Thesis (MTech (Business Administration in Project Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2017. / The beginning of the 2011 academic year in South Africa saw a number of Institutions of Higher Learning introducing online registration for their students. The efficiency and effectiveness of Information Systems is increasingly becoming a necessity and not an option for many organizations. An information system should be able to allow end users to access information easily and navigate with ease. The selected University of Technology (UoT) in this research is one of the largest public institution of higher learning in the Western Cape Province and boasts of an enrolment of more than 30 000 students per academic year. An observation was made that, during registration students stand in long queues waiting to register or for assistance to register. The system tends to ‘freeze’ whilst students are registering and students are in most cases unfamiliar with the system interface. They constantly have to enquire what to do next when going through online registration process. This study adopted a quantitative approach. The study uses constructs of the updated DeLone and McLean IS success model (2003) to analyse and explain the student’s perceptions of the online registration system. The research was undertaken to establish the student’s perceptions of the online registration system. This research identifies the challenges and success factors of introducing an online registration system, from a students’ perspective, whilst highlighting the extent to which this system has been able to solve problems associated with the manual registration era. The study seeks to assist management and those responsible for managing the current system to determine how well the system is working or not working to achieve user satisfaction. It will also assist them going forward on what to consider before, during and after implementation of an information system. Stemming from the findings of this study, recommendations were made such as making online registration available on mobile devices, online registration orientation can assist students navigate the system easily. The UoT should also consider thorough training for staff that assist students during registration to ensure good service quality.

Motor impaired people are faced with many challenges, one being the of lack integration into certain spheres of society. Access to information is seen as a major issue for the motor impaired since most forms of interaction or interactive devices are not suited to the needs of motor impaired people. People with motor impairments, like the rest of the population, are increasingly using mobile phones. As a result of the current devices and methods used for interaction with content on mobile phones, various factors prohibit a pleasant experience for users with motor impairments. To counter these factors, this study recognizes the need to implement better suited methods of interaction and navigation to improve accessibility, usability and user experience for motor impaired users. The objective of the study was to gain an understanding of the nature of motor impairments and the challenges that this group of people face when using mobile phones. Once this was determined, a solution to address this problem was found in the form of natural user interfaces. In order to gain a better understanding of this technology, various forms of NUIs and the benefits thereof were studied by the researcher in order to determine how this technology can be implemented to meet the needs of motor impaired people. To test theory, the Samsung Galaxy s5 was selected as the NUI device for the study. It must be noted that this study started in the year 2013 and the Galaxy S5 was the latest device claiming to improve interaction for disabled people at the time. This device was used in a case study that made use of various data collection methods, including participant interviews. Various motor impaired participants were requested to perform predefined tasks on the device, along with the completion of a set of user experience questionnaires. Based on the results of the study, it was found that interaction with mobile phones is an issue for people with motor impairments and that alternative methods of interaction need to be implemented. These results contributed to the final output of this study, namely a set of user experience guidelines for the design of mobile human computer interaction for motor impaired users.

Thesis (MTech(Information Technology))--Cape Technikon, Cape Town, 1997 / This research discusses some of the cultural issues that could influence the human computer encounter in a multicultural community. The results of research to determine differences in computer usage caused by cultural differences when using computer user interfaces in simulated and real-world environments are also discussed. Various cultural aspects could possibly influence the effectiveness of the user interface in a multicultural society. Language is an important factor and studies have shown that simple translation will increase productivity (Bodley, 1993:23). However all languages do not contain the necessary technical vocabulary. Mothers from a lower social class typically use a limited language code when communicating with their children (Mussen et aI.,1984:206). As this causes the children to think in more concrete and less conceptual terms, it may influence the human computer interaction, particularly where a high degree of abstraction, such as in graphical interfaces, is used. Symbolism is problematic as symbols like light bulbs, recycle bins and VCR controls do not feature in the life of users living in slum and backward rural conditions. Lack of exposure to technology might negatively influence user attitude (Downton, 1991:25) with a corresponding inhibition of learning and performance. All external locus of control is common among disadvantaged groups due to the high degree of rejection, hostile control and criticism they experience. As the sense of being out of control is largely associated with the indication to avoid stressful situations, users from these groups might prefer to avoid situations where they do not feel in control. The strong differentiation between the roles of the sexes in certain cultures can also influence the encounter with the computer (Downton, 1991:10) It has been shown that the different gender orientations towards problem solving in these cultures can have an important influence on computer usage. The intracultural factors of social class play a significant role in determining how a person acts and thinks (Baruth & Manning, 1991 :9-1 0). Such differences may sometimes be more pronounced than those resulting from cultural diversity and may influence the orientation of the user towards abstraction and generalization.

