- Oslo Metropolitan University
Postboks 4
St Olavs plass
0130 OSLO
Norway
Pietro Murano
OsloMet—Oslo Metropolitan University, Computer Science, Faculty Member
- Computer Science, Human Computer Interaction, Usability and user experience, Usability Testing, Usability Engineering, Usability Evaluation, and 11 moreWeb usability, Interaction Design, User Experience (UX), User interfaces, User eXperience, Universal Design, Design for All, Inclusive Design, Universal Design, Design for All, Design and Analysis of Experiments, Experimental Statistics: Statistical Analysis of Experiments, and Software Design Notationsedit
- Professor Pietro Murano currently works at the Department of Computer Science, Oslo Metropolitan University. Professo... moreProfessor Pietro Murano currently works at the Department of Computer Science, Oslo Metropolitan University. Professor Murano does research in Human-computer Interaction/Usability/Interactive Systems.
http://www.pietromurano.org/edit
Toggles are used extensively by all major software vendors and often in the form of sliders. Although they mostly all share an on or off functionality, there are differences in how designers and developers represent these actions in the... more
Toggles are used extensively by all major software vendors and often in the form of sliders. Although they mostly all share an on or off functionality, there are differences in how designers and developers represent these actions in the user interface. There can also be differences in the kind of state changes these toggles operate. We present in this paper a new contribution concerning the design of usable UI toggles. We designed and developed a series of prototypes that were evaluated experimentally and subjectively by real participants. The results clearly show that certain designs currently in use create confusion and negative user perceptions and therefore should be avoided. We present a series of toggle design guidelines based on the results that, if followed by designers and developers, will help to produce more usable UIs for better user experiences.
Research Interests:
This paper presents a new user interface design for an online dictionary. Online dictionary user interfaces have not been given much research attention over the years and this paper addresses this important gap in knowledge. The... more
This paper presents a new user interface design for an online dictionary. Online dictionary user interfaces have not been given much research attention over the years and this paper addresses this important gap in knowledge. The dictionary chosen for the redesign was the Norwegian Online Dictionary. The design aimed to improve usability and universal design aspects. The prototype was firstly evaluated using the Wave and SortSite automated tools. The prototype was evolved until these tools showed no errors to be present. Then, an empirical experiment with 20 human participants was conducted as a comparison of the new user interface and the Norwegian Online Dictionary user interface. Ten participants were native Norwegian speakers and the remaining ten participants were nonnative Norwegian speakers with a minimum of A2 Norwegian language level. Errors and user experience data were collected and statistically analysed using t-tests. User experience was elicited by means of a bespoke questionnaire. Statistically significant results were observed where most p-values were to the 0.0001 level, indicating strong significance. The analysis suggests the new prototype user interface incurred significantly fewer errors and significantly higher perceptions of positive user experience when compared with the Norwegian Online Dictionary. The new design could be easily used as a basis for future online dictionary designs or for improving current online dictionaries.
Research Interests:
In this paper a novel and significant study into the usability of carousel interaction in the context of desktop interaction is presented. Two equivalent prototypes in an e-commerce context were developed. One version had a carousel and... more
In this paper a novel and significant study into the usability of carousel interaction in the context of desktop interaction is presented. Two equivalent prototypes in an e-commerce context were developed. One version had a carousel and the other version did not have a carousel. These were then compared with each other in an empirical experiment with 40 participants. The data collected were statistically analysed and overall results showed that in terms of performance the Web site version without carousel outperformed the version with carousel. Furthermore, the subjective preferences of the participants were strongly in favour of the without carousel version of the site. The results of this study make an important contribution to knowledge suggesting that in many cases implementing a carousel is not the best design decision. The results of this paper are particularly significant in relation to desktop versioned Web sites and goaldriven tasks. Serendipitous-type tasks and mobile versioned web sites used on mobile devices with touch screens were not part of the scope of this work.
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This paper discusses and presents a new prototype design for a smartwatch user interface. The user interface was designed aiming to adhere to some of the main universal design principles and be a more usable design. The prototype user... more
This paper discusses and presents a new prototype design for a smartwatch user interface. The user interface was designed aiming to adhere to some of the main universal design principles and be a more usable design. The prototype user interface was then compared with a Samsung Gear S3 smartwatch user interface. The comparison was done via an experiment and a series of realistic tasks. The aspects being investigated were task times, errors and subjective user satisfaction. The data collected were statistically analysed. The overall results showed that the prototype user interface fostered faster task times, fewer errors and more user satisfaction.
