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Publications (165)
Voice interfaces have gained popularity, driven by the proliferation of intelligent assistants and the development of natural language processing. Given their progress, they could be used to implement self-reported instruments such as standardized user experience (UX) evaluation questionnaires, particularly in the response capture mechanism. This n...
In recent years there has been an increase of voice interfaces, driven by developments in Artificial Intelligence and the expansion of commercial devices that use them, such as smart assistants present on phones or smart speakers. One field that could take advantage of the potential of voice interaction is in the self-administered surveys data coll...
Standardized questionnaires are widely used instruments to evaluate UX and their capture mechanism has been implemented in written form, either on paper or in digital format. This study aims to determine if the UX evaluations obtained in the standardized UEQ questionnaire (User Experience Questionnaire) are equivalent if the response capture mechan...
Due to the measures imposed to prevent the spread of the virus during the COVID-19 pandemic, how education and work communications are carried have changed. An increase in video conferencing and meeting applications is noticeable. In this research paper, we describe the results of a user experience evaluation of three widely used platforms: Discord...
The article presents the main robotic trends linked to the publications of the institutional repositories of the five main Costa Rican public universities: Tecnológico de Costa Rica, University of Costa Rica, National University, State Distance University, and National Technical University. The publications were obtained after using the keyword ‘ro...
Background. Standardized questionnaires are well-known, reliable, and inexpensive instruments to evaluate user experience (UX). Although the structure, content, and application procedure of the three most recognized questionnaires (AttrakDiff, UEQ, and meCUE) are known, there is no systematic literature review (SLR) that classifies how these questi...
The amount of information available for a person at a given time is growing at a disproportioned rate. Moreover, smart devices are becoming more and more popular. To avoid that human’s attention becomes a bottleneck and improve the number of notifications delivered to users, we believe that smart devices could serve as notifications mechanisms. Thi...
This research described the utilization of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) to evaluate a high-level interactive scenario of using Nao Robot in the role of co-presenting in an educative context. Describing the registered result of construct such as Intention of Use, Perceived Enjoyment (PE), Perceived Sociability (PS),...
Robotics, combined with computer science and human-centered studies, can have a substantial impact in areas such as education and innovation. Robots have proven to be a good tool to gain and maintain users’ involvement in different activities. In education, robots can be used as teaching assistants to improve participation, enhance concentration or...
Ambient Intelligence (AmI) promotes a world in which almost every device has computational capabilities. Such devices will allow a natural user interaction with the digital world. In addition, in several contexts developers have used smart devices to gather information of the user and provide notifications. The system consists of three main modules...
Obesity is one of the most serious public health challenges of the 21st century and it is a threat to the life of people according to World Health Organization. In this scenario, family environment is important to establish healthy habits which help to reduce levels of obesity and control overweight in children. However, little efforts have been fo...
Notifications represent a key element in smart devices. In fact, a device could be considered “smart” if it is able to provide different type of messages or notifications to the users. In this way, people who use smart devices receive a significant number of notifications daily. However, how many notifications can a user receive and attend daily? I...
Natural User Interfaces (NUI) are supposed to be used by humans in a very logic way. However, the run to deploy Speech-based NUIs by the industry has had a large impact on the naturality of such interfaces. This paper presents a usability test of the most prestigious and internationally used Speech-based NUI (i.e., Alexa, Siri, Cortana and Google’s...
Even with the availability of several tests to provide clarity in choosing our career path, the decision remains a tough one to undertake. Most of the available tests are either monotonous, resulting in a tedious effort to go through them entirely, or are just plain boring. In this paper, however, we present a new and different approach to career g...
El desarrollo de tecnologías inalámbricas y dispositivos computacionales móviles abren la posibilidad de nuevos escenarios de aplicación en el campo de la lingüística computacional. Uno de ellos es la integración de estudiantes con necesidades educativas especiales a escenarios de aprendizaje interactivos y accesibles. El artículo describe un siste...
Sign languages are natural languages used mostly by deaf and hard of hearing people. Different development opportunities for people with these disabilities are limited because of communication problems. The advances in technology to recognize signs and gestures will make computer supported interpretation of sign languages possible. There are more t...
