Design Research on Robotic Products for School Environments

Advancements in robotic research have led to the design of a number of robotic products that can interact with people. In this research, a school environment was selected for a practical test of robotic products. For this, the robot “Tiro” was built, with the aim of supporting the learning activities of children. The possibility of applying robotic products was then tested through example lessons using Tiro. To do this, the robot design process and user-centred HRI evaluation framework were studied, and observations of robotic products were made via a field study on the basis of these understandings. Three different field studies were conducted, and interactions between children and robotic products were investigated. As a result, it was possible to understand how emotional interaction and verbal interaction affect the development of social relationships. Early results regarding this and coding schemes for video protocol analysis were gained. In this preliminary study, the findings are summarized and several design implications from insight grouping are suggested. These will help robot designers grasp how various factors of robotic products may be adopted in the everyday lives of people. Keywords: Robotic Products Design, HRI Evaluation, User-Centered HRI.</p

Tabletop Tangible Interfaces for Music Performance: Design and Evaluation

This thesis investigates a new generation of collaborative systems: tabletop tangible interfaces (TTIs) for music performance or musical tabletops. Musical tabletops are designed for professional musical performance, as well as for casual interaction in public settings. These systems support co-located collaboration, offered by a shared interface. However, we still know little about their challenges and opportunities for collaborative musical practice: in particular, how to best support beginners or experts or both. This thesis explores the nature of collaboration on TTIs for music performance between beginners, experts, or both. Empirical work was done in two stages: 1) an exploratory stage; and 2) an experimental stage. In the exploratory stage we studied the Reactable, a commercial musical tabletop designed for beginners and experts. In particular, we explored its use in two environments: a multi-session study with expert musicians in a casual lab setting; and a field study with casual visitors in a science centre. In the experimental stage we conducted a controlled experiment for mixed groups using a bespoke musical tabletop interface, SoundXY4. The design of this study was informed by the previous stage about a need to support better real-time awareness of the group activity (workspace awareness) in early interactions. For the three studies, groups musical improvisation was video-captured unobtrusively with the aim of understanding natural uses during group musical practice. Rich video data was carefully analysed focusing on the nature of social interaction and how workspace awareness was manifested. The findings suggest that musical tabletops can support peer learning during multiple sessions; fluid between-group social interaction in public settings; and a democratic and ecological approach to music performance. The findings also point to how workspace awareness can be enhanced in early interactions with TTIs using auditory feedback with ambisonics spatialisation. The thesis concludes with theoretical, methodological, and practical implications for future research in New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME), tabletop studies, and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

Benefits & drawbacks of different means of interaction for placing objects above a video footage

Public Display Systems (PDS) increasingly have a greater presence in our cities. These systems provide information and advertising specifically tailored to audiences in spaces such as airports, train stations, and shopping centers. A large number of public displays are also being deployed for entertainment reasons. Sometimes designing and prototyping PDS come to be a laborious, complex and a costly task. This dissertation focuses on the design and evaluation of PDS at early development phases with the aim of facilitating low-effort, rapid design and the evaluation of interactive PDS. This study focuses on the IPED Toolkit. This tool proposes the design, prototype, and evaluation of public display systems, replicating real-world scenes in the lab. This research aims at identifying benefits and drawbacks on the use of different means to place overlays/virtual displays above a panoramic video footage, recorded at real-world locations. The means of interaction studied in this work are on the one hand the keyboard and mouse, and on the other hand the tablet with two different techniques of use. To carry out this study, an android application has been developed whose function is to allow users to interact with the IPED Toolkit using the tablet. Additionally, the toolkit has been modified and adapted to tablets by using different web technologies. Finally the users study makes a comparison about the different means of interaction

User producer interaction in context: a classification

Science, Technology and Innovation Studies show that intensified user producer interaction (UPI) increases chances for successful innovations, especially in the case of emerging technology. It is not always clear, however, what type of interaction is necessary in a particular context. This paper proposes a conceptualization of contexts in terms of three dimensions – the phase of technology development, the flexibility of the technology, and the heterogeneity of user populations – resulting in a classification scheme with eight different contextual situations. The paper identifies and classifies types of interaction, like demand articulation, interactive learning, learning by using and domestication. It appears that each contextual situation demands a different set of UPI types. To illustrate the potential value of the classification scheme, four examples of innovations with varying technological and user characteristics are explored: the refrigerator, clinical anaesthesia, video cassette recording, and the bicycle. For each example the relevant UPI types are discussed and it is shown how these types highlight certain activities and interactions during key events of innovation processes. Finally, some directions for further research are suggested alongside a number of comments on the utility of the classification

