Development of novel design methodology for product mass customization based on human attributes and cognitive behaviours

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The competition in the global market is accelerating rapidly because of less technological gap, matured manufacturing level, and various changing customer needs. Increasingly customers choose products in terms of experience desires, psychological desires and whether the products can reflect their values, in addition to the main product functions. Moreover, there are a large number of small and medium sized manufacturing companies in the developing countries. OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) and simple mass production cannot generate good value for these manufacture companies, and they have been seeking new opportunities to create higher value for their products/services and satisfy different needs of customers. Mass customization is one of the main business forms in the future, which can best meet the needs of individual customer, especially psychological needs. The key to mass customization is to provide enough modules to meet individual needs with a limited cost increase. The problem has been how to identify the real user needs and individual differences. The purpose of this research is to develop a sound design methodology based upon the current product design theories and practices for future product innovation and sustainable growth of small and medium sized manufacturing enterprises. The research focuses on the user-product cognitive behaviours and the relationship between human attributes and product features. Orthogonal experiment, eye tracking technology and artificial neural network have been successfully applied in this research. The research has developed a user needs hierarchy model and added value hierarchy model, and a robust theoretical basis to predict and evaluate (individual) user needs for product design. The research has further made the following contributions: 1) The relationship between human attributes and product features has been established, which can help designers understand the differences of various customer groups; 2) The different effects of various influence factors on people’s cognition and preference choice based on vision have been analysed and discussed; 3) A new method to identify, cluster, and combine common needs and personalized needs in early design stage for mass customization has been developed; 4) The research results can be reused in the future design of the same or similar kind of products

Accessibility in PC Action/Adventure Games

Segons la Convenció sobre els Drets de les Persones amb Discapacitat, les Tecnologies de la Informació i la Comunicació han de ser accessibles. Per això, l'objectiu de l'estudi és avaluar el grau d'accessibilitat de 50 jocs d'acció/aventura per a PC publicats en els últims 10 anys (2010-2022). Per aconseguir-ho, es va crear una llista de comprovació d'opcions d'accessibilitat en conformitat a les normes, lleis i recomanacions, com les directrius per a videojocs i l'estàndard EN 301 549. El jocs es van seleccionar segons la disponibilitat, franquícies amb diversos títols i popularitat. Cada títol es va avaluar per comprovar si es complien les directrius. Es va calcular un percentatge a partir de la divisió del nombre de directrius d'accessibilitat presents entre les directrius possibles i aplicables. Els resultats revelen que el 44% dels jocs segueixen directrius d'accessibilitat, el 81% inclou directrius per a persones amb discapacitats cognitives, el 44% per a motores i de la parla, el 38% per a les auditives i el 25% per a les visuals. Els jocs examinats no són totalment accessibles, però la majoria compleix amb les directrius cognitives i els nivells bàsics d'accessibilitat. Futures vies d'investigació inclouen avaluacions d'accessibilitat multiplataforma de diferents gèneres i estudis.Según la Convención Internacional sobre los Derechos de las Personas con Discapacidad, las tecnologías de la información y las comunicaciones deben ser accesibles. Por ello, el objetivo del estudio fue descubrir el grado de accesibilidad de cincuenta juegos de acción/aventura para PC publicados en los últimos doce años (2010-2022). Para lograrlo, se creó una lista de comprobación de opciones y características conforme a las directrices para videojuegos, leyes y normas vigentes, como EN 301 549 en Europa. Los juegos se seleccionaron según la disponibilidad, franquicias con varios títulos y grado de popularidad. Cada título se evaluó para comprobar si se cumplían las directrices vigentes. Se obtuvo un porcentaje de accesibilidad al dividir el número de directrices disponibles entre las posibles y aplicables a cada título. Los resultados revelan que el 44% de los juegos siguen directrices, el 81% incluyen pautas para personas con discapacidades cognitivas, el 44% para las motoras y del habla, el 38% para las auditivas y el 25% para las visuales. Los juegos examinados no son totalmente accesibles, pero la mayoría cumple con directrices de accesibilidad cognitivas y niveles básicos de accesibilidad. Futuras vías de investigación incluyen evaluaciones de accesibilidad multiplataforma de diferentes géneros y estudios.According to the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) must be accessible. For this reason, the objective of this study was to discover the accessibility level of fifty PC action/adventure games released in the last twelve years (2010-2022). To this aim, a checklist of options and features following current guidelines (Game Accessibility Guidelines (GAG) and Xbox Guidelines), laws (Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 from the United States), and standards (European EN 301 549) was created. The games were selected based on availability, iterations, and popularity. They were reviewed and played to verify if the accessibility features were available. An accessibility percentage was obtained by dividing the number of present GAG by the number of possible GAG applicable to each title. The results revealed that 44% of the titles follow guidelines, 81% include guidelines for people with cognitive disabilities, 44% for motor and speech disabilities, 38% for auditory, and 25% for visual. The examined games are not entirely accessible, but most comply with guidelines addressing the needs of people with cognitive disabilities and basic accessibility levels. Further research lines include multiplatform accessibility assessments from different genres, publishers, and studios

