<p>Usability professionals seldom get a chance to actually do their job. Instead, they have to argue that usability is something important that should be attended to. This was the initial problem that motivated this thesis. In spite decenniums of evolution within HCI this problem is still highly relevant, and existing approaches to solve it yet have to prove their effectiveness. When approaches to integrate HCI into systems development have been discussed, there has seldom been a discussion about how a given approach may be more or less useful in different development contexts. Nor has there been much discussion about how HCI activities relates to the overall procurement-development process. One reason for this may be that existing approaches to HCI integration are suited primarily for product development and, to some extent, to in-house development. At least these contexts are most common in existing case studies.</p><p>In this thesis, I focus on the problem of HCI integration in contract development. This context poses particular challenges, mainly because two parties with different goals are involved – the procurer and the supplier. They regulate business relations and responsibilities via the contract. In both existing practice and in research the user-centred design (UCD) process has, at least implicitly, been assumed to belong to the supplier side. It is the suppliers, i.e. consultancy firms, that have employed usability professionals and that have tried to integrate HCI into their development processes. By taking a procurement perspective instead, I question this assumption.</p><p>I present three case studies that start with a survey of common problems in current procurement practice and end with trying out an approach to work with UCD in systems acquisition. While my interest initially concerned successful HCI integration, I also discuss how the suggested approach deals with several existing problems that procurers face. In particular, the approach links abstract business goals that any systems acquisition starts of with, to detailed systems requirements that it aims at defining. This facilitates for procurers to focus on the goals that the future system should help enable and linking these goals to the requirement specification that the contract is based on.</p>

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<p>Designing computer systems that effectively support the user is the major goal within human-computer interaction. To achieve this, we must understand and master several tasks. This process must initially deal with the question of knowing what to develop and later, with the question of knowing how to design and develop the system. This view might seem off-target at first, since it does not explicitly mention the goals or functions of the system. However, more often than not, there is no objective goal to aim for that can be formally specified and used as a target criterion that will signal when we have designed an appropriate system. Instead, there is a large set of vague goals – some of which may last through the entire project and some that will not. It is therefore somewhat confounding that most of the current methods of systems development require that these goals are explicitly laid out, in order to steer development. </p><p>For researchers in Human-Computer Interaction, the existence of many varying – and possibly conflicting goals – presents is a great challenge. The constructive main focus on producing usable systems is a matter of understanding this complex situation and knowing how to proceed from there.</p><p>There are many existing approaches that can be used to carry out this complex development process. This thesis presents one approach, based on the notion that the elements that constitute a successful system are also a part of the solution. </p><p>This thesis presents this approach as it is applied to the development of systems for computer-supported work in health care. The projected solution suggests that we need to focus more intently on active user involvement in iterative development that is significantly long-term. The traditional, rather narrow circle of focus that encompasses design, development and evaluation is not sufficient.</p>

<p>This thesis addresses some important characteristics of human visual perception and their implications for three-dimensional (3D) information visualization. The effort can be divided into two parts. First, findings from vision science are explored and validated. As a starting point, the compilation of perceptually motivated evidence about what constitutes an effective and efficient method for mapping of data is undertaken. Second, the knowledge obtained is used to create candidate visualizations and to demonstrate the predictive power of the findings.</p><p>Results indicate a general difficulty to convey metric, i.e. quantitative, information in 3D visualizations. Structure as defined by Euclidean geometry is not perceived with accuracy and information encoded by such distinctions are misunderstood or overlooked. On the other hand, qualitative properties as defined by affine geometry are salient are perceived with accuracy (paper I). These findings are also characteristic of two-dimensional (2D) visualizations when these need to be rapidly examined (paper II). </p><p>A novel method (3D surface glyphs) for abstract multivariate data sets was developed to investigate the possible merit of encoding information by qualitative distinctions, (paper III). Evaluations showed that the information conveyed was successfully utilized and that these types of glyph have great potential. The study also illustrated the predictive power of the earlier findings. These issues were further demonstrated when investigating how 3D perspective displays are unaffected by distortions in data when the patterns displayed were defined by affine properties (paper IV). In addition, a new metric for measuring the efficiency of visualizations is presented (paper III). </p><p>It is concluded that as long as visualizations are specified by qualitative properties, they could most probably be effectively and efficiently used. The need for user studies to determine if, when and how to choose a certain visualization technique for a given task is thereby significantly reduced.</p>

This thesis addresses some important characteristics of human visual perception and their implications for three-dimensional (3D) information visualization. The effort can be divided into two parts. First, findings from vision science are explored and validated. As a starting point, the compilation of perceptually motivated evidence about what constitutes an effective and efficient method for mapping of data is undertaken. Second, the knowledge obtained is used to create candidate visualizations and to demonstrate the predictive power of the findings. Results indicate a general difficulty to convey metric, i.e. quantitative, information in 3D visualizations. Structure as defined by Euclidean geometry is not perceived with accuracy and information encoded by such distinctions are misunderstood or overlooked. On the other hand, qualitative properties as defined by affine geometry are salient are perceived with accuracy (paper I). These findings are also characteristic of two-dimensional (2D) visualizations when these need to be rapidly examined (paper II). A novel method (3D surface glyphs) for abstract multivariate data sets was developed to investigate the possible merit of encoding information by qualitative distinctions, (paper III). Evaluations showed that the information conveyed was successfully utilized and that these types of glyph have great potential. The study also illustrated the predictive power of the earlier findings. These issues were further demonstrated when investigating how 3D perspective displays are unaffected by distortions in data when the patterns displayed were defined by affine properties (paper IV). In addition, a new metric for measuring the efficiency of visualizations is presented (paper III). It is concluded that as long as visualizations are specified by qualitative properties, they could most probably be effectively and efficiently used. The need for user studies to determine if, when and how to choose a certain visualization technique for a given task is thereby significantly reduced.