This paper describes the design and evaluation process of two mobile programming assistance tools that allow children in the early childhood to develop programs and execute them using robots. The tools are called TITIBOTS and TITIBOTS Colab which incorporates collaboration. The tools have icon-based interfaces and integrate visual programming, robo...
Since the establishment of Computer Supported Collaborative Work as a research area, computer advances have change the paradigm of how technology is applied to improve the performance in collaborative scenarios. Notifications are an important part of this improvement. Technological systems have been applied in order to provide collaborators with th...
In Ubiquitous Computing, augmented objects refer to those elements of the real world which have been provided with computational capabilities to meet a specific need. Meanwhile, Collaborative Writing Environments (CWE) allow groups of people to work together and increase the chances of success and share knowledge when they are working on shared doc...
An irrational fear is called a phobia. Cognitive therapy teaches patients how to respond to triggering stimuli, by relaxing their mind and entering a state of reduced anxiety. Some of these methods depend on patient’s imagination, since putting them in the situation or the object that triggers the anxiety (airplanes, spiders, public speaking, and d...
Interactive systems aimed at educational environments are becoming increasingly important in students learning. This paper focuses on the application of Radio Frequency (RFID) technology in early literacy process of Down syndrome students. An experimental study was carried out in Costa Rica among four special education teachers and six Down syndrom...
This paper provides an overview of a doctoral research project which focuses in developing a framework to allow smart device-based notifications to provide user awareness. Notifications are mechanisms by which the user’s attention is driven to specific tasks or events. Notifications should provide a balance between intrusiveness and value in order...
The use of smart devices is increasing rapidly; this trend is changing the paradigm in which notifications are delivered to users. Smart devices are important to provide user awareness. However, their use must be controlled and human perception should be considered to avoid information overload. In this paper, we present a dynamic mechanism to coor...
People with disabilities have fewer opportunities. Technological developments should be used to help these people to have more opportunities. In this paper we present partial results of a research project which aims to help people with disabilities, specifically deaf and hard of hearing. We present a sign language recognition model. The model takes...
Physical therapy consists mainly in the execution of rehabilitation processes that aim to help overcome injuries, as well as develop, maintain, or restore maximum body movement. Knee rehabilitation is one kind of physical therapy that requires daily exercises which could be considered monotonous and boring by the patients, discouraging their improv...
Alternative and augmentative communications encapsulates the use of technology to provide communication means for people with some sort of disability. In this paper, we present a prototype that provides both pictographic and alphabetic options to allow communication. Our system was originally designed for people that suffer physical disabilities an...
Traditional web interfaces often rely on keyboard/mouse input to work. This characteristic forces people with reduced mobility to adapt or do not use the applications at all. This paper proposes a prototype to increase web accessibility for people with reduced mobility. Our prototype proposes an eye gaze based interaction between the user and web b...
Communication is a key for human development. Nevertheless, deaf people have difficulty interacting with hearing and hard of hearing people. On the other hand, new technology allows gesture recognition. This work aims to promote the development of tools to take advantage of 3D camera technology for the benefit of the Deaf Community around the world...
Awareness could be defined as the knowledge that the user has of a particular activity, either individual or collaborative. Good awareness mechanisms provide information to the user at the right time so that s/he can know what is required for her/him to do before s/he is required to do it. Notification mechanisms are a key factor to provide awarene...
Debido al desarrollo acelerado de la tecnología cada vez es más común
observar novedosas herramientas tecnológicas en el proceso educativo.
Algunas de ellas usan interfaces de usuario no tradicionales, es decir, no
solamente se accede a la información con el teclado o ratón de un
computador, sino que también se usan objetos físicos o comandos de vo...
Children born in the Information Age are digital natives, this characteristic should be exploited to improve the learning process through the use of technology. This paper addresses the design, construction, and evaluation process of TITIBOTS, a programming assistance tool for mobile devices that allows children in the early childhood to create pro...
Our goal in this project was to develop an augmented reality system, called Troyoculus, to help night-blind people improve their reading capabilities. We developed two prototypes, one based on Oculus Rift and other based on a smartphone. We tested both prototypes using three variables: distance between the subject and the reading target, amount of...
