Published Article / This study evaluated the difficulty, in terms of usability, of upgrading from one version of a word processor user interface (Microsoft Word 2003) to another (2007). Laboratory-based usability testing involving 23 participants, who had never used Microsoft Word 2007 before, was conducted. All participants used the two versions in a repeated-measures experimental design. A Tobii 1750 Eye Tracker was used for screen recordings during testing. Participants were also required to fill in user satisfaction questionnaires. Results from the usability test showed that, in terms of usability, migrating from an original interface to a completely changed user interface is not easy.

Syftet med fallstudien har varit att undersöka hur öppen dagvattenhantering och platsens användbarhet skulle kunna kombineras så det ena inte utesluter det andra. Studien utgick ifrån en hypotes om att det finns många konflikter mellan öppen dagvattenhantering och användbarhet. Motsättningarna mellan de olika perspektiven skulle därför innebära, enligt hypotesen, att det är omöjligt att planera för det ena perspektivet utan att skapa problem för det andra. Undantaget skulle vara om kombinationen varit en målsättning under förarbetet. Fallen som har studerats är Ekostaden Augustenborg i Malmö där öppen dagvattenhantering har prioriterats och Stadsparken i Borås där platsens användbarhet har varit en tidig målsättning. Fallen är goda exempel utifrån två olika perspektiv men har gemensamt att de hamnar under begreppet urban parkmiljö. Genom observation, intervjuer och textanalys har fallen studerats närmare. Hypotesen har kunnat verifieras utifrån de två fallen. För mer generella slutsatser behöver fler fall studeras. Resultatet från fallstudien presenteras i form av framtagna planeringsprinciper och förslag på vidare studier.

The prevalence and use of medical devices in the home environment continues to grow in the United Kingdom (UK) and Worldwide. It is recognised that such devices offer significant benefits to both patients and the National Health Service in the UK. The design of home use medical devices however represents a considerable challenge to designers and manufacturers alike. Developing devices that are usable and understandable by inexperienced, lay or dexterity impaired users requires an understanding across a breadth of disciplines. Previous research in this field has explored these challenges in attempt to offer support for developers of home use medical devices. There have been very few studies however that have explored whether the design community actually need, want or use such guidance, before considering whether this literature is adopted correctly. Through case studies, an online survey and in depth interviews this thesis suggests that industry practitioners are sceptical of the value of design guidance towards user involvement in home use medical device design. Consequently the practitioners in this research make little or no use of the formal design methods and supportive guidance documents available to them. More typically, practitioners in the home use medical device field use their own personal experiences and knowledge from working in the industry to adapt their own approaches to design. This thesis reports that the greatest challenge to involving users in the design of home use medical devices are the internal corporate and traditionally hierarchical barriers between stakeholders within the design process. In contrast to previous research offering support for designers and developers of home use medical devices this thesis calls for a wider change in design practice to facilitate the application of usability principles. As a conclusion to this thesis, recommendations for further research to address these changes in practice are proposed to industry professionals in the medical device industry. This thesis is submitted as part of the requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Loughborough University.

This empirical work aims to investigate the impact of using multimodal communication metaphors on e-learning systems’ usability, overall user experience and affective state. The study proposed a triple evaluation approach to avoid the problem of conventional assessment relying only on usability measurements of efficiency, effectiveness and user satisfactions. Usability in that sense refers only to the functionality and pragmatic side of the product and neglects other aspects of the system. Learning is a cognitive and repetitive task, requiring learners’ attention as well as their interest. Therefore, when delivering content, in addition to the pragmatic functionality, an e-learning system should provide a constructive overall user experience and positive affective state. Doing so will ensure user engagement, facilitate the learning process and increase learners’ performance. The impact of using five different communication metaphors was evaluated in three dimensions using the proposed approach. Within the usability dimension, the evaluation criteria involved measuring system efficiency, effectiveness, user satisfaction and learning performance. Within the user experience dimension, the evaluation criteria involved measuring pragmatic aspects of the user experience, the hedonic aspects of user experience in terms of stimulation as well as identification and the overall system attractiveness. Within the affective state dimension a self-assessments manikin technique was used in conjunction with biofeedback measurements, and users’ valence, arousal and dominance were measured. The study found that system attractiveness and the hedonic user experience had a profound impact on users’ learning performance and attitude toward the tested system. Furthermore, they influenced users’ views and judgement of the system and its usability. The communication metaphors were not equal in their influence within the evaluation criteria. Empirically derived guidelines were produced for the use and integration of these metaphors in e-learning systems. The outcome of the study highlights the need to use the triple evaluation approach in the assessment of e-learning interfaces prior to their release for better adoption and acceptance by end users.

