10373 Abstracts Collection -- Demarcating User eXperience

From September 15 to 17, 2010, the Dagstuhl Seminar 10373 Demarcating user experience was held in Schloss Dagstuhl, Leibniz Center for Informatics, Germany. The goal of the seminar was to come up with a consensus on the core concepts of user experience in a form of a User Experience White Paper, which would provide a more solid grounding for the field of user experience. This paper includes the resulted User Experience White Paper and a collection of abstracts from some seminar participants

User Experience Design Professionals' Perceptions of Generative Artificial Intelligence

Among creative professionals, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) has sparked excitement over its capabilities and fear over unanticipated consequences. How does GenAI impact User Experience Design (UXD) practice, and are fears warranted? We interviewed 20 UX Designers, with diverse experience and across companies (startups to large enterprises). We probed them to characterize their practices, and sample their attitudes, concerns, and expectations. We found that experienced designers are confident in their originality, creativity, and empathic skills, and find GenAI's role as assistive. They emphasized the unique human factors of "enjoyment" and "agency", where humans remain the arbiters of "AI alignment". However, skill degradation, job replacement, and creativity exhaustion can adversely impact junior designers. We discuss implications for human-GenAI collaboration, specifically copyright and ownership, human creativity and agency, and AI literacy and access. Through the lens of responsible and participatory AI, we contribute a deeper understanding of GenAI fears and opportunities for UXD.Comment: accepted to CHI 202

The Determinants of Credit Ratings in the United Kingdom Insurance Industry

Executive Summary The Determinants of Credit Ratings in the United Kingdom Insurance Industry Academic researchers have devoted a considerable amount of attention to the activities of credit rating agencies over the past 20 years, focusing in particular on the agencies’ potential role in overseeing corporate financial strength and promoting the efficient operation of financial markets. Examinations of credit rating practices has recently extended to the insurance industry, where the complex technical nature of market transactions leads to policyholders, investors and others facing particularly acute information asymmetries at the point-of-sale. Published credit ratings are therefore seen as helping to alleviate imperfections in insurance markets by providing a third party opinion on the adequacy of an insurer’s financial health and the likelihood of it meeting obligations to policyholders and others in the future. Although the United Kingdom (UK) insurance market is now one of the five largest in the world, relatively little is known about the practices of the major firms and policy-makers which influence its operations. In particular, whilst the determinants of rating agencies’ assessments of United States (US) insurers is well documented, published studies have yet to provide comprehensive evidence about insurance company ratings in the UK. This study attempts to fill this gap by examining the ratings awarded by two of the world’s leading agencies – A.M. Best and Standard and Poor (S&P) – and establishing the extent to which organizational variables can help predict: (i) insurance firms’ decision to be rated; and (ii) the assigned ratings themselves. Our sample of UK data comprises ratings made by A.M. Best and S&P over the period 1993-1997 for both life and property-liability insurers. The panel data we use is ordinal in nature and is therefore analysed using an ordered probit model. However, because neither A.M. Best or S&P rate the full population of UK insurance firms our data set is potentially subject to selfselection bias and we therefore extend the model to correct for such problems. In particular, the paper examines the effect of eight firm-specific variables (namely, capital adequacy, profitability, liquidity, growth, size, mutual/stockowner status, reinsurance level, and short/long-term nature of business) on the ratings awarded by the two agencies, as well as on insurance firms’ decisions to volunteer for the ratings in the first place. In general terms, our evidence concurs with earlier US findings, and suggests that although the decision to be rated by either of the agencies is largely influenced by a common set of factors, the determinants of the ratings themselves appear to differ. Specifically, our first main finding is that insurers’ decisions to be rated by either A.M. Best or S&P is positively related to surplus growth, profitability and leverage. Second, while we find that A.M. Best’s ratings are positively linked to profitability and liquidity, as well as being generally higher for mutual insurers, the findings for S&P differ substantially. Although liquidity again exerted a positive influence on assigned ratings, the only other statistically significant variable was financial leverage, which had a negative sign. We believe that the results of our research are of potential importance for companies operating in insurance markets as well as for policy-makers, brokers and others. For example, the evidence that mutual insurers are generally assigned higher ratings than stock insurers suggests that certain publicly-traded insurers, in particular new entrants, might not possess sound financial strength and may require closer regulatory scrutiny than other, more established, insurance firms. In addition, the finding that liquidity has a significantly positive effect on ratings assigned by two of the world’s leading credit agencies should provide a measure of confidence about the robustness of the ratings to industry regulators, policyholders and investors in the UK. This could imply that external ratings might eventually play a role in substituting for costly industry regulation. The study concludes that although the factors influencing the decision to be rated by A.M. Best or S&P are broadly the same, a degree of variability exists in the variables which influence the actual ratings themselves. Insurance company managers should be aware of this when contemplating whether to seek an independent rating and which agency to choose for the assessment. We therefore believe that this study fills an important gap in the literature about key players in the important UK insurance market and provides a basis for the conduct of future research

