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It is recognised that assistive technology plays an active role in empowering individuals who live with severe paralysis. Exoskeleton (exo) technology is a promising emerging assistive technology—a wearable robot designed to support the functions of the human body. However, an exoskeleton is a complex technology, and the successful design of exoskeletons depends heavily on the ability to integrate this type of robot in the environments of future users. In this paper, we present insights into user requirements produced through a qualitative study involving adults living with one of the most severe forms of paralysis: tetraplegia, or paralysis from the neck down. The study is based on two iterations of interviews conducted in the homes of future users. The study identifies key user requirements and contextual factors that are important for user acceptance of future exo design. We discuss how to integrate these findings in the design of an exo prototype of an exoskeleton arm targeted at people living with tetraplegia.

Asynchronous remote usability testing is a usability evaluation method where users and evaluators are separated both in time and space, and users are directly involved in producing the evaluation results. This paper reports from an action research project on introduction of asynchronous remote usability testing in the IT organization of a bank. The IT organization had extensive experience with traditional usability evaluation but was interested in introducing asynchronous remote usability testing into their repertoire of evaluation methods. The project was initiated with an intensive two-month collaboration followed by a six-month maturation phase. The process of introducing the method and the motivations of the IT organization for introducing the method are described in detail. The findings indicate that the conceptual understanding of usability evaluation and the engagement of the users are crucial for the outcome of the evaluation, and the tool and materials used for the evaluation was an obstacle for high-quality results.

We present IntraVox, a novel voice-based interaction system that supports users with complex needs by introducing a highly personalized, human voice command between smart home devices and sensors. Voice-enabled personal assistants (e.g., Amazon Alexa, Google Home) can be used to control smart home devices and increase the quality of life. However, people suffering from conditions such as dementia or learning disabilities and autism (LDA) can encounter verbal and memory problems in communicating with the assistants. IntraVox supports these users by verbally sending smart home control commands, based on the sensor data collected, to a voice-enabled personal assistant using a human voice. Over 12 months, we conducted 7 workshops and 9 interviews with 79 participants from multiple stakeholder categories - people with LDA, older and frail people, social and health care organisations. Results show that our solution has the potential to support people with complex needs and increase independence. Moreover, IntraVox could have the added value of reinforcing the learning of specific commands and making visible the inner workings of a home automation system, by giving users a clear cause-and-effect explanation of why certain events occur.

In interactive information-seeking, a user often performs many interrelated queries and interactions covering multiple aspects of a broad topic of interest. Especially in difficult information-seeking tasks the user may need to find what is in common among such multiple aspects. Therefore, the user may need to compare and combine results across queries. While methods to combine queries or rankings have been proposed, little attention has been paid to interactive support for combining multiple queries in exploratory search. We introduce an interactive information retrieval system for exploratory search with multiple simultaneous search queries that can be combined. The user is able to direct search in the multiple queries, and combine queries by two operations: intersection and difference, which reveal what is relevant to the user intent of two queries, and what is relevant to one but not the other. Search is directed by relevance feedback on visualized user intent models of each query. Operations on queries act directly on the intent models inferring a combined user intent model. Each combination yields a new result (ranking) and acts as a new search that can be interactively directed and further combined. User experiments on difficult information-seeking tasks show that our novel system with query operations yields more relevant top-ranked documents in a shorter time than a baseline multiple-query system. acceptedVersion

Voice Assistants (VAs) present promising opportunities for the development of applications for the work domain. While previous research is primarily focused on aiding groups and individuals to be more productive, studies exploring the use of VAs to train and develop collaboration skills are rather limited. In this paper, we examine whether VAs can be used to help individuals improve their collaboration skills through self-reflection. We developed ReflectPal, a Google Assistant application designed to facilitate reflection sessions regarding collaboration challenges. First, we identified a list of frequently occurring challenges in a specific collaboration work environment. Then we designed ReflectPal to address a subset of those challenges and tested it in a two-week in-situ deployment with 19 participants. We found that participants benefited from the structure that the practice provided, leading to deeper and more meaningful reflections than before. However, the study also highlighted the need to design applications that take motivational aspects into account to encourage frequent engagement in self-reflection for skill development. Reflecting on insights from our study, we discuss future design directions of VAs for facilitating self-reflection in a collaborative work context.

Touchscreens today represent the most versatile solution for configuring user interfaces. A toll for this versatility is the intangibility of the displayed virtual controls. The addition of haptic feedback can improve their manipulation by reinforcing or even substituting visual information. While haptic rendering of virtual buttons is advancing, tangible knobs seem yet to come, possibly due to the inherent difficulty to conceptualize rotation as an interaction primitive in absence of a physical control. To address this issue, we propose a hybrid solution consisting in an endless knob with programmable resistance to rotation. Compared to existing related devices, it minimizes costs, encumbrance and power consumption, making its installation also possible on portable equipment. After describing its design and main features, we present a test which assessed how haptic feedback rendered by the knob affects performance in a visual target-matching task: users had to select targets placed on a horizontal slider by dragging its cursor through knob rotation. Results show that haptic augmentation significantly improved target acquisition., + ID: 585524 + Serientitel: Lecture Notes in Computer Science + PeerReviewed

The use of social robots is making its way into public spacessuch as schools and museums. In this paper we investigate initiation ofinteraction between a museum guide robot and visitors. First, we conducteda lab experiment, based on a previous Japanese study, whichconfirmed that participants prefer the robot with appropriate greetingbehavior to the robot without. Thus, we concluded that the results obtainedin the original study can be applied in the Danish cultural context.Based on these findings, we conducted a field study in a Danish museumto evaluate whether the same principles apply in the wild and to investigatespatial behavior between robot and visitors in real world settings.

