Specific Design Guidelines Research Articles

Designing inclusive tech playful educative solutions for visually impaired learners in STEM education

Education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is essential to achieving continued technological advancement. The most critical years for instilling knowledge are during childhood, and a strategic way to accomplish this is through playful materials. Therefore, there is a need to develop more inclusive solutions to achieve the good inclusion of visually impaired (VI) learners in this learning area. Despite their importance, specific design guidelines are scarce for developing playful, educational solutions for VI learners in STEM. Qualitative research was conducted through interviews and observations of the interactions between VI Learners playing an audio game and tactile 3D printed blocks, which covered an age range of young participants aged 8–18 years and adults aged 30–40 years in Taiwan. Surprisingly, the results showed that the combination of tangible and audio elements for playful purposes opens the way for students to show interest during educational interactions and, at the same time, allows them to understand the concept, especially when presented in different game missions but repeating the same principle/concept. In conclusion, there is a need for more inclusive strategies and approaches for playful STEM tools for VI learners, and one important aspect of achieving this is design guidelines. This study aims to understand the educational context of VI learners and their interactions when playing with educational materials to learn STEM concepts and develop design guidelines for the future development of playful STEM educational games.

The Formation and Preservation of Urban Heritage Through Urban Landscape Transformation: A Case Study of Pittsburgh

This study examines the potential of urban landscape transformation to generate and develop new heritage and the role of heritage urbanism in an industrial city. It explores whether the changeover of urban heritage districts in Pittsburgh (PA, USA) can give rise to a novel type of urban heritage. Pittsburgh experienced urban development primarily driven by the presence and accessibility of natural resources, rather than favorable geographical conditions: topography characterized by rugged hills, rock formations, rivers, and stream valleys. The integration of the American-style grid within this unique natural environment resulted in intriguing juxtapositions. Consequently, elements such as bridges, viaducts, stairs, tunnels, and historical inclines gained paramount importance in shaping the urban fabric. The city’s remaining preserved or transformed urban heritage is protected through historic districts designated by the Department of City Planning, which enforces specific planning and design guidelines. The study employs a multi-faceted approach combining the concepts of historic stratification (urban palimpsest), integrated urban morphology, space syntax (integration analysis), and heritage urbanism. During the personally conducted long-term fieldwork, the selected case studies described herein (historic districts, university campus, and traditional neighborhood) proved to be the most suitable for demonstrating urban heritage formation through urban landscape transformation.

UISGPT: Automated Mobile UI Design Smell Detection with Large Language Models

Manual inspection and remediation of guideline violations (UI design smells) is a knowledge-intensive, time-consuming, and context-related task that requires a high level of expertise. This paper proposes UISGPT, a novel end-to-end approach for automatically detecting user interface (UI) design smells and explaining each violation of specific design guidelines in natural language. To avoid hallucinations in large language models (LLMs) and achieve interpretable results, UISGPT uses few-shot learning and least-to-most prompting strategies to formalize design guidelines. To prevent the model from exceeding the input window size and for the enhancement of the logic in responses, UISGPT divides design smell detection into the following three subtasks: design guideline formalization, UI component information extraction, and guideline validation. The experimental results show that UISGPT performs effectively in automatically detecting design violations (F1 score of 0.729). In comparison to the latest LLM methods, the design smell reports generated by UISGPT have higher contextual consistency and user ratings.

Digital Nudging and Cookie Rejection: An Experiment

AbstractWhen browsing the Internet, web users tend to accept all cookies even though this may threaten their online security. We apply a salience nudge and a framing nudge to the design of a cookie banner and test their individual and combined effectiveness in fostering rejection of unnecessary cookies in an online experiment (N = 358). The salience nudge makes the rejection button more visible, and the framing nudge phrases button labels as negations. Compared to the control with no nudges, which elicited a rejection rate of 27%, the salience nudge increased rejection rate by 7 percentage points (but p = 0.305), the framing nudge by 18 pp (p = 0.009), and the combination of the two by 53 pp (p < 0.0001). We also find that, when users are offered a customization option rather than the rejection button, only 3% of them select the option and reject non-necessary cookies. Finally, we explore how cookie rejection is related to the time users spend making the decision and to their personality traits. Our findings suggest that cookie rejection can indeed be fostered by an appropriate design of cookie banners and that legislation for protecting the online security of users should introduce specific design guidelines.

