Adapting Game Mechanics with Micro-Machinations

In early game development phases game designers adjust game rules in a rapid, iterative and flexible way. In later phases, when software prototypes are available, play testing provides more detailed feedback about player experience. More often than not, the realized and the intended gameplay emerging from game software differ. Unfortunately, adjusting it is hard because designers lack a means for efficiently defining, fine-tuning and balancing game mechanics. The language Machinations provides a graphical notation for expressing the rules of game economies that fits with a designer’s understanding and vocabulary, but is limited to design itself. Micro-Mach

Chatbots for Modelling, Modelling of Chatbots

Tesis Doctoral inédita leída en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Escuela Politécnica Superior, Departamento de Ingeniería Informática. Fecha de Lectura: 28-03-202

Patina: a Method Oriented Design Environment for Parametric Analysis

The central issue to be addressed in this thesis is the provision of support for design tasks that require problem formation and evaluation and some inventive adaptation of products and design strategies. Hitherto, computer tools have failed to support the full range of design tasks. In particular, they have been focused upon solving previously formulated design tasks in well-defined domains where little inventiveness with materials or design strategies is required (Green, 1992a). A solution is offered in the form of an analysis that yields a new class of system, called Method Oriented Design Environments (MODEs), which provide support for some of these more complicated design tasks. An implementation of such a system is presented in the fom1 of Patina: a MODE to support parametric analysis. It is argued that the lack of support for design tasks involving problem formulation, evaluation and inventiveness with components and strategies has partly been due to usage of an overly narrow view of the design process as a basis for system development on the part of developers of knowledge aided design. To provide a more complete orientation for these developers, and 'to expand the theory of knowledge aided design, an alternative model of design tasks is developed in the form of a 'design activity space' by transferring knowledge from the field of design research to that of knowledge aided design. A mapping is constructed between this new design activity space and Green's model space of tools for knowledge aided design (Green, 1992a). The mapping is first used to analyse the range of utility of some recent alternatives to traditional knowledge based systems for design. It is then used to single out a 'niche' of design tasks that are not supported by traditional systems or their more recent alternatives. The design tasks which lie in this niche awaiting support from computer tools share the following characteristics: ( 1) they encompass the activities of analysis, synthesis and evaluation, (2) they require an intermediate degree of innovation with the product, and (3) they require an intermediate degree of innovation in design strategy. The class of tools that are proposed to offer support to tasks in this niche are named MODEs because their defining characteristic is that the majority of their constituent knowledge is derived from a design method or strategy. Therefore the main item that is being represented to the user of a MODE is such a structured method rather than an evolving artefact. This is radically different from the traditional knowledge based tools, where the item being represented is an artefact in a particular domain, and from a recent proposal for systems that depict an unstructured process (Blessing, 1994). To demonstrate the feasibility of implementing a MODE, the implementation of a system called Patina, to support designers in applying the technique of parametric analysis, is reported

Improving the distributed evolution of software through heuristic evaluation

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 65-67).In order to create the increasingly complex software systems needed to deal with today's technological challenges, we must be able to build on previous work. However, existing software solutions are quite often not an exact fit. Software developers have found multiple ways of approaching the problem of designing software that can be adapted as well as otherwise changed; Most of this effort has been aimed at the structural properties of the software, by creating open-architecture systems. However, there are still significant usability hurdles to overcome. A developer-oriented evaluation of open architecture interfaces could help meet some of these challenges. In this thesis, I present a set of guidelines for designing a developer-oriented interface for software open architectures, developed through a survey of several related fields. I use these guidelines to design and implement an interface to the Maritime Open Architecture Autonomy, one such software framework. Finally, through two case studies, I demonstrate the usefulness of these guidelines as the basis of a low cost method of usability evaluation. Study observations and limitations are presented, as well as suggestions for further research into heuristic evaluation.by Amy Jo Wooten.M.Eng

Adapting Game Mechanics with Micro-Machinations

International audienceIn early game development phases game designers adjust game rules in a rapid, iterative and flexible way. In later phases, when software prototypes are available, play testing provides more detailed feedback about player experience. More often than not, the realized and the intended game-play emerging from game software differ. Unfortunately, ad-justing it is hard because designers lack a means for effi-ciently defining, fine-tuning and balancing game mechanics. The language Machinations provides a graphical notation for expressing the rules of game economies that fits with a designer's understanding and vocabulary, but is limited to design itself. Micro-Machinations (MM) formalizes the meaning of core language elements of Machinations enabling reasoning about alternative behaviors and assessing quality, making it also suitable for software development. We pro-pose an approach for designing, embedding and adapting game mechanics iteratively in game software, and demon-strate how the game mechanics and the gameplay of a tower defense game can be easily changed and promptly play tested. The approach shows that MM enables the adaptability needed to reduce design iteration times, consequently increasing op-portunities for quality improvements and reuse

