General characteristics of anticipated user experience (AUX) with interactive products

Providing a positive user experience (UX) has become the key differentiator for products to win a competition in mature markets. To ensure that a product will support enjoyable experiences for its users, assessment of UX should be conducted early during the design and development process. However, most UX frameworks and evaluation techniques focus on understanding and assessing user’s experience with functional prototypes or existing products. This situation delays UX assessment until the late phases of product development which may result in costly design modifications and less desirable products. A qualitative study was conducted to investigate anticipated user experience (AUX) to address this issue. Twenty pairs of participants were asked to imagine an interactive product, draw their product concept, and anticipate their interactions and experiences with it. The data was analyzed to identify general characteristics of AUX. We found that while positive AUX was mostly related to an imagined/desired product, negative AUX was mainly associated with existing products. It was evident that the pragmatic quality of product was fundamental, and significantly influenced user’s anticipated experiences. Furthermore, the hedonic quality of product received more focus in positive than negative AUX. The results also showed that context, user profile, experiential knowledge, and anticipated emotion could be reflected in AUX. The understanding of AUX will help product designers to better foresee the users’ underlying needs and to focus on the most important aspects of their positive experiences, which in turn facilitates the designers to ensure pleasurable UX from the start of the design process.

Anticipating user experience with a desired product : the AUX Framework

Positive user experience (UX) has become a key factor in designing interactive products. It acts as a differentiator which can determine a product’s success on the mature market. However, current UX frameworks and methods do not fully support the early stages of product design and development. During these phases, assessment of UX is challenging as no actual user-product interaction can be tested. This qualitative study investigated anticipated user experience (AUX) to address this problem. Using the co-discovery method, participants were asked to imagine a desired product, anticipate experiences with it, and discuss their views with another participant. Fourteen sub-categories emerged from the data, and relationships among them were defined through co-occurrence analysis. These data formed the basis of the AUX framework which consists of two networks which elucidate 1) how users imagine a desired product and 2) how they anticipate positive experiences with that product. Through this AUX framework, important factors in the process of imagining future products and experiences were learnt, including the way in which these factors interrelate. Focusing on and exploring each component of the two networks in the framework will allow designers to obtain a deeper understanding of the required pragmatic and hedonic qualities of product, intended uses of product, user characteristics, potential contexts of experience, and anticipated emotions embedded within the experience. This understanding, in turn, will help designers to better foresee users’ underlying needs and to focus on the most important aspects of their positive experience. Therefore, the use of the AUX framework in the early stages of product development will contribute to the design for pleasurable UX.

Microplasma-chemical synthesis and tunable real-time plasmonic responses of alloyed Aux Ag1−x nanoparticles

Tunable synthesis of bimetallic AuxAg1-x alloyed nanoparticles and in situ monitoring of their plasmonic responses is presented. This is a new conceptual approach based on green and energy efficient, reactive, and highly-non-equilibrium microplasma chemistry.

Comite National de Secours Aux Refugies 1933-1934

Materials on the founding and organizational structure of the Comite. Lists of board members, reports, minutes of meetings. Correspondence and other materials from HIAS-JCA-EMIGDIRECT, Government of France. List of German Jewish students at Lucien de Hirsch school in Paris. List of German Jewish refugees.

L'Indépendance de l'empire du Brésil :présentée aux monarques européens

Alphonse de Beauchamp, historiador francês, nasceu em Mônaco, em 1767, e morreu em Paris, em 1832. Trabalhou no Departamento de Polícia como censor de imprensa. Organizou e publicou várias obras históricas.

Traité général des pesches : et histoire des poissons qu'elles fournissent tant pour la subsistance des hommes que pour plusieurs autres usages qui ont rapport aux arts et au commerce. [3 volumes bound in 2 parts in folio]

Early illustrated book about fish, fishing and fisheries by one of the preeminent scientific investigators of the French enlightenment. This work deals extensively with the species of fish found in Europe and beyond, their habits and habitats, techniques and equipment used in fishing and fish processing, and many other aspects of these endeavours. Roughly 185 engraved plates illustrate the text. The scans for this version come from 3 volumes bound in two parts in folio.

Étude comparative de la macrofaune associée aux racines de Pistia stratiotes L. (Araceae) du lac de barrage d'Ayamé II et du fleuve Comoé (Côte d'Ivoire)

Abundance and species variations of the macrofauna associated with the roots of Pistia stratiotes of Ayamé II lake and Comoé river were studied during one year. Samples of plants were collected by hand once a month within a sampler of 1 m2 of surface.

