Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces Commons^™

On The Benefits Of Directness In Virtual Characters For Motivational Interviews, Michael O'Mahony, Cathy Ennis, Robert Ross

Conference papers

Understanding the factors influencing successful engagement with Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) remains a significant challenge. This understanding could be used to personalise agents to users to improve interactions. Some studies have shown that simulating personalities in healthcare agents can improve effectiveness and engagement. However, it is not yet well understood how variations of agent personality can be leveraged to improve user engagement with Motivational Interviewing (MI) ECAs. Specifically how the balance between agent warmth and directness can be controlled in an MI agent to improve likeability and engagement. We conducted an online Wizard-of-Oz (WoZ) mediated study of two variants of …

Habit Coach: Customising Rag-Based Chatbots To Support Behavior Change, Arian Fooroogh Mand Arabi, Cansu Koyuturk, Michael O'Mahony, Raffaella Calati, Dimitri Ognibene

Conference papers

This paper presents the iterative development of Habit Coach, a GPT-based chatbot designed to support users in habit change through personalized interaction. Employing a user-centered design approach, we developed the chatbot using a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) system, which enables behavior personalization without retraining the underlying language model (GPT-4). The system leverages document retrieval and specialized prompts to tailor interactions, drawing from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and narrative therapy techniques. A key challenge in the development process was the difficulty of translating declarative knowledge into effective interaction behaviors. In the initial phase, the chatbot was provided with declarative knowledge about CBT …

Getting To The Point: Contrasting Directness And Warmth In Motivational Embodied Conversational Agents, Michael O'Mahony, Cathy Ennis, Robert Ross

Conference papers

Enhancing long-term engagement with conversational agents remains a significant challenge. Controlling the perceived warmth or directness of an agent’s personality through the style of its generated text could be used to increase user likeability. This paper reports an investigation of a Wizard-of-Oz (WoZ) mediated study of two variants of a motivational embodied conversational agent to measure user perception of and attitudes towards warmth in interaction style. Results show a significant effect of users preferring an agent with a "more direct" personality for this scenario, though this effect is in many ways nuanced.

Human Centered Approaches And Taxonomies For Explainable Artificial Intelligence, Helen Sheridan, Emma Murphy, Dympna O'Sullivan

Conference papers

Recent interest within the research community related to explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) has led to a profuse amount of literature on the subject. Those who wish to tackle the domain from an HCI focus may be presented with overwhelming material, most of which does not pertain to human aspects of XAI. Taxonomies can serve to categorize a subject into topic areas and distill content into an overview of the field. This late breaking work intends to help those within the HCI community with a focus on XAI to understand relevant aspects of human centered XAI. We also present a taxonomy …

Co-Design Of An Interactive Wellness Park: Exploring Design Requirements For A Multimodal Outdoor Physical Web Installation With Older Adults, Fatima Badmos

Academic Posters Collection

The global demographic landscape is experiencing a notable shift, characterised by a growing proportion of adults over 60. According to projections, the proportion of individuals aged 60 and above is expected to reach one-sixth of the global population by 2030. Furthermore, by 2050, this demographic is projected to exceed a staggering two billion people. Amidst this shift, there is an urgent need to develop interactive and innovative solutions to address older adults' unique challenges, particularly in outdoor physical activity.

A co-design methodology involving older adults’ participation from the idea generation to the application development process will be adopted to address …

Exploring The Integration Of Patient Generated Health Data In A Fair Digital Health System In Low-Resourced Settings: A User-Centered Approach, Abdullahi Abubakar Kawu, Rens Kievit, Adamu Abubakar, Mirjam Van Reisen, Dympna O'Sullivan, Lucy Hederman

Conference papers

This article presents the initial user-centered research exploring the opportunities in the collection of Patient-Generated Health Data (PGHD) within the context of a project aimed at improving health management and outcomes among residents in African countries. Through interviews with a doctor, a patient and two data managers, the local status and opinions regarding PGHD collection, integration and use are investigated. The findings suggest that PGHD have only been encountered in paper forms - and are mostly patient driven, however opportunities for PGHD for the facility and patient were identified and included supporting the treatment of whitecollar hypertension, treatment planning and …

Transfer Of Personality Through Text Style, Michael O'Mahony, Robert Ross

Other resources

The style of generated text is how something is said rather than what is said. We hypothesize that changing the style of generated text can change the perceived personality of the text generation agent. Dialogue systems that aim to imitate a human agent can appear to have a consistent personality through a consistent, controllable style of conversation. Some recent work on the style of generated text [1] performs impressively in the small number of domains selected for their experiments using transformer and LSTM-based models. Lin et al. [1] used weak supervised learning as their data set lacks parallel data. The …

