Analysing trade-offs in frameworks for the design of smart environments

ABSTRACT

Smart Interactive Experiences (SIEs) are usage situations enabled by the Internet of Things that empower users to interact with the surrounding environment. The goal of our research is to define methodologies and software environments to support the design of SIEs; more specifically, we focus on design paradigms suitable for experts of given domains, who however might not be experts in technology. In this context, this paper discusses some trade-offs that we identified between six different dimensions that characterise the quality of software environments for SIE design. The trade-offs emerged from the analysis of data collected in an experimental study that compared three different design paradigms to understand in which measure each paradigm supports the creative process for SIE design. After reporting on the study procedure and the data analyses, the paper illustrates how the resulting trade-offs led us to identify alternatives for SIE design paradigms, and to structure on their basis a modular architecture of a software platform where the strengths of the three paradigms can be exploited flexibly, i.e. depending on the constraints and the requirements characterising specific design situations.     

Patient source of learning about health technologies and ratings of trust in technologies used in their care

In order to design effective health technologies and systems, it is important to understand how patients learn and make decisions about health technologies used in their care. The objective of this study was to examine patients' source of learning about technologies used in their care and how the source related to their trust in the technology was used. Individual face-to-face and telephone interviews were conducted with 24 patients. Altogether, 13 unique sources of information about technology were identified and three major themes emerged: outside of the work system vs. inside the work system; when the health information was provided; the medium used. Patients used multiple sources outside of the healthcare work system to learn about technologies that will be used in their care. Results showed a relationship between learning about technologies from web sources and trust in technologies but no relationship between learning about technologies from healthcare providers and trust in technologies.

Statement of Relevance: The value of considering human attitudes about elements in health systems has been illustrated. This research shows a relationship between patient attitudes about medical technologies used in their care and healthcare work system design. Results show that patient attitudes are formed about technologies used in their care by sources within and outside of the sociotechnical work system.     

Human Factors Analysis,Design, and Evaluation of Engage,a Consumer Health IT Application for Geriatric Heart Failure Self-Care

ABSTRACT

Human factors and ergonomics (HFE) and related approaches can be used to enhance research and development of consumer-facing health information technology (IT) systems, including technologies supporting the needs of people with chronic disease. A multiphase HFE study of health IT supporting self-care of chronic heart failure by older adults is described. The study was based on HFE frameworks of “patient work” and incorporated the three broad phases of user-centered design: study or analysis, design, and evaluation. In the study phase, data from observations, interviews, surveys, and other methods were analyzed to identify gaps in and requirements for supporting heart failure self-care. The design phase applied findings from the study phase throughout an iterative process, culminating in the design of the Engage application, a product intended for continuous use over 30 days to stimulate self-care engagement, behavior, and knowledge. During the evaluation phase, a variety of usability issues through expert heuristic evaluation and laboratory-based usability testing were identified. The implications of our findings regarding heart failure self-care in older adults and the methodological challenges of rapid translational field research and development in this domain are discussed.     

Impact of website information design factors on consumer ratings of web-based auction sites

Web-based auctions are now regarded as among the most successful business models on the Internet. Buyers who are invited to a web-based auction site make decisions based on a wealth of on-line information. In such circumstances, commercial transactions tend to be influenced not only by the information content of the website, but also by its design. However, little effort has been made to analyse the relationships between transaction behaviour and these design factors. The aim of this paper is to identify information design factors and to analyse how these factors influence intention to bid in web-based auction sites. Our empirical study shows that information design factors and the specific characteristics of products are significantly related to a buyer's evaluations of an auction website and intention to bid.     

Consumer Health Informatics Interventions Must Support User Workflows,Be Easy-To-Use,and Improve Cognition: Applying the SEIPS 2.0 Model to Evaluate Patients’ and Clinicians’ Experiences with the CONDUIT-HID Intervention

ABSTRACT

The aim of this research was to gain a holistic understanding of patients’ and clinicians’ experiences with the CONDUIT-HID (CONtrolling Disease Using Inexpensive Technology—Hypertension In Diabetes) intervention, intended to be a technology-enabled consumer health informatics (CHI) approach to control hypertension. We examined patients’ experiences utilizing the technologies to share patient blood pressure data with their care team via a qualitative analysis of patient (n = 21) and clinician (n = 5) interviews. Using the SEIPS 2.0 sociotechnical systems model, our evaluation revealed that minimizing usability issues and supporting participant workflow were important—but not sufficient—for CHI intervention success. The ability of the CHI intervention to support the cognitive development of patients’ self-management skills and to facilitate strategic collaboration among care team members was also important. These insights can provide CHI and the human–computer interaction (HCI) communities with a framework of generalizable findings to better design future CHI interventions.     

