The design of a mobile user interface for an interest rate calculator

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references.In our search towards an interactive mobile fixed rate calculator, in this dissertation, we are interested in the human-centred design and in particularly exploring the mobile user interface design and the user experience (usability) thereof. A mobile solution will allow real time rate quotes to Relationship Executive while they are on the move or out of the office rather than a desktop application

The genesis and development of mobile learning in Europe

In the past two decades, European researchers have conducted many significant mobile learning projects. The chapter explores how these projects have arisen and what each one has contributed, so as to show the driving forces and outcomes of European innovation in mobile learning. The authors identify context as a central construct in European researchers’ conceptualizations of mobile learning and examine theories of learning for the mobile world, based on physical, technological, conceptual, social and temporal mobility. The authors also examine the impacts of mobile learning research on educational practices and the implications for policy. Finally, they suggest future challenges for researchers, developers and policy makers in shaping the future of mobile learning

Differentiator factors in the implementation of social network sites

Estágio realizado na Business Analyst da Documento Crítico - Desenvolvimento de Software, S. A. (Cardmobili) e orientado pelo Eng.ª Catarina MaiaTese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Informática e Computação. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 200

J Biomed Inform

PurposeDespite years of effort and millions of dollars spent to create a unified electronic communicable disease reporting systems, the goal remains elusive. A major barrier has been a lack of understanding by system designers of communicable disease (CD) work and the public health workers who perform this work. This study reports on the application of User Center Design representations, traditionally used for improving interface design, to translate the complex CD work identified through ethnographic studies to guide designers and developers of CD systems. The purpose of this work is to: (1) better understand public health practitioners and their information workflow with respect to communicable disease (CD) monitoring and control at a local health department, and (2) to develop evidence-based design representations that model this CD work to inform the design of future disease surveillance systems.MethodsWe performed extensive onsite semi-structured interviews, targeted work shadowing and a focus group to characterize local health department communicable disease workflow. Informed by principles of design ethnography and user-centered design (UCD) we created persona, scenarios and user stories to accurately represent the user to system designers.ResultsWe sought to convey to designers the key findings from ethnographic studies: 1) that public health CD work is mobile and episodic, in contrast to current CD reporting systems, which are stationary and fixed 2) health department efforts are focused on CD investigation and response rather than reporting and 3) current CD information systems must conform to PH workflow to ensure their usefulness. In an effort to illustrate our findings to designers, we developed three contemporary design-support representations: persona, scenario, and user story.ConclusionsThrough application of user centered design principles, we were able to create design representations that illustrate complex public health communicable disease workflow and key user characteristics to inform the design of CD information systems for public health.1P01CD000261-01/CD/ODCDC CDC HHS/United States5T15LM007442/LM/NLM NIH HHS/United StatesT15 LM007442/LM/NLM NIH HHS/United StatesT32 NR007106/NR/NINR NIH HHS/United StatesT32NR007106/NR/NINR NIH HHS/United States2014-08-01T00:00:00Z23618996PMC407704

Proximity-based systems: Incorporating mobility and scalability through proximity sensing

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This thesis argues that the concept of spatial proximity offers a viable and practical option for the development of context-aware systems for highly mobile and dynamic environments. Such systems would overcome the shortcomings experienced by today’s location-based and infrastructure dependent systems whose ability to deliver context-awareness is prescribed by their infrastructure. The proposed architecture will also allow for scalable interaction as against the single level of interaction in existing systems which limits services to a particular sized area. The thesis examines the concept of spatial proximity and demonstrates how this concept can be exploited to take advantage of technological convergence to offer mobility and scalability to systems. It discusses the design of a proximity-based system that can deliver scalable context-aware services in highly mobile and dynamic environments. It explores the practical application of this novel design in a proximity-sensitive messaging application by creating a proof-of-concept prototype. The proof-of-concept prototype is used to evaluate the design as well as to elicit user views and expectations about a proximity-based approach. Together these provide a valuable insight into the applicability of the proximity-based approach for designing context-aware systems. The design and development work discussed in the thesis presents a Proximity-Sensitive System Architecture that can be adapted for a variety of proximity-sensitive services. This is illustrated by means of examples, including a variety of context-aware messaging applications. The thesis also raises issues for information delivery, resource sharing, and human-computer interaction. While the technological solution (proximity-based messaging) offered is only one among several that can be developed using this architecture, it offers the opportunity to stimulate ideas in the relatively new field of proximity and technological convergence research, and contributes to a better understanding of their potential role in offering context-aware services

