Effects of shoes on kinetics and kinematics of the squash forward lunge in male players

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.Squash is associated with a high incidence of chronic injuries. Currently there is a trend in many sports for players to select minimalist footwear. The aim of the current investigation was to examine the effects of squashspecific, running shoes and minimalist footwear on the kinetics and 3-D kinematics of the lunge movement in squash players. Twelve male squash players performed lunge movements whilst wearing minimalist, running shoe and squash-specific footwear. 3-D kinematics of the lower extremities were measured using an eightcamera motion analysis system alongside kinetic and tibial acceleration information which were obtained using a force platform and an accelerometer. Differences between footwear were examined using one-way repeated measures ANOVA. The results show firstly that loading rate parameters were significantly greater in the minimalist (average = 85.36B.W/s and instantaneous = 179.09B.W/s) footwear in relation to the squashspecific (average = 38.66 B.W/s and instantaneous = 50.73B.W/s) and running footwear (average = 37.62B.W/s and instantaneous = 48.14B.W/s). In addition, tibial acceleration parameters were also significantly greater in the minimalist (peak tibial acceleration = 8.45 g and tibial acceleration slope = 422.28g/s) footwear in relation to the squash-specific (peak tibial acceleration = 4.33 g and tibial acceleration slope = 182.57g/s) and running footwear (peak tibial acceleration = 4.81 g and tibial acceleration slope = 226.72g/s). The significant increase in impact loading in the minimalist footwear therefore suggests this type of shoe may place squash players at an increased risk of developing impact-related chronic injuries.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Minimalist Solution to Williamson County

Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson County relegated Fifth Amendment takings claims to a second-class of federal rights. Before a takings plaintiff can sue in federal court, she must first seek compensation through an “adequate state procedure.” Many federal courts have held that requirement to mean a takings litigant must first seek compensation through state courts if that state provides an inverse condemnation proceeding. However, if a takings litigant sues in state court, she will be unable to sue in federal court because of issue preclusion. This effectively shuts the federal courthouse door to many property owners. Only two Supreme Court justices have shown any interest in revisiting Williamson County . Thus, land use attorneys who are concerned about federal court access for takings plaintiffs should craft a case that would attract the Supreme Court’s attention. This Article argues that land use lawyers should present the Court with a case in which the property owner has used a non-judicial procedure to seek compensation (such as asking for compensation from a county board). The Court could then rule that such a non-judicial procedure is an “adequate state procedure” that satisfies Williamson County’ s requirements. This ruling would minimize the negative effects that Williamson County has wrought on takings plaintiffs

Usability evaluation of digital Malaysian traditional games

Focusing on measuring the engagement towards digital Malaysian traditional games, this paper presents usability evaluation on three digital versions of Malaysian traditional games; Dam Haji, Congkak and Gasing-X. Usability is a significant contributing factor towards engagement of digital games. Usability helps in verifying the requirements, successes and functionality of the games which are missing.The usability evaluation adopted the heuristic instruments developed by Jakob Nielson in 1990. The instrument consists of 17 heuristic component protocols based on interface design.Evaluation involved 50 respondents who are IT and domain experts.Result analysis is discussed and presented for each game. Results suggested features and aspects to be improved in the development of Digital Malaysian Traditional Games towards better engagement of the games

Hip to be square: designing serious apps for coolness

This paper discusses previous work in developing intervention apps for sustainability that are designed to be cool and improve user engagement. While much work has been carried out by the HCI community in sustainability, particularly energy consumption; little has been done to improve interaction with this relatively mundane but serious topic to engender a compelling and cooler experience. Using the theme of ‘it’s cool to be uncool’ for sustainability, we discuss the design of an eco-feedback Facebook application for deployment in a trial study. The Power Ballads Facebook app mashed mainstream ‘pop’ chart music with domestic energy data using aversive stimuli. Presented here are the pilot findings that suggest participants found the app cool

