Eliciting User Experience Information in Early Design Phases. The CARE Approach to In-Vehicle UX

Experience-rich input in early phases of a design process can offer valuable information and inspiration to designers. However, there are methodological challenges linked with efforts to understand future user experiences. Experience encompasses multi-layered and tacit data, such as emotions and value, that are important for commercial success but are difficult to elicit from users for existing products, and even more so for concepts in early design phases. At early design phases, the inevitably incomplete representations of product and use context influences the outcomes. It is typically easier to elicit usability-related aspects, meaning that other aspects of experience may be insufficiently addressed. The contribution of this thesis is an approach for eliciting rich user experience (UX) data in early design phases, building on six studies. This thesis employs in-vehicle user experience as a study case, but results are however presented on a methodological level that can also be of use to other interactive products. The overall research questions are: What signifies in-vehicle UX? How can UX data be elicited for input to novel in-vehicle concepts in early design phases?Firstly, the analysis phase of the design process was addressed, where a multi-method approach was employed to study current in-vehicle UX. UX is an umbrella term that has proven difficult to describe and conceptualise in studies. Therefore, the aim of the first study was to better understand what signifies the specific case of in-vehicle UX. Secondly, how to approach and understand user expectations on future autonomous cars was address in the two following studies, in order to address prospective research of novel systems. A method addressing research on user expectations was developed – Setting the Stage for Autonomous Cars. Thirdly, ideation was addressed in a series of workshops, containing generative and creative efforts for ideating future interactive in-vehicle systems. Methods such as enactment, small-scale scenarios, Wizard of Oz, a lo-fi driving simulator and the developed Setting the Stage for Autonomous Cars method were used. The final studies address concept evaluation, and comparatively explore the effects of choosing different product representations (storyboard and interactive prototype) and study contexts (Virtual Reality and in the field) in early UX evaluation. Based on the outcomes of the studies, an approach is proposed – the CARE approach – for enabling richer and more in-depth UX data in early design phases. This approach suggests that there is a need to Contextualise the researched experience (conveying the intended use situation and sentisising the participants to experience), enabling the participant to Act (enabling interaction even at the stages of very lo-fi concepts), supporting Reflection on the experience (enhanced by generative elements in the methods, such as drawing concepts and enacting use) and enabling the participant to Express the experience (in more ways than by just relying on words). Furthermore, the thesis presents findings regarding what signifies in-vehicle UX, for example whole-body, multi-sensory interactions, the importance of the temporal stage of use, the social and multi-device context, and the changing relationship between user and car with increased automation. The results emphasise the importance of addressing the multisensory use situation in each design phase and for participants to express experiences, not only in words but also through enactment and generative techniques

Sensitivity analysis in a scoping review on police accountability : assessing the feasibility of reporting criteria in mixed studies reviews

In this paper, we report on the findings of a sensitivity analysis that was carried out within a previously conducted scoping review, hoping to contribute to the ongoing debate about how to assess the quality of research in mixed methods reviews. Previous sensitivity analyses mainly concluded that the exclusion of inadequately reported or lower quality studies did not have a significant effect on the results of the synthesis. In this study, we conducted a sensitivity analysis on the basis of reporting criteria with the aims of analysing its impact on the synthesis results and assessing its feasibility. Contrary to some previous studies, our analysis showed that the exclusion of inadequately reported studies had an impact on the results of the thematic synthesis. Initially, we also sought to propose a refinement of reporting criteria based on the literature and our own experiences. In this way, we aimed to facilitate the assessment of reporting criteria and enhance its consistency. However, based on the results of our sensitivity analysis, we opted not to make such a refinement since many publications included in this analysis did not sufficiently report on the methodology. As such, a refinement would not be useful considering that researchers would be unable to assess these (sub-)criteria

Research on the Road

How do people drive on roads and behave in traffic? How can we change driving habits and encourage more environmentally responsible modes of transportation? These are the two main questions to which the volume tries to answer. It tackles the problems of driving, traffic, transportation, and mobility fully, rather than from a single perspective, which has tended to be the norm so far. The authors describe how we can weave together qualitative and quantitative approaches, how useful interviews are for understanding driving comfort, the power ethnography has to help us understand the lifestyle of drivers, which technological tools and approaches are the most useful for analyzing styles of driving, how to explore vehicles and traffic by analyzing language, how traffic might improve or worsen our way of life from a psychological point of view, and how we can encourage environmentally friendly behavior and practices on both the road and in life in general

An application of Lewin in a trans-pandemic world: a narrative inquiry in a case study with a suggested model for the future

