'Complex sociotechnical systems' are systems made up of numerous interacting parts, both human and non-human, operating in dynamic, ambiguous and safety critical domains. The system design, and representation, has significant implications for the usability of the system, its performance, errors and reliability. Due to its formative constraint-based approach, Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA) has been frequently proposed as a framework for modelling these complex systems, further it is contended that the approach can be extended to design for interaction without significant deviation from the accepted framework. This thesis presents a number of applications in complex military domains to explore and develop the benefits of CWA. Unlike much of the previous literature, particular attention is placed on exploring the CWA framework in its entirety. This holistic approach focuses on the system environment, the activity that takes place within it, the strategies used to conduct this activity, the way in which the constituent parts of the system (both human and non-human) interact and the behaviour required. Each stage of this analysis identifies the constraints governing the system; it is contended that through this holistic understanding of constraints, recommendations can be made for the design of system interaction; increasing the ability of users to cope with unanticipated, unexpected situations. This thesis discusses the applicability of the approach in system analysis, development and evaluation. It provides process to what was previously a loosely defined framework.

With the emergence of flexible display technologies, graphical user interfaces will no longer be limited to flat surfaces. As such, it will become necessary for interface designers to move beyond flat display designs, contextualizing interaction in an object’s physical shape. Grounded in early explorations of Organic User Interfaces (OUIs), this thesis examines the evolving relationship between industrial and interaction design and argues that not only what, but how we design is changing. To understand how to better design OUIs, we report on an empirical study of pointing behavior that shows how Fitts’ law can model movement time on an extremely convex surface. We also show that touch sensing technology can be repurposed for the OUI design process by making it possible to tape, draw, or paint touch sensing directly on a physical prototype. We then discuss how supporting sketching, a fundamental activity of many design fields, is increasingly critical for the interactive three-dimensional forms in OUI and that a ‘hypercontextualized’ approach to their design can reduce the drawbacks met when everyday objects become interactive. Finally, we discuss that when interactive hardware is seamlessly melded into an object’s shape, the ‘computer’ disappears. When designing OUIs, it is better seen as a basic material, like the clay, foam core, or plastics used by an industrial designer, and one that happens to have interactive potential. / Thesis (Ph.D, Computing) -- Queen's University, 2014-01-23 12:00:08.953

Software products are tools that find more uses in the society every day, both professionally and in daily lives of members of the society. This thesis focuses on the problems and possibilities related to current software products. By analysis of the problems and current issues in the software field, possible contribution of a design-oriented approach to software products is explored. The thesis is supported by a study in the form of a semi-structured observation.

Today, urban children are spending time indoors more than ever before and getting away from phenomenas of the outdoor world, which creates a big concern on how they develop their senses and get physical exercise. The tools, games and devices they interact with are preventing their imagination rather than sparking, by making kids consume content rather than asking for their participation. Peek transforms the outside into an imaginary playground for children, where interacting with the natural world takes the focus and the child’s simple acts and explorations can turn into their own stories. It is an expressive digital tool that invites children to explore the outside, capture audio and visual snippets, and build stories around them. It comes together with a physical book which triggers child’s imagination through guided explorations and allows the child to keep the stories they created. The result is a play experience designed for children aged between 5 and 8 years old.

The notion of service design as a design field has emerged during the last 10-15 years and seems to be growing more and more; a 2007 textbook on interaction design states: “The new frontier of interaction design is services” (Saffer, 2007, p. 174). Since the field is so young, there still are areas which hardly have been explored. One of these is cultural effects on service expectations. This thesis aims to help to fill in the knowledge gap by applying a model of cultural differences. The model used is the one developed by Geert Hofstede, which has been proved to be valid within a large number of varyingfields. This was done through the research question “Is Hofstede’s model applicable to service design in general, and individualization of services in particular?”. The question was explored through two parallel research processes; a quantitative questionnaire distributed via the web and a qualitative evaluation of 47 different service web sites. The qualitative evaluation was done through a new method called Cultural Walkthrough. Four key countries were chosen; the questionnaire was aimed at natives of these countries and the web sites all came from these countries. The countries in question were Germany, India, the United Kingdom and the USA. The results indicate that Hofstede’s model can’t be applied to service design straight off. Neither can they be used as a basis to deem the want for the possibility to individualize services, which seems to be dependent on the individual. The results indicate a large number of interesting questions for further research.

