INVESTIGATION OF THE USE OF 3-D PRINTER PLATFORM AS BUILDING BLOCK FOR RAPID DESIGN OF RESEARCH AND MANUFACTURING TOOL

This thesis attempts to show how an open source 3-D printer platform, the self replicating rapid prototype (RepRap), could be used to accelerate the development of research and manufacturing tools. Two projects are shown as examples, both utilizing components of the 3-D printer platform. The first project is to develop an instrument capable of performing automated large-area four-point probe measurements. A modified RepRap 3-D Printer with a four-point probe in place of the 3-D printer head is utilized as a precision positioning platform. The printer together with custom designed measurement circuit and software performs automated measurement on multiple points on the sample. Three-part experiments were performed to validate the system performance and it was found to be comparable to existing commercial equipment. The developed system is fully open sourced and cost 70% less than manual proprietary systems. The second project tried to build large size fused filament fabrication (FFF) 3-D printers (2 x 1 x 0.6 meters) by retrofitting an existing CNC machine frame with FFF print head and single board computer running open source 3-D printer controller software. A variety of 3-D object was printed to showcase the printer capability to print simple and complex objects. The result of both projects is comparable to existing commercial equipment and showed how researchers, engineers and makers could use existing open source 3-D printer platform to accelerate the development of research and manufacturing tools

Animating user interface prototypes with formal models

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Informatics EngineeringThe User Interface (UI) provides the first impression of an interactive system and should, thus, be intuitive, in order to guide users effectively and efficiently in performing their tasks. User interface prototyping is a common activity in UI development, as it supports early exploration of the UI design by potential users. UI quality plays a crucial role in safety-critical contexts, where design errors can poten tially lead to catastrophic events. Model-based analysis approaches aim to detect usability and performance issues early in the design process by leveraging formal analysis. They complement prototyping, which supports user involvement, but not an exhaustive analysis of the designs. The IVY Workbench emerges as a model-based analysis tool intended for non-expert usage. The tool was originally focused on supporting modelling and verification, but more recently an effort began to combine the formal model capabilities with UI mock-ups, to produce more interactive prototypes than traditional mock-up editors support. This work addresses the enhancement of the prototyping features of the IVY Workbench. The improvements of such features include the creation of a dynamic widget library that can vastly improve the quality of prototypes. Such a library, however, should be compatible with several mock-up editors to attract a broader design community. The results of this work include an analysis of alternative prototyping tools, identifying potential features that can enhance the IVY Workbench, the creation of a dynamic widget library that is compatible with several mock-up editors, and several improvements to IVY’s prototyping plugin, including the addition of code exporting functionalities. Usability tests were conducted to validate the new features of the tool, with positive results. Two mobile applications were also created, allowing users to test prototypes in their mobile devices.A UI proporciona o primeiro contacto entre um utilizador e um sistema interativo. Assim, a UI deverá ser capaz de guiar o utilizador na execução das suas tarefas, de um modo eficiente e eficaz. A prototipagem de interfaces é uma atividade comum no processo de desenvolvimento de UIs, já que permite a exploração antecipada do design de uma UI com potenciais utilizadores. A UI tem um papel bastante relevante no contexto de sistemas críticos, onde falhas no design podem gerar eventos catastróficos. As metodologias de análise baseadas em modelos procuram detetar potenciais falhas de usabilidade e desempenho, em fases iniciais do processo de desenvolvimento, através de análise formal. Estas metodologias complementam o processo de prototipagem, que suporta o envolvimento dos utilizadores mas não oferece uma análise exaustiva do design. A IVY Workbench surge como uma ferramenta de análise baseada em modelos que visa suportar utilizadores sem grandes conhecimentos de análise formal. Embora originalmente focada na modelação e verificação, surgiu recentemente um esforço para combinar as capacidades da análise formal com mock-ups da UI. O objetivo é produzir protótipos com maior nível de interação do que os produzidos pelos tradicionais editores de mock-ups. O presente trabalho apresenta melhorias das capacidades de prototipagem da ferramenta IVY Workbench. Estas melhorias incluem a criação de uma biblioteca de widgets dinâmicos, que aperfeiçoa a qualidade dos protótipos desta ferramenta. Esta biblioteca deverá ser compatível com múltiplos editores de mock-ups, de modo a atrair uma vasta comunidade de designers. Os resultados deste trabalho incluem uma análise de alternativas de ferramentas de prototipagem, onde são identificadas funcionalidades que podem aprimorar a ferramenta IVY Workbench; a criação de uma biblioteca de widgets dinâmicos, compatível com inúmeros editores de mock-ups; assim como várias melhorias efetuadas no plugin de prototipagem desta ferramenta, incluindo a adição de funcionalidades de exportação de código fonte. Foram realizados testes de usabilidade para validar as novas funcionalidades da ferramenta com utilizadores, onde foram obtidos resultados positivos. Finalmente, foram criadas duas aplicações móveis que permitem que os utilizadores testem os protótipos nos seus dispositivos móveis

Co-designing a mobile Internet service for self-management of physical activity in rheumatiod arthritis

