Journal on Interactive Systems

Discovering Accessible Financial Systems Resources for Emergent Users

2024-08-14T14:06:58+00:00

The widespread use of mobile phones in Brazil has significantly altered information access and communication, impacting the financial sector as institutions increasingly use mobile apps. However, ensuring accessibility for all users remains challenging, particularly for riverside people who lack exposure to formal education, urban environments, and digital technologies. This study examined the accessibility and communicability barriers this population faces in mobile banking applications, especially in instant payment features. After reviewing best practices and applying the Semiotic Inspection Method (SIM), the study developed and tested an instant payment prototype with riverside people in the Amazon region. Interviews and the Communicability Evaluation Method (CEM) were used to measure communication effectiveness and inform design improvements for Pix interfaces. Afterward, a workshop with computing students was conducted, and they showed interest in inclusive systems but needed more practical knowledge. The workshop also highlighted the necessity of providing audio resources, more security, and illustrations and text that are easy to understand in financial conversation systems for emergent users. This research supports digital inclusion by exploring resources to improve accessibility in interactive systems for emergent users.

A framework to support the development of empathetic games

2024-08-26T23:53:08+00:00

An emerging category of games is gaining the attention of the academic community: empathetic games. These games diverge from the conventional pursuit of entertainment only, opting instead to immerse players in the lived experiences of others and confront the challenges encountered in their daily lives. Examples include simulations of a doctor’s routine, exploration of the perspective of someone navigating prolonged grief, or portrayal of how individuals with physical disabilities surmount their limitations. While various works across disciplines underscore the significance of empathy, a noticeable dearth of literature delves into how digital games engender empathy in users. Addressing this knowledge gap, the current study introduces the conceptual framework CERCO (Components, Elements, Requirements, and Concepts) along with accompanying resources such as: glossaries, empathetic game syntheses, historical analyses of empathetic elements in the gaming industry, design guidelines, and videos. The primary objective of this work was to establish a comprehensive framework and associated tools to aid professionals at all skill levels in the game development process. These outcomes serve as the focal points of the study, offering detailed insights into how they can effectively support the creation of empathetic games. Through interactive engagement, these games can serve as powerful tools for navigating and addressing complex real-life subjects.

UX-MAPPER: An automated approach to analyze app store reviews with a focus on UX

2024-09-18T11:35:08+00:00

The mobile app market has increased substantially in the past decades, and the myriad options in the app stores have made users less tolerant of low-quality apps. In this competitive scenario, User eXperience (UX) has emerged as an essential factor in standing out from competitors. By understanding what factors affect UX, practitioners could focus on factors that lead to positive UX while mitigating those that affect UX negatively. In this context, app store reviews emerged as a valuable resource for investigating these influential factors. However, analyzing millions of reviews can be costly and time-consuming. This article introduces UX-MAPPER, a tool designed to analyze app store reviews and assist practitioners in pinpointing factors that impact UX. We applied the Design Science Research method to develop UX-MAPPER iteratively and rooted in a robust theoretical background. We performed exploratory studies to investigate the problem, a systematic mapping study to identify UX-affecting factors, and an empirical study to ascertain practitioners’ relevance and acceptance of UX-MAPPER. In general, the participants recognized the relevance and utility of UX-MAPPER in enhancing the quality of existing apps and exploring reviews of competing apps to identify user preferences, requests, and critiques regarding functionalities and features. However, the output quality requires refinement to better convey the benefits of the results, especially for practitioners with prior experience with automated approaches. From the participants’ feedback, we defined a set of suggestions to extract more useful features, which can contribute to future studies involving user review analysis. Based on the results of this research, we present the contributions to the area of HCI and possible developments for future research.

