Enhanced Multi-Touch Gestures for Complex Tasks

Recent technological advances have resulted in a major shift, from high-performance notebook and desktop computers -- devices that rely on keyboard and mouse for input -- towards smaller, personal devices like smartphones, tablets and smartwatches which rely primarily on touch input. Users of these devices typically have a relatively high level of skill in using multi-touch gestures to interact with them, but the multi-touch gesture sets that are supported are often restricted to a small subset of one and two-finger gestures, such as tap, double tap, drag, flick, pinch and spread. This is not due to technical limitations, since modern multi-touch smartphones and tablets are capable of accepting at least ten simultaneous points of contact. Likewise, human movement models suggest that humans are capable of richer and more expressive forms of interaction that utilize multiple fingers. This suggests a gap between the technical capabilities of multi-touch devices, the physical capabilities of end-users, and the gesture sets that have been implemented for these devices. Our work explores ways in which we can enrich multi-touch interaction on these devices by expanding these common gesture sets. Simple gestures are fine for simple use cases, but if we want to support a wide range of sophisticated behaviours -- the types of interactions required by expert users -- we need equally sophisticated capabilities from our devices. In this thesis, we refer to these more sophisticated, complex interactions as `enhanced gestures' to distinguish them from common but simple gestures, and to suggest the types of expert scenarios that we are targeting in their design. We do not need to necessarily replace current, familiar gestures, but it makes sense to consider augmenting them as multi-touch becomes more prevalent, and is applied to more sophisticated problems. This research explores issues of approachability and user acceptance around gesture sets. Using pinch-to-zoom as an example, we establish design guidelines for enhanced gestures, and systematically design, implement and evaluate two different types of expert gestures, illustrative of the type of functionality that we might build into future systems

CON-INFO: A Context-based Methodology for Designing and Assessing the Quality of Adaptable MUIs in Healthcare Applications

Mobile technology is an integral part of the modern healthcare environment. The mobile user interface (MUI) serves as the bridge between the application and healthcare professionals. It is important that the physician be able to easily express his needs on the MUI and correctly interpret the information displayed. However, there are many challenges that face the designer in designing and developing context-sensitive MUIs in this environment. The adaptability of the MUI is considered to be one of the most important issues to address. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), MUI adaptability is a major problem in the healthcare context. For the designer, the hope is that new technologies will be developed, such as mobile devices adaptable to different environments, to enable customization of the application to the user’s context. In this thesis, we propose a new methodology for designing a context-based adaptable MUI for healthcare applications. This methodology offers a new approach to automated MUI context adaptation, and provides a solution for both the provider (designer) of the healthcare application and the consumer (physician). New techniques for adapting MUIs offer new opportunities for the MUI designer to maximize the benefits of mobile health technology by providing the best possible way for healthcare professionals to perform their tasks efficiently and effectively. The proposed methodology is based on research contributions in four areas: (1) a new quality-in-use measurement model for validation purposes; (2) user stereotype modeling with a set of context descriptors, which formalize the domain expertise of the users; (3) context information modeling; and (4) use of the decision table technique to adapt the MUI features based on the context and the user stereotypes. The proposed quality-in-use model is inspired by the ISO/IEC 25010 and ISO/IEC 25022 international standards and adapted to healthcare applications. The first contribution is used in validating the quality-in-use of a software product developed according to the CON-INFO methodology, and the last three contributions are linked to form a methodology for development. The MUI features adapted to the needs of healthcare professionals have been implemented on the iPhone™ for validation purposes. An example of software for medical application is the Phoenix Health Information System (PHIS), which is in use at King Abdulaziz University Hospital (KAUH). PHIS2 is an updated desktop version developed based on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) principles. A new mobile-based version of PHIS2 (PHIS2-M) has since been introduced, to make PHIS accessible from a mobile-based platform. The proposed context-based and rule-based approach for MUI feature adaptability resulted in a new version of PHIS2-M – PHIS2-MA (MA stands for mobile adaptation). This thesis validates the proposed methodology and clearly demonstrates its usefulness, providing details of the four empirical studies conducted with the end-users (physicians) in a real environment at the KAUH. The results of the formal studies reveal that our CON-INFO methodology for designing an adaptable MUI led to improvements to the current application and allowed researchers to test successive versions of the ‘final’ application

Proposition d’un cadre de conception de technologies d’assistance pour des personnes âgées avec la maladie d’Alzheimer

