Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

This paper presents initial research on a new learnability assessment methodology. We propose the use of electroencephalography (EEG) to further improve usability testing. We discovered whether and to what extend there is a correlation between brainwave patterns and the learnability of the software used. Our central hypothesis is that learnability can be assessed by analyzing the rise and fall of specific frequency bands in electroencephalographic recordings. In order to collect empirical evidence for our hypothesis, we conducted an experiment with N=32 participants. We developed a test environment comprising a low-cost EEG system and developed software for analysis and testing. Based on our findings, we consider our EEG-based learnability test applicable, either as a pre-test – in order to determine whether further testing is necessary – or as an augmenting method during standard usability testing. The users’ emotions, registered on the EEG, can be applied as a baseline for detecting possible usability difficulties and employed in the development of a biological rapid-usability method for accessibility assessment.

The Hellenic American Union (HAU), in Greece, in collaboration with the Academy of Electronic Media at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in the USA, has developed Hellas Alive!©, an online language and culture learning platform for teaching Greek as a Foreign Language with emphasis on interactivity for language learning, cultural awareness, and communication. The platform comprises the Virtual School component, the Virtual City component and the cultural Playspaces component. Language learning takes place in the Virtual School which supports autonomous exploration, simulation, representation and collaboration, with rich multimedia content and synchronous and asynchronous learning tools. Its interface includes an expandable playlist that provides users with all the tools necessary for effective language learning. Such tools include unlimited options to read text, to listen to audio, to watch video or to see images, to record, to submit audio and text, to perform 23 different types of exercises with instant automated error feedback, to chat with other users, and to share material with other users. The platform also includes a variety of interfaces with additional information on language and vocabulary. Users can activate them every time they encounter the corresponding grammatical item or word.

This study was conducted to compare two types of group composition and their effects on collaborative learning of EFL writing in PBL lessons. Participants in the experiments were 60 students taking the researcher’s basic writing classes in the fall semester, from September 2003 to January 2004. Outcomes of bimonthly automatic online writing assessments using showed that group composition did affect writing learning outcomes. Small groups of learners with even distribution of levels of writing proficiency did outperform the groups with randomly mixed learners of varied levels of English writing proficiency. This finding indicated that when less capable learners collaborated with more capable learners in small group learning activities, the learning outcomes could be greatly enhanced. This implies that when taking the PBL approach in learning to write, groups composed of learners with evenly distributed levels of writing proficiency may achieve much better learning outcomes than randomly formed groups.

E- Health is a developing area of major social, medical and economic importance especially for the elderly population and citizens of remote areas. were to identify visualization methods for a patient-oriented system of collection, storage, and retrieval of coagulation function data, The research group included 25 elderly (72.2±5.5 years) and 25 young participants (30.4±4.9 years).The participants completed tasks based on different visualization models for data entry and follow-up of clinical information, in three experimental websites equipped with hidden tracking programs. We followed functional parameters (time, acuity), subjective parameters (preference, satisfaction) and physiological parameters (pulse, skin temperature, sweating, respiratory rate, and muscle tension).Time for task completion was significantly longer in elderly compared to younger participants in all experimental websites, without significant differences in accuracy. Yet, in specific tasks the elderly performed better than young participants. Specific suggestions for data entry and data visualization are presented.

Obesity is becoming a global epidemic. Obesity education, especially childhood obesity education, has become an issue for the public health community agenda in a lot of countries. In this paper we will report on an interactive educational toy we designed and prototyped for obesity education. We propose design refinements and marketing strategies to make the toy available to educate children more widely and effectively.

As the aging populations are increasing, there is a need to support non-visual interaction for them in surfing the World Wide Web. This paper discusses the efficacy for the design of Voice-Driven Browser, a voice-controlled, HTML document reader/browser for the WWW. Voice-Driven Browser comprises three significant components: voice recognition, voice generation and hypertext navigation. The purpose of the integrated voice-driven browser with 2D screen reader design is to provide aging people with convenience and efficiency that will bring the WWW to those with impaired vision problems.

A validated questionnaire evaluating the attitude of Chinese people toward wireless applications in healthcare industry was administered to around 1,000 people from Oct. 2006 to Jan. 2007. Investigated subjects include people with different occupations and in different age levels. Investigated content covers preferred service types of wireless applications in healthcare, people’s concerns towards the wireless services, etc. Investigated methods include interviewing and dispatching questionnaires. The objective of the survey is to assess people’s acceptability and requirement toward wireless applications in healthcare industry, called Wireless e-Health or “WEHealth” for short. Result reveals that people’s attitude toward WEHealth in China is positive basically; An overall analysis of questionnaires reveals some interesting results and some problems we should be pay more attention to in the future industrialization process of WEHealth systems and services.

In this paper, we describe the current threats and possibilities in the online environment from a user’s perspective on basis of literary analysis and a set of user studies concentrating on online trust formation and expression. The work includes a review on the current level of understanding about online trust, what kind of research has been done and what the basic ingredients of trust might be in the future. By comparing the new results with results gained in 1999, we can see how the situation has been changing. The analysis is based on research conducted on trust between 1999 and 2007, utilising user studies, ethnography, cultural studies, aesthetics, and basic usability engineering as methods. We also include some discussion on the appropriateness of various methods available for studying online trust, and propose directions for new trust research as a field inside human-computer interaction.

Personalized services that provide users with adaptive information filtered from heterogeneous and numerous information makes human-computer interaction efficient. Although personalized services have been researched in the various, heterogeneous information and users have raised the problem of defining a generic user model that would be used as a basis for recommending personalized information. Moreover, it is difficult to share the users’ information. In this paper, we propose ontology-based user preference model as one of the solution to resolve the problems. In our model, user preference is described in User Preference Description Language (UPDL) with various domain ontologies. UPDL is a simple and OWL-based description language that allows users to describe their preference over domain ontologies. It provides not only rich expressiveness, reusability and flexibility but also the novel personalized services that can access and utilize not only user preferences in the own service but also in other services.

Assistive technologies have widened access to the Web, by providing a non-visual representation of page content for blind individuals. However, restrictions imposed by screen readers and Braille output devices have led to the development of mental representations of a web page, which differ considerably from the visual layout. As a result, both blind and sighted users find it difficult to perform joint web-based tasks. In this paper, we have applied a structured participatory-based approach to develop haptic sensations to assist the collaborative process. Preliminary results are reported and on-going development is discussed. It is anticipated that findings from the study will inform a haptic framework, which will assist developers when designing an accessible collaborative interface, using the benefits which the sense of touch can offer.