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This paper details a two-part evaluation of the Apple TV user interface. A Heuristic Evaluation and an evaluation using the seven universal design principles were carried out. The overall results showed that the Apple TV user interface... more
This paper details a two-part evaluation of the Apple TV user interface. A Heuristic Evaluation and an evaluation using the seven universal design principles were carried out. The overall results showed that the Apple TV user interface has various failings in the design for users of diverse kinds. Suggestions for ways forward include designers using more rigorously the ISO standards and well established user interface design guidelines.
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This paper details a usability evaluation of scrolling techniques on Web sites. The scrolling methods evaluated were normal scrolling (with default pagination), infinite scrolling, infinite scrolling with a load more button and infinite... more
This paper details a usability evaluation of scrolling techniques on Web sites. The scrolling methods evaluated were normal scrolling (with default pagination), infinite scrolling, infinite scrolling with a load more button and infinite scrolling with pagination. The four scrolling types were evaluated in the context of tasks that involved either serendipitous type tasks or goal-oriented type tasks. The evaluation was principally about the 'raw' performance and participant perceptions. This is because it was felt that the greatest gap in knowledge concerned these aspects. The evaluation was done by means of an experiment and the data collected was statistically analysed. The results were mixed in nature, where no single scrolling method stood out as being the most usable.
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Alphanumeric text and PINs continue to be the dominant authentication methods in spite of the numerous concerns by security researchers of their inability to properly address usability and security flaws and to effectively combine... more
Alphanumeric text and PINs continue to be the dominant authentication methods in spite of the numerous concerns by security researchers of their inability to properly address usability and security flaws and to effectively combine usability and security. These flaws have, however, contributed to the growing research interest in the development and use of graphical authentication systems as alternatives to text based systems. Graphical passwords or graphical authentication systems are password systems that use images rather than characters or numbers in user authentication. In spite of the growing acceptance of graphical passwords, empirical studies have shown that graphical authentication systems have also inherited some of the flaws of text-based passwords. These flaws include predictability, vulnerability to observational attacks and the inability of systems to efficiently combine security with usability. Hence, there is a continued quest to find a "system" that has both strong usability and strong security. This paper is a detailed review of the current state of research into graphical authentication systems. The paper considers in detail some of the mechanisms used in graphical authentication, along with the flaws and strengths of each. The paper also concludes with some suggested ways forward.
Research Interests:
This paper details a preliminary evaluation into the usability and universal design of force touch interaction with older users as recently introduced into the Apple iOS9 operating system. The evaluation involved a small group of older... more
This paper details a preliminary evaluation into the usability and universal design of force touch interaction with older users as recently introduced into the Apple iOS9 operating system. The evaluation involved a small group of older users and two typical smartphone tasks. The tasks involved increasing font size and rotating an image on an Apple iPhone with iOS9 installed. The study recorded task times and semi-structured interview responses. The overall results indicated that the new force touch feature can gain good acceptance from older users, but that there were some usability and universal design problems with the feature which hampered the potential of full acceptance by older users.
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There are different types of algorithms used in eye tracking technologies. These algorithms are divided into two main categories: feature-based and model-based. Feature-based technologies consist of threshold values, which are used to... more
There are different types of algorithms used in eye tracking technologies. These algorithms are divided into two main categories: feature-based and model-based. Feature-based technologies consist of threshold values, which are used to decide the presence or absence of features or determinant factors. While the model-based approach is an iterative search of a model parameter, which is the best fitting model that is a closest match to the image. However, these approaches have significant problems regarding computational speed and accuracy. Similarly, there are different types of eye-tracking technologies, which depend on different types of technologies such as infrared video cameras and other technologies, which require specific calibration and setup and are quite expensive. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an alternative eye-tracking technology using a new eye-tracking algorithm, which is highly portable and independent of any hardware or software systems. In an evaluation the algorithm worked accurately for users with strong dyslexia. Participants had various positive and negative opinions regarding such an auto-detection system. Furthermore, we propose that such technology could be used to automatically modify the content of online material to better suit dyslexic users.
