E-learning in higher education: designing for diversity

"This research was conducted to compare methods of e-learning accessibility evaluation that may be applied in a higher education context. Results of ""objective"" accessibility evaluation of e-learning technologies using automated tools were compared to results of ""subjective"" accessibility evaluation with student participants. It was found that objective and subjective accessibility evaluation of e-learning technologies both yield useful, albeit different, information. To further explore subjective accessibility evaluation, results and student perceptions were compared following moderated and unmoderated testing sessions. Neither the efficiency of completing tasks in a sample online course nor the number of accessibility problems detected were deemed significantly affected by the format of the testing session. However, most students preferred to participate in an unmoderated testing session where they felt less self-conscious and as though they could interact more naturally with the technology. Findings from this study point to the importance of considering not only objective accessibility evaluation and accessibility guideline conformance as measures of the accessibility of e-learning technologies, but also the subjective experiences of students as they engage with the technologies. There is also value in taking a holistic approach towards evaluating e-learning accessibility by considering the accessibility of learning outcomes (factoring in the learning context to the evaluation) in addition to the accessibility of individual e-learning technologies. Because accessibility is a variable that is important to all students, and not just students with disabilities, it is critical that institutions of higher education work with a variety of stakeholders to determine not only how best to evaluate e-learning accessibility, but also how to ensure that the results of accessibility evaluation are widely disseminated in a manner that is likely to have a broad impact on enhancing e-learning accessibility for diverse student populations.

DHRS 2009 Proceedings of the Ninth Danish Human-Computer Interaction Research Symposium.

Since 2001 the annual Danish Human-Computer Interaction Research Symposium has been a platform for networking, and provided an opportunity to get an overview across the various parts of the Danish HCI research scene. This years symposium was held in Aarhus, Denmark on December 14, 200

Spotlight Report #6: Proffering Machine-Readable Personal Privacy Research Agreements: Pilot Project Findings for IEEE P7012 WG

What if people had the ability to assert their own legally binding permissions for data collection, use, sharing, and retention by the technologies they use? The IEEE P7012 has been working on an interoperability specification for machine-readable personal privacy terms to support this ability since 2018. The premise behind the work of IEEE P7012 is that people need technology that works on their behalf—i.e. software agents that assert the individual’s permissions and preferences in a machine-readable format. Thanks to a grant from the IEEE Technical Activities Board Committee on Standards (TAB CoS), we were able to explore the attitudes of people and one small business toward having the ability for people to send their own legally binding privacy terms to the business. The project entailed building a prototype “Relationship Manager” webservice called, “MyMe2BAgent”, and then performing validation testing with both types of users of the agent: individual users (“Me-s) and the business (“B”). The primary research questions for the validation research were: For Me-s:• Do people want the ability to send their own legally binding ISA to service providers?• Do people want a data management dashboard for managing the personal information that gets shared with all service providers? For the business (B):• What was it like to integrate the ability to receive a personal privacy agreement? Is it scalable? Is it something you would want to support going forward

Talking About Thinking Aloud: Perspectives from Interactive Think- Aloud Practitioners

It is widely reported in the literature that intervening during usability testing sessions affects user behavior and compromises the validity of the test. However, this contrasts with the ongoing popularity of Interactive Think-Aloud (ITA) amongst practitioners. We report an in-depth qualitative study that explored this tension between theory and practice through nine interviews with ITA practitioners. Our findings add nuance to many established ideas about ITA but also reveal novel practices and attitudes. For example, ITA is sometimes used to slow down users as they navigate through a system, to manage external pressures such as recruitment difficulties, and to reframe a session as a kind of interview or participatory study. We also found that participants (ITA practitioners) experienced unexpected difficulties with ITA, including the risk that it results in overly reflective think-aloud and creates challenges in team working. Participants understood that ITA causes reactivity, and they reported taking steps to reduce it. However, overall, they did not see the traditional positivist objective of valid problem discovery as a realistic or high-priority goal for usability testing. They believed that ITA data can be useful and valid even if user behavior is not wholly realistic. Based on this, we argue against the narrow problem-counting approach often employed in the comparative usability evaluation studies that have sometimes seemed to discredit ITA. We also make the case for broadening how we think about the validity of usability testing data, and we argue that forms of ITA may be appropriate in some situations

Exploring parenting self-efficacy among parents of children In residential treatment: evaluating a combined online psychoeducational intervention

