Applying eco-visualisations of different interface formats to evoke sustainable behaviours towards household water saving

The shortage of water resources is a global issue. This study attempts to utilise eco-visualisation interface design to affect users’ water-usage behaviour. Three interface proposals were designed in this study: numeric, water droplet (abstract symbol), and swimming fish (animated image). These three different interface formats range from abstract to figurative and from neutral to affective. A total of 93 subjects were divided into three groups and randomly performed designated dishwashing tasks twice. One of the tasks was completed without the assistance of any interface, whereas the other involved applying one of the three interface formats with eco-visualisations. In this study, the Self-Assessment Manikin scales, the System Usability Scale, and the Questionnaires for User Interaction Satisfaction were used to measure the emotional dimensions and perceived usability and to record the differences in water usage volume. The results indicated that the emotional valence evoked by the animated image interface was significantly higher than that by the numeric interface. The effect of the numeric interface formats on the subjects focused on emotional arousal, whereas other interfaces emphasised emotional valence. With the aid of the eco-visualisations of interface design, the evoked emotional response and enhanced usability could help improve sustainable behaviours towards water saving.     

Positive mood induction procedures for virtual environments designed for elderly people

Positive emotions have a significant influence on mental and physical health. Their role in the elderly’s wellbeing has been established in numerous studies. It is therefore worthwhile to explore ways in which elderly people can increase the number of positive experiences in their daily lives. This paper describes two Virtual Environments (VEs) that were used as mood induction procedures (MIPs) for this population. In addition, the VEs’ efficacy at increasing joy and relaxation in elderly users is analyzed. The VEs contain exercises for generating positive-autobiographic memories, mindfulness and slow breathing rhythms. The total sample comprised 18 participants over 55 years old who used the VEs on two occasions. Twelve of them used the joy environment, while 16 used the relaxation environment. Moods before and after each session were assessed using Visual Analogical Scales. After using both VEs, results indicated significant increases in joy and relaxation and significant decreases in sadness and anxiety. The participants also indicated low levels of difficulty of use and high levels of satisfaction and sense of presence. Hence, the VEs demonstrate their usefulness at promoting positive affects and enhancing the wellbeing of elderly people.     

Student perceptions of collaborative learning,social presence and satisfaction in a blended learning environment: Relationships and critical factors

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships of the students’ perceived levels of collaborative learning, social presence and overall satisfaction in a blended learning environment. This research studied the relationship of these three variables and identified critical factors related to them. The participants were 48 graduate students who took a blended-format course in health education and worked on a collaborative group project related to the development of a comprehensive HIV-AIDS prevention plan. Data was collected from the Student Perception Questionnaire and face-to-face interviews. The analysis of quantitative data indicated that student perceptions of collaborative learning have statistically positive relationships with perceptions of social presence and satisfaction. This means that students who perceived high levels of collaborative learning tended to be more satisfied with their distance course than those who perceived low levels of collaborative learning. Similarly, students with high perceptions of collaborative learning perceived high levels of social presence as well. Surprisingly, the relationship between social presence and overall satisfaction was positive but not statistically significant. Interview data revealed that (a) course structure, (b) emotional support, and (c) communication medium were critical factors associated with student perceptions of collaborative learning, social presence, and satisfaction. Explanations about findings and implications for instructional design are discussed in the conclusion.     

Determinants of users’ continuance of social networking sites: A self-regulation perspective

Social networking sites (SNS) have transformed how individuals interact, build and maintain social relationships. We proposed a research model on the determinants of user continuance using Bagozzi's framework of self-regulation as the theoretical foundation. Following the process of appraisal → emotional reactions → coping responses, we developed the model by leveraging findings from social presence and IS continuance research. Based on survey data from Facebook users, we found that appraisal factors (pleasure, awareness, connectedness, and system quality) were strong determinants of emotional reaction (user satisfaction and sense of belonging). User satisfaction and sense of belonging together positively influenced continuance intention.     

