A popular trend in depression forecasting research is the development of machine learning models trained with various types of smartphone sensor data and periodic self-ratings to derive early indications of changes in depression severity. While most works focus on model performance, there is little concern about the universal usability and reliable operation of such systems across smartphone platforms. This review serves as foundational work for the MENTINA clinical trial, which investigates smartphone-based health self-management for depression. The usability and reliability of mobile apps for depression are commonly perceived through the lens of the approaches and interventions offered rather than the reliability of the built-in mobile phone functions to support effortless and exact delivery of intended interventions. This work aimed to synthesize existing systematic reviews to identify smartphone sensor modalities used in mental health monitoring and, building on this foundation, assess the cross-platform availability of these data streams using PhoneDB to inform the design and implementation of digital depression indication systems. To identify the already used hardware and software sensors and their purposes in mental health monitoring, an umbrella review was conducted. Three electronic databases, including PubMed, Web of Science Core Collection, and Scopus, were searched using smartphone, sensor data, and depression keyword combination to retrieve relevant literature reviews published within the last 5 years (2019-2024). Once the initial search was completed, the extracted hardware sensors were checked for availability on Android and iOS smartphones by analyzing device specifications in PhoneDB over the last 10 years. The extracted data streams observed across the 9 included studies covered 16 hardware and 3 software data streams. Hardware data streams included accelerometers, barometers, battery levels, Bluetooth, cameras, cellular networks, GPSs, gyroscopes, humidity, light sensors, magnetometers, proximity sensors, sound sensors, step counters, temperature sensors, and Wi-Fi. Software data streams included app usage, call and message logs, and screen status. Hardware component availability on Android and iOS systems showed the changes in component trends from 2014 to 2024 as of September 2024, with the accelerometers, batteries, cameras, and GPSs remaining consistent on Android and iOS, while components such as gyroscopes, step counters, and barometers gradually increased over the years, particularly on Android. Multiple data streams identified in the literature review showed a consistent increase in availability over time, enabling improved use of these outputs for depression forecasting and the training of machine learning models with diverse smartphone data, including sensor-derived information. For more precise and reliable data to be used in the mental health field, particularly in critical areas such as tracking and predicting changes in depression severity, further research is required to streamline smartphone data across varying mobile hardware and software configurations to provide reliable output for digital mental health purposes.

The rapid evolution of digital health tools and artificial intelligence has a transformative potential to improve mental health care access and delivery, yet people are often uninformed about their data. Privacy notices (or simply, “notices”) often fail to inform readers due to their length, complexity, and lack of accessibility. This study employs a value-sensitive design (VSD) approach to conceptually, empirically, and technically investigate how digital mental health notices can meaningfully inform their readers. Through a conceptual investigation, a conceptual model from prior VSD works was adapted to explicitly include the concept of meaningful consent. Honesty, helpfulness, universal usability, and privacy were the human values that were mapped to the different domains of the conceptual model for meaningful consent. Using these values as a framework, an empirical investigation and technical investigations were conducted to identify the values people associate with meaningful consent (empirical) and the tensions that exist between values in more innovative notice designs (technical). To identify the values and value tensions, 19 interviews were conducted with a diverse sample of past, present, and potential users of the Hope by Centre for Addiction and Mental Health suicide safety planning app to explore their views on meaningful consent. The findings from the empirical investigations added depth to the value definitions, where participants described honesty as “transparency,” emphasizing being upfront, straightforward, and candid. Helpfulness centered on simplifying notices and enhancing user experience and interfaces for better comprehension. Universal usability stressed equitable, compassionate design, while privacy required clear, formal choices (e.g., “yes” or “no”) in notices. The technical investigation identified tensions predominantly between honesty and helpfulness, where over-simple or over-complex designs can be received with skepticism. Based on these findings, this study provides recommendations for adjustments to existing guidelines for meaningful consent.