Les nouvelles technologies d’assistance offrent aux personnes âgées avec des troubles cognitifs comme la maladie d’Alzheimer la possibilité de prolonger leur autonomie. Cependant, leur utilisation dans la vie quotidienne par cette population reste faible. L’inadéquation entre les caractéristiques des technologies et les spécificités de cette population, ainsi que la course aux fonctionnalités rendent ces technologies toujours plus complexes à apprendre à utiliser. Une des pistes de solution est d’aider le concepteur à comprendre les spécificités de la population, afin de concevoir des technologies d’assistance facile à apprendre. Cette thèse vise à contribuer à l'apprentissage des nouvelles technologies en proposant un cadre de conception de technologies d’assistance faciles à apprendre pour des personnes âgées avec la maladie d’Alzheimer. Dans cette optique, un outil d'assistance a été développé : un calendrier interactif pour faciliter l'organisation quotidienne. Deux expérimentations ont été ensuite menées afin de déterminer les facilitateurs et les barrières qui pourraient influencer l’apprenabilité d’une technologie d’assistance pour des personnes âgées avec la maladie d’Alzheimer. La première expérimentation se décomposait en deux séances où sept personnes âgées et cinq personnes avec Alzheimer ont interagi avec le calendrier et ont exprimé sous forme de dessin et de questionnaire comment elles étaient familières avec l'usage de son homologue traditionnel, le calendrier mural. La deuxième expérimentation, réalisée au domicile de deux personnes âgées avec Alzheimer, a duré entre 5 et 6 mois selon les participants pendant lesquels le calendrier était appris puis laissé au domicile de la personne âgée pour qu'elle l'utilise à sa guise. Une modalité d’affichage de l’interface utilisateur dite multicouches a été utilisée chez un des participants afin de l’accompagner dans son apprentissage. Cette approche consiste à diviser l’interface utilisateur en plusieurs couches dont chacune contient un ensemble de fonctionnalités. Tandis que l’autre modalité est sans multicouches et donne accès à toutes les fonctionnalités de la technologie d’assistance durant l’apprentissage. Les résultats de ces expérimentations ont montré que cette population était capable d’apprendre à utiliser une technologie d’assistance. Cependant, il est nécessaire que le concepteur prenne en considération l’expérience antérieure, les capacités physiques, perceptuelles et cognitives résiduelles de cette population afin d’adapter les caractéristiques de l’interface utilisateur de la technologie d’assistance. Les contributions de ce travail de recherche s’articulent autour de la conception de technologies d’assistance pour les personnes âgées atteintes de la maladie d’Alzheimer. La première contribution porte sur l’identification des facilitateurs et des barrières jouant un rôle dans l’apprenabilité de ce type de produit technologique. La seconde contribution porte sur la conception et l’implémentation de l’approche par multicouches dans une technologie d’assistance pour des personnes âgées atteintes de la maladie d’Alzheimer. Et enfin la dernière contribution porte sur la proposition d’un cadre de conception pour améliorer l’apprenabilité des technologies d’assistance pour personnes âgées atteintes de la maladie d’Alzheimer

A Privacy-Enhancing Framework for Mobile Devices

The use of mobile devices in daily life has increased exponentially, leading to them occupying many essential aspects of people’s lives, such as replacing credit cards to make payments, and for various forms of entertainment and social activities. Therefore, users have installed an enormous number of apps. These apps can collect and share a large amount of data, such as location data, images, videos, health data, and call logs, which are highly valuable and sensitive for users. Consequently, the use of apps raises a variety of privacy concerns regarding which app is allowed to access and share; to what degree of granularity, and how to manage and limit the disclosure of this data. Accordingly, it is imperative to develop and design a holistic solution for enhancing privacy on mobile apps to meet users’ privacy preferences. The research design in this study involved an attempt to address the problem in a coherent and logical way. Therefore, the research involved different phases, starting with identifying potential user requirements based on the literature, and then designing a participatory study to explore whether the initial requirements and design meet users’ preferences, which in turn led to the design of a final artefact. Design science requires the creation of a viable artefact for the current problem in the field. Thus, this study reviews the current use of privacy technologies and critically analyses the available solutions in order to investigate whether these solutions have the capability to meet personal privacy preferences and maximise users’ satisfaction. It is evident that most of the prior studies assume the homogeneity of privacy preferences across users, yet users’ privacy preferences differ from one user to another in the context of how to control and manage their data, prioritisation of information, personalised notifications, and levels of knowledge. Moreover, solutions with a user interface designed according to the users’ perceptions and based on HCI principles are not readily available. Therefore, it is paramount to meet and adopt user’s need and requirements to enhance privacy technology for mobile apps. A survey of 407 mobile users was undertaken to discover users’ privacy preferences. The outcome of the survey shows that it is possible to prioritise information into 10 unique profiles. Each profile effectively represents a cluster of likeminded users and captures their privacy-related information preferences. The outcomes of the analysis also revealed that users differ not only in the context of prioritisation of their information, but also regarding design, protection settings, responses, and level of knowledge. This, in turn, emphasises the need to develop and design a holistic solution for users, considering all these dimensions. As such, the thesis proposes a novel framework for enhancing privacy technology in a modular and robust manner that would support such a system in practice. This system provides a comprehensive solution that has been developed by considering different dimensions, and it includes a personalised response, prioritisation of privacy-related information, multilevel privacy controls, and also considers users’ varying levels of knowledge. As a result, this approach should enhance users’ privacy awareness and meet their needs to protect their privacy. Additionally, the proposed of the system consists of user interfaces designed according to the users’ perceptions and based on HCI principles to overcome the usability issues without compromising the users’ convenience. Ultimately, the evaluation of the effectiveness of the proposed approach shows that it is feasible and would enhance privacy technology as well as user convenience. This, in turn, would increase trust in the system and reduce privacy concerns