User Interface Design - Science topic

For nanocrzstalline material you are very likely forced to use TKD because of the resolution limit of EBSD. No problem for a 1550 using 30kV. You only need to change the preparation in order to get "transparent" samples. TKD uses the same hardware.

For nano-crystalline applications (especially for older, low-current SEMs) you have to invest in a very sensitive EBSD detector. I would recommend one of the recent Oxford detectors. They use a fibre optics and don't loose any intensity from an additional lense. Also their IR filter is OK for high T. From my point of view, less meaningful is a drift compensation since this is not really working. If you have a drift you can only find this out with a post-acquisition of the image and image correlation. Any drift correction will then either measure the same again...or leave something out. Then it is better to reduce drift either by a gas injection system attached on the SEM, or a coating of the sample (e.g. Pd, Cr...). For TKD I havn't seen this until now. Most stable investigations are reported if you leave your sample inside the SE for a 30 min, over night, or even over weekend. Simply for "aclimatisation". Drift is an unpredictable phenomenon, disappears and re-appears again. I guess one can only try to reduce it as much as possible...or measure that fast that it s no more "visible".

Thank you for making this software freely available! At TalTech Centre for Biorobotics we will give it a try for underwater video of fish.

Hello,

Are these of any help:

Jaber, O. A. (2016). An Examination of Variables Influencing the Acceptance and Usage of E-Learning Systems in Jordanian Higher Education Institutions (Doctoral dissertation, Cardiff Metropolitan University).

Vogelsang, K., Steinhüser, M., & Hoppe, U. (2013). A qualitative approach to examine technology acceptance.

Money, A. G., Atwal, A., Young, K. L., Day, Y., Wilson, L., & Money, K. G. (2015). Using the Technology Acceptance Model to explore community dwelling older adults’ perceptions of a 3D interior design application to facilitate pre-discharge home adaptations. BMC medical informatics and decision making, 15(1), 73.

But I'm not sure whether these are just what you need.

Very best wishes,

Mary

Hi,

it's a common misunderstanding that HE is an expert technique. Reviewers need to be briefed about the heuristics, but in principle anyone qualifies. Of course experts are better, in particular domain experts (you need accounting knowledge to review an accounting app). It's more important to have multiple reviewers, as each one catches only a subset of issues.

You may also consider Cognitive Walkthrough (https://experience.sap.com/skillup/debugging-design-cognitive-walkthrough-with-build/; also works on paper),

or, to work with end users, Click-Thru Interviews (https://experience.sap.com/skillup/usability-on-the-fast-track/).

Thanks @hadeel. 

The first link was a close assist and I already have that idea.

A "within subjects" design has one group of subjects that participates in all the conditions. The data analysis compares the data of each subject to within his/her own responses. In effect, each subject serves as their own control. See "The Design of Experiments" by Roland Fisher.

If you thinking for a marker-based approach, one possible option is the Vuforia library and use it with Unity 3D. This facilitates maker-based AR and you have the option of creating your own maker. With regard to the content, you can import custom pre-defined objects and have it fused on top of the marker. If you are planning to display dynamic content, then I presume you should have an API to access dynamic content and assign the pose of the marker to the content at frame rate.. 

Here are some examples for Vuforia with Unity 3D. 

https://youtu.be/TljI56icYjM 

https://youtu.be/tA6p1GDdryo 

The analysis of the interactive relations among interface elements using a structuralized method can help user interface designers to satisfy the different requirements of design and improve design efficiency. This study develops a three-stage structured user interface design approach for complex information systems consisting of multiple components. First, the Quality Function Development (QFD) approach is used to confirm the user's design demand and its mapping components. Next, the Interpretive Structural Model (ISM) technique is adopted to construct a clear model of a hierarchical structure. Finally, the Impact Matrix Cross-Reference Multiplication Applied to a Classification (MICMAC) approach is employed to analyze the effect and dependence among the overall design components, and to consider the relationship network graph of distribution of components in the system.