The advancement of science and technology in society has become an important need, impacting the improvement of human resource quality and the emergence of new fields such as Visual Communication Design (DKV). One form of DKV development is User interface (UI), which helps users get information and interact with products. In supporting design processing, software assistance is needed, one of which is CorelDraw X7. To determine the quality of the CorelDraw X7 UI, an analysis was carried out using the theory of 8 Golden Rules of Interface Design which has indicators: Strive For Consistency, Seek Universal Usability, Offer Informative Feedback, Design Dialogs to Yield Closure, prevent errors, Permit Easy Reversal of Actions, Keep Users in Control, and minimize short-term memory load. The results of this study using the descriptive qualitative method show that the CorelDraw X7 UI is in the good category. Three indicators, namely Strive For Consistency, Seek Universal Usability, and Permit Easy Reversal of Actions, are applied optimally. Four indicators are applied well but not optimally, namely Offer Informative Feedback, prevent errors, Keep Users in Control, and minimize short-term memory load. The Design Dialogs to Yield Closure indicator is in the less than good category. Suggestions for improvement include reducing feedback delay, updating the status bar icon, adding languages ​​other than English-US, and updating the toolbox icon to reduce errors in selecting tools.

Users of head-mounted displays (HMDs) for virtual reality (VR) sometimes have balance issues since HMDs impede their view of the outside world. This has a greater impact on people with balance impairments since many rely more heavily on their visual cues to keep their balance. This is a significant obstacle to the universal usability and accessibility of VR. Although previous studies have verified the imbalance issue, not much work has been done to diminish it. In this study, we investigated how to increase VR balance by utilizing additional visual cues. To examine how different visual approaches (static, rhythmic, spatial, and center of pressure (CoP) based feedback) affect balance in VR, we recruited 100 people (50 with balance impairments due to multiple sclerosis and 50 without balance impairments) across two different geographic locations (United States and Bangladesh). All people completed both standing visual exploration as well as standing reach and grasp tasks. Results demonstrated that static, rhythmic, and CoP visual feedback approaches enhanced balance significantly ($p\lt . 05$) in VR for people with balance impairments. The methods described in this study could be applied to design more accessible virtual environments for people with balance impairments.

Effectively handling the limited number of surgery operating rooms equipped with expensive equipment is a challenging task for hospital management such as reducing the case-time duration and reducing idle time. Improving the efficiency of operating room usage via reducing the idle time with better scheduling would rely on accurate estimation of surgery duration. Our model can achieve a good prediction result on surgery duration with a dozen of features. We have found the result of our best performing department-specific XGBoost model with the values 31.6 min, 18.71 min, 0.71, 28% and 27% for the metrics of root-mean-square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), coefficient of determination (), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) and proportion of estimated result within 10% variation, respectively. We have presented each department-specific result with our estimated results between 5 and 10 min deviation would be more informative to the users in the real application. Our study shows comparable performance with previous studies, and the machine learning methods use fewer features that are better suited for universal usability.

BackgroundThe size, velocity, and heterogeneity of Big Data outclasses conventional data management tools and requires data and metadata to be fully machine-actionable (i.e., eScience-compliant) and thus findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR). This can be achieved by using ontologies and through representing them as semantic graphs. Here, we discuss two different semantic graph approaches of representing empirical data and metadata in a knowledge graph, with phenotype descriptions as an example. Almost all phenotype descriptions are still being published as unstructured natural language texts, with far-reaching consequences for their FAIRness, substantially impeding their overall usability within the life sciences. However, with an increasing amount of anatomy ontologies becoming available and semantic applications emerging, a solution to this problem becomes available. Researchers are starting to document and communicate phenotype descriptions through the Web in the form of highly formalized and structured semantic graphs that use ontology terms and Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) to circumvent the problems connected with unstructured texts.ResultsUsing phenotype descriptions as an example, we compare and evaluate two basic representations of empirical data and their accompanying metadata in the form of semantic graphs: the class-based TBox semantic graph approach called Semantic Phenotype and the instance-based ABox semantic graph approach called Phenotype Knowledge Graph. Their main difference is that only the ABox approach allows for identifying every individual part and property mentioned in the description in a knowledge graph. This technical difference results in substantial practical consequences that significantly affect the overall usability of empirical data. The consequences affect findability, accessibility, and explorability of empirical data as well as their comparability, expandability, universal usability and reusability, and overall machine-actionability. Moreover, TBox semantic graphs often require querying under entailment regimes, which is computationally more complex.ConclusionsWe conclude that, from a conceptual point of view, the advantages of the instance-based ABox semantic graph approach outweigh its shortcomings and outweigh the advantages of the class-based TBox semantic graph approach. Therefore, we recommend the instance-based ABox approach as a FAIR approach for documenting and communicating empirical data and metadata in a knowledge graph.

