Janaina Cintra Abib

A GQM-based tool to support the development of software quality measurement plans

This paper focuses on the Goal-Question-Metric (GQM) approach, which has been proposed as a goal-oriented approach for the measurement of products and processes in software engineering. First, the GQM is characterized, and then, the GQM-PLAN tool, is described. The GQM-PLAN was developed to support the preparation of measuring plans based on GQM.

Inspection of software requirements specification documents: a pilot study

Software Requirements Specification is one of the first phases of system development. This phase results in the Software Requirements Specification (SRS) document, which must contain a complete, concise, high-quality description of the system being considered. The quality assurance of SRSs depends strongly on the use of appropriate techniques. This paper focuses on the use of inspection techniques in the quality evaluation of SRSs, presenting a pilot study on the subject,

Integrating contexts in healthcare: guidelines to help the designers at design process

In this work we present a set of guidelines to help designers during the activities of interaction design process to support user-centered approaches. The aim is to guide designers in integrating professional, personal and social contexts of the user during the construction phase of applications that are embedded in the users workflow. These guidelines were formulated from studies conducted in a Hospital for treatment of chronic mental illness in Brazil. During these studies we observed healthcare professionals in their daily activities and with these information we developed information and communication (technology?) solutions to bring new technologies in their day-to-day while not disrupting their work routines. In the Hospital environments, where our study took place, the healthcare professionals are not familiar with technology and they do not use technologies for their work. We observed, collected and analyzed several data related to the activities of the design process and the designers work. These analyses helped us in understanding some weak points in the design process that do not simplify the integration of the different contexts in which users are naturally inserted. With the integration of contexts, we promote the extension of users abilities and the appropriation of technologies and applications, favoring an expanding of the users abilities involved.

Understanding and Facilitating the Communication Process among Healthcare Professionals

We present a system for e-health considering natural user interactions for mobile through analysis of healthcare professionals’ activities. The healthcare professionals have to manager patients´ care and their activities, take notes of all of them and share information. Communication between healthcare professionals is carried out through notations on paper, verbally and sometimes through messages by mobile. These procedures make the communication process inefficient and slow. We studied the relation between healthcare professionals, how they interacting and how they communicate in a hospital to propose a better way of communication, supported by technology. The analysis of activities ensured that the needs of the healthcare professionals were hit and the routine of these professionals was maintained, making this interaction more natural. This experiments show us how the healthcare professionals communicate themselves, to do regular activities related to their work, to exchange experience and to talk about trivial matters. The use of technological accelerated the communication, and the tasks disseminated through big screen TV, allowed that everyone could share the tasks and resolve them quickly by the team.

Guidelines to Integrate Professional, Personal and Social Context in Interaction Design Process: Studies in Healthcare Environment

In this paper we’re presenting the formalization of a set of guidelines to support interaction designers in their activities during the processes to design applications. We are using these guidelines in the construction phase of the design process and these strategies are being applied to support the interaction design of user’s workflow, integrating professional, personal and social contexts. These strategies were used in a hospital for treatment of chronic mental illness in Brazil. During this study we observed healthcare professionals in their daily activities and with these data we developed information and communication solutions to bring new technologies into their day-by-day activities, in the way not to interrupt their routines. After some data collection and analysis we evaluated the results of our research. These analyses helped us to understand some weak points in the design process that do not simplify the integration of the different contexts in which users are naturally inserted. Thus, we proposed a set of guidelines to an interaction design process with the objective of supporting interaction designers in their work of developing natural solutions, integrating the different contexts of the users. Also, with the integration of contexts, we promote the extending of user’s abilities.

Tool for Alternative and Augmented Communication: A Study Implemented in Hospitals Environment to Support Pedagogical Therapies

Communication is a basic need of human beings. It is required in professional, social and personal relationships, establishing a fundamental aspect for survival. Communication can be considered a set of signs that refers to behaviors that occur among two or more persons and which provide a way to create meanings between them. When individuals have no forms of communication or have some form of communication, but this is not enough to maintain communication links, establishing social relationships, it is necessary to use some resources to promote communication, integrating this individual in social life. Adapt and create alternative ways of communication is essential for people with disabilities or lack of oral communication to interact with their peers into the work, social and personal environments. For these adaptations it is common to use alternative and augmented communication tools (AACT), for example, uses of alternative communication boards and applications to support the communication process, using images, videos and technological resources to support the communication. The objective of this research is propose the development of prototypes with medium fidelity to facilitate patients with disabilities to learn and communicate, and understanding their distinctions in learning and interacting during communication process.