This is my research article, I hope  to help you.

Context awareness is not my focal area of interest. Thus I would not venture to name the seminal papers in this area.  However, I am compelled to mention that the concept of building context aware interfaces and efforts to address the design issues  may go as far back as the late 70s / early 80's (perhaps further).  During that period, US military human factors laboratories such as AFAMRL were exploring HMI methods to reduce pilot mental (cognitive) workload created by the complexities of new missions, weapons system capabilities and most importantly the veritable flood of new information that it was possible to deliver to the cockpit.  One of the key solutions first studied at that time was to optimize operator loading through a combination of adaptive displays and adaptive automation support.   Thus, the concept  was to provide displays could be reorganized, and receive filtered information and to introduce partial automation support (e.g. 1 axis of navigational control) based on contextual factors consisting of  current mission phase, threats detected, and the psychophysiological status of the pilot.   

To put it briefly, our recent technology developments have made context aware systems a more tangible reality.  However, current researchers and designers may find themselves reinventing the wheel" if they ignore early research conducted on the (non-technology dependent) problems of building context aware displays and automation supports that are effective in enhancing or maintaining human-machine system performance   

Here is an article that might be interesting for you. http://www.humanfactors.com/newsletters/cross-cultural-considerations-for-user-interface-design.asp

Few papers below that might be of interest, you or your organization probably would need accounts on Acm and Springer to access these papers.

Cultural Bases of Interface Acceptance: Foundations http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4471-3588-3_3

Culture and usability evaluation: the effects of culture in structured interviewshttp://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2835533

Cultural user interfaces: a silver lining in cultural diversity http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=231133

The effects of culture on performance achieved through the use of human computer interaction http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=954038

Integrating culture into interface design http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=286830

Cultural differences in smartphone user experience evaluation http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1899499&CFID=755547392&CFTOKEN=94408765

Incorporating culture in user-interface: a case study of older adults in malaysiahttp://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1286278&CFID=755547392&CFTOKEN=94408765

Mental models are an artefact of belief, that basically means they are the beliefs that a user holds about any given system or interaction, for instance a website or a web browser. It is important because users will plan and predict future actions within a system based on their mental models. In most instances the users' thinking is closely related to reality because they base their predictions about the system on their mental models and thus plan their future actions based on how that model predicts the appropriate course.

Designers can tap into users mental models so that their products communicate their function through their form. However they have to truly understand their user’s mental models to do that successfully. If the users mental model are not considered during interface design, it leads to failure in UI where the user does not find their mental model and is left confused and frustrated.

It is worth noting that a mental model is not a static creation. It is capable of evolution and may change based on using other products, from interacting with other users or taking on board learning from other sources. For instance if you have used iPad before, your mental model when reading a book on iPad will be different from that of a person who has never used it. Or person who has used Kindle you will have different mental model compared to someone who has never used electronic books. But if this person starts using Kindle and slowly his mental model changes and if he starts using iPad his mental model is adjusted from how he used Kindle.

By incorporating users mental model, designer can emulate these models through the UI and create an experience which is intuitive and easy to follow.

Dear Atef!  suggest you get acquainted with the detailed work in this direction. Please read the first one informative article in the application.

Thanks agn Sir

Hi!

I see that this discussion is a lot about tools, but as a former philosophy teacher, now researching ICT integration / blended learning, I feel I want to make a couple of comments:

1) Is "augmented reality" and "virtual reality" the same thing as both appear in answers on the question about "augmented"? Augmented should add to and enhance normal experience of reality, as for example binoculars to viewing (analogue example), while a word like "virtual" talks about another reality where an individual is suddenly inserted and/or runs a proxy. 

2) Shouldn´t we tidy up in our conceptualisation of new technology, so we get rid of "digital dualism", the idea that ICT in som way constitute a new world, opposed to our concentional social-physical world, and that we now traverse between them by login and logout procedures? Are we not soon living in an environment that is integrated, with no distinction between online and offline? I highly recommend to read some papers by  Luciano Floridi and reflect over his "infosphere" philosophy and ethics.

