2015-11-11 research seminar

1. The HCI Group
Research Seminar
11.11.2015

2. Staff
● Aleksander Väljamäe, Researcher (1.00)
● David Lamas, Professor (1.00)
● Ilya Shmorgun, Teacher of Informatics (1.00)
● Mati Mõttus, Analyst (0.20)
● Sónia Sousa, Associate Professor (0.50)

3. ● Ilya Shmorgun (2011)
● Mati Mõttus (2012)
● Arman Arakelyan (2012)
● Joanna Kviatkovska (2013)
● Abiodun Ogunyemi (2013)
● Baseer Ahmad Baheer (2014)
● Abdul Wahid Samadzai (2014)
● Anastassia Väljamäe (2015)
● Siddharth Nakul Gulati (2015)
● Õnne Mets (2015), in cooperation with the University of Milan
Doctoral students

4. Resources
● [IDLAB] Interaction Design Laboratory
○ Work, teaching and research lab
● [UXLAB] User Experience Laboratory
○ Teaching and research lab

5. The interaction design laboratory
● Purpose
○ The interaction design lab supports all sorts of practices related with designing interactive
digital products, environments, systems, and services.
○ As a work, teaching, and research lab, it supports not only the design practices mentioned
above, but also the development of individual competences, and the development of the field
itself.
● This lab is managed by Ilya Shmorgun and it is colloquially referred to as
IDLAB

6. The interaction design laboratory

7. The user experience laboratory
Purpose
● UX lab will be used to assess emotional, cognitive and perceptual
reactions to mixed and real environments using psychophysiological,
behavioral and subjective responses from users.
Supported activities / Example projects
● Aesthetics of implicit interaction [methodology development]
● Hyperscanning studies on group decision making [evaluation]
● Neuro- and biofeedback applications for prosocial behavior [training]

8. The user experience laboratory

9. Our frames of reference (Paul Dourish)
Electrical Symbolical Textual Graphical Tangible
First analog computers
where operations were
directly encoded in
their circuits which
needed to be
configured for each
new task.
There were no
“users”, only
programmers.
First assembly
languages appeared,
that rendered machine
level instructions into
symbolic expressions.
The actual interaction
took still place with
encoded punch cards,
although the languages
could already be
considered textual.
With the appearance of
teletype machines and
video terminals, the
primary form of
interaction became
textual.
This can be considered
the origin of interactive
computing - “interactive
loop” in which the
interaction became an
endless back and forth
loop of instruction and
response between user
and system.
With the appearance of
graphical UIs the
interaction moved from
the one dimensional
stream of characters to
a two dimensional
space.
The task of managing
interaction became the
task of managing space.
Interaction directly
through physical
artifacts rather than
graphical interfaces or
classical input devices.

10. Our frames of reference (John M. Carrol)
focus on the properties of
specific system components
focus on tasks at hand focus on socially and materially
embedded interactions

11. Our frames of reference (Susanne Bødker)
1st Wave 2nd Wave 3rd Wave
Rigid guidelines.
Formal methods.
Systematic testing.
Focus on context and groups
working with a collection of
applications.
Theories: situated action,
distributed cognition and activity
theory.
Proactive methods: variety of
participatory design workshops,
prototyping and contextual inquiry,
qualitative approaches studying
use as it happens.
Use of context and application types are
broadened. Computers are increasingly
being used in private and public spheres.
Technology spreads from workplace to
homes and everyday lives and culture.
Theoretical focus on aesthetics, cultural
level, cognitive expands into emotional,
cultural, historical focus on experience.
Methods moved away from commitment to
users towards more exploratory take-it-or-
leave it approach where designers seek
inspiration from use.

12. Our frames of reference (Yvonne Rogers)
Classical theories Modern theories Contemporary theories
Applying basic research.
Cognitive modeling.
Distributed cognition.
Situated action.
Ethnomethodology and
ethnography.
Activity theory.
Grounded theory.
Human values.
Research in the wild.
Turn to design, culture,
embodiment.

13. Our frames of reference
Classical theories Modern theories Contemporary theories
1st Wave 2nd Wave 3rd Wave
Electrical Symbolical Textual Graphical Tangible

14. Our frames of reference

15. Our frames of reference

16. Our frames of reference
conceptual
artefacts
technical
artefacts
design
artefacts

17. A pattern language for
distributed user interfaces

18. The DUI pattern library and language

19. Motivation
We can no longer design applications in isolation and for one specific platform.
The concept of DUIs is fuzzy and hard to grasp without reading a large amount of
literature.
It is even harder to understand what are the available options for designing DUIs
and how to actually make those ideas tangible.
It is difficult to use existing DUI design projects as examples, because it is not
clear how design synthesis occurred and how the final working prototype was
created.

