Uvis: A Formula-Based End-User Tool for Data Visualization

© 2013 IEEE. Existing approaches to data visualization are one of these two: accessible to end-user developers but limited in customizability, or inaccessible and expressive. For instance, commercial charting tools are easy to use, but support only predefined visualizations, while programmatic visualization tools support custom visualizations, but require advanced programming skills. We show that it is possible to combine the learnability of charting tools and the expressiveness of visualization tools. Uvis is an interactive visualization and user interface design tool that targets end-user developers with skills comparable to spreadsheet formulas. With Uvis, designers drag and drop visual objects, set visual properties to formulas, and see the result immediately. The formulas are declarative and similar to spreadsheet formulas. The formulas compute the property values and can refer to data from database, visual objects, and end-user input. To substantiate our claim, we compared Uvis with popular visualization tools. Further, we conducted usability studies that test the ability of designers to customize visualizations with our approach. Our results show that end-user developers can learn the basics of Uvis relatively fast

I will be with you Alexa! The impact of intelligent virtual assistant\u27s authenticity and personalization on user reusage intentions

Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVAs) such as Amazon Alexa have evolved from conversational agents (CAs) and grown tremendously in popularity and market size due to their ability to converse naturally with users and perform various tasks and services. Through relationship marketing and human-computer interaction theory and guided by Stimulus-Organism-Response theory, this paper explores the impact of authenticity and personalization of IVAs on trust, commitment, and usage intentions. Moreover, we explore the mediating influence of user involvement and connection with the IVA on the relationship between trust, commitment, and reusage intentions. The findings provide evidence for a positive effect for both perceived authenticity and personalization on commitment as well as trust. The findings also show that user involvement and connection with the IVA mediate the relationship between trust, commitment and reusage intentions. The outcome of this study provides theoretical and practical implications for improving user reusage intentions for IVAs and offer future research directions

Recent Developments in Chatbot Usability and Design Methodologies

Chatbots are rapidly growing and becoming prevalent in many applications, including healthcare, education, and consumer services. As such, it is crucial to design chatbots with usability in mind. Traditional usability heuristics call for error prevention, consistency, and task efficiency. The heuristics are suited for all types of user interfaces, including chatbots. However, chatbots have their unique challenges, and thus, recently, some researchers have developed sets of usability guidelines specifically for chatbots. However, there is a shortage of studies that summarize the latest advances in chatbot usability design and assessment. As such, this chapter covers the existing general and chatbot-specific usability heuristics and examples of usage. Moreover, the chapter presents the recent developments in chatbot design techniques and challenges

IT Teaching Labs: Innovations in a Distance Education Era

Computer laboratories, or simply labs, are crucial in many fields including Information Technologies (IT), Management Information Systems (MIS), Computer Science (CS) and Software Engineering (SE). Labs play a vital role in helping students achieve the know-how and develop problem solving, communication and collaboration skills. Traditional labs comprising desktop computers organized into lines or U shapes have been around for almost forty years. Many of the contemporary labs look very different from their ancestors they are designed to facilitate a myriad of learning activities including solo learning, testing and perhaps foremost, collaborative group work. This paper reviews some ergonomics issues and investigates examples of innovative labs being developed nowadays. We elaborate on the innovative labs\u27 powerfulness in addressing the drawbacks of traditional labs as well in supporting innovative teaching methods, student creativity and interactions, and the education eco-system engagement. Further, we present several ergonomic tips as a lab proposal for Zayed University (ZU) and under the computing education research umbrella

Bridging the Gap Between Informal Learning Pedagogy and Multimodal Learning Analytics

Multimodal Learning is happening in different contexts, where different technologies are utilized. In such contexts, different modalities are used by learners in very unstructured ways. These modalities include video, audio, motion, eye tracking, to mention but a few. However, effective applications of Multimodal Learning Analytics remain challenging. Enabling educational technologies are underpinned by various pedagogical models that are designed to provide educational values of technology. Nevertheless, the link between Multimodal Learning Analytics and informal learning pedagogy is not very well established in the literature. Hence, this chapter aims at bridging the gap between multimodal learning analytics research concepts and approaches from one side and key informal learning pedagogical approaches such as self-directed learning and learning theories such as behaviorism and cognitivism from the other side. Establishing this link is expected to pave the ground for insightful and pedagogically informed learning analytics across multiple contexts. In addition, further explanations on what Multimodal learning analytics techniques and challenges are discussed to highlight the key concerns of MMLA applications

Trends, applications, and challenges of chatbot technology

Chatbots offer exceptional services to end-users due to various factors, including the ability to respond to customer requests quickly according to their convenience. Given the magnitude of research and interest in chatbots, further study on several vital and evolving concerns including human-bot interaction, chatbot adoption, chatbot architecture, design considerations, and chatbot applications in various domains including education and customer support is necessary. Trends, Applications, and Challenges of Chatbot Technology provides novel research content and reviews of current chatbot technology and sheds light on challenges and open questions as well as possible research directions. Covering key topics such as human-computer interaction, education, customer support, and algorithms, this reference work is ideal for computer scientists, industry professionals, policymakers, researchers, academicians, practitioners, scholars, instructors, and students

Towards an approach for weaving Open Digital Rights Language into Role-Based Access Control

Establishing an adequate and flexible access control over assets in an organization is one of the main pillars of a successful information and technology security-strategy. To ensure efficient use of these assets in terms of availability, safety, and confidentiality, organizations roll out different strategies and adopt different techniques. These strategies and techniques could be based on roles to set access controls (Role-Based Access Control). Despite its popularity, there is an increasing interest in addressing RBAC\u27s limitations with focus on how to enforce an adequate level of access control over the available resources and how to define a flexible control over these resources so that accessibility and authenticity are achieved at the right time and right place. This paper addresses some of these limitations by adopting the Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) to express who can do what, where, when, and how. ODRL is a policy language that offers flexible control over digital content. By weaving ODRL into RBAC, this paper illustrates how to specify what users are allowed, not allowed, and must be allowed to do through a set of constrained rules specialized into permissions, prohibitions, and duties

BeverageMaster: Smart Beverage Ordering Assistant

Common approaches to food and beverage ordering services in the UAE include mobile, web applications, and phone calls. These approaches are successful in practice but can be inaccessible or costly. For instance, many mobile and web applications can be inaccessible to visually impaired customers. Assigning employees to answer phone calls from customers can be costly, and ineffective at peak times. This paper contributes, BeverageMaster, a system that is designed with usability principles in mind. The system helps customers order beverages by interacting with a virtual assistant. The system uses DialogFlow, a natural language understanding platform, to build voice-based interactions with users. The interactions allow customers to customize their order in terms of type, size, quantity, and ingredients. We plan to usability test the system and collect feedback from potential users