Orientador: Maria Cecilia Calani Baranauskas / Dissertação (mestrado profissional) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Computação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-12T07:42:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 LoureiroJunior_Joao_M.pdf: 1198816 bytes, checksum: 19345971be41b020f936942e3d8170c6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / Resumo: Este trabalho enumera diversos problemas relacionados ao desenvolvimento de interfaces de usuário, observados na indústria atual de dispositivos portáteis. É apresentada uma comparação entre diversas linguagens declarativas relacionadas à especificação de interfaces de usuário, todas baseadas em XML. É feita então uma proposta de uso da linguagem XForms, conjuntamente com CSS, na definição de interfaces de usuário destes dispositivos, como alternativa à solução vigente. Como meio de validar a proposta, é definido um modelo para a interface de usuário, tendo como base um telefone celular existente no mercado. Em seguida é descrito como XForms e CSS podem ser utilizados na especificação da interface de usuário dos dispositivos correspondentes a este modelo. São incluídas uma proposta de arquitetura e as extensões necessárias à linguagem XForms. Este trabalho demonstra a necessidade de um número reduzido de extensões para que XForms e CSS possam ser utilizados com este propósito. / Abstract: This work describes several problems related to user interface development that currently affect the industry of portable devices. We present a brief comparison between existing declarative languages based on XML related to user interface specification. We propose the use of XForms and CSS as an alternative to the current approach. In order to validate the proposal, a model for the user interface is presented, based on existing cellular phones on the market. We show how XForms and CSS could be used as user interface definition languages for the portable devices based on that model. It is included an architecture proposal and the required extensions to the W3C XForms recommendations. We conclude the feasibility of this proposal based on the small number of extensions required for that. / Mestrado / Engenharia de Computação / Mestre em Ciência da Computação

Orientador: Eurípedes Guilherme de Oliveira Nóbrega / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Mecânica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-20T08:14:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Diniz_WendellFioravantedaSilva_M.pdf: 9463256 bytes, checksum: 22904c4d85179e589b6a43dd655dc3ca (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Resumo: Desde o início da História e particularmente da Revolução Industrial, o homem tem buscado substituir ou complementar sua força de trabalho com dispositivos e máquinas capazes de ampliar a capacidade produtiva ou resolver tarefas para as quais o emprego de força humana não é satisfatório ou é perigoso. Esta necessidade impulsionou, no último século, o desenvolvimento de dispositivos robóticos, que foram se tornando cada vez mais complexos, à medida que a tecnologia avançava. No entanto, quanto mais complexos, mais difícil se torna sua operação. Reduzir a complexidade de operação destes dispositivos sem comprometer sua eficácia é um objetivo desejável e que tem impulsionado significativos esforços de pesquisa ultimamente. Neste trabalho, estudam-se duas tecnologias diferentes que podem ser aplicadas de forma complementar para tornar a operação de dispositivos robóticos mais simplificada. A área de Interfaces Naturais estuda a criação de mecanismos de operação baseados nas formas naturais de interação entre os seres humanos e os computadores, como gestos e fala, visando diminuir a curva de aprendizado para a operação de sistemas complexos, tornando esta uma tarefa intuitiva. A Realidade Aumentada tem entre seus objetivos ampliar o conhecimento sobre uma certa situação ao apresentar a um usuário informações adicionais fornecidas por instrumentação. Para isso, faz uso de técnicas de Computação Gráfica. Também permite criar situações simuladas para avaliar o comportamento de sistemas, ou treinamento para a operação destes sistemas de maneira virtual. Neste trabalho, montou-se um experimento em que um braço robótico será acionado de forma natural, através de gestos do usuário, em um ambiente de Realidade Aumentada. Como transdutor para a captura do movimento do usuário, foi o usado o sensor Kinect¿, que é um equipamento disponível comercialmente com custo relativamente baixo. Foi desenvolvida uma arquitetura que permite o acionamento da plataforma robótica de forma remota, através de comunicação em rede / Abstract: Since the beginning of History and particularly of the Industrial Revolution, human beings have sought to replace or supplement their workforce with devices and machines, in order to expand their productive capacity or to solve tasks for which the use of human power is not satisfactory or it is dangerous. This need pushed the development of robotic devices in the last century, which have become increasingly complex as technology advances. However, the more complex it is, more difficult its operation becomes. Reducing these devices operational complexity without compromising its effectiveness is a desirable goal that has driven significant research efforts lately. In this work, two different technologies are studied which can be applied in a complementary way to simplify robotic operation. The area of Natural Interfaces studies the creation of software mechanisms, based on natural forms of interaction between humans and computers, such as gestures and speech, in order to reduce the learning curve for the operation of complex systems, making it more intuitive. Augmented Reality has among its objectives to expand the knowledge about certain situations, presenting to the user additional instrumentation provided information. To accomplish this objective, Augmented Reality makes use of Computer Graphics techniques. It also allows the creation of simulated scenarios to evaluate the behavior of systems, or for virtually training the operators of these systems. In this work, an experiment was set up in which a robotic arm is activated through user gestures in an Augmented Reality environment. As a low cost commercially available equipment, the Kinect¿ sensor is adopted to capture the user's movement. An architecture was developed and tested with auspicious results, implementing the proposed natural interface to interpret the human gestures and to provoke the respective remote activation of the robotic platform through network communication / Mestrado / Mecanica dos Sólidos e Projeto Mecanico / Mestre em Engenharia Mecânica