Reconstruction and validation of ground motions across dip-slip faults: an application to response analysis of a long-span suspension bridge

Recent seismic events have unequivocally highlighted the susceptibility of fault-crossing bridges to the synergistic effects of ground surface vibrations on either side of the fault plane and the tectonic dislocations arising from fault-induced surface ruptures. This study delineates both seismic and parametric response analyses of fault-crossing suspension bridges, employing a straightforward yet efficacious method for simulating desired ground motions near fault-rupture zones. Herein, we introduce a user-friendly method to incorporate predicted fault-induced displacements, accounting for both fling-step and directivity effects, into processed ground motion chronologies, enabling the generation of dip-slip fault ground motions. The accuracy and efficacy of the proposed method are affirmed by juxtaposing the generated ground motions with the observed ones (MGM). An exhaustive parametric analysis, addressing factors like fault-crossing location, fault-crossing angle, and frequency components of fault-crossing ground motions, of a suspension bridge over a rupture fault, is executed using the fashionable ANSYS software. This study provides clear and specific guidelines for the seismic design of suspension bridges traversing rupture faults.

Proposing an Approach for the Diffusion of Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPVs)—A Case Study

Consistent probing into building integrity has led to the exploration of clean energy options such as building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV). BIPV has proven to be aesthetically pleasing, architecturally feasible, and capable of making buildings energy producers instead of mere energy consumers. Despite the enormous benefits of BIPV, its adoption and diffusion have been relatively sluggish and remain far below expectations, especially in developing countries like Ghana. This empirical study aims to assess the impact of advertising on BIPV awareness in Ghana. It also highlights the aesthetic preferences of various respondents. The study uses online surveys to gather quantitative data from 412 respondents across all 16 regions of the country. An initial study conducted on the awareness of BIPV in Ghana indicated a low rate of awareness. Therefore, a sensitisation poster and architectural visualization (AV) were adopted to boost awareness across all 16 regions of the country. Awareness of BIPV increased from 18% to 79.5% after the introduction of the sensitisation poster. Also, 88.8% of the respondents preferred BIPV to Building Applied Photovoltaic (BAPV) mainly because of aesthetics (beauty) and the cost benefits. The respondents indicated that aesthetics is paramount when choosing solar panels for their homes. This study therefore recommends high investment in awareness creation, development of specific design guidelines for BIPV applications and establishment of demo projects in developing countries. The findings of this study contribute to the existing literature on BIPV adoption and may be useful for BIPV manufacturers, marketers, government, and other stakeholders as it provides evidence on the often-neglected approach to BIPV diffusion.

Development of a methodology for the derivation of technical requirements for (cyber-) physical product-service systems in service-oriented business models

Digitalization and Industry 4.0 are catalysts for business model innovation, particularly in machinery and plant engineering. Service-oriented business models (Subscription, pay-per-use, …) have emerged as a promising avenue, fostering sustainable product-service systems (PSS) and nurturing enduring customer relationships. Unlike traditional transactional models, where customers make one-time purchases of products or services, subscription models involve regular payments for access to offerings over time or provide on-demand access to services or resources, often through cloud-based platforms. This offers significant advantages for vendors, allowing for predictable, recurring revenue streams and the ability to tailor offerings better, thus evolving customer needs. Simultaneously, customers benefit from increased flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and access to the latest solutions, creating a win-win scenario for both parties. The transition to "as-a-service" models significantly changes the prerequisites and requirements for the PSS and thus requires a comprehensive reassessment of its core requirements. While various approaches exist for designing PSS within the machine tool industry, none systematically delineates the specific design guidelines required to adapt effectively for service-oriented business models. This paper describes a methodology for the derivation of characteristics of service-oriented business models in the machine tool industry and their implications for the design of (cyber-) physical PSS.

