Development of a web-based insulin decision aid for the elderly: usability barriers and guidelines

In recent years, researchers have attempted to shift patient decision aids (PDAs) from paper-based to web-based to increase its accessibility. Insulin decision aids help diabetes patients, most of whom are elderly to make an informed decision to start insulin. However, the lack of usability guidelines applicable for such target group causes developers to struggle to answer the challenging question ‘How can such web service be made usable, and, ultimately, acceptable and accessible for elderly patients?’. Hence, the purpose of this study is to identify the common usability requirements that may facilitate good practices to empower elderly diabetes patients in utilizing a web-based insulin decision aid for their benefit. We set out an approach to use prototyping and retrospective think-aloud techniques to explore web usability barriers that elderly patients may encounter when using an insulin decision aid web site and use the feedback for improving the prototype. Usability requirements were captured iteratively through scoping, brainstorming, prototype, testing and evaluating. The study suggests that the insights from experts and users are equally important to assure the validity of the identified usability guidelines; they reflect the accessibility needs of the aging community while complementing the key requirements of an insulin decision aid. The study contributes to recommend web usability guidelines backed by a series of expert and user evaluations which could be a proactive resource to improve usability, acceptability and accessibility of online insulin decision aids for elderly with diabetes

Presenting Cypriot Cultural Heritage in Virtual Reality: A User Evaluation

This paper presents a user evaluation related to the overall experience of a number of volunteers obtained by visiting two virtual museums populated with digitized Cypriot cultural heritage/art items using different virtual reality display systems. The two virtual museums used are replicas of an engraving museum and a virtual Byzantine icons museum. During the experiment visitors were able to use a Head Mounted Display or a stereoscopic Powerwall projection in order to obtain an immersive 3D experience. The results of the user evaluation indicate that both ways of presenting the museum received an equal usability score among the users but at the same time a number of drawbacks of each method were indicated. The findings of the research are crucial in enabling the use of a user-centered design process approach to improve the prototypes and develop virtual experiences for additional museums. The ultimate aim of our approach is to develop applications that showcase Cypriot Cultural Heritage in a way that attracts visitors to visit the original museums

Venom diversity and evolution in the most divergent cone snail genus Profundiconus

Profundiconus is the most divergent cone snail genus and its unique phylogenetic position, sister to the rest of the family Conidae, makes it a key taxon for examining venom evolution and diversity. Venom gland and foot transcriptomes of Profundiconus cf. vaubani and Profundiconus neocaledonicus were de novo assembled, annotated, and analyzed for differential expression. One hundred and thirty-seven venom components were identified from P. cf. vaubani and 82 from P. neocaledonicus, with only four shared by both species. The majority of the transcript diversity was composed of putative peptides, including conotoxins, profunditoxins, turripeptides, insulin, and prohormone-4. However, there were also a significant percentage of other putative venom components such as chymotrypsin and L-rhamnose-binding lectin. The large majority of conotoxins appeared to be from new gene superfamilies, three of which are highly different from previously reported venom peptide toxins. Their low conotoxin diversity and the type of insulin found suggested that these species, for which no ecological information are available, have a worm or molluscan diet associated with a narrow dietary breadth. Our results indicate that Profundiconus venom is highly distinct from that of other cone snails, and therefore important for examining venom evolution in the Conidae family