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1 – 10 of 191Charlotte Travis and Pietro Murano
This paper is about an investigation into the usability of touch-based user interfaces. Currently, not enough knowledge is available to guide user interface designers and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper is about an investigation into the usability of touch-based user interfaces. Currently, not enough knowledge is available to guide user interface designers and developers concerning the appropriate use of touch-based technology. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors adopt an empirical approach using an experiment to test the effectiveness and user satisfaction of touch-based interaction compared with equivalent mouse-based interaction. The authors had two abstract type tasks and one contextualised task using the two methods of interaction. The authors measured errors, task time and user satisfaction.
Findings
The data were statistically analysed and the statistically significant results show that overall the mouse-based interaction was faster, caused fewer errors and was preferred by the participants.
Originality/value
These results are interesting for all user interface designers and developers, where the authors make some design suggestions based on the empirical results. The results also add to the current knowledge the authors have regarding interaction with touch interfaces. Further, the authors also propose ways forward to enrich this research area of further knowledge.
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Werner Kurschl, Mirjam Augstein, Thomas Burger and Claudia Pointner
The purpose of this paper is to present an approach where a novel user modeling wizard for people with motor impairments is used to gain a deeper understanding of very specific …
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present an approach where a novel user modeling wizard for people with motor impairments is used to gain a deeper understanding of very specific (touch-based and touchless) interaction patterns. The findings are used to set up and fill a user model which allows to automatically derive an application- and user-specific configuration for natural user interfaces.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on expert knowledge in the domain of software/user interfaces for people with special needs, a test-case –based user modeling tool was developed. Task-based user tests were conducted with seven users for the touch-based interaction scenario and with five users for the touchless interaction scenario. The participants are all people with different motor and/or cognitive impairments.
Findings
The paper describes the results of different test cases that were designed to model users’ touch-based and touchless interaction capabilities. To evaluate the tool’s findings, experts additionally judged the participants’ performance (their opinions were compared to the tool’s findings). The results suggest that the user modeling tool could quite well capture users’ capabilities.
Social implications
The paper presents a tool that can be used to model users’ interaction capabilities. The approach aims at taking over some of the (very time-consuming) configuration tasks consultants have to do to configure software according to the needs of people with disabilities. This can lead to a wider accessibility of software, especially in the area of gesture-based user interaction.
Originality/value
Part of the approach has been published in the proceedings of the Interactional Conference on Advances in Mobile Computing and Multimedia 2014. Significant additions have been made since (e.g. all of the touchless interaction part of the approach and the related user study).
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Through observing the use of iPhone and iPad by a child between the ages of two and four years and a half, this study presents accounts on the child’s use of and interaction with…
Abstract
Purpose
Through observing the use of iPhone and iPad by a child between the ages of two and four years and a half, this study presents accounts on the child’s use of and interaction with these devices, as well as her interaction with the physical environment.
Design/methodology/approach
Unstructured, naturalistic observation was employed in this study. The study is grounded in theories of user engagement with digital and physical objects.
Findings
A child’s interaction with touch-based devices does not deter the child from engaging effectively with the physical environment or from activities centered on creativity and interpersonal engagement. A child is able to move back and forth seamlessly between the physical and digital environments.
Practical implications
Findings from this study could help parents, educators, and system designers understand why and how toddlers and preschoolers use and engage with touch-based devices, as well as the kind of tasks they perform.
Originality/value
Studies of toddlers’ or preschoolers’ information behavior and interaction with touch-based devices are scarce. Children born toward the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century are growing up with a propensity to using touch-based devices. This study provides a framework for effective usage of such devices while ensuring all-round cognitive and physical development of the child.
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Kesha K. Coker and Ramendra Thakur
Powered by artificial intelligence, voice assistants (VAs), such as Alexa, Siri and Cortona, are at early-stage adoption rates in service contexts. Customers express hesitance in…
Abstract
Purpose
Powered by artificial intelligence, voice assistants (VAs), such as Alexa, Siri and Cortona, are at early-stage adoption rates in service contexts. Customers express hesitance in using the technology. Furthermore, the effect of a relevant variable (VA empathy) as a determinant of VAs is not widely researched. This study aims to extend the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and social response theory (SRT) to propose and test a conceptual model of the role of customer perceptions of VA empathy and risk on VA adoption and usage intensity.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, data were collected from 387 VA users in the USA using a survey administered through Amazon MTurk. Data cleaning retained a final n = 318 for structural equation modeling analysis.
