Journal on Interactive Systems

Discovering Accessible Financial Systems Resources for Emergent Users

Luciano Arruda Teran — 2025-01-01

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

Vinicius Ferreira Galvão — 2025-01-01

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

Walter T. Nakamura — 2025-01-01

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

Valéria Rosa — 2025-01-01

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

Claudia Susie C. Rodrigues — 2025-01-01

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

Márcio da Silva Camilo — 2025-01-01

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

Robson Santiago Viol — 2025-01-01

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

Rafael Luz Melo — 2025-01-01

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

Katherin Felipa Carhuaz Malpartida — 2025-01-01

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

Anthony Lins — 2025-01-01

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

Thiago Campos — 2025-01-01

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?

Diego Fellipe Tondorf — 2025-01-01

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

João A. F. Furquim — 2025-01-01

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.

Kahoot as a data collection tool to work with school age children

Manuel Larrosa — 2025-04-06

This article describes the experience of using the Kahoot platform as a gamified tool for data collection with K-12 students. The context of its use was exploratory research about Global Network Badges, a student reward system designed to encourage participation and motivation. During this research, the challenge of collecting data with children arose, a defying situation for research teams, which led to the use of a Student Response System (SRS). In this context, Kahoot emerged as a playful resource for gathering students’ opinions without being invasive in the internal dynamics of the classroom, favoring the researcher’s role to go unnoticed, blending in through play and interaction with the participating students. The main contribution of the study is the design of a gamified questionnaire that could be adapted to other similar situations of gathering data from school age students.

Feasibility Analysis of an Immersive Network Laboratory as a Support Tool for Teaching Practices

Erberson Evangelista Vieira — 2025-04-07

Background: Information and Communication Technologies play a fundamental role in education, bringing real-world content closer to students and expanding learning opportunities. Immersive virtual laboratories stand out by enabling experimentation and overcoming the difficulties of accessing physical laboratories. Hybrid approaches have emerged to address challenges like space limitations, costs, and safety concerns in traditional laboratories by integrating immersive virtual environments with physical labs. The concept of the Metaverse is noteworthy for uniting physical and virtual realities, allowing user interaction through avatars. This combination aims to replicate the experience of in-person laboratories, fostering collaboration between students and teachers. The sense of presence in immersive virtual environments enhances realism, facilitating information processing during practical activities. This immersion can significantly benefit computing education, especially in laboratory-intensive subjects like Computer Networks that rely on physical equipment. Methods: In this context, this study aimed to investigate the use of immersive virtual environments as a support tool for teaching Computer Networks and to assess students’ acceptance of these environments as aids in teaching-learning. The methodology applied involved four phases: (1) a Systematic Literature Review, which identified research gaps and opportunities for new pedagogical practices in computing education, as well as reviewing related works; (2) semi-structured interviews with Computer Networks teachers, to support the immersive environment’s development; (3) modeling and development of the environment in the Metaverse; and (4) validation of environment acceptance using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the NASA Task Load Index. Results: The Systematic Review indicated that discussed pedagogical practices remain superficial, focusing on experimenting with existing environments and integrating the Metaverse with learning management systems (LMS). In Phase 2, the interviews revealed the importance of scalability in immersive virtual environments. The main goal of the interviews was to understand how teachers use computer and network laboratories, identifying the most-used equipment and content in teaching networks. This analysis was crucial for creating the interaction scenarios that guided the requirements of the NetVerse Edu platform. Conclusion: The acceptance results showed that students viewed NetVerse Edu as a valuable and effective tool for teaching networks, highlighting its ability to facilitate familiarization with equipment and understanding technical concepts. Regarding workload, the immersive environment proved challenging, requiring a high level of cognitive effort, but provided a productive experience without significant discomfort or frustration.

Automatic Complaints Classification in E-Commerce: A Case Study Using CRISP-DM

Matheus Konrad Xavier — 2025-04-08

The growth of e-commerce has been remarkable in recent years, driven by increasing consumer demand for attention and quick responses. Given the large volume of transactions and complaints accompanying this increase, automating the classification of these complaints can help quickly route them to the appropriate departments. This paper presents a computational approach using the Cross Industry Standard Process for Data Mining (CRISP-DM) methodology to automate the complaints screening process. We categorized 600 real complaints from three e-commerce platforms in Brazil. The learning model was trained progressively, using an initial set of 25 complaints in each category. The classification model obtained an accuracy of 85% and an average of over 80% across all relevant metrics, including precision, recall, and F1-Score. The results confirmed the effectiveness of the developed model for automated complaint classification in e-commerce, providing a computational strategy that improves the customer service process and allows for quicker problem resolution.