Jeeves : a blocks-based approach to end-user development of experience sampling apps

Professional programmers are significantly outnumbered by end-users of software, and cannot possibly predict the diverse and dynamic needs of user groups in advance. This thesis is concerned with the provision of an end-user development (EUD) approach, allowing end-users to independently create and modify their own software. EUD activities are particularly applicable to the work practices of psychology researchers and clinicians, who are increasingly dependent on software for assessment of participants and patients, but must also depend on developers to realise their requirements. This thesis targets these professionals, with an EUD solution to creating assessment software. The Experience Sampling Method (ESM) is one such means of assessment that takes place in participants’ everyday lives. Through regular completion of subjective self-reports, participants provide rich detail of their ongoing physical and emotional well-being. However, lack of engagement with such studies remains a prevalent issue. This thesis investigates features for maximising engagement with experience sampling smartphone apps. Such apps are becoming accepted as standard practice for remote assessment, but researchers are stifled by the complexity and cost of implementation. Moreover, existing EUD tools are insufficient for development of ESM apps that include engaging features. This thesis presents the development of Jeeves, an EUD tool with a blocks-based programming paradigm that empowers non-programmers to rapidly develop tailored, context-sensitive ESM apps. The adoption of Jeeves is contingent on a number of factors, including its ease-of-use, real-world utility, and organisational conditions. Failure to incorporate the necessary functionality pertaining to these factors into Jeeves will lead to abandonment. This thesis is concerned with establishing the usability, utility, and external factors necessary for adoption of Jeeves. Further, Jeeves is evaluated with respect to these factors through a series of rigorous studies from a range of application domains."This work was supported by a University of St Andrews 600th Anniversary PhD Scholarship (School of Computer Science)." -- Fundin

Digitization of industrial quality control procedures applied to visual and geometrical inspections

Mestrado de dupla diplomação com a UTFPR - Universidade Tecnológica Federal do ParanáIndustries quality control procedures are usually dependent on gauge inspection tools, and these tools are used to inspect visual and geometrical tolerance conformity. Operators are guided during an inspection by using paper tutorials that assist them in performing their tasks and registering the result of the performed analysis. This traditional method of registering information may be misleading, lowering the effectiveness of the quality control by providing inaccurate and error-prone inspection results. This work implements a system that uses emergent technologies (e.g., Human-Machine Interfaces, Virtual Reality, Distributed Systems, Cloud Computing, and Internet of Things (IoT)) to propose a costeffective solution that supports operators and quality control managers in the realization and data collection of gauge inspection control procedures. The final system was deployed in an industrial production plant, with the delivered results showing its efficiency, robustness, and highly positive feedback from the operators and managers. The software may offer a quicker and efficient execution of analysis tasks, significantly decreasing the setup time required to change the inspected product reference

Developing a design methodology for the construction of hypertext and hypermedia, with particular reference to hypertext electronic prospectuses

Use and development of hypertext-based documents is becoming more widespread in both industry and die academic world. This has obvious implications for the design of hypertext documents. The hypertext designer has been relatively ignored until recently, with attention largely focused on the quality of the hypertext rather than support for the designer. Recent hypertext design methodologies, such as that described by Isakowitz et al. (1995) have made a useful contribution, but are oriented towards designers with a background in computing science and related professions. This research addresses this problem by the development of a design methodology which is intended to be accessible to the general author. The design methodology was based on three sources of data: a taxonomy of existing design guidance, including a range of principles and guidelines and previous design methodologies for hypertext; hypertext versions of a higher education college prospectus, and a case study of a CD-ROM higher education prospectus. This material was assembled and synthesised to produce a provisional design methodology that is positioned between existing design methodologies such as Relationship Management Methodology (Isakowitz et al 1995) and Object-Oriented Hypermedia Design Method (Schwabe et al 1995), which are influenced by software engineering and database design concepts, and other less formal descriptions of the hypertext design process. The design methodology supports and encourages iterative methods of working, and includes supporting documentation and pro formas designed to encourage a thorough approach to hypertext design