Mieke Haesen

MuiCSer: A Process Framework for Multi-disciplinary User-Centred Software Engineering Processes

In this paper we introduce MuiCSer, a conceptual process framework for Multi-disciplinary User-centred Software Engineering (UCSE) processes. UCSE processes strive for the combination of basic principles and practices from software engineering and user-centred design approaches in order to increase the overall user experience with the resulting product. The MuiCSer framework aims to provide a common understanding of important components and associated activities of UCSE processes. As such, the conceptual framework acts as a frame of reference for future research regarding various aspects and concepts related to this kind of processes, including models, development artefacts and tools. We present the MuiCSer process framework and illustrate its instantiation in customized processes for the (re)design of a system. The conceptual framework has been helpful to investigate the role of members of a multi-disciplinary team when realizing artefacts in a model-based approach. In particular process coverage of existing artefact transformation tools has been studied.

Finding a needle in a haystack: an interactive video archive explorer for professional video searchers

Professional video searchers typically have to search for particular video fragments in a vast video archive that contains many hours of video data. Without having the right video archive exploration tools, this is a difficult and time consuming task that induces hours of video skimming. We propose the video archive explorer, a video exploration tool that provides visual representations of automatically detected concepts to facilitate individual and collaborative video search tasks. This video archive explorer is developed by employing a user-centred methodology, which ensures that the tool is more likely to fit to the end user needs. A qualitative evaluation with professional video searchers shows that the combination of automatic video indexing, interactive visualisations and user-centred design can result in an increased usability, user satisfaction and productivity.

Get Your Requirements Straight: Storyboarding Revisited

Current user-centred software engineering (UCSE) approaches provide many techniques to combine know-how available in multidisciplinary teams. Although the involvement of various disciplines is beneficial for the user experience of the future application, the transition from a user needs analysis to a structured interaction analysis and UI design is not always straightforward. We propose storyboards, enriched by metadata, to specify functional and non-functional requirements. Accompanying tool support should facilitate the creation and use of storyboards. We used a meta-storyboard for the verification of storyboarding approaches.

GRIP: get better results from interactive prototypes

Prototypes are often used to clarify and evaluate design alternatives for a graphical user interface. They help stakeholders to decide on different aspects by making them visible and concrete. This is a highly iterative process in which the prototypes evolve into a design artifact that is close enough to the envisioned result to be implemented. People with different roles are involved in prototyping. Our claim is that integrated or inter-operable tools help design information propagate among people while prototyping and making the transition more accurately into the software development phase. We make a first step towards such a solution by offering a framework, GRIP, in which such a tool should fit. We conducted a preliminary evaluation of the framework by using it to classify existing tools for prototyping and implementing a limited prototyping tool, GRIP-it, which can be integrated into the overall process.

An interactive coal mine museum visit: Prototyping the user experience

Interactive software applications are increasingly finding their way to cultural and tourist sites. During the development of a coal mine museum on the former mine site of Beringen (Province of Limburg, Belgium), we explored the possibilities of such interactive systems, suitable for the specific site and the intended target group. In particular, we concentrated on a mobile location-based educational game allowing young visitors to gain insight in the life of the miner, and on an interactive virtual environment (VE) giving the visitor an overview of the vast site, highlighting interesting locations. In this paper we share our experiences with several prototyping techniques in the context of user-centred design (UCD). The different prototyping techniques are chosen depending on the goal and the kind of prototype. Furthermore we describe the interplay between the created prototypes and the applied prototyping techniques.

Using Storyboards to Integrate Models and Informal Design Knowledge

Model-driven development of user interfaces has become increasingly powerful in recent years. Unfortunately, model-driven approaches have the inherent limitation that they cannot handle the informal nature of some of the artifacts used in truly multidisciplinary user interface development such as storyboards, sketches, scenarios and personas. In this chapter, we present an approach and tool support for multidisciplinary user interface development bridging informal and formal artifacts in the design and development process. Key features of the approach are the usage of annotated storyboards, which can be connected to other models through an underlying meta-model, and cross-toolkit design support based on an abstract user interface model.

Helaba: A System to Highlight Design Rationale in Collaborative Design Processes

Design activities associated to the ideation phase of design processes require mutual understanding and clear communication based on artefacts. However, this is often a challenge for remote and multidisciplinary teams due to the lack of ad hoc tools for this purpose. Our approach is to solve these limitations by explicitly connecting pieces of information related to design rationale, feedback, and evolution with the artefacts that are subject of communication. We propose Helaba, a system that creates a shared workspace to support communication revolving around design artefacts and activities within multidisciplinary teams. Helaba supports design communication and rationale, and potentially leads to more satisfying outcomes from the design process.

Supporting Multidisciplinary Teams and Early Design Stages Using Storyboards

Current tools for multidisciplinary teams in user-centered software engineering (UCSE) provide little support for the different approaches of the various disciplines in the project team. Although multidisciplinary teams are getting more and more involved in UCSE projects, an efficient approach to communicate clearly and to pass results of a user needs analysis to other team members without loss of information is still missing. Based on previous experiences, we propose storyboards as a key component in such tools. Storyboards contain sketched information of users, activities, devices and the context of a future application. The comprehensible and intuitive notation and accompanying tool support presented in this paper will enhance communication and efficiency within the multidisciplinary team during UCSE projects.

Toward Multi-disciplinary Model-Based (Re)Design of Sustainable User Interfaces

This paper reports on our experience in using the MuiCSer process framework for the redesign of the user interface for operating an industrial digital printing system. MuiCSer is created to support the user-centered interface design of new andlegacy systems by a multi-disciplinary team. The process framework is created to enhance increased flexibility, usability and sustainability of the designed user interfaces. Resulting user interfaces are decoupled from the application logic, but still help to maintain consistency with the available functionality even when this changes over time. This report focuses on the usage of the task model during the analysis of the current user interface, the creation of user interface prototypes at various fidelity levels and the still ongoing realization of a flexible user interface management system to support future changes of the deployed user interfaces.

A Grounded Approach for Applying Behavior Change Techniques in Mobile Cardiac Tele-Rehabilitation

In mobile tele-rehabilitation applications for Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) patients, behavior change plays a central role in influencing better therapy adherence and prevention of disease recurrence. However, creating sustainable behavior change that holds a beneficial impact over a prolonged period of time remains an important challenge. In this paper we discuss various models and frameworks related to persuasion and behavior change, and investigate how to incorporate these with a multidisciplinary user-centered design approach for creating a mobile tele-rehabilitation application. By implementing different concepts that contribute to behavior change and applying a set of distinct persuasive design patterns, we were able to translate the high-level goals of behavior theory into a mobile application that explicitly incorporates behavior change techniques and also offers a good overall user experience. We evaluated our system, HeartHab, in a lab setting and show that our approach leads to a high user acceptance and willingness to use the system in daily activities.