Design Science in Human-Computer Interaction: A Model and Three Examples

Humanity has entered an era where computing technology is virtually ubiquitous. From websites and mobile devices to computers embedded in appliances on our kitchen counters and automobiles parked in our driveways, information and communication technologies (ICTs) and IT artifacts are fundamentally changing the ways we interact with our world. Indeed, the world itself changing, becoming ever more artificial. It is a designed world that we have created for ourselves. Human-computer interaction (HCI) scholars are concerned with the interactions that occur between people and technology in this new world: how do IT artifacts impact the human experience, and how can knowledge of the human experience impact the design of new computer-based systems? At the same time, HCI is design-oriented, a community where scholars seek to shape the design of new IT artifacts, and make real improvements to the world we live in. It remains an unresolved challenge to bring these scholarly and design perspectives together. Various models and approaches have been proposed, but current thinking on a design science for HCI is in flux. This multi-paper dissertation draws upon existing literature from HCI, various design communities, and information systems (IS) to develop a new model of design science: the theory, design, and evaluation (TDE) model. The TDE model, informed by an included research paper, envisions that scholarly activities and design activities can occur in parallel across the three stages of theory, design, and evaluation. The TDE model is demonstrated using an additional three included papers, each one taken from a separate TDE design science project. These ongoing projects occur in widely varied contexts - gaming for citizen science, online nuisances, and military history education - but each has the TDE model as its central organizing structure. The papers are examples of TDE knowledge outcomes, but also address design outcomes from each project. The three projects are analyzed and connected directly to various elements of the TDE model itself. In addition, the final chapter describes future directions for the three projects and the TDE model, as well as thinking on the importance of design science in HCI scholarship

Theory, Design and Evaluation – (Don’t Just) Pick any Two

The following discussion takes to heart Benbasat’s (2010) and Lyytinen’s (2010) suggestion that design science techniques should be more fully embraced by the HCI community. Design science approaches, which – in their ideal form – equally emphasize theory, design, and evaluation through an iterative design/research process (Amiel and Reeves, 2008, Hevner et al., 2004, March and Smith, 1995, Markus et al., 2002, Wang and Hannafin, 2005), offer a comprehensive way to tackle many of the complex and sometimes highly subjective design-oriented research questions that are so familiar within the HCI discipline. In this response paper, three typical, high-quality HCI papers are examined in detail to explore the nature of the “pick any two” problem. Suggestions for how missing methodologies might be incorporated into these works through the design science approach are provided. Additionally, a brief review of HCI literature from three publication venues is conducted in order to roughly identify the extent of the “pick any two” problem. Several broad-based reasons for methodology omission are discussed, with suggestions for ways that these institutional challenges might be circumvented or overcome

TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE INFLUENCES OF MEANINGFUL FRAMING ON USER PARTICIPATION IN A GAMIFIED INFORMATION SYSTEM

Gamification with meaningful framing is a diegetic gamification approach that goes beyond points, badges, and leaderboards. Diegesis – the notion of connecting elements of the game, including tasks, narratives and stories – can help to imbue even very work-centric games with fantasy and a meaning-ful framing. This study proposes to investigate the influences of such meaningful framing, including meaningful framing of the game and the meaningful framing of the task, on users’ participation in a gamified information system. We apply the S-O-R framework to construct interrelationships among a story-based game environment, user engagement, and player behaviors and propose a research model with hypotheses. We aim to uncover the role of story-based gamification in information systems re-search and encourage more research investigations in this direction

Coping with Nuisances on the Web

A model of web annoyance coping was constructed based on the Cognitive-Motivational-Relational Theory of Emotion. The proposed model predicts that web users would cope with annoyances through both problem- and emotion-focused strategies. In two focus groups, participants identified nuisances encountered during use of the two websites (Facebook and MySlice), and their reactions to the nuisances as coping strategies. The findings include a web nuisance categorization and empirical evidence to support the proposed model of web annoyance coping. Besides filling a gap in the literature and providing theoretical contributions, the study has practical implications to website designers, marketers and other stakeholders

Exploring Data Quality in Games With a Purpose

A key problem for crowd-sourcing systems is motivating contributions from participants and ensuring the quality of these contributions. Games have been suggested as a motivational approach to encourage contribution, but attracting participation through game play rather than scientific interest raises concerns about the quality of the data provided, which is particularly important when the data are to be used for scientific research. To assess whether these concerns are justified, we compare the quality of data obtained from two citizen science games, one a "gamified" version of a species classification task and one a fantasy game that used the classification task only as a way to advance in the game play. Surprisingly, though we did observe cheating in the fantasy game, data quality (i.e., classification accuracy) from participants in the two games was not significantly different. As well, the quality of data from short-time contributors was at a usable level of accuracy. These findings suggest that various approaches to gamification can be useful for motivating contributions to citizen science projects.publishedye

ReWIND: A CBT-Based Serious Game to Improve Cognitive Emotion Regulation and Anxiety Disorder

Games have shown successful intervention outcomes and can be used to complement the treatment of anxiety disorders. However, current serious game solutions are designed to be task-based rather than story-based. We present ReWIND, a serious role-playing game (RPG) applying cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to design anxiety-relevant storylines and game mechanics. ReWIND advances state-of-the-art mental health games by seamlessly integrating CBT elements and strategies into the game’s storytelling so players can learn how CBT is applied in anxiety scenarios as they play through the game. Our goal is to examine the effectiveness of ReWIND in improving cognitive emotion regulation and anxiety disorders. Through a randomized controlled trial, 40 participants were recruited, of whom half were randomly assigned to play ReWIND while the others worked on a non-game task. Anxiety and cognitive emotion regulation levels were measured before and after the interventions. Our findings show ReWIND significantly reduces the severity level of anxiety symptoms and trait anxiety levels and increases perceived control of anxiety better than the non-game task. ReWIND also obtained positive ratings for its usability and practicality in real life, helping participants to cope better with anxiety disorders

Cooperative visualization: A design case

In this design case, the design of visualization tools to support the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) is described. A participatory approach to visualizing a complex computational pipeline was adopted, with the goal of exploring what benefits might be derived when groups of people visualize complex information for themselves. Direct participation in LIGO activities helped IV researchers to combine explicitly codified data from the LIGO computational pipeline with structural knowledge tacitly held by project scientists. Both sources of information were critical to producing meaningful visualizations and progressing design and research efforts. Ultimately, this design case demonstrates how cooperatively creating visualizations can enhance understanding and support group activities and goals. It is a call for more human-centeredness within the visualization literature.published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe