How to successfully create impact from academic research is the focus of much debate. Discussions often centres on the role of discipline, researcher skills and behaviour, or institutional systems to capture impact evidence, but little... more
How to successfully create impact from academic research is the focus of much debate. Discussions often centres on the role of discipline, researcher skills and behaviour, or institutional systems to capture impact evidence, but little consideration is given to the relationship between research impact and the research environment. Focussing on the Impact Case Studies submitted to Unit of Assessment 34: Art & Design: History, Practice and Theory, this research used Content and Narrative Analysis to review a sample of the most and least successful Impact submissions as ranked by Times Higher Education. The aim was to identify the characteristics of high-scoring Impact Case Studies to inform strategies for supporting the generation of research impact, but what emerged was evidence of a nuanced relationship between research environment and research impact. For Research and Management Practitioners, these findings highlight a need to extend beyond the development of training, advice and ...
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The technology demonstration will show that it is possible for a person to use the real-time biofeedback of their heart rate variability (HRV), recorded from a heart rate monitor watch, to help improve their level of attention and... more
The technology demonstration will show that it is possible for a person to use the real-time biofeedback of their heart rate variability (HRV), recorded from a heart rate monitor watch, to help improve their level of attention and relaxation. High levels of concentration and positive affect are associated with creativity, so improvements in 'relaxed concentration' could help enhance creativity. The technology demonstration will use an iPhone and a Mio Alpha 2 heart rate monitor watch. Participants will get a chance to try out the system to see how it works and how different interaction designs within the application can affect 'relaxed concentration' levels.
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This paper presents the preliminary ethnographic stage of an ongoing PhD project that aims to explore how ludic, and creative activities can support older residents living with dementia in residential care. Observations of care units, as... more
This paper presents the preliminary ethnographic stage of an ongoing PhD project that aims to explore how ludic, and creative activities can support older residents living with dementia in residential care. Observations of care units, as well as formal and informal interviews with care staff provided an understanding of the daily routines and activity within the environment, identified in-house activities, and gave insights into supporting the wellbeing of residents. Observations of arts based activity sessions, and interviews with the creative practitioners who deliver them, provided insights into how creative activities can be a valuable resource in supporting the wellbeing of residents living with dementia, as well as the limitations associated with this field. The paper presents the context for the research question and outlines the methods that were used in addressing it. A summary of the findings are given followed by a brief discussion, focusing on the value that creative act...
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This paper describes a new approach for entering text on a \"Smartphone\" via natural handwriting input. The approach focuses on ease of use within the confines of a Smartphone display size and processing limitations. Therefore... more
This paper describes a new approach for entering text on a \"Smartphone\" via natural handwriting input. The approach focuses on ease of use within the confines of a Smartphone display size and processing limitations. Therefore there are two integrated components to the approach. The first is a new handwriting recognition engine that has been designed to have a very high recognition accuracy (98.3% character accuracy), support sentencebased handwriting input, and have a small memory footprint (84 kb) and fast processing time. The second is a method that allows very simple editing and correction of recognized characters.
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From parks to shopping areas, smart technologies are being used throughout our cities to inform, guide and even persuade us into certain experiences. In terms of the technologies (and their usage), the emphasis is now very much on the... more
From parks to shopping areas, smart technologies are being used throughout our cities to inform, guide and even persuade us into certain experiences. In terms of the technologies (and their usage), the emphasis is now very much on the mobile device and mobile applications that provide us with the digital media time to interact and share. Moreover, what we are increasingly witnessing and experiencing is how this mobile experience can fully absorb and disconnect us from the environment around us. The authors of this paper want to re-focus the actual role of the environment in the design of the smart city experiences. Integrating site-specific artworks with smart technologies, the goal of this research is to put the emphasis back into the environment as a place where everyone can engage and enjoy regardless of ability and/ or disability. This paper reports on the early conceptual stages of the Cardiff Bay Barrage project. It will highlight how the work (thinking and feeling) of artists...
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Filling in the ‘Missing Middle’ in Wales – Exploring how Welsh Medium-sized Enterprises Innovate?
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Student engagement is critical in helping students learn effectively and achieve success. For students working in the areas of art and design, there is also a strong emphasis placed on the importance of creativity. Over recent years we... more
Student engagement is critical in helping students learn effectively and achieve success. For students working in the areas of art and design, there is also a strong emphasis placed on the importance of creativity. Over recent years we have conducted research into the factors and processes affecting creativity and explored how these insights can help improve student engagement and student creativity. The paper discusses the relationship between factors affecting student engagement and creativity; how our curriculum has been designed to develop student creativity; and how we have evaluated and refined our curriculum to enhance student engagement, based on our research into creativity. We present results from the National Student Survey (NSS) and from our own internal qualitative and quantitative data analysis highlighting areas where we have made a positive impact on student engagement. We also reflect on areas for further development and the possible impact our approach and curricul...