La communauté du génie logiciel porte depuis ses débuts une attention spéciale à la qualité et la fiabilité des logiciels. De nombreuses techniques de test logiciel ont été développées pour caractériser et détecter des erreurs dans les logiciels. Les modèles de fautes identifient et caractérisent les erreurs pouvant affecter les différentes parties d’un logiciel. D’autre part, les critères de qualité logiciel et leurs mesures permettent d’évaluer la qualité du code logiciel et de détecter en amont du code potentiellement sujet à erreur. Les techniques d’analyses statiques et dynamiques scrutent, respectivement, le logiciel à l’arrêt et à l’exécution pour trouver des erreurs ou réaliser des mesures de qualité. Dans cette thèse, nous prônons le fait que la même attention doit être portée sur la qualité et la fiabilité des interfaces utilisateurs (ou interface homme-machine, IHM), au sens génie logiciel du terme. Cette thèse propose donc deux contributions dans le domaine du test et de la maintenance d’interfaces utilisateur : 1. Classification et mutation des erreurs d’interfaces utilisateur. 2. Qualité du code des interfaces utilisateur. Nous proposons tout d’abord un modèle de fautes d’IHM. Ce modèle a été conçu à partir des concepts standards d’IHM pour identifier et classer les fautes d’IHM ; Au travers d’une étude empirique menée sur du code Java existant, nous avons montré l’existence d’une mauvaise pratique récurrente dans le développement du contrôleur d’IHM, objet qui transforme les évènements produits par l’interface utilisateur pour les transformer en actions. Nous caractérisons cette nouvelle mauvaise pratique que nous avons appelée Blob listener, en référence à la méthode Blob. Nous proposons également une analyse statique permettant d’identifier automatiquement la présence du Blob listener dans le code d’interface Java Swing. / The software engineering community takes special attention to the quality and the reliability of software systems. Software testing techniques have been developed to find errors in code. Software quality criteria and measurement techniques have also been assessed to detect error-prone code. In this thesis, we argue that the same attention has to be investigated on the quality and reliability of GUIs, from a software engineering point of view. We specifically make two contributions on this topic. First, GUIs can be affected by errors stemming from development mistakes. The first contribution of this thesis is a fault model that identifies and classifies GUI faults. We show that GUI faults are diverse and imply different testing techniques to be detected. Second, like any code artifact GUI code should be analyzed statically to detect implementation defects and design smells. As for the second contribution, we focus on design smells that can affect GUIs specifically. We identify and characterize a new type of design smell, called Blob listener. It occurs when a GUI listener, that gathers events to treat and transform as commands, can produce more than one command. We propose a systematic static code analysis procedure that searches for Blob listener that we implement in a tool called InspectorGuidget. Experiments we conducted exhibits positive results regarding the ability of InspectorGuidget in detecting Blob listeners. To counteract the use of Blob listeners, we propose good coding practices regarding the development of GUI listeners.