What is the State of the Art on UX Data Visualization? A Systematic Mapping of the Literature

Lucas Katib do Amaral — 2025-04-09

From a Human-Computer Interaction perspective, data visualizations are visual representations of data that improve users' cognitive capabilities during a task. In particular, UX data visibility can raise a team's engagement with the UX design and better inform product decisions. However, researchers and professionals lack a foundation to build new UX data visualizations. In this context, this paper describes a Systematic Mapping of the Literature that aims to consolidate the state of the art on UX data visualizations. To guide the open coding of the findings, we defined ten questions that span the Visual Information Seeking Mantra and the four levels of Munzner's analysis framework. We identified 28 well-known and seven custom chart formats, with the node-link diagram arising as the most popular. Most of the visualized data comes from software logs, and there is a lack of exploration of UX metrics, acoustic data, and demographic data as data sources. Regarding the Visual Information Seeking Mantra, visualizations had a zoom and filter function and a details on demand function for most chart formats. However, most chart formats lacked overview functions. Our findings provide a broad overview of the literature that can support the creation of new UX data visualizations.

Virtual Reality System for Inspection and Training: A case study in Wheel-Loader Operations

Luiz Felipe Muniz Rocha Borges — 2025-04-09

A virtual-reality-based serious game to inspect and train a wheel loader is proposed in this paper. The game is developed using a cross-platform game engine and it is integrated into various virtual reality (VR) headsets. The proposed game was conducted under inspection and training procedures on the wheel loader of a mining company with elements to engage field workers. The results reached demonstrated the benefits of the use of such implemented technology. In addition, 16 workers assessed the game and completed a survey. The survey results suggest that the system can be used for staff training before handling a real wheel loader in a mining company. The findings suggest that the implementation of a game for inspection and training improves the process, reduces expenses, and improves safety. The game favors the development of technical skills required for real-world procedures. The VR serious game proposed as a training tool prepares company staff for inspection and operating on a wheel loader. The serious game can be expanded to include various technical procedures, such as a maintenance procedure for a tamping machine.

Investigating Gamification to Reduce Procrastination - Systematic Literature Review

Milena Batalha Pereira — 2025-04-13

Introduction: Procrastination significantly impacts in the lives of young people and adults, both in academic and professional contexts, reducing interest, performance and productivity. The prevalence rates in the general adult population highlight the frequency of this phenomenon. Procrastination, defined as the voluntary postponement of tasks despite awareness of its negative consequences, undermines academic performance, workplace productivity, and mental and physical health. Gamification, as a strategy within interactive systems, has been recognized for its potential to enhance motivation and, consequently, to reduce procrastination. Methods: This study explores how integrating gamification elements (such as points, badges, challenges, leaderboards, and progress bars) into interactive systems can improve user engagement, motivation, and task management, and consequently, help to reduce procrastination. The research methodology followed a systematic literature review, guided by SEGRESS guidelines. Results: The review included 24 studies, carefully selected from 781 identified through reputable databases. The findings highlight both the potential benefits and the challenges of employing gamification to combat procrastination. Discussion: This research emphasizes the importance of personalization in gamification strategies to address procrastination effectively. It further contributes to interactive systems design by exploring how organizational processes/behaviors and productivity can be enhanced through gamification systems (technology), tailored to assist users (students, workers, and procrastinators in general) in overcoming procrastination-related challenges.

Expanding a Study on Users’ Perception and Attitudes Toward Artificial Intelligence in Computational Systems

