Hoje em dia, muitas empresas de petróleo estão adotando diferentes sistemas baseados em conhecimento com o objetivo de ter uma melhor predição de qualidade de reservatório. No entanto, existem obstáculos que não permitem geólogos com diferentes formações recuperar as informações sem a necessidade da ajuda de um especialista em tecnologia da informação. O principal problema é a heterogeneidade semântica dos usuários finais quando fazem consultas em um sistema de consulta visual (VQS). Isto pode ser pior quando há uma nova terminologia na base de conhecimentos que afetam a interação do usuário, especialmente para usuários novatos. Neste contexto, apresentamos contribuições teóricas e práticas que explora o sinergismo entre ontologia e interação homem-computador (HCI). Do lado da teoria, introduzimos o conceito de visão de ontologia bem fundamentada e a sua definição formal. Nós nos concentramos na extração de vista ontologia de uma ontologia bem fundamentada e completa, baseando-nos em meta-propriedades ontológicas e propusemos um algorítmo independente da linguagem para extração de sub-ontologia que é guiada por meta-propriedades ontológicas. No lado prático, baseado nos princípios de HCI e desenho de interação, propusemos um novo sistema de consulta visual que usa o enfoque de vistas de ontologias para guiar o processo de consulta. Também o nosso desenho inclui visualizações de dados que ajudarão geólogos a entender os dados recuperados. Além disso, avaliamos nosso desenho com um teste de usabilidade a-través de um questionário em experimento controlado. Cinco geólogos que trabalham na área de Geologia do Petróleo foram avaliados. O enfoque proposto é avaliado no domínio de petrografia tomando as comunidades de Diagênese e Microestrutural adotando o critério de precisão e revocação. Os resultados experimentais mostram que termos relevantes obtidos de documentos de uma comunidade varia entre 30 a 66% de precisão e 4.6 a 36% de revocação, dependendo do enfoque selecionado e da combinação de parâmetros. Além disso, os resultados mostram que, para toda combinação de parâmetros, a revocação obtidos de artigos de diagênese usando a sub-ontologia gerada para a comunidade de diagênese é maior que a revocação e f-measure usando a sub-ontologia gerada para a comunidade de microestrutural. Por outro lado, resultados para toda combinação de parâmetros mostram que a revocação e f-measure obtida de artigos de microestrutural usando a sub-ontologia gerada para a comunidade de microestrutural é maior que a revocação e o fmeasure usando a sub-ontologia gerada para a comunidade de diagêneses. / Nowadays many petroleum companies are adopting different knowledge-based systems aiming to have a better reservoir quality prediction. However, there are obstacles that not allow different background geologists to retrieve information without needing the help of an information technology expert. The main problem is the heterogeneity semantic of end users when doing queries in a visual query system (VQS). This can be worst when there is new terminology in the knowledge-base affecting the user interaction, particularly for novice users. In this context, we present theoretical and practical contributions that exploit the synergism between ontology and human computer interaction (HCI). On the theory side, we introduce the concept of ontology view for well-founded ontology and provide a formal definition and expressive power characterization. We focus in the ontology view extraction of a well-founded and complete ontology based on ontological meta-properties and propose a language independent algorithm for sub-ontology extraction, which is guided by ontological meta-properties. On the practical side, based on the principles of HCI and interaction design, we propose a new Visual Query System that uses the ontology view approach to guide the query process. Also, our design includes data visualizations that will help geologists to make sense of the retrieved data. Furthermore, we evaluated our interaction design with five users performing a usability testing through a questionnaire in a controlled experiment. The evaluation was performed over geologists that work in the area of petroleum geology. The approach proposed is evaluated on the petrography domain taking the communities of Diagenesis and MicroStructural adopting the well known criteria of precision and recall. Experimental results show that relevant terms obtained from the documents of a community varies from 30 to 66 % of precision and 4.6 to 36% of recall depending on the approach selected and the parameters combination. Furthermore, results show that almost for all the parameters combination that recall and f-measure obtained from diagenesis articles using the sub-ontology generated for the diagenesis community is greater than recall and f-measure using the sub-ontology generated for microstructural community. On the other hand, results for all the parameters combination that recall and f-measure obtained from microstructural articles using the sub-ontology generated for the microstructural community is greater than recall and f-measure using the subontology generated for diagenesis community.

