Chapter 1 - Introduction

Adult code cart redesign: Clinical implications.

Stimulated by regulations and standards as well as commercial imperatives, medical device manufacturers are striving to make medical devices safer by decreasing the potential for harmful use errors. Accordingly, manufacturers are observing and interviewing intended users about their interactions with devices en route to developing user interface requirements; applying human factors engineering (HFE) principles when designing user interfaces; and conducting formative and summative usability tests to improve and validate their devices’ interactive quality. This has represented significant work for manufacturers, particularly the majority who started with little HFE knowledge and experience. Today, the “awakening” to HFE in medical device development is essentially over—an established manufacturer who is just now discovering HFE has been out of touch. After all, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and AAMI conducted their first joint conference on HFE in 1995 when they previewed HFE expectations related to recent changes in quality system regulation (QSR). So, it has been 17 years since HFE entered the medical industry’s zeitgeist. HFE specialists working in the medical industry used to focus on making devices more usable (i.e., user friendly). Since the QSR change, use safety has become the primary focus, resulting in user interfaces that are less vulnerable to harmful use errors. It is rather obvious how HFE affects the safety of some medical devices. In the design of a surgical instrument, for example, HFE’s aim would be to reduce the chance of cutting anything other than the intended target. This goal could be accomplished by including a blade guard and a mechanical interlock that requires more than one deliberate action to enable cutting.

Content and usability are important in the context of efforts to raise the attractiveness of a corporate website. Regarding the content, there must be information indispensable for a corporate website. Regarding the usability, it is necessary to establish a usability test method. This paper describes the results of an investigation of the Japanese-language corporate websites of Japanese companies in order to specify the content necessary for a corporate website. Furthermore, a scenario-based usability test technique was applied and the relationship between the popularity of a website and its usability was examined. Based on the results obtained, we propose a framework for constructing a corporate website by tailoring the WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) and checklist for static quality assurance, and usability and function test for dynamic quality assurance.KeywordsUsability TestWork Breakdown StructureQuality Control TechniquePopularity RankingActual ChecklistThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Research studies and information design lifecycles often include surveys, interviews, and user testing as part of the process-oriented approach to sharing research outcomes with the world. However, there is a lack of research regarding inclusive instrument design, which would help remove barriers experienced by people with and without a disability when taking surveys or participating in interviews or usability testing required for a research study. Using human-centered design, human-computer interaction, and disability studies perspectives, web-based instruments can become more inclusive and accessible. This sequentially phased 4-article dissertation presents lessons learned of inclusive instrument design as a solution-based framework that enables access to knowledge and helps create a positive research study experience for the broadest representation of humans possible. Everyone is impacted by a disability, impairment, or limitation at some point in their life, whether visible, invisible, permanent, temporary, or situational. Therefore, starting the design of instruments used in research studies with a human-centered and inclusive design mindset can increase the chances of creating more usable surveys and interview protocols. The research approach includes people with disabilities and disability advocates as part of the research process and uses multiple methods of co-design sessions, surveys, interviews, observation, document analysis, and automated and manual accessibility evaluation (including user and expert testing). This approach is a form of universal, participatory, and co-design, with researchers and stakeholders working together on various aspects of the research and design process. In addition to uncovering challenges and design flaws of web design, existing survey tools, or instrument question formats in an exploratory manner (Study 1), critical review of the literature (Study 2), and domain analysis and survey accessibility conformance evaluation (Study 3), this research will also identify user challenges with instruments and instrument preferences from surveys and interviews used in a co-design multiple methods study (Study 4). The themes, findings, and criticality counts across the four studies helped to inform my interpretation of the dissertation research, yielding eight conceptualizations which are used to address the research questions. This knowledge informed my model for inclusive instrument design practices, adding procedures, precedent, and new knowledge to the literature on disability and HCI research. This enriched understanding will assist researchers and designers in utilizing an inclusive instrument for conducting research studies that use online surveys and conduct interviews or test web-based products. Additionally, improving such web-based experiences for people with a disability, impairment, or chronic condition may lead to better experiences for everyone. Resulting recommendations include (1) an alternative to traditional medical-based demographic questions used in data collection for the ability status, (2) co-design as a research method, and (3) a model for inclusive instrument design. The inclusive instrument design recommendations can be adapted to future instrument designs, including procedures for multiple method survey accessibility evaluation and instrument design tenets by criticality. Ultimately, this qualitative study uses multiple methods to learn, create, test, and evaluate an inclusive instrument design model that enables a more inclusive research study experience for everyone.

