HCI in e-Government and e-Democracy

This chapter introduces the application of HCI design processes and design principles in e-government and e-democracy. We elaborate on HCI design processes and six HCI design principles in the context of e-government and e-democracy, including citizen-centered design, usability, accessibility, access to information, transaction efficiency, and security and privacy. Then, we present two cases to demonstrate the value of applying the HCI processes and design principles in developing and deploying e-government and e-democracy. Finally, we highlight the challenges faced by e-government and e-democracy as well as the future trends. In conclusion, HCI can help the success of e-government and e-democracy and their future growth

Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Methods, Techniques, and Best Practices [electronic resource] : 10th International Conference, UAHCI 2016, Held as Part of HCI International 2016, Toronto, ON, Canada, July 17-22, 2016, Proceedings, Part I /

The three-volume set LNCS 9737-9739 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction, UAHCI 2016, held as part of the 10th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2016, in Toronto, ON, Canada in July 2016, jointly with 15 other thematically similar conferences. The total of 1287 papers presented at the HCII 2016 conferences were carefully reviewed and selected from 4354 submissions. The papers included in the three UAHCI 2016 volumes address the following major topics: novel approaches to accessibility; design for all and eInclusion best practices; universal access in architecture and product design; personal and collective informatics in universal access; eye-tracking in universal access; multimodal and natural interaction for universal access; universal access to mobile interaction; virtual reality, 3D and universal access; intelligent and assistive environments; universal access to education and learning; technologies for ASD and cognitive disabilities; design for healthy aging and rehabilitation; universal access to media and games; and universal access to mobility and automotive.Novel approaches to accessibility -- Design for all and eInclusion best practices.-Universal access in architecture and product design -- Personal and collective informatics in universal access -- Eye-tracking in universal access -- Multimodal and natural interaction for universal access -- Universal access to mobile interaction -- Virtual reality, 3D and universal access -- Intelligent and assistive environments -- Universal access to education and learning -- Technologies for ASD and cognitive disabilities -- Design for healthy aging and rehabilitation -- Universal access to media and games -- Universal access to mobility and automotive.The three-volume set LNCS 9737-9739 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction, UAHCI 2016, held as part of the 10th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2016, in Toronto, ON, Canada in July 2016, jointly with 15 other thematically similar conferences. The total of 1287 papers presented at the HCII 2016 conferences were carefully reviewed and selected from 4354 submissions. The papers included in the three UAHCI 2016 volumes address the following major topics: novel approaches to accessibility; design for all and eInclusion best practices; universal access in architecture and product design; personal and collective informatics in universal access; eye-tracking in universal access; multimodal and natural interaction for universal access; universal access to mobile interaction; virtual reality, 3D and universal access; intelligent and assistive environments; universal access to education and learning; technologies for ASD and cognitive disabilities; design for healthy aging and rehabilitation; universal access to media and games; and universal access to mobility and automotive

Public housing self-selection through user satisfaction in the City of Qom, Iran

This research is focusing on the concept of self-selection, a decision-making process grounded in self-concept, which currently receives less attention in housing provision in Iran. This is an effort to explore new suggestions for improving the level of user satisfaction for future living environments that are designed based on current architectural ideas. Achievement of self-selection is indicated by satisfaction in decision-making process. Therefore, the aim of this research is to enhance general housing satisfaction in Qom, Iran by improving the level of residential satisfaction of public housings through the decision making process for future designs. The objectives of this research are to investigate the attributes of the residential environment, related to user self-selection of public housings in Qom, and to measure the residential satisfaction level of public housings through various aspects of self-selection. Sequential mixed methods were employed based on post-occupancy evaluation questionnaire, which clarify the level of user satisfaction. The survey questionnaire was administered to a sample (N=109) of Iranian residents who live in the public housing of Mehr Projects in the Pardisan area of Qom. The collected data were processed with IBM SPSS, ANOVA, and Smart-PLS for frequency, t-tests and model testing. The results indicate that the mean score for user residential satisfaction, self-selection and overall quality of future design are above neutral. The findings suggest that the respondents were satisfied with their current experience of living in the apartments. The quality of current state of the building has improved, and the quality of future design needs less improvement. The results can be useful in assisting architects to predict residential satisfaction and subsequently consider the desired level of self-selection in their design process. In conclusion, the significant determinants of user satisfaction by different attributes of self-selection have been highlighted, and the findings show the central position of self-selection in architectural design