Ambient Intelligence and Ubiquitous Computing are carrying the world to a reality where almost every object interacts with the environment, either via sensors or actuators, and users must learn how to interact with such systems. This paper presents a gesture-based interaction approach to manipulate such objects. We developed a prototype using a lea...
Several million people around the world use signs as their main mean of communication. The advances in technologies to recognize such signs will make possible the computer supported interpretation of sign languages. There are more than 137 different sign language around the world; therefore, a system that interprets those languages could be benefic...
In physical therapy, goniometers are used to measure limb movement during restoration exercises. These devices aren't always readily available to therapists, and the exercises themselves are monotonous and offer little motivation for the patients. We have developed a low-cost device prototype we've tested in knee rehabilitation exercises, and devel...
In physical therapy, goniometers are used to measure limb movement during restoration exercises. These devices aren’t always readily available to therapists, and the exercises themselves are monotonous and offer little motivation for the patients. We have developed a low-cost device prototype we’ve tested in knee rehabilitation exercises, and devel...
One of the basic requirements in education is to prepare students for participation in an information society in which knowledge will be the most important resource for development. Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning is one of the most promising approaches to enhance the learning process with the help of information and communication technol...
Literacy development is an essential process for special education needs children. Otherwise, they will have additional difficulties in their daily life activities and hence their social inclusion. It is a big challenge for parents and teachers, but it is easier if the process begins since childhood. In this paper, we present Tic@ula, a virtual rep...
Learning how to program in early age helps children to develop some capabilities as logical thinking, problem solving, and creativity. Incorporating robotics in programming children can help to learn in a concrete and funny way, collaborating with each other. The research project presented in this paper describes the first prototype that implements...
Teaching children with intellectual disabilities is a big challenge for most parents and educators. Special education teachers use learning strategies to develop and enhance motivation for complex learning tasks. Literacy acquisition is an essential and life-long skill for a child with intellectual disabilities. In this context, technology can supp...
Kiteracy is an educational kit designed to improve the literacy process of children with Down syndrome by enabling higher levels of interaction. The kit is based on two Spanish literacy methods: global and phonics. In this work, we present a qualitative study based on video-recorded sessions with twelve children from a Down syndrome institution. Th...
Kiteracy is an educational kit designed to improve the literacy process of children with Down syndrome by enabling higher levels of interaction. The kit is based on two Spanish literacy methods: global and phonics. In this work, we present a qualitative study based on video-recorded sessions with twelve children from a Down syndrome institution. Th...
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Work-Conference on Ambient Assisted Living, IWAAL 2015, held in Puerto Varas, Chile, in December 2015.
The 20 full papers presented with 7 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 31 submissions. The focus of the papers is on following topics: ambient assisted li...
People with intellectual disabilities should develop reading and writing skills since children. Otherwise, they will have additional difficulties in their daily life activities, as buying in a store, taking medicaments or getting a job. In this paper we present a prototype that uses tangible interfaces and augmented objects to support a literacy me...
In a collaborative writing session one of the most important activities is the notification to all the collaborators about changes in documents (data awareness). In this paper we propose the use of an augmented object as the mechanism to notify changes in shared documents. In this way, collaborators can be aware of modifications even if they are no...
Learning to program in early age helps children to develop some capabilities as logical thinking, problem solving and creativity. By incorporating robotics in programming children can learn in a concrete and funny way, collaborating with each other. The research project presented in this paper describes the first prototype that implement a programm...
The construction of augmented object´s prototypes is a difficult process because most of the time these prototypes contain several sensors embedded in real life objects. In this paper, we present our experience using 3D technologies (scanning and printing) to generate prototypes of augmented objects which allow an early evaluation of them. Three di...
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) causes unexpected death of infants; a variety of risk factors for SIDS have been detected through the years. A significant number of deaths occur when the children are being cared by non parental caregivers. We found that, using wearable systems some of those risk factors can be constantly monitored and the gathe...
