User perceptions of Islamic website (I-webs)

Despite attending face-to-face meetings with the Muslim scholars, the Islamic Websites (I-webs) has been one of the most influential mediums of communication for Muslims across the globe to find information about Islam, and to share the knowledge they learned to both Muslims and non-Muslims. Realizing the significant impact of I-webs in spreading da'wah, it is imperative for the researchers understand the perception of our younger generation about I-webs as the source of information. This paper explores the Muslim Youths' perception of I-webs among undergraduate students aged between 19 to 22 years old. I-webs were evaluated using Islamic Website Evaluation Guidelines (IWEG) survey instrument. The outcome of this research will be used to further improve the design of I-webs to attract more users, particularly among the younger generation to deliver messages on the beauty of Islam

Investigating Effects of Screen Layout Elements on Interface and Screen Design Aesthetics

A recent study suggested the use of the screen layout elements of balance, unity, and sequence as a part of a computational model of interface aesthetics. It is argued that these three elements are the most contributed terms in the model. In the current study, a controlled experiment was designed and conducted to systematically investigate effects of these three elements (balance, unity, and sequence) on the perceived interface aesthetics. Results showed that the three elements have significant effects on the perceived interface aesthetics. Significant interactions were also found among the three elements. A regression model relating the perceived visual aesthetics to the three elements was constructed. When validating the model using standard questionnaire scores of real web pages, high correlations were found between the values computed by the model and scores of questionnaire items related to visual layout of the web pages, indicating that layout-based measures are good at assessing the classical dimension of website aesthetics

Investigating Effects of Screen Layout Elements on Interface and Screen Design Aesthetics

A recent study suggested the use of the screen layout elements of balance, unity, and sequence as a part of a computational model of interface aesthetics. It is argued that these three elements are the most contributed terms in the model. In the current study, a controlled experiment was designed and conducted to systematically investigate effects of these three elements (balance, unity, and sequence) on the perceived interface aesthetics. Results showed that the three elements have significant effects on the perceived interface aesthetics. Significant interactions were also found among the three elements. A regression model relating the perceived visual aesthetics to the three elements was constructed. When validating the model using standard questionnaire scores of real web pages, high correlations were found between the values computed by the model and scores of questionnaire items related to visual layout of the web pages, indicating that layout-based measures are good at assessing the classical dimension of website aesthetics

EVALUATING CONSTRUCTION DEFECT MOBILE APPLICATION USING THINK ALOUD

Construction Defect mobile application (app) is used by Ministry of Defense's Construction Defect Inspection Team to help the team in recording construction defect. However, the mobile app has never been evaluated formally to identify any usability problems. The objectives of this study are to identify usability problems of Construction Defect mobile app using think aloud and to recommend design improvement of Construction Defect mobile app based on the identified usability problems. The think aloud study involved 15 participants. During the evaluation, every participant carried out the given tasks and gave his impressions as he went along the tasks. Three usability problems were identified. Some recommendations have been proposed to improve the design of Construction Defect mobile app. As for the future work, the study may be conducted using different usability evaluation technique

The relationship between visual interface aesthetics, task performance, and preference

The purpose of this thesis was to develop a conceptual framework that shows the relationship between aesthetics, performance, and preference in computer interface design. To investigate this relationship, the thesis focused on investigating the effect of layout aesthetics on visual search performance and preference. This thesis begins with a literature review of related work followed by the rationale for conducting this research, in particular, defining what it meant by visual aesthetics in the context of interface design. Chapter 4 focused on investigating the effect of layout aesthetics on performance and preference. The results show that response time performance and preference increased with increasing aesthetic level. Preference and performance were found to be highly correlated. Chapter 5 focused on investigating users’ layout preference when they were not involved with a performance-based task. The results showed, surprisingly, that preference was highest with a “moderate” level of layout aesthetics and lowest with “high” and “low” levels of aesthetics. Chapter 6 focused on investigating visual effort by measuring eye movement pattern during task performance. The results showed that visual effort increased with a decreasing level of aesthetics. Chapter 7 extended the experiment in Chapter 4 using more “ecologically valid” stimuli. The results essentially replicated the results produced in Chapter 4. Chapter 8 focused on investigating the relationship between so-called “classical” aesthetics and background “expressive” aesthetics. The results showed that task performance using classical aesthetics was highest with high and low levels of aesthetics and worst with medium levels of aesthetics. Performance with expressive aesthetics increased with decreasing aesthetic levels. This thesis concludes with a conceptual framework for aesthetic design to help interface designers design interfaces that look aesthetically pleasing while at the same time supporting good task performance

