Usability evaluation of collaborative writing system for education usage is very essential to improve its functionality to make it effective, efficient and satisfactory for future use. In this thesis, the usability of web office (ThinkFree doc) i.e. one of collaborative tool was tested using mix research approach. Usability evaluation was done in step by step process, where usability test was conducted using think aloud protocol and observation during testing was noted down. Test results were then analyzed and questionnaire was designed for quantitative survey. Questionnaires were then distributed among those students who have been using Thinkfree doc for educational collaborative work. Interviews were conducted with all selected participants individually for results validations. During usability evaluation process positive and negative effects regarding software‟s usage were noted down. The result revealed that overall system‟s response is very slow. The software needs to improve its processing speed to make it more efficient for future use. The system also needs to improve overall functionality (e.g. collaborative work, synchronization, uploading and track changes etc) to provide accurate and complete results according users‟ requirements. / First Author: M. Afsar Khan. Mohallah madani masjid nawan killi village & P.O Gujar Garhi District Mardan NWFP Pakistan, Second Author: Sher Hassan. Timergara Dir Lower NWFP Pakisan

World Wide Web has attained a significant role in the communication, information sharing and services delivery within some years. The web based applications now contains the information for different organizations, academics, medical and many more. Online business in the form of E-commerce is widely using the concepts of web based business very efficiently. Due to wide use of web applications, the usability and User Experience (UX) play important roles. The organizations often concentrate less on usability evaluation of web applications due to which the users encounter problems while using the product like page loading time, accessibility, font size etc. The bad usability influences the user experience. Usability evaluation of web application helps the companies to develop more user friendly and accessible products which also improve the market positions of their products. There are different Usability Evaluation Methods (UEMs) which can be used to evaluate the product. The appropriate UEM at appropriate time during product development ensures the high quality of product. Due to different definitions of usability and UX it is difficult to evaluate the usability and UX. Furthermore there are some organizational issues like time to market, evaluator's expertise, budget etc which restrict the deployment of UEMs in web development. This thesis study is focused on the identification of different definitions of Usability and UX. The relationship between Usability and UX is also investigated. Interviews are conducted in order to identify the factors which restrict the adoption of UEMs. The results of interview are analyzed by using Grounded Theory. Some recommendations are given on the basis of empirical study that how appropriate usability inspection method(s) can be adopted during the product development. / World Wide Web har uppnått en betydande roll i för kommunikation, informationsutbyte och tjänster leverans inom några år. Den web-baserade applikationer nu innehåller information för olika organisationer, akademiker, läkare och många fler. Online-verksamhet i form av e-handel är allmänt använda begreppen webbaserade business mycket effektivt. På grund av omfattande användning av webbapplikationer, användbarhet och User Experience (UX) spelar en viktig roll. Den organisationer koncentrera ofta mindre på användbarhet utvärdering av webbapplikationer beror på vilken användare stöter på problem när du använder produkter som är likadana sidan lastande tid, tillgänglighet, textstorlek etc. dåliga användbarhet påverkar användarupplevelsen. Användbarhet utvärdering av webbprogram hjälper företag att utveckla mer användarvänliga och lättillgängliga produkter som förbättrar också marknadspositioner produkter. Det finns olika Usability Evaluation Methods (UEMS) som kan användas för att utvärdera produkten. Den lämplig UEM vid lämplig tidpunkt under produktens utveckling säkerställer en hög kvalitet på produkten. Grund olika definitioner av användbarhet och UX det är svårt att utvärdera användbarheten och UX. Vidare finns Vissa organisatoriska frågor som tid till marknaden, Utvärderarens kompetens, budget etc. som begränsar utplacering av UEMS inom webbutveckling. Här avhandlingen Studien är inriktad på identifiering av olika definitioner av användbarhet och UX. Den Förhållandet mellan Användbarhet och UX är också undersökts. Intervjuerna är gjorda för att identifiera de faktorer som begränsar införandet av UEMS. Resultaten av intervjun analyseras med hjälp av Grounded Theory. Vissa rekommendationer ges på grundval av empiriska studie att hur lämpliga användbarhet kontrollmetod (s) kan antas under produktutvecklingen.

