Immunology Virtual Reality (VR) project is an immersive educational virtual reality experience that intends to provide an informal learning experience of specific immunology concepts to college freshmen in the Department of Biological Sciences at Virginia Tech (VT). The project is an interdisciplinary endeavor between my collaboration between people from different domain areas at VT: Creative Technologies, Education, Biological Sciences, and Computer Sciences. This thesis elaborates on the whole design process of how I created a working prototype of the project demo and shares insights from my design experience. / Master of Fine Arts / Immunology Virtual Reality is an immersive educational virtual reality experience in which a user takes on the role of an immune cell and migrates to fight off pathogen invasions at an infection site in the human body. It explores levels of interactivity and storytelling in educational VR and their impact on learning.

In peoples hyperconnected lives, a price to pay is their internet privacy and the different risks it faces the second their browser connects to the web. One such risk comes from how web tracking collect and analyze users information. This paper explores an approach to how web browsers can inform its users about the web tracking technique Fingerprinting, and through the concept presentation of this approach see: what key key aspects of visual aesthetics that affects the users experience when being informed; and to what extent differences in technological interest and knowledge affect users reception of Fingerprinting information, and the implementation implications the differences leads to. For this purpose a high fidelity prototype was created to: represent the concept of web browsers having integrated educational pages meant to inform its users on topics such as Fingerprinting, and to; be used in a user test. The results showed: a lack of knowledge on the existence of Fingerprinting; that differences in technological interest and knowledge among users affected what aspects of visual aesthetics they valued; and that those with less technological interest and knowledge to a higher degree had their attitudes towards Internet Privacy affected by the prototype’s information. It also showed that the differences affects users approach and interactions with software, and that the design implications this brings are to be considered for future browser functionality implementations. / <p>Självständigt Examensarbete (Forskningsartikel)</p>

The digital growth of the 21st century has led to the development and establishment of recommendation systems for digital services. This is to allow users to find relevant content in the vast amount of data that exists. Past research shows that recommendation systems have been explored to a large extent, but that there is considerable knowledge missing regarding its impact on users. With this, we have chosen to examine its filtering and prioritization from the users perspective in order to see how recommendations are perceived and what implications it can bring for the future. The collection of data has been made through qualitative interviews and observations where Spotify’s recommendation systems have been used as foundation. When analysing this data, categorizations have shown results within five overall themes that have contributed to several conclusions. It has been shown that there are differences regarding the perception of integrity and trust between different kinds of recommendations and that there is an extensive obliviousness regarding the different recommendation systems. There is also no common view on the differences in value concerning the various ways to explore in Spotify and all of the participants have expressed dissatisfaction as well as four out of five showing mistrust towards recommendation systems.

Inom interaktionsdesign tillförs användbarhet som en aspekt i designprocessen vid utformningen av interaktiva produkter. Syftet med denna studie var att utforma en användbar applikation med målet att digitalisera och effektivisera förskolepedagogers dagliga arbete samt ge målgruppen en positiv användarupplevelse. Designprocessen bestod av delar - konceptfasen, bearbetningsfasen och detaljeringsfasen - och resulterade slutligen i en prototyp av applikationen Kidskollen med funktioner inom närvarohantering, barninformation och kommunikation. Studien avslutades med att målgruppen fick utvärdera den slutgiltiga designlösningen genom ett användartest samt en efterföljande värderingsenkät. Utvärderingen visade att applikationen Kidskollen mötte målgruppens förväntningar samt gav en positiv användarupplevelse. Studien visade också att förståelse för målgruppen och den aktuella brukssituationen var av stor vikt i utformandet av en användbar designlösning. Ytterligare faktorer som definierades som extra värdefulla var vetskap om relevanta designmönster och designpinciper då dessa bidrog till att mer välgrundade designbeslut kunde fattas. Sammanfattningsvis svarade studien på den inledande frågeställningen; “Hur kan en applikation med syfte att digitalisera förskolepedagogers dagliga arbete utformas för att målgruppen ska få en positiv användarupplevelse och vilja använda den?”

Web accessibility guidelines have textual representation and provide little support in systematic analysis and usage. The study hypothesizes that the guidelines can be reorganized and represented using the goal oriented technique and design patterns which will allow their usage in a more systematic manner and accommodate detailed analysis of the guidelines with other competing goals. For this study, knowledge from web designers’ experiences in using the guidelines, researchers’ findings, and the actual guidelines have been amalgamated. Six web designers have been consulted on a one-on-one basis and difficulties in using the guidelines for (1) specific scenarios, (2) systematic application, and (3) detailed systems analysis have been reported. Goal oriented modeling and design patterns have been introduced for (1) graphical representation of the guidelines using goal graphs, and (2) keeping the technical details separate from the goal graphs. The proposed representation allows for the accessibility guidelines to be systematically applied into interface design, and systems design using the goal oriented modeling technique.

Web accessibility guidelines have textual representation and provide little support in systematic analysis and usage. The study hypothesizes that the guidelines can be reorganized and represented using the goal oriented technique and design patterns which will allow their usage in a more systematic manner and accommodate detailed analysis of the guidelines with other competing goals. For this study, knowledge from web designers’ experiences in using the guidelines, researchers’ findings, and the actual guidelines have been amalgamated. Six web designers have been consulted on a one-on-one basis and difficulties in using the guidelines for (1) specific scenarios, (2) systematic application, and (3) detailed systems analysis have been reported. Goal oriented modeling and design patterns have been introduced for (1) graphical representation of the guidelines using goal graphs, and (2) keeping the technical details separate from the goal graphs. The proposed representation allows for the accessibility guidelines to be systematically applied into interface design, and systems design using the goal oriented modeling technique.

