Usability evaluation of digital libraries: a tutorial

This one-day tutorial is an introduction to usability evaluation for Digital Libraries. In particular, we will introduce Claims Analysis. This approach focuses on the designers’ motivations and reasons for making particular design decisions and examines the effect on the user’s interaction with the system. The general approach, as presented by Carroll and Rosson(1992), has been tailored specifically to the design of digital libraries. Digital libraries are notoriously difficult to design well in terms of their eventual usability. In this tutorial, we will present an overview of usability issues and techniques for digital libraries, and a more detailed account of claims analysis, including two supporting techniques – simple cognitive analysis based on Norman’s ‘action cycle’ and Scenarios and personas. Through a graduated series of worked examples, participants will get hands-on experience of applying this approach to developing more usable digital libraries. This tutorial assumes no prior knowledge of usability evaluation, and is aimed at all those involved in the development and deployment of digital libraries

Mobile Application to support fuel-efficient driving through situation awareness

Abstract. Situation awareness is usually conceptualized as design and implementation principles for safety critical industries like aviation or military. Finland was one of the first countries in the world to establish an intelligent transport systems (ITS) strategy in 2009. Increasing the situation awareness in traffic is regarded as one of the means to implement the strategy. In the theoretical part of this thesis, we explore the use of situation awareness and context awareness in intelligent transport systems. Particularly, the thesis focuses on summarizing proper design and evaluation principles to provide situation awareness support for fuel efficient driving. These guidelines were exploited in implementing a mobile application, called Driving Coach Mobile Application in the practical part of the thesis. The purpose of the application is to provide awareness to the drivers about how they can save fuel. Driving Coach Mobile Application’s accordance of design and implementation principles to situation awareness support is validated by user study with simulated data focused on usability, usefulness and fuel efficiency awareness support. The results of this thesis can be used in fleet management planning, city planning as well as in personal driving, for example.Tilannetietoinen mobiilisovellus polttoainetaloudellisen ajamisen tueksi. Tiivistelmä. Turvallisuuskriittisissä teollisuuden osa-alueissa kuten ilmailussa tai sotilaallisessa toiminnassa, eri toimijoiden tilannetietoisuuden parantamiseen tähtäävät suunnittelu- sekä toteutusperiaatteet ovat olleet merkittävässä roolissa jo pitkään. Suomi oli maailman ensimmäisiä maita, jotka julkistivat älykkään liikenteen strategian jo vuonna 2009. Tilannetietoisuuden parantaminen liikenteessä on edelleen eräs tämän strategian toimeenpanomuoto. Tämän työn teoreettisessa osassa tutkitaan avulla tilannetietoisuuden sekä toimintatilanteesta tietoisuuden soveltamista älyliikenteessä. Erityisesti tarkastellaan suunnittelu- sekä evaluointiperiaatteita polttoainetalouden tehokkuuden lisäämiselle tilannetietoisuuden avulla. Työn käytännön osuudessa sovellettiin näitä periaatteita mobiilisovelluksen toteuttamiseksi. Mobiilisovellus tukee kuljettajien polttoainetehokkaampaa ajamista. Sovellus testattiin käytettävyyden, hyödyllisyyden sekä polttoainetehokkaan ajamisen tuen suhteen. Sovellusta voidaan käyttää esimerkiksi kaupunkisuunnittelussa, autokannan toiminnan tarkkailemisessa tai vaikka henkilökohtaisen ajotavan arvioinnissa

The Naturalistic Flight Deck System: An Integrated System Concept for Improved Single-Pilot Operations

This paper reviews current and emerging operational experiences, technologies, and human-machine interaction theories to develop an integrated flight system concept designed to increase the safety, reliability, and performance of single-pilot operations in an increasingly accommodating but stringent national airspace system. This concept, know as the Naturalistic Flight Deck (NFD), uses a form of human-centered automation known as complementary-automation (or complemation) to structure the relationship between the human operator and the aircraft as independent, collaborative agents having complimentary capabilities. The human provides commonsense knowledge, general intelligence, and creative thinking, while the machine contributes specialized intelligence and control, extreme vigilance, resistance to fatigue, and encyclopedic memory. To support the development of the NFD, an initial Concept of Operations has been created and selected normal and non-normal scenarios are presented in this document

Information Technology Applications in Hospitality and Tourism: A Review of Publications from 2005 to 2007

The tourism and hospitality industries have widely adopted information technology (IT) to reduce costs, enhance operational efficiency, and most importantly to improve service quality and customer experience. This article offers a comprehensive review of articles that were published in 57 tourism and hospitality research journals from 2005 to 2007. Grouping the findings into the categories of consumers, technologies, and suppliers, the article sheds light on the evolution of IT applications in the tourism and hospitality industries. The article demonstrates that IT is increasingly becoming critical for the competitive operations of the tourism and hospitality organizations as well as for managing the distribution and marketing of organizations on a global scale

