No / It is becoming increasingly popular to expose government and citywide sensor data as linked data. Linked data appears to offer a great potential for exploratory search in supporting smart city goals of helping users to learn and make sense of complex and heterogeneous data. However, there are no systematic user studies to provide an insight of how browsing through linked data can support exploratory search. This paper presents a user study that draws on methodological and empirical underpinning from relevant exploratory search studies. The authors have developed a linked data browser that provides an interface for user browsing through several datasets linked via domain ontologies. In a systematic study that is qualitative and exploratory in nature, they have been able to get an insight on central issues related to exploratory search and browsing through linked data. The study identifies obstacles and challenges related to exploratory search using linked data and draws heuristics for future improvements. The authors also report main problems experienced by users while conducting exploratory search tasks, based on which requirements for algorithmic support to address the observed issues are elicited. The approach and lessons learnt can facilitate future work in browsing of linked data, and points at further issues that have to be addressed.

The global COVID-19 pandemic dramatically altered learning experiences for children, parents, and teachers worldwide. For very young children, the scrambled introduction of complex virtual tools as a proxy for the classroom experience has been particularly challenging. I conducted interviews with kindergarten teachers and parents with young children to better understand their experiences navigating virtual learning during a stressful time. Insights from those discussions informed the iterative design process I used to generate alternative interactive interfaces for online kindergarten instruction. In this thesis, I present findings from the interviews, the multi-stage interface design process, participant responses to the interface design, and promising directions for future work. / Master of Science / The global COVID-19 pandemic dramatically altered learning experiences for children, parents, and teachers worldwide. For very young children, the scrambled introduction of complex virtual tools as a proxy for the classroom experience has been particularly challenging. I conducted interviews with kindergarten teachers and parents with young children to better understand their experiences navigating virtual learning during a stressful time. Insights from those discussions informed the iterative design process I used to generate alternative interactive interfaces for online kindergarten instruction. In this thesis, I present findings from the interviews, the multi-stage interface design process, participant responses to the interface design, and promising directions for future work.

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

Master of Science / Department of Computing and Information Sciences / Alley Stoughton / This thesis covers the process leading up to the release of eXene 2.0, a User Interface Management System (UIMS) toolkit. Since its inception, eXene has provided a unique way to create meaningful graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for Standard ML applications. Additionally, it has gone through several quality revisions which have both enhanced the toolkit and corrected many deficiencies that were present. Even with these improvements, however, the full potential of eXene has become increasingly difficult for developers to utilize. That is, in spite of the natural innovation that eXene brings to GUI construction, its current lack of extensibility, usability, and functionality has caused Standard ML developers to choose simpler, more familiar UIMS toolkits, despite their limitations, for the creation of their applications. In light of this fact, eXene needs an internal and cosmetic overhaul to extend its usage and appeal. First, to improve its extensibility, formerly weakened by organic growth, eXene requires some restructuring of its architecture. Second, to improve its overall usability, previously stifled by sparse documentation, eXene requires the implementation of an interactive electronic document for its API. Finally, to improve its functionality, several new multi-purpose widgets need to be introduced. It is the author's hypothesis that the revised structure, improved documentation, and additional multi-purpose widgets detailed in this thesis sufficiently elevate eXene's extensibility, usability, and functionality such that eXene can be considered a fully featured UIMS toolkit. With these changes and the release of eXene 2.0, eXene is more likely to be adopted as the primary UIMS toolkit for Standard ML developers.