The smartphone is part of our daily life. Smartphone users type on a screen area that is no larger than the palm of a hand. To help with this endeavor the software known as AutoCorrect was created. However little is known about how AutoCorrect actually change the language and if AutoCorrect users at all perceive the impact it has. This study aims to find out if our test subjects are aware of AutoCorrect’s presence and how much it influences them. To do this our test subjects had to use smartphones to type two different texts. After categorizing the spelling errors according to AutoCorrect’s algorithm weights we compared the test data with the information from the interviews to determine problematic areas caused by AutoCorrect when typing. Our research show that using AutoCorrect makes the process of typing faster since there is no need for a high accuracy. However it does not necessarily make a user finish typing a text faster since they frequently have to pause to process AutoCorrect’s suggestions and words that are marked as erroneous. If AutoCorrect marked a word as wrong but did not offer a suggestion the test subjects would doubt their own spelling and try different versions of the word until they found one they were satisfied with. This would significantly slow them down compared to if they had typed the text without AutoCorrect.

The focus of this thesis is usability of an everyday used product; the cell phone seen from a Human – Computer Interaction perspective. The purpose with the thesis is to create an understanding of how cell phones are used by persons in natural /public settings and in everyday activities. Further the purpose is to describe users’ experiences of using cell phones. In this study, ethnography was used as method. The theoretical framework is the contextual usability perspective. The cell phone is used in many contexts and in different ways. We can make the conclusion from what the study shows, that the cell phone is outermost used and need for social issues. From a subjectivity perspective on usability, we can see that the cell phone is a product which needs and goals are highly subjective to the user. From a flexibility perspective on usability, we see that the cell phone is used in different contexts and therefore must be flexible in use. From a subjectivity perspective on usability, we see that it is a product that exists and is used in a social environment. A design suggestion that correspond to these aspects is the module cell phone. We can also make the conclusion that goals, needs and use are inseparable and constitute prerequisites for each other.

Visibility aspects of User Interfaces are important; they deal with the crucial phase of human-computer interaction. They allow users to perform and at the same time hide the complexity of the system. Acceptance of new systems depends on how visibility aspects of the User Interfaces are presented. Human eyes make the first contact with the appearance of any system by so it generates the very beginning of the human – application interaction. In this study it is enforced that visibility aspects are essential in application development. Furthermore, it is stressed that with practice of automation, habitual and functional visibility fades and users lose control. Users accept visibility loss only at certain points where it does not impact their skillset and understanding of an application. Although, they prefer control over visibility aspects and automation to strengthen the reception of the User Interface. The environments used in this study are Google Docs, Dropbox and cloudHQ with a case study of collaboration involving five users.

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a short range wireless communication protocol which is primarily intended to be used on mobile phones. Building upon existing infrastructure of RFID, NFC brings simplicity for connection of mobile devices, service initiation, mobile payment and ticketing. However, NFC still remains as a field that number of researches done are limited. The aim of this paper was to provide solutions for the problems of NFC that cause security risks and hurt user experience. To reach this goal we have reviewed the current literature and implemented an NFC application that we have used throughout our user experience tests. This application provides a practical way to store and transfer contact information using NFC. The results of the study indicated that usability and security suffer from lack of user awareness and physical design of the mobile phones.

The paperless office is a concept that has been around for decades. The concept concerns digital technology replacing paper as a medium within the office, but so far a completely paperless office has yet to be achieved. In this study, we have reviewed previous research in order to understand potential reasons for this. We interviewed local offices, to find out how they used paper around the office, and information about what properties a replacement might need. The research questions that guided us through our study were: In what way do local offices store and index data? What themes can we find in their practices that help us further the paperless office? Can we use our findings to create a concept design? Using the information we gathered we designed a conceptual prototype styled after a common binder, to associate the mental models used when working with paper, and imbuing it with digital technology.

In my teaching and software development practice, I realized that most applications with human-computer interaction do not respond to usersâ emotional needs. The dualism of reason and emotion as two fairly opposite entities that dominated Western philosophy was also reflected in software design. Computing was originally intended to provide applications for military and industrial activities and was primarily associated with cognition and rationality. Today, more and more computer applications interact with users in very complex and sophisticated ways. In human-computer interaction, attention is given to issues of usability and user modeling, but techniques to emotionally engage users or respond to their emotional needs have not been fully developed, even as specialists like Klein, Norman and Picard argued that machines that recognize and express emotions respond better and more appropriately to user interaction (Picard, 1997; Picard & Klein, 2002; Norman, 2004). This study investigated emotion from designersâ perspectives and tentatively concludes that there is little awareness and involvement in emotional design in the IT community. By contrast, participants in this study (36 IT specialists from various fields) strongly supported the idea of emotional design and confirmed the need for methodologies and theoretical models to research emotional design. Based on a review of theory, surveys and interviews, I identified a set of themes for heuristics of emotional design and recommended future research directions. Attention was given to consequences; participants in this study raised issues of manipulation, ethical responsibilities of designers, and the need for regulations, and recommended that emotional design should carry standard ethical guidelines for games and any other applications. The research design utilized a mixed QUAN-qual methodological model proposed by Creswell (2003) and Gay, Mills, and Airasian (2006), which was modified to equally emphasize both quantitative and qualitative stages. An instrument in the form of a questionnaire was designed, tested and piloted in this study and will be improved and used in future research. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