Digital technology is instrumental in designing e-government services to achieve environmental sustainability. This study aims to implicate essential human values for designing a Digital Government Collaborative Platform (DGCP), which seeks to enhance the collaboration between citizens and government officers to address environmental issues in Sri Lanka. The study adopts a value sensitive design (VSD) approach to identify human values to conceptualize the design. The results reveal 15 human values shared by citizens and officers of environmental authorities: transparency, safety, universal usability, feedback, authenticity, fairness, representativeness, accountability, legitimacy, informed consent, autonomy, awareness, human welfare, attitude, and trust. In addition to the identified human values, four system feature categories have been proposed from interviews. Thus, the study advances knowledge in designing an e-government system for collaboration between citizens and government officers, especially in tackling environmental problems in developing countries. Further, the study contributes knowledge to VSD for digital collaboration for improving environmental sustainability.

In recent years, smartphone devices are becoming progressively popular across a diverse range of users. However, user diversity creates challenges in smartphone application (app) development. The diversity of users is often ignored by designers and developers due to the absence of requirements. Owing to this, many smartphone users face usability issues. Despite that, no dedicated platform found that guide smartphone app designers and developers regarding human universality. The aim of this research is to explore the requirements of diverse users in smartphone apps and provide usability guidelines. The objectives of this research are achieved by following two scientific approaches. The human diversity requirements are located by conducting usability tests that investigated the requirements in the form of usability issues. The systematic literature review (SLR) process is followed in order to resolve the discovered usability issues. Both approaches resulted in a list of usability issues and guidelines. The usability tests returned 27 problems while the SLR came with a comprehensive set of universal usability guidelines that were grouped into eleven categories. The study concluded with some major outcomes. The results show evidence of critical usability problems that must be addressed during the design and development of smartphone apps. Moreover, the study also revealed that people with disabilities were three times severely affected by usability problems in such apps than people of different ages and their needs must be considered a top priority in the development of smartphone apps.

Universal design for learning (UDL) is a construct that first appeared in the literature approximately 20 years ago. Yet, there is little agreement about what UDL looks like in the classroom. The purpose of this article is to assist students, educators, and parents in identifying universal usability designs, behaviors, and tools that reflect the practice of UDL in the classroom. Three types of exemplars are highlighted: platform tools, web-based curricula, and embedded supports. It is argued that knowing what UDL looks like is an essential step in measuring the outcomes of UDL.

This is the third and final column of a special series on the topic of universal design for learning. Interested readers are encouraged to review the previous two articles: Enhancing Executive Function While Addressing Learner Variability in Inclusive Classrooms (Volume 56, Issue 3) and Classroom Menus for Supporting the Academic Success of Diverse Learners (Volume 56, Issue 4). In the following column, I examine the relationship between universal usability and universal design for learning (UDL).