When children return home from residential treatment for behavioral challenges, continuity of care is clinically advised and empirically supported. If parents lack the skills to support this transition, a child’s treatment gains may be at risk. Parenting difficulties can initiate oppositional and avoidant behaviors in children, and if sustained, damage the parent-child relationship, leading to poor child outcomes. Offering parent training during a child’s residential treatment may increase parent self-efficacy and use of the training in support of a child’s transition home. A Northeastern US Residential Treatment Program (RTP) annually provides short-term residential treatment for children (ages 6-18), and therapeutic supports to the parents of these children during their milieu care. RTP’s new online parenting program was evaluated across three separate but related studies, exploring in Phase 1) perceived barriers to online program usability, Phase 2) how video dosage was associated with changes in parenting self-efficacy and parenting stress, and Phase 3) through the lens of family routines, what were the longer-term effects of the online program. Results from Phase 1 suggested that parents with lower technology familiarity may need ongoing support to successfully complete online training; adding digital prompts helped parents to autonomously navigate the online program. Phase 2 results indicated that parenting self-efficacy increased minimally while children were away, and decreased when children returned home; an inverse effect was found for parenting stress. Phase 3 revealed limited application of the online parent training in post-residential family routines; parent training was shared internationally within parenting social networks, though virtually no videos were watched once children had transitioned home. Similar parenting programs using the Fogg Behavior Model may consider nudging parents during natural surges in parent motivation to prolong recently initiated therapeutic benefits during post-residential home aftercare

UX research: uma proposta baseada no desenvolvimento do portal da UA

As a process inherent to the HCI area, UX Research can be seen as a strategy that supports the development of digital products, namely when usability and accessibility guidelines are used to drive the approach adopted. Practices and strategies based on user experience can facilitate understanding the generation of inputs to drive the digital products development as well as support requirements. In this context, this research is focused on the observation of the UX Research process in the development of the new web portal of the University of Aveiro aiming to investigate how UX Research practice can support the methodological approach used, regarding requirements support, identification of typology interface problems, and collection of information towards the continuous improvement of the development of the University of Aveiro (UA) New Portal. For this purpose, a Mixed Methodology was used based on the Grounded Theory framework, by the inductive process of data observation, delimited to the observation of the new News area of the web portal. Data saturation allowed us to know which UX Research sources had more capacity to raise data from the end-users, support requirements, identify types of interface problems, and supply the development of product solutions. As a consequence of the data processing, this research presents a UXR flow proposal to support data collection and engage stakeholders with the end-user needs and interests.Como um processo inerente à área de Interação Humano-Computador (HCI), a Investigação em Experiência do Utilizador (UX Research) pode ser vista como uma estratégia de apoio ao desenvolvimento de produtos digitais quando princípios de usabilidade e acessibilidade são utilizados para impulsionar a abordagem adoptada. Práticas e estratégias baseadas na coleta de dados relativos à experiência do utilizador podem facilitar a geração de inputs para impulsionar desenvolvimento de produtos digitais bem como suportar a defesa de requisitos. Neste contexto, esta investigação está centrada na observação do processo de UX Research no desenvolvimento do novo portal web da Universidade de Aveiro com o objetivo de compreender como a prática da Investigação em UX pode apoiar a abordagem metodológica utilizada, no que diz respeito ao suporte de requisitos, identificação de tipologias de problemas da interface, e recolha de informação para a melhoria contínua do desenvolvimento do Novo Portal da Universidade de Aveiro (UA). Para este fim, foi utilizada uma Metodologia Mista, Qualiquantitativa fundamentada na estrutura de Grounded Theory, em que parte-se do processo indutivo da observação dos dados, delimitado à observação da nova Área de Notícias do portal web. O tratamento estatístico permitiu saber quais as fontes da UX Research com maior capacidade para levantar dados dos utilizadores finais, qual delas mais dá suporte aos requisitos, ajuda na identificação de tipos de problemas da interface, e apoia o desenvolvimento de soluções de produto. Como consequência do processamento de dados, esta investigação apresenta uma proposta de fluxo de Investigação em UX para apoiar a recolha de dados e motivar os envolvidos no processo para atender as necessidades e interesses dos utilizadores finais.Mestrado em Comunicação Multimédi

