Highly complex systems, such as software development tools, constantly gain features and, consequently, complexity and, thus, risk overwhelming or distracting the user. We argue that automation and adaptation could help users to focus on their work. However, the challenge is to correctly and promptly determine when to adapt what, as often the users’ intent is unclear. To assist software developers, we build a gaze-adaptive integrated development environment using the developers’ gaze as the source for learning appropriate adaptation. Beyond our experience of using gaze for an adaptive user interface, we also report first feedback from developers regarding the desirability of such a user interface, which indicated that adaptations for development tools need to strike a careful balance between automation and user control. Nonetheless, the developers see the value in a gaze-based adaptive user interface and how it could improve software development tools going forward.
Many career guidance platforms are information portals that have a strong text-based approach and are used in higher grades later in the career guidance process. As part of a research project (JOLanDA) aimed at improving the career orientation of young people, we are developing a gamified platform to support younger pupils (12 years and older) in career orientation also outside of school. In this paper, we report on a moderated usability test (n = 14) with junior experts (students) to gain initial insights on how to improve the platform, as well as results from school workshops (n = 197, grade 7-9) within three field phases. Due to the playful approach, narrative structure (interactive digital storytelling), and a novel interaction concept (scroll-activated animations), the platform seems to attract great interest and has the potential to foster intrinsic user motivation. Based on the results, we provide design recommendations for online learning environments.
The subject of this study was to explore children's ability to offer verbal feedback during usability evaluation studies. The aim is to find out whether the use of the method Peer Tutoring or Thinking Aloud can identify more usability findings in usability tests with second graders than observation. 13 Second graders tested an interactive game using two evaluation techniques. The findings indicate that the majority of verbal remarks were identified with the method of Thinking Aloud and that participants also provided more higher quality remarks. More usability findings could be identified than in a purely observational situation. Unexpectedly, the Peer Tutoring method was less beneficial for the identification of usability problems since the participants struggled to cooperate successfully.
The increasing emphasis on digital wellbeing (DW) underscores the significance of balancing technology use with other aspects of life. However, it remains unclear to what extent mobile DW apps support this balance by incorporating the life component. We conducted a systematic review of 152 mobile apps available on Google's Playstore and found that current DW apps mainly focus on digital-centric actions, such as monitoring screen time and setting app limits, while overlooking everyday life activities that occur outside the smartphone. To address this limitation, we created Life-Relaunched, a smartphone launcher that adapts to users' real-life contexts and activities implicitly. We then performed a preliminary study to examine the opportunities and challenges of incorporating implicit features into DW apps. The results of our study indicate that integrating implicit features can be advantageous in facilitating a balance between life and smartphone use. Nonetheless, it also emphasizes the challenges of user burden in establishing usage contexts initially.
The immersive nature of virtual reality (VR) allows even complex information to be communicated in an engaging, interactive, and fast way. This is particularly useful in the case of long-term political processes, such as the siting, construction, and management of a repository for high-level radioactive waste (HLRW). In this paper, we present an approach to convey an understanding of such long-time horizons by converting the information into a motion-controlled VR application. To gain insight into how users experience a period of 500 years, a pilot study with 15 subjects was conducted. The first results were positive; the subjects were thrilled with the presentation format in VR and offered several recommendations for improvement of the time visualization. For inexperienced users, the interaction was possible without any assistance and has the potential to be adapted to other use cases.