Ideating Xai: An Exploration Of User’S Mental Models Of An Ai-Driven Recruitment System Using A Design Thinking Approach, Helen Sheridan, Dympna O'Sullivan, Emma Murphy

Conference Papers

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is playing an important role in society including how vital, often life changing decisions are made. For this reason, interest in Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) has grown in recent years as a means of revealing the processes and operations contained within what is often described as a black box, an often-opaque system whose decisions are difficult to understand by the end user. This paper presents the results of a design thinking workshop with 20 participants (computer science and graphic design students) where we sought to investigate users' mental models when interacting with AI systems. Using two personas, …

"What's In A Name?”: The Use Of Instructional Design In Overcoming Terminology Barriers Associated With Dark Patterns, Andrea Curley, Damian Gordon, Dympna O'Sullivan

Conference Papers

Many users experience a phenomena when they are shopping on-line where they feel they are being pressured to either spend more money than they had intended, or to share more personal data than they wanted. In academic circles we use the term “Dark Patterns” to describe these deceptive practices, and categorize them as being within the discipline of User Experience (Narayanan, 2020). As academics it is important to name phenomena, and to categorize them, so that we can discuss and analyze these issues. However, this particular topic is one that all users should be made aware of when interacting online, …

The Design Of A Framework For The Detection Of Web-Based Dark Patterns, Andrea Curley, Dympna O'Sullivan, Damian Gordon, Brendan Tierney, Ioannis Stavrakakis

Conference Papers

In the theories of User Interfaces (UI) and User Experience (UX), the goal is generally to help understand the needs of users and how software can be best configured to optimize how the users can interact with it by removing any unnecessary barriers. However, some systems are designed to make people unwillingly agree to share more data than they intend to, or to spend more money than they plan to, using deception or other psychological nudges. User Interface experts have categorized a number of these tricks that are commonly used and have called them Dark Patterns. Dark Patterns are varied …

Virtual Tutor Personality In Computer Assisted Language Learning, Johanna Dobbriner, Cathy Ennis, Robert J. Ross

Conference papers

The use of intelligent virtual agents in language learning has increased in recent years. Studies into several aspects of personalisation aiming to increase user engagement are an ongoing research topic with avatar personality being one such aspect. As a step towards our development of intelligent virtual avatars, we present two of our initial experiments to explore differences in user interaction with two contrasting avatar personalities -- P1: open-minded, friendly and sociable and P2: closed-off, curt and distant. Each user interacted with a single personality in a video-call setting and gave feedback on the interaction. Our expectations, that P1 would be …

Cleanpage: Fast And Clean Document And Whiteboard Capture, Jane Courtney

Articles

The move from paper to online is not only necessary for remote working, it is also significantly more sustainable. This trend has seen a rising need for the high-quality digitization of content from pages and whiteboards to sharable online material. However, capturing this information is not always easy nor are the results always satisfactory. Available scanning apps vary in their usability and do not always produce clean results, retaining surface imperfections from the page or whiteboard in their output images. CleanPage, a novel smartphone-based document and whiteboard scanning system, is presented. CleanPage requires one button-tap to capture, identify, crop, and …

We Have Always Been Virtual: Gilles Deleuze And The Computer-Generated Image, Hugh Mccabe

Conference papers

The use of computer-generated imagery is becoming increasingly ubiquitous across many fields including media, advertising, architecture and art. This represents a fundamental shift within visual culture, as imagery can now be produced routinely by means of rendering algorithms based on spatial representations. We propose that the account of the image provided by Gilles Deleuze in his books on cinema provides a rich philosophical framework for understanding such contemporary imaging practices. By providing a Deleuzian reading of James Kajiya's 1986 rendering equation we argue that there is a tacit ontology of the image underwriting both Deleuze’s work on cinema and current …

“Woodlands” - A Virtual Reality Serious Game Supporting Learning Of Practical Road Safety Skills., Krzysztof Szczurowski, Matt Smith

Conference Papers

In developed societies road safety skills are taught early and often practiced under the supervision of a parent, providing children with a combination of theoretical and practical knowledge. At some point children will attempt to cross a road unsupervised, at that point in time their safety depends on the effectiveness of their road safety education. To date, various attempts to supplement road safety education with technology were made. Most common approach focus on addressing declarative knowledge, by delivering road safety theory in an engaging fashion. Apart from expanding on text based resources to include instructional videos and animations, some stakeholders …

Streaming Vr For Immersion: Quality Aspects Of Compressed Spatial Audio, Miroslaw Narbutt, Sean O’Leary, Andrew Allen, Jan Skoglund, Andrew Hines

