Constraining and creating solutions - reflections on the analysis of early design

This research explores how an existing analytic framework (the cognitive dimensions framework) for interactive digital design reflects knowledge relevant to exploring the design space. The work examines this idea through the analysis of the transcripts of three digital design collaborative workshops run as part of "Studying Professional Software Design". Expert deliberation within these workshops is assessed and related to the analytic framework. The cognitive dimension framework has not been applied to observational data of this sort before. However, the approach described in this paper appears to provide a viable means of analysis. In conclusion we demonstrate that approaching observational data in this manner is not highly complex but is sufficient to provide useful insights. Reflections from the resulting analysis shed light on the interests and tensions evident in early stages of digital product design

The programming-like-analysis of an innovative media tool

This paper describes a case study in which evaluation techniques have been developed and applied to a novel commercially developed tool for supporting efficiency and effectiveness of a digital film production processes. The tool is based upon a familiar concept in digital publishing that of separating style from content, and as such, it represents a challenge for intended end users since it moves them away from traditional working practices and towards programming-like-activity. Two alternative user interfaces have been developed following a commercial development route. Approaches to analyzing the effectiveness of the tool and its interfaces prior to its widespread adoption are described and the conclusions from this analysis are illustrated and discussed

Developing formative evaluation for complex interaction

© 2019 IADIS Press. All rights reserved. This paper reports on the development, refinement and use of a design instrument for supporting the exploration of interactive tool design. The distinctive focus of the instrument is that it is intended for interactive tools that go beyond the aim of enabling direct interaction. It is intended to tools that by necessity mediate access to rich complex functionality. We argue that the majority of evaluative instruments that HCI designers have at-hand are not particularly useful in this context. We proposed that alternative concepts are of more relevance, specifically the concepts developed in the Cognitive Dimensions Framework. We have developed an instrument to enable and support the critical assessment of alternative complex interaction designs that is motivated by these concepts. Having described the origins of the tool, the paper then describes how it has been applied in three real world design and development settings. The paper concludes with reflections upon how best to refine, encapsulate and further improve the instrument

Developing visualisations for spreadsheet formulae: towards increasing the accessibility of science, technology, engineering and maths subjects

Spreadsheets are widely used within Science, technology, engineering and maths education. Despite their widespread use, end-user spreadsheet errors are still extremely common and have been shown to have an adverse effect on learning. The textual representation of formulas can be particularly complex and error-prone, exacerbating barriers to dyslexic users. Our work focuses on the design and development of a visual language to graphically represent spreadsheet formulae, with the objective of making them easier to understand than their default textual form. This work contributes to a body of human factors research focused upon spreadsheets

Visualising formula structures to support exploratory modelling

Visualisation is often presented as a means of simplifying information and helping people understand complex data. In this paper we describe a project designing interactive visualisations to support core learner competencies in the broad area of numeracy. The work builds upon: (i) the observation that while spreadsheets are traditional ICT tools, their widespread use means that they are often introduced as a means of exploring basic mathematical modelling; (ii) a research theme examining the human factors that influence the ease with which formal notations can be understood and applied appropriately. Our paper describes the iterative design and evaluation of a tool to visualise spreadsheets, with the aim of supporting mid-teen learners based on the premise that spreadsheets serve as a gateway tool for supporting learner experimentation and confidence within numerate subjects. This iterative process is informed by background research into notational design, graphic design as well as learner and tutor feedback

Menage a trois! Innovation, digital and knowledge transfer

Knowledge transfer is often seen as a mechanism to support innovation of this sort, and in this paper, we describe work aimed at developing an understanding of such collaborations. Within this setting we believe that the adoption of digital technologies can lead companies on a path that can take them into new and challenging territories. Our work focuses upon support for digital innovation for Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) aiming to identify alternatives/strategies for establishing effective knowledge transfer based innovation. We analysed existing digital innovation models and instruments in order to develop an understanding of the factors valued in characterising digital innovation. Our findings show that although existing approaches have a useful role in digital innovation, they are however inappropriate for SMEs, who have probably not been involved in such a transformation. In addition, this paper reports on the early instrument developed to identify potential for digital innovation based on collaborative knowledge transfer between SMEs and universities. This study provides a better understanding of the makeup and effectiveness of some of the existing digital innovation models and frameworks

Dimension of non-trivial online forms

Non-trivial on-line forms (N-TOFs) are a type of form that we believe is becoming widely prevalent with the preference for on-line services in many areas of everyday life. We define N-TOFs as forms that are critical to the life and wellbeing of the form filler (aka user). By virtue of this, they are frequently complex in terms of structure, mechanics and content required. Forms providing access to government, financial, employment and educational services are commonly N-TOFs, depending upon the specifics of the service to which they relate. Other examples of N-TOFs include: tax forms, benefits forms, immigration forms, social housing applications, etc. The non-trivial nature of such forms principally arises from their close relationship to the quality of life of their users. A pernicious feature of service provision through NTOFs is that form design could in fact reflect a design bias that limits access to a service. Put simply, an N-TOF could by its character impair legitimate access to a service. For example there are forms that could be judged as unnecessarily complex for the user. Hence the interest in N-TOFs relates closely to the agendas of: design for all; and professional ethics. On a related matter it is evident that in N-TOFs some of their onerous elements serve as a means of user authentication. For example, having to enter comprehensive personal details is used to help confirm a user's identity. Hence an onerous or repetitive aspect of a form can be accounted for as a legitimate design choic

Using and utilizing an innovative media development tool

This paper describes a novel commercially developed tool for supporting efficiency and effectiveness of a digital film production processes. The tool is described as are two alternative user interfaces for it. Approaches to analyzing the effectiveness of the tool prior to its widespread adoption are described and the conclusions from this analysis are illustrated

Corpora for sentiment analysis of Arabic text in social media

Different Natural Language Processing (NLP) applications such as text categorization, machine translation, etc., need annotated corpora to check quality and performance. Similarly, sentiment analysis requires annotated corpora to test the performance of classifiers. Manual annotation performed by native speakers is used as a benchmark test to measure how accurate a classifier is. In this paper we summarise currently available Arabic corpora and describe work in progress to build, annotate, and use Arabic corpora consisting of Facebook (FB) posts. The distinctive nature of thesecorpora is that it is based on posts written in Dialectal Arabic (DA) not following specific grammatical or spelling standards. The corpora are annotated with five labels (positive, negative, dual, neutral, and spam). In addition to building the corpus, the paper illustrates how manual tagging can be used to extract opinionated words and phrases to be used in a lexicon-based classifier

Exploring virtual reality and prosthetic training.

Working together with health care professionals and a world leading bionic prosthetic maker we created a prototype that aims to decrease the time it takes for a transradial amputee to train how to use a Myoelectric prosthetic arm. Our research indicates that the Oculus Rift, Microsoft’s Kinect and the Thalmic Labs Myo gesture control armband will allow us to create a unique, cost effective training tool that could be beneficial to amputee patients