Contextual Issues in Groupware Applications for Educational Support Groups

The objective of this chapter was to identify a set of contextual issues in groupware applications used by educational support groups. The analysis was performed through a Needfindings study where 20 active members of three Mexican federal educational-support groups called USAER were recruited. The analysis considered both users and functional vantage point. The participants (from one USAER) provided feedback and insights from their daily activities related to communication with others and resources access helping to define and understand users' scenarios. This information was classified and distilled as design ideas in low fidelity prototypes constructed by participants themselves under guidance from authors. Finally, prototypes were evaluated by the members of the other two USAER group providing their perception as expert users. The study derived in a set of particular contextual issues that directly influence interactions in group applications. These findings could be take into account by designers as a reliable starting point for well-designed User Interfaces for groupware

Innovation Gaming: An Immersive Experience Environment Enabling Co-creation

A number of existing innovation paradigms and design approaches such as Open Innovation (Chesbrough, 2003), User Experience (Hassenzahl & Tractinsky, 2006) and User-Centred Design (Von Hippel, 2005), as well as User-Centred Open Innovation Ecosystems (Pallot, 2009a) are promoting distributed collaboration among organisations and user communities. However, project stakeholders are mainly trained for improving their individual skills through learning experience (i.e. practical exercises, role playing game) rather than getting a live user experience through immersive environments (e.g. Virtual Reality, Serious Games) that could unleash their creativity potential. This chapter introduces the findings of a study on serious gaming, which discusses various aspects of games and explores a number of issues related to the use of innovation games for enabling user co-creation in the context of collaborative innovation and experiential Living Labs

Innovation Gaming: An Immersive Experience Environment Enabling Co-creation

A number of existing innovation paradigms and design approaches such as Open Innovation (Chesbrough, 2003), User Experience (Hassenzahl & Tractinsky, 2006) and User-Centred Design (Von Hippel, 2005), as well as User-Centred Open Innovation Ecosystems (Pallot, 2009a) are promoting distributed collaboration among organisations and user communities. However, project stakeholders are mainly trained for improving their individual skills through learning experience (i.e. practical exercises, role playing game) rather than getting a live user experience through immersive environments (e.g. Virtual Reality, Serious Games) that could unleash their creativity potential. This chapter introduces the findings of a study on serious gaming, which discusses various aspects of games and explores a number of issues related to the use of innovation games for enabling user co-creation in the context of collaborative innovation and experiential Living Labs

Experimenting Through Mobile ‘Apps’ and ‘App Stores’

Utilizing App Stores as part of an ‘in-the-large’ methodology requires researchers to have a good understanding of the effects the platform has in the overall experimental process if they are to utilize it effectively. This paper presents an empirical study of effects of the operation an App Store has on an App lifecycle through the design, implementation and distribution of three games on the WidSets platform which arguably pioneered many of the features now seen as conventional for an App Store. Although these games achieved in excess of 1.5 million users it was evident through their App lifecycle that very large numbers of downloads are required to attract even a small number of active users and suggests such Apps need to be developed using more commercial practices than would be necessary for traditional lab testing. Further, the evidence shows that ‘value added’ features such as chat increase not only the popularity of an App but also increase the likelihood of continued use and provide a means of direct interaction with users

Using information retrieval for interaction with mobile devices

Future's environments will be sensitive and responsive to the presence of people to support them carrying out their everyday life activities, tasks and rituals, in an easy and natural way. Such interactive spaces will use the information and communication technologies to bring the computation into the physical world in order to enhance ordinary activities of their users. Human-computer interaction (HCI) and information retrieval (IR) fields have both developed innovative techniques to address the challenge of navigating complex information spaces, but their insights have often failed to cross-disciplinary borders. Human-computer information retrieval (HCIR) has emerged in academic research and industry practice to bring together research in the fields of IR and HCI, in order to create new kinds of search systems that depend on continuous human control of the search process. HCIR is the study of information retrieval techniques that bring human intelligence into the search process. This chapter will describe searchbased interaction techniques using two human-computer interaction information retrieval systems: (1) a speech-based spoken multimedia retrieval system that can be used to present relevant video-podcast (vodcast) footage in response to spontaneous speech and conversations during daily life activities, and (2) a novel shape retrieval technique that allows 3D modeling of indoor/outdoor environments using multi-view sketch input from a mobile device

Optimization of the BIM authoring tool in architectural practice : a case study approach

Construction companies are facing barriers and challenges in Building Information Modelling (BIM) adoption as there is no clear guidance or best practice studies from which they can learn and build up their capacity for BIM use to increase productivity, efficiency, and quality. One of the key challenges in the BIM adoption is the ability of optimization of a selected BIM authoring tool according to a company’s needs and requirements. This paper explains the approach for the optimization of BIM technology selected in a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project, undertaken between the University of Salford and John McCall Architects. The BIM implementation approach in the KTP used a socio-technical view that considered both the implementation of technology and its socio-cultural environment. The adoption and optimisation used the action research oriented qualitative and quantitative research for discovery, comparison, and experimentation it provided for “learning by doing.