Effective Use of User Interface and User Experience in an mHealth Application

The effect of user interface (UI) design decisions on system usability has been discussed in information system literature. These discussions evolved into investigating the effectiveness of UI and how it affects a system user’s performance, as well as his or her perception of the system as a whole. This paper investigates the role of UI design on facilitating effective use in the context of mobile applications. Based on the Effective Use Theory, we test four different UIs developed for frequent data input tasks in a mobile platform using a controlled experiment and a follow-up survey. Our findings indicate that UI design in terms of touch technique (tap vs. slide) and target direction (vertical vs. horizontal) has a significant impact on the task completion time, as well as the app UIs’ perceived usability and likability. We discuss both theoretical and empirical implications of the results and suggest future research directions

Inclusão Digital de Pessoas Idosas: Um Estudo de Caso utilizando Computadores Desktop e Tablets

Este estudo tem como objetivo apresentar os resultados da interação de um grupo de idosos utilizando computadores pessoais e tablets em projeto de inclusão digital e foi realizado na Faculdade de Arquitetura, Artes e Comunicação, UNESP, campus Bauru. Participaram nestas Oficinas 18 pessoas idosas, com idade entre 60 e 75 anos, todos alfabetizados e com escolaridade e classes sociais heterogêneas. A metodologia utilizada foi pesquisa de campo exploratória e com abordagem qualitativa. O estudo foi dividido em duas fases. Na primeira todos os participantes aprenderam informática básica, como navegação e comunicação na internet, e edição de textos, utilizando computadores desktop. Na segunda fase, 13 idosos continuaram utilizando os desktops, enquanto os outros cinco idosos utilizaram os tablets. Entre os resultados obtidos com os uso dos tablets neste projeto, os usuários idosos destacaram a facilidade de executar as tarefas neste dispositivo, pela facilidade de uso, o manuseio, a mobilidade, a sua leveza e o acesso aos aplicativos nestes dispositivos

Tablet Applications for the Elderly: Specific Usability Guidelines

While the world population is aging, the technological progress is steadily increasing. Smartphones and tablets belong to a growing market and even more people aged 65 and above are using such touch devices. However, with advancing age normal cognitive, sensory, perceptual and motor changes influence psychological and physical capabilities and therefore the way the elderly are able to use tablet-applications. When designing tablet-applications for the elderly developers have to be supported in understanding these capabilities. Therefore, this thesis provides a comprehensive compilation of usability guidelines in order to develop user-friendly tablet-applications for older people. The development and testing of an exemplary tablet-application within this thesis shows how these guidelines can be brought into practice and how this realization is evaluated by test persons in this age group

Youtablet - Tablet e os idosos

Tese de mestrado, Engenharia Informática (Sistemas de Informação), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2015A população, sobretudo nos países desenvolvidos, está a envelhecer. Com esse envelhecimento, os problemas relacionados com incapacidades físicas e cognitivas assumem um papel de destaque no dia-a-dia e particularmente no acesso à tecnologia. Por esta razão, a tecnologia deveria ter um papel chave no acesso à informação. Essa tecnologia poderá ser uma barreira para a população idosa quando não são tidas em conta as características presentes neste público-alvo e as diferenças existentes entre cada utilizador. O grande objetivo do "YouTablet" é o combate à exclusão tecnológica através da personalização da interação fazendo uso de um tablet e aproveitando a maior facilidade de adoção destes dispositivos por parte do segmento mais velho da população. Assim, a ideia deste projeto passa por desenvolver um mecanismo multimodal (fala, toque simples, gestos, áudio e visual) para idosos, baseado na interação com um tablet. Com este sistema, os idosos podem fazer uso de um sistema que lhes permite aceder mais facilmente aos conteúdos partilhados nas redes sociais pelos seus familiares e amigos. Este projeto tem também como objetivo desenvolver uma API para o sistema operativo Android de um tablet, que permite fornecer modalidades de fala e inclinação. Esta API visa facilitar a implementação da multimodalidade aos programadores.The worldwide population is getting increasingly old, especially in the developed countries. The cognitive and physical disabilities resulting from age related diseases, basically affect everyone’s routine. For old people, technology assess turns more and more difficult, as the ageing process progresses. However, technology should definitely play an important role in providing a universal easy access, both to information, and entertainment. Therefore, systems will have to adapt to the human cycles of life, from childhood to old age, changing concepts and easing access, thus making it possible, for the elderly, to take advantage of technological resources in the various fields of knowledge and activities. The main target of “YouTablet” is fighting against technological exclusion of the elderly, and enable the population within this age group to have access to technological instruments. This task can be accomplished by customizing the way of interaction with specific devices, such as a tablet, which seems having been the one generally adopted by the oldest segment of population. The project idea is to develop a multimodal mechanism (speech and touch, visual, gestures and audio) specially designed for the elderly people, based on tablet interaction. They can use a device which functions according to their own characteristics, surpassing their ageing problems, and allowing them to easily access services or applications used by younger people. In order to achieve this purpose, this project objective is to develop an Android OS API for tablets, which adapts the UI elements to user needs. The audience for this project will be the elderly population