Tikslas: ištirti žiniatinklių vartotojo sąsajos naudojimosi patogumą. Tyrimo objektas: žiniatinklių grafinės vartotojo sąsajos. Problema: šiandien internetinės svetainės yra labai populiarios, jas kuria visi. Dažniausiai kūrėjai neatsižvelgia į grafinės vartotojo sąsajos kūrimo reikalavimus, ir pateiktos internetinės svetainės būna perkrautos, netvarkingos. Todėl šiuo tyrimu siekiama atskleisti žiniatinklių vartotojo sąsajos problemas ir pateikti rekomendacijų internetinių svetainių kūrėjams. Tyrimo metodologija: žiniatinklių tyrimui buvo išskirti trys pagrindiniai kriterijai: atliktų žingsnių skaičius, atvertų puslapių skaičius, sugaištas laikas. O klaidų palyginimui buvo stebima judėjimo trajektorija. Naudotos priemonės: Selenium-ide-1.0.6 – fiksuoja visus atliekamus veiksmus, taip pat atkuria tą pačią veiksmų seką. Mozilla Firefox 3.0.15 – žiniatinklio naršyklė. Microsoft Office Excel 2003 – tyrime gautų duomenų suvedimui, lentelių ir grafikų sudarymui. Microsoft Office Word 2003 – ataskaitos paruošimui. Tyrimo apimtis: žiniatinklių vartotojo sąsajų tyrimui buvo parinktos 5 žiniatinklių grupės (kurios buvo panašios savo turiniu). Viso buvo tiriama 18 internetinių svetainių. Sugalvotos 5 užduotys. Tyrimo rezultatų apdorojimo ir pateikimo metodai: gauti tyrimo duomenys buvo susisteminti ir pateikiami stulpelinėse diagramose su detaliais aprašymais. Diagramos: užduotyje atliktų žingsnių skaičius, užduotyje atvertų puslapių skaičius, užduoties įvykdymo laikas, užduoties... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The goal of the final bachelor work – to research the convenience of the Web interface usage. The topicality of the subject, problems, goals and objectives are preceded. The interface usage, design technologies and requirements are analysed in the final work. The conception, classification and the system analysis are approved. The graphic usage interface, design, requirements, characteristic and technologies are enlarged. The research of web interface usage, environment, respondents, technologies, criterions, the results are approved in the work. Three main criterions were distinguished to fulfil the research: the number of performed steps, the number of opened pages, the delayed time. The criterions are necessary to compare webs . The trajectory of move is observed in order to accent the errors. Research results were systematised and presented in bar charts with detailed descriptions (comparison, error accent). The result of the research: not every Internet site is oriented towards the user. Oftentimes they are busy, non-qualitative, it is hard to find necessary information for users.

Musik-applikationen c3n play används på surfplattor och mobiltelefoner som har den kapacitiva pekskärmstypen. I dagsläget kan musik-applikationen enbart styras med fingrarna. Spelpjäser, utvecklades för att målgruppen skulle kunna kombinera fingerinmatning med något fysiskt och för att underlätta spelandet. En konvergerande produktutvecklingsprocess innefattande faser och aktiviteter tillämpades. Inledningsvis genomfördes en detaljerad informationsinsamling som grund för det fortsatta arbetet. Analys av konkurrenternas produkter och en benchmarking implementerades, för att både identifiera kraven som ställts på produkten och upprätta en kravspecifikation. Spelpjäsen delades in i tre delar: formen på hela spelpjäsen, mönster som gör att användarna kan identifiera varje spelpjäs och mönster på undersidan som programvaran kunde identifiera. Därefter genererades flera idéer på formen av spelpjäsen, vilka utvärderades med hänsyn till de uppsatta kraven. Idéer som ansågs uppfylla kraven bäst gick vidare till konceptgenereringsfasen, där fem olika förslag kunde visualiseras i skisser och CAD-modeller (Computer Aidid Design). Koncepten utvärderades och förbättrades för att tillfredsställa användarnas behov och förväntningar. Det slutliga konceptet på formen gjordes i fyra olika varianter, vilka framställdes som prototyper för vidare test av målgruppen. Konceptlösningar på spelpjäsens identifieringsmönster av användaren analyserades för att passa in i c3n play-användargränssnitten. Tekniken för att identifiera spelpjäsen mot den kapacitiva pekskärmstypen utvecklades via tester, där avstånd och vinklar på kontaktpunkterna bestämdes. Viktiga produktutvecklingsverktyg implementerades för att säkerställa såväl spelpjäsernas hållbarhet som miljövänlighet, med hänsyn till produktlivscykel, tillverkning, montering och tillförlitlighet samt kostnadsmedvetenhet. Därefter valdes lämpliga material samt en lämplig tillverkningsmetod. Detta resulterade i en produktfamilj bestående av åtta stycken spelpjäser som ändrar på var sin funktion i c3n play-applikationen. En spelpjäs som förändrar amplitud, resonans, högtpassfilter, lågt-passfilter, delay, zoom + pan, kompression och feedback. / The application c3n play can be used on tablets and mobile phones that have capacitive multi touchscreens. The application can only be controlled by using the finger input. Tangible user interface was developed so the target group can use something physically “checkers” in a combination with the finger input. A product development process comprising phases and activities was implemented. Initially a detailed information collection were conducted and used as underlying to the continued work. Competitors’ products were analyzed and a benchmarking was implemented to identify user needs and to be able to make a target specification. Checkers was divided in three parts, shape of the whole checker, pattern so users can identify every checker and a pattern on the bottom so the software can identify the checkers on the screen. After that ideas were generated and the shape of the checker was evaluated. Ideas that was considered to meet the user needs went on to concept generation phase, where five different proposals was visualized in sketches and CAD (Computer Aided Design) - models. Concepts was evaluated and improved to satisfy customer needs and expectations. Final concept of the shape was developed into four different variants that was prepared as prototypes for further testing by target group. Concept solutions on identification pattern was analyzed to fit c3n play user interface. Technology to identify the checker against capacitive screen was developed by tests. Where distance and angles of contact points was determined. Important product development tools was implemented to ensure the checkers sustainability. With respect to the product life cycle, environment, manufacturing, assembly, reliability and cost consciousness. Suitable materials and manufacturing method was then chosen. Resulted in a product family consisted of eight different checkers. Each checker can change a different function in the c3n play-application. Amplitude, Resonance, Highpassfilter, Low-passfilter, Delay, Zoom + Pan, Compression and Feedback.

