Oscar de Bruijn

A New Framework for Theory-Based Interaction Design Applied to Serendipitous Information Retrieval

The activities of opportunistic and involuntary browsing offer the potential for many of a users latent problems to be resolved serendipitously, with negligible cognitive effort. In this article, we demonstrate how the design of two novel artifacts to support such behavior was based on a set of Design Actions which were derived from a model of browsing behavior in combination with a cognitive model of human visual information processing. We propose the concept of Design Actions as a way of avoiding the need for an interaction designer associated with these and similar artifacts to understand the cognitive theories underlying them.

User engagement by user-centred design in e-Health

This paper describes the application of user-centred design (UCD) methods and a user engagement (UE) approach to a case study development of a visualization tool (ADVISES) to support epidemiological research. The combined UCD/UE approach consisted of scenario-based design, and analysis of the users’ tasks and mental model of the domain. Prototyping and storyboarding techniques were used to explore design options with users as well as specifying functionality for two versions of the software to meet the needs of novice and expert users. An evaluation of the prototype was carried out to assess the extent to which the expert model would support public health professionals in their analysis activities. The results of the design exploration requirements analysis study are reported. The implications of scenario-based design exploration, participatory design and user engagement are discussed.

The fantasy table

We explore the possibility of creating an interactive system which can foster fantasy play in preschool children in a tabletop environment. This paper reports our experiences designing and testing two prototypes with young children aged 3-4 years old. In the first study, we focused on understanding the similarities and differences between the type of play afforded by real objects and virtual objects. In the second study, we focused on testing solutions for the interaction difficulties evinced in the first study to see how to provide an engaging experience for children. Data were collected by observing children while they played with the study materials. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used for data collection and analysis.

The Perception of Cultural Differences in Online Self-presentation

Online self-presentation, defined as the way people present themselves through profiles, blogs, photo albums, etc., forms the basis of much of the interpersonal relationship building taking place in social networking platforms such as Windows Live Space. However, little is known about how people make sense of this information, particularly if presenter and audience do not have a common cultural background. This study investigated the effectiveness of cross-cultural online communication by measuring the cross-cultural social perception of specially constructed online representations of a typical British and a typical Chinese person. The representations were based on a 7-dimensional characterization of cultural differences derived from a review of the literature. The findings suggested that cultural characterization embedded in online communication affects the social perception of others, that it can trigger stereotypes, and that it has consequences for establishing relationships. Implications for the design of social networking platforms are discussed.

Facebook helps: a case study of cross-cultural social networking and social capital

This paper reports on two studies investigating the perceived social capital (SC) associated with cross-cultural social networking on Facebook (FB). A survey study showed that greater intensity of cross-cultural FB interactions was positively associated with a perceived increase in cross-cultural social capital (CCSC). A follow-up interview study further revealed that the perceived benefits of online SC depend on both the type of FB interaction and the type of friendship, as well as a combination of situational circumstances and cultural background of the interviewee. This study also contributes to the study of cross-cultural social networking by employing and validating a scale for measuring online CCSC.

Developing visualization-based decision support tools for epidemiology

The paper describes the application of user-centred design (UCD) methods to a case study of the development of visual decision support tools to support epidemiological research. Understanding the causes of obesity requires analysis of complex medical surveys and geographic information. Translating research on obesity into effective public health measures requires collaboration between medical researchers and public health analysts. The objective of this research is to develop software tools to support medical researchers and public health analysts in collaborative investigation of obesity in children. The UCD approach consisted of scenario-based design, storyboarding and prototyping to explore design options to meet the needs of public health analysts and academic researchers. An evaluation of the prototype was carried out to assess the extent to which the medical researcher model would support public health professionals in their analysis activities. The design and evaluation of the prototype are discussed. A visualization-based research and decision-support system was implemented leading to positive evaluation results from users.

M-RSVP: Mobile Web Browsing on a PDA

The main challenge in making mobile Web access a desirable option for users of handheld devices lies in the provision of effective user-experiences during Web browsing. We propose M-RSVP as an end-to-end solution for mobile handheld Web navigation. M-RSVP aims to provide users with a rich set of navigational information accessible through a set of simple and natural interactions on a range of handheld devices. In this paper we describe how the RSVP model of Web browsing has been implemented into the RSVP-Browser for PDAs. We further describe how Web content has been adapted to be browsed using the RSVP-Browser. We argue that the adaptation of content for display on the mobile devices calls for a flexible device-independent specification format for Web content. An evaluation study is described in which users were asked to use either the RSVP-Browser or Microsoft Pocket Internet Explorer. It was found that the unfamiliarity of the RSVP-Browser initially caused some problems, but with little experience the RSVP-Browser allowed at least as efficient browsing as Pocket Internet Explorer. A questionnaire given after users performed their browsing tasks revealed some of the particular strengths and weaknesses of the RSVP-Browser. Suggestions for further work and implications for Web browsing on small screen devices are discussed.

Customer experience requirements for e-commerce websites

With the emergence of highly interactive applications on the World Wide Web has come a realisation that customer engagement is an increasingly important requirements consideration. It is currently not clear, however, what kinds of requirements websites have to adhere to in order to offer the right kinds of customer experience. In this paper, we report on a study in which we explored the relationships between content, presentation and usability of websites and how these relate to the overall satisfaction of the user and their willingness to purchase goods and services. Based on the results we can make recommendations about requirements considerations for content and presentation in the form of trade-offs that need to be considered by requirements-engineers.

A three-level approach to the study of multi-cultural social networking

This paper firstly introduces three levels of research on online social networking and the corresponding three levels of research on multi-cultural social networking in our project: individual level, interaction level and consequence level. Our studies on multi-cultural online social networking through these three levels are then presented in more detail, ranging from the discussion of previous cross-cultural research at each level, to the research designs and main findings of our studies. Lastly the combined results from the three studies are discussed to achieve an overall picture of this phenomenon.

Behavioural segmentation using store scanner data in retailing: Exploration and exploitation in frequently purchased consumer goods markets

Consumers treat and react to promotions diversely in terms of their promotion proneness and variety seeking tendency. This paper investigates 589 consumers with 169678 transaction records in the US salt-snack market ranging from year 4 to year 7 in IRI Market Dataset for exploring how their purchase behaviours evolve in the consumer life cycle. A set of algorithms is presented to process store scanner data for measuring consumers’ promotion proneness and variety seeking tendency, which are then used for conducting clustering analysis. Four types of purchase behaviours including “Promotion averse”, “Bargain hunters”, “Opportunistic explorers”, and “Opportunistic exploiters” are identified and assigned accordingly for each consumer in each year. Even though consumers’ purchase behaviours will dynamically and freely shift within or among those four behavioural segments over time, two clear behavioural evolvement patterns can be identified statistically in the consumer life cycle. In the US salt-snack market, some consumers who are initially not sensitive to promotions will gradually evolve to take advantage of promotion to try alternatives for extending their market knowledge. Some explorers’ promotion proneness will gradually increase and outweigh their variety seeking tendency over time, thus, those opportunistic explorers become inclined to buy any brands on promotion. In contrast, consumers who initially prefer to buy their familiar brands will become motivated to buy any brands, particularly the brands they are familiar with, on promotion. After a certain period of exploitation with promotions, their variety seeking tendency will gradually increase and slightly outweigh their promotion proneness, thus, those consumers will particularly keen to take advantage of promotion to explore the US salt-snack market over time. We discuss the implications of these findings in terms of managerial recommendations regarding promotion activities for retailers to increase the rate of response to promotions and offer suggestions for future research.