A framework to evaluate user experience of end user application security features

The use of technology in society moved from satisfying the technical needs of users to giving a lasting user experience while interacting with the technology. The continuous technological advancements have led to a diversity of emerging security concerns. It is necessary to balance security issues with user interaction. As such, designers have adapted to this reality by practising user centred design during product development to cater for the experiential needs of user - product interaction. These User Centred Design best practices and standards ensure that security features are incorporated within End User Programs (EUP). The primary function of EUP is not security, and interaction with security features while performing a program related task does present the end user with an extra burden. Evaluation mechanisms exist to enumerate the performance of the EUP and the user’s experience of the product interaction. Security evaluation standards focus on the program code security as well as on security functionalities of programs designed for security. However, little attention has been paid to evaluating user experience of functionalities offered by embedded security features. A qualitative case study research using problem based and design science research approaches was used to address the lack of criteria to evaluate user experience with embedded security features. User study findings reflect poor user experience with EUP security features, mainly as a result of low awareness of their existence, their location and sometimes even of their importance. From the literature review of the information security and user experience domains and the user study survey findings, four components of the framework were identified, namely: end user characteristics, information security, user experience and end user program security features characteristics. This thesis focuses on developing a framework that can be used to evaluate the user experience of interacting with end user program security features. The framework was designed following the design science research method and was reviewed by peers and experts for its suitability to address the problem. Subject experts in the fields of information security and human computer interaction were engaged, as the research is multidisciplinary. This thesis contributes to the body of knowledge on information security and on user experience elements of human computer interaction security regarding how to evaluate user experience of embedded InfoSec features. The research adds uniquely to the literature in the area of Human Computer Interaction Security evaluation and measurement in general, and is specific to end user program security features. The proposed metrics for evaluating UX of interacting with EUP security features were used to propose intervention to influence UX in an academic setup. The framework, besides presenting UX evaluation strategies for EUP security features, also presents a platform for further academic research on human factors of information security. The impact can be evaluated by assessing security behaviour, and successful security breaches, as well as user experience of interaction with end user programs

Inspiring engagement through the user experience: a project with the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery

2014 Fall.Includes bibliographical references.This project focused on user experience to create a plan for a web application that would increase engagement with the audience of a local museum. With the support of the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery, the researcher performed user experience research to create an interactive feature on the museum's website that can showcase the experiences and history and science content the museum has to offer. The project was conducted using a human-centered design framework and focused on engagement and user experience. Activity theory and the user experience framework drove the method. The process started with five stakeholder interviews, then proceeded to four observation sessions, five personas, and rounds of prototyping and testing. The final deliverable to the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery was a project plan - including specific design, content and technology recommendations resulting from research and development - they can use to implement the web application on their currently existing site to increase engagement and their audience size

Understanding touch screen mobile phone users by Taxonomy of Experience (ToE)

This seminar was delivered on 25th January 2011 by Wen-Chia Wang, a PhD researcher in the School of Engineering and Design at Brunel University. During her PhD, Wen-Chia worked on several projects with the telecommunication company 3 in the UK to understand user experience with mobile phones. Her PhD research addresses the importance of understanding users before conducting design; especially how individual differences of cognitive styles (holistic - serialistic) affect human operational behaviour with mobile phone interfaces. More importantly, her research seeks to establish the linkage between psychology and design, and to provide design guidelines that are based on individual differences. The presentation was hosted at Brunel University as part of the Human Centred Design Institute (HCDI) Research Seminar Series. HCDI is a University Research Centre (URC) that brings together expertise in Human-centred Design which combines methodologies and technologies from design, engineering, computer science, artificial intelligence and philosophy. Human-centred Design leads to machines, systems and products which are physically, cognitively and emotionally intuitive to their users. The Human Centre Design seminar series are events designed to encourage communication and teamwork with colleagues across the university and experts leaders in human-centred related topics.The aim of this study is to understand user experience of touch screen mobile phones and to provide design principles from users’ perspectives. The importance of user experience in the product design process has been discussed in recent decades. Diverse quantitative methodologies attempt to understand users by evaluating their attitudes, expectations, emotion, concept of the object, judgment of the product and so forth. However, user experience is subjective and difficult to measure. Whilst many researchers tend to transform user experience to quantitative data, Coxon’s (2007) Taxonomy of Experience (ToE), and its analytic approach of SEEing, uncover an understanding of the user experience through qualitative analysis. The term ‘SEEing’ attempts to differentiate from the processes of thinking, but still associates with the thinking process. The nine steps of the SEEing process aim to clarify the user’s experience. It begins by transforming the user’s verbal commentary and ends in a synthesis of super-ordinary metaphors. This study thus applies ToE-SEEing to deeply understand mobile phone users, especially their interaction experience with touch screen mobile phones. The outcomes of this research study provide alternative design elements from the users’ perspectives whilst designing the interface for the touch screen mobile phone

