Evaluating cause and effect in user experience digital creativity

This article describes issues in evaluating emotional and affective aspects of interaction. In particular it considers the relationship between experience factors and instrumental goals. The role of qualitative interaction factors varies from system to system, dependent on overall system goals and values, both for user and designer. Defining this role helps us to understand what is significant about emotional experience within interaction, in the context of user and organisational values. The utility and limitations of a range of evaluation methods is considered in relation to issues of tacitness, first-person experience and its relationship both to attitude formation and overt behaviour. In doing so it addresses key questions about the nature of enquiry in user-experience evaluation where experience factors are bound up with instrumental goals

Integrating the strengths of cognitive emotion models with traditional HCI analysis tools

This paper reports an attempt to integrate key concepts from cognitive models of emotion to cognitive models of interaction established in HCI literature. The aim is to transfer the strengths of interaction models to analysis of affect-critical systems in games, e-commerce and education, thereby increasing their usefulness in these systems where affect is increasingly recognised as a key success factor. Concepts from Scherer’s appraisal model and stimulation evaluation checks, along with a framework of emotion contexts proposed by Coulson (An everything but framework for modelling emotion. In proceeding of AAAI spring symposium on architectures for emotion, 2004), are integrated into the cycle of display-based action proposed by Norman (The design of everyday things. Basic Books, New York, 1988). Norman’s action cycle has commonly been applied as an interaction analysis tool in the field of HCI. In the wake of the recent shift of emphasis to user experience, the cognition-based action cycle is deemed inadequate to explicate affective experiences, such as happiness, joy and surprise. Models based on appraisal theories, focusing on cognitive accounts of emotion, are more relevant to understanding the causes and effects of feelings arising from interacting with digital artefacts. The paper explores the compatibility between these two genres of model, and future development of integrated analysis tools

Issues faced by vision-impaired users of interactive TV search facilities

This paper reports two studies of digital television users. The first study investigates the behaviour of non-impaired users to understand typical usage patterns and problem-solving, attempting three representative tasks using a digital television terrestrial receiver. Videos were analysed to identify problem incidents and attempts at recovery. Patterns observed included misidentifying handset menu options leading to extended guessed action, repeated misspecification of task and repeated re-performance to confirm actions. The results show that interaction with Digital TV in its current handset-based form involves considerable reactive action specification and corrective action, suggesting that interaction endemically difficult for those with various levels of low vision. The second study, a less formal probe of users with visual impairments, suggests that even users with relatively mild visual impairments may struggle with current two-device interaction. However, suitable strategies for supporting vision impaired users may as much to do with user preferences rather than simply accessibility. We conclude by discussing the efficacy of current two-device interaction support and possible future directions

The effect of dyadic interactions on learning rotate gesture for technology-naïve older adults

Older adults having limited experience with modern computing technology may find it difficult to learn touch gestures, especially the more complex rotate gesture. Social interactions, as implied by social constructivism, are assumed to be powerful in enabling older adults to acquire the skill of touch gestures. The social effect can be reinforced with the motivational effect of digital games. To verify the assumption, we conducted empirical studies with 59 older adults, who were divided into two groups: 17 Singles and 21 Dyads. They were asked to play a set of digital games on a multi-touch tabletop. Results show that on average Dyads have spent significantly longer time in the games and have performed a significantly higher number of correct rotate gestures than Singles. Future work focuses on analyzing the emotional aspect of social interactions and identifying further applications of social gaming to other ageing issue

Patients, trust and ethics in information privacy in eHealth

Using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the health sector (eHealth) is a natural progression for the digital agenda, and is seen as being of benefit to organisations providing healthcare, the patients receiving healthcare, and the development of the ICT industry. With the likelihood of a growing demand for healthcare, particularly from an increasingly elderly population, using ICT to streamline processes and support practitioners makes sense. However, the challenges faced when remodelling a sector that has traditionally operated through direct face-to-face human contact are significant. While the processes of information management and information flow may be improved from an organisational perspective, the people at the heart of eHealth, i.e. the patients, may not be convinced that such a move will be of benefit to them, even though the traditional face-to-face aspects may not be lost. In this chapter, we take the example of the United Kingdom and focus on the patient in the eHealth environment. We take the position that patient trust and confidence in ICT is important, not only for patient ‘buy-in’ but also to maintain the ethical values that are fundamental to medical practice

