Valuing the User Experience in Human-Computer Interaction: the Respected User Manifesto

There is a no-man's land between how the Graphical User Interfaces are typically conceived, designed and engineered in desktop applications and mobile apps, and what users actually expect: it's where the users' experience, expectations, training, habits, mental attitude come into play. New software versions add features, change the GUI layout, behavior and environment for innovation and marketing reasons, but in doing so they often disregard the value of the user experience: all the user can do is accept the new situation and trying to adapt. To make things worse, customization options are usually limited when it comes to restoring the previous environment, and downgrading restrictions in software licenses also apply. Background services may also start at the worst time, monopolizing the system against the user's will, causing frustration and possibly more serious problems due to service unavailability. In short, there's a grey cross area in software design and deployment where the user is not fully respected as a person whose experience is intrinsically a value worth preserving. In this paper we analyze and discuss some common situations from different scenarios, and exploit them to extract some golden rules for a more respected software user - the Respected User Manifesto

Designing Efficient and Accurate Behavior-Aware Mobile Systems

The proliferation of sensors on smartphones, tablets and wearables has led to a plethora of behavior classification algorithms designed to sense various aspects of individual user\u27s behavior such as daily habits, activity, physiology, mobility, sleep, emotional and social contexts. This ability to sense and understand behaviors of mobile users will drive the next generation of mobile applications providing services based on the users\u27 behavioral patterns. In this thesis, we investigate ways in which we can enhance and utilize the understanding of user behaviors in such applications. In particular, we focus on identifying the key challenges in the following three aspects of behavior-aware applications: detection, understanding, and prediction of user behaviors; and present systems and techniques developed to address these challenges. In this thesis, we first demonstrate the utility of wristbands equipped with inertial sensors in real-time detection of health-related behaviors such as smoking and eating. Our approach detects these behaviors in a passive manner without any explicit user interaction and does not require use of any cumbersome device. Our results show that we can detect smoking with 95% accuracy, 91% precision and 81% recall in the natural environment. Second, we design a context-query engine for sensing multiple user contexts continuously, accurately and efficiently on mobile devices; the key necessity for understanding and analyzing behaviors. Our context-query engine performs information fusion of contexts for an individual user to enable optimizations like i) energy-efficient sensing, and ii) accurate context inference. Our results show that we can improve accuracy of a context classifier by up to 42% and reduce the number of classifiers required to observe the user state by 33%. Finally, we demonstrate the utility of predicting app usage behavior, in improving the freshness of mobile apps such as Facebook that present users with the latest content fetched from remote servers. We present an app prediction algorithm that utilizes user contexts to predict the app a user is likely to use and pre-fetches the data over the network for the predicted app. We show that our proposed algorithm delivers application content to the user that is on an average fresh within 3 minutes

User-Accustomed Interaction: An Usability Approach for Designing Mobile Application for Novice and Expert Users

The development of smartphone applications is prevailing globally, including the underserved communities consisting of a huge group of novice users. In spite of the growing number of novice users, we hardly consider usability for users with varying expertise level when we evaluate performance and satisfaction with usage of mobile applications. In this study, we argue that it is not suitable to design one interface for all users of progressively varying communities. Based on theories in design science research, we propose a user-accustomed approach to adapt mobile applications that integrate three types of interaction elements, namely localization, structural navigation and illustration. In an investigation of the proposed approach on mobile application, we empirically proved the effects of user-accustomed interaction techniques on performance and satisfaction between novice and expert users. The findings provide significant theoretical and practical implications for design and implementation of user interfaces on mobile application

