple contexts. The adoption of model-based development techniques and user interface description languages (as UsiXML, USer Interface eXtensible Markup Language) enables the specification of user interfaces at different levels of abstraction, but requires tools which perform the mapping between each one of these levels. This work presents RenderXML, a user interface rendering application which acts on the last abstraction level of UsiXML, mapping concrete user interfaces descriptions to final user interfaces running on a specific device. Moreover, RenderXML provides a second degree of freedom to the developer, allowing the connection of the rendered user interface to functional cores developed in multiple programming languages. To illustrate its application, RenderXML was used and tested in the development of multiplatform software, in particular in the creation of digital talking books, theme of the LIFAPOR project, in which this work is inserted.

Com o constante crescimento tecnológico, é bastante comum deparar-se com um display público em lugares de grande concentração de pessoas, como aeroportos e cinemas. Apesar de possuírem informações úteis, esses displays poderiam ser melhor aproveitados se fossem interativos. Baseando-se em pesquisas sobre a interação com displays grandes e as características próprias de um display colocado em um espaço público, busca-se uma maneira de interação que seja adequada a esse tipo de situação. O presente trabalho introduz um método de interação por gestos sem necessitar que o usuário interagente segure ou tenha nele acoplado qualquer dispositivo ao interagir com um display público. Para realizar as tarefas que deseja, o usuário só precisa posicionar-se frente ao display e interagir com as informações na tela com suas mãos. São suportados gestos para navegação, seleção e manipulação de objetos, bem como para transladar a tela de visualização e ampliá-la ou diminui-la. O sistema proposto é construído de forma que possa funcionar em aplicações diferentes sem um grande custo de implantação. Para isso, é utilizado um sistema do tipo cliente-servidor que integra a aplicação que contém as informações de interesse do usuário e a que interpreta os seus gestos. É utilizado o Microsoft Kinect para a leitura dos movimentos do usuário e um pós-processamento de imagens é realizado de modo a detectar se as mãos do usuário se encontram abertas os fechadas. Após, essa informação é interpretada por uma máquina de estados que identifica o que o usuário está querendo executar na aplicação cliente. Afim de avaliar o quão robusto o sistema se portaria em um ambiente público real, são avaliados critérios que poderiam interferir na tarefa interativa, como a diferença de luminosidade do ambiente e a presença de mais pessoas no mesmo local de interação. Foram desenvolvidas três aplicações a título de estudo de caso e cada uma delas foi avaliada de forma diferente, sendo uma delas utiliza para fins de avaliação formal com usuários. Demonstrados os resultados da avaliação realizada, conclui-se que o sistema, apesar de não se portar corretamente em todas situações, tem potencial de uso desde que sejam contornadas suas deficiências, a maior parte das quais originária das próprias limitações inerentes ao Kinect. O sistema proposto funciona suficientemente bem para seleção e manipulação de objetos grandes e para aplicações baseadas em interação do tipo pan & zoom, como navegação em mapas, por exemplo, e não é influenciado por diferenças de iluminação ou presença de outras pessoas no ambiente. / With the constant technological growth, it is quite common to come across a public display in places with high concentration of people, such as airports and theaters. Although they provide useful information, these displays could be better employed if they were interactive. Based on research on topics of interaction with large displays and the characteristics of a display placed in a public space, a way of interaction that is suitable for this kind of situation is searched. This paper introduces a method of interaction by gestures without requiring that the interacting user take hold or have to him attached any device to interact with a public display. To accomplish the tasks he wants, he needs just to position himself in front of the display and to interact with the information on the screen with his hands. Gestures supported provide navigation, selection and manipulation of objects as well as to pan and zoom at the screen. The proposed system is constructed so that it works in different applications without a large installation cost. In order to achieve this, the system implements a client-server model application that is able to integrate the part that contains the useful information to the user and the one that interprets his gestures. The Microsoft Kinect is used for reading the user’s movements and techniques of image processing are performed to detect if the user’s hands are open or closed. After this information is obtained, it runs through a state machine that identifies what the user is trying to do in the application. In order to evaluate how robust the system is in a real public environment, some criteria that could interfere with the interactive task are evaluated, as the difference in brightness in the environment and the presence of another people in the same place of interaction. Three applications were developed as a case study and each one was evaluated differently, one of them being used for formal user evaluation. Given the results of the performed tasks, it is possible to conclude that the system, although not behaving correctly in all situations, has potential use if its difficulties are circumvented, most of which come from Kinect’s own inherent limitations. The proposed system works well enough for selection and manipulation of large objects and for use in applications based on pan & zoom, like those that supports map navigation, for example, and difference of ilumination or the presence of other persons on the environment does not interfere with the interaction process.