Research Interests: Psychology and Creativity
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This case study explores the effectiveness of using a design thinking approach for the development of appropriate, transformative medical product solutions for Zambia. Findings are presented from an initial 10-day field trip to Zambia by... more
This case study explores the effectiveness of using a design thinking approach for the development of appropriate, transformative medical product solutions for Zambia. Findings are presented from an initial 10-day field trip to Zambia by an interdisciplinary team that undertook preliminary ethnographic research. As a consequence of taking a design thinking approach and focusing on factors relating to the desirability, viability and feasibility of possible solutions it has been possible to identify new development opportunities, including some surrounding rural trauma and childbirth.
Conference paper presented at International Associations of Societies in Design Research Conference, Manchester, 2-5 September.
Purpose Poor eating habits established during adolescence are likely to lead to negative long-term health consequences. The childhood obesity epidemic is a growing public health concern, largely attributed to obesogenic environments. This... more
Purpose Poor eating habits established during adolescence are likely to lead to negative long-term health consequences. The childhood obesity epidemic is a growing public health concern, largely attributed to obesogenic environments. This study aims to explore the multiple factors contributing positively or negatively to young consumers’ attitudes towards their food consumption. Design/methodology/approach In total, 42 11- to 13-years-old (24 men and 18 women) from three secondary schools in Wales participated in five focus group discussions. The process of thematic analysis resulted in several identified themes that influenced young consumers’ eating habits. Findings Extrapersonal factors compromised: education, peer pressure, parenting, availability and social media; and intrapersonal factors included: health consciousness, taste preferences, convenience and price consciousness. Contrary to previous research, the adolescent participants perceived their parents as more influential ...
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Anticoagulation therapy with Warfarin is used for specific cardiovascular diseases to control the ability of blood clotting. Traditional ways of self-management therapy are based on paper forms and procedures. This paper presents an... more
Anticoagulation therapy with Warfarin is used for specific cardiovascular diseases to control the ability of blood clotting. Traditional ways of self-management therapy are based on paper forms and procedures. This paper presents an evaluation of the smartphone application Warfarin Guide, a computer-assisted decision-support system used to help patients in their management of anticoagulation therapy related to International Normalized Ratio (INR) values. The evaluation consisted of a usability test with 4 participants and a field test with 14 participants who used the application at home during four months. A mixed methods research approach included quantitative and qualitative analysis of the test results. The results showed that participants evaluated the Warfarin Guide as 'useful' for self-management of anticoagulation therapy, reporting key issues for further improvement.
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ABSTRACT Not Available
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In this paper, a new quantitative method is proposed for measuring the unconscious mind in the incubation stage of the creative process. The method uses Heart Rate Variability (HRV) as a measure of the emotional and mental state of the... more
In this paper, a new quantitative method is proposed for measuring the unconscious mind in the incubation stage of the creative process. The method uses Heart Rate Variability (HRV) as a measure of the emotional and mental state of the participants. The creative process is measured quantitatively by the degree of divergent thinking shown by participants during a study of
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The always connected, mobile consumer is closer to reality than ever before. Ericsson expects the world-wide number of mobile phones to exceed landline phones by 2002 and that there will be more mobile Internet subscribers than fixed... more
The always connected, mobile consumer is closer to reality than ever before. Ericsson expects the world-wide number of mobile phones to exceed landline phones by 2002 and that there will be more mobile Internet subscribers than fixed Internet subscribers by 2003 (Ericsson Annual Report, 2000). The potential of advanced wireless networks far surpasses today's mobile extensions of PC and Internet applications. But these new applications are not yet clear. Leveraging competence in customer research and interaction design, the human-computer interaction (HCI) community is, therefore, in the perfect position to address a key need of this industry: new application discovery.
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This paper presents research relating to the use of computers for the intelligent decomposition of myoelectric signals (EMG). A knowledge based expert system is described which decomposes superimposed waveforms formed from overlapping... more
This paper presents research relating to the use of computers for the intelligent decomposition of myoelectric signals (EMG). A knowledge based expert system is described which decomposes superimposed waveforms formed from overlapping motor unit action potentials (MUAPs) in a myoelectric signal using symbolic information provided by numerical recognition analysis. The system, written in Prolog, consists of some 30 rules in the knowledge base that are driven by an interpreter that incorporates uncertain reasoning based on fuzzy set theory. The expert system contains both procedural and declarative knowledge representations of the problem domain. The declarative rules contain a description of the relationships between the raw motor unit (MU) information collected by the numerical analysis and the superimposed waveforms being decomposed. The procedural rules interact with the declarative rules through rule attachments that activate demon procedures. The demon procedure computes fuzzy certainty factors for all the possible combinations of MUAPs that form a superimposed waveform.
