Usability testing avalanche bulletins of the Alpine arc

As a follow-up study to the redesign of the Slovenian avalanche bulletin from the past year, the Computer Systems Department of the Jožef Stefan Institute is conducting an online usability evaluation of the avalanche bulletins from the Alpine arc region. There are 20 SUS questionnaires, 1 for each bulletin, waiting for responses at the links below:

Please help us spread the word and get as many responses as possible from people who use the bulletin. It will help us evaluate future bulletin redesigns and hopefully improve the safety of our mountains.

Improving the usability of online usability surveys with an interactive Stripe scale

Matevž Pesek, Alja Isakovic, Gregor Strle, Matija Marolt
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Computer and Information Science, Laboratory for Computer graphics and Multimedia, Večna Pot 113, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

Abstract: The paper introduces Stripe, an interactive continuous scale for online surveys that makes it easy to compare multiple answers on a single screen. The Stripe is evaluated as an alternative to the n-point Likert scale, which is commonly used in online usability questionnaires like the System Usability Scale (SUS). The paper presents the results of a user study, which confirmed the validity of results gained with the proposed Stripe interface by applying both the Stripe and the Likert interface to an online SUS questionnaire. Additionally, the results of our study show that the participants favor the Stripe interface in terms of intuitiveness and ease of use, and even perceive the Stripe interface as less time consuming than the standard Likert scaled interface based on radio buttons.

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Full paper: link

Redesign of Slovenian Avalanche Bulletin

Vanja Blažica, Janez Jaka Cerar, Aleš Poredoš
Slovenian Environment Agency, Vojkova 1b, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

Abstract: We present the redesign of the Slovenian avalanche bulletin, published regularly during the winter season to warn against avalanche danger and to provide specific information for advanced users. The former version included an estimation of danger on a scale from one to five with supporting text for the whole country, while the new one offers an additional graphical description, specified for several geographical regions. The redesign profoundly influenced the work of avalanche forecasters by introducing a new interface, additional input and database storage. At the same time, users welcomed the additional information, international comparability and user friendliness of the new bulletin.

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Designing visual interface for nutrition tracking of patients with Parkinson’s disease

Peter Novak, Barbara Koroušić Seljak, Franc Novak
Jožef Stefan Institute, Jamova cesta 39, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

Abstract: In this paper, we describe the design of a visual interface of a mobile a mobile app for tracking nutrients and foods consumed by patients with Parkinson’s disease. The interface should enable the patients to recognize objects on the screen, easily perceive their function and interact with them thus providing an efficient way of entering the dietary intake data. The app has been validated by five patients and the preliminary results are encouraging.

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3D serious games for Parkinson’s disease management

Bojan Blažica, Franc Novak, Anton Biasizzo
Jožef Stefan Institute, Jamova cesta 39, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Ciril Bohak
Faculty for Computer and Information Science, University of Ljubljana, Večna pot 113, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

Abstract: The aim of the article is to show how off-the-shelve equipment can be used to develop serious games for an affordable tele-medicine solution for Parkinson’s disease management. Two games have been developed aimed at assessing and training patient’s reach of upper limbs (using Kinect v2) and fine motoric skills of fingers (using Leap motion). The games collect player data in terms of score achieved and full kinematics of movement during gameplay. The data is stored online and made available to therapists and doctors through a secure connection. The games have been tested with patients within the Soča rehabilitation institute as well as at their homes.

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TETRACOM project: Personalized Nutrition Control Aid for Insulin Patch Pump – PerNuCAP

Project partners: Jozef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana and IPD Med d.o.o., Šentjernej

Diabetes is a chronic condition marked by high levels of glucose in the blood. In type 1 diabetes, the body completely stops producing any insulin, a hormone that enables the body to use glucose found in foods for energy. People with type 1 diabetes must daily receive insulin to survive. Insulin pump therapy offers efficient metabolic disorder control and represents a cost effective alternative to multiple daily insulin injections. Compared with ‘classical’ pumps, insulin patch pumps offer patients more freedom. They are the ‘next generation’ devices: discreet, smaller (the size of the patch) and a lot more convenient to wear. They allow patients to engage in everyday activities such as sport and even swimming.

