Usability guidelines informing knowledge visualisation in demonstrating learners' knowledge acquisition

There is growing evidence that knowledge co-creation and interactivity during learning interventions aid knowledge acquisition and knowledge transfer. However, learners have mostly been passive consumers and not co-creators of the knowledge visualisation aids created by teachers and instructional designers. As such, knowledge visualisation has been underutilised for allowing learners to construct, demonstrate and share what they have learned. The dearth of appropriate guidelines for the use of knowledge visualisation for teaching and learning is an obstacle to using knowledge visualisation in teaching and learning. This provides a rationale for this study, which aims to investigate usability-based knowledge visualisation guidelines for teaching and learning. The application context is that of Science teaching for high school learners in the Gauteng province of South Africa. Following a design-based research methodology, an artefact of usability-based knowledge visualisation guidelines was created. The artefact was evaluated by testing learners’ conformity to the visualisation guidelines. Qualitative and quantitative data was captured using questionnaires, interviews and observations. The findings indicate that the guidelines considered in this study had various degrees of impact on the visualisations produced by learners. While some made noticeable impact, for others it could be considered negligible. Within the context of high school learning, these results justify the prioritisation of usability-based knowledge visualisation guidelines. Integrating Human Computer Interaction usability principles and knowledge visualisation guidelines to create usability-based knowledge visualisation guidelines provide a novel theoretical contribution upon which scientific knowledge visualisation can be expanded.School of ComputingM. Sc. (Computing

Considering the usability of an ERP system in a multicultural collaborative organizational context through Hertzum's images of usability

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, although common in organizations, are noted for their lack of usability considerations. They are often large and complex, and as such are difficult to learn and to use. We set out to understand how a multicultural, geographically dispersed organizational setting affects the usability of ERP systems. Usability itself is difficult concept to define. Multiple definitions exist, most of which look at usability through a number of narrow, more approachable attributes. To incorporate different contextual and usability factors, we applied Hertzum’s method of usability analysis. The method considers six images of usability: universal, situational, perceived, hedonic, organizational, and cultural, each with a distinct perspective on usability. We explored which image would rise as dominant, and also considered the usefulness of applying Hertzum’s method in the context of an actual organization. The study was performed as a single-case study in an international organization, and focused on the ticket handling process of IT support personnel. We applied a mixed method approach, gathering data through a usability survey, semi-structured interviews, as well as live observation. Organizational usability emerged as the dominant image, as it was seen to elicit the most comments in the survey. The usability of the system was seen to result from the combination of all individual factors, and therefore to be rooted in specific instances of use. While Hertzum’s method was found to require a large scope of study to provide enough data to consider all images equally, the method nevertheless provided new insights into the usability of the ERP system. It is our hope that our results may assist future researchers appreciate the value gained from a change of perspective

The snow, the dirt and the smartphone : exploring mobile technology use by blue-collar mobile workers

The utilization of mobile phones has led to higher levels of accountability among blue-collar mobile field workers, who mostly rely on the physical performance of their work. Nowadays, maintenance and construction employees are responsible to report information about their work practices and outcomes through mobile technology in the field to greater extents than when reporting was done by filling paper forms. Such data serves the back office to administrate movement of resources such as trucks and supplies required in the work tasks and to monitor manual labour carried out in dispersed locations or when isolated in the field. Mobile workers face various limitations and mental workloads arising from their distinctive technical work conditions and due to their spatial mobility, which affect their ability to interact with devices and to comply with workplace demands. Further, the complexity of their work tasks often increases due to no readily available information technology solutions. As a result, mobile workers often experience uncertainty and ambiguity when reporting and processing information, which can subsequently hinder work in the field instead of supporting it. The main aim of this study is to learn how different contextual limitations and usability issues affect the practices of utilizing mobile phones for the purpose of reporting data in the field. Focus is put on the study context of M-Reporting, a mobile application through which the thesis explores the practices of reporting task-related data by maintainers, drivers and construction workers. A field study guided by the contextual inquiry data-collection technique was conducted amongst 12 participants carrying out their real tasks and interacting with ICTs across nine work sites. The field study enabled collecting rich qualitative data which was interpreted and analyzed. The findings were analyzed by using theoretical analysis frameworks on mobility. To assess the usability of M-Reporting, Hertzum’s method of usability analysis was applied. The findings reveal that workers face different contextual limitations that negatively affect their ability to report from the field. As a result, workers were found to improvise by delaying data entry, by favoring available alternatives to report and by prioritizing their other work tasks when there was no compelling need to report immediately. In addition, workers were found to develop particular reporting habits due to situational and organizational usability issues. In order to better adopt the process of reporting by blue-collar mobile workers within the field, future process improvement considerations were drawn and presented to the service provider and to the blue-collar mobile workplace

The snow, the dirt and the smartphone : exploring mobile technology use by blue-collar mobile workers

The utilization of mobile phones has led to higher levels of accountability among blue-collar mobile field workers, who mostly rely on the physical performance of their work. Nowadays, maintenance and construction employees are responsible to report information about their work practices and outcomes through mobile technology in the field to greater extents than when reporting was done by filling paper forms. Such data serves the back office to administrate movement of resources such as trucks and supplies required in the work tasks and to monitor manual labour carried out in dispersed locations or when isolated in the field. Mobile workers face various limitations and mental workloads arising from their distinctive technical work conditions and due to their spatial mobility, which affect their ability to interact with devices and to comply with workplace demands. Further, the complexity of their work tasks often increases due to no readily available information technology solutions. As a result, mobile workers often experience uncertainty and ambiguity when reporting and processing information, which can subsequently hinder work in the field instead of supporting it. The main aim of this study is to learn how different contextual limitations and usability issues affect the practices of utilizing mobile phones for the purpose of reporting data in the field. Focus is put on the study context of M-Reporting, a mobile application through which the thesis explores the practices of reporting task-related data by maintainers, drivers and construction workers. A field study guided by the contextual inquiry data-collection technique was conducted amongst 12 participants carrying out their real tasks and interacting with ICTs across nine work sites. The field study enabled collecting rich qualitative data which was interpreted and analyzed. The findings were analyzed by using theoretical analysis frameworks on mobility. To assess the usability of M-Reporting, Hertzum’s method of usability analysis was applied. The findings reveal that workers face different contextual limitations that negatively affect their ability to report from the field. As a result, workers were found to improvise by delaying data entry, by favoring available alternatives to report and by prioritizing their other work tasks when there was no compelling need to report immediately. In addition, workers were found to develop particular reporting habits due to situational and organizational usability issues. In order to better adopt the process of reporting by blue-collar mobile workers within the field, future process improvement considerations were drawn and presented to the service provider and to the blue-collar mobile workplace