Analyzing human motion is important in a number of ways. An athlete constantly needs to evaluate minute details about his or her motion pattern. In physical rehabilitation, the doctor needs to evaluate how well a patient is rehabilitating from injuries. Some systems are being developed in order to identify people only based on their gait. Automatic interpretation of sign language is another area that has received much attention. While all these applications can be considered useful in some sense, the analysis of human motion can also be used for pure entertainment. For example, by filming a sport activity from one view, it is possible to create a 3D reconstruction of this motion, that can be rendered from a view where no camera was originally placed. Such a reconstruction system can be enjoyable for the TV audience. It can also be useful for the computer-game industry. This thesis presents ideas and new methods on how such reconstructions can be obtained. One of the main purposes of this thesis is to identify a number of qualitative constraints that strongly characterizes a certain class of motion. These qualitative constraints provide enough information about the class so that every motion satisfying the constraints will "look nice" and appear, according to a human observer, to belong to the class. Further, the constraints must not be too restrictive; a large variation within the class is necessary. It is shown how such qualitative constraints can be learned automatically from a small set of examples. Another topic that will be addressed concerns analysis of motion in terms of quality assessment as well as classification. It is shown that in many cases, 2D projections of a motion carries almost as much information about the motion as the original 3D representation. It is also shown that single-view reconstruction of 2D data for the purpose of analysis is generally not useful. Using these facts, a prototype of a "virtual coach" that is able to track and analyze image data of human action is developed. Potentials and limitations of such a system are discussed in the the thesis. / QC 20100601

This thesis is about the design of technology for museum exhibitions. More specifically, it explores different ways in which visitors can contribute to museum exhibition design and how technology can support learning-related activities within museum exhibitions. Most contemporary museums collect, preserve, and provide access to important cultural and historical artefacts with the explicit intention of educating and informing the general public about those artefacts. For many exhibition designers, the audience's encounter with the exhibition is of primary concern, and technology is often seen as a means for providing visitors with new experiences and opportunities for learning. However, it appears to be only very recently that researchers have begun to show an interest in how modern technology is actually being used by visitors and many museums are struggling in their efforts to incorporate new technologies in their established exhibition design practices. Thus, on the one hand, many museums are seeking more visitor-focused ways of carrying out design (with the help of, for example, different forms of evaluation or feedback). On the other hand, many museums seem to have limited experience with designing technology in a user-oriented fashion. Consequently, human-computer interaction, with its long tradition of involving users in design, is in a position to provide museums with new ways for audiences to contribute to exhibitions with their knowledge, experience, opinions, and desires. The papers in this thesis explore this topic through a number of case studies where visitors have been invited to contribute to the design and evaluation of exhibitions. The analysis of the results suggests that visitors can provide relevant contributions in all of the main phases of museum exhibition production. This thesis also addresses the issue of how technology can support learning-related activities in museums. It appears that many museums base their notion of learning on epistemologies which suggest that activities such as interpretation, communication, and collaboration are fundamental to most museum learning processes. Consequently, the papers in this thesis explore a number of different techniques for supporting and orchestrating such social activities. The result is a set of design approaches that has the ability to encourage collaboration and dialogue between co-present visitors and allow visitors to create dynamic and evolving contexts for existing exhibits. In summary, the contributions of this thesis explore museum exhibition design from two different, yet interrelated perspectives. From the first perspective, visitors' desires, wishes, experiences, and knowledge are seen as important contributions to museum exhibition design. From the second perspective, different social activities and relationships between visitors in museums become the focus of the design activities. Together, these two perspectives outline an approach to museum exhibition design where visitors are of primary concern, both with respect to the content presented in exhibitions and with respect to the way exhibitions orchestrate and support different forms of social interaction. / QC 20101004

Usability professionals seldom get a chance to actually do their job. Instead, they have to argue that usability is something important that should be attended to. This was the initial problem that motivated this thesis. In spite decenniums of evolution within HCI this problem is still highly relevant, and existing approaches to solve it yet have to prove their effectiveness. When approaches to integrate HCI into systems development have been discussed, there has seldom been a discussion about how a given approach may be more or less useful in different development contexts. Nor has there been much discussion about how HCI activities relates to the overall procurement-development process. One reason for this may be that existing approaches to HCI integration are suited primarily for product development and, to some extent, to in-house development. At least these contexts are most common in existing case studies. In this thesis, I focus on the problem of HCI integration in contract development. This context poses particular challenges, mainly because two parties with different goals are involved – the procurer and the supplier. They regulate business relations and responsibilities via the contract. In both existing practice and in research the user-centred design (UCD) process has, at least implicitly, been assumed to belong to the supplier side. It is the suppliers, i.e. consultancy firms, that have employed usability professionals and that have tried to integrate HCI into their development processes. By taking a procurement perspective instead, I question this assumption. I present three case studies that start with a survey of common problems in current procurement practice and end with trying out an approach to work with UCD in systems acquisition. While my interest initially concerned successful HCI integration, I also discuss how the suggested approach deals with several existing problems that procurers face. In particular, the approach links abstract business goals that any systems acquisition starts of with, to detailed systems requirements that it aims at defining. This facilitates for procurers to focus on the goals that the future system should help enable and linking these goals to the requirement specification that the contract is based on. / QC 20101213

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