Mobile text entry behaviour in lab and in-the-wild studies : is it different?

Text entry in smartphones remains a critical element of mobile HCI. It has been widely studied in lab settings, using primarily transcription tasks, and to a far lesser extent through in-the-wild (field) experiments. So far it remains unknown how well user behaviour during lab transcription tasks approximates real use. In this paper, we present a study that provides evidence that lab text entry behaviour is clearly distinguishable from real world use. Using machine learning techniques, we show that it is possible to accurately identify the type of study in which text entry sessions took place. The implications of our findings relate to the design of future studies in text entry, aiming to support input with virtual smartphone keyboards

From Desktop to Mobile: UI Patterns for User Interface Adaptation in Games

Over the last decade, the popularity of mobile gaming has increased dramatically. It is becoming increasingly more common to include mobile as one of the target platforms in game releases. However, implementing a game for multiple platforms and devices is complicated due to the various interaction mechanisms. The versatility with platforms and devices poses major challenges for UI designers; various aspects from resolutions to input devices have to be taken into account. However, by looking at the research in this area it seems that guidelines for multi-platform game UI design have yet to be established, which is what this thesis seeks to address. Firstly, this thesis investigates whether there are factors in modern gaming applications that differ by device when comparing phone, tablet and desktop user interfaces. For this, three games were picked as case study subjects, and qualitative approach was used to analyze what those factors are and how they are addressed in the UI design of different device versions of the chosen games. The second objective was to form a collection of straightforward design patterns based on the discovered UI differences. As a conclusion, by analyzing several games along the existing research, it is possible to form a collection of design patterns. A set of 17 UI design patterns were documented for adapting a desktop optimized game application to mobile platform

Developing a user interface for a cross-platform web application

The purpose of this master thesis project was to investigate and analyse the main design and development approaches to creating a user interface of a cross-platform web application that is optimised for usage on both mobile and non-mobile devices. The additional goals were to analyse the main challenges in implementing such a user interface and find out whether it is feasible to achieve a consistent user experience both on mobile and desktop devices. The theoretical part of this paper analyses the main development approaches and design considerations for creating a user interface that works on mobile and non-mobile devices. For the practical part, a prototype user interface for a cross-platform book cataloguing web application has been built, tested on a number of mobile and non-mobile devices and evaluated in terms of performance and user experience. Also ideas for its further development are presented. As the result of this project, a semi-functional web application prototype has been built using Backbone.js and user interface has been created in HTML5 with CSS3. The application allows the user to organise his/her books and planned reads, leave reviews and view reviews from other readers. The application did not have all the functioning features and it still needs further work before actual usage. The biggest challenges were content planning, designing reusable UI components, finding a suitable framework for the application implementation and inconsistent CSS support across browsers. By planning the navigation and content early, testing the user interface on real devices, following the mobile first approach and progressively enhancing to a device’s capabilities, it is possible to create a consistent user experience across mobile and non-mobile devices in lightweight web applications

Probabilistic User Interface Design for Virtual and Augmented Reality Applications

The central hypothesis of this thesis is that probabilistic user interface design provides an effective methodology for delivering productive and enjoyable applications in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). This investigation is timely given the recent emergence of mass-market virtual and augmented reality head-mounted displays and growing demand for tailored applications and content. The design guidance for building compelling and productive applications for these environments is, however, currently lagging the pace at which the underlying technology is maturing. This is problematic given important differences between designing conventional 2D interfaces and interactions and their embodied 3D counterparts. This dissertation investigates probabilistic user interface design as a method for solving many of the novel challenges encountered when developing applications for VR and AR. Probabilistic user interface design seeks to model the uncertain events in a system and identify, implement and validate strategies that drive improved system performance. This thesis addresses four research questions by applying a probabilistic treatment in four distinct but closely related case studies. These four case studies are selected to illustrate the flexibility and unique benefits offered by this method. Research Question 1 asks how the probabilistic qualities of an interface can be determined and how this can inform design. This question is investigated in the context of text entry in VR with a probabilistic characterisation performed on two fundamental design choices. Research Question 2 relates to the challenge of adapting AR applications to deployment contexts not knowable at design time. A study in which crowdworkers are employed to build a probabilistic understanding of the requirements for contextually adaptive AR answers this question. The text entry theme is revisited in answering Research Questions 3 which asks how high levels of input noise can be mitigated through inference. A probabilistic text entry method specifically tailored for use in AR is implemented and evaluated. Finally, Research Question 4 asks how the high dimensional design space in AR and VR applications can be efficiently explored to support ideal design choices. Interface refinement through probabilistic optimisation and crowdsourcing is shown to be highly efficient and effective for this purpose. A probabilistic treatment in the design process has many potential benefits, principle among which is increased robustness to circumstances unanticipated at design time. This thesis contributes to the toolset and guidance available to designers and supports the development of next generation user interfaces specifically tailored to virtual and augmented reality

Evolution and usability of mobile phone interaction styles

Over one billion people own or use cellular mobile telephones. Therefore, industry practitioners are faced with a question: how big steps can they take when designing the user interfaces for their new products, or how closely should they stick with the already existing user interface conventions that may already be familiar to the consumers. The objective of this research work is to create and communicate new knowledge for design and usability practitioners about how to design and evolve interaction style conventions in mainstream, voice-centric mobile telephones. In the context of this study, interaction style denotes the framework consisting of the physical interaction objects, the abstract interaction elements, and the associated behavior or interaction conventions that are applied throughout the core functionality of the mobile phone, but excludes the stylistic appearance elements of the user interface. The main research problem — how do mobile phone interaction style changes affect the initial usability of a mobile phone for users with earlier experience with mobile phones — is approached via several methods. A literature study compares the interaction styles applied in mainstream computing domains against the aspects relevant in the mobile phones domain. A heuristic analysis of contemporary mobile phones is used to formulate an understanding of the available interaction styles and analyze whether there is convergence towards specific types of interaction styles in the industry. An empirical usability testing experiment with 38 test users is conducted with a novel mobile phone interaction style to investigate differences between users who are already familiar with different mobile phone interaction styles. The study reveals that interaction styles applied in contemporary mobile telephones are designed around menu navigation, and they implement the three primary operations — Select, Back and Menu access — with dedicated hardkeys, context-sensitive softkeys, or using special control devices like joysticks or jog dials. The control keys in the contemporary interaction styles are converging around various two- and three-softkey conventions. The aspects related to indirect manipulation and small displays pose specific usability and UI design challenges on mobile phone user interfaces. The study shows that the mobile handset manufacturers are applying their usually proprietary interaction styles in a rather consistent manner in their products, with the notable exception of mobile Internet browsers that often break the underlying interaction style consistency. Based on the results from the empirical usability testing, we claim that despite differences between interaction styles in contemporary mobile phones, users do not face significant difficulties when transferring to a novel mobile phone model.reviewe