One way internet users determine the quality of a website is to look for so called 'credibility factors'. These factors can either be positive: the presence of a date, reference list, independent site certification; or negative: the presence of advertisements or broken links. This thesis investigates what role such factors play in the effectiveness of two e-health interventions. An e-health intervention is a health related website designed to change a person’s behaviour. Until now research into credibility has been largely theoretical. Studies have relied on subjective outcome measures such as Likert scales, website content recall, expressions of preference and self reported behaviour. This thesis describes two studies, the second of which investigates, for the first time, whether surface credibility manipulations change objective behavioural outcomes. Surface credibility is how much a perceiver believes a website on simple inspection. Based on a comprehensive literature review of credibility research, the following credibility factors were explored: presence of advertising, recognisable logos, contact details, physical address, references, third party certification, currency information, privacy statement, HTTPS encryption, top level domain and presence of a broken link. The first study involved the assembly of an exercise promotion website. Participants were randomised to receive the site modified to contain either factors heightening credibility or those lowering credibility. Participants using the high credibility version spent twice as long browsing the site as those using the low credibility version. There was no effect on attitude to exercise or self reported physical activity. The second study used the same methodology but with a website targeting an objectively measurable health behaviour (registration as an organ donor). In this study 889 university students were exposed to a website promoting organ donation. Information on the site was assembled based on theoretical domain interviewing and current research into organ donation interventions. 336 (37.79%) participants registered through the study website. The study detected no significant difference in registration rates between high and low credibility versions of the site. Of the 17 comments left on the low credibility site, only 3 were credibility related criticisms. It is the finding of this thesis that university students are willing to submit personal information and place trust in a website contravening many current credibility guidelines. Future studies into credibility are needed to explore why this is the case. One possibility is that the website was trusted simply because it was part of a research study. Another possibility is that the high quality of the textual content compensated for the lack of credibility of the site itself. It is the recommendation of this thesis that future studies focus on objective behavioural outcome measures and control for other forms of credibility such as participation in a research study.

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.

