Enhanced sensor-based interaction techniques for mobile map-based applications
- Authors: Van Tonder, Bradley Paul
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Cartography , User interfaces (Computer systems) -- Design , Digital mapping
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:10483 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1012995
- Description: Mobile phones are increasingly being equipped with a wide range of sensors which enable a variety of interaction techniques. Sensor-based interaction techniques are particularly promising for domains such as map-based applications, where the user is required to interact with a large information space on the small screen of a mobile phone. Traditional interaction techniques have several shortcomings for interacting with mobile map-based applications. Keypad interaction offers limited control over panning speed and direction. Touch-screen interaction is often a two-handed form of interaction and results in the display being occluded during interaction. Sensor-based interaction provides the potential to address many of these shortcomings, but currently suffers from several limitations. The aim of this research was to propose enhancements to address the shortcomings of sensor-based interaction, with a particular focus on tilt interaction. A comparative study between tilt and keypad interaction was conducted using a prototype mobile map-based application. This user study was conducted in order to identify shortcomings and opportunities for improving tilt interaction techniques in this domain. Several shortcomings, including controllability, mental demand and practicality concerns were highlighted. Several enhanced tilt interaction techniques were proposed to address these shortcomings. These techniques were the use of visual and vibrotactile feedback, attractors, gesture zooming, sensitivity adaptation and dwell-time selection. The results of a comparative user study showed that the proposed techniques achieved several improvements in terms of the problem areas identified earlier. The use of sensor fusion for tilt interaction was compared to an accelerometer-only approach which has been widely applied in existing research. This evaluation was motivated by advances in mobile sensor technology which have led to the widespread adoption of digital compass and gyroscope sensors. The results of a comparative user study between sensor fusion and accelerometer-only implementations of tilt interaction showed several advantages for the use of sensor fusion, particularly in a walking context of use. Modifications to sensitivity adaptation and the use of tilt to perform zooming were also investigated. These modifications were designed to address controllability shortcomings identified in earlier experimental work. The results of a comparison between tilt zooming and Summary gesture zooming indicated that tilt zooming offered better results, both in terms of performance and subjective user ratings. Modifications to the original sensitivity adaptation algorithm were only partly successful. Greater accuracy improvements were achieved for walking tasks, but the use of dynamic dampening factors was found to be confusing. The results of this research were used to propose a framework for mobile tilt interaction. This framework provides an overview of the tilt interaction process and highlights how the enhanced techniques proposed in this research can be integrated into the design of tilt interaction techniques. The framework also proposes an application architecture which was implemented as an Application Programming Interface (API). This API was successfully used in the development of two prototype mobile applications incorporating tilt interaction.
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- Date Issued: 2012
An investigation into the use of guidelines and patterns in the interaction design process
- Authors: Cowley, Niel Lester Orr
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Human-computer interaction , Web sites -- Design , User interfaces (Computer systems) -- Design
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:10466 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/1062 , Human-computer interaction , Web sites -- Design , User interfaces (Computer systems) -- Design
- Description: Design guidelines are used in interaction design (IxD) for physical design and for evaluating the usability of designs and interactive products. Guidelines are widely used for physical design and evaluation, but have a number of problems. IxD patterns have been proposed as an alternative to guidelines, as they are claimed to have several advantages over guidelines. A small number of empirical studies provide evidence that patterns are beneficial when used in IxD. Additional research on the usefulness of IxD patterns is required. The primary research question investigated in this thesis was thus: How useful are IxD patterns as physical design and evaluation aids in IxD, as compared to design guidelines? The role of guidelines and patterns as design and evaluation aids in IxD was investigated and a comparison of guidelines and patterns, based on a set of guideline and pattern properties, was conducted. The concept of pattern and guideline usefulness was explored and a research agenda for guidelines and patterns was identified, together with a set of research questions for an empirical study. The empirical study of the use of patterns for evaluation, redesign and new design, as compared to guidelines, was conducted at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in 2004. The participants were a purposive sample of post-graduate Computing students, who were regarded as novice interaction designers. Two equivalent groups were formed, one that used patterns and one that used guidelines. Patterns