This research study explores how the nature and type of usability failures impact task performance in a healthcare organization. Healthcare organizations are composed of heterogeneous and disparate information systems intertwined with complex business processes that create many challenges for the users of the system. The manner in which Information Technology systems and products are implemented along with the overlapping intricate tasks the users have pose problems in the area of usability. Usability research primarily focuses on the user interface; therefore, designing a better interface often leaves security in question. When usability failures arise from the incongruence between healthcare task and the technology used in healthcare organizations, the security of information is jeopardized. Hence, the research problem is to understand the nature and types of usability-related security failures and how they can be reduced in a Healthcare Information System. This research used a positivist single case study design with embedded units, to understand the nature and type of usability-related information systems security failures in a Healthcare context. The nature and types of usability failures were identified following a four-step data analysis process that used terms that defined (1) user failures in a large healthcare organization, (2) Task Technology Fit theory, (3) the Confidentiality Integrity and Availability triad of information protection that captured usability-related information system security failures, and (4) by conducting semi-structured interviews with users of the Healthcare Information System capturing and recording their interactions with the usability failure. The captured reported usability-related information system security failures dated back five years within a healthcare organization consisting of a network of 128 medical centers. The evaluation of five years of data and over 8,000 problems reported by healthcare workers allowed this research to identify the misalignment of healthcare task to the technology used, and how the misalignment impacted both information security and user performance. The nature of usability failures were centered on technical controls, however, the cause of the failures was predominately information integrity failures and the unavailability of applications and systems. Usability-related information system security failures are primarily not recognized due to the nature of healthcare task along with the methods healthcare workers use to mitigate such failures by employing workarounds to complete a task. Applying non-technical security controls within the development process provides the clearest path to addressing throughout the organization the captured usability-related information system security failures.

Community colleges serve a diverse population of learners including many older students counting on the community college for enhanced skills or personal enrichment. Many of these colleges target this population with programs designed specifically to meet the needs and goals of the older adult but may not consider this population when designing a website. Older users of a community college website have similar needs to the traditional student; however, little was known about the impact of the typical navigational links on the successful completion of tasks and obtaining information for this type of user. It is essential for educational institution website designers to understand which navigational links will provide the best usability for older adults with differing levels of experience. Previous research has found that usage-oriented links and pages that offer both usage and subject-oriented links yield statistically higher performance than subject-oriented links. Other research has found that presenting navigational links in the form of an action enhances usability. For this study, three websites were created utilizing navigational links in the form of usage-oriented links, subject-oriented navigational links, and then a combination of both to conduct a usability study to expand on previous work. This study was designed to determine the impact of such navigation on obtaining the correct answer, time on task, and the user's perception of the navigation. The research question, Does website usability and the user's perception of usability vary for older users based on navigational links, task type, and audience type? was addressed through two hypotheses and data which were obtained during the study. The first hypothesis: Website navigation, task type, and audience type significantly affect usability, was based on performance, and was measured on the two components, correct answer ratio (CAR) and navigation time (NT). The results indicated that the older user's ability to complete tasks faster and more accurately depended on the user's experience level, the difficulty of the task, and the types of navigational links presented, with usage-based navigation being the more effective solution. The second hypothesis: Website navigation, task type, and audience type significantly affect perceptions of usability, was based on perception questions presented after task completion and was measured by a four question post-test questionnaire, which used a 7-point Likert scale. This study found the older user's perception of usability varied based on the navigational links presented, but the experience level of the participant or the task type did not have a significant effect on the perception of usability. Therefore, it is recommended that designers of educational sites present navigational links in a goal-oriented, action-based format to support the end users of all ages and to enhance usability of the institution's website. This research found that if developers emphasize accuracy and the need to navigate quickly as a goal of an educational website for the older user, the website should be designed using a usage-based navigation structure. This research provides the detail to support a better understanding of which navigation type results in higher usability for the older user and enhances the guidelines of website design for this population.

This thesis investigates the use of static, adaptive, adaptable and mixed-initiative approaches to the personalisation of content and graphical user interfaces (GUIs). This empirical study consisted of three experimental phases. The first examined the use of static, adaptive, adaptable and mixed-initiative approaches to web content. More specifically, it measured the usability (efficiency, frequency of error occurrence, effectiveness and satisfaction) of an e-commerce website. The experiment was conducted with 60 subjects and was tested empirically by four independent groups (15 subjects each). The second experiment examined the use of adaptive, adaptable and mixed-initiative approaches to GUIs. More specifically, it measured the usability (efficiency, frequency of error occurrence, effectiveness and satisfaction) in GUI control structures (menus). In addition, it investigated empirically the effects of content size on five different personalised menu types. In order to carry out this comparative investigation, two independent experiments were conducted, on small menus (17 items) and large ones (29 items) respectively. The experiment was conducted with 60 subjects and was tested empirically by four independent groups (15 subjects each). The third experiment was conducted with 40 subjects and was tested empirically by four dependent groups (5 subjects each). The aim of the third experiment was to mitigate the drawbacks of the adaptive, adaptable and mixedinitiative approaches, to improve their performance and to increase their usability by using multimodal auditory solutions (speech, earcons and auditory icons). The results indicate that the size of content affects the usability of personalised approaches. In other words, as the size of content increases, so does the need of the adaptive and mixed-initiative approaches, whereas that of the adaptable approach decreases. A set of empirically derived guidelines were also produced to assist designers with the use of adaptive, adaptable and mixed-initiative approaches to web content and GUI control structure.