20. Maturity
Does
● Provides an overview of DUI design
possibilities.
● Is based on systematic research and
theory.
● Provides alternative means of accessing
and browsing the data.
● Can be fairly easily extended and
improved.
Does not
● Is not currently systematically tested for
analysing existing DUIs.
● Is not currently systematically tested for
designing DUIs.
● Does not include include empirical
evidence, such as performance
characteristics of individual patterns.
● Lacks infrastructure for testing individual
patterns.

21. What has been done

22. Ongoing research

23. Distributed user interface pattern testbed

24. Motivation
The DUI pattern library offers descriptions of how interactions with distributed user
interfaces can be designed.
However, the library does not currently provide any empirical evidence about the
patterns, such as task times, error rates, and perceived cognitive load.
Neither is there evidence of how the patterns can be used to support user
activities, such as collaboration, or want kinds of experiences can be fostered.
Finally, it is not currently possible to test the patterns on real devices.

25. Maturity
Does
● Exist on paper.
● The current options are:
○ DireWolf
○ HuddleLamp
○ Panelrama
Does not
● No tangible outcomes yet.

26. What has been done
At the moment designing the testbed was offered as a design challenge for the
participants of the Web Workshop.
The challenge has been formulated as a statement of what needs to be done, a
set of patterns to be prototyped, and a range of examples to support ideation.
The purpose of this activity is to sensitise students to the idea of developing the
testbed and collecting a range of ideas about how the testbed can be
implemented.

27. Ongoing research
The idea for the testbed is to implement it with web technologies:
● It will be easier to manage and develop;
● Can run a wide range of devices;
● There can be an API to implement native interfaces if necessary.

28. A socio-technical model of trust

30. Motivation
● One main motivation is to understand why is there no change in user
behaviour despite repeated trust breaches.
○ Notable examples include trust breaches by Facebook (Kramer, Guillory & Hancock, 2014),
NHS in the UK (The Guardian, 2012) and extensive reporting on surveillance practices and
privacy breaches by Edward Snowden (Lyon, D. (2014).
● There has been no change in user behaviour despite these breaches!
○ Why is it so?
● Lack of a clear understanding (and definition) of role of trust in HCI & user
engagement.
● Paucity of academic research from both a social and a technical perspective
on understanding trust.

31. Maturity
Does
● Provides a concise and succinct model for
understanding trust in HCI.
● Is a conceptual model based on a vast
literature review.
● Integrates several different indicators in a
unique model to further our understanding
of trust.
Does not
● Was proposed in an E-learning context
and we need to situate this within HCI.
● For this, indicators need to be defined
more precisely from a HCI perspective.
● Empirical validation needed.

32. Ongoing work
● Extensive and systematic literature review to further elaborate and
understand role of trust in user engagement.
● Comparison of prior trust models and their attributes proposed in the literature
(more details here) with the attributes of STM.
○ Simultaneously, logging of theories used in these models so as to further advance and refine
STM is also being currently done.
● Exhaustive review of context, validation process and examples which would
also help refine STM.
● Elaborating and defining the different attributes within STM to situate it within
the HCI domain.

34. Model of appropriation
for software sustainability

35. The model

36. Motivation
● Software sustainability (prolonged use) lacks studies of interaction design,
thus the interest in design choices for shaping interactions that prolong
software use.
● A current model of appropriation, borrowed from the Information System
domain, lacks the design choices that would foster the different stages of
appropriation.
● Having worked in the software development industry I have seen many
projects redone with few added value, where an alternative, participatory and
evolution based design approach would have prolonged the use of software
and saved resources.

37. Maturity
Does
● Focus on temporal aspects
(stages) of appropriation
● Describe and explain the
process of appropriation and
interface-based qualities that
support it
● Introduce 5 main enabling
“qualities” that can support the
stages.
● Detail the specifics on how the
qualities can be implemented.
Does not
● Have predictive maturity
● Has not been tested in a
longitudinal study
● Lacks operationalization of the
concepts (ongoing)

38. What has been done
● Development of the model
○ Literature review
● Explore and transfer IxD methods for appropriation-enabling design
○ Card sorting
○ Design Space Analysis
○ Delphi Study

39. Ongoing research
Assessment of the expressiveness of
the model
● Understand descriptive potential
● Develop the model with input
from two case studies
Operationalization of the Model
● Factors
● Examples (patterns)
● Dependent and independent
variables
● Influence of enabling design
choices on prolonged use

40. Aesthetic experience scale

41. What is aesthetic experience scale?
An aesthetic experience scale is a questionnaire for evaluating Users’ aesthetic
experience during the interaction.
It will utilize the episodes of interaction as a stimuli and registers users’ judgement
on semantic differential scales.
These semantic differentials are attributed to aesthetics of interaction, taking
into account the multimodality of aesthetics.

