Em essência, esta tese traz um compêndio técnico para auxiliar no projeto de cadeira de rodas de propulsão manual, visando à ampliação eficiente da ergonomia e da mobilidade dos usuários. Essas recomendações foram elaboradas a partir de uma ampla revisão da literatura e da aplicação de um teste de usabilidade com um referencial tecnológico de cadeira de rodas. Os conceitos teóricos que fundamentam esta tese abrangem o contexto histórico e técnico da deficiência, as premissas éticas para o design de produto, as recomendações de projeto já consolidadas pela literatura científica, os aspectos da facilidade de uso no âmbito do design centrado no usuário, o desenvolvimento motor da pessoa com deficiência, a biomecânica da propulsão manual e as respectivas formas de manejo desse equipamento. A sistemática metodológica da pesquisa foi fundamentada em três abordagens. Na primeira selecionamos um referencial tecnológico a partir de uma amostra de 101 modelos de cadeiras de rodas disponíveis no mercado brasileiro. Depois de escolhido o produto, aplicamos um teste de usabilidade, levando em consideração a norma ISO 20282-2:2006(E), que possibilitou verificar o grau de satisfação e comprovar que as cadeiras de rodas, são ineficientes para atender às necessidades ergonômicas e de mobilidade dos usuários. Participaram dessa pesquisa 43 sujeitos de ambos os gêneros, com idade média entre 31 e 37 anos. E, finalmente, com o uso do software Kinovea analisaram-se os diferentes padrões do movimento da propulsão manual. Nesta última abordagem, estabeleceram-se parâmetros cinemáticos, temporais, antropométricos e posturais, que serviram para enriquecer e consolidar novas recomendações de projeto. Essas recomendações abrangem os cinco sistemas que compõem uma cadeira de rodas: (a) sistema de propulsão, (b) deslocamento, (c) apoio para o corpo, (d) estrutural e (e) morfológico. Por fim, foram traçadas reflexões metodológicas de projeto, uma prospecção do futuro das cadeiras de rodas no Brasil e algumas sugestões de pesquisas no campo do design para a saúde, as quais surgiram durante o desenvolvimento dessa investigação. / In essence, this thesis brings a technical compendium to assist in the design of manual wheelchair propulsion, aiming the efficient expansion of ergonomics and user mobility. These recommendation were development from an extensive literature review and application of a usability test with a technological reference wheelchair. The theoretical concepts that underlie this thesis cover the historical and technical context of disability, the ethical assumptions for product design, the design recommendations already established in the scientific literature, the aspects of ease of use under the user-centered design, the motor development of the disabled person, the biomechanics of manual propulsion and related forms of handling such equipment. A systematic methodological research was based on three approaches. The first selected a technological reference from a sample of 101 models of wheelchairs available in the Brazilian market. After select the product, apply a usability test taking into the ISO 20282-2.2006 (E) which enabled us to verify the degree of satisfaction and demonstrate that the wheelchairs are inefficient to attend the ergonomic necessity and mobility of users. In this study 43 subjects took part of test, both genders, on average between 31 and 37 years. Finally, using the software were analyzed Kinovea different patterns of motion of manual propulsion. In the last approach, settled parameters, temporal, anthropometric and postural which served to increase and consolidate new design recommendations. These recommendations cover the five systems that set a wheelchair: (a) propulsion system, (b) displacement, (c) support for the body, (d) structural and (e) morphology. Finally, methodological reflections project, an exploration of the future of wheelchairs in Brazil and some suggestions for research in the field of design for health, which arose during the development of this research.

