Matching Items (6)
Description
Study in user experience design states that there is a considerable gap between users and designers. Collaborative design and empathetic design methods attempt to make a strong relationship between these two. In participatory design activities, projective `make tools' are required for users to show their thoughts. This research is designed to apply an empathetic way of using `make tools' in user experience design for websites clients, users, and designers.
A magnetic wireframe tool has been used as a `make tool', and a sample project has been defined in order to see how the tool can create empathy among stakeholders. In this study fourth year graphic design students at Arizona State University (ASU), USA, are participating as users, faculty members have the role of clients, and Forty, Inc., a design firm in the Phoenix area, is the design team for the study. All of these three groups are cooperating on re-designing the homepage of the Design School in Herberger Institute for Design and Art (HIDA) at ASU.
A method for applying the magnetic tool was designed and used for each group. Results of users and clients' activities were shared with the design team, and they designed a final prototype for the wireframe of the sample project. Observation and interviews were done to see how participants work with the tool. Also, follow up questionnaires were used in order to evaluate all groups' experiences with the magnetic wireframe. Lastly, as a part of questionnaires, a sentence completion method has been used in order to collect the participants' exact thoughts about the magnetic tool.
Observations and results of data analysis in this research show that the tool was a helpful `make tool' for users and clients. They could talk about their ideas and also designers could learn more about people. The entire series of activities caused an empathetic relationship among stakeholders of the sample project. This method of using `make tools' in user experience design for web sites can be useful for collaborative UX design activities and further research in user experience design with empathy.
A magnetic wireframe tool has been used as a `make tool', and a sample project has been defined in order to see how the tool can create empathy among stakeholders. In this study fourth year graphic design students at Arizona State University (ASU), USA, are participating as users, faculty members have the role of clients, and Forty, Inc., a design firm in the Phoenix area, is the design team for the study. All of these three groups are cooperating on re-designing the homepage of the Design School in Herberger Institute for Design and Art (HIDA) at ASU.
A method for applying the magnetic tool was designed and used for each group. Results of users and clients' activities were shared with the design team, and they designed a final prototype for the wireframe of the sample project. Observation and interviews were done to see how participants work with the tool. Also, follow up questionnaires were used in order to evaluate all groups' experiences with the magnetic wireframe. Lastly, as a part of questionnaires, a sentence completion method has been used in order to collect the participants' exact thoughts about the magnetic tool.
Observations and results of data analysis in this research show that the tool was a helpful `make tool' for users and clients. They could talk about their ideas and also designers could learn more about people. The entire series of activities caused an empathetic relationship among stakeholders of the sample project. This method of using `make tools' in user experience design for web sites can be useful for collaborative UX design activities and further research in user experience design with empathy.
ContributorsEslamifar, Ali (Author) / Heywood, William (Thesis advisor) / Walker, Erin (Committee member) / Takamura, John (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This thesis describes research into the application of socially reflective, or "Slow", design principles to modern mediated systems, or "Fast" technology. The "information overload" caused by drastic changes in the nature of human communications in the last decade has become a serious problem, with many human-technology interactions creating mental confusion, personal discomfort and a sense of disconnection. Slow design principles aim to help create interactions that avoid these problems by increasing interaction richness, encouraging engagement with local communities, and promoting personal and communal reflection. Three major functional mediated systems were constructed to examine the application of Slow principles on multiple scales: KiteViz, Taskville and Your ____ Here. Each system was designed based on a survey of current research within the field and previous research results. KiteViz is a visually metaphorical display of Twitter activity within a small group, Taskville is a workplace game designed to support collaboration and group awareness in an enterprise, and Your ____ Here is a physical-digital projection system that augments built architecture with user-submitted content to promote discussion and reflection. Each system was tested with multiple users and user groups, the systems were evaluated for their effectiveness in supporting each of the tenets of Slow design, and the results were collected into a set of key findings. Each system was considered generally effective, with specific strengths varying. The thesis concludes with a framework of five major principles to be used in the design of modern, highly-mediated systems that still apply Slow design principles: design for fundamental understanding, handle complexity gracefully, Slow is a process of evolution and revelation, leverage groups and personal connections to encode value, and allow for participation across a widely distributed range of scales.