Applying a User-centred Approach to Interactive Visualization Design

Analysing users in their context of work and finding out how and why they use different information resources is essential to provide interactive visualisation systems that match their goals and needs. Designers should actively involve the intended users throughout the whole process. This chapter presents a user-centered approach for the design of interactive visualisation systems. We describe three phases of the iterative visualisation design process: the early envisioning phase, the global specification hase, and the detailed specification phase. The whole design cycle is repeated until some criterion of success is reached. We discuss different techniques for the analysis of users, their tasks and domain. Subsequently, the design of prototypes and evaluation methods in visualisation practice are presented. Finally, we discuss the practical challenges in design and evaluation of collaborative visualisation environments. Our own case studies and those of others are used throughout the whole chapter to illustrate various approaches

Collaborative design support : workshops to stimulate interaction and knowledge exchange between practitioners

The focus of this research project is on the effectiveness of Collaborative Design activities of practitioners. More specifically, the research project focuses to interaction and knowledge exchange between two specific practitioners, Architects and Contractors, with a different educational background working together to create Integral Designs for roofs. Integral Designs are designs that can fulfill the requirements from the built environment and comprise realization-knowledge. The contribution of realization-knowledge in the design is necessary because it will prevent failures, realization costs and affects durability of the building and the built environment. The choice for roofs is based on the fact that roofs became an important location for the placement of ‘innovative’ renewable energy systems and solutions to improve the performance and sustainability of buildings. However, despite the growing importance of the roof to the building design, there is a lack of practical knowledge about roofs by Architects, and Collaborative Design scenes were practitioners, Architects and Contractors, work together and interact to exchange the necessary knowledge. So, a knowledge gap between design and construct exists that prevent the creation of Integral Designs for roofs. The Problem Definition for this research project is therefore formulated as follows: there is a lack in practice of Collaborative Design scenes were practitioners – Architects and Contractors – can interact and exchange object- and realization-knowledge working on design tasks to produce Integral Designs that comprise realization knowledge. The need for this research project is twofold: First; widely published studies on practice point to a general lack of Collaborative Design teams working on complex building projects. Second, when multidisciplinary Collaborative Design teams have worked on complex building projects, the final design concepts often proved inadequate to deliver an integral designed solution. The result of this unsatisfactory practice is the risk to an increasing amount of failure costs in the Dutch Building &amp;Construction Industry. Recent studies of Collaborative Design teams in the Netherlands show that poor interaction and knowledge exchange are key factors contributing to the failures mentioned above. This is especially true for Collaborative Designs for roofs as shown by literature-studies and the Case Studies presented in this research project. Previous research and literature studies about Design Teams confirmed that workshops are suitable practical scenes for practitioners to be used for observation and analyses in executing semi-experimental research. The contention of this research project is that a specific scene for Collaborative Design - the Collaborative Design Workshop – leads; first: to interaction and knowledge exchange between the practitioners involved and second: stimulates interaction and knowledge exchange for Integral Designs for roofs by incorporating realization knowledge. The Design Research Methodology (DRM) is used for this research project to observe, analyze and find possibilities to stimulate interaction and knowledge exchange between Architects and Contractors in a Collaborative Design scene. The DRM is suitable for this research project because of its iterative nature that allows the researchers to improve their research method during the research process and producing a Technological Design as a result. A workshop with a specific setting: a Collaborative Design Workshop was developed and tested in a Practice Setting. Key-components were identified that affect the design activities in such a workshop: the Design Task, the Collaborative Design Team, the Practice Setting and the Design Support Tool. As Design Support Tool, the Morphological Overview (MO) is used because it provides an opportunity to design teams to collect, notate and discuss all aspects of the design task, like function-types and related sub-solutions with different levels of abstraction, in a methodical and structured way. During the DRM research process, which is executed in four stages, analyzing formats were developed for the data of observation of the design activities and the interaction and knowledge exchange between the two practitioners: Architects and Contractors. The output of the Collaborative Design Workshops was evaluated with the participants using specific evaluation forms and questionnaires developed by the researchers. This evaluation took place directly after the workshop and six months later to observe the affect of the workshop and the use of the MO on Architects and Contractors in practice. Based on the outcomes of analyzes and evaluations the, so called: Definitive Collaborative Design Workshop was defined and finally tested in the last stage of the DRM. In this final stage also the four analyzing and evaluation formats were tested: the Video Observation Format, the Video Interaction Format, the Morphological Analyzing Format and Evaluation Formats. The results of this research project show that a variety of media was used by both Architects and Contractors throughout the different design-task settings in the Definitive Collaborative Design Workshops. To determine the type of knowledge that is necessary a reference-list was compiled based on the competence-profiles of the practitioners. The outcomes show a wide variety of object and realization-knowledge that is notated by the practitioners in such a Collaborative Design scene, notated as so called function-types and sub-solutions related to the reference-list. The outcomes show that realization-knowledge was used by notations in the MO of both practitioners: Architect and Contractor in three out of seventeen Collaborative Teams. This indicates that the MO, when being loosely introduced in a design team, is suitable as a supportive tool to stimulate interaction and knowledge exchange however its effect decreases after using the MO for the second time. Regarding collaboration aspects, the outcomes show that in some Design Task Settings the Architects play amore dominant role compared to the Contractors. However, the analyses of the Contractors role in design tasks showed they could communicate a substantial amount of function-types and subsolutions in all settings. Significant about this is that although the Architect’s notations showed a majority, the Contractors could put forward additional notations. These outcomes indicate and provide some evidence that the developed Collaborative Design Workshop can provide for Architects and Contractors, an effective scene to interact and exchange realization-knowledge besides object knowledge. The final result of this research project is the Technological Design as presented: the Collaborative Design Workshop and the CD Protocol for its use. This CD Protocol consists of two parts: The first part concerns the organizing and management aspects for executing the Collaborative Design Workshop. The second part concerns the description for the observation and analyzes to execute and the judgment of the outcomes of the analyzes using the formats that are developed. These formats are: the VOF (Video Observation Format), the VIF (Video Interaction Format), the MAF (Morphological Analyzing Format) and Evaluation Formats. Finally it might be concluded that the outcomes of this research project, using the DRM and a design support, provide evidence that, by the application of the Technological Design guided by the CD Protocol, it is possible to stimulate interaction and knowledge exchange – especially realization knowledge– between Architects and Contractors to realize Integral Designs in the early design phase