The Insulin Patch Pump developed by IPD Med is designed for continuous insulin delivery according to personalized, pre-programmed plan. The device provides both basal and bolus modes of insulin delivery. It consists of a reusable shell that attaches to a disposable unit. The device is attached to a body with an adhesive patch. The shell contains a battery powered microprocessor with corresponding controls, alerting devices and RF circuitry. The disposable unit includes a pumping mechanism, proprietary insulin reservoir and COTS/OEM infusion set. An RF remote control unit is provided to manage and program the device.

The disposable unit represents only 0.5% of the total price, which is a considerable advantage in comparison with existing devices on the market. However, even more significant step forward is expected by providing the users with the possibility to access OPEN Platform For Clinical Nutrition developed by Jozef Stefan Institute (JSI). OPEN is a web-based application that supports food and physical activity recording and diet planning. OPEN enables online interaction between a dietitian and his (her) patient. To support its use in different countries, OPEN allows translation of the user interface into other languages as well as the use of any food composition dataset that complies with Food data structure and format standard (BS EN 16104:2012). OPEN refers to international, evidence-based dietary recommendations, which can be modified by the dietitian to suit the needs of individuals.

In connection with OPEN platform, the Personalized Nutrition Control Aid for Insulin Patch Pump will provide the user simple means to obtain detailed data on his/her nutrition intake needed for the prediction of insulin dosing profile. Personalized user interface will help the user to determine carbon hydrate intake with higher accuracy than currently established methods. Consequently, the insulin therapy is improved by reducing the risk of hypoglycemia caused by improper data input. The aid will also allow the user to keep the food diary and provide access to extensive food lexicon. Personalized user interface is currently under construction. Its concept closely resembles a similar one designed as a mobile app in the frame of PD_Manager, which aims of collecting data about nutrition in patients with Parkinson’s disease.

IPDmed insulin patch pump and OPEN platform

Since the designed Insulin Patch Pump is classified as class IIb medical device according to MDD 93/42/EEC, in-depth risk management including usability testing must be performed. In this regard, extensive risk analysis has been performed by IPD Med, while JSI, who has proven expertise in human-computer interaction has prepared the assessment usability test plan in accordance with Standard IEC 62366 (Medical devices – Application of usability engineering to medical devices). Usability testing with a target group of volunteers is planed for September. While work on the project is still running and in accordance with the contract between JSI and IPD Med will continue until the end of October 2016, the current results of the TTP supported by TETRACOM represent an important step toward TRL 7.

View on the Tetracom project website or download poster here.

Challenges of Business Simulation Games — A New Approach of Teaching Business

Our members: Andrej Jerman Blažič and Franc Novak, have published a book chapter in book titled E-Learning – Instructional Design, Organizational Strategy and Management.

[Link]

Abstract:

Serious games are part of the new emerging world of education environment that is based on sophisticated technology with elements of entertainment. They have been seen as good supplements for supporting the learning processes due to their capability to increase visualisations and challenge the student creativity. They have the potential to significantly improve training and education activities and initiatives. As a part of serious computer games, business simulation games support training and learning focused on the management of economic processes. They have been proven to be useful in empowering and mediating learning business content. This chapter addresses the simulation business games used in the educational process by analysing selected popular games regarding their properties that are considered as important in the learning process. The first part presents a short introduction in the field of business games and the approach used in selection of the studied games. The next part provides a review of related articles and brief overview of the state of the art that has guided the selection of business simulation games to be analysed and assessed. The game parameters used in the assessment have been defined and described. The analysis and the assessment report are followed with brief concluding remarks.

The SUS-SI questionnaire

Another article by the members of our community has been published: “A Slovene Translation of the System Usability Scale: The SUS-SI” in the International Journal f Human-Computer Interaction journal.

Abstract: The System Usability Scale (SUS) is a widely adopted and studied questionnaire for usability evaluation. It is technology independent and has been used to evaluate the perceived usability of a broad range of products, including hardware, software, and websites. In this paper we present a Slovene translation of the SUS (the SUS-SI) along with the procedure used in its translation and psychometric evaluation. The results indicated that the SUS-SI has properties similar to the English version. Slovene usability practitioners should be able to use the SUS-SI with confidence when conducting user research.