L'expérience utilisateur (UX) est aujourd’hui acceptée comme un facteur de qualité important pour le succès des systèmes informatiques ou des logiciels. Elle dépend de dimensions comme l'émotion, l'esthétique, le plaisir ou la confiance. Parmi ces dimensions, l'importance de la facilité d'utilisation et de l’esthétique est reconnue. Ces deux aspects doivent donc être considérés lors de la conception d’interfaces utilisateur.Cela soulève la question de comment les concepteurs peuvent vérifier UX à l’exécution et l’améliorer si nécessaire. Pour obtenir une bonne qualité d’interface utilisateur en tout contexte d’usage (c.-à-d. utilisateur, plate-forme et environnement), la plasticité propose d’adapter l’interface utilisateur au contexte tout en préservant l’utilisabilité. De manière similaire, notre objectif est de préserver ou d’améliorer UX à l’exécution, en proposant des adaptations des interfaces utilisateur aux émotions des utilisateurs. Les adaptations peuvent concerner l’esthétique ou l’utilisabilité.Ainsi la question de recherche abordée dans ce doctorat est comment conduire l’adaptation des interfaces utilisateur avec un modèle de l’utilisateur basé sur les émotions et les caractéristiques de l’utilisateur (âge et sexe).Notre approche vise à personnaliser les interfaces utilisateurs avec les émotions de l’utilisateur au moment de l’exécution. Une architecture, Perso2U, a été conçue pour adapter les ’interfaces en fonction de leurs émotions et de leurs âge et sexe. Le Perso2U comprend trois composantes principales : (1) un moteur d’inférence, (2) un moteur d’adaptation et (3) le système interactif. Premièrement, le moteur d’inférence reconnaît la situation de l’utilisateur et en particulier ses émotions (joie, colère, dégoût, tristesse, surprise, peur, mépris) qui sont dans le modèle d’émotion Ekman plus l’émotion neutre. Deuxièmement, après l’inférence sur les émotions, la structure d’interface la mieux adaptée est sélectionnée et l’ensemble des paramètres de l’interface utilisateur (audio, taille de la police, Widgets, disposition de l’interface utilisateur, etc.) est calculé en fonction de ces émotions détectées. Troisièmement, ce calcul d’une structure d’interface utilisateur et de paramètres appropriés permet à l’interface utilisateur d’exécuter des changements à l’exécution visant à fournir une meilleure interface utilisateur. Puisque la reconnaissance des émotions est exécutée cycliquement, alors il est possible d’adapter les interfaces utilisateur à l’exécution.Puisque cette approche repose sur des outils de reconnaissance des émotions, nous avons mené une expérience pour étudier la similitude de la détection des émotions des visages à partir d’ouitls existants afin de comprendre si cette détection est indépendante de l’outil de reconnaissance des émotions ou non. Les résultats ont confirmé que les émotions détectées par les outils fournissent des valeurs émotionnelles similaires.Comme l’UX dépend de facteurs de qualité de l’interaction utilisateur comme l’esthétique et la facilité d'utilisation, et de caractéristiques individuelles telles que l’âge et le sexe, nous avons effectué une deuxième analyse expérimentale. Elle tend à montrer que : (1) les facteurs de qualité de l’interface utilisateur (esthétique et/ou utilisabilité) influencent les émotions de l’utilisateur en fonction de l’âge et du sexe, (2) le niveau (élevé et/ou faible) des facteurs de qualité de l’interface utilisateur semblent avoir une incidence différente sur les émotions selon l’âge et le sexe. À partir de ces résultats, nous définissons des seuils en fonction de l’âge et du sexe qui permettent au moteur d’inférence de détecter les problèmes d’utilisabilité et/ou d’esthétique. / User interfaces adaptation by using emotions.Perso2U, an approach to personalize user interfaces with user emotions.User experience (UX) is nowadays recognized as an important quality factor to make systems or software successful in terms of user take-up and frequency of usage. UX depends on dimensions like emotion, aesthetics or visual appearance, identification, stimulation, meaning/value or even fun, enjoyment, pleasure, or flow. Among these dimensions, the importance of usability and aesthetics is recognized. So, both of them need to be considered while designing user interfaces (UI).It raises the question how designers can check UX at runtime and improve it if necessary. To achieve a good UI quality in any context of use (i.e. user, platform and environment), plasticity proposes to adapt UI to the context while preserving user-centered properties. In a similar way, our goal is to preserve or improve UX at runtime, by proposing UI adaptations. Adaptations can concern aesthetics or usability. They can be triggered by the detection of specific emotion, that can express a problem with the UI.So the research question addressed in this PhD is how to drive UI adaptation with a model of the user based on emotions and user characteristics (age & gender) to check or improve UX if necessary.Our approach aims to personalize user interfaces with user emotions at run-time. An architecture, Perso2U, has been designed to adapt the UI according to emotions and user characteristics (age and gender). Perso2U includes three main components: (1) Inferring Engine, (2) Adaptation Engine and (3) Interactive System. First, the inferring engine recognizes the user’s situation and in particular him/her emotions (happiness, anger, disgust, sadness, surprise, fear, contempt) plus neutral which are into Ekman emotion model. Second, after emotion recognition, the best suitable UI structure is chosen and the set of UI parameters (audio, Font-size, Widgets, UI layout, etc.) is computed based on such detected emotions. Third, this computation of a suitable UI structure and parameters allows the UI to execute run-time changes aiming to provide a better UI. Since the emotion recognition is performed cyclically then it allows UI adaptation at run-time.To go further into the inferring engine examination, we run two experiments about the (1) genericity of the inferring engine and (2) UI influence on detected emotions regarding age and gender.Since this approach relies on emotion recognition tools, we run an experiment to study the similarity of detecting emotions from faces to understand whether this detection is independent from the emotion recognition tool or not. The results confirmed that the emotions detected by the tools provide similar emotion values with a high emotion detection similarity.As UX depends on user interaction quality factors like aesthetics and usability, and on individual characteristics such as age and gender, we run a second experimental analysis. It tends to show that: (1) UI quality factors (aesthetics and/or usability) influences user emotions differently based on age and gender, (2) the level (high and/or low) of UI quality factors seem to impact emotions differently based on age and gender. From these results, we define thresholds based on age and gender that allow the inferring engine to detect usability and/or aesthetics problems.

