User Experience in the Visual Notifications on Smart Devices

Notifications on smart devices have a crucial role for the end-users to help decide their action to the information. Despite the flexible customization of notifications for the intuitive user experience, users feel overwhelmed by the number of notifications they receive daily. The nature of notifications is short-lived, but they are extremely intrusive and disengaging. While user experience and user interface are advanced, notifications have remained broken despite their complexity. In fact, the notifications have the poorest usability that users may struggle to customize notifications in their smart devices and choose to ignore them. Irrelevant notifications not only get ignored, but it causes frustration and a false sense of urgency. Notifications must become conversational rather than a default system to feel as a helpful personal assistant. Previous research has identified the positive emotional influence from conversational and relevant signages in the physical space (Kim, 2017). The primary focus of this dissertation is to enrich the current notifications on smart devices, to establish the new concept – the smart notifications with the optimized visual signals that provide intuitive (e.g., helpful, personal, and relevant) user experience, and to propose applicable smart visual notification signals. The System Usability Scale (SUS) (Brooke, 1986) and Nielsen’s Heuristic (Nielsen, 1994) were used to measure the usability and user interface design of notifications on smart devices from participants. The results of this dissertation can be applied in future research as researchers can continue developing smart notifications that are intuitive and designers can use it as a guideline to build better user interfaces

Design of a visually enhanced searchable database for exploration and application of biomimicry in interior design

Biomimetics in Design Biomimicry is an approach to design that extracts design inspiration and principles from natural systems and organisms. When effectively integrated into the design process, this approach can yield products and systems that offer a variety of potential economic and environmental benefits. The research presented here examines some strategies and methods that can assist designers with the successful incorporation of biomimetics into the design process. These include approaches to integrating biomimicry into the design process, strategies to improve the exploration and identification of biological sources of inspiration, and methods to assist with the productive application of biomimetics to design challenges. Additionally, an Excel based tool was also created to assist designers with the integration of biomimetics into the design process

Attractive User Interface Elements : Measurement and prediction

The years 2020–2021 mark a time when the global population was encountered by a world-wide pandemic. The lockdown had devastating consequences on many industries and individuals, and the emergence of global economies into the postpandemic recovery has only just begun. However, as people adapted to the pandemic by embracing a mobile lifestyle, industries that employed graphical user interfaces as a means of human-computer interaction saw tremendous growth, exceeding everyone’s expectations despite predictions of a slowdown. One example is the mobile apps and games markets, touted as the fastest growing marketplaces worldwide. At the moment, the impact of the mobile economy is undeniably high, and it does not show signs of stalling. As we look ahead and start the 'return to physical', we can see new mobile habits take shape in our everyday life. Today, people conduct most daily functions via graphical user interfaces, due to the increasing technology-mediated nature of all human praxis, such as socializing, work, education, and entertainment. The interaction is realized on various different platforms, be they on desktop, mobile devices, VR or (smart) TVs. Although user interfaces themselves are not novel, their role is more significant now than anyone could have imagined only a few decades ago. Attractive visual designs in user interfaces have proven to enhance many aspects concerning usability, sense of pleasure and trust, but evaluating aesthetics is challenging due to the subjective nature of user perception. Although several theories and measurement instruments have been developed in order to assess and design pleasing user interfaces, the measures remain scattered. Therefore, the aim of this dissertation is to expand knowledge on how the visual aesthetics of graphical user interfaces can be modelled, evaluated, and assessed. Through four studies, this dissertation provides an overview of the state-of-theart in the literature of measurement instruments of visual aesthetics for graphical user interfaces. The dimensions of aesthetic perception that emerge in the context of user interface elements are also examined and introduced by developing a scale for measuring perceptions. As engaging and intuitive imagery has become one of the most valuable assets in today’s attention economy, the studies also observe individual user perceptions of different demographic groups and their relationships on aesthetic qualities to determine how they predict the success of graphical elements. The publications employ methodology ranging from a systematic literature review to sophisticated, quantitative statistical modelling methods to accurately identify and address each of the described phenomena by standardized means. The findings provided by this dissertation greatly contribute to existing literature on the measurement and prediction of visually pleasing graphical user interfaces both practically and theoretically. Advancing knowledge and guidelines in this fast-paced field requires assessment from a wide perspective, including the observation of prior work, and the adaptation of measures to the modern economy by highlighting user behavior and preferences. This is particularly important in the milieu of the increasingly growing prevalence of graphical user interfaces that will continue shaping our lives in ways unimaginable