Aim: The overall aim of the thesis was to describe and evaluate the content and outcome of co-designing a mobile Internet service for self-management of physical activity in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) with active lead user involvement, within the action research paradigm. Context: Physical activity is known for its health benefits. However, maintaining a physically active lifestyle is a great challenge for most people, and maybe even more so for people living with RA. IT and mobile phones provide additional means to deliver health care services, i.e. mHealth, for physical activity self-management. Further, involvement of lead users in the development of services has been reported to improve their usability and effectiveness. Process: In the first phase of the co-design process, six focus group interviews were performed with lead users (n=26) to explore their ideas on core features (Study I). In the next phase, four workshops were conducted, which included lead users, clinical and researcher physiotherapists, an eHealth strategist and an officer from the Swedish Rheumatism Association (n=10). The aim was to specify the system requirements of the future service (Study II and III). Video recordings, natural observations, prototypes of the future service and an online notice board were used to collect data on the requirements and challenges of co-design. In the third phase, the first test version of the service was produced and evaluate in terms of the participants’ utilization of and experiences with the service (Study IV). Log-data were collected during the six week test period. Web questionnaires were sent out to and telephone interviews were performed with the participants after the test period. Content: Four core aspects that are important to consider in the development of the mHealth service were identified: features, customized options, user interface, and access and implementation (result Study I). To produce the requirements specification, the participants had to merge their different perspectives, which was the core challenge of codesign (Study II). The merging resulted in “tRAppen”, an mHealth service for maintenance of physical activity. tRAppen included two key components: 1) “My self-regulation features” and 2) “My peer support features” (result Study III). The first test version of tRAppen included 22 different behavior change techniques. Outcome: Twenty-eight participants tested tRAppen (result Study IV). Most participants registered physical activity, sent likes and made an exercise plan. tRAppen was generally rated as easy and fun to use, and all participants would recommend it to other people. The results also described the experiences of using tRAppen as being influenced by physical and mental state and personal preferences. Conclusions: The use of co-design in the development of the physical activity selfmanagement service tRAppen was successful. The first test version of tRAppen was perceived as feasible and to have the potential to support a physically active lifestyle in people with RA. Co-design in collaborative workshops was an extensive decision-making process that put high demands on the participants’ ability to find solutions, negotiate, come to agreements and reach final decisions

The development of an executable graphical notation for describing direct manipulation interfaces : a dissertation presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science at Massey University

The research reported in this thesis involves the development of an executable semi-formal graphical notation, Lean Cuisine+, for describing the underlying behaviour of event-based direct manipulation interfaces, and the application of the notation both in 'reverse engineering', and during the early design phase of the interface development life cycle. A motivation for the research stems from the need for tools and techniques to support high level interface design. The research supports and brings together a number of views concerning the requirements of notations at this level. These are that a notation should be semi-formal, graphical, executable, and object-oriented, and that to be most effective it should be targeted at a specific category of interaction. The Lean Cuisine+ notation meets all these criteria, the underlying meneme model matching closely with the selection-based nature of direct manipulation interfaces. Lean Cuisine+ is a multi-layered notation, and is a development of Lean Cuisine (Apperley & Spence, 1989). The base layer is a tree diagram which captures part of the behaviour of an interface in terms of constraints and dependencies between selectable dialogue primitives. Further constraints and dependencies associated with the dynamics of the interface are captured through overlays to the basic tree diagram. An orthogonal task layer captures any temporal relationships between primitive task actions, and provides a link with higher level functionality. Lean Cuisine+ is able to combine both static and dynamic modelling in a coherent manner, thus avoiding the necessity of employing separate and possibly disjoint models at the early design stage. A software support environment for the notation is also specified and partially prototyped. The research demonstrates the advantages of a notation which can be executed to provide limited but valid early simulation of the dynamic behaviour of the interface under design. A mapping from Lean Cuisine+ to a dialogue implementation language, DAL (Anderson, 1993), is also developed in support of the view that a multi-notational approach to interface development is required, and that it must be possible to move easily from initial specification to prototyping and implementation. The Lean Cuisine+ descriptions of aspects of the Apple Macintosh interface included in the thesis show the notation to be capable of handling a range of direct manipulation interaction styles and a variety of interface objects. A five stage methodology for the construction of Lean Cuisine+ specifications for new interfaces is also developed, and applied in two case studies

Comprehensive support for developing graphical highly interactive user interface systems

The general problem of application development of interactive GUI applications has been addressed by toolkits, libraries, user interface management systems, and more recently domain-specific application frameworks. However, the most sophisticated solution offered by frameworks still lacks a number of features which are addressed by this research: 1) limited functionality -- the framework does little to help the developer implement the application's functionality. 2) weak model of the application -- the framework does not incorporate a strong model of the overall architecture of the application program. 3) representation of control sequences is difficult to understand, edit, and reuse -- higher-level, direct-manipulation tools are needed. We address these problems with a new framework design called Oregon Speedcode Universe version 3.0 (OSU v3.0) which is shown, by demonstration, to overcome the limitations above: 1) functionality is provided by a rich set of built-in functions organized as a class hierarchy, 2) a strong model is provided by OSU v3.0 in the form of a modified MVC paradigm, and a Petri net based sequencing language which together form the architectural structure of all applications produced by OSU v3.0. 3) representation of control sequences is easily constructed within OSU v3.0 using a Petri net editor, and other direct manipulation tools built on top of the framework. In ddition: 1) applications developed in OSU v3.0 are partially portable because the framework can be moved to another platform, and applications are dependent on the class hierarchy of OSU v3.0 rather than the operating system of a particular platform, 2) the functionality of OSU v3.0 is extendable through addition of classes, subclassing, and overriding of existing methods. The main contribution of this research is in the design of an application framework that uses Petri nets as the computational model of data processing in the synthesized application. OSU v3.0 is the first framework to formalize sequencing, and to show that complex GUI applications can indeed be quickly and reliably produced from such a framework