Usable cryptocurrency systems

Since the introduction of Bitcoin in 2008 cryptocurrency and blockchain technology have drawn increasing attention from research and industry alike. The probably most visible evidence of the growing adoption of cryptocurrencies is the combined market capitalization which had reached over USD 2.9 trillion in November 2021. While the market capitalization remains subject to high volatility and has fallen since, the field has been growing steadily behind the scenes. Developer activity has been growing over the last decade and multiple projects which had been started to improve over the original design have reached maturity in recent years. However, the introduction of new technologies is often accompanied by the emergence of equally new design challenges. Despite the technological progress over the past years, cryptocurrencies have earned a reputation of being hard to get started with and overall difficult to use. But what exactly are the aspects that make them difficult to use? How do users manage their cryptocurrency in practice? Which challenges do they need to overcome? And how can Human-Computer Interaction help overcome these challenges? In several studies, this dissertation addresses these questions and explores them through three different approaches: (1) Cryptocurrency in Human-Computer Interaction: By systematically reviewing published Human-Computer Interaction research since the inception of Bitcoin, we organize the existing research effort and juxtapose it with the changing landscape of emerging technologies from practice to identify avenues for future research. Our results show that existing research has overwhelmingly focused on Bitcoin and Ethereum, while not addressing novel cryptocurrencies. (2) Understanding User Behavior: By exploring user behavior through multiple lenses we shed light on real-world practices of users and the challenges they face. We explore security and privacy practices through a qualitative interview study and triangulate the results in a delphi-study with 25 experts. We conducted an interview study to understand a particularly relevant point for the adoption of cryptocurrency – we investigate challenges first-time users face. Our results show that many usability issues are not rooted in the technical aspects of blockchain technology and can be addressed through Human-Computer Interaction research. (3) Improving Application Usability: By evaluating different approaches on how to aid the development of cryptocurrency applications we translate the findings of our empirical work into artifacts and put them to the test. Our results show that onboarding in mobile apps can improve perceived usability for first-time users under the right conditions, that Bitcoin Lightning can serve as a usable settlement layer for everyday transactions, that education can support the next generation of developers in building more useful applications, and that systems for rapid interface prototyping may speed up development efforts. Collectively, the contribution of this dissertation centers around the ongoing discussion on how to build usable cryptocurrency systems. More precisely, this dissertation contributes (a) empirical studies that show how users manage their cryptocurrency in practice and which challenges they face in doing so and (b) constructive approaches attempting to support the development of cryptocurrency systems in the future. The work concludes by reflecting on the future role of Human-Computer Interaction research in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space

Designing Effective User Onboarding Experiences for Mobile Applications

User onboarding is the process of increasing the likelihood that new users become successful when adopting your product, by providing them with the right tools to understand how a product works and what benefits it provides. The number of apps we daily manage on our mobile devices increases day by day, thus requiring a hard work by designers to create the best user onboarding experience ever. Since it represents the first interactive, direct experience that every user has of an app, every aspect of the funnel represents a significant opportunity for activation and retention of customers in the short- and long-term. In the wide landscape of mobile apps, brain training apps need to have an additional closer look at the onboarding experience they provide. For this type of apps, onboarding does not only encompass more common activities such as user registration and free trial activation, but also the possibility to develop an accurately personalized game experience, tailored to the user’s current cognitive skills and training objectives. Elevate is a successful brain training app available on iOS and Android devices. Recent monitoring of users’ retention and churn rates have shown a huge loss of customers during the onboarding process, thus generating the need to investigate on how to restructure the flow in a way that could help keeping more customers in the loop. The analysis of quantitative and qualitative data with respect to Elevate’s key success metrics has led to a redesign of the welcome pitch, the user registration process, and the post-registration up-sell screen. It has also brought changes to the immediate post-onboarding experience of the first training session, and to the re-onboarding of churned users. A/B tests have been carried out to analyze the behavior of different variants and choose the optimal new onboarding flow. First results show expansion of the onboarding funnel, strengthening of the benefit appeal, and acceleration in user motivation, all factors leading to a higher customer activation and retention

Enhancing Student Assignment Completion Through Gamified Mobile Applications: A Motivational Approach