Older women in online interaction codesign: an analysis of participation and involvement

2024-11-04T12:48:46+00:00

This article presents a study on the participation and involvement of five Brazilian women, most aged 60 or over, in an online interaction codesign process. To understand women’s participation and involvement during the process, content analysis was carried out, using a specific method to identify emerging patterns and themes. The results revealed the active participation of women, contributing significantly to the design solution. Furthermore, participants’ involvement was expressed through positive feelings such as joy, interest, pride, and satisfaction, demonstrating the positive impact of their participation in the codesign process. However, significant challenges were also identified, such as distractions caused by external noise, family interference, and internet connection problems. Some aspects related to the way people feel and perceive their participation in a design process, as well as the stimuli that encourage them to actively participate, stand out as motivational factors for greater involvement and active participation. They include elements such as recognition and appreciation of their contributions, belonging, interest in the research topic, empowerment, adequate facilitation, flexibility of the research team, development of social skills, and personal experiences. It is hoped that this study will provide valuable guidance for future inclusive design initiatives, with the aim of promoting meaningful and effective participation of older adults in collaborative activities.

Unseen: Advancing Digital Accessibility with Binaural Audio Technology in an Immersive Gaming Prototype

2024-09-02T19:18:44+00:00

The growing significance of accessibility, particularly in the realm of disability rights, is unmistakable. "Unseen" emerges as a prototype leveraging binaural audio technology to craft an immersive 3D gaming experience, placing a paramount focus on promoting accessibility and digital inclusion. Its primary objective is to deliver a immersive audiogaming encounter, catering to both sighted gamers and individuals with visual impairments. Through a comprehensive evaluation of the prototype, the efficacy of its audiogame interactions and mechanisms was assessed. Valuable insights gleaned from laboratory tests not only pinpointed areas for game enhancement but also shed light on elements that fostered user satisfaction and motivation. These research results notably exemplify promoting digital accessibility in gaming, particularly through the utilization of binaural audio, and the active engagement of individuals with visual impairments in the virtual environment.

Methodology for building RPG games to raise awareness of interdisciplinary collaboration among healthcare professionals

2024-03-25T11:34:27+00:00

Problems in communication and fragmentation in teamwork can cause adverse events in health services, including resulting in deaths. The interdisciplinary training of health professionals can bring robustness and quality to hospital work. However, how can we provide experiences that raise awareness of the benefits of cooperation? To achieve this, each team member must have a mature technical-ethical profile, know their role in the team and conflicts must be resolved with in such a way that they become opportunities. Aiming to encourage cooperation, Role Playing Games (RPG) were chosen as they are playful and promote engagement in teamwork. This article presents a methodology for building such games and strategies for developing skills based on roles played in a team. Preliminary results are promising and show that the methodology can be useful in training health professionals.

EduVR Collab: A tool for management immersive collaborative learning

2024-08-14T14:07:58+00:00

Improving education through virtual reality is challenging due to the high costs of developing systems and the lack of teacher engagement in project conception. This project introduces and evaluates a system that enables teachers to create their own lessons in virtual reality without prior programming knowledge, addressing these challenges. By integrating Learning Management tools, Learning Analytics, and Multi-user Connection Servers, we developed a system that allows multiple users to coexist in the same virtual environment and perform various tasks. Our system also enables educators to evaluate students based on their behavior. In EduVR, teachers can configure activities in advance and retrieve results. Heuristic evaluations of EduVR’s integrated environment design have demonstrated its potential as a model for developing new educational platforms, setting a new standard for virtual reality educational systems.

Victus Exergame: An Approach to Rehabilitation of Amputees Based in Serious Game

2024-07-18T16:40:24+00:00

This article describes a solution that aims to make the process of physical rehabilitation more attractive for amputees through a solution based on medical informatics and gamification through a serious game. Addressing the challenges faced by individuals with lower limb amputations during physiotherapy — such as trauma, pain, and lack of motivation — this work introduces a serious game that incorporates an embedded sensor system with microcontrollers to a stationary bike. That system serves as both the game controller and a set of biological monitors, alongside a physiotherapy tool that displays the data obtained during sessions for the therapists to track patient progress. Developed through a participatory design approach involving patients and therapists, the system collects data on user engagement, physiological responses, and performance metrics via sensors and feedback forms. By fostering a relaxed and immersive treatment environment, the approach seeks to improve the effectiveness of physiotherapy. Initial experiments demonstrated that this solution holds promise in creating a more playful and motivating physical rehabilitation environment.

