Fariza Hanis Abdul Razak

Usability testing with children: Laboratory vs field studies

Usability testing has traditionally been conducted in dedicated laboratory. Alternatively, field study can be an option to conduct the usability testing. As HCI researchers who work with children, we have experiences in conducting usability tests in both natural and laboratory environments. We tested two different children applications in two different environments: testing drawing applications at their preschool and testing an educational game in our usability laboratory. Thus, this paper highlights our experiences in conducting both usability tests. Although the literature suggests that laboratory and field studies should be done for two different purposes, our experiences have told us that we can actually integrate the steps of field studies into the guidelines for lab tests. These steps are particularly useful for the novice designers and researchers who have never done usability evaluations with children before.

Elderly mental model of reminder system

The growing numbers of elderly is inevitable. As we get older, we will experience some memory declines, thus an assistive technology such as reminder system is recommended. However, the uptake of reminder system is still low. Many researchers from the western countries are interested in exploring the use of reminder system as part of assistive technology for the elderly. Nevertheless, no research is solely focused on what actually elderly users expect from a reminder system. Hence, this paper attempts to assess and propose elderly mental model on reminder system. We conducted a series of studies: interview, usability evaluation and drawing activity with eight (8) participants. Our results revealed that elderly users expected that a reminder system should be simple, familiar, flexible and recognizable to them. We also learned that drawing and user study can be effective methods for assessing a mental model depending on type of user groups involved in the study.

The feasibility of PrEmo in cross-cultural Kansei measurement

Kansei Engineering has been successfully used as product design technology inducing human emotion in its quality value. It has in its perspective that Kansei is unique for different domain and that it is unique for different target user group, and results from the evaluation of human Kansei have uniqueness in different cultural races and demographical background. Although the success is proven, the technology has shortcoming when there is a need to build universal design for universal target user. Therefore, we need to have a non-verbal cross-culture emotion measurement tool which could enhance the capability of K.E. in the measurement of universal Kansei across cultures. This study aims to investigate the feasibility of using a nonverbal, animation based emotion measurement instrument called PrEmo to measure Kansei as a solution to universal Kansei in a cross-cultural environment. The feasibility was analyzed by performing a comparative analysis of Kansei structure with the use of PrEmo with two different cultural races. 10 websites with significant visual design differences were used as stimuli in the evaluation procedure involving 30 subjects. The resulted Kansei structure from the comparative study shows that there is encouraging results to show that PrEmo could be used to measure Kansei. Future research is required to cater the measurement of Kansei that are not limited to the 12 general emotions as suggested in PrEmo.

Understanding the current learning techniques of wayfinding: A case study at Malaysian association for the Blind (MAB)

In preparing blind people to navigate in the real world, they need to be equipped with the knowledge and skills in mobility and orientation. This study aimed to investigate the current learning techniques of way finding for blind people in Malaysia. The study took place at Malaysian Association for the Blind (MAB) where observation and interview were carried out where the objective is first, to explore the existing learning techniques of way finding conducted at MAB and second, to identify the problems faced by the mobility and orientation (M&O) instructor in teaching way finding. The study revealed that the main problem faced by the instructor was lack of appropriate tools used to describe the environment to blind students. This led to the difficulties in developing the cognitive maps of the described environment for some blind students at MAB. However, positive responses given by the blind students after using an audio-tactile map which helped them to alleviate the problems they were facing.

Children's Technology: How Do Children Want It?

Though todays children have many chances to interact with IT technology, what they understand about technology from their point of view still needs to be explored. In this paper, we report how children view technology according to their perspectives. We used qualitative research methods that employed drawing activity and interviews. Seventeen 11-12 years old primary school children participated in the study and produced five drawings. From the study we found that the children actually wanted technology which is ubiquitous, wearable, natural in interaction and child-centred.

Older People and the Use of Mobile Phones: An Interview Study

Ageing populations are turning to technology in greater numbers than ever. New technology is being designed to help older people live independently for longer. Despite the usefulness of mobile phones especially older people, the current problems with its complex features and interface designs have intimidated some older people users from using the device. The authors wished to explore exposure to the real-world technology needs of older people by evaluating the mobile phones use among them. Although numerous studies have been reported on the various benefits of interviewing in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research, little is known about preparatory interviewing in engaging with ageing population. The purpose of this study was to explore the interviewing technique in eliciting requirements from older people. A qualitative approach and semi-structured interviews were used with a sample size of seven Malaysian elders. This paper reports interview experience with the older people. The results suggest that the interviewing guidelines are recommended to be applied in the future research on HCI and older people.