Cognitive limitations such as those described in Miller's (1956) work on channel capacity and Cowen's (2001) on short-term memory are factors in determining user cognitive load and in turn task performance. Inappropriate user cognitive load can reduce user efficiency in goal realization. For instance, if the user's attentional capacity is not appropriately applied to the task, distractor processing can tend to appropriate capacity from it. Conversely, if a task drives users beyond their short-term memory envelope, information loss may be realized in its translation to long-term memory and subsequent retrieval for task base processing. To manage user cognitive capacity in the task of text search the interface should allow users to draw on their powerful and innate pattern recognition abilities. This harmonizes with Johnson-Laird's (1983) proposal that propositional representation is tied to mental models. Combined with the theory that knowledge is highly organized when stored in memory an appropriate approach for cognitive load optimization would be to graphically present single documents, or clusters thereof, with an appropriate number and type of descriptors. These descriptors are commonly words and/or phrases. Information theory research suggests that words have different levels of importance in document topic differentiation. Although key word identification is well researched, there is a lack of basic research into human preference regarding query formation and the heuristics users employ in search. This lack extends to features as elementary as the number of words preferred to describe and/or search for a document. Contrastive understanding these preferences will help balance processing overheads of tasks like clustering against user cognitive load to realize a more efficient document retrieval process. Common approaches such as search engine log analysis cannot provide this degree of understanding and do not allow clear identification of the intended set of target documents. This research endeavours to improve the manner in which text search returns are presented so that user performance under real world situations is enhanced. To this end we explore both how to appropriately present search information and results graphically to facilitate optimal cognitive and perceptual load/utilization, as well as how people use textual information in describing documents or constructing queries.

<p>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.</p>

<p>The image analysis company Izolde was in need of a user friendly graphical user interface (GUI) to use as a modifiable template to be able to meet a variety of requests and demands from their clientele.</p><p>This paper describes the process of designing such a GUI with respect to theories within human computer interaction and available usability principles and theories.To familiarise and learn about other software on the market a background research was conducted. Wireframes as well as prototypes were created. With the help of recognised usability inspection tools tests were conducted on users with varied degree of computer experience. Test results were the basis for what would be altered and improved in terms of usability on the prototypes.</p><p>The final result is a flexible user friendly GUI in regards to the criteria outlined by Izolde.</p> / <p>Detta examensarbete beskriver tillvägagångssättet i skapandet av en mall till ett användargränssnitt. Ett användargränssnitt är utseendet på ett program som användaren ser och interagerar med på en datorskärm, skärmen på en telefon eller annan typ av skärm. Användargränssnittet är utseendet av en programvara och det användaren visuellt kan tolka. I klartext tillåter ett användargränssnitt en användare att interagera med hårdvara genom inmatning (användarens påverkan på systemet) och utdata (resultat av användarens påverkan).</p><p>Grafiska användargränssnitt skiljer sig från de textbaserade avändargränssnitten som tidigare var dominerande. Textbaserade lösningar känns ofta igen i äldre DOS-program och typiskt hos dessa är textinmatning av diverse kommandon och parametrar som leder till påverkan av systemet. Numer är det de grafiska användargränssnitten som dominerar. Fördelen med dessa är att de bygger på igenkänningsmekanismen hos människans tänkande och att de därför tillåter ett mer intuitivt användande av systemet i och med att de är just grafiska.</p><p>Målet med examensarbetet var att designa en gränssnittsmall åt bildanalysföretaget Izolde. Gränssnittsmallen ska kunna modifieras för att kunna möta Izoldes kunders efterfrågan utifrån den typ av analys de vill kunna genomföra. För att kunna genomföra designprocessen krävdes djupare kunskap i vad användarvänlighet innebär och hur denna skall tillämpas i skapandet av ett grafiskt användargränssnitt. Med hjälp av vedertagna principer och teorier inom användarvänlighet var det möjligt att anta rollen som interaktionsdesigner. Interaktiondesign är en disciplin som definieras som beteendet och interaktionen mellan ett föremål, i detta fall ett grafiskt användargränssnitt, och dess användare.</p><p>För att säkerställa att designprocessen skulle resultera i ett attraktivt och användarvänligt grafiskt användargränssnitt krävdes även att tester utfördes på användare med olika grad av datorkunskap på de wireframes och prototyper som skapades. En wireframe är en tidig skiss av designen på det slutgiltiga grafiska gränssnittet och kan beskrivas som en enkel ritning på ett papper eller en grov skiss skapat med lämplig programvara av vad designers vision av det slutgiltiga resultatet är. Genom att rita skisser skapar designern sig en god uppfattning om hur det grafiska gränssnittet kommer att presenteras i dess slutgiltiga skick. Dessutom är det mycket enklare och snabbare att göra ändringar på en skiss än i ett avancerat program som kräver mer exakt precision. Prototyper är mer sofistikerade versioner av wireframes och skapas i ett senare skede av designprocessen. Prototyper bär också större likheter med den slutliga produkten än wireframes.</p><p>Designprocessen resulterade i ett flexibelt användarvänligt grafiskt användargränssnitt vars karaktär är anpassat i avseende på de kriterier som angetts av Izolde. Förhoppningen är att det skapade gränssnittet kommer kunna användas som en förändringsbar mall till ett gränssnitt som kan anpassas efter de kriterier och önskemål som ges av Izoldes kunder.</p>