Accessibility of Virtual Museum Spaces in the 21st Century in Turkey

Museums, which are the embodiment of art, exhibition, culture, and science, have started to offer virtual space experiences as well as traditional physical space experiences in recent years. In addition to the development of technology, the pandemic, which started in 2019 and affected the whole world, has also been effective in accelerating the transformation of museums from physical space to virtual space. The increasing use of virtual museums directly concerns different user groups in terms of accessibility. In a physical museum experience, solutions that appeal to different types of users are generally produced. Thanks to these solutions, an individual with any disability can be included in the space with all senses such as sight, touch, smell, and hearing during a museum visit, while the lack of inclusion of all senses in the virtual space experience causes the experience to be more limited. This study discusses this limitation in terms of accessibility. How can the virtual space experience be more accessible for different types of users? Can different solutions be offered to all user groups for a better understanding of the space and the art product? These questions constitute the research questions of this study. In this context, this study aims to examine how accessible virtual museums are. The study has conducted this inquiry through 59 virtual museums in Turkey. As a method, virtual museums were classified and tabulated in terms of their accessibility levels in line with their characteristics. It was concluded that there are deficiencies in the experience of different types of users and various suggestions were made in terms of virtual accessibility

On Data-driven systems analyzing, supporting and enhancing users’ interaction and experience

Tesis doctoral en inglés y resumen extendido en español[EN] The research areas of Human-Computer Interaction and Software Architectures have been traditionally treated separately, but in the literature, many authors made efforts to merge them to build better software systems. One of the common gaps between software engineering and usability is the lack of strategies to apply usability principles in the initial design of software architectures. Including these principles since the early phases of software design would help to avoid later architectural changes to include user experience requirements. The combination of both fields (software architectures and Human-Computer Interaction) would contribute to building better interactive software that should include the best from both the systems and user-centered designs. In that combination, the software architectures should enclose the fundamental structure and ideas of the system to offer the desired quality based on sound design decisions. Moreover, the information kept within a system is an opportunity to extract knowledge about the system itself, its components, the software included, the users or the interaction occurring inside. The knowledge gained from the information generated in a software environment can be used to improve the system itself, its software, the users’ experience, and the results. So, the combination of the areas of Knowledge Discovery and Human-Computer Interaction offers ideal conditions to address Human-Computer-Interaction-related challenges. The Human-Computer Interaction focuses on human intelligence, the Knowledge Discovery in computational intelligence, and the combination of both can raise the support of human intelligence with machine intelligence to discover new insights in a world crowded of data. This Ph.D. Thesis deals with these kinds of challenges: how approaches like data-driven software architectures (using Knowledge Discovery techniques) can help to improve the users' interaction and experience within an interactive system. Specifically, it deals with how to improve the human-computer interaction processes of different kind of stakeholders to improve different aspects such as the user experience or the easiness to accomplish a specific task. Several research actions and experiments support this investigation. These research actions included performing a systematic literature review and mapping of the literature that was aimed at finding how the software architectures in the literature have been used to support, analyze or enhance the human-computer interaction. Also, the actions included work on four different research scenarios that presented common challenges in the Human-Computer Interaction knowledge area. The case studies that fit into the scenarios selected were chosen based on the Human-Computer Interaction challenges they present, and on the authors’ accessibility to them. The four case studies were: an educational laboratory virtual world, a Massive Open Online Course and the social networks where the students discuss and learn, a system that includes very large web forms, and an environment where programmers develop code in the context of quantum computing. The development of the experiences involved the review of more than 2700 papers (only in the literature review phase), the analysis of the interaction of 6000 users in four different contexts or the analysis of 500,000 quantum computing programs. As outcomes from the experiences, some solutions are presented regarding the minimal software artifacts to include in software architectures, the behavior they should exhibit, the features desired in the extended software architecture, some analytic workflows and approaches to use, or the different kinds of feedback needed to reinforce the users’ interaction and experience. The results achieved led to the conclusion that, despite this is not a standard practice in the literature, the software environments should embrace Knowledge Discovery and data-driven principles to analyze and respond appropriately to the users’ needs and improve or support the interaction. To adopt Knowledge Discovery and data-driven principles, the software environments need to extend their software architectures to cover also the challenges related to Human-Computer Interaction. Finally, to tackle the current challenges related to the users’ interaction and experience and aiming to automate the software response to users’ actions, desires, and behaviors, the interactive systems should also include intelligent behaviors through embracing the Artificial Intelligence procedures and techniques

On data-driven systems analyzing, supporting and enhancing users’ interaction and experience