ContributorsLinn, Silvan (Author) / Kelliher, Aisling G (Thesis advisor) / Tinapple, David (Committee member) / Boradkar, Prasad (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Multimedia educational technologies have increased their presence in traditional and online classrooms over the course of the previous decade. These tools hold value and can promote positive learning outcomes but are reliant on students’ degree of cognitive engagement and self-regulation. When students are not cognitively engaged or have low self-regulation capabilities, their interaction with the technology becomes less impactful because of decreased learning outcomes. Building or altering technologies to cognitively engage students is costly and timely; the present study investigates if introducing higher agency roles, to change the role of the student, increases learning outcomes. Specifically, this study investigates if higher agency roles of a designer or teacher enhances cognitive engagement and improves learning when compared to the conventional role of a learner. Improved learning outcomes were observed from the pretest to posttest for the learner, designer, and teacher role. Participants engaged with higher agency roles did not demonstrate more growth from pretest to posttest when compared to the control group, but participants in the teacher role outperformed those in the designer role. Additionally, reading ability did not impact learning gains across groups. While students who engaged with higher agency roles did not achieve greater learning outcomes than students in the control group, results indicate a learning effect across groups. Results of this study suggest that it was underpowered. Further research is needed to determine the extent of the impact that higher agency roles have on learning outcomes.
ContributorsNovak, Kyrsten (Author) / Roscoe, Rod (Thesis advisor) / Branaghan, Russell (Committee member) / Craig, Scotty (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Traditional usability methods in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) have been extensively used to understand the usability of products. Measurements of user experience (UX) in traditional HCI studies mostly rely on task performance and observable user interactions with the product or services, such as usability tests, contextual inquiry, and subjective self-report data, including questionnaires, interviews, and usability tests. However, these studies fail to directly reflect a user’s psychological involvement and further fail to explain the cognitive processing and the related emotional arousal. Thus, capturing how users think and feel when they are using a product remains a vital challenge of user experience evaluation studies. Conversely, recent research has revealed that sensor-based affect detection technologies, such as eye tracking, electroencephalography (EEG), galvanic skin response (GSR), and facial expression analysis, effectively capture affective states and physiological responses. These methods are efficient indicators of cognitive involvement and emotional arousal and constitute effective strategies for a comprehensive measurement of UX. The literature review shows that the impacts of sensor-based affect detection systems to the UX can be categorized in two groups: (1) confirmatory to validate the results obtained from the traditional usability methods in UX evaluations; and (2) complementary to enhance the findings or provide more precise and valid evidence. Both provided comprehensive findings to uncover the issues related to mental and physiological pathways to enhance the design of product and services. Therefore, this dissertation claims that it can be efficient to integrate sensor-based affect detection technologies to solve the current gaps or weaknesses of traditional usability methods. The dissertation revealed that the multi-sensor-based UX evaluation approach through biometrics tools and software corroborated user experience identified by traditional UX methods during an online purchasing task. The use these systems enhanced the findings and provided more precise and valid evidence to predict the consumer purchasing preferences. Thus, their impact was “complementary” on overall UX evaluation. The dissertation also provided information of the unique contributions of each tool and recommended some ways user experience researchers can combine both sensor-based and traditional UX approaches to explain consumer purchasing preferences.
ContributorsKula, Irfan (Author) / Atkinson, Robert K (Thesis advisor) / Roscoe, Rod D. (Thesis advisor) / Branaghan, Russell J (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
As people age, the desire to grow old independently and in place becomes larger and takes greater importance in their lives. Successful aging involves the physical, mental and social well-being of an individual. To enable successful aging of older adults, it is necessary for them to perform both activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL). Embedded assessment has made it possible to assess an individual's functional ability in-place, however the success of any technology depends largely on the user than the technology itself. Previous researches in in-situ functional assessment systems have heavily focused on the technology rather than on the user. This dissertation takes a user-centric approach to this problem by trying to identify the design and technical challenges of deploying and using a functional assessment system in the real world.
