Browsing by Subject "Design"

Now showing 1 - 10 of 31
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    ACTIVE READING ON TABLET TEXTBOOKS
    (2015-04-17) Palilonis, Jennifer Ann; Defazio, Joseph; Bolchini, Davide; Butler, Darrell; Voida, Amy
    To study a text, learners often engage in active reading. Through active reading, learners build an analysis by annotating, outlining, summarizing, reorganizing and synthesizing information. These strategies serve a fundamental meta-cognitive function that allows content to leave strong memory traces and helps learners reflect, understand, and recall information. Textbooks, however, are becoming more complex as new technologies change how they are designed and delivered. Interactive, touch-screen tablets offer multi-touch interaction, annotation features, and multimedia content as a browse-able book. Yet, such tablet textbooks-in spite of their increasing availability in educational settings-have received little empirical scrutiny regarding how they support and engender active reading. To address this issue, this dissertation reports on a series of studies designed to further our understanding of active reading with tablet textbooks. An exploratory study first examined strategies learners enact when reading and annotating in the tablet environment. Findings indicate learners are often distracted by touch screen mechanics, struggle to effectively annotate information delivered in audiovisuals, and labor to cognitively make connections between annotations and the content/media source from which they originated. These results inspired SMART Note, a suite of novel multimedia annotation tools for tablet textbooks designed to support active reading by: minimizing interaction mechanics during active reading, providing robust annotation for multimedia, and improving built-in study tools. The system was iteratively developed through several rounds of usability and user experience evaluation. A comparative experiment found that SMART Note outperformed tablet annotation features on the market in terms of supporting learning experience, process, and outcomes. Together these studies served to extend the active reading framework for tablet textbooks to: (a) recognize the tension between active reading and mechanical interaction; (b) provide designs that facilitate cognitive connections between annotations and media formats; and (c) offer opportunities for personalization and meaningful reorganization of learning material.
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    aiDance: A Non-Invasive Approach in Designing AI-Based Feedback for Ballet Assessment and Learning
    (2021-12) Trajkova, Milka; Cafaro, Francesco; Bolchini, Davide; Dombrowski, Lynn; Fusco, Judi; Hickey, Daniel; Magerko, Brian; Toenjes, John
    Since its codified genesis in the 18th century, ballet training has largely been unchanged: it relies on tools that lack adequate support for both dancers and teachers. In particular, providing effective augmented feedback remains challenging as it can be limited, not always provided at the proper time, and highly subjective as it depends on the visual experience of an instructor. Designing a ballet assessment and learning tool with the aim of achieving a meaningful educational experience is an interdisciplinary challenge due to the fine motor movements and patterns of the art form. My work examines how we can effectively augment ballet learning in three phases using mixedmethod approaches. First, through my past professional experience as a ballet dancer, I explore how the design and in-lab evaluation of augmented visual and verbal feedback can improve the technical performance for novices and experts via remote learning. Second, I investigate the learning and teaching challenges that currently exist in traditional in-person training environments for dancers and teachers. Furthermore, I study the current technology use, reasons for non-use, and derive design requirements for future use. Lastly, I focus on how we can design aiDance, an AI-based feedback tool that attempts to represent an affordable and non-invasive approach that augments teachers’ abilities to facilitate assessment in the 21st century and pirouette towards the enhancement of learning. With this empirical work, I present insights that inform the HCI community at the intersection of dance and design in addressing the first steps towards the standardization of motor learning feedback.
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    Automated Ramen Noodle Vending Machine
    (2018-12-04) Ragozzino, Dan R.; Goodman, David
    Contained in the following report is a complete and detailed document of the design and implementation for the development of an automated ramen noodle vending machine unit. Covered topics include justification and specification development, which considers target consumer audience as well as some considerations for safety ratings and features that are required for consumer appliances. Also covered is the development and implementation phase, entailing translating design into a physical and functional prototype that achieves specifications detailed in the design phase. There are three major components of the development phase: hardware, interface and software. Each component of development is covered in detail, including troubleshooting and on-the-fly changes made to design to accommodate issues that arise during the prototype development. The last section of the document includes some considerations for iterative design. Issues encountered during prototype development will also be documented. A fully detailed operations guide will also be included. In the appendices of the document are the full printout of the software, detailed spec sheets of individual hardware components, as well as documents from the design phase.