Structural behaviour of built‐up battened cold‐formed steel columns

AbstractBuilt‐up cold‐formed steel (CFS) columns are extensively used when single cold‐formed steel elements are not able to fulfill the established requirements in terms of load‐bearing capacity. For hot‐rolled steel laced and battened columns, the EN 1993‐1‐1 presents specific design provisions. However, no specific design guidelines are provided for CFS laced and battened columns. The investigation on this type of built‐up elements is scarce, requiring extensive research to assess if the hot‐rolled design methodologies are also suitable for cold‐formed steel elements. In this investigation, experimental and numerical results are presented for CFS battened columns comprising C and Σ channels. Assessing the composite action between the individual shapes connected by the batten plates was one of the objectives of this investigation. The predominant buckling modes were analyzed considering the influence of batten plate spacing and the number of fasteners per plate. Based on the obtained experimental results finite element models were developed to further assess the influence of key governing parameters. The observed axial strengths are compared with design strengths determined according to the Eurocode assessing the suitability of the design methodologies.

Polishing of metal 3D printed parts with complex geometry: Visualizing the influence on geometrical features using centrifugal disk finishing.

Parts produced with metal additive manufacturing often suffer from a poor surface finish. Surface finishing techniques are effective to improve the quality of 3D printed surfaces, however they have as downsides that they also slightly change the geometry of the part, in an unpredictable way. This effect on the geometrical features of complex parts has received little attention. In this research, we illustrate a method to visualize the impact of surface finishing techniques on geometrical features, as well as their effectiveness on parts with high shape-complexity, by using centrifugal disk finishing as a case study. We designed and 3D printed test parts with different features using selective laser melting, which were coated with a blue metal lacquer prior to polishing. After polishing, the blue lacquer was eroded away from the spots that were easily reached by the polishing process, yet had remained on the surfaces that could not be reached by the process. We used measurements of material removal and image processing of the remaining blue lacquer on the surfaces to analyze these effects. Using this method, we were able to derive a number of specific design guidelines that can be incorporated while designing metal AM parts for centrifugal disk finishing. We suggest that this visualization method can be applied to different polishing methods to gain insight into their influence, as well as being used as an aid in the design process.

Evaluation of the Visual Comfort and Daylight Performance of the Visual Art Classrooms

The daylight in classrooms is a crucial aspect that affects the quality of the learning environment and the overall performance of the students. Visual arts, such as painting, sculpture, carving, textile design and photography, require specific lighting conditions, which are different from the regular classroom standards. Due to the limited number of studies in this area, it is necessary to examine the specificities of different types of visual arts and to provide specific design guidelines for lighting enhancement. This study focuses on the evaluation of the daylight performance of the classrooms of the “Jordan Misja” art school located in Tirana, Albania. The research methodology begins with the site survey and observations. Ten art studios are selected, including painting, sculpture, scenography, photography, textiles, carving, drawing, and mixed arts. Further, computational simulations including the illuminance, daylight factor and the glare are conducted in order to evaluate the daylight performance. The daylight satisfaction survey is focused on the visual comfort, glare, usage of artificial light and light control strategies. Based on that, the generalized standards for the arts and crafts studios are revised and specific design strategies and daylight control guidelines are suggested for different types of arts.

Design for circularity and durability: an integrated approach from DFX guidelines

The design of circular products is now a trending topic that involves enabling reuse, repair, refurbishing, remanufacturing, and upgrading parts and products. In this field, using Design For X (DFX) tools appears to be an interesting and helpful way to address requirements and considerations by applying single design rules that can enhance performance in terms of circularity. However, the current DFX approaches are not formally oriented to a circular economy (CE), and there is no clear pathway to apply design rules for circular products. Therefore, this article proposes a classification of DFX rules based on seven CE strategies related to slowing and closing the loop of products, parts, and materials. The proposed approach consisted of a literature review, an analysis of DFX rules related to CE, and the classification of such rules in terms of CE strategies and product design stages. The analysis of DFX rules in product circularity provided insights to generate a specific design guideline of 51 rules for circular products. The guideline was denominated as the Design for Circularity and Durability (DFCD) and is proposed as a design tool for practitioners, designers, and academicians in CE. A case study is also presented to demonstrate the implementation and benefits of the DFCD guideline.