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Purpose This paper presents a new user interface design for text proofreading portals in a digitization and crowdsourcing context. Several of the current proofreading portals lack usability in their user interfaces. The aim of the new... more
Purpose This paper presents a new user interface design for text proofreading portals in a digitization and crowdsourcing context. Several of the current proofreading portals lack usability in their user interfaces. The aim of the new design is to increase user performance and satisfaction. Approach An empirical experiment was conducted to evaluate the new user interface as a comparison with 18thConnect-TypeWright proofreading portal. Two of the main measures involved times and errors and this approach was considered to be good for these kinds of measures allowing a good degree of control. Nevertheless, personal opinions were also very important and these were elicited by means of a post-experiment questionnaire. Findings The data was statistically analysed and overall the new user interface helped users to perform better in terms of task time. Errors were also better with the new user interface, but the differences were not statistically significant. Furthermore, users were more satisfied with the new user interface. User satisfaction measures were mostly statistically significant. Originality As far as has been ascertained, there have been no systematic studies evaluating a new design with an existing design of a proofreading portal. Therefore, this research is considered to be very original and if implemented widely would be very valuable to the mass digitization aims.
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This paper discusses the design, development and evaluation of a data visualization prototype for a mobile application, for people with rheumatoid arthritis conditions. The visualizations concern ways of displaying graphically data for... more
This paper discusses the design, development and evaluation of a data visualization prototype for a mobile application, for people with rheumatoid arthritis conditions. The visualizations concern ways of displaying graphically data for monitoring and evaluating the daily activities of rheumatoid arthritis sufferers. An initial visualization was developed and then a second was developed, aiming to be more usable and universally designed than the first version. An empirical experiment was used for evaluation and collection of quantitative data. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews were used for eliciting more qualitative data in terms of participant opinions. The overall results suggest that the second visualization was more usable and more universally designed than the first version. The paper concludes with some recommendations for future improvements.
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This review paper is about menus on web pages and applications and their positioning on the user screen. The paper aims to provide the reader with a succinct summary of the major research in this area along with an easy to read tabulation... more
This review paper is about menus on web pages and applications and their positioning on the user screen. The paper aims to provide the reader with a succinct summary of the major research in this area along with an easy to read tabulation of the most important studies. Furthermore, the paper concludes with some suggestions for future research regarding how menus and their positioning on the screen could be improved. The two principal suggestions concern trying to use more qualitative methods for investigating the issues and to develop in the future more universally designed menus.
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This paper is about a continuing investigation aiming to find out which menu type is more useable on a web site or application. This paper specifically compares pie menus with linear menus. Although other researchers have investigated... more
This paper is about a continuing investigation aiming to find out which menu type is more useable on a web site or application. This paper specifically compares pie menus with linear menus. Although other researchers have investigated similar themes it is felt that there is still not enough knowledge regarding the various effects of different menu types, including their positioning on a screen. An empirical approach using an experiment to test the effectiveness and user satisfaction of a pie menu and a linear menu is described in detail. Four tasks were administered to experimental participants under each menu design in a within users experimental design. Overall task time, number of errors and participants' subjective opinions were measured. The data were statistically analysed. There were no statistically significant results for task times and errors. However, subjective opinions were overall statistically significant, suggesting a preference for the pie menu by participants. These results are interesting for all web designers, user interface designers and developers. The issues being investigated are rather complex, because there is no clear pattern of results to suggest a categorical 'best design'. These results add to the current knowledge in existence regarding menu types and to the wish of understanding better the issues involved with menu types.
Research Interests:
This paper concerns an investigation by the authors into the efficiency and user opinions of menu positioning in web pages. While the idea and use of menus on web pages are not new, the authors feel there is not enough empirical evidence... more
This paper concerns an investigation by the authors into the efficiency and user opinions of menu positioning in web pages. While the idea and use of menus on web pages are not new, the authors feel there is not enough empirical evidence to help designers choose an appropriate menu position. We therefore present the design and results of an empirical experiment, investigating the usability of menu positioning on web pages. A four condition experiment was conducted by the authors. Each condition tested a different menu position. The menu positions tested were left vertical, right vertical, top horizontal and bottom horizontal. The context was a fictitious online store. The results, based on statistical analysis and statistically significant findings, suggest that the top horizontal and left vertical positioned menus incurred fewer errors and fewer mouse clicks. Furthermore, the user satisfaction ratings were in line with the efficiency aspects observed.
