Usability and Usability Testing of Websites: An Example Redesign for Sargent Manufacturing

This project explores website usability and usability testing from engineering and cultural perspectives. Customers of Sargent Manufacturing reported significant difficulty using the company\u27s website. Analyzing the website from the perspective of different users, I investigated the site\u27s usability using heuristic and user-testing methods. After problems were identified, I created a redesigned site, which I then similarly tested to evaluate improvement

Social issues of power harvesting as key enables of WSN in pervasive computing

Pervasive systems have gained popularity and open the door to new applications that will improve the quality of life of the users. Additionally, the implementation of such systems over an infrastructure of Wireless Sensor Networks has been proven to be very powerful. To deal with the WSN problems related to the battery of the elements or nodes that constitute the WSN, Power Harvesting techniques arise as good candidates. With PH each node can extract the energy from the surrounding environment. However, this energy source could not be constant, affecting the continuity and quality of the services provided. This behavior can have a negative impact on the user's perception about the system, which could be perceived as unreliable or faulty. In the current paper, some related works regarding pervasive systems within the home environment are referenced to extrapolate the conclusions and problems to the paradigm of Power Harvesting Pervasive Systems from the user perspective. Besides, the paper speculates about the approach and methods to overcome these potential problems and presents the design trends that could be followed.<br/

IoTSan: Fortifying the Safety of IoT Systems

Today's IoT systems include event-driven smart applications (apps) that interact with sensors and actuators. A problem specific to IoT systems is that buggy apps, unforeseen bad app interactions, or device/communication failures, can cause unsafe and dangerous physical states. Detecting flaws that lead to such states, requires a holistic view of installed apps, component devices, their configurations, and more importantly, how they interact. In this paper, we design IoTSan, a novel practical system that uses model checking as a building block to reveal "interaction-level" flaws by identifying events that can lead the system to unsafe states. In building IoTSan, we design novel techniques tailored to IoT systems, to alleviate the state explosion associated with model checking. IoTSan also automatically translates IoT apps into a format amenable to model checking. Finally, to understand the root cause of a detected vulnerability, we design an attribution mechanism to identify problematic and potentially malicious apps. We evaluate IoTSan on the Samsung SmartThings platform. From 76 manually configured systems, IoTSan detects 147 vulnerabilities. We also evaluate IoTSan with malicious SmartThings apps from a previous effort. IoTSan detects the potential safety violations and also effectively attributes these apps as malicious.Comment: Proc. of the 14th ACM CoNEXT, 201

Design, crime and the built environment

Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) is a method of reducing crime through the design and manipulation of the built environment. Based upon the Opportunity Theories of crime, CPTED focuses upon blocking opportunities for criminal behaviour through subtle techniques to maximise informal surveillance, guardianship and maintenance, to minimise through movement and to set standards of physical security that are proportionate to crime risk. This chapter will discuss the principles of CPTED and the theories from which it evolved. It will explore the effectiveness of these principles, both individually and combined, in reducing crime, before exploring how CPTED is applied in practice

Crime Prevention through Environmental Design

This chapter is concerned with the extent to which the individual design features of the built environment (such as a house, school, shopping mall or hospital), as well as the natural environment surrounding those buildings, impact upon crime risk, and subsequently, how these features can be altered to reduce that level of risk. This approach is known as Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED). CPTED draws upon opportunity theories that assert that those involved in, or considering, criminality are influenced (to some extent) by their immediate environmen

Preventing child pedestrian injuries and deaths arising from vehicle-child accidents in domestic driveways: An action research project

This research was a three-fold investigation into the viability of previous recommendations for vehicle-related child driveway accident safety . Firstly, the groups most at risk of these types of accidents were determined in order that they could be specifically considered when reviewing the practicalities of previous recommendations . Secondly, the feasibility of previous recommendations was systematically examined through both an extensive literature review and key and expert informant interviews . Based on these, the likelihood of implementation of previous safety recommendations for the identified high risk groups was ascertained, providing a basis on which to abandon some previous recommendations, remove obstacles to others which would enhance practicability and generate further recommendations that would be tenable for the at-risk groups in particular. The key findings of this research were, foremost, that there is a noticeable lack of specific reference to vehicle-related child driveway accidents in any legislation or safety guidelines, as well as a shortage of official data that deal expressly with this type of accident. Further, it was found that the major obstacles to the implementation of previous recommendations - particularly the environmental ones - were cost, autonomy, and spatial constraints. While several recommendations were abandoned due to factors such as unproven or dubious effectiveness and/or prohibitive cost, it was found that the most viable recommendations were characterised by their relatively low cost for the families involved. These recommendations were typically environmental or educational in nature. Thus, the recommendations in this report include some moderate regulatory changes to facilitate greater uptake of environmental and behaviour-modifying recommendations as well as practical ideas that all need to be part of a cohesive campaign to address the issue of vehicle-related child driveway accidents in New Zealand

Physical security professional’s body of knowledge: A cultural domain analysis of physical security’s knowledge structure

The study undertook a cultural domain analysis to articulate physical security’s knowledge system, isolating the fundamental knowledge units and building their structure. This applied a multiphase approach, (a) a literature critique, (b) expert interviews, (c) quantitative validation, and (d) focus group analysis. Findings demonstrate this knowledge comprises a broad matrix of task related knowledge categories, ranging from diagnosing risk, professional inference using security theories and principles, to treatment via engineering knowledge supported by professional attributes

Automobile Products Liability Litigation

Less than two years after the 1961 Pontiac Tempest was introduced to the public, the General Motors Corporation was faced with more than one hundred and fifty product liability cases arising from the defective design of the front-end main cross member. With the knowledge that numerous accidents had occurred as a direct result of the car being suspended on railroad tracks, manhole covers, tree stumps, and trolley tracks, the manufacturers were forced to redesign the model before the test year had ended. However, by June of 1965, General Motors again found itself a party to at least one hundred and sixty major lawsuits-this time involving the design of the rear suspension system in the 1960 through 1963 Corvair models. When, in January of 1965, a South Carolina jury returned a verdict of seven hundred eighty thousand dollars ($780,000.00) against the Ford Motor Company and another defendant upon the claim that Ford had been negligent in its failure to adequately guard the gear shift lever on its 1949 Ford, the concept of automobile products liability became an accepted basis for securing responsibility in negligence cases

A knowledge-based design system for a housing project for altzheimer\u27s [sic] disease patients and their caregivers

Since the beginning of the 20th century, architecture went through several different developments. Throughout these developments a large number of movements and design models Emerged, based on different design knowledge. The motivation for design projects is related Mainly to historical, functional, or site related issues. Today\u27s changes in social relationships and therefore living arrangements question the validity of existing traditional design solutions, especially in the case of disabled clients. A new or modified specific design knowledge base has to be considered in order to meet the specific client\u27s needs. To satisfy the wide range of changing nontraditional criteria that face todays architects, the new design procedure has to result in a simple yet flexible model. This thesis proposes one such solution as it is applied to Alzheimer\u27s disease patients and their caregivers