User experience and interactive technology in fashion stores

Many fashion brands have already incorporated interactive technology (IT) into their stores as a means to provide consumers with digital experiences. Interactive technology enables consumers, that is, store visitors, to explore the digital world of the brand interactively while being immersed with the physical store elements. Consumers can therefore have experiences in both physical and digital worlds. It can be argued that the integration of interactive technology in fashion stores can potentially heighten the overall consumer experience. The research purpose was to explore consumer experience with interactive technology in fashion stores. More specifically, it centres on the evaluation of consumers' interaction experience with the digital world while in parallel experiencing the physical world. Given that the underlying phenomenon concerns interaction between humans and interactive devices, a user experience design (UXD) approach was adopted for this research; as the lens for the literature review, the methodology and the analysis of data. The strategy for the primary research was rapid ethnography; combining three methods: protocol analysis, observation and interview. The data collection was undertaken for over eleven months, consisting of two main studies and eight data collection activities (DCAs). Fifty-one people participated in the studies and DCAs. All the data were analysed via five stages, in which one prominent UXD framework: the four threads of experience (4TE), was utilised for the analysis process. The findings are presented thematically; there are four main themes and nine subthemes. All of these embody Insights and narratives for responding to the research questions. The first core concept that can be taken from the findings is the notion of dynamic experience referring to a moment in which the users of interactive technology (IT) can experience the two world frames of digital and physical dynamically. Another core concept is channel harmonisation that refers to the implementation of a balanced channel. The research demonstrates the suitability of UXD as an interactive design theory or framework for fashion marketing research concerning experiences of technology. Implications for research and recommendations are provided

