This paper explores interaction with lighting through a tangible user interface (TUI). In a TUI the physical object and space around it are part of the interface. A subset of tangible interaction called spatial interaction is the main focus of this paper. Spatial interaction refers to translation, rotation or location of objects or people within a space. The aim of this paper is to explore the relation between spatial inputs and lighting outputs based on different design properties. A user test is set up to explore the effect that design properties of a TUI have on the lighting output that participants map to spatial inputs. The results of the conducted user test indicate that communicating affordances to the user is an important factor when designing couplings between spatial inputs and lighting outputs. The results further show that the shape of the interface plays a central role in communicating those affordances and that the overlap of input and output space of the interface improves the clarity of the coupling. / Den här studien utforskar gripbar (tangible) interaktionsdesign med fokus på ljus och belysning. Vid användning av ett gripbart (tangible) gränssnitt används den fysiska miljön som gränssnitt. Detta skiljer sig till stor del från interaktion med ett grafiskt användargränssnitt, där alla interaktioner sker och begränsas av en skärms egenskaper. Denna studie fokuserar på rumslig (spatial) interaktionsdesign, vilket är en del av gripbar interaktionsdesign. Rumslig interaktion refererar till översättning, rotation eller plats av objekt eller människor i ett utrymme. Ett användartest har utförts för att testa vad för effekt olika rumsliga indata och designegenskaper har på förväntad utdata för ljus och belysning. Resultatet från användartestet visar att starka affordances och begränsningar, tillsammans med överlappningen av rumslig indata och utdata för ljus och belysning, är de viktigaste egenskaperna för att designa tydliga övergångar.

Selection in 3D games and simulations is a well-studied problem. Many techniques have been created to address many of the typical scenarios a user could experience. For any single scenario with consistent conditions, there is likely a technique which is well suited. If there isn't, then there is an opportunity for one to be created to best suit the expected conditions of that new scenario. It is critical that the user be given an appropriate technique to interact with their environment. Without it, the entire experience is at risk of becoming burdensome and not enjoyable. With all of the different possible scenarios, it can become problematic when two or more are part of the same program. If they are put closely together, or even intertwined, then the developer is often forced to pick a single technique that works so-so in both, but is likely not optimal for either, or maybe optimal in just one of them. In this case, the user is left to perform selections with a technique that is lacking in one way or another, which can increase errors and frustration. In our research, we have outlined different selection scenarios, all of which were classified by their level of object density (number of objects in scene) and object velocity. We then performed an initial study on how it impacts performance of various selection techniques, including a new selection technique that we developed just for this test, called Expand. Our results showed, among other things, that a standard Raycast technique works well in slow moving and sparse environments, while revealing that our new Expand technique works well in denser environments. With the results from our first study, we sought to develop something that would bridge the gap in performance between those selection techniques tested. Our idea was a framework that could harvest several different selection techniques and determine which was the most optimal at any time. Each selection technique would report how effective it was, given the provided scenario conditions. The framework was responsible for activating the appropriate selection technique when the user made a selection attempt. With this framework in hand, we performed two additional user studies to determine how effective it could be in actual use, and to identify its strengths and weaknesses. Each study compared several selection techniques individually against the framework which utilized them collectively, picking the most suitable. Again, the same scenarios from our first study were reused. From these studies, we gained a deeper understanding of the many challenges associated with automatic selection technique determination. The results from these two studies showed that transitioning between techniques was potentially viable, but rife with design challenges that made its optimization quite difficult. In an effort to sidestep some of the issues surrounding the switching of discrete techniques, we sought to attack the problem from the other direction, and make a single technique act similarly to two techniques, adjusting dynamically to conditions. We performed a user study to analyze the performance of such a technique, with promising results. While the qualitative differences were small, the user feedback did indicate that users preferred this technique over the others, which were static in nature. Finally, we sought to gain a deeper understanding of existing selection techniques that were dynamic in nature, and study how they were designed, and how they could be improved. We scrutinized the attributes of each technique that were already being adjusted dynamically or that could be adjusted and innovated new ways in which the technique could be improved upon. Within this analysis, we also gave thought to how each technique could be best integrated into the Auto-Select framework we proposed earlier. This overall analysis of the latest selection techniques left us with an array of new variants that warrant being created and tested against their existing versions. Our overall research goal was to perform an analysis of selection techniques that intelligently adapt to their environment. We believe that we achieved this by performing several iterative development cycles, including user studies and ultimately leading to innovation in the field of selection. We conclude our research with yet more questions left to be answered. We intend to pursue further research regarding some of these questions, as time permits.