An internet based virtual exhibition system: Conceptual deisgn and infrastructure

Virtual reality technology has wide applications in manufacturing, service industry, and medical training. In addition to essential presence, virtual reality provides secure and economical environment for participants to experience the virtual world rather than the corresponding real world. With advent of rapidly developed technology, there are numerous new products and projects to be introduced in exhibition shows over the world everyday and it is neither prudent nor possible to attend all of them. There have been overwhelming amount of virtual exhibitions available on the Internet; however, most of them are not satisfactory in terms of performance and users cannot get a full understanding on the product interested due to low sense of presence. Information coordination, other than information share and distribution, between the participants is crucial but not yet well defined in the current virtual exhibitions. It is prominent to develop Internet based virtual reality exhibition systems that agglomerate the advantages of efficiency/accessibility on the Internet and high sense of presence in virtual environment. The Internet based virtual exhibition systems are not only as informative as traditional exhibitions but also more flexible to relax temporal and spatial constraints to allow users attend exhibitions anytime and anywhere.     

Who interacts on the Web?: The intersection of users’ personality and social media use

In the increasingly user-generated Web, users’ personality traits may be crucial factors leading them to engage in this participatory media. The literature suggests factors such as extraversion, emotional stability and openness to experience are related to uses of social applications on the Internet. Using a national sample of US adults, this study investigated the relationship between these three dimensions of the Big-Five model and social media use (defined as use of social networking sites and instant messages). It also examined whether gender and age played a role in that dynamic. Results revealed that while extraversion and openness to experiences were positively related to social media use, emotional stability was a negative predictor, controlling for socio-demographics and life satisfaction. These findings differed by gender and age. While extraverted men and women were both likely to be more frequent users of social media tools, only the men with greater degrees of emotional instability were more regular users. The relationship between extraversion and social media use was particularly important among the young adult cohort. Conversely, being open to new experiences emerged as an important personality predictor of social media use for the more mature segment of the sample.     

暖设计在产品情感化设计中的应用

文章以温暖感触动用户情感和记忆为切入点,通过暖设计在产品情感化设计中的优势和表现形式,对暖设计在情感化设计中的运用进行探讨;提出暖设计的运用对产品的情感化设计有一定的辅助作用,通过温暖感的体验过程,产品能唤起用户的记忆与情感的双重共鸣。     

How oppositional loyalties resulting from producer–user collaborations reduce new product entry: Examples of online games

Instead of technological lock-in effects, oppositional loyalty to a product may emerge from users’ collaborations in the product, which grant consumers emotional experiences with the brand, encourage personal relationships, and provide emotional benefits. Therefore, consumers may limit their allocations of resources to competing new products because they devalue a new offering’s relative product performance and its user and complementary networks. Prior rate of use enhances this devaluating effect, and prior experience deepens the negative effects. In contrast, users with minimal prior experience and low usage rates more easily accept new products. This study tests these predictions in a path analysis with data pertaining to an online game, collected from consumers in cybercafés; the 296 respondents across 191 cybercafés support the hypotheses.     

Who are problematic internet users? An investigation of the correlations between problematic internet use and shyness,loneliness, narcissism,aggression and self-perception

This study investigated correlations between university students’ problematic internet use behaviors and shyness, narcissism, loneliness, aggression and self-perception. The participants were 424 students attending seven different faculties of a public university in Turkey; 215 were female and 209 male. Student’s ages ranged between 17 and 23, with a mean of 18.69. The Problematic Internet Use Scale, Shyness Scale, Narcissistic Personality Inventory, UCLA Loneliness Scale, Aggression Questionnaire, Social Comparison Scale and a Personal Data Form were used for data collection. Correlation analysis results showed positive associations between problematic internet use and shyness and aggression. No statistically significant correlation was determined between problematic internet use and narcissism, loneliness or self-perception. The results demonstrate that individuals who are problematic users are shier and more aggressive. Shyness and aggression emerged as significant antecedent variables of problematic internet use. Suggestions are made for further studies in the light of these findings.     

An e-health platform for the elderly population: The butler system

The Butler system is an e-health platform designed to improve the elderly population’s quality of life. The Butler system has three applications diagnostic, therapeutic and playful. The objective of this work is to present the influence of the use of the platform on elderly users’ mood states and the degree of acceptance. These measures were assessed through visual analogical scales before and after the platform use, with the outcome measures MANOVAS analyses were performed. Seventeen users (from 58 to 79 years old) completed four sessions with the system; they could choose which technological resources they used in each session. The results showed that after using the system, the participants’ insensitive emotions increased and their negative ones decreased. In addition, they obtained high levels of satisfaction, low levels of subjective difficulty and would recommend Butler to other users. Therefore, the results indicate that Butler might be an effective system for improving emotional states in elderly population.     

