Systematic evaluation of design choices for software development tools

[Abstract]: Most design and evaluation of software tools is based on the intuition and experience of the designers. Software tool designers consider themselves typical users of the tools that they build and tend to subjectively evaluate their products rather than objectively evaluate them using established usability methods. This subjective approach is inadequate if the quality of software tools is to improve and the use of more systematic methods is advocated. This paper summarises a sequence of studies that show how user interface design choices for software development tools can be evaluated using established usability engineering techniques. The techniques used included guideline review, predictive modelling and experimental studies with users

Usability requirements for architectural analysis tool to support CBD

Component-based development is an architecture-centric process that relies on the integration of pre-fabricated software components. These are often blackbox components whose functionality and configuration may not match the “ideal” system architecture. Systematic architectural analysis can help ensure that risks resulting from architectural adaptations and trade-offs do not adversely affect critical system qualities (e.g. performance, security and modifiability). However, architectural analysis is a complex activity that involves planning, analysis, negotiation and assessment of large amounts of interrelated, often conflicting information. Good tool support is therefore essential for effective architectural analysis. However, the success of a tool depended not only on powerful analysis methods but also on the quality of the toolset's usability. This paper presents functional and non-functional requirements of the tool’s user interface, and discusses the HCI design principles and guidelines in designing a high-quality user interface that would allow developers to parse, analyse and modify architecture specification easily and effectively

Shaped by Design "How User-Interface Design Influences Medical Decision Making: The Role of Monitoring Equipment in Anesthetic Practice"

abstract: Objective: The aim of this research is to uncover, via a comprehensive cross study analysis, data patterns that could potentially point to a positive correlation between two main variables: anesthetic monitoring equipment and anesthetic decision making. Of particular interest is the equipment's monitor screen and the extent to which its user interface design influences anesthetic situation awareness (SA) and hence, decision making. It is hypothesized that poor anesthetic diagnosis from inadequate SA may be largely attributable to patient data displays lacking in human factors design considerations. Methods: A systematic search was conducted of existing empirical studies pertaining to patient physiologic monitoring that spanned across interrelated domains, namely, ergonomics, medical informatics, visual computing, cognitive psychology, human factors, clinical monitoring, intensive care medicine, and intelligent systems etc. all published in scholarly research journals between 1970 to August 2012. Anesthetic-related keywords were queried i.e. anesthetic mishaps, patient physiological data displays, anesthetic vigilance etc. (found in Appendix A). This approach yielded a few thousand results, of which 65 empirical studies were pulled. Further extraction of articles having direct connection to the use of data displays within the anesthetic context produced a total of 20 empirical studies. These studies were grouped under two broad categories of Monitoring and Monitors whereby factors directly contributing to the studies' results were identified with the aim to find emerging themes that provide insights involving interface design and medical decision making. Results: There is a direct correlation between user-interface design and decision making. The situation awareness (SA) required for decision making heavily relies upon data displays oriented towards information extraction and integration. In the systematic assessment of empirical studies, it is undeniable how strikingly prominent visual attributes show up as contributing factors to subjects' enhanced performance in the studies. Conclusions: How and to what users direct their perceptual and cognitive resources necessarily influence their perception of the environment, and by extension, their development of situation awareness (SA). Although patient monitoring equipment employed in anesthetic practice has proven to be indispensable in quality patient care, graphical representations of patient data is still far from optimal in the clinical setting. User-interfaces that lend decision support to facilitate SA and subsequent decision making is critical in crisis management.Dissertation/ThesisM.S.D. Design 201

Scoping analytical usability evaluation methods: A case study

Analytical usability evaluation methods (UEMs) can complement empirical evaluation of systems: for example, they can often be used earlier in design and can provide accounts of why users might experience difficulties, as well as what those difficulties are. However, their properties and value are only partially understood. One way to improve our understanding is by detailed comparisons using a single interface or system as a target for evaluation, but we need to look deeper than simple problem counts: we need to consider what kinds of accounts each UEM offers, and why. Here, we report on a detailed comparison of eight analytical UEMs. These eight methods were applied to it robotic arm interface, and the findings were systematically compared against video data of the arm ill use. The usability issues that were identified could be grouped into five categories: system design, user misconceptions, conceptual fit between user and system, physical issues, and contextual ones. Other possible categories such as User experience did not emerge in this particular study. With the exception of Heuristic Evaluation, which supported a range of insights, each analytical method was found to focus attention on just one or two categories of issues. Two of the three "home-grown" methods (Evaluating Multimodal Usability and Concept-based Analysis of Surface and Structural Misfits) were found to occupy particular niches in the space, whereas the third (Programmable User Modeling) did not. This approach has identified commonalities and contrasts between methods and provided accounts of why a particular method yielded the insights it did. Rather than considering measures such as problem count or thoroughness, this approach has yielded insights into the scope of each method

