Applying semantic web services to enterprise web

Enterprise Web provides a convenient, extendable, integrated platform for information sharing and knowledge management. However, it still has many drawbacks due to complexity and increasing information glut, as well as the heterogeneity of the information processed. Research in the field of Semantic Web Services has shown the possibility of adding higher level of semantic functionality onto the top of current Enterprise Web, enhancing usability and usefulness of resource, enabling decision support and automation. This paper aims to explore the use of Semantic Web Services in Enterprise Web and discuss the Semantic Web Services (SWS) approach for designing Enterprise Web applications. A Semantic Web Service oriented model is presented, in which resources and services are described by ontology, and processed through Semantic Web Service, allowing integrated administration, interoperability and automated reasoning

Enhancement of the usability of SOA services for novice users

Recently, the automation of service integration has provided a significant advantage in delivering services to novice users. This art of integrating various services is known as Service Composition and its main purpose is to simplify the development process for web applications and facilitates reuse of services. It is one of the paradigms that enables services to end-users (i.e.service provisioning) through the outsourcing of web contents and it requires users to share and reuse services in more collaborative ways. Most service composers are effective at enabling integration of web contents, but they do not enable universal access across different groups of users. This is because, the currently existing content aggregators require complex interactions in order to create web applications (e.g., Web Service Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL)) as a result not all users are able to use such web tools. This trend demands changes in the web tools that end-users use to gain and share information, hence this research uses Mashups as a service composition technique to allow novice users to integrate publicly available Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) services, where there is a minimal active web application development. Mashups being the platforms that integrate disparate web Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to create user defined web applications; presents a great opportunity for service provisioning. However, their usability for novice users remains invalidated since Mashup tools are not easy to use they require basic programming skills which makes the process of designing and creating Mashups difficult. This is because Mashup tools access heterogeneous web contents using public web APIs and the process of integrating them become complex since web APIs are tailored by different vendors. Moreover, the design of Mashup editors is unnecessary complex; as a result, users do not know where to start when creating Mashups. This research address the gap between Mashup tools and usability by the designing and implementing a semantically enriched Mashup tool to discover, annotate and compose APIs to improve the utilization of SOA services by novice users. The researchers conducted an analysis of the already existing Mashup tools to identify challenges and weaknesses experienced by novice Mashup users. The findings from the requirement analysis formulated the system usability requirements that informed the design and implementation of the proposed Mashup tool. The proposed architecture addressed three layers: composition, annotation and discovery. The researchers developed a simple Mashup tool referred to as soa-Services Provisioner (SerPro) that allowed novice users to create web application flexibly. Its usability and effectiveness was validated. The proposed Mashup tool enhanced the usability of SOA services, since data analysis and results showed that it was usable to novice users by scoring a System Usability Scale (SUS) score of 72.08. Furthermore, this research discusses the research limitations and future work for further improvements

The assessment of usability of electronic shopping: A heuristic evaluation

Today there are thousands of electronic shops accessible via the Web. Some provide user-friendly features whilst others seem not to consider usability factors at all. Yet, it is critical that the electronic shopping interface is user-friendly so as to help users to obtain their desired results. This study applied heuristic evaluation to examine the usability of current electronic shopping. In particular, it focused on four UK-based supermarkets offering electronic services: including ASDA, Iceland, Sainsbury, and Tesco. The evaluation consists of two stages: a free-flow inspection and a task-based inspection. The results indicate that the most significant and common usability problems have been found to lie within the areas of ‘User Control and Freedom’ and ‘Help and Documentation’. The findings of this study are applied to develop a set of usability guidelines to support the future design of effective interfaces for electronic shopping

ILR Impact Brief - Community College Websites and Barriers to Access

[Excerpt] Community colleges, on average, serve 335 students with disabilities, although that number climbs to 5,000 at the largest college surveyed for this project. Nearly all community colleges that participated in the survey rely on the web for a variety of student services, but only half have instituted requirements regarding web accessibility for individuals with disabilities. Actual evaluations of accessibility and ease of use revealed that none of the websites analyzed complied with all federal standards on accessibility, and many web pages encompassed usability obstacles (e.g., unfamiliar terminology, unintuitive navigation schemes, and hard-to-read design elements) that affected disabled and non-disabled individuals alike

Evaluating usability of cross-platform smartphone applications

The computing power of smartphones is increasing as time goes. However, the proliferation of multiple different types of operating platforms affected interoperable smartphone applications development. Thus, the cross-platform development tools are coined. Literature showed that smartphone applications developed with the native platforms have better user experience than the cross-platform counterparts. However, comparative evaluation of usability of cross-platform applications on the deployment platforms is not studied yet. In this work, we evaluated usability of a crossword puzzle developed with PhoneGap on Android, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry. The evaluation was conducted focusing on the developer's adaptation effort to native platforms and the end users. Thus, we observed that usability of the cross-platform crossword puzzle is unaffected on the respective native platforms and the SDKs require only minimal configuration effort. In addition, we observed the prospect of HTML5 and related web technologies as our future work towards evaluating and enhancing usability in composing REST-based services for smartphone applications