A study of the influences of computer interfaces and training approaches on end user training outcomes

Effective and efficient training is a key factor in determining the success of end user computing (EUC) in organisations. This study examines the influences of two application interfaces, namely icons and menus, on training outcomes. The training outcomes are measured in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and perceived ease of use. Effectiveness includes the keystrokes used to accomplish tasks, the accuracy of correct keystrokes, backtracks and errors committed. Efficiency includes the time taken to accomplish the given tasks. Perceived ease of use rates the ease of the training environment including training materials, operating system, application software and associated resources provided to users. In order to facilitate measurement, users were asked to nominate one of two approaches to training, instruction training and exploration training that focussed on two categories of users, basic and advanced. User category was determined based on two questionnaires that tested participants\u27 level of knowledge and experience. Learning style preference was also included in the study. For example, to overcome the criticisms of prior studies, this study allowed users to nominate their preferred interfaces and training approaches soon after the training and prior to the experiment. To measure training outcomes, an experiment was conducted with 159 users. Training materials were produced and five questionnaires developed to meet the requirements of the training design. All the materials were peer reviewed and pilot tested in order to eliminate any subjective bias. All questionnaires were tested for statistical validity to ensure the applicability of instruments. Further, for measurement purposes, all keystrokes and time information such as start time and end time of tasks were extracted using automated tools. Prior to data analysis, any \u27outliers\u27 were eliminated to ensure that the data were of good quality. This study found that icon interfaces were effective for end user training for trivial tasks. This study also found that menu interfaces were easy to use in the given training environment. In terms of training approaches, exploration training was found to be effective. The user categorisation alone did not have any significant influence on training outcomes in this study. However, the combination of basic users and instruction training approach was found to be efficient and the combination of basic users and exploration training approach was found to be effective. This study also found out that learning style preference was significant in terms of effectiveness but not efficiency. The results of the study indicates that interfaces play a significant role in determining training outcomes and hence the need for training designers to treat application interfaces differently when addressing training accuracy and time constraints. Similarly, this study supports previous studies in that learning style preferences influence training outcomes. Therefore, training designers should consider users\u27 learning style preferences in order to provide effective training. While categories of user did not show any significant influence on the outcomes of this study, the interaction between training approaches and categories of users was significant indicating that different categories of users respond to different training approaches. Therefore, training designers should consider the possibility of treating differently those with and without experience in EUC applications. For example, one possible approach to training design would be to hold separate training sessions. In summary, this study has found that interfaces, learning styles and the combination of training approaches and categories of users have varying significant impact on training outcomes. Thus the results reported in this study should help training designers to design training programs that would be effective, efficient and easy to use

Crossmodal audio and tactile interaction with mobile touchscreens

Touchscreen mobile devices often use cut-down versions of desktop user interfaces placing high demands on the visual sense that may prove awkward in mobile settings. The research in this thesis addresses the problems encountered by situationally impaired mobile users by using crossmodal interaction to exploit the abundant similarities between the audio and tactile modalities. By making information available to both senses, users can receive the information in the most suitable way, without having to abandon their primary task to look at the device. This thesis begins with a literature review of related work followed by a definition of crossmodal icons. Two icons may be considered to be crossmodal if and only if they provide a common representation of data, which is accessible interchangeably via different modalities. Two experiments investigated possible parameters for use in crossmodal icons with results showing that rhythm, texture and spatial location are effective. A third experiment focused on learning multi-dimensional crossmodal icons and the extent to which this learning transfers between modalities. The results showed identification rates of 92% for three-dimensional audio crossmodal icons when trained in the tactile equivalents, and identification rates of 89% for tactile crossmodal icons when trained in the audio equivalent. Crossmodal icons were then incorporated into a mobile touchscreen QWERTY keyboard. Experiments showed that keyboards with audio or tactile feedback produce fewer errors and greater speeds of text entry compared to standard touchscreen keyboards. The next study examined how environmental variables affect user performance with the same keyboard. The data showed that each modality performs differently with varying levels of background noise or vibration and the exact levels at which these performance decreases occur were established. The final study involved a longitudinal evaluation of a touchscreen application, CrossTrainer, focusing on longitudinal effects on performance with audio and tactile feedback, the impact of context on performance and personal modality preference. The results show that crossmodal audio and tactile icons are a valid method of presenting information to situationally impaired mobile touchscreen users with recognitions rates of 100% over time. This thesis concludes with a set of guidelines on the design and application of crossmodal audio and tactile feedback to enable application and interface designers to employ such feedback in all systems