Services in pervasive computing environments : from design to delivery

The work presented in this thesis is based on the assumption that modern computer technologies are already potentially pervasive: CPUs are embedded in any sort of device; RAM and storage memory of a modern PDA is comparable to those of a ten years ago Unix workstation; Wi-Fi, GPRS, UMTS are leveraging the development of the wireless Internet. Nevertheless, computing is not pervasive because we do not have a clear conceptual model of the pervasive computer and we have not tools, methodologies, and middleware to write and to seamlessly deliver at once services over a multitude of heterogeneous devices and different delivery contexts. Our thesis addresses these issues starting from the analysis of forces in a pervasive computing environment: user mobility, user profile, user position, and device profile. The conceptual model, or metaphor, we use to drive our work is to consider the environment as surrounded by a multitude of services and objects and devices as the communicating gates between the real world and the virtual dimension of pervasive computing around us. Our thesis is thus built upon three main “pillars”. The first pillar is a domain-object-driven methodology which allows developer to abstract from low level details of the final delivery platform, and provides the user with the ability to access services in a multi-channel way. The rationale is that domain objects are self-contained pieces of software able to represent data and to compute functions and procedures. Our approach fills the gap between users and domain objects building an appropriate user interface which is both adapted to the domain object and to the end user device. As example, we present how to design, implement and deliver an electronic mail application over various platforms. The second pillar of this thesis analyzes in more details the forces that make direct object manipulation inadequate in a pervasive context. These forces are the user profile, the device profile, the context of use, and the combinatorial explosion of domain objects. From the analysis of the electronic mail application presented as example, we notice that according to the end user device, or according to particular circumstances during the access to the service (for instance if the user access the service by the interactive TV while he is having his breakfast) some functionalities are not compulsory and do not fit an adequate task sequence. So we decided to make task models explicit in the design of a service and to integrate the capability to automatically generate user interfaces for domain objects with the formal definition of task models adapted to the final delivery context. Finally, the third pillar of our thesis is about the lifecycle of services in a pervasive computing environment. Our solutions are based upon an existing framework, the Jini connection technology, and enrich this framework with new services and architectures for the deployment and discovery of services, for the user session management, and for the management of offline agents

The Lessons of the Living Dead: Marcel\u27s Journey from Balbec to Douville-Féterne in Proust\u27s Cities of the Plain: Part Two

By analyzing the narrative of Marcel\u27s journey by the little train from Balbec to Douville-Féterne the essay engages with the Proust criticism of Georges Poulet, Paul de Man, and Julia Kristeva to support Hayden White\u27s claim that it is legitimate to read Proust\u27s narrative as an allegory of figuration itself. Like the Madeleine episode, this one serves as a point from which retrospection and prospection radiate. Central to the discussion is the description of Verdurins\u27 dinner party guests as they stand ready to board the train on the platform at Graincourt: their vivacity, compared to a sort of extinction, suggests a chiasmus between life and death, past and present, experience and reading, and phenomenon and figuration that enriches and integrates Poulet\u27s phenomenological glosses, de Man\u27s rhetorical analysis, and the Kristevan approach to Proust\u27s text. In close proximity to the Verdurins\u27 guests, Marcel is struck chiefly by their remoteness, their pastness, their distance: the figural and phenomenal instability of space and time finally converge in Marcel himself as Proust effects a biblical joke

Managing Marine Mammal Observations Using a Volunteered Geographic Information Approach

Traditional methods of gathering the data needed to understand human impact on marine mammals requires extensive time and resources. To reduce the burden associated with collecting and managing marine mammal observations, a geographic information system (GIS) solution was developed using a volunteered geographic information (VGI) approach. Web and mobile applications were built for the general public to submit marine mammal observations and visualize the results. The web application also includes querying and authorized download of data. Both applications consume web services published from an ArcSDE geodatabase using ArcGIS Server 10.0

Usage-Based Storyboarding for Web Information Systems

On a high level of abstraction a Web Information System (WIS) can be described by a storyboard, which in an abstract way specifies who will be using the system, in which way and for which goals. While syntax and semantics of storyboarding has been well explored, its pragmatics has not. This paper contributes the first step towards closing this gap by analysing the usage of WISs. Starting from a classification of intentions we first present life cases, which capture observations of user behaviour in reality. We discuss the facets of life cases and present a semi-formal way for their documentation. Life cases can be used in a pragmatic way to specify a story space, which is an important component of a storyboard. In a second step we complement life cases by user models that are specified by various facets of actor profiles that are needed for them. We analyse actor profiles and present a semi-formal way for their documentation. We outline how these profiles can be used to specify actors, which are an important component of a storyboard. Finally, we analyse contexts and the way they impact on life cases, user models and the storyboard