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With Home Virtual Assistant (HVA) becoming popular, it has entered many families. This study aims to understand how novice users explore the capabilities of HVAs and the factors influence the users’ discovery process. The researcher used a study inspired by diary study, combining survey and interview to collect the data, along with dialogue history that contains all the activities between the user and the device. The results reveal the activities the users engage in and the factors of the HVA device and the users that influence the discovery process. Three themes emerged from the data, they are: the activities participant engaged to learn the capabilities of Echo Dot, the influence of Echo Dot being screen-less and factors of participants that influenced the initial use. Based on the results, the researcher discusses the current issues of the Echo Dot’s design and suggests potential improvement for the HVAs.

ABSTRACT Providing good customer service is crucial to many commercial organizations. There are different means through which the service can be provided, such as Ecommerce, call centres or face-to-face. Although some service is provided through electronic or telephone-based interaction, it is common that the service is provided through human agents. In addition, many customer service interactions also involve a computer, for example, an information system where a travel agent finds suitable flights. This thesis seeks to understand the three channels of customer service interactions between the agent, customer and computer: Customer-Agent-Computer Interaction (CACI). A set of ethnographic studies were conducted at call centres to gain an initial understanding of CACI and to investigate the customer-computer channel. The findings revealed that CACI is more complicated than traditional CHI, because there is a second person, the customer, involved in the interaction. For example, the agent provides a lot of feedback about the computer to the customer, such as, I am waiting for the computer . Laboratory experiments were conducted to investigate the customer-computer channel by adding non-verbal auditory feedback about the computer directly to the customers. The findings showed only a small insignificant difference in task completion time and subjective satisfaction. There were indications that there was an improvement in flow of communication. Experiments were conducted to investigate how the two humans interact over two different communication modes: face-to-face and telephone. Findings showed that there was a significantly shorter task completion time via telephone. There was also a difference in style of communication, with face-to-face having more single activities, such as, talking only, while in the telephone condition there were more dual activities, for instance talking while also searching. There was only a small difference in subjective satisfaction. To investigate if the findings from the laboratory experiment also held in a real situation and to identify potential improvement areas, a series of studies were conducted: observations and interviews at multiple travel agencies, one focus group and a proof of concept study at one travel agency. The findings confirmed the results from the laboratory experiments. A number of potential interface improvements were also identified, such as, a history mechanism and sharing part of the computer screen with the customer at the agent's discretion. The results from the work in this thesis suggest that telephone interaction, although containing fewer cues, is not necessarily an impoverished mode of communication. Telephone interaction is less time consuming and more task-focused. Further, adding non-verbal auditory feedback did not enhance the interaction. The findings also suggest that customer service CACI is inherently different in nature and that there are additional complications with traditional CHI issues.

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Orientador: Helder Anibal Hermini / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Mecanica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-12T11:02:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Velho_ThiagoRodriguesDias_M.pdf: 3732956 bytes, checksum: 0b07ab69f0d9bd506570add187760f7a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / Resumo: Como consequência da busca pela perfeição cinesiológica na tecnologia de realidade virtual em interfaces humanas, esses ambientes estão demandando cada vez mais dispositivos que tornem a interação homem-máquina a mais natural possível e isso inclui o desenvolvimento de tecnologias que relevem questões de anatomia e fisiologia, em função das tarefas que serão realizadas. Ante o exposto, nessa dissertação foi desenvolvido um dispositivo háptico de mão que será utilizado para interagir e/ou manipular objetos tridimensionais visando uma perfeita concatenação cinemática. Uma das principais características do funcionamento do protótipo está relacionada com o sistema mecânico, que é capaz de acompanhar toda a trajetória de extensão e flexão de um dedo antropomórfico. O dispositivo mecatrônico foi desenvolvido usando as tecnologias CAD e Prototipagem Rápida, sendo prototipada a partir do processo de sinterização a laser utilizando a composição de poliamida PA12, o que oferece ao produto final resistência adequada e também leveza / Abstract: As a consequence of the search of the kinesthesia perfection in the technology of human virtual interfaces, this environments are each time more in need for devices that is able to turn the human-machine interaction as most natural as possible and this includes the development of technologies that reveals questions of anatomy and physiology, in order to realize the tasks that they are going to. Based in that, in this dissertation it was developed a hand haptic device the will be used to interact and/or manipulate tridimensional objects focusing on a perfect cinematic concatenation. One of the main characteristics of the prototype functioning is related with the mechanic system, which is able to follow the entire extension and flexion trajectory made by one anthropomorphic hand finger. The device was developed using CAD and Rapid Prototyping technologies, being prototyped through laser sinterization process which uses the PA12 polyamide composition which offers to the final product adequate resistance and also lightness / Mestrado / Mecanica dos Sólidos e Projeto Mecanico / Mestre em Engenharia Mecânica

Algorithm has always been a challenging topic for students to learn because of its high level of abstraction. To provide visual aid for algorithm education, many algorithm visualization systems have been designed, developed, and evaluated for the last two decades. However, neither the topics covered nor the interactivity of most AV systems are satisfying. This problem is presented in detail in chapter 2. As a result, this research aims to design, implement and evaluate a compiler-based algorithm visualization system on complex graph algorithm implementation with the assumption that it can help students build both confidence and competence in understanding it. This system is designed and developed according to the method in chapter 3. To test the hypothesis, a comparison experiment on 10 students in the Computer Graphics Technology department is conducted. The complete test protocol can be found in chapter 3.4, and the result can be found in chapter 4. Based on the limited number of subjects’ testing data, a rough conclusion is made that this AV system has only a slight positive effect on subjects’ confidence and competence in understanding complex graph algorithm’s implementation, and its usability is acceptable. However, a concrete conclusion can only be reached if the testing is conducted to a larger group of subjects. In addition to the objective testing data, some interesting subjective observations, which are listed in chapter 5.2 are also made while doing the test. These observations indicate that algorithm visualization may more of a tool to examine users’understanding of the implementation than a tool to help them learn it.

<div> <div> <div> <p>This study focused on a physical property of human finger touch: finger contact area (FCA). The value of FCA lies not only in optimizing the interface layout design but also in streamlining the process of sensitivity tuning for capacitive devices. However, from previous research, whether the target size and display position have effects on the FCA is unknown, and the data of FCA in the contexts of touching various appliances had never been explored. A within-subjects experiment was conducted to study the FCA in the context of four target sizes and two display positions. Forty-two participants were recruited, and both their demographic data as well as touch data were collected and analyzed. As a result, both the target size and the display position have significant effects on the FCA size, and users would implement different finger approach angles (FAA) in varying contexts accordingly. In general, larger target size and vertical touch surface would lead to a larger FCA size, but other factors such as finger joint circumference, stature, touch force did not show significant effects in the experiment. Overall, this study contributes to a clearer understanding of FCA data as well as how users behave in the touch interaction on the capacitive touch interface of appliances. Moreover, it pointed out what factors were related or unrelated to the FCA. This knowledge would directly help designers and engineers to develop optimized capacitive buttons with appropriate sizes as well as sensitivity on touch interfaces of appliances and could improve the usability of the capacitive touch interface in the future. </p> </div> </div> </div>