Developing web map application based on user centered design

User centred design is an approach in process of development any kind of human product where the main idea is to create a product for the end user. This article presents User centred design method in developing web mapping services. This method can be split into four main phases – user research, creation of concepts, developing with usability research and lunch of product. The article describes each part of this phase with an aim to provide guidelines for developers and primarily with an aim to improve the usability of web mapping services

Conceptual framework: How to engineer online trust for disabled users

The Internet has penetrated our lives, becoming an indispensable tool for social, business and personal growth. Thanks to the Web, users can easily carry out many tasks that were previously difficult. Differently-abled persons need to have the same opportunities as everyone else, so accessibility and usability must be included in the design of all Web resources, applications and services. To be extensively applicable, accessibility and usability guidelines should be delivered as simple design features. In previous studies some conceptual frameworks have been introduced with this aim. However, the specific applicative environment such as trustworthy e-commerce services, may offer ad hoc challenges. In this paper, we propose some guidelines to extend the design of usability conceptual frameworks in order to promote trust in e-commerce websites for people with visual disabilities. © 2009 IEEE

Assessing the Need and Receptivity for an Integrated Healthy Sexual and Dating Relationships Intervention for Community College Students

Background: In emerging adulthood, youth often become involved in more serious romantic relationships. However, many lack the skills to avoid an unplanned pregnancy or sexually transmitted infection (STI), and to ensure a healthy dating relationship. Community college students serve nearly half of all undergraduate students in the United States; yet, community colleges typically lack resources for sexual health promotion. Purpose: To assess the need and receptivity for a web-based integrated healthy sexual and dating relationships intervention among community college students. Methods: In summer 2016, we partnered with three community colleges in South Central Texas to conduct an online survey of students’ sexual behaviors and dating relationships, and usability testing of activities from an integrated, web-based healthy sexual and dating relationship intervention. Results: Online survey participants (n=271) were 70% female, 38% Hispanic, 24% White, 17% Black, and 16% Asian; 20% self-identified as sexual minority; mean age was 20.8 years (SD = 2.05). Participants reported high rates of sexual risk behavior including sex without a condom or an effective birth control method, low use of long-acting reversible contraception, frequent use of emergency contraception, and low use of dual protection to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Two-thirds reported experiencing any type of dating violence perpetration or victimization in the past year. Usability testing participants (n=14) were 86% female, 42% Hispanic, 50% Asian/Pacific Islander, 14% Black, and 7% White; 71% were sexually experienced; mean age was 20.7 years (SD = 1.64). The web-based activities were highly rated in terms of usability parameters, and positively impacted short-term psychosocial outcomes related to condom use, accessing contraceptive health services, and constructive interpersonal conflict resolution. Conclusion: Findings underscore the high need and receptivity for an integrated healthy sexual and dating relationship web-based intervention among community college students, an understudied subgroup of youth in emerging adulthood

Käyttäjäkeskeisen suunnittelun menetelmät verkkopalvelun suunnittelussa: Suomen suurin Mummola -hankkeen verkkoportaalin esiselvitys

Opinnäytetyömme käsittelee käyttäjäkeskeisen suunnittelun menetelmiä osana uuden verkkopalvelun luomista. Opinnäytetyön tavoitteena on tietopohjan kerääminen verkkopalvelun konseptisuunnitelmaa varten. Toiminnallisessa osiossa tavoitteena oli selvittää rääkkyläläisten ikäihmisten toiveet verkkopalvelusta ja miten rääkkyläläisten käyttäjien tarpeet otetaan huomioon verkkopalvelun suunnitteluvaiheessa. Opinnäytetyömme on tehty toimeksiantona Rääkkylän kunnalta Suomen suurin Mummola -hankkeessa. Tietopohjaa on kerätty käyttäjäkyselyillä ja käytettävyystutkimuksilla. Käyttäjäkyselyyn osallistui 66 noin 40–80-vuotiasta rääkkyläläistä. Opinnäytetyössä selvitettiin oliko käyttäjä- ja käytettävyystutkimuksen menetelmistä hyötyä suunnitellessa uutta verkkopalvelua. Kyselyistä selvisi, että rääkkyläläiset toivovat uutta verkkopalvelua Rääkkylään. Verkkoportaalin tulisi olla helppokäyttöinen, selkeä ja laajasti käyttäjän tarpeisiin mukautuva. Käytettävyystutkimuksilla selvitettiin parhaiten käyttäjien toimintatapoja ja käyttötasoja. Käytettävyystutkimuksia tulisi jatkaa verkkopalvelua eteenpäin suunniteltaessaOur thesis deals with user-centered design methods as a part in creating a new web service. The aim of the thesis was to collect knowledge base for the web service concept plan. The functional part of the thesis was to find out, what kind of web services elderly Rääkkylä residents require and how their needs are taken into account in planning stage of web service. Our study was commissioned by municipality Rääkkylä for the project Suomen suurin Mummola. The knowledge base has been collected from user surveys and usability studies. User surveys involved 66 approximately 40-80-year-old residents of Rääkkylä. The thesis studied whether the user and usability research methods are useful in designing new online services. The surveys revealed that residents of Rääkkylä require new web service to Rääkkylä. Web portal should be easy to use, clear and highly adaptable to user needs. Usability research examined the users’ best practices and usage levels. Usability research should be continued when designing web portal onward