Revealing User Behaviour on the World-Wide Web

This paper presents the results of a qualitative study of user behaviour on the World-Wide Web. Eight participants were filmed whilst performing user-defined tasks and then asked to review the video-taped session during prompted recall. This data forms the basis for a series of descriptions of user behaviour and the postulation of a number of underlying cognitive mechanisms. Our results indicate that people: lack ready made search strategies, prefer alternatives that are visible, immediately available and familiar, choose the path of least resistance, exhibit social forms of behaviour, engage in parallel activities, object to misleadingly presented information, have trouble orienting, are late in using appropriate strategies, are sensitive to matters of time, and are emotionally involved in the activity. The paper ends with a discussion of how these results can contribute to our understanding of hypermedia

An investigation into usability and exclusivity issues of digital programmable thermostats

This is the pre-print version of the Article - Copyright @ 2011 Taylor & FrancisWith nearly 60% of domestic energy consumption relating to space heating, the interaction between users and their heating controls is crucial in reducing consumption. Yet, many heating controls are complex and exclude people due to the demands placed upon their capabilities in terms of vision, reach, dexterity and thinking. This study explores the scale of and reasons for user exclusion in relation to digital programmable thermostats. The Exclusion Calculator was used to estimate the percentage of the population excluded from the use of three products. Full user testing was then conducted to elicit specific usability problems of the devices. The participants were a group of 14 younger users (aged 24–44) and 10 older users (aged 62–75). The exclusion calculations underestimated the actual exclusion significantly for both age ranges (p<0.05). None of the older users were able to complete the programming of the thermostats. Additionally, the cognitive demands of these systems were considered using a subjective workload assessment method, based on the NASA Task Load Index, and were found to be excessive. In conclusion, this study makes recommendations to facilitate the design of more inclusive digital programmable thermostats. It is argued that such changes could result in reductions in domestic heat energy consumption.This work is funded by the ESPRC and Buro Happold

Searching the Físchlár-NEWS archive on a mobile device

The Físchlár-NEWS system provides web-based access to an archive of digitally recorded TV News broadcasts over several months, and has been operational for over a year. Users can browse keyframes, search teletext and have streamed video playback of segments of news broadcasts to their desktops. This paper reports on the development of mFíschlár-NEWS, a version of Físchlár-NEWS which operates on a mobile PDA over a wireless LAN connection. In the design and development of mFíschlár-NEWS we have realised that mobile access to a digital library of video materials is more than just the desktop system on a smaller screen, and the functionality and role that information retrieval techniques play in the mFíschlár-NEWS system are very different to what is present in the desktop system. The paper describes the design, interface, functionality and operational status of this mobile access to a video library

Designing non-speech sounds to support navigation in mobile phone menus

This paper describes a framework for integrating non-speech audio to hierarchical menu structures where the visual feedback is limited. In the first part of this paper, emphasis is put on how to extract sound design principles from actual navigation problems. These design principles are then applied in the second part, through the design, implementation and evaluation of a set of sounds in a computer-based simulation of the Nokia 6110 mobile phone. The evaluation indicates that non-speech sound improves the performance of navigational tasks in terms of the number of errors made and the number of keypresses taken to complete the given tasks. This study provides both theoretical and practical insights about the design of audio cues intended to support navigation in complex menu structures

Wheelchair-based game design for older adults

Few leisure activities are accessible to institutionalized older adults using wheelchairs; in consequence, they experience lower levels of perceived health than able-bodied peers. Video games have been shown to be an engaging leisure activity for older adults. In our work, we address the design of wheelchair-accessible motion-based games. We present KINECTWheels, a toolkit designed to integrate wheelchair movements into motion-based games, and Cupcake Heaven, a wheelchair-based video game designed for older adults using wheelchairs. Results of two studies show that KINECTWheels can be applied to make motion-based games wheelchair-accessible, and that wheelchair-based games engage older adults. Through the application of the wheelchair as an enabling technology in play, our work has the potential of encouraging older adults to develop a positive relationship with their wheelchair. Copyright 2013 ACM

Spatial audio in small display screen devices

Our work addresses the problem of (visual) clutter in mobile device interfaces. The solution we propose involves the translation of technique-from the graphical to the audio domain-for expliting space in information representation. This article presents an illustrative example in the form of a spatialisedaudio progress bar. In usability tests, participants performed background monitoring tasks significantly more accurately using this spatialised audio (a compared with a conventional visual) progress bar. Moreover, their performance in a simultaneously running, visually demanding foreground task was significantly improved in the eye-free monitoring condition. These results have important implications for the design of multi-tasking interfaces for mobile devices

Is movement better? Comparing sedentary and motion-based game controls for older adults

Providing cognitive and physical stimulation for older adults is critical for their well-being. Video games offer the opportunity of engaging seniors, and research has shown a variety of positive effects of motion-based video games for older adults. However, little is known about the suitability of motion-based game controls for older adults and how their use is affected by age-related changes. In this paper, we present a study evaluating sedentary and motion-based game controls with a focus on differences between younger and older adults. Our results show that older adults can apply motion-based game controls efficiently, and that they enjoy motion-based interaction. We present design implications based on our study, and demonstrate how our findings can be applied both to motion-based game design and to general interaction design for older adults. Copyright held by authors

Olfoto: designing a smell-based interaction

We present a study into the use of smell for searching digi-tal photo collections. Many people now have large photo libraries on their computers and effective search tools are needed. Smell has a strong link to memory and emotion so may be a good way to cue recall when searching. Our study compared text and smell based tagging. For the first stage we generated a set of smell and tag names from user de-scriptions of photos, participants then used these to tag pho-tos, returning two weeks later to answer questions on their photos. Results showed that participants could tag effec-tively with text labels, as this is a common and familiar task. Performance with smells was lower but participants performed significantly above chance, with some partici-pants using smells well. This suggests that smell has poten-tial. Results also showed that some smells were consistently identified and useful, but some were not and highlighted issues with smell delivery devices. We also discuss some practical issues of using smell for interaction

Technical considerations towards mobile user QoE enhancement via Cloud interaction

This paper discusses technical considerations of a Cloud infrastructure which interacts with mobile devices in order to migrate part of the computational overhead from the mobile device to the Cloud. The aim of the interaction between the mobile device and the Cloud is the enhancement of parameters that affect the Quality of Experience (QoE) of the mobile end user through the offloading of computational aspects of demanding applications. This paper shows that mobile user’s QoE can be potentially enhanced by offloading computational tasks to the Cloud which incorporates a predictive context-aware mechanism to schedule delivery of content to the mobile end-user using a low-cost interaction model between the Cloud and the mobile user. With respect to the proposed enhancements, both the technical considerations of the cloud infrastructure are examined, as well as the interaction between the mobile device and the Cloud