Building trust in AI Systems

Artificial Intelligence has integrated as a part of humans’ daily life while at the same time the AI-enabled services and applications are widely considered distrustful. Because the majority of the users are not expert in Machine Learning, not to mention Deep learning, it is important to create trustworthy AI services that understand humans but also explains themselves in an easily understandable way. This type of approach to Artificial Intelligence is called Explainable Hu- man-Centered thinking and it has been discovered as a solution for the distrust problem between human-AI interaction. This research is a qualitative study of User-Experience of different AI-based applications and services that are used in daily life activities such as navigation or checking grammar mistakes. The goal is to find UX elements that affect to user’s trust-perception of the service or application and create a united list of these elements based on previous literature. This list can be used for designing better, explainable, and human-centered AI, but it also fulfills its purpose by gathering together and validating research of the field. The results showed that even in the most strongly trusted services and applications, users can notice problems such as privacy issues or missing explainability. However, many of the commonly used services pro- vide added value for its user and they are relatively better than the other similar services. Based on the results, this study discusses also critically whether implementing HAI is only a UX-de- sign problem but rather a part of sharing knowledge of trustworthy AI and not accepting non- transparent functions and data usage.Tekoäly on integroitunut osaksi ihmisten jokapäiväistää elämää, mutta yleisesti tekoälyperustaisia palveluja ja sovelluksia ei pidetä luotettavina. T ämän lisäksi välillä palveluja tai sovelluksia käyttäessä on mahdotonta todentaa, onko käyttäjä kosketuksissa ihmisen vai koneen kanssa ja mihinkä käyttäjän saama informaatio, kuten ohjeet tai ehdotukset, perustuvat. Koska tämän tyyppinen käyttäjäkokemus lisää epäluottamusta ihmisen ja tietokoneen kanssakäymisessä ja koska suurin osa käyttäjistä ei ole koneoppimisen asiantuntijoita, on tärkeää luoda luotettavia tekoälypalveluja, jotka ymmärtävät ihmisiä ja selittävät omaa toimintaansa helposti ymmärrettävällä tavalla. Tämän tyyppistä lähestymistapaa tekoälyyn kutsutaan selittäväksi ihmiskeskiseksi (explainable human-centered) ajatteluksi ja sitä on pidetty ratkaisuna nimenomaiseen ihmisen ja tekoälyn välisen epäluottamuksen ongelmaan. Tämä kvalitatiivinen tutkimus tarkastelee käyttäjäkokemusta erilaisissa tekoälypohjaisista sovelluksista ja palveluista, joita käytetään jokapäiväisessä elämässä, kuten navigoinnissa tai esimerkiksi kieliasun tai kielioppivirheiden tarkastuksessa. Tavoitteena on löytää UX-elementit, jotka vaikuttavat käyttäjän kokemukseen luottamuksesta käyttäessään palvelua tai sovellusta, ja luoda yhtenäinen luettelo näistä elementeistä aiemman kirjallisuuden perusteella. Tätä luetteloa voidaan käyttää apuna ihmiskeskeisessä tekoälysuunnittelussa, mutta se täyttää tarkoituksensa myös kokoamalla yhteen ja validoimalla alan aiempaa tutkimusta nimenomaan tekoälyperusteisista sovelluksiin liittyen. Kirjallisuuskatsaus esittelee tutkimuksen keskeiset käsitteet, kuten tekoälyn, luottamuksen ja käyttäjäkokemuksen. Lisäksi tässä osiossa kerätään yhteen tärkeimmät edellisissä tutkimuksissa jo identifioidut UX-elementit, jotka vaikuttavat käyttäjän kokemaan luottamukseen muun muassa web-suunnittelussa. Itse tutkimus jakaantuu kolmeen vaiheeseen, jossa ensimmäisenä tekoälyperustaiset sovellukset listataan perustuen alan kirjallisuuden tyyppimääritelmiin sekä käyttäjämäärä arvioiden mukaan. Toisessa vaiheessa, valitut sovellukset ja palvelut listattiin luotetuimmasta epäluotettavimpaan perustuen lyhyeen kyselytutkimukseen. Viimeiseksi syvähaastattelu, perustuen kriittisten tapahtumien tekniikkaan, suoritettiin kyselyyn vastanneille. Avoimilla kysymyksillä kartoitettiin tietoja tapahtumasta, jossa käyttäjä tunsi luottamusta tai epäluottamusta käyttäessään valittua tekoälyperusteistasovellusta tai palvelua. Tulokset analysoitiin teemoittamalla havaitut UX elementit, jotka lisäävät luottamusta tai vähentävät epäluottamusta ja vertaamalla niitä listaan alan edellisistä havainnoista luottamukseen liittyen. Tuloksena saatiin tutkimuksen tavoitteen mukainen lista, jossa on validoitu kirjallisuuden havaintoja, että lisätty uusia havaintoja luottamukseen vaikuttavista UX- elementeistä perustuen tehtyihin käyttäjähaastatteluihin. Kaiken kaikkiaan tämän tutkimuksen tärkeimmät havainnot vahvistivat luettelon tärkeistä UX- elementeistä, jotka on otettava huomioon luotaessa käyttäjien ja tekoälyjärjestelmien välistä luottamusta, mutta samalla vain luotettavien palvelujen suunnittelu ei riitä. Yksi tutkimuksen johtopäätös onkin, että kyselyn osallistujat käyttivät näitä palveluja, vaikka monet olivat huolissaan esimerkiksi omasta yksityisyydestään tai järjestelmän epämääräisestä datakäytöstä. Näin ollen nämä tulokset osoittavat, että käyttäjät hyväksyivät nämä käytännöt, koska sovelluksen tai palvelun käyttäminen toi suhteellista etua muihin palveluihin verrattuna tai merkittävää lisäarvoa käyttäjän jokapäiväiseen elämään. Näiden tulosten perusteella, tässä tutkimuksessa keskustellaan myös kriittisesti siitä, onko HAI:n (Human Centered Artificial intelligence) eli ihmiskeskeisen tekoälyn käyttöönotto vain UX-suunnittelun ongelma, vaan pikemminkin osa koulutusta ja tiedon jakamista luotettavasta tekoälystä jolloin käyttäjät eivät hyväksy läpinäkymättömiä toimintoja tai tietojen väärinkäyttöä, vaan vaativat luotettavia ja avoimia käytäntöjä, jotka selitetään heille erilaisten käyttöliittymäelementtien kautta