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Playing Nine to Five is a project that aims to raise awareness of the presence of objects in everyday situations. We always surround ourselves with objects, some of them we touch and use everyday, and some of them we barely notice until they stop working. But are we always aware of our relations with them, or have we slightly taken them for granted? While our life quality has moved forward and our living pace has sped up, we tend to lose more of our attentions and sensitivities to things around us. During the design process, I used office space as a canvas to discuss and challenge our daily norms, where objects exist mainly as tools. I looked into our ‘unconscious behavior’ with objects, such as habits or recurring actions. In our everyday lives, these repetitions and rhythmic movements with objects are often being unnoticed or considered as ‘normal’. In this project, I worked with two office objects, a pen and a clock. Respectively, they represent different ways of exploring our present relations with objects. Pen is an object we use and carry with almost everyday. It is personal and close to our body. Clock, on the other hand, is an object that we barley touch, but constantly look at or search for. It shows the information of time. Both proposals are designed to bring attention to what we are using, when, and how, to create space for discussion and reflection. The purpose of this project is to tweak the way we interact with objects and explore our relations with objects through playfulness and curiosity. I see this project as an ongoing exploration and a potential development in the future.

Playing Nine to Five is a project that aims to raise awareness of the presence of objects in everyday situations. We often surround ourselves with objects. Some of them we touch and use everyday, and some of them we barely notice until they stop working. But are we always aware of our relations with them, or have we slightly taken them for granted? While our life quality has moved forward and our living pace has sped up, we tend to lose more of our attentions and sensitivities to things around us. During the design process, I used office space as a canvas to discuss and challenge our daily norms, where objects exist mainly as tools. I looked into our ‘unconscious behavior’ with objects, such as habits or recurring actions. In our everyday lives, these repetitions and rhythmic movements with objects are often being unnoticed or considered as ‘normal’.  In this project, I worked with two office objects, a pen and a clock. Respectively, they represent different ways of exploring our present relations with objects. Pen is an object we use and carry with almost everyday. It is personal and close to our body. Clock, on the other hand, is an object that we barley touch, but constantly look at or search for. It shows the information of time. Both proposals are designed to bring attention to what we are using, when, and how, to create space for discussion and reflection. The purpose of this project is to tweak the way we interact with objects and explore our relations with objects through playfulness and curiosity. I see this project as an ongoing exploration and a potential development in the future.