The Use of Steel Slags in Asphalt Pavements: A State-of-the-Art Review

Steel slag is a by-product obtained through the separation of molten steel from impurities in steel-making furnaces. It can be produced by different types of furnaces (blast, basic oxygen, electric arc, ladle furnaces). The reuse of metallurgical slags in road pavements can pursue aims of recycling and environmental sustainability. Based on the extensive literature, the paper presents a state-of-the-art review concerning the use of slags in asphalt pavements, discussing the main controversial literature findings. Slag manufacturing processes, chemical, morphological, and physical characteristics, affect its contribution to the asphalt mixture, when it partially or fully substitutes natural aggregates. Legislative state-of-the-art environmental issues, weathering, and leaching aspects are also discussed. The main mechanical and durability properties of pavements containing different types of slags are analyzed based on laboratory and field studies. Generally, the higher mechanical properties of steel slag suggest that its inclusion in asphalt mixtures can provide high-performance pavement layers (excellent strength and stiffness, superior rutting and fatigue resistance, low moisture susceptibility). However, several research gaps still exist (e.g., mix design and seasoning procedure, bitumen–aggregate affinity, low-temperature behavior, brittleness); they are discussed to direct possible future study efforts to clarify specific technical aspects, such as, for example, the effect of slag morphology and physical properties on the final mix properties and the development of specific mix design guidelines.

System Design Principles: adaptation to time for long living autonomous systems

The article presents the principles of creating systems with the adaptation to the operation time. In the literature on systems design the adaptation mostly concerned: 1) the unknown object structure; 2) the unknown object parameters; 3) unknown parameters of input signals; 4) the unknown functions of system state dynamics; and 5) unknown environment conditions. It usually assumed that the control process is intended to achieve a certain, usually optimal state of the system, - such way the “adaptive system concept” are close to “optimal system concept”. The other approach for system design with these conditions is robustness, as robust control does not need a priori information about the bounds on these uncertain or time-varying parameters; robust control guarantees that if the changes are within given bounds the control law need not be changed, while adaptive control is concerned with control law changing itself. In the last 10 – 15 years there was introduced the new approach as “resilient systems”. “Resilience engineering” may look like “repairing engineering” – it is assumed that errors or malfunctions occur “for sure” and the system should respond appropriately to this.
 The system operation time, as the cause of adaptation, was very rare considered, mostly when reliability issues are discussing. The proposed approach is new. The proposed principles should be used with known approaches of dependable system design, – these are engineering and information theory redundancy. Both approaches must be used in the design phase and are unchanged structural parameters of the system during operations. There were concerned mostly “long-living systems” and the same task of reliability.
 Proposed principles can be used in the development of the systems designed for continuous operation with absence of the possibility of external human intervention to restore system performance or some maintenance procedures. By «system» in this article are meant «Complex Adaptive Systems» (CAS). Currently, the proposed approach can be attributed to the development of "Artificial General Intelligence" (AGI). Examples of such systems include space-based and underwater-based robotic systems. By “Adaptability of the system to time” – in the sense of control process – it is meant a certain structural reconfiguration of the system, considering the non-stationary nature of stochastic processes of errors, damages, and system failures.
 The formulation of principles is of a general declarative nature – at this stage the author gives preference to the essence of the proposal, rather than its formalization. The article does not provide specific design guidelines, but contains some examples of possible applications, mainly to highlight the essence of the proposals.

