Balanced Interaction Design

Over the last two decades, creative, agile, lean and strategic design approaches have become increasingly prevalent in the development of interactive technologies, but tensions exist with longer established approaches such as human factors engineering and user-centered design. These tensions can be harnessed productively by first giving equal status in principle to creative, business and agile engineering practices, and then supporting this with flexible critical approaches and resources that can balance and integrate a range of multidisciplinary design practices

Sound for Fantasy and Freedom

Sound is an integral part of our everyday lives. Sound tells us about physical events in the environ- ment, and we use our voices to share ideas and emotions through sound. When navigating the world on a day-to-day basis, most of us use a balanced mix of stimuli from our eyes, ears and other senses to get along. We do this totally naturally and without effort. In the design of computer game experiences, traditionally, most attention has been given to vision rather than the balanced mix of stimuli from our eyes, ears and other senses most of us use to navigate the world on a day to day basis. The risk is that this emphasis neglects types of interaction with the game needed to create an immersive experience. This chapter summarizes the relationship between sound properties, GameFlow and immersive experience and discusses two projects in which Interactive Institute, Sonic Studio has balanced perceptual stimuli and game mechanics to inspire and create new game concepts that liberate users and their imagination

A Chemistry-Inspired Framework for Achieving Consensus in Wireless Sensor Networks

The aim of this paper is to show how simple interaction mechanisms, inspired by chemical systems, can provide the basic tools to design and analyze a mathematical model for achieving consensus in wireless sensor networks, characterized by balanced directed graphs. The convergence and stability of the model are first proven by using new mathematical tools, which are borrowed directly from chemical theory, and then validated by means of simulation results, for different network topologies and number of sensors. The underlying chemical theory is also used to derive simple interaction rules that may account for practical issues, such as the estimation of the number of neighbors and the robustness against perturbations. Finally, the proposed chemical solution is validated under real-world conditions by means of a four-node hardware implementation where the exchange of information among nodes takes place in a distributed manner (with no need for any admission control and synchronism procedure), simply relying on the transmission of a pulse whose rate is proportional to the state of each sensor.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, submitted to IEEE Sensors Journa

On Two Tests for Main Effects in A Balanced Two-Way Interactive Model

Two methods of removing interaction in a two-way balanced design were considered. Removing interaction from the model/ data will result to a reduced model and data which consequently violates the assumptions of analysis of variance (ANOVA). To resolve this problem, a linear combination method approach was used which does not violates the assumptions of ANOVA and completely makes the presence of interaction to be zero. Keywords: Additive effects, Homogeneity of variance, Normal distributio

The theater-system technique: agile designing and testing of system behavior and interaction, applied to highly automated vehicles

In this paper, the theater-system technique, a method for agile designing and testing of system behavior and interaction concepts is described. The technique is based on the Wizard-of-Oz approach, originally used for emulating automated speech recognition, and is extended towards an interactive, user-centered design technique. The paper describes the design process using the theater-system technique, the technical build-up of the theater-system, and an application of the technique: the design of a haptic-multimodal interaction strategy for highly automated vehicles. The use of the theater-system in the design process is manifold: It is used for the concrete design work of the design team, for the assessment of user expectations as well as for early usability assessments, extending the principles of user-centered design towards a dynamically balanced design

Optimization of graphene-based materials outperforming host epoxy matrices

The degree of graphite exfoliation and edge-carboxylated layers can be controlled and balanced to design lightweight materials characterized by both low electrical percolation thresholds (EPT) and improved mechanical properties. So far, this challenging task has been undoubtedly very hard to achieve. The results presented in this paper highlight the effect of exfoliation degree and the role of edge-carboxylated graphite layers to give self-assembled structures embedded in the polymeric matrix. Graphene layers inside the matrix may serve as building blocks of complex systems that could outperform the host matrix. Improvements in electrical percolation and mechanical performance have been obtained by a synergic effect due to finely balancing the degree of exfoliation and the chemistry of graphene edges which favors the interfacial interaction between polymer and carbon layers. In particular, for epoxy-based resins including two partially exfoliated graphite samples, differing essentially in the content of carboxylated groups, the percolation threshold reduces from 3 wt% down to 0.3 wt%, as the carboxylated group content increases up to 10 wt%. Edge-carboxylated nanosheets also increase the nanofiller/epoxy matrix interaction, determining a relevant reinforcement in the elastic modulus