Visualization and Human-Machine Interaction

The digital age offers a lot of challenges in the eld of visualization. Visual imagery has been effectively used to communicate messages through the ages, to express both abstract and concrete ideas. Today, visualization has ever-expanding applications in science, engineering, education, medicine, entertainment and many other areas. Different areas of research contribute to the innovation in the eld of interactive visualization, such as data science, visual technology, Internet of things and many more. Among them, two areas of renowned importance are Augmented Reality and Visual Analytics. This thesis presents my research in the fields of visualization and human-machine interaction. The purpose of the proposed work is to investigate existing solutions in the area of Augmented Reality (AR) for maintenance. A smaller section of this thesis presents a minor research project on an equally important theme, Visual Analytics. Overall, the main goal is to identify the most important existing problems and then design and develop innovative solutions to address them. The maintenance application domain has been chosen since it is historically one of the first fields of application for Augmented Reality and it offers all the most common and important challenges that AR can arise, as described in chapter 2. Since one of the main problem in AR application deployment is reconfigurability of the application, a framework has been designed and developed that allows the user to create, deploy and update in real-time AR applications. Furthermore, the research focused on the problems related to hand-free interaction, thus investigating the area of speech-recognition interfaces and designing innovative solutions to address the problems of intuitiveness and robustness of the interface. On the other hand, the area of Visual Analytics has been investigated: among the different areas of research, multidimensional data visualization, similarly to AR, poses specific problems related to the interaction between the user and the machine. An analysis of the existing solutions has been carried out in order to identify their limitations and to point out possible improvements. Since this analysis delineates the scatterplot as a renowned visualization tool worthy of further research, different techniques for adapting its usage to multidimensional data are analyzed. A multidimensional scatterplot has been designed and developed in order to perform a comparison with another multidimensional visualization tool, the ScatterDice. The first chapters of my thesis describe my investigations in the area of Augmented Reality for maintenance. Chapter 1 provides definitions for the most important terms and an introduction to AR. The second chapter focuses on maintenance, depicting the motivations that led to choose this application domain. Moreover, the analysis concerning open problems and related works is described along with the methodology adopted to design and develop the proposed solutions. The third chapter illustrates how the adopted methodology has been applied in order to assess the problems described in the previous one. Chapter 4 describes the methodology adopted to carry out the tests and outlines the experimental results, whereas the fifth chapter illustrates the conclusions and points out possible future developments. Chapter 6 describes the analysis and research work performed in the eld of Visual Analytics, more specifically on multidimensional data visualizations. Overall, this thesis illustrates how the proposed solutions address common problems of visualization and human-machine interaction, such as interface de- sign, robustness of the interface and acceptance of new technology, whereas other problems are related to the specific research domain, such as pose tracking and reconfigurability of the procedure for the AR domain

