Learning object metadata surrogates in search result interfaces: user evaluation, design and content

The purpose of this research was to evaluate user interaction with learning object metadata surrogates both in terms of content and presentation. The main objectives of this study were: (1) to review the literature on learning object metadata and user-centred evaluation of metadata surrogates in the context of cognitive information retrieval (including user-centred relevance and usability research); (2) to develop a framework for the evaluation of user interaction with learning object metadata surrogates in search result interfaces; (3) to investigate the usability of metadata surrogates in search result interfaces of learning object repositories (LORs) in terms of various presentation aspects (such as amount of information, structure and highlighting of query terms) as a means for facilitating the user relevance judgment process; (4) to investigate in-depth the type of content that should be included in learning object metadata surrogates in order to facilitate the process of relevance judgment; (5) to provide a set of recommendations—guidelines for the design of learning object metadata surrogates in search result interfaces both in terms of content and presentation. [Continues.

Alter ego, state of the art on user profiling: an overview of the most relevant organisational and behavioural aspects regarding User Profiling.

This report gives an overview of the most relevant organisational and\ud behavioural aspects regarding user profiling. It discusses not only the\ud most important aims of user profiling from both an organisation’s as\ud well as a user’s perspective, it will also discuss organisational motives\ud and barriers for user profiling and the most important conditions for\ud the success of user profiling. Finally recommendations are made and\ud suggestions for further research are given

Patient-Centred Culturally-Aware Design Approach for e-Health Acceptance

The importance of information and communication technology in healthcare has recently grown to an unprecedented dimension as more people are empowered by technology to participate more actively in their healthcare processes. New online applications for accessing healthcare information and for self-diagnosis have become increasingly available to diverse patient groups of different languages, educational backgrounds, and cultural orientations. However, the design of these applications typically follows Western cultural orientations. This approach has created a gap, which makes it difficult for users, who use the systems within their own cultural contexts, to derive maximum benefits from such use. As a result, the gap impedes the uptake, market success, and effective adoption of these e-Health applications in various cultural contexts. Moreover, as healthcare organisations increasingly seek to interact with patients, often in real-time, through enhanced web-based services, patient experiences often become tied to a largely ‘Western-driven’ style of patient interfaces, interaction, and look and feel that negatively impact the overall acceptance of these services across different cultures. This poses a tremendous challenge to technology adoption, in particular with regard to how to design culturally-aware and patientcentred e-Health applications that reflect the cultural diversity of today’s users and meaningfully empower them to better utilise such tools to enhance their day-to-day life. This research proposes to investigate the impact of a patient-centred culturally-aware design approach on the patient acceptance of e-Health web-based services, in particular, how e-Health web-based applications can be designed in a way that maximises their usability and ‘fits’ them into the cultural fabrics of individuals in different cultural contexts. To address this challenge, this research work examined existing literature in the fields of culture, technology acceptance and HCI, and identified relevant constructs that were used to develop a culturally-aware technology acceptance model for electronic health. Subsequently, the model provided a means for understanding the influence of different factors affecting patient acceptance and usage which were used as a foundation to inform the design of the Patient-Centred Culturally-aware e-Health Design Approach (PCCeDA) framework for e-Health web-based services developments. The novelty in PCCeDA is the notion of cultural awareness, which allows systems to personalise themselves according to a patient’s cultural profile while adhering to usability principles. As a result, the interface and contents presented to a patient are both dynamically tailored to better suit that patient’s cultural preferences, thereby increasing patient adoption. Based on PCCeDA, a proof of concept prototype called i-Diagnose was developed primarily to assess the validity of the framework and to answer the central questions of this research study. Evaluation results show that a patient-centred culturally-aware design approach enhances the effectiveness, usefulness and patient acceptance of e-Health web-based services in different cultural contexts. The main contributions of this work include: (i) a culturally sensitive technology acceptance model for e-Health (‘e-HTAM’) where both technology acceptance model and cultural dimensions are integrated to develop the e-HTAM model. The model highlighted various issues that need to be taken into consideration when designing patient-centred culturally-aware e-Health Design Approach applications; and (ii) a patient-centred Culturally-aware e-Health Design Approach framework that allows systems to personalise both the patient interface and the contents provided to a patient to better suit that patient’s cultural background. The research also includes a number of other minor contributions such as: (i) an approach for solving the static nature of Hofstede’s dimensions’ indexation, through the use of cultural parameters to dynamically model users’ cultural states, (ii) the introduction of personalisation based on cultural factors into the e-Health web-based services domain, and (iii) shed light on the electronic health acceptance state in the UAE as compared to the UK

