Mikko Rajanen

University of Oulu · Department of Information Processing Science

The purpose of this article is to highlight the challenges of user-centered and usability processes and methods in a open source software development context as well as to provide some answers for these challenges.

The aim of this article is to raise awareness and discussion of the ethical aspects of the human-technology design of socio-technical systems in general, as well as the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) designer responsibility towards users, stakeholders, and society. The dark side of HCI design is rising and the HCI community must respond to it in...

We examine the use of 360-degree video technology in a live music event with the aim to explore the factors leading to acceptance of the VR use case and technology, to reduce the knowledge gap about this topic. We collected self-reported, quantitative data from 23 participants and investigated the user experience during the VR mediated 360-video co...

This paper aims at raising awareness and discussion about ethical dimensions of human-technology design of socio-technical systems in general, the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) designer responsibility towards users, stakeholders and the society in particular, as well as the raise of dark side of design and the responses of the HCI community to i...

Researchers in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) field study, design and encapsulate the rich interaction between different kinds of users, information technology systems, and contexts of use in personal and organizational levels with implications to shaping society at large. HCI addresses different levels of analysis in human-technology interac...

This editorial summarizes the background and findings of the First Mini-Conference on Transdisciplinary Research and Design (TRaD 2022) held in Oulu. We describe the aim and vision of the conference, the conference theme, the articles presented and published in the conference proceedings, and the history of the research groups organizing the confer...

The use of face masks is an important way to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we envision the Smart Mask, an IoT supported platform and ecosystem aiming to prevent and control the spreading of COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses. The integration of sensing, materials, AI, wireless, IoT, and software will help the gathering of health d...

Usability is an important quality attribute for information technology (IT) applications. However, integrating usability design and evaluation as an integral part of the development processes in information technology development organizations is still a challenge. This chapter gives an overview on the usability cost-benefit analysis models and pro...

De gustibus non est disputandum", or "In matters of taste, there can be no disputes" is an ancient Roman maxim. It posits that everyone's individual preferences are subjective opinions that cannot be right or wrong, and therefore such matters of taste should not be argued about as there is no universal truth to be found. Usability is an important q...

As the COVID-19 storms the globe, there are many efforts to battle it. This paper looks at the development of one such an effort in a form of a mobile game. The game is a 2D arcade game called Unus Terra. It is intended to be entertaining but aims to influence people to partake in social distancing through several mechanics. An early version of the...

Course workspace represents the interface between the teacher, the course content, and the student. Both student engagement and student learning are influenced by the course workspace in a similar way as the end-user experience is influenced by system interface. However, course workspaces are typically designed by teachers without a specific input...

Both bottom-up and top-down initiatives are essential for addressing climate change effectively. These include initiatives aiming to achieve widespread behavioral change towards reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as well as pursuing education regarding adaptation measures. While awareness of the issue of climate change is now pervasive, and acti...

div> The use of face masks is an important way to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we envision the Smart Mask, an IoT supported platform and ecosystem aiming to prevent and control the spreading of COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses. The integration of sensing, materials, AI, wireless, IoT, and software will help gathering of healt...

div> The use of face masks is an important way to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we envision the Smart Mask, an IoT supported platform and ecosystem aiming to prevent and control the spreading of COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses. The integration of sensing, materials, AI, wireless, IoT, and software will help gathering of healt...

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) research has provided many processes and methods for ensuring good usability during software development. The importance of usability in games has been acknowledged. However, there is a lack of research examining usability activities during actual game development and the suitability of different usability methods f...

Usability as a concept is well established, encapsulating the rich interaction between different kinds of users, information technology systems, and contexts of use. In the context of socio-technical systems, technology shapes societies and human interactions, and likewise technology itself is shaped by social, economic, and political forces. There...

Usability covers the breadth and depth of the rich interaction of users and technology in the socio-technical context. Though the concept of usability is well established, the integration of usability thinking in system development is challenging, partly due to the difficulty in understanding the importance of usability and justifying the costs inc...

