Design Principles of Mobile Information Systems in the Digital Transformation of the Workplace - Utilization of Smartwatch-based Information Systems in the Corporate Context

During the last decades, smartwatches emerged as an innovative and promising technology and hit the consumer market due to the accessibility of affordable devices and predominant acceptance caused by the considerable similarity to common wristwatches. With the unique characteristics of permanent availability, unobtrusiveness, and hands-free operation, they can provide additional value in the corporate context. Thus, this thesis analyzes use cases for smartwatches in companies, elaborates on the design of smartwatch-based information systems, and covers the usability of smartwatch applications during the development of smartwatch-based information systems. It is composed of three research complexes. The first research complex focuses on the digital assistance of (mobile) employees who have to execute manual work and have been excluded so far from the benefits of the digitalization since they cannot operate hand-held devices. The objective is to design smartwatch-based information systems to support workflows in the corporate context, facilitate the daily work of numerous employees, and make processes more efficient for companies. During a design science research approach, smartwatch-based software artifacts are designed and evaluated in use cases of production, support, security service, as well as logistics, and a nascent design theory is proposed to complement theory according to mobile information system research. The evaluation shows that, on the one hand, smartwatches have enormous potential to assist employees with a fast and ubiquitous exchange of information, instant notifications, collaboration, and workflow guidance while they can be operated incidentally during manual work. On the other hand, the design of smartwatch-based information systems is a crucial factor for successful long-term deployment in companies, and especially limitations according to the small form-factor, general conditions, acceptance of the employees, and legal regulations have to be addressed appropriately. The second research complex addresses smartwatch-based information systems at the office workplace. This broadens and complements the view on the utilization of smartwatches in the corporate context in addition to the mobile context described in the first research complex. Though smartwatches are devices constructed for mobile use, the utilization in low mobile or stationary scenarios also has benefits due they exhibit the characteristic of a wearable computer and are directly connected to the employee’s body. Various sensors can perceive employee-, environment- and therefore context-related information and demand the employees’ attention with proactive notifications that are accompanied by a vibration. Thus, a smartwatch-based and gamified information system for health promotion at the office workplace is designed and evaluated. Research complex three provides a closer look at the topic of usability concerning applications running on smartwatches since it is a crucial factor during the development cycle. As a supporting element for the studies within the first and second research complex, a framework for the usability analysis of smartwatch applications is developed. For research, this thesis contributes a systemization of the state-of-the-art of smartwatch utilization in the corporate context, enabling and inhibiting influence factors of the smartwatch adoption in companies, and design principles as well as a nascent design theory for smartwatch-based information systems to support mobile employees executing manual work. For practice, this thesis contributes possible use cases for smartwatches in companies, assistance in decision-making for the introduction of smartwatch-based information systems in the corporate context with the Smartwatch Applicability Framework, situated implementations of a smartwatch-based information system for typical use cases, design recommendations for smartwatch-based information systems, an implementation of a smartwatch-based information system for the support of mobile employees executing manual work, and a usability-framework for smartwatches to automatically access usability of existing applications providing suggestions for usability improvement

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A COLLABORATIVE SMARTWATCH APPLICATION SUPPORTING EMPLOYEES IN INDUSTRIAL WORKFLOWS

Due to new technological developments and the availability of affordable wearable devices like smartwatches, which recently hit the consumer market, employees in the corporate context can benefit from ubiquitous access to information. Especially in industrial production, there are complex and high involving workflows, which require the collaboration of multiple persons spread over different divisions. In such scenarios, fast and reliable communication is difficult and often disturbs work. Since smartwatches can be worn permanently on the body and the em-ployee has non-disruptive access to information without the use of hands, such devices offer big potential for seamless support and guidance within a service system. In this paper, we identify a representative problem composed of a quality assurance process with practical relevance and design and implement an information system based on smartwatches in a design science ap-proach. Since we infer meta-requirements for our system from the results of qualitative studies, the needs of employees are strongly considered and the developed software can be applied in a broad class of related problems. Finally, we evaluate the created meta-artifact in the identified scenario in order to obtain insights and knowledge about building information systems based on smartwatches for collaborative workflow support

Design and Implementation of a Usability-Framework for Smartwatches

Due to technological developments in the last decade, the class of wearable computers arose which offers innovative access to human-computer interaction. Especially smartwatches attracted attention and are established as a permanently worn computer device on many wrists nowadays. In particular, for new technologies usability is an important success factor. Although usability is a well-known domain with a long research history, unique characteristics of smartwatch applications complicate the utilization of recent usability analysis methods. Therefore, we survey recent techniques for the usability analysis, outline and respectively adapt suited approaches based on the requirements induced by the special characteristics of smartwatches. In addition, we design and implement a usability framework which facilitates the automated usability analysis for smartwatch applications in a design science research approach. Furthermore, we demonstrate the applicability of the developed framework and show the results of a usability analysis for an exemplary case study

Lovastatin improves impaired synaptic plasticity and phasic alertness in patients with neurofibromatosis type 1

Background: Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is one of the most common genetic disorders causing learning disabilities by mutations in the neurofibromin gene, an important inhibitor of the RAS pathway. In a mouse model of NF1, a loss of function mutation of the neurofibromin gene resulted in increased gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA)-mediated inhibition which led to decreased synaptic plasticity and deficits in attentional performance. Most importantly, these defictis were normalized by lovastatin. This placebo-controlled, double blind, randomized study aimed to investigate synaptic plasticity and cognition in humans with NF1 and tried to answer the question whether potential deficits may be rescued by lovastatin. Methods: In NF1 patients (n = 11; 19-44 years) and healthy controls (HC; n = 11; 19-31 years) paired pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was used to study intracortical inhibition (paired pulse) and synaptic plasticity (paired associative stimulation). On behavioural level the Test of Attentional Performance (TAP) was used. To study the effect of 200 mg lovastatin for 4 days on all these parameters, a placebo-controlled, double blind, randomized trial was performed. Results: In patients with NF1, lovastatin revealed significant decrease of intracortical inhibition, significant increase of synaptic plasticity as well as significant increase of phasic alertness. Compared to HC, patients with NF1 exposed increased intracortical inhibition, impaired synaptic plasticity and deficits in phasic alertness. Conclusions: This study demonstrates, for the first time, a link between a pathological RAS pathway activity, intracortical inhibition and impaired synaptic plasticity and its rescue by lovastatin in humans. Our findings revealed mechanisms of attention disorders in humans with NF1 and support the idea of a potential clinical benefit of lovastatin as a therapeutic option

Utilizing a Smartwatch-based System to Support Security Service Employees

Technological development and the ongoing miniaturization of computer components emerged wearable computers as an innovative and promising technology. Recent studies emphasized that especially the unique characteristics of smartwatches as permanent availability, unobtrusiveness, and hands-free operation can facilitate workflows and support employees in the corporate context. In this paper, we focus on a security service scenario including the collaboration of mobile and stationary employees, security patrols at facilities distributed over a city and lone-working-protection issuing emergency alarms in the case of accidents, attacks or dangerous situations. In the context of a design science research approach, we design and implement a prototypical smartwatch-based software artifact to address the scenario inherent problems and a broad range of security-related use cases. This illustrates that service systems can in particular benefit from the sensors of smartwatches at an employees’ wrist increasing the co-value creation beyond, e.g., recently used smartphone-based systems