Browsing by Author "Vermeulen, Jo"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    Astral: Prototyping Mobile and IoT Interactive Behaviours via Streaming and Input Remapping
    (2018-07) Ledo, David; Vermeulen, Jo; Carpendale, Sheelagh; Greenberg, Saul; Oehlberg, Lora A.; Boring, Sebastian
    We present Astral, a prototyping tool for mobile and Internet of Things interactive behaviours that streams selected desktop display contents onto mobile devices (smartphones and smartwatches) and remaps mobile sensor data into desktop input events (i.e., keyboard and mouse events). Interactive devices such as mobile phones, watches, and smart objects, offer new opportunities for interaction design– yet prototyping their interactive behaviour remains an implementation challenge. Additionally, current tools often focus on systems responding after an action takes place as opposed to while the action takes place. With Astral, designers can rapidly author interactive prototypes live on mobile devices through familiar desktop applications. Designers can also customize input mappings using easing functions to author, fine-tune and assess rich outputs. We demonstrate the expressiveness of Astral through a set of prototyping scenarios with novel and replicated examples from past literature which reflect how the system might support and empower designers throughout the design process.
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    Belief at first sight: Data visualization and the rationalization of seeing
    (John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2019-12) Kosminsky, Doris; Walny, Jagoda; Vermeulen, Jo; Knudsen, Søren; Willett, Wesley J.; Carpendale, Sheelagh
    Data visualizations are often represented in public discourse as objective proof of facts. However, a visualization is only a single translation of reality, just like any other media, representation devices, or modes of representation. If we wish to encourage thoughtful, informed, and literate consumption of data visualizations, it is crucial that we consider why they are often presented and interpreted as objective. We reflect theoretically on data visualization as a system of representation historically anchored in science, rationalism, and notions of objectivity. It establishes itself within a lineage of conventions for visual representations which extends from the Renaissance to the present and includes perspective drawing, photography, cinema and television, as well as computer graphics. By examining our tendency to see credibility in data visualizations and grounding that predisposition in a historical context, we hope to encourage more critical and nuanced production and interpretation of data visualizations in the public discourse.
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    Dark Patterns in Proxemic Interactions: A Critical Perspective
    (2014-01-24) Greenberg, Saul; Boring, Sebastian; Vermeulen, Jo; Dostal, Jakub
    Proxemics theory explains peoples’ use of interpersonal distances to mediate their social interactions with others. Within Ubicomp, proxemic interaction researchers argue that people have a similar social understanding of their spatial relations with nearby digital devices, which can be exploited to better facilitate seamless and natural interactions. To do so, both people and devices are tracked to determine their spatial relationships. While interest in proxemic inter-actions has increased over the last few years, it also has a dark side: the knowledge of proxemics may (and likely will) be easily exploited to the detriment of the user. In this paper, we offer a critical perspective on proxemic interactions in the form of dark patterns (i.e., ways proxemic interactions can be misused). We discuss a series of these patterns and describe how they apply to these types of interactions. In addition, we identify several root problems that underlie these patterns and discuss potential solutions that could lower their harmfulness.
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    Designing Interactive Behaviours for Smart Objects
    (2020-09-01) Ledo Maira, David; Oehlberg, Lora A.; Greenberg, Saul; Vermeulen, Jo; Williamson, Carey L.; Wylant, Barry; Hartmann, Björn D.
    In this thesis, I propose methods for repurposing existing hardware and software to enable designers to create live interactive prototypes for smart interactive objects without the need to write code or create custom circuitry. The advent of ubiquitous computing brought the promise of interactive artifacts that integrate into our everyday lives. While this has led to a myriad of “smart objects”, the problem is that it is difficult for interaction designers to devise interactive behaviours for such objects. For example, how might an interaction designer prototype behaviours for a smart speaker? How can they go beyond voice responses and, for instance, animate lights to show that the speaker is listening, or searching for an answer on the web? Designers today face three challenges: (1) needing multiple expertise of designing behaviour, form, circuitry, and programming the functionality; (2) lacking software tools to author fine-tuned dynamic behaviours; and (3) needing closer-to-product representations to physically manipulate the prototype. I overcome this gap through a method and two interactive systems. I propose a design metaphor: Soul–Body Prototyping, which suggests leveraging off-the-shelf mobile phones and watches to create smart object prototypes. By enclosing the mobile device (“soul”) into a physical enclosure (“body”), the designer can exploit the mobile device’s rich sensing, outputs, and internet connectivity. I then operationalize Soul–Body Prototyping through two proof-of-concept prototyping tools. Pineal features trigger-action behaviours which automatically generate 3D models for physical forms. These forms fit a mobile device and expose the necessary inputs and outputs. Astral is a tool where designers can mirror a portion of the desktop’s screen onto a mobile device, and create mappings that convert live mobile sensor data into mouse or keyboard events. Thus, the mobile device remote controls (and repurposes) familiar desktop applications for dynamic behaviour prototyping. Overall, my work contributes an alternative way to prototype smart interactive objects, which informs the design of future prototyping tools. Moreover, I investigate fundamental questions such as the meaning of interactive behaviour, as well as evaluation methods for prototyping tools and toolkits in HCI research.
