The thesis is focused on the analyse of procedures in the area of drawing financial support from European structural and investment funds within implementation of the EU Cohesion Policy. Based on the screening and analysis of current operational programmes, the objective of the thesis is developping a design of a path that could help an applicant find more easily by using a convenient flowchart an intervention area in a particular operation programme, within which an applicant may potentially apply for a subsidy. The thesis contains a screening of the primary national information sources www.dotaceeu.cz in terms of KPI and usability testing. The practical part of the thesis contains a design of a chart that learly shows the various ways of obtaining the required information about the possible subsidy. The main classes of questions needed to be answered while searching for the appropriate financial aid are the type of the applicant, the place where the project is to be implemented, the form of the aid and the type of the project.

The architectural industry today struggles with how to best show their models to interested suitors opposite the construction industry which have the advantage of the fact that they can build physical models of houses which they can then show. This is where BIM comes into the picture. By extracting the graphics fromthese models and visualising them in a web browser this studyhas by creating a viewer with different navigation techniques sought to find out which techniques where most efficient for navigating models in the viewer. This was done with the help of user tests which results show that when it comes to projections, users were more efficient with perspective projection than orthogonal projections, however, user interviews show that users could still find a use for orthographic projection as it was better for displaying floor plans. Egocentric perspective were more efficient than allocentric perspective, but most users preferred egocentric perspective inside the models and allocentric projection outside of it. As for clipping objects and using clip planes, it is a closer race as users completed the task faster with clip plane but to a greater extent with culling of objects. However, most users wanted to use both technologies at the same time so that they could complement each other.

This thesis explores the critical role of usability in software development and uses usability heuristics as a cost-effective and efficient method for evaluating various software functions and interfaces. With the proliferation of software development in the modern digital age, developing user-friendly interfaces that meet the needs and preferences of users has become a complex process. Usability heuristics, a set of guidelines based on principles of human-computer interaction, provide a starting point for designers to create intuitive, efficient, and easy-to-use interfaces that provide a seamless user experience. The study uses Jakob Nieson's ten usability heuristics to evaluate the usability of Stack Overflow posts, a popular Q\&A website for developers. Through the analysis of 894 posts related to usability, the study identifies common usability problems faced by users and developers, providing valuable insights into the effectiveness of usability guidelines in software development practice. The research findings emphasize the need for ongoing evaluation and improvement of software interfaces to ensure a seamless user experience. The thesis concludes by highlighting the potential of usability heuristics in guiding the design of user-friendly software interfaces and improving the overall user experience in software development.

In my thesis I discuss the cost effectiveness of usability testing of technical documents and how any size company with any size budget can implement usability testing. Usability is achieved when the people who use products or technical documents can do so quickly and easily to accomplish their own tasks. Usability testing is best defined as the process of studying users to determine a documentation project's effectiveness for its intended audience. Users are tired of dealing with confusing and unintuitive technical documentation that forces them to either call customer service for help on simple issues or throw out the product in favor of one that is more usable or provides better technical documentation. That is why all technical communicators should include usability testing as part of the technical documentation production cycle. To help technical communicators understand the importance of usability testing, I discuss the cost effectiveness of usability testing and share ways that companies with large budgets and companies with small budgets can begin incorporating usability testing. Then I provide information on all the steps that are necessary for technical communicators to implement usability testing of technical documentation at their company. Options are presented for everything from bare minimum usability testing with a shoe-string budget with pencils, note pads, and only a handful of users to full scale usability testing in large laboratories with the latest equipment and a wide variety of users. The research provides examples from real companies, advice from experienced technical communicators and usability experts, and research demonstrating how many resources are truly required to benefit from usability testing. By showing technical communicators that usability testing is cost effective and that there are many options for implementing usability testing no matter how large or small their budget is, I hope to empower technical communicators to start including usability testing as part of the documentation production cycle at their companies.

A quick-connect wheelchair power add-on unit (PAU) has been developed at the Human Factors Engineering Center of Virginia Tech. The objective of the new invention is to provide an inexpensive, highly portable product which can quickly convert a manual wheelchair into a power-operated wheelchair. This dissertation details the three year research and design effort to develop the new wheelchair PAU. Results are presented from a series of evaluations conducted to identify performance and user-interaction characteristics of the PAU. Interpretation of the results provides a prioritized list of identified design deficiencies along with wheelchair expert and design team suggestions for the next generation of design alterations. The three evaluations conducted with the second generation PAU prototype include a series of wheelchair expert interviews, a PAU performance evaluation, and a usability evaluation which utilized wheelchair operators as subjects. Also included in the dissertation is an explanation of the need for a new PAU, a description of the most recent design iteration, a literature review containing information about the history of wheelchairs, the condition of the current PAU market, and an analysis of wheelchair PAU consumers. The new invention was conceived and patented by Dr. John G. Casali of the Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE) Department at Virginia Tech. This research was supported jointly by Southwestern Applied Technologies, L. C., of Roanoke, Virginia and Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology in Herndon, Virginia. / Ph. D.

