Chappell Family Gallery Exhibit Usability Test - June 2016

Emily Daly and Thomas Crichlow conducted a usability test of the Duke University Chapel exhibit displayed in the Chappell Family Gallery on May 20, 2016. The test was conducted to learn how people interact with the exhibit. The test consisted of two general questions, three tasks, and brief followup questions; each test took approximately 15 minutes to complete.

Online Journal Titles Usability Test - June 2016

Emily Daly and Gordon Chadwick conducted a think-aloud usability study on June 20, 2016 in the Perkins Library at Duke University. The study tested users’ perceptions of a new search results page for online journal titles.

Research databases page usability test - August 2016

During the summer of 2016, Duke University Libraries staff began a project to update the way that research databases are displayed on the library website. The new research databases page is a customized version of the default A-Z list that Springshare provides for its LibGuides content management system. Duke Libraries staff made adjustments to the content and interface of the page. In order to see how Duke users navigated the new interface, usability testing was conducted on August 9th, 2016.

Duke Images LibGuide usability test - August 2016

Thomas Crichlow and Gordon Chadwick conducted a think-aloud usability study on August 1, 2016 in the Perkins Library at Duke University. The study tested users’ perceptions of a new LibGuides driven research guide for scholarly images by asking them to complete information seeking tasks and provide feedback.

The effectiveness of corporate Web in small and médiumsized business: an analysis of Web Usability

Internet and the Web have changed the way that companies communicate with their publics, improving relations between them. Also providing substantial benefits for organizations. This has led to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to develop corporate sites to establish relationships with their audiences. This paper, applying the methodology of content analysis, analyzes the main factors and tools that make the Websites usable and intuitive sites that promote better relations between SMEs and their audiences. Also, it has developed an index to measure the effectiveness of Webs from the perspective of usability. The results indicate that the Websites have, in general, appropriate levels of usability.

Usability of clay mixed red mud in Hungarian building material production industry

The naturally occurring radionuclide (²²⁶Ra,²³²Th and⁴⁰K) content of building Materials (NORM) contributes to the total radiation dose experienced by humans. In this survey 27 clay and 68 red mud samples were surveyed with gamma spectrometry and screened according to European Basic Safety Standards (BSS) I-index. It was found that average I-index of clays was 0.6 (0.4–0.8) less than the I-index of 1, which makes them suitable for building material production. The average I-index of red mud 2.3 (1.3–3.0). The maximal mixing ratio of red mud was calculated, varied between 12 and 39 %, with 23 % average.

Digital accessibility challenges: the impact of locality, usability and technology

Abstract: It is estimated that 1 in 5 will, at some point in their lives, experience a long-term illness or disability that will impact their day to day lives. Access to digital information and technologies can be life changing and a necessity to fully participate in education, work and society. Specialist assistive technologies, such as screen readers, have been available for many years and are now built-into operating systems and devices. In addition, web accessibility standards have been compiled and published since the advent of the World Wide Web over two decades ago. However, internet use by people with disabilities continues to lag significantly behind those with no disability and use of assistive technologies remains lower than should be the case with tools often abandoned. In this seminar we will talk about our work to identify digital accessibility challenges; the barriers experienced by those with disabilities and how computer scientists can play a part in removing obstacles to access and ease of use. We will discuss some of our projects focussing on: • Development of assistive technologies for niche groups of users, • improving accessibility standards to cover a wider range of disabilities, • creating accessibility training resources for developers and stakeholders • embedding accessibility practice within development projects.

The Usability of a Commercial Game Physics Engine to Develop Physics Educational Materials: an Investigation

Commercial computer games contain “physics engine” components, responsible for providing realistic interactions among game objects. The question naturally arises of whether these engines can be used to develop educational materials for high school and university physics education. To answer this question, the author's group recently conducted a detailed scientific investigation of the physics engine of Unreal Tournament 2004 (UT2004). This article presents their motivation, methodology, and results. The author presents the findings of experiments that probed the accessibility and fidelity of UT2004's physics engine, examples of educational materials developed, and an evaluation of their use in high school classes. The associated pedagogical implications of this approach are discussed, and the author suggests guidelines for educators on how to deploy the approach. Key resources are presented on an associated Web site.

