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The purpose of this study is to examine the users’ experience of the game Planera Mera and what parts of the game that increases or decreasestheir gaming experience for adolescents with mild intellectual disability. 15 adolescents in the age of 16 to 20 years with mild intellectual disability from special needs upper secondary schoolparticipated in a user study on the applicationPlanera Merafor thisstudy. The results show that the perceived gaming experience increases when the users clearly understand how to solve the tasks, when the tasks are correctly executed and when the tasks are easy to solve properly and decreases when it is hard to understand the task, when the tasks given are to complex or when the tasks are not solved correctly. This is supported by the result that there is a correlation between the number of participants who completed each task and the average grade each task got from the participants. This suggests that the user might benefit from help in the game in the form of hints of how close the user is to a correct answer and the gaming experience might increase. This is also supported by the principle that people with mild intellectual disability benefits in their learning by physical and verbal prompting to guide correct responses (Browder & Spooner, 2005).

I takt med att trafiksituationen blir allt mer komplex och krävande, ställs högre krav på dagens bilförare. I kombination med att ny informationsteknik inkorporeras inuti fordonen, uppstår även ett ökat informationsflöde som ständigt måste bearbetas av föraren både inuti och utanför fordonet. Eftersom förares visuella uppmärksamhet är begränsad, kan denna ökning innebära att förares kapacitet att uppmärksamma objekt i sin omgivning inte räcker till. Ett vanligt förekommande problem är idag att utryckningsfordon misslyckas påkalla uppmärksamheten hos den omkringliggande trafiken eller att trafiksituationer är så komplexa att den civila trafikanten inte har möjlighet att flytta sig ur vägen. Denna studie ämnade utforma två designförslag för att undersöka vilka tänkbara effekter som ett förvarnande varningssystem skulle ha på den civila föraren i utryckningssituationer. För utformningen av gränssnitten genomfördes en designprocedur som grundar sig i tidigare studier samt personor. För att undersöka och utvärdera de utformade gränssnittens effekt, genomfördes användartester i en bilsimulator hos uppdragsgivaren VTI. Inga statistiskt signifikanta skillnader kunde identifierades mellan de utformade gränssnitten. Däremot kunde en medelstark effektstorlek (cohen ́s d = -0.4029) identifieras för frågan ”Hur snabbt uppfattades informationen som presenterades?”. Effektstorleken indikerar att information som enbart presenterades i bilens instrumentbräda, var effektivare i termer av att snabbt kunna uppmärksamma information jämfört med när informationen även presenterades i mittkonsolens display. Resultaten indikerar även att den subjektiva inställning gentemot de båda gränssnitten var positiv. Framförallt för att varningssystemets förvarnande funktionalitet gav förarna mer tid och möjlighet att uppmärksamma utryckningsfordonet samt förbereda sig på situationen.

Syftet med detta arbete var att implementera ett fungerande verktyg för att underlätta läsning av text med fokus riktat mot språkteknologiska funktioner. Det digitala verktyget Friendlyreader är framtaget för att underlätta läsning av text för individer med lässvårigheter, som exempelvis kan bero på dyslexi eller en funktionsnedsättning. Detta arbete har genom en förstudie kartlagt vilken funktionalitet som efterfrågas och finns tillgänglig hos liknande verktyg som ämnar att underlätta läsning. Detta har legat till grund för implementationen av ett funktionellt gränssnitt som bygger på språkteknologiska funktioner som tillhandahålls från en fjärrservern genom SAPIS REST API. Under implementationen togs beslutet att göra funktionaliteten samverkande för att skapa ett mer flexibelt verktyg. Detta innebär att text som exempelvis blivit förenklad även kan bli sammanfattad, funktionaliteten utgår således från textens aktuella utformning och inte dess original. Implementationen genomgick tester där all funktionalitet med fokus på språkteknologi fick ett godkänt resultat.

Denna studie har till syfte att reda ut hur de olika MDI-begreppen användbarhet och användarupplevelse relaterar till varandra, samt hur detta relaterar till datainsamlingsmetoden System Usability Scale, eller SUS. SUS mäter användarens uppfattning av en produkts användbarhet, vilket innebär att den har kopplingar till både användbarhet och användarupplevelse och därmed skulle kunna placeras i ”gränslandet” mellan dessa. Arbetet utreder användbarhet och användarupplevelse som två begrepp var för sig, för att sedan undersöka hur de förhåller sig till varandra och avslutningsvis till SUS. Detta undersöks genom innehållsanalyser av litteratur samt kortsorteringar för att inkludera praktikers perspektiv på ämnet och därmed få en bredare bild av hur det verkligen är. Resultatet visar på en relation mellan användbarhet och användarupplevelse, där båda till stor del påverkar varandra vid människa-datorinteraktion. Detta innebar även en tydlig koppling i hur SUS förhåller sig till detta. Studiens resultat har använts till att ta reda på hur SUS går att modifiera för att rikta sig mot endast användbarhet eller endast användarupplevelse med hjälp av litteraturen om de båda begreppen.

