Paper Info
Title
Environmental context sensing for usability evaluation in mobile HCI by means of small wireless sensor networks
Abstract
In usability evaluations, experiments are often conducted in closed laboratory situations to avoid disturbing influences. Due to non-realistic usage assumptions, this approach has important shortcomings when mobile Human Computer Interactions (m-HCI) have to be evaluated. Field studies allow to perform experiments close to real-world conditions, but potentially introduce influences caused by the environment. In this paper, we aim at distinguishing application shortcomings from environmental disturbances which both potentially cause decreased user performance. Our approach is based on monitoring environmental conditions during the usability experiment, such as light, acceleration, sound, temperature, and humidity, and relating them to user actions. Therefore, a mobile context-framework has been developed based on a small Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). First results are presented that point at increased delays and error rates of user tasks under induced environmental disturbances. Additionally, we demonstrate the potential of environmental monitoring for understanding user performance.
Year
DOI
Venue
2008
10.1145/1497185.1497248
MoMM
Keywords
Field
DocType
induced environmental disturbance,mobile hci,environmental monitoring,mobile context-framework,user performance,environmental context,user action,environmental disturbance,small wireless,usability evaluation,sensor network,mobile human computer interactions,user task,environmental condition,error rate,human computer interaction,field study,wireless sensor network
Computer science,Usability,Human–computer interaction,Acceleration,Context sensing,Wireless sensor network,Environmental monitoring
Conference
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
8
0.47
10
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Karin A. Hummel1665.79
Andrea Hess21119.90
Thomas Grill39210.02