Enriching Requirements Analysis with the Personas Technique

A thorough understanding of the users that interact with the system is necessary to develop usable systems. The Personas technique developed by the human-computer interaction (HCI) discipline gathers data about users, gains an understanding of their characteristics, defines fictitious personas based on this understanding and focuses on these personas throughout the software development process. The aim of our research is to build Personas into systems development following software engineering (SE) guidelines. The benefits to be gained are an understanding of the user which is not traditionally taken into account in SE. To do this, we had to undertake two types of tasks. First, we modified the Personas technique to conform to the levels of systematization common in SE. We have called the modified technique PersonaSE. Second, we incorporated the proposed technique into the software requirements analysis proces

A Persona-based Extension for Massive Open Online Courses in Accessible Design

AbstractIn this paper, we present a new participatory design for learning, developed in the context of a transnational initiative for creating Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on Accessible Design for ICT. The core idea is creating an additional learning benefit by means of immersive learning experience. This is achieved by simulating scenarios, in which the participants in the MOOC course are prompted to take on the role of accessible media author, and user, vice versa. The approach is based on the concept of “personas”, a user centered design methodology that illustrates practical needs by portraying realistic personal profiles of hypothetical characters

Usability improvement of public transit application through mental model and user journey

Using a mobile application that is featured with local public transit information can greatly improve user action, as well as assisting travelers to have a better experience while taking public transit services. Crowd environment inside a public transit is one of the most frequent causes that lead difficulties to passengers when they engaging their mobile devices to access their apps or in some conditions. Finding crucial information such as stops points and remaining time to interchanges point when switching to another line becomes more difficult in those conditions especially for foreigners who new in a particular region. This study presents the combination of a mental model and a usability approach to construct a user journey map that led to new insights on user's experiences and challenges when utilizing their mobile local transit application. This valuable information is a part of the elicitation process to propose an alternative interaction method to enhance the usability and travel experience of the public transit app. The experimental results indicate that in contrast to the existing mobile transit app, the proposed interface with the utilization of a wearable device could considerably enhance user action when trying to reach the desired location in terms of total time and performance. It implies that the proposed solution, which works through the mental model and user journey is able to intuitively enhance the public transit app usability

Assisted Interaction for Improving Web Accessibility: An Approach Driven and Tested by Userswith Disabilities

148 p.Un porcentaje cada vez mayor de la población mundial depende de la Web para trabajar, socializar, opara informarse entre otras muchas actividades. Los beneficios de la Web son todavía más cruciales paralas personas con discapacidades ya que les permite realizar un sinfín de tareas que en el mundo físico lesestán restringidas debido distintas barreras de accesibilidad. A pesar de sus ventajas, la mayoría depáginas web suelen ignoran las necesidades especiales de las personas con discapacidad, e incluyen undiseño único para todos los usuarios. Existen diversos métodos para combatir este problema, como porejemplo los sistemas de ¿transcoding¿, que transforman automáticamente páginas web inaccesibles enaccesibles. Para mejorar la accesibilidad web a grupos específicos de personas, estos métodos requiereninformación sobre las técnicas de adaptación más adecuadas que deben aplicarse.En esta tesis se han realizado una serie de estudios sobre la idoneidad de diversas técnicas de adaptaciónpara mejorar la navegación web para dos grupos diferentes de personas con discapacidad: personas conmovilidad reducida en miembros superiores y personas con baja visión. Basado en revisionesbibliográficas y estudios observacionales, se han desarrollado diferentes adaptaciones de interfaces web ytécnicas alternativas de interacción, que posteriormente han sido evaluadas a lo largo de varios estudioscon usuarios con necesidades especiales. Mediante análisis cualitativos y cuantitativos del rendimiento yla satisfacción de los participantes, se han evaluado diversas adaptaciones de interfaz y métodosalternativos de interacción. Los resultados han demostrado que las técnicas probadas mejoran el acceso ala Web y que los beneficios varían según la tecnología asistiva usada para acceder al ordenador

An effective approach to develop location-based augmented reality information support

Using location-based augmented reality (AR) for pedestrian navigation can greatly improve user action to reduce the travel time. Pedestrian navigation differs in many ways from the conventional navigation system used in a car or other vehicles. A major issue with using location-based AR for navigation to a specific landmark is their quality of usability, especially if the active screen is overcrowded with the augmented POI markers which were overlap each other at the same time. This paper describes the user journey map approach that led to new insights about how users were using location-based AR for navigation. These insights led to a deep understanding of challenges that user must face when using location-based AR application for pedestrian navigation purpose, and more generally, they helped the development team to appreciate the variety of user experience in software requirement specification phase. To prove our concept, a prototype of intuitive location-based AR was built to be compared with existing standard-location based AR. The user evaluation results reveal that the overall functional requirements which are gathered from user journey have same level of success rate criteria when compared with standard location-based AR. Nevertheless, the field study participants highlighted the extended features in our prototype could significantly enhance the user action on locating the right object in particular place when compared with standard location-based AR application (proved with the required time)

You Belong Here: An \u27Interpellative\u27 Approach to Usability

Given the participatory, immersive Web 2.0 culture that characterizes digital experiences today, what is traditionally understood as \u27usability\u27 is insufficient to drive the engagement Web 2.0 audiences both crave and have come to expect from best-in-class interfaces. Thus, this dissertation presents a \u27constructivist\u27 vision of usability that helps designers \u27speak\u27 to audiences who demand excellence, and who will leave when confronted with mediocrity. The constructivist practice of usability occurs through what I call \u27interpellative design.\u27 Interpellative design is both a complement to, and a critique of, \u27accommodationist\u27 approaches to usability (Howard, 2010a) which tend to be associated with technical problem solving (Jordan, 2001), ease of use (Shedroff, 2001), and \u27expedient\u27 solutions (Katz, 1992) to mechanistic problems. As part of the under-theorized \u27constructivist\u27 approach to usability (Howard, 2010a), interpellative design allows usability to remain a \u27problem-solving discipline\u27 (Jordan, 2001); however, its focus on beauty, argument, and the figural dialogue between designers and users extends the purview of usability into non-algorithmic pursuits. To describe a constructivist approach to usability, I outline a theoretical taxonomy which identifies factors at play in interpellative user interfaces. An \u27interpellative interface\u27 is one which calls out or \u27hails\u27 (Althusser, 1971a) users and indicates that a given interface is a viable \u27place\u27 in which they can exert influence, accomplish tasks, or solve problems. The hail is facilitated through the construction of a habitus and use of social capital (Bourdieu, 1984). Briefly, a habitus is the space into which users are interpellated, and acts and artifacts of social capital are expressions of how they belong in that space. In examining how these factors manifest in digital interfaces, I argue that the constructivist approach to usability enacted through interpellative design enables usability engineers to identify flaws in interfaces that were not apparent before the mechanisms of habitus and social capital were explicated. The lens of interpellative design allows usability engineers to address the constructivist concerns pertaining to emotion, visual communication, and other types of \u27distinctions\u27 (Bourdieu, 1984) that could not be \u27seen\u27 before