Conference papers

Delivering a 360-degree soundscape that matches full sphere visuals is an essential aspect of immersive VR. Ambisonics is a full sphere surround sound technique that takes into account the azimuth and elevation of sound sources, portraying source location above and below as well as around the horizontal plane of the listener. In contrast to channel-based methods, ambisonics representation offers the advantage of being independent of a specific loudspeaker set-up. Streaming ambisonics over networks requires efficient encoding techniques that compress the raw audio content without compromising quality of experience (QoE). This work investigates the effect of audio channel compression via the …

A Case Study For Ecampus Spatial: Business Data Exploration, James Carswell, Thanh Thao Pham Ti, Andrea Ballatore, Junjun Yin, Linh Truong-Hong

Books/Book chapters

Location based querying is the core interaction paradigm between mobile citizens and the Internet of Things, so providing users with intelligent web-services that interact efficiently with web and wireless devices to recommend personalised services is a key goal. With today's popular Web Map Services, users can ask for general information at a specific location, but not detailed information such as related functionality or environments. This shortcoming comes from a lack of connection between non-spatial “business” data and spatial “map” data. This chapter presents a novel approach for location-based querying in web and wireless environments, in which non-spatial business data is …

An Evaluation Of On-Screen Keyboards For First Time Single Switch Users, Paul Ahern, Rupert Westrup

The ITB Journal

This paper presents an evaluation of three designs for on-screen keyboard layouts for use by Single Switch Users (SSUs). SSUs are those users who have a disability which means that they are able to activate a switch into an "on" or "off'' position but are not able to locate or position a particular switch. The first keyboard layout design was alphabetically based, the second design was based upon the most frequently occurring letters in the English alphabet and the third design was the standard QWERTY layout found on most keyboards. The research shows that there is no significant difference in …

Petrochemical Plant Console Operator Workload:The Issues, David A. Strobhar

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

The console operators of certain petrochemical processes must maintain high levels of performance during process upsets or endanger personnel safety and the environment. Mismanagement of an upset can result in explosions, fires, and the release of hazardous chemicals to the environment. The change in workload from steady state to upset operation is significant, with alarms and control changes that are of an order of magnitude. This paper describes the state of console activity in process plants, particularly the increase with key upsets. Quantitative data on the nature of the console operator’s position, its workload during normal operation, and the requirements …

A System To Monitor Cognitive Workload In Naturalistic High-Motion Environments, Bethany K. Bracken, Seth Elkin-Frankston, Noa Palmon, Michael Farry, Blaise De B Frederick

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

Across many careers, individuals face alternating periods of high and low attention and cognitive workload can impair cognitive function and undermine job performance. We have designed and are developing an unobtrusive system to Monitor, Extract, and Decode Indicators of Cognitive Workload (MEDIC) in naturalistic, high-motion environments. MEDIC is designed to warn individuals, teammates, or supervisors when steps should be taken to augment cognitive readiness. We first designed and manufactured a forehead sensor device that includes a custom fNIRS sensor and a three-axis accelerometer designed to be mounted on the inside of a baseball cap or headband, or standard issue gear …

Smart Workload Balancing, Ferdinand Coster

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

The cognitive workload of operators working with automated systems should neither be too high nor too low. A static level of automation is unable to cope with systems that produce large fluctuations in cognitive workload, therefore a method for adaptive automation is proposed that could balance workload by intelligently choosing what to automate and when. To this end the concept of the Cognitive Workload Value factor is introduced, which takes into account both workload and situation awareness. This initial work introduces a possible framework for categorizing and using different workload and situation awareness measures.

Towards A Not Obtrusive Low Cost Biosystem To Assess Risk Perception In Workplace Through Stress Detection, Emanuele Bellini, Serena Benevenuti, Chiara Batistini

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

The main aim of the article is to build a method to assess risk perception in real time in order to early detect and prevent risk behaviors and possible human errors. To this end, the relation between mental workload and stress as critical factors affecting risk perception has been investigated. In particular the mental-physical activation generated by an increment of the workload has the effect of reducing the resources needed to perceive risk increasing the worker vulnerability. The complexity of the stress phenomenon suggested the adoption of an integrated view. The Functional Model has been adopted to for its holistic …

Reducing Peak Workload In The Cockpit: A Human In The Loop Simulation Evaluating New Runway Selection Tool, Tanja Bos, Rolf Zon, Wilfred Rouwhorst

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

In efforts to increase safety and reduce peak workload situations in the cockpit, a tool with a different interaction style was developed for use in case of a runway change instructed by Air Traffic Control during approach. In an experiment a workload comparison was made between the new tool and the conventional cockpit. Workload was measured by means of a self-rating after each experiment run, as well as eye blink frequency during each run. Results show that the self-rated workload decreases with the new tool for one of the two crew members and the blink frequency suggests a workload decrease …

Managing Operator Mental Workload With Standards Based Decision Support, Maurice Wilkins

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

H-Workload 2017: The first international symposium on human mental workload, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, Ireland, June 28-30.