Research Interests:
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... more
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. We adopt an empirical approach using an experiment to test the effectiveness and user satisfaction of touch-based interaction compared with equivalent mouse-based interaction. We had two abstract type tasks and one contextualised task using the two methods of interaction. We measured errors, task time and user satisfaction. The data was 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. These results are interesting for all user interface designers and developers, where we make some design suggestions based on our empirical results. Further, we also propose further ways forward to enrich this research area of further knowledge.
Research Interests:
The authors of this paper are conducting research into the usability of menu positioning on web pages. Other researchers have also done work in this area, but the results are not conclusive and therefore more work still needs to be done... more
The authors of this paper are conducting research into the usability of menu positioning on web pages. Other researchers have also done work in this area, but the results are not conclusive and therefore more work still needs to be done in this area. The design and results of an empirical experiment, investigating the usability of menu positioning on a supermarket web site, are presented in this paper. As a comparison, the authors tested a left vertical menu and a fisheye menu placed horizontally at the top of a page in a prototype supermarket web site against a real supermarket web site using a horizontal menu placed at the top of a page. Few significant results were observed, which gave rise to the conclusion that overall there were not many differences between the tested menu types. Furthermore, an explanation for the results observed is discussed in terms of cognitive, physical, functional and sensory affordances. It is suggested that observation of the affordances may be a more crucial aspect to menu design than the actual menu positioning.
Research Interests:
This paper describes an experiment and its results concerning research that has been going on for a number of years in the area of anthropomorphic user interface feedback. The main aims of the research have been to examine the... more
This paper describes an experiment and its results concerning research that has been going on for a number of years in the area of anthropomorphic user interface feedback. The main aims of the research have been to examine the effectiveness and user satisfaction of anthropomorphic feedback in various domains. The results are of use to all interactive systems designers, particularly when dealing with issues of user interface feedback design. There is currently some disagreement amongst computer scientists concerning the suitability of such types of feedback. This research is working to resolve this disagreement. The experiment detailed, concerns the specific software domain of Online Factual Delivery in the specific context of online hotel bookings. Anthropomorphic feedback was compared against an equivalent non-anthropomorphic feedback. Statistically significant results were obtained suggesting that the non-anthropomorphic feedback was more effective. The results for user satisfaction were however less clear. The results obtained are compared with previous research. This suggests that the observed results could be due to the issue of differing domains yielding different results. However the results may also be due to the affordances at the interface being more facilitated in the non-anthropomorphic feedback.
Research Interests:
This paper presents a four condition experiment and the results concerning the wider area of investigating the effectiveness and user satisfaction of using anthropomorphic feedback at the user interface. The specific context used was... more
This paper presents a four condition experiment and the results concerning the wider area of investigating the effectiveness and user satisfaction of using anthropomorphic feedback at the user interface. The specific context used was online bidding. The four conditions used in the experiment were human video, human voice, human voice with anthropomorphic text and a control consisting of neutral text. The main results of the experiment showed significant differences in participants' perceptions regarding the 'humanity' of the feedback they used. As expected, the control condition consisting of neutral text incurred significantly lower ratings for the 'humanity' characteristics of the feedback. The human video condition also incurred significantly stronger perceptions regarding the appearance being human. The results were also analysed in light of the theory of affordances and the authors conclude that the four conditions used in the experiment were likely equivalent in their facilitating the affordances. Therefore the authors suggest that facilitating the affordances may be more crucial to a user interface and the users than the actual anthropomorphic characteristic of the feedback used.
The aim of the authors' research is to gain better insights into the effectiveness and user satisfaction of anthropomorphism at the user interface. Therefore, this paper presents a between users experiment and the results in the context... more
The aim of the authors' research is to gain better insights into the effectiveness and user satisfaction of anthropomorphism at the user interface. Therefore, this paper presents a between users experiment and the results in the context of anthropomorphism at the user interface and the giving of instruction for learning sewing stitches. Two experimental conditions were used, where the information for learning sewing stitches was the same. However the manner of presentation was varied. Therefore one condition was anthropomorphic and the other was non-anthropomorphic. Also the work is closely linked with Hartson's theory of affordances applied to user interfaces. The results suggest that facilitation of the affordances in an anthropomorphic user interface lead to statistically significant results in terms of effectiveness and user satisfaction in the sewing context. Further some violation of the affordances leads to an interface being less usable in terms of effectiveness and user satisfaction.