Conceptual design and analysis for a novel parallel configuration-type wave energy converter

Oscillating body wave energy converter (OBWEC) is an essential way to exploit wave energy. Existing OBWECs with a single degree of freedom (DOF) suffer from a low energy conversion ratio. Although this power generation limit of OBWECs can be alleviated by increasing DOF, for the multi-DOF OBWEC, specific structure design guidelines, accurate energy conversion modeling and economic cost-related performance analysis at the conceptual design stage are still missing. To address this gap, this study proposes a novel parallel configuration WEC (PCWEC) with the idea of combining the advantages of multi-DOF OBWEC and parallel structure. The PCWEC energy conversion model is established under irregular wave states. Furthermore, we propose an energy cost-efficiency indicator and perform the performance comparison analysis and simulation experiments. Compared with typical OBWECs, results validate that the proposed PCWEC has the following advantages: (i) a significant power generation increase under the same device scale, (ii) greater optimal output power by power take-off control, and (iii) higher energy cost-efficiency under changing wave states. Such a novel PCWEC design concept improves the current OBWEC's power generation performance and application prospect and offers certain guidance for the future commercial development of OBWECs.

Insights into high-entropy material synthesis dynamics criteria based on a thermodynamic framework.

High-entropy materials (HEMs) have attracted increasing research interests owing to their structural diversity and great potential for regulation. Numerous HEMs synthesis criteria have so far been reported but most are based on thermodynamics while a guiding basis for the synthesis of HEMs is lacking, resulting in many synthesis problems. Based on the overall thermodynamic formation criterion of HEMs, this study has explored the principles of the synthesis dynamics required based on this criterion and the influence of different synthesis kinetic rates on the final products of the reaction, filling the gap suggesting that thermodynamic criteria cannot guide the specific process changes. This will effectively provide more specific guidelines for the top-level design of material synthesis. By considering various aspects of HEMs synthesis criteria, new technologies suitable for high-performance HEMs catalysts were extracted. Also, the physical and chemical characteristics of the HEMs obtained from actual synthesis can be predicted in a better way, playing an important role in the personalized customization of HEMs with specific performance. Future development directions of HEMs synthesis were prospected for possible prediction and customization of HEMs catalysts with high performance.

Resonant Inertial Mass Sensing for VOCs—CMOS-Compatible SoC Integration Advantages and Challenges: A Review

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have gained the biomedical community’s attention given their relevance in exhaled human breath analysis for noninvasive disease diagnosis. Today, only bulky, expensive, and high-skill bench-top equipment is commercially available to reach the outstanding resolution and selectivity required for their detection. However, these solutions fail to meet the society demands of portable and low-cost devices required for point-of-care diagnosis and e-health. In this line, resonant inertial mass sensing has emerged as a promising technique to achieve high-resolution VOCs’ identification, fulfilling the portability requirements. Their excellent distributed mass sensitivity and integration capabilities within standard CMOS microfabrication techniques constitute excellent candidates for building lab-on-chip applications in line with current technological trends. The capability of operating as self-sustained oscillators provides an inherent real-time tracking system with quasi-digital output. Resonator coating using novel sensing films for specific analyte caption is required to boost the mass loading effect and improve sensing selectivity. This article reviews and analyzes the resonator topologies proposed in the literature together with the techniques used for electromechanical transduction, as well as coating materials and procedures. The ultimate goal is to discuss the advantages achieved for CMOS fully integrated solutions, analyzing the state of the art in the field and providing specific design guidelines while foreseeing upcoming trends.

Toolkit for the efficient articulation of sustainable strategies with design and management methodology used by AECO industry in Latin America

Digital transformation is changing the world, and with it the construction and architecture industry, however, although there are many collaborative work frameworks for digitization, and agile philosophies among different professionals, the methodologies of creative processes throughout the entire life cycle of a project that involves sustainability strategies have been greatly reduced and relegated over time. Latin America has the highest levels of biodiversity, a wide variety of climates, a~range of implementations and sustainable opportunities that have been sidelined versus the speed of innovation in construction projects, in this context, the design philosophy based on nature must be implemented as a premise from leaders to developers, regardless of the management method used. This document studies the sustainable construction progress in five Latin American countries, analyzing climatic, regulatory and socioeconomic aspects, with the aim of increasing processes efficiency towards better sustainable constructions. Consequently, it proposes a methodology for the creation of an effective sustainable tool which works hand in hand with information systems and synchronous digital collaboration (BIM, VCD or IPD), in order to improve the design and management of sustainable projects throughout their life cycle through specific design strategies and design guidelines for each city, using the cities of Buenos Aires, Brasilia, Santiago, Bogotá and Lima as a case study.

