Study on heuristic usability evaluation for mobile applications

Usability guidelines are a useful tool for the developers to improve interaction with systems. It includes knowledge of different disciplines related to usability and provides solutions and best practices to achieve the objectives of usability. Heuristic evaluation is one of the methods most widely used to evaluate and user interfaces. The objective of this study is to enrich the process of heuristic evaluation with the design guidelines focusing it on the evaluation of applications for mobile devices. As well as generate a homogeneous classification of guidelines content, in order to help that from design and development process, be included solutions and good practices provided by the guidelines. In order to achieve the objectives of this work, it is provides a method for generating heuristics for mobile applications, with which four applications were evaluated, and a web tool has also been developed that allows access to the content of the guidelines using the homogeneous classification of guidelines content. The results showed the ease and utility of performing heuristic evaluations using a set of heuristics focused on mobile applications.

A graphical tool for designing interactive video cognitive rehabilitation therapies

Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) has become one of the most common causes of neurological disability in developed countries. Cognitive disorders result in a loss of independence and therefore patients? quality of life. Cognitive rehabilitation aims to promote patients? skills to achieve their highest degree of personal autonomy. New technologies such as interactive video, whereby real situations of daily living are reproduced within a controlled virtual environment, enable the design of personalized therapies with a high level of generalization and a great ecological validity. This paper presents a graphical tool that allows neuropsychologists to design, modify, and configure interactive video therapeutic activities, through the combination of graphic and natural language. The tool has been validated creating several Activities of Daily Living and a preliminary usability evaluation has been performed showing a good clinical acceptance in the definition of complex interactive video therapies for cognitive rehabilitation.

Magnificador basado en teléfono móvil: prototipo funcional

Enmarcado en un proyecto más amplio, en este TFG se ha realizado un prototipo funcional de una aplicación Android para realizar una función de magnificador digital de documentos en papel. Para llevarlo a cabo se ha realizado un estudio de los TFG anteriores incluidos en este proyecto, así como un estudio del desarrollo en Android. Posteriormente se ha diseñado la interfaz de usuario del prototipo funcional, partiendo de los resultados de la evaluación del prototipo de baja fidelidad realizado en un TFG anterior. Tras este diseño se ha Implementado el prototipo funcional, usando las librerías desarrolladas en TFG anteriores. Por último, se ha realizado una evaluación de la usabilidad y accesibilidad del prototipo funcional y se han definido una serie de recomendaciones de cambio a partir de esta evaluación de cara al desarrollo del sistema definitivo. ---ABSTRACT---As a part of a larger project, this TFG develops a functional prototype of an Android application to perform a magnifier function to paper documents. This application is aimed at people with low vision problems. To get it done, a study of the previous TFG included in this project as well as a study of Android developing has been made. After that, the user interface of the functional prototype has been designed, starting from the results of the low-fidelity prototype evaluation made in a previous TFG. In this design, several changes have been made regarding the low-fidelity prototype, applying the results of the usability evaluation. After this design, the functional prototype has been implemented using the libraries developed in the previous TFG. In this process some modifications over these libraries have been required. Finally, a usability and accessibility evaluation about the prototype with real users has been made, and there have been defined several change recommendations from this evaluation having in mind the development of the final system.

Planificación de usabilidad en el desarrollo de una aplicación móvil de microblogging

En la actualidad se ha experimentado un fuerte desarrollo en el campo de los ordenadores, teléfonos móviles y otros dispositivos, que hacen posible que la información sea más accesible para todo el mundo. Además, se han creado nuevas vías por la cual transmitir información, como las redes sociales. En especial, destaca Twitter, que posee millones de usuarios que se conectan cada día. Asimismo, los periodistas reconocen la importancia de Twitter y la facilidad y rapidez que ofrece para publicar información hace que esta red social sea ampliamente usada por muchísimos periodistas. En este contexto es donde se enmarca el proyecto “Red de microblogging para periodistas sobre dispositivos iOS” de la cátedra UPM-­‐El Mundo de comunicación digital que tiene como finalidad encontrar una solución nueva que integre las ventajas que nos proporciona la nueva tecnología, la rapidez y facilidad que tiene escribir algo en Twitter y que el periódico se beneficie de todo esto, así como el periodista que escriba la noticia. Para alcanzar estos objetivos, la usabilidad del sistema que se desarrolle es una parte fundamental, ya que tan importante como es la funcionalidad de un sistema es que los usuarios realmente lo usen y se sientan cómodos con él. Se ha llevado a cabo la planificación de las técnicas de usabilidad a aplicar con ayuda de la herramienta “Usability Planner”, considerando las restricciones concretas que se dan en el proyecto. A continuación se han aplicado las técnicas elegidas de forma integrada con el resto de actividades de desarrollo del proyecto. Entre estas técnicas destaca la realización de una evaluación de usabilidad, que ha mostrado que el producto ha cumplido en gran medida los objetivos de usabilidad establecidos, y los usuarios se han mostrado ampliamente satisfechos con los resultados obtenidos ---ABSTRACT---Nowadays, a strong growth in the field of personal computers, mobile phones and other devices has been experienced. This growth makes the information to be more reachable for everyone. In addition, new ways of transmitting information have been created, such as social networks, especially Twitter, which owns millions of users. Moreover, the journalists recognize the importance of Twitter, and its speed and ease to use and publish information makes Twitter widely used by them. This is the context in which the project “Red de microblogging para periodistas sobre dispositivos iOS” of the cathedra UPM-­‐El Mundo de comunicación digital takes part, whose aim is to find a new solution to incorporate the advantages of the new technology, the speed and the ease of Twitter to allow that newspapers, as well as journalists, are able to take benefit of it. In order to achieve it, the usability of the system which is going to be developed is an essential part, because the functionality of a system is as important as it is that the users really use and feel comfortable with the system. And in the latter is where this work takes part, the design and the evaluation of the usability of the system which is going to be developed. A planification of usability techniques has been performed with the support of the tool “Usability Planner”. There are a wide range of usability techniques and its choice in order to apply them into a project is not an easy task. Furthermore, the chosen techniques have been applied integrated with all the other activities of the project. Finally, a usability evaluation has been executed and it has shown that the established usability objectives have been accomplished and the users are widely satisfied with the project.