Change is constant in today’s post-pandemic world. This is truly evident in online business success with entrepreneurs that defy past limitations and rely on future vision. This study purposely attempts to identify and qualify the impact of stylized change focused leadership in response to workplace changes during the variant challenges of the corona virus pandemic. The relevancy of Lewin’s organizational change model in today’s new normal provides the foundation for this research. Data were gathered through interview with a purposive sample of 12 managers executives and team members from a public sector organization. Evolving through an iterative process of evaluation and conscious of risk bias in measurement, triangulation methods included a literature review and intensive analyses off the interview responses, participation notes and company records. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis to find information supporting participants’ perceptions. The themes were derived from coding and the number of references coded during the data analysis. Six themes emerged representing leaders’ action for implementation of corporate change strategies. The themes have been divided into three catagories: defrost former learning, movement to change and solidification of new directions in corporate change. Results can help global organization leadership navigate ongoing change in a volatile world

Serious Fun: Gaming the Book Festival (Forthcoming)

Book festivals provide a tantalising instance of the overlapping cultural, social and economic dimensions of contemporary literary culture. This article proposes the application of a new conceptual framework, that of game-inspired thinking, to their study. Game-inspired thinking uses games as metaphors that concentrate and exaggerate aspects of cultural phenomena in order to produce new knowledge about their operations. It is also an arts-informed methodology that offers a mid-level perspective between empirical case studies and abstract models. As a method, our Bookfestivalopoly and other games focus attention on the material, social and ideological dimensions of book festivals. In particular, they confirm the presence of neoliberal pressures and neocolonial inequalities in the “world republic of letters.” Our research thus makes a contribution to knowledge about the role of festivals within contemporary literary culture, and provides a model for researchers of cultural phenomena who may want to adopt game-inspired, arts-informed thinking as an alternative to traditional disciplinary methods. Résumé Les festivals du livre offrent un exemple attirant du chevauchement culturel, social et économique des dimensions de la culture littéraire. Cet article propose l'application d'un nouveau cadre conceptuel à leur étude, celui de la réflection inspirée par le jeu. La réflection inspirée par le jeu utilise le jeu comme une métaphore qui concentre et exagère certains aspects de phénomènes culturels culturels afin de produire de nouvelles connaissances envers leurs opérations. Il s'agit aussi d'une méthodologie informée par les arts qui offre une perspective à mi-chemin entre études de cas empiriques et modèles abstraits. En tant que méthode, nos Bookfestivalopoly et autres jeux concentrent l'attention sur les dimensions matérielles, sociales et idéologiques des festivals du livre. En particulier, ils confirment la présence de pressions néolibérales et d'iniquités néocoloniales dans . C'est ainsi que notre recherche fait une contribution à la connaissance du rộle des festivals dans la culture littéraires contemporaine, et offre un modèle pour les rechercheurs de phénomènes culturels qui aimeraient adopter une approche inspirée par le jeu et les arts en alternative aux traditionnelles méthodes disciplinaires

Serious Fun: Gaming the Book Festival

Book festivals provide a tantalising instance of the overlapping cultural, social and economic dimensions of contemporary literary culture. This article proposes the application of a new conceptual framework, that of game-inspired thinking, to their study. Game-inspired thinking uses games as metaphors that concentrate and exaggerate aspects of cultural phenomena in order to produce new knowledge about their operations. It is also an arts-informed methodology that offers a mid-level perspective between empirical case studies and abstract models. As a method, our Bookfestivalopoly and other games focus attention on the material, social and ideological dimensions of book festivals. In particular, they confirm the presence of neoliberal pressures and neocolonial inequalities in the “world republic of letters.” Our research thus makes a contribution to knowledge about the role of festivals within contemporary literary culture, and provides a model for researchers of cultural phenomena who may want to adopt game-inspired, arts-informed thinking as an alternative to traditional disciplinary methods. Résumé Les festivals du livre offrent un exemple attirant du chevauchement culturel, social et économique des dimensions de la culture littéraire. Cet article propose l'application d'un nouveau cadre conceptuel à leur étude, celui de la réflection inspirée par le jeu. La réflection inspirée par le jeu utilise le jeu comme une métaphore qui concentre et exagère certains aspects de phénomènes culturels culturels afin de produire de nouvelles connaissances envers leurs opérations. Il s'agit aussi d'une méthodologie informée par les arts qui offre une perspective à mi-chemin entre études de cas empiriques et modèles abstraits. En tant que méthode, nos Bookfestivalopoly et autres jeux concentrent l'attention sur les dimensions matérielles, sociales et idéologiques des festivals du livre. En particulier, ils confirment la présence de pressions néolibérales et d'iniquités néocoloniales dans . C'est ainsi que notre recherche fait une contribution à la connaissance du rộle des festivals dans la culture littéraires contemporaine, et offre un modèle pour les rechercheurs de phénomènes culturels qui aimeraient adopter une approche inspirée par le jeu et les arts en alternative aux traditionnelles méthodes disciplinaires

Street Artivism on Athenian Walls : A cognitive semiotic analysis of metaphor and narrative in street art