Dárlinton Barbosa Feres Carvalho — 2025-05-10

Background: Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly embedded in various aspects of daily life, raising critical concerns about their societal impacts, ethical implications, and users’ perceptions. Understanding how users perceive and interact with these systems is essential for the development of technologies that are not only technically efficient but also socially responsible and inclusive. Purpose: This study investigates users’ attitudes toward AI through the application of the Attitude Towards Artificial Intelligence (ATAI) scale, complemented by socio-demographic profiling and open-ended questions. By analyzing the perceptions of a diverse group of participants across multiple professional fields, the research seeks to identify patterns of trust, concern, and familiarity with AI systems. The findings offer evidence-based insights into how these attitudes vary according to users’ backgrounds, supporting the development of strategies for the ethical and inclusive adoption of AI. Methods: This article expands upon a previous study by broadening the participant sample and deepening the analysis, contributing to the broader discourse. A total of 136 participants, divided into four distinct groups, were interviewed using a mixed-methods approach. Quantitative data from the ATAI scale were complemented by qualitative insights from open-ended discussions. Results: The findings revealed a widespread reliance on and recognition of the importance of computer systems. Participants consistently emphasized the need for ethical governance and inclusive practices in AI, voicing concerns over biases and the potential to exacerbate inequalities. Conclusion: The study underscores the necessity of ethical and responsible AI adoption in Brazil. It identifies strategies to harness AI for promoting inclusion and equity, advocating for governance frameworks that mitigate risks and address societal disparities.

Comparing Perceptual Visual Quality of Hybrid Neural and Ray Tracing in Foveated Rendering

Horácio Henriques — 2025-05-15

Enabling Foveated Rendering for VR devices displays is fundamental when dealing with real-time ray tracing. Combining traditional methods with Neural based strategies, such as NeRFs and 3D Gaussian Splatting, may impact on leveraging performance even more. In this work we enhance and validate how well our traditional Instant-NeRF reconstructs common ray-traced effects through user metrics and quality metrics. We also show that 3D Gaussian Splatting used in the periphery vision area presents better results than the perceptual quality achieved through NeRFs. We present a deep human perception experiment through different global illumination light effects.

Assistive Technology for Enhancing Fine Motor Coordination: From Prototype to Implementation and Initial Acceptance Testing

Thiago Adriano Coleti — 2025-06-01

Fine Motor Coordination (FMC) refers to the use of hand and wrist muscles and is related to functional activities of daily living, such as eating or studying. Individuals with Down Syndrome, Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder often exhibit have fine motor skills deficits, which can result in impaired joint mobility and muscle tone. Considering these characteristics and the importance of FMC in promoting independence, this project aimed to design an Assistive Technology in form of assistive games to support FMC evolution in institutions that work with people with disabilities. The project was performed in two stages. In the first, to design and refine the proposal, interviews with professionals, followed by prototyping and evaluation were conducted with the aim of creating and evaluating the prototypes, which were considered satisfactory. In the second phase, a functional tool comprising four assistive games was developed and applied at the Equotherapy Center. Professionals from the Equine Therapy Center used the tool with four practitioners and reported that it was well accepted and considered promising for long-term treatment.

Game-theoretic Methods for Differentiating Systems with Artificial and Anthropogenic Intelligence

Pavel Konyukhovskiy — 2025-06-01

The aim of the article is to develop procedures for differentiation (identifying) types of intelligent systems at the conceptual level. It is assumed that such systems can be built using both anthropogenic (natural) and artificial intelligence. The relevance of the goal is determined by the spread in the modern world of technologies called “artificial intelligence”, which have a radical all-round impact. The research is based on the methods of strategic game theory. The main hypothesis of the study is reduced to the assumption that different types of intellects in game situations will correspond to stable characteristic models of strategic behavior, by which their differentiation can be carried out. The paper consecutively considers differentiation procedures based on bimatrix games of the class “family dispute” (games with two Nash equilibrium in pure and one in mixed strategies), differentiation procedures based on static Bayesian games, differentiation procedures based on signaling games. The differentiation methods are based on the hypothesis that carriers of different types of intelligence will consistently (significantly) differ in their strategic behavior in the game. In the conclusion the principles of comparative analysis of different procedures are formulated. The main result of the study is a set of differentiation procedures based on game-theoretic models. These procedures are free from the disadvantages inherent in expert approaches.

