Videogames: Dispelling myths and tabloid headlines that videogames are bad

Videogamers are often portrayed as adolescent overweight males eating fast food in their bedroom, and videogames often blamed in the media for violent crime, obesity, social isolation and depression. However videogaming is a mainstream activity. In Australia 65% of the population play videogames (Digital Australia 2014), and humanity as a species play about 3 billion hours of videogames a week. This paper dispels the myths and sensationalised negative tabloid headlines that videogames are bad by presenting the latest research showing that videogames can help fight depression, improve brain function and stimulate creativity; that gamers have higher levels of family closeness and better attachment to school; and that videogames help boys and young men to relax, cope and socialise. Children and adolescents deliberately choose to play videogames in the knowledge that they will feel better as a result, and videogame play allow players to express themselves in ways they may not feel comfortable doing in real life because of their appearance, gender, sexuality, and/or age. The potential benefits of videogames to the individual and to society are yet to be fully realised. However already videogames are helping many gamers to flourish in life

Authorisation in Context: Incorporating Context-Sensitivity into an Access Control Framework

With sensitive information about ourselves now distributed across personal devices, people need to make access control decisions for different contexts of use. However, despite advances in improving the usability of access control for both developers and users, we still lack insights about how the intentions behind policy decisions in different contexts of use are shaped. In this paper, we describe how context was incorporated into an access control framework using a study of how context influences access control decision making. We describe how the main recommendations arising from this study were used to build context into a policy editor for this access control framework

Virtual Reality for Prototyping Service Journeys

The use of virtual elements for developing new service prototyping environments and more realistic simulations has been suggested as a way to optimise the service prototyping process. This work examines the application of virtual reality (VR) in prototyping service journeys and it hypothesises that VR can recreate service journeys in a highly immersive, agile, and inexpensive manner, thus allowing users to have a representative service experience and enabling service designers to extract high-quality user feedback. To that end, a new service prototyping method, called VR service walkthrough, is presented and evaluated through an empirical comparative study. A VR service walkthrough is a virtual simulation of a service journey, representing how the service unfolds over space and time. A comparative study between the VR service walkthrough method and an adapted service walkthrough method evaluates the application of both methods using a location-based audio tour guide service as a case study. Two user groups (each with 21 users) were used to evaluate both methods based on two factors: the user experience they offered and the subjective meaningfulness and quality of feedback they produced. Results show that the VR service walkthrough method gave a performance similar to that of the service walkthrough method. It was also able to communicate the service concept in an immersive way and foster constructive feedback.Virtual Reality for Prototyping Service JourneyspublishedVersio

Espaces d'Informations Personnelles: Utilisabilité et Modification Utilisateurs

This paper presents a study on the usability of a new prototype system for managing personal information on the Internet (PIMI). The objectives are to assess its ease of use, and assess user modification as an evaluation technique. Thirty users participated in the experiment: the first part was a classical usability test (TUC) and a second part was a usability test with user modifications (TUM). A total of 51 usability problems were diagnosed. Among them, 32 with TUC, and 19 with TUM. Part of the latter (11) adds to those identified with TUC, and those previously diagnosed during a usability inspection (IU with Ergonomic Criteria). The active participation of users through customization scenarios seems to provide additional clues for evaluating usability and for design (new generic usability recommendations).Cet article présente une étude sur l'utilisabilité d'un nouveau prototype de système de gestion des informations personnelles sur Internet (PIMI). Les objectifs sont d'évaluer sa facilité d'utilisation, et d'évaluer la modification utilisateur comme technique d'évaluation. Trente utilisateurs ont participé à l'expérience : une première partie consistait en un test utilisateur classique (TUC) et une seconde partie était un test d'utilisabilité avec modifications utilisateur (TUM). Un total de 51 problèmes d'utilisabilité a été diagnostiqué. Parmi eux, 32 ont été identifiés avec TUC, et 19 avec TUM. Une partie de ces derniers (11) s'ajoute à ceux identifiés avec TUC, et à ceux diagnostiqués précédemment lors d'une inspection de l'utilisabilité (IU avec Critères Ergonomiques). La participation active des utilisateurs au travers de scénarios de personnalisation semble fournir des indices supplémentaires pour l'évaluation de l'utilisabilité et pour la conception (nouvelles recommandations génériques d'utilisabilité). Mots clés : Utilisabilité ; méthodes d'évaluation ; modifications utilisateur ; e-gov. ; informations personnelles. Abstract: This paper presents a study on the usability of a new prototype system for managing personal information on the Internet (PIMI). The objectives are to assess its ease of use, and assess user modification as an evaluation technique. Thirty users participated in the experiment: the first part was a classical usability test (TUC) and a second part was a usability test with user modifications (TUM). A total of 51 usability problems were diagnosed. Among them, 32 with TUC, and 19 with TUM. Part of the latter (11) adds to those identified with TUC, and those previously diagnosed during a usability inspection (IU with Ergonomic Criteria). The active participation of users through customization scenarios seems to provide additional clues for evaluating usability and for design (new generic usability recommendations)

