Playful Interfaces for Scientific Image Data

Recent developments in the field of HCI draw our attention to the potential of playful interfaces, play, and games. This chapter identifies a new but relevant application domain for playful interfaces (i.e. scientific practice involving image data). Given the thesis that play and playfulness are relevant for a researcher's interaction with scientific images, the question remains: How do we design playful interfaces that support meaningful ways to playfully engage with scientific images? This chapter introduces, investigates, and implements storytelling with scientific images as a worthwhile instance of playful interaction with scientific images. To better understand and further exemplify the potential of storytelling with scientific images, the chapter contributes both a review of utilitarian usages of storytelling with images and findings from a case study storytelling game.

Adapting Chatterbots’ Interaction for Use in Children’s Education

The Web is providing greater freedom for users to create and obtain information in a more dynamic and appropriate way. One means of obtaining information on this platform, which complements or replaces other forms, is the use of conversation robots or Chatterbots. Several factors must be taken into account for the effective use of this technology; the first of which is the need to employ a team of professionals from various fields to build the knowledge base of the system and be provided with a wide range of responses, i.e. interactions. It is a multidisciplinary task to ensure that the use of this system can be targeted to children. In this context, this chapter carries out a study of the technology of Chatterbots and shows some of the changes that have been implemented for the effective use of this technology for children. It also highlights the need for a shift away from traditional methods of interaction so that an affective computing model can be implemented.

Anticipation Dialogue Method in Participatory Design

In the design of complex information systems and social practices for different domains a balance between theory-driven and practice-driven approaches is at best developed in a collaborative communication process between designers, researchers, and other actors. The authors have developed the Anticipation Design Dialogue method within the context of participatory design, which is based on dialogic communication between different stakeholders. A dialogic relationship between them takes place in future workshops in which experiences of different stakeholders are integrated in a way that makes it possible to illustrate the situation from different perspectives. The workshop participants develop in small groups a vision of the future state in which the situation is imagined from the future perspective by considering which kind of problems they have at the moment and by which way the problems could be managed in the future. Secondly, reflective thinking is promoted by letting each group at the time present their ideas while others are listening. The authors have found that the development of mutual understanding between different stakeholders in these kinds of workshops is a complex process that needs time, and therefore, an iterative series of workshops is recommended.

Location-Based Data Visualisation Tool for Tuberculosis and Dengue

Malaysians suffer from both communicable and non-communicable diseases. Tuberculosis (communicable disease) is common in rural places and dengue (non-communicable disease) is a popular vector-borne disease in Malaysia. Health centres record information of the victims, but merely recording the address in a Microsoft Excel file does not provide much insight to viewers. Currently, an easy to use tool is not available for doctors, officers from the Ministry of Health, and also the public to analyse and visualise the data. It is difficult and time consuming to analyse and interpret raw data tabulated through Microsoft Excel. This research aims to develop a prototype tool that visualises disease data on a Google map. An interpretation is then generated along with the visualisation to give an impartial description about the data. This prototype obtained favourable feedback from a health officer as it can help them in analysing data and assist in the decision making process. The benefit of such application is helpful in tracking diseases’ spreading patterns, how to isolate diseases, as well as mobilising personnel and equipment to the affected areas.

The Gamification Experience

Through this chapter, the authors aim at describing Gamification—the use of game elements in non-ludic environments—to identify its limits and lacks as well as its assets. Indeed, it has been developed to answer a need that arouses out of the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) field evolutions, and it could be valuable in that scope. The authors propose a definition of Gamification according to several different dimensions that are part of the HCI design field. They suggest it as a first step towards a guiding design framework aimed at designers. They mention future research directions that would help in going further and enriching the framework, leading to the creation of a design model for user experience design through Gamification. The authors finally raise some ethical concerns about the meaning of Gamification itself.

