Control centric approach in designing scrolling and zooming user interfaces

The dynamic systems approach to the design of continuous interaction interfaces allows the designer to use simulations, and analytical tools to analyse the behaviour and stability of the controlled system alone and when it is coupled with a manual control model of user behaviour. This approach also helps designers to calibrate and tune the parameters of the system before the actual implementation, and in response to user feedback. In this work we provide a dynamic systems interpretation of the coupling of internal states involved in speed-dependent automatic zooming, and test our implementation on a text browser on a Pocket PC instrumented with a tilt sensor. We illustrate simulated and experimental results of the use of the proposed coupled navigation and zooming interface using tilt and touch screen input.     

Developing a smart multifunctional outdoor jacket with wearable sensing technology for user health and safety

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Over the decades, there has been a sustained effort to use fashion as a medium for delivering digital functionality. The goal is to integrate information...     

On the development of a haptic system for rapid product development

This paper presents a system development that extends haptic modeling to a number of key aspects in product development. Since haptic modeling has been developed based on physical laws, it is anticipated that a natural link between the virtual world and practical applications can be established based on haptic interaction. In the proposed system, a haptic device is used as the central mechanism for reverse engineering, shape modeling, real time mechanical property analysis, machining tool path planning and coordinate measuring machine (CMM) tolerance inspection path planning. With all these features in a single haptic system, it is possible to construct a three dimensional part by either haptic shape modeling or reverse engineering, then performing real-time mechanical property analysis in which the stiffness of a part can be felt and intuitively evaluated by the user, or generating collision free cutter tool path and CMM tolerance inspection path. Due to the force feed back in all of the above activities, the product development process is more intuitive, efficient and user-friendly. A prototype system has been developed to demonstrate the proposed capabilities.     

组态软件用户图形界面的设计与开发

设计并开发了一种基于面向对象组态软件的用户图形界面,介绍了用户图形界面的设计模式,并且描述了主要类的设计,着重分析了矢量图形系统和动画处理各功能的开发技术。充分运用了VC＋＋语言的封装性、继承性和虚拟多态性,实现了组态软件的独立性、层次性和可重用性。     

Modeling user perception of 3D video based on ambient illumination context for enhanced user centric media access and consumption

For enjoying 3D video to its full extent, it is imperative that access and consumption of it is user centric, which in turn ensures improved 3D video perception. Several important factors including video characteristics, users’ preferences, contexts prevailing in various usage environments, etc have influences on 3D video perception. Thus, to assist efficient provision of user centric media, user perception of 3D video should be modeled considering the factors affecting perception. Considering ambient illumination context to model 3D video perception is an interesting research topic, which has not been particularly investigated in literature. This context is taken into account while modeling video quality and depth perception of 3D video in this paper. For the video quality perception model: motion and structural feature characteristics of color texture sequences; and for the depth perception model: luminance contrast of color texture and depth intensity of depth map sequences of 3D video are used as primary content related factors in the paper. Results derived using the video quality and depth perception models demonstrate that these models can efficiently predict user perception of 3D video considering the ambient illumination context in user centric media access and consumption environments.     

Choosing a user interface development tool

Software developers face many difficult decisions when building new applications, not the least of which is the design of the graphical user interface. The answer to one question-is it better to use a GUI development tool or build it manually?-is relatively straightforward. Today's tools offer several benefits that manual coding does not. Because these tools often provide a simple graphical interface for developing displays, nonprogrammers and human factors engineers can contribute their expertise. Also, if the schedule permits, a tool can be used to build prototypes throughout the development cycle; some tools even provide a test/prototype mode for testing displays without compiling and executing the entire application. And finally, end users can evaluate each prototype and provide feedback, increasing their satisfaction with the final product     

Design and development of multidevice user interfaces through multiple logical descriptions

The increasing availability of new types of interaction platforms raises a number of issues for designers and developers. There is a need for new methods and tools to support development of nomadic applications, which can be accessed through a variety of devices. We present a solution, based on the use of three levels of abstractions, that allows designers to focus on the relevant logical aspects and avoid dealing with a plethora of low-level details. We have defined a number of transformations able to obtain user interfaces from such abstractions, taking into account the available platforms and their interaction modalities while preserving usability. The transformations are supported by an authoring tool, TERESA, which provides designers and developers with various levels of automatic support and several possibilities for tailoring such transformations to their needs.     

