Jussi Huhtala

Towards designing better maps for indoor navigation: experiences from a case study

Recent development in indoor navigation systems and related studies imply that these applications will become common in the future. A variety of solutions utilizing different mediums is being developed. Lately, a range of mobile devices have started to support outdoor pedestrian navigation, and these devices presumably keep guiding the users also when moving indoors. However, the design patterns from the outdoor world do not necessarily work indoors. In order to understand the distinctive UI requirements of indoor navigation, we conducted a user study involving 23 people using a mobile phone-based, location-sensitive service. In this paper, we reveal our findings that the visualizations and UI designs resembling conventional outdoor maps or floor layouts are not optimal for indoor navigation, and present recommendations for the future design of indoor navigation systems.

Evaluating depth illusion as method of adding emphasis in autostereoscopic mobile displays

In this paper we evaluate the possibilities of autostereo-scopic three-dimensional displays in aiding the user in a selection task on a mobile touch-screen user interface. We describe a user study which measures the effectiveness of realistic depth illusion as an emphasizing method in a conventional mobile user interface concept. In our experiment, 35 people completed simple thumbnail visual search tasks, where horizontal disparity, color shading, and their combination were used as the emphasizing method. The results indicate that using disparity alone as a visual indicator does not provide enough support in find-and-select tasks to improve the user performance or perceived comfort with the task. However, when combined with other visual cues, disparity can significantly improve performance and satisfaction.

Studying applications for touch-enabled mobile phone keypads

We present a platform to evaluate mobile phone applications that make use of an additional dimension for key presses. Using capacitive sensors on each key, merely touching buttons as well as the force of the press can be measured. A set of applications well known from current mobile phones has been extended with functionality exploiting those new possibilities. The results of a study undertaken with this prototype are presented and conclusions are drawn for the design and implementation of such applications.

Animated UI transitions and perception of time: a user study on animated effects on a mobile screen

The capability to present advanced graphics in the present mobile devices can be utilized to improve their usability and overall user experience. Mobile devices have limitations compared to PCs due to their inferior computing power and small screens, but a successful design of animated transitions can hide processing delays and make the user experience smoother. In this paper, we describe the design of animated transitions and present a user study on how they are perceived. The results show that in the transition between two images, bringing up the next image earlier dominates the perception of a fast transition over other variables examined in the study.

Animated Transitions for Adaptive Small Size Mobile Menus

This paper explores how the user interface of a mobile device could support human perception and conception of changes in its environment. Animated transition effects may hold potential for visualizing changes in the resources available for the user through the context-aware user interface. Four different transition types are investigated. Each transition represents a different approach for visualizing changes in UI. The transitions are evaluated with 40 test subjects, half in India and half in Europe. Statistical analysis of the results indicates that animated transition effects have a clear positive effect on perception and conception of change.

Location visualization in social media applications

Location sharing applications are becoming increasingly popular in social media and for use on mobile devices, yet little research has focused on their user interface design. In this paper we describe our method of charting and creating comparable designs, and present a survey-based study of 106 social media users on their preferences regarding location indicators. Our paper contributes in proposing a methodology for visual element evaluation purposes, and reveals results, e.g., that users preferred simple indicators such as points or pins for their own location, and friend location indicators to include the corresponding name.

Mobile screen transition animations

Mobile devices have limitations compared to PCs due to their inferior computing power and small screens, but a successful design of animated transitions can hide processing delays and make the user experience smoother. In this paper, we describe the design of animated transitions and present a user study on how they are perceived.

Investigating Text Legibility in Mobile UI: A Case Study Comparing Automated vs. User Study Based Evaluation

For typical mobile devices, such as smartphones, a significant amount of the use involves reading text. Our paper contributes in providing methods and initial data to improve usability testing practices related to mobile UI text legibility. We compared two methods to study mobile UI text legibility -- perceived and measured results from a study of 17 users, and automated Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The results are compared with different foreground-background graphics and simulated lighting conditions causing reflections on the device screen, which are essential factors in the mobile use context and can influence the text legibility. The results demonstrate, for instance, a very strong correlation between subjective ratings and OCR results, in response to the different conditions.