Monitorización y optimización de terapias de tele-neurorrehabilitación cognitiva

El Daño Cerebral Adquirido (DCA) se define como una lesión cerebral que ocurre después del nacimiento y que no guarda relación con defectos congénitos o enfermedades degenerativas. En el cerebro, se llevan a cabo las funciones mentales superiores como la atención, la memoria, las funciones ejecutivas y el lenguaje, consideradas pre-requisitos básicos de la inteligencia. Sea cual sea su causa, todo daño cerebral puede afectar a una o varias de estas funciones, de ahí la gravedad del problema. A pesar de los avances en nuevas técnicas de intervención precoz y el desarrollo de los cuidados intensivos, las afectaciones cerebrales aún no tienen tratamiento ni quirúrgico ni farmacológico que permita una restitución de las funciones perdidas. Los tratamientos de neurorrehabilitación cognitiva y funcional pretenden, por tanto, la minimización o compensación de las alteraciones ocasionadas por una lesión en el sistema nervioso. En concreto, la rehabilitación cognitiva se define como el proceso en el que personas que han sufrido un daño cerebral trabajan de manera conjunta con profesionales de la salud para remediar o aliviar los déficits cognitivos surgidos como consecuencia de un episodio neurológico. Esto se consigue gracias a la naturaleza plástica del sistema nervioso, donde el cerebro es capaz de reconfigurar sus conexiones neuronales, tanto creando nuevas como modificando las ya existentes. Durante los últimos años hemos visto una transformación de la sociedad, en lo que se ha denominado "sociedad de la información", cuyo pilar básico son las Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones (TIC). La aplicación de estas tecnologías en medicina ha revolucionado la manera en que se proveen los servicios sanitarios. Así, donde tecnología y medicina se mezclan, la telerrehabilitación se define como la rehabilitación a distancia, ayudando a extender los servicios de rehabilitación más allá de los centros hospitalarios, rompiendo las barreras geográficas, mejorando la eficiencia de los procesos y monitorizando en todo momento el estado y evolución del paciente. En este contexto, el objetivo general de la presente tesis es mejorar la rehabilitación neuropsicológica de pacientes que sufren alteraciones cognitivas, mediante el diseño, desarrollo y validación de un sistema de telemedicina que incorpora las TIC para avanzar hacia un nuevo paradigma personalizado, ubicuo y ecológico. Para conseguirlo, se han definido los siguientes objetivos específicos: • Analizar y modelar un sistema de telerrehabilitación, mediante la definición de objetivos y requisitos de usuario para diseñar las diferentes funcionalidades necesarias. • Definir una arquitectura de telerrehabilitación escalable para la prestación de diferentes servicios que agrupe las funcionalidades necesarias en módulos. • Diseñar y desarrollar la plataforma de telerrehabilitación, incluida la interfaz de usuario, creando diferentes roles de usuario con sus propias funcionalidades. • Desarrollar de un módulo de análisis de datos para extraer conocimiento basado en los resultados históricos de las sesiones de rehabilitación almacenadas en el sistema. • Evaluación de los resultados obtenidos por los pacientes después del programa de rehabilitación, obteniendo conclusiones sobre los beneficios del servicio implementado. • Evaluación técnica de la plataforma de telerrehabilitación, así como su usabilidad y la relación coste/beneficio. • Integración de un dispositivo de eye-tracking que permita la monitorización de la atención visual mientras los pacientes ejecutan tareas de neurorrehabilitación. •Diseño y desarrollo de un entorno de monitorización que permita obtener patrones de atención visual. Como resumen de los resultados obtenidos, se ha desarrollado y validado técnicamente la plataforma de telerrehabilitación cognitiva, demostrando la mejora en la eficiencia de los procesos, sin que esto resulte en una reducción de la eficacia del tratamiento. Además, se ha llevado a cabo una evaluación de la usabilidad del sistema, con muy buenos resultados. Respecto al módulo de análisis de datos, se ha diseñado y desarrollado un algoritmo que configura y planifica sesiones de rehabilitación para los pacientes, de manera automática, teniendo en cuenta las características específicas de cada paciente. Este algoritmo se ha denominado Intelligent Therapy Assistant (ITA). Los resultados obtenidos por el asistente muestran una mejora tanto en la eficiencia como en la eficacia de los procesos, comparado los resultados obtenidos con los de la planificación manual llevada a cabo por los terapeutas. Por último, se ha integrado con éxito el dispositivo de eye-tracking en la plataforma de telerrehabilitación, llevando a cabo una prueba con pacientes y sujetos control que ha demostrado la viabilidad técnica de la solución, así