Design and validation of a complete haptic system for manipulative tasks

The present work deals with the design, implementation and assessment of a new haptic system specifically conceived for manipulative tasks in virtual environments. Such a system was designed by taking into account specific issues related to fine manipulation, such as multipoint haptics, coherence, transparency and physical representation. The haptic system described herein is integrated with a virtual environment engine for the simulation of multifinger manipulation. A preliminary evaluation of the system was conducted by comparing human performance in the manipulation of virtual objects with respect to real objects, according to the data available in the literature. The experiments confirm how the most relevant relationships among physiological and physical parameters involved in manipulation are also preserved during virtual manipulation. However, an in-depth analysis of the results shows that simulation parameters affect the level of force control during virtual manipulation and the quality of the perceived force feedback.     

Predictive haptic guidance: intelligent user assistance for the control of dynamic tasks

Intelligent systems are increasingly able to offer real-time information relevant to a user's manual control of an interactive system, such as dynamic system control space constraints for animation control and driving. However, it is difficult to present this information in a usable manner and other approaches which have employed haptic cues for manual control in "slow" systems often lead to instabilities in highly dynamic tasks. We present a predictive haptic guidance method based on a look-ahead algorithm, along with a user evaluation which compares it with other approaches (no guidance and a standard potential-field method) in a 1-DoF steered path-following scenario. Look-ahead guidance outperformed the other methods in both quantitative performance and subjective preference across a range of path complexity and visibility and a force analysis demonstrated that it applied smaller and fewer forces to users. These results (which appear to derive from the predictive guidance's supporting users in taking earlier and more subtle corrective action) suggest the potential of predictive methods in aiding manual control of dynamic interactive tasks where intelligent support is available.     

Design issues of mobile haptic interfaces

As a novel approach to force‐reflecting telepresence, the concept of mobile haptic interfaces (MHI) is presented. An MHI actively follows the locomotion of an operator, who is no longer bound to be stationary during teleoperation. Thus, operator locomotion can be used as an input for locomotion control of a real teleoperator or control of locomotion in a virtual environment while keeping the advantage of force‐reflection. The article focuses on basic design issues and presents a prototype MHI for haptic exploration of extended virtual environments. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Active affective State detection and user assistance with dynamic bayesian networks

With the rapid development of pervasive and ubiquitous computing applications, intelligent user-assistance systems face challenges of ambiguous, uncertain, and multimodal sensory observations, user's changing state, and various constraints on available resources and costs in making decisions. We introduce a new probabilistic framework based on the dynamic Bayesian networks (DBNs) to dynamically model and recognize user's affective states and to provide the appropriate assistance in order to keep user in a productive state. We incorporate an active sensing mechanism into the DBN framework to perform purposive and sufficing information integration in order to infer user's affective state and to provide correct assistance in a timely and efficient manner. Experiments involving both synthetic and real data demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed framework as well as the effectiveness of the proposed active sensing strategy.     

Communicating emotion through a haptic link: Design space and methodology

Communication of affect across a distance is not well supported by current technology, despite its importance to interpersonal interaction in modern lifestyles. Touch is a powerful conduit for emotional connectedness, and thus mediating haptic (touch) displays have been proposed to address this deficiency; but suitable evaluative methodology has been elusive. In this paper, we offer a first, structured examination of a design space for haptic support of remote affective communication, by analyzing the space and then comparing haptic models designed to manipulate its key dimensions. In our study, dyads (intimate pairs or strangers) are asked to communicate specified emotions using a purely haptic link that consists of virtual models rendered on simple knobs. These models instantiate both interaction metaphors of varying intimacy, and representations of virtual interpersonal distance. Our integrated objective and subjective observations imply that emotion can indeed be communicated through this medium, and confirm that the factors examined influence emotion communication performance as well as preference, comfort and connectedness. The proposed design space and the study results have implications for future efforts to support affective communication using the haptic modality, and the study approach comprises a first model for systematic evaluation of haptically expressed affect.     

Design and analysis of an fMRI compatible haptic robot

Magnetic resonance (MR) compatible haptic devices have certain specific structural and operational properties, which are due to the magnetic field, and haptic requirements. Through the development of a haptic mechanism, which is compatible with a magnetic resonance environment, certain problems were solved, which are common to all robotic devices operating in an MR tunnel. This paper deals with the manipulability problem of a novel 3 DOF MR compatible haptic mechanism, considering limited space and its visualisation. An appropriate 3D visualisation method has been developed for analysing the manipulability characteristics of a haptic mechanism within an MR environment. Choosing a suitable driving system is one of the crucial design attributes for quality force transmission in haptic interfaces. This paper introduces certain adaptations, which have been done to enable the MR compatibility of a cable drive driven by an electric motor. It also presents the theoretical modelling of a cable drive for a 3 DOF MR compatible haptic mechanism, focusing on the hysteretic behaviour of polymeric cables.     