Designing global interfaces for users has always been a challenge. This challenge is even greater today with the current trend of globalization, which leads to highly diverse users of the same product. The global audiences for the software and information technology products belong to different countries, different religions, speak different languages, have different life styles, belong to different cultures and have different perceptions and expectations of the same product. A truly global product must inherently accommodate this diversity in order to be effective and successful. A major impediment is that there is very inadequate understanding of the role of culture in user interfaces and how they are built. This lack of understanding is further compounded by the fact that very little empirical work exists regarding the role of culture in usability testing. The objectives of this research are to study and empirically establish the effects of culture on the usability assessment technique of structured interviews. A study was conducted to determine the effects of culture on Indian participants when structured interviews are used in usability testing. The experiment consisted of usability testing of two independent groups of Indian participants by two interviewers; one belonging to the Indian culture and the other to the Anglo-American culture. The findings from the study clearly demonstrate the effects of culture on structured interviews during international user testing. Participants found more usability problems and made more suggestions to the interviewer from their own culture than to the interviewer from a foreign culture. The results of the study prove that culture affects the efficacy of structured interviews during international user testing. / Master of Science

No description available.

This study investigates the refinement of an evaluation framework for e-Government websites. The aim of the research was to determine how an existing evaluation framework, which recommends the use of multiple usability techniques, could be used to obtain usability data that would indicate how to improve e-Government websites and satisfy users' needs. The framework describes how common techniques, such as heuristic testing and user testing, can be used with the emerging discipline of web analytics to provide a comprehensive and detailed view of users' interactions on e-Government websites. The original framework was refined in the light of the findings and the refined framework should facilitate the improvement of e-Government websites depending on users' demands and interactions. The work involved implementing the original multi-dimensional framework in e-Government websites in Saudi Arabia. A case study method was used over two implementations. In the former implementation, the evaluation methods consisted of heuristic evaluation followed by usability testing then web analytic tools. However, in the later implementation, refinements to the evaluation framework were proposed and the order of methods was amended: web analytics was used first, followed by heuristic evaluation then usability testing. The framework recommends specific usability methods for evaluating specific issues. The conclusions of this study illustrate the potential benefits of using a multidimensional evaluation framework for e-Government websites and it was found that each usability method had its own particular benefits and limitations. The research concludes by illustrating the potential usefulness of the designed evaluation framework in raising awareness of usability methods for evaluating e-Government websites in Saudi Arabia.

This thesis deals with the topic of website optimization and user testing, with focus on the user experience. The main objective of this thesis is to design a software tool for on-line testing of the user experience of web applications, which currently does not exist on the Czech Internet. The first part deals with the user experience in theoretical aspect. It contains a comparison of experts' opinions on the issue and deals with the definition of basic concepts. The theoretical part contains an analysis of research techniques used in designing the user experience, which is an important output for the second part. Practical part of thesis includes at the beginning a research of the availability of tools to support analyzed research techniques on Czech Internet and assess their suitability for implementation into the designed tool. Afterwards thesis follow up the main goal - the development of a software tool for usability testing of web applications and websites (incl. the proposed business model and potential areas for future development). This tool should among other things provide benefits in terms of speed up and simplification of usability testing, including reducing the costs of testing.

This research examines the relationship between the development of a portfolio of interactive digital techniques and compositions, and its impact on user experiences of time and place. It is designed to answer two research questions: (i) What are some effective methods and techniques for evoking an enhanced awareness of past time and place using interactive digital technologies (IDTs)? (ii) How can users play a role in improving the development and impact of interfaces made with IDTs? The principal creative and thematic element of the portfolio is the concept of the palimpsest, and its artistic potential to reveal visual and aural layers that lie behind the landscapes and soundscapes around us. This research thus contributes to an evolving cadre of creative interest in palimpsests, developing techniques and compositions in the context of testing, collating user experience feedback, and improving the ways in which IDTs enable an artistic exploration and realisation of hidden layers, both aural and visual, of the past of place. An iterative theory-composition-testing methodology is developed and applied to optimise techniques for enabling users to navigate multiple layers of content, as well as in finding methods that evoke an increased emotional connection with the past of place. This iterative realisation cycle comprises four stages - of content origination, pre-processing, mapping and user interaction. The user interaction stage of this cycle forms an integral element of the research methodology, involving the techniques being subjected to formalised user experience testing, both to assist with their further refinement and to assess their value in evoking an increased awareness of time and place. Online usability testing gathered 5,451 responses over three years of iterative cycles of composition development and refinement, with more detailed usability labs conducted involving eighteen participants. Usability lab response categories span efficiency, accuracy, recall and emotional response. The portfolio includes a variety of interactive techniques developed and improved during its testing and refinement. User experience feedback data plays an essential role in influencing the development and direction of the portfolio, helping refine techniques to evoke an enhanced awareness of the past of place by identifying those that worked most, and least, effectively for users. This includes an analysis of the role of synthetic and authentic content on user perception of various digital techniques and compositions. The contributions of this research include: • the composition portfolio and the associated IDT techniques originated, developed, tested and refined in its research and creation • the research methodology developed and applied, utilising iterative development of aspects of the portfolio informed by user feedback obtained both online and in usability labs • the findings from user experience testing, in particular the extent to which various visual and aural techniques help evoke a heightened sense of the past of place • an exploration of the extent to which the usability testing substantiates that user responses to the compositions have the potential to establish an evocative connection that communicates a sense close to that of Barthes' punctum (something that pierces the viewer) rather than solely that of the studium • the role of synthetic and authentic content on user perception and appreciation of the techniques and compositions • the emergence of an analytical framework with the potential for wider application to the development, analysis and design of IDT compositions