The processes to design, develop, and evaluate augmented objects are complex and should adhere to a Software Engineering methodology with a user-centered approach. This article presents a framework for creating augmented objects focused on the interaction of the final users with these objects. The article applies the framework in three cases of stu...
Some experiences regarding children with disabilities carried out in Ecuador, Costa Rica and Spain have contributed to realize the importance of reading in order to enhance their daily life activities, independence and social integration. This article describes a qualitative study to understand general issues related to the design of non-traditiona...
A number of researchers argue that cooperative learning can promote greater productivity and more caring, supportive and committed relationships between students, active learning, critical thinking, the achievement of long-term learning objectives, conceptual understanding, long-term retention of information and high levels of student satisfaction....
La habilidad de programar desde muy temprana edad ayuda al desarrollo cognitivo lógico. Incorporar la robótica en la programación permite a los niños aprender de forma concreta y divertida, colaborando entre ellos. Esto permite que los niños logren desarrollar competencias clave del Siglo XXI. La investigación propuesta en este documento consistió...
The ability to program from an early age helps to logical cognitive development. Incorporating robotics programming allows children to learn in a concrete and fun way, collaborating with each other. This allows children to succeed in developing key competencies of the XXI Century. The research proposed in this paper was the creation of a programmin...
Understanding and analyzing collaborative learning processes requires a fine-grained sequential analysis of the group interaction in the context of learning goals. Several researchers in the area of collaborative work take the quality of the group outcome as a success criterion. Nevertheless, recent findings are giving more importance to the qualit...
The process of designing and creating fine Augmented Objects is not an easy task. In this paper we state that Augmented Objects are just interfaces for specific software systems. In this way, the process of design, construction and testing of Augmented Objects should be part of a Software Engineering methodology, likewise Human Computer Interaction...
Several researchers in the area of collaborative work take the quality of the group outcome as a success criterion. Nevertheless, recent findings are giving more importance to the quality of the collaboration process itself. This paper presents a set of patterns the main objective of which is to evaluate and monitor the collaborative learning proce...
Kids under treatments that involve long stays at a hospital or health center tend to get bored or depressed because of the lack of social interaction with family and friends. Such a situation also affects the evolution and effectiveness of their treatments. This article presents a mobile ubiquitous game called MagicRace, which allows hospitalized k...
One of the keystones of vision of AmI is the ability of multiple devices to seamlessly communicate within themselves. To this end, this article presents a mobile computer application which is able to smoothly connect via WiFi to large-screen TVs and mobile computer devices. Thus the application allows implementing shared displays with minimal effor...
Navigation in indoor environments is highly challenging for the severely visually impaired, particularly in spaces visited for the first time. Several solutions have been proposed to deal with this challenge. Although some of them have shown to be useful in real scenarios, they involve an important deployment effort or use artifacts that are not na...
Several groupware tools have been implemented within Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) research groups in order to test ideas and concepts currently being studied. It is very important to perform pilot-evaluations with these systems. The CSCW Lab is an environment for evaluating groupware within research groups. Four dimensions in as...
Taking into account the development of new software tools supporting collaboration, this paper introduces the architecture and experimental results of a set of software tools supporting collaboration based on Digital Workbook Metaphor, in collaborative evaluation scenarios. The platform used has been Tablet Pc, because offers an interaction based o...
Computer Supported Collaborative Learning could highly impact education around the world if the proper Collaborative Learning tools are set in place. In this paper we describe the design of a collaborative learning activity for teaching Chemistry to Chilean students. We describe a PDA-based software tool that allows teachers to create workgroups in...
Este artículo presenta la arquitectura y resultados experimentales de un conjunto de nuevas herramientas para el soporte a la colaboración basada en la metáfora de Libro de Trabajo Digital, aplicada a escenarios de Evaluación Colaborativa. Esta arquitectura ha sido implementada utilizando las plataformas TabletPC, por cuanto ofrece un modelo de int...
It seems that actual software tools utilizing Computer-Mediated Communication mechanisms -like messaging or chat systems-do not help young students to learn good grammar skills. On the contrary, these tools can be detrimental for the acquisition of these skills. On the other hand, it is difficult to design and build software tools for supporting th...
