Building Guidelines for UNESCO World Heritage Sites’ Apps

This research involved the Mobile Media Group, from the Bauhaus-University Weimar - Germany.Technological improvements and access provide a fertile scenario for the creation and development of mobile applications. This scenario of intense production of new software for mobile devices results in a myriad of apps providing information about almost all the cultural segments, including those dedicated to UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS). However, not all of the apps have the same efficiency. In order to have a successful app, its development must consider usability aspects aligned with reliable content. Despite the guidelines for mobile usability being broadly available, they are generic, and none of them concentrates specifically in cultural heritage. This article aims to fulfil this literature gap and discusses how to develop specific guidelines for a better WHS experience. It uses an empirical approach applied to an open-air WHS city: Weimar and its Bauhaus and Classical Weimar sites. To build the guidelines, this research compared literature-based guidelines to industry-based ones, extracted from a vast compendium of available apps dedicated to WHS. The instructions compiled from both sources have been comparatively tested by using two built prototypes from the distinctive guidelines

From Desktop to Mobile: UI Patterns for User Interface Adaptation in Games

Over the last decade, the popularity of mobile gaming has increased dramatically. It is becoming increasingly more common to include mobile as one of the target platforms in game releases. However, implementing a game for multiple platforms and devices is complicated due to the various interaction mechanisms. The versatility with platforms and devices poses major challenges for UI designers; various aspects from resolutions to input devices have to be taken into account. However, by looking at the research in this area it seems that guidelines for multi-platform game UI design have yet to be established, which is what this thesis seeks to address. Firstly, this thesis investigates whether there are factors in modern gaming applications that differ by device when comparing phone, tablet and desktop user interfaces. For this, three games were picked as case study subjects, and qualitative approach was used to analyze what those factors are and how they are addressed in the UI design of different device versions of the chosen games. The second objective was to form a collection of straightforward design patterns based on the discovered UI differences. As a conclusion, by analyzing several games along the existing research, it is possible to form a collection of design patterns. A set of 17 UI design patterns were documented for adapting a desktop optimized game application to mobile platform

Establishing usability heuristics for heuristics evaluation in a specific domain: is there a consensus?

Heuristics evaluation is frequently employed to evaluate usability. While general heuristics are suitable to evaluate most user interfaces, there is still a need to establish heuristics for specific domains to ensure that their specific usability issues are identified. This paper presents a comprehensive review of 70 studies related to usability heuristics for specific domains. The aim of this paper is to review the processes that were applied to establish heuristics in specific domains and identify gaps in order to provide recommendations for future research and area of improvements. The most urgent issue found is the deficiency of validation effort following heuristics proposition and the lack of robustness and rigour of validation method adopted. Whether domain specific heuristics perform better or worse than general ones is inconclusive due to lack of validation quality and clarity on how to assess the effectiveness of heuristics for specific domains. The lack of validation quality also affects effort in improving existing heuristics for specific domain as their weaknesses are not addressed

The Effect of Changing Menu Type on User Experience

Internetpalveluiden hyvä käytettävyys ja käyttäjäkokemus ovat todella tärkeitä. Hyvä käytettävyys ja käyttäjäkokemus parantavat tuottavuutta ja asiakasuskollisuutta, vähentävät virheitä ja tarvitta-vaa asiakastukea, sekä auttavat palvelun markkinointia ja myyntiä. Yksi internetsivujen käyttäjäko-kemukseen vaikuttavista tekijöistä on sivuston navigointi. Hyvä ja selkeä valikkorakenne tekee si-vuston käytöstä nopeaa, helppoa ja mukavaa, kun taas huono valikko voi estää sivuston käytön ko-konaan. Tämän diplomityön tavoitteena oli kehittää uusi, helppokäyttöinen ja moderni käyttöliittymä kohdeyrityksen internetpalvelussa navigoimiseen. Uusi valikko on vaakasuuntainen, suuria kuvakkeita käyttävä nauhavalikko. Tutkimus selvitti, onko uuden nauhavalikon käyttäjäkokemus parempi kuin vanhan alasvetovalikon. Tutkimuksessa varmistettiin tarve uudelle valikolle, suunniteltiin ja tehtiin uusi valikko, testattiin uutta valikkoprototyyppiä ja vertailtiin uutta nauhavalikkoa tavalliseen alasvetovalikkoon. Uuden valikon prototyyppiä testattiin yhdeksällä käyttäjällä. Alasvetovalikkoa ja nauhavalikkoa vertailtiin 23 käyttäjällä iPad-tabletilla tehtyjen testitehtävien ja kyselyn ja haastattelun avulla. Nauhavalikko oli käyttäjien mielestä perinteistä alasvetovalikkoa visuaalisempi, hauskempi ja mukavampi käyttää. Valikkojen käytön nopeudessa ei havaittu merkittäviä eroja, monet käyttäjät kuitenkin kokivat, että nauhavalikkoa oli nopeampi käyttää. Uuden prototyypin testauksessa kahdeksan yhdeksästä käyttäjästä piti uutta nauhavalikkoa vanhan sovelluksen käyttöliittymää parempana ja valikkovertailututkimuksessa 83 % käyttäjistä sanoi käyttävänsä mieluummin nauhavalikkoa kuin alasvetovalikkoa. 35 % käyttäjistä uskoi nauhavalikon myös parantavan työmotivaatiota.Usability and user experience are really important for internet services. Good usability and user experience improve productivity and customer loyalty, reduce errors and the need for customer sup-port, and help sales and marketing. Navigation is one element of website user experience. Good and clear menus make websites easy, fast and enjoyable to use, whereas bad menus can prevent or stop the visit to the site. The object of this master’s thesis was to develop a new, better, more usable and modern navigation menu for target company’s internet service. The new menu is horizontal ribbon menu that uses big icons. The research studied, whether the new ribbon menu has better user experience than the old drop-down menu. The research confirmed the need for a new menu, designed and developed the new menu, tested the new prototype and compared the new ribbon menu to a drop-down menu. The prototype was tested with nine users. The menu comparison was done with test tasks on an iPad-tablet, questionnaires and interviews. 23 users participated in the study. The results show that the ribbon menu was more visual, fun and pleasant than the drop-down menu. No notable differences were found in the task times, but many users felt that the ribbon menu was faster to use. In the tests for the new prototype, 8 out of 9 users preferred the new menu over the old one, and in the menu comparison study 83 % of the users said they’d rather use the ribbon menu than the drop-down menu. 35 % of the users also believed the ribbon menu improves employee motivation

