Power wheelchairs remain an efficient means of regaining mobility for many people around the world. Unfortunately, some are not able to use power wheelchairs because of difficulties using a standard joystick. People with neuromuscular diseases who experience a loss in muscular strength find it difficult to use of a joystick. In this paper, we explore steering power wheelchairs using a tactile interface on a smartphone. Eleven users with neuromuscular diseases tried this type of steering in free learning sessions. Four among them were able to take part in an experiment where we evaluated their kinematic performance between the use of the tactile steering interface and the joystick. The paper presents data and observations from both sessions and tries to detect tendencies and draw hypotheses that can guide further and in-depth clinical testing of the tactile steering for wheelchair users suffering from neuromuscular diseases. Overall, the user performance with the tablet was close or the same as their performance with the joystick. In addition, the users reported a lesser level of physical demand of the tactile steering over the joystick
Raycasting is the most common target pointing technique in virtual reality environments. However, performance on small and distant targets is impacted by the accuracy of the pointing device and the user's motor skills. Current pointing facilitation techniques are currently only applied in the context of the virtual hand, i.e. for targets within reach. We propose enhancements to Raycasting : filtering the ray, and adding a controllable cursor on the ray to select the nearest target. We describe a series of studies for the design of the visual feedforward, filtering technique, as well as a comparative study between different 3D pointing techniques. Our results show that highlighting the nearest target is one of the most efficient visual feedforward technique. We also show that filtering the ray reduces error rate in a drastic way. Finally we show the benefits of RayCursor compared to Raycasting and another technique from the literature.
The design and evaluation of a tool, whether informatic or not, impacts its life cycle. IT tools are increasingly present on a daily basis. Specific audiences now benefit easily. But do these dedicated tools meet their expectations? Typically, it is customary to call on the end users themselves to respond. However, the latter, depending on their profiles, are not always able to respond. In the case of this study, we want to evaluate an application dedicated to a young audience with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders). This very specific audience encounters, among other things, difficulties in the field of communication. Many evaluation methods rely on verbal exchanges with the user. What role will children have with ASD in the evaluation phase of their tool? This audience benefits from constant support (family, medical and educational teams). Can these caregivers support the child in the evaluation process, and if so how?
We present an experience with the development and evaluation of AppsGate, an ecosystem for the home that can be programmed by end-users. We show the benefits from using the homes of the project team members as real-life living-labs. In particular, we discuss the first person perspective experience as an effective way to conduct longitudinal experiments in real world settings. We conclude that a programmable habitat is desirable provided that attention cost is minimized
This article proposes a state-of-the-art on communication support systems that can be used by users with Athetoid Cerebral Palsy. Today, many communication support systems are available on the market and/or presented in the literature.They include (1) virtual keyboards, (2) software using pictograms, (3) speech recognition, and (4) other types of input systems dedicated to physically disabled users (brain-computer interface and physical aids). After the description of these four categories of communication support systems, this article ends with a synthesis in which our view of each category of system in relation to the considered user profile is provided.
Since many years, the Human-Computer Interaction community is interested in the tangible user interfaces (TUI). A part of these TUI focuses on the interaction performed with one or several objects. The domain is in extension by the development of contactless objects (using NFC, RFID technology, etc.). In the system, tangible objects could represent data, action, or complex part. Interaction on a table, which is a common furniture in the everyday life and used in multiple activities (desktop, coffee table, kitchen table, etc.), opens a new way for the research and development in HCI. This article proposes to use a framework, previously proposed in a conjunct article, to characterize applications supported by the couple . These applications aim at supporting complex business tasks; they are described from a technological point of view on the one hand, and from an applicative point of view on the other hand. These applications show the benefit brought by the couple to the interaction and they are immersed in the framework. The framework shows with these instantiations that it is generic and supports such descriptions.
In recent years, tangible user interfaces, which imply interactions performed with one or several objects, gain more and more interest in research in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). The tangible object represents a subject or an action. It acts on the system, as an action in classical user interfaces (e.g,. GUI). Interaction on a table, which is a common furniture in everyday life and used in multiple activities (desktop, coffee table, kitchen table, etc.), opens a new way for research and development in HCI. In this article, we present definitions, models, and key issues elicited from the literature that enable understanding and reasoning about the couple < interactive tabletop, tangible object> within an interactive system. Then, we propose a framework that allows to characterize applications supported by the couple in a domain-independent manner.
The UX domain has so far been strongly associated with software development. However, its methods are finding their way intodomains like Product and Service Design. Product Designers now need competencies far beyond classical form-giving. The objective of thispaper is to show Product Designers which design dimensions they need to attend to when designing for UX. The paper gives an overview ofdesign dimensions that potentially impact how users’ experience products. These dimensions are brought together from theories ofCognitive Science, models of Human-Computer Interaction and findings from Design Research. They are presented under four categories:dimensions of human perception, dimensions of products, dimensions of the context of use and the temporal dimension. In the final part, theidentified dimensions are connected into a schema, illustrating their interplay and therefore the journey of UX between a user and a product,in a certain context over a certain time.
This paper presents a framework dedicated to the design of geographic web applications. This framework includes three generic design models that allow designers to build a geographic application according to three dimensions: geographic content, content rendering and display, and interactive behaviour. The three design models allow designers to develop applications for elementary tasks to achieve a specific goal. They are expressive enough to describe a wide variety of geographic applications. They are operational as they are translated into executable code. This executability supports an agile design process based on short cycles where designers can refine their needs as many times as necessary by specifying, executing and evaluating their application. Modeling is performed using visual languages. In particular, the interactive behaviour is specified with a language inspired from the UML sequence diagram. We have demonstrated that this language is sufficiently simple to be understood by domain experts (e.g., education, tourism, culture) with no computer science background. We have developed WINDMash, an authoring environment, to assess our approach, as well as the models and the design languages with a diversity of geographic Web applications.
