Virtual Heritage

Virtual heritage has been explained as virtual reality applied to cultural heritage, but this definition only scratches the surface of the fascinating applications, tools and challenges of this fast-changing interdisciplinary field. This book provides an accessible but concise edited coverage of the main topics, tools and issues in virtual heritage. Leading international scholars have provided chapters to explain current issues in accuracy and precision; challenges in adopting advanced animation techniques; shows how archaeological learning can be developed in Minecraft; they propose mixed reality is conceptual rather than just technical; they explore how useful Linked Open Data can be for art history; explain how accessible photogrammetry can be but also ethical and practical issues for applying at scale; provide insight into how to provide interaction in museums involving the wider public; and describe issues in evaluating virtual heritage projects not often addressed even in scholarly papers. The book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in museum studies, digital archaeology, heritage studies, architectural history and modelling, virtual environments

Enhancing users\u27 experiences with mobile app stores: What do users see? What should they see?

Using mobile applications is one of the daily habits for most smartphone users. In order to select applications, individuals need to explore the apps stores. Apps’ exploration is disturbed by the way of illustrating the applications’ information. This dissertation consists of three studies that aimed to: 1) Investigate the users’ experience with the apps’ stores; 2) Collect the users’ needs and requirements in order to have a better experience with the interface of apps’ stores; 3) Propose and evaluate a new interface design for the apps’ stores. Different types of data collection methods were administered while proceeding with the phases of this dissertation. The first study was an exploratory study, which administered an online survey, where we had102 respondents. The second study, aimed to collect the design requirements, and we interviewed 16 individuals. The third study was the interface evaluation, where we also had 35 participants. Our results showed multiple factors that affect users’ experience while discovering applications on the apps’ store. Our findings suggested that the current interface design of apps’ stores needs revisions to help users to be aware of apps’ emerging features and issues. Moreover, we found that visual cues that illustrate apps’ information would be more effective to help users perceive specific information about apps. Furthermore, visual indicators would enhance users’ knowledge regarding some of the apps’ concerns. At the end of this research, we evaluated a proposed interface design that integrates the previous design recommendations. The evaluation results illustrated positive outputs in terms of users’ satisfaction and task-completion rate. The findings indicated that participants were delighted to experience the new way of interaction with the interface of apps’ store. We anticipate that users’ experience and their awareness towards the apps issue would be improved if apps’ stores considered adopting the proposed design concept

Automated Learner Classification Through Interface Event Stream And Summary Statistics Analysis

Reading comprehension is predominately measured through multiple choice examinations. Yet, as we will discuss in this thesis, such exams are often criticized for their inaccuracies. With the advent of big data and the rise of ITS (Intelligent Tutoring Systems), increasing focus will be placed on finding dynamic, automated ways of measuring students\u27 aptitude and progress. This work takes the first step towards automated learner classification based on the application of graphic organizers. We address the following specific problem experimentally: How effectively can we measure task comprehension via human translation of written text into a visual representation on a computer? Can an algorithm employ data from user interface (UI) interaction during the problem solving process, to classify the user\u27s abilities? Specifically, from the data we show machine learning predictions of what a human expert would say about the: 1. integrity of the visual representation produced; 2. level of logical problem solving strategy the user applies to the exercise; 3. level of effort the user gives to the exercise. The core of the experiment is a software system that allows a human subject to read a preselected text and then draw a diagram by manipulating icons on a grid-canvas using standard transforms

A usability approach to improving the user experience in web directories

PhDWeb directories are hierarchically organised website collections that offer users subjectbased access to the Web. They played a significant part in navigating the Web in the past but their role has been weakened in recent years due to their cumbersome expanding collections. This thesis presents a unified framework combining the advantages of personalisation and redefined directory search for improving the usability of Web directories. The thesis begins with an examination of classification schemes that identifies the rigidity of hierarchical classifications and their suitability for Web directories in contrast to faceted classifications. This leads on to an Ontological Sketch Modelling (OSM) case study which identifies the misfits affecting user navigation in Web directories from known rigidity issues. The thesis continues with a review of personalisation techniques and a discussion of the user search model of Web directories following the suggested directions of improvement from the case study. A proposed user-centred framework to improve the usability of Web directories which consists of an individual content-based personalisation model and a redefined search model is then implemented as D-Persona and D-Search respectively. The remainder of the thesis is concerned with a usability test of D-Persona and D-Search aimed at discovering the efficiency, effectiveness and user satisfaction of the solution. This involves an experimental design, test results and discussions for the comparative user study. This thesis extracts a formal definition of the rigidity of hierarchies from their characteristics and justifies why hierarchies are still better suited than facets in organising Web directories. Second, it identifies misfits causing poor usability in Web directories based on the discovered rigidity of hierarchies. Third, it proposes a solution to tackle the misfits and improve the usability of Web directories which has been experimentally proved to be successful

A Usability Approach to Improving the User Experience in Web Directories

Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Queen Mary, University of Londo

KEER2022

Avanttítol: KEER2022. DiversitiesDescripció del recurs: 25 juliol 202

Virtual Heritage

Virtual heritage has been explained as virtual reality applied to cultural heritage, but this definition only scratches the surface of the fascinating applications, tools and challenges of this fast-changing interdisciplinary field. This book provides an accessible but concise edited coverage of the main topics, tools and issues in virtual heritage. Leading international scholars have provided chapters to explain current issues in accuracy and precision; challenges in adopting advanced animation techniques; shows how archaeological learning can be developed in Minecraft; they propose mixed reality is conceptual rather than just technical; they explore how useful Linked Open Data can be for art history; explain how accessible photogrammetry can be but also ethical and practical issues for applying at scale; provide insight into how to provide interaction in museums involving the wider public; and describe issues in evaluating virtual heritage projects not often addressed even in scholarly papers. The book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in museum studies, digital archaeology, heritage studies, architectural history and modelling, virtual environments