Design of a 10 Credit Masters Level Assistive Technologies and Universal Design Module

The paper reports on the design and evaluation of a 10 credit module that has been designed and taught for the first to 35 full time Computer science and software engineering Masters student

What Are We Doing with the Website: Transition, Templates, and User Experience in One Special Collections Library

[Excerpt] At the Eberly Family Special Collections Library (SCL), we have found that our website is often the first place a researcher will look to learn about our repository. Our online web presence is a business card, our chance to make a positive first impression. While our library, among others, has devoted time and resources to the development of new access tools and discovery layers, we have learned that our online presence also needs updates, revisions, and improvements. New tools and access points are valuable, but we can also improve existing tools even as we look forward to new developments in access and discovery. Through conscious efforts to include end users’ feedback in our website design decisions, we create more effective online tools. Our website is a crucial component of our efforts to direct users to our collections, and to publicize our services and programs. In this same vein, our end users can contribute to this design partnership through dedicated user experience testing. The SCL experimented with collaborative decision-making with its website committee, as well as with user experience testing in order to support our requests for additional web development work from the Libraries’ Information Technology department (I-Tech). Through this process, our library gained a more holistic understanding of the needs of online special collections and archives users; we also learned how to communicate more effectively between the department who worked with end users (SCL) and the department performing the actual web development work (I-Tech). While development work was limited to working within the mandatory web template, our user experience testing and the efforts of our internal website committee resulted in a better online experience for our stakeholders, based on the feedback we received from usability testing. Although our website is always a work in progress, we feel that we were able to develop practical ways to adjust to a website migration within in a dispersed and hierarchical information technology environment

Online Permaculture Resources: An Evaluation of a Selected Sample

As a newly-emerging, sustainable approach to landscape management, permaculture seeks to integrate knowledge from several disciplines into a holistic system with emphasis on ecological and social responsibility. Online resources on permaculture appear to represent a promising direction in the movement by supplementing existing printed sources, serving to update and diversify existing content, and increasing access to permaculture information and praxis among the general public. This study evaluated a sample of online resources on permaculture using a framework of parameters reflecting website usability and content quality. Best practice for website usability, as well as diversity of information and applicability, was addressed. The evaluation revealed, overall, good quality and usability in the majority of cases, and suggests a strong online presence among the existing permaculture community, and accessible support for those with an interest in joining the movement

THE ABSENCE OF IMPORTANT CAREWORDS AMONG UNIVERSITY WEBSITES: A PRELIMINARY STUDY ON WEB USABILITY

Most universities have a website with one of prevalent basic purpose is to provide an information to current and prospective students. The university web developers quite often neglect the process to incorporate customers’ voice during the development process, as suggested by the web usability, an area within humancomputer interaction (HCI) research. As many web users rely on a search engine to seek information, the inclusion of words that are most likely used by them (called carewords), in a web site are very critical. This paper aims to present a preliminary investigation of usability aspects in university websites, by focusing on the web content. This study applies Internet research methods. A simulation of a hypothetical case in which a prospective university student intends to study in Surabaya is performed. Search-words “kuliah di Surabaya”, “universitas di Surabaya”, and “kuliah teknik industri” are applied in Yahoo and Google search engines. The top 20 links obtained from each searching task are analyzed. Secondary data from EPSBED website was supplied to support the analysis. Furthermore, a content analysis using was conducted to selected websites of universities located in Surabaya. Overall, the findings emphasize that mismatch between the terms used by audiences and those presented in the web content could reduce the visibility of the website. Finally, this study suggests the university web developers to be more intensive applying usability principles to make their websites visible and accessible to potential students, as well as usable to other intended stakeholders

Reviewing and extending the five-user assumption: A grounded procedure for interaction evaluation

" © ACM, 2013. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), {VOL 20, ISS 5, (November 2013)} http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2506210 "The debate concerning how many participants represents a sufficient number for interaction testing is well-established and long-running, with prominent contributions arguing that five users provide a good benchmark when seeking to discover interaction problems. We argue that adoption of five users in this context is often done with little understanding of the basis for, or implications of, the decision. We present an analysis of relevant research to clarify the meaning of the five-user assumption and to examine the way in which the original research that suggested it has been applied. This includes its blind adoption and application in some studies, and complaints about its inadequacies in others. We argue that the five-user assumption is often misunderstood, not only in the field of Human-Computer Interaction, but also in fields such as medical device design, or in business and information applications. The analysis that we present allows us to define a systematic approach for monitoring the sample discovery likelihood, in formative and summative evaluations, and for gathering information in order to make critical decisions during the interaction testing, while respecting the aim of the evaluation and allotted budget. This approach – which we call the ‘Grounded Procedure’ – is introduced and its value argued.The MATCH programme (EPSRC Grants: EP/F063822/1 EP/G012393/1

Exploring The Representation of Scheduling Options and Online Tutoring on Writing Center Websites

Writing centers provide invaluable writing assistance to students, and students who have used writing centers typically come to this conclusion themselves. Despite these positive responses to writing center tutorials, motivating first-time users to go to the writing center can be challenging. Because students turn to the Internet with many of their questions in life, it is likely that a writing center website is the first image of a writing center that many students encounter. Because of this, a writing center’s website can be an important persuasive tool in helping students become excited about visiting the center and using its services. More importantly, it is the first step in a user’s experience with a writing center.University Writing Cente

Methods for applying Activity Theory to HCI Design

Activity Theory (AT) has been a recognised framework for enhancing design practices in HCI and related disciplines for a couple of decades. In most cases, AT has been deployed as an analytical framework for conceptualising user and contextual perspectives during systems design. However, the popularity of this framework has not yet resulted in operational methods and techniques that can easily and readily be applied in HCI design. The purpose of this workshop is to examine current methods and techniques based on AT so as to establish the feasibility of using this framework in HCI for practical design purposes. Given this remit, the term ‘HCI design’ is used in a much broader sense so as to incorporate the whole range of activities involved in the systems development process

Critical Success Factors for Positive User Experience in Hotel Websites: Applying Herzberg's Two Factor Theory for User Experience Modeling

This research presents the development of a critical success factor matrix for increasing positive user experience of hotel websites based upon user ratings. Firstly, a number of critical success factors for web usability have been identified through the initial literature review. Secondly, hotel websites were surveyed in terms of critical success factors identified through the literature review. Thirdly, Herzberg's motivation theory has been applied to the user rating and the critical success factors were categorized into two areas. Finally, the critical success factor matrix has been developed using the two main sets of data.Comment: Journal articl

Destination Online Communication: Why Less is Sometimes More. A Study of Online Communications of English Destinations

This research investigates the relationship between Web site design and the Web site end-user experience of a vast number of English tourism destinations, both local and regional ones. Following recent research in the field, this paper evaluates destinations' online communication based on the implemented Web site features and on the effectiveness of the communication itself, borrowing its research methodology from different domains. After content and functionality analysis, a user-experience, scenario-based investigation has been carried out, which demonstrated that complex Web sites do not always serve end-users' needs properly; in other words, Web site complexity is not directly related with good user experience. This research may help destination managers to foster their online communication if they have fewer content and functionalities but are better focused and clearly user-oriented. © 2014 Taylor & Francis