The History and Evolution of North American Ski Resort Map Style and Design

The first official ski resort in North America opened to the public in 1936 in Sun Valley, Idaho. Today, there are over 400 resorts across the continent in constant competition with one another for customers. Ski maps were first introduced as navigational tools, but quickly became a means for advertising what the resorts had to offer. The desire to outshine rival resorts has produced thousands of unique ski maps over the years, forming a collection of maps that has never been comprehensively analyzed until now. The first phase of the thesis involved the gathering of historical and modern ski maps to be examined and catalogued into a database. A total of 1,779 maps were archived along with relevant attribute information concerning the style and design of each map. This database, in addition to interviews with key informants and historical texts, helps to provide a complete picture of North American ski mapping history for the first time. The second phase of the thesis was a quantitative survey of skiers and snowboarders to assess users’ impressions and satisfaction levels of modern ski maps. Several examples of ski maps were presented to the survey respondents, and they were asked to provide their opinions and concerns about the overall appearance of the map. It was found that most respondents preferred the traditional painted panoramic style over other styles of printed ski maps, and many were hesitant about the effectiveness of newer mobile ski mapping alternatives. While it appears that printed maps are around to stay for now, the recent retirement of prominent ski map painter James Niehues may signify the demise of traditionally hand-painted ski resort maps. Extensive literature already exists regarding the reproduction of hand-painted panoramas using computer software programs, and as the digital image becomes more accepted in our culture it is possible that many future ski resort maps will be digitally-rendered

Opportunities for Supporting Self-efficacy through Orientation & Mobility Training Technologies for Blind and Partially Sighted People

Orientation and mobility (O&M) training provides essential skills and techniques for safe and independent mobility for blind and partially sighted (BPS) people. The demand for O&M training is increasing as the number of people living with vision impairment increases. Despite the growing portfolio of HCI research on assistive technologies (AT), few studies have examined the experiences of BPS people during O&M training, including the use of technology to aid O&M training. To address this gap, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 BPS people and 8 Mobility and Orientation Trainers (MOT). The interviews were thematically analysed and organised into four overarching themes discussing factors influencing the self-efficacy belief of BPS people: Tools and Strategies for O&M training, Technology Use in O&M Training, Changing Personal and Social Circumstances, and Social Influences. We further highlight opportunities for combinations of multimodal technologies to increase access to and effectiveness of O&M training

The Future of the Internet III

Presents survey results on technology experts' predictions on the Internet's social, political, and economic impact as of 2020, including its effects on integrity and tolerance, intellectual property law, and the division between personal and work lives

OneMile: An Interactive Journey to Wellness for Those with Chronic Illness

Using interaction design, video, and social media to create an application that will encourage people to maintain or improve their quality of life when dealing with a chronic illness. There are many tools, both tangible and online, for people with debilitating illnesses. There are websites and apps that focus on symptom management, medication monitoring or general wellness. The majority of these resources are mainly used for rehabilitation. There is technology used to help people, both healthy and those with an illness, to improve their health–featuring exercise, eating healthy, tips and tricks. Most people with a chronic illness are looking for ways they can be healthy, or ways to maintain their health; they want to be pro-active in their healthy journey. Multiple Sclerosis is one of these chronic illness–the people who have it may be active and mobile and they are looking for something to help them stay motivated and/or to improve their health. They are not looking for something to help with rehabilitation, because most of these people do not need rehab; they want something to encourage them on quest to healthy and wellness. The needs of the target audience (people with MS) would benefit from a combination of mediums that would lend itself to the idea of activities to fully explore all of the potential aspects of a person’s illness and to motivate them to life a healthy life. The purpose of the activities would be so each user could choose exactly what he or she wants and needs to work on. Cognitive exercises, fine motor skill exercises, social connections and suggested physical movement and recipes will help the user stay motivated. Elements of gamification will help create an active environment for the user and allow them to be motivated and excited to pursue wellness in their lives

Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning using Augmented and Virtual Reality in Museum Education