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    The Best Laid Plans… Helping Teachers Foster Intrinsic Motivation in Their Students
    (2015) Walters, Nicholas; Ganci, Aaron
    High school students suffer from a lack of intrinsic motivation to participate in class. In an attempt to combat this lack of motivation, educators often provide students with rewards for participation. However, self-determination theory—a theory of motivation— states that these external incentives contribute to students’ lack of intrinsic motivation.
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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.
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    Brick a Brick: Using Applied Improvisation to Build Empathy in Design Facilitators
    (2019) Meschi, Maria; Napier, Pamela
    The surge in design thinking and people-centered design worldwide has given rise to a new role for designers: design facilitator. A design facilitator is leading diverse groups of participants through the design process, providing opportunities for them to share their perspectives, and guiding them as they contribute to design solutions. These engagements require highly developed interpersonal skills, but few interventions exist to aid designers in cultivating these skills. Other disciplines have turned to applied improvisation, an approach derived from improvisational theatre, to improve communication, collaboration and other dimensions of social-emotional learning. This research examines how an applied improvisation approach might be utilized to cultivate empathy in design facilitators. To answer this question, participatory action research was conducted with design facilitators, applied improvisation facilitators, and an instructional designer. Interviews with facilitators from both contexts resulted in a model of empathy, evidence in support of the applied improvisation approach, and perceived barriers to implementation of applied improvisation in the design context. A participatory design session with facilitators from both contexts explored the specific actions that contribute to empathic facilitation and generated conceptual prototypes of an empathic facilitation training program. Finally, primary and secondary research were synthesized to create a solution prototype that was evaluated by an instructional designer and submitted to design conferences for peer review. The outcome of this research is a conceptual framework for a training program entitled, Improv for Empathic Facilitation. The solution is founded upon an experiential learning model and scaffolds learners through developing skills in four competencies: self-awareness, social awareness, collaboration, and facilitating with empathy. In addition to applied improvisation-based training, learners engage in simulated facilitation scenarios in order to practice their skills. Finally, the program utilizes a series of formative assessments by engaging in critical reflection throughout and culminates in a summative assessment at the conclusion. Criteria for the assessments is learner-generated throughout the program, honoring both their experience and expertise. This research provides a model of how to explore the cultivation of interpersonal skills in design facilitators. Additionally, by presenting its potential impact on interpersonal skills rather than cognitive skills, this research highlights a new dimension of how the fields of design and improvisation might positively impact each other.
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    The CALCIPHYX study: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, Phase 3 clinical trial of SNF472 for the treatment of calciphylaxis
    (Oxford University Press, 2021-07-06) Sinha, Smeeta; Gould, Lisa J.; Nigwekar, Sagar U.; Serena, Thomas E.; Brandenburg, Vincent; Moe, Sharon M.; Aronoff, George; Chatoth, Dinesh K.; Hymes, Jeffrey L.; Miller, Stephan; Padgett, Claire; Carroll, Kevin J.; Perelló, Joan; Gold, Alex; Chertow, Glenn M.; Medicine, School of Medicine
    Background: Calcific uraemic arteriolopathy (CUA; calciphylaxis) is a rare disease seen predominantly in patients receiving dialysis. Calciphylaxis is characterized by poorly healing or non-healing wounds, and is associated with mortality, substantial morbidity related to infection and typically severe pain. In an open-label Phase 2 clinical trial, SNF472, a selective inhibitor of vascular calcification, was well-tolerated and associated with improvement in wound healing, reduction of wound-related pain and improvement in wound-related quality of life (QoL). Those results informed the design of the CALCIPHYX trial, an ongoing, randomized, placebo-controlled, Phase 3 trial of SNF472 for treatment of calciphylaxis. Methods: In CALCIPHYX, 66 patients receiving haemodialysis who have an ulcerated calciphylaxis lesion will be randomized 1:1 to double-blind SNF472 (7 mg/kg intravenously) or placebo three times weekly for 12 weeks (Part 1), then receive open-label SNF472 for 12 weeks (Part 2). All patients will receive stable background care, which may include pain medications and sodium thiosulphate, in accordance with the clinical practices of each site. A statistically significant difference between the SNF472 and placebo groups for improvement of either primary endpoint at Week 12 will demonstrate efficacy of SNF472: change in Bates-Jensen Wound Assessment Tool-CUA (a quantitative wound assessment tool for evaluating calciphylaxis lesions) or change in pain visual analogue scale score. Additional endpoints will address wound-related QoL, qualitative changes in wounds, wound size, analgesic use and safety. Conclusions: This randomized, placebo-controlled Phase 3 clinical trial will examine the efficacy and safety of SNF472 in patients who have ulcerated calciphylaxis lesions. Patient recruitment is ongoing.