Multimodal animation control

Thesis (M.Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2003.Includes bibliographical references (leaf 44).In this thesis, we present a multimodal animation control system. Our approach is based on a human-centric computing model proposed by Project Oxygen at MIT Laboratory for Computer Science. Our system allows the user to create and control animation in real time using the speech interface developed using SpeechBuilder. The user can also fall back to traditional input modes should the speech interface fail. We assume that the user has no prior knowledge and experience in animation and yet enable him to create interesting and meaningful animation naturally and fluently. We argue that our system can be used in a number of applications ranging from PowerPoint presentations to simulations to children's storytelling tools.by Hana Kim.M.Eng

Hot Streaks on Social Media

Measuring the impact and success of human performance is common in various disciplines, including art, science, and sports. Quantifying impact also plays a key role on social media, where impact is usually defined as the reach of a user's content as captured by metrics such as the number of views, likes, retweets, or shares. In this paper, we study entire careers of Twitter users to understand properties of impact. We show that user impact tends to have certain characteristics: First, impact is clustered in time, such that the most impactful tweets of a user appear close to each other. Second, users commonly have 'hot streaks' of impact, i.e., extended periods of high-impact tweets. Third, impact tends to gradually build up before, and fall off after, a user's most impactful tweet. We attempt to explain these characteristics using various properties measured on social media, including the user's network, content, activity, and experience, and find that changes in impact are associated with significant changes in these properties. Our findings open interesting avenues for future research on virality and influence on social media.Comment: Accepted as a full paper at ICWSM 2019. Please cite the ICWSM versio

eModeration: Towards a User Experience Evaluation Framework

eModeration (or online moderation) can improve the user experience of the examination process while lowering the risk of losing scripts or delaying the moderation process. Despite these benefits to optimising examination procedures, the application of online moderation is limited. There could be various reasons for the lack of adopting eModeration including the technical, organisational and human factors. The focus of this study is on the human factors involved in eModeration and the research is guided by the following question: What are the most important user experience constructs for valuating an electronic moderation (eModeration) system within the context of Higher Education Institutions in South Africa? This research uses a design science methodology, which comprises the development and testing of a user experience framework. In this paper, we will only report on the identification of the constructs for the user experience framework. The data generation methods will include interviews with deans from the different faculties and a survey with moderators and deans. The research was conducted at Midrand Graduate Institute, a Private Higher Education institution in South Africa. The contribution of the paper is to identify the most important user experience constructs for evaluating an eModeration system and also to provide some insights on the user experience of the two different user groups. The enriched understanding of eModerators’ and deans’ user experience of eModeration contributes to the understanding of the human factors that influence the adoption of innovative assessment practices.College of Engineering, Science and Technolog

Offloading Cyber-Physical Tasks using Mobile Crowdsourcing

International audienceRecent generations of mobile phones, embedding a wide variety of sensors, have fostered the development of open sensing applications, such as network quality or weather forecast applications. Nonetheless, critical non-functional concerns like the energy consumption or the user privacy remain poorly covered by such dedicated applications, incidentally impacting the user experience. In this paper, we introduceAPISENSE as a distributed middleware platform that leverages the dynamic deployment of crowdsourcing tasks acrossa population of mobile phones. We illustrate the originality of APISENSE on a mobile crowdsourcing experiment operated by human and social science scientists: PRACTIC