42. Motivation
Literature review:
Visual aesthetics of interaction:
● Evaluation methods (Lavie2004, Moshagen2010, Ngo2003)
● Analyses of relevance (Kurosu1995, Tractinsky2000, Lindgaard2006-2007, Moshagen2009,
Cyr2010, Reineke2013, Mõttus2013, Mõttus2014)
Beyond the visual aesthetics:
● Reviews (Hassenzahl2008, Lenz2014)
● Evaluation methods, models, frameworks (Hassenzahl2004, Lenz2013, Hashim2010-2011)
● Design research, case studies (Djajadiningrat2007, Rocchesso2009-2010)
Conclusion:
Aesthetic’s evaluation in HCI has addresses mainly visual and appearance-related beauty (Mõttus2015).
The earlier works provide useful frameworks and mappings (Lenz2013-2014, Hassenzahl2004) that
facilitate developing a questionnaire of aesthetic evaluation.

43. Ongoing work
Empirical study of eliciting aesthetic attributes:
● stimuli: interaction episodes, extracted from popular free apps on mobile
devices
● participants: having mobile use experience, suggested expertise ongeneral
aesthetics
● elicitation: repertory grid technique (RGT) - semistructured interview
● Analysis:
○ Semantic analysis
○ Factor analysis
○ Multidimensional scaling

44. Future work
● Development of scales for questionnaire (data analysis of previous study)
● Refinement of scales (empirical study)
● Validation of questionnaire (empirical study)
….Further studies may be...
● Generalization of questionnaire on other fields of HCI
○ Distributed UI
○ Tangible interactions
○ Ubiquitous computing
○ Brain-computer interface

45. HCI uptake maturity model and
assessment tool

46. The Model and Tool
● Model
○ Conceptual
■ Systematic review
■ Research findings
■ Based on theory of Diffusion of Innovations
● HCI-Maturity Self -Assessment Tool
○ Assessment by CEOs
○ Assessment by Company’s HoUs/HoDs
○ Assessment by Expert
■ Project evidence

47. Motivation
“While the growing body of literature continues to focus on process descriptions
and recommended tools, the day-to-day work involved and the many and varied
settings in which the tools and processes are applied, remain largely unexplored.”
– (Ferreira, Sharp, & Robinson, 2012; p.11)
● From a research perspective, uptake of research findings is low and many of
the current proposals lack methodological strength and theoretical guidance.
● From practice point of view, companies are in need of tools to help self-
assess their practice and processes.
- How can we facilitate implementation of HCI values and approaches in
software development companies?

48. Maturity
Does
● Deductive tool from two existing maturity
models
● Deductive tool from field studies
● Help companies self assess and reflect on
their process and maturity
● Enhance collaboration with experts
● Cover three aspects of maturity
○ HCI infrastructure – process,
resources, management
○ HCI performance – performance of
usability design
○ Usability-meeting impact
Does not
● Replace existing models
● Follow third-party assessments

49. What has been done
● Literature review (scoping study)
● Full study in Nigeria
○ Short paper publication in INTERACT 2015 proceedings
○ Journal paper submission
● A survey and one case study interview in Estonia

50. Ongoing research
● Systematic literature review
● Conference paper (for AfriCHI 2016)
● Questionnaire for a proposed web-based HCI maturity self-assessment tool
○ HCI infrastructure – process, resources, management
○ HCI performance – performance of usability design
○ Usability-meeting impact
● Research Traineeship at Aalborg University, Aalborg Denmark
○ Usability evaluation projects
○ Pilot testing questionnaire on Danish software companies

51. Physiology-based
interactive media toolbox

54. Creating affective audio-visual dictionary

56. Implicit interaction research topics
● Hybrid distributed user interfaces (hyperscanning)
● Trust/collaboration
● Affective metadata (e.g. reactions to films as intangible heritage)
● Emerging applications (serious games, assistive & health apps,
neurocinema, neurotheatre)
● Design process (new low cost developments, e.g., Open BCI platform)

57. And the rest...

64. hci.tlu.ee