Organizations have recognized usability engineering as a needed step in the development process to ensure the success of any product. As is the case in all competitive settings areas for improvement are scouted and always welcomed. In the case of usability engineering a lot of time, money, equipment, and other resources are spent to gather usability data to identify and resolve usability problems in order to improve their product. The usability data gained from the expenditure of resources is often only applied to the development effort at hand and not reused across projects and across different development groups within the organization. More over, the usability data are often used at a level that forces the organization to only apply the data to that specific development effort. However, if usability data can be abstracted from the specific development effort and analyzed in relation to the process that created and identified the data; the data can then be used and applied over multiple development efforts. The User Action Framework (UAF) is a hierarchical framework of usability concepts that ensures consistency through completeness and precision. The UAF by its nature classifies usability problems at a high level. This high level classification affords usability engineers to not only apply the knowledge gained to the current development effort but to apply the knowledge across multiple development efforts. This author presents a mechanism and a process to allow usability engineers to find insights in their usability data to identify both strengths and weaknesses in their process. In return usability practitioners and companies can increase their return on investment by extending the usefulness of usability data over multiple development efforts. / Master of Science

In our knowledge based economy, demand for better and effective learning has led to innovative instructional technologies. However, the one-size-fit-all approach taken by many e-Learning systems is not adequate to the different requirements of people who have different goals, preferences, and previous knowledge about a subject. Many e-Learning systems have approached this problem with personalized and customized content. However, many of these systems are closely tied to one particular subject that they are trying to teach; authoring of courses on different subjects using the same framework is a difficult process. Adaptive Hypermedia is an approach in which content presentation and navigation assistance is personalized depending on the requirements of the user. The user requirements are represented using a user model, while the content is represented using a content model. By using a set of algorithms, an Adaptive Hypermedia based system is able to select the most appropriate content to be presented, as the user interacts with the system. The objective of AlcoZone is to educate all of the 5,000 freshman students of Virginia Tech about alcohol education using Adaptive Hypermedia technology, as part of the mandatory university requirement. The course presents different content to different students based on their drinking pattern. AlcoZone integrates Curriculum Sequencing, Multimedia and Interactivity, Alternate Content Explanation, and Navigational Assistance to make the course interesting for students. This research investigates the design & implementation of AlcoZone and its Adaptive Hypermedia based reusable framework for course creation and delivery. / Master of Science

There are very few software packages for model-building and visualization in electromagnetic geophysics, particularly when compared to other geophysical disciplines, such as seismology. The purpose of this thesis is to design, develop, and test a geophysical model-building interface that allows users to parameterize the 2D magnetotellurics problem. Through the evaluation of this interface, feedback was collected from a usability specialist and a group of geophysics graduate students to study the steps users take to work through the 2D forward-modeling problem, and to analyze usability errors encountered while working with the interface to gain a better understanding of how to build a more effective interface. Similar work has been conducted on interface design in other fields, such as medicine and consumer websites. Usability Engineering is the application of a systematic set of methods to the design and development of software with the goal of making the software more learnable, easy to use, and accessible. Two different Usability Engineering techniques — Heuristic Evaluation and Thinking Aloud Protocol — were involved in the evaluation of the interface designed in this study (FEM2DGUI). Heuristic Evaluation is a usability inspection method that employs a usability specialist to detect errors based on a known set of guidelines and personal experience. Thinking Aloud Protocol is a usability evaluation method where potential end-users are observed as they verbalize their every step as they work through specific scenarios with an interface. These Usability Engineering methods were combined in a effort to understand how the first prototype of FEM2DGUI could be refined to make it more usable and to understand how end-users work through the forward-modeling problem. The Usability Engineering methods employed in this project uncovered multiple usability errors that were corrected through a refinement of the interface. Discovery of these errors helped with refining the system to become more robust and usable, which is believed to aid users in more efficient model-building. Because geophysical model-building is inherently a difficult task, it is possible that other model-building graphical user interfaces could benefit from the application of Usability Engineering methods, such as those presented in this research.â / Master of Science

Medical device usability directly impacts the practitioner's ability to perform their diagnostic task in an effective, efficient, and safe manner. A device with poor usability may frustrate the practitioner, increasing the worker's stress level in a high-stress work environment. In addition, a device with poor usability may facilitate operator error, increasing the patient's risk of injury. Designers of healthcare systems and devices face a unique conundrum that has been documented in the literature (Martin, Murphy, Crowe, & Norris, 2006; Martin, Norris, Murphy, & Crowe, 2007; Ward & Clarkson, 2007). Standards require the use of user research techniques, yet patient privacy standards prevent designers from observing users in context. The inability to observe users in their work environment impedes understanding the context-of-use. Since understanding context-of-use is required to ensure usability, further exploration into alternative methods for requirements gathering is needed. This study explored the storytelling as an elicitation method for medical device requirements by comparing the information elicited from nurses during requirements gathering for an infusion pump by two methods: focus groups followed by interviews (Group #1) and focus groups followed by storytelling sessions (Group #2). Results suggest further exploration of storytelling is warranted as Group #2 contributed similar quantity and breadth of information in significantly less time. Results also indicate potential support for the efficacy of storytelling within the healthcare domain as Group #2 participants contributed more distinct context-of-use information with an emphasis on the social context. Contributions of this study include a plan for mixed-method data analysis, a protocol for conducting a storytelling session, and a framework for defining requirements within the healthcare domain. / Master of Science

