IU Indianapolis ScholarWorks :: Browsing by Author "Pfaff, Mark"

Browsing by Author "Pfaff, Mark"

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Brand and usability in content-intensive websites
(2014-07-11) Yang, Tao; Bolchini, Davide; Pfaff, Mark; MacDorman, Karl F.; Cox, Anthony D.
Our connections to the digital world are invoked by brands, but the intersection of branding and interaction design is still an under-investigated area. Particularly, current websites are designed not only to support essential user tasks, but also to communicate an institution's intended brand values and traits. What we do not yet know, however, is which design factors affect which aspect of a brand. To demystify this issue, three sub-projects were conducted. The first project developed a systematic approach for evaluating the branding effectiveness of content-intensive websites (BREW). BREW gauges users' brand perceptions on four well-known branding constructs: brand as product, brand as organization, user image, and brand as person. It also provides rich guidelines for eBranding researchers in regard to planning and executing a user study and making improvement recommendations based on the study results. The second project offered a standardized perceived usability questionnaire entitled DEEP (design-oriented evaluation of perceived web usability). DEEP captures the perceived website usability on five design-oriented dimensions: content, information architecture, navigation, layout consistency, and visual guidance. While existing questionnaires assess more holistic concepts, such as ease-of-use and learnability, DEEP can more transparently reveal where the problem actually lies. Moreover, DEEP suggests that the two most critical and reliable usability dimensions are interface consistency and visual guidance. Capitalizing on the BREW approach and the findings from DEEP, a controlled experiment (N=261) was conducted by manipulating interface consistency and visual guidance of an anonymized university website to see how these variables may affect the university's image. Unexpectedly, consistency did not significantly predict brand image, while the effect of visual guidance on brand perception showed a remarkable gender difference. When visual guidance was significantly worsened, females became much less satisfied with the university in terms of brand as product (e.g., teaching and research quality) and user image (e.g., students' characteristics). In contrast, males' perceptions of the university's brand image stayed the same in most circumstances. The reason for this gender difference was revealed through a further path analysis and a follow-up interview, which inspired new research directions to unpack even more the nexus between branding and interaction design.
Correlating the effects of flow and telepresence in virtual worlds: Enhancing our understanding of user behavior in game-based learning
(2013-05) Faiola, Anthony; Newlon, Christine; Pfaff, Mark; Smyslova, Olga
Recent research on online learning suggests that virtual worlds are becoming an important environment to observe the experience of flow. From these simulated spaces, researchers may gather a deeper understanding of cognition in the context of game-based learning. Csikszentmihalyi (1997) describes flow as a feeling of increased psychological immersion and energized focus, with outcomes that evoke disregard for external pressures and the loss of time consciousness, issuing in a sense of pleasure. Past studies suggest that flow is encountered in an array of activities and places, including those in virtual worlds. The authors’ posit that flow in virtual worlds, such as Second Life (SL), can be positively associated with degrees of the cognitive phenomenon of immersion and telepresence. Flow may also contribute to a better attitude and behavior during virtual game-based learning. This study tested three hypotheses related to flow and telepresence, using SL. Findings suggest that both flow and telepresence are experienced in SL and that there is a significant correlation between them. These findings shed light on the complex interrelationships and interactions that lead to flow experience in virtual gameplay and learning, while engendering hope that learners, who experience flow, may acquire an improved attitude of learning online.
DESIGN FOUNDATIONS FOR CONTENT-RICH ACOUSTIC INTERFACES: INVESTIGATING AUDEMES AS REFERENTIAL NON-SPEECH AUDIO CUES
(2012-11-16) Ferati, Mexhid Adem; Pfaff, Mark; Bolchini, Davide; Lu, Amy Shirong; Palakal, Mathew J.