The impact of distractions on the usability and intention to use mobile devices for wireless data services

Mobile technology has quickly become ingrained in society due to the flexibility of anywhere/anytime usage. However, factors associated with and that impact mobility, mobile users, and mobile use of products and services are still poorly understood. For example, even though distractions are ever present during everyday use of mobile devices, the nature and extent to which user perceptions and performance are affected by their presence is unknown. An empirical study was undertaken to investigate the impact of distractions and confirmation of pre-trial expectations on usability and its subsequent effect on consumers’ behavioral intention toward using a mobile device for wireless data services. Distractions were simulated in this study in the form of either user motion or environmental noise (i.e. background auditory and visual stimuli). A Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) analysis confirmed the impacts of distractions on efficiency and effectiveness, and in turn the users’ satisfaction and behavioral intention to use a mobile device for wireless data services. Support was also obtained for a mediating effect of post-trial confirmation of expectations between perceived performance and satisfaction. Implications of these findings for theory, practice, and future research are outlined.     

Association between Facebook addiction,self-esteem and life satisfaction: A cross-sectional study

In recent years, many research efforts have been focused on investigation of potential connection between social networking and mental health issues. Particularly important and controversial remains the association between Facebook use, self-esteem and life satisfaction. In our cross-sectional study, on a sample of 381 Facebook users, we tested the existence and strength of this relationship using Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS), Facebook Intensity Scale (FBI), Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale (SES), and Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). With k-means cluster analysis, we divided the sample into 3 groups: ordinary, intensive, and addicted Facebook users. The results of our study show that ordinary Facebook users differ statistically in self-esteem and life satisfaction from both addicted and intensive users. Facebook addiction was in relation with lower self-esteem. Facebook addiction was also negatively related to life satisfaction. These results are in accordance with the previously published findings of other authors in the fields of social networking psychology and psychiatry.     

An integrated emotional and physiological assessment for VR-based active shooter incident experiments

Unfortunately, active shooter incidents are on the rise in the United States. With the recent technological advancements, virtual reality (VR) experiments could serve as an effective method to prepare civilians and law enforcement personnel for such scenarios. However, for VR experiments to be effective for active shooter training and research, such experiments must be able to evoke emotional and physiological responses as live active shooter drills and events do. The objective of this study is thus to test the effectiveness of an active shooter VR experiment on emotional and physiological responses. Additionally, we consider different locomotion techniques (i.e., walk-in-place and controller) and explore their impact on users’ sense of presence. The results suggest that the VR active shooter experiment in this study can induce emotional arousal and increase heart rate of the participants immersed in the virtual environment. Furthermore, compared to the controller, the walk-in-place technique resulted in a higher emotional arousal in terms of negative emotions and a stronger sense of presence. The study presents a foundation for future active shooter experiments as it supports the ecological validity using VR for active shooter incident related work for the purposes of training or research.     

Mobility impaired users respond differently than healthy users in virtual environments

Virtual environments (VEs) have been shown to be beneficial in physical rehabilitation, increasing motivation and the range of exercises that can be safely performed. However, little is known about how disabilities may impact a user's responses to a VE, which could affect rehabilitation motivation. Thus, the primary objective of this research is to understand how VEs affect users with mobility impairments (MI). Specifically, we investigate the influence of full body avatars that have canes. To begin investigating this, we designed a VE that included a range of multimodal feedback to induce a strong sense of presence and was novel to the participants. Using this VE, we conducted a study with two different populations: eight persons with MI and eight healthy persons as a control. The healthy participants were of similar demographics (e.g., age, weight, height, and previous VE experience) to the participants with MI who walked with a cane (i.e., on the basis of strict selection criteria to maintain homogeneity). This is one of the first studies to investigate how a VE can affect the gait of the users with MI, physiological response, presence, behavior, and the influence of avatars. Results of the study suggest generalizable guidelines for the design of VEs for users with MI. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Property-based collaborative filtering for health-aware recommender systems

Recommender systems aim at solving the problem of information overload by selecting items (commercial products, educational assets, TV programs, etc.) that match the consumers’ interests and preferences. Recently, there have been approaches to drive the recommendations by the information stored in electronic health records, for which the traditional strategies applied in online shopping, e-learning, entertainment and other areas have several pitfalls. This paper addresses those problems by introducing a new filtering strategy, centered on the properties that characterize the items and the users. Preliminary experiments with real users have proved that this approach outperforms previous ones in terms of consumers’ satisfaction with the recommended items. The benefits are especially apparent among people with specific health concerns.     

