We live in an age when consumers can now shop and browse the web using hand-held devices. This means that competitive companies need to have a website to represent their brand and to conduct business. E-commerce sites need to pay special attention to the usability of their sites, since it has such an impact on how potential costumers view their brand. Jakob Nielsen defines usability as a "quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use"; he separates usability into five quality components: learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors and satisfaction. The current standard for testing usability involves having a number of users physically use a site in order to determine where they have trouble. This kind of usability testing can be time consuming and costly. In order to mitigate some of these costs, many tools are being developed to help automate the process. However, many automated tools evaluate only one of the five components, or simply look for errors. In an attempt to increase the reliability and scope of such testing, this paper investigates the effectiveness of automated usability evaluators and proposes methods for future researchers to test them. Specifically, this paper details an experiment performed to test the some freely available usability evaluators against more traditional usability evaluations. The experiment attempts to determine whether automatic usability evaluations might be used as a cheaper alternative to more traditional usability evaluations.

Capture the Flag (CTF) is a common and popular type of event in the cyber security space with audiences ranging from large security conference participants to even those in middle or high school. Event participants bring their favorite set of tools and any level of knowledge they have to compete against other teams in solving cyber security related challenges. These types of challenges can range anywhere from reverse engineering programs and hacking WiFi to utilizing interesting command line commands and messing with browser developer consoles. There are plenty of general CTF events that happen throughout every month, as well as plenty of resources for those. However, CTFs focused on wireless technologies are not as prevalent. Just this last year a Wireless themed CTF, named Wireless CTF (WCTF), became publicly available to participate in. With this CTF as the target, a tool set will be put together in this thesis to help introduce some of WCTF's topics: WiFi penetration testing, POCSAG radio signal decoding, and Morse Code Signal Decoding. Tools will be chosen based on the BEAR scoring rubric, created in this thesis, to assess a given tools usability, and chosen tools will be used against challenge topics found in WCTF to test the validity of the scoring rubric and evaluate changes in a participants knowledge of each topic.

Passwords as the primary form of authentication on the web have many issues, such as password re-use across sites and difficulty in remembering secure passwords. The FIDO Alliance has created a passwordless system that has with support from companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft: FIDO2. Studies have shown so far that users find FIDO2 usable on personal computers, but no work has been published on its usability on mobile devices. I conducted a lab study in which participants used FIDO2 passwordless authentication with hardware tokens on a mobile phone. Participants found FIDO2 usable on mobile devices, but had similar fears as participants in prior studies, primarily revolving around account loss. I also found that showing participants an instructional video after they had used FIDO2 on a mobile device increased perceived usefulness and likelihood of adoption, though usability scores remained about the same.

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This paper is about transferring a feeling from a physical place to the Internet. The paper explores methods on how this transfer is done. Websites have a tendency to not portray the company behind it in a correct way. For companies with a distinct esthetic and work hard on their image and brand it is important that this hard work is portrayed correctly in every aspect. The problems this paper explores are: the importance of personas in a design process, methods of transferring a feeling from a physical place with design and how this can be tested, and using open-source content management systems in creating usable websites. To reach conclusions within these problems, we used personas in a context with scenarios, created moodboards to define the company’s characteristics, and testing the design on possible users to test usability and if the feeling is transferred in a correct way. The drawn conclusions are that personas have a high importance in a design process when in a context of a scenario. The persona helps to define the user’s goals and requirements. The characteristics of a company are well portrayed and defined when using moodboards. The moodboards can be used as an inspiration-source when designing. To see if the feeling is portrayed in the right way it can be tested at two points; when the moodboard is created and when the design is finished. Open-source CMS is a good way for a small company to add usability for themselves and their customers. It makes it easier for employees to manage and update the website. The users benefit from this by getting an up to date website with useful information and features.

This naturalistic case study investigated a business reengineering project at a large company located in the Northeast. Because the Human Resources (HR) department had downsized, decision makers within HR began investigating the feasibility of customizing a purchased HR Information System. To ensure that the new HR information system was usable by all employees, project leaders wanted to include performance support concepts into the customization of the system. The main focus of my research was investigating the major issues associated with incorporating performance support principles into a system development life-cycle model. The analysis of these data included a qualitative approach where I described the critical events relating to performance support system development that occurred on the project. In addition, I used the diffusion of innovation theory to analyze and interpret the data. Results indicated that there were major inconsistencies with the term "performance support" and the need for implementing performance support solutions on the project. Some Information Technology team members realized the importance of incorporating performance support into the system development life-cycle. However, because of the tight time frame for customizing the software with performance support concepts, several members of the Information Technology team believed that incorporating performance support for the initial release was unreasonable. For the initial release of the new HR information system the role of the Performance Support team shifted from seeking performance support solutions towards pursuing traditional training solutions for teaching employees how to use the HR information system. / Ph. D.