ECSCW 2013 Adjunct Proceedings The 13th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work 21 - 25. September 2013, Paphos, Cyprus

This volume presents the adjunct proceedings of ECSCW 2013.While the proceedings published by Springer Verlag contains the core of the technical program, namely the full papers, the adjunct proceedings includes contributions on work in progress, workshops and master classes, demos and videos, the doctoral colloquium, and keynotes, thus indicating what our field may become in the future

CSR communication through social media: a neurophysiological and self-reported perspective

La Responsabilidad Social Corporativa (RSC) se está reconsiderando como un elemento crucial en las estrategias de posicionamiento y promoción de las empresas. De hecho, compite en importancia con la calidad del producto o servicio a la hora de construir una imagen de marca y comunicarla a los stakeholders, en especial a los clientes. Las empresas de estos sectores han encontrado en las redes sociales un medio directo, accesible e interactivo para plasmar sus iniciativas de RSC. El objetivo general de este proyecto de tesis es profundizar en las particularidades de la comunicación de la RSC a través de las redes sociales en el sector hotelero y de restauración. Se busca conocer cómo afecta la comunicación de RSC a las percepciones de los clientes sobre la marca, tanto conscientes como no-conscientes, y cómo evoca determinadas actitudes e intenciones de comportamiento como la lealtad, la intención de recomendación, el feedback a la empresa, su defensa y la participación en la causa apoyada. Esta tesis considera tres variables de interés. Primero, la fuente del mensaje, como elemento clave para establecer la credibilidad del mismo. En segundo lugar, el encaje de la marca o enfoque visual de la iniciativa de CRM, que establece la relación entre la actividad de la marca y la causa involucrada en la RSC. En tercer lugar, la emotividad en el contenido pictórico, que puede afectar a la fluidez de procesamiento. Los efectos de estas variables manipuladas se consideran sobre las percepciones de los clientes (percepciones de RSC, imagen corporativa o atención visual), actitudes (confianza, identificación cliente-empresa) e intenciones de comportamiento (engagement del cliente, participación en la causa, brand advocacy). Los estudios incluidos en la tesis se desarrollan en servicios turísticos (hoteles y restaurantes) y se combinan técnicas self-reported con medidas no conscientes para la toma de datos. En los tres estudios, se diseñaron entornos experimentales para la recopilación de datos. Los datos para estos estudios se obtuvieron combinando tres métodos diferentes: (i) medidas neurofisiológicas de atención visual a través de eye-tracking y de reacción emocional mediante facial reading, (ii) encuestas en línea y (iii), en el caso del Estudio 1, un estudio cualitativo adicional mediante entrevistas en profundidad. Los resultados muestran que las percepciones de RSC de la comunicación por redes sociales generan engagement, participación en la causa y defensa del cliente. El usuario como fuente del mensaje fomenta la confianza en los mensajes de RSC más que los remitentes corporativos. La atención visual a la imagen y el feedback de la marca a los comentarios negativos afecta las actitudes evocadas y las intenciones de comportamiento hacia la marca. La atención visual también varía según el estilo de ejecución de CRM a través de las redes sociales de base visual, e influye específicamente en la defensa de la marca cuando hay un CRM centrado en el producto. Los resultados de esta tesis contribuyen a la teoría de la persuasión mostrando la RSC como herramienta de persuasión en hoteles y sectores con bajo capital reputacional como los restaurantes de comida rápida, las corrientes teóricas del comportamiento del consumidor (la teoría del compromiso-confianza, la teoría de la identidad social y la teoría del intercambio social) examinando el rol de la confianza y la identificación en las intenciones de comportamiento que benefician a la marca, y los modelos y teorías relacionados con la atención visual y el procesamiento mental (el modelo AC-TEA, la teoría de exposición selectiva, la teoría de la fluidez del procesamiento), explicando como el estilo de ejecución de la comunicación de CRM lleva a distintos patrones de atención y efectos en las actitudes positivas del clientes hacia la marca y la causa. También se proporcionan implicaciones para los gerentes y expertos en marketing en la industria hotelera.Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is being reconsidered as a crucial element in companies' positioning and promotion strategies. In fact, it competes in importance with the quality of the product or service when it comes to building a brand image and communicating it to stakeholders, especially customers. Companies in the hotel and restaurant sectors have found in media a direct, accessible and interactive means to capture their CSR initiatives. The general objective of this thesis project is to delve into the particularities of CSR communication through social media in the hotel and restaurant sector. It seeks to know how CSR communication affects the perceptions of customers about the brand, both conscious and non-conscious, and how it evokes certain attitudes and behavioural intentions such as loyalty, recommendation intention, feedback to the company, advocacy and participation in the supported cause. This thesis considers three variables of interest. First, message source, as a key element in establishing message credibility. Second, cause brand-fit or visual focus of the CRM initiative, which establishes the relationship between the brand’s activity and the cause that is involved in CSR. Third, the emotionality in pictorial content, which may affect processing fluency. The effects of these manipulated variables are considered upon customer perceptions (i.e. CSR perceptions, corporate image or visual attention), attitudes (i.e. trust, customer-company identification) and behavioural intentions (i.e. customer engagement, cause participation, brand advocacy). The studies included in the thesis are developed in tourist services (hotels and restaurants) and self-reported techniques are combined with non-conscious measures for data collection. In all three studies, experimental settings were designed for data collection. The data for these studies were obtained by combining three different methods: (i) neurophysiological measures of visual attention through eye-tracking and of emotional reaction through facial reading, (ii) online surveys and (iii), in the case of the Study 1, a further qualitative study using in-depth interviews. The results show that CSR perceptions out of CRM communication through social media yield customer engagement, cause participation intention and consumer advocacy. User-generated content (UGC) as message source fosters reliance on CSR messages more than corporate senders. Visual attention to the picture and brand feedback in social media posts affects evoked attitudes and behavioural intentions towards the brand. Visual attention also varies according to the execution style of CRM through visual-based social media, and specifically influences brand advocacy when there is a product-focussed CRM initiative. The results of this thesis actively contribute to persuasion theory by showing CSR as tool for persuasion in hotels and sectors with low reputational capital such as fast-food restaurants, theoretical streams from consumer behaviour (i.e. trust-commitment theory, social identity theory, social exchange theory) by examining the role of trust and identification on behavioural intentions that benefit the brand, and models and theories related to visual attention and mental processing (i.e. AC-TEA model, selective exposure theory, processing fluency theory by explaining how the execution style of CRM communication leads to different attention patterns and effects on positive customer attitudes towards the brand and the cause. Implications are also provided to managers and marketing experts in the hospitality industry

Sustainability in design: now! Challenges and opportunities for design research, education and practice in the XXI century

Copyright @ 2010 Greenleaf PublicationsLeNS project funded by the Asia Link Programme, EuropeAid, European Commission

Design with Symbolic Meaning: Introducing well-being related symbolic meaning in design

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Intelligence, Creativity and Fantasy

UID/HIS/04666/2019 This is the 2nd volume of PHI series, published by CRC Press, the 4th published by CRC Press and the 5th volume of PHI proceedings.The texts presented in Proportion Harmonies and Identities (PHI) - INTELLIGENCE, CREATIVITY AND FANTASY were compiled with the intent to establish a multidisciplinary platform for the presentation, interaction and dissemination of research. The aim is also to foster the awareness and discussion on the topics of Harmony and Proportion with a focus on different visions relevant to Architecture, Arts and Humanities, Design, Engineering, Social and Natural Sciences, and their importance and benefits for the sense of both individual and community identity. The idea of modernity has been a significant motor for development since the Western Early Modern Age. Its theoretical and practical foundations have become the working tools of scientists, philosophers, and artists, who seek strategies and policies to accelerate the development process in different contexts.authorsversionpublishe