Research Interests:
This paper describes an experiment investigating the effectiveness and user satisfaction of using anthropomorphic feedback at the user interface. The context chosen was online bidding due to this kind of activity being very much used in... more
This paper describes an experiment investigating the effectiveness and user satisfaction of using anthropomorphic feedback at the user interface. The context chosen was online bidding due to this kind of activity being very much used in current times by general users. The main results of the experiment were that there was a statistically significant effect observed for the time taken to place a bid in the anthropomorphic text condition. However there were no other significant effects for effectiveness issues and user satisfaction indicators. The results were also analysed in terms of the affordances and the main findings were that each of the four conditions tested in the experiment were probably equivalent in terms of their facilitating the affordances. Overall it may be more important to facilitate the affordances rather than a type of feedback being anthropomorphic in nature or not.
Research Interests:
This paper describes an experiment which aims to examine the effectiveness and efficiency of a Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) building model compared with equivalent architectural plans, for direction finding purposes. The... more
This paper describes an experiment which aims to examine the effectiveness and efficiency of
a Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) building model compared with equivalent
architectural plans, for direction finding purposes. The effectiveness and efficiency issues
being primarily investigated were number of tasks completed overall and task completion
times. The experiment involved a series of tasks where participants had to find a number of
locations/objects in a building unknown to them at the outset of the experiment. Statistically
significant results are presented for the benefit of the research community, law enforcement
officers and fire fighters where it is clear that in this context, the VRML model led to better
task completions than the equivalent architectural plans. Regarding the task completion times,
no statistical significance was found. Given the current climate of security issues and terrorist
threats, it is important that law enforcement officers have at their disposal the best information
possible regarding the layout of a building, whilst keeping costs down. This also applies to fire
fighters when rescuing victims. This experiment has shown that a VRML model leads to better
task completions in direction finding.
a Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) building model compared with equivalent
architectural plans, for direction finding purposes. The effectiveness and efficiency issues
being primarily investigated were number of tasks completed overall and task completion
times. The experiment involved a series of tasks where participants had to find a number of
locations/objects in a building unknown to them at the outset of the experiment. Statistically
significant results are presented for the benefit of the research community, law enforcement
officers and fire fighters where it is clear that in this context, the VRML model led to better
task completions than the equivalent architectural plans. Regarding the task completion times,
no statistical significance was found. Given the current climate of security issues and terrorist
threats, it is important that law enforcement officers have at their disposal the best information
possible regarding the layout of a building, whilst keeping costs down. This also applies to fire
fighters when rescuing victims. This experiment has shown that a VRML model leads to better
task completions in direction finding.
Research Interests:
Websites are used for many different purposes and can also be designed in different ways with different styles. Certain website designs use persistent headers, while some alternatively use non-persistent headers. Online guidelines give... more
Websites are used for many different purposes and can also be designed in different ways with different styles. Certain website designs use persistent headers, while some alternatively use non-persistent headers. Online guidelines give ideas on how these are best used. However, there is no published systematic study investigating the performance and user satisfaction of these types of headers. In this paper we present an empirical experiment where persistent headers are compared with non-persistent headers. Two prototype news websites varied only in terms of their headers were developed and used in the experiment. The basic results suggest that persistent headers are more usable, particularly on a slightly larger screen. The analysis indicated that performance and user satisfaction are increased with the use of persistent headers on websites.
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The trend of maximizing mobile screen real estate by hiding user interface features has been in use for some time. However, there is a lack of empirical knowledge concerning the real usability issues of using this strategy. In this paper,... more
The trend of maximizing mobile screen real estate by hiding user interface features has been in use for some time. However, there is a lack of empirical knowledge concerning the real usability issues of using this strategy. In this paper, we present novel and statistically significant evidence to suggest that hiding user interface elements decreases usability in terms of performance and user experience. We conducted a withinusers experiment comparing identical user interfaces, where the only differences between them were that one version hid the user interface elements and the other version had all the user interface elements visible to the user. We recorded task times, errors and user satisfaction for a series of tasks. We also discuss our results in light of existing user interface design guidelines and show that our results are in harmony with existing guidelines.
Research Interests:
Self-driving cars are already being tested in our roads, and several benefits to society are expected with their mainstream use. They also present an opportunity to increase independent mobility for people with disabilities and the... more
Self-driving cars are already being tested in our roads, and several benefits to society are expected with their mainstream use. They also present an opportunity to increase independent mobility for people with disabilities and the elderly. To achieve this, however, the in-car interaction should be redesigned to be suitable for these groups of previously excluded car users. An investigation of existing literature helped us identify two main challenges that could impact the adoption of self-driving cars by such users, namely, their acceptance and multi-modal in-car interaction. To mitigate such challenges, we propose in this paper a model that frames the process of universally designing the in-car interactions to increase usability for everyone, while maintaining safety. We argue that integrating universal design early in the development of in-car interaction will ensure their accessibility and usability by all people.