This paper contributes to HCI with a foundation for exploring ways in which an Internet of Things (IoT) solution can support the maintenance of public automated defibrillators (AEDs) sustainably. AED is a critical lifesaving technology installed in non-medical environments. The technology places enormous demands on public engagement for its use and maintenance. Insights into how medical technology is maintained in non-medical environments can complement current innovations in lifesaving technology. This ethnographic study investigates the complexity around an IoT solution to remedy breakdowns in the maintenance of AEDs in a Danish context. We conceptualize maintenance as infrastructuring and identify how the diverse field of actors around an AED entails technical but primarily social dimensions revealing a controversy of responsibility and accountability. This article recommends that when developing an IoT solution for maintaining AEDs, technical, social, political, and ethical dimensions should be considered to address responsibility and accountability issues.

In human robot interaction any input that might help the robot to understand the human behaviour is valuable, and the eyes and their movement undoubtedly hold valuable information. In this paper we propose a novel algorithm for intention recognition using eye tracking in human robot collaboration. We first explore how the Cascade Effect hypothesis and a LSTM-based machine learning model perform to classifyintent from gaze. Second, an algorithm is proposed, which can be usedin a real time interaction to infer intention from the human user with a small uncertainty. A data collection with 30 participants was conducted in virtual reality to train and test the algorithm. The algorithm allowsto detect the user intention up to 2 seconds before any user action with a success rat of up to 75%. These results open the possibility to study human robot interaction, where the robot can take the initiative based on the intention recognition.

Algorithms are present in many of our everyday activities. However, there is generally low awareness of their presence among users, and there are various conceptualizations to define them. Additionally, algorithms are often both complex and opaque. These characteristics raise challenges when applying co-design activities to the interaction design of algorithms. We argue that researchers can overcome these challenges by developing sensitizing activities: activities that foreground the presence of algorithms, thus raising algorithmic awareness and a shared understanding, without influencing their initial experiences and expectations. We share how we applied sensitizing activities in two case studies: sensitizing interviews, and diary studies together with two-phase workshops. We share our experiences applying these techniques to overcome the challenges of low algorithmic awareness and multiple algorithmic understandings of participants. Finally, we offer recommendations for researchers and practitioners when applying sensitizing activities in this design context and invite further methodological discussion on this challenging topic. no ISSN ispartof: NordiCHI '20: Proceedings of the 11th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Shaping Experiences, Shaping Society ispartof: Nordic forum for Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research NordiCHI location:Tallin date:25 Oct - 29 Oct 2020 status: Published online

International audience; Authentication is a security function, added on top of an interactive system, whose role is to reduce organizations and users’ risks to grant access to sensitive data or critical resources to unauthorized users. Such a security function interfere with users’ goals and tasks by adding articulatory activities, which affect each dimension of usability. In order to mitigate their negative effect on usability, security functions must be designed following a User Centered Approach. In order to ensure their efficiency in terms of security, security processes have to be followed. With this respect, this paper focuses on the representation of user tasks (using task modelling techniques) to be performed during authentication. For security aspects, we propose the use of an approach called “attack trees” which represents threats and their effect. To integrate both aspects in a single framework, we propose an extended task modelling technique that is able to represent explicitly security threats and their potential effect together with users’ tasks performed during authentication. We show how such models can be used to compare the usability and the security of different authentication mechanisms and to make explicit conflicts between these properties. We exemplify the use of the approach on two sophisticated authentication mechanisms demonstrating its applicability and its usefulness for representing and assessing in a single framework, usability and security of these security mechanism.

This study explores the use of natural language to give instructions that might be interpreted by Internet of Things (IoT) devices in a domestic `smart home' environment. We start from the proposition that reminders can be considered as a type of end-user programming, in which the executed actions might be performed either by an automated agent or by the author of the reminder. We conducted an experiment in which people wrote sticky notes specifying future actions in their home. In different conditions, these notes were addressed to themselves, to others, or to a computer agent.We analyse the linguistic features and strategies that are used to achieve these tasks, including the use of graphical resources as an informal visual language. The findings provide a basis for design guidance related to end-user development for the Internet of Things., Comment: Proceedings of the 5th International symposium on End-User Development (IS-EUD), Madrid, Spain, May, 2015

Mainstream display technologies have progressed towards higher resolutions and contrast levels. However, for IoT applications, where displays are embedded in the environment, there are requirements to optimize displays for lower power consumption or minimal environmental impact, potentially sacrificing contrast or switching time. We approach this issue by considering the spatial design of UI components. As a first step, we explore switch type UI components (e.g., check box, toggle switch) and evaluate the performance of 4 alternative spatial designs at low contrast levels. As a contribution, we open the issue of spatial UI design for low contrast and demonstrate an approach for its evaluation.

The meSch project addresses the challenges of creating a personally meaningful, sensorily rich, and socially expanded museum visitor experience through tangible and embodied interaction with digital content. It is of paramount importance that cultural heritage professionals are directly involved in the design of those experiences. The meSch approach is to empower cultural heritage professionals with tools that guide them through a do-it-yourself process of creating or adapting digitally augmented experiences for their own museum spaces, therefore reducing the barriers of introducing Internet of Things technology in cultural heritage spaces.