47 research outputs found

    Tangible cooperative gestures: Improving control and initiative in digital photo sharing

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    © 2015 by the authors. This paper focuses on co-present digital photo sharing on a notebook and investigates how this could be supported. While analyzing the current digital photo sharing situation we noticed that there was a high threshold for visitors to take control of the personal computer of the photo owner, resulting in inequity of participation. It was assumed that visitors would have the opportunity to interact with the notebook more freely if this threshold was lowered by distributing the user interface and creating a more public, instead of personal, interaction space. This, in turn, could make them feel more involved and in control during a session, creating a more enjoyable experience. To test these assumptions a design prototype was created that stimulates participants to use tangible artifacts for cooperative gestures, a promising direction for the future of HCI. The situation with the cooperative gestures was compared with the regular digital photo sharing situation, which makes use of a keyboard. In dyads, visitors felt more involved and in control in the design prototype cooperative gestures condition (especially during storytelling), resulting in a more enjoyable digital photo sharing experience

    Combining brain-computer interfaces and assistive technologies: state-of-the-art and challenges

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    In recent years, new research has brought the field of EEG-based Brain-Computer Interfacing (BCI) out of its infancy and into a phase of relative maturity through many demonstrated prototypes such as brain-controlled wheelchairs, keyboards, and computer games. With this proof-of-concept phase in the past, the time is now ripe to focus on the development of practical BCI technologies that can be brought out of the lab and into real-world applications. In particular, we focus on the prospect of improving the lives of countless disabled individuals through a combination of BCI technology with existing assistive technologies (AT). In pursuit of more practical BCIs for use outside of the lab, in this paper, we identify four application areas where disabled individuals could greatly benefit from advancements in BCI technology, namely,“Communication and Control”, “Motor Substitution”, “Entertainment”, and “Motor Recovery”. We review the current state of the art and possible future developments, while discussing the main research issues in these four areas. In particular, we expect the most progress in the development of technologies such as hybrid BCI architectures, user-machine adaptation algorithms, the exploitation of users’ mental states for BCI reliability and confidence measures, the incorporation of principles in human-computer interaction (HCI) to improve BCI usability, and the development of novel BCI technology including better EEG devices

    A Digital Footprint From Birth: New Mothers’ Decisions to Share Baby Pictures Online

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    This research explored new mothers’ decision-making processes to share baby pictures online, particularly on social network sites (SNSs). Semi-structured interviews with 22 new mothers around the United States and abroad uncovered the types of pictures they did and did not share online as well as the different SNSs and other communication platforms they used. The desire to connect with family and friends motivated participants to share pictures online, though many participants had to negotiate expectations regarding online photo sharing with their husbands, and, to a lesser extent, other family or friends. Participants’ conception of their audience, both who was in it and what its members would want to see, as well as privacy concerns influenced their decisions. Participants also considered their own identities and opinions regarding their presentation of self when deciding whether to share baby pictures online. This study extends existing work on online photo sharing and describes how a growing online audience affects photo-sharing behaviors. It also explores the role of technology in the transition to parenthood, offering photo sharing as one potential lens through which to explore the mother-child relationship.Master of ScienceSchool of InformationUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106577/1/Priya_Kumar_Thesis.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106577/3/license_rd

    Using mobile phones in pub talk

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    We present the findings from a study of how people interleave mobile phone use with conversation in pubs. Our findings, informed by ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, unpack the interactional methods through which groups of people in pubs occasioned, sustained, and disengaged from mobile device use during conversation with friends. Fundamentally, the work that is done consists of various methods of accounting for mobile device use, and displaying involvement in social interaction while the device is used. We highlight multiple examples of the nuanced ways in which interleaving is problematic in interaction, and relate our findings to the CSCW and HCI literature on collocated interaction. We conclude by considering avenues for future research, and discuss how we may support or disrupt interleaving practices through design to overcome the highlighted interactional troubles

    Using mobile phones in pub talk

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    We present the findings from a study of how people interleave mobile phone use with conversation in pubs. Our findings, informed by ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, unpack the interactional methods through which groups of people in pubs occasioned, sustained, and disengaged from mobile device use during conversation with friends. Fundamentally, the work that is done consists of various methods of accounting for mobile device use, and displaying involvement in social interaction while the device is used. We highlight multiple examples of the nuanced ways in which interleaving is problematic in interaction, and relate our findings to the CSCW and HCI literature on collocated interaction. We conclude by considering avenues for future research, and discuss how we may support or disrupt interleaving practices through design to overcome the highlighted interactional troubles

    Practical, appropriate, empirically-validated guidelines for designing educational games

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    There has recently been a great deal of interest in the potential of computer games to function as innovative educational tools. However, there is very little evidence of games fulfilling that potential. Indeed, the process of merging the disparate goals of education and games design appears problematic, and there are currently no practical guidelines for how to do so in a coherent manner. In this paper, we describe the successful, empirically validated teaching methods developed by behavioural psychologists and point out how they are uniquely suited to take advantage of the benefits that games offer to education. We conclude by proposing some practical steps for designing educational games, based on the techniques of Applied Behaviour Analysis. It is intended that this paper can both focus educational games designers on the features of games that are genuinely useful for education, and also introduce a successful form of teaching that this audience may not yet be familiar with

    Studies of Content-Mediated Interaction: Insights into Activities, Motivations and User Experience Design

