An informatics system for exploring eye movements in reading

Eye tracking techniques have been widely used in many research areas including cognitive science, psychology, human-computer interaction, marketing research, medical research etc. Many computer programs have emerged to help these researchers to design experiments, present visual stimuli and process the large quantity of numerical data produced by the eye tracker. However, most applications, especially commercial products, are designed for a particular tracking device and tend to be general purpose. Few of them are designed specifically for reading research. This can be inconvenient when dealing with complex experimental design, multi-source data collection, and text based data analysis, including almost every aspect of a reading study lifecycle. A flexible and powerful system that manages the lifecycle of different reading studies is required to fulfill these demands. Therefore, we created an informatics system with two major software suites: Experiment Executor and EyeMap. It is a system designed specifically for reading research. Experiment Executor helps reading researchers build complex experimental environments, which can rapidly present display changes and support the co-registration of eye tracking information with other data collection devices such as EEG (electroencephalography) amplifiers. The EyeMap component helps researchers visualize and analysis a wide range of writing systems including spaced and unspaced scripts, which can be presented in proportional or non-proportional font types. The aim of the system is to accelerate the life cycle of a reading experiment from design through analysis. Several experiments were conducted on this system. These experiments confirmed the effectiveness and the capability of the system with several new reading research findings from the visual information processing stages of reading

Interface Redesign of an Electronic Medical Record Review System Using User-Centered Design

The healthcare industry in recent years has seen a rise in the adoption of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs). These EMRs have replaced the traditional paper-based records at hospitals, clinics, and nursing facilities. This transition has brought with it, numerous advantages of digitization such as improved patient care, timely reminders for checkups, and better health data tracking over time. But the EMR adoption has also come with its own set of challenges. The EMR systems are maintained by the medical coders/nurses at the hospitals. The coders are expected to gather information from different sources such as patient history logs, test results from different labs, etc. followed by entry into the EMR system. Due to the unstructured nature of the task, data entry in EMRs is susceptible to errors which lead to the poor data quality of patient records. Diagnostic decisions taken by the medical practitioners based on erroneous data can adversely affect the patient and at times, even prove to be fatal. To help address this issue of poor data quality of System X, an EMR, employs a unique data review process which allows reviewers (domain experts) to check patient records and communicate back the data entry errors to the coders for required changes to ensure high data quality. In this research, the user-centered design methodology was applied to improve the review process, with the aim of facilitating easier and quicker workflow. The usability issues faced by the reviewers were identified through heuristic evaluations, video walkthroughs, and user interviews methods. To address the issues identified, a new interface design was developed by employing low fidelity and high-fidelity prototyping techniques. Involvement of the reviewers throughout the research ensured that the design proposed was continually assessed and improved qualitatively until they were satisfied. Lastly, the Keystroke Level Model (KLM) was used to quantitatively assess the performance improvement gained from the new design. The final interface design was able to reduce the task-execution time of the patient record review process by 28.51%. This resulted in saving a significant amount of the reviewer’s time, thereby reducing their workload while improving data quality

Applying the User-Centered Design approach for Prototyping the Interfaces of an Intelligent Emergency Management System

In today’s disaster management context, decision-making and information management is a crucial aspect, given the complexity of the tasks the decision-maker has, as well as the sheer influx of information coming in at any given time. As such there is a need to develop a system that can aid both the decision makers in the command post but can also collect the information gathered by the responders on the field. This system should also aid the decision maker by providing counselling according a set of rules, giving the system an intelligent aspect. Thusly THEMIS is born, an intelligent system to support decision making in crisis scenarios. As any given system must have an interface, the usability and user experience are a concern, but given the nature of crisis scenarios, this aspect of user interfaces becomes much more critical. It is in this context that this dissertation’s goal becomes clear: design and test the interface prototype of an emergency management intelligent system, following the User-Centered Design framework. With this goal in mind, the steps of the framework were followed, by beginning to understand the user, the context of use, resulting in understanding the user’s needs. From here, the system requirements emerged, and paper prototyping began. After validation with experts and possible users, the interfaces were prototyped digitally for both the desktop and mobile system applications. This was followed by usability tests, using the Cognitive Walkthrough method, the System Usability Score and the User Experience Questionnaire. In order to complement the testing phase, eye tracking data was gathered during the desktop version’s usability tests, which gave further insight about user behaviour. As such, it was concluded that prototypes scored highly both for usability and user experience, and there was an overall improvement on the various versions of both the desktop and mobile apps. The tests with eye tracking also allowed to identify a few issues that otherwise couldn’t be detected, namely key items the users were missing on the interfaces