Research Interests:
Various researchers around the world have been investigating the use of anthropomorphism in some form at the user interface. Some key issues involve determining whether such a medium is effective and liked by users. Discovering conclusive... more
Various researchers around the world have been investigating the use of anthropomorphism in some form at the user interface. Some key issues involve determining whether such a medium is effective and liked by users. Discovering conclusive evidence in relation to this medium would help user interface designers produce better user interfaces. Currently conclusive evidence is lacking. However the authors of this paper have been investigating these issues for some time and this paper presents the results of an experiment which tested anthropomorphic voices against neutral voices. This was in the context of telephone bidding. The results indicated the impersonal human voice condition to foster higher bids, while the user satisfaction was inconclusive across all four conditions tested. The results have also been examined in terms of the Theory of Affordances with the aim of finding an explanation for the observed results. The results indicate that issues of affordances played a part in the results observed.
Research Interests:
This paper describes an experiment and its results concerning research that has been going on for a number of years in the area of anthropomorphic user interface feedback. The main aims of the research have been to examine the... more
This paper describes an experiment and its results concerning research that has been going on for a number of years in the area of anthropomorphic user interface feedback. The main aims of the research have been to examine the effectiveness and user satisfaction of anthropomorphic feedback. The results are useful to all user interface designers wishing to improve the usability of their products. There is still disagreement in the research community concerning the usefulness of anthropomorphism at the user interface. This research is contributing knowledge to the aim of discovering whether such approaches are effective and liked by users. The experiment described in this paper, concerns the context of statistics tutoring/revision, which is part of the domain of software for in-depth learning. Anthropomorphic feedback was compared against an equivalent non-anthropomorphic feedback. The results indicated the anthropomorphic feedback to be preferred by users for some factors. However the evidence for effectiveness was inconclusive.
Research Interests:
This paper describes an experiment and its results concerning research that has been going on for a number of years in the area of anthropomorphic user interface feedback. The main aims of the research have been to examine the... more
This paper describes an experiment and its results concerning research that has been going on for a number of years in the area of anthropomorphic user interface feedback. The main aims of the research have been to examine the effectiveness and user satisfaction of anthropomorphic feedback. The results are of use to all user interface designers. Currently the work in the area of anthropomorphic feedback does not have any global conclusions concerning its effectiveness and user satisfaction capabilities. This research is investigating finding a way for reaching some global conclusions concerning this type of feedback. This experiment, concerned the context of downloading, installing and configuring an email client which is part of the domain of software for systems usage. Anthropomorphic feedback was compared against an equivalent non-anthropomorphic feedback. The results indicated the anthropomorphic feedback to be more effective and preferred by users. It was also the aim to examine the types of feedback in relation to Affordances. The results obtained can be explained in terms of the Theory of Affordances.
Research Interests:
This paper describes an experiment and its results concerning research that has been going on for a number of years in the area of anthropomorphic user interface feedback. The main aims of the research have been to examine the... more
This paper describes an experiment and its results concerning research that has been going on for a number of years in the area of anthropomorphic user interface feedback. The main aims of the research have been to examine the effectiveness and user satisfaction of anthropomorphic feedback in various domains. The results are of use to all interactive systems designers, particularly when dealing with issues of user interface feedback design. Currently the work in the area of anthropomorphic feedback does not have any global conclusions concerning its effectiveness and user satisfaction capabilities. This research is investigating finding a way for reaching some global conclusions concerning this type of feedback. The experiment detailed, concerns the specific software domain of software for in-depth learning in the specific context of PC building. Anthropomorphic feedback was compared against an equivalent non-anthropomorphic feedback. The results were not statistically significant to suggest one type of feedback was better than the other. It was also the aim to examine the types of feedback in relation to Cognitive Load Theory. The results suggest that the feedback types did not negatively affect Cognitive Load.