Comparing alternatives for analyzing requirements trade-offs – In the absence of numerical data

ContextChoosing a design solution most often involves dealing with trade-offs and conflicts among requirements and design objectives. Making such trade-offs during early stages of requirements and design is challenging because costs and benefits of alternatives are often hard to quantify.ObjectiveThe objective of this work is to develop a decision analysis method that assists in making trade-offs in the absence of quantitative data.MethodIn this method, stakeholders qualitatively compare consequences of alternatives on decision criteria. We propose an algorithm that generates all possible consequences of alternatives on requirements, according to the rough qualitative comparisons that stakeholders made. The possible consequences generated by the algorithm are then analyzed by the Even Swaps Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis method to determine the best solution. The Even Swaps method is a technique developed in management science to assist in multi-criteria decision making when explicit value trade-offs are not available.Results and conclusionsOur algorithm teases out the need to accurately measure or estimate costs and benefits of alternative design solutions. The algorithm automates the Even Swap process, and reuses stakeholders’ value trade-offs throughout the Even Swaps process. We applied the prototype tool in several case studies to evaluate the utility of the method. The results of case studies provide evidence that our decision aid method selects the optimum solution correctly compared to results of other similar quantitative methods, while our method does not rely on detailed numerical assessment of alternatives and importance weights of criteria.     

Two controlled experiments on model-based architectural decision making

ContextIn recent years, architectural design decisions are becoming more and more common for documenting software architectures. Rather than describing the structure of software systems, architectural decisions capture the design rationale and – often reusable – architectural knowledge. Many approaches and tools have been proposed in the literature to support architectural decision making and documentation (for instance, based on models, ontologies, or templates). In this context, the capturing, organization, and effective reuse of architectural knowledge has gained a lot of attention.ObjectiveHowever, there is little empirical evidence about the supportive effect of reusable architectural knowledge on the effectiveness and efficiency of architectural decision making.MethodTo investigate these aspects, we conducted two separate controlled experiments with software architecture students in which we tested the supportive effect of reusable decision models in decision making and documentation.ResultsOur results show that the use of reusable decision models can significantly increase both the efficiency and the effectiveness of novice architects.ConclusionWe can report, that our findings are in line with similar studies and support the claims regarding reusable architectural design decisions in principle.     

Cognitive evaluation for conceptual design: cognitive role of a 3D sculpture tool in the design thinking process

ABSTRACT

This study focuses on the decisive role played by the digital design environment in the cognitive design process and design thinking. To analyse the cognitive role of digital design tools, we carried out a protocol analysis of conventional design sketching and a 3D sculpture tool. Cognitive evaluation was a differentiating factor when considering the contextual role of the 3D sculpture tool in subsequent evaluations, non-sequential evaluations for conversion, and passive approaches within the design process. Cognitive evaluation played the following roles: validation, extension, navigation, exploration, and confirmation. The navigation, exploration, and extension roles played by non-sequential evaluation were mainly related to inductive design thinking. Finally, the types of cognitive evaluation and their roles when using the 3D sculpture tool were different, according to the design thinking type. This study explored the multidimensional roles of cognitive evaluation using a 3D sculpture tool and its relationship with design thinking types.     

路径-维度GraphOLAP大规模多维网络并行分析框架

现实生活中大量数据都可以使用多维网络进行建模,如何更好地对多维网络进行分析至今仍是研究人员关注的重点.OLAP（联机分析处理）技术已被证实是对多维关系数据进行分析的有效工具,但应用OLAP技术管理和分析多维网络数据以支持有效决策仍旧是一项巨大的挑战.本文设计并提出了一种新的图立方体模型：路径-维度立方体,并针对提出的立方体模型将物化过程划分为关系路径物化与关联维度物化两部分,分别提出了物化策略并基于Spark框架设计了相关算法;在此基础上,我们针对网络数据设计并细化了相关的GraphOLAP（图联机分析处理）操作,丰富了框架的分析角度,提高了对多维网络的分析能力;最后,在Spark上实现了相关算法,通过对多个真实应用场景中的数据构建多维网络,在分析框架上进行了分析,实验表明我们提出的图立方体模型和物化算法具有一定有效性和可扩展性.     

Exploring Patients’ Use Intention of Personal Health Record Systems: Implications for Design

Abstract

Personal health record (PHR) systems offer a technology for personal health information management (PHIM) activities. Despite efforts to increase the use of PHR systems as a mechanism to support better patient-centered care and improve information management across the continuum of care, PHR adoption remains low. The purpose of this study was to explore how to design a PHR system that can adequately support personal health information management activities. Using a mixed-methods approach (questionnaires and interviews), we identified the factors affecting a person’s intention to use PHRs and also described the personal health information management activities among people from a wide age range in the United States. Results indicated that the intention to use PHR systems was affected by system-related factors, such as perceived usefulness, health information understandability, personalization, and patient–clinician communication support, and user-related factors, such as social influence, self-efficacy, and willingness to share. Furthermore, five types of personal health information management activities were found, including storage, organization, maintenance, retrieval, and sharing. Informed by the study findings, we developed seven design recommendations to improve PHR systems. Future studies can focus on further validating these findings using other methods and be based on larger and more representative PHR users.     