To investigate this line of research, a case study was conducted with 4 older adults in their homes, interviews were conducted with 8 caregivers and a controlled lab experiment was conducted with 8 young healthy adults at ASU, to test the sensors. This methodology provides a significant opportunity to advance the scientific field by expanding the present focus on IADL task performance to an integrated assessment of ADL and IADL task performance. Doing so would not only be more effective in identifying functional decline but could also provide a more comprehensive assessment of individuals' functional abilities with independence and also providing the caregivers with much needed respite.
The controlled lab study tested the sensors embedded into daily objects and found them to be reliable, and efficient. Short term exploratory case studies with healthy older adults revealed the challenges associated with design and technical aspects of the current system, while inductive analysis performed on interviews with caregivers helped to generate central themes on which future functional assessment systems need to be designed and built. The key central themes were a) focus on design / user experience, b) consider user's characteristics, personality, behavior and functional ability, c) provide support for independence, and d) adapt to individual user's needs.
To investigate this line of research, a case study was conducted with 4 older adults in their homes, interviews were conducted with 8 caregivers and a controlled lab experiment was conducted with 8 young healthy adults at ASU, to test the sensors. This methodology provides a significant opportunity to advance the scientific field by expanding the present focus on IADL task performance to an integrated assessment of ADL and IADL task performance. Doing so would not only be more effective in identifying functional decline but could also provide a more comprehensive assessment of individuals' functional abilities with independence and also providing the caregivers with much needed respite.
The controlled lab study tested the sensors embedded into daily objects and found them to be reliable, and efficient. Short term exploratory case studies with healthy older adults revealed the challenges associated with design and technical aspects of the current system, while inductive analysis performed on interviews with caregivers helped to generate central themes on which future functional assessment systems need to be designed and built. The key central themes were a) focus on design / user experience, b) consider user's characteristics, personality, behavior and functional ability, c) provide support for independence, and d) adapt to individual user's needs.
ContributorsRavishankar, Vijay Kumar (Author) / Burleson, Winslow (Thesis advisor) / Coon, David (Committee member) / Mahoney, Diane (Committee member) / Walker, Erin (Committee member) / Li, Baoxin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Desirable outcomes such as health and wellbeing are tightly linked to people’s behaviors, thus inspiring research on technologies that support productively changing those behaviors. Many behavior change technologies are designed by Human-Computer Interaction experts, but this approach makes it difficult to personalize support to each user’s unique goals and needs. As an alternative to the provision of expert-developed pre-fabricated behavior change solutions, the present study aims to empower users’ self-experimentation for behavior change. To this end, two levels of supports were explored. First, the provision of interactive digital materials to support users’ creation of behavioral plans was developed. In the initial step, a tutorial for self-experimentation for behavior change that was fully scripted with images in succession was created. The tutorial focuses on facilitating users’ learning and applying behavior change techniques. Second, users were equipped with a tool to support their implementation of context-aware just-in-time interventions. This tool enables prototyping of sensor-based responsive systems for home environments, integrating simple sensors (two-state magnetic sensors, etc.) and media event components (wireless sound, etc.).
To evaluate the effectiveness of these two approaches, a between-subject trial comparing the approaches to a sleep education control was conducted with 27 participants over 7 weeks. Although results did not reveal significant difference in sleep quality improvement between the conditions, trends indicating greater effectiveness in the two treatment groups were observed. Analysis of the plans participants created and their revision performance also indicated that the two treatment groups developed more specific and personalized plans compared with the control group.
To evaluate the effectiveness of these two approaches, a between-subject trial comparing the approaches to a sleep education control was conducted with 27 participants over 7 weeks. Although results did not reveal significant difference in sleep quality improvement between the conditions, trends indicating greater effectiveness in the two treatment groups were observed. Analysis of the plans participants created and their revision performance also indicated that the two treatment groups developed more specific and personalized plans compared with the control group.
ContributorsLee, Jisoo (Author) / Burleson, Winslow (Thesis advisor) / Hekler, Eric B. (Committee member) / Tinapple, David (Committee member) / Walker, Erin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016