Towards A Continuous Assessment Of Cognitive Workload For Smartphone Multitasking Users, Angel Jimenez-Molina, Hernan Lira

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

The intermeshing of Smartphone interactions and daily activities depletes the availability of cognitive resources. This excessive demand may lead to several undesirable cognitive states, which can be avoided by continuously assessing the user cognitive workload. Recently, many attempts have emerged to assess this workload by using psycho physiological signals. This paper provides evidence that it is possible to train models that accurately identify in short time windows such cognitive workload by processing heart rate and blood oxygen saturation signals. This assessment could be applied in Smartphone notification delivery, interface adaptations or cognitive capabilities evaluation.

Facing Human Workload: The Resilient Ego: A Psychoanalytic Point Of View, Glauco Maria Genga, Maria Gabriella Pediconii

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

The paper aims to show new connections among Human Factors, Human Workload and Resilience. We intend: 1) to highlight the role of subject in facing the human workload, inflected as demanding tasks and emergency situations; 2) to show how psychoanalysis can provide novel insights, not only into human errors, but also into human resilience. They have a common denominator, at least in part: the role of subjective contributions even in demanding situations. Human workload includes a work for satisfaction. We recall also the case study of US Airways Flight 1549 water landing (the so called “Miracle on the Hudson”), which …

System Identification Of Motion Artifact: Noise In Eeg Headsets From Locomotion, Kaela Shea, James Tung

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

Fall prevention for geriatric populations is a growing concern among clinicians and researchers due to severe risk of morbidity and loss of independence. Emerging evidence has demonstrated that mental workload while walking influences gait stability and the risk for falling. Electroencephalography (EEG) presents a potential method to provide objective measures of mental workload, particularly during daily activities. Noise introduced to the EEG signal during motion, however, is restrictive. The study presented in the following paper isolates EEG signal noise attained from gait for a commercially accessible EEG system, the "Emotiv" Time and spectral system identification techniques were applied to model …

Online Measuring Of Available Resources, Enrique Munoz-De-Escalona, José Juan Canas

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

This paper present a proposal for measuring available mental resources during the accomplishment of a task. Our proposal consists in measuring emotions provoked by perceived self-efficacy in the execution of the task. Self-efficacy is one of the most important factors that affect the resources that a person puts at the disposal of the execution of the task. When a person perceives that he/she is not being effective he/she will activate more resources to improve his performance. This self-efficacy will be reflected in the emotions that the person experiences. A good efficacy will provoke positive emotions and a bad efficacy negative …

A Validated Description Of How Crew Manage Flight Operations For Two-Pilot And Reduced Crew Operations, Nick Mcdonnell, Alison Kay, Margaret Ryan, Rabea Morrison, Rolf Zon

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

This research provides a rich validated description of how crew manage workload for both two-pilot and reduced crew operations. It outlines flight operations modelling, operational narratives, requirements and scenarios validated with expert advisers from the EU-FP7 ACROSS Project. The crew are considered to be the managers of the operation who receive integrated technical support to help them manage flight operations across of three configurations i.e. 1) standard two-crew configuration, 2) reduced crew under normal operations 3) reduced-crew under non-normal operations developed within the FP7 EU-funded ACROSS (Advanced Cockpit for the Reduction Of Stress and Workload) project.

Distress And Worry As Mediators In The Relationship Between Psychosocial Risks And Upper Body Musculosketal Complaints In Highly Automated Manufacturing, Fiona Wixted, Leonard O'Sullivan

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

As a result of an upward trend in automation, the requirement for supervisory monitoring and consequently, cognitive demand has increased in automated manufacturing. The incidence of musculoskeletal disorders has also increased in the manufacturing sector. A model was developed based on survey data to test if distress and worry mediate the relationship between psychosocial factors (job control, cognitive demand, social isolation and skill discretion), stress states and upper body musculoskeletal complaints in highly automated manufacturing companies (n=235). Cognitive demand was shown to be related to higher distress in employees. The data raise the question about the link between job control …

A Workload-Centered Perspective On Reduced Crew Operations In Commercial Aviation, Daniela Schmid

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

Mental workload of a pilot, in short workload, depends on various characteristics of different accumulated tasks on the flight deck. Exogenous task demands and endogenous supply of attentional or information processing resources determine workload [1]. Performance is expect to drop if the demand exceeds the available resources of the pilot. Expertise and experience modulate the endogenous sup- ply of resources like perceiving, updating memory, planing, making a decision, and executing and processing a response. Subsequently, workload manifests in performance variables, subjective experience, and physiological parameters [2]. This is how we can summarize workload very brie y to introduce a model …