Ideas are formed in a process of idea generation that includes creation, development, and communication of new ideas. Drawing has been used as a support for ideation for centuries. Today, computerized tools are commonly used for drawing. Such tools form a user interface between the human and the resulting drawing presented on the screen. The interface may come between the user and the drawing in a disruptive way also affecting the ideation process. Using controlled laboratory studies, this thesis investigates the consequences of drawing with different user interfaces in two types of tasks: creative drawing tasks (based on a standardized test of creativity) and non-creative drawing tasks (i.e. shape-tracing tasks where no new idea is created). The goal was to identify and evaluate the consequences of the several issues originating from the use of different input devices, the functionality of the graphical user interfaces, the formulation of the drawing task, and the user’s previous experience. The results showed that drawing tasks are oriented toward quality of outcomes and that higher input accuracy led to higher quality of outcomes of both creative and non-creative drawing tasks. This came with a trade-off between the quantity and quality. In ideation, less accurate input devices facilitated significantly more ideas but these were of lower quality. In non-creative tracing, higher speeds caused lower quality of outcomes. The users subjectively preferred higher accuracy, also when an inaccurate user interface offered an eraser function. However, using the eraser allowed avoiding reinterpretations of ideas and led to ideation strategies characterized by laborious drawing that negatively affected the quality and quantity of the ideas produced. For non-creative drawing, the more difficult the shapes were, the lower the tracing accuracy. In the thesis a new framework for interaction analysis is introduced that improves the theoretical and practical understanding of computerized drawing tasks and the phenomena resulting from different aspects of the user interface design of computerized drawing tools. This thesis demonstrates that the inaccuracy of computerized tools cannot only make our drawings less aesthetically pleasing but also negatively affect ideas that are created in the process.

Mobile computing devices, in particular smartphones are powered from Lithium-ion batteries, which are limited in capacity. With the increasing popularity of mobile systems, various text input methods have been developed to improve user experience and performance. Briefly, text input method is a user interface that can be used to compose an electronic mail, configure mobile Virtual Private Network, and carryout bank transactions and online purchases. Efficient energy management in these systems requires an extensive knowledge of where and how the energy is being used. This thesis investigates the energy consumption of text input methods on various smartphones. Hence, the authors modeled the energy consumption profile of text input methods on smartphones and analyze the energy usage benchmarks of the battery. This thesis presents a systematic technique to conduct application specific measurements. The data analysis showed substantial variations in the energy consumptions of various text input methods on a smartphone. / The main objective of this research is to find a systematic and measurement based method to evaluate the energy efficiency of the selected text input methods used on smartphones namely: SwiftKey, Swype, and Zimpl. Using Power Monitor equipment and MATLAB, the energy consumption log files of the text input methods were collected for each of the smartphones, and analyzed. This research introduces an optimized technique to carry-out application specific test on smartphones. It is hoped that the thesis will be beneficial to smartphone battery manufacturers and developers of text input techniques on how to make users’ smartphone battery last longer.

Design and evaluation of input methods for secondary tasks in dual-task systems presents specific challenges not covered by traditional human-computer interaction design techniques. Emerging trends in the fields of mobile, ubiquitous, and in-vehicle information systems demonstrate a desire for users to interact with information systems while engaging in other tasks. Research on interaction within these various fields has revealed input methods that perform well for a particular task. However, few focus on the tradeoffs of attention that must be made to react to this notification information. A design analysis technique for input methods is proposed focusing on the design objectives of interruption, reaction, and comprehension for the secondary task made at the cost of primary task attention. Through a study conducted using a reusable usability test platform constructed for this thesis, a typical in-vehicle information system is analyzed using the proposed design analysis. Three input methods were designed and compared: a graffiti character recognizer, a touch screen, and a remote control for their proficiency at selecting an item from a list while operating a driving simulator. The results of the study revealed similar task performance between the varied input methods; however, the design analysis enabled recommendations about future design directions, confirming the viability of the technique for notification systems research. / Master of Science

This thesis introduces readers to the basic types of the text and information inputs and processing to the computer. Thesis also includes historical contexts, current trends and future perspective of computer data input technologies and their use in practice. The first part of the thesis is a summary of a particular forms of entering and processing of the text data and information. The following part presents technological trends on the market concentrated on the automatic speech recognition systems along with the possibilities of their application in the business sphere. The rest of the thesis consists of a survey between Czech IT companies and based on it's results comes a suggestion of which technologies should be used as a part of the information systems.