USER INTERFACES FOR MOBILE DEVICES: TECHNIQUES AND CASE STUDIES

The interactive capabilities of portable devices that are nowadays increasingly available, enable mobile computing in diverse contexts. However, in order to fully exploit the potentialities of such technologies and to let end users benefit from them, effective and usable techniques are still needed. In general, differences in capabilities, such as computational power and interaction resources, lead to an heterogeneity that is sometimes positively referred to as device diversity but also, negatively, as device fragmentation. When designing applications for mobile devices, besides general rules and principles of usability, developers cope with further constraints. Restricted capabilities, due to display size, input modality and computational power, imply important design and implementation choices in order to guarantee usability. In addition, when the application is likely to be used by subjects affected by some impairment, the system has also to comply with accessibility requirements. The aim of this dissertation is to propose and discuss examples of such techniques, aimed to support user interfaces on mobile devices, by tackling design, development and evaluation of specific solutions for portable terminals as well as for enabling interoperability across diverse devices (including desktops, handhelds, smartphones). Usefulness and usability aspects are taken into great consideration by the main research questions that drove the activities of the study. With respect the such questions, the three central chapters of the dissertation are respectively aimed at evaluating: hardware/software solutions for edutainment and accessibility in mobile museum guides, visualization strategies for mobile users visiting smart environments, and techniques for user interface migration across diverse devices in multi-user contexts. Motivations, design, implementation and evaluation about a number of solutions aimed to support several dimensions of user interfaces for mobile devices are widely discussed throughout the dissertation, and some findings are drawn. Each one of the prototypes described in the following chapters has been entirely developed within the research activities of the laboratory where the author performed his PhD. Most activities were related to tasks of international research projects and the organization of this dissertation reflects their evolution chronology

Simulation modelling software approaches to manufacturing problems

Increased competition in many industries has resulted in a greater emphasis on developing and using advanced manufacturing systems to improve productivity and reduce costs. The complexity and dynamic behaviour of such systems, make simulation modelling one of the most popular methods to facilitate the design and assess operating strategies of these systems. The growing need for the use of simulation is reflected by a growth in the number of simulation languages and data-driven simulators in the software market. This thesis investigates which characteristics typical manufacturing simulators possess, and how the user requirements can be better fulfilled. For the purpose of software evaluation, a case study has been carried out on a real manufacturing system. Several simulation models of an automated system for electrostatic powder coating have been developed using different simulators. In addition to the evaluation of these simulators, a comprehensive evaluation framework has been developed to facilitate selection of simulation software for modelling manufacturing systems. Different hierarchies of evaluation criteria have been established for different software purposes. In particular, the criteria that have to be satisfied for users in education differ from those for users in industry. A survey has also been conducted involving a number of users of software for manufacturing simulation. The purpose of the survey was to investigate users' opinions about simulation software, and the features that they desire to be incorporated in simulation software. A methodology for simulation software selection is also derived. It consists of guidelines related to the actions to be taken and factors to be considered during the evaluation and selection of simulation software. On the basis of all the findings, proposals on how manufacturing simulators can be improved are made, both for use in education and in industry. These software improvements should result in a reduction in the amount of time and effort needed for simulation model development, and therefore make simulation more beneficial

Human computer interface guide, revision A

The Human Computer Interface Guide, SSP 30540, is a reference document for the information systems within the Space Station Freedom Program (SSFP). The Human Computer Interface Guide (HCIG) provides guidelines for the design of computer software that affects human performance, specifically, the human-computer interface. This document contains an introduction and subparagraphs on SSFP computer systems, users, and tasks; guidelines for interactions between users and the SSFP computer systems; human factors evaluation and testing of the user interface system; and example specifications. The contents of this document are intended to be consistent with the tasks and products to be prepared by NASA Work Package Centers and SSFP participants as defined in SSP 30000, Space Station Program Definition and Requirements Document. The Human Computer Interface Guide shall be implemented on all new SSFP contractual and internal activities and shall be included in any existing contracts through contract changes. This document is under the control of the Space Station Control Board, and any changes or revisions will be approved by the deputy director

Assessing interpretability of visual symbols of varied colors across demographic profiles

Visual symbols are often ambiguous. An icon is meant to convey a particular meaning, but viewers may interpret the image differently. This thesis shows how a viewer`s demographic background and icon color can affect their interpretation of a symbol. A website survey, featuring a library of icons, asked users of varied demographic profiles to interpret each figure presented randomly in one of five colors: black, blue, red, green, and orange. The qualitative text data from the participants` interpretations were compared to the quantitative data from icon and demographic information by means of multinomial logit analysis. The experiment found numerous noteworthy correlations, showing that the color of an icon and person`s background can have a significant and oftentimes predictable influence on interpretation. Icon designers can use this approach to see which icon would be best used to serve certain purposes