Design and evaluation of an end-user friendly tool for robot programming

End-user programming for robots is becoming an increasingly important topic since robots are being introduced into a wide variety of domains. We propose a design of a web based programming interface that makes it possible for end-users with different backgrounds to program robots using natural language. We used the cognitive dimensions framework to compare the usability of the newly created and the currently employed programming interfaces. The results showed that domain specialists are able to make robot programs more quickly and pleasantly with the proposed interface than with an existing one. Another important finding is that without physical simulation of the robot behaviours, the end-users do not feel confident enough to develop their scenarios in a realistic setting

Evaluating The Role Of Empathy In Crowdsourcing User Interfaces

Empathy induced altruism is believed to motivate people in a crowdsourcing environment to produce better quality work. However, there hasn’t been any considerable investigation regarding how empathy can be effectively\u3cbr/\u3econveyed through user interfaces (UI). We conducted a study to find the effects of introducing empathy in task descriptions, and investigate its effect in workers’\u3cbr/\u3emotivation. We validated that empathy is perceived to have a positive effect for workers. But merely manipulating the task description to express the empathy has produced inconclusive results

Context based service discovery in unmanaged networks using MDNS/DNS-SD

We propose an extension of the mDNS/DNS-SD service discovery protocol, which enables service clients to discover and select services based on their context. The extension improves scalability in large networks, which is of particular importance in future Internet of Things deployments