50 free e-prints available here.

SUS (original questionnaire):

  1. I think that I would like to use this system frequently.
  2. I found the system unnecessarily complex.
  3. I thought the system was easy to use.
  4. I think that I would need the support of a technical person to be able to use this system.
  5. I found the various functions in this system were well integrated.
  6. I thought there was too much inconsistency in this system.
  7. I would imagine that most people would learn to use this system very quickly.
  8. I found the system very cumbersome/awkward to use.
  9. I felt very confident using the system.
  10. I needed to learn a lot of things before I could get going with this system.

The anchors: strongly agree 1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree

SUS-SI (Slovene translation):

  1. Menim, da bi ta sistem rad pogosto uporabljal.
  2. Sistem se mi je zdel po nepotrebnem zapleten.
  3. Sistem se mi je zdel enostaven za uporabo.
  4. Menim, da bi za uporabo tega sistema potreboval pomoč tehnika.
  5. Različne funkcije tega sistema so se mi zdele dobro povezane v smiselno celoto.
  6. Sistem se mi je zdel preveč nekonsistenten.
  7. Menim, da bi se večina uporabnikov zelo hitro naučila uporabljati ta sistem.
  8. Sistem se mi je zdel neroden za uporabo.
  9. Pri uporabi sistema sem bil zelo suveren.
  10. Preden sem osvojil uporabo tega sistema, sem se moral naučiti veliko stvari.

The anchors: sploh se ne strinjam 1 2 3 4 5 se povsem strinjam

Pre-filled Google forms (SUS and SUS-SI):
In a survey published not long ago, we found out that usability testing is not so widespread as it should be given its importance. So to jump start your usability evaluations, we’ve prepared Google forms with the questionnaires, both English (SUS) and Slovene (SUS-SI). Feel free to use them, just make sure to make your personal copy before (to keep this links clean).

Acknowledgements:
We’d like to thank all who contributed to the translation and validation of the questionnaire with comments and/or filling out the survey. Special thanks goes to James R. Lewis, author of Quantifying the user experience and many influential papers in the areas of usability testing and measurement. He ‘warmly replied to a cold email’ and helped a great deal with the psychometric validation of the translation and co-authored the paper. A truly beautiful academic experience.

Reference:
Blažica, Bojan, and James R. Lewis. “A Slovene Translation of the System Usability Scale: The SUS-SI.” International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction Vol. 31, Iss. 2, 2015.

 

Evaluation of input devices for view manipulation in 3D space

Few weeks ago there Peter Škrlj has completed his Bachelor Thesis titled: Evaluation of input devices for view manipulation in 3D space.

The thesis is in Slovenian language and is accessible here. Below you can find a short abstract.

Abstract

As part of the thesis we have developed applications for the extension of the vein display with support for two additional navigation devices (3D Connexion Space Navigator Mouse and hand gesture based navigation device Leap Motion) which represented an extension of possible input devices besides the keyboard and a mouse to manipulate the view of 3D model of neck veins. In addition to the implementation of support for the device in the application we carried out a user study in which we assessed the usability and ease of use of devices in the application. The results consisted from data we collected from the users’ experience while they solved various manipulation tasks and the answers received from questionnaires SUS (System Usability Scale) which constitute one of the tools with which we can assess interfaces. Analysis of the results confirmed that the 3D mouse is more useful in such an environment and also highlighted some shortcomings of the hands free navigation device Leap Motion.

How to provide health-related information by mobile computing?

Barbara Koroušić Seljak

Abstract

The paper describes an approach taken by a mobile application eDietetik for the presentation of health- related information that is not allowed to be provided as a health claim. In this case, a mobile device running the application interacts with consumers, translating health-related information in an understandable and unambiguous way. Moreover, it may present an interface between different human stakeholders (i.e. consumers and manufacturers, consumers and healthcare providers, manufacturers and policy-makers).

[Link]