Drawing From a Larger Canvas – a Gestalt Perspective on Location-Based Services

Location-based services (LBS) provide mobile users with information and functionality tailored to their geographical location. Within recent years these kinds of mobile information systems have received increasing attention from the software industry as well as from researchers within a wide range of disciplines concerned with the development and use of computer technology. This paper presents a user study of a prototype locationbased service providing an informational overlay to the civic space of Federation Square in Melbourne, Australia. In analysing our field data, we reintroduce the perspective of “gestalt theory”, and argue that describing people’s use of location-based services through gestalt theory’s principles of proximity, closure, symmetry, continuity, and similarity can help explain how people make sense of small and fragmented pieces of information on mobile information systems in context

Information design of public documents : applying Gestalt principles to improve user understanding

La conception des documents publics joue un rôle important dans la manière dont l'utilisateur perçoit et comprend les informations importantes qu'ils véhiculent. De plus, la conception de tels documents peut avoir un impact important sur l’utilisateur en ce qui concernesa confiance et son processus décisionnel. Les principes de design d’informationpeuvent apporter de précieuses perspectives sur comment les documents publics devraient être conçus pour qu’ils réalisent leurs objectifs. Cependant, le domaine du design d’informationdes documents publics souffre d’un manque important dans l’application de ces principes. D'autre part, les principes perceptuels delaGestalt peuvent expliquer comment les humains organisent des éléments visuels en groupes et comment ils reconnaissent des patrons. Depuis leur introduction au début du XXesiècle, les principes delaGestalt ont servi à améliorer le processus visuo-perceptuel dans différents champs d'application (telles que la peinture, la sculpture, la création graphique et le design d’information). Dans ce mémoire, nous étudionsl’application des principes de la Gestalt pour améliorer la compréhension de l’utilisateur des documents publics. Pour ce faire, en premier lieu, une méthode d’évaluation heuristique est adaptée pour identifier les problèmes d'utilisabilité dans les documents publics. Deuxièmement, une méthode d’analyse de documents, reposant sur des mesures des éléments visuels dans les documents, est proposée pour étudier l’application des principes de Gestalt, ainsi que les principes de conception graphique, dans les documents publics. Un échantillon de deux documents publics est utilisé pour démontrer et tester la méthodologie proposée. Sur la base des failles de conception identifiées par les deux méthodes susmentionnées, une approche minimale est proposée pour appliquer les principes de la Gestalt pour résoudre les problèmes identifiés. Les résultats obtenus montrent que l’application des principes de la Gestalt peut améliorer l'accessibilité et la compréhensibilité de l'information présentéedans les documents publics.The design of public documents playsan important role in user perception and understanding of the important information they contain. Moreover, the design of such documents can have an important impact on user self-confidence and decision making. The information design principles pertainingto how to visually structure and verbally construct documents to be easily well perceived and understood can provide valuable insights on how public documents should be designed and presented. Yet, in designing public documents there is a lack in applyingthe information design methods and frameworks. On the other hand, the Gestalt principles of perception can explain how humans organize visual elements into groups and how humans perceive and recognize patterns. Since their introduction in the early twentieth century, the Gestalt principles were examined and studied various times to improve the visual perceptual process in many application areas such as: painting, sculpture, graphic design and information design. Accordingly, this work studies the application of the Gestalt principles to improve the user understanding of public documents. To this end, first an adapted heuristic evaluation method is proposed to identify the usability problems of public documents. Secondly, based on precise measurements of thevisual elements within the documents, a document analytics method is proposed to examine the application of the Gestalt principles as well as the design principles in public documents. A sample comprising two public documents is used to test and demonstrate the proposed methodology. Based on the design flaws detected by the aforementioned two methods, a minimal approach is adopted to apply the Gestalt principles to solve the identified problems. The results obtained show that the integration of the Gestaltprinciples in the design process can improve the accessibility of information in public documents and resolve many of the usability problems in these documents

Aprendizagem baseada em problemas no ensino profissional da informática : aplicação a uma turma do curso técnico de multimédia - 10º ano na unidade de noções de layout