Yes / Since the UK’s 2001 Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA, 2001), academic libraries have had a legal duty to provide all students with information in a form accessible to them, an obligation strengthened by the 2010 Equality Act (c15). Crucially, the latter duty covered readers with all kinds of impairments, not just visual impairment, and thus covers a huge range of needs for an enormous number of individuals. Libraries have put a huge amount of time and effort into providing documents in accessible format (alt-format) but obviously it is preferable for both libraries and readers if the documents are accessible as supplied from the publisher. Electronic resources have the potential to address many of the accessibility needs of our readers, but concerns have been growing in the HE sector (see, for instance, JISCTechdis, 2013) that the way in which e-resources are delivered actually renders them, in some cases, less accessible. This paper describes a project undertaken by the University of Bradford library to systematically assess the accessibility of our electronic resources, and gives recommendations for others wishing to do the same.

Yes / Government legislation and calls for greater levels of oversight and transparency are leading public bodies to publish their raw datasets online. Policy makers and elected officials anticipate that the accessibility of open data through online Government portals for citizens will enable public engagement in policy making through increased levels of fact based content elicited from open data. The usability and benefits of such open data are being argued as contributing positively towards public sector reforms, which are under extreme pressures driven by extended periods of austerity. However, there is very limited scholarly studies that have attempted to empirically evaluate the performance of government open data websites and the acceptance and use of these data from a citizen perspective. Given this research void, an adjusted diffusion of innovation model based on Rogers’ diffusion of innovations theory (DOI) is proposed and used in this paper to empirically determine the predictors influencing the use of public sector open data. A good understanding of these predictors affecting the acceptance and use of open data will likely assist policy makers and public administrations in determining the policy instruments that can increase the acceptance and use of open data through an active promotion campaign to engage-contribute-use.

The unprecedented rise of IoT has revolutionized every business vertical enthralling people to embrace IoT applications in their day-to-day lives to accrue multifaceted benefits. It is absolutely fair to say that a day without connected IoT systems, such as smart devices, smart enterprises, smart homes or offices, etc., would hamper our conveniences, drastically. Many IoT applications for these connected systems are safety-critical, and any unauthorized access could have severe consequences to their consumers and society. In the overall IoT security spectrum, human-to-machine authentication for IoT applications is a critical and foremost challenge owing to highly prescriptive characteristics of conventional user authentication schemes, i.e., knowledge-based or token-based authentication schemes, currently used in them. Furthermore, studies have reported numerous users’ concerns, from both the security and usability perspectives, that users are facing in using available authentication schemes for IoT applications. Therefore, an impetus is required to upgrade user authentication schemes for new IoT age applications to address any unforeseen incidents or unintended consequences. This dissertation aims at designing next-generation user authentication schemes for IoT applications to secure connected systems, namely, smart devices, smart enterprises, smart homes, or offices. To accomplish my research objectives, I perform a thorough study of ways and types of user authentication mechanisms emphasizing their security and usability ramifications. Subsequently, based on the substantive findings of my studies, I design, prototype, and validate our proposed user authentication schemes. I exploit both physiological and behavioral biometrics to design novel schemes that provide implicit (frictionless), continuous (active) or risk-based (non-static) authentication for multi-user scenarios. Afterward, I present a comparative analysis of the proposed schemes in terms of accuracy against the available state-of-the-art user authentication solutions. Also, I conduct SUS surveys to evaluate the usability of user authentication schemes.

In twentieth century we have witnessed an extensive growth of internet based services in our every sphere of life. The use of information technology has been a core element using by the government as a communication way to its citizen. E-services delivery is present in developing countries but the erudition is still in immaturity level. Most local governments only provide published information and downloadable forms. Most local government sites provide only one way communications. All are still at the basic level of publishing information online. Before implementing and developing any e-services, the authorities should know the expectation to the service from the users and it is also important to know the usability of the e-service in order to develop it with more usability function so that the users will satisfy by using the service. This study is designed to take descriptive look at whether three e-services of Bangladesh government are perceived usable by the citizens. The studies focused on the current usability level of the three e-services and also find out the citizens expectation from those services. The overall conclusion is about the usability level of the e-services, expectations from the citizens, and suggesting the usability criteria to make the e-service more usable. / Program: Magisterutbildning i informatik

The Usability Center training course is an instructional resource for BYU faculty, employees, and students to prepare them to effectively use the BYU Usability Center. This document describes the process and results of analyzing, designing, developing, implementing, and evaluating the Usability Center training course. By taking this course, participants learn the basics of planning, piloting, executing, and reporting their usability activities and the skills prerequisite to using BYU's Usability Center.

The RSS protocol allows, among other uses, for portable media player devices to download files automatically from the internet. Although text RSS feed on portable media devices is currently limited, it is possible that text feeds will become a ubiquitous feature on future PDA/media crossover devices. With the increasing usage of video-enabled portable media players, video content on these devices will also gain strength in the consumer market. Through qualitative interviews this pilot study hopes to investigate usage of new media streams on portable devices, with additional focus on RSS feeds, content categorization and interface category customization. Do users prefer to display their content and RSS feeds by a descriptive category, or by the website from which the feed was retrieved? In this study we hope to gain insight into which style users prefer, if any.