Stadtbibliothek Wolfsburg - Eine Usability-Studie

Die vorliegende Bachelorarbeit befasst sich mit den Themen Usability digitaler Bibliotheksangebote, Nutzerorientierung und Zielgruppendefinition von Öffentlichen Bibliotheken. Die Bearbeiterin untersucht die Website der Stadtbibliothek Wolfsburg. Die Zielgruppen der Stadtbibliothek werden unter Berücksichtigung der demografischen Struktur der Region definiert. Ebenso werden die Entstehungsgeschichte der Stadt beschrieben und wirtschaftliche Einflüsse aufgezeigt. Eine regionale Besonderheit ist die Abhängigkeit der Stadt Wolfsburg zum Volkswagen-Konzern, welche sich einmal mehr durch aktuelle Ereignisse wie den „Abgasskandal bei Volkswagen“ aus dem Jahr 2015 zeigt. Diese regionalspezifischen Aspekte haben insgesamt eine große Relevanz für die zielgruppenorientierte und nutzerfreundliche Gestaltung der Bibliothekswebsite. Allgemein gültige Usability-Standards werden hier an individuelle Faktoren angepasst. Unter Berücksichtigung der Zielgruppendefinition und mithilfe einer Kombination der Usability-Methoden Personas-Verfahren, der Recherchedokumentation im Stil eines Thinking-Aloud-Protokolls und dem Abgleich mit ausgewählten Usability-Kriterien aus dem BibEval-Kriterienkatalog der HTW Chur untersucht die Bearbeiterin den Internetauftritt der Stadtbibliothek Wolfsburg im Praxisteil dieser Bachelorarbeit. Eine zusammenfassende Auswertung zeigt Stärken und Schwächen der Website auf und nennt darüber hinaus Verbesserungspotenziale. Diese Arbeit ist interessant für Bibliothekare, die sich mit der Usability und Nutzerorientierung von digitalen Inhalten nach den spezifischen Zielgruppen einer Institution und ihrem Umfeld auseinander setzen möchten.

WorldCat Usability at UMD: Library Research & Innovative Practice Forum, June 8, 2016

This presentation provided the results of a two-round iterative study of WorldCat UMD usability.

Usability and Security in Medication Administration Applications

The traditional process of filling the medicine trays and dispensing the medicines to the patients in the hospitals is manually done by reading the printed paper medicine chart. This process can be very strenuous and error-prone, given the number of sub-tasks involved in the entire workflow and the dynamic nature of the work environment. Therefore, efforts are being made to digitalise the medication dispensation process by introducing a mobile application called Smart Dosing application. The introduction of the Smart Dosing application into hospital workflow raises security concerns and calls for security requirement analysis. This thesis is written as a part of the smart medication management project at Embedded Systems Laboratory, A° bo Akademi University. The project aims at digitising the medicine dispensation process by integrating information from various health systems, and making them available through the Smart Dosing application. This application is intended to be used on a tablet computer which will be incorporated on the medicine tray. The smart medication management system include the medicine tray, the tablet device, and the medicine cups with the cup holders. Introducing the Smart Dosing application should not interfere with the existing process carried out by the nurses, and it should result in minimum modifications to the tray design and the workflow. The re-designing of the tray would include integrating the device running the application into the tray in a manner that the users find it convenient and make less errors while using it. The main objective of this thesis is to enhance the security of the hospital medicine dispensation process by ensuring the security of the Smart Dosing application at various levels. The methods used for writing this thesis was to analyse how the tray design, and the application user interface design can help prevent errors and what secure technology choices have to be made before starting the development of the next prototype of the Smart Dosing application. The thesis first understands the context of the use of the application, the end-users and their needs, and the errors made in everyday medication dispensation workflow by continuous discussions with the nursing researchers. The thesis then gains insight to the vulnerabilities, threats and risks of using mobile application in hospital medication dispensation process. The resulting list of security requirements was made by analysing the previously built prototype of the Smart Dosing application, continuous interactive discussions with the nursing researchers, and an exhaustive stateof- the-art study on security risks of using mobile applications in hospital context. The thesis also uses Octave Allegro method to make the readers understand the likelihood and impact of threats, and what steps should be taken to prevent or fix them. The security requirements obtained, as a result, are a starting point for the developers of the next iteration of the prototype for the Smart Dosing application.