Design for experience innovation: understanding user experience in new product development

In providing a better experience to users in terms of product usage, we focus on the important concept of a user-centred design (UCD), and explore a new approach to user experience (UX), with the effort to understand experience-driven innovation. Based on the conceptual framework of experiential network and the results of multiple case studies covering 643 successfully designed products or services providing an optimised UX, we categorise the UX context into the following four representative types: individualisation, combination, integration, and ecosystem. Furthermore, we identify the essential UCD concepts that reflect the core needs and expectations of users in each of the designed contexts, that is, specialty, usefulness, usability, and fluency. Finally, we discuss the dynamic concepts that help achieve a successful experience innovation. We expect these findings to play a crucial role in the development of novel design concepts or strategies, not only to better understand the needs of contemporary users, but also to better understand the dynamics of innovation.     

多平台移动用户界面生成方法的研究

针对多平台移动用户界面开发的各种问题,提出一个模式驱动的多平台移动用户界面生成方法（Pattern-Driven Multi-Platform development of mobile user interface）,以下简称PDMP,来加快目前多个平台的用户界面开发流程的开发效率。使用PDMP,开发者可使用高等抽象层次的开发语言来进行界面开发并以此减少劳动力成本,并使用多平台或跨平台（Android & iOS）的转换技术来为每个平台自动生成纯粹的原生用户界面。提出一个虚拟平台的概念,开发者可以在虚拟平台上构建抽象用户界面并依据转换规则转换到相应的具体平台。     

Model-based development of distributable user interfaces

Universal Access in the Information Society - The price drop of digital displays during the last decade has promoted the use of coupled-display ecosystems. This paper proposes a model-based...     

Perceived interactivity leading to e-loyalty: Development of a model for cognitive–affective user responses

Novel applications of website interactivity are important to attract and retain online users. In this empirical study five designs for interactivity are examined using different web-poll interfaces. The goal of the investigation is to examine perceived interactivity in a model which includes most commonly tested cognitive elements such as efficiency and effectiveness, but augments this model with the inclusion of a cognitive–affective element for trust, and an affective element of enjoyment. More specifically, a model is created to validate the relationship of perceived interactivity (comprised of user control, user connectedness, and responsiveness of the web-poll application) to efficiency, effectiveness, trust and enjoyment, of the website. In turn, efficiency, effectiveness, trust, and enjoyment are tested for their influence on user behavioral intentions for e-loyalty. All relationships in the model are supported. In addition, exploratory evaluation of qualitative comments is conducted to investigate additional insights between the five web-poll treatments in this investigation. The research confirms the complexity of a model in which cognitive, cognitive–affective and affective elements are present, and advances knowledge on the consequences of perceived interactivity. In additional to theoretical advancements, the research has merit for web designers and online marketers regarding how to enhance interactive online web applications.     

Construction of a supermicro sense of force feedback and vision for micro-objects: development of a haptic device

This research aims to develop a combined sense system that uses both the force feedback and visual feedback to establish the shape of microscopic features of a microsample. It is thought that the efficiency of minute procedures would be improved if the operator could obtain a sense of force while using a manipulator. We used a cantilever to touch a minute object and obtain a reaction force from the degree of bending. We made a haptic device which gives a sense of that force to the operator, who can feel the force when a user touches a sample with a cantilever. In addition, when the haptic device is used in simulations, the user can feel a force just as if the user had touched a sample.     

Toward the development of interactive virtual dissection with haptic feedback

Traditional, hands-on dissection of an animal is common practice in many classrooms to aid in the study of anatomy and biology. More specifically, virtual dissection environments have been developed making it possible to study the inner workings of animals without cutting them up. In this paper, we present a novel virtual reality dissection simulator, where a user can dissect an animal (i.e. frog) and its organs using a 3D force feedback haptic device. The simulator uses force feedback as part of a multimodal cue to provide guidance and performance feedback to the user. This paper highlights methodologies which are used for addressing some of the key challenges involved in designing and developing simulators, such as: modelling and mechanics of deformation, collision detection between multiple deformable bodies, and haptic feedback.