User Experience Research Research Articles

Positive Design Framework for Carer eSupport: Qualitative Study to Support Informal Caregivers of Patients With Head and Neck Cancer in Sweden.

Informal caregivers of patients with head and neck cancer (HNC), such as the patient's spouse, other close relatives, or friends, can play an important role in home-based treatment and health care. Research shows that informal caregivers are usually unprepared for this responsibility and need support with taking care of patients and other daily life activities. These circumstances place them in a vulnerable position, and their well-being may be compromised. This study is part of our ongoing project Carer eSupport, which aims to develop a web-based intervention to facilitate informal caregivers in the home environment. This study aimed to explore the situation and context of informal caregivers of patients with HNC and their needs for designing and developing a web-based intervention (Carer eSupport). In addition, we proposed a novel framework for the development of a web-based intervention aimed at promoting the well-being of informal caregivers. Focus groups were conducted with 15 informal caregivers and 13 health care professionals. Both informal caregivers and health care professionals were recruited from 3 university hospitals in Sweden. We adopted a thematic data analysis process to analyze the data. We investigated informal caregivers' needs, critical factors for adoption, and desired functionalities of Carer eSupport. A total of 4 major themes, including information, web-based forum, virtual meeting place, and chatbot, emerged and were discussed by informal caregivers and health care professionals for Carer eSupport. However, most study participants did not like the idea of a chatbot for asking questions and retrieving information and expressed their concerns such as a lack of trust in robotic technologies and missing human contact while communicating with chatbots. The results from the focus groups were discussed through the lens of positive design research approaches. This study provided an in-depth understanding of informal caregivers' contexts and their preferred functions for a web-based intervention (Carer eSupport). Using the theoretical foundation of designing for well-being and positive design in the informal caregiving context, we proposed a positive design framework to support informal caregivers' well-being. Our proposed framework might be helpful for human-computer interaction and user experience researchers to design meaningful eHealth interventions with a clear focus on users' well-being and positive emotions, especially for informal caregivers of patients with HNC. RR2-10.1136/bmjopen-2021-057442.

Increasing the User Experience Research Maturity of a Global Accommodation Comparison Platform

The COVID-19 pandemic drastically impacted the travel industry. Additionally, the recent combination of a sociopolitical crisis, natural disasters and an economic crisis resulted in increased price sensitivity and consciousness in consumer spending. However, the travel industry continues to recover as more countries ease travel restrictions. As travel volumes gradually increase in many parts of the world, product development teams focusing on the User Experience (UX) of travel websites are critical for user satisfaction and business success. User-centric design is the process of building a product or service based on the wants, needs and challenges of the users. However, being truly user-centric requires an active means of listening to users through UX research methods. When implementing such methods, organisations typically transition through different stages of UX research maturity; namely, from the beginning stages where there is a lack of resources and ad-hoc implementation, to a mature state where user research informs business strategy. This case study focuses on practice-based insights of methods used to increase the UX research maturity of an online accommodation comparison platform in the travel industry. The study covers a period of two years, analysing the outcome of the methods introduced to increase the UX research maturity. The case study aimed to achieve the following to increase the maturity: creating awareness of UX Research and the user; exposing UX Research to the wider team; and extending research ownership to product teams. The methods used included: diary study; jobs-to-be-done framework; organisational structural changes; involving product team members in research activities; increasing the frequency of interviews with users; and enabling the product team to conduct small research activities. The results included an increase in the UX Research maturity of the organisation. The product development approach increased its user-centric focus. Non-UX roles within the product team grew closer to the user by doing small research activities. User-centricity was introduced as a company value in the organisation. The results of this study are specifically of value for practitioners and academia in the travel industry and have implications for Product, UX and Research practitioners.

