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The objective of this study is to propose a model for the implementation of a technological platform for participants to develop solutions to problems related to the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) megatrends, and taking advantage of artificial intelligence (AI) to develop their complex thinking through co-creation work.

The development of the model is based on a combination of participatory action research and user-centered design (UCD) methodologies, seeking to ensure that the platform is user-oriented and based on the experiences of the authors. The model itself is structured around the active and transformational learning (ATL) framework.

This study highlights the importance of addressing 4IR megatrends in education to prepare students for a technology-driven world. The proposed model, based on ATL and supported by AI, integrates essential competencies for tackling challenges and generating innovative solutions. The integration of AI into the platform fosters personalized learning, collaboration and reflection and enhances creativity by offering new insights and tools, whereas UCD ensures alignment with user needs and expectations.

This research presents an innovative educational model that combines ATL with AI to foster complex thinking and co-creation of solutions to problems related to 4IR megatrends. Integrating ATL ensures engagement with real-world problems and critical thinking while AI provides personalized content, tutoring, data analysis and creative support. The collaborative platform encourages diverse perspectives and collective intelligence, benefiting other researchers to better conceive learner-centered platforms promoting 21st-century skills and co-creation.

Designing digital artifacts is not a linear, straightforward process. This is particularly true when applying a user-centered design approach, or co-design, with users who are unable to participate in the design process. Although the reduced participation of a particular user group may harm the end result, the literature on solving this issue is sparse. In this article, proxy design is outlined as a method for involving a user group as proxy users to speak on behalf of a group that is difficult to reach. The article investigates the following research question: How can roleplaying be embedded in co-design to engage users as proxies on behalf of those who are unable to represent themselves?

The article presents a design ethnography spanning three years at a cancer rehabilitation clinic, where digital artifacts were designed to be used collaboratively by nurses and patients. The empirical data were analyzed using content analysis and consisted of 20 observation days at the clinic, six proxy design workshops, 21 telephone consultations between patients and nurses, and log data from the digital artifact.

The article shows that simulated consultations, with nurses roleplaying as proxies for patients ignited and initiated the design process and enabled an efficient in-depth understanding of patients. Moreover, the article reveals how proxy design as a method further expanded the design. The study findings illustrate: (1) proxy design as a method for initiating design, (2) proxy design as an embedded element in co-design and (3) six design guidelines that should be considered when engaging in proxy design.

The main contribution is the conceptualization of proxy design as a method that can ignite and initiate the co-design process when important users are unreachable, vulnerable or unable to represent themselves in the co-design process. More specifically, based on the empirical findings from a design ethnography that involved nurses as proxy users speaking on behalf of patients, the article shows that roleplaying in proxy design is a fitting way of initiating the design process, outlining proxy design as an embedded element of co-design.

The study aims to pioneer an innovative approach for the evaluation of government portal websites (GPWs) by introducing an eye-tracking-based method. The research meticulously pinpoints and analyses the distinct usability issues and challenges that users encounter while navigating and interacting with GPWs.

This study devises an eye-tracking-based GPW usability evaluation approach, which focuses on the major functions (i.e. government information disclosure, government services and interactive responses) of GPWs. An Entropy Weighted Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (EW-TOPSIS) method is employed to process eye-tracking indicator results for deriving GPW usability results.

The proposed approach is demonstrated to assess the usability of 12 GPWs in pilot smart cities in China, and it is found that most GPWs have lower-than-average usability. GPWs with low usability require more cognitive load that exhibit increased fixation and saccade. The comparisons among the GPW usability results from (1) the eye-tracking experiment, (2) questionnaire surveys and (3) the ready-made performance evaluation report validate the effectiveness of eye-tracking-based GPW usability evaluation.

The work contributes to shifting the GPW usability evaluation approach from a subjective judgment paradigm to an objective paradigm, as well as provides implications for enhancing GPW usability, including improving search function, reducing website complexity and prioritizing user needs.

The purpose of this study is to identify the impact of online learning on university librarians’ professional development and library services.

A mixed-methods study through an explanatory research design was applied to address the study’s objectives. Quantitative data were gathered from 341 librarians working in 221 universities, while qualitative data were gathered from 27 experts working in 21 different universities of Pakistan.

The findings of the study revealed that online learning has a significant positive impact on the professional development of university librarians. Results revealed that online learning assists in the provision of sustainable, innovative library services in university libraries.

The study has offered a model in light of the study's quantitative and qualitative findings. It contributes to theoretical understanding by expanding the existing knowledge base. It offers managerial insights, enabling the development of policies that foster the professional development of library personnel and the implementation of smart library services.

The primary objective was to develop a user-centered mobile health application (app) tailored to the specific health information needs of among immigrant women from diverse backgrounds in Korea.

In-depth interviews were conducted with 24 immigrant women to gain insights into their health information-seeking behavior. Based on the findings, a mobile app was designed and developed. A beta version of the app underwent validation by an MD and seven expert reviewers who assessed the app for content accuracy and conformance to mobile heuristics. Last, immigrant women (n = 12) evaluated the usability of the app.

The study revealed that the interviewed immigrant women had strong health information needs related to pregnancy and parenting. Most of them used multiple sources to find and verify health information. Language barriers were identified as a major obstacle to accessing and evaluating health information. The results of the user test indicated that the app effectively facilitated study participants' search for reliable health information, meeting their specific needs.

This research extended the literature by addressing the limited availability of mobile apps tailored to the health information needs of immigrant women in Korea.

By incorporating multilingual support and focusing on pregnancy and parenting information, the health app serves as a valuable tool to bridge the gap in health information access and to facilitate the well-being of immigrant women in the country.