Hi Seth,

In my experience the biggest problem with normal-form games in experiments is that subjects get confused about their own and the payoffs of others.

I have used a split screen in the past, where you have a table for your payoffs and for the payoff on one side and the payoffs for your opponent on the other side. This helps to make sure that people don't get confused about the matrix notation. This seems to work reasonably well. Using structural estimation methods we only have found a very small fraction of subjects behaving randomly  (like a so-called level 0 type in hierarchical models of bounded rationality). 

Another option is to use different colours for the payoffs of the player and the opponent. One could also divide the cells in the matrix (as done in many first-year textbooks) in two triangles with a diagonal line. Then all payoffs above the diagonal are the payoffs of one person and below the diagonal those of the other. Additional shading further helps.

Control questions are also helpful. (Like: What is your opponents payoff, if you play X and she plays Z) You can then program popup windows for people who get it wrong and as again until they get it right.

I hope this helps

The quantification of brand values is certainly interesting and could also be an fundamental approach. Actually i think at least it can help to get a better understanding how brand values are exactly defined as principle to build by.

But, what I mean with the transfer of strategic definitions of a brand into user experience design or communication design is presumably something different.

As a example: You know Tesla Motors Inc. and maybe as well their website or other communication media of Tesla. E-Mobility is on everyone's lips. But spontaneous enthusiasm, it does not fire. But the Tesla brand is different. Tesla managed it to give the entire automotive market a new perspective. Innovation & sportsmanship are compatible. Teslamotors.com enters this on the emotional (by the image of a quite fast driving elegant S 70D Model on a street out in a natural park) and factual evidence (by different claims like - 240 Miles Range. All-Wheel Drive Standard - or Autopilot and All-Wheel Drive Standard).

Tesla therefore made it up as a model to the top of this "movement" that inspires. You can call that form a marketing perspective a kind of "Role model".

So i am interested in the approach to transfer strategic brand definitions to the development of communication design, visual and conceptional design, interactive design, interface design.

Maybe to quantify the value of Tesla could help to understand at least this example. So what are your thoughts?

Hi Muhammad,

In my opinion Netbeans will be a good example of both. If you use Netbeans to make some application you use it as a tool. So you may develop an application of some kind in java, in c#, HTML5, etc.

However if you want to build a desktop application in java you can use Netbeans own internal modules as a framework. To code you may use Netbeans as a tools. So in this case Netbeans would be a framework for desktop applications AND ALSO a tool to program. Eclipse has also such an approach.

An example of a framework (that is not a tool) is Grails. Grails offers every component to make a web application and the possibility of extension through plugins. It has also a programming language associated, based on java. But it is not a tool. It's "just" a bunch of components and formal rules of how they can interact. You need a tool to script those components and to build some application. So to work with this framework you need a tool such as Netbeans, Eclipse, InteliJ, etc.

The tools has no components associated, you will have to choose and to program those using that tool. The frameworks provide the components and the rules for their interconnection but has no integrated tools, you can choose a tool that best suits your needs.

Hi!

Though aimed for testing and evaluation stages, a previous work of my group was focused on modeling user-system interaction being aware of the mobile context around the user. This model includes dynamic parameters about user-system interaction and about how the environment is changing during this process:

You can find the content of this paper in Chapter 6: Modeling and Evaluating Mobile Quality of Experience within my PhD thesis: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264194567_Enhancing_Software_Quality_and_Quality_of_Experience_through_User_Interfaces

Hope it can help you, or at least, help you find some related work references.

