This study includes a literature review and an empirical study. The empirical study is a usability testing survey that investigates user perceptions of Smart Home technology that make up the Internet of Things system in the Smart Home. Both closed-ended questions and open-ended questions are included in the survey for a comprehensive study. Main results showed that current smart home systems are somewhat usable. Results also showed that smart home users are satisfied with current smart home systems, believes that smart home technology adds value to their lifestyle, and will continue to use smart home technology. Main results showed that the strengths of current smart home systems design are efficiency, learnability, memorability, and enjoyability. Main results showed that there is a trend between age group and smart home user perceptions. These findings inform the design of user-centered smart home systems.
Education has been at the forefront of many issues in Arizona over the past several years with concerns over lack of funding sparking the Red for Ed movement. However, despite the push for educational change, there remain many barriers to education including a lack of visibility for how Arizona schools are performing at a legislative district level. While there are sources of information released at a school district level, many of these are limited and can become obscure to legislators when such school districts lie on the boundary between 2 different legislative districts. Moreover, much of this information is in the form of raw spreadsheets and is often fragmented between government websites and educational organizations. As such, a visualization dashboard that clearly identifies schools and their relative performance within each legislative district would be an extremely valuable tool to legislative bodies and the Arizona public. Although this dashboard and research are rough drafts of a larger concept, they would ideally increase transparency regarding public information about these districts and allow legislators to utilize the dashboard as a tool for greater understanding and more effective policymaking.
Personal electric vehicles, or PEVs, help individuals navigate short to mid distance commutes in environments that lack effective public transportation solutions. This is known as the “Last Mile” problem. A particular solution, electric skateboards, are highly energy efficient due to their size but lack auxiliary features for safety and user-convenience connected to the same battery supply. Plus, almost all conventional electric boards come with proprietary software and hardware designs, meaning that modifying or improving upon their logic is extremely difficult if not impossible. Therefore, our group aims to prototype an improved, open-source electric skateboard design to determine the feasibility of our ideas.
Personal electric vehicles, or PEVs, help individuals navigate short to mid distance commutes in environments that lack effective public transportation solutions. This is known as the “Last Mile” problem. A particular solution, electric skateboards, are highly energy efficient due to their size but lack auxiliary features for safety and user-convenience connected to the same battery supply. Plus, almost all conventional electric boards come with proprietary software and hardware designs, meaning that modifying or improving upon their logic is extremely difficult if not impossible. Therefore, our group aims to prototype an improved, open-source electric skateboard design to determine the feasibility of our ideas.