Narration Board as a Design Tool for Visualising Design Concepts for Interface Designers

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Interface Design Practice and Education Towards Mobile Apps Development

AbstractMobile apps development has been gaining popularity in Malaysia over the past 3 years. An app usually refers to a software application or programme. Although the development of software applications have been around for decades, app development on mobile devices reached the shores of Malaysia, mainly due to the popularity of Apple's App Store. Software development and complex object-oriented programming have been the exclusive harbour of technology hobbyists, IT professionals and business executives for many years. The flourishing presence of Web applications and the over-whelming influence of social media has augmented our need for greater connectivity, sharing and online presence. These have allowed smartphones and gadgets to become mainstream. This paper looks at how a design institution in Malaysia provides the growth of mobile apps development, and in supporting the national agenda to drive the Malaysian web and mobile application development industry to global standards. The paper highlights the practice and education of user-centered interface design towards mobile apps development in the country

Design and usability evaluation of icons on public payphones in Malaysia

The first public payphone appeared in Malaysia in 1946, and the literature reports that all public payphones installed in the country since then have been imported from abroad, such as from the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy and Japan. Although certain areas of the payphone employ standard parts, such as the keypad area, there are many icons and symbols that are not easily recognisable for the intended context of use. More so when there are over 60,000 payphones installed nationwide from various foreign countries. This research investigates the usability of these public payphones intended for use in Malaysia primarily through its icon and symbol designs. In order to develop appropriate icon and symbol designs for the public payphones, two research issues need to be determined. Firstly, the level of recognition and semantics of existing icons and symbols designs of public payphones and their parameters of influence towards local users, and, secondly, the levels of performance that can be achieved when icons and symbols on public payphones are re-designed to meet its intended usage. This research attempts to address these two issues in two ways. Firstly, the literature on public payphones is reviewed to determine the iconic values, referent and its semantics. Secondly, a series of qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted to evaluate, identify and design appropriate task and function recognition of icons and symbols of public payphones that are suitable for local users. This thesis outlines the first formal inquiry into the usability of public payphone icon and symbol designs that are suitable for use in a multi-racial, developing country. The findings from this research can be used as a baseline and reference by the country’s telecommunication service providers and vendors to align their services towards local needs and usage. In addition, this research work forms as a guide for the proper design, specification, purchase and implementation of more sophisticated public telecommunication equipment for use in the future in this country

Quantifying the narration board for visualising final design concepts by interface designers

The narration board is a powerful design tool to help translate user observation studies into a storytelling format. It helps to communicate design values and ideas among the design team via visualising user scenarios in its proper context during the early design stages. This paper aims to discuss the narration board as a design tool to help the design team conceptualise and visualise user scenarios interacting with future design concepts within its context of use. Second part of the paper discusses how narration boards assist in generating ideations and visualising final design concepts by interface designers. Twenty (20) design projects (N=20) were examined to study and quantify two important factors, i.e. the components of the narration board in relation with the attributes of the final design concepts. A non-parametric correlation test was used to study the correlation coefficient between scores of the two factors. The results show that there is a statistically significant positive correlation between components of the narration board and attributes of the final design concept. Those with higher scores of components in narration board tend to produce better final design concepts, and vice versa

Icon design on public payphones: A Malaysian perspective

This paper outlines an initial attempt to identify suitable icon designs for public payphones in Malaysia in view of its intended task and perceived function. To date, all local public payphone units, its components and accessories are imported from abroad that is, mainly from Italy, Spain and Japan. Nevertheless, local service personnel belonging to privately owned payphone vendors maintain and service these public payphones. At present, two publicly listed telecommunication companies are responsible for providing and servicing Malaysia’s public payphones. Hence, it is only reasonable to note that public payphones, being a public service utility, should address and contain identifiable interface and icon designs suitable for its intended customers, users and service personnel. Firstly, the paper draws out the typical manner in which public payphones are used in the local context. In view of this, the paper subsequently identifies existing icon designs representing each of the payphone functions. A questionnaire and interview survey was then carried out to identify user preferences and perception towards existing icon designs suitable to complete the intended task during the use of a payphone. The sample group identified in the survey comprised of local users of various ages, ethnicity and racial groups as a fair representation of the overall population. The survey also requested the sample group to identify suitable, alternative icon designs, and to state the merits and demerits of these alternative icons over existing payphone icon designs. The survey and its findings are discussed in this report, and suggestions are made to implicate on the customer needs for future public payphones procured in the country

A review of affective user-centered design for video games

In recent years, there have been increasing interests in the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) towards gaming. Due to the competitive industry and high demand for novelty in today's world, gaming has now become a valuable and stimulating research setting for HCI researchers to study its interface and interaction design, input devices, graphical user interface, social communication and development processes. Video games have advanced technologically and visually, and seem to demand greater levels of engagement from their users. The degree of interaction designed into a game is vital to effectively generate a constructive or destructive player (user) experience. The success of the gaming industry has bred a desire to accurately understand and measure player responses to video gaming, thus making video games a perfect test-bed for HCI explorations. This paper will attempt to address and review the literature on affective user-centered design principles, elements and methodologies that are applicable in video games