This thesis explores the use of multimodality to communicate retrieved results of Internet search engines. The investigation aimed to investigate suitable multimodal metaphors which would increase the level of usability of Internet search engine interfaces and enhance users` experience in the search activity. The study consisted of three experiments based on questionnaires and Internet search activities with a set of text-based and multimodal interfaces. These interfaces were implemented in two browsing platforms, named AVBRO and AVBRO II. In the first experiment, the efficiency of specific multimodal metaphors to communicate additional information of retrieved results was investigated. The experiment also sought to obtain users` views of these metaphors with a questionnaire. An experimental multimodal interface of the AVBRO platform, which communicated additional information with a combination of three 2D graphs and musical stimuli, was used as a basis for the experiment, together with the Google search engine. The results obtained led to the planning of a second experiment. The aim of this experiment was to obtain and compare the level of usability of four different experimental multimodal interfaces and one traditional text-based interface, all implemented in the AVBRO II platform. Effectiveness, efficiency and users` satisfaction were used as criteria to evaluate the usability of these interfaces. In the third and final experiment the usability analysis of a traditional text-based interface and the two most suitable experimental multimodal interfaces of the AVBRO II platform was further investigated. Learnability, errors rate, efficiency, memorability and users` satisfaction were used as criteria to evaluate the usability of these interfaces. The analysis of the results obtained from these experiments provided the basis for a set of design guidelines for the development of usable interfaces based on a multimodal approach.

This thesis is about a potential trade-off between integrity and long-term usability in the choice of file formats for preservation of text documents. Five common formats are discussed: plain text, PDF/A, Office Open XML Document, Open Document Text, and Markdown. The formats are compared with respect to four criteria related to integrity and usability and to the records continuum model: support by widely used software, stability, rendering of contents and reusability. It is concluded that no single format is optimal with respect to all four criteria, when it comes to preserving typical documents in a modern environment, with more or less complex formatting and document structure. Therefore, the feasiblity of using two or more formats for preservation of a single document (e.g. PDF/A combined with Markdown and/or Office Open XML) is discussed. It is necessary to weigh the importance of integrity and long-term usability against the costs of preserving documents in multiple formats. This is a two years master's thesis in Archival Science, Library and Museum studies.

Recent, innovative developments in the field of gesture interfaces as input techniques have the potential to provide a basic, lower-cost, point-and-click function for graphic user interfaces (GUIs). Since these gesture interfaces are not yet widely used, indeed no tilt-based gesture interface is currently on the market, there is neither an international standard for the testing procedure nor a guideline for their ergonomic design and development. Hence, the research area demands more design case studies on a practical basis. The purpose of the research is to investigate the design factors of gesture interfaces for the point-andclick task in the desktop computer environment. The key function of gesture interfaces is to transfer the specific body movement into the cursor movement on the two-dimensional graphical user interface(2D GUI) on a real-time basis, based in particular on the arm movement. The initial literature review identified limitations related to the cursor movement behaviour with gesture interfaces. Since the cursor movement is the machine output of the gesture interfaces that need to be designed, a new accuracy measure based on the calculation of the cursor movement distance and an associated model was then proposed in order to validate the continuous cursor movement. Furthermore, a design guideline with detailed design requirements and specifications for the tilt-based gesture interfaces was suggested. In order to collect the human performance data and the cursor movement distance, a graphical measurement platform was designed and validated with the ordinary mouse. Since there are typically two types of gesture interface, i.e. the sweep-based and the tilt-based, and no commercial tilt-based gesture interface has yet been developed, a commercial sweep-based gesture interface, namely the P5 Glove, was studied and the causes and effects of the discrete cursor movement on the usability was investigated. According to the proposed design guideline, two versions of the tilt-based gesture 3 interface were designed and validated based on an iterative design process. Most of the phenomena and results from the trials undertaken, which are inter-related, were analyzed and discussed. The research has contributed new knowledge through design improvement of tilt-based gesture interfaces and the improvement of the discrete cursor movement by elimination of the manual error compensation. This research reveals that there is a relation between the cursor movement behaviour and the adjusted R 2 for the prediction of the movement time across models expanded from Fitts’ Law. In such a situation, the actual working area and the joint ranges are lengthy and appreciably different from those that had been planned. Further studies are suggested. The research was associated with the University Alliance Scheme technically supported by Freescale Semiconductor Co., U.S.