Relatório da prática de ensino supervisionada, Mestrado em Ensino de Informática, Universidade de Lisboa, 2011O presente relatório reflecte a experiência obtida na prática de ensino supervisionada, efectuada no âmbito da disciplina de Introdução à Prática Profissional IV – Informática do Mestrado em Ensino de Informática da Universidade de Lisboa. Esta intervenção decorreu na Escola Secundária D. Dinis, em Lisboa numa turma do 10º ano do Curso Profissional de Técnico de Multimédia, tendo sido leccionado o módulo de Design Multimédia, na unidade de Noções de Layout. O ensino de conceitos relacionados com a disposição dos elementos (layout) de aplicações informáticas é, pela sua própria natureza, um ensino eminentemente prático. Como tal, optou-se por recorrer à metodologia de Aprendizagem Baseada em Problemas, uma vez que experiências anteriores mostraram que facilita as aprendizagens pela descoberta de solução para um problema proposto. Uma vez que os conhecimentos envolvidos na construção de layouts são, em larga medida, resultantes tanto da experiência como do contacto com um grande número de aplicações, considerou-se que integrar a busca de conhecimentos pelos próprios alunos com a apresentação de exemplos concretos por parte do docente permite responder cabalmente ao desafio que é a leccionação desta temática. O presente relatório está dividido em quatro grandes secções, em que se aborda, respectivamente, o enquadramento da problemática e das orientações curriculares, o plano de intervenção, a recolha de dados e a posterior análise e apresentação dos resultados. Após estas secções, é apresentada uma reflexão que engloba tanto o trabalho desenvolvido como os seus resultados.This report reflects the work developed on a supervised teaching practice for the subject Prática Profissional IV – Informática, which is a a part of the Mestrado em Ensino de Informática at Universidade de Lisboa. This activity was developed at Escola Secundária D. Dinis in Lisbon with a 10º grade class of Curso Profissional de Técnico de Multimédia (Multimedia Technician Professional Course), during the Layout Concepts unit of the Multimedia Design module. The teaching of concepts related to the layout of computer applications is itself a practical teaching mostly. Therefore Problem Based Learning was chosen as the teaching methodology, considering that previous experiments showed that it facilitates learning by discovering a solution for a given problem. As the knowledge involved in designing layouts is the result of the experience and contact with a large number of applications, it was considered that integrating the students search with teacher proposed examples was an appropriate approach to teach this subject. This report is divided in four large sections, namely the main subject framing and curricular guidelines, the intervention plan, the data collection with the following analysis and result presentation. After these four sections it is shown a reflection on the developed work and its results

AESTHETIC PERCEPTION AND MOTIVATION MODEL FOR FORMAL AND INFORMAL VISUAL ENVIRONMENTS

Researchers claim that aesthetic qualities of Formal Learning Visual Environments (FL YEs) have a persuasive role in intensifying learning motivation. Unfortunately, designers seem to overlook the necessity of aesthetic designing of FL YEs that could sustain Learners' Learning Motivation (LLM). The existing literature on aesthetic designing of FL YEs primarily focuses upon environment perspective and users' perspective. The existing studies, however, do not take into account, Learners' Aesthetic Perceptions (LAPs) in Informal Visual Environments (!YEs) which may also influence upon LLM. Recent research in this domain suggests that IVEs are producing learners' with a new profile of cognitive skills, such as visual-spatial intelligence and enhanced aesthetic perceptions. It is thus argued that LAPs formed in IVEs may result in establishment of new schemas (set of aesthetic expectations) and make learners' perceptually selective in judging aesthetics

AESTHETIC PERCEPTION AND MOTIVATION MODEL FOR FORMAL AND INFORMAL VISUAL ENVIRONMENTS

Researchers claim that aesthetic qualities of Formal Learning Visual Environments (FL YEs) have a persuasive role in intensifying learning motivation. Unfortunately, designers seem to overlook the necessity of aesthetic designing of FL YEs that could sustain Learners' Learning Motivation (LLM). The existing literature on aesthetic designing of FL YEs primarily focuses upon environment perspective and users' perspective. The existing studies, however, do not take into account, Learners' Aesthetic Perceptions (LAPs) in Informal Visual Environments (!YEs) which may also influence upon LLM. Recent research in this domain suggests that IVEs are producing learners' with a new profile of cognitive skills, such as visual-spatial intelligence and enhanced aesthetic perceptions. It is thus argued that LAPs formed in IVEs may result in establishment of new schemas (set of aesthetic expectations) and make learners' perceptually selective in judging aesthetics