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

Managing obesity through mobile phone applications: a state-of-the-art review from a user-centred design perspective

Evidence has shown that the trend of increasing obesity rates has continued in the last decade. Mobile phone applications, benefiting from their ubiquity, have been increasingly used to address this issue. In order to increase the applications’ acceptance and success, a design and development process that focuses on users, such as User-Centred Design, is necessary. This paper reviews reported studies that concern the design and development of mobile phone applications to prevent obesity, and analyses them from a User-Centred Design perspective. Based on the review results, strengths and weaknesses of the existing studies were identified. Identified strengths included: evidence of the inclusion of multidisciplinary skills and perspectives; user involvement in studies; and the adoption of iterative design practices. Weaknesses included the lack of specificity in the selection of end-users and inconsistent evaluation protocols. The review was concluded by outlining issues and research areas that need to be addressed in the future, including: greater understanding of the effectiveness of sharing data between peers; privacy; and guidelines for designing for behavioural change through mobile phone applications

Disease surveillance and patient care in remote regions: an exploratory study of collaboration among healthcare professionals in Amazonia

The development and deployment of information technology, particularly mobile tools, to support collaboration between different groups of healthcare professionals has been viewed as a promising way to improve disease surveillance and patient care in remote regions. The effects of global climate change combined with rapid changes to land cover and use in Amazonia are believed to be contributing to the spread of vector-borne emerging and neglected diseases. This makes empowering and providing support for local healthcare providers all the more important. We investigate the use of information technology in this context to support professionals whose activities range from diagnosing diseases and monitoring their spread to developing policies to deal with outbreaks. An analysis of stakeholders, their roles and requirements, is presented which encompasses results of fieldwork and of a process of design and prototyping complemented by questionnaires and targeted interviews. Findings are analysed with respect to the tasks of diagnosis, training of local healthcare professionals, and gathering, sharing and visualisation of data for purposes of epidemiological research and disease surveillance. Methodological issues regarding the elicitation of cooperation and collaboration requirements are discussed and implications are drawn with respect to the use of technology in tackling emerging and neglected diseases

SNAP, Crackle, WebWindows!

We elaborate the SNAP---Scalable (ATM) Network and (PC) Platforms---view of computing in the year 2000. The World Wide Web will continue its rapid evolution, and in the future, applications will not be written for Windows NT/95 or UNIX, but rather for WebWindows with interfaces defined by the standards of Web servers and clients. This universal environment will support WebTop productivity tools, such as WebWord, WebLotus123, and WebNotes built in modular dynamic fashion, and undermining the business model for large software companies. We define a layered WebWindows software architecture in which applications are built on top of multi-use services. We discuss examples including business enterprise systems (IntraNets), health care, financial services and education. HPCC is implicit throughout this discussion for there is no larger parallel system than the World Wide metacomputer. We suggest building the MPP programming environment in terms of pervasive sustainable WebWindows technologies. In particular, WebFlow will support naturally dataflow integrating data and compute intensive applications on distributed heterogeneous systems

Internet Predictions

More than a dozen leading experts give their opinions on where the Internet is headed and where it will be in the next decade in terms of technology, policy, and applications. They cover topics ranging from the Internet of Things to climate change to the digital storage of the future. A summary of the articles is available in the Web extras section

Smart Objects in a Virtual World

The coming Internet of Things will usher in a smart semantic world where many more physical objects will be networked so that they can communicate with each other and with humans. This paper identifies protocols that smart objects will need to follow and the ways in which today’s virtual worlds can be used to better design and understand these protocols for tomorrow’s smart world

Pervasive and Connected Digital Twins for Edge Computing Enabled Industrial Applications

A digital twin (DT) is a digital representation of a physical asset that serves as its counterpart — or twin. DTs differ from static, three-dimensional models in that they are continuously updated with data from numerous sources. In one continually changing world of pervasive computing, where computational and human intelligence are expanding everywhere, DTs can be regarded as the backbone for addressing the synergy of software, devices, movable objects, networks, and people. In this paper, we present a novel perspective for designing, prototyping and testing pervasive and connected DTs for edge computing enabled industrial applications. The provided paradigm allows for the creation of computational models for cloud computing as well as the transmission of data and computational intelligence through analytic platforms. A case study is presented to demonstrate the possibilities of the suggested framework. According to the outlined findings, the proposed architecture contributes to effective maintenance and management of infrastructures and facilities

Smart Objects in a Virtual World

The coming Internet of Things will usher in a smart semantic world where many more physical objects will be networked so that they can communicate with each other and with humans. This paper identifies protocols that smart objects will need to follow and the ways in which today’s virtual worlds can be used to better design and understand these protocols for tomorrow’s smart world