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    The amount of user-generated digital content in social media has exploded during recent years. Currently, it is easy to capture and produce versatile personal content, for example, activity data that is recorded with devices, such as heart rate monitors or the preference data of the music you listen to. A plethora of services exists for content sharing. Sharing digital content, such as images, audio, and video allows people to express themselves, create new contacts, strengthen ties with existing contacts, and to collaborate with other people. Social activities through content can create a sense of belonging and being part of a community. Digital content mediates social interaction through online services. For example, a shared video tells someone the story of an event that they could not be physically present at, and then shared exercise data might inform others of an interesting cycle route for a specific type of exercise. The sharing of traditional, personal digital content such as photos and videos has been widely studied, but recently it has become increasingly common to produce different types of content collaboratively and various services enable social interaction around such content – not just the sharing of it. The guidance for designers on how to build services to enable users to engage in these interactions naturally is still limited. To design better services, we need a better understanding of user activities together with the shared content and the collaborative practices that they form. Thus, this work focuses on novel types of user-generated digital content as well as the related activities, motivations, and user experiences.This compound thesis contributes to the research field of human-computer interaction; more specifically, the user experience. The thesis contains findings from six user case studies, involving a total of 328 participants. Through the case studies, we identified the elements that contribute to the user experience of content-mediated interaction with various content types. The theoretical contribution of this work is the introduction of the concept of contentmediated interaction. This work identifies the different elements that affect content-mediated interaction, and builds a content-mediated interaction model. The work extends the knowledge of user activities and the related user experience with novel types of shared content and of the user’s motivation to participate in content-mediated interaction. As a practical outcome, the thesis presents design implications. The thesis first proposes that understanding content-mediated interaction helps to design better applications and services that support online social interaction. Second, this helps to evaluate and refine the existing services as well as understand the emerging new content types in the future. Understanding the underlying activities and motivations supports the creation of new interaction features, service concepts, and finally, identifying business prospects

    Understanding Roles and User Experience of Mobile Technology in Co-located Interaction

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    Over the last few decades, mobile phones have evolved into ubiquitous devices that support remote communication and various kinds of personal activities. Due to their personal nature, device users are engaged in interactions on mobile devices and pay less attention to other people around them. Furthermore, as the user interface is optimized for a single person use, it reduces sharing and interaction capabilities with co-located people, which negatively influences the opportunities for shared experiences and social activities. This thesis attempts to understand how mobile technology can be designed for co-located interaction.Previous literature on the topic indicates that mobile technology is designed and employed in co-located interaction to fulfill one of these objectives - inviting interaction, facilitating interaction, encouraging interaction or enforcing interaction. While mobile technology facilitating interaction is investigated the most, this research further explores the remaining three objectives.This thesis belongs to the research field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). This research follows research through design approach, producing the contribution of knowledge through design interventions. This compound thesis includes six studies, introducing seven concepts for mobile application, a novel design for a mobile device, and two functional prototypes. Four studies explore mobile technology ‘inviting interaction’; one study explores the technology aiming to ‘encourage interaction’ and the other study explores the mobile technology ‘enforcing interaction’. The intended contexts of use are for leisure and non-work-related activities, with an emphasis on enhancing the co-located social interaction in the activities.The empirical findings of this thesis include both subjective user experiences and objective observations of users’ interactions engendered by mobile technology as well as reflections on the findings in light of existing literature. Based on these findings, this thesis provides insights about 1) The user experience in respect to mobile technology in different co-located interactions; and 2) The roles that mobile technology can play in co-located social interactions, and the design implications describing properties that influence interaction and collaboration between co-located users. These insights provide understandings about mobile technology for researchers and designers dealing with the colocated interaction domain. In addition, this thesis introduces a model of designing mobile technology for co-located interaction. The model intends to help researchers and designers in their early research and design process of mobile technology for co-located interaction. The model is built upon the relation between design objectives, design perspectives, dealing with limitations of mobile technology and the roles of technology in co-located interaction

    Exploratory Browsing

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    In recent years the digital media has influenced many areas of our life. The transition from analogue to digital has substantially changed our ways of dealing with media collections. Today‟s interfaces for managing digital media mainly offer fixed linear models corresponding to the underlying technical concepts (folders, events, albums, etc.), or the metaphors borrowed from the analogue counterparts (e.g., stacks, film rolls). However, people‟s mental interpretations of their media collections often go beyond the scope of linear scan. Besides explicit search with specific goals, current interfaces can not sufficiently support the explorative and often non-linear behavior. This dissertation presents an exploration of interface design to enhance the browsing experience with media collections. The main outcome of this thesis is a new model of Exploratory Browsing to guide the design of interfaces to support the full range of browsing activities, especially the Exploratory Browsing. We define Exploratory Browsing as the behavior when the user is uncertain about her or his targets and needs to discover areas of interest (exploratory), in which she or he can explore in detail and possibly find some acceptable items (browsing). According to the browsing objectives, we group browsing activities into three categories: Search Browsing, General Purpose Browsing and Serendipitous Browsing. In the context of this thesis, Exploratory Browsing refers to the latter two browsing activities, which goes beyond explicit search with specific objectives. We systematically explore the design space of interfaces to support the Exploratory Browsing experience. Applying the methodology of User-Centered Design, we develop eight prototypes, covering two main usage contexts of browsing with personal collections and in online communities. The main studied media types are photographs and music. The main contribution of this thesis lies in deepening the understanding of how people‟s exploratory behavior has an impact on the interface design. This thesis contributes to the field of interface design for media collections in several aspects. With the goal to inform the interface design to support the Exploratory Browsing experience with media collections, we present a model of Exploratory Browsing, covering the full range of exploratory activities around media collections. We investigate this model in different usage contexts and develop eight prototypes. The substantial implications gathered during the development and evaluation of these prototypes inform the further refinement of our model: We uncover the underlying transitional relations between browsing activities and discover several stimulators to encourage a fluid and effective activity transition. Based on this model, we propose a catalogue of general interface characteristics, and employ this catalogue as criteria to analyze the effectiveness of our prototypes. We also present several general suggestions for designing interfaces for media collections
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