Research Interests:
This paper describes an experiment and its results concerning research that has been going on for a number of years in the area of anthropomorphic user interface feedback. The main aims of the research have been to examine the... more
This paper describes an experiment and its results concerning research that has been going on for a number of years in the area of anthropomorphic user interface feedback. The main aims of the research have been to examine the effectiveness and user satisfaction of anthropomorphic feedback in various domains. The results are of use to all interactive systems designers, particularly when dealing with issues of user interface feedback design. There is currently some disagreement amongst computer scientists concerning the suitability of such types of feedback. This research is working to resolve this disagreement and in turn can help software houses to increase their profits by developing better user interfaces that will promote an increase in sales. The experiment detailed, concerns the specific software domain of Online Factual Delivery in the specific context of online hotel bookings. Anthropomorphic feedback was compared against an equivalent non-anthropomorphic feedback. Statistically significant results were obtained suggesting that the non-anthropomorphic feedback was more effective. The results for user satisfaction were however less clear.
Research Interests:
This paper describes an experiment which aims to examine the effectiveness of a Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) building model compared with equivalent architectural plans, for direction finding purposes. The effectiveness... more
This paper describes an experiment which aims to examine the effectiveness of a Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) building model compared with equivalent architectural plans, for direction finding purposes. The effectiveness issues being primarily investigated were task completion times and number of tasks completed overall. The experiment involved a series of tasks where participants had to find a number of locations/objects in a building unknown to them at the outset of the experiment. Statistically significant results are presented for the benefit of the research community, law enforcement officers and fire fighters where it is clear that in this context, the VRML model led to better task completions than the equivalent architectural plans. Regarding the task completion times, no statistical significance was found. This experiment is highly relevant to the research community, law enforcement officers and fire fighters. Given the current climate of security issues and terrorist threats, it is important that law enforcement officers have at their disposal the best information possible regarding the layout of a building, whilst keeping costs down. This also applies to fire fighters when rescuing victims. This experiment has shown that a VRML model leads to better task completions in direction finding.
Research Interests:
This paper addresses and resolves an interesting question concerning the reason for anthropomorphic user interface feedback being more effective (in two of three contexts) and preferred by users compared to an equivalent... more
This paper addresses and resolves an interesting question concerning the reason for anthropomorphic user interface feedback being more effective (in two of three contexts) and preferred by users compared to an equivalent non-anthropomorphic feedback. Firstly the paper will summarise the author's three internationally published experiments and results. These will show statistically significant results indicating that in two of the three contexts anthropomorphic user interface feedback is more effective and preferred by users. Secondly some of the famous work by Reeves and Nass will be introduced. This basically shows that humans behave in a social manner towards computers through a user interface. Thirdly the reasons for the obtained results by the author are inextricably linked to the work of Reeves and Nass. It can be seen that the performance results and preferences are due to the subconscious social behaviour of humans towards computers through a user interface. The conclusions reported in this paper are of significance to user interface designers as they allow one to design interfaces which match more closely our human characteristics. These in turn would enhance the profits of a software house.
Research Interests:
This paper follows on from a group of internationally published papers in the area of investigating anthropomorphic user interface feedback. In this paper an experiment is described which aims to examine the effectiveness and user... more
This paper follows on from a group of internationally published papers in the area of investigating anthropomorphic user interface feedback. In this paper an experiment is described which aims to examine the effectiveness and user approval issues of anthropomorphic versus non-anthropomorphic user interface feedback. This experiment is highly relevant to the research community as Computer Scientists are not in agreement concerning the effectiveness and user approval of anthropomorphic user interfaces. The experiment described in this paper is in the context of Online Factual Delivery. Specifically the area of direction finding was used to test anthropomorphic feedback against non-anthropomorphic feedback. Statistically significant results are presented for the benefit of the research community, where it is clear that in this context, the non-anthropomorphic user interface feedback was more effective and users tended to prefer this feedback.
Research Interests:
This paper answers an important question concerning the effectiveness of anthropomorphic user interface feedback. The issue of effectiveness has been unresolved for some time, despite the efforts of various prominent computer scientists.... more
This paper answers an important question concerning the effectiveness of anthropomorphic user interface feedback. The issue of effectiveness has been unresolved for some time, despite the efforts of various prominent computer scientists. By means of a carefully controlled tractable experiment, significant statistical evidence has been found to suggest that anthropomorphism at the user interface in the context of online systems usage is more effective than a non-anthropomorphic method of feedback. Furthermore, the results can be generalised to most software systems for online systems usage, thus potentially changing the way user interface feedback is designed, developed and thought about. This will lead to the improvement of user interfaces making them more usable, more effective and more accessible to all. Computer systems are being used more and more, where potentially every household and work environment will have a computer in the near future. Hence making systems accessible to all, including 'non-traditional' users is becoming increasingly more important. This research is making a contribution to this general aim.