Reporting a User Study on a Visual Editor to Compose Rules in Active Documents

In the last years, researchers are exploring the feasibility of visual language editors in domain-specific domains where their alleged user-friendliness can be exploited to involve end-users in configuring their artifacts. In this chapter, the authors present an experimental user study conducted to validate the hypothesis that adopting a visual language could help prospective end-users of an electronic medical record define their own document-related local rules. This study allows them to claim that their visual rule editor based on the OpenBlocks framework can be used with no particular training as proficiently as with specific training, and it was found user-friendly by the user panel involved. Although the conclusions of this study cannot be broadly generalized, the findings are a preliminary contribution to show the importance of visual languages in domain-specific rule definition by end-users with no particular IT skills, like medical doctors are supposed to represent.

Players’ Experience in a Sport Geocaching Game

Geocaching is a multiplayer outdoor sports game. There is a lack of extensive research on this game, and there is a need for more academic research on this game and its application to other contexts worldwide. There are about 5 million people participating in the geocaching game in 220 different countries worldwide. The geocaching game is interesting because the players create it. The players’ role in game design increases its value in human-centred design research. Digital games are a prevalent form of entertainment in which the purpose of the design is to engage the players. This case study was carried out with 52 Finnish geocachers as an Internet survey. The purpose of this conceptual analysis is to investigate how the geocaching sports game might inform game design by looking at player experiences, devices, and techniques that support problem solving within complex environments. Specifically, this analysis presents a brief overview of the geocaching sports game, its role in popular adventure game design, and an analysis of the underlying players’ experiences and enjoyment as a structure to be used in game design.

Icon Metaphors for Global Cultures

Developing icons has always been challenging, from the first appearance of icons on desktop computers to the current day mobile and tablet platforms. Many of the same challenges apply when designing icons for global enterprise software. Icons can easily be misinterpreted when the designer and user have differing cultural backgrounds. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate the various cultural implications of icon interpretations and misinterpretations by users in various regions around the world. The authors conducted several studies to understand the roles cultures play when icons are viewed and interpreted by users. By deploying global surveys and conducting focus groups with users from around the world, they collected data to help them understand some of the variations in understanding and interpretations of icons. The authors also looked into various cultures that might find certain icons culturally insensitive or even offensive. After extensive research, they found that some of their initial assumptions regarding taboos and cultural standards were skewed by antiquated research, and now, their more recent research data shows that there is a more accepting global view of iconic metaphors and graphical imagery.

Experience Prototyping

In this chapter, the authors discuss Experience Prototyping as an appropriate research tool for capturing people’s stories related to physical places. It is difficult to explore subjective experiences through strict conventional prototyping methods within a lab; therefore, the authors argue the need for innovative research techniques especially when designing interactive systems where mobility, context, and people play a fundamental role. They discuss the methodology of “Experience Prototyping,” which is used to gather insight in a research project, and also what advantages such method brings to a user-centered process. The authors present some reflections and themes that emerged from using experience prototypes, and how they contribute to our understanding of the relationship between spatial narrative and place, and in particular how they may be used as an interaction resource towards discovery and sharing of “place.” In doing so, they offer a basis for discussion on how to co-design technologically mediated experiences together with users of such spaces. Finally, the authors discuss how this method informed the design of “The Breadcrumbs” application.

Developing Emotion-Libras 2.0

An important issue in the capture of the real user experience while interacting with technology is the ability to assess emotional quality. There are several methods for emotional quality evaluation in the literature. However, when the target users are deaf participants, communication problems arise. A substantial part of the deaf community communicates in sign language. Because user experience researchers are seldom fluent in sign language, they require the assistance of an interpreter whenever users are deaf signers. Evaluation of emotional quality may lose accuracy because of the mediation of an interpreter; consequently, emotional quality evaluation requires a special instrument that can be used in an intuitive and independent way by researchers and their deaf subjects. The authors present the process of creation and improvement of Emotion-Libras, an instrument for assessing the emotional quality of people with hearing disabilities when interacting with technology.