Online information sharing issues in website personalization

Website Personalization is one of strategic technique in delivering services in online applications. A part of process for building personalization applications is to collect particular information from the user which involves information sharing. However, the awareness about privacy concerns and security threats have caused to non-sharing behavior among the Internet Users. This situation have caused website personalization cannot be built to serve its purposes. This paper aims to investigate the peoples behavior and to study the propensity of information sharing attitude in two different environments and cultures. The two environments are between real-life and online while the two cultures are between Malaysian and non-Malaysian. Since this is an exploratory study, interview with five (5) persons have been conducted. The qualitative technique that chooses was recommended for any exploratory study. The findings of this study explained the understanding of behaviors and the factors of Information Sharing. The factors are the cultural factors, the platform of sharing and the behavior of information sharing in web personalization. The sharing behavior in two environments and cultures were also compared. The data collected from the interviews have generalizing the speculations and issues in information sharing which have been discussed at the end section of this paper.

A Conceptual Framework for Co-design Approach to Support Elderly Employability Website

This paper aims to understand and develop a conceptual framework of Co-Design approach to support elderly age-friendly employability website. The research focuses on literature in elderly employment, co-design approach, co-design component and the roles of elderly in co-design approach to support the design and development of elderly employability website. The results of the research suggest a conceptual framework to map the concept of co-design as an approach to support elderly employability website with eight components of co-design which are active engagement, foster creativity, ownership, sustainability, inspired ideas, saved cost, user satisfaction, and user learning. This framework considers that the roles of elderly as explorer, ideator, designer, and diffuser, co-design components and employment website components are the main key to enable elderly to find a suitable job. To help recognize and rectify particular problem areas in a website development, involving users at initial process can be very beneficial. This conceptual framework is an initial research for researchers and practitioners to further examine co-design practices in designing products or services by elderly and for elderly.

Investigating the Effect of Exploring Multimodal Maps at Different Orientations on Blind User’s Cognitive Maps and Sense of Directions

Maps have been used in different ways to facilitate traveller in way finding. Depending on the traveller’s ability to translate the direction on the map of the real world, maps are normally read in different orientations. Some travellers have the ability to rotate the map mentally without having to change its original orientation while some require the map to be aligned with the direction to their intended paths as discovered in the literature. Blind people are not excluded from using maps. A multimodal map has been introduced to enable blind people to learn maps. However, the exploration of the maps using the multimodal map is restricted to a static orientation. Therefore, this study investigates the map exploration by the blind participants under two conditions; static and rotation. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of exploring maps at different orientations on blind user’s cognitive maps and sense of directions. The findings of this study show the difference in the pointing accuracy of the participants in static and rotatable conditions approach significant. Results also show that blind people have the ability to build a cognitive map of the maps learned in the rotatable condition. However, the sense of direction is not correlated with the pointing accuracy for the blind participants in this study. This paper also concludes by discussing the potential of including a rotation feature on a multimodal map in order to facilitate blind people in map exploration.

Investigating Blind User Preference on Tactile Symbols for Landmarks on Audio-Tactile Map

Tactile symbols are important in facilitating blind people to understand maps. With audio-tactile maps, the use of tactile symbols needs to be designed appropriately since the symbols are associated with speech. Although there are tactile symbols proposed in the literature, the design of these symbols are mainly for conventional tactile maps. As the literature suggests that the design of these symbols is based on user preferences which are largely influenced by culture and environment. Since there is no guideline for designing tactile symbols for our culture, we therefore conducted a user study with blind participants at Malaysian Association for the Blind (MAB) to investigate their preference on tactile symbols that can be used with audio-tactile maps. From the study, we found that in order for our blind participants to easily recognize a landmark, the landmark symbols should be filled with texture. Landmark symbol with texture inside can help convey information instantly through touch. Although audio can be used to convey information about the landmark, the audio on the tactile map is only a tool for confirming their tactile information. Since audio helps enhance their user experience with the tactile map, the placement of an audio label on the tactile map becomes crucial. This paper concludes by discussing some recommendations on how to improve the available landmark symbols according to their preferences.