This thesis explores the design of digital tools to encourage motivation for students in higher education. A design is proposed for an original prototype app that makes use of gamification techniques. Theories on improving motivation are discussed in the literature and those most suited to be implemented within a digital prototype are selected. To measure how well the prototype performs, we specifically use the delivery for coursework to be handed in a timely manner as a metric. User consultation in the form of a questionnaire is used to create part of the specification used in the prototype design. The prototype app is tested on a limited number of participants and the results reported. Results show that students using a mobile application with gamification features would be motivated to start their assignments earlier and be motivated to complete them on time however results also show that specific gamification features have more split opinions than others for e.g., the extrinsic rewards that users can earn when completing assignments and challenges. These rewards have very little tangible value to them so when earned by users, it doesn’t provide much nor does it motivate them to want to achieve more, users would prefer rewards that have a direct impact on them for e.g., being able to extend assignment deadlines. The Thesis offers theoretical and practical contributions to research and design of motivation and the use of gamification in a mobile application

Involving older adults in the design and development of free/open source software

An age-wave is upon us where many older adults are reaching retirement. Technically experienced older adults have skills that could be directly applied to free/open source software (FOSS) communities, such as project management, programming, and/or knowledge of a rapidly growing end-user population. FOSS is a widely popular, low-cost way to create software solutions. FOSS is in need of new contributors, as it is mostly volunteer-driven and has a high contributor turnover rate. Also, FOSS communities are homogenous, comprised mostly of young white male contributors. My research goal is to change the current FOSS demographic by investigating how to involve older adults in FOSS design and development. This is a unique problem because older adults may have different motivations, experiences, and abilities than their younger counterparts. This research is comprised of two phases: involving older adults indirectly through participatory design, then investigating how to involve older adults more directly in development. This work is a portfolio of five peer-review quality conference publications that culminate in the following research deliverables: a list of benefits and barriers of older adults’ involvement in FOSS, guidelines for including older adults in FOSS, and a prototype workshop curriculum for encouraging participation in FOSS by older adults

An exploration of online information spaces that support instructional design and teacher professional development

Members in online communities of practice (CoPs) take advantage of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to exchange practical or work-related knowledge in asynchronous online environments. Practical knowledge represents individuals' mental models allowing them to interact with the environment and perform tasks. With ICTs, practical knowledge accumulates over time and becomes an integral part of online CoPs. Due to ease of implementation, content management systems (CMSs) and social media platforms, primarily Facebook, have enabled the emergence of large online CoPs. However, research has shown that online CoPs are not conducive information spaces for seeking solutions independently, and hashtags used for topic organization are not representative of the wealth of practical knowledge. This three-article dissertation describes design recommendations for supporting the information needs of community members by analyzing the practical knowledge in instructional design and technology (IDT) that rely on a CMS and the Facebook platform and conducting usability testing to improve an existing teacher professional development CoP. By applying natural language processing (NLP) and usability testing, quantitative and qualitative approaches were implemented to examine the practical knowledge and help guide the design of information spaces that enable members to search for solutions through better topic representations or categories. The results of the first study showed that the e-learning development CoP emphasized producing online articles related to educational technology and the lack of transparency in evaluating such materials. The results of the second study showed that the four IDT CoPs on the Facebook platform were characterized by the lack of effective topic structures representative of the accumulated knowledge and the lack of community protocols for curating knowledge and taking corrective actions toward misinformation. The third study relied on usability testing to design an information space to support educators' ability to align materials with Missouri teacher standards. This three-article dissertation suggests five design features that online CoPs can implement in addressing the shortcomings of asynchronous online environments, including (1) improving topic organization, (2) establishing community protocols, (3) increasing transparency, (4) improving search functions, and (5) leveraging NLP in future web technologies. Lastly, the dissertation discussed the results of the three published studies, offered recommendations for improving online CoPs as conducive information spaces, and provided future directions.Includes bibliographical references

Saas-palvelun käyttöönottoprosessin parantaminen ja käyttöönoton ongelmien ratkaisu