The elderly experience their health getting significantly deteriorated as they age. They suffer not only from chronic diseases but from various geriatric diseases such as high blood pressure, arthritis and cardiovascular disease. Their mental health also retreats creating challenges for the elderly from the loss of short term memory to dementia. Furthermore, after they retire, the elderly’s social network decreases as their social activities are inevitably limited to a small group of people like families and friends. With the face of such impairments in their physical, mental and social health, many elderly cannot help but are being institutionalized or sent to specialized places like nursing homes, which provide them professional care. However, a study indicates that most Americans prefer to stay in their homes as they get older since they can maintain their social connections to neighbors and friends, be close to their medical caregivers in town as well as attain emotional comfort and security with familiar surrounding and environments. On top of that, Americans of all ages value on keeping their ability of independence and autonomy by controlling their lives in general. Various health care-aid devices and services appear to offer specific support to health care activities for the elderly in their homes. However, such aids have more focused only on when the elderly’s health is degraded or on very specific areas such as tracking health data like blood pressure, blood sugar and calorie intakes. The elderly need comprehensive understanding about their health problems, healthy daily habits and timely interactions with their families and caregivers, in order to keep independent living safely in their places. Smart Home technology has much potential to support the elderly’s independent living as well as interactions with others. To better understand this, we conducted a user-centered design project which looks at the management of the elderly’s health enabled by Smart Home technology.

The automotive industry today is getting more and more competitive with accelerating demand to attract car consumer with new technologies. Three-dimensional user interfaces (3D UIs) support user tasks in many non-traditional interactive systems such as augmented reality and virtual environments. Although 3D UI researchers and developers have been successfully identified basic user tasks, evaluating the usability of 3D interaction techniques, as well as finding an improvement of the usability of many applications, the researches and developments are still in the direction of finding better approaches and to be more innovative to fulfill the demands in the context of automotive user interface. The concept of a framework presented in this master thesis is to integrate technology of the Qt framework that is widely used for traditional 2D interfaces on different platforms and operating systems with the availability of open sources in order to realize the goal of having the ability to import the external 3D asset completely, specifically in FBX format by Autodesk that is widely used in the automotive industry. In addition, QML as part of the Qt framework that include JavaScript as an easy Object-Oriented scheme to manipulate object properties such as position and color of the graphical object is also integrated. The main aim of the framework is to have a full access to the imported FBX asset that is created by digital content creation applications such as Autodesk 3Ds Max or Autodesk Maya and visualize them within the Qt framework. With the newest technology of the Qt framework, it seems to be a promising solution to develop an interactive user interface. Hence, the framework approach of this master thesis is based on the Qt framework and Qt3D 2.0, in order to satisfy the requirements and introduces a solution to satisfy the demands in multimedia and 3D user experiences in the automotive industry. In the last fifteen years, Qt has proven as a robust development environment that produces powerful and stable software applications. Together with the abilities of Qt3D 2.0 that offers several abstract ways to control the rendering setup that helps the framework to realize the aim of this master thesis. This master thesis contains a detailed specification and concept for the development of a framework for 3D dynamic user interface application in vehicles. As the result of this master thesis, some typical use cases for automotive industry are realized as prototype applications in order to prove that the framework has the ability to load the 3D asset, specifically in FBX format, into the Qt framework and rendered together with the components of the Qt framework as an interactive and dynamic 3D user interface.