Intuitive learnability of touch gestures for technology-naïve older adults

Touch-based interactions, if intuitive and natural, should be highly learnable. However, the learnability of touch gestures as a computer interaction modality cannot be taken for granted and should be evaluated empirically. This is especially true when technology-naïve older adults are concerned, given the psychological and physical constraints associated with this age range. To investigate this issue, we conducted a study with 17 technology-naïve older adults, whose experience with technology was mostly limited to making calls with mobile phones. Specifically, the participants were presented with three simple digital games on an interactive tabletop surface and asked to play the games on their own with minimal instruction or help. The first two games required the use of a drag gesture whereas the third game required the use of a rotate gesture. The main research question was whether the older adults could learn the gestures effectively and efficiently. A set of variables such as task duration and gesture accuracy were measured. Results showed that the learnability of a drag gesture was relatively high and that the participants could transfer this skill across the games. In contrast, the learnability of a rotate gesture was low and most of the participants failed to demonstrate any improvement over the tasks of the game. These findings partially corroborate those of earlier work. Implications for future work are drawn, especially exploring the potential of social interactions between older adults for enhancing the learning effects

Innovation for an inclusive future

This workshop will focus on setting the agenda for research, practice and policy in support of inclusive design for third generation computer-based products. The next generation of technology represents an unprecedented opportunity to improve the quality of life for groups of users who have previously faced exclusion, such as those with impairments and older citizens. At the same time it risks creating a greater digital divide and further exclusion. How we approach design for this new generation will determine whether or not the third wave will provide positive advances towards an inclusive digital world. We therefore need to put forward both a rationale for inclusive design and provide pointers towards technical development and design practice in support of inclusion. It is our belief that there is not only a strong moral case for design for inclusion but also significant commercial incentive, which may be key to persuading influential players to focus on inclusion. Therefore one of our key objectives is to describe and promote the advantages of designing ‘in from the edges’ of the user population rather than designing for a notional ‘average’ user

Learning to drag: the effects of social interactions in touch gestures learnability for older adults

Considering the potential physical limitations of older adults, the naturalness of touch-based gestures as an interaction method is questionable. Assuming touch-based gestures are natural, they should be highly learnable and amenable to enhancement through social interactions. To investigate whether social interactions can enhance the learnability of touch gestures for older adults with low digital literacy, we conducted a study with 42 technology- naïve participants aged 64 to 82. They were paired and encouraged to play two games on an interactive tabletop with the expectation to use the drag gesture to complete the games socially. We then compared these results with a previous study of technology–naïve older adults playing the same games individually. The results of the comparisons show that dyadic interactions had some benefits for the participants in helping them to become comfortable with the drag gesture by negotiation and imitation. Further qualitative analysis suggested that playing pairs generally helped learners to comfortably explore the digital environment using the newly acquired skill

Using argumentation to manage users' preferences

Argumentation has provided a means to deal with inconsistent knowledge. We explore the potential of argumentation to handle conflicting user preferences. Classical preference handling methods in Artificial Intelligence (AI) lack the ability to handle ambiguity and the evolution of preferences over time. Previous experiments conducted by the authors indicate the usefulness of argumentation systems to handle Ambient Intelligence (AmI) examples with the aforementioned characteristics. This paper explores a generalized framework that can be applied to handle user preferences in AmI. The paper provides an overall preference handling architecture which can be used to extend current argumentation systems. We show how the proposed system can handle multiple users with the introduction of personalised preference functions. We illustrate how user preferences can be handled in realistic ways in AmI environments (such as smart homes), by showing how the system can make decisions based on inhabitants’ preferences on lighting, healthy eating and leisure

A survey on managing users' preferences in ambient intelligence

Understanding the importance of preference management in ambient intelligent environments is key to providing systems that are better prepared to meet users' expectations. This survey provides an account of the various ways that preferences have been handled in Artificial Intelligence. Our analysis indicates that most of those techniques lack the ability to handle ambiguity and the evolution of preferences over time. Further exploration shows that argumentation can provide a feasible solution to complement existing work. We illustrate our claim by using an intelligent environment case study