This study aims to understand the utility of personas and illustrate, through a case study, how a persona-building exercise in a Community Based Prevention Marketing (CBPM) training of community leaders elicited important insights that complemented findings from ongoing formative research on vaccine hesitancy in the Hispanic/Latino population in the USA during COVID-19 pandemic.

An exploratory concurrent parallel qualitative study design compared three personas created by community-based organization members (n = 37) to transcripts from five formative research focus groups (n = 30) from the same project. All participants in this study were recruited by the National COVID-19 Resiliency Network as part of their capacity-building and formative research activities. Grounded theory guided the content analysis.

This study found personas and focus groups to be complementary. A high degree of co-occurrence was observed when investigating the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine under the categories of barriers, culture and communication. Between the two methods, the authors found strong associations between fear, disruption to the value system, work-related barriers, inaccessibility to health care and information sources and misinformation. Areas of divergence were negligible.

While personas provided background information about the population and sharing “how” to reach the priority population, focus groups provided the “why” behind the behavior, followed by “how”.

A community-driven persona-building process built on cultural community knowledge and existing data can build community capacity, provide rich information to assist in the creation of tailored messages, strategies and overall interventions during a public health crisis and provide user-centered, evidence-based information about a priority population while researchers and practitioners wait on the results from formative research.

This case study provided a unique opportunity to analyze the complementary effectiveness of two methods acting in tandem to understand the priority population: stakeholder-informed persona-building and participant-informed focus group interviews. Understanding their complementary nature addresses a time gap that often exists between researchers and practitioners during times of crises and builds on recommendations associated with bringing rigor into practice, promoting academic contribution to real-world issues and building collaborative partnerships. Finally, it supports the utility of a nimble tool that improves social marketers’ ability to know more about their audience for intervention design when time is of the essence and formative research is ongoing.

Responding to the continuing separation of participants and researchers in LIS participatory research, a new methodology is proposed: action partnership research design (APRD). It is asserted that APRD can mitigate or remove the hierarchical structures often inherent in the research process, thus allowing for equal contribution from all.

Building on the bonded design (BD) methodology and informed by a scoping literature review conducted by the same authors, APRD is a human-centered research approach with the goal of empowering and valuing community partnerships. APRD originates from research investigating the use of participatory design methods to foster collaboration between two potentially disparate groups, firstly with adult researchers/designers and elementary school children, and secondly with university faculty and IT professionals.

To achieve this goal, in addition to BD techniques, APRD draws inspiration from elements of indigenous and decolonization research methodologies, particularly those with an emphasis on destabilizing power hierarchies and involving research participants as full partners.

APRD, which emerged from findings from previous participatory design studies, especially those of BD, is based on the premise of partnership, recognizing that each member of a design team, whether researcher or participant/user, has unique expertise to contribute. By considering participants/users as full research partners, APRD aims to flatten the hierarchies exhibited in some LIS participatory research methodologies, where participants are treated more like research subjects than partners.

This study aims to investigate the usability of a public university website for measuring its efficiency, users’ satisfaction or anxiety while searching for and retrieving information through different devices.

A task-based approach was adopted for the study. Twenty-eight participants were asked to complete 11 information-searching tasks on the website. The participants were divided into two groups. The tasks were carried out by members of each group, using desktop and mobile devices in a rotating fashion. Volunteers observed the participants' actions and recorded information regarding their productivity, time usage (using a timer), satisfaction or annoyance while performing each task. Finally, based on the use of the devices, a comparison was established between the participants' performance accuracy, efficiency and anxiety.

The study provides an overview of a task-based user experience carried out on the university website using a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. According to the results, participants' satisfaction levels were generally high, and their anxiety levels were low while completing the tasks on a mobile device. In comparison to the desktop, it took less time overall to complete all tasks. On the other hand, using a desktop computer (97.1%) resulted in better task completion success rates for participants than using a mobile device (85.7%).

No previous task-based evaluation study of this kind has been conducted to assess the usability of any university website in Bangladesh.

This paper aims to explore how young students experience the contribution of a pedagogical assemblage based on design thinking (DT) while contributing to the transition to a more just and sustainable university.

This qualitative research considers the case of two pedagogical experiences developed at Universitat Politècnica de Valencià, Spain. In both experiences, a methodological proposal that includes practices of care, just transitions and DT was implemented. The data obtained through in-depth interviews, surveys and digital whiteboard labels was analyzed under the lens of three relational categories in the context of sustainability.

Learnings are acquired through five categories: place-based learning, prior learning, embodied learning, collaborative teamwork and intersectionality. The research shows how the subjective knowledge of young students positions them as co-designers and leaders of a University that drives a more just and sustainable transition.

The originality of the paper lies in the shift of DT from a human-based approach to a justice-oriented relational approach.

There is a growing interest in applying the principles of biophilic design to hotel lobbies to enhance positive user experiences. However, there is little empirical research in this area, particularly for abstract or indirect biophilic approaches. The current study analyzed the biophilic strategy of “organized complexity” (which entails structured hierarchical patterns) in a hotel lobby in relation to attention restoration outcomes.

A virtual reality approach was used to create three lobby designs, differing only in their degree of organized complexity. A between-subjects study was conducted with 91 participants, evaluating reactions to the lobby designs in terms of perceived attention restoration, perceived environmental complexity and environmental preferences.

A strong positive relationship was found between participants' perception of environmental complexity and feelings of restoration. However, no statistically significant correlation was found between restoration and the objective measures of organized complexity. This suggests that individual preferences or baseline responses may play a crucial role in the benefits associated with this aspect of biophilic design.

The findings suggest a novel possibility – that responses to organized complexity may not be universal but may instead depend on an individual’s background and personal preferences. While the study found that perceived complexity was associated with restoration, the objective features of the environment that incited these perceptions were different for different participants. This indicates that more research is needed into potentially relevant personal factors.