Education Mobility as a Service: A Study of the Features of a Novel Mobility Platform

The European Union’s Erasmus+ program strongly supports mobility for finding training or work opportunities. However, in the era of pandemics, there is a need to find remedies for restricted movement. One solution is to create a platform for collaboration in the spheres of work and training. This article aims to identify the crucial factors for the development of a novel ecosystem for the European education mobility. This mixed-method study employed interviews with 140 respondents. The authors utilized the NVivo software, specifically its Word Frequency Query functionality, to identify relevant features in the four main categories: competence acquisition, pedagogy, organization, and technology. Findings suggest that the acquisition of competencies should be oriented towards the future labor market, students prefer gamified activities, the platform should be organized to allow for easy job and training searches, and 2D and 3D solutions should be combined for versatility. Overall, future-oriented content, motivation, and technologically diverse activities are positively perceived by students and can be seen as a major trend in creating similar tools. This type of user experience research could also be extended to a group of teachers and administrative personnel engaged in education mobility as service activities. This research was conducted as part of the ERASMUS+ project eMediator.

User experience research in the development of digital health products: Research letter

BackgroundDigital health solutions are facing an increasing impact on healthcare. The current scientific focus is mainly set on clinical studies providing efficacy for different indications. In contrast to pharmaceutical therapy, user experience plays a major role in digital health. However, fundamental scientific knowledge about patient engagement, adoption and qualitative user experience of digital health solutions is missing. ObjectiveTo perform user experience design research for the development of a disease management platform for fibromyalgia-like post-COVID19 syndrome. To discuss relevant user experience and its current status in digital health products development. MethodsA literature review on PubMed and interviews with digital health stakeholders were performed. German registered digital health applications (DiGAs) for musculoskeletal indications were reviewed in terms of front-end design and navigation. An online user experience design survey about Patient Reported Outcomes (PROs) collection was sent to patients from a Swiss post-COVID19 patient association. ResultsThe literature documenting patient experience aspects in digital health is poor despite all stakeholders agreed on its importance, potentially also influencing efficacy of the therapies. Currently available DiGAs have a heterogeneous front-end design without clear user interface design or navigation strategy, respectively. Patient online surveys have shown to be easily feasible and effective tools for qualitative user experience research. Basic user experience research provided helpful guidelines for choices in design features for the purpose of the development of a digital health product. ConclusionsUser experience research as a tool in the patient-centric development of a digital health product provides valuable data. This data has the potential to help increase adoption and efficacy of the product. Further research studies are needed to clarify the role of user experience in digital therapies.

Description of the nationally implemented National Health Service digital diabetes prevention programme and rationale for its development: mixed methods study

BackgroundThe National Health Service (NHS) Digital Diabetes Prevention Programme (DDPP) is a behaviour change programme for adults in England who are at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Four independent providers deliver the NHS-DDPP following a competitive tendering process. Although providers work to a single service specification, there is potential for some variation in the service across providers. This study (1) assesses fidelity of the structural features of the design of the NHS-DDPP compared to the service specification, (2) describes the structural features of delivery of the NHS-DDPP as implemented (3) reports developers’ views on how the structural components of the NHS-DDPP were developed and why changes were made following implementation.MethodsUsing mixed methods, we conducted a document review of providers’ NHS-DDPP design and delivery documentation, and extracted information using the Template for Intervention Description and Replication checklist, which was adapted to capture features of digital delivery. Documentation was supplemented by content analysis of interviews with 12 health coaches involved in delivering the NHS-DDPP. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with 6 programme developers employed by the digital providers.ResultsProvider plans for the NHS-DDPP show relatively high fidelity to the NHS service specification. Despite this, there was wide variation in structural features of delivery of the NHS-DDPP across providers, particularly for delivery of ‘support’ (e.g. use, dose and scheduling of health coaching and/or group support). Interviews with developers of the programmes showed that much of this variation is likely to be attributable to the origin of each provider’s programme, which was usually a pre-existing programme that was adapted to conform to the NHS-DDPP service specification. The NHS-DDPP is continually improved and developed based on user experience feedback and research conducted by the providers.ConclusionIndirect evidence suggests that variation in delivery of support could affect effectiveness of the NHS-DDPP. A priority for future research is ascertaining whether the variation in delivery of the NHS-DDPP across providers is related to any differences in health outcomes. It is recommended that future rounds of commissioning the NHS-DDPP pre-specify the type of support participants should receive, including expected dose and scheduling.

