The Abda’u Ritual: Ethnographic Communication Study of Tulehu Society in the Moluccas, Indonesia

The study focuses on the emerging phenomenon of abda’u ritual at the Eid al-Adha celebration in the month of Dhu al-Hijjah. Eid al-Adha celebration by the Tulehu society in the Moluccas, Indonesia is to identify the trust and values local tradition as a form of struggle, defense and flag upholding, struggle for sacrificial animals with ideology upholding of Islamic teachings. This ritual uses the communication media of three goats to be sacrificial animals and is distributed to three the indigenous village which is contested by abda’u participants. This research employed a subjective interpretive paradigm with an ethnographic communication approach pioneered by Dell Hymes based on a symbolic interaction perspective the abda’u ritual at the Eid al-Adha celebration. The symbol of devotion to Allah is a distribution by sharing with other communities that become the glue to arouse sacrifice through the sentence Lailaha ilallah muhammadarrasulullah. The findings show that the abda’u communication ritual is formed based on awareness to preserve the procession of the sacrifice of the sacrificed animals, and the social solidarity, syiar of Islam, enforcing Islam ideological through devotion to Allah

Towards an understanding of human behaviour for design action

It can be shown that exceeding both utilitarian and hedonic needs of consumers leads towards greater satisfaction, delight and enduring consumer loyalty. If designers are to meet the progressively diverse needs of consumers, then access to consumer values, aspirations and the underlying logic of their social practice become increasingly important. If we accept that what people say, do and think are often different things, gaining access to these requirements is clearly a challenge. The challenge is not only concerned with how these requirements are accessed at source, through widely adopted ethnographically inspired techniques, but more towards how these requirements are communicated to the designer. There is a clear disconnect between the collection of consumer requirements and how these requirements are arranged and communicated as implications for design. This thesis details a governance framework for the output of ethnographically inspired research methods to provide an understanding of the arrangement and attributes a communication tool for ethnographic work should possess, particularly towards the more technical area of new product development. The framework bridges a gap between consumer research and design action, which may be used as an approach to facilitate innovation, targeted problem solving and offer creative direction for new product development. Following an exploratory review of the literature and a series of way-finding interviews with domestic appliance and consumer goods manufacturers, a pilot study was conducted to identify the philosophical and practical barriers faced by designers, when designing for consumer requirements beyond the functional. A detailed second level literature review explored the emergent themes and led towards a desktop review of over 30 different creative thinking design tools from the design & emotion movement, 24 different communication approaches for ethnographic work in design and a two year case study on communication within the design process

Usability Study of Mobile Groupware Applications: A Case Study of Mobile Meeting Scheduler

Mobile groupware applications are to support users of different roles in completing tasks of mutual interests by operating mobile devices. Mobile Meeting Scheduler is an example of such applications. This software enables users of different parties to communicate with each other about the meeting time, venues, participants and subjects.  The purpose of the software is to facilitate users setting up meetings by using their mobile phones. A preliminary usability study of Mobile Meeting Scheduler suggests that evaluation of such applications is challenging.  The evaluators need insights into usability study methods for mobile groupware applications. An extensive literature survey shows that there is no directly applicable research on the subject yet. However, the analysis of Mobile Meeting Scheduler, its preliminary usability study and the relevant literature give implications on the important usability aspects of mobile groupware applications. The implications include also possible methods to conduct usability evaluations for mobile groupware applications. These implications will call for HCI researchers and practitioners to contribute further efforts to investigate practical usability study methods for mobile groupware applications. Asiasanat:groupware usability evaluation methods, mobile usability evaluation, mobile collaborative application, usability engineering, use context and user-centred desig