An update on my progress for those of you who followed this questions because you deal with similar research:

Two programmers started to build the nautical traffic management control room simulator. We use Unity to build the simulation part, and separately build a front end which communicates with Unity. In a month time, among other things we were able to:

- build the waterway network with the use of existing ENC maps

- included path finding on a part of the network, where vessels automatically follow the most logical route

- include locks which we can put into maintenance to cause hinder

- developed the basics of the GUI for an object planner role and operational network management role and included communication between the two operator roles and the simulated vessels

- after the operator sends a notice to skippers, the vessels in the network adapt their route accordingly

At this moment, we include the ability to set or release traffic measures such as speed limits on a part of the waterway.

We concluded that the use of Unity indeed helps to rather quickly develop a traffic management simulator. Thank you all for your advice and good luck with you future work!

Hi Helen,

great problem to solve. The critical questions to ask are quite multidisciplinary ones and not restricted to one subject area. Most likely, flexible and open approaches are needed, e.g. see our short book on people with complex conditions  (the general issues tackled in the book are much broader than the schooling question): "Educating children with complex conditions" or the work with clinical populations. To achieve inclusion with using software technology cannot only be a matter of word size or screen resolution but rather of soft factors to be defined in a SMART way.  The applied aspect to use non-material resources in a way to help improving inclusion I like in particular.

From an applied point of view, to consider the cultural perspective seems crucial, as, studying politeness in two cultures, we found telling differences and similarities when analysing forms of address, e.g. initiating the first contact between strangers might well have some likeness to situations when getting immersed in computerised communication scenarios.

Journal of Pragmatics, 43 (15). pp. 3807-3821.

If of interest, let me know. Sounds a great project for the elderly.

Kind regards,

Winand.

By mid 2015 there will be a special flights based data gathering for virtual reality examination / simulation around bridge design.

OPNET supports well know MANET protocols as well as has GUI. However, it requires a license. 

There is a project on tangible interface for carpenter apprentices (http://dualt.epfl.ch/page-115258-en.html).

Within that project, we tried out a web-version of the activity including objects that users built from printed-out paper. Here is the report:

check out works of Aliaksei Miniukovich from University of Trento, Italy. e.g.: DOI=10.1145/2639189.2641219

thank you Reece George

Prof Werbach has an online course on Coursera.com which you might interesting:

Here you have our work related to haptic interaction, usability, guidelines.

Maybe you should state more precisely what you are searching for. Should the technology be outside of the eclipse ecosystem? Or even available in an other language then Java? Or do you want technologies you can use within eclipse?

Within eclipse you can have a look at EuGENia (http://www.eclipse.org/epsilon/doc/eugenia/) which is part of the epsilon framework. But in fact , eugenia ist just build on top of EMF / GMF, providing a more convenient way of generating graphical editors. But as trade-off, the functionality the generated editor can provide is limited in comparison to GMF itself.

Another framework is Graphiti & Spray (http://www.eclipse.org/graphiti/) which completely replaces GMF. Its more lightweight but much more focused on doing thinks programmatically then doing modeling and configuration. Even though, your starting point is also an meta-model.

Our paper on metrics for arm fatigue was accepted for publication at CHI '14. You can find more details here: http://hci.cs.umanitoba.ca/projects-and-research/details/ce

Dear Dr Sedano,

I do not know if you have already studied the papers referred below. They are useful bits and pieces in this topic. Kind regards,

Prof. Dr. Imre Horvath

Salter, T., Dautenhahn, K., & Boekhorst, R. T. (2006). Learning about natural human–robot interaction styles. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 54(2), 127-134.

Munoz-Salinas, R., Aguirre, E., García-Silvente, M., & González, A. (2005). A fuzzy system for visual detection of interest in human-robot interaction. In 2nd International Conference on Machine Intelligence (ACIDCA-ICMI’2005) (pp. 574-581).

Guo, C., & Sharlin, E. (2008, April). Exploring the use of tangible user interfaces for human-robot interaction: a comparative study. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 121-130). ACM.

Robins, B., Amirabdollahian, F., Ji, Z., & Dautenhahn, K. (2010, September). Tactile interaction with a humanoid robot for children with autism: A case study analysis involving user requirements and results of an initial implementation. In RO-MAN, 2010 IEEE (pp. 704-711). IEEE.