<p>Användbarhet är en term som används för att bedöma kvaliteten hos ett gränssnitt. God användbarhet är viktig då den ger en ökad produktivitet och andra affärsfördelar i form av färre misstag och bättre kvalitet på slutprodukten. Användbarhet är en viktig designprincip men är en svår egenskap att uppfylla hos applikationer. </p><p>Studien behandlar användbarhet ur olika perspektiv, dels det teoretiska genom litteraturgenomgång, dels det praktiska genom intervjuer och observationer. Syftet var att förklara vad användbarhet är, hur det bedöms och vad man kan göra för att bygga in egenskapen i applikationer man utvecklar. För att exemplifiera och finna verklig förankring har jag valt att observera hur användare interagerar med ett existerande gränssnitt för bibliotek, Horizon. </p><p>Slutsatser kring studien är att Horizon inte används till allt den var tänkt att användas till, vilket i princip är ett dåligt betyg för en applikation. Samtidigt är detta inget större problem då den negativa verkan på verksamheten kan i det här fallet vara en definitionsfråga: är studenternas produktivitet när det gäller att söka och beställa litteratur kritisk? </p><p>När det gäller användbarhet i utvecklingsskedet kan man konstatera att även om intentionerna varit goda så har användbarhetsarbetet kring Horizon inte infriat förväntningarna. Vad som gått fel är varken sensationellt eller ovanligt; det har handlat om avsaknaden av slutanvändarens perspektiv, organisatoriska problem och möjligen också bristande kunskap om användbarhet i en eller annan form. En betydelsefull insikt som inte nämns i litteraturen men som togs upp är att beakta leverantörens marknadsställning när man ska köpa ett system. Trots bristerna, som ofta relaterar till brott mot designkonventioner, upplevs Horizon som ett bra och ändamålsenligt verktyg av sina användare. </p> / <p>Usability denotes the quality of a user interface. Even though usability is an important design principle, efforts to incorporate this quality in applications often fail. In this paper I study usability from a theoretical and a practical perspective. The goal is to explain usability and how to incorporate usability in applications. In order to exemplify, I study usability within the context of the library application Horizon. </p><p>This study shows that Horizon is only partially utilized by its users which in principle is a bad grade for an application. Partial use is however in this case, not a serious problem since the negative effects partial use imply could very well be a matter of definition: is the productivity of students, when it comes to searching and ordering library material, critical for the organization? </p><p>When it comes to usability in the development phases of a project, once again one can conclude that good intentions exist but efforts fail all the same and Horizon is no exception. This time we can attribute failure to the lack of the end users’ perspective, organizational problems and perhaps also unsufficient knowledge of usability in one form or another. An important conclusion, which has not been mentioned in the literature, is the importance of considering the market position of a presumptive vendor when buying a generic system. Despite the flaws (often related to violations of well established design principles) presented in this paper, Horizon is considered a good, effective and efficient application by its users.</p>

The critical component of this thesis, “Hitler Comedy”, is a dissertation on the intersection between comedy theory in general, and the specific practice of Hitler comedy. Focusing on Bertolt Brecht’s play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1941; directed by Heiner Müller in 1995), and Dani Levy’s film Mein Führer: the Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler (2007), my argument critiques existing “instrumentalist” theories of comedy as didactic and morally reductive. Moving beyond prevailing conceptualisations of comedy as corrective and/or forgiving, my dissertation emphasises the centrality of pleasure, displeasure and disruption for audience members in the process of their experiencing Hitler comedies. / The creative component of this thesis is a script and a DVD recording of Hitlerhoff, a theatre and multimedia work that combines the characters of Adolf Hitler and David Hasselhoff into a single hybrid figure. Hitlerhoff is a spectacular black comedy that uses comedy to entertain and unsettle, and to disrupt audience members’ expectations. Hitlerhoff is a practical demonstration of the ability of “irresponsible” comedy to act as a potent catalyst for “responsible”, ethically engaged discussions.

Denna studie har utgått från ett specifikt fall som slutligen resulterat i en prototyp av en app som löser det så kallade skolådeproblemet. Skolådeproblemet definieras som den flaskhals som uppstår när en redovisningsbyrås kunder sparar sina kvitton på ett ostrukturerat sätt och sedan överlämnar dessa klumpvis till redovisningsbyrån. Ofta saknas tillhörande information vilket resulterar i en hanteringsprocess som kan vara tidskrävande och kostsam för både redovisningsbyrån och deras kunder. I appen kan användaren istället fota sitt kvitto, välja kvittotyp och slutligen skicka iväg kvittot direkt till sin redovisningsbyrås bokföringsprogram. På så sätt undviks flaskhalsen och processen blir smidigare för samtliga parter.

Denna kandidatuppsats syftade till att undersöka hur en Head-Up Display kan utformas för att förbättra spelupplevelsen för ett fantasyspel inom MOBA-genren.