One of the major sources of air pollution in the United States metropolitan areas is due to automobiles. With the huge growth of motor vehicles and, greater dependence on them, air pollution problems have been aggravated. According to the EPA, nearly 95% of carbon monoxide (CO ) (EPA 1999) in urban areas comes from mobile sources, of which 51% is contributed by on road vehicles. It is well known fact that, carbon monoxide is one of the major mobile source pollutants and CO has detrimental effects on the human health. Carbon monoxide is the result of mainly incomplete combustion of gasoline in motor vehicles (FDOT 1996). The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) gives important considerations to the actions to be taken. Transportation conformity . The Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA, 1970) was an important step in meeting the National Ambient Air Quality Standards In order to evaluate the effects of CO and Particulate Matter (PM) impacts based on the criteria for NAAQS standards, it is necessary to conduct dispersion modeling of emissions for mobile source emissions. Design of transportation engineering systems (roadway design) should take care of both the flow of the traffic as well as the air pollution aspects involved. Roadway projects need to conform to the State Implementation Plan (SIP) and meet the NAAQS. EPA guidelines for air quality modeling on such roadway intersections recommend the use of CAL3QHC. The model has embedded in it CALINE 3.0 (Benson 1979) – a line source dispersion model based on the Gaussian equation. The model requires parameters with respect to the roadway geometry, fleet volume, averaging time, surface roughness, emission factors, etc. The CAL3QHC model is a DOS based model which requires the modeling parameters to be fed into an input file. The creation of input the file is a tedious job. Previous work at UCF, resulted in the development of CALQVIEW, which expedites this process of creating input files, but the task of extracting the coordinates still has to be done manually. The main aim of the thesis is to reduce the analysis time for modeling emissions from roadway intersections, by expediting the process of extracting the coordinates required for the CAL3QHC model. Normally, transportation engineers design and model intersections for the traffic flow utilizing tools such as AutoCAD, Microstation etc. This thesis was to develop advanced software allowing graphical editing and coordinates capturing from an AutoCAD file. This software was named as CALQCAD. This advanced version will enable the air quality analyst to capture the coordinates from an AutoCAD 2004 file. This should expedite the process of modeling intersections and decrease analyst time from a few days to few hours. The model helps to assure the air quality analyst to retain accuracy during the modeling process. The idea to create the standalone interface was to give the AutoCAD user full functionality of AutoCAD tools in case editing is required to the main drawing. It also provides the modeler with a separate graphical user interface (GUI).

