Modus Operandi of Crowd Workers : The Invisible Role of Microtask Work Environments

The ubiquity of the Internet and the widespread proliferation of electronic devices has resulted in flourishing microtask crowdsourcing marketplaces, such as Amazon MTurk. An aspect that has remained largely invisible in microtask crowdsourcing is that of work environments; defined as the hardware and software affordances at the disposal of crowd workers which are used to complete microtasks on crowdsourcing platforms. In this paper, we reveal the significant role of work environments in the shaping of crowd work. First, through a pilot study surveying the good and bad experiences workers had with UI elements in crowd work, we revealed the typical issues workers face. Based on these findings, we then deployed over 100 distinct microtasks on CrowdFlower, addressing workers in India and USA in two identical batches. These tasks emulate the good and bad UI element designs that characterize crowdsourcing microtasks. We recorded hardware specifics such as CPU speed and device type, apart from software specifics including the browsers used to complete tasks, operating systems on the device, and other properties that define the work environments of crowd workers. Our findings indicate that crowd workers are embedded in a variety of work environments which influence the quality of work produced. To confirm and validate our data-driven findings we then carried out semi-structured interviews with a sample of Indian and American crowd workers from this platform. Depending on the design of UI elements in microtasks, we found that some work environments are more suitable than others to support crowd workers. Based on our overall findings resulting from all the three studies, we introduce ModOp, a tool that helps to design crowdsourcing microtasks that are suitable for diverse crowd work environments. We empirically show that the use of ModOp results in reducing the cognitive load of workers, thereby improving their user experience without effecting the accuracy or task completion time

Advances in Teaching & Learning Day Abstracts 2005

Proceedings of the Advances in Teaching & Learning Day Regional Conference held at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston in 2005

Include 2011 : The role of inclusive design in making social innovation happen.

Include is the biennial conference held at the RCA and hosted by the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design. The event is directed by Jo-Anne Bichard and attracts an international delegation

How do different devices impact users' web browsing experience?

The digital world presents many interfaces, among which the desktop and mobile device platforms are dominant. Grasping the differential user experience (UX) on these devices is a critical requirement for developing user focused interfaces that can deliver enhanced satisfaction. This study specifically focuses on the user's web browsing experience while using desktop and mobile. The thesis adopts quantitative methodology. This amalgamation presents a comprehensive understanding of the influence of device specific variables, such as loading speed, security concerns and interaction techniques, which are critically analyzed. Moreover, various UX facets including usability, user interface (UI) design, accessibility, content organization, and user satisfaction on both devices were also discussed. Substantial differences are observed in the UX delivered by desktop and mobile devices, dictated by inherent device attributes and user behaviors. Mobile UX is often associated with personal, context sensitive use, while desktop caters more effectively to intensive, extended sessions. A surprising revelation is the existing discrepancy between the increasing popularity of mobile devices and the persistent inability of many websites and applications to provide a satisfactory mobile UX. This issue primarily arises from the ineffective adaptation of desktop-focused designs to the mobile, underscoring the necessity for distinct, device specific strategies in UI development. By furnishing pragmatic strategies for designing efficient, user-friendly and inclusive digital interfaces for both devices; the thesis contributes significantly to the existing body of literature. An emphasis is placed on a device-neutral approach in UX design, taking into consideration the unique capabilities and constraints of each device, thereby enriching the expanding discourse on multiservice user experience. As well as this study contributes to digital marketing and targe­ted advertising perspe­ctives

How do different devices impact users' web browsing experience?

The digital world presents many interfaces, among which the desktop and mobile device platforms are dominant. Grasping the differential user experience (UX) on these devices is a critical requirement for developing user focused interfaces that can deliver enhanced satisfaction. This study specifically focuses on the user's web browsing experience while using desktop and mobile. The thesis adopts quantitative methodology. This amalgamation presents a comprehensive understanding of the influence of device specific variables, such as loading speed, security concerns and interaction techniques, which are critically analyzed. Moreover, various UX facets including usability, user interface (UI) design, accessibility, content organization, and user satisfaction on both devices were also discussed. Substantial differences are observed in the UX delivered by desktop and mobile devices, dictated by inherent device attributes and user behaviors. Mobile UX is often associated with personal, context sensitive use, while desktop caters more effectively to intensive, extended sessions. A surprising revelation is the existing discrepancy between the increasing popularity of mobile devices and the persistent inability of many websites and applications to provide a satisfactory mobile UX. This issue primarily arises from the ineffective adaptation of desktop-focused designs to the mobile, underscoring the necessity for distinct, device specific strategies in UI development. By furnishing pragmatic strategies for designing efficient, user-friendly and inclusive digital interfaces for both devices; the thesis contributes significantly to the existing body of literature. An emphasis is placed on a device-neutral approach in UX design, taking into consideration the unique capabilities and constraints of each device, thereby enriching the expanding discourse on multiservice user experience. As well as this study contributes to digital marketing and targe­ted advertising perspe­ctives

