Hyperbolic tree visualization on mobile devices

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Informática e Computação. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 200

Communication In A Digital Age

The inundation of technology over the past twenty-five years in the form of desktop computing, cell phones and the Internet has transformed how we communicate with one another. Traditional communication such as face-to-face meetings, although critical to our everyday dialogue, has fallen flat within organizations. At this point, we lean towards advanced methods of communication provided in a digitally mediated format. Digitally mediated communication (DMC) provides us with a multitude of ways to communicate and has freed us from the boundaries of time and place. This study researches the transformation of communication with its progression into the digital age by examining the differences, implications and impact of traditional communication versus digitally mediated communication. By understanding these various aspects of communication, today\u27s leaders benefit by striking a balance between the two methods, which will lead to increased overall communication effectiveness

Technology Criticism in the Classroom (Chapter in The Nature of Technology)

I first heard about a tragedy in Tucson, not from major television news networks, but from a direct message sent by a politically-active friend who was attending the political gathering where a mass shooting took place, including the shooting of an Arizona congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords. While the television news sputtered around trying to offer details (initially wrongly claiming that she was dead, likely from pressure to be the first to report big news), I found myself reading Google News, piecing together Facebook posts, e-mailing friends and reading Twitter updates

An App a Day Keeps the Doctor Away: A Visual Case Analysis of the Self-Optimization Ideologies Downloaded onto Apple Users as They Download Applications

This visually thematic qualitative case analysis seeks to advance cyber-sociology by analyzing the hyper-under-attended relationship between interfaces and discourses. Here, the interface under investigation is the Apple App Store, examined for the ways in which the platform is discursively encoded with particular ideologies, ideals, desires and narratives downloaded onto users as they download applications. Such is explored via a two-part research question inquiring: Which type of applications enjoy the most promotion on the Apple App Store and what cyber-architectural tools are herein used to optically exalt them? To investigate this, an iOS 11-operating iPhone was used to frequent the store’s “Today” section over a period of twelve weeks — a segment of the platform manually curated by Apple employees. Data was analyzed on Microsoft Excel, coded by an overarching theme of self-optimization, as well as the subsidiary themes of self-reliance, self-improvement, corporeal regulation, social capital, and non-self-optimization miscellaneous. Findings reveal that promotion on the App Store is not neutrally distributed, as applications oscillating around the behaviour of self-optimization takes promotive spotlight over play-centric and/or miscellaneous mobile programs. Stanfill’s (2015) “interface-as-discourse” framework theoretically informs this paper, with her work later situated in intertextual conversation with Han’s (2010) “achievement societies” and “auto-exploitation”. A discussion section introduces the neologisms “iDeologies” and “technographing” to conceptualize results. This paper concludes with an emphasis on the significance of the interface-discourse nexus to sociology, as these virtual platforms – shot through with top-down ideologies picked bottom-up– complicate the canon’s structure-versus-agency debate in its failure to be slotted into the binary

ENHANCING USERS’ EXPERIENCE WITH SMART MOBILE TECHNOLOGY

The aim of this thesis is to investigate mobile guides for use with smartphones. Mobile guides have been successfully used to provide information, personalisation and navigation for the user. The researcher also wanted to ascertain how and in what ways mobile guides can enhance users' experience. This research involved designing and developing web based applications to run on smartphones. Four studies were conducted, two of which involved testing of the particular application. The applications tested were a museum mobile guide application and a university mobile guide mapping application. Initial testing examined the prototype work for the ‘Chronology of His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah’ application. The results were used to assess the potential of using similar mobile guides in Brunei Darussalam’s museums. The second study involved testing of the ‘Kent LiveMap’ application for use at the University of Kent. Students at the university tested this mapping application, which uses crowdsourcing of information to provide live data. The results were promising and indicate that users' experience was enhanced when using the application. Overall results from testing and using the two applications that were developed as part of this thesis show that mobile guides have the potential to be implemented in Brunei Darussalam’s museums and on campus at the University of Kent. However, modifications to both applications are required to fulfil their potential and take them beyond the prototype stage in order to be fully functioning and commercially viable

The Graphical Access Challenge for People with Visual Impairments: Positions and Pathways Forward

Graphical access is one of the most pressing challenges for individuals who are blind or visually impaired. This chapter discusses some of the factors underlying the graphics access challenge, reviews prior approaches to addressing this long-standing information access barrier, and describes some promising new solutions. We specifically focus on touchscreen-based smart devices, a relatively new class of information access technologies, which our group believes represent an exemplary model of user-centered, needs-based design. We highlight both the challenges and the vast potential of these technologies for alleviating the graphics accessibility gap and share the latest results in this line of research. We close with recommendations on ideological shifts in mindset about how we approach solving this vexing access problem, which will complement both technological and perceptual advancements that are rapidly being uncovered through a growing research community in this domain

Augmented Reality on Mobile Devices to Improve the Academic Achievement and Independence of Students with Disabilities

Augmented reality (AR) is a technology that overlays digital information on a live view of the physical world to create a blended experience. AR can provide unique experiences and opportunities to learn and interact with information in the physical world (Craig, 2013). The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate uses of AR on mobile devices to improve the academic and functional skills of students with disabilities. The first chapter is a literature review providing a clear understanding of AR and its connections with existing learning theories and evidence-based practices that are relevant for meeting the needs of individuals with disabilities. This chapter explores the available research on mobile devices, AR educational applications, and AR research involving students with disabilities. The purpose of Study 1 was to examine the effects of an augmented reality vocabulary instruction for science terms on college-aged students with ID. A multiple probe across skills design was used to determine if there was a functional relation between the AR vocabulary instruction and the acquisition of correctly defined and labeled science terms. The results indicated that all participants learned new science vocabulary terms using the augmented reality vocabulary instruction. Study 2 examined the effects of using an AR navigation, Google Maps, and a paper map as navigation aids for four college-aged students with ID enrolled in a PSE program. Using an adapted alternating treatments design, students used the three navigation aids to travel independently to unknown businesses in a large downtown city to seek employment opportunities. During the intervention phase, students used a mobile device with Google maps and the AR application to navigate to unfamiliar businesses. Results from Study 2 indicated all students improved navigation decision making when using AR. In the final chapter, both studies are discussed in relation to the AR research literature and as potential interventions. Findings from the studies include the capabilities of ARon mobile devices, academic and functional applications of this technology for students with disabilities, implications for mobile learning, and limitations of this technology. Recommendations for future research are presented to further examine using AR for students with disabilities

Materialising contexts: virtual soundscapes for real-world exploration

© 2020, The Author(s). This article presents the results of a study based on a group of participants’ interactions with an experimental sound installation at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, UK. The installation used audio augmented reality to attach virtual sound sources to a vintage radio receiver from the museum’s collection, with a view to understanding the potentials of this technology for promoting exploration and engagement within museums and galleries. We employ a practice-based design ethnography, including a thematic analysis of our participants’ interactions with spatialised interactive audio, and present an identified sequence of interactional phases. We discuss how audio augmented artefacts can communicate and engage visitors beyond their traditional confines of line-of-sight, and how visitors can be drawn to engage further, beyond the realm of their original encounter. Finally, we provide evidence of how contextualised and embodied interactions, along with authentic audio reproduction, evoked personal memories associated with our museum artefact, and how this can promote interest in the acquisition of declarative knowledge. Additionally, through the adoption of a functional and theoretical aura-based model, we present ways in which this could be achieved, and, overall, we demonstrate a material object’s potential role as an interface for engaging users with, and contextualising, immaterial digital audio archival content