An effective health portal should be easy to use and understandable. A number of research studies have been taken in order to evaluate different health portals but there is no such study for ltblekeinge health portal. A multi-phased research approach is adopted to evaluate the usability of ltblekeinge health portal. Authors conducted a usability test of the system where citizens from the county of Blekinge are taken as subjects. They evaluated the health portal on the basis of usability test and a questionnaire is prepared to know the different perspectives of citizens. The authors validated the result with the help of interviews with a number of individual. The authors find it is very important that a health web portal should contain sufficient amount of relevant and useful health related contents. Moreover, there is need to improve ltblekeinge portal in terms of interface, contents and set of tools for accessing the ehealth services and health related information. / En effektiv hälso-portal bör vara lätt att använda och förstå. En antal forskningsstudier har vidtagits för att utvärdera olika hälsoportaler men det finns ingen sådan studie för ltblekeinge hälsoportal. En flera faser forskningsansats antas att utvärdera användbarheten av ltblekeinge hälsoportal. Författarna genomförde en användbarhet test av systemet där medborgare från Blekinge tas som subjekt. De utvärderas hälsoportalen på grundval av användbarhet test och Frågeformuläret är beredd att känna till olika perspektiv för medborgarna. Författarna validerade resultatet med hjälp av intervjuer med ett antal enskilda. Författarna tycker att det är mycket viktigt att en hälso webbportal ska innehålla tillräcklig mängd relevanta och användbara hälsorelaterade innehåll. Dessutom finns det behov av att förbättra ltblekeinge portalen i termer av gränssnitt, innehåll och uppsättning verktyg för åtkomst till e-hälsovård tjänster och hälsorelaterad information.

Syftet med uppsatsen var att ta reda på hur det går att använda ögonrörelseteknik för att få ett objektivt komplement till subjektiva bedömningar vid användbarhetsutvärderingar. Det gjordes en användbarhetsutvärdering av systemet Skeldar, som är en markstation för att styra en förarlös helikopter. Testpersonerna fick sätta sig in i scenariot att göra en testflygning av en färdiginställd rutt som bevakar Linköping under en högriskmatch i ishockey. Efter testet fick testpersonerna göra tänka-högt-protokoll med sina ögonrörelser som ett hjälpmedel. Resultaten som kom fram var att testpersonerna tittar mer på kameravyn för att lokalisera domkyrkan än på kartvyn och att det inte finns någon signifikant skillnad i fixeringstid eller antalet fixeringspunkter mellan hastighets- och höjdmätaren. Det kom även fram att ingen av testpersonerna såg det varningsmeddelande som visades när bränslenivån var under tio procent. Med hjälp av tänka-högt-protokollet framkom att testpersonerna hade olika strategier för att lokalisera objekt och att de tittade mer frekvent på bränsleinidkatorn när de hade upptäckt att den lyste rött. Studien visar att det med hjälp av ögonrörelseteknik är möjligt att få ett objektivt komplement till subjektiva bedömningar i form av exempelvis fixeringstid, total fixeringstid för ett område, fixeringspunkter och totala fixeringspunkter för ett område. Det går därför att ta reda på var och när piloterna tittar på objekt och med hjälp av ett retrospektivt tänka-högt-protokoll med ögonrörelser blir det även möjligt att ta reda på varför. Ögonrörelsekameran kan alltså användas som ett verktyg i en användbarhetsutvärdering för att ta reda på varför olika designlösningar fungerar bra eller dåligt.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Psychology / John J. Uhlarik / Usability practitioners need effective usability assessment techniques in order to facilitate development of usable consumer products. Many usability evaluation methods have been promoted as the ideal. Few, however, fulfill expectations concerning effectiveness. Additionally, lack of empirical data forces usability practitioners to rely on personal judgments and/or anecdotal statements when deciding upon which usability method best suits their needs. Therefore the present study had two principal objectives: (1) to validate a hybrid usability technique that identifies important and ignores inconsequential usability problems, and (2) to provide empirical performance data for several usability protocols on a variety of contemporary comparative metrics. The User-Centered Hybrid Assessment Tool (User-CHAT) was developed to maximize efficient diagnosis of usability issues from a behaviorally-based perspective while minimizing time and resource limitations typically associated with usability assessment environments. Several characteristics of user-testing, the heuristic evaluation, and the cognitive walkthrough were combined to create the User-CHAT. Prior research has demonstrated that the User-CHAT supports an evaluation within 3-4 hrs, can be used by individuals with limited human factors / usability background, and requires little training to be used competently, even for complex systems. A state-of-the-art suite of avionics displays and a series of benchmark tasks provided the context where the User-CHAT’s performance was measured relative to its parent usability methods. Two techniques generated comparison lists of usability problems – user-testing data and various inclusion criteria for usability problems identified by the User-CHAT, heuristic evaluation, and cognitive walkthrough. Overall the results demonstrated that the User-CHAT attained higher effectiveness scores than the heuristic evaluation and cognitive walkthrough, suggesting that it helped evaluators identify many usability problems that actually impact users, i.e., higher thoroughness, while attenuating time and effort on issues that were not important, i.e., higher validity. Furthermore, the User-CHAT had the greatest proportion of usability problems that were rated as serious, i.e., usability issues that hinder performance and compromise safety. The User-CHAT’s performance suggests that it is an appropriate usability technique to implement into the product development lifecycle. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.