Exploring influencing factors of technology use for active and healthy ageing support in older adults

ABSTRACT

Aim of this study is to investigate the influence of technological and social cognitive factors for the use of sensor-based technologies for active and healthy ageing (AHA) support by older adults. In a mixed methods approach, data was initially obtained from an online questionnaire completed by older health technology users and used in a regression analysis, where factors from the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) served as predictors for health technology use (HTU). Further, in-depth interviews were conducted with older adults to gain insights into technology use and physical activity behaviour of older adults. The regression analysis showed that the TAM and SCT factors accounted for a significant proportion of variance (39.5%) in HTU. Significant predictors of HTU were physical activity (.399**), social support (.287*), and expectations regarding individual health (.440*) and physical appearance (?.470**), indicating physical activity as mediator for HTU. The qualitative analysis indicated the conflation of technology support with social environments as key for physical activity behaviour in older adults. The findings indicate physical activity as a mediator in HTU by older adults and suggest that the consideration of social factors in health technology design may facilitate the uptake of AHA technologies.     

产品设计方案费效权衡的随机机会约束规划模型

针对产品设计方案费效权衡中由于未考虑生产过程中不确定性因素影响而导致的权衡结果易产生偏差的问题, 提出将不确定优化理论引入产品设计方案费效权衡模型中。在对关键设计参数敏感性分析的基础上,将敏感性变量以及费用估算的偏差描述为随机变量,构建基于以产品设计方案费效权衡的随机机会约束规划模型,并采用嵌入蒙特卡洛模拟的遗传算法求解,得到考虑不确定因素影响的最优产品设计方案。最后以混凝土泵车为实例,验证了模型的有效性。研究表明,采用费效权衡随机机会约束规划模型得到的产品设计方案,更能反映生产实际,可以最大程度保证不确定条件下产品设计决策目标的实现。     

Exploring design trade-offs for achieving social inclusion in multi-tiered design problems

ABSTRACT

The digital age of the future is ‘not out there to be discovered’, but it needs to be ‘designed’. The design challenge has to address questions about how we want to live, work, and learn (as individuals and as communities) and what we value and appreciate, e.g.: reflecting on quality of life and creating inclusive societies. An overriding design trade-off for the digital age is whether new developments will increase the digital divide or will create more inclusive societies. Sustaining inclusive societies means allowing people of all ages and all abilities to exploit information technologies for personally meaningful activities. Meta-design fosters the design of socio-technical environments that end-user developers can modify and evolve at use time to improve their quality of life and favour their inclusion in the society. This paper describes three case studies in the domain of assistive technologies in which end users themselves cannot act as end-user developers, but someone else (e.g.: a caregiver or a clinician) must accept this role requiring multi-tiered architectures. The design trade-offs and requirements for meta-design identified in the context of the case studies and other researchers’ projects are described to inform the development of future socio-technical environments focused on social inclusion.     

A platform for the development of patient applications in the domain of personalized health

Personalized health (p-health) systems can contribute significantly to the sustainability of healthcare systems, though their feasibility is yet to be proven. One of the problems related to their development is the lack of well-established development tools for this domain. As the p-health paradigm is focused on patient self-management, big challenges arise around the design and implementation of patient systems. This paper presents a reference platform created for the development of these applications, and shows the advantages of its adoption in a complex project dealing with cardio-vascular diseases.     

Exploring consumer preferences in cloud archiving – a student's perspective

Cloud storage has seen an increasing rise in demand and diffusion. Consequently, the cloud storage market is also becoming an increasingly commoditised market. That is, homogenous products are offered at equal prices, and this offer makes it more difficult for cloud storage providers to generate revenue and differentiate themselves from their competitors. Therefore, it is vital for providers to precisely understand customer preferences so that these can be targeted with appropriate services. To examine these preferences, we conduct a choice experiment and analyse choice decisions gathered from 340 German students by means of a conjoint analysis. We perform an individual-level analysis of preferences, which reveals significant differences and heterogeneity within the sample. By using a subsequent cluster analysis, we identify three distinct customer segments that also show significant differences in, for example, the perceptions of information privacy and risks. Our findings contribute to the literature by uncovering the preference structure and trade-offs that users make in their choice of storage services when employed for the purpose of archiving. We conclude the study with a discussion of practical implications that can aid cloud storage providers in service design decisions, and highlight the limitations associated with our research approach and drawn sample.     