Abstract Usability methodology has matured into a well-defined, industrially relevant field with its own findings, theories, and tools, with roots in applying information technology to user interfaces ranging from control rooms to computers, and more recently to mobile communications devices. The purpose is regularly to find out the users’ goals and to test whether a design fulfils the usability criteria. Properly applied, usability methods provide reliable and repeatable results, and are excellent tools in fine-tuning existing solutions The challenges of usability methodologies are in finding new concepts and predicting their characteristics before testing, especially when it comes to the relatively young field of mobile user interfaces. Current usability methods concentrate on utilising available user-interface technologies. They do not provide means to clearly identify, e.g., the potential of auditory or haptic output, or gestural input. Consequently, these new interaction techniques are rarely used, and the long-envisioned useful multimodal user interfaces are yet to appear, despite their assumed and existing potential in mobile devices. Even the most advocated and well-known multimodal interaction concepts, such as combined manual pointing and natural language processing, have not materialised in applications. An apparent problem is the lack of a way to utilise a usage environment analysis in finding out user requirements that could be met with multimodal user interfaces. To harness the full potential of multimodality, tools to identify both little or unused and overloaded modalities in current usage contexts are needed. Such tools would also help in putting possibly existing novel interaction paradigms in context and pointing out possible deficiencies in them. In this thesis, a novel framework for analysing the usage environment from a user-centric perspective is presented. Based on the findings, a designer can decide between offering a set of multiple devices utilising various user-interface modalities, or a single device that offers relevant modalities, perhaps by adapting to the usage environment. Furthermore, new techniques for creating mobile user interfaces utilising various modalities are proposed. The framework has evolved from the experiences gathered from the designs of experimental and actual product-level uni- and multimodal user interface solutions for mobile devices. It has generated novel multimodal interaction and interface techniques that can be used as building blocks in system designs.

Today voice recognition is becoming mainstream and nowadays it is also possible to include in individual smartphone apps. However, it has not previously been investigated for which tasks it is preferable from a usability perspective to use voice recognition rather than touch. In order to investigate this, a voice user interface was created for a smartphone radio application, which already had a touch interface. The voice user interface was also tested with users in order to improve its usability. After that, a test was conducted where the participants were asked to perform the same tasks using both the touch and voice interface. The time they took to complete the tasks was measured and the participants rated the experience of completing the task on a scale. Finally, they were asked which interaction method they preferred. For most of the tasks tested, the voice interaction was both faster and got a higher rating. However, it should be noted that in a case where users don’t have specific tasks to perform it might be harder for them to know what a voice controlled app can and cannot do than when they are using touch. Many users also expressed that they were reluctant to use voice commands in public spaces out of fear of appearing strange. These results can be applied to other radio/podcast apps and, to a lesser extent, app for watching TV series and playing music. / Röststyrningen blir vanligare och numera är den också möjligt att använda i individuella appar för smartphones. Det har dock inte tidigare undersökts för vilka uppgifter det ur ett användbarhetsperspektiv är att föredra framför pekskärmsinteraktion. För att undersöka det skapades ett röstinterface för en radiooch podcast applikation som redan hade ett pekskärmsinterface. Röstinterfacet testades också med användare för att förbättra dess användbarhet. Efter det gjordes ett test där deltagarna blev ombedda att utföra samma uppgift med både pekskärm- och röstinterface. Den tid de tog på sig uppmättes och deltagarna betygsatte upplevelsen av att utföra uppgiften på en skala. Slutligen blev de tillfrågade omvilken interaktionsmetod de föredrog. För de flesta av de testade uppgifterna var röstinteraktion snabbare och fick högre betyg. Det ska dock noteras att i fall då användaren inte har specifika uppgifter att utföra kan det vara svårare för dem att veta vad en röststyrd app kan och inte kan göra än när de använder pekskärm. Många användare uttryckte också att de var motvilliga till att använda röstkommandon i allmänna utrymmen av rädsla föratt verka underliga. Dessa resultat kan tillämpas på radio/podcast appar och, i mindre utsträckning, appar för att titta på TV-serier och spela musik.