User Experience of Geocaching and Its Application to Tourism and Education

Advances in technology have provided new ways of using entertainment and game technology to foster human interaction. Games and playing with games have always been an important part of people’s everyday lives. Traditionally, human-computer interaction (HCI) research was seen as a psychological cognitive science focused on human factors, with engineering sciences as the computer science part of it. Although cognitive science has made significant progress over the past decade, the influence of people’s emotions on design networks is increasingly important, especially when the primary goal is to challenge and entertain users (Norman 2002). Game developers have explored the key issues in game design and identified that the driving force in the success of games is user experience. User-centered design integrates knowledge of users’ activity practices, needs, and preferences into the design process. Geocaching is a location-based treasure hunt game created by a community of players. Players use GPS (Global Position System) technology to find “treasures” and create their own geocaches; the game can be developed when the players invent caches and used more imagination to creations the caches. This doctoral dissertation explores user experience of geocaching and its applications in tourism and education. Globally, based on the Geocaching.com webpage, geocaching has been played about 180 countries and there are more than 10 million registered geocachers worldwide (Geocaching.com, 25.11.2014). This dissertation develops and presents an interaction model called the GameFlow Experience model that can be used to support the design of treasure hunt applications in tourism and education contexts. The GameFlow Model presents and clarifies various experiences; it provides such experiences in a real-life context, offers desirable design targets to be utilized in service design, and offers a perspective to consider when evaluating the success of adventure game concepts. User-centered game designs have adapted to human factor research in mainstream computing science. For many years, the user-centered design approach has been the most important research field in software development. Research has been focusing on user-centered design in software development such as office programs, but the same ideas and theories that will reflect the needs of a user-centered research are now also being applied to game design (Charles et al. 2005.) For several years, we have seen a growing interest in user experience design. Digital games are experience providers, and game developers need tools to better understand the user experience related to products and services they have created. This thesis aims to present what the user experience is in geocaching and treasure hunt games and how it can be used to develop new concepts for the treasure hunt. Engineers, designers, and researchers should have a clear understanding of what user experience is, what its parts are, and most importantly, how we can influence user satisfaction. In addition, we need to understand how users interact with electronic products and people, and how different elements synergize their experiences. This doctoral dissertation represents pioneering work on the user experience of geocaching and treasure hunt games in the context of tourism and education. The research also provides a model for game developers who are planning treasure hunt concepts.Teknologinen kehitys on tarjonnut uusia tapoja hyödyntää viihdettä ja peliteknologiaa ihmisten välisessä vuorovaikutuksessa. Pelit ja niiden pelaaminen on ollut aina tärkeä osa ihmisten arkipäivää. Ihmisen ja tietokoneen välisen vuorovaikutuksen tutkimus, human-computer interaction research (HCI), on perinteisesti nähty kognitiivisena psykologiana, johon kuuluvat inhimilliset tekijät, sekä insinööritieteenä, johon sisältyy tietojenkäsittelytiede. Vaikka kognitiivinen tiede on kehittynyt viime vuosina valtavasti, suunnitteluverkostoihin vaikuttavat ihmisten tunteet ovat yhä tärkeämmässä osassa, erityisesti