Discoverable Free Space Gesture Sets for Walk-Up-and-Use Interactions

abstract: Advances in technology are fueling a movement toward ubiquity for beyond-the-desktop systems. Novel interaction modalities, such as free space or full body gestures are becoming more common, as demonstrated by the rise of systems such as the Microsoft Kinect. However, much of the interaction design research for such systems is still focused on desktop and touch interactions. Current thinking in free-space gestures are limited in capability and imagination and most gesture studies have not attempted to identify gestures appropriate for public walk-up-and-use applications. A walk-up-and-use display must be discoverable, such that first-time users can use the system without any training, flexible, and not fatiguing, especially in the case of longer-term interactions. One mechanism for defining gesture sets for walk-up-and-use interactions is a participatory design method called gesture elicitation. This method has been used to identify several user-generated gesture sets and shown that user-generated sets are preferred by users over those defined by system designers. However, for these studies to be successfully implemented in walk-up-and-use applications, there is a need to understand which components of these gestures are semantically meaningful (i.e. do users distinguish been using their left and right hand, or are those semantically the same thing?). Thus, defining a standardized gesture vocabulary for coding, characterizing, and evaluating gestures is critical. This dissertation presents three gesture elicitation studies for walk-up-and-use displays that employ a novel gesture elicitation methodology, alongside a novel coding scheme for gesture elicitation data that focuses on features most important to users’ mental models. Generalizable design principles, based on the three studies, are then derived and presented (e.g. changes in speed are meaningful for scroll actions in walk up and use displays but not for paging or selection). The major contributions of this work are: (1) an elicitation methodology that aids users in overcoming biases from existing interaction modalities; (2) a better understanding of the gestural features that matter, e.g. that capture the intent of the gestures; and (3) generalizable design principles for walk-up-and-use public displays.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Computer Science 201

Intentions to Use Location-Based Services: Refining a Predictive Model and Understanding Contexts of Use

This thesis is concerned with the processes involved in the perception, adoption and use of location-based services (LBS). Location-based services are able to pinpoint the geographical position of an individual and are most often deployed on mobile devices. The capability for LBS to be integrated into other systems such as social networking sites is also growing. The focus of current LBS research is on the development of security measures to protect privacy. The actual privacy concerns of real LBS users, however, have not been considered. The work in this thesis examines location-based services from a user perspective. A previously untested predictive model of LBS was assessed, and shown to be unsuited to account for intentions to use the technology in a workplace setting. A revised and improved model is proposed that suggests four factors account for intentions: perceived usefulness, trust of the LBS provider, disclosure to employer and trust of the employer. This research investigated the types of location information that might be disclosed when using LBS, who the recipients might be, and how people categorise location information into meaningful clusters. Results showed that people have explicit LBS preferences, with the receiver of information and context playing a large role in determining disclosure. Three qualitative case studies aimed to understand implications of LBS use with different populations. Participants raised concerns about trustworthiness of their employer and knowledge of LBS providers, providing support for the theoretical model. These case studies suggest LBS could also successfully be applied to alternate user groups. These findings have important implications for LBS providers and industry. People have a desire to know who the LBS provider is and what role they will play. Making these issues explicit should improve trust and develop the user-LBS provider relationship. When implementing LBS in the workplace, consultation with employees and providing clear information may enhance trust of the employer