Digitizing Helmes Professional Development Roadmaps

Käesolev töö on ametialaste arenguplaanide digitaliseerimisest Helmeses. Helmes on\n\rrahvusvaheline tarkvaraarendus ettevõte, mis soovib tagada oma töötajatele tipptasemel\n\rametialase arengu maailmas. Selleks on Helmes välja töötanud arenguplaanid tarkvaraarendajatele. Arenguplaan sisaldab struktuursel kujul kompetentside tasemeid, taseme ootuste kirjeldusi ja soovitusi, mida, millal ja kuidas vastavaid kompetentse efektiivselt omandada.\n\r\n\rEnne käesolevat tööd oli arenguplaan Helmeses füüsilise vihikuna. Füüsilisel vihikul on\n\rmitmeid puudusi, näiteks on füüsiliste vihikute sisu uuendamine keeruline.\n\rTöö eesmärgiks on lahendada probleemid ametialase arenguplaani füüsilise vihiku kujul\n\rolemisega selliselt, et oleks võimalik luua, hallata ja arendada arenguplaane. Töö autor teostab ärianalüüsi, et tuvastada reaalne ärivajadus, analüüsib hetke olukorda ning leiab lahenduse, mis lahendab hetke probleemid ja vajadused.\n\r\n\rTöö käigus arendati veebirakendus, mis võimaldab hallata arenguplaane ja olla kursis töö-\n\rtajate ametialase arenguga. Tulemusena on kõigil Helmese spetsialistidel ajakohane arenguplaan ning töötajate ametialast arengut on võimalik paremini toetada.Current thesis is about digitizing Professional Development Roadmap in Helmes. Helmes,\n\ran international software services company, strives to have a world leading professional\n\rdevelopment for its employees. To achieve this, Helmes has implemented a Professional\n\rDevelopment Roadmap for every software developer. Professional Development Roadmap\n\ris a structured set of competence levels, expectations and recommendations of what, how\n\rand when a developer needs to improve in order to efficiently develop professionally.\n\rHelmes had the Professional Development Roadmaps in the form of physical booklets,\n\rwhich had several restrictions such as difficulties when updating its contents.\n\r\n\rThis thesis aims to solve the problems associated with a physical booklet to create, maintain and develop Professional Development Roadmaps. The author applied business analysis for identifying the underlying business needs, analyse the current situation and finally, select and implement a solution that addresses the current needs and problems.\n\r\n\rThe problems were solved by developing a web application which enables to manage Professional Development Roadmaps and keep track on the employees’ Professional Development Roadmaps. In result, Helmes specialists have latest version of Professional Development Roadmap and it is better to support employees’ professional development

Automotive UX design and data-driven development: Narrowing the gap to support practitioners