Garis panduan pembangunan media pengajaran berkonsepkan penceritaan digital untuk tablet skrin sentuh

The usage of the Digital Storytelling (DST) concept for development process in instructional media is not fully comprehended. Besides, the features of DST tools also need to be identified. The lack of standard guidelines to develop instructional media with touch screen interaction should also be addressed. Therefore, this study proposes a guideline for the development of instructional media with DST concept (MPBPD) for touch screen tablet that could help designers to produce compelling MPBPD apps. This study applies the Design Science Methodology to achieve the objectives of the study that comprises of five phases: problem awareness, suggestion, development, evaluation and conclusion. A total of 13 experts and 70 teachers from the Institut Pendidikan Guru (IPG) and a school in the Northern Region, Malaysia participated in the quality evaluation phase using a set of questionnaire called Q-Qguide. Furthermore, 40 MPBPD apps created by the respondents were measured in terms of compellingness using a rubric instrument (R-Compelling). The findings indicate that the guideline is of quality and has positive and high relationship in the dimension of usefulness, ease of use, easy to understand, applicability and tablet interaction. MPBPD apps which were developed by implementing the guideline is found to meet the guideline elements and has a high perceived compellingness level. In conclusion, the study has contributed a guideline for the development of instructional media with DST concept for touch screen table

Método para la evaluación de usabilidad de sitios web transaccionales basado en el proceso de inspección heurística

La usabilidad es considerada uno de los factores más importantes en el desarrollo de productos de software. Este atributo de calidad está referido al grado en que, usuarios específicos de un determinado aplicativo, pueden fácilmente hacer uso del software para lograr su propósito. Dada la importancia de este aspecto en el éxito de las aplicaciones informáticas, múltiples métodos de evaluación han surgido como instrumentos de medición que permiten determinar si la propuesta de diseño de la interfaz de un sistema de software es entendible, fácil de usar, atractiva y agradable al usuario. El método de evaluación heurística es uno de los métodos más utilizados en el área de Interacción Humano-Computador (HCI) para este propósito debido al bajo costo de su ejecución en comparación otras técnicas existentes. Sin embargo, a pesar de su amplio uso extensivo durante los últimos años, no existe un procedimiento formal para llevar a cabo este proceso de evaluación. Jakob Nielsen, el autor de esta técnica de inspección, ofrece únicamente lineamientos generales que, según la investigación realizada, tienden a ser interpretados de diferentes maneras por los especialistas. Por tal motivo, se ha desarrollado el presente proyecto de investigación que tiene como objetivo establecer un proceso sistemático, estructurado, organizado y formal para llevar a cabo evaluaciones heurísticas a productos de software. En base a un análisis exhaustivo realizado a aquellos estudios que reportan en la literatura el uso del método de evaluación heurística como parte del proceso de desarrollo de software, se ha formulado un nuevo método de evaluación basado en cinco fases: (1) planificación, (2) entrenamiento, (3) evaluación, (4) discusión y (5) reporte. Cada una de las fases propuestas que componen el protocolo de inspección contiene un conjunto de actividades bien definidas a ser realizadas por el equipo de evaluación como parte del proceso de inspección. Asimismo, se han establecido ciertos roles que deberán desempeñar los integrantes del equipo de inspectores para asegurar la calidad de los resultados y un apropiado desarrollo de la evaluación heurística. La nueva propuesta ha sido validada en dos escenarios académicos distintos (en Colombia, en una universidad pública, y en Perú, en dos universidades tanto en una pública como en una privada) demostrando en todos casos que es posible identificar más problemas de usabilidad altamente severos y críticos cuando un proceso estructurado de inspección es adoptado por los evaluadores. Otro aspecto favorable que muestran los resultados es que los evaluadores tienden a cometer menos errores de asociación (entre heurística que es incumplida y problemas de usabilidad identificados) y que la propuesta es percibida como fácil de usar y útil. Al validarse la nueva propuesta desarrollada por el autor de este estudio se consolida un nuevo conocimiento que aporta al bagaje cultural de la ciencia.Tesi