Les gasteropodes aquatiques associés aux plantes flottantes

The gasteropods sampling from roots system of floating plants Pistia striatiotes, Salvinia molesta, Salvinia nymphellula, Eichhornia crassipes, show that those biotopes are not azoic. We collected 18 species of gasteropods. The mapping of the species collected has been realized and permitted to identify three regions and three groups of gasteropods: 1 The gasteropods collected between 5° and 7° South; 2 The gasteropods collected between 8° and 10° North; 3 The widespread gasteropods. The species distribution according to latitude shows that 90% of species are found between 5° and 6° South, 65% between 6° and 7° South, 20% between 7° and 8°, 20% between 8° and 9° and 15% between 9° and 10° North.

História da psicologia social no Rio de Janeiro entre as décadas de 1960 e 1990

Este trabalho tem como objetivo principal apresentar uma história da Psicologia Social no Rio de Janeiro no período compreendido entre as décadas de 60 e 90. Iniciamos este trabalho discutindo a crise no campo da Psicologia Social que ocorreu na Europa e nos Estados Unidos a partir de meados dos anos 60. No Brasil, a crise começou a ter desdobramentos apenas na década de 70. Iniciava-se a crítica a Psicologia Social cognitiva norte-americana e a busca de novas teorias, metodologias e interlocutores no campo da Psicologia Social. No Rio de Janeiro, o principal representante desta perspectiva foi Aroldo Rodrigues. Sua principal opositora foi Silvia Lane. Em Minas Gerais, O Setor de Psicologia Social foi outro importante eixo de oposição. Ao longo da tese, buscamos compreender como alguns enunciados presentes nos anos 60 e 70, entre os movimentos de resistência como o CPC da UNE, o Tropicalismo e a Teologia da Libertação, como crítica e alternativa aos ditames positivistas. Era necessária uma Psicologia Social que permitisse pensar a realidade social brasileira. As categorias universalizantes da Psicologia Social norte-americana, que pensavam o homem fora da história e da cultura, passaram a ser objeto de crítica. Como afirmamos, buscamos apresentar uma história da Psicologia Social no Rio de Janeiro no período histórico já definido anteriormente. Para isso, além do levantamento de referências sobre o tema fizemos entrevistas com vários dos personagens que participaram desta mesma história, como professores, pesquisadores e alunos.

Étude du crabe rouge profond Geryon quinquedens en Côte d'Ivoire. 2 - Éléments de biologie et d'écologie avec références aux résultats obtenus au Congo

Geryon quinquedens is present along the West African continental slope at depths from 300 to 1000 m, on silt-clay sediments. Geryon is a cold and rather poorly oxygenated water loving species. It is easily caught by traps as it is a scavenger and predatory crustacea. In a given area its distribution does not appear to be homogeneous: for example, densities of red crabs are higher in the eastern and western region of Côte d'Ivoire than in the central zone. Similar observations can be made off Congo, Angola and United States. It can be assumed that there is a relation between the abundance of Geryon and the productivity level of the area. Geographical variations of sex ratio are suspected to be correlated with the density distribution. Males and females have not the same bathymetric distribution: females are only common in the shallower waters (300-500 m) whereas males are present in the whole biotope. Seasonal migrations occur down and up the slope in both the sexes and are certainly related to the reproductive biology. Knowledge of the reproductive biology is also necessary to understand fishing-trap catch rate: egg maturation extends over several months and ovigerous females are exceptionally caught by traps; males also are less available during the same period (March to August) when migrations are less important; in this period, mean size increases and probably this happens at the end of a moult. From September to February the catch-rates increase. Growth is slow compared with other littoral Guinean Crustacea (Peneides). Females become sexually mature at a size of 80 mm (carapace width): modification in the allometric relations of abdomen and carapace are then conspicuous.

Simulation stochastique des structures démographiques. Application aux populations d'albacores, Thunnus albacares

A computer program has been written in order to generate a population of fishes following a Von Bertalanffy growth curve with a random Gaussian variability for birth dates and growth parameters K and L ∞. Standard deviations for these 3 parameters are chosen separately for each run. Fishing and natural mortalities are applied to this population. Using as an input parameters usually taken for yellowfin in the eastern Atlantic, the simulation suggests a standard deviation between 1 and 2 months for the birth dates in this population. It also indicates that increasing levels of fishing mortalities must produce a better agreement between age and length for the larger fish.