Exploring Customer Preferences on Mobile Services

Designing mobile services is fundamentally different than designing online services. Not only are there differences in underlying technologies, but also in the way people use services. If these differences are not taken into account, mobile services are likely to fail. If mobile services do not deliver what people want, these services will fail no matter how excellent the underlying technology is. The user interface design that is commonly used in mobile services is based on multi-layered approach, which is not very user friendly. So a well designed single layered user interface will be more user friendly than the conventional one and it will be having edge over others. However, it is quite difficult to provide a single layered user interface in a small screen. This study aims at examining how user interface design attributes of mobile services affect customer preferences. In order to explore customer preferences to each design attribute, we measure customer’s WTP (Willingness To Pay) toward different interface designs

Considering the Importance of User Profiles in Interface Design

User profile is a popular term widely employed during product design processes by industrial companies. Such a profile is normally intended to represent real users of a product. The ultimate purpose of a user profile is actually to help designers to recognize or learn about the real user by presenting them with a description of a real user’s attributes, for instance; the user’s gender, age, educational level, attitude, technical needs and skill level. The aim of this chapter is to provide information on the current knowledge and research about user profile issues, as well as to emphasize the importance of considering these issues in interface design. In this chapter, we mainly focus on how users’ difference in expertise affects their performance or activity in various interaction contexts. Considering the complex interaction situations in practice, novice and expert users’ interactions with medical user interfaces of different technical complexity will be analyzed as examples: one focuses on novice and expert users’ difference when interacting with simple medical interfaces, and the other focuses on differences when interacting with complex medical interfaces. Four issues will be analyzed and discussed: (1) how novice and expert users differ in terms of performance during the interaction; (2) how novice and expert users differ in the perspective of cognitive mental models during the interaction; (3) how novice and expert users should be defined in practice; and (4) what are the main differences between novice and expert users’ implications for interface design. Besides describing the effect of users’ expertise difference during the interface design process, we will also pinpoint some potential problems for the research on interface design, as well as some future challenges that academic researchers and industrial engineers should face in practice

INTERFACE DESIGN FOR A VIRTUAL REALITY-ENHANCED IMAGE-GUIDED SURGERY PLATFORM USING SURGEON-CONTROLLED VIEWING TECHNIQUES

Initiative has been taken to develop a VR-guided cardiac interface that will display and deliver information without affecting the surgeons’ natural workflow while yielding better accuracy and task completion time than the existing setup. This paper discusses the design process, the development of comparable user interface prototypes as well as an evaluation methodology that can measure user performance and workload for each of the suggested display concepts. User-based studies and expert recommendations are used in conjunction to es­ tablish design guidelines for our VR-guided surgical platform. As a result, a better understanding of autonomous view control, depth display, and use of virtual context, is attained. In addition, three proposed interfaces have been developed to allow a surgeon to control the view of the virtual environment intra-operatively. Comparative evaluation of the three implemented interface prototypes in a simulated surgical task scenario, revealed performance advantages for stereoscopic and monoscopic biplanar display conditions, as well as the differences between three types of control modalities. One particular interface prototype demonstrated significant improvement in task performance. Design recommendations are made for this interface as well as the others as we prepare for prospective development iterations

Hosting Inspec on Engineering Village or Web Science: A case study in comparing database platforms

Purpose – As library budgets continue to constrict, librarians will need to become more familiar with comparing database host platforms. This paper aims to compare Inspec on Elsevier’s Engineering Village (EV) and Clarivate’s Web of Science (WOS) from a novice user experience. The main objectives are to identify some R1 institutions that subscribe to Inspec and highlight some of the key differences between the two platforms. Design/methodology/approach – Information on Inspec was gathered from various sources as well as the home website, IET, and the host platform websites of Elsevier and Clarivate Analytics. Data was also collected from brochures and guides to help illustrate some of the main features and differences that novice users would be familiar with. Findings – Most institutions subscribe to Inspec via the Engineering Village platform. Results from the study conclude that Engineering Village was selected over Web of Science for hosting Inspec due to a more user-friendly interface, potential lower cost, and faster platform updates, in response to meeting user needs. Originality/Value – Much of the literature focuses on the unfamiliar details and not so much on the novice user. This paper provides a unique perspective in how a novice user would prefer the attributes of one host platform from the other. Additionally, the same review criteria can be applied in other subjects and disciplines

The effects of individual differences on mobile phone users’ operational behaviour

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Mobile handset technology has improved greatly in recent decades. Improvements in hardware and software conduce the importance of the handset as a computer. Whilst the mobile phone industry and researchers emphasise understanding users from sociological aspects, such as services, usage habits, functionalities and so forth; this research aims to seek the variables that impact upon users’ interactions with the phone from the root-individual differences. For the purpose of placing mobile phone users at the core of the interface design process, the individual differences of gender, cognitive style and user experience were applied as the main variables in this research. Accordingly, to examine individuals’ differences and their operational behaviour with phone interfaces, the effects of cognitive style and user experience present stronger impact on the user performance than gender. The two factors were then investigated with regard to individuals’ operational behaviour with phone interfaces. This research then developed categories to link the theoretical attributes of cognitive style and phone users’ practical operational behaviour. Furthermore, the impact of cognitive style on the users’ operational behaviour was also connected to individuals’ problem solving ability. Meanwhile, the effect of user experience was investigated with a novel methodology-Taxonomy of Experience. The results revealed necessary elements that the users cared about the most, and these differed from the interface design guidelines of phone industry. This PhD thesis presents the application of the triangulation method to explore the variables that impact upon individuals’ interaction with mobile phone interfaces, specially concerned with mobile phone interface design from a psychological perspective, and provides a deeper understanding of users for future design events. More importantly, this research delivered the concept of understanding users before conducting design