Smart workplaces: a system proposal for stress management

Over the past last decades of contemporary society, workplaces have become the primary source of many health issues, leading to mental problems such as stress, depression, and anxiety. Among the others, environmental aspects have shown to be the causes of stress, illness, and lack of productivity. With the arrival of new technologies, especially in the smart workplaces field, most studies have focused on investigating the building energy efficiency models and human thermal comfort. However, little has been applied to occupants’ stress recognition and well-being overall. Due to this fact, this present study aims to propose a stress management solution for an interactive design system that allows the adapting of comfortable environmental conditions according to the user preferences by measuring in real-time the environmental and biological characteristics, thereby helping to prevent stress, as well as to enable users to cope stress when being stressed. The secondary objective will focus on evaluating one part of the system: the mobile application. The proposed system uses several usability methods to identify users’ needs, behavior, and expectations from the user-centered design approach. Applied methods, such as User Research, Card Sorting, and Expert Review, allowed us to evaluate the design system according to Heuristics Analysis, resulting in improved usability of interfaces and experience. The study presents the research results, the design interface, and usability tests. According to the User Research results, temperature and noise are the most common environmental stressors among the users causing stress and uncomfortable conditions to work in, and the preference for physical activities over the digital solutions for coping with stress. Additionally, the System Usability Scale (SUS) results identified that the system’s usability was measured as “excellent” and “acceptable” with a final score of 88 points out of the 100. It is expected that these conclusions can contribute to future investigations in the smart workplaces study field and their interaction with the people placed there.Nas últimas décadas da sociedade contemporânea, o local de trabalho tem se tornado principal fonte de muitos problemas de saúde mental, como o stress, depressão e ansiedade. Os aspetos ambientais têm se revelado como as causas de stress, doenças, falta de produtividade, entre outros. Atualmente, com a chegada de novas tecnologias, principalmente na área de locais de trabalho inteligentes, a maioria dos estudos tem se concentrado na investigação de modelos de eficiência energética de edifícios e conforto térmico humano. No entanto, pouco foi aplicado ao reconhecimento do stress dos ocupantes e ao bem-estar geral das pessoas. Diante disso, o objetivo principal é propor um sistema de design de gestão do stress para um sistema de design interativo que permita adaptar as condições ambientais de acordo com as preferências de utilizador, medindo em tempo real as características ambientais e biológicas, auxiliando assim na prevenção de stress, bem como ajuda os utilizadores a lidar com o stress quando estão sob o mesmo. O segundo objetivo é desenhar e avaliar uma parte do projeto — o protótipo da aplicação móvel através da realização de testes de usabilidade. O sistema proposto resulta da abordagem de design centrado no utilizador, utilizando diversos métodos de usabilidade para identificar as necessidades, comportamentos e as expectativas dos utilizadores. Métodos aplicados, como Pesquisa de Usuário, Card Sorting e Revisão de Especialistas, permitiram avaliar o sistema de design de acordo com a análise heurística, resultando numa melhoria na usabilidade das interfaces e experiência. O estudo apresenta os resultados da pesquisa, a interface do design e os testes de usabilidade. De acordo com os resultados de User Research, a temperatura e o ruído são os stressores ambientais mais comuns entre os utilizadores, causando stresse e condições menos favoráveis para trabalhar, igualmente existe uma preferência por atividades físicas sobre as soluções digitais na gestão do stresse. Adicionalmente, os resultados de System Usability Scale (SUS) identificaram a usabilidade do sistema de design como “excelente” e “aceitável” com pontuação final de 88 pontos em 100. É esperado que essas conclusões possam contribuir para futuras investigações no campo de estudo dos smart workplaces e sua interação com os utilizadores

User Perceptions and Privacy Information in the Smart Speaker Onboarding Process

A smart speaker's onboarding process is extremely important because it is the user's first touchpoint with the device. An effective onboarding process will communicate the necessary information a user needs in order to understand the smart speaker's functionalities as well as how to interact with it. Despite this, the onboarding process has not been a properly considered channel for conveying privacy information to users. This is surprising given that recommendations for communicating privacy information and related privacy controls often include making this information salient to the user and providing instructional use for controls. In this thesis, I explore the onboarding process for smart speakers as a potentially effective medium for which to convey privacy information. I conducted an empirical assessment of smart speakers current privacy practices and their onboarding flows in order to determine where privacy information and the communication of this information may be improved. I used my findings from this analysis to develop a smart speaker prototype to test the effectiveness of the speaker's onboarding process in helping users understand the speaker's functionalities. I also designed privacy-oriented voice commands to test within the onboarding process to evaluate if this type of privacy control influences user comprehension of privacy information. The results of this thesis show that the smart speaker's onboarding process can be improved to help users understand the device's privacy practices. Furthermore, they demonstrate that privacy-oriented voice commands show potential for future research despite being ineffective in this study.Master of Science in InformationSchool of Informationhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/168550/1/20210506_Herakovic,Gina_Final_MTOP_Thesis.pd