silloin kun tavoitteena on haastaa ja viihdyttää käyttäjiä. (Norman 2002.) Pelinkehittäjät ovat selvittäneet pelisuunnittelun kannalta olennaisia tekijöitä ja tunnistaneet, että pelien menestyksen salaisuus on käyttäjäkokemus. Käyttäjäkeskeisessä suunnittelussa käyttäjien toiminnan käytäntöjen, tarpeiden ja toiveiden tuntemus tuodaan mukaan suunnitteluprosessiin. Geokätköily on paikannukseen perustuva aarteenetsintäpeli, jonka pelaajat ovat luoneet yhdessä. Pelaajat käyttävät GPS-teknologiaa "aarteiden" etsimiseen ja lisäävät omia geokätkökohteita ja peli kehittyy jatkuvasti pelaajien keksiessä kätköjä, jotka vaativat yhä enemmän mielikuvitusta. Tässäväitöskirjassa tutkitaan geokätköilyn käyttäjäkokemusta ja sen sovelluksia koulutuksen- ja matkailunaloilla. Perustuen Geocaching.com websivustoon geokätköilyä pelataan noin 180 maassa, ja rekisteröityneitä käyttäjiä on yli kymmenen miljoonaa eri puolilla maailmaa (Geocaching.com, 25.11.2014). Tässä tutkielmassa esitellään vuorovaikutusmalli nimeltään GameFlow Experience -mallia, jota voidaan käyttää aarteenetsintäsovellusten suunnittelussa koulutuksen- ja matkailualojen konteksteissa. GameFlow Experience -malli esittelee ja selventää erilaisia kokemuksia - se esittelee ne todellisessa kontekstissa, tarjoaa erilaisia suunnittelutavoitteita palvelusuunnittelua varten sekä näkökulman, joka tulisi ottaa huomioon seikkailupelien menestystä arvioitaessa. Käyttäjäkeskeisessä pelisuunnittelussa on sovellettu inhimillisten tekijöiden tutkimusta valtavirran tietojenkäsittelytieteeseen. Useiden vuosien ajan, käyttäjäkeskeisen suunnittelun lähestymistavasta on tullut tärkein tutkimusala ohjelmistokehityksessä. Tutkimus on keskittynyt ohjelmistojen kehitykseen käyttäjäkeskeisessä suunnittelussa etenkin toimisto-ohjelmistoihin, mutta samoja ideoita ja teorioita, jotka heijastavat yhteiskunnan tarpeita käyttäjäkeskeisessä tutkimuksessa sovelletaan nyt myös pelisuunnitteluun. (Charles ja ym. 2005.) Kiinnostus käyttäjäkokemuksen suunnitteluun on kasvanut jo useiden vuosien ajan. Digitaaliset pelit tarjoavat kokemuksia, ja pelisuunnittelijat tarvitsevatkin työkaluja, joiden avulla voidaan entistä paremmin ymmärtää tuotteiden ja palvelujen luomia käyttäjäkokemuksia. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on esitellä käyttäjäkokemusta ja miten sitä voidaan käyttää uusien aarteenmetsästyskonseptien kehittämiseen. Insinööreillä, suunnittelijoilla ja tutkijoilla tulisi olla selkeä käsitys siitä, mikä käyttäjäkokemus on, mitkä ovat sen osat ja mikä tärkeintä, miten voimme vaikuttaa käyttäjän tyytyväisyyteen. Lisäksi pitäisi ymmärtää, miten käyttäjät toimivat elektronisten tuotteiden kanssa sekä miten ihmiset toimivat vuorovaikutuksessa toistensa kanssa ja miten eri osat vaikuttavat yhdessä käyttäjien kokemuksiin. Väitöskirja on pioneerityö käyttäjäkokemuksesta geokätköilyssä ja aarteenetsintä peleissä matkailun ja opetuksen kontekstissa. Tutkimus antaa myös mallin pelin kehittäjille, jotka suunnittelevat aarteenetsintäkonsepteja.Siirretty Doriast

USER-DEFINED CLASSIFICATION ON THE ONLINE PHOTO SHARING SITE FLICKR…OR, HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE MILLION TYPING MONKEYS

As evidenced by the growing popularity of sites which provide tagging and annotation functionality, like del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us), Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/), technorati (http://www.technorati.com/), and CiteULike (http://www.citeulike.org/), which already have combined user bases in the several millions, collaborative cataloging, or tagging, provides a workable solution for content organization, use, and exploration for many Internet users. This explosion in user-defined metadata has the potential to improve the way information is organized, navigated, and experienced on the web, and offers the Library and Information Science community the opportunity to augment and refine our existing classification methods and schemes to be more user-friendly, to allow for higher levels of precision and recall, and to enhance the human information interaction experience