Understanding and supporting mobile application usage

In recent years mobile phones have evolved significantly. While the very first cellular phones only provided functionality for conducting phone calls, smartphones nowadays provide a rich variety of functionalities. Additional hardware capabilities like new sensors (e.g.~for location) and touch screens as new input devices gave rise to new use cases for mobile phones, such as navigation support, taking pictures or making payments. Mobile phones not only evolved with regard to technology, they also became ubiquitous and pervasive in people\u27s daily lives by becoming capable of supporting them in various tasks. Eventually, the advent of mobile application stores for the distribution of mobile software enabled the end-users themselves to functionally customize their mobile phones for their personal purposes and needs. So far, little is known about how people make use of the large variety of applications that are available. Thus, little support exists for end-users to make effective and efficient use of their smartphones given the huge numbers of applications that are available. This dissertation is motivated by the evolution of mobile phones from mere communication devices to multi-functional tool sets, and the challenges that have arisen as a result. The goal of this thesis is to contribute systems that support the use of mobile applications and to ground these systems\u27 designs in an understanding of user behavior gained through empirical observations. The contribution of this dissertation is twofold: First, this work aims to understand how people make use of, organize, discover and multitask between the various functionalities that are available for their smartphones. Findings are based on observations of user behavior by conducting studies in the wild. Second, this work aims to assist people in leveraging their smartphones and the functionality that is available in a more effective and efficient way. This results in tools and improved user interfaces for end-users. Given that the number of available applications for smartphones is rapidly increasing, it is crucial to understand how people make use of such applications to support smartphone use in everyday life with better designs for smartphone user interfaces.Mobiltelefone haben sich innerhalb der letzten Jahre signifikant weiterentwickelt. Während erste Modelle lediglich Sprachtelefonie zur Verfügung stellten, ermöglichen heutige Smartphones vielseitige Dienste. Technologische Fortschritte, wie beispielsweise GPS-Lokalisierung und berührungsempfindliche Displays, haben neue Einsatzbereiche für Mobiltelefone eröffnet, wie solche als Navigationsgerät oder als Fotoapparat. Doch nicht nur in Bezug auf die Technologie haben sich Mobiltelefone weiterentwickelt, sondern auch in der Verbreitung ist die Anzahl der Geräte enorm gestiegen. Sie werden allgegenwärtig im täglichen Leben genutzt, da sie ihre Anwender bei verschiedensten Aufgaben unterstützen können. Das Aufkommen von Vetriebsplattformen für die Verbreitung mobiler Software erlaubt es dem Anwender selbstständig Modifikationen an der Funktionalität seines Geräts vorzunehmen und dieses an persönliche Zwecke und Ansprüche anzupassen. Bisher ist wenig darüber bekannt, wie sich Anwender die Vielfalt zu Verfügung stehender Applikationen zu Nutze machen. Als Folge daraus gibt es bisher nur rudimentäre Unterstützung für Anwender, die Vielfalt von Applikationen effektiv und effizient einzusetzen. Diese Dissertation ist durch den Wandel des Mobiltelefons vom reinen Kommunikationsgerät hin zum multifunktionalen Werkzeug motiviert. Das Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, Systeme für die Unterstützung einer besseren mobilen Applikationsnutzung zu entwickeln, deren Design auf dem neuen Verständnis von Benutzerverhalten beruht, das durch empirische Studien gewonnen wird. Diese Dissertation hat einen zweiteiligen Beitrag: Zum einen werden theoretische Erkenntnisse dazu erarbeitet, wie Anwender die Applikationsvielfalt nutzen, installierte Applikationen auf ihren Geräten organisieren, neue Applikationen entdecken und zwischen diesen in der Ausführung wechseln. Die Erkenntnisse hierzu beruhen auf der empirischen Beobachtung von Nutzungsverhalten. Zum anderen hat diese Arbeit ingenieurwissenschaftliche Ziele dahingehend, die Anwender von Applikationen dabei zu unterstützen, ihre Smartphones sowie deren Funktionsvielfalt effektiver und effizienter einzusetzen. Dieser Beitrag resultiert in der Beschreibung implementierter Systeme und verbesserter Benutzerschnittstellen für Anwender. Angesichts der rapide wachsenden Zahl zur Verfügung stehender mobiler Applikationen ist es wichtig, zu verstehen wie Endanwender diese nutzen, denn nur so kann die Nutzung von Smartphones gebrauchstauglicher und einfacher gestaltet werden

