UCD Project News Edition 19, April 5, 2004
UCD Project News is a fortnightly e-newsletter devoted to increasing
awareness of user-centred design (UCD) principles and contributing
towards a culture of UCD within the Smart Internet Technology CRC.
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In this issue:
1. Supriya: Meeting Face-to-Face
2. Meet the New Face of the UCD Group
3. Project Highlight – I-Care
4. Christine Satchell on “The Buzz”
5. Upcoming Conferences & Calls for Papers
6. Useful Links & References
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1. Supriya: Meeting Face-to-Face
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It seems a long time between face-to-face meetings. In the UE group
we have begun planning for a three-day workshop, preferably far
away from a city, so that we have lunches and dinners together.
We know the gist of what each of us is doing, but it will be good
to know where the excitement and the sticky parts are for people.
Now that many of us are working with technologists and industry
on different projects, it will also be wonderful to see what experiences
we share and where they differ.
We are also looking forward to the SN/IE workshop in mid-April.
Last year, it was the source of a number of collaborative projects.
In 2003, we were welcome guests at the table. This year, we will
attend as part of the team.
Supriya
Assoc Prof Supriya Singh,
Project Leader
supriya.singh@rmit.edu.au
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2. Meet the New Face of the UCD Group
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The UCD Group would like to extend a warm welcome to its newest
member:
Jo Kelder, PhD Student, University of Tasmania
Jo.Kelder@utas.edu.au
http://www.ucd.smartinternet.com.au/Kelder.html
Jo has a Bachelor of Civil Engineering from UNSW and a Graduate
Diploma in Information Systems with Honours at the University of
Tasmania. She has joined the SITCRC as part of the UE05 User Centred
Design project, particularly its ongoing methodology developments.
She is interested in complex work environments that are highly dependent
on information systems and where there are lots of social, cultural
and technical issues that need to be identified and understood if
new technologies and work processes are to fit the natural work
environment.
She plans to investigate innovative research methodologies that
capture user experiences and insights; then to deploy those methods
in a manner that is conducive to generating a process of user-centred
or participative design. The particular focus is enabling the translation
of user insights and experiences into design requirements for intelligent
Internet technology solutions for current and future complex systems.
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2. Project Highlight – I-Care
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The Australian health care system is under increasing pressure to
enhance the efficiency, effectiveness and range of the services
it provides to increasing numbers of people at a time when available
resources are limited. As a result the Australian government has
identified the increased use of information and communication technologies
(ICTs) as a major solution to address these issues and has initiated
programs to support their deployment. By providing increased information
access, cost effectiveness and improved information delivery, update
and evaluation, the economic case for more ICTs is strong. However,
this deployment also raises a number of technical, organisational
and end-user challenges.
With an ageing population, the aged care sector is now in the front-line
of these pressures and is facing a situation where spiralling care
costs are compounded by a shortage of suitably qualified staff and
a demand for services that far outstrips supply. At present the
sector is predominantly paper-based with its revenue generation
directly linked to the quantity and quality of the documentation
it provides to the government on care delivered by facilities to
their residents.
The I-Care Project is focused on implementing and evaluating a wireless
hand-held clinical care management system at an aged care facility
in Launceston Tasmania. A collaboration between researchers from
the Smart Internet CRC, Telstra Broadband Laboratories, Cpact Pty
ltd (a care management software provider) and care staff at an aged
care facility in Launceston, it involves the use of personal digital
assistants (PDA) connected to an 802.11 wireless network, itself
linked to an ADSL broadband connection and Oracle server.
Preliminary project findings indicate that, at a technical level,
handheld devices can be used clinically within a health care environment.
The wireless / ADSL network infrastructure performed well throughout
the trial. At an organisational level, PDAs can assist health professionals
conduct professional services with minimal impact on organisational
workflow and business processes. At an end-user level, the ability
to improve the accuracy, quality and quantity of documentation is
a significant factor, which potentially leads to more time spent
with patients.
For further information about the I-Care project, please contact
Paul Turner on: Paul.Turner@utas.edu.au
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3. Christine Satchell on “The Buzz”
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Christine Satchell, inventor of the "swarm scenario" on
which many of Smart Internet's projects are based, outlined the
concept of the "Swarm Phone" on Radio National, Saturday
March 27, in an interview with Richard Aedy from "The Buzz".
The Swarm Phone uses icons and avatars to tell callers what the
user is doing. Such functionality has enormous potential in the
youth market where users rarely turn off their mobile phones. To
do so would put them out of the loop. However there are situations
when they would rather not be interrupted by a phone call or a text
message.