Como uma das consequências do crescimento populacional que atualmente ocorre em escala mundial, e possível observar um aumento significante no número de pessoas mais velhas. Com a evolução da Internet, que oferece atualmente uma ampla variedade de serviços que ultrapassam os limites do entretenimento e da comunicação, os adultos de meia-idade e os idosos podem usufruir de vários benefícios, tais como: compras, bancos on-line, serviços governamentais e informações de forma geral, de modo a preservar sua autonomia e independência funcional na realização das suas tarefas diárias. Mas, apesar de todos os benefícios que podem ser obtidos por meio da Web, existe ainda grande resistência por parte dos adultos mais velhos em utilizá-la. Muitas pessoas, com o passar dos anos, passam a conviver com dificuldades sensoriais, motoras e principalmente com declínios da capacidade cognitiva, que podem comprometer o seu acesso a Web. A acessibilidade na Web se destina a garantir, principalmente, que haja meios para que pessoas com necessidades especiais possam utilizar a Web de forma natural e independente. Os adultos de meia-idade são usuários que, de modo geral, estão propensos a sofrer com os declínios de suas capacidades ao longo do tempo. Para enriquecer a experiência dos adultos de meia-idade e idosos com a Web e essencial considerar as necessidades de diferentes perfis de usuários, bem como suas necessidades visuais, de audição, motoras e cognitivas, as quais se tornam mais evidentes a partir dos 40 anos de idade. O objetivo do presente trabalho foi identificar recursos e mecanismos de usabilidade e acessibilidade que atendam as várias dificuldades encontradas por grande parte dos adultos mais velhos que buscam utilizar a Web, de modo que possam auxiliá-los a superarem os declínios provenientes do envelhecimento e os incentivem a continuar utilizando a Web como uma fonte de informação, comunicação e serviços. Muitos avanços ja foram obtidos com a utilização da tecnologia assistiva, que busca, por meio de equipamentos e softwares, dar apoio a vários tipos de deficiências apresentadas pelos usuários durante a sua interação com aplicativos e com a Web. Esforços também têm sido realizados por meio da criação de diretrizes e normas, como forma de incentivar programadores e autores de conteúdo a produzirem material para a Web que seja acessível. Nesta dissertação, defende-se a tese de que a melhoria da qualidade na experiência de uso da Web por parte dos adultos mais velhos também contribui para a usabilidade universal. Assim, é apresentada uma pesquisa que engloba revisão da literatura, observação em campo, aplicação de questionários, levantamento de diculdades com deficientes visuais, e testes com protótipos; os resultados mostram que a utilização de mecanismos de apoio a interação de adultos com mais idade com a Web promove também a melhoria da interação das pessoas mais jovens. Finalmente, pôde-se diagnosticar barreiras que ainda permanecem e quais mecanismos de apoio foram mais bem aceitos pelos adultos de meia-idade e idosos / The current worldwide population growth has been followed by a significant increase in the number of older people. The evolution of the internet has brought an increase in the variety of services that go beyond entertainment and communication. Older adults and elderly people can benet from many such services available on the internet, such as online shopping, banking, governmental services and many other sources of information, in order to preserve their autonomy and independence to undertake their daily activities. However, despite all the benefits brought by the use of the Web, many older adults still present some resistance to use websites. As a consequence of ageing, many older adults may start to present certain difficulties that can jeopardise the way they use the Web, such as sensory, motor, and especially cognitive difficulties. Web accessibility is concerned with providing means to enable people with special needs to use the Web in a natural and independent manner. Older adults tend to be aected with decline in their abilities with time. In order to enrich the experience of older adults and elderly people with the Web, it is essential that the needs of different user proles be taken into account, particularly concerning visual, auditory, motor and cognitive aspects that become more evident from 40 years of age. The goal of the present work is to identify usability and accessibility resources and mechanisms to address the difficulties encountered by large part of older adults that use the Web, in order to help them overcome difficulties associated with ageing and help them continue using the Web as a source of information, communication and services. Much advancement have been achieved with the use of assistive technology, which consists of equipment and software that supports several types of disabilities and provides aids to the use of computer applications and the Web. Many eorts have also been targeted at creating guidelines and standards to incentivise programmers and web authors to produce more accessible Web material. In this thesis, the work developed supports the argument that improvements in the quality of the experience in the use of the Web by older adults also contributes to enhancing universal usability. The research presented involves a literature review, eld observation of users, questionnaires with users, interviews with visually impaired users about their diculties in using websites, and tests with software prototypes. The results showed that the use of mechanisms to support the interaction of older adults with the Web also promotes improvements in the interaction of younger users. Finally, it was possible to diagnose barriers that still remain and which mechanisms had best acceptance by older adults and elderly users