were found to be as useful as guidelines when used as evaluation aids. Guidelines and patterns were identified as effective tools for identifying and explaining usability issues and design features. Best-effort matched sets of guidelines and patterns produced substantially different result sets when used to identify issues and features, with fairly low overlap. A substantial evaluator effect was observed for the use of guidelines and patterns for evaluation, and the results obtained were similar to those obtained by Molich et al. in their Comparative Usability Evaluation (CUE) studies. There was no statistically significant difference between the effectiveness of guidelines and patterns for evaluation. There was also no statistically significant difference between the perceived efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction in use of guidelines and patterns for evaluation. Guidelines and patterns were found to be used in similar ways for evaluation. Patterns were found to be more effective than guidelines for redesign. Patterns were found to be as useful as guidelines when used for new design. There was no statistically significant difference between the effectiveness of guidelines and patterns for new design. There was also no statistically significant difference between the perceived efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction in use of guidelines and patterns for redesign and new design. Guidelines and patterns were found to be used in similar ways for design. There was no statistically significant difference between the perceived usefulness of the format, content, ease of learning, and usefulness as personal and shared design languages, of guidelines and patterns. Both participant groups were equally agreeable to using guidelines and patterns in the future. The perceived usefulness of pattern collections was found to depend on the usability of the collection interface and the content quality of the patterns. The results of the empirical study thus provided empirical evidence that patterns were as useful as guidelines for evaluation and new design, and were perceived as positively as guidelines were. Patterns were found to be superior to guidelines for redesign. Patterns can therefore be used with a measure of confidence as early stage design aids for physical design and evaluation in the future. In addition to these findings, a number of opportunities for further research were identified.
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- Date Issued: 2009
Adaptive user interfaces for mobile map-based visualisation
- Authors: Van Tonder, Bradley Paul
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Cartography , Maps -- Design , Digital mapping , Geographic information systems , User interfaces (Computer systems) -- Design
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:10470 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/866 , Cartography , Maps -- Design , Digital mapping , Geographic information systems , User interfaces (Computer systems) -- Design
- Description: Mobile devices today frequently serve as platforms for the visualisation of map-based data. Despite the obvious advantages, mobile map-based visualisation (MMV) systems are often difficult to design and use. Limited screen space, resource constraints and awkward interaction mechanisms are among the many problems with which designers and users have to contend. Adaptive user interfaces (AUIs), which adapt to the individual user, represent a possible means of addressing the problems of MMV. Adaptive MMV systems are, however, generally designed in an ad-hoc fashion, making the benefits achieved difficult to replicate. In addition, existing models for adaptive MMV systems are either conceptual in nature or only address a subset of the possible input variables and adaptation effects. The primary objective of this research was to develop and evaluate an adaptive MMV system using a model-based approach. The Proteus Model was proposed to support the design of MMV systems which adapt in terms of information, visualisation and user interface in response to the user‟s behaviour, tasks and context. The Proteus Model describes the architectural, interface, data and algorithm design of an adaptive MMV system. A prototype adaptive MMV system, called MediaMaps, was designed and implemented based on the Proteus Model. MediaMaps allows users to capture, location-tag, organise and visualise multimedia on their mobile phones. Information adaptation is performed through the use of an algorithm to assist users in sorting media items into collections based on time and location. Visualisation adaptation is performed by adapting various parameters of the map-based visualisations according to user preferences. Interface adaptation is performed through the use of adaptive lists. An international field study of MediaMaps was conducted in which participants were required to use MediaMaps on their personal mobile phones for a period of three weeks. The results of the field study showed that high levels of accuracy were achieved by both the information and interface adaptations. High levels of user satisfaction were reported, with participants rating all three forms of adaptation as highly useful. The successful implementation of MediaMaps provides practical evidence that the model-based design of adaptive MMV systems is feasible. The positive results of the field study clearly show that the adaptations implemented were highly accurate and that participants found these adaptations to be useful, usable and easy to understand. This research thus provides empirical evidence that the use of AUIs can provide significant benefits for the visualisation of map-based information on mobile devices.
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- Date Issued: 2008