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ABSTRACT The text input for non-alphabetic languages, such as Chinese, has been a decades-long problem. Chinese Dictation using large vocabulary speech recognit,ion pro-vides a convenient mode of text entry. In contrast to a character... more
ABSTRACT The text input for non-alphabetic languages, such as Chinese, has been a decades-long problem. Chinese Dictation using large vocabulary speech recognit,ion pro-vides a convenient mode of text entry. In contrast to a character based Dictation system[5], a ...
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Research Interests: Engineering and Design
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ABSTRACT Not Available
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ABSTRACT For designers developing information appliances, bringing together the physical and digital elements of a product early in the design process presents a prototyping challenge. Whilst prototyping methods have been developed to... more
ABSTRACT For designers developing information appliances, bringing together the physical and digital elements of a product early in the design process presents a prototyping challenge. Whilst prototyping methods have been developed to address this need, these methods have so far only been evaluated using laboratory-based testing approaches. This paper argues that testing in-context should also be supported by prototyping methods, and presents the findings of a comparative study between a laboratory and in-context user test of early information appliance prototypes. A key question was whether the type of 'rough and ready' prototypes frequently found in user laboratory setting might, with some careful development, be suitable for in-context testing. The results of the study show that in-context and laboratory testing of early, 'rough and ready' prototypes uncovered different usability problems. In this study, in-context testing of prototypes uncovered problems with physical inputs and product format not seen in the laboratory environment. In contrast, the increased opportunities for spontaneous user reflection during laboratory testing provided insights into user expectations of functionality not seen during in-context testing.
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Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Computer Science, Philosophy, Creative Problem Solving, and 14 moreEmbodied Cognition, Medicine, Problem Solving, Thinking, Humans, Female, Male, Young Adult, Cognitive Processing, Adult, Psychological Models, Choice Behavior, Neuropsychological Tests, and photic stimulation
In this paper we propose the concept of ’active’ and ’passive’ physicality as mental models to help in understanding the role of low fidelity prototypes in the design process for computer embedded products. We define ‘active physicality’... more
In this paper we propose the concept of ’active’ and ’passive’ physicality as mental models to help in understanding the role of low fidelity prototypes in the design process for computer embedded products. We define ‘active physicality’ as how the prototype and its software react to users and ‘passive physicality’ as how the prototype looks and feels offline. User trials of four different types of ‘low fidelity’ prototypes were undertaken using an existing product as the datum. Each prototype was analysed in terms of active and passive physicality and user responses were collated and compared qualitatively and quantitatively. The results suggest that prototypes that balance both active and passive physicality produce data closer to the final device than those that are strong in one at the expense of the other.
1. OVERVIEW Chinese characters are ideographic in nature with over 3000 characters in common use for simplified Chinese. Chinese characters can be written in a neat print style where rules based on stroke order and number are followed but... more
1. OVERVIEW Chinese characters are ideographic in nature with over 3000 characters in common use for simplified Chinese. Chinese characters can be written in a neat print style where rules based on stroke order and number are followed but are generally written in a more ...
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The text input for non-alphabetic languages, such as Chinese, has been a decades-long problem. Chinese Dictation using large vocabulary speech recognit,ion pro-vides a convenient mode of text entry. In contrast to a character based... more
The text input for non-alphabetic languages, such as Chinese, has been a decades-long problem. Chinese Dictation using large vocabulary speech recognit,ion pro-vides a convenient mode of text entry. In contrast to a character based Dictation system[5], a ...
Research Interests:
The always connected, mobile consumer is closer to reality than ever before. Ericsson expects the world-wide number of mobile phones to exceed landline phones by 2002 and that there will be more mobile Internet subscribers than fixed... more
The always connected, mobile consumer is closer to reality than ever before. Ericsson expects the world-wide number of mobile phones to exceed landline phones by 2002 and that there will be more mobile Internet subscribers than fixed Internet subscribers by 2003 (Ericsson ...
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Where Cartesian philosophy distinguishes the perceiving and perceptual mind from the body, phenomenology constitutes the experiential/experiencing body as the subject, giving rise to the affective potential of art. An immersive world of... more
Where Cartesian philosophy distinguishes the perceiving and perceptual mind from the body, phenomenology constitutes the experiential/experiencing body as the subject, giving rise to the affective potential of art. An immersive world of digital connections, smart cities and the Internet of Everything dramatises the centrality of relationship, the intertwining of Self and Other, in the lived environments of human experience. This article addresses the contextual, disciplinary and practical challenges encountered in developing an ambitious interactive public art project embedding SMART technology on the coastal fringes of Cardiff, the capital city of Wales (UK). It examines the processes and problems involved in delivering a stimulating aesthetic experience in and on a complex site, for a complex audience profile. It traces, in particular, the dependence of a multi-disciplinary project team on the theoretical and practical effects of affect in their ongoing effort to produce engaging,...