Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

The contemporary ergonomics can accuraely describe psychophysical capabilities of the human body, thus greatly contributing to the process of improving the living quality and parameters. Many everyday activities, relating to the man’s work, leisure, communication, or social relations, are subject to ergonomic rules and principles, and the same is true of urban and architectural space of urbanized centres as a material space of such activities. It is here that man actively satisfies his needs to engineer his space and facilities necessary for him as an individual – e.g. dwelling houses, and as community – e.g. necropolises. Modern forms of spatial arrangement of necropolises search for solutions which will not only provide a rational - ergonomic material shape of the burial place, but also satisfy mental needs of the man connected with the burial, funeral, cult of the dead, visits to the cemetery, irrespective of the man’s age and ability. Among important problems to be solved we should pay special attention to the question of accessibility of the cemetery space to the elderly and the disabled. Therefore all elements constituting the structure of necropolis must allow for ergonomic designing factors.

The present study examined the effect of virtual reality/VR on training older adults in spatial-based performance. Navigating emergency escape routes in a local hospital was exemplified as the taks domain. 15 older adults and 15 college students participated in an experiment where VR, VR plus a bird-view map, and two-diemtional/2D map presentations were manipulated as within-subject treatment levels of training media. The results indicated that the older subject was less advantaged in identifying the correct turns leading to the emergency exits. While the older subject was also found to have more difficulty in recalling route landmarks, the 2D and VR-plus-map presentations produced significantly stronger spatial memory than the pure VR media for both age groups. When mental rotation was evaluated, the older subject was able to achieve comparable performance if emergency routes were trained by the VR, and the VR-plus-map presentations. Detailed implications were discussed for the design of training media with age considerations.

When looking at the traditional way of conducting human factors research within the active safety area, focus often tends to be on drivers’ cognitive capacities like; situation awareness, workload and behavioural adaptation. This research is of course invaluable but other important issues that tend to be forgotten are: What are the drivers’ needs and how should an interface be designed to satisfy those needs? This paper describes the process of defining requirements for a dynamic graphical interface for ADAS using a rather new method, , as a starting point in the design process. Based on the Personas different scenarios and narratives were created and used in a workshop to specify user needs and requirements in the interface design for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems.

With the technical advances in mobile computing electronic maps and guiding systems become widely available for everywhere usage. The computing power allows for guides and even decision support systems. But mobile devices are used on the move and therefore become a secondary task. To reduce cognitive load and to reduce attention intensity visualizations and interaction patterns are needed that are fast and comprehensible. We present a pedestrian navigation system that uses a zoomable interface together with the Halo visualization approach for off screen locations. A user trial with 24 participants indicate that this approach reduces the device interaction immensely leaving more attention to the primary task.

The state of the art in vehicle configuration is still very much characterized by a face-to-face sales situation. In addition, web browsers are becoming market places. But direct sales over the internet, without contact with a sales person constitute still a small segment of the market, of only a few percent for European manufacturers. The internet is more used as a medium to gather information. A standardised DIYD vehicle configuration is thus a must for European manufacturers today. This paper presents an Intelligent DIY e-commerce system for vehicle design, based on Ontologies and 3D Visualization, that aims at enabling a suitable representation of products with the most realistic possible visualisation outcome. The platform, designed for the automotive sector, includes all the practicable electronic commerce variants and its on-line product configuration process is controlled by an ontology, that was created using the OWL Web Ontology Language.

WATCH-OVER is a European project, aiming at the enhancement of road safety and the impairment of traffic accidents involving vulnerable road users (VRUs), such as pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists, in urban and extra-urban areas. The project carries out research and development activities, in order to design an integrated cooperative system for accident prevention. In this paper, the concept of the Human Machine Interface of the WATCH-OVER system is discussed and its user-centred approach, based on a user requirement survey, is described. Regarding the HMI, the basic functionalities and elements, as well as the preliminary guidelines that endorse the WATCH-OVER system approach, are presented.

Emerging mobile location-based information services enable people to place digital content into the physical world. Based on three technical com ponents (1) mobile devices, (2) wireless networking and (3) location-sensing the implementation of location-based services can be considered state of the art. In contrast, we observe a lack of conceptual work in terms of user interface issues, like designing indirect (one-to-any) addressing models, handling infor mation overflow and avoiding spam. Every user is able to arbitrarily place information anywhere without structure or restrictions, and is confronted with an information mess in return. The focus of this paper concentrates on a novel addressing concept for mobile location-based information services, which systematically structures both direct and indirect addressing methods and supports the users in finding or filtering the information they are interested in.

Any space available to children can be used as a playground. Such places are getting more and more diminished and isolated from the nearby surroundings. Creating spatial enclaves, apart from undeniable measurable advantages (e.g. safety), causes various negative social and organizational consequences (age discrimination, monotony, uniformization, loosened and deteriorated interpersonal relationships). However, the arranged playgrounds may become a means of an effective psychophysical and social development and rehabilitation of the handicapped children. The paper discusses the following issues: evolution of housing needs of children of all ages, with special concern for spatial requirements connected with children’s increased mobility; role of a dwelling, the importance of a child’s room and the importance of conditions of acquiring independence and autonomy; the importance of the play environment in the open urban space and the role it plays in the family life and in the life of individual children, and problems of its evolution in the circumstances of the progressing urbanization.

Mobility is a right that we all have. However, being able to travel by yourself, without the need of another person’s assistance, is not always the case with mobility-impaired (MI) users. The reason for this is the non-accessible environment, which prevents an MI person from moving around, using and changing transportation means, having access to the proper information (on timetables, routes, etc.). Nevertheless, there exist certain accessible points and transportation means available in most European countries, but the people mostly in need of them do not have the proper information about it. ASK-IT IP aims to eliminate these barriers, by offering information about accessible content (transportation means, points of interest, etc.), following a ‘design for all’ concept and taking advantage of both location-based and infomobility services.

This paper describes the adaptation approach for users with disability of nomad devices within the ASK-IT European project funded by the EC 6 Framework Program within the e-Inclusion area. The devices, software and hardware modules involved are described. The User Interface (UI) configuration, defined according to the functional characteristics of specific user groups, is analysed along with the technical specifications of the devices and the provided services. Finally, the current mock-ups of the system for different nomad devices are illustrated.