In the developing of any kind of interactive and information applications, multicultural aspects, usually, have not been considered. Therefore, people need to adapt to the interfaces instead the opposite, interfaces adapting themselves to the user characteristics. Designing products for international users all above the world is a non solved challe...
Every day more and more undergraduate and graduate students use their mobile computing devices during lectures. This situation has been identified by several researchers as a distracting factor. This article presents and discuses two CSCL activities that help delivering the knowledge in engineering courses, at two traditional Chilean universities....
It is already known that some collaborative assessment processes can provide students not only the possibility to show how
well they have understood knowledge content, but also the opportunity to enhance and increase such knowledge. Such learning
activities also allow instructors to diagnose the quality of the instructional process. However there i...
The retrieval of similar documents from large scale datasets has been the one of the main concerns in knowledge management
environments, such as plagiarism detection, news impact analysis, and the matching of ideas within sets of documents. In all
of these applications, a light-weight architecture can be considered as fundamental for the large scal...
In order to have a successful VCoP two important tasks must be performed: on the one hand, it is always important that community
provide useful information to every member by a good organization of contents and topics; on the other hand, to understand
the behavior of members (i.e. which are the key members or experts, discover communities, etc). So...
There is a real need to have systems for people with visual disabilities to be able to improve their orientation and mobility
skills, and especially for children to be able to improve their autonomy into the future. However, these systems must be designed
according to available objectives, methodologies and resources, as well as by taking the inter...
There are many examples of augmented objects in the literature. Augmented objects should provide intelligence to the ambient where they are located and also they must require a low cognitive effort to be used. Few works have been reported providing guidelines to conceive and design these components. Therefore, developers have to use improvised ad h...
Existe una necesidad real de contar con sistemas para que personas con discapacidad visual mejoren las habilidades de movilidad y orientación, es especial para que los niños puedan mejorar su autonomía en el futuro. Sin embargo, estos sistemas deben ser diseñados acorde a los objetivos, metodologías y recursos disponibles, así como también consider...
Decision meetings may be considered as composed of a divergent part and a convergent one. The divergent part has a discussion
of the agenda items. This stage can be computer-supported and it can be done asynchronously during a short period of time.
Aspects of the design of a software system intended for this purpose are presented. The discussion of...
En los escenarios de aprendizaje colaboración asistidos por computadora o CSCL, gran parte del conocimiento que fluye durante la dinámica esta implícito dentro de las acciones, mensajes y objetos que se comparten. No obstante cuando se involucran diferentes herramientas de soporte a la colaboración, no se cuenta con mecanismos apropiados que facili...
Today, social networks systems have become more and more important. People have change their way to relate and communicate. Therefore, how to enhance contents and organization of a social network is a very important task. This way, we can help Virtual communities of practice (VCoP) to survive through time. VCoP are special kind of social network wh...
The development of mobile collaborative applications involves several challenges, and one of the most important is to deal
with the always changing work context. This paper describes the relationship between these applications requirements and the
typically context elements that are present in mobile collaborative work. This article presents a hous...
It seems that actual software tools utilizing computer-mediated communication mechanisms - like messaging or chat systems - do not help young students to learn good grammar skills. On the other hand, it is difficult to design and build software tools for supporting the acquisition of language skills, especially if those tools must support a group o...
Computer supported collaborative learning could achieve a high impact on education for countries around the world if good enough tools were accounted in order to set collaborative learning environment in classrooms. In this paper we describe the design of a collaborative learning activity for teaching chemistry. We describe a PDA-based software too...
Existe una necesidad real de contar con sistemas para que personas con discapacidad visual mejoren las habilidades de movilidad y orientación, es especial para que los niños puedan mejorar su autonomía en el futuro. Sin embargo, estos sistemas deben ser diseñados acorde a los objetivos, metodologías y recursos disponibles, así como también consider...
It is no secret that the importance which evaluation has acquired, lately, in the educational world is of primary magnitude. However, examinations can also be used for learning, especially if collaborative learning activities can be integrated into them. We present a collaborative evaluation technique we have used as well as the software tool we ha...