Two sides of the same coin: adaptation of BCIs to internal states with user-centered design and electrophysiological features

The ideal brain–computer interface (BCI) adapts to the user’s state to enable optimal BCI performance. Two methods of BCI adaptation are commonly applied: User-centered design (UCD) responds to individual user needs and requirements. Passive BCIs can adapt via online analysis of electrophysiological signals. Despite similar goals, these methods are rarely discussed in combination. Hence, we organized a workshop for the 8th International BCI Meeting 2021 to discuss the combined application of both methods. Here we expand upon the workshop by discussing UCD in more detail regarding its utility for end-users as well as non-end-user-based early-stage BCI development. Furthermore, we explore electrophysiology-based online user state adaptation concerning consciousness and pain detection. The integration of the numerous BCI user state adaptation methods into a unified process remains challenging. Yet, further systematic accumulation of specific knowledge about assessment and integration of internal user states bears great potential for BCI optimization

Rapid conformational analysis of semi-flexible liquid crystals.

We present an approach for rapid conformational analysis of semi-flexible liquid crystals. We use a simple graphical user interface (GUI) tool that leverages rules-based methods for efficient generation of bend-angle distributions, offering a significant improvement over traditional single-conformer analysis. Our methods demonstrated proficiency in approximating molecular shapes comparable to those obtained from molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, albeit with notable deviations in the under sampling of hairpin conformations and oversampling of extended configurations. Re-evaluation of existing data revealed an apparent weak correlation between NTB transition temperatures and bend angles, underscoring the complexity of molecular shapes beyond mere geometry. Furthermore, we integrated this conformational analysis into a pipeline of algorithmic molecular design, utilising a fragment-based genetic algorithm to generate novel cyanobiphenyl-containing materials. This integration opens new avenues for the exploration of liquid crystalline materials, particularly in systems where systematic conformer searches are impractical, such as large oligomeric systems. Our findings highlight the potential and growing importance of computational approaches in accelerating the design and synthesis of next-generation liquid crystalline materials

Demarcating mobile phone interface design guidelines to expedite selection

Guidelines are recommended as a tool for informing user interface design. Despite a proliferation of guidelines in the research literature, there is little evidence of their use in industry, nor their influence in academic literature. In this paper, we explore the research literature related to mobile phone design guidelines to find out why this should be so. We commenced by carrying out a scoping literature review of the mobile phone design guideline literature to gain insight into the maturity of the field. The question we wanted to explore was: “Are researchers building on each others’ guidelines, or is the research field still in the foundational stage?” We discovered a poorly structured field, with many researchers proposing new guidelines, but little incremental refinement of extant guidelines. It also became clear that the current reporting of guidelines did not explicitly communicate their multi-dimensionality or deployment context. This leaves designers without a clear way of discriminating between guidelines, and could contribute to the lack of deployment we observed. We conducted a thematic analysis of papers identified by means of a systematic literature review to identify a set of dimensions of mobile phone interface design guidelines. The final dimensions provide a mechanism for differentiating guidelines and expediting choice

An Introduction to 3D User Interface Design

3D user interface design is a critical component of any virtual environment (VE) application. In this paper, we present a broad overview of three-dimensional (3D) interaction and user interfaces. We discuss the effect of common VE hardware devices on user interaction, as well as interaction techniques for generic 3D tasks and the use of traditional two-dimensional interaction styles in 3D environments. We divide most user interaction tasks into three categories: navigation, selection/manipulation, and system control. Throughout the paper, our focus is on presenting not only the available techniques, but also practical guidelines for 3D interaction design and widely held myths. Finally, we briefly discuss two approaches to 3D interaction design, and some example applications with complex 3D interaction requirements. We also present an annotated online bibliography as a reference companion to this article

JWalk: a tool for lazy, systematic testing of java classes by design introspection and user interaction

Popular software testing tools, such as JUnit, allow frequent retesting of modified code; yet the manually created test scripts are often seriously incomplete. A unit-testing tool called JWalk has therefore been developed to address the need for systematic unit testing within the context of agile methods. The tool operates directly on the compiled code for Java classes and uses a new lazy method for inducing the changing design of a class on the fly. This is achieved partly through introspection, using Java’s reflection capability, and partly through interaction with the user, constructing and saving test oracles on the fly. Predictive rules reduce the number of oracle values that must be confirmed by the tester. Without human intervention, JWalk performs bounded exhaustive exploration of the class’s method protocols and may be directed to explore the space of algebraic constructions, or the intended design state-space of the tested class. With some human interaction, JWalk performs up to the equivalent of fully automated state-based testing, from a specification that was acquired incrementally