Digital Scripture: An Investigation of the Design and Use of a Mobile Application for Reading Sacred Text

Digital sacred text reading is rapidly growing as digital devices such as mobile smartphones are becoming more common across the globe. Although sacred text can have strong influence on identify and behavior, the effects of a digital revolution on scripture reading practices are not well understood. In particular, current research literature indicates that more information is needed about the design and use of digital sacred text applications (apps) such as mobile Bibles across different religious groups or cultures. Therefore, this study builds upon and extends previous work to analyze a religious text app, Gospel Library, which is designed and largely used by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Data about the design of the app were collected by analyzing app store description text, conducting a technical app walkthrough, and interviewing current app design team members. Data about the usage of Gospel Library were collected by gaining permission from the design organization to access user analytic data collected during normal app operations. Results of the study show that this digital sacred text app is designed and used in ways that support religious or cultural reading values and norms. In particular, this study suggests that Latter-day Saints appear to value the King James Version of the English Bible and other unique religious text such as the Book of Mormon and General Conference sermons or messages. Results also suggest Latter-day Saints value church-wide directed scripture reading efforts situated in a culture of listening and receiving interpretation as opposed to social discussions of scripture. Furthermore, this study reports unique features or affordances that digital sacred texts can offer including audio capabilities, videos, search functions, sharing, highlighting, and other annotations. This study contributes to the research field of digital sacred text literacy by offering data gathered from an app design organization including interviews and user analytic data. It also adds to the broader conversation about religious literacy and digital versus print-based reading

Automatically Generating Personalized User Interfaces with SUPPLE

Today's computer–human interfaces are typically designed with the assumption that they are going to be used by an able-bodied person, who is using a typical set of input and output devices, who has typical perceptual and cognitive abilities, and who is sitting in a stable, warm environment. Any deviation from these assumptions may drastically hamper the person's effectiveness—not because of any inherent barrier to interaction, but because of a mismatch between the person's effective abilities and the assumptions underlying the interface design. We argue that automatic personalized interface generation is a feasible and scalable solution to this challenge. We present our Supple system, which can automatically generate interfaces adapted to a person's devices, tasks, preferences, and abilities. In this paper we formally define interface generation as an optimization problem and demonstrate that, despite a large solution space (of up to 1017 possible interfaces), the problem is computationally feasible. In fact, for a particular class of cost functions, Supple produces exact solutions in under a second for most cases, and in a little over a minute in the worst case encountered, thus enabling run-time generation of user interfaces. We further show how several different design criteria can be expressed in the cost function, enabling different kinds of personalization. We also demonstrate how this approach enables extensive user- and system-initiated run-time adaptations to the interfaces after they have been generated. Supple is not intended to replace human user interface designers—instead, it offers alternative user interfaces for those people whose devices, tasks, preferences, and abilities are not sufficiently addressed by the hand-crafted designs. Indeed, the results of our study show that, compared to manufacturers' defaults, interfaces automatically generated by Supple significantly improve speed, accuracy and satisfaction of people with motor impairments.Engineering and Applied Science