Interaction between drug and placebo effects: a cross-over balanced placebo design trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The total effect of a medication is the sum of its drug effect, placebo effect (meaning response), and their possible interaction. Current interpretation of clinical trials' results assumes no interaction. Demonstrating such an interaction has been difficult due to lack of an appropriate study design.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>180 adults were randomized to caffeine (300 mg) or placebo groups. Each group received the assigned intervention described by the investigators as caffeine or placebo, in a randomized crossover design. 4-hour-area-under-the-curve of energy, sleepiness, nausea (on 100 mm visual analog scales), and systolic blood pressure levels as well as caffeine pharmacokinetics (in 22 volunteers nested in the caffeine group) were determined. Caffeine drug, placebo, placebo-plus-interaction, and total effects were estimated by comparing outcomes after, receiving caffeine described as placebo to receiving placebo described as placebo, receiving placebo described as caffeine or placebo, receiving caffeine described as caffeine or placebo, and receiving caffeine described as caffeine to receiving placebo described as placebo, respectively.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The placebo effect on area-under-the-curve of energy (mean difference) and sleepiness (geometric mean ratio) was larger than placebo-plus-interaction effect (16.6 [95% CI, 4.1 to 29.0] vs. 8.4 [-4.2 to 21.0] mm*hr and 0.58 [0.39 to 0.86] vs. 0.69 [0.49 to 0.97], respectively), similar in size to drug effect (20.8 [3.8 to 37.8] mm*hr and 0.49 [0.30 to 0.91], respectively), and its combination with the later was larger than total caffeine effect (29.5 [11.9 to 47.1] mm*hr and 0.37 [0.22 to 0.64]). Placebo-plus-interaction effect increased caffeine terminal half-life by 0.40 [0.12 to 0.68] hr (P = 0.007).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Drug and placebo effects of a medication may be less than additive, which influences the interpretation of clinical trials. The placebo effect may increase active drug terminal half-life, a novel mechanism of placebo action.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p>ClinicalTrials.gov identification number - NCT00426010.</p

Situated play in a tangible interface and adaptive audio museum guide

This paper explores the design issues of 9 situated play within a museum through the study of a 10 museum guide prototype that integrates a tangible interface, audio display, and adaptive modeling. We discuss our use of design ethnography in order to situate our interaction and to investigate the liminal and engagement qualities of a museum visit. The paper provides an overview of our case study and analysis of our user evaluation. We discuss the implications including degrees of balance in the experience design of play in interaction; the challenge in developing a discovery-based information model, and the need for a better understanding of the contextual aspects of tangible user interfaces (TUIs). We conclude that learning effectiveness and functionality can be balanced productively with playful interaction through an adaptive audio and TUI if designers balance the engagement between play and the environment, and the space between imagination and interpretation that links the audio content to the artifacts

Assessing the effectiveness of architectural design communication through public participation methods

The range of communication methods available to architects to present design development has expanded over recent years. With an increase in competition between architectural practices and the resulting reduction in professional fees, it is becoming increasingly important to deliver quality projects in an efficient manner. A greater understanding of user interaction is invaluable for architects in order to assess specific requirements and produce design solutions. Effective design communication is also beneficial in the reduction of backtracking during the design phase and remedial work to buildings during construction. As a result, Architects are required to make difficult decisions about which method to use to present work at specific stages of the design process. Principles from public participation processes provide an underpinning for data collection from stakeholder representatives of an educational refurbishment project in the UK. Three forms of media were used to present the design: 2D drawings; a 3D model; and a VR (virtual reality) model. The stakeholders were divided into three groups with the environment, presentation and method of expressing opinion controlled. The results showed that a similar number of opinions were expressed in each presentation although with reference to different aspects of the design. The balance between positive and negative opinions also differed between each of the media. The findings of this paper suggest several themes, including that a balance of media should be used at different stages of the architectural design process. 2D drawings appear essential in representing the arrangement of spaces; the 3D model encourages a balanced view, providing architects with information to aid critical design decisions; and finally, the VR model could be used for marketing purposes as critical analysis appears to be adversely affected by high quality rendered images