Analyzing Log Data of Students Who Have Achieved Scores Adjacent to the Minimum Passing Grade for a K-MOOC Completion in the Context of Learning Analytics

Collecting and analyzing log data can provide students with individualized learning to maintain their motivation and engagement in learning activities and reduce dropout in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). As online learning becomes more and more important, the demand for learning analytics is surging to design a variety of interventions that can achieve learning success and achieve individual learning goals and targets. In response to significant demand, we intended to derive data standards for learning analytics by specifying more the factors influencing MOOC completion suggested in previous research results. Therefore, this study aims to compare the event logs of students who have achieved scores adjacent to the minimum passing score of Korean Massive Open Online Course (K-MOOC) completion by dividing them into the completion (C) group and the non-completion (NC) group. As a result of analyzing the log data accumulated on the 60 K-MOOCs, what is interesting in the results of this study is that there was no significant difference between the C group and the NC group in video viewing, which is considered the main learning activity on the MOOC platform. On the other hand, there was a statistically significant difference between the C group and the NC group for textbook interactions in the percentage of learners who performed and the average number of logs per learner, as well as problem interactions in the average number of logs per learner. Students’ assertive activities such as textbook interaction and problem interaction might have greater value for MOOC completion than passive activities such as video watching. Therefore, MOOC instructors and developers should explore more specific design guidelines on how to provide problems with individualized hints and feedback and offer effective digital textbooks or reference materials for the large number of students. The results suggest that collecting and analyzing MOOC students’ log data on interactions, for understanding their motivation and engagement, should be investigated to create an individualized learning environment and increase their learning persistence in completing MOOCs. Future studies should focus on investigating meaningful patterns of the event logs on learning activities in massive quantitative and qualitative data sets.

Electrolyte Solvation Structure Design for Sodium Ion Batteries.

Sodium ion batteries (SIBs) are considered the most promising battery technology in the post‐lithium era due to the abundant sodium reserves. In the past two decades, exploring new electrolytes for SIBs has generally relied on the “solid electrolyte interphase (SEI)” theory to optimize the electrolyte components. However, many observed phenomena cannot be fully explained by the SEI theory. Therefore, electrolyte solvation structure and electrode–electrolyte interface behavior have recently received tremendous research interest to explain the improved performance. Considering there is currently no review paper focusing on the solvation structure of electrolytes in SIBs, a systematic survey on SIBs is provided, in which the specific solvation structure design guidelines and their consequent impact on the electrochemical performance are elucidated. The key driving force of solvation structure formation, and the recent advances in adjusting SIB solvation structures are discussed in detail. It is believed that this review can provide new insights into the electrolyte optimization strategies of high‐performance SIBs and even other emerging battery systems.

Application of Viscoelastic Tuned Mass Dampers in Vibration Mitigation of Steel Joist Jack Arch Floor Structures

A common situation found in many old and modern buildings is the annoying floor vibration. Many old buildings suffer floor vibration as no specific design guidelines were employed to limit the situation. In modern buildings, the development of floors of lighter weight, longer span, and less inherent damping is the main cause for the annoying vibration. In this paper, as a novel application, the influence of viscoelastic tuned mass dampers (TMDs) in vibration mitigation of an existing steel joist jack arch floor structure is investigated using finite element (FE) analysis. Results of a free vibration test conducted on the prototype TMDs are used to validate the FE model. The jack arch floor is subjected to the walking loads of different stepping rates of 1.5, 2, and 3 Hz. Various load models that are available in the literature are used to define the dynamic walking load, and the response mitigation is carried out based on the most critical load models. The influence of design parameters such as the excitation frequency, configuration of the individual dampers in the TMD system, and the mass ratio of the TMD system on the vibration mitigation of the floor structure are investigated in detail. Results of this study indicate that the viscoelastic TMDs are effective in vibration mitigation of jack arch floor structures.