Event Condition Action rule engines have been developed for some time now. Theycan respond automatically to events coming from different sources. Combination ofdifferent event types may be different from time to time and there for it is hard todetermine how the rule engine executes its rules. Especially when the engine is givena large rule set to work with. To determine the behavior is to run tests on the ruleengine and see the final results, but if the results are wrong it can be hard to see whatwent wrong. ruleViz is a program that can look at the execution and visually animatethe rule engine behavior by showing connections between rules and composite events,making it easier for the operator to see what causes the fault. ruleViz is designed toembrace Human Computer Interaction (HCI) methods, making its interfaceunderstandable and easy to operate.

In today’s computerized society more and more companies choose to utilize new applications that can ease the way of handling the information. For many of us is imperative that the process as efficient as possible if one takes in consideration the size of savings that this new application can bring. The developer of the evaluated system is SYSteam AB Huskvarna and they are the ones that gave us this assignment. The application that we evaluate is SCM (Secure Connection Manager). It is already used today by big companies such as Telia and Ericsson to search for errors in telephone servers placed all over the country. The reason why this application is used is to increase the efficiency of error searching without traveling to the location of the servers. The issues that the report focuses on are the system’s usability and efficiency for the user. Since the application is already in use we must be aware that just small adjustments are going to be made afterward. In order to evaluate an already developed system we interviewed users that are familiar with the application and were willing to be answering our questions.Those users’ opinions have been crucial to us and our evaluation. The result is a gathering of tables and data which methodically describes every subject in our questionnaire. These subjects are the following: navigation, design, content and efficiency.  Our analyses results show a positive reaction to almost all the subjects treated in the questionnaires. Several opinions and comments during the interviews confirm this statement.  The theoretical methods used to form this opinion are the heuristics rules that we followed, but also some of the most useful principles from theory books about interaction design. The conclusion is, as the results of our evaluation show, that the system that we evaluated (SCM) is both efficient and user-friendly. We would like to thank all the users, which took part in our study, as well as our supervisors both at university and at SYSteam AB Huskvarna. Thank you! / Med dagens mer systematiserade tillvaro är det fler som väljer att införa applikationer i företag som kan underlätta informationshanteringen. För många är det viktigt att detta sker så effektivt som möjligt med tanke på de besparingar som det kan medföra. De som har utvecklat den studerade applikationen och som också är våra uppdragsgivare är SYSteam AB i Huskvarna. Denna applikation som vi utvärderar heter Secure Connection Manager (SCM). Den används idag av bland annat företag som Telia och Ericsson för att göra felsökningar på telefonväxlar som finns utplacerade i landet. Anledningen till att denna applikation används är att det blir mer effektivt att med hjälp av fjärrstyrning kunna göra felsökningar utan att behöva åka till telestationerna som de tidigare har gjort. Frågeställningarna som arbetet fokuserar på är om systemet är användarvänligt och effektivt för användaren. Eftersom systemet redan är i drift måste man ha i åtanke att det endast kan ske marginella justeringar i efterhand. För att kunna evaluera ett färdigt system har vi haft hjälp av ett antal frekventa användare som villigt har ställt upp på att svara på frågor och intervjuer. Dessa testpersoner har varit av yttersta vikt för oss och för vår evaluering. Resultatet blev en samling tabeller och data som metodiskt beskriver varje element var för sig. De element som frågeguiden är indelad i är navigation, design, innehåll och effektivitet. Analysen gav positiva resultat till de frågeställningar vi hade ställt, förutom elementet innehåll. Flera av de synpunkter och kommentarer som samlades in under intervjuerna förstärkte detta resultat. De teoretiska metoder som hjälpte oss att bedöma detta var några av de heuristiska regler som finns att följa, men även några av de principer som finns att läsa om i böcker om interaktionsdesign. Slutsatsen blev att av de resultat vi fick av vår utvärdering konstaterade vi att SCM är både effektivt och användarvänligt. Vi vill gärna rikta ett tack till alla testpersoner som ställde upp och till våra handledare både på högskolan och på SYSteam AB i Huskvarna. Tack!

Technology non-use or active resistance towards technology is a pertinent issue in Human Computer Interaction, especially when we contemplate the ongoing changes regarding the concept of usability. By combining Theory of Practice and Theory of Materiality with Theory of Affect this thesis explores the resistance towards online streaming music technology among music enthusiasts devoted to vintage Vinyl music culture and also takes an effort to understand any possible effect of this voluntary non-use on the digital music industry. Qualitative research analysis is employed on ten in-depth semi structured interviews showing that material aspects and nostalgia, create an individualistic image and passion for record collection; furthermore, these aspects play a role behind the choice of non-use of online music technology.