Middleware for Work Support in Industrial Contexts (MiWSICx)

It is generally acknowledged that technological innovation is leading to an increase in the complexity of industrial work. Hence, work assistance has emerged as an important theme in the context of cyber-physical production systems and Industry 4.0 to assist workers in assembly, logistics, maintenance and supervision. Recent research in this domain has focused on demonstrating assistance applications using mobile computing devices such as tablets, smartphones, AR/VR glasses and wearables, but the aspects of technology induced complexity in industrial work distribution, concurrency, information complexity, and variability of information interaction, and their subsequent effect on human workers is yet to be tackled. This paper has two core contributions: first, it reframes the problem of complex industrial work through activity theory, which leads to a conceptual model that couples human information needs to interactive artefacts within an activity context. Second, the problem of assistance is viewed as managing information flow between multiple devices grouped into fluid and adaptive activity contexts, managed by MiWSICx, (Middleware for Work Support in Industrial Contexts) a novel, distributed middleware designed using the actor model of concurrent computation

Хімічна інженерна освіта: історія розвитку

У статті висвітлюється питання підготовки інженерів-хіміків для народного господарства в системі вищої освіти України.The article is devoted to the problem training of chemical engineer for national economy in system of the higher education of the Ukraine

Applying Human-Centered Design Methods in Industry – a Field Report

Human-centered design methods are nowadays widely used in the design of consumer products. These methods aim at designing products with a high usability and a positive user experience (UX). However, in the domain of the design of industrial machines, design is often driven by functional requirements mostly neglecting the usability and user experience of products. Together with a medium-sized manufacturer of industrial laundry machines we applied the human-centered design process in an industrial context. In this field report, we describe the human-centered design methods applied in the project, the adaptations we had to make in the process and the challenges and opportunities for applying human-centered design in an industrial environment in general

Human-centered User Interfaces for Automated Driving – (Un-)exploited Potentials

Designing user interfaces for (highly) automated driving is a complex task since users vary considerably regarding their needs and preferences. Therefore, a one-size-fits-all approach will not be sufficient for designing these interfaces. Thus, in this paper we aim to identify unexploited potentials in this area. We do so by performing a systematic literature review. Our contributions are 1) a systematization of human-centered user interface design for automated driving in four key aspects, 2) the research intensity per aspect, 3) the unexploited potential within each aspect and 4) the potentials of the relations between them. Concretely, current research lacks frameworks supporting the customization of the named interfaces based on user characteristics. Among others, personalization of displayed information shows unexploited potentials for acceptance and usability. Thus, we recommend future research to focus on human-centricity accounting for individual needs instead of the interface itself

Intelligent Assistants

Intelligent assistants are an increasingly commonplace class of information systems spanning a broad range of form and complexity. But what characterizes an intelligent assistant, and how do we design better assistants? In the paper, the authors contribute to scientific research in the domain of intelligent assistants in three steps, each building on the previous. First, they investigate the historical context of assistance as human work. By examining qualitative studies regarding the work of human assistants, the authors inductively derive concepts crucial to modeling the context of assistance. This analysis informs the second step, in which they develop a conceptual typology of intelligent assistants using 111 published articles. This typology explicates the characteristics (what or how) of intelligent assistants and their use context (who or which). In the third and final step, the authors utilize this typology to shed light on historical trends and patterns in design and evaluation of intelligent assistants, reflect on missed opportunities, and discuss avenues for further exploration

Towards designing assistants for well-being: clarifying the relationship between users’ intrinsic motivation and expectations from assistants

Although considerable research effort has been devoted to understanding the adoption and use of commercially available intelligent assistants, the relationship between user expectations from assistants and users’ endogenous intrinsic motivation to perform an activity has not been explored. Doing so is important to meet user expectations, prevent adoption failures, and design for well-being. In this paper, we investigate whether a person\u27s intrinsic motivation to perform an activity impacts (a) their expectations from an assistant, and, (b) the assistant feature set chosen to meet these expectations. Via a survey based study with N=296 participants, we provide empirical evidence showing that, after controlling for demographic factors, users\u27 prior, endogenous intrinsic motivation influences their intrinsic expectations for competence, stimulation and influence, but not extrinsic and hedonic expectations. Users with low prior motivation prefer an assistant in a supervisor role. Implications for research and practice are discussed

Beyond productivity and efficiency: design tools, methods and frameworks for psychological well-being, and (un)exploited potentials to assist employees at work

Research has repeatedly demonstrated that fostering employees' psychological well-being is linked to several positive outcomes, both for the employee and the organization, and yet, it has rarely been considered as a design goal, especially when it comes to developing digital solutions to assist employees in their everyday tasks. In this paper, we take the first steps toward using well-being concepts to (re)design assistants. We motivate the problem by providing an overview of assistance technologies in the industrial context and their current state of development. Next, we elucidate and map the facets of psychological well-being at work, and highlight the importance of workplace eudaimonic well-being. To help designers and researchers adopt it as a design objective, we carried out a literature review to synthesize the state-of-the-art frameworks and methods that have been proposed to incorporate psychological well-being into design. Our investigation reveals that no one framework targets eudaimonic well-being, and more work may be necessary to develop a comprehensive approach that targets the various facets of workplace eudaimonic well-being. Consequently, we discuss challenges and opportunities for developing digital assistance that could foster employees' psychological well-being