In 2023, digital literacy has increased to be discussed which navigates human interaction with the current digital environment. The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between digital literacy and user interface (UI) design quality using a usability testing approach. The study involved collecting data through a series of trials with participants representing different levels of digital literacy. The main focus of this study was to assess the extent to which the UI design could improve the digital literacy understanding of the users, namely school children. The parameters evaluated involved aspects of digital literacy, such as the ability to understand and evaluate digital information, as well as usability elements such as interface clarity, navigation efficiency, and user engagement level. The approach used is the design thinking method which focuses on the end result only. Usability testing is an important evaluation method in measuring the effectiveness, efficiency, and user satisfaction of a user interface (UI). This research focuses on the use of usability testing to assess the quality of UI design in the context of understanding digital literacy. The results of this study can provide insight into how the level of digital literacy can affect the user experience in using digital applications and contribute to the development of UIs that are more user-friendly and accessible to various levels of society.

This article describes an experiment comparing three Usability Evaluation Methods: User Testing (UT), Document-based Inspection (DI), and Expert Inspection (EI) for evaluating Virtual Environments (VEs). Twenty-nine individuals (10 end-users and 19 junior usability experts) participated during 1 hr each in the evaluation of two VEs (a training VE and a 3D map). Quantitative results of the comparison show that the effectiveness of UT and DI is significantly better than the effectiveness of EI. For each method, results show their problem coverage: DI- and UT-based diagnoses lead to more problem diversity than EI. The overlap of identified problems amounts to 22% between UT and DI, 20% between DI and EI, and 12% between EI and UT for both virtual environments. The identification impact of the whole set of usability problems is 60% for DI, 57% for UT, and only 36% for EI for both virtual environments. Also reliability of UT and DI is significantly better than reliability of EI. In addition, a qualitative analysis identified 35 classes describing the profile of usability problems found with each method. It shows that UT seems particularly efficient for the diagnosis of problems that require a particular state of interaction to be detectable. On the other hand, DI supports the identification of problems directly observable, often related to learnability and basic usability. This study shows that DI could be viewed as a “4-wheel drive SUV evaluation type” (less powerful under certain conditions but able to go everywhere, with any driver), whereas UT could be viewed as a “Formula 1 car evaluation type” (more powerful but requiring adequate road and a very skilled driver). EI is found (considering all metrics) to be not efficient enough to evaluate usability of VEs.

This paper addresses the problem of supporting usability in the early stages of a product line architecture design. The product line used as an example is intended to support a variety of different products each with a radically different user interface. The development cycles for new products varies between three years and five years and usability is valued as an important quality attribute for each product in the line.Traditionally, usability is achieved in a product by designing according to specific usability guidelines, and then performing user tests. User interface design can be performed separately from software architecture design and prototyping, but user tests cannot be performed before detailed UI design and prototyping. If the user tests discover usability problems leading to required architectural changes, the company would not know about this until two years after the architecture design was complete. This problem was addressed by identifying a collection of 19 well known usability scenarios that require architectural support. In our example, the stakeholders for the product line prioritized three of these scenarios as key product-line scenarios for improving usability. For each of these three chosen product-line scenarios we developed an architectural responsibility pattern that provided support for the scenario. The responsibilities are expressed in terms of architectural requirements with implementation details and rationales. The responsibilities were embodied in a web based tool for the architects.The two architects for the product line developed a preliminary design and then reviewed their design against the responsibilities supporting the scenarios. The process of review took a day and the architects conservatively estimated that it saved them five weeks of effort later in the project.