Enhancing Customer Experience in the Construction Industry

In the recent trend of business strategy development and several design fields, enriching user experience has become the focal point for the innovative researches. This thesis attempts to address this issue, “how to enhance customer experience in the construction industry,” through a case study of Rautaruukki Construction Division. It is a business-to- business relationship between Rautaruukki and its customers. How to develop and enhance user experience in thus context is the objective of the thesis. The research will produce the result in the form of a interaction design guide for Rautaruukki’s software applications of steel building design. It will indicate the method for developing user experience of software through empirical study and literature review. Furthermore, it will attempt to give insights for other companies also in the B2B business sector

Context-Aware Software

With the advent of PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), smart phones, and other forms of mobile and ubiquitous computers, our computing resources are increasingly moving off of our desktops and into our everyday lives. However, the software and user interfaces for these devices are generally very similar to that of their desktop counterparts, despite the radically different and dynamic environments that they face. We propose that to better assist their users, such devices should be able to sense, react to, and utilise, the user's current environment or context. That is, they should become context-aware. In this thesis we investigate context-awareness at three levels: user interfaces, applications, and supporting architectures/frameworks. To promote the use of context-awareness, and to aid its deployment in software, we have developed two supporting frameworks. The first is an application-oriented framework called stick-e notes. Based on an electronic version of the common Post-It Note, stick-e notes enable the attachment of any electronic resource (e.g. a text file, movie, Java program, etc.) to any type of context (e.g. location, temperature, time, etc.). The second framework we devised seeks to provide a more universal support for the capture, manipulation, and representation of context information. We call it the Context Information Service (CIS). It fills a similar role in context-aware software development as GUI libraries do in user interface development. Our applications research explored how context-awareness can be exploited in real environments with real users. In particular, we developed a suite of PDA-based context-aware tools for fieldworkers. These were used extensively by a group of ecologists in Africa to record observations of giraffe and rhinos in a remote Kenyan game reserve. These tools also provided the foundations for our HCI work, in which we developed the concept of the Minimal Attention User Interface (MAUI). The aim of the MAUI is to reduce the attention required by the user in operating a device by carefully selecting input/output modes that are harmonious to their tasks and environment. To evaluate our ideas and applications a field study was conducted in which over forty volunteers used our system for data collection activities over the course of a summer season at the Kenyan game reserve. The PDA-based tools were unanimously preferred to the paper-based alternatives, and the context-aware features were cited as particular reasons for preferring them. In summary, this thesis presents two frameworks to support context-aware software, a set of applications demonstrating how context-awareness can be utilised in the ''real world'', and a set of HCI guidelines and principles that help in creating user interfaces that fit to their context of use

WS-GUARD: enhancing UDDI Registries with on-line testing capabilities

Abstract This thesis investigates the Service Oriented Architecture and in particular the runtime discovery of Web services through the development of an empowered UDDI registry called WS-GUARD (Guaranteeing Uddi Audition at Registration and Discovery). We start by presenting the Audition framework, a specially conceived framework that applies the idea of testing during the Web service registration in the UDDI registry and then we study the practical implications of its implementation focusing on the most advanced Web service technologies. This thesis aims at modifying and extending the registration protocol of Web services into UDDI registries in order to introduce a testing phase before actual service publishing: only those services that pass the audition are admitted in the registry and become publicly available at runtime. A complete prototype implementation of WS-GUARD is described and analysed. Riassunto analitico La tesi ha investigato l'ambito Service Oriented Architecture e in particolare il run-time discovery di Web service attraverso la realizzazione di un registro UDDI potenziato, denominato WS-GUARD (Guaranteeing Uddi Audition at Registration and Discovery). Principale obiettivo del lavoro è stato la modifica dei protocolli di registrazione del registro UDDI. Tale modifica è stata rivolta all'introduzione di una fase di testing preventiva alla tradizionale fase di registrazione. Ammettendo alla registrazione soltanto quei servizi che superino la fase di verifica si intende fornire maggiori garanzie sulla qualità dei servizi che saranno resi dinamicamente reperibili (discovered) a tempo di esecuzione. La tesi discute le modifiche proposte e ne fornisce un'implementazione reale