Findings
Findings show that perceived VA empathy enhances customers’ attitude toward VA and drives adoption, thereby increasing VA usage intensity. Perceived risk is a moderator; users with high perceptions of VA empathy have greater VA adoption rates when they have high (vs low) risk perceptions of using VA.
Originality/value
This research is one of the first known studies to provide empirical evidence of the role of customer perceptions of VA empathy and risk on VA adoption in service delivery. It goes beyond VA adoption research to provide empirical evidence of the impact of VA adoption on actual usage intensity. By extending the UTAUT and SRT, this research adds to the theoretical foundation for research on VA adoption, offering practical insights for firms regarding empathetic VA design to enhance customer service delivery.
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Antti Konttila, Marja Harjumaa, Salla Muuraiskangas, Mikko Jokela and Minna Isomursu
This article aims to explore the possibilities and use of a mobile technology‐supported audio annotation system that can be used for attaching free‐formatted audio annotations to…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to explore the possibilities and use of a mobile technology‐supported audio annotation system that can be used for attaching free‐formatted audio annotations to physical objects. The solution can help visually impaired people to identify objects and associate additional information with these objects.
Design/methodology/approach
A human‐centred design approach was adopted in the system's development and potential end‐users were involved in the development process. In order to evaluate the emerging use cases, as well as the usefulness and usability of the application, a qualitative field trial was conducted with ten visually impaired or blind users.
Findings
The findings show that visually impaired users learned to use the application easily and found it easy and robust to use. Most users responded positively towards the idea of tagging items with their own voice messages. Some users found the technology very useful and saw many possibilities for using it in the future. The most common targets for tagging were food items; however, some users had difficulties in integrating the solution with their everyday practices.
Originality/value
This paper presents an innovative mobile phone application with a touch and audio user interface. The actual use cases describe the everyday needs of visually impaired people and this information might be valuable to service providers and technology developers. Also, the experiences gained from these trials can be used when developing software for the visually impaired on other platforms.
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Donghee Shin, Myunggoon Choi, Jang Hyun Kim and Jae-gil Lee
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of interaction techniques (e.g. swiping and tapping) and the range of thumb movement on interactivity, engagement, attitude…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of interaction techniques (e.g. swiping and tapping) and the range of thumb movement on interactivity, engagement, attitude, and behavioral intention in single-handed interaction with smartphones.
Design/methodology/approach
A 2×2 between-participant experiment (technological features: swiping and tapping×range of thumb movement: wide and narrow) was conducted to study the effects of interaction techniques and thumb movement ranges.
Findings
The results showed that the range of thumb movement had significant effects on perceived interactivity, engagement, attitude, and behavioral intention, whereas no effects were observed for interaction techniques. A narrow range of thumb movement had more influence on the interactivity outcomes in comparison to a wide range of thumb movement.
Practical implications
While the subject of actual and perceived interactivity has been discussed, the issue has not been applied to smartphone. Based on the research results, the mobile industry may come up with a design strategy that balances feature- and perception-based interactivity.
Originality/value
This study adopted the perspective of the hybrid definition of interactivity, which includes both actual and perceived interactivity. Interactivity effect outcomes mediated by perceived interactivity.
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Naresh Kumar Agarwal and Wenqing Lu
The purpose of this paper is to study smartphone use and its positive and negative effects and to provide recommendations for balanced use.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study smartphone use and its positive and negative effects and to provide recommendations for balanced use.
Design/methodology/approach
To study phone use, this paper applies the uses and gratification theory and gathered interview data from 24 participants on the participants’ frequency of use, mode of communication, people contacted and the reasons for using their phones. This paper analyzes the pros and cons of using smartphones using the Yin-Yang worldview.
Findings
This paper finds that people use their smartphones for communication, entertainment and other specific functions. Ease of communication and multitasking are the key benefits, and overuse and disconnect from the real world are the detriments in smartphone use.
Research limitations/implications
The findings can enable future researchers and practitioners to view smartphones and their effects more holistically, rather than seeing it only from the negative or the positive lens.
Practical implications
The proposed framework can help the reader to consider their daily use of smartphones and their ways of balancing their presence in the virtual and the real worlds.
Originality/value
This paper proposes the Yin-Yang framework of smartphone use and provides recommendations for effective usage.