Muses or Stereotypes? Identifying Historical Patterns of Sexism in a Corpus of Brazilian Lyrics

Janaina Nogueira de Souza Lopes — 2025-06-05

This study aims to identify gender bias in Brazilian songs by analyzing the most frequent predicatives used to describe women and the most referenced occupations associated with the feminine gender. To achieve this, we created a corpus containing 146,612 song lyrics and applied natural language processing techniques to extract sentences that describe women. The identified predicatives were annotated and used to train a machine learning model that categorizes them into five descriptive categories. Additionally, we compiled a list of occupations mentioned in the lyrics. From a distant reading perspective, the results reveal a persistent historical pattern of sexism: women are predominantly portrayed through physical and emotional traits, while men are more frequently associated with character and social roles. In the professional domain, women are mainly depicted in caregiving and entertainment roles. These findings align with previous studies and contribute to methodological advancements in identifying gender bias in Portuguese-language texts.
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Fraud Alerts in Public Health Based on Audit Trails

Marco Túlio Dutra — 2025-06-05

Fraud detection and prevention in the public health sector are essential for preserving resource integrity and service quality. Fraud in this context can include financial misappropriations and data manipulation, which not only waste public funds but also compromise healthcare quality and accessibility. This article introduces an audit trail-based approach to identify and rank potential fraud cases involving public health employees in Brazil. Our ranking system highlights cases with higher fraud likelihood based on the analysis of suspicious activity patterns and travel records. Extending prior work, we also introduce three additional analyses on the alerts: temporal evolution, geographical distribution, and occupation-specific trends. Our results enable auditors to trace trends, regional irregularities, and occupation-specific risks, thus enhancing the accuracy and impact of fraud detection strategies.

Exploring extensions of neurotransmitter-based emotion models

João Ricardo Pinheiro — 2025-06-14

Advancements in artificial intelligence have significantly enhanced the gaming experience, enabling more engaging and adaptive interactions between players and digital characters. A key aspect of this progress is the ability of non-player characters (NPCs) to display more lifelike realistic emotional responses that simulate the fluid and unpredictable nature of human emotions. This work presents a novel emotion model integrating Lövheim’s Cube of Emotions with Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions, combining the dynamic aspects of the former with the detailed structure of the latter. The model was expanded from a 22-emotion, 21-point mapping to a more detailed version with 24 emotions across 52 points, allowing for better emotional differentiation. Two algorithms were upgraded and tested: an extended cube of emotions using the Euclidean distance, and the same cube incorporating fuzzy logic. Both methods showed significantly better results than their previous versions, with the Euclidean being the best overall. That indicates a more precise mapping of emotions. However, it can only return one emotion at a time. While the Fuzzy Logic method allows for more than one emotional response at the same time, associating neurotransmitters and emotions within fuzzy rules was quite complex.

Perception and Precision: How VST and OST Headsets Influence Task Execution

Gustavo Domingues — 2025-06-23

Background: Head-mounted displays (HMDs) offer compelling virtual and augmented experiences, yet their influence on everyday accuracy and efficiency is not fully understood. In particular, video see-through (VST) and optical see-through (OST) devices may introduce perceptual distortions that degrade performance. Methods: We compared a VST HMD (Meta Quest 3) and an OST HMD (Microsoft HoloLens) in two representative motor tasks: dart throwing (far-field interaction) and bottle filling (near-field interaction). Eighty volunteers were split into two experiments, each using one HMD type. Every participant performed both tasks twice—once with the assigned HMD and once with normal vision. Completion time, dart-board error, water-level deviation, and selfreported visual-discomfort symptoms (eyestrain, blurred vision, nausea) were recorded. Results: Wearing either HMD lengthened task completion and reduced precision relative to the naked-eye baseline. Dart throws landed farther from the bullseye and showed greater score variability under HMD conditions. In the bottle-filling task, participants overfilled more frequently and deviated further from the target water level when using an HMD. Mild visual discomfort was reported by some users, whereas severe symptoms were rare. Conclusions: Both VST and
OST HMDs can impose perceptual and cognitive demands that impair speed and accuracy in common near- and farfield activities. Refining calibration procedures and real-time visual feedback may mitigate these effects; broader studies across diverse user groups and task domains are warranted.

What are the Project Management Practices in the Digital Games Industry? A Survey Study

Lucas Pieva — 2025-06-28

Background: The Brazilian digital games industry has been expanding rapidly, requiring effective Project Management (PM) practices to ensure success across cost, time, and scope dimensions. Purpose: This study investigates the PM practices, artifacts, and systems adopted by game studios and independent developers in Brazil, aiming to provide an empirical reference for researchers and practitioners. Methods: Using the Linaker survey methodology, we collected responses from 41 professionals across 21 studios, addressing four key research questions related to PM approaches, artifacts, and tools. Results: The findings reveal Scrum and Kanban as the most widely used methodologies, with artifacts such as the Game Design Document (GDD), prototypes, and Kanban boards frequently supporting project activities. Tools such as Trello, Miro, and ClickUp dominate the usage, but the lack of a standardized PM system highlights significant variability between studios. Despite the diversity, agile methods are preferred for their adaptability and alignment with industry demands. Conclusion: The study concludes that while Brazilian studios exhibit good PM practices, there are still gaps in the integration of academic insight with practical applications. The results provide valuable insights for the development of customized PM solutions for the digital games industry, emphasizing the need for further research to address scalability and complexity in larger projects.