Gestalt Theory in Visual Screen Design — A New Look at an old subject

Although often presented as a single basis for educational visual screen design, Gestalt theory is not a single small set of visual principles uniformly applied by all designers. In fact, it appears that instructional visual design literature often deals with only a small set of Gestalt laws. In this project Gestalt literature was consulted to distil the most relevant Gestalt laws for educational visual screen design. Eleven laws were identified. They deal with balance/symmetry, continuation, closure, figure-ground, focal point, isomorphic correspondence, prŠgnanz, proximity, similarity, simplicity, and unity/harmony. To test the usefulness of these laws in visual screen design they were applied to the redesign of an instructional multimedia application, 'WoundCare', designed to teach nursing students wound management. The basic text-based screens in the original WoundCare application were replaced with graphical user interface screens, that were designed according to these principles. The new screen designs were then evaluated by asking students and others to compare the designs. The viewers were also asked to rate directly the value of using the eleven Gestalt design principles in the redesign, both for improving the product's appearance and improving its value for learning. The evaluation results were overwhelmingly positive. Both the new design and the value of applying the eleven Gestalt laws to improve learning were strongly supported by the students' opinions. However, some differences in the value of applying particular Gestalt laws to the interface design were identified and this forms a useful direction for future research

A Culturally Aware Approach to Learning System Interface Design

This mixed methods research explored interface design strategies for users from different cultures and localized settings. Guided by the cultural-historical development theory and HCI research, four critical factors—navigation design, information organization, layout design, and visuals—were investigated in designing culturally relevant interfaces for Americans and Taiwanese. American and Taiwanese groups—both contained two sub-groups of 30 participants—were recruited for the quantitative phase. Each participant was exposed to only one interface with content composed in their native language. However, one sub-group in each ethnic group was exposed to a culturally relevant interface and another was exposed to an alien interface. MANOVA on overall performance in both American and Taiwanese groups were significant. Americans performed better using the American interface (Wilks’s Λ=.85, F= 5.15, p< .01). They had significantly shorter performance time in the American (M=775) than the Taiwanese (M=1003) interface (F=6.29, p<.05), but differences on performance accuracy were not significant (F=2.74, p=.103). Taiwanese performed better using the Taiwanese interface (Wilks’s Λ=.67, F=14.06, p< .01). They had shorter performance time in the Taiwanese (M=743) than the American (M=1353) interface (F=6.29, p<.05), and they also had higher performance accuracy on the Taiwanese (M=11.7) than the American (M=10.0) interface (F=7.94, p<.01). In addition, t-test on overall preference in both American and Taiwanese groups were significant. Americans preferred the American (M=58.5) over the Taiwanese (M=53.0) interface (t=2.11, p< .05). And Taiwanese preferred the Taiwanese (M=58.7) over the American (M=46.9) interface (t=3.48, p<.01). Qualitative interviews of six American and six Taiwanese participants revealed three themes: First, when searching, Taiwanese were explorative and relied on hierarchical relationships; while Americans relied on prior experiences and analytical categorizations. Second, both groups have higher affiliation with design features matching their preferences. Finally, matching design features with users’ expectations and needs promotes positive perceptions and enhances interface usability. Both quantitative and qualitative Results imply that user interface designers should consider cultural perspectives when designing interfaces for online learning systems. Further studies might consider the relative impacts of the navigation, information structure, layout, and visual design on a broad range of user differences might have on learning

The importance of immersive user interface

Video games are becoming a new and more advanced way of storytelling, where users can live more than ever an adventure where they make decisions, overcome challenges and above all become part of that world. However, this is a double-edged sword. The fact that the user has to interact and play this adventure, overcome different challenges and face a difficulty, means that the player must be able to understand the context. To allow the necessary interactions between the player and the game, a user interface is required. There are several different types of User Interface design. The most traditional way is the non-diegetic which has the unique purpose of conveying information to the player without being part of the world. Some other elements are part of the geometric game’s world and its narrative, which are considered diegetic. In this thesis we will analyze how User Interface affects players and the importance of immersion through User Interface. The aim of this research is to be as empirical as possible, so we will carry out different demonstrations and consult casual and frequent players. I also want to specify that we will exclude some genres where the aim is not immersion, referring to the more "arcade" games, and we will deal with adventure games, narrative games, simulators or even shooters. Demonstrating differences in the impact of players in terms of immersion is difficult to measure statistically. That is why we will need the participation and collaboration of different players, with their opinions, tests and trials that we will do. We hope to draw a conclusion on the importance of good User Interface design integrated into the context, to increase user immersion, and to demonstrate to what extent it alters the user experience and why the industry should invest more effort in improving this aspect

The Effect of Testing Location and Task Complexity on Usability Testing Performance and User-Reported Stress Levels

Usability testing is becoming a more important part of the software design process. New methods allow remote usability testing to occur. Remote testing can be less costly and allow more data to be collected in less time in many cases, provided the user can still provide meaningful data. However, little is known about differences in the user experience between the two testing methods. In an effort to find differences in user experience between remote and traditional website usability testing, this study randomly assigned participants into two groups, one completing a usability test in a traditional lab setting, while the other group utilizing a remote testing location. Both groups completed two tasks, one simple, one complex, using Amazon.com as a test interface. Task time and number of critical incidents reported were the dependent measures. Significant differences were found for task times both in the between and within-subjects conditions for task times. Task times differed significantly between task types; the complex task took generally twice as long as the simple task. No significant differences were found for critical incident reports for both the between and within-subjects conditions. Participants seemed hesitant to report interface problems, preferring to struggle through the task until they satisfied task requirements. Subjective user assessments of the task and website were similar across both conditions. User behavior navigating the site was remarkably similar in both test conditions. Results suggest a similar user testing experience for remote and traditional laboratory usability testing