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This paper describes an experiment which tests anthropomorphic user interface feedback against non-anthropomorphic user interface feedback. The experiment has considered the effectiveness and user approval of the anthropomorphic and... more
This paper describes an experiment which tests anthropomorphic user interface feedback against non-anthropomorphic user interface feedback. The experiment has considered the effectiveness and user approval of the anthropomorphic and non-anthropomorphic user interface feedback. The experiment is worthwhile, as the Computer Science community is not in agreement concerning effectiveness and user approval of anthropomorphic user interface feedback. The specific area or setting for the experiment has been English as a Foreign Language (EFL). The results from the experiment are very promising being statistically significant. They show that the anthropomorphic user interface feedback was more effective and preferred by users.
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Research Interests: Usability, User Interface, Usability and user experience, Mobile HCI, HCI4D - Human-Computer Interaction for Development, and 9 moreUsability Testing, Usability Engineering, Usability Evaluation, User interfaces, Usability Research and Design, Computer User Interface Design, Multimedia Usability Evaluation, Multimedia HCI Design, and Werable HCI
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This paper presents new, novel and useful Universal Design principles in the context of mobile augmented reality (AR) applications. The principles can be used in an evaluative and/or design setting. The design of the principles was... more
This paper presents new, novel and useful Universal Design principles in the context of mobile augmented reality (AR) applications. The principles can be used in an evaluative and/or design setting. The design of the principles was undertaken through experience-based practice. The new universal design principles for Mobile AR were then tested in an evaluation with four well known educational-type AR applications found in the Google Play store. The results of the evaluation closely matched public user comments about each application. Further, the evaluative activity using the new principles fostered design solutions for the problems found in the evaluation. From our activity, the new principles are very useful. It is suggested that these principles, if used, will help to develop better and more user friendly mobile AR applications.
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This paper describes an experiment which aims to examine the effectiveness of a Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) building model compared with equivalent architectural plans, for direction finding purposes. The effectiveness... more
This paper describes an experiment which aims to examine the effectiveness of a Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) building model compared with equivalent architectural plans, for direction finding purposes. The effectiveness issues being primarily investigated were task completion times and number of tasks completed overall. The experiment involved a series of tasks where participants had to find a number of locations/objects in a building unknown to them at the outset of the experiment. Statistically significant results are presented for the benefit of the research community, law enforcement officers and fire fighters where it is clear that in this context, the VRML model led to better task completions than the equivalent architectural plans. Regarding the task completion times, no statistical significance was found. This experiment is highly relevant to the research community, law enforcement officers and fire fighters. Given the current climate of security issues and terr...
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This paper is about a continuing investigation aiming to find o ut which menu type is more useable on a web site or application. This paper specifically compares pie menus with linear menus. Although other researchers have investigated... more
This paper is about a continuing investigation aiming to find o ut which menu type is more useable on a web site or application. This paper specifically compares pie menus with linear menus. Although other researchers have investigated similar themes it is felt that there is still not enough knowledge regarding the various effects of different menu types, including their positioning on a screen. An empirical approach using an experiment to test the effectiveness and user satisfaction of a pie menu and a linear menu is described in detail. Four tasks were administered to experimental participants under each menu design in a within users experimental design. Overall task time, number of errors and participants' subjective opinions were measured. The data were statistically analysed. There were no statistically significant results for task times and errors. However, subjective opinions were overall statistically significant, suggesting a preference for the pie menu by participants....
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This paper describes an experiment investigating the effectiveness and user satisfaction of using anthropomorphic feedback at the user interface. The context chosen was online bidding due to this kind of activity being very much used in... more
This paper describes an experiment investigating the effectiveness and user satisfaction of using anthropomorphic feedback at the user interface. The context chosen was online bidding due to this kind of activity being very much used in current times by general users. The main results of the experiment were that there was a statistically significant effect observed for the time taken to place a bid in the anthropomorphic text condition. However there were no other significant effects for effectiveness issues and user satisfaction indicators. The results were also analysed in terms of the affordances and the main findings were that each of the four conditions tested in the experiment were probably equivalent in terms of their facilitating the affordances. Overall it may be more important to facilitate the affordances rather than a type of feedback being anthropomorphic in nature or not.