For further information on the Swarm Phone, please contact Christine
Satchell on christine.satchell@rmit.edu.au
For further information on Christine's interview, please visit:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/buzz/stories/s1074785.htm
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4. Upcoming Conferences & Calls for Papers
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* QualIT2004
The first International Conference on Qualitative Research in IT
& IT in Qualitative Research in the Southern Hemisphere will
be held at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia on November
24-26, 2004.
QualIT2004 - The Way Forward will attract qualitative researchers
concerned with the analysis, design, development, application, usability
and evaluation of information systems and information technologies.
Research papers are invited in the areas of information technology,
information systems, software engineering, business, social and
health informatics.
For further information, please visit http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/qualit2004/
or email: cit-qualit@griffith.edu.au
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* “Human Centred Software Engineering”
Ahmed Seffah and Michel Desmarais are working as editors on a book
to investigate the state of the art in the efforts of integrating
HCI, usability and user centered design into software engineering.
The name of the edited volume will be "Human Centered Software
Engineering: Frameworks for HCI/UCD and Software Engineering Integration".
The problem of integration has increasingly become a real obstacle
for a broad usage of HCI/UCD techniques within the software engineering
community. To a certain extent, it has also been an obstacle for
the validation and improvement of HCI/UCD techniques. The book aims
to summarize the state of the field so far. The final deadline for
chapter submissions is April 19.
For further information please visit: https://securedoc.gi.polymtl.ca/mdesmarais/CHISE/index.shtml
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* “Encyclopedia of Developing Regional Communities with ICT”
The Encyclopedia of Developing Regional Communities with Information
and Communication Technology, edited by Professor Stewart Marshall,
Dr Wal Taylor & Professor Xinghuo Yu, will cover the theoretical,
thematic and country specific issues of using ICT to develop the
social, economic and cultural capital in regional communities around
the world. It will also provide very practical information on hard
and soft technologies for practitioners in the field of community
development. Individuals interested in submitting articles should
email Encyclopedia@lists.cqu.edu.au as soon as possible with their
proposal. Completed articles should be 3000-3500 words and submitted
by April 20, 2004.
For further information please visit: http://itira.cqu.edu.au/encyclopedia/index.htm
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5. Useful Links and References
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* IOP MMI and DECIS Lab, “UCD in Industry Survey” [Online]
available March 29, 2004.
IOP Man Machine Interaction (IOP MMI) and DECIS lab have joined
forces to conduct a survey about UCD in industry. IOP MMI is the
Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs innovation-oriented research
program on HCI. DECIS lab is the collaborative research venture
of Thales Research & Technology Netherlands (TRT NL), the Netherlands
Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), Delft University
of Technology (TUD), and the University of Amsterdam (UvA). The
survey intends to estimate the current state of integration of Human
Factors in the product lifecycle. As such, only actual UCD practitioners
are invited to participate in the survey which takes approximately
15 minutes to complete.
http://www.decis.nl/UCD/index.asp
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* Peter Cohen (2004), “Apple unveils Spoken Interface for
blind OS X users” Maccentral [Online] available March 29,
2004.
Apple recently introduced a new accessibility solution for visually
impaired users that will integrate with the next major release of
Mac OS X, called “Spoken Interface for Mac OS X”. The
tool provides a combination of speech, audible cues and keyboard
navigation to help blind users navigate Mac OS X with the same ease
of use as sighted users. Users can manage access to the Dock, menu
items, tool bars, palettes and other on-screen objects, pressing
buttons, activating sliders and checkboxes, selecting radio buttons,
and using all the other interface elements of Mac OS X and its applications.
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2004/03/17/interface/index.php?redirect=1080095513000
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* Hock-Hai Teo, Hock-Chuan Chan, Kwok-Kee Wei and Zhongju Zhang
(2003) “Evaluating information accessibility and community
adaptivity features for sustaining virtual learning communities”
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 59(5), November
2003, pp 671-697
Virtual communities have been identified as the "killer applications"
on the Internet Information Superhighway. Their impact is increasingly
pervasive, with activities ranging from the economic and marketing
to the social and educational. Despite their popularity, little
is understood as to what factors contribute to the sustainability
of virtual communities. This study focuses on a specific type of
virtual communities––the virtual learning communities.
It employs an experiment to examine the impact of two critical issues
in system design––information accessibility and community
adaptivity––on the sustainability of virtual learning
communities. Adopting an extended Technology Acceptance Model, the
experiment exposed 69 subjects to six different virtual learning
communities differentiated by two levels of information accessibility
and three levels of community adaptivity, solicited their feelings
and perceptions, and measured their intentions to use the virtual
learning communities. Results indicate that both information accessibility
and community adaptivity have significant effects on user perceptions
and behavioural intention. Implications for theory and practice
are drawn and discussed.
doi:10.1016/S1071-5819(03)00087-9
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