The thesis is a collection of four papers on Greek street art (specifically situated in the city of Athens) with a focus on metaphors and narratives. The overall aim guiding this thesis is to explore how street art in times of crisis can represent sociopolitical issues and in what ways these messages can be conveyed. By using the perspective of cognitive semiotics to address this, a parallel aim is to contribute to developing concepts and methods in this relatively new discipline.Paper 1 presents a set of qualitative and quantitative analyses of rhetorical figures such as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, hyperbole, oxymoron and personification in street art. A novel and empirically tested data-driven procedure is introduced, one that is informed by cognitive linguistic and semiotic theory for the identification and interpretation of rhetorical figures in crisis-related street art in Athens. The analyses show that, although the methodological protocol can be applied reliably to street art, and can enable the analysts to distinguish metaphors from other rhetorical figures, this genre often requires multiple kinds of sociocultural, contextual and linguistic knowledge to be accommodated in the analysis of the images, in order to achieve a successful and intersubjectiveinterpretation.Paper 2 contributes to the study of figurativity and polysemiotic communication. It discusses the complex phenomenon of metaphor synthetically, offering an approach that may help us to go beyond and overcome challenges among debated issues in metaphor research in cognitive linguistics and semiotics by using a coherent terminology, informed by cognitive semiotics. The data derived from the empirical analysis presented in Paper 1 are used as the basis for the theoretical implications of the analysis in Paper 2, and by extension for the validity of the step-wise procedure for identification and interpretation of rhetorical figures in street art.Paper 3 explores street artists’ experiences (on the basis of 10 audio-recorded go-along interviews) by focusing on what motivated their art-making and the verbal metaphors they used in go-along interviews where they were asked about these motivations. Methodologically it emphasizes the need for a theoretical definition of metaphor that should be clearly linked to its operationalization in alignment with the specific data. The results of the study reveal that street artists use a range of highly and moderately innovative metaphors when talking about personal experiences and motivations in relation to their art-making, with respect to situated communication.Paper 4 extends the scope of the thesis to the narrative potential of single static images, such as street artworks. With its qualitative approach, yet drawing on a sample corpus of street artworks, Paper 4 allows us to delve into narratological discussions probing the narrative potential of street art. The findings suggest that single static images can be able to narrate and be interpreted as narrations but only if the underlying story is known in advance.In sum, the thesis contributes new knowledge to our understanding of street art and provides a systematic and empirically grounded account of its figurative and narrative interpretation, with a number of workable ideas offered to the study of cognitive semiotics

Systems in management 7th annual ANZSYS conference 2001: The relevance of systems thinking in the contemporary world

Welcome to Perth, Western Australia, and to the Systems in Management 7th Annual ANZSYS Conference 2001 the relevance of systems thinking in the contemporary world hosted by the We-B Centre, School of Management Information Systems at Edith Cowan University. The conference provides an opportunity for sharing and networking among academics and industry specialists in systems and related fields. The conference has drawn participants from national and international organizations. All submitted papers were subjected to an anonymous peer review process managed by the Conference Committee. Stringent review criteria resulted in an unprecedented number of papers declined this year. Based on these reviews, the final programme was determined. A total of 54 papers were submitted for consideration and 39 were accepted for presentation. The Conference Committee would like to recognise the efforts of many people who have contributed to the success and support in the organising of this conference and without their efforts the conference could not have occurred. The authors are thanked for their continued support to the Systems in Management 7th Annual ANZSYS Conference 2001 and we hope that the conference will receive similar support into the future. The reviewers deserve a special vote of thanks for their commitment and dedication in having their reviews conducted professionally. This year saw the launch of our Best Paper and Paper of Distinction award program. Papers nominated for this honour received particularly rigorous reviews. The winners will be announced at the conference. Thank you and enjoy the conference

Developing and Evaluating Complex Interventions: Enhancing the Role of Qualitative Research

The use of qualitative research methods alongside randomized controlled trials of health-care interventions have the potential to contribute to the development and evaluation of both complex and other health interventions. Qualitative evaluations of interventions are rarely reported but can provide insight into the intervention process, and the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention, to improve and adapt interventions

Future technological factors affecting unmanned aircraft systems (UAS):a South African perspective towards 2025

The fact that pilots are not physically situated in the aircraft for UAS operations makes the current standards applicable to manned aircraft not suitable for UAS operations (FAA, 2013). FAA (2013:18) states that ―removing the pilot from the aircraft creates a series of performance considerations between manned and unmanned aircraft that need to be fully researched and understood to determine acceptability and potential impact on safe operations in the NAS. According to ERSG (2013), not all technologies necessary to ensure the safe integration of civil UASs into civilian airspace are available today. The extrapolation that can be made based on the above arguments is that advancement of UAS technologies will more likely have a significant bearing on the safe integration of UASs into civilian airspace. Therefore, as an identified research gap, the research/main objective of this research is to identify future technological factors affecting Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the Republic of South Africa leading towards the year 2025