User interface design guidelines for digital television virtual remote controls

The remote control is a pivotal component in households worldwide. It helps users enjoy leisurely television (TV) viewing. The remote control has various user interfaces that people interact with. For example, the physical user interface includes the shape of the remote and the physical buttons; the logical user interface refers to how the information is laid out; and the graphical user interface refers to the colours and aesthetic features of the remote control. All of the user interfaces together with the context of use, cultural factors, social factors, and prior experiences of the user influences the ways people interact with their remote control and ultimately has an effect on their user experiences. Advances in the broadcasting sector and transformations of the TV physical remote control have compounded the simple remote control into a multifaceted, indispensable device, overcrowded with buttons. The usability and ultimately the user experience of physical remote controls (PRCs) have been affected by the overloaded functionality and small button sizes. The usability issues with current PRCs, the evolution of mobile phones into touchscreen smartphones, and the trend of global companies moving towards virtual remote controls (VRCs) have prompted this research to discover what user interface design features will contribute towards an enhanced user experience for digital TV VRCs. This research used the design science research process model (DSRP), which comprised six steps, to investigate this topic area further. A review of the domain literature pertaining to mobile user experiences (MUX) and all the encompassing factors, mobile human computer interaction (MHCI) and the physical, logical, graphical and natural user interfaces was completed, as well as a review of the literature regarding the usability issues of PRCs and VRCs. A contextual task analysis (CTA) of a single South African digital TV PRC was used to identify how users utilise PRCs to perform tasks, and the usability issues they encountered during the tasks. Brainstorming focus groups were used to understand how to represent certain user interface elements and attempted to source ideas from users about what potential functionality digital TV VRCs should contain. Together with all the other results gathered from the previous chapters amalgamated into a set of user interface design guidelines for digital TV VRCs. The proposed user interface guidelines were used to instantiate a digital TV VRC prototype that underwent usability testing in order to validate the proposed user interface design guidelines. The results of the usability testing revealed that the user interface design guidelines for digital TV VRCs were successful, with the addition of one guideline that was discovered during the usability testing

AUGMENTED TOUCH INTERACTIONS WITH FINGER CONTACT SHAPE AND ORIENTATION

Touchscreen interactions are far less expressive than the range of touch that human hands are capable of - even considering technologies such as multi-touch and force-sensitive surfaces. Recently, some touchscreens have added the capability to sense the actual contact area of a finger on the touch surface, which provides additional degrees of freedom - the size and shape of the touch, and the finger's orientation. These additional sensory capabilities hold promise for increasing the expressiveness of touch interactions - but little is known about whether users can successfully use the new degrees of freedom. To provide this baseline information, we carried out a study with a finger-contact-sensing touchscreen, and asked participants to produce a range of touches and gestures with different shapes and orientations, with both one and two fingers. We found that people are able to reliably produce two touch shapes and three orientations across a wide range of touches and gestures - a result that was confirmed in another study that used the augmented touches for a screen lock application

