Design of user interfaces for job shop environment

User-computer interface development has gone through rapid development in recent years. These developments, however, have not yet been fully implemented in management information system (MIS) design for job shop manufacturing situations. Most of the commercially available MISs are operationally inflexible and do not support management in report generation and decision making, particularly in job shops. This paper describes a framework in developing system user interfaces for job shop manufacturing situations to highlight how a generic information system can be made more useful to managerial decision making. Object-oriented programming technology has been used to provide flexible access to information stored by a generic MIS. Twenty interfacing programs have been developed. For illustration, only three of those interface programs relating to generation of strategic level management reports are discussed here.

Management information systems in job shops : design of interfaces

A study of management information system technology suitable for the job shop environment, highlighting deficiencies in generic software with respect to supplying users the information they actually require. To solve this problem a set of flexible interfaces was developed through the use of object-oriented programming. The methods used were simple enough to be adopted by vendors of any generic MIS application.

Human-computer interaction in ubiquitous computing environments

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore characteristics of human-computer interaction when the human body and its movements become input for interaction and interface control in pervasive computing settings.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper quantifies the performance of human movement based on Fitt's Law and discusses some of the human factors and technical considerations that arise in trying to use human body movements as an input medium.

Findings – The paper finds that new interaction technologies utilising human movements may provide more flexible, naturalistic interfaces and support the ubiquitous or pervasive computing paradigm.

Practical implications – In pervasive computing environments the challenge is to create intuitive and user-friendly interfaces. Application domains that may utilize human body movements as input are surveyed here and the paper addresses issues such as culture, privacy, security and ethics raised by movement of a user's body-based interaction styles.

Originality/value – The paper describes the utilization of human body movements as input for interaction and interface control in pervasive computing settings.

Through the looking glass : immersive interfaces for participant engagement in blended e-learning environments

This chapter outlines current research profiling students and educators participating in and constructing immersive interfaces in blended e-learning settings. Multi User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) and real world settings augmented with virtual information can generate problem-solving communities where participants gain greater technical knowledge and skills through meaningful and frequent interaction. MUVEs can also generate technical innovation amongst students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds provided students are encouraged to help each other and learn together. After detailing some false assumptions about computer literacy that can stifle meaningful exploration with new technologies in contemporary education, this chapter documents an exemplar involving extensive collaboration between students from different educational backgrounds with diverse technical competencies. The success of this initiative hinges on the willingness of educators to provide a shared learning experience where technology is used to facilitate increased student communication and offers a site for invention, informed critique, industry participation, and a sense of community.

Immersive interfaces for art education teaching and learning in mixed reality virtual and real world environments

Selected ubiquitous technologies encourage collaborative participation between higher education students and educators within a virtual socially networked e-learning landscape. Multiple modes of teaching and learning, ranging from real world experiences, to text and digital images accessed within the Deakin Studies Online learning management system and a constructed virtual world in which the user’s creative imagination transports them to the “other side” of their computer screens is discussed in this paper. These constructed environments support interaction between communities of learners and enable multiple simultaneous participants to access graphically built 3D environments, interact with digital artifacts and various functional tools and represent themselves through avatars, to communicate with other participants and engage in collaborative art learning. A narrative interpretative research approach was used to profile the 21st century higher education student learner, to investigate the lived experience and multiple art learning perspectives documented in student visual journal entries and art educator observations to ascertain if an e-technology rich augmented learning environment resulted in the establishment of more effective e-learning communities of practice.

Immersive interfaces for art education teaching and learning in virtual and real world learning environments

Immersive interfaces for art education teaching and learning in virtual and real world learning environments

Selected ubiquitous technologies encourage collaborative participation between higher education students and educators within a virtual socially networked e-learning landscape. Multiple modes of teaching and learning, ranging from real world experiences, to text and digital images accessed within the Deakin Studies Online learning management system and a constructed virtual world in which the user's creative imagination transports them to the “other side” of their computer screens is discussed in this paper. These constructed environments support interaction between communities of learners and enable multiple simultaneous participants to access graphically built 3D environments, interact with digital artifacts and various functional tools and represent themselves through avatars, to communicate with other participants and engage in collaborative art learning. A narrative interpretative research approach was used to profile the 21st century higher education student learner, to investigate the lived experience and multiple art learning perspectives documented in student visual journal entries and art educator observations to ascertain if an e-technology rich augmented learning environment resulted in the establishment of more effective e-learning communities of practice.

tCAD: a 3D modeling application on a depth enhanced tabletop computer

Tabletop computers featuring multi-touch input and object tracking are a common platform for research on Tangible User Interfaces (also known as Tangible Interaction). However, such systems are confined to sensing activity on the tabletop surface, disregarding the rich and relatively unexplored interaction canvas above the tabletop. This dissertation contributes with tCAD, a 3D modeling tool combining fiducial marker tracking, finger tracking and depth sensing in a single system. This dissertation presents the technical details of how these features were integrated, attesting to its viability through the design, development and early evaluation of the tCAD application. A key aspect of this work is a description of the interaction techniques enabled by merging tracked objects with direct user input on and above a table surface.