Paper Realms

Video games fascinate me because of two key elements that are pivotal to a good game—an engaging story and well-designed visuals. Without these elements, a game is a lackluster experience that will lose players and not connect with a large audience. Paper Realms is a lighthearted rhythm game developed for the Nintendo Switch and meant for all ages. This exhibition demonstrates key points of the game aesthetic that will engage the player with charming stories, interesting characters, friendly illustrations, and dynamic UI mockups. Vivid color, interesting patterns, and dynamic compositions are the key design elements in my work. The world of Paper Realms relies heavily on flat, minimalist shapes and colors to bring the characters to life in a papercut-like setting. The character illustrations are simple but unique, giving personality and individuality to each. The in-game menus use the rounded san-serif font Freude to promote friendliness and allow easy readability, delivering pertinent information effectively to the player. The motion graphics are smooth with soft transitions, bringing an energetic feel to the player without startling them. Paper Realms invites the player into a friendly environment to engage with a lighthearted storyline. My inspiration comes from artists inside and outside the gaming industry. Jessica Hische is a lettering artist and illustrator whose work is elegant, soft, and friendly. Her character illustrations use flat colors and minimal shapes to convey their message. Her soft and unified color palettes lean to contribute to the friendly aesthetic she creates—a feeling I invoke in my character illustrations. Kobayashi Ryuji is the Art Director for the Animal Crossing series, steering the franchise towards elegant simplicity in terms of in-game design and branding in order to engage the audience in a friendly manner. The use of rounded shapes, fun patterns, and minimal character design within the franchise has heavily inspired my own approach to illustration, UI design, and branding.https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/art498/1085/thumbnail.jp

Giving voice to equitable collaboration in participatory design

An AHRC funded research project titled Experimenting with the Co-experience Environment (June 2005 – June 2006) culminated in a physical environment designed in resonance with a small group of participants. The participants emerged from different disciplines coming together as a group to share their expertise and contribute their knowledge to design. They engaged in storytelling, individual and co-thinking, creating and co-creating, sharing ideas that did not require justification, proposed designs even though most were not designers …and played. The research questioned how a physical environment designed specifically for co-experiencing might contribute to new knowledge in design? Through play and by working in action together the participants demonstrated the potential of a physical co-experience environment to function as a scaffold for inter-disciplinary design thinking,saying, doing and making (Ivey & Sanders 2006). Ultimately the research questioned how this outcome might influence our approach to engaging participants in design research and experimentation

Towards Game Engagement: Usability Evaluation of Digital Malaysian Traditional Games

Sustainable engagement in digital traditional games can preserve country’s cultural heritage. However, despite such importance, digital traditional games are far less popular than the digital contemporary games. This study investigates one dimension of user engagement by empirically evaluate their usability aspects. Three digital versions of Malaysian traditional games namely Dam Haji, Congkak and Gasing-X were chosen. Literature suggested that usability problems may affect user engagement in the game. In contemporary games, usability is one of the attributes that promotes attractiveness which later leads to engagement. To date, little is known whether usability is also deemed critical for users to become engaged to traditional games. Usability helps in verifying the requirements, successes and functionality of the games which are missing. Evaluation involved 50 respondents who are IT and domain experts, using the instrument that was adopted from Jakob Nielsen’s usability evaluation principles. The instrument consists of 17 heuristic component protocols based on interface design. The results revealed several usability issues with current digital Malaysian traditional games including aesthetic and minimalist design, error prevention, help and documentation and assessment, which should be given serious attention in the development of future digital Malaysian traditional game

Exploring unlikely errors using video games: An example in number entry research

A common and important feature of many safety critical interactive devices is number entry. In hospitals, number entry takes the form of setting drug parameters such as doses, volumes, etc. There are several ways a number entry interface can be designed - with different consequences for error and speed. Nurses and healthcare practitioners usually have to interact with different interfaces often under pressure and stress of taking care of patients with different health conditions. Error rates in practice are low, undetected error rates are even lower and obtaining the context in which the errors occur is often incredibly difficult due to poor logging systems in many medical devices and high cost of planning and conducting empirical studies. Laboratory based studies also suffer similar limitations in that, without interventions, error rates are also too low to study. This paper explores the benefits of using a gaming context to study safety critical systems. We argue that a game paradigm provides a way that overcomes many of the problems of studying low error rates in safety critical systems and specifically for number entry in medical contexts