Improving big data governance in healthcare institutions: user experience research for honest broker based application to access healthcare big data

ABSTRACT Data users (researchers, scientists) in healthcare institutions need access to integrated healthcare data to conduct timely analysis of diseases to serve the right population at the right time. However, preserving patient privacy and timely access to quality healthcare data is a critical challenge. Current healthcare data governance systems are largely manual. Besides, processing process data requests is extremely slow, often taking months. To address this gap, we designed an honest-broker-based healthcare application to support data users in accessing healthcare data securely and to design a comprehendible process of data governance for data users. This study applied two iterations of a user experience (UX) evaluation of an honest broker prototype. Results show that participants found the new system promising for their research prospects. Implications suggest that technological knowledge should not be a requirement for using healthcare applications to promote broader adoption in the community. This study highlights the necessity of a process to balance the control of access to sensitive data between data providers and users as well as to educate data users on data privacy. Iterative UX studies can be a fruitful approach in gradually uncovering problems and improving the design of complex systems.

2인 이상 탑승 상황에서 공유 킥보드 운행 정지에 대한 시각적 정보 전달의 사용자 경험 연구

최근 전동 킥보드의 사용량이 급증함에 따라 많은 문제점이 나타나고 있다. 이 중, 킥보드에 2인 이상 탑승하는 문제는 법적 제약이 있음에도, 이를 무시하는 고객이 늘어나는 상황이다. 이에 본 연구는 2인 탑승 시 킥보드가 작동하지 않는 기술을 바탕으로, 킥보드가 정지된 상황에 집중하고자 했다. 실험은 킥보드를 예약하고 작동하는 데 필요한 스마트 폰의 앱을 통해서 킥보드에 2인 이상이 탑승할 경우 시각적 정보 전달이 사용자 경험에 미치는 바를 수집하는 방식으로 진행하였다. 실험 결과, 인터뷰는 총 30명을 대상으로 한대의 공유 킥보드에 2인 이상 탑승하는 상황 시 발생하는 문제점에 대한 질문을 통하여 대상자는 2인 이상 탑승 문제를 해결하는 데 있어 킥보드가 멈추는 방안에 적극적으로 동의하였으며, 상기의 내용을 바탕으로 공유 킥보드 시나리오에 가상의 사용자를 만들어 문제를 찾고 문제가 일어나는 실질적 상황과 관계에 집중하여 문제가 해결된 서비스를 이용할 예비 고객의 현재 심리상태를 정리하기 위해서 퍼소나 방법을 사용했다. 그리고 퍼소나를 기반으로, 고객여정과 이해관계자를 설정하였다. 이후 도출한 핵심 요인과 퍼소나를 바탕으로, 문제 해결 방안의 고객 시나리오를 제작한 후 서비스에 대한 사용자 경험을 평가하기 위해 만족도, 고민의 정도, 재사용 의도를 설문 요인으로 설정하여 총 83명의 피험자들이 설문조사에 답변한 결과 2인 이상 탑승 시 킥보드가 멈추는 상황에서 앱을 통한 정보제공의 방향이 그렇지 않은 방향보다 긍정적이었다. 이에 본 연구는 UX 관점에서 스마트폰의 앱을 통해서 시각적 정보 전달을 통해 올바른 공유 킥보드 주행 문화를 만들고 문제를 인지하는 데 도움이 되고자 한다.

Key considerations for developing patient management tools for small and nutritionally at-risk infants: A scoping review

Background: To improve global child health, efficacious interventions are important but real-world effectiveness is crucial; this requires translating technical guidance into frontline clinical and patient care practices. Patient management ‘tools’ are frequently used for this purpose, guiding healthcare workers to deliver quality care. Ahead of an update to a patient management tool for small and nutritionally at-risk infants under six months of age (C-MAMI Tool, V2), we reviewed how others have done this in the past. Our aim was to ensure an evidence-based development process to optimise future success and impact.
 Methods: We investigated five patient management tools: Integrated Care Pathways (ICPs), Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI), Paediatric Early Warning Systems (PEWS), Growth Monitoring (GM), and Emergency Triage Assessment and Treatment (ETAT). Searches were run in PubMed and examined evidence on the development, uptake, and effectiveness of these tools.
 Results: The tools were developed between approximately 1960-2005, with ongoing development of electronic patient management tools (e-tools). IMCI and ETAT were the most widely used in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), but low coverage remains a major barrier to effectiveness. Growth monitoring is also widely used in LMICs but lacks strong evidence of effectiveness. Evidence on the use of e-tools for patient management in LMICs is growing. Whilst overall evidence for all these approaches was limited, the strongest evidence of effectiveness was for ICPs. Though evidence was sparse, formative work developing the tools prior to implementation seems important to their future success.
 Conclusions: Informed by this review, the C-MAMI Tool was updated to the MAMI Care Pathway Package, using an ICP approach and modelled on IMCI. This living resource continues to evolve: aligning with and accounting for existing pathways and systems; baseline formative user-experience research; formal effectiveness research to actively plan for future scale up; collecting information on variance from and adaptations to the care pathway; possible future e-tools. An ICP approach is relevant to other child health and nutrition topics.