Conducting laboratory trials is crucial for the product and process development for a company active within the iron and steel industry. This is one way ensuring consistent high quality within the work and furthermore trustworthy trial results to present to internal and external clients. For a company with several laboratories involved in the process, a collaborative and supportive way of work is demanded. Having the laboratories using methods and routines of their own choice will likely contribute to several methods and routines being used. Evaluating their results may therefor add problems when it comes to consensus of conclusions from the trial results. This master thesis is about exploring solutions to develop a common work routine for trial results evaluations at LKAB laboratories during trials. It deals with the development of a prototype for a digital tool facilitating the employees through the process of statistical evaluations. The aim of the project was to develop this digital tool with high usability and ensuring ISO standards are incorporated toensure a safe, standardized, and common work routine to implement within LKAB:s laboratory work. The project followed a design process consisting of four main steps with a human/user- and activity centered approach. The steps were planning, context immersion, ideation and implementation. The involved phases were iterative and included methods such as workshops, braindrawing, user testing and prototyping. The goal was to understand how LKAB employees currently works with statistical evaluations and how to find and facilitate a common work way. To do this the user needs were at focus with relations to the functions that needed to be enabled by the tool. The users were involved during the entire process through co-designing and their ideas and opinions were highly considered within the final design. To ensure high usability in the prototype with a good user interface relevant theories in user experience and design principles were researched in the literature review. The project ended up resulting in an interactive web application prototype visualizing how such a tool for facilitating statistical evaluations could work and be implemented to ensure a common work way within LKAB. The prototype was limited to only showing the interactions of some of the steps involved in the statistical evaluations process dues to time limitation and other boundaries to the project. The design of the interface is associated to LKAB:s graphical profile and based on well-known design principles for designing a digital user interface. / Genomförandet av laboratorietester är en vital del för produkt- och processutvecklingen inom ett företag verksamt inom järn- och stålindustrin. Det är ett sätt att säkerställa genomgående hög kvalitet inom arbetet och därigenom trovärdiga försöksresultat att presentera inför både interna och externa klienter. För ett företag med ett flertal laboratorier involverade i processen är ett stödjande och gemensamt arbetssätt därmed önskvärt. Att låta laboratorierna fritt välja vilka metoder och rutiner som används inom arbetet skulle troligen medföra att flera olika metoder och rutiner används. När sedan resultaten ska utvärderas kan detta därmed skapa problem när det kommer till att dra gemensamma slutsatser av den insamlade och analyserade datan. Detta examensarbete ämnar utforska lösningar för att utveckla en gemensam arbetsrutin för statistisk utvärdering av analytiska data resulterande från laboratorieförsök. Det kommer avhandla utvecklandet av en prototyp för ett digitalt verktyg som underlättar och guidar de anställda genom processen av statistisk utvärdering. Målet var att skapa ett digitalt verktyg med hög användbarhet som garanterar att ISO standarder efterföljs för att säkerställa en säker, standardiserad och gemensam arbetsrutin att implementera inom LKAB:s laboratoriearbete. Projektet följde en designprocess bestående av fyra delmoment med en användar- samt aktivitetsbaserad approach. Stegen processen genomgått var planering, kontextundersökning, idégenerering samt implementering. De involverade faserna var iterativa och innehöll metoder som workshops, braindrawing, användartester och prototypande. Målet var att skaffa förståelse för hur LKAB:s anställda arbetar med statistisk utvärdering idag och hur man utifrån detta kan hitta och utveckla ett gemensamt arbetssätt. För att genomföra detta var användarbehoven en central roll i relation till de funktioner som måste kunna utföras med verktyget. Användarna involverades genom hela projektet genom co-designing och deras idéer och åsikter var högt värderade i slutgiltiga designen. För att säkerställa en hög användbarhet i prototypen med ett bra användargränssnitt utforskades relevanta teorier inom inom användarupplevelser och designprinciper i litteraturundersökningen. Projektet resulterade slutligen i en interaktiv webb applikationsprototyp som visualiserar hur ett sådant verktyg för att underlätta och guida statistisk utvärdering skulle kunna fungera och utformas för att säkerställa ett gemensamt arbetssätt inom LKAB. Prototypen blev begränsad till att endast avhandla en del av stegen involverade i den statistiska utvärderingsprocessen på grund av tidsbegränsningar och andra avgränsningar som projektet krävde. Designen av användargränssnittet baserades dels på LKAB:s grafiska profil, men också på välkända design principer för hur digitala användargränssnitt bör utformas.