A interação com aplicações Web está se tornando cada vez mais presente no dia-a-dia das pessoas, sendo útil para a disponibilização de recursos que permitem a realização de serviços, estudos ou entretenimento. Porém muitos dos recursos disponibilizados apresentam barreiras em relação à acessibilidade, impedindo que usuários finais, com algum tipo de deficiência, possam utilizá-los de forma eficiente. Como solução para esse problema, têm sido propostas diretrizes para o desenvolvimento de aplicações Web acessíveis. Entretanto, apesar da existência dessas diretrizes, o cenário atual ainda mostra que há dificuldades em relação ao desenvolvimento considerando requisitos de acessibilidade. Neste sentido, esta tese está calcada na criação de uma abordagem que permita o apoio efetivo a boas práticas para desenvolvimento Web, a partir da aproximação de tais diretrizes ao ambiente das equipes de desenvolvimento. Para tanto, são definidas atividades separadas em 3 eixos de preocupações: Treinamento em Acessibilidade, Gerência de Decisões e Desenvolvimento e Ferramental. Para validação da concepção inicial da proposta desta tese, estudos de caso são detalhados, demonstrando como o desenvolvimento Web pode ser beneficiado com melhor apoio ferramental, que incluem o uso de técnicas de modelagem e de padrões para geração de código acessível. São ainda verificados os benefícios da colaboração de experiências e treinamento da equipe de desenvolvimento, para tanto foi desenvolvida a ferramenta AccessibilityUtil. Posteriormente é descrita a abordagem e validada em um experimento controlado em que existiram grupos de participantes utilizando a abordagem e outros que não fizeram uso da mesma. Com isso, observou-se que, com a utilização da abordagem, houve melhor apoio a boas práticas de desenvolvimento em relação à aplicação de requisitos de acessibilidade, o que ocasiona em melhores resultados de qualidade para as aplicações Web. / The interaction with Web applications is becoming increasingly present daily, being useful to provide resources that allow the execution of services, education or entertainment. But many of the resources present barriers in relation to accessibility, hindering disabled users use them efficiently. As solution to this problem, guidelines to develop accessible Web applications have been proposed. However, despite the guidelines definition, the current scenario shows that there are difficulties related to the development considering accessibility requirements. Thus, this thesis focus on proposing an approach to support good practices for Web development, based on the use of these guidelines to the development team environment. Therefore, activities are defined on 3 layers: Accessibility Training, Decisions Management, and Development and Tooling. In order to validate the initial design of this thesis proposal, case studies were detailed, presenting how the Web development can be benefited through the tool support, including the use of modeling techniques and patterns for accessible code generation. Additionally, the benefits with the experience collaboration and training of the development team are also verified, to allow this the tool AccessibilityUtil was developed. After this, the approach is described and validated in a controlled experiment, where groups were defined with and without the approach use. As conclusion, we verified benefits using the approach, since that was identified a better support on development best practices regarding to the use of accessibility requirements, which results in a better quality for accessible Web applications

Possuir uma interface que oferece uma boa experiência do usuário tornou-se um fator crítico para o sucesso em sistemas de informação. As diferenças culturais, no entanto, podem ter um impacto significativo em sua experiência, mas raramente são levadas em consideração durante o projeto interface e avaliação, particularmente no Brasil, um país multicultural de dimensões continentais. O objetivo deste trabalho foi investigar se as diferenças culturais entre as cinco macrorregiões socioeconômica do Brasil são profundas o suficiente para afetar a experiência do usuário em interfaces baseadas na Web e, em caso afirmativo, como. Foi realizado um experimento com 110 participantes, 22 por região, em cinco capitais brasileiras: Belém, Salvador, Goiânia, São Paulo e Porto Alegre. Comparou-se as diferenças culturais identificadas pelo VSM, instrumento de mapeamento de dimensões culturais criado por Hofstede, com o desempenho em tarefas e a avaliação, utilizando o questionário de experiência de uso QUIS, de um sistema bancário fictício Internet. As diferenças culturais foram identificadas e correlacionadas com as diferenças na experiência do usuário, particularmente no que diz respeito à quantidade de informação e cores exibidas na interface. / Having an interface that provides a good user experience has become a critical factor for success in information systems. Cultural differences, however, may have a significant impact in this experience, but are seldom taken into account during interface design and evaluation, particularly in Brazil, a multicultural country with continental dimensions. Our goal was to investigate whether the cultural differences between the five socio-economical macro-regions of Brazil are profound enough to impact user experience in web-based interfaces and, if so, how. An experiment with 110 participants, 22 per region, was conducted in five Brazilian state capitals: Belém, Salvador, Goiânia, São Paulo and Porto Alegre. We compared the cultural differences identified by VSM, a cultural dimensions mapping tool created by Hofstede, with performance on tasks and user experience evaluations, using the QUIS questionnaire, of a fictitious Internet Banking System. Cultural differences were identified and correlated with differences in user experience, particularly in regards to the amount of information and colors shown in the interface.

