Current Issue : January - March Volume : 2014 Issue Number : 1 Articles : 5 Articles
R&D in media-related technologies including multimedia, information retrieval, computer vision, and the semantic web is\r\nexperimenting on a variety of computational tools that, if sufficiently matured, could support many novel activities that are\r\nnot practiced today. Interactive technology demonstration systems produced typically at the end of their projects show great\r\npotential for taking advantage of technological possibilities. These demo systems or ââ?¬Å?demonstratorsââ?¬Â are, even if crude or farfetched,\r\na significant manifestation of the technologistsââ?¬â?¢ visions in transforming emerging technologies into novel usage scenarios and\r\napplications. In this paper, we reflect on design processes and crucial design decisions made while designing some successful,\r\nweb-based interactive demonstrators developed by the authors.We identify methodological issues in applying todayââ?¬â?¢s requirementdriven\r\nusability engineering method to designing this type of novel applications and solicit a clearer distinction between designing\r\nmainstream applications and designing novel applications. More solution-oriented approaches leveraging design thinking are\r\nrequired, and more pragmatic evaluation criteria is needed that assess the role of the system in exploiting the technological\r\npossibilities to provoke further brainstorming and discussion. Such an approach will support a more efficient channelling of\r\nthe technology-to-application transformation which are becoming increasingly crucial in todayââ?¬â?¢s context of rich technological\r\npossibilities....
For an establishment of a skill evaluation method for human support systems, development of an estimating equation of the\r\nmachine operational skill is presented. Factors of the eye movement such as frequency, velocity, and moving distance of saccade\r\nwere computed using the developed eye gaze measurement system, and the eye movement features were determined from these\r\nfactors. The estimating equation was derived through an outlier test (to eliminate nonstandard data) and a principal component\r\nanalysis (to find dominant components). Using a cooperative carrying task (cc-task) simulator, the eye movement and operational\r\ndata of themachine operatorswere recorded, and effectiveness of the derived estimating equationwas investigated.As a result, it was\r\nconfirmed that the estimating equation was effective strongly against actual simple skill levels (?? = 0.56ââ?¬â??0.84). In addition, effects\r\nof internal condition such as fatigue and stress on the estimating equation were analyzed. Using heart rate (HR) and coefficient of\r\nvariation of R-R interval (??vrri). Correlation analysis between these biosignal indexes and the estimating equation of operational\r\nskill found that the equation reflected effects of stress and fatigue, although the equation could estimate the skill level adequately....
To avoid use errors when handling medical equipment, it is important to develop products with a high degree of usability. This\r\ncan be achieved by performing usability evaluations in the product development process to detect and mitigate potential usability\r\nproblems. A commonly used method is cognitive walkthrough (CW), but this method shows three weaknesses: poor high-level\r\nperspective, insufficient categorisation of detected usability problems, and difficulties in overviewing the analytical results. This\r\npaper presents a further development of CW with the aim of overcoming its weaknesses. The new method is called enhanced\r\ncognitive walkthrough (ECW).ECWis a proactive analytical method for analysis of potential usability problems.TheECWmethod\r\nhas been employed to evaluate user interface designs ofmedical equipment such as home-care ventilators, infusion pumps, dialysis\r\nmachines, and insulin pumps. The method has proved capable of identifying several potential use problems in designs....
The reduced behavior for exploration of volumetric data based on the virtual sectioning concept was compared with the free\r\nscanning at the use of the StickGrip linkage-free haptic device. Profiles of the virtual surface were simulated through the penholder\r\ndisplacements in relation to the pen tip of the stylus. One or two geometric shapes (cylinder, trapezoidal prism, ball, and torus) or\r\ntheir halves and the ripple surfacewere explored in the absence of visual feedback. In the free scanning, the person physicallymoved\r\nthe stylus. In the parallel scanning, cross-sectional profiles were generated automatically starting fromthe location indicated by the\r\nstylus. Analysis of the performance of 18 subjects demonstrated that the new haptic visualization and exploration technique allowed\r\nto create accurate mental images, to recognize and identify virtual shapes. The mean number of errors was about 2.5% in the free\r\nscanningmode and 1.9% and 1.5% in the parallel scanningmode at the playback velocity of 28 mm/s and 42 mm/s, respectively. All\r\nparticipants agreed that the haptic visualization of the 3D virtual surface presented as the cross-sectional slices of the workspace\r\nwas robust and easy to use. The method was developed for visualization of spatially distributed data collected by sensors....
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of navigation mode (passive versus active) on the virtual/real transfer of spatial\r\nlearning, according to viewpoint displacement (ground: 1m 75 versus aerial: 4m) and as a function of the recall tasks used. We\r\nhypothesize that active navigation during learning can enhance performances when route strategy is favored by egocentric match\r\nbetween learning (ground-level viewpoint) and recall (egocentric frame-based tasks). Sixty-four subjects (32 men and 32 women)\r\nparticipated in the experiment. Spatial learning consisted of route learning in a virtual district (four conditions: passive/ground,\r\npassive/aerial, active/ground, or active/aerial), evaluated by three tasks: wayfinding, sketch-mapping, and picture-sorting. In the\r\nwayfinding task, subjects who were assigned the ground-level viewpoint in the virtual environment (VE) performed better than\r\nthose with the aerial-level viewpoint, especially in combination with active navigation. In the sketch-mapping task, aerial-level\r\nlearning in the VE resulted in better performance than the ground-level condition, while active navigation was only beneficial\r\nin the ground-level condition. The best performance in the picture-sorting task was obtained with the ground-level viewpoint,\r\nespecially with active navigation. This study confirmed the expected results that the benefit of active navigation was linked with\r\negocentric frame-based situations....
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