Drawing and Knowledge Construction in Archaeology: The Aide Mémoire Project

The Aide Mémoire Project conducted a survey and a series of observational studies in field recording and artifact illustration to understand 1) the perception of digital and by-hand drawing in archaeology, 2) how drawing contributes to the creation of mental models that allow archaeologists to understand archaeological remains and artifacts, and 3) what impact digital drawing has on the creation of these mental models. Our toolkit includes the NASA Task Load Index to assess and compare the mental load while drawing digitally or by-hand. We conclude that there are significant pedagogical, academic, and professional implications to consider when removing or replacing by-hand drawing with digital recording in archaeological methodology

Quaternion-based gesture recognition using wireless wearable motion capture sensors

This work presents the development and implementation of a unified multi-sensor human motion capture and gesture recognition system that can distinguish between and classify six different gestures. Data was collected from eleven participants using a subset of five wireless motion sensors (inertial measurement units) attached to their arms and upper body from a complete motion capture system. We compare Support Vector Machines and Artificial Neural Networks on the same dataset under two different scenarios and evaluate the results. Our study indicates that near perfect classification accuracies are achievable for small gestures and that the speed of classification is sufficient to allow interactivity. However, such accuracies are more difficult to obtain when a participant does not participate in training, indicating that more work needs to be done in this area to create a system that can be used by the general population

Teams in agile software development: Design principles and examination of human factors

In response to new customer requirements, market dynamics, mergers, and technological innovation, modern software development organizations are adopting agile software development (ASD). Yet, the simple adoption of agile methods such as Scrum or eXtreme programming does not automatically result in a very agile team. While we understand the introduction and adoption of ASD from a methodical perspective, we have yet to explore design principles that guide methodical extensions of ASD, and we need to learn more about the human factors that influence software development teams. This thesis presents four studies. Studies 1 and 2 investigate the methodical extension of ASD by identifying design principles from secondary data. Study 1 extends ASD with processes and practices from user-centered design. Study 2 investigates early activities that precede development activities. The thesis also investigates human factors of agile software development in studies 3 and 4. Study 3 compares teams along their extents of agility in order to identify influential factors using a multicase study design. Study 4 tests the effects of emotional contagion in virtual software development teams using a large dataset from an open source software repository. Thus, this thesis makes two primary contributions. First, it develops design principles for methodical extensions of ASD; second, it contributes to the human factors that influence software development teams. Managers also receive guidance on the improvement of ASD in their organization

