Ming-Hui Wen

Exploring user experiences as predictors of MMORPG addiction

The overuse of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) is becoming a significant problem worldwide, especially among college students. Similar to Internet addiction, the pathological use of MMORPG is a kind of modern addiction that can affect students lives on both a physical and a psychological level. The purpose of this study is to understand MMORPG addiction from a user experience design approach. We first developed a complete model that includes eleven factors (challenge, fantasy, curiosity, control, reward, cooperation, competition, recognition, belonging, obligation and role-playing) to represent users experience in MMORPGs. After that, we design a questionnaire to measure student gaming experience and level of addiction. Students demography information, including gender and game playing habits, was also collected. Four hundred and eighteen Taiwanese college students aged 18-25years old took part in this online survey. Regression analysis was then conducted to evaluate the relative explanatory power of each variable, with addiction score as the dependent variable and the eleven user experience factors as the independent variables. The results of regression analysis reveal five critical factors (curiosity, role-playing, belonging, obligation and reward) that can be used to predict MMORPG addiction. In addition, this study also infers possible casual mechanisms for increasing college students level of addiction. The implications of our findings for both design and educational practitioners were also discussed.

Comparison of head-up display (HUD) vs. head-down display (HDD): driving performance of commercial vehicle operators in Taiwan

This study investigates the effects of two different display modes head-up display (HUD) vs. head-down display (HDD) on the driving performance and psychological workload ratings of drivers operating commercial vehicles in Taiwan. Twelve commercial lorry drivers participated in a 2 (high/low driving load road) × 2 (head-up/head-down display) × 2 (different arrangements of display sequences used) mixed-factor driving simulation experiment. Participants were divided into two groups according to the level of driving load conditions within each driving load group; the participants were further divided into another 2 subgroups based on two arrangements of display sequences used. For each driving load condition, there were two 20-min driving simulation experiments, separated by a display sequence using head-up first and then head-down or vice versa. The subjects were asked to perform four tasks: commercial goods delivery, navigation, speed detection and maintenance and response to an urgent event. Results indicated that for the first task, commercial goods delivery, the two display types showed no significant performance difference in terms of average accuracy rate. However, in terms of response time to an urgent event, it was faster with the HUD (with a low driving load-head-up vs. head-down: 1.0073 vs. 1.8684 s; with a high driving load--head-up vs. head-down: 1.3235 vs. 2.3274 s) and speed control was more consistent (having low speed variations) than with the HDD. In addition, using the HUD caused less mental stress for the drivers than the HDD and was easier for first-time users to become familiar with; with a high driving load, however, the difference between the two displays was not significant.

AIMED: a personalized TV recommendation system

Previous personalized DTV recommendation systems focus only on viewers historical viewing records or demographic data. This study proposes a new recommending mechanism from a user oriented perspective. The recommending mechanism is based on user properties such as Activities, Interests, Moods, Experiences, and Demographic information--AIMED. The AIMED data is fed into a neural network model to predict TV viewers program preferences. Evaluation results indicate that the AIMED model significantly increases recommendation accuracy and decreases prediction errors compared to the conventional model.

A fuzzy-AHP-based technique for the decision of design feature selection in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game development

The Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) industry is growing rapidly. It is very important to understand how to design a successful MMORPG that can satisfy its customers. A MMORPG is composed of many design components; therefore, the game developers cannot perfect all of the design factors due to the constraint of development resources and the time-to-market pressure of the product. The purpose of this study is to help game developers to make the trade-off decision of where to invest their limited resources to implement critical design factors. We proposed a fuzzy-AHP-based technique and constructed a hierarchical system structure for MMORPG design, which includes two systems, nine design components and 36 design features for the design factor trade-off problem. A questionnaire with a pair-wise comparison data input format was employed to gather users assessments of the relative importance of the design criteria. Two hundred and twenty-one Taiwanese MMORPG players participated in this online survey. Our results identified five critical design components that contributed to 66% of users sense of important MMORPG design features. The study also recommended the top 10 important design features, which can fulfill about 40% of users expectations in implementing the critical components. Specific design guidelines were also suggested for MMORPG implementation.

Activity-oriented design of Health Pal: a smart phone for Elders' healthcare support

Wireless telephones and personal digital assistants are emerging, as the information hubs connect their human users with assorted electronic devices and the World Wide Web. As such, they quickly become the de facto basis for personalized information services. The Kannon project team at the National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) in Taiwan is developing a ubiquitous service infrastructure for elders healthcare support. Among their deliverables, there is a PDA Phone, christened Health Pal, which can communicate with Bluetooth/ZigBee devices, uni¬ver¬sal plug-and-play (UPnP) e-home service platforms, and online healthcare providers to offer 24/7 healthcare services to elderly people. This paper presents the early results of this effort including the functional and operational concepts of Health Pal as well as the activity-oriented approach of its design. Preliminary results of its usefulness and usability evaluations are reported. A comparison of this platform against several similar prototypes was also included to illustrate the advantage of applying activity-oriented design approach to human-computer interactions.

Exploring design features for enhancing players' challenge in strategy games.

This paper examines how to make a player feel more challenged in a strategic computer game. It is hypothesized that information availability and resource advantage affect play difficulty, which in turn affects the challenge experienced. The difficulty of play can be defined in terms of the mental workload that players experience and the physical effort that players exert. Forty-five male college and graduate students participated in a 3 x 3 (information availability x resource advantage) between-subjects factorial design experiment. This experiment measured player mental workload, physical effort, and challenge. The results indicate that information availability affects player mental workload, and resource advantage affects levels of player physical effort, respectively. Moreover, the relationship between mental workload and challenge was found to be an inverted U-shaped curve; in other words, too much or too little mental workload may decrease player challenge. The relationship between physical effort and challenge exhibited similar characteristics.

Health pal: a PDA phone that will take care of your health

The Kannon project at the National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) in Taiwan has designed a smart PDA phone, christened Health Pal, to help elders to manage their healthcare needs such as planning their own physician visits, medication schedules, exercise routines as well as monitoring their blood pressures, pulse rates and oxygen levels. The paper reports the design concepts of the device as well as the activity oriented approach the team undertook during the design process. A comparison of this device against several similar prototypes was also included to highlight its unique features.

The 100,000 Participant Laboratory - A Crowd-Centered Approach to Design and Evaluate the Usability of Mobile Apps

Mobile apps play important roles in our daily lives. Software developers typically follow the user-centered design (UCD) approach to develop products that optimize usability. However, most usability methodologies require lab experiments or field studies. Usability experiments require higher costs and efforts to prepare related tasks, such as selecting the environmental setting, subject recruiting and conducting the study. Compared to the laboratory experiment of personal computers (PC), mobile usability laboratory settings present greater challenges related to controlling the research context variables.

Pomics: A Computer-Aided Storytelling System with Automatic Picture-to-Comics Composition

People now use photo browsing, photo and video slideshow, and illustrated text to share stories about their lives in pictures, however, these popular mediums are far from perfect. Some are not expressive enough for sophisticated storytelling, while others inevitably have a high usage threshold and involve a great deal of efforts. In this paper, we propose a framework for comic-based computer-aided storytelling systems to help users become comic storytellers. Such systems take users photos as the input and output comic strips that tell the story behind the photos. We see the system as a vehicle for media fusion, with the art of comic-making as the basis and inspiration. We also discuss the research challenges involved in improving such systems, and present our proof-of-concept implementation, Pomics (available online at http://www.pomics.net).

LCA-Based Economic Benefit Analysis for Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) Façades: A Case Study in Taiwan

ABSTRACT Solar energy is one of the major sources of alternative and green energies that humanity need now and will continue to need in the future. There are now a large number of R&D activities on solar power generation facilities and equipment around the world. Located in a subtropical region, Taiwan is rich in solar energy resources; therefore, how to effectively use and store solar energy is a research topic of great interest to Taiwan. The main purpose of this study explores the economic benefits of building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) facilities and equipment by analyzing the net present values (NPV) and payback period of the BIPV façade of a shopping mall in Taiwan over its lifecycle. The NPV and payback period analysis results both indicate that the BIPV façade in the case study reaches its breakeven point within 10 years of payback period and 16 years of NPV during a life cycle of 20 years. By showing BIPV investments can bring an acceptable range of benefits profits, this study hopes to provide references for promoting the photovoltaic (PV) industry.