The remote control is a pivotal component in households worldwide. It helps users enjoy leisurely television (TV) viewing. The remote control has various user interfaces that people interact with. For example, the physical user interface includes the shape of the remote and the physical buttons; the logical user interface refers to how the information is laid out; and the graphical user interface refers to the colours and aesthetic features of the remote control. All of the user interfaces together with the context of use, cultural factors, social factors, and prior experiences of the user influences the ways people interact with their remote control and ultimately has an effect on their user experiences. Advances in the broadcasting sector and transformations of the TV physical remote control have compounded the simple remote control into a multifaceted, indispensable device, overcrowded with buttons. The usability and ultimately the user experience of physical remote controls (PRCs) have been affected by the overloaded functionality and small button sizes. The usability issues with current PRCs, the evolution of mobile phones into touchscreen smartphones, and the trend of global companies moving towards virtual remote controls (VRCs) have prompted this research to discover what user interface design features will contribute towards an enhanced user experience for digital TV VRCs. This research used the design science research process model (DSRP), which comprised six steps, to investigate this topic area further. A review of the domain literature pertaining to mobile user experiences (MUX) and all the encompassing factors, mobile human computer interaction (MHCI) and the physical, logical, graphical and natural user interfaces was completed, as well as a review of the literature regarding the usability issues of PRCs and VRCs. A contextual task analysis (CTA) of a single South African digital TV PRC was used to identify how users utilise PRCs to perform tasks, and the usability issues they encountered during the tasks. Brainstorming focus groups were used to understand how to represent certain user interface elements and attempted to source ideas from users about what potential functionality digital TV VRCs should contain. Together with all the other results gathered from the previous chapters amalgamated into a set of user interface design guidelines for digital TV VRCs. The proposed user interface guidelines were used to instantiate a digital TV VRC prototype that underwent usability testing in order to validate the proposed user interface design guidelines. The results of the usability testing revealed that the user interface design guidelines for digital TV VRCs were successful, with the addition of one guideline that was discovered during the usability testing.

Synchronous Distributed Collaborative Work (SDCW) occurs when group members work together at the same time from different places together to achieve a common goal. Effective SDCW requires good communication, continuous coordination and shared information among group members. SDCW is possible because of groupware, a class of computer software systems that supports group work. Shared-workspace groupware systems are systems that provide a common workspace that aims to replicate aspects of a physical workspace that is shared among group members in a co-located environment. Shared-workspace groupware systems have failed to provide the same degree of coordination and awareness among distributed group members that exists in co-located groups owing to unintuitive interaction techniques that these systems have incorporated. Natural User Interfaces (NUIs) focus on reusing natural human abilities such as touch, speech, gestures and proximity awareness to allow intuitive human-computer interaction. These interaction techniques could provide solutions to the existing issues of groupware systems by breaking down the barrier between people and technology created by the interaction techniques currently utilised. The aim of this research was to investigate how NUI interaction techniques could be used to effectively support SDCW. An architecture for such a shared-workspace groupware system was proposed and a prototype, called GroupAware, was designed and developed based on this architecture. GroupAware allows multiple users from distributed locations to simultaneously view and annotate text documents, and create graphic designs in a shared workspace. Documents are represented as visual objects that can be manipulated through touch gestures. Group coordination and awareness is maintained through document updates via immediate workspace synchronization, user action tracking via user labels and user availability identification via basic proxemic interaction. Members can effectively communicate via audio and video conferencing. A user study was conducted to evaluate GroupAware and determine whether NUI interaction techniques effectively supported SDCW. Ten groups of three members each participated in the study. High levels of performance, user satisfaction and collaboration demonstrated that GroupAware was an effective groupware system that was easy to learn and use, and effectively supported group work in terms of communication, coordination and information sharing. Participants gave highly positive comments about the system that further supported the results. The successful implementation of GroupAware and the positive results obtained from the user evaluation provides evidence that NUI interaction techniques can effectively support SDCW.