A construção de modelos representa uma perspectiva interessante para buscar a compreensão sobre aspectos do comportamento humano. A partir de modelos do desempenho humano e do estudo das características do erro humano, este trabalho propõe o S. PERERE (Simulation of Performance in Error), um simulador computacional do comportamento humano cujo objetivo é produzir de forma aleatória estados de erro humano. O simulador recebe como entrada a especificação do comportamento a ser simulado e produz como saída o comportamento afetado pelo erro. Para a geração dos estados de erro o S. PERERE possui um mecanismo perturbador do comportamento e também um mecanismo de disparo das perturbações. A construção do simulador está baseada na arquitetura cognitiva ACT-R (Atomic Components of Thought – Rational). A utilização prevista do S. PERERE é seu acoplamento com simuladores de processos de forma a permitir a verificação do impacto dos erros humanos nestes processos. / The construction of models represents an interesting perspective to reach the understanding about human behaviour aspects. From human performance models and from the study of error characteristics, this work purposes the S.PERERE (Simulation of Performance in Error), a human behaviour computational simulator, which main objective is to produce, in a random way, human error states. The simulator receives, as entrance, the specification of the behaviour to be simulated, and produces, as output, the behaviour affected by the error. For the generation of error states, S.PERERE has a behaviour disturber mechanism and also a mechanism to start the perturbations. The construction of the simulator is based on ACT-R (Atomic Components of Thought – Rational) cognitive architecture. The use of S.PERERE is under its coupling to process simulators, allowing the verification of human errors impact on theses processes.

How people come to trust computing technology is an important factor in the degree to which they come to accept the services that such technologies are able to provide. This is particularly important where the usage of a technology might risk compromising a person’s private information, making them vulnerable to technologically mediated attack. Research into interpersonal trust development between people has allowed designers of systems deployed using technologies such as the World Wide Web to successfully modulate a number of human interpersonal trust cues into the computer-mediated communication domain. Pervasive computing however, describes a significant shift in the ways in which people will come to encounter and use interactive technologies. No longer limited to the confines of the desktop, people can and will be able to perform many of the technological activities they would otherwise do at home in any place and at any time. However, while the services that a pervasive computing infrastructure will be able to provide may be similar to those that people are used to in the traditional world of the ‘desktop metaphor’, the novel characteristics of pervasive computing mean that many of the trust cues that were previously available to technology users may no longer offer an effective means of helping users to place their trust well. In this thesis, a mixed methods research plan, involving both laboratory-based and field-based experimental design, was developed to investigate the role of human-computer trust in respect of two novel characteristics of pervasive computing: service discovery and secure ad-hoc device association. Through leveraging various artefacts in the immediate physical world to support information presented by services in the digital world, this thesis posits that the provision of user-verifiable links between the physical and digital worlds might provide a means of increasing user trust in services whose source they can otherwise not perceive nor verify.