Recent advancements in the cost, availability, and capability of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) devices and software are spurring their mass distribution to the public. This fundamental shift in the use of AR and VR predominantly from military and academic research laboratories to the public presents new opportunities and challenges for the design of instructional technology. While studies of AR and VR have been conducted to inform the design of individual instructional products, few studies have focused on computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) products in which AR and VR learners work together toward shared learning goals. The museum education industry possesses unique and inherent characteristics that position it as a strong candidate for the development and deployment of CSCL-ARVR products. Tourism locations, such as museums, provide an exemplary environment for advanced learning technology experimentation in which information technology infrastructure and programs of instruction are often already in place and in which many tourists already possess smartphones and or tablets that may be used to mediate location-based educational experiences. The goal was to conduct formative research to develop a tentative instructional design theory that can be used to guide the creation of CSCL-ARVR instructional products. Instructional design theory and software engineering practices were applied to guide the design of a CSCL-ARVR instructional product prototype to support museum education. The prototype, named Co-Tour, was designed and developed to enable remotely-located VR participants to collaborate with AR participants located within a tourism location to jointly navigate the location, examine exhibits and answer questions about exhibits related to a problem-based learning instance. Formative data were collected and analyzed, and the results were used to develop a tentative instructional design theory. Mixed Reality Museum Co-Visit Theory is proposed to inform the design and development of CSCL-ARVR co-visitation experiences for museums. A theoretical framework was developed and was informed by CSCL, game-based learning, social constructivist theory, flow theory, and the construct of camaraderie. Five values supporting the goal were elaborated to guide theory methods production including fostering of collaboration, leveraging of informal learning activities, incorporation of motivational elements, favoring of loose organization, and provision an effective user interface. Future research should focus upon replication towards validation and generalizability of results and upon the broader museum going population

The historical development and basis of human factors guidelines for automated systems in aeronautical operations

In order to derive general design guidelines for automated systems a study was conducted on the utilization and acceptance of existing automated systems as currently employed in several commercial fields. Four principal study area were investigated by means of structured interviews, and in some cases questionnaires. The study areas were aviation, a both scheduled airline and general commercial aviation; process control and factory applications; office automation; and automation in the power industry. The results of over eighty structured interviews were analyzed and responses categoried as various human factors issues for use by both designers and users of automated equipment. These guidelines address such items as general physical features of automated equipment; personnel orientation, acceptance, and training; and both personnel and system reliability

Emerging Technology Adoption and Use : Consolidated Assignments from Spring 2020

Digitalization changes the world. Information systems, software applications and other technologies are in a central role in this change. They enable new work practices and processes, new business models and opportunities, initiate changes in how technologies are used, perceived and interpreted, and ultimately force individuals, organizations, and even societies at large to respond to those changes. Individuals, organizations, and societies have to somehow transform and adjust their old ways of doing things. Yet, not only technologies drive digital transformation. Increasing amounts of data that is produced by numerous sensors, applications, and systems account for the transformation as well. Such data is gathered and collected, merged together, and analyzed by different methods and tools; by using artificial intelligence, data analytics, or data science. The sense-making of such versatile data is of importance because not only can it be used to improve decision-making at workplaces but also, it can be utilized for the benefit of individuals and societies, in organizational and non-work settings. These views, transformation and smartness, pose several questions for information system (IS) research. In general, we might ask what actually is the smartness of individuals, organizations, or a society. We can even ask whether stakeholders possess the required abilities, skills and competences to enable and support the change. These, and other related questions arise due to fast evolving landscape of information technology, and information and technology. The nuanced understanding of Smart Transformation in IS has become even more critical due to governmental and organizational programs that foster smartness. This report summarizes research reports of students attending “Emerging Technology Adoption and Use” course in Tampere University. During the course, we focused on three emerging technologies. Extended Reality Blockchain Artificial Intelligence Each group collaborated on finding a common topic of interest. They focused on the adoption and/or use of a particular emerging technology in a setting of their own choosing. As you are about to see, the findings of each group emphasize different perspectives. These range from the negative effects of technology use to the opportunities and delights of information systems

Learning from Toronto: An Experiment in Participatory Urban Data Visualization

Despite the unprecedented amount of data about the world that is collected and produced in our increasingly information-dependent societies, the possibilities for significant differences between human perception and actual data on the same phenomena are all but reduced, as are their potential effects on environments and communities. This thesis explores the opportunities offered by data visualization and interaction design to reveal and address such disconnect and to challenge widespread misconceptions by generating a deeper and more engaging understanding of information. These principles inform the proposal for a methodology for visual, interactive communication of data within urban environments, aimed at generating an iterative exchange of information between citizens and institutions. A concrete application of this proposal is investigated through the development of a digital platform for urban data visualization addressing issues within the city of Toronto