Mobile system-wide assistive technology

Tese de mestrado em Engenharia Informática (Sistemas de Informação), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2014Hoje em dia o uso do telemóvel é fundamental em diversos aspetos da nossa vida. Tornou-se uma ferramenta essencial para a comunicação, convívio, consulta de informação e até mesmo para o entretenimento. Os telemóveis tornaram-se mais do que simples ferramentas para fazer chamadas e receber mensagens. Eles são os nossos assistentes pessoais, são a forma como nos mantemos em contacto com os nossos amigos e colegas, e muito mais. Infelizmente, os sistemas operativos destes dispositivos ainda apresentam muitas debilidades em termos de acessibilidade. No entanto, as suas capacidades representam uma enorme oportunidade na criação de tecnologias assistivas. Os sistemas operativos móveis não são suficientemente adaptáveis e configuráveis para pessoas com múltiplas deficiências poderem usufruir deles. Na verdade, nas últimas versões dos sistemas operativos móveis mais populares (iOS e Android) tem sido feito um esforço para incluir mais opções de acessibilidade. No, entanto ainda não são o suficiente para suportar todo o tipo de necessidades. Uma das abordagens possíveis para permitir o uso das aplicações por pessoas com deficiências passa pela criação de aplicações acessíveis. No entanto, esta abordagem não é escalável e enfrenta graves problemas. Ao fazermos apenas a aplicação acessível estamos a limitar o utilizador a apenas essa aplicação, em vez de estarmos a criar as ferramentas que permitem o controlo e acesso total do sistema á semelhança de um utilizador sem deficiência. Estas aplicações têm usualmente preços elevados, justificados pelo longo desenvolvimento em tecnologias que não serão usadas pelas massas. O problema das aplicações acessíveis é a especificidade da aplicação. Quando tornamos uma aplicação acessível a utilizadores cegos não estamos a torná-la acessível a utilizadores com deficiências motoras. O problema cresce quando começamos a ter em consideração utilizadores com múltiplas deficiências. A nível aplicacional é extremamente dispendioso criar uma aplicação acessível a utilizadores com múltiplas deficiências. A preocupação é: ao tornamos uma aplicação acessível vamos torná-la acessível a que conjunto de deficiências ou pessoas? Devido à enorme variedade de requisitos de acessibilidade, é necessário todo um sistema configurável e adaptável. Existem muitos estudos na área das tecnologias assistivas, a maioria delas tem como foco a acessibilidade do Desktop. É fundamental para a integração de pessoas com algum tipo de deficiência o acesso a um computador. Hoje em dia é necessário mais do que isso, é também necessário permitir o acesso ao telemóvel. Os smartphones têm imensas possibilidades de uso como tecnologias assistivas. Podem permitir desde o acesso á internet, ao controlo de uma cadeira de rodas, ou até ser um controlo remoto do ambiente em volta do individuo (televisão, ar condicionado, eletrodomésticos, etc). Atualmente, se desenvolvermos periféricos com o objetivo de controlar um smartphone vamos deparar-nos com uma enorme quantidade de restrições. Para desenvolver tecnologias assistivas realmente usáveis e abrangentes, é necessário ter acesso a dois níveis de controlo, nível aplicacional e nível de sistema. No entanto, nos dispositivos móveis não temos acesso ao nível de sistema, apenas os produtores do Sistema Operativo (SO) o têm. É necessário criar uma camada intermédia que consiga de alguma forma ter acesso a informações de sistema de forma a possibilitar um controlo preciso e fino sobre todos os eventos de entrada e saída de dados. Esta dissertação encontrou motivação no caso do Miguel. Miguel é um individuo com múltiplas deficiências que enfrenta severas dificuldades para interagir com o seu telemóvel. O trabalho desenvolvido foi em grande parte motivado pelas dificuldades diárias que ele enfrenta em manter-se socialmente ativo e com o maior nível de independência possível. Com as tecnologias atuais, o Miguel está debilitado e não consegue usufruir de todas as capacidades do seu dispositivo. Assim, estabelecemos como objetivos criar uma tecnologia que permitisse: controlo total a nível de sistema dos mecanismos de entrada; desenvolvimento ágil de tecnologias assistivas; suporte a utilização de tecnologias assistivas externas; criação de soluções extensíveis e adaptáveis; controlo sobre o conteúdo e navegação a nível de sistema. Nesta tese apresentamos SWAT, uma biblioteca extensível e adaptável que permite o acesso ao nível de sistema aos conteúdos e à informação dos eventos de entrada. A biblioteca foi desenvolvida para Android e providencia uma plataforma estável sobre a qual é possível estender e adaptar as suas capacidades. Com SWAT, os programadores têm a possibilidade de aceder a eventos de baixo nível e a funcionalidades que não teriam de outra forma. Este controlo permite superar as barreiras impostas pelo tradicional sistema operativo móvel e abre as portas à criação de tecnologias assistivas mais adaptáveis e baratas. A Biblioteca possui uma API (Interface de Programação de Aplicações) simples que providencia tudo o que é necessário para um fácil acesso a estas funcionalidades. Esta tese tem como principais contribuições: Biblioteca SWAT: permite a criação de tecnologias assistivas de forma rápida e eficaz, com controlo sobre o conteúdo e eventos de entrada de baixo nível. Macros assistivas: uma aplicação que permite gravar e reproduzir macros num sistema operativo móvel; Logger: um mecanismo de gravação a nível de sistema; Auto-Nav: um protótipo aplicacional que permite varrimento automático das opções disponíveis num telemóvel de forma a permitir o acesso via interruptor; Leitor de ecrã multi-toque: um leitor de ecrã que permite feedback auditivo de vários pontos em simultâneo. Com o objetivo de validar a biblioteca criada, apresentamos dois casos de estudo onde reportamos duas aplicações criadas recorrendo à mesma. A primeira tem como foco o caso do Miguel, um utilizador com múltipla deficiência. À data da introdução desta nova aplicação o Miguel apenas conseguia aceder a uma aplicação desenhada especificamente para ele e nada mais. Neste caso de estudo reportamos a tecnologia desenvolvida para permitir ao Miguel aceder a qualquer aplicação do sistema assim como uma avaliação informal com ele e os seus pais. No segundo caso de estudo validamos a biblioteca pela criação de um leitor de ecrã multi-toque a nível de sistema. Foi feito um estudo com 30 utilizadores cegos numa tarefa de entrada de texto onde resultados foram analisados e reportados. Os resultados obtidos sugerem que pessoas cegas podem beneficiar de interfaces que aproveitem de forma mais eficiente os ecrãs multi-toque e que aproximem o seu uso do já realizado em interfaces físicas (teclado tradicional). Com este trabalho, demonstramos as limitações impostas pelos sistemas operativos móveis na área de tecnologias assistivas. Desenvolvemos uma Biblioteca para dar resposta a estas restrições providenciando uma base de trabalho para futuras aplicações e tecnologias assistivas. Com os casos de estudo, mostrámos as capacidades do sistema desenvolvido. SWAT é uma biblioteca prometedora oriunda deste trabalho e começa a ter ramificações nesta e outras áreas de desenvolvimento.Mobile devices are a fundamental tool in different aspects of our lives. In the last decade, we have witnessed an explosion of the capabilities of our mobile devices. With these improvements, they became more valuable to us than the old house phones. They no longer serve only the purpose of making/receiving calls and text messages. They are our personal assistant, our way to connect to the social media, our multimedia entertainment and much more. Indeed, they are also, and increasingly more so, the prevalent communication artifact at one’s disposal. Mobile operating systems have evolved to provide increasing accessibility capabilities. However, mobile application developers are still restricted to deploy custom-made accessible applications or to extend limited and stereotyped accessibility services. In current mobile devices if we develop an external peripheral to control the device we will face several restrictions since there is not a system-wide service that a developer can access to create its own input method. A regular user has the ability to navigate and explore the device without limitations. In order to truly give disabled people the same features as other users have, we need to create a system-wide accessibility service that allows users to freely navigate and interact with their devices. Motivated by the limitations described above we set out to provide more control over the system input and output mechanisms to allow the creation of powerful system wide assistive technologies. We developed SWAT (System-wide Assistive Technologies) for the Android platform. To validate our system we performed one case study with a multi-impaired person and another one with 30 blind users. Results showed that SWAT enabled the creation of application tailored to their needs and thus fostering their inclusion