基于虚拟样机技术的铁路货车轴端电机结构设计

介绍了虚拟样机技术和Pro/E 软件,描述了铁路货车轴端电机的结构和功 能特点及其虚拟样机模型的三维设计流程。讲述了模块化理念和并行设计方法在轴端电机总 体设计中的应用,并详细描述了参数化设计方法在轴端电机详细设计中的应用,主要包括零 部件尺寸参数化、装配约束参数化及Pro/E 提供的“外部复制几何”和“使用参照”两种参数化 工具。以永磁体厚度作参数化变量为例,介绍了多学科分析在轴端电机结构设计中的作用。 通过铁路货车轴端电机结构设计的实践表明：先进的三维设计技术和卓越的多学科分析方法 是基于虚拟样机技术的产品结构设计的重要工具和组成部分,能有效缩短设计周期、减少设 计成本,并能保证产品满足使用者的需求。     

A neuro-fuzzy hybrid scheme for design and simulation of human machine systems

In this article, a new neuro-fuzzy hybrid approach to human workplace design and simulation is proposed. Problems related to human workplace design such as human-machine modeling, measurement and analysis, workplace layout design and planning, workplace evaluation and simulation are discussed in detail. The complex human-machine interactions in workplace design are described with human and workstation parameters within a comprehensive human-machine system model. Based on this model, procedures and algorithms for workplace design, ergonomic evaluation, and optimization are presented in an integrated framework. With a combination of individual neural and fuzzy techniques, the neuro-fuzzy hybrid scheme implements fuzzy if-then rules block for workplace design and evaluation by trainable neural network architectures. For training and test purposes, simulated assembly tasks are carried out on a self-built multiadjustable laboratory workstation with a flexible PEAK Motus motion measurement and analysis system. The trained fuzzy neural networks are capable of predicting the operator's posture and joint angles of motion associated with a range of workstation configurations. They can also be used for design/layout and adjustment of manual assembly workstations. The developed system provides a unified, intelligent computational framework for human-machine system design and simulation. In the end, case studies for workplace design and simulation are presented to validate and illustrate the developed neuro-fuzzy design scheme and system.     

Patient source of learning about health technologies and ratings of trust in technologies used in their care

In order to design effective health technologies and systems, it is important to understand how patients learn and make decisions about health technologies used in their care. The objective of this study was to examine patients' source of learning about technologies used in their care and how the source related to their trust in the technology was used. Individual face-to-face and telephone interviews were conducted with 24 patients. Altogether, 13 unique sources of information about technology were identified and three major themes emerged: outside of the work system vs. inside the work system; when the health information was provided; the medium used. Patients used multiple sources outside of the healthcare work system to learn about technologies that will be used in their care. Results showed a relationship between learning about technologies from web sources and trust in technologies but no relationship between learning about technologies from healthcare providers and trust in technologies. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE: The value of considering human attitudes about elements in health systems has been illustrated. This research shows a relationship between patient attitudes about medical technologies used in their care and healthcare work system design. Results show that patient attitudes are formed about technologies used in their care by sources within and outside of the sociotechnical work system.     

Quantitative ethnographic study of physician workflow and interactions with electronic health record systems

This study explores the relationship between primary care physicians' interactions with health information technology and primary care workflow. Clinical encounters were recorded with high-resolution video cameras to capture physicians' workflow and interaction with two objects of interest, the electronic health record (EHR) system, and their patient. To analyze the data, a coding scheme was developed based on a validated list of primary care tasks to define the presence or absence of a task, the time spent on each task, and the sequence of tasks. Results revealed divergent workflows and significant differences between physicians' EHR use surrounding common workflow tasks: gathering information, documenting information, and recommend/discuss treatment options. These differences suggest impacts of EHR use on primary care workflow, and capture types of workflows that can be used to inform future studies with larger sample sizes for more effective designs of EHR systems in primary care clinics. Future research on this topic and design strategies for effective health information technology in primary care are discussed.Relevance to industryThis paper presents the effect of EHR use on workflow of a primary care visit. Understanding physicians' interaction styles can inform design of specific features of future health IT systems for more effective and efficient workflow in outpatient setting.     

Control System Design Automation for Mechanical Systems

In this paper, a user-friendly and comprehensive control system design package called Control System Design Automation (CSDA) is described. The system consists of five main blocks: a requirement interpretation block, a modeling block, an analysis/design block, a database management and knowledge base block, and a verification block. The requirement interpretation block transforms the specifications in terms of the application to those in terms of control. The analysis/design block selects an optimal control structure and determines the controller parameters. In addition to the conventional design methods, CSDA also contains the more recent design methods such as the LMI design approach and the Kessler/Manabe method. The LMI approach can obtain a controller which satisfies multiple specification items at the same time. The configuration of the system as well as the analysis/design block are described in detail in this paper.