Development Of User Research Articles

Scrutinizing Reviews on Computer Science Technologies for Autism: Issues and Challenges

Autism is characterized by a great diversity of disabilities and intensities observed in the development of individuals since their infancy. The search for treatment has increased, and new forms of interventions have emerged, including those involving technology. There are many and different technological solutions that aim to help these individuals learn and execute daily activities. The literature presents a large number of papers describing technologies for autism; however, given the volume of primary and secondary studies, it is difficult to have an overview of the existing solutions and gaps to deal with in future researches. Based on this problem, a literature systematic mapping on review studies about technologies to people with autism was carried out. A total of 33 literature review studies (which analyzed 1298 primary studies) were examined. We categorized these studies according to their area, the support offered, the skill to be developed, the user's development phase, and the kind of technology used. Furthermore, we have also organized the research questions that were already covered in studies and their future works. This will help researchers to identify topics and challenges to be explored by new research.

Barriers to and Enablers of Usability in Electronic Consumer Product Development: A Multiple Case Study

This study identified practitioner-reported barriers to and enablers of usability in the development of electronic consumer products. Barriers and enablers are properties, situations, or conditions in the product development process, team, or context that negatively or positively influence the usability of a product. Based on a review of literature on user-centered design and exploratory expert interview, central concepts for studying usability in practice were identified. This was used as input for the case study, which was conducted at 5 product development groups in large multinationals, making (a) portable audio/video players, (b) personal navigation devices, (c) cell phones, (d) laundry care products, and (e) home control products. Data were primarily collected through interviews with 31 product development practitioners. Based on the data collected, case descriptions were created and more than 1,500 barriers and enablers were identified, categorized, and analyzed. The results of the study are 23 sets of barriers and enablers, of which it is indicated in which of the cases they occur, and accompanied with illustrative quotations from the interviewees. In barriers and enablers, a predominantly “outside–in” relation was observed, from the more external properties of companies (market, company organization) to the more internal (process, team, project). This seems to indicate that the user-centeredness of a product development process is highly influenced by the context in which it is executed. The results also lead to the conclusion that if the goal is to make usable products, one cannot only address activities that are generally considered typical of user-centered design, such as conducting user research and user testing. One also has to take into account how these activities are integrated with and supported by the rest of the product development process, which in turn has to be supported by the product development organization.

Identification of fertility restorers, stable combiners and heterotic combinations across environments in pigeonpea [<em>Cajanus cajanifolius</em> (L.) Millsp.] in India

Efficient and stable cytoplasmic genic male sterility system is a prerequisite for commercial exploitation of heterosis in any crop improvement program. The present investigation was undertaken to identify fertility restorers, stable combiners and best heterotic crosses in pigeonpea [Cajanus cajanifolius (L.) Millsp]. Totally, 75 crosses were developed by using three A4 cytoplasm-based male sterile lines viz., ICPA 2047, ICPA 2092 and ICPA 2089, and 25 diverse inbred lines. The pollen fertility assay identified 15 good restorers with 85-95% fertility status. The 45, best restored combinations identified were assessed across four seasons (August and September, 2012 and 2013) for their stable heterosis and general and specific combining ability to identify parents possessing desirable genes. Variance for combining ability was significant (p<.05) for lines, testers and line × tester effects. Among the three male sterile lines, ICPA 2047 was stable with a significant general combining ability for most of the traits followed by ICPA 2092, while the general combining ability effects among males was high across seasons for ICPL 20205 and ICPL 20177 (p<0.05). The cross combination of ICPA 2089 × ICPL 20205 had desirable genes for days to the first flowering, 50% flowering and maturity. For yield related traits, cross combinations of ICPA 2047 × ICPL 20128, ICPA 2092 × ICPL 11376 and ICPA 2047 × ICPL 20107 had significant specific combining ability indicating their usability in development of hybrids (p<0.05). With respect to the heterotic ability of crosses, crosses involving parents ICPA 2089 as female and ICPL 88034 and ICPL 81-3 as males showed negative heterosis for flowering and maturity. For yield related traits, crosses with ICPA 2047 as the female parent and ICPL 20128, ICPL 20177 and ICPL 20096 as the male parents showed significant positive heterosis (p<0.05). The identified parents with good combining ability and cross combination`s with significant heterosis could be utilized in producing high yielding hybrids in pigeonpea.

Hybreed: A software framework for developing context-aware hybrid recommender systems

This article introduces Hybreed, a software framework for building complex context-aware applications, together with a set of components that are specifically targeted at developing hybrid, context-aware recommender systems. Hybreed is based on a concept for processing context that we call dynamic contextualization. The underlying notion of context is very generic, enabling application developers to exploit sensor-based physical factors as well as factors derived from user models or user interaction. This approach is well aligned with context definitions that emphasize the dynamic and activity-oriented nature of context. As an extension of the generic framework, we describe Hybreed RecViews, a set of components facilitating the development of context-aware and hybrid recommender systems. With Hybreed and RecViews, developers can rapidly develop context-aware applications that generate recommendations for both individual users and groups. The framework provides a range of recommendation algorithms and strategies for producing group recommendations as well as templates for combining different methods into hybrid recommenders. Hybreed also provides means for integrating existing user or product data from external sources such as social networks. It combines aspects known from context processing frameworks with features of state-of-the-art recommender system frameworks, aspects that have been addressed only separately in previous research. To our knowledge, Hybreed is the first framework to cover all these aspects in an integrated manner. To evaluate the framework and its conceptual foundation, we verified its capabilities in three different use cases. The evaluation also comprises a comparative assessment of Hybreed's functional features, a comparison to existing frameworks, and a user study assessing its usability for developers. The results of this study indicate that Hybreed is intuitive to use and extend by developers.

Integrating Usability in Development of a Digital Customizer for Product Design

Usability is important in Web commerce; a usable Web site attracts users, while an effective customizer increases user satisfaction, thereby sustaining customer loyalty. This paper reports the process of integrating usability in development of a digital customizer for cell phone design, from documentation of customer preferences to translating them into design options, and implementing these in the digital customizer. Three studies were conducted sequentially. The first study documented customer needs on cell phone attributes, and their preferred design procedure. These requirements were then translated into virtual prototypes to be manipulated in a virtual environment. The second study developed the prototype, employing usability principles derived from the human factors literature. The final study evaluated the usability of the derived 2D and 3D customizer prototypes with real users. This provided comparative data about system effectiveness and user satisfaction of the customizer. Suggestions for improving the usability are discussed in relation to the prototype limitations.

The cognitive model

People are continually creating and accessing internal representations of their current situation. I refer to this as their cognitive model. During an interaction with a computer system the person will form a cognitive model of the interaction that contains what he believes are the functions, capabilities and limitations of the system. An invalid or missing cognitive model will lead to user dis-satisfaction, a lack of confidence in the system and, hence, inefficient use of the system and human resources. The user interface, which includes off-line and on-line methods, is the link between the designer's conceptual model of the system's functions, capabilities and limitations and the user's cognitive model. The interface must present the system to the user in such a manner as to guide the user's cognitive model development to where it coincides with the designer's conceptual model. Awareness of the user's developing cognitive model will enable the production of a more effective human-computer interface.