The playthrough evaluation framework reliable usability evaluation for video games

This thesis presents the playthrough evaluation framework, a novel framework for the reliable usability evaluation of first-person shooter console video games. The framework includes playthrough evaluation, a structured usability evaluation method adapted from heuristic evaluation. Usability evaluation can help guide developers by pointing out design issues that cause users problems. However, usability evaluation methods suffer from the evaluator effect, where separate evaluations of the same data do not produce reliably consistent results. This can result in a number of undesirable consequences affecting issues such as: • Unreliable evaluation: Without reliable results, evaluation reports risk giving incorrect or misleading advice. • Weak methodological validation: Typically new methods (e.g., new heuristics) are validated against user tests. However, without a reliable means to describe observations, attempts to validate novel methods against user test data will also be affected by weak reliability. The playthrough evaluation framework addresses these points through a series of studies presenting the need for, and showing the development of the framework, including the following stages, 1. Explication of poor reliability in heuristic evaluation. 2. Development and validation of a reliable user test coding scheme. 3. Derivation of a novel usability evaluation method, playthrough evaluation. 4. Testing the method, quantifying results. Evaluations were conducted with 22 participants, on 3 first-person shooter action console video games, using two methodologies, heuristic evaluation and the novel playthrough evaluation developed in this thesis. Both methods proved effective, with playthrough evaluation providing more detailed analysis but requiring more time to conduct

The Architect and the User: Investigating designer and user practices and structures in Hawaii

This project investigates a perceived disconnect between designers and the people who use the designs. The project uses the primary research tactic of the post-occupancy evaluation (supported by tactics from environmental psychology) organized in a case study method to compare user-built housing and architect-designed housing in order to determine how architects might best serve the housing typology. Residences designed and built in the last half-century on the island of O’ahu in the state of Hawai’i were evaluated. An effort was made to measure behavioral artifacts, rather than cognitive elements. A design project, implementing the findings of the previous phase, follows the research portion

Areas of qualitative psychology - special focus on design

This volume contains the proceedings of the fourth annual meeting of Qualitative Psychology in Blaubeuren (near Ulm, Germany) Oct., 22-24, 2003 organized by the Center for Qualitative Psychology (Tübingen, Germany). The question of Research Design was chosen as the central topic of the conference. Researchers from different professions took part. The range of experience of the participants was very heterogeneous: Beginning with young researchers, different levels of expertise were represented (up to and including very experienced scholars and researchers). Participants also came from different countries. The main work was done in small working groups. In these groups each study and its outcome(s) was critically discussed and remarked upon. Plenum lectures were also held, in which selected experts presented their thoughts on the central topic research design. An attempt is also undertaken to evaluate the findings and the workshop as a whole in the context of the development of qualitative research in psychology. Contents: Mechthild Kiegelmann, Günter L. Huber: Design in Qualitative Psychology (19-26). Designing the Move from Data to a Theory of Feeling - Gerhard Kleining: The Qualitative-Heuristic Approach to Theory (27-34); Leo Gürtler, Gerhard Kleining: Some Questions and Answers about the Qualitative-Heuristic Approach to Theory (35-38); Thomas Burkart Towards a Dialectic Theory of Feeling (39-62); Harald Witz: Questioning Burkart's Theory of Feeling (63-66); Thomas Burkart: Some Conclusions (67-68); Jeannette Bischkopf, Anna Auckenthaler, Christian Stiglmayr: The Application of a Grounded Theory-Based Research Design for Analyzing Caregiver Burden. How to Increase the Specificity of Concepts (69-80); M. Concepción Domínguez Garrid, Antonio Medina Rivilla: Qualitative Research in Intercultural Processes in the Fields of Geography and History in Secondary Education (81-98); Silke-Birgitta Gahleitner: Step by Step: The Significance of the Open Qualitative Research Process for Gender Research (99-110); Samuel Gento Palacios, M. Concepción a Domínguez Garrido, Antonio Medina Rivilla: The Axiologial Bases of a New Curricum Design (111-142); Michaela Gläser-Zikuda, Hanne Schuster: How Do Students Feel in Open and Direct Instruction? A Study with Mixed Methods (143-162); Leo Gürtler: Qualitative Video Analysis: Design of a Study on the Function of Humor in Teaching Discourses on Mindfulness (163-186); Günter L. Huber: Qualitative Analysis "cis transcriptionae": Direct Processing of Sound and Video Data (187-196); Günter L. Huber: Qualitative Methods in Evaluation Studies (197-206); Karin Jeschke: Contribution of a Modified Global Analysis to a Qualitative Heuristic Analysis (207-216); Levan Lim, Annette Ullrich: Living with Persons with Disabilities: Perspectives of L'Arche Assistants (217-234); Gunârs Strods, Liesma Ose, Tamâra Skoromka, Irîna Maslo: Collaboration in Computer Assisted Qualitative Research (235-248); Hannu Soini, Mark Flynn: The Importance of Emotion and Rhythm for Learning (249-264); Meike Watzlawik: Online Survey + Qualitative Analysis + Quantitative Results = Possible & Reasonable? (265-276)