Research on the Organic Integration of Digital Media Technology with Older Communities

This thesis belongs to the research category of design art, which is a comprehensive cross-study combining design art with positive psychology, aesthetics, communication and other disciplines. Digital media art immersive scene design is a kind of theoretical basis based on positive psychology flow theory, with digital media as the main technology and tool, to build a certain scene, by stimulating the experiencer's feeling and perception, so that it can achieve immersion, a type of art design that forgets the state of other things. It is the core component of immersive design, digital media art is the research scope, immersion (design) is the design method, and scene design is the specific design method. Among them, the word "scene" originated from the "scene�based" human-computer interaction method proposed by John Carroll, an interaction designer and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. The situation in which the user is most likely to be using. The full text is divided into five chapters. The first chapter mainly explains the relevant definitions of digital media art immersive scene design, as well as its history, types, characteristics and other contents. In addition, aiming at the existing cognitive misunderstandings, the aesthetic origin of immersive design is traced, and it is pointed out that digital media art immersion Scene design is not a tree without roots or water without a source. The second chapter deconstructs the "scene" of the immersive scene design of digital media art from the four factors of theme, time and space, technology and subject. The third chapter observes the cyberpunk artistic conception and the immersive scene design of digital media art, and interprets it from the three levels of the artistic conception of "scenario blending", "virtual and real coexistence", and "intelligence and conception", aiming to find out how cyberpunk works Application possibilities in immersive scene design for digital media art. The fourth chapter analyzes the current and future application of digital media art immersive scene design in cultural tourism development, art therapy, ecological design and other scenarios; from the perspectives of designers, experiencers, and industry players. How to promote digital media Artistic immersive scene design gives suggestions for in-depth development. Chapter 5 considers the application of digital media art immersive scene design in the transformation of old communities through the application of various industrial fields and typical social media in the information age, and analyzes whether this technology can be used to transform and activate such Community, make the community shine, stimulate consumption, and promote the city to generate new business growth points. This thesis has a strong epochal character, which is the result of the experience economy calling for a new design method. In recent years, relevant state departments have successively issued the "Guiding Opinions of the Ministry of Culture on Promoting the Innovative Development of the Digital Cultural Industry", "Opinions on Further Stimulating the Consumption Potential of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism", "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Deep Integration of Culture and Technology", "Culture and Tourism". The Ministry of Finance's Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of the Digital Cultural Industry" and other policies will be supported to promote the steady promotion and encourage the vigorous development of high-tech cultural industries including digital media immersive scene design. However, under the vigorous appearance of "immersion of all things" in related industries, there are some issues that need to be paid attention to and researched, mainly because the industry needs to mature and cognition needs to be deepened

The Role of Affective User-Centred Design for Local Indie Games

The game industry has grown rapidly in recent years, as has the importance of studying emotion in video games, particularly in the indie game sector. Due to the ambiguity of indie game studies, many areas have yet to be discovered. Thus, this research seeks to explore the design elements of indie games that can affect player engagement. When players are immersed in a game, their emotions are directly affected by the game design which determines the player experience. In a way, games that are tailored to the needs of players and focus more on affective-based interaction can enhance player engagement. Thus affective user-centred design (AUCD) comes into play as it focuses on improving player experience by addressing the human needs which helps increase genuine and real value to the users. The South-East Asia's (SEA) gaming industry has risen significantly over the last decade, and Malaysia's games industry is progressively becoming the SEA gaming hub. To place Malaysia on the map in the game industry world, several Malaysian game developers emphasized the need of local game developers to focus on producing good games to help drive the growth of the local industry level. Thus, this research serves to aid local game developers in creating better quality games that can compete on a global scale. For that reason, studying and understanding AUCD becomes crucial as it can aid to design better games by improving the interaction between the player and the game. This study will be conducted in an exploratory sequential mixed method research. The qualitative data will be collected via an observation study on Malaysian indie games in the first phase, with the analysed results leading to the design of a survey for the quantitative phase. After the quantitative data are collected and analysed statistically to evaluate significance and generalizability, the final step would be to establish the framework that highlights the AUCD factors for local indie games

User Experience Using Motion Capture: Simulation of Human Motion for Multimedia Applications

This paper presents a motion-capture-based control framework by simulating three core motions namely walking, jumping and running to enhance user experience for Multimedia applications. Using MWalker V1 application, a user can directly control the full body motion of an avatar in virtual environments with different physical attributes for various multimedia applications. However, there are still a few fundamental problems. This research outlines how different physique produces different behavioural patterns based upon mass and proportion. This research considers 'motion' to identify the differences in each subject's physical attributes by sampling subjects of physical differences. The purpose of the research is to study the detail of motion of various subjects with differences in physical attributes, for simulation of human motion for multimedia applications