Worker and workplace empowerment have been enduring topics in psychological research. Recently, due to the advancements in technology and communication, new forms and types of work and organizing have emerged and challenged the traditional understandings of power and empowerment. Open source software (OSS) communities are one example of such new ty...

In this editorial, we introduce a special issue in AIS Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction (THCI) on human- computer interaction in the sharing society. We introduce the history, motivation, and key concepts behind the issue and briefly overview the four papers in the issue. We argue that a traditional “narrow” view of HCI fails to provide s...

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) research has provided many processes and methods for ensuring good usability during software development. The importance of usability in games has been acknowledged. However, there is a lack of research examining usability activities during actual game development and the suitability of different usability methods f...

This paper restates the importance of the concept of usability in the socio-technical systems development. Usability covers the breadth and depth of the rich interaction of users and technology in the socio-technical context. By drawing parallels between the Vitruvian design principle of suitability and usefulness , and the paradigms of usability c...

This paper addresses the safety culture as a concept in the context of digital fabrication. The aim of the paper is to provide a basis for the understanding and adoption of safety culture in digital fabrication, makerspaces and fab labs. The paper outlines the concept of safety culture in digital fabrication through three dimensions of safety cultu...

This workshop is intended to anyone (students, teachers, practitioners, technologists, designers, academics, etc.) working within or interested in the digital fabrication field. The workshop focuses on promoting, adopting, and developing a safety culture in digital fabrication. During the workshop, the participants will share information and experi...

Climate change is a global issue with impacts that span across ecological, social and economic systems. Climate change literacy and engagement are crucial in implementing successful adaptation and mitigation strategies to overcome the negative impacts of climate change. Gamification is one communication and educational approach that can be used to...

Game development market has become very competitive, so a game with bad usability can expect bad reviews and fewer sales even though the game design might be otherwise unique and captivating. This study investigates the views and practices of the North American game companies regarding game usability. A survey study was conducted in North American...

Game development business has become very competitive, therefore it is very important to develop games that stand out from the vast amount of other competing game titles. Usability of the game is crucial to ensure game acceptance, which in turn will contribute to more sales and profit for the game company. Game usability can also contribute to bett...

This paper proposes a model for introducing personalized game-design elements in a gamification system. The model is based on user-centred design, human values theory, and gamification design framework. The proposed model promotes the idea of a baseline game component that is meant to acquire online, real-time data about the cognitive and emotional...

This paper contrasts the user-centred design with the gamification design framework and proposes a model of usability benefits adapted to gamification. The model is useful for selling the usability activities to management and strategists when developing gamified solutions, services, and software. In this paper, we focus on identifying the benefit...

This article proposes a gateway theory as a promising alternative to the traditional antecedents-based view of online participation. The traditional view contends that people plan their online participation based on some rational motivations, leading to a foreseeable route. We arrived at our proposition through two entrance stories. These stories o...

In today’s heavily competitive game market, it has become very important to make a game that stands out from the other games. Even though the game design might not be very unique, a game can still offer a better playing experience by having a better usability than a similar game with worse usability. The human-computer interaction research could pr...

Usability is an important aspect of Free-Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS), but barriers exist for usability specialists' participation in such projects. Organizational boundary literature is interested in the tensions of online communities, including FLOSS communities. While this literature recognizes the importance of managing boundaries in onli...

Media choice theories conceptualize decisions people make when they are faced with communication media alternatives to fit a communicative need. In this paper we address two gaps in extant research on media choice. First, we show that media choices may be intimately intertwined with the questions of power. The second contribution comes from situati...

The importance of usability work in OSS development has been acknowledged. However, it has proven to be challenging. Organizational culture has been recognized as an influential factor affecting the successes and failures of usability work in organizations. However, there is a lack of research on organizational culture in OSS development. This pape...

Open source software (OSS) projects are often seen as participatory and egalitarian settings where people collaboratively develop software to serve their needs as well as the needs of others. In this paper, however, we argue that power and politics also characterize OSS development, and that this has serious implications for OSS usability. The exis...

End-user development has blurred the distinction between end-users and designers. Open Source Software (OSS) development has made it possible to form communities that design, adapt and develop software solutions for their own use. This paper addresses the role of the game design to guide the end-user design in open source software development conte...