Kuczogi, G., Horváth, I., Rusák, Z., Vergeest, J. S. M., & Jansson, J. (2000, May). Strategy and process of interpretation of verbal communication related to shape conceptualization. In International Desgin Conference-Design.

Lang, S., Kleinehagenbrock, M., Hohenner, S., Fritsch, J., Fink, G. A., & Sagerer, G. (2003, November). Providing the basis for human-robot-interaction: A multi-modal attention system for a mobile robot. In Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Multimodal interfaces (pp. 28-35). ACM.

Sato, E., Yamaguchi, T., & Harashima, F. (2007). Natural interface using pointing behavior for human–robot gestural interaction. Industrial Electronics, IEEE Transactions on, 54(2), 1105-1112.

Varga, E., Horváth, I., Rusák, Z., De Smit, B., & Broek, H. (2004). Survey and investigation of hand motion processing technologies for compliance with shape conceptualization. In Proceedings of DETC (Vol. 4, pp. 1-14).

Lee, W., Ryu, H., Yang, G., Kim, H., Park, Y., & Bang, S. (2007). Design guidelines for map-based human–robot interfaces: A colocated workspace perspective. International journal of industrial ergonomics, 37(7), 589-604.

Moeslund, T. B., Störring, M., & Granum, E. (2002). A natural interface to a virtual environment through computer vision-estimated pointing gestures. In Gesture and Sign Language in Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 59-63). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Skubic, M. (2005). Qualitative spatial referencing for natural human-robot interfaces. interactions, 12(2), 27-30.

I don't now the tasks and what application system interface features are the true useful and needed for your users. For ask the question need more information about specific details to clear interface from any unnecessaries. I think the realy work plan is the creation a meta-language which can link your tasks in understand and effective tools. I did some language to laborants for specrum treatment and have a good results.

WebGL is an standard that is overlooked by the Khronos group and you have free software that can run it (Firefox), and Chrome and Internet Explorer should also be able to show it. There are also ways to translate code from different languages to javascript (https://github.com/kripken/emscripten/wiki) which means if you don't want to learn javascript you could also work in another language.

With flash you are completely dependend on Adobe and the flash plug-in is notoriously known for its security flaws.

Dear Qurat ul ain Nazir, You are most welcomed. I will try to trace some more publications but may be later. Meanwhile, try to search using any search engine. Good Luck!

Hi Nasim, I used to work at the German Naval Medical Institute some 15 years ago - so my view is a bit dated, and most of my work was classified. However, in terms of environmental factors, you always have (unsorted, incomplete list, numbers just for reference):

1) lighting conditions. Whenever people have to go outside, you want their vision to be dark-adapted. This has various implications for lighting conditions and screen color sets.

2) sleep deprivation. In all shift systems you have to deal with fatigued personnel; in addition you may have extreme workload during port phases.

3) boredom and monotony.

4) Socio-cultural factors, such as command hierarchies, group dynamics, a distinct group culture growing over time that may have very different values from those people might have at home.

5) interfering personal equipment, like gloves, cold protection, other protective clothing (e.g. leather in some engine rooms) etc.

6) varying climatic conditions - heat, wind (also indoors due to air conditioning), moisture.

7) The influence of motion is overrated, at least in large ships which move slowly enough to be considered stationary. You may have to consider kinetosis (seasickness), though, which has some specific effects. On small vessels, you also may have to consider the ship's rolling; angles of some 30° may not be uncommon.

As for observations, nothing beats going aboard. If you look into questionnaire or psychometric test studies, you'll need a trained interviewer to administer them. A colleague of mine got very useful results for hardware ergonomics by installing a surveillance camera in a control room (which requires everyone's agreement of course).

Hope this helps, ;-) Bernard

I suggest "Natural Computer Interaction" (NCI)

I think this describes well the current tendency in research, which is looking for intuitive ways how to interact with the computer.