Writing for mobile media: The influences of text, digital design and psychological characteristics on the cognitive load of the mobile user

Text elements on the mobile smartphone interface make a significant contribution to the user’s interaction experience. In combination with other visual design features, these words curate the path of the mobile user on a journey through the information to satisfy a specific task. This study analyses the elements that influence the interpretation process and optimum presentation of information on mobile media. I argue that effective digital writing contributes to reducing the cognitive load experienced by the mobile user. The central discussion focuses on the writing of text for this medium, which I suggest forges an entirely unique narrative. The optimum writing approach is based on the multi-dimensional characteristics of hypertext, which allow the writer to facilitate the journey without the user losing control of the interpretation process. This study examines the relationship between the writer, the reader and the text, with a unique perspective on the mobile media writer, who is tasked with achieving balance between the functionality and humanity of digital interaction. To explore influences on the development of the relevant writing techniques, I present insights into the distinctive characteristics of the mobile smartphone device, with specific focus on the screen and keyboard. I also discuss the unique characteristics of the mobile user and show how the visual design of the interface is integral to the writing of text for this medium. Furthermore, this study explores the role, skills, and processes of the current and future digital writer, within the backdrop of incessant technological advancement and revolutionary changes in human-computer behaviour

Source Code Interaction on Touchscreens

Direct interaction with touchscreens has become a primary way of using a device. This work seeks to devise interaction methods for editing textual source code on touch-enabled devices. With the advent of the “Post-PC Era”, touch-centric interaction has received considerable attention in both research and development. However, various limitations have impeded widespread adoption of programming environments on modern platforms. Previous attempts have mainly been successful by simplifying or constraining conventional programming but have only insufficiently supported source code written in mainstream programming languages. This work includes the design, development, and evaluation of techniques for editing, selecting, and creating source code on touchscreens. The results contribute to text editing and entry methods by taking the syntax and structure of programming languages into account while exploiting the advantages of gesture-driven control. Furthermore, this work presents the design and software architecture of a mobile development environment incorporating touch-enabled modules for typical software development tasks