Eye quietness and quiet eye in expert and novice golf performance: an electrooculographic analysis

Quiet eye (QE) is the final ocular fixation on the target of an action (e.g., the ball in golf putting). Camerabased eye-tracking studies have consistently found longer QE durations in experts than novices; however, mechanisms underlying QE are not known. To offer a new perspective we examined the feasibility of measuring the QE using electrooculography (EOG) and developed an index to assess ocular activity across time: eye quietness (EQ). Ten expert and ten novice golfers putted 60 balls to a 2.4 m distant hole. Horizontal EOG (2ms resolution) was recorded from two electrodes placed on the outer sides of the eyes. QE duration was measured using a EOG voltage threshold and comprised the sum of the pre-movement and post-movement initiation components. EQ was computed as the standard deviation of the EOG in 0.5 s bins from –4 to +2 s, relative to backswing initiation: lower values indicate less movement of the eyes, hence greater quietness. Finally, we measured club-ball address and swing durations. T-tests showed that total QE did not differ between groups (p = .31); however, experts had marginally shorter pre-movement QE (p = .08) and longer post-movement QE (p < .001) than novices. A group × time ANOVA revealed that experts had less EQ before backswing initiation and greater EQ after backswing initiation (p = .002). QE durations were inversely correlated with EQ from –1.5 to 1 s (rs = –.48 - –.90, ps = .03 - .001). Experts had longer swing durations than novices (p = .01) and, importantly, swing durations correlated positively with post-movement QE (r = .52, p = .02) and negatively with EQ from 0.5 to 1s (r = –.63, p = .003). This study demonstrates the feasibility of measuring ocular activity using EOG and validates EQ as an index of ocular activity. Its findings challenge the dominant perspective on QE and provide new evidence that expert-novice differences in ocular activity may reflect differences in the kinematics of how experts and novices execute skills

Manager’s and citizen’s perspective of positive and negative risks for small probabilities

So far „risk‟ has been mostly defined as the expected value of a loss, mathematically PL, being P the probability of an adverse event and L the loss incurred as a consequence of the event. The so called risk matrix is based on this definition. Also for favorable events one usually refers to the expected gain PG, being G the gain incurred as a consequence of the positive event. These “measures” are generally violated in practice. The case of insurances (on the side of losses, negative risk) and the case of lotteries (on the side of gains, positive risk) are the most obvious. In these cases a single person is available to pay a higher price than that stated by the mathematical expected value, according to (more or less theoretically justified) measures. The higher the risk, the higher the unfair accepted price. The definition of risk as expected value is justified in a long term “manager‟s” perspective, in which it is conceivable to distribute the effects of an adverse event on a large number of subjects or a large number of recurrences. In other words, this definition is mostly justified on frequentist terms. Moreover, according to this definition, in two extreme situations (high-probability/low-consequence and low-probability/high-consequence), the estimated risk is low. This logic is against the principles of sustainability and continuous improvement, which should impose instead both a continuous search for lower probabilities of adverse events (higher and higher reliability) and a continuous search for lower impact of adverse events (in accordance with the fail-safe principle). In this work a different definition of risk is proposed, which stems from the idea of safeguard: (1Risk)=(1P)(1L). According to this definition, the risk levels can be considered low only when both the probability of the adverse event and the loss are small. Such perspective, in which the calculation of safeguard is privileged to the calculation of risk, would possibly avoid exposing the Society to catastrophic consequences, sometimes due to wrong or oversimplified use of probabilistic models. Therefore, it can be seen as the citizen‟s perspective to the definition of risk

2006 - 2007 University Catalog

Volume 96, Number 1, June 30, 2006 Published once a year June 30, 2006https://scholarsrepository.llu.edu/univcatalog/1009/thumbnail.jp

2008 - 2009 University Catalog

Volume 98, Number 1, July 30, 2008 Published once a year, July 30, 2008https://scholarsrepository.llu.edu/univcatalog/1007/thumbnail.jp