This book contains the refereed proceedings of the 6th Scandinavian Conference on Information Systems, SCIS 2015, held in Oulu, Finland, in August 2015. The theme for this book as well as for the conference is “Design for, with, and by Users.” This theme has characterized information systems research for decades, and it is still a vibrant topic, es...

Open source software (OSS) has increased its importance during recent years. The significance of OSS usability has been acknowledged; however, usability work, albeit carried out, doesn't necessarily have any impact on the OSS under development. This paper examines how the impact of usability work can be increased in OSS projects. Through cross-case...

The importance of introducing usability activities into open source software (OSS) development has been acknowledged in the research literature; however, there is a lack of research examining the compatibility and actual co-existence of the philosophies of OSS and Human Computer Interaction (HCI), guiding usability research and practice, in OSS pro...

Usability is an important quality characteristic of software products and information systems. Different approaches for introducing usability activities into open source software (OSS) development have not yet been fully evaluated. This paper experiments with the introduction of usability activities into OSS development through a participative appr...

Usability is an important quality characteristic of software products and systems. Different approaches for introducing usability activities into SW development have not yet been evaluated with respect to open source software (OSS). This paper tests the introduction of usability activities through four empirical case studies in the OSS development...

This thesis explores whether usability cost-benefit analysis is helpful when applied to commercial and open source software (OSS) development contexts. First, the thesis examines the differences and commonalities among the existing usability cost-benefit analysis models. The results indicate that there are considerable variations in the usability c...

Usability is an important quality characteristic of software (SW) products and systems. Usability cost- benefit analysis models outline the potential benefits and costs of usability. These models are important for selling the usability activities for management. The implications of open source software (OSS) development context on usability cost-be...

Usability is an important quality characteristic of software (SW) products and systems. Usability cost-benefit analysis models outline the potential benefits and costs of usability. This paper contrasts usability cost-benefit analysis literature with an empirical case in industrial setting, in which usability cost-benefit considerations (along with...

This paper reviews literature on quality and usability assurance in open source software (OSS) development, focusing specifically on OSS that is targeted at a large user population, which does not consist only of OSS developers anymore. In this type of OSS development, the 'naive', non computer professional users should be taken into account and us...

There are few development organizations that have integrated usability activities as an integral part of their product development projects. One reason for this might be that the costs and benefits of usability activities are not visible to the management. In this paper the author analyses some of the characteristics of the published usability cost...

There are few development organizations that have integrated usability activities as an integral part of their product development projects. One reason for this might be that the costs and benefits of usability activities are not visible to the management. In this paper the author analyses some of the characteristics of the published usability cost...

In this paper, we investigated the impact of game usability and other game features to the player's attitude. The purpose was to understand what factors influence the players opinion and evaluation of the game. The research was carried out on number of students who answered a survey questionnaire. The analysis of the data showed that game usability...

The Self-Organizing Maps method is a special type of neural network used in clustering, visualization and abstraction. In this paper, we evaluate to what extent users of the SOM technique are satisfied with this tool in visualizing large amounts of data. The contribution of the paper consists of identifying the factors that influence the quality of...

In this paper we propose a framework for evaluating quality of use of visual data-mining tools. The evaluation framework addresses three levels of analysis: visualization, interaction, and information. We examine the applicability of the framework to the Self-Organizing Maps tools. For this purpose we conducted an exploratory study using the mixed...

There are few development organizations that have fully integrated usability activities as an integral part of their product development projects. One reason for this is that the benefits of better usability are not visible for the management. In this paper, the characteristics of selected published usability cost-benefit models are analyzed. These...

There are few development organizations that have integrated usability activities as an integral part of their product development projects. One reason for this is that the benefits of better usability are not visible for the management. In this paper the author analyses the characteristics of some published usability cost-benefit models. These mod...

Usability capability assessments are carried out to analyse the capability of a development organisation in performing user-centred design (UCD). We carried out four experimental usability capability assessments to learn how to perform assessments effectively in industrial settings. Our starting point was traditional software process assessment bas...