We present a design and implementation of a prototype system of the hard disk based portable entertainment device called photo jukebox based on an ARM-based system for managing thousands of personal photo/music collections anywhere you go. This photo jukebox system is designed as a music-centric entertainment player, slideshow player, and digital photo storage with built-in metadata database. In addition, this photo jukebox comes with a host application on computer for managing and synchronizing the contents seamlessly. In addition, based on this system, we have applied for a process of user-centered design. Therefore, the ease of use of its user interface was investigated using the human computer interaction (HCI) methods of heuristic evaluation and usability testing. The user interface was subsequently modified, and a follow-up usability test confirmed improvements to ease of use. These findings demonstrate that HCI methods can and should be used to enhance the usability of handheld-based entertainment hardware. At last, we will explore how we conduct the configurable dynamic power management based on different user profiles to enhance the battery life on such multimedia devices.

Usability testing, part of the human-computer interaction problem, is a method commonly used to evaluate the performance of a website interface. Today's study of human-computer interaction is important. It is now developed into UI UX (User Interface / User Experience). The website interface can affect user satisfaction and is a principal factor in a website being liked by users and meeting user needs. When a website is first developed, it can be difficult for a developer to understand the need for a website interface that matches the user persona of that website. Therefore, this research is important as an evaluation material for websites that are developed in the context of a website interface to provide a satisfactory appearance according to user personas. This study evaluates a website by conducting a usability test using the ISO-9241 aspect and getting an average result of 50,967, which is categorized as a bad website is taken from all users in the experiment. This study can also prove the psychological factors of users that influence usability testing, namely differences in the perceptions of website ratings between users with normal and (mild, moderate, severe, too severe) psychological stress levels. Users with normal stress levels will have better usability test results than users with stress levels. This study shows better results than user ratings with a normal stress level of 73,750, so it is categorized as a reliable website.

The pandemic has made digital transformation faster, and Indonesia is no exception, especially in education. Learning management system (LMS) is a learning media that is widely used in educational institutions. However, not all educational institutions have sufficient resources to build an LMS from scratch. “Angkasa LMS” Web is a Web that allows educational institutions to order a ready-to-use LMS easily. The target users of this service are pretty varied because they consist of education management and educational management foundations, especially in areas of Indonesia that have Internet access. To be used easily by these varied target users, this Website must have good usability in its user interface. For this reason, usability testing needs to be carried out in order to get feedback for improving the user interface design before the application is delivered to the public. However, the developer has obstacles related to the COVID-19 pandemic policy to carry out usability testing, which limits direct interaction with people. Moreover, the project time is quite narrow, and the schedule is quite tight for the developer team. Based on these limitations, this study conducted usability testing of the “Angkasa LMS” Web case study using the unmoderated remote usability testing method. The experimental results show that this method can be used to obtain insightful feedback from the participants, with additional treatment such as the use of convenience sampling, periodic reminders for participants, and the increasing number of participants exceeding the target.KeywordsLMSUnmoderated remote usability testingDeveloper limitationConvenience sampling

Many approaches to evaluation of user interfaces in HCI exist. Most methodologies evaluate prototypes through user testing. Since user testing is expensive and time consuming, other methods are sometimes applied before user testing. These other approaches aim to identify problems through expert evaluation techniques. In this paper we present a novel use of the TAG (Task-Action Grammar) method as an evaluation tool to identify learnability problems in a interface prior to user testing. We find that the TAG assessment method revealed problems related to inconsistency and conceptual complexity in a design.

The cultural diversity of users of technology challenges our methods for usability evaluation. In this paper we report and compare three ethnographic interview studies of what is a part of a standard (typical) usability test in a company in Mumbai, Beijing and Copenhagen. At each of these three locations, we use structural and contrast questions do a taxonomic and paradigm analysis of a how a company performs a usability test. We find similar parts across the three locations. We also find different results for each location. In Mumbai, most parts of the usability test are not related to the interactive application that is tested, but to differences in user characteristics, test preparation, method, and location. In Copenhagen, considerations about the client´s needs are part of a usability test. In Beijing, the only varying factor is the communication pattern and relation to the user. These results are then contrasted in a cross cultural matrix to identify cultural themes that can help interpret results from existing laboratory research in usability test methods.