Abstract Background Universal Design is a design process that enables people of all ability levels by improving human performance, wellness and social participation. The research aims at developing a performance-based assessment tool adopting Universal Design to enhance users' benefits and positive outcomes such as usability, well-being and social inclusion focusing on healthcare environment. Methods The evaluation framework resulted by different methodologies: a systematic literature review on existing Universal Design tools; workshops with both users and experts and the analysis of hospital case studies. Multi-criteria analysis is adopted as methodology to develop a hierarchical framework able to compare quantitative and qualitative aspects of the same project. A rating system based on a checklist is used to evaluate performance. Results The tool structure is based on a hierarchical framework composed by 3 Categories (Physical/spatial quality; Sensorial/cognitive quality and Social quality); 8 Criteria (Usability, Functionality, Safety and Security, Wayfinding, Understanding, Environmental factors, Well-being and Social Inclusion); 20 Indicators and a plurality of requirements. Since the needs of users (patients, visitors, staff) change in relation to the space setting, the tool assess the quality considering different areas of the hospital: Outdoor Spaces, Entrance, Interior Circulation, Support Spaces (waiting areas, bathrooms, food services), Work Spaces (exam rooms, offices) and Overall Service. Conclusions The proposed tool can foster public health supporting the management of healthcare environment in taking decisions on universal usability and multisensory quality perception through a performance-based approach. The tool has been validated in a hospital of the State of New York, focusing on public areas and outpatient department. Further applications in various healthcare facilities of the Italian context are aimed to implement the tool. Key messages The assessment tool aims to support designers and healthcare management from the beginning of the design project to ensure public health and inclusive design through a performance-based approach. The tool based on Universal Design allows to evaluate spatial, sensory and social quality considering the relation between hospital areas and users’ needs that influence people’s well-being.

Prices are considered to be an only, directly observable market parameter, deciding on a degree of implementation of functions of market entities. The variability is inherent to prices, in accordance to an attribute of functioning on competitive market. Examination of factors affecting the prices is particularly significant on account of occurrence of many potential variables which may impact their levels and still increasing market ties among particular economies. Potato is one of the basic agricultural raw materials in the world. Potato is of high economic value, mainly through the universal usability both by manufacturers as well as consumers. The purpose of the article was to determine of variables characterizing strong dependency on evolving level of potato prices in the EU countries. Attempts of building a model aimed at depicting potato prices evolution in the European Union countries under an influence of particular variables was performed using panel data models. Conducted analyses allowed to indicate the occurrence of regional variation of potato prices in particular European Union countries. It was also shown that essential impact on a potato prices level is potato production volume, value of gross domestic product and potato import volumes.

Premium factor – Analyzing usage of premium cars compared to conventional cars

Quality of life (QoL) is an important outcome measure in mental health care. Currently, QoL is mainly measured with paper and pencil questionnaires. To contribute to the evaluation of treatment, and to enhance substantiated policy decisions in the allocation of resources, a web-based, personalized, patient-friendly and easy to administer QoL instrument has been developed: the QoL-ME. While human values play a significant role in shaping future use practices of technologies, it is important to anticipate on them during the design of the QoL-instrument. The value sensitive design (VSD) approach offers a theory and method for addressing these values in a systematic and principled manner in the design of technologies. While the VSD approach has been applied in the field of somatic care, we extended the VSD approach to the field of mental healthcare with the aim to enable developers of the QoL-instrument to reflect on important human values and anticipate potential value conflicts in its design. We therefore explored how VSD can be used by investigating the human values that are relevant for the design of the QoL-ME. Our exploration reveals that the values autonomy, efficiency, empowerment, universal usability, privacy, redifinition of roles, (redistribution) of responsibilites, reliability, solidarity, surveillance and trust are at stake for the future users of the technology. However, we argue that theoretical reflections on the potential ethical impact of a technology in the design phase can only go so far. To be able to comprehensively evaluate the usability the VSD approach, a supplementary study of the use practices of the technology is needed.