Teaching complex social skills to children with autism; advances of video modeling

Although there has been a corresponding explosion of literature regarding the treatment of the social deficits in autism, the establishment of more complex social behaviors still remains a challenge. Video modeling appears as one approach to have the potential to successfully address this challenge. Following an introduction to modeling that constitutes the basis of this procedure, the current paper explores those video modeling studies that have targeted the promotion of complex social skills. It is suggested that this approach could be an effective addition to peer-mediated treatment procedures, especially for children with autism who cannot always be in environments where peers are present. Further, the likely success of video modeling seems to be dependent upon the prior elimination of behaviors that interfere with the development of imitation skills

Supporting ethnographic studies of ubiquitous computing in the wild

Ethnography has become a staple feature of IT research over the last twenty years, shaping our understanding of the social character of computing systems and informing their design in a wide variety of settings. The emergence of ubiquitous computing raises new challenges for ethnography however, distributing interaction across a burgeoning array of small, mobile devices and online environments which exploit invisible sensing systems. Understanding interaction requires ethnographers to reconcile interactions that are, for example, distributed across devices on the street with online interactions in order to assemble coherent understandings of the social character and purchase of ubiquitous computing systems. We draw upon four recent studies to show how ethnographers are replaying system recordings of interaction alongside existing resources such as video recordings to do this and identify key challenges that need to be met to support ethnographic study of ubiquitous computing in the wild