Excel offers great flexibility and allows non-programmers to create complex functionality – but at the same time, it can become very nested with cells pointing to other cells, especially if there have been many changes over a more extended period. This has happened to ICS – a small company who has its focus on calibration, out of an array of different things relating to material testing. The system they have for field calibrations today have been overly complicated and hard to maintain and consists of multiple Excel spreadsheets. The conclusion has been that a new system needs to be developed – but question how, remains. By creating a prototype using modern web-technologies, this study has evaluated if a web application can meet the specific functional requirements ICS have and if it is a suitable solution for a new system. The prototype was put under manual user test, and the results find that the prototype meets all the requirements, meaning that a webapplication could work as a replacement. During the user tests, this study has also evaluated the differences in learnability and efficiency of users, between the static user interface of the current Excel-based system and the dynamic user interface of the web-based prototype. The users have performed a calibration with both systems, and parameters such as time to completion or number of errors made have been recorded. By comparing the test results from both systems, this study has concluded that a dynamic user interface is more likely to improve learnability for novice users, but have a low impact on efficiency for expert users.

The issue addressed by thesis is the fact that public transport in Sweden is operated through multiple organisations. All of these have individual applications for planning and paying for travel. It is believed by the authors of this thesis that because of this it is essential that these applications have high user satisfaction so that they are comfortable and easy to use for first time users. The purpose of this thesis is to ​explore the user satisfaction of Swedish public transport applications with a focus on usability. To gather the data needed to fulfill this purpose a survey was handed out to 103 Swedish people and think aloud test was performed with 5 people. The answers form these 2 investigations were analyzed in regard to usability, cognitive load and the concept of an integrated system. The results of this thesis showed that there were no significant differences between the different public transportation applications in Sweden.​This thesis maybe interesting for the different operators providing the applications for public transport, as a groundwork for further development of the applications. As well as being used in the current discussions about implementing a Swedish integrated public transport system.

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to compare two visually opposite design techniques: skeuomorphic design, recognizable for its realistic presentation, and flat design, an abstract design option that has gained popularity in the last years. The two designs were compared using two generations of Internet users to find out what the preferences were for each generation. A knowledge gap was found in which design that would be the most beneficial to use for each generation. Methodology: To fulfill the purpose of the study, two methods were used; a literature study and an empirical study. The empirical study included experiments, interviews and questionnaires. The participants were contacted personally or via social media. All participants were in the age of 20-30 or 65+. Findings: Based on the collected literature and empirical evidence, it was concluded that the older generation of users might tend to prefer the skeuomorphic, realistic design online. Bright colors and a pedagogical style creates a good visual for elderly eyes and inexpert of using internet. The younger generation might tend to prefer the flat and abstract way of design online. A modern appeal with less clutter compared to the skeuomorphic style is considered beneficial. This opens up for further investigation. Implications: The empirical study included 20 people, who all participated in the experiment, interviews and answered questionnaires. The study groups consisted of 10 persons at the age span 20-30 years and 10 persons at the age span of 65+ years. Limitations: The study was only focused on two specific age groups with a small population found through convenient sampling. This means that in the future, the research could be conducted in a broader matter including more age groups and a larger population with a more specific sampling. The study's extent was affected by the time period in which it was executed. A longer period of time could have contributed to a more extensive study, perhaps with additional age groups and more participants in each group.