As an increasingly powerful, interactive, and dynamic medium for sharing information, the World Wide Web (Web) has found many educational applications. Because of educational benefits for both learners and educators, Web-based courses and programs have increasingly been developed and implemented by many academic institutions, organizations, and companies worldwide (Aggarwal & Brento, 2000). This study, however, asserts that many of the developmental approaches lack three important considerations to be used for implementing learning applications based on the Web: (1) integration of the human-computer interface design with instructional design, (2) development of the evaluation framework to improve the overall quality of Web-based learning support environments, and (3) development of an individualistic approach to the Web hosting of courses. This study explored the three Web-based learning environment weaknesses while developing a user-centered, Web-based learning support environment for Global Positioning System (GPS) education: Web-based distance and distributed learning (WD2L) environment. Research goals of the study were all concerned with the improvement of the design process and usability of the WD2L environment based on a theory-based Integrated Design Process (IDP) proposed in the study. Results indicated that the proposed IDP was effective in that the study showed (1) the WD2L environment's equivalence to traditional supplemental learning, especially as a Web-based supplemental learning program and (2) users' positive perceptions of WD2L environment resources. The study also confirmed that for an e-learning environment to be successful, various aspects of the learning environment as a Web-based supplemental learning program should be considered such as application domain knowledge (i.e., target subject field), conceptual learning theory, instructional design, human-computer interface design, and evaluation about the overall quality of the learning environment. / Ph. D.

Responding to the need within the human-computer interaction field to address ubiquitous and multitasking systems more scientifically, this research extends the usefulness of a new research framework for a particular class of systems. Notification systems are interfaces used in a divided-attention, multitasking situation, attempting to deliver current, valued information through a variety of platforms and modes in an efficient and effective manner. Through review of literature and experiences with empirical dual-task perceptual studies, we recognize a lack of unifying framework for understanding, classifying, analyzing, developing, evaluating, and discussing notification systems--fundamentally inhibiting scientific growth and knowledge reuse that should help designers advance the state-of-the-art. To this end, we developed a framework (referred to as the IRC framework) for notification systems research based on a core taxonomy of critical parameters describing user goals. Next, we extend the framework, focusing on three key aspects: 1) a system description process, allowing articulation of abstract design objectives that focus on critical user requirements; 2) interface usability evaluation tools, enabling comparison of the design and user's models, while supporting generalizability of research and early identification of usability concerns; and 3) design comparison and reuse mechanisms, saving time and effort in requirements analysis and early design stages by enabling design reuse and appreciation of design progress. Results from this research include the development of tools to express IRC design models (IRCspec) and user's models (IRCresults), and the extension of the critical parameters concept. Validation studies with novice designers show sufficient assessment accuracy and consistency. Leveraging these tools that help designers express abstract, yet critical, design intentions and effects as classification and retrieval indices, we develop a repository for reusable design knowledge (a claims library). Responding to challenges of design knowledge access that we observed through initial user testing, we introduce a vision for an integrated design environment (LINK-UP) to operationalize the IRC framework and notification systems claims library in a computer-aided design support system. Proof-of-concept testing results encourage the thought that when valuable design tools embody critical parameters and are coupled with readily accessible reusable design knowledge, interface development will improve as a scientific endeavor. / Ph. D.

The advent of technology has put a number of institutions in a state of reform (Wolcott, 1997). In fact, it was predicted that technology would completely transform higher education by the end of the twentieth century (Sculley, 1989). Aside from the demographic make-up of the majority of current students (Howe & Strauss, 2000), moving away from the traditional lecture-format to one with the integration of instructional technology can enhance the teaching/learning environment (Bolger & Sprow, 2002). However, instructional technology has still not been completely integrated into the higher education curriculum and students reported that only about 20 % of instructors were found to use technology effectively ("How Students Rate Instructors' Use of Information Technology in Courses", 2011). Educators continue to face a number of barriers to adoption and many institutions are still investigating ways to provide a more effective learning and teaching environment using efficient use of instructional technology. This research used the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech as a test bed and conducted a set of three studies following a mixed methodology. The first study elicited both quantitative and qualitative data from faculty members who used instructional technology in the classroom. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationships between organizational culture, usability, and instructional technology acceptance and found a significant, positive relationship between usability and instructional technology acceptance, and a positive relationship between organizational culture and instructional technology acceptance. The second study gained more insight into the relationship by collecting qualitative data in the form of focus group interviews. Results of Study 2 indicated that collaborative and innovative organizational cultures, coupled with instructional technologies that have low learnability, high efficiency, high effectiveness, and high satisfaction can facilitate instructional technology acceptance. Based on the results, a set of recommendations to facilitate instructional technology acceptance were developed. The third and final study consisted of a summative evaluation of the recommendations by a panel of experts using the Delphi technique. The overall outcome of this research effort was the development of recommendations and guidelines to facilitate instructional technology acceptance and the description of a comprehensive framework for effective instructional technology use. / Ph. D.