To access interactive systems, blind and visually impaired users can leverage their auditory senses by using non-speech sounds. The current structure of non-speech sounds, however, is geared toward conveying user interface operations (e.g., opening a file) rather than large theme-based information (e.g., a history passage) and, thus, is ill-suited to signify the complex meanings of primary learning material (e.g., books and websites). In order to address this problem, this dissertation introduces audemes, a new category of non-speech sounds, whose semiotic structure and flexibility open new horizons for facilitating the education of blind and visually impaired students. An experiment with 21 students from the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (ISBVI) supports the hypothesis that audemes increase the retention of theme-based information. By acting as memory catalysts, audemes can play an important role in enhancing the aural interaction and navigation in future sound-based user interfaces. For this dissertation, I designed an Acoustic EDutainment INterface (AEDIN) that integrates audemes as a way by which to vividly anticipate text-to-speech theme-based information and, thus, act as innovative aural covers. The results of two iterative usability evaluations with total of 20 blind and visually impaired participants showed that AEDIN is a highly usable and enjoyable acoustic interface. Yet, designing well-formed audemes remains an ad hoc process because audeme creators can only rely on their intuition to generate meaningful and memorable sounds. In order to address this problem, this dissertation presents three experiments, each with 10 blind and visually impaired participants. The goal was to examine the optimal combination of audeme attributes, which can be used to facilitate accurate recognitions of audeme meanings. This work led to the creation of seven basic guidelines that can be used to design well-formed audemes. An interactive application tool (ASCOLTA: Advanced Support and Creation-Oriented Library Tool for Audemes) operationalized these guidelines to support individuals without an audio background in designing well-formed audemes. An informal evaluation conducted with three teachers from the ISBVI, supports the hypothesis that ASCOLTA is a useful tool by which to facilitate the integration of audemes into the teaching environment.
HamkeRun: Mobile infoVis app towards sustainable motivation in a context of running
(2015-05) Moon, Sung Pil; Bolchini, Davide; Pfaff, Mark; Rand, Kevin; Voida, Stephen
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, less than half of all adults in the US meet basic physical activity guidelines. Physical activity can help not just improve physical and mental health but also reduce the risk of heart disease and some cancers. Researchers and companies have tried to investigate the use of modern technologies to motivate people to increase and maintain physical activities. However, in spite of these efforts, there are criticisms. Those include low dietary effectiveness of the tools, lack of sustainable effects in the long-term, and proof of effectiveness only shown in laboratory settings. To overcome these limitations, first, the author developed a framework of overarching motivation theories and HCI factors and contextualized it within the running domain. Second, the author has developed a mobile application called HamkeRun within this framework, using the concepts of information visualization, gamification, and social grouping to increase a user’s motivation to run more frequently. Third, the HamkeRun application was empirically tested through a two-month-long longitudinal experiment and follow-up interviews. The results showed that the single runner type showed significant increases in the levels of their external motivation (motivational effect of the HamkeRun application), internal motivation and satisfaction, while the team runner type showed significant increases only in internal motivation. In addition, motivational effects were also different depending on the runners’ behavior change stage. Runners at the maintenance stage showed significant increases in external motivation, internal motivation, satisfaction, and total number of running activities performed during the study. Although action stage runners showed significant increase in internal motivation, female runners at the action stage showed significant decrease in their external motivation. Gamification greatly influenced increases of external motivation, internal motivation and total number of actual activities. Although both male and female runners showed increased internal motivation, significant increase in external motivation was only found in male runners. The dissertation closes with a series of design guidelines for application developers and designers which may help develop motivational tools in other health-related domains.
Mega-Collaboration: The inspiration and development of an interface for large-scale disaster response.
(2009) Pfaff, Mark; Newlon, Christine; Patel, Himalaya; Vreede, Gert-Jan de; MacDorman, Karl F.
Secondary users and the personal mhealth record: Designing tools to improve collaboration between patients and providers
(IEEE, 2016-10) Tunnell, Harry D., IV; Pfaff, Mark; Faiola, Anthony; Department of Human-Centered Computing, School of Informatics and Computing
Abstract: This paper describes a patient-centered health information technology (HIT) for primary and secondary users. Primary users are the main operators of a system and control dissemination of its information [1]. Secondary users have experiences through primary users [2]. A smartphone personal health record was prototyped for use in an experimental study with providers as secondary users. Patients are often secondary users in healthcare, but patientcentered care requires that patients have digital tools to manage their own health data to be better able to participate in healthcare decisions, making them primary users [3].

Browsing by Author "Pfaff, Mark"

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