A new framework and learning tool to enhance the usability of software

Edited version embargoed until 01.03.2018 Full version: Access restricted permanently due to 3rd party copyright restrictions. Restriction set on 01.03.2017 by SC, Graduate schoolDue to technological developments, apps (mobile applications) and web-based applications are now used daily by millions of people worldwide. Accordingly, such applications need to be usable by all groups of users, regardless of individual attributes. Thus, software usability measurement is fundamental metric that needs to be evaluated in order to assess software efficiency, effectiveness, learnability and user satisfaction. Consequently, a new approach is required that both educates software novice developers in software evaluation methods and promotes the use of usability evaluation methods to create usable products. This research devised a development framework and learning tool in order to enhance overall awareness and assessment practice. Furthermore, the research also focuses on Usability Evaluation Methods (UEMs) with the objective of providing novice developers with support when making decisions pertaining to the use of learning resources. The proposed development framework and its associated learning resources is titled dEv (Design Evaluation), and it has been devised in order to address the three key challenges identified in the literature review and reinforce by the studies. These three challenges are: (i) the involvement of users in the initial phases of the development process, (ii) the mindset and perspectives of novice developers with regard to various issues as a result of their lack of UEMs or the provision of too many, and (iii) the general lack of knowledge and awareness concerning the importance and value of UEMs. The learning tool was created in line with investigation studies, feedback and novice developers requirements in the initial stages of the development process. An iterative experimental approach was adapted which incorporated the use of interviews and survey-based questionnaires. It was geared towards analysing the framework, learning tool and their various effects. Two subsequent studies were carried out in order to test the approach adopted and provide insight into its results. The studies also reported on their ability to affect novice developers using assessment methods and also to overcome a number of the difficulties associated with UEM application. This suggested approach is valuable when considering two different contributions: primarily, the integration of software evaluation and software development in the dEv framework, which encourages professionals to evaluate across all phases of the development; secondly, it is able to enhance developer awareness and insight with regard to evaluation techniques and their application

Interactive Latent Space for Mood-Based Music Recommendation

The way we listen to music has been changing fundamentally in past two decades with the increasing availability of digital recordings and portability of music players. Up to date research in music recommendation attracted millions of users to online, music streaming services, containing tens of millions of tracks (e.g. Spotify, Pandora). The main focus of up to date research in recommender systems has been algorithmic accuracy and optimization of ranking metrics. However, recent work has highlighted the importance of other aspects of the recommendation process, including explanation, transparency, control and user experience in general. Building on these aspects, this dissertation explores user interaction, control and visual explanation of music related mood metadata during recommendation process. It introduces a hybrid recommender system that suggests music artists by combining mood-based and audio content filtering in a novel interactive interface. The main vehicle for exploration and discovery in music collection is a novel visualization that maps moods and artists in the same, latent space, built upon reduced dimensions of high-dimensional artist-mood associations. It is not known what the reduced dimensions represent and this work uses hierarchical mood model to explain the constructed space. Results of two user studies, with over 200 participants each, show that visualization and interaction in a latent space improves acceptance and understanding of both metadata and item recommendations. However, too much of either can result in cognitive overload and a negative impact on user experience. The proposed visual mood space and interactive features, along with the aforementioned findings, aim to inform design of future interactive recommendation systems

Designing a Value Centred Inspection Method for Children

There are currently several evaluation methods suited to children within the Child-Computer Interaction (CCI) community. However, these methods are user based leaving a gap in inspection method suited to children, that is, where children will act as the inspection method evaluators. This research focused on how to design an effective and easy to use inspection method where children will perform the evaluation based on their values. To ensure that the above is met, a user centred approach and a mixed methodology was explored and finally resulted in the creation of the Inspection Method for Children (IMCH) with an accompanying guideline. This six stages method could be used by CCI researchers as a guide to develop similar methods for children, by industries to perform inspection method evaluation with children on technologies designed for children and could be used by designers to gather design criteria for children’s technology. The process undertaken within this research to develop the new method is also novel and could be adapted by new and old researchers when adapting method to suit children. Future work will focus on carrying out evaluation with wider age range of children in the method to ensure suitability of the method for more children. Comparative studies of the method with other usability method to determine the effectiveness of the method and as a refinement process to produce a validated and refined IMCH method