Tiivistelmä. Tässä pro gradu -tutkielmassa tutkitaan SaaS-palvelu Intron käyttöönottoprosessia. Intron palveluntarjoaja Finnish Consulting Group (FCG) oli huomannut, että esihenkilöistä koostuva käyttäjäryhmä ei käyttänyt Introa toivotulla tavalla, mikä on johtanut alentuneeseen ohjelmiston käyttöasteeseen. Tämä tarjosi hyvän mahdollisuuden tutustua SaaS-palvelun käyttöönottoprosessiin, mitä ongelmia siinä oli sekä miten ne ratkaistiin. Tutkimusmenetelmänä käytetään kirjallisuuskatsausta ja käytettävyystestausta. Kirjallisuuskatsauksessa tarkastellaan käyttöönottoprosessi-käsitteen taustoja ja esitellään käyttöönottoprosessin erilaisia elementtejä. Lisäksi pohditaan käytettävyyden merkitystä onnistuneelle käyttöönottoprosessille. Esihenkilökäyttäjäryhmälle järjestetty käytettävyystestaus tehtiin puolistrukturoidusti ja se jaettiin kolmeen osaan: alkuhaastattelu, toiminnallinen osuus ja loppuhaastattelu. Lopuksi käytettävyystestien tuloksia verrataan kirjallisuuskatsauksen löydöksiin. Tämän tapaustutkimuksen tulokset viittaavat siihen, että manuaalisen työn määrä, käyttäjälle annettava vastuun määrä ohjelmistossa, ohjelmistotermien ymmärtäminen ja näytettävän tiedon määrä häiritsevät eniten käyttöönottoprosessia. Kirjallisuus antoi vastaukset jokaiseen edellä mainittuun käyttöönoton ongelmaan, joten tämä tapaustutkimus antaa lisätukea kirjallisuudessa esiintyneisiin teorioihin. Tulevaisuudessa on tehtävä vielä lisää tutkimusta SaaS-ohjelmistojen käyttöönottoprosessiin liittyen. On suositeltavaa, että SaaS-palvelujen käyttöönottoprosessin onnistunutta läpivientiä ajatellen kerättäisiin yhteen havaintoja siitä, mitkä asiat estävät käyttäjää SaaS-palvelun sujuvassa aloituksessa

Citizen-led Work using Social Computing and Procedural Guidance

Online platforms enable people to interact with friends, family, and the world at large. How might people go beyond sharing stories and ideas to building and testing theories in the real world? While many are motivated to dig deeper into their lived experience, limited expertise and lack of platform support make complex activities like experimentation dauntingly hard. Novices benefit greatly from expert guidance: this thesis advocates baking the guidance into the interface itself.This dissertation introduces procedural guidance to build just-in-time expertise for difficult tasks. Procedural guidance has multiple advantages: it is minimal, leverages teachable moments, and can be ability-specific. This dissertation instantiates this insight of procedural guidance through a sequence of increasingly complex social computing systems: Gut Instinct for curating ideas, Docent for generating hypotheses, and Galileo for citizen-led experiments.Gut Instinct hosts online learning materials and enables people to collaboratively brainstorm potential influences on people’s microbiome. Docent explicitly teaches people to create hypotheses by combining personal insights and online learning with task-specific scaffolding. Finally, Galileo reifies experimentation in the software, provides multiple roles for contribution, and automatically manages interdependencies. Multiple evaluations—controlled experiments and field deployments with online communities including American Gut participants—demonstrate that procedural guidance enables people to transform intuitions to hypotheses and structurally-sound experiments. By enabling people to draw on lived experience, this dissertation harbingers a future where people can convert their intuitions to actionable plans and implement these plans with online communities. This dissertation concludes by discussing opportunities for complex work using social computing platforms

Gamifying a Map-based Feedback Service to Support Youth Participation in City Improvement

In recent years, youth has been recognized as an indispensable stakeholder of city environment. On the one hand, young citizens who have intentions to contribute their community should be given an opportunity to express ideas. On the other hand, it is necessary for city agencies to listen to the needs from young generation to create a more livable and friendly city environment. Since location is considered as an essential attribute of human activities, local knowledge of residents always has a direct relation with spatial data. Thus, utilizing Geography Information System (GIS) has been developed to help public to participant in improving city environment, that is, Public Participation Geography Information System (PPGIS). However, younger people are thought to be less attracted by traditional political engagement, and annoyed with authoritative and tough tone. Thus, gamification as an innovative and increase popular trend has been implemented in a variety of youth-related applications and projects. Gamification is proposed to fulfill the desires of young people in the aspects of achievement, social, and immersion. The effects of gamification individuals with different player types and preferences of games to some degree. The research in thesis is conducted in connection with All-Youth project based in Finland, which is a multidisciplinary research project to enhance the connection with young people and their communities. This thesis focuses on applying gamification into digital public feedback service to motivate and sustain youth participation. Firstly, the discussion of related work includes status of youth participation in city planning, digital map technology used in public participation, and definition, content, and benefits of gamification. Secondly, three map-based tools for different purpose of public participation are studied to evaluate their usability and aesthetic quality. Thirdly, a gamified feedback service is prototyped based on initial user research and analysis. Finally, the effects of the gamified prototype are evaluated in user testing with the comparison to a control prototype without gamification. The results suggest that gamification can have positive effects on attractiveness and hedonic system qualities, while it may also influence on pragmatic quality. Overall, the research of this thesis can be considered as a successful attempt to gamify the public map-based platform which could have influence on youth engagement