Design guidelines are used in interaction design (IxD) for physical design and for evaluating the usability of designs and interactive products. Guidelines are widely used for physical design and evaluation, but have a number of problems. IxD patterns have been proposed as an alternative to guidelines, as they are claimed to have several advantages over guidelines. A small number of empirical studies provide evidence that patterns are beneficial when used in IxD. Additional research on the usefulness of IxD patterns is required. The primary research question investigated in this thesis was thus: How useful are IxD patterns as physical design and evaluation aids in IxD, as compared to design guidelines? The role of guidelines and patterns as design and evaluation aids in IxD was investigated and a comparison of guidelines and patterns, based on a set of guideline and pattern properties, was conducted. The concept of pattern and guideline usefulness was explored and a research agenda for guidelines and patterns was identified, together with a set of research questions for an empirical study. The empirical study of the use of patterns for evaluation, redesign and new design, as compared to guidelines, was conducted at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in 2004. The participants were a purposive sample of post-graduate Computing students, who were regarded as novice interaction designers. Two equivalent groups were formed, one that used patterns and one that used guidelines. Patterns were found to be as useful as guidelines when used as evaluation aids. Guidelines and patterns were identified as effective tools for identifying and explaining usability issues and design features. Best-effort matched sets of guidelines and patterns produced substantially different result sets when used to identify issues and features, with fairly low overlap. A substantial evaluator effect was observed for the use of guidelines and patterns for evaluation, and the results obtained were similar to those obtained by Molich et al. in their Comparative Usability Evaluation (CUE) studies. There was no statistically significant difference between the effectiveness of guidelines and patterns for evaluation. There was also no statistically significant difference between the perceived efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction in use of guidelines and patterns for evaluation. Guidelines and patterns were found to be used in similar ways for evaluation. Patterns were found to be more effective than guidelines for redesign. Patterns were found to be as useful as guidelines when used for new design. There was no statistically significant difference between the effectiveness of guidelines and patterns for new design. There was also no statistically significant difference between the perceived efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction in use of guidelines and patterns for redesign and new design. Guidelines and patterns were found to be used in similar ways for design. There was no statistically significant difference between the perceived usefulness of the format, content, ease of learning, and usefulness as personal and shared design languages, of guidelines and patterns. Both participant groups were equally agreeable to using guidelines and patterns in the future. The perceived usefulness of pattern collections was found to depend on the usability of the collection interface and the content quality of the patterns. The results of the empirical study thus provided empirical evidence that patterns were as useful as guidelines for evaluation and new design, and were perceived as positively as guidelines were. Patterns were found to be superior to guidelines for redesign. Patterns can therefore be used with a measure of confidence as early stage design aids for physical design and evaluation in the future. In addition to these findings, a number of opportunities for further research were identified.

Mobile devices today frequently serve as platforms for the visualisation of map-based data. Despite the obvious advantages, mobile map-based visualisation (MMV) systems are often difficult to design and use. Limited screen space, resource constraints and awkward interaction mechanisms are among the many problems with which designers and users have to contend. Adaptive user interfaces (AUIs), which adapt to the individual user, represent a possible means of addressing the problems of MMV. Adaptive MMV systems are, however, generally designed in an ad-hoc fashion, making the benefits achieved difficult to replicate. In addition, existing models for adaptive MMV systems are either conceptual in nature or only address a subset of the possible input variables and adaptation effects. The primary objective of this research was to develop and evaluate an adaptive MMV system using a model-based approach. The Proteus Model was proposed to support the design of MMV systems which adapt in terms of information, visualisation and user interface in response to the user‟s behaviour, tasks and context. The Proteus Model describes the architectural, interface, data and algorithm design of an adaptive MMV system. A prototype adaptive MMV system, called MediaMaps, was designed and implemented based on the Proteus Model. MediaMaps allows users to capture, location-tag, organise and visualise multimedia on their mobile phones. Information adaptation is performed through the use of an algorithm to assist users in sorting media items into collections based on time and location. Visualisation adaptation is performed by adapting various parameters of the map-based visualisations according to user preferences. Interface adaptation is performed through the use of adaptive lists. An international field study of MediaMaps was conducted in which participants were required to use MediaMaps on their personal mobile phones for a period of three weeks. The results of the field study showed that high levels of accuracy were achieved by both the information and interface adaptations. High levels of user satisfaction were reported, with participants rating all three forms of adaptation as highly useful. The successful implementation of MediaMaps provides practical evidence that the model-based design of adaptive MMV systems is feasible. The positive results of the field study clearly show that the adaptations implemented were highly accurate and that participants found these adaptations to be useful, usable and easy to understand. This research thus provides empirical evidence that the use of AUIs can provide significant benefits for the visualisation of map-based information on mobile devices.