Building Serious Games to Exercise Computational Thinking: Initial Evaluation with Teachers of Children on the Autism Spectrum

2024-10-04T13:26:37+00:00

Computational Thinking (CT) is a reasoning process focusing on problem-solving and developing cognitive skills. Serious games are an effective tool for exercising these skills, as they offer a playful and versatile approach that can be adapted to different audiences. This work presents the design of a serious digital game designed to help enhance cognitive skills in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), using the fundamental principles of CT. The first game design phase was completed and submitted for evaluation by professionals in the Education field from a collaborating institution. The observations made and the feedback obtained are being discussed with the development and research teams so that the game can be implemented.

Self-concepts applied as a strategy to measure the level of acceptance of a Serious Game

2024-10-21T10:34:10+00:00

This paper explores the application of Self-Concepts, a Semantic-Differential Scale-based methodology, to evaluate a Serious Game designed for cognitive impairment assessment using the MoCA test and augmented reality (AR) for mobility analysis. A case study involved seven elderly participants. Despite some challenges in navigating the AR environment and cognitive tests, self-concept evaluations consistently demonstrated high user expectations and positive experiences with the digital artifact. This study validates the process and highlights the potential of Self-Concepts in assessing product acceptance within user groups.

An Updated Systematic Mapping Study on Usability and User Experience Evaluation of Touchable Holographic Solutions

2024-11-08T15:38:02+00:00

This article presents an extended Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) focused on usability and user experience (UX) valuation technologies for Touchable Holographic Solutions (THS). Given the growing integration of holograms in Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) settings, evaluating usability and UX becomes highly important. Our study expands on previous research by analyzing an additional two years of publications, covering 5429 studies, and selecting 65 that discuss 200 evaluation technologies. The main problem addressed is the gap in comprehensive evaluation frameworks that integrate usability and UX criteria. We followed systematic guidelines to identify and analyze evaluation technologies, highlighting an increased focus on UX alongside traditional usability. Key findings include the persistent emphasis on time efficiency in usability evaluations and the dominance of generic UX, usability, and pleasure/fun in UX assessments. However, unique aspects of MR, such as presence, are often overlooked. The study also reveals a preference for empirical validation through controlled experiments and case studies, although few technologies have undergone such validation. Head-mounted displays (HMDs) and smart glasses, especially Microsoft Hololens™, remain prevalent due to their advanced capabilities. Our findings underscore the need for integrated evaluation technologies and empirical validation to ensure reliability. This work contributes to the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) area by mapping current evaluation technologies, identifying research gaps, and providing a foundation for developing innovative and effective evaluation methods for THS, thus advancing the understanding and improvement of user interaction in immersive environments.

Evaluating a Serious Game for Math: Is it Useful and Fun?

2024-11-05T14:04:04+00:00

Background: Some arguing has been drawn in the literature questioning if a game can be purposeful (such as a Serious Game) and fun at the same time. Purpose: A serious game called Matemágica, designed to review basic mathematical operations and procedures, was selected to help delve in depth on this questioning. Methods: The evaluation assesses the game’s utility to teach mathematics and the fun perceived by its players. An empathic utility questionnaire was answered by 50 mature and experienced teachers, and a perceived fun questionnaire was created and answered by 334 students. Results: Girls and boys perceived similar fun and 3rd grade students (the actual target audience) felt just a little bit more fun than 4th and 5th grades. No significant difference was found between students from public and private schools. Overall, the game (Matemágica) was regarded as of high utility (scored 4.39 on a scale from 1 to 5) by the teachers and of high perception of fun (score 4,61 on a scale from 1 to 5) by the students. Conclusion: This paper shows that even a casual Serious Game can be useful and fun at the same time.

Construction of a mobile game for learning Libras - Guess teaching

2024-07-01T14:43:45+00:00

The social inclusion of people with disabilities depends on everyone. To collaborate with the inclusion of deaf people, this article addresses the construction of a game available on mobile platforms to assist in learning Brazilian Sign Language (Libras). The game proposes challenges and rewards through questions and answers and also presents Libras signs created by an avatar. As a background, it comments on the importance and emergence of educational games and highlights the history of Libras, presenting concepts, definitions, and curiosities of this little-explored language. The methods and tools for building the game are detailed so that they can be replicated in other related projects. The results present the game’s prototypes up to the final version, in addition to the performance and results of usability tests to improve the game and performance tests to evaluate the user’s learning curve.