Effectiveness of Color-Picking Interfaces Among Non-designers

There are relatively few studies on the effectiveness of color picking interface. This study therefore set out to measure both the efficiency in terms of task completion time and preference of four color-picking interfaces found in many design software applications including RGB, HSL, map and palette. A controlled experiment was conducted involving n = 16 participants without formal design training. The results show that the map and RGB interfaces were preferred by the participants while the palette interface resulted in the shortest task completion times. The HSL was the least favorable color picking interface for the given cohort of users. The results indicate that the palette, map and RGB color pickers found in entry level software probably are the most suitable for users without training in the use of colors.acceptedVersio

Improving the robustness to input errors on touch-based self-service kiosks and transportation apps

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An image-based visual strategy for working with color contrasts during design

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Are Split Tablet Keyboards Better? A Study of Soft Keyboard Layout and Hand Posture

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On Online Banking Authentication for All: A Comparison of BankID Login Efficiency Using Smartphones Versus Code Generators

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A bibliometric study of human–computer interaction research activity in the Nordic-Baltic Eight countries

Human–computer interaction (HCI) has become an important area for designers and developers worldwide, and research activities set in national cultural contexts addressing local challenges are often needed in industry and academia. This study explored HCI research in the Nordic-Baltic countries using bibliometric methods. The results show that the activity varies greatly across the region with activities dominated by Finland, Sweden, and Denmark, even when adjusting for differences in population size and GDP. Research output variations were larger for the top-tier conferences compared to entry-tier conferences and journals. Locally hosted conferences were associated with local increases in research activity. HCI research longevity appears to be an indicator of research maturity and quantity. HCI researchers typically collaborated either with colleagues within the same institution or with researchers from countries outside the Nordic-Baltic region such as US and the UK. There was less collaboration between national and Nordic-Baltic partners. Collaboration appeared especially prevalent for top-tier conference papers. Top-tier conference papers were also more frequently cited than regional-tier and entry-tier conferences, yet journal articles were cited the most. One implication of this study is that the HCI research activity gaps across the Nordic-Baltic countries should be narrowed by increasing the activity in countries with low research outputs. To achieve this, first-time authors could receive guidance through collaborations with experienced authors in the same institution or other labs around the world. More conferences could also be hosted locally. Furthermore, journals may be more effective than conferences if the goal is to accumulate citations.publishedVersio

Resource Re-allocation for Data Inter-dependent Continuous Tasks in Grids

Many researchers focus on resource intensive tasks which have to be run continuously over long periods. A Grid may offer resources for these tasks, but they are contested by multiple client agents. Hence, a Grid might be unwilling to allocate its resources for long terms, leading to tasks’ interruptions. This issue becomes more substantial when tasks are data inter-dependent, where one interrupted task may cause an interruption of a bundle of other tasks. In this paper, we discuss a new resource re-allocation strategy for a client, in which resources are re-allocated between the client tasks in order to avoid prolonged interruptions. Those re-allocations are decided by a client agent, but they should be agreed with a Grid and can be performed only by a Grid. Our strategy has been tested within different Grid environments and noticeably improves client utilities in almost all cases

Experiences using three app prototyping tools with different levels of fidelity from a product design student’s perspective

Prototyping has become a widely embraced technique in different design fields to facilitate early user involvement to ensure that the end-product meets the users’ needs. Each design field has its tools and traditions for working with prototypes. This paper documents experiences with smartphone app prototyping from a product design student’s perspective. Three prototyping tools with different fidelity levels were explored. Based on these experiences we reflect upon the prototyping tool characteristics and their suitability for non-computer scientist. We envisage that our experiences may be useful for other product designers who want to develop smartphone apps

Enhanced Learning of Jazz Chords with a Projector Based Piano Keyboard Augmentation

Learning jazz piano is considered technically difficult. Most people cannot afford private piano tuition and there are many freely available video tutorials on the Internet. This study identified a set of challenging topics associated with learning jazz piano based on popular YouTube jazz piano tutorials. The results suggest that learners are struggling to understand the construction of complex chords in the 12 keys. Most tutorial videos show two parallel keyboards, one physical with the real hands and one virtual keyboard, which the viewers must map onto their own keyboard. Based on these results a series of visualization approaches were explored through a low-fi prototype by augmenting the physical piano keyboard with voicing instructions using a projector

Multi-switch scanning keyboards: A theoretical study of simultaneous parallel scans with QWERTY layout

Scanning keyboards can be useful aids for individuals with reduced motor function. However, scanning input techniques are known for being very slow to use because they require waiting for the right cell to be highlighted during each character input cycle. This study explores the idea of parallel scanning keyboards controlled with multiple switches and their theoretical effects on performance. The designs explored assume that the keyboard layouts are familiar to users and that the mapping between the switches and the keyboards are natural and direct. The results show that the theoretical performance increases linearly with the number of switches used. Future work should perform user tests with parallel scans to assess the practicality of this approach