INTERDISCIPLINARITY IN DESIGN AS A CHALLENGE FOR PROFESSIONALISM - AN EXAMPLE OF INTERFACE DESIGN

The need for diverse knowledge and skills in the work of a designer is a problem in vocational education, which mainly focuses on the artistic aspect of design. The aim of this article is to analyze the specifics of User Interface Design, its relation to User Experience Design, to determine the User Interface designer professional skills and how to acquire them. Research methods – theoretical: literature research; empirical – questionnaire. Exploring educational opportunities in Experience Design and User Interface Design demonstrates the need for Video game Interface study programs, particularly in the Latvian context. As the curriculum is traditionally designed for narrowly focused specialization, it would be appropriate to develop study modules for User Interface Design that include acquiring both graphics, game design and programming skills. The results of the video game developer survey demonstrate the role of practice in improving professional experience.

Mobiiliohjelmointi ja käyttöliittymäsuunnittelu

Tässä opinnäytetyössä selitetään mobiililaitteiden- ja mobiilikäyttöjärjestelmien nykytilannetta ja tulevaisuutta, mobiiliohjelmoinnin tekniikoita, käyttöliittymäsuunnittelun- ja toteutuksen eri vaiheita sovelluskehittäjän näkökulmasta. Työn painopisteenä oli tutkia mobiililaitteiden käyttöliittymien merkitystä. Tutkimuksessa käytettiin kvalitatiivista ja konstruktiivista tutkimusmenetelmää. Tutkimuksessa toteutettiin kysely, joka oli pohjana esimerkkikäyttöliittymän suunnittelussa. Suunnitteluvaiheessa dokumentointiin käytettiin kuvakaappauksia ja esimerkkikohtia sovelluksen lähdekoodista. Toteutusvaiheessa käytettiin avoimia lähdekoodin ohjelmistoja, kuten Eclipseä ja Gimp-ohjelmistoa. Työvälineinä PC-tietokoneessa olivat Microsoft Office-paketti ja testauslaitteistoina Samsung Galaxy S3 ja Galaxy 3 Android-puhelimet. Tutkimuksen tuloksena syntyi esimerkkisovellus- ja käyttöliittymä sovelluskehitystyön eri vaiheiden kautta. Kyselytutkimuksen tuloksena saatiin tietoa käyttäjien mielipiteistä käyttöliittymiä kohtaan ja mitä eri asioita käyttäjät käyttöliittymissä arvostavat. Tutkimukseni tulosten perusteella sovelluskehityksessä käyttöliittymällä on suuri merkitys ja suositeltavaa on tehdä käyttöliittymäprojekti asiakaslähtöisesti.The objective of the thesis is to explain mobile devices and operating systems current situation and the future, mobile programming techniques, user interface designing and implementation of the various stages from the application developer's view. The emphasis was to research the role of user interfaces for touch- screen mobile device users. The research used both qualitative and constructive research methods. The research conducted a survey, which was the basis for an example of user interface design. The planning documents are made by using screenshots and example source code of the application points. During the implementation phase was used to open-source soft-ware such as Eclipse and Gimp. Tools on PC was Microsoft Office-package and test equipment Samsung Galaxy S3 and Galaxy 3-Android phones. The result of the research was example application and the user interface develop-ment through different phases. Survey results provided insight into the opinions of the users and the different things what users will appreciate in the user interfaces. The research results of application development, user interface is great importance, and it is recommended to make project a customer-oriented

The ixiQuarks: merging code and GUI in one creative space

This paper reports on ixiQuarks; an environment of instruments and effects that is built on top of the audio programming language SuperCollider. The rationale of these instruments is to explore alternative ways of designing musical interaction in screen-based software, and investigate how semiotics in interface design affects the musical output. The ixiQuarks are part of external libraries available to SuperCollider through the Quarks system. They are software instruments based on a non- realist design ideology that rejects the simulation of acoustic instruments or music hardware and focuses on experimentation at the level of musical interaction. In this environment we try to merge the graphical with the textual in the same instruments, allowing the user to reprogram and change parts of them in runtime. After a short introduction to SuperCollider and the Quark system, we will describe the ixiQuarks and the philosophical basis of their design. We conclude by looking at how they can be seen as epistemic tools that influence the musician in a complex hermeneutic circle of interpretation and signification

Supporting End-User Development through a New Composition Model: An Empirical Study

End-user development (EUD) is much hyped, and its impact has outstripped even the most optimistic forecasts. Even so, the vision of end users programming their own solutions has not yet materialized. This will continue to be so unless we in both industry and the research community set ourselves the ambitious challenge of devising end to end an end-user application development model for developing a new age of EUD tools. We have embarked on this venture, and this paper presents the main insights and outcomes of our research and development efforts as part of a number of successful EU research projects. Our proposal not only aims to reshape software engineering to meet the needs of EUD but also to refashion its components as solution building blocks instead of programs and software developments. This way, end users will really be empowered to build solutions based on artefacts akin to their expertise and understanding of ideal solution

Using Cognitive Computing for Learning Parallel Programming: An IBM Watson Solution

While modern parallel computing systems provide high performance resources, utilizing them to the highest extent requires advanced programming expertise. Programming for parallel computing systems is much more difficult than programming for sequential systems. OpenMP is an extension of C++ programming language that enables to express parallelism using compiler directives. While OpenMP alleviates parallel programming by reducing the lines of code that the programmer needs to write, deciding how and when to use these compiler directives is up to the programmer. Novice programmers may make mistakes that may lead to performance degradation or unexpected program behavior. Cognitive computing has shown impressive results in various domains, such as health or marketing. In this paper, we describe the use of IBM Watson cognitive system for education of novice parallel programmers. Using the dialogue service of the IBM Watson we have developed a solution that assists the programmer in avoiding common OpenMP mistakes. To evaluate our approach we have conducted a survey with a number of novice parallel programmers at the Linnaeus University, and obtained encouraging results with respect to usefulness of our approach

A Visual Programming Paradigm for Abstract Deep Learning Model Development

Deep learning is one of the fastest growing technologies in computer science with a plethora of applications. But this unprecedented growth has so far been limited to the consumption of deep learning experts. The primary challenge being a steep learning curve for learning the programming libraries and the lack of intuitive systems enabling non-experts to consume deep learning. Towards this goal, we study the effectiveness of a no-code paradigm for designing deep learning models. Particularly, a visual drag-and-drop interface is found more efficient when compared with the traditional programming and alternative visual programming paradigms. We conduct user studies of different expertise levels to measure the entry level barrier and the developer load across different programming paradigms. We obtain a System Usability Scale (SUS) of 90 and a NASA Task Load index (TLX) score of 21 for the proposed visual programming compared to 68 and 52, respectively, for the traditional programming methods