MyRoom: A user-centred model of affective responsive architecture

Can my immediate physical environment affect how I feel? The instinctive answer to this question must be a resounding “yes”. What might seem a throwaway remark is increasingly borne out by research in environmental and behavioural psychology, and in the more recent discipline of Evidence-Based Design. Research outcomes are beginning to converge with findings in neuroscience and neurophysiology, as we discover more about how the human brain and body functions, and reacts to environmental stimuli. What we see, hear, touch, and sense affects each of us psychologically and, by extension, physically, on a continual basis. The physical characteristics of our daily environment thus have the capacity to profoundly affect all aspects of our functioning, from biological systems to cognitive ability. This has long been understood on an intuitive basis, and utilised on a more conscious basis by architects and other designers. Recent research in evidence-based design, coupled with advances in neurophysiology, confirm what have been previously held as commonalities, but also illuminate an almost frightening potential to do enormous good, or alternatively, terrible harm, by virtue of how we make our everyday surroundings. The thesis adopts a design methodology in its approach to exploring the potential use of wireless sensor networks in environments for elderly people. Vitruvian principles of “commodity, firmness and delight” inform the research process and become embedded in the final design proposals and research conclusions. The issue of person-environment fit becomes a key principle in describing a model of continuously-evolving responsive architecture which makes the individual user its focus, with the intention of promoting wellbeing. The key research questions are: What are the key system characteristics of an adaptive therapeutic single-room environment? How can embedded technologies be utilised to maximise the adaptive and therapeutic aspects of the personal life-space of an elderly person with dementia?

Foundational Practices of Online Writing Instruction

This is an Open Textbook available through the Open Textbook Library: https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/foundational-practices-of-online-writing-instruction. Reviews are available there. Foundational Practices in Online Writing Instruction (OWI) addresses the questions and decisions that administrators and instructors most need to consider when developing online writing programs and courses. Written by experts in the field (members of the Conference on College Composition and Communication Committee for Effective Practices in OWI and other experts and stakeholders).... The editors believe that the field of writing studies is on a trajectory in which most courses will be mediated online to various degrees; therefore the principles detailed in this collection may become the basis for future writing instruction practices. ... [Amazon.com]https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/english_books/1017/thumbnail.jp

Individual differences in early instructed language learning

Variability in predispositions for language learning has attracted scholarly curiosity for over 100 years. Despite major changes in theoretical explanations and foreign/second language teaching paradigms, some patterns of associations between predispositions and learning outcomes seem timelessly robust. This book discusses evidence from a research project investigating individual differences in a wide variety of domains, ranging from language aptitude over general cognitive abilities to motivational and other affective and social constructs. The focus lies on young learners aged 10 to 12, a less frequently investigated age in aptitude research. The data stem from two samples of multilingual learners in German-speaking Switzerland. The target languages are French and English. The chapters of the book offer two complementary perspectives on the topic: On the one hand, cross-sectional investigations of the underlying structure of these individual differences and their association with the target languages are discussed. Drawing on factor analytical and multivariable analyses, the different components are scrutinized with respect to their mutual dependence and their relative impact on target language skills. The analyses also take into account contextual factors such as the learners’ family background and differences across the two contexts investigated. On the other hand, the potential to predict learner’s skills in the target language over time based on the many different indicators is investigated using machine learning algorithms. The results provide new insights into the stability of the individual dispositions, on the impact of contextual variables, and on empirically robust dimensions within the array of variables tested