394 research outputs found

    Future bathroom: A study of user-centred design principles affecting usability, safety and satisfaction in bathrooms for people living with disabilities

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    Research and development work relating to assistive technology 2010-11 (Department of Health) Presented to Parliament pursuant to Section 22 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 197

    Feasibility investigation of crowdsourcing-based product design and development for manufacturing

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    In the era of Industry 4.0, to help manufacturers make quick response to rapidly changing market and customer needs, this research explores the feasibility of realizing benefits of crowdsourcing in product design and development from a lifecycle point of view through investigations on product design quality control and crowdsourcing technology theories, product design lifecycle information modelling, and simulation platform prototyping. It intends to help manufacturers create a product-service ecosystem to deliver values to all involved stakeholders of a PDD process. This study started with building up the theoretical foundation of product design quality control in crowdsourcing design environment. Then, key crowdsourcing technologies for realizing a lifecycle PDD process on a crowdsourcing platform while enabling the design quality were explored. Thirdly, a multi-layer product design lifecycle information model was developed to accommodate all design related information in a PDD process and the identified information at each design phase and the relationships and interactions among information entities were evaluated by case studies and ORM modelling method, respectively. Finally, two crowdsourcing platform prototypes based on the PDLIM were developed to test their effectiveness in communicating design information among stakeholders and delivering value to them. The proposed research made contributions to knowledge through the following improvements/advancements: (1) understanding of key factors affecting product design quality in crowdsourcing design environments, (2) a technical foundation of crowdsourcing technologies for PDD process, (3) a novel product design lifecycle information model accommodating design information in crowdsourcing environments, and (4) guidelines on developing intermediary and integrated crowdsourcing platforms for PDD

    Designing From Listening: Embodied Experience and Sonic Interactions

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    An understanding of the richness of peopleā€™s sonic experience can lead to the creation of novel methods for informing design practices. One of the challenges in Sonic Interaction Design (SID) is to deal with the complexity of the ā€œsonicā€: its phenomenon, the interactions it creates, its social and cultural contexts. To tackle this challenge, this thesis investigates how we can draw upon peopleā€™s everyday sonic experience, particularly listening and remembering sound, to design interactions using body movement, digital sound processing and embodied technologies. Firstly, the research analyses how sound has been studied in its phenomenological, cultural and social aspects in fields such as Sound Studies and Embodied Sound Cognition. Secondly, it involves users in the process of designing sonic interactions, with a user study about gestural-sound relationships during active control of digital sound, and a series of participatory design workshops which draws upon peopleā€™s sonic experience for imagining interactions with sound. The thesis provides four main contributions. The first is Retro-Active Listening, a concept which draws attention to sounds heard in the past by remembering listening to them. The second is the Sonic Incident, a technique for SID workshops, which allows designers to explore participantsā€™ past experiences of listening. The third is the Gestural Sound Toolkit, which enables designers to rapidly prototype interactive sound mappings based on human movement. The final contribution is three models for designing embodied sonic interactions. These comprise (1) Substitution, in which usersā€™ movements substitute the cause of the sound, (2) Conduction, where usersā€™ movements have a semantic relationship with the sound, and (3) Manipulation, in which usersā€™ movements manipulate the sound. These contributions help to build a framework for design that addresses lesser-explored matters in SID, such as embodiment and contextual aspects of sound, which are potentially relevant for users

    Persuasive by design: a model and toolkit for designing evidence-based interventions

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    Geographic Citizen Science Design: No one left behind

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    Little did Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and other ā€˜gentlemen scientistsā€™ know, when they were making their scientific discoveries, that some centuries later they would inspire a new field of scientific practice and innovation, called citizen science. The current growth and availability of citizen science projects and relevant applications to support citizen involvement is massive; every citizen has an opportunity to become a scientist and contribute to a scientific discipline, without having any professional qualifications. With geographic interfaces being the common approach to support collection, analysis and dissemination of data contributed by participants, ā€˜geographic citizen scienceā€™ is being approached from different angles. Geographic Citizen Science Design takes an anthropological and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) stance to provide the theoretical and methodological foundations to support the design, development and evaluation of citizen science projects and their user-friendly applications. Through a careful selection of case studies in the urban and non-urban contexts of the Global North and South, the chapters provide insights into the design and interaction barriers, as well as on the lessons learned from the engagement of a diverse set of participants; for example, literate and non-literate people with a range of technical skills, and with different cultural backgrounds. Looking at the field through the lenses of specific case studies, the book captures the current state of the art in research and development of geographic citizen science and provides critical insight to inform technological innovation and future research in this area

