Accessibility of Health Data Representations for Older Adults: Challenges and Opportunities for Design

Health data of consumer off-the-shelf wearable devices is often conveyed to users through visual data representations and analyses. However, this is not always accessible to people with disabilities or older people due to low vision, cognitive impairments or literacy issues. Due to trade-offs between aesthetics predominance or information overload, real-time user feedback may not be conveyed easily from sensor devices through visual cues like graphs and texts. These difficulties may hinder critical data understanding. Additional auditory and tactile feedback can also provide immediate and accessible cues from these wearable devices, but it is necessary to understand existing data representation limitations initially. To avoid higher cognitive and visual overload, auditory and haptic cues can be designed to complement, replace or reinforce visual cues. In this paper, we outline the challenges in existing data representation and the necessary evidence to enhance the accessibility of health information from personal sensing devices used to monitor health parameters such as blood pressure, sleep, activity, heart rate and more. By creating innovative and inclusive user feedback, users will likely want to engage and interact with new devices and their own data

Exploring Compassion-Driven Interaction: Bridging Buddhist Theory and Contemplative Practice Through Arts-led Research-through-Design

Compassion cultivation focuses on developing a genuine concern for others and a willingness to alleviate their suffering. As understandings of the benefits of compassion cultivation on wellbeing have evolved, an increasing interest in designing technologies for this context have followed. However, while scientific research focuses on measuring and evaluating compassion, designerly understandings of compassion informing human-computer interaction have been less explored. We are currently confronted with huge global challenges and our entanglement with technology brings paradoxes and existential tensions related to wellbeing and human flourishing. Viewing technologies as mediators of values and morality, human-computer interaction has a stake in shaping our possible futures. A shift in the field to welcoming a plurality of worldviews, invites opportunities to authentically integrate knowledge from ancient wisdom traditions into how and why we design. This research aims to advance understandings of compassion cultivation for designing technologies by developing novel approaches to research inspired by Buddhist philosophy and practice. This thesis draws upon an arts-led research-through-design approach and spiritual practice. The findings and insights from the studies contribute primarily to the areas of soma design, first-person research and design for wellbeing. The main contributions to knowledge are design guidelines emerging from three case studies: Understanding Tonglen, Wish Happiness, and Inner Suchness comprising one autoethnography and two concept-driven design artefacts for public exhibition. While in the act of researching, the contemplative practitioner-researcher, a research persona, emerged to support authentic engagement and embodied understandings of the dynamic unfolding processes of the practice. A contemplative framework to train self-observation and the concept of designerly gaze were developed to help investigate the phenomenon

Automatic generation of software interfaces for supporting decisionmaking processes. An application of domain engineering & machine learning

[EN] Data analysis is a key process to foster knowledge generation in particular domains or fields of study. With a strong informative foundation derived from the analysis of collected data, decision-makers can make strategic choices with the aim of obtaining valuable benefits in their specific areas of action. However, given the steady growth of data volumes, data analysis needs to rely on powerful tools to enable knowledge extraction. Information dashboards offer a software solution to analyze large volumes of data visually to identify patterns and relations and make decisions according to the presented information. But decision-makers may have different goals and, consequently, different necessities regarding their dashboards. Moreover, the variety of data sources, structures, and domains can hamper the design and implementation of these tools. This Ph.D. Thesis tackles the challenge of improving the development process of information dashboards and data visualizations while enhancing their quality and features in terms of personalization, usability, and flexibility, among others. Several research activities have been carried out to support this thesis. First, a systematic literature mapping and review was performed to analyze different methodologies and solutions related to the automatic generation of tailored information dashboards. The outcomes of the review led to the selection of a modeldriven approach in combination with the software product line paradigm to deal with the automatic generation of information dashboards. In this context, a meta-model was developed following a domain engineering approach. This meta-model represents the skeleton of information dashboards and data visualizations through the abstraction of their components and features and has been the backbone of the subsequent generative pipeline of these tools. The meta-model and generative pipeline have been tested through their integration in different scenarios, both theoretical and practical. Regarding the theoretical dimension of the research, the meta-model has been successfully integrated with other meta-model to support knowledge generation in learning ecosystems, and as a framework to conceptualize and instantiate information dashboards in different domains. In terms of the practical applications, the focus has been put on how to transform the meta-model into an instance adapted to a specific context, and how to finally transform this later model into code, i.e., the final, functional product. These practical scenarios involved the automatic generation of dashboards in the context of a Ph.D. Programme, the application of Artificial Intelligence algorithms in the process, and the development of a graphical instantiation platform that combines the meta-model and the generative pipeline into a visual generation system. Finally, different case studies have been conducted in the employment and employability, health, and education domains. The number of applications of the meta-model in theoretical and practical dimensions and domains is also a result itself. Every outcome associated to this thesis is driven by the dashboard meta-model, which also proves its versatility and flexibility when it comes to conceptualize, generate, and capture knowledge related to dashboards and data visualizations

Transforming our World through Universal Design for Human Development

An environment, or any building product or service in it, should ideally be designed to meet the needs of all those who wish to use it. Universal Design is the design and composition of environments, products, and services so that they can be accessed, understood and used to the greatest extent possible by all people, regardless of their age, size, ability or disability. It creates products, services and environments that meet people’s needs. In short, Universal Design is good design. This book presents the proceedings of UD2022, the 6th International Conference on Universal Design, held from 7 - 9 September 2022 in Brescia, Italy.The conference is targeted at professionals and academics interested in the theme of universal design as related to the built environment and the wellbeing of users, but also covers mobility and urban environments, knowledge, and information transfer, bringing together research knowledge and best practice from all over the world. The book contains 72 papers from 13 countries, grouped into 8 sections and covering topics including the design of inclusive natural environments and urban spaces, communities, neighborhoods and cities; housing; healthcare; mobility and transport systems; and universally- designed learning environments, work places, cultural and recreational spaces. One section is devoted to universal design and cultural heritage, which had a particular focus at this edition of the conference. The book reflects the professional and disciplinary diversity represented in the UD movement, and will be of interest to all those whose work involves inclusive design

B!SON: A Tool for Open Access Journal Recommendation

Finding a suitable open access journal to publish scientific work is a complex task: Researchers have to navigate a constantly growing number of journals, institutional agreements with publishers, funders’ conditions and the risk of Predatory Publishers. To help with these challenges, we introduce a web-based journal recommendation system called B!SON. It is developed based on a systematic requirements analysis, built on open data, gives publisher-independent recommendations and works across domains. It suggests open access journals based on title, abstract and references provided by the user. The recommendation quality has been evaluated using a large test set of 10,000 articles. Development by two German scientific libraries ensures the longevity of the project

Proceedings of the 19th Sound and Music Computing Conference

Proceedings of the 19th Sound and Music Computing Conference - June 5-12, 2022 - Saint-Étienne (France). https://smc22.grame.f