The role of perceived social capital and flow experience in building users’ continuance intention to social networking sites in China

The long-term development of social networking sites (SNSs) relies on their users’ continuance of use. This paper tested the role of perceived social capital and flow experience in driving users to continue using SNSs based on the expectation–confirmation model of information systems continuance. Using data from online surveys of social networking sites users in China, the proposed model was tested by using the Partial Least Squares (PLSs) technique. The results show that perceived bridging and bonding social capital have different role in building users’ satisfaction and continuance intention: perceived bridging social capital has remarkable influence on users’ satisfaction and continuance intention, but perceived bonding social capital has none. Flow experience has influence on users’ satisfaction but none on continuance intention. In addition, gender has impact on users’ continuance intention.     

Attachment and sense of presence in a virtual environment

This study is the first to investigate the connection between attachment categories and presence in Virtual Reality (VR) environments. Participants (99) completed an attachment questionnaire, experienced Virtual Reality Exposure (VRE) in a virtual airplane, and completed a presence questionnaire. Twenty-seven participants neglected to look at the virtual window, and reported lower levels of presence. A significant negative correlation between presence and avoidance was found. The correlation between presence and anxiety was not significant. Ethnicity (Jewish/non-Jewish) was found to be an intervening variable. A significant difference between levels of presence of attachment categories was found for participants who viewed the window: those in the Safe category reported the highest levels of presence, followed by the Anxious-Ambivalent group, the Dismissive-Avoidant group, and finally the Fearful-Avoidant group. Our results suggest there is a connection between one’s avoidance level and his/her attachment type and ability to experience the VRE as real and vivid.     

Team shared mental model as a contributing factor to team performance and students’ course satisfaction in blended courses

The purpose of the study was to examine how team shared mental model (SMM), team performance, and students’ course satisfaction change over time and how Team-SMM affects team performance and students’ course satisfaction. Forty-eight preservice teachers from two undergraduate blended courses participated in this study. The data were obtained via two online questionnaires (shared mental model instrument and Course Satisfaction Scale) administered throughout Spring 2010. Data analysis was conducted using repeated measures ANOVA and multiple linear regression techniques. Results indicated that Team-SMM and students’ course satisfaction changed slightly over time but the change was not statistically significant. Team performance increased significantly over the courses. Additionally, attitudes towards teammates and task were closely linked with effective team performance and students satisfaction. In the early stage of the courses, general team knowledge, resource, and environment explained a significant amount of variance in students’ course satisfaction.     

Loneliness and social uses of the Internet

Loneliness has been associated with increased Internet use. Lonely individuals may be drawn online because of the increased potential for companionship, the changed social interaction patterns online, and as a way to modulate negative moods associated with loneliness. Online, social presence and intimacy levels can be controlled; users can remain invisible as they observe others’ interactions, and can control the amount and timing of their interactions. Anonymity and lack of face-to-face communication online may decrease self-consciousness and social anxiety, which could facilitate pro-social behavior and enhance online friendship formation. Support for this model was found in a survey of 277 undergraduate Internet users that was used to assess differences between lonely and not-lonely individuals in patterns of Internet use. Loneliness was assessed on the UCLA Loneliness Scale; students in the highest 20% (Lonely) were compared with all other students (Non-lonely). Lonely individuals used the Internet and e-mail more and were more likely to use the Internet for emotional support than others. Social behavior of lonely individuals consistently was enhanced online, and lonely individuals were more likely to report making online friends and heightened satisfaction with their online friends. The lonely were more likely to use the Internet to modulate negative moods, and to report that their Internet use was causing disturbances in their daily functioning.