Do Calibrated Recommendations Affect Explanations? A Study on Post-Hoc Adjustments

Paul Dany Flores Atauchi — 2025-06-29

Recommender systems generate suggestions by identifying relationships among past interactions, user similarities, and item metadata. Recently, there has been an increased focus on evaluating recommendations based not only on accuracy but also on aspects like transparency and calibration. Transparency is important, as explanations can enhance user trust and persuasion, while calibration aligns users’ interests with recommendation lists, improving fairness and reducing popularity bias. Traditionally, calibration and explanation are applied in post-processing. Our study investigates two key research gaps: (1) the impact of graph embeddings in model-agnostic knowledge graph explanations, exploring their under-researched potential compared to syntactic approaches to produce meaningful explanations; and (2) the effect of calibration on recommendation explanations, assessing whether calibrated recommendation reordering influences the outcomes of explanation algorithms. We evaluate the quality of explanations using a set of metrics, such as diversity, which measures how well different interests of the user are covered; popularity, which assesses how well explanations avoid favoring already popular items; and recency, which examines the inclusion of recently interacted items. Our findings demonstrate that graph embedding methods are effective in generating high-quality explanations using these offline explanation metrics, and that post-hoc knowledge graph explanation algorithms are robust to calibration changes.

Beyond Detection: A Framework for Transforming Accessibility Evaluations into Implementable Fixes

Paula Palomino — 2025-07-02

Ensuring accessibility in government-managed digital platforms is essential for inclusive public services. However, accessibility evaluations often fail to produce actionable outcomes, creating a gap between assessment and implementation. This study presents a structured accessibility framework designed to bridge that gap by converting evaluation findings into implementable fixes. The framework integrates automated and manual assessments, maps each identified barrier to a user-centered justification, and generates structured action points that clearly assign responsibilities to development and design teams. The framework was tested through a pilot application on PNLD Formação (a Brazilian government platform developed as part of the public policy ”Programa Nacional do Livro e do Material Didático” – PNLD, or National Textbook Program) and empirically validated on PNLD Avaliação (another governmental platform supporting the pedagogic evaluation phase of the same policy). Additionally, a user survey conducted during the validation phase revealed not only critical usability challenges on one of the platforms but also misconceptions about accessibility and disability among system users. These findings highlight the need for both technical remediation and cultural awareness initiatives. This study contributes a replicable methodology for integrating accessibility evaluation into digital governance, fostering long-term accessibility improvements in large-scale platforms.

IsoPuzzle: Development and Evaluation of an Ethno-Educational Serious Game

Thiago Emanuell V. Moura — 2025-07-03

This study presents the development and evaluation of IsoPuzzle, a digital ethno-educational game that merges progressive isometric geometry challenges with Adinkra symbolism to integrate mathematical concepts and African cultural elements. Based on Game-Based Learning (GBL) and the PEED methodology, IsoPuzzle promotes collaboration and active stakeholder participation. Its evaluation, conducted via a structured questionnaire derived from frameworks such as SUS, MEEGA+, PAJDE, and IAQJEd, focused on three indicators: pedagogical engagement, accessibility and usability, and the impact of cultural immersion on player experience (PX). Results indicate that IsoPuzzle effectively combines mathematical abstraction with engaging visuals, enhancing cultural connections through the use of Adinkra symbolism. The analysis also identified areas for refinement, particularly related to instruction clarity and interface accessibility, indicating the need to improve navigational intuitiveness. The data proved reliable, with the educational dimension averaging 4.16 (SD = 0.91), the cultural dimension 3.78 (SD = 1.02), and the user experience 3.61 (SD = 1.08). Variations in device quality further influenced user experience, underscoring the need for multi-platform optimization. Overall, these findings provide valuable insights for refining digital teaching tools that strike a balance between mathematical rigor, cultural diversity, and interface efficiency.