When we are looking at a visual stimuli, there are certain areas that stand out from the neighbouring areas and immediately grab our attention. A map that identi- es such areas is called a visual saliency map. As humans can easily recognize actions when watching videos, having their saliency maps available might be bene cial for a fully automated action recognition system. In this thesis we look into ways of learning to predict the visual saliency and how to use the learned saliency for action recognition. In the rst phase, as opposed to the approaches that use manually designed fea- tures for saliency prediction, we propose few multilayer architectures for learning saliency features. First, we learn rst layer features in a two layer architecture using an unsupervised learning algorithm. Second, we learn second layer features in a two layer architecture using a supervision from recorded human gaze xations. Third, we use a deep architecture that learns features at all layers using only supervision from recorded human gaze xations. We show that the saliency prediction results we obtain are better than those obtained by approaches that use manually designed features. We also show that using a supervision on higher levels yields better saliency prediction results, i.e. the second approach outperforms the rst, and the third outperforms the second. In the second phase we focus on how saliency can be used to localize areas that will be used for action classi cation. In contrast to the manually designed action features, such as HOG/HOF, we learn the features using a fully supervised deep learning architecture. We show that our features in combination with the predicted saliency (from the rst phase) outperform manually designed features. We further develop an SVM framework that uses the predicted saliency and learned action features to both localize (in terms of bounding boxes) and classify the actions. We use saliency prediction as an additional cost in the SVM training and testing procedure when inferring the bounding box locations. We show that the approach in which saliency cost is added yields better action recognition results than the approach in which the cost is not added. The improvement is larger when the cost is added both in training and testing, rather than just in testing.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has been an increasingly pervasive component of most workplaces throughout the past half century. In healthcare, the turn to the digital has resulted into the broad implementation of Healthcare Information Technology (HIT). The impacts of ICT on work life have been investigated predominantly through surveys, although some researchers have advocated for the use of a qualitative, experience-based approach. Meanwhile, the existing body of research on the impacts of HIT on clinicians has painted a mixed picture of digitalization. Despite some clear benefits, HIT has indeed been found to have unexpected, unintended adverse consequences for hospital staff. Typical issues include loss in efficiency, extra effort to carry out routine tasks, and the creation of new, HIT-induced work activities. Simultaneously, research outside of the healthcare domain has shown that ICT could require extra effort from some users in order for the sociotechnical system to function properly – extra work often invisible to developers. Based on observation, interview and focus group data collected at a large Swedish hospital, this thesis set out to investigate the impact of HIT on hospital nurses from an experience-based perspective, resulting in four main contributions. First, a method supporting experience-based data analysis, the HolisticUX method, is introduced. Second, 13 forms of HIT-induced additional tasks in nurses' workload are identified, five of which are not acknowledged in previous research. Third, task avoidance is identified as a consequence of nurses' increased workload, negatively affecting patient safety, care quality and nurses' professional satisfaction. Finally, four factors are argued to contribute to a suggested invisibility of the HIT-induced time burden in nurses' work life to management and developers: 1) lack of a holistic perspective, 2) the hidden cost of a single click, 3) the invisibility of nursing work, and 4) visible data, invisible work.

Experimental results show that source-tract information fusion can also improve the robustness of speaker recognition systems in mismatched conditions. For example, relative improvements of 15.3% and 12.6% have been achieved for speaker identification and verification, respectively. / For speaker verification, a text-dependent weighting scheme is developed. Analysis results show that the source-tract discrimination ratio varies significantly across different sounds due to the diversity of vocal system configurations in speech production. This thesis analyzes the source-tract speaker discrimination ratio for the 10 Cantonese digits, upon which a digit-dependent source-tract weighting scheme is developed. Information fusion with such digit-dependent weights relatively improves the verification performance by 39.6% in matched conditions. / This thesis investigates the feasibility of using both vocal source and vocal tract information to improve speaker recognition performance. Conventional speaker recognition systems typically employ vocal tract related acoustic features, e.g the Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC), for discriminative purpose. Motivated by the physiological significance of the vocal source and vocal tract system in speech production, this thesis develops a speaker recognition system to effectively incorporate these two complementary information sources for improved performance and robustness. / This thesis presents a novel approach of representing the speaker-specific vocal source characteristics. The linear predictive (LP) residual signal is adopted as a good representative of the vocal source excitation, in which the speaker specific information resides on both time and frequency domains. Haar transform and wavelet transform are applied for multi-resolution analyses of the LP residual signal. The resulting vocal source features, namely the Haar octave coefficients of residues (HOCOR) and wavelet octave coefficients of residues (WOCOR), can effectively extract the speaker-specific spectro-temporal characteristics of the LP residual signal. Particularly, with pitch-synchronous wavelet transform, the WOCOR feature set is capable of capturing the pitch-related low frequency properties and the high frequency information associated with pitch epochs, as well as their temporal variations within a pitch period and over consecutive periods. The generated vocal source and vocal tract features are complementary to each other since they are derived from two orthogonal components, the LP residual signal and LP coefficients. Therefore they can be fused to provide better speaker recognition performance. A preliminary scheme of fusing MFCC and WOCOR together illustrated that the identification and verification performance can be respectively improved by 34.6% and 23.6%, both in matched conditions. / To maximize the benefit obtained through the fusion of source and tract information, speaker discrimination dependent fusion techniques have been developed. For speaker identification, a confidence measure, which indicates the reliability of vocal source feature in speaker identification, is derived based on the discrimination ratio between the source and tract features in each identification trial. Information fusion with confidence measure offers better weighted scores given by the two features and avoids possible errors introduced by incorporating source information, thereby improves the identification performance further. Compared with MFCC, relative improvement of 46.8% has been achieved. / Zheng Nengheng. / "November 2005." / Adviser: Pak-Chung Ching. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-11, Section: B, page: 6647. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 123-135). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.