Selfie cafe: socialization in public spaces

Once Online Social Networks became popular in the last decade, people tend to spend a fair amount of time in the virtual world. As a consequence, real encounters, especially with non-related people tend to not be encouraged or even exciting anymore. Aware that mobile devices become more popular and powerful considering pervasiveness and ubiquitousness, we strategically decided to use technology in order to support and promote people gathering in public spaces. In this paper, we present Selfie Cafe, an Urban Computing application for leveraging socialization. The application was deployed in the wild to see how people would react to it in specific places where socialization would be expected but was not happening. Results of the Selfie Cafe installation show that it helped setting a more playful mood in the place, an increase in the time spent by people in there as well as supporting interactions among locals, acquaintances and strangers.

Tool to Help the Communication for Autists

Communication is the main skill to interact in society, regardless of ability or level of cognitive development. Through the process of communication people can share feelings, desires, actions, thoughts and experiences. The communication process does not need to be expressed only through verbal language, but can happen with gestures, glances, body movements, signs and symbols. People with disabilities can use different forms of communication and some technological resources to facilitate the communication process. Inclusion of computational tools in school’s environment facilitates social relations between autistic and others in their learning environment enabling the use of appropriated educational software and communication techniques becoming part of natural process of social interaction. The goal of this research is the development of a medium fidelity prototype software to facilitate the learning and communication of students with autism in school, understanding their differences in learning, processing and organize information and everything should be conducted through the establishment of a daily routine.

The Design Process to Healthcare Applications: Guidelines Mapping to Integrate User´s Contexts and Abilities

In this paper we present a set of guidelines to support the designer’s activities during the development process of healthcare applications. The presented guidelines conduct the work of designers in the stages of collection and analysis of requirements and in the construction stage of the design process model, focused on the different contexts of users of these applications and their abilities. The design process is a multidisciplinary activity involving techniques and expertise in human factors, ergonomics, and the context of use. The consideration of these elements in the application design increases effectiveness and use efficiency, improves human labor conditions, and counteracts possible adverse effects of use by professionals in areas of healthcare, security, performance, among others. Adopting a design process model involves not only defining functional aspects and application features, but mainly being aware of the user’s needs, knowledge, and abilities, as well as his/her limitations and resources. The motivation for developing this project emerged from the difficulty of finding directions on how to conduct the design process of applications for healthcare professionals and meet the specific characteristics of such professionals, who are nomadic, have long working hours, and blend personal and social activities with professional ones. This mix of activities and contexts increases especially when it comes to healthcare professionals looking after patients who require continuous care, for these professionals, in addition to shared activities with their peers, still need to support daily activities of patients, both personal as therapeutic ones. This lack of guidance for designers, often caused by the characteristics of the healthcare professional’s activities, expands itself by the fact that designers are not ready to consider such peculiar characteristics of these users and they are not attentive to the mixing of contexts that happens naturally in their work. These facts make the design process of applications for healthcare professionals more complex and require a new perspective, wider than the one proposed by classical development process models. Thus, our proposal is the creation of guidelines to support the designer´s work in the application of a design process model that considers users’ contexts, their needs, and abilities, facilitating the adoption and allowing the appropriation of the developed design solutions. The guidelines that we present were mapped for a design process model of applications for healthcare professionals. Such model allows and encourages the integration of contexts and considers the healthcare professional’s abilities through the experience of use of technological resources and exchange of experiences among them, favoring the adoption and the appropriation, and providing the experience of new abilities for the healthcare professional. Following the tendencies of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and Bring Your Own Application (BYOA), the presented guidelines conduct and stimulate the use of personal technological resources, like mobile devices, in the professional environment, allowing that the experience of use of such resources is utilized to promote personal, social, and professional integration in the workplace. The guidelines presented here consider the different contexts of healthcare professionals, integrating them in order to facilitate the management and execution of their professional, personal, and social activities and encouraging the use of technological resources to support this integration without harming the workflow of the professionals. Additionally, the guidelines consider the healthcare professional’s previous knowledge and abilities to facilitate the search for improvement and the support for the addition of new abilities for these professionals, stimulating the support for the communication and information practices and promoting the formalization and documentation of the practices in the work of the professionals. A case study was conducted to validate the guidelines and map them in the adopted design process model, with the participation of application designers and healthcare professionals in a partner hospital. The purpose of the study was to follow the activities of the stage of collection and analysis requirements and the construction stage of the adopted model, applying the guidelines to propose a design solution, the prototype of an application that meets the wishes and needs of a group of healthcare professionals, so that the solution can be naturally adopted, according to users’ knowledge and workflow and not only considering the best practical use of the technological resources. After the validation and analysis of the results obtained in the case study, the guidelines were mapped for the adopted model, conducting the employment of the guidelines in every stage and activity of the model. As a result, we present (1) the conducted case study and the final prototype developed during this study, (2) the healthcare professionals’ impressions on the design process, (3) the considerations, obtained through interviews, of designers who participated in this study, related to the use of the guidelines during the development of the design solution, highlighting the positives points perceived by the designers and found problems, and (4) the mapping of guidelines for the steps and activities of the adopted model.