A Multi-Touch Explorer Environment for Eclipse

The Multi-Touch Explorer Environment (MTEE) is a tool to aid developers during the production of multi-touch enabled applications. The MTEE tool integrates into the Eclipse IDE and can be used to record and playback user interactions with the program, compare sessions of recorded user interactions and investigate the evolution of the program behaviour. The tool presented in this thesis focuses on the Eclipse IDE and Multi-Touch for Java framework, as they are tools used by both Students and Professional developers. It is demonstrated that the Multi-Touch Explorer Environment can be integrated seamlessly into the Eclipse IDE. It is also demonstrated that the MTEE tool can be used to profile the user’s program with little impact on the performance of both the system or the program itself

World Wizards: Developing a VR World Building Application

World Wizards is an open source and extendable world building environment that enables non-technical users to create 3D worlds in virtual reality and can be used for research, education, and product development purposes. It was developed for the HTC Vive using the Unity game engine. World Wizards embraces user-generated content, allowing users to build their own environments within VR and providing utilities to aid users in creating, distributing, and importing their own custom assets

Monitoring the Pulse of the Planet: Assessing the Transformative Potential of Applying the UN Biodiversity Lab as a Governance Instrument

The current degraded state of nature proves that global efforts to reverse the loss of biodiversity has not yet been sufficient. However, in December 2022, a significant milestone was achieved as the international community reached a consensus on the Kunming-Montreal Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. The vision of this framework is for humanity to live in harmony in nature by 2050, and reaching this vision will require profound societal changes. This thesis aims at examining how the implementation of a Big Earth Data platform in the decision- and policy-making process can facilitate such transformative changes. This is explored through a case study of the UN Biodiversity Lab, a platform that explicitly aims at supporting national stakeholders deliver on the Global Biodiversity Framework. To examine the platform, a walkthrough- and content analysis method has been applied. The results from these methods are presented and analysed through a Big Earth Data Platform framework, which aims at providing frames for how a Big Earth Data platform should optimally be designed to support sustainability. The analysis shows that the UN Biodiversity Lab to a large extent is designed in accordance with this framework, as it is embedded in society, promotes actionable intelligence, and is listed as a digital public good. Thus, the platform seems to have a large potential to provide decision-makers, practitioners, and the public access to the best available data, information, and knowledge on biodiversity matters. The thesis contributes to theory on transformative biodiversity governance by examining the transformative potential of one specific governance instrument. Findings show that the UN Biodiversity Lab can support integrative, inclusive, adaptive, transdisciplinary, and anticipatory governance in conjunction. The platform can potentially also influence the indirect drivers of biodiversity loss through strengthening monitoring mechanisms, increasing awareness, and supporting polycentric governance. This implies that despite the indirect drivers not easily being quantified as spatial data, the platform can still target the indirect drivers of biodiversity loss by influencing key leverage points in society. The study therefore concludes that applying a Big Earth Data platform in the decision-making process can be an important tool for reaching the vision of the Global Biodiversity Framework. There are however some key challenges that must be tackled to unlock the potential of the technology. This includes solving technical issues, securing adequate funding, enabling co-production of knowledge, and establishing consistent reporting practices

Prototyping tool design: Prototyping user experience in systems with multiple devices & sensors

Many recognize the phrase Smart Home, but few have actually experienced it. The world of Internet of Things (IoT) is all over the IT industry. The hardware already exists. So, why do we not see these kinds of solutions in reality? A simple Smart Home experience could be a system that consists of a motion sensor and a coffee machine. The motion sensor is placed above your apartment door. When it senses that you come home from work, the sensor signals your coffee machine to start brewing a cup of coffee. The above example is easy enough for most users to imagine and design, but for them to actually create and test it is almost impossible. The skill of programming sensors to communicate with objects is still highly technical. This thesis addresses this problem and describes solutions for users with no technical background to more easily create this type of experiences. The final prototype design of this project is a software tool design that lets users with no experience in programming create simple User Experiences that includes various sensors and multiple devices. In the prototype, these experiences can also be manually simulated in the tool without using physical sensors connected to the software