Vibrotactile Feedback for Application on Mobile Touch Screen Devices: Effects with Age

This thesis has investigated vibrotactile interactions for touch screen devices related to age, the study developed distinguishable vibrotactile patterns for evaluation by younger and older people, in order to inform the design process for the development of a haptic language. The study of haptic perception validated that the optimal sensation to vibration for both age groups is in the range of 100-300 Hz, which guides the design of the future vibrotactile patterns development. As part of the human perception study carried out, it was found that two of the seven semantic differential pairs tested, ‘slow-fast’ and ‘light-heavy’, are suitable to describe the feelings of haptic feedback for younger people however there was no clear agreement for older people. It is recommended that the magnitude estimation techniques can be used for the future experimental design. Finally, this study shows that haptic language could be developed using vibration with the respect to the parameters of amplitude, frequency, and frequency ramping. The amplitude of vibration plays a key role in determining whether people can adequately sense the message, whereas the frequency can be used to imply meaning. The study found that a signal at 200 Hz could be understood to have a positive meaning for the vibrotactile interaction. Frequency ramping could be an essential parameter to design a negative vibrotactile interaction, compared to amplitude ramping that has no significant influence for perception. Most people would require a certain level of training to learn a haptic language because humans have no pre- conception of vibrations other than as an alert. It is suggested that a scenario should be provided to the subjects for the valuation

Examining the Adoption, Use and Diffusion of Tablet and Mobile Devices by Older Adults in Hertfordshire County, UK

Ubiquitous or mobile computing is the new trend of this modern era whereby information can be accessed anytime and anywhere. It is anticipated that this form of computing will be more effective than the Internet because of its capability of combining the integral benefits of wireless Internet and interactivity with its own unique characteristics namely, mobility, portability and flexibility. One of the devices that have made this form of computing a reality is the tablet device. It is also a device identified to make a significant impact in encouraging the use of the Internet and ICT generally among the older population. However, there is limited study on the reasons older adults adopt and use tablet devices. Therefore, this research project aims to identify and evaluate the factors that influence the adoption, use and diffusion of tablet devices within the older population (aged 50 and above) in UK. For this purpose, a Framework of Tablet Device Adoption (FTDA), which was based mainly on the Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour (DTPB) with the inclusion of an extra construct Trust, was developed. In particular, the hypothesised constructs included nine variables namely: Compatibility, Perceived Ease of Use, Perceived Usefulness, Trust, Attitude, Subjective Norm, Perceived Behavioural Control, Intention to Use and Actual Use. Furthermore, a quantitative approach for data collection was employed to test the FTDA model. The data collection was conducted in three phases including, content validity, pilot phase and the final phase. Data was collated through an online survey, which produced 203 completed responses for the pilot phase and 1,008 completed responses for the final phase. In addition, to validate the result of the quantitative study, qualitative method in the form of telephone interviews was employed. Result showed that attitude has the strongest effect on the intention to use tablets, while perceived usefulness had the strongest impact on attitude. In addition, the impact of attitude on intention was moderated by age and health status while the impact of perceived behavioural control was moderated by age. Findings also revealed that ailments such as anxiety disorder, vision impairments and learning difficulties impacted on adoption and use. In conclusion, this study contributes to a growing body of knowledge on older adults’ adoption and use of tablet and mobile devices. Specifically, it addresses the gap relating to the adoption, use and diffusion of tablets by older adults in Hertfordshire, UK and identifies significant factors that impact on an older adult’s adoption and use of the tablet device. In addition, it also provides information regarding the generational difference existing within the older population of 50 years and over

Using Technology to Address the Problems of Malnutrition and Dehydration in Older Adults

Malnutrition and dehydration of important problems for older adults even in developed countries such as the UK and both have many serious health consequences. This programme of research developed an app, MyHealthyLiving, to support older adults in monitoring their intake of liquids and fruit and vegetables. I followed a user-centred design lifecycle and conducted six studies, starting with focus groups to understand the older users’ needs and wishes, through expert and user evaluations, to a two week field study of the use of the app by 15 older people. Using the data from the user evaluations, a new set of evidence-based heuristics for the development and evaluation of tablet apps for older people was also produced