A Web apresenta um conteúdo extenso de informações disponibilizado a uma população diversificada de pessoas, as quais podem apresentar as mais diferentes habilidades e exigências. Dessa maneira, garantir a acessibilidade a todo usuário é uma tarefa difícil, mesmo existindo um conjunto extenso de recomendações disponibilizadas pelo World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Assim, são propostas diferentes ferramentas para avaliação de acessibilidade, que contrapõem os artefatos às diretrizes com a finalidade de obter resultados automatizados, produzindo testes e gerando vários dados, como a localização do problema no código e as falhas especificadas. Para facilitar o processamento desses dados, mediante a disponibilização de uma linguagem comum, o W3C desenvolveu a Evaluation and Report Language (EARL). Dados os problemas acerca das dificuldades em se garantir a acessibilidade para os diferentes perfis de usuários e a necessidade da interpretação dos relatórios em EARL, como colaboração para a avaliação manual, indispensável no contexto de testes de acessibilidade, neste trabalho é proposto um apoio por meio de um Ambiente para Análise de Avaliações de Acessibilidade e Usabilidade na Web (A4U). A partir do estudo de caso realizado, pôde-se validar o ambiente A4U desenvolvido, o qual inclui relatórios de avaliações semiautomáticas, para que o desenvolvedor possa interpretá-los e prosseguir com a avaliação manual de acessibilidade e usabilidade. No âmbito do apoio desenvolvido, foram considerados os avanços em acessibilidade, usabilidade, a correlação entre os dois conceitos e a colaboração no desenvolvimento de uma ferramenta denominada AccessibilityUtil1, a qual se destina ser uma fonte de práticas de acessibilidade advindas de experiências de desenvolvedores, mediante colaboração em um ambiente Web, relacionando-as com as diretrizes de acessibilidade do W3C. A presente pesquisa contribuiu para a consolidação das questões de acessibilidade e usabilidade, a partir do desenvolvimento do A4U, que viabiliza a avaliação humana de acessibilidade e usabilidade, e a inserção de resultados de avaliações gerados por ferramentas semiautomáticas, conduzindo o avaliador a produzir melhorias em ambas as frentes / The Web has a large content of information available to a diverse population of people which may have the more different abilities and requirements. Thus, ensure accessibility to all users is a difficult task, even having an extensive set of recommendations provided by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). So, are proposed different tools for accessibility assessment that contrast the artifacts with guidelines in order to obtain automated results, producing tests and generating various data, such as the location of the problem in the code and the specified faults. To facilitate the processing of such data by providing a common language, the W3C developed the Evaluation and Report Language (EARL). Given the issues about the difficulties of ensuring accessibility to the different profiles of users and the necessity of interpreting the EARL reports, as collaboration for indispensable human review in the context of accessibility testing, this paper proposes a support through an Environment for Analyzing results of Assessments of Accessibility and Usability on the Web (A4U). From the case study conducted, it was possible to validate the A4U environment developed, which includes semiautomatic evaluating results, so that the developer can interpret them and proceed with the manual evaluation of accessibility and usability. Developed in support were considered advancements in accessibility, usability, the correlation between the two concepts and collaboration in the development of a tool called AccessibilityUtil, which is intended to be a source of accessibility practices arising from experiences of developers through collaboration a Web environment relating them to the W3C accessibility guidelines. This research contributed to the consolidation of the issues of accessibility and usability, from the development of A4U, which enables the human evaluation of accessibility and usability, and integration of evaluation results generated by semi-automatic tools, leading the reviewer to produce improvements in both fronts

No description available.

The goal of this thesis is to demonstrate how user testing can be used to identify and remediate learnability issues of a web application. Experimentation revolved around ASSISTments (www.assistments.org), an intelligent tutoring web application in which teachers create virtual classrooms where they can assign problem sets to their students and gain valuable data which can be used to make informed decisions. Recent log analysis uncovered very low task completion rates for new users on tasks that were intended to be trivial. Suspecting that this could be due to poor user interface design, user tests were conducted to help identify usability problems. Sessions were analyzed, and changes were made between each user test to address issues found. Feedback from user testing led to the implementation of an embedded support system. This support system consisted of a splash page which gave an overview of how the system should be used and a collection of context-sensitive tooltips which tried to give the user instructions on what to do as well as explain various parts of the interface. A randomized control trial was performed to measure the effectiveness of the embedded support. 69 participants were shown one of two interfaces: one with embedded support and one without. Task completion rates were analyzed for each of the groups. We found that the support system was able to influence which links a user clicked. However, although the support system was intended to address poor task completion rates, users in the conditions had similar task completion rates regardless of whether the support system was enabled.