This paper addresses the problem of accessibility in geographical web maps. A person with disability cannot use, nowadays, a web map with the same functionality as other users do. This problem creates a huge gap in universal usability, since a wide range of people are left out. This contravenes clearly the principles of the Web, which was created to benefit everyone in any circumstances. In addition, this kind of map would be very useful for people with disabilities, but they cannot take advantage of them due to accessibility problems. In this paper, some of the latest technologies (e.g. PostGIS or SVG) are used in order to provide a geographical web map with accessible features. Since no standard way of doing so exists, our objective is to research, design and implement a system which consists on the essential components to provide accessibility. What we propose is one of the many possible solutions, with some advantages and limitations, for the problem of accessibility on geographical web maps. This proposed solution leads to a discussion about the obtained result and some comments on the current state of the technologies involved in web accessibility.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated fuzzy approach to determine important universal usability problems (UUPs) by providing experts who behave like real users and to establish a work plan to correct the most important ones.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, a fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making approach with three stages is proposed for the evaluation of universal usability. At the first stage, UUPs are identified by performing modified heuristic evaluation, and severity rating of each problem is determined by experts. At the second stage, critical problems are specified by applying the fuzzy Delphi considering these severity ratings. At the third stage, Fuzzy Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory approach is applied to prioritize critical problems as sub and main criteria. An illustrative example related to emergency service is performed to apply the proposed approach.FindingsResults showed that the elevator button design, the elevator emergency button design and the position of the floor signboard are the first three problems that should be primarily improved as sub-criteria. In terms of main criteria, equitable use, simple and intuitive use, and perceptible information are the first three main criteria that should be improve in emergency service.Originality/valueThis study is original in terms of methodology and providing a new perspective for building design evaluation. The results can help the designers to see the UUPs in buildings, to focus the most important UUPs and to establish improvement ranking. These advantages provide time and cost-effective design improvement actions.

This paper gives an overview of electronic learning (E-Learning) and mobile learning (M-Learning) adoption and diffusion trends, as well as their particular traits, characteristics and issues, especially in terms of cross-cultural and universal usability. E-Learning and M-Learning models using web services and cloud computing, as well as associated security concerns are all addressed. The benefits and enhancements that accrue from using mobile and other internet devices for the purposes of learning in academia are discussed. The differences between traditional classroom-based learning, distance learning, E-Learning and M-Learning models are compared and some conclusions are drawn.

Universal Design is currently being practised mainly for a limited segment of users and specialised products. In spite of advancement in the field of Universal Design, it has not matured completely to deliver products that are designed for a wide set of users. The presently adopted approaches being divergent prohibit the generation of products meant for all user groups. In this work, Pareto analysis is used to identify the important elements, which contribute to developing true universal products. This paper proposes a framework where four key elements of universal design, i.e., functionality, usability, performance, and product attachment are identified, and their importance underlined to make the product more acceptable. Pugh selection method is used to validate the elements with the help of a case study. The framework leads to product designs that eliminate the prejudicial effect of being labelled to improve their accessibility and acceptability.

Este artigo apresenta os resultados de um estudo de caso com avaliaçao através do método baseado em heurísticas modificado em conformaçao aos princípios do Desenho Universal, em Centro Comercial Planejado. O objetivo principal é analisar o potencial de aplicaçao da avaliaçao heurística modificada como método de inspeçao de usabilidade universal, aliada ao percurso pluralístico. A avaliaçao apresenta tres sessoes subsequentes: (1) pré-entrevista, em que cinco avaliadores especialistas interdisciplinares analisam os projetos arquitetônicos do Centro Comercial Planejado em relaçao aos princípios do Desenho Universal e acessibilidade espacial e preenchem formulário de entrevista estruturada; (2) atividades em cenários, em que cada avaliador responde novamente o formulário no desenvolvimento de atividades pré-definidas; e (3) pós-entrevista, em que os formulários foram novamente respondidos através de reanálise dos projetos arquitetônicos. Como resultado, foi identificado que a avaliaçao heurística modificada pode integrar com eficácia a avaliaçao de projeto antes do fato e na avaliaçao pós-ocupaçao, produzindo interaçao entre análise de projeto arquitetônico e o uso do espaço. Assim sendo, destaca-se a necessidade de estudos mais aprofundados sobre usabilidade universal e seu uso na concepçao de ambientes inclusivos. Esta pesquisa mostrou-se como etapa inicial para a avaliaçao de usabilidade universal na arquitetura e recomenda testes aplicados ao contexto arquitetônico, pois salientam a relevância de análise de elementos interdependentes no ambiente construído e devem ser integrados ao processo de projeto universal.

Abstract Ambulant metallography enables microstructure determinations and surface examinations of large components without the need to take samples, thus avoiding destructive or expensive repairs. Its benefits are the universal usability, quick availability of results and economic efficiency. For 30 years now, the component metallography working group of the German Society for Materials (DGM) runs an annual vocational training where theoretical and practical metallographic working techniques are presented.