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Po-Yao Chao and Chia-Ching Lin
The purpose of this paper is to explore how young children interact with a visualized search interface to search for storybooks by assembling the provided visual searching items…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how young children interact with a visualized search interface to search for storybooks by assembling the provided visual searching items and to explore the difference in visual search behaviours and strategies exhibited by pre-schoolers and second-graders.
Design/methodology/approach
The visualized search interface was used to help young children search for storybooks by dragging-and-dropping story characters, scene objects and colour icons to perform search queries. Twenty pre-schoolers and 20 second-graders were asked to finish a search task through the visualized search interface. Their activities and successes in performing visual searches were logged for later analysis. Furthermore, in-depth interviews were also conducted to research their cognitive strategies exhibited while formulating visual search queries.
Findings
Young children with different grades adopted different cognitive strategies to perform visual searching. In contrast to the pre-schoolers who performed visual searching by personal preference, the second-graders could exercise visual searching accompanied with relatively high-order thinking. Young children may also place different foci on the storybook structure to deal with conditional storybook queries. The pre-schoolers tended to address the characters in the story, whereas the second-graders paid much attention to the aspects of scene and colour.
Originality/value
This paper describes a new visual search approach allowing young children to search for storybooks by describing an intended storybook in terms of its characters, scenes or the background colours, which provides valuable indicators to inform researchers of how pre-schoolers and second-graders formulate concepts to search for storybooks.
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This paper presents a survey of research into interactive robotic systems for the purpose of identifying the state of the art capabilities as well as the extant gaps in this…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper presents a survey of research into interactive robotic systems for the purpose of identifying the state of the art capabilities as well as the extant gaps in this emerging field. Communication is multimodal. Multimodality is a representation of many modes chosen from rhetorical aspects for its communication potentials. The author seeks to define the available automation capabilities in communication using multimodalities that will support a proposed Interactive Robot System (IRS) as an AI mounted robotic platform to advance the speed and quality of military operational and tactical decision making.
Design/methodology/approach
This review will begin by presenting key developments in the robotic interaction field with the objective of identifying essential technological developments that set conditions for robotic platforms to function autonomously. After surveying the key aspects in Human Robot Interaction (HRI), Unmanned Autonomous System (UAS), visualization, Virtual Environment (VE) and prediction, the paper then proceeds to describe the gaps in the application areas that will require extension and integration to enable the prototyping of the IRS. A brief examination of other work in HRI-related fields concludes with a recapitulation of the IRS challenge that will set conditions for future success.
Findings
Using insights from a balanced cross section of sources from the government, academic, and commercial entities that contribute to HRI a multimodal IRS in military communication is introduced. Multimodal IRS (MIRS) in military communication has yet to be deployed.
Research limitations/implications
Multimodal robotic interface for the MIRS is an interdisciplinary endeavour. This is not realistic that one can comprehend all expert and related knowledge and skills to design and develop such multimodal interactive robotic interface. In this brief preliminary survey, the author has discussed extant AI, robotics, NLP, CV, VDM, and VE applications that is directly related to multimodal interaction. Each mode of this multimodal communication is an active research area. Multimodal human/military robot communication is the ultimate goal of this research.
Practical implications
A multimodal autonomous robot in military communication using speech, images, gestures, VST and VE has yet to be deployed. Autonomous multimodal communication is expected to open wider possibilities for all armed forces. Given the density of the land domain, the army is in a position to exploit the opportunities for human–machine teaming (HMT) exposure. Naval and air forces will adopt platform specific suites for specially selected operators to integrate with and leverage this emerging technology. The possession of a flexible communications means that readily adapts to virtual training will enhance planning and mission rehearsals tremendously.
Social implications
Interaction, perception, cognition and visualization based multimodal communication system is yet missing. Options to communicate, express and convey information in HMT setting with multiple options, suggestions and recommendations will certainly enhance military communication, strength, engagement, security, cognition, perception as well as the ability to act confidently for a successful mission.
Originality/value
The objective is to develop a multimodal autonomous interactive robot for military communications. This survey reports the state of the art, what exists and what is missing, what can be done and possibilities of extension that support the military in maintaining effective communication using multimodalities. There are some separate ongoing progresses, such as in machine-enabled speech, image recognition, tracking, visualizations for situational awareness, and virtual environments. At this time, there is no integrated approach for multimodal human robot interaction that proposes a flexible and agile communication. The report briefly introduces the research proposal about multimodal interactive robot in military communication.
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