Virtual Reality is a technology that has long held society's interest, but has only recently began to reach a critical mass of everyday consumers. The idea of modern VR can be traced back decades, but because of the limitations of the technology (both hardware and software), we are only now exploring its potential. At present, VR can be used for tele-surgery, PTSD therapy, social training, professional meetings, conferences, and much more. It is no longer just an expensive gimmick to go on a momentary field trip; it is a tool, and as with the automobile, personal computer, and smartphone, it will only evolve as more and more adopt and utilize it in various ways. It can provide a three dimensional interface where only two dimensions were previously possible. It can allow us to express ourselves to one another in new ways regardless of the distance between individuals. It has astronomical potential, but with this potential we must first understand what makes it adoptable and attractive to the average consumer. The interaction with technology is often times the bottleneck through which the public either adopts or abandons that technology. The goal of this project is to explore user immerision and emotion during a VR experience centered around creating a virtual world. We also aimed to explore if the naturality of the user interface had any effect on user experience. Very limited user testing was available, however a small user group conducted in depth testing and feedback. While our sample size is small, the users were able to test the system and show that there is a positive correlation between influence on the virtual environment and a positive user emotional experience (immersion, empowerment, etc.), along with a few unexpected emotions (anxiety). We present the system developed, the user study, and proposed extensions for fruitful directions for this work by which a future project may continue the study.

Standalone computer modules for county to county travel demand forecasting have been integrated. The Trip Generation, Trip Distribution and Mode Choice modules have been unified under one Graphical User Interface (GUI). The outputs are automatically mapped using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology to allow immediate and spatial analysis. The integrated model allows for faster running times and quicker analysis of the results. The ability to calculate travel time savings for travelers was also included to the final model. The modeling framework developed is known as the Transportation Systems Analysis Model (TSAM). / Master of Science

In typical software projects, it is common that half of the development time and cost is spent on testing the software. Software Test Automation is an area that has been rapidly expanding in recent years because of its capacity to test features rapidly and efficiently, but in the Video Game industry, this concept is still in its infancy and common practices are still being developed. Having the Automated Tests be as close as possible to the user's experience is desirable to ensure a resilient and bug-free interactive experience. Having the ability to properly automate a test in such a way could potentially save manual Quality Assurance (QA) analysts and developers a lot of time in finding and reporting bugs early on, which in turn can help companies save both time and resources. This thesis explores the use of Input Simulation, e.g., simulating keyboard and mouse inputs, in the context of Video Game Test Automation. For the design and implementation of the Input Simulation framework, Agile Scrum and Human Centered Design Methodologies were followed. Exploratory interviews were conducted with 2 test automation engineers at Fatshark, desk research was used to explore existing tools and their benefits, and Proof of Concepts (POC) were created with tools selected from the Desk Research on two of the company’s games, Vermintide 2 and Darktide. From this, a new framework named TestifyInput, best fitting the needs of the company, was created and implemented as a part of Fatshark’s in-house test automation framework called Testify, on both the Engine and Gameplay side, written in C++ and Lua respectively. TestifyInput was then evaluated through an Automated Test that was implemented to test weapon interactions in the game, a User Observation with 5 QA testers completing 2 tasks, and a Questionnaire sent out to 7 QA testers. By using metrics such as defect detection, speed, and limitations, TestifyInput was evaluated in the existing Test Automation context and against its human counterparts. The evaluation results showed that Input Simulation allowed for better test coverage and allowed to test close to the actual User Experience. TestifyInput itself remains relatively easy to implement and to use, and the test case written with it remained stable, not needing any modification despite changing gameplay code. However, to fully compare the capabilities of a traditional test case with one employing Input Simulation, further research is needed. / I typiska programvaruprojekt är det vanligt att hälften av utvecklingstiden och kostnaden går åt till att testa programvaran. Automatisering av programvarutestning är ett område som har