This thesis presents a usability evaluation of a non conventional way to visualize virtual objects in Augmented Reality (AR). The virtual objects consists of a window that can be placed on a real surface and then opened to view a virtual room containing some virtual objects. This concept was applied to a smartphone application created and designed to evaluate the usability of the concept. The usability was evaluated with user testing methods designed to gather information about the interaction and the perception of handheld Augmented Reality (HAR) applications. The usefulness of the concept was also evaluated by designing the application to be intended for entertainment and then evaluating the users interest for such an application. Design guidelines and design patterns created for HAR applications was followed when designing the application. The results of this project has shown that the concept is easy to both comprehend and interact with. This applies to users with previous smartphone experience but not much experience with AR. The results has also shown that smartphone users find an interest in using an application of this type. An application designed for entertainment and with the described concept. The purpose of evaluating this concept has been to verify its usefulness to promote its use in AR applications. This would create a variety in the visualization of virtual objects in AR. It would also open up for new opportunities in the use of AR.

Business Intelligence (BI) applications are consulted by their users on a daily basis. BI information obtained assist users to make business decisions and allow for a deeper understanding of the business and its driving forces. In a mining environment companies need to derive maximum benefit from BI applications, therefore these applications need to be used optimally. Optimal use depends on various factors including the usability of the product. The documented lack of usability evaluation guidelines provides the rationale for this study. The purpose is to investigate the usability evaluation of BI applications in the context of a coal mining organization. The research is guided by the question: What guidelines should be used to evaluate the usability of BI applications. The research design included the identification of BI usability issues based on the observation of BI users at the coal mining organization. The usability criteria extracted from the usability issues were compared and then merged with general usability criteria from literature to form an initial set of BI usability evaluation criteria. These criteria were used as the basis for a heuristic evaluation of the BI application used at the coal mining organization. The same application was also evaluated using the Software Usability Measurement Inventory (SUMI) standardised questionnaire. The results from the two evaluations were triangulated to provide a refined set of criteria. The main contribution of the study is the heuristic evaluation guidelines for BI applications (based on these criteria). These guidelines are grouped in the following functional areas: visibility, flexibility, cognition, application behaviour, error control and help, affect and BI elements. / Information Science / M.Sc. (Information Systems)