como la existencia de diferencias en los patrones de atención visual en pacientes con daño cerebral. ABSTRACT Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) is defined as brain damage that suddenly and unexpectedly appears in people’s life, being the main cause of disability in developed countries. The brain is responsible of the higher cognitive functions such as attention, memory, executive functions or language, which are considered basic requirements of the intelligence. Whatever its cause is, every ABI may affects one or several functions, highlighting the severity of the problem. New techniques of early intervention and the development of intensive ABI care have noticeably improved the survival rate. However, despite these advances, brain injuries still have no surgical or pharmacological treatment to re-establish lost functions. Cognitive rehabilitation is defined as a process whereby people with brain injury work together with health service professionals and others to remediate or alleviate cognitive deficits arising from a neurological insult. This is achieved by taking advantage of the plastic nature of the nervous system, where the brain can reconfigure its connections, both creating new ones, and modifying the previously existing. Neuro-rehabilitation aims to optimize the plastic nature by inducing a reorganization of the neural network, based on specific experiences. Personalized interventions from individual impairment profile will be necessary to optimize the remaining resources by potentiating adaptive responses and inhibiting maladaptive changes. In the last years, some applications and software programs have been developed to train or stimulate cognitive functions of different neuropsychological disorders, such as ABI, Alzheimer, psychiatric disorders, attention deficit or hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The application of technologies into medicine has changed the paradigm. Telemedicine allows improving the quality of clinical services, providing better access to them and helping to break geographical barriers. Moreover, one of the main advantages of telemedicine is the possibility to extend the therapeutic processes beyond the hospital (e.g. patient's home). As a consequence, a reduction of unnecessary costs and a better costs/benefits ratio are achieved, making possible a more efficient use of the available resources In this context, the main objective of this work is to improve neuro-rehabilitation of patients suffering cognitive deficits, by designing, developing and validating a telemedicine system that incorporates ICTs to change this paradigm, making it more personalized, ubiquitous and ecologic. The following specific objectives have been defined: • To analyse and model a tele-rehabilitation system, defining objectives and user requirements to design the different needed functionalities. • To define a scalable tele-rehabilitation architecture to offer different services grouping functionalities into modules. • To design and develop the tele-rehabilitation platform, including the graphic user interface, creating different user roles and permissions. • To develop a data analysis module to extract knowledge based on the historic results from the rehabilitation sessions stored in the system. • To evaluate the obtained results by patients after the rehabilitation program, arising conclusions about the benefits of the implemented service. • To technically evaluate the tele-rehabilitation platform, and its usability and the costs/benefit ratio. • To integrate an eye-tracking device allowing the monitoring of the visual attention while patients execute rehabilitation tasks. •To design and develop a monitoring environment that allows to obtain visual attention patterns. Summarizing the obtained results, the cognitive tele-rehabilitation platform has been developed and evaluated technically, demonstrating the improvements on the efficiency without worsening the efficacy of the process. Besides, a usability evaluation has been carried out, with very good results. Regarding the data analysis module, an algorithm has been designed and developed to automatically select and configure rehabilitation sessions, taking into account the specific characteristics of each patient. This algorithm is called Intelligent Therapy Assistant (ITA). The obtained results show an improvement both in the efficiency and the efficacy of the process, comparing the results obtained by patients when they receive treatments scheduled manually by therapists. Finally, an eye-tracking device has been integrated in the tele-rehabilitation platform, carrying out a study with patients and control subjects demonstrating the technical viability of the developed monitoring environment. First results also show that there are differences between the visual attention patterns between ABI patients and control subjects.