[EN]The research areas of Human-Computer Interaction and Software Architectures have been traditionally treated separately, but in the literature, many authors made efforts to merge them to build better software systems. One of the common gaps between software engineering and usability is the lack of strategies to apply usability principles in the initial design of software architectures. Including these principles since the early phases of software design would help to avoid later architectural changes to include user experience requirements. The combination of both fields (software architectures and Human-Computer Interaction) would contribute to building better interactive software that should include the best from both the systems and user-centered designs. In that combination, the software architectures should enclose the fundamental structure and ideas of the system to offer the desired quality based on sound design decisions. Moreover, the information kept within a system is an opportunity to extract knowledge about the system itself, its components, the software included, the users or the interaction occurring inside. The knowledge gained from the information generated in a software environment can be used to improve the system itself, its software, the users’ experience, and the results. So, the combination of the areas of Knowledge Discovery and Human-Computer Interaction offers ideal conditions to address Human-Computer-Interaction-related challenges. The Human-Computer Interaction focuses on human intelligence, the Knowledge Discovery in computational intelligence, and the combination of both can raise the support of human intelligence with machine intelligence to discover new insights in a world crowded of data. This Ph.D. Thesis deals with these kinds of challenges: how approaches like data-driven software architectures (using Knowledge Discovery techniques) can help to improve the users' interaction and experience within an interactive system. Specifically, it deals with how to improve the human-computer interaction processes of different kind of stakeholders to improve different aspects such as the user experience or the easiness to accomplish a specific task. Several research actions and experiments support this investigation. These research actions included performing a systematic literature review and mapping of the literature that was aimed at finding how the software architectures in the literature have been used to support, analyze or enhance the human-computer interaction. Also, the actions included work on four different research scenarios that presented common challenges in the Human- Computer Interaction knowledge area. The case studies that fit into the scenarios selected were chosen based on the Human-Computer Interaction challenges they present, and on the authors’ accessibility to them. The four case studies were: an educational laboratory virtual world, a Massive Open Online Course and the social networks where the students discuss and learn, a system that includes very large web forms, and an environment where programmers develop code in the context of quantum computing. The development of the experiences involved the review of more than 2700 papers (only in the literature review phase), the analysis of the interaction of 6000 users in four different contexts or the analysis of 500,000 quantum computing programs. As outcomes from the experiences, some solutions are presented regarding the minimal software artifacts to include in software architectures, the behavior they should exhibit, the features desired in the extended software architecture, some analytic workflows and approaches to use, or the different kinds of feedback needed to reinforce the users’ interaction and experience. The results achieved led to the conclusion that, despite this is not a standard practice in the literature, the software environments should embrace Knowledge Discovery and datadriven principles to analyze and respond appropriately to the users’ needs and improve or support the interaction. To adopt Knowledge Discovery and data-driven principles, the software environments need to extend their software architectures to cover also the challenges related to Human-Computer Interaction. Finally, to tackle the current challenges related to the users’ interaction and experience and aiming to automate the software response to users’ actions, desires, and behaviors, the interactive systems should also include intelligent behaviors through embracing the Artificial Intelligence procedures and techniques

Designing for disability: Guidance for designers when working with users with Specific, Critical, Additional Needs (SCAN)

This study provides guidelines to help designers make reasoned methodological choices when working with those that have disabilities, in order to enable the effective interpretation of the views of these users and to ensure that these are taken into account in the design of products and services. A new way of categorising such users led to a definition by the researcher of Specific, Critical, Additional Needs (SCAN). Individuals with SCAN have additional needs that have to be met in order to maintain their quality of life, health, safety and wellbeing but are additional to those of everyday critical needs. Following an extensive review of models of disability and design, together with the legal and social contexts (including public attitudes to disability), as well as resources from the design and ergonomics communities and existing research methods available to designers when working with SCAN users, it was found that there were relatively few studies that examined the appropriateness of methods for understanding the requirements of these users in design and evaluation processes. Through focus groups, advice was gathered from designers, some of whom were experienced in working collaboratively with disabled persons. Following this, several semi-structured interviews took place with a representative sample of SCAN users, carers, support workers, health and social care professionals and family members. Analysis of these interviews, backed by evidence from the literature, led to the creation of guidelines. The guidelines take account of best practice in designing from a user-centred viewpoint, and a number of tried and tested research methods are reviewed in detail. The study also highlights the range of disabilities that should be considered by designers in shaping specifications for new products and services, and the need to treat users appropriately to ensure an accurate account is taken of their needs