Objective: The human–machine interface (HMI) is a crucial part of every automated driving system (ADS). In the near future, it is likely that—depending on the operational design domain (ODD)—different levels of automation will be available within the same vehicle. The capabilities of a given automation level as well as the operator’s responsibilities must be communicated in an appropriate way. To date, however, there are no agreed-upon evaluation methods that can be used by human factors practitioners as well as researchers to test this. Methods: We developed an iterative test procedure that can be applied during the product development cycle of ADS. The test procedure is specifically designed to evaluate whether minimum requirements as proposed in NHTSA’s automated vehicle policy are met. Results: The proposed evaluation protocol includes (a) a method to identify relevant use cases for testing on the basis of all theoretically possible steady states and mode transitions of a given ADS; (b) an expert-based heuristic assessment to evaluate whether the HMI complies with applicable norms, standards, and best practices; and (c) an empirical evaluation of ADS HMIs using a standardized design for user studies and performance metrics. Conclusions: Each can be used as a stand-alone method or in combination to generate objective, reliable, and valid evaluations of HMIs, focusing on whether they meet minimum requirements. However, we also emphasize that other evaluation aspects such as controllability, misuse, and acceptance are not within the scope of the evaluation protocol.

This work presents an interactive visualization tool for video content searching for lecture videos in a flipped classroom course Visualization. The search is performed using the video caption with a client-site search engine Lunr. The tool aims to improve accessibility to course video materials and enhance learning engagement, especially when students re-watch the videos. The work focus on using interactive visualization method to help users understand the results and seek video chapters of interest. We evaluate the tool with a survey, usability tests using think-aloud protocols, and semi-structured interviews. The results show that overall students find the tool easy to learn and are willing to use it in Visualization and other future courses. The evaluation transcripts are categorized and interpreted into themes with help of content analysis. This work also presents implications in design and implementation for future projects. / Division of Computational Science and Technology, KTH Royal Institute of Technology Detta arbete presenteras ett interaktivt visualiseringsverktyg för sökning av videoinnehåll för föreläsningsvideor i en flippade klassrummet-kurs Visualisering. Sökningen utförs med hjälp av videobildtexten med en sökmotor Lunr på klientsidan. Verktyget syftar till att förbättra tillgängligheten till kursens videomaterial och öka engagemanget i inlärningen, särskilt när eleverna ser videorna på nytt. Arbetet fokuserar på att använda en interaktiv visualiseringsmetod för att hjälpa användarna att förstå resultaten och söka videoklipp av intresse. Vi utvärderar verktyget med hjälp av en enkät, användbarhetstester med hjälp av Tänk–högt–metoden och semistrukturerade intervjuer. Resultaten visar att studenterna överlag tycker att verktyget är lätt att lära sig och är villiga att använda det i visualisering och andra framtida kurser. Utvärderingsutskrifterna kategoriseras och tolkas i teman med hjälp av innehållsanalys. Detta arbete presenteras också implikationer i utformning och genomförande för framtida projekt.

The impacts of climate change have resulted in the need for adaptation tools to provide stakeholders with the ability to respond to a broad range of potential impacts. Geovisualizations serve as powerful engagement tools due to their capacity in communicating complex climate data to various audiences. Studies have shown a preference towards conveying climate data through geo-visual representations, to quickly present ideas rooted in geographical challenges and solutions. However, a rapid pace of technological advancements has paved the way for an abundance of geovisualization products that have eclipsed the necessary theoretical inquiry and knowledge required to establish effective visualization principles. This study addresses this research gap by conducting a structured review of the geovisualization for climate change literature, and creating a conceptual framework that classifies existing geovisualization products into themes relating to visualization features, audiences, and the intended outcome or purpose of the visualization medium. The Climate Visualizations for Adaptation Products (CVAP) framework, is a tool for researchers and practitioners to use as a decision support system to discern an appropriate type of geovisualization product to implement within a specific use case or towards a particular audience. The process of developing a geovisualization software tool for displaying sea ice probability (SIP) in Arctic regions is detailed, in the context of suggested best practices for web development. Challenges and opportunities encountered while adhering to the best practice protocols and guidelines are examined. A usability evaluation is suggested to assess the general user attitude towards a website or service. Finally a summary with conclusions and suggestions for future research are provided. / Graduate