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    Design and Fatigue Analysis of an LWD Drill Tool
    (2019-08) Joshi, Riddhi; El-Mounayri, Hazim; Tovar, Andres; Nematollahi, Khosrow
    Previous works suggest that 80% to 90% of failures observed in the rotary machines are accounted for fatigue failure. And it is observed that cyclic stresses are more critical than steady stresses when the failure occurred is due to fatigue. One of the most expensive industries involving rotary machines is the Oil and Gas industry. The large drilling tools are used for oil extracts on-shore and off-shore. There are several forces that act on a drilling tool while operating below the earth's surface. Those forces are namely pressure, bending moment and torque. The tool is designed from the baseline model of the former tool in Solidworks and Design Molder. Here load acting due to pressure and torque accounts for steady stress i.e., Mean Stress and loading acting due to bending moment account for fluctuating stress i.e., Alternating Stress. The loading and boundary conditions have been adapted from Halliburton’s previous works for the LWD drill tool to better estimate the size of the largest possible transducer. The fatigue analysis of static load cases is carried out in Ansys Mechanical Workbench 19.0 using static structural analysis. The simulation is run to obtain results for total deformation, equivalent stress, and user-defined results. The component is designed for infinite life to calculate the endurance limit. Shigley guidelines and FKM guidelines are compared as a part of a study to select the best possible approach in the current application. The width of the imaging pocket is varied from 1.25 inches to 2.0 inches to accommodate the largest possible transducer without compromising the structural integrity of the tool. The optimum design is chosen based on the stress life theory criteria namely Gerber theory and Goodman Theory.
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    Design Leadership and Development with Mid-Level Leaders
    (2017) Stevens, Madison; Eby, Chad
    Design Leadership provides the needed skill set to thrive in this quickly changing world. The core competencies of a Design Leader enable strategy to become tangible, and also offer a way to look to the future and quickly iterate possible solutions of what could be. Design Leaders also have the ability to create shared understanding with all people in an organization. By creating this shared understanding -- where staff understand the goals and values of the company, and the company understands the individual goals and values of their staff, the Design Leader can help to align these values, and integrate possibly opposing ideas. By enabling people to practice their individual values at work, this can help to cultivate a positive work life. This design research addresses the question: How might mid-level leaders leverage the core competencies of a Design Leader in order to initiate a personal leadership change?
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    Design of Affordable 3D Printers
    (Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2016-04-08) Watson, Brandon; Chen, Guiming; Zhou, Jinyun; Tang, Lai Man; Ayeni, Oyedotun
    The recent expiration of Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) patents sparked a growth in the 3D printing industry. Fused Deposition Modeling is the most common way of 3D printing parts. It takes a material, usually a plastic, melts it, and then builds a part layer by layer from the molten material. As patents for 3D printing technologies continue to expire, 3D printing will continue to see a large growth in popularity for several different applications; however, there are currently limitations on 3D printers preventing them from entering certain markets. The goal of our project was to address two of the biggest current limitations: the cost of the 3D printer and the ability to print with different materials. We addressed these issues by researching and building two different types of 3D printers along with researching different ways to print different materials. The goal for the first project was to design and assemble an affordable ceramic 3D printer. We researched and purchased an affordable delta 3D printer kit and an affordable ceramic extrusion system. The goal for the second project was to design and assemble an affordable dual extruder desktop 3D printer that could print two different plastics. We successfully built the delta 3D printer and it is working correctly. The dual extruder desktop 3D printer has been assembled. For both projects, we were able to assemble low-cost 3D printers. In conclusion, this research has resulted in two affordable 3D printers with the potential to 3D print different materials.