<div>We have never felt so connected with the surrounding social and physical environment, thanks to the increasingly populating mobile computing devices and rapidly developing high-speed network. These technologies transform the everyday objects into smart-things and make us accessible to a large amount of digital information and intelligence relating closely to the physical reality. To bridge the gap between the digital interface and physical smart-thing, Augmented Reality (AR) has become a promising media that allows users to visually link the digital content to its physical target, with spatial and contextual awareness. Thanks to the vast improvement to the personal computing devices, AR technologies are emerging to popular realistic scenarios empowered by commercially available software development kits (SDKs) and hardware platforms, which makes it easier for human users to interact with the surrounding smart-things. </div><div><br></div><div>Due to the scope of this thesis, we are interested in exploring for the smart-things that have physical interaction capabilities with the reality world, such as Machines, Robots, and IoTs. Our overarching goal is to create better experience for users to interact with these smart-things, that is visual, spatial, contextual, and embodied, and we try to achieve this goal through novel augmented reality system workflow/framework design. </div><div><br></div><div>This thesis is based on our four published conference papers (Ani-Bot, V.Ra, GhostAR, Avatutar-study), which are described in chapters 3-6 respectively. On a broader level, our works in this thesis focus on exploring spatially situated visual programming techniques for human smart-thing interaction. In particular, we leverage contextual awareness in the AR environment with the interactivity of physical smart-things. We explore (1) spatial and visual input techniques and modalities for users to intuitively interact with the physical smart-things through interaction and interface design, and (2) the ecology of human smart-thing through system workflow design corresponding to the contextual awareness powered by the AR interface. In this thesis, we mainly study the following spatial aware AR interactions with our completed work: (i) Ani-Bot demonstrates Mixed-Reality (MR) interaction for tangible modular robotics through a Head-Mounted Device (HMD) with mid-air gestures, (ii) V.Ra describes spatially situated visual programming for Robot-IoT task planning, (iii) GhostAR has presented a time-space editor for Human-Robot Collaborative (HRC) task authoring. (iv) while AvaTutAR-study has presented an exploratory study that provided valuable design guidance for future AR avatar-based tutoring systems. </div><div><br></div><div>We further develop the enabling techniques including a modular robotics kit with assembly awareness and the corresponding MR features for the major phases of its lifecycle; a lightweight and coherent ecosystem design that enables spatial and visual programming as well as IoT interactive and navigatory task execution with a single AR-SLAM mobile device; and a novel HRC task authoring workflow using robot programming by human demonstration method within AR scene with avatar reference and motion mapping with dynamic time warping (DTW). Primarily, we design system workflows and develop applications for increasing the flexibility of AR content manipulation, creation, authoring, and intuitively interacting with the smart environment visually and pervasively. </div><div><br></div><div>Based on our completed projects, we conclude this thesis by summarizing the overall contributions of my Ph.D. works, and briefly providing my humble vision for the future of AR. </div>

Simulation-based tools are complex and obscure software. However, a company may benefit from using such tools, as they provide more precise and accurate information. Ericsson has developed a RAN simulator that allows to model cellular networks taking into account even their smallest aspects. This allows to compare di↵erent solutions for particular case and select the best one. Therefore, Ericsson can propose better, i. e. most e cient and less cost, solutions to its customers. However, the RAN simulator is developed in MATLAB and does not have any graphical user interface. Therefore, it is not possible for people who manage sales at Ericsson to use it, because they have no skills for it. This, in fact, raises the need of development of a tool that will provide sales people with a convenient way to access the RAN simulator. This research describes a process of prototyping three simulation-based tools for Ericsson. It covers a process of providing interaction designers with the knowledge about simulations. The research gives insights on important details of the simulations that are needed to be delivered to the designers, as well as aspects of developing simulation-based tools within multidisciplinary team. Moreover, the research introduces a “mediator person” who can significantly help and improve the process of the development of simulation-based tools. / Simuleringsbaserade verktyg är komplex programvara. Dock kan ett företag tjäna på att använda sådana verktyg, eftersom de kan ge tydlig och korrekt information. Ericsson har utvecklat en RAN-simulator som gör det möjligt att detaljerat modellera mobilnät. Simulatorn gör det möjligt att jämföra lösningar för specifika fall och därmed välja den bästa lösningen. Utifrån detta kan Ericsson sedan föreslå effektiva lösningar till lägre kostnad till sina kunder. RAN simulatorn är utvecklad i MATLAB och har inte har något grafiskt användargränssnitt. Av denna anledning är det svårt för försäljare utan MATLAB-kunskaper att använda simulatorn. Detta har gjort att det finns ett behov att utveckla ett grafiskt verktyg som gör det tillgängligt och enkelt att använda RAN-simulatorn. Denna forskningsstudie beskriver en process för att skapa tre simuleringsprototyper. Det omfattar en process för att tillhandahålla kunskaper om simuleringar till interaktionsdesigners för att de ska kunna utveckla användargränssnittet. Forskningen ger insikter om vilka kunskaper interaktionsdesigners behöver, samt aspekter för att kunna arbeta med utvecklingen av simuleringsverktyg i ett multidisciplinärt team. Resultatet visar på behovet av en medlar-roll  - någon som kan stödja och förbättra utvecklingsprocessen av komplexa simuleringsverktyg.