Development of Enhanced User Interaction and User Experience for Supporting Serious Role-Playing Games in a Healthcare Setting

Education about implicit bias in clinical settings is essential for improving the quality of healthcare for underrepresented groups. Such a learning experience can be delivered in the form of a serious game simulation. WrightLIFE (Lifelike Immersion for Equity) is a project that combines two serious game simulations, with each addressing the group that faces implicit bias. These groups are individuals that identify as LGBTQIA+ and people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The project presents healthcare providers with a training tool that puts them in the roles of the patient and a medical specialist and immerses them in social and clinical settings. WrightLIFE games are distributed on both mobile and desktop devices and go through the entire cycle of providing healthcare professionals with experiential learning, which starts with defining the goals of the simulation and ends with collecting feedback. In this thesis work, cross-platform software frameworks like the Unity Engine have been used to develop survey scenes to comprehensively document users’ pre- and post-simulation experience and attitudes towards implicit bias. Life course scenes were designed to convey an enhanced user experience that bridges the socio-technical gap between the real and virtual worlds. By applying existing user-experience design methodologies to design the survey scenes and life course scenes, it was possible to create an immersive experiential-learning assessment tool that has the potential to deliver data-driven and targeted learning

Tablet-based Self-management Intervention for Diabetes Mellitus Type II Patients: Usability and Efficacy of The ASSISTwell Tool

Background: The usefulness of technology and the powerful capabilities of technological applications have led to a significantly increased interest in finding novel approaches to support older adults’ self-management. Self-management technological applications have been used in various contexts, and usability is key in sustainability and adoption of such technologies. Objective: The purpose of this research is to assess the usability of the ASSISTwell application in an older adult population with Diabetes Type II (DMII) and explore whether the application can effectively enhance DMII patients’ self-management. Design: Qualitative interviews, Observation, and Quasi-experimental design. Methods: Semi-structured interviews, observation, documentation, and quantitative standardized measures were used in this study. A purposive sample of 24 elderly patients with DMII was recruited for the study. Descriptive and inferential analysis were used to analyze the quantitative data. Simple content analysis was used to organize the emerging usability themes. Results: User feedback from the four-week user intervention demonstrated good usability of the ASSISTwell application. After using the ASSISTwell for 30 days, there was significant improvement in the perceived diabetes self-management skills of the intervention group (difference in mean PDSMS (F (1, 20) =5.11, p=0.035). Furthermore, those who used ASSISTwell (mean= 30.22, SD= 6.34) had higher PDSMS scores than those who received usual care without ASSISTwell (mean= 23.95, SD= 7.12). There was no significant difference in mean blood glucose levels (F (1, 20) =0.37, p=0.54) between the two groups. Those who used ASSISTwell (M=178, SD=40) had lower blood glucose levels than those who received usual care without ASSISTwell (M=185, SD=49), but the difference is not statistically significant. Conclusions: The novel ASSISTwell application presented in this paper helped participants improve their diabetes self-management skills. A well-designed application with new features has the ability to provide more promising results regarding improving perceived diabetes self-management skills. Also, examining usability is an essential step in application development to ensure that the application\u27s features match users\u27 expectations and needs and minimize the likelihood of user errors and difficulties using the system

mHealth Technology: Towards a New Persuasive Mobile Application for Caregivers That Addresses Motivation and Usability

With the increasing use of mobile technologies and smartphones, new methods of promoting personal health have been developed. For example, there is now software for recording and tracking one\u27s exercise activity or blood pressure. Even though there are already many of these services, the mobile health field still presents many opportunities for new research. One apparent area of need would be software to support the efforts of caregivers for the elderly, especially those who suffer from multiple chronic conditions, such as cognitive impairment, chronic heart failure or diabetes. Very few mobile applications (apps) have been created that target caregivers of the elderly and most seem to be limited to a single condition or to creating generic to-do lists or tracking medications. None seem to address the complex tracking of multiple chronic conditions, nor one of the key difficulties found with written checklists for this population, namely that caregivers quit recording health information regularly as time passes. This dissertation will explore methods for improving the consistency of usage of health tracking software for the caregivers of the elderly with multiple chronic conditions by creating designs that explicitly address the context and motivations of caregivers. This work will assess a number of existing approaches and provide a design and a prototype for a new motivating application to help the caregivers of patients with multiple chronic conditions. It will assess how well the tool seems to address factors associated with intrinsic motivation (e.g. autonomy, competence, relatedness, and feedback). The overall usability of the software application will also be addressed, following guidelines from ISO standards and Nielsen’s theories