The development and evaluation of In-Vehicle Information Systems (IVISs) is strongly based on insights from qualitative studies conducted in artificial contexts (e.g., driving simulators or lab experiments). However, the growing complexity of the systems and the uncertainty about the context in which they are used, create a need to augment qualitative data with quantitative data, collected during real-world driving. In contrast to many digital companies that are already successfully using data-driven methods, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) are not yet succeeding in releasing the potentials such methods offer. We aim to understand what prevents automotive OEMs from applying data-driven methods, what needs practitioners formulate, and how collecting and analyzing usage data from vehicles can enhance UX activities. We adopted a Multiphase Mixed Methods approach comprising two interview studies with more than 15 UX practitioners and two action research studies conducted with two different OEMs. From the four studies, we synthesize the needs of UX designers, extract limitations within the domain that hinder the application of data-driven methods, elaborate on unleveraged potentials, and formulate recommendations to improve the usage of vehicle data. We conclude that, in addition to modernizing the legal, technical, and organizational infrastructure, UX and Data Science must be brought closer together by reducing silo mentality and increasing interdisciplinary collaboration. New tools and methods need to be developed and UX experts must be empowered to make data-based evidence an integral part of the UX design process

Technology supported learning within art and design : the acquisition of practical skills, with specific reference to undergraduate introductory sound recording and interview techniques

While many Higher Education subject areas have embraced technology-supportedlearning (TSL), its uptake has been noticeably slower in the practicum of the art and design subject area. As such our understanding of the use of TSL in this practicum is under-developed. This multi- and inter-disciplinary practice-based research project is a case study, within this under-developed area, based around the question: “Can TSL aid the acquisition and development of practical skills associated with sound recording a location-based interview, introduced (as part of studio-based practice) during a three-hour class to level 1 undergraduate art and design students?” In addressing this research question I argue that the design and evaluation of TSL requires a holistic approach, grounded in an understanding of the audience, subject matter and learning context / environment, requiring a comprehensive consideration of user experience design (UXD), where theory informs rather than leads pedagogy/practice. Taking a grounded approach, an analysis of existing needs was first undertaken within the learning environment; practitioners, and other UK providers of SRIT skills were consulted; a number of pre-existing technology-based practical skillsfocused artefacts were reviewed and theories, models and principles were drawn upon across a number of associated cognate fields. Adopting a post-theoretical perspective and action research principles, an artefact called “RecordingCoach” was designed, realised, utilised and evaluated. RecordingCoach enables its users to observe sound recording equipment being setup; set up a virtual sound kit themselves as well as undertake both assisted and independent interviews with two virtual interviewees. RecordingCoach records the independent virtual interviews in real time and saves them to the host computer hard drive, capturing microphone handling, responses to situational/ environmental sound and verbal audio exchanges. The evaluation of RecordingCoach took place over a one-year period with the participation of 108 students. Attitudes towards the artefact, patterns of learning activity, behaviour and assignment performance were scrutinised and nonassessed performance indicators were referred to. The resulting findings are very positive suggesting that TSL can be effective within the practicum of the art and design subject area.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Learning to Read by Learning to Write: Evaluation of a Serious Game to Foster Business Process Model Comprehension

Background: The management and comprehension of business process models are of utmost importance for almost any enterprise. To foster the comprehension of such models, this paper has incorporated the idea of a serious game called Tales of Knightly Process. Objective: This study aimed to investigate whether the serious game has a positive, immediate, and follow-up impact on process model comprehension. Methods: A total of two studies with 81 and 64 participants each were conducted. Within the two studies, participants were assigned to a game group and a control group (ie, study 1), and a follow-up game group and a follow-up control group (ie, study 2). A total of four weeks separated study 1 and study 2. In both studies, participants had to answer ten comprehension questions on five different process models. Note that, in study 1, participants in the game group played the serious game before they answered the comprehension questions to evaluate the impact of the game on process model comprehension. Results: In study 1, inferential statistics (analysis of variance) revealed that participants in the game group showed a better immediate performance compared to control group participants (P<.001). A Hedges g of 0.77 also indicated a medium to large effect size. In study 2, follow-up game group participants showed a better performance compared to participants from the follow-up control group (P=.01); here, a Hedges g of 0.82 implied a large effect size. Finally, in both studies, analyses indicated that complex process models are more difficult to comprehend (study 1: P<.001; study 2: P<.001). Conclusions: Participants who played the serious game showed better performance in the comprehension of process models when comparing both studies