User Experience of a Digital Fashion Show: Exploring the Effectiveness of Interactivity in Virtual Reality

A virtual reality (VR) environment is different from the generally produced video-based experience, as it creates an interactive user experience (UX) by allowing the users to respond to operations or commands using various input devices. In particular, as existing analog-type fashion shows that have limitations in space and time have evolved into digital fashion shows that include interaction, the importance of the naturalness of interaction and visual expression is being emphasized in UX research. However, study cases that maximize user immersion through the interaction of visual changes in the stage and clothes of a digital fashion show are scarce. As such, this study introduces an interactive VR fashion show to analyze the impact of interaction on the UX in a VR environment. In the design of the interactive VR fashion show, various interaction elements that affect the UX are selected and the scope of UX application is suggested. In addition, by utilizing a commercial game engine, the production process necessary to simulate an existing fashion show is shown step-by-step. The user test in this study is examined in-depth by dividing the evaluation of the user into a two-step survey, and the results are objectively verified through a statistical analysis.

Using augmented reality to cue obstacles for people with low vision.

Detecting and avoiding obstacles while navigating can pose a challenge for people with low vision, but augmented reality (AR) has the potential to assist by enhancing obstacle visibility. Perceptual and user experience research is needed to understand how to craft effective AR visuals for this purpose. We developed a prototype AR application capable of displaying multiple kinds of visual cues for obstacles on an optical see-through head-mounted display. We assessed the usability of these cues via a study in which participants with low vision navigated an obstacle course. The results suggest that 3D world-locked AR cues were superior to directional heads-up cues for most participants during this activity.

User Experience Research on Kiosk of Public Institutions based on Dialect : Daegu City

User Experience Research on Kiosk of Public Institutions based on Dialect : Daegu City

Mathematics student personas for the design of technology-enhanced learning environments

To benefit from the quickly expanding range of new possibilities of technology-enhanced education, school systems, schools, and teachers need to adapt quickly. Conversely, the needs of students and teachers in a technology-enhanced classroom require technology developers to provide and improve suitable technologies. In this paper, we aim to show how to make the professional knowledge of mathematics teachers accessible to developers of technologies and also to teacher trainers and trainees by the use of student personas, i.e., portraits of archetypical students with particular characteristics and needs. We have collected qualitative data from pre-service and in-service mathematics teachers in Austrian academic upper secondary schools about the characteristics and needs of their students. We have analysed these data using a grounded theory approach to derive demands of students on technology-enhanced learning environments (TELEs). We have identified and presented five personas, each with specific demands on TELEs, to represent this target group. By introducing this approach that combines techniques from mathematics education research and from user experience research, we are able to represent user groups of a mathematics technology-enhanced learning environment in a more relatable way than was previously possible. These relatable representations of students in Austrian academic upper secondary schools could be of particular importance for developers of technology-enhanced learning environments for teaching and learning mathematics. The methodology presented in this paper is adaptable to other contexts.