expanderat snabbt under de senaste åren på grund av dess förmåga att testa funktioner snabbt och effektivt, men inom spelindustrin är detta koncept fortfarande i sin linda och gemensamma metoder håller fortfarande på att utvecklas. Det är önskvärt att de automatiserade testerna ligger så nära användarens upplevelse som möjligt för att säkerställa en motståndskraftig och felfri interaktiv upplevelse. Att ha förmågan att korrekt automatisera ett test på ett sådant sätt kan potentiellt spara manuell kvalitetssäkring (QA) analytiker och utvecklare mycket tid när det gäller att hitta och rapportera buggar i ett tidigt skede, vilket i sin tur kan hjälpa företag att spara både tid och resurser. I den här avhandlingen undersöks användningen av inmatningssimulering, t.ex. simulering av tangentbords- och musinmatningar, i samband med automatisering av test av videospel. För utformning och genomförande av ramverket för inmatningssimulering följdes metoderna Agile Scrum och Human Centered Design. Utforskande intervjuer genomfördes med två testutomatiseringsingenjörer på Fatshark, skrivbordsforskning användes för att utforska befintliga verktyg och deras fördelar, och Proof of Concepts (POC) skapades med verktyg som valts ut från skrivbordsforskningen på två av företagets spel, Vermintide 2 och Darktide. Utifrån detta skapades ett nytt ramverk vid namn TestifyInput, som bäst passade företagets behov, och implementerades som en del av Fatsharks interna ramverk för testautomatisering vid namn Testify, både på motor- och spelsidan, skrivet respektivt i C++ och Lua. TestifyInput utvärderades sedan genom ett automatiserat test som implementerades för att testa vapeninteraktioner i spelet, en användarobservation med 5 QA-testare som utförde 2 uppgifter och ett frågeformulär som skickades ut till 7 QA-testare. Med hjälp av mätvärden som defektdetektering, hastighet och begränsningar utvärderades TestifyInput i det befintliga testutomatiseringssammanhanget och mot sina mänskliga motsvarigheter. Utvärderingsresultaten visade att inmatningssimulering gav bättre testtäckning och gjorde det möjligt att testa nära den faktiska användarupplevelsen. TestifyInput i sig är relativt lätt att implementera och använda, och det testfall som skrevs med det förblev stabilt och behövde inte ändras trots att spelkoden ändrades. För att fullt ut kunna jämföra kapaciteten hos ett traditionellt testfall med ett testfall som använder sig av input-simulering krävs dock ytterligare forskning.

Since the development of modern technology, we are faced with more choices than ever. Our choices are based on the visual impression of a product or a service (Watzman, 1992). But what is it that makes us choose a specific product or service? This essay sheds light on the problems surrounding the development of technology that have led to a digitalized society where products are replaced by digital services. It also highlights a new professional role that has emerged from the digitalisation of society. Furthermore, the essay also enlightens on how a digital service's design might affect its users by examining how the music streaming services Spotify and Apple Music affect user's first impression of the service through a semiotic analysis. The results show that the design of a service is decisive for which target group the company is aimed at. And that the choice of functions maintains the interest of the users. In addition, the graphic design profession takes place through a development, where you may need to broaden your knowledge towards a digital competence. The essay opened up the question of whether there are more aspects that are based on the choice of service, such as the cost of the service and class differences.

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This thesis investigates the issues of creating a publicly accessible Web interface to a remote autonomous robot: the Bradford Robotic Telescope. The robot is situated on Mount Teide, on the island of Tenerife, Spain. Its mission is to provide interactive access to the stars to people who would otherwise not be able to appreciate the wonders of the night sky due to light pollution. Whenever weather and darkness permits, the robot processes the observation requests submitted by users via the Internet, operating all the hardware including the dome, telescope mount and cameras. The question of how to enable a content rich high quality dialogue between one robot and thousands of users is explored and divided into seven areas of research. How to design a Web site enabling high quality interaction with the user, how to enable users to request service from a robot, how to store and manage all the user and robot generated data, how to enable communication between the Web interface and the robot, how to schedule many observation requests in the best order, how to support a constant dialogue between the robot and users to engage users in the robot's work, and how to present and display users' completed observations. These seven areas of research are investigated; solutions are presented and their implementations examined and evaluated for their suitability and performance with the Bradford Robotic Telescope, and for how they might perform for any job-based remote robot.