    Proceedings of the GIS Research UK 18th Annual Conference GISRUK 2010

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    This volume holds the papers from the 18th annual GIS Research UK (GISRUK). This year the conference, hosted at University College London (UCL), from Wednesday 14 to Friday 16 April 2010. The conference covered the areas of core geographic information science research as well as applications domains such as crime and health and technological developments in LBS and the geoweb. UCLā€™s research mission as a global university is based around a series of Grand Challenges that affect us all, and these were accommodated in GISRUK 2010. The overarching theme this year was ā€œGlobal Challengesā€, with specific focus on the following themes: * Crime and Place * Environmental Change * Intelligent Transport * Public Health and Epidemiology * Simulation and Modelling * London as a global city * The geoweb and neo-geography * Open GIS and Volunteered Geographic Information * Human-Computer Interaction and GIS Traditionally, GISRUK has provided a platform for early career researchers as well as those with a significant track record of achievement in the area. As such, the conference provides a welcome blend of innovative thinking and mature reflection. GISRUK is the premier academic GIS conference in the UK and we are keen to maintain its outstanding record of achievement in developing GIS in the UK and beyond

    Technology-based service experience: Creation and evaluation of emergency ambulance services

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    With the rapid development of communication technology and the spreading of mobile devices, mobile applications are involved in peopleā€™s everyday life. Technology provides designers with both challenges and possibilities. Service designers also embrace technology to create service systems for better experiences. This study investigates how to improve the emergency ambulance service experience in Rovaniemi with a technology-based service system. A mobile application was designed and tested. The cyclical action research process includes an online questionnaire survey (N=23), semi-structured interviews (N=6) as generative research, and a service prototyping workshop (N=4) as evaluative research. The results from generative research indicate the need for information communication during emergencies, while the results from evaluative research provided more insights for future iteration design. Based on the research data and design outcomes, the study concludes a framework of how to design a technology-based service system by combining service design and UX design

    Geographic Citizen Science Design

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    Little did Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and other ā€˜gentlemen scientistsā€™ know, when they were making their scientific discoveries, that some centuries later they would inspire a new field of scientific practice and innovation, called citizen science. The current growth and availability of citizen science projects and relevant applications to support citizen involvement is massive; every citizen has an opportunity to become a scientist and contribute to a scientific discipline, without having any professional qualifications. With geographic interfaces being the common approach to support collection, analysis and dissemination of data contributed by participants, ā€˜geographic citizen scienceā€™ is being approached from different angles. Geographic Citizen Science Design takes an anthropological and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) stance to provide the theoretical and methodological foundations to support the design, development and evaluation of citizen science projects and their user-friendly applications. Through a careful selection of case studies in the urban and non-urban contexts of the Global North and South, the chapters provide insights into the design and interaction barriers, as well as on the lessons learned from the engagement of a diverse set of participants; for example, literate and non-literate people with a range of technical skills, and with different cultural backgrounds. Looking at the field through the lenses of specific case studies, the book captures the current state of the art in research and development of geographic citizen science and provides critical insight to inform technological innovation and future research in this area

    Bicyclist Longitudinal Motion Modeling

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    69A43551747123Bike is a promising, human-powered, and emission-free transportation mode that is being increasingly advocated as a sustainable mode of transportation due to its significant positive impacts on congestion and the environment. Cities in the United States have experienced a rapid increase in bicycle ridership over the past decade. However, despite the growing popularity of bicycles for short-distance commuting and even for mid-distance recreational trips, researchers have generally ignored the investigation of bicycle traffic flow dynamics. Due to the shared space and frequent interactions among heterogeneous road users, bicycle flow dynamics should be evaluated to determine the tendency of lateral dispersion and its effects on traffic efficiency and safety. Therefore, this research effort proposes to model bicyclist longitudinal motion while accounting for bicycle interactions using vehicular traffic flow techniques. From the comparison of different states of motion for these two transport modes, the authors assumed there is no major difference between vehicular and bicyclist traffic characteristics. The study revamps the Fadhloun-Rakha car-following model previously developed by the research team to make it representative of bicycle traffic flow dynamics. The possibility of capturing cyclists\u2019 behaviors through revamping certain aspects of existing car-following models is investigated. Accordingly, 33 participants were recruited to ride the bike simulator and drive the car simulator simultaneously. The participants were recruited to operate a bike-simulator in order to test the proposed model under realistic traffic conditions and verify the output of the proposed model formulation remains valid when bicyclists are operating under realistic traffic conditions. Both simulators were integrated together, and each participant could inform about the location of another participant in the simulation interval. Six scenarios based on the initial position of the bike and car were developed. Based on the collected data, the Fadhloun-Rakha model was validated to ensure the development of a good descriptor for speed and acceleration and deceleration behaviors. A reliable sample including 100 model parameters values was selected. Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) for the mentioned sample was obtained, and the smallest RMSE in each scenario was identified. Using the obtained RMSEs, the speed and acceleration trajectories for the smallest RMSE in each scenario were drawn. Eventually, the optimal values of the model parameters (a,b,d) in each scenario were specified
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