The intention of this paper was to determine usability of KOHA OPAC in information retrieval with regard to usability testing by undergraduate users at Technical University of Kenya Library (TU-KL) in Nairobi County. Usability testing can be realized by way of assigning tasks to a representative of the user population in order to determine whether users can be able to achieve the desired goal of retrieving information. To a great extent, success will depend on how users perform the tasks assigned to them. This study conducted usability test on actual users of KOHA OPAC at Technical University of Kenya Library. Qualitative data was collected using the think aloud method where study participants were required to verbalize their thought process as they performed search and retrieval tasks using KOHA OPAC. The number of errors made, time taken to complete search and retrieval activities were coded, recorded and analysed during usability testing. This helped the researcher to determine whether KOHA OPAC is easy to use and whether it saves time for the user. Undergraduate students for the study were selected using a stratified random sampling technique. The population of the study (n = 382) was determined using a simplified formula developed by Yamane. The study initiated a usability test which presented search scenarios where participants were invited to participate in searching and retrieving information resources using KOHA OPAC. The results of the usability test of KOHA OPAC at TU-KL showed that users were slow at accomplishing search tasks, they took long duration to access TU-KL website that hosts KOHA OPAC and there was inefficiency in accessing library materials. This study concluded that usability challenges may have an impact on users' overall satisfaction with KOHA OPAC and information retrieval effectiveness. In order to enhance user experience and boost the effectiveness of information retrieval, the study recommends improvement of KOHA OPAC usability by revamping its interface and enhancing its features.

The evaluation of interactive adaptive systems is the source of many difficulties for novice evaluators as well as for expert ones. Issues arise in the need to identify the appropriate evaluation methods to be used for a given evaluation context. This paper proposes an approach for the choice of evaluation methods for interactive adaptive systems with regard to their suitability depending on specific evaluation contexts. A multicriteria decision making approach, namely the Analytic Hierarchy Process, is proposed for the selection methodology. The approach is based on a pair-wise comparison of a number of criteria that affect the choice of the appropriate evaluation methods. Four user-centred evaluation methods in conjunction with the layered evaluation for interactive adaptive systems are presented in the cases studies. These methods are: user-as-wizard, heuristic evaluation, focus group, and user test. The proposed approach is flexible in the sense that it can be used in the case of different evaluation methods. The results depend on the evaluation context where the methods will be used. Hence, we illustrate the proposed approach in the case of two evaluation contexts.

An optical brain-machine interface (O-BMI) system using calcium imaging has various advantages such as high resolution, a comprehensive view of large neural populations, abilities such as long-term stable recording, and applicability to freely behaving animals in neuroscience research. The present study developed an ergonomic user interface (UI) design, based on a use scenario for an O-BMI system that can be used for the acquisition and processing of calcium imaging in freely behaving rodents. The UI design was developed in three steps: (1) identification of design and function requirements of users, (2) establishment of a use scenario, and (3) development of a UI prototype. The UI design requirements were identified by a literature review, a benchmark of existing systems, and a focus group interview with five neuroscience researchers. Then, the use scenario was developed for tasks of data acquisition, feature extraction, and neural decoding for offline and online processing by considering the sequences of operations and needs of users. Lastly, a digital prototype incorporating an information architecture, graphic user interfaces, and simulated functions was fabricated. A usability test was conducted with five neuroscientists (work experience = 3.4 ± 1.1 years) and five ergonomic experts (work experience = 3.6 ± 2.7 years) to compare the digital prototypes with four existing systems (Miniscope, nVista, Mosaic, and Suite2p). The usability testing results showed that the ergonomic UI design was significantly preferred to the UI designs of the existing systems by reducing the task completion time by 10.1% to 70.2% on average, the scan path length by 14.4% to 88.7%, and perceived workload by 12.2% to 37.9%, increasing satisfaction by 11.3% to 74.3% in data acquisition and signal-extraction tasks. The present study demonstrates the significance of the user-centered design approach in the development of a system for neuroscience research. Further research is needed to validate the usability test results of the UI prototype as a corresponding real system is implemented.