Examining the Effects of a Virtual Character on Learning and Engagement in Serious Games

Virtual characters have been employed for many purposes including interacting with players of serious games, with a purpose to increase engagement. These characters are often embodied conversational agents playing diverse roles, such as demonstrators, guides, teachers or interviewers. Recently, much research has been conducted into properties that affect the realism and plausibility of virtual characters, but it is less clear whether the inclusion of interactive agents in serious applications can enhance a user’s engagement with the application, or indeed increase efficacy. In a first step towards answering these questions, we conducted a study where a Virtual Learning Environment was used to examine the effect of employing a virtual character to deliver a lesso

Development of novel design methodology for product mass customization based on human attributes and cognitive behaviours

The competition in the global market is accelerating rapidly because of less technological gap, matured manufacturing level, and various changing customer needs. Increasingly customers choose products in terms of experience desires, psychological desires and whether the products can reflect their values, in addition to the main product functions. Moreover, there are a large number of small and medium sized manufacturing companies in the developing countries. OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) and simple mass production cannot generate good value for these manufacture companies, and they have been seeking new opportunities to create higher value for their products/services and satisfy different needs of customers. Mass customization is one of the main business forms in the future, which can best meet the needs of individual customer, especially psychological needs. The key to mass customization is to provide enough modules to meet individual needs with a limited cost increase. The problem has been how to identify the real user needs and individual differences. The purpose of this research is to develop a sound design methodology based upon the current product design theories and practices for future product innovation and sustainable growth of small and medium sized manufacturing enterprises. The research focuses on the user-product cognitive behaviours and the relationship between human attributes and product features. Orthogonal experiment, eye tracking technology and artificial neural network have been successfully applied in this research. The research has developed a user needs hierarchy model and added value hierarchy model, and a robust theoretical basis to predict and evaluate (individual) user needs for product design. The research has further made the following contributions: 1) The relationship between human attributes and product features has been established, which can help designers understand the differences of various customer groups; 2) The different effects of various influence factors on people’s cognition and preference choice based on vision have been analysed and discussed; 3) A new method to identify, cluster, and combine common needs and personalized needs in early design stage for mass customization has been developed; 4) The research results can be reused in the future design of the same or similar kind of products.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Dwell-free input methods for people with motor impairments

Millions of individuals affected by disorders or injuries that cause severe motor impairments have difficulty performing compound manipulations using traditional input devices. This thesis first explores how effective various assistive technologies are for people with motor impairments. The following questions are studied: (1) What activities are performed? (2) What tools are used to support these activities? (3) What are the advantages and limitations of these tools? (4) How do users learn about and choose assistive technologies? (5) Why do users adopt or abandon certain tools? A qualitative study of fifteen people with motor impairments indicates that users have strong needs for efficient text entry and communication tools that are not met by existing technologies. To address these needs, this thesis proposes three dwell-free input methods, designed to improve the efficacy of target selection and text entry based on eye-tracking and head-tracking systems. They yield: (1) the Target Reverse Crossing selection mechanism, (2) the EyeSwipe eye-typing interface, and (3) the HGaze Typing interface. With Target Reverse Crossing, a user moves the cursor into a target and reverses over a goal to select it. This mechanism is significantly more efficient than dwell-time selection. Target Reverse Crossing is then adapted in EyeSwipe to delineate the start and end of a word that is eye-typed with a gaze path connecting the intermediate characters (as with traditional gesture typing). When compared with a dwell-based virtual keyboard, EyeSwipe affords higher text entry rates and a more comfortable interaction. Finally, HGaze Typing adds head gestures to gaze-path-based text entry to enable simple and explicit command activations. Results from a user study demonstrate that HGaze Typing has better performance and user satisfaction than a dwell-time method