An User-Centered Evaluation of Two Socially Assistive Robots Integrated in a Retirement Home

Socially assistive robots are receiving a growing interest in the health and social care sectors. They are considered a promising technology to add value to the work of caregivers, and relieve them of simple and repetitive tasks. However, these robots currently face significant difficulties when deployed in everyday scenarios due to a number of factors. Most of these factors are related to insufficient consideration of the user perspective and incorrect evaluation procedures. This paper aims to address these issues. Its objective is to analyze the long-term accessibility, usability, social acceptance and user experience for two different socially assistive robots performing the same tasks in a retirement home. The evaluation procedure is based on a framework specifically designed to consider these criteria. Collected results show that both robots received an overall positive feedback. Although the number of users participating in the evaluation was not very high, due to the chosen recruitment criteria and the period of activity of this research project, during the COVID19 pandemic, these results allow to extract relevant insights towards a meaningful use of social robots in shared social care contexts.Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málaga/CBU

Usos del e‐learning en las Universidades Andaluzas: estado de la situación y análisis de buenas prácticas. (Resumen ejecutivo).

Secretaría General de Universidades, Investigación y Tecnología P07-SE-J.0267

Usos del e-learning en las Universidades Andaluzas: Estado de la situación y análisis de buenas prácticas. (Versión completa)

Secretaría General de Universidades, Investigación y Tecnología P07-SE-J.0267

Uso de telas pela população pediátrica e seus impactos oftalmológicos a curto e a longo prazo: uma revisão sistemática : Use of screens by the pediatric population and its short and long-term ophthalmological impacts: a systematic review

Ao se discorrer sobre a formação e formatação da nossa sociedade, pode-se notar que cada vez mais esta está permeada pela tecnologia e pelos sistemas integrativos, processo esse benéfico para comunicação, gestão e tomada de decisões para além de ser uma ferramenta de trabalho e entretenimento, porém, com a progressiva quantidade de horas que ficamos expostos a este tipo de tecnologia também podem acarretar prejuízos a acuidade visual dos usuários. Juntamente a isso, nota-se que as crianças estão tendo cada vez mais precocemente acesso os equipamentos eletrônicos e deixando de lado as brincadeiras, desta forma a partir de uma pesquisa qualitativa, feita a partir de um levantamento bibliográfico, pode-se dispor que esta busca compreender quais são os sintomas e efeitos do uso excessivo deste tipo de ferramenta e algumas formas de tratamento e profilaxia que podem ser dispostas sobre o tema, com enfoque na população pediátrica

Gesture-based interaction: concept map and application scenarios.

Abstract?Nowadays the new interaction forms proposed tend not to be limited by graphic interfaces and make human computer interaction . Nowadays, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is not limited by Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). There is a tendency to make it more natural and human. This paper presents a novel interaction approach within the scope of gesture-based interfaces, and some practical consequences of adopting this approach. Thus, we redefine the concept of gesture based on the sum of three interrelated concepts (the Para-language, the Body language and the Sound language). The relationships among these concepts are expressed in a conceptual map through parameterized links. Finally the article shows how the combination of the link parameters yields to the definition of a specific application scenario. The result of the identification of these scenarios opens new horizons towards the identification of new ways of gesture-based interaction. Keywords-Human-computer interaction; gesture-based interfaces; User information access information

Metodológica para especificar escenarios de interacción a partir de modos de interacción

Abstract. Los avances tecnológicos favorecen cada vez más, el uso de nuevos modos de interacción persona-ordenador que aumente las posibilidades de interacción del usuario más allá de la consolidada terna pantalla-teclado-ratón. Para entender y desarrollar nuevas formas de interacción se hace necesario revisar conceptos como interfaz de usuario, modos de interacción. Además, el uso de nuevos modos de interacción, crea la necesidad de utilizar metáforas de interacción acertadas para conseguir que el usuario se familiarice con el sistema. En este artículo se propone una metodología para definir y especificar escenarios de interacción a partir de la definición e identificación de modos de interacción. Además de la propuesta realizada se muestran resultados obtenidos al realizar su evaluación. Keywords: Interacción persona-ordenador, modos de interacción, metáforas de interacción, escenarios de interacción

Interacción basada en la posición: mapa de conceptos y escenarios de aplicación

Abstract. Las nuevas formas de interacción que se proponen hoy en día destacan, entre otros, por estos dos aspectos: no se ven limitadas por las interfaces gráficas (GUI), y se basan en la posición del usuario. En este artículo se presenta una concepción novedosa de la interacción basada en la posición y se presentan algunas consecuencias prácticas. Del análisis del concepto de Posición, se obtiene su redefinición como el compendio de otros tres conceptos interrelacionados: Ubicación, Intervención y History o Trazabilidad. Estas complejas relaciones las expresamos en un mapa conceptual, en él se plasman los conceptos con sus líneas comunicantes, con sus respectivos elementos parametrizables. Finalmente, cada combinación de valores de todos parámetros da como resultado un escenario concreto. Esta multiplicidad de identificación de escenarios, abre nuevos horizontes a la identificación de nuevas formas de interacción basada en la posición. Keywords: Posición, ubicación, sensibilidad al contexto, interacción, mapa conceptual, escenarios de interacción, interfaces

Towards long term acceptance of Socially Assistive Robots in retirement houses: use case definition

International audienc

The Town Crier: A Use-Case Design and Implementation for a Socially Assistive Robot in Retirement Homes

The use of new assistive technologies in general, and Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) in particular, is becoming increasingly common for supporting people’s health and well-being. However, it still faces many issues regarding long-term adherence, acceptability and utility. Most of these issues are due to design processes that insufficiently take into account the needs, preferences and values of intended users. Other issues are related to the currently very limited amount of long-term evaluations, performed in real-world settings, for SARs. This study presents the results of two regional projects that consider as a starting hypothesis that the assessment in controlled environments and/or with short exposures may not be enough in the design of an SAR deployed in a retirement home and the necessity of designing for and with users. Thus, the proposed methodology has focused on use-cases definitions that follow a human-centred and participatory design approach. The main goals have been facilitating system acceptance and attachment by involving stakeholders in the robots design and evaluation, overcoming usage barriers and considering user’s needs integration. The implementation of the first use-case deployed and the two-phase pilot test performed in a retirement home are presented. In particular, a detailed description of the interface redesign process based on improving a basic prototype with users’ feedback and recommendations is presented, together with the main results of a formal evaluation that has highlighted the impact of changes and improvements addressed in the first redesign loop of the system