Case-based reasoning as a tool to improve the usability of numerical models

There may be advantages to be gained by combining Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) techniques with numerical models. In this paper we consider how CBR can be used as a flexible query engine to improve the usability of numerical models. Particularly they can help to solve inverse and mixed problems, and to solve constraint problems. We discuss this idea with reference to the illustrative example of a pneumatic conveyor. We describe a model of the problem of particle degradation in such a conveyor, and the problems faced by design engineers. The solution of these problems requires a system that allows iterative sharing of control between user, CBR system, and numerical model. This multi-initiative interaction is illustrated for the pneumatic conveyor by means of Unified Modeling Language (UML) collaboration and sequence diagrams. We show approaches to the solution of these problems via a CBR tool.

Enhancing the usability of numerical models with case-based reasoning

Abstract not available

Usability and Security in Medication. Administration Applications

The traditional process of filling the medicine trays and dispensing the medicines to the patients in the hospitals is manually done by reading the printed paper medicinechart. This process can be very strenuous and error-prone, given the number of sub-tasksinvolved in the entire workflow and the dynamic nature of the work environment.Therefore, efforts are being made to digitalise the medication dispensation process byintroducing a mobile application called Smart Dosing application. The introduction ofthe Smart Dosing application into hospital workflow raises security concerns and callsfor security requirement analysis. This thesis is written as a part of the smart medication management project at EmbeddedSystems Laboratory, A˚bo Akademi University. The project aims at digitising the medicine dispensation process by integrating information from various health systems, and making them available through the Smart Dosing application. This application is intended to be used on a tablet computer which will be incorporated on the medicine tray. The smart medication management system include the medicine tray, the tablet device, and the medicine cups with the cup holders. Introducing the Smart Dosing application should not interfere with the existing process carried out by the nurses, and it should result in minimum modifications to the tray design and the workflow. The re-designing of the tray would include integrating the device running the application into the tray in a manner that the users find it convenient and make less errors while using it. The main objective of this thesis is to enhance the security of the hospital medicine dispensation process by ensuring the security of the Smart Dosing application at various levels. The methods used for writing this thesis was to analyse how the tray design, and the application user interface design can help prevent errors and what secure technology choices have to be made before starting the development of the next prototype of the Smart Dosing application. The thesis first understands the context of the use of the application, the end-users and their needs, and the errors made in everyday medication dispensation workflow by continuous discussions with the nursing researchers. The thesis then gains insight to the vulnerabilities, threats and risks of using mobile application in hospital medication dispensation process. The resulting list of security requirements was made by analysing the previously built prototype of the Smart Dosing application, continuous interactive discussions with the nursing researchers, and an exhaustive state-of-the-art study on security risks of using mobile applications in hospital context. The thesis also uses Octave Allegro method to make the readers understand the likelihood and impact of threats, and what steps should be taken to prevent or fix them. The security requirements obtained, as a result, are a starting point for the developers of the next iteration of the prototype for the Smart Dosing application.

Usability Requirements for Complex Cyber-Physical Systems in a Totally Networked World

Part 7: Cyber-Physical Systems