Investigating User Needs for Bio-sensing and Affective Wearables

Bio-sensing wearables are currently advancing to provide users with a lot of information about their physiological and affective states. However, relatively little is known about users' interest in acquiring, sharing and receiving this information and through which channels and modalities. To close this gap, we report on the results of an online survey (N=109) exploring principle aspects of the design space of wearables such as data types, contexts, feedback modalities and sharing behaviors. Results show that users are interested in obtaining physiological, emotional and cognitive data through modalities beyond traditional touchscreen output. Valence of the information, whether positive or negative affects the sharing behaviors

User characteristics: Professional vs. lay users

(User characteristics: professional use vs lay use by Cifter A and Dong H) The market success of a product largely depends on whether it correctly addresses the user needs. Understanding the user is increasingly becoming important in the design process. Different user models may determine different approaches to design. This paper identifies the characteristics of different types of users, with a specific focus on professional users and lay users. It gives a definition of professional users and lay users in the context of adapting products originally designed for professional use to the use of lay people (for example, home use medical devices). It summarises, and compares, the characteristics of professional users and lay users, suggesting that designers pay attention to user characteristics and the context of use so as to better address user perceptions and meet user needs

Using mobile RE tools to give end-users their own voice

Researchers highlight end-user involvement in system design as an important concept for developing useful and usable solutions. However, end-user involvement in software engineering is still an open-ended topic. Novel paradigms such as service-oriented computing strengthen the need for more active end-user involvement in order to provide systems that are tailored to individual end-user needs. Our work is based on the fact that the majority of end-users are familiar with mobile devices and use an increasing number of mobile applications. A mobile tool enabling end-user led requirements elicitation could be just one of many applications installed on end-users' mobile devices. In this paper, we present a framework of end-user involvement in requirements elicitation which motivates our research. The main contribution of our research is a tool-supported requirements elicitation approach allowing end-users to document needs in situ. Furthermore, we present first evaluation results to highlight the feasibility of on-site end-user led requirements elicitation

Freight logistics services for rural economies : User needs and future challenges

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Mapping the User Journey: Building a User Persona and Story Repository to Improve NASA EOSDIS Application Development

Understanding the needs of the end user is vital to producing quality, usable software that solves real problems. Additionally, making sure those needs are communicated to managers, engineers, and designers at the project level is vital. On complex projects, it's important to build out resources for your team that make it easy to put yourself in the shoes of the specific user you're building for. NASA's Earth Observing System is a collection of data, applications, and a diverse user and scientific community that's trying to answer tough questions about our planet and its climate. Over the last few years, we've spoken to hundreds of users, performed many user testing sessions, and built a collection of user personas, user stories, and design assets that help guide new software and feature development within NASA EOSDIS. We've also developed methods for synthesizing this information and making it actionable for teams, and worked to foster a design first approach on new projects always starting from a core user need and working backward from interface development to software engineering. This process has allowed us to design better, more usable software and features that directly meet the needs of our user community

User Needs and Library Services in Agricultural Sciences

published or submitted for publicatio

Integration of driver support functions: the driver's point of view

Integration of driver support functions is a key issue in the development of in-vehicle systems that assist the driver with the driving task. This paper discusses a user needs survey that provides more insight into this issue from the perspective of the driver. Car drivers are asked to indicate their needs for driver assistance during certain driving tasks (e.g. congestion driving) and circumstances (e.g. reduced visibility). From this, consequences for the integration of functions can be deduced with respect to technology, HMI and functional operation. Preliminary results of a pilot test of the user needs survey are highlighted in this paper. These results indicate starting points for integrated driver assistance, such as the adaptability of systems based on personal needs for support, and the functional integration of driver support functions, for instance with respect to inter-vehicle communication

#Socialtagging: Defining its Role in the Academic Library

The information environment is rapidly changing, affecting the ways in which information is organized and accessed. User needs and expectations have also changed due to the overwhelming influence of Web 2.0 tools. Conventional information systems no longer support evolving user needs. Based on current research, we explore a method that integrates the structure of controlled languages with the flexibility and adaptability of social tagging. This article discusses the current research and usage of social tagging and Web 2.0 applications within the academic library. Types of tags, the semiotics of tagging and its influence on indexing are covered