Quantifying epistemic actions in human-computer interaction

As digital systems move away from traditional desktop setups, new interaction paradigms are emerging that better integrate with users’ realworld surroundings, and better support users’ individual needs. While promising, these modern interaction paradigms also present new challenges, such as a lack of paradigm-specific tools to systematically evaluate and fully understand their use. This dissertation tackles this issue by framing empirical studies of three novel digital systems in embodied cognition – an exciting new perspective in cognitive science where the body and its interactions with the physical world take a central role in human cognition. This is achieved by first, focusing the design of all these systems on a contemporary interaction paradigm that emphasizes physical interaction on tangible interaction, a contemporary interaction paradigm; and second, by comprehensively studying user performance in these systems through a set of novel performance metrics grounded on epistemic actions, a relatively well established and studied construct in the literature on embodied cognition. The first system presented in this dissertation is an augmented Four-in-a-row board game. Three different versions of the game were developed, based on three different interaction paradigms (tangible, touch and mouse), and a repeated measures study involving 36 participants measured the occurrence of three simple epistemic actions across these three interfaces. The results highlight the relevance of epistemic actions in such a task and suggest that the different interaction paradigms afford instantiation of these actions in different ways. Additionally, the tangible version of the system supports the most rapid execution of these actions, providing novel quantitative insights into the real benefits of tangible systems. The second system presented in this dissertation is a tangible tabletop scheduling application. Two studies with single and paired users provide several insights into the impact of epistemic actions on the user experience when these are performed outside of a system’s sensing boundaries. These insights are clustered by the form, size and location of ideal interface areas for such offline epistemic actions to occur, as well as how can physical tokens be designed to better support them. Finally, and based on the results obtained to this point, the last study presented in this dissertation directly addresses the lack of empirical tools to formally evaluate tangible interaction. It presents a video-coding framework grounded on a systematic literature review of 78 papers, and evaluates its value as metric through a 60 participant study performed across three different research laboratories. The results highlight the usefulness and power of epistemic actions as a performance metric for tangible systems. In sum, through the use of such novel metrics in each of the three studies presented, this dissertation provides a better understanding of the real impact and benefits of designing and developing systems that feature tangible interaction.

Network node with wireless and wired interfaces: Nios II processor and uClinux to development of a NCAP embedded (IEEE 1451.1) with two interfaces, wireless (IEEE 1451.5) and wired (IEEE p1451.2)

This paper presents a NCAP embedded on DE2 kit with Nios II processor and uClinux to development of a network gateway with two interfaces, wireless (ZigBee) and wired (RS232) based on IEEE 1451. Both the communications, wireless and wired, were developed to be point-to-point and working with the same protocols, based on IEEE 1451.0-2007. The tests were made using a microcomputer, which through of browser was possible access the web page stored in the DE2 kit and send commands of control and monitoring to both TIMs (WTIM and STIM). The system describes a different form of development of the NCAP node to be applied in different environments with wired or wireless in the same node. © 2011 IEEE.

Inventania: interfaces tecnológicas em invenções poéticas

Pós-graduação em Artes - IA

Interfaces culturais de Mallarmé à World Wide Web

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Usabilidade na web: o usuário como agente-facilitador no desenvolvimento de interfaces de home pages

Pós-graduação em Design - FAAC

Análise numérica de interfaces de próteses dentárias através da mecânica do dano

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Ergonomics and interfaces of traditional information systems: packaging

The contemporary world is characterized, among other factors, by the influence of the new computer information systems on the behavior of individuals. However, traditional information systems still have interaction problems with users. The aim of this study was to determine whether the interaction aspects between user versus traditional information systems (particularly the graphics) have been fully studied. To do so, the ergonomic aspects and usability of such systems were reviewed, with emphasis on the problems of visibility, legibility and readability. From that criteria, the evolution of ergonomic studies of information systems was reviewed (bibliometrics technique); and examples of ergonomic and usability problems in packaging were demonstrated (case study). The results confirm that traditional information systems still have problems of interaction between human X system, hindering the effective perception of information.