Integrating Fairness in the Software Design Process: An Interview Study With HCI and ML Experts

The term Fairness is used in the field of Machine Learning to refer to a suite of evaluation techniques, measures, and process adjustments focused on the reduction of bias in statistical models. With many different potential definitions and methodologies for implementing fairness, some contradictory in goal or incompatible in approach, there are challenges in the selection of the most appropriate definition(s) to meet the ethical expectations society or end users may have for a model. This is further confounded by the potentially complex engineering challenges in applying the selected definition. The goal of designing and developing a fair system requires interdisciplinary collaboration between user experience researchers, focused on the socio-technical challenges of application usage and adoption, and data scientists and machine learning software developers, directly involved in the technical engineering and optimisation of such models. How these two groups interact and how their areas of specialisation can support and influence the other when developing fair AI is unknown. This leaves open questions about how these stakeholders view fairness, how it can be operationalised in their current work, and what are the obstacles/opportunities for improving the treatment of fairness in practice. In order to answer these questions, 18 subject matter experts from the fields of human-computer interaction (HCI) or Machine Learning (ML) were interviewed about their experience with fairness, their perception of current fairness adoption, and the challenges they would anticipate in a set of example scenarios. This work identifies some of the current challenges to developing fair artificial intelligence (AI). In dealing with these challenges, we propose approaches that include expanding the responsibilities of HCI and ML specialists, and identifying areas where joint responsibility is required.

Bibliometric analysis of user experience research during 1995-2018

Bibliometric analysis of user experience research during 1995-2018

Bibliometric analysis of user experience research during 1995-2018

Bibliometric analysis of user experience research during 1995-2018

User Experience Research on Service for The Memorial Rituals Based on Non-contact

User Experience Research on Service for The Memorial Rituals Based on Non-contact

PECULIARITIES OF UI TESTING

The modern development of information technologies significantly affects the formation of demand and causes the appearance of digital products. For any digital product to be successful, a user-centric approach must be taken. User experience research is a key component of this development approach. UX research is the process of finding out how people interpret and use products and services. It is used everywhere from websites to mobile phones, consumer electronics, medical equipment, banking, and more. In UX design, research is a fundamental part of solving relevant problems. Today, when all existing processes are greatly accelerated, users quickly lose loyalty to a product, because they know that there are many other options and do not hesitate to look for them, so a bad user experience with an application, site or product in general can mean the end of the interaction. UX research is very useful for developing a product strategy and algorithmizing solutions that would meet the needs of users. The issues of optimal choice of research methods, both quantitative and qualitative are considered. Both the methods themselves, such as the interview method, focus groups, card sorting, tree testing, preference assessment, eyetracking, proof of concept, A/B testing, and their areas of application are examined. The advantages and disadvantages of the methods, as well as their features, are considered. The method of analyzing hierarchies to calculate criteria such as efficiency, price, time, and sample size was used. Based on the conducted analysis, it was established that the most important criterion when choosing a research method is its effectiveness. Further calculation of the weighted average scores for each decision option allowed to identify the best research methods and provide recommendations for their effective use at different stages of digital product development. Thus, the optimal choice of testing method can significantly improve the quality of the user interface.

Continuous delivery: A PARS online course development cycle

This article explores applying User-Experience (UX) research and a software development approach called Continuous Delivery (CD) to the process of designing, developing, and maintaining online courses. We will illustrate how readers can use our PARS (personal, accessible, responsive, strategic) framework, UX best practices, and CD to create more accessible content for the users of their online courses.

Obzor issledovanij pol'zovatel'skogo opyta po materialam klassicheskoj literatury za poslednie 30 let

Based on the literature review in the past thirty years, the authors sorted out the definition, influencing factors, measurement methods, evaluation models and practical applications of user experience, focused on the analysis of measurement methods and research models, summarized the shortcomings of user experience research, and gave directions that might have research value in the future.

Translation, Psychometric Evaluation, and Validation of the Croatian Version of the User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ)

The User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ) is a standard, widely used questionnaire for evaluating user experience with many (software) products and services. This article describes UEQ translation into Croatian, which involved English and German language experts, and its verification based on an online survey conducted among 231 university students about perceived experience with different video conferencing tools in online learning during the COVID-19 lockdown. The sample was large enough to confirm the construct validity of the questionnaire. Psychometric evaluation and validation relied on factor and reliability analyses of all six scales of the full, 26-item UEQ and of the pragmatic and hedonic scales in the short, 8-item UEQ version. All scales show a rather high internal reliability, which confirms the validity of the Croatian translation. Croatian-speaking user experience researchers and practitioners can use it with confidence.