Diseño centrado en el usuario para el soporte de una aplicación móvil para estudiantes universitarios

Partiendo de una versión beta de la aplicación de la Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Informáticos para la plataforma Android, se plantea añadir unas nuevas funcionalidades para enriquecer el contenido de información accesible por los alumnos de la Escuela. Estas nuevas funcionalidades son relativas a la información de los calendarios, la localización de instalaciones de la Escuela e información particularizada para cada usuario, pudiendo iniciar sesión en la aplicación. Para ello primero se lleva a cabo un estudio de las herramientas de soporte para la gestión de calendarios. Este estudio se centra en la facilidad de aprendizaje, eficiencia y efectividad del usuario. Así mismo, se diseñan e implementan las nuevas funcionalidades de mapas y perfil. Para evaluar estas funcionalidades se diseñarán y llevaran a cabo actividades de evaluación de usabilidad a alumnos del centro. Con las conclusiones de esa evaluación se realiza un rediseño de las partes de la aplicación que lo necesiten con el nivel de usabilidad requerido por los usuarios finales.---ABSTRACT---Starting from a beta version of the ETSIINF application for the Android platform, it is considered to add some new features to enrich the content of the information accessible by the students of the School. These new features are related to calendar information, School facilities location and particularized information for each user, being able to login to the application. To this end, a study of the support tools for managing calendars is carried out in the first place. This study focuses on the ease to learn, the efficiency and the effectiveness of the user. Likewise, the new maps and profile features will be implemented. To evaluate these features, usability evaluation activities will be designed and carried out to students at the school. With the findings of this evaluation a redesign of the parts of the application that need it with the required level of usability for end users will be performed.

Improving brain injury cognitive rehabilitation by personalized telerehabilitation services: Guttmann neuropersonal trainer

Cognitive rehabilitation aims to remediate or alleviate the cognitive deficits appearing after an episode of acquired brain injury (ABI). The purpose of this work is to describe the telerehabilitation platform called Guttmann Neuropersonal Trainer (GNPT) which provides new strategies for cognitive rehabilitation, improving efficiency and access to treatments, and to increase knowledge generation from the process. A cognitive rehabilitation process has been modeled to design and develop the system, which allows neuropsychologists to configure and schedule rehabilitation sessions, consisting of set of personalized computerized cognitive exercises grounded on neuroscience and plasticity principles. It provides remote continuous monitoring of patient's performance, by an asynchronous communication strategy. An automatic knowledge extraction method has been used to implement a decision support system, improving treatment customization. GNPT has been implemented in 27 rehabilitation centers and in 83 patients' homes, facilitating the access to the treatment. In total, 1660 patients have been treated. Usability and cost analysis methodologies have been applied to measure the efficiency in real clinical environments. The usability evaluation reveals a system usability score higher than 70 for all target users. The cost efficiency study results show a relation of 1-20 compared to face-to-face rehabilitation. GNPT enables brain-damaged patients to continue and further extend rehabilitation beyond the hospital, improving the efficiency of the rehabilitation process. It allows customized therapeutic plans, providing information to further development of clinical practice guidelines.

The usefulness of Usability and User Experience evaluation methods on an e-Learning platform development from a developer's perspective: A case study

The development of a web platform is a complex and interdisciplinary task, where people with different roles such as project manager, designer or developer participate. Different usability and User Experience evaluation methods can be used in each stage of the development life cycle, but not all of them have the same influence in the software development and in the final product or system. This article presents the study of the impact of these methods applied in the context of an e-Learning platform development. The results show that the impact has been strong from a developer's perspective. Developer team members considered that usability and User Experience evaluation allowed them mainly to identify design mistakes, improve the platform's usability and understand the end users and their needs in a better way. Interviews with potential users, clickmaps and scrollmaps were rated as the most useful methods. Finally, these methods were considered unanimously very useful in the context of the entire software development, only comparable to SCRUM meetings and overcoming the rest of involved factors.

A web-based application for the management and evaluation of tutoring requests in PBL-based massive laboratories

One important steps in a successful project-based-learning methodology (PBL) is the process of providing the students with a convenient feedback that allows them to keep on developing their projects or to improve them. However, this task is more difficult in massive courses, especially when the project deadline is close. Besides, the continuous evaluation methodology makes necessary to find ways to objectively and continuously measure students' performance without increasing excessively instructors' work load. In order to alleviate these problems, we have developed a web service that allows students to request personal tutoring assistance during the laboratory sessions by specifying the kind of problem they have and the person who could help them to solve it. This service provides tools for the staff to manage the laboratory, for performing continuous evaluation for all students and for the student collaborators, and to prioritize tutoring according to the progress of the student's project. Additionally, the application provides objective metrics which can be used at the end of the subject during the evaluation process in order to support some students' final scores. Different usability statistics and the results of a subjective evaluation with more than 330 students confirm the success of the proposed application.