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    Evaluation Strategies for HCI Toolkit Research
    (2017-09-27) Ledo, David; Houben, Steven; Vermeulen, Jo; Marquardt, Nicolai; Oehlberg, Lora; Greenberg, Saul
    Toolkit research plays an important role in the field of HCI, as it can heavily influence both the design and implementation of interactive systems. For publication, the HCI community typically expects that research to include an evaluation component. The problem is that toolkit evaluation is challenging, as it is often unclear what ‘evaluating’ a toolkit means and what methods are appropriate. To address this problem, we analyzed 68 published toolkit papers. From that analysis, we provide an overview of, reflection on, and discussion of evaluation methods for toolkit contributions. We identify and discuss the value of four toolkit evaluation strategies, including the associated techniques each employs. We offer a categorization of evaluation strategies for toolkit researchers, along with a discussion of the value, potential biases, and trade-offs associated with each strategy.
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    Exploration Strategies for Discovery of Interactivity in Visualizations
    (IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2018-02-05) Blascheck, Tanja; MacDonald Vermeulen, Lindsay; Vermeulen, Jo; Perin, Charles; Willett, Wesley; Ertl, Thomas; Carpendale, Sheelagh
    We investigate how people discover the functionality of an interactive visualization that was designed for the general public. While interactive visualizations are increasingly available for public use, we still know little about how the general public discovers what they can do with these visualizations and what interactions are available. Developing a better understanding of this discovery process can help inform the design of visualizations for the general public, which in turn can help make data more accessible. To unpack this problem, we conducted a lab study in which participants were free to use their own methods to discover the functionality of a connected set of interactive visualizations of public energy data. We collected eye movement data and interaction logs as well as video and audio recordings. By analyzing this combined data, we extract exploration strategies that the participants employed to discover the functionality in these interactive visualizations. These exploration strategies illuminate possible design directions for improving the discoverability of a visualization’s functionality.
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    Heartefacts: Augmenting Mobile Video Sharing Using Wrist-Worn Heart Rate Sensors
    (ACM, 2016-06-04) Vermeulen, Jo; Lindsay, MacDonald; Johannes, Schöning; Russell, Beale; Sheelagh, Carpendale
    An increasing share of our daily interactions with others is mediated through mobile communication technologies. People communicate via text, emoticons, emojis and rich media such as video. We explore the design of Heartefacts, short video clips composed of highlights determined by heart rate changes while watching videos. Our survey investigated video sharing behaviour, and our feasibility study examined the possibility of detecting highlights in videos by monitoring people’s heart rates measured with off-the-shelf wristworn sensors. Our results show that people do indeed have measurable responses with respect to their heartbeat patterns to six different emotions elicited by video clips. We compare video highlights verbally identified by our participants to physiological highlights as indicated by their heart rate data and also discuss and compare the automatically generated Heartefacts with video highlights created by an expert in video art. We close with design considerations for Heartefacts in mobile technology.
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    Sketching and Ideation Activities for Situated Visualization Design
    (2019-06) Bressa, Nathalie; Wannamaker, Kendra; Korsgaard, Henrik; Willett, Wesley J.; Vermeulen, Jo
    We report on findings from seven design workshops that used ideation and sketching activities to prototype new situated visualizations — representations of data that are displayed in proximity to the physical referents (such as people, objects, and locations) to which the data is related. Designing situated visualizations requires a fine-grained understanding of the context in which the visualizations are placed, as well as an exploration of different options for placement and form factors, which existing methods for visualization design do not account for. Focusing on small displays as a target platform, we reflect on our experiences of using a diverse range of sketching activities, materials, and prompts. Based on these observations, we identify challenges and opportunities for sketching and ideating situated visualizations. We also outline the space of design activities for situated visualization and highlight promising methods for both designers and researchers.