Investigating the Usability and Quality of Experience of Mobile Video-Conferencing Apps Among Bandwidth-Constrained Users in South Africa

In response to Covid-19 and global lockdowns, we have seen a surge in video-conferencing tools' usage to enable people to work from home and stay connected to family and friends. Although understanding the performance and the perceived quality of experience for users with bandwidth caps and poor internet connections could guide the design of video-conferencing apps, the usability of video-conferencing applications have been severely overlooked in developing countries like South Africa, where one-third of adults rely on mobile devices to access the internet and where the per-gigabyte data cost is some of the most expensive in Africa. Considering these numbers, we conduct a two-prong study where 1) we measure bandwidth consumption of different Android apps through bandwidth measurement experiments and 2) we conduct interviews with bandwidth-constrained users to better understand their perceptions of mobile videoconferencing apps. The key benefit of this study will be to inform organisations that seek to be inclusive about these tools' relative usability by letting them know about the factors influencing users' quality of experience

The Influence of Audio and Video Quality on Perceptions of the Psychotherapist

The recent Coronavirus pandemic made remote means of conducting psychotherapy more common, and although there is a large amount of research on the mode of therapy, little research exists on the effects of video and audio quality on perceptions of the therapist. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the evaluation of a therapist changes when viewing different audiovisual qualities of recorded in-person therapy interactions. Participants were randomly assigned to view audio or video therapy interactions with differing levels of audiovisual quality. Analyses revealed a statistically significant difference in observer perceptions of interpersonal characteristics, such as empathy and alliance, when viewing different audiovisual qualities. Follow-up analyses indicated higher levels of the interpersonal perceptions when viewing therapy interactions of poor audiovisual quality, indicating that therapists were viewed as having more positive interpersonal characteristics when the audiovisual quality was distorted. These results suggest that concern about audio and video quality in online therapy interactions may be misplaced

Contextual mobile adaptation

Ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) involves systems that attempt to fit in with users’ context and interaction. Researchers agree that system adaptation is a key issue in ubicomp because it can be hard to predict changes in contexts, needs and uses. Even with the best planning, it is impossible to foresee all uses of software at the design stage. In order for software to continue to be helpful and appropriate it should, ideally, be as dynamic as the environment in which it operates. Changes in user requirements, contexts of use and system resources mean software should also adapt to better support these changes. An area in which adaptation is clearly lacking is in ubicomp systems, especially those designed for mobile devices. By improving techniques and infrastructure to support adaptation it is possible for ubicomp systems to not only sense and adapt to the environments they are running in, but also retrieve and install new functionality so as to better support the dynamic context and needs of users in such environments. Dynamic adaptation of software refers to the act of changing the structure of some part of a software system as it executes, without stopping or restarting it. One of the core goals of this thesis is to discover if such adaptation is feasible, useful and appropriate in the mobile environment, and how designers can create more adaptive and flexible ubicomp systems and associated user experiences. Through a detailed study of existing literature and experience of several early systems, this thesis presents design issues and requirements for adaptive ubicomp systems. This thesis presents the Domino framework, and demonstrates that a mobile collaborative software adaptation framework is achievable. This system can recommend future adaptations based on a history of use. The framework demonstrates that wireless network connections between mobile devices can be used to transport usage logs and software components, with such connections made either in chance encounters or in designed multi–user interactions. Another aim of the thesis is to discover if users can comprehend and smoothly interact with systems that are adapting. To evaluate Domino, a multiplayer game called Castles has been developed, in which game buildings are in fact software modules that are recommended and transferred between players. This evaluation showed that people are comfortable receiving semi–automated software recommendations; these complement traditional recommendation methods such as word of mouth and online forums, with the system’s support freeing users to discuss more in–depth aspects of the system, such as tactics and strategies for use, rather than forcing them to discover, acquire and integrate software by themselves

Playin’ the city : artistic and scientific approaches to playful urban arts

An Theorien und Diskussionen über die Stadt mangelt es nicht, denn Städte dienen uns u.a. als Projektionsfläche zur Auseinandersetzung mit unserer Vergangenheit, der Gegenwart und unserer Zukunft. Diese Ausgabe 1 (2016) der Navigationen untersucht spielerische Formen dieser Auseinandersetzung in und mit der Stadt durch die sogenannten playful urban arts.The city has been discussed and theorized widely, and it continues to serve as a space in which our sense of the present, past, and future is constantly negotiated. This issue 1 (2016) of Navigationen examines new ways of engaging with cities through what are called the playful urban arts. Playful engagements with the urban environment frequently strive to create new ways of imagining and experiencing the city. In and through play, city spaces can become playgrounds that have the potential to transform people’s sense of themselves as human actors in an urban network of spatially bound and socio-economically grounded actions. Emerging from the playin’siegen urban games festival 2015, the essays and panel discussions assembled in this issue provide an interdisciplinary account of the contemporary playful urban arts. Wiht contributions by Miguel Sicart, Andreas Rauscher, Daniel Stein, Judith Ackermann and Martin Reiche, Michael Straeubig and Sebastian Quack, Marianne Halblaub Miranda and Martin Knöll, and Anne Lena Hartman