Evaluating a Procedural Content Orchestrator Gameplay Data and Classifying User Profiles

Leonardo Tórtoro Pereira — 2025-07-04

Background: Content Orchestration is a novel research field focused on coordinating distinct types of algorithmically generated game content. Purpose: Thus, the lack of research in this area hinders the analysis of gameplay data and player profiling in games with orchestrated content. Methods: This paper is an extension of a work that collected and analyzed gameplay logs of 15 players who played 119 game sections of 12 different dungeons of a top-down action game. The game’s Levels, Rules, and Narrative content were orchestrated and adapted to player profiles defined from a pre-test questionnaire. PCA and clustering techniques were used to highlight relevant gameplay metrics for distinguishing play styles. In this extension, we used the gameplay data alone to train classifiers with and without data augmentation to predict a user’s profile, measuring the accuracy, precision, recall and f1-score with a train-test split and a 5-fold cross-validation for a more robust accuracy. We also implemented data augmentation on our gameplay metrics sample. Results: We identified, through the previous work, two components of PCA explaining a total of 65% of data variability, containing data such as Lock Usage Rate, Enemy Kill Rate, Map Completion, and Completed Immersion Quests. We also found game difficulty as an important level component for impact clustering. Through data augmentation, we achieved novel results, such as a mean accuracy
of almost 95%, measured with a 5-fold cross-validation, for the Histogram-based Gradient Boosting classifier when predicting a player’s profile based on their gameplay data, even with our small sample size. Conclusion: Our work guides developers and researchers to choose relevant gameplay metrics to determine players’ play styles. Our extended results suggest that we can predict player’s profiles through gameplay metrics and data augmentation, even for small samples. More studies are needed to validate our findings, with a larger and more diverse player-base.

Group Fairness in Recommendation Systems: The Importance of Hierarchical Clustering in Identifying Latent Groups in MovieLens and Amazon Books

Rafael Vargas Mesquita dos Santos — 2025-07-12

Fairness in recommendation systems is a critical area of study, particularly when addressing group disparities based on sensitive attributes such as gender, age, activity levels, or user location. This study also explores latent groups identified through hierarchical clustering techniques. The goal is to assess group unfairness across various clustering configurations and collaborative filtering strategies to promote equitable and inclusive recommendation systems. We applied collaborative filtering techniques, including ALS, KNN, and NMF, and evaluated group unfairness using metrics such as R_grp for different clustering configurations (e.g., gender, age, activity level, location, and hierarchical clustering) in two datasets: MovieLens and Amazon Books. Hierarchical clustering yielded the highest group unfairness, with ALS and NMF reaching R_grp values of 0.0062 and 0.0049 in MovieLens, and NMF and KNN peaking at 0.0972 and 0.0220 in Amazon Books. These results reveal significant fairness disparities across both latent and observable user groups, reinforcing the importance of selecting appropriate filtering strategies and clustering methods to build fair and inclusive recommendation systems.

Red Alert! Unveiling Insights in Violence Against Women through Interactive Data Visualization

Gabriel Zurawski — 2025-07-13

Governments nowadays make several open data sets available, including data on reports of violence against women. Such a type of violence is considered a public health and safety problem and requires approaches that help identify behavioral patterns, trends, and profiles of victims and perpetrators. The analysis of this type of data can be facilitated with the use of interactive visualization. Visual representation techniques enable the identification of patterns and trends, providing insights that aid decision-making. Given this context, this paper proposes using interactive visualization techniques to explore government data on violence against women, aiming at a better understanding and preventive actions. Data obtained from the Women’s Service Center (Call 180) can be explored through a set of dashboards called MARIA (Mapping and Analysis of Risks and Insights on Abuse Against Women), which reveal hidden insights and patterns, helping to identify vulnerabilities. The purpose is to foster more knowledge about this data to develop strategies to prevent and combat violence against women. Interviews with domain experts have shown that MARIA is easy to use, contributes to data knowledge, and provides insights consistent with reality.

Analyzing Discourses in Portuguese Word Embeddings: A Case of Gender Bias Outside the English-Speaking World

Fernanda Tiemi de Souza Taso — 2025-07-14

In this paper we meticulously examined a Word Embedding model in Portuguese, endeavoring to identify gender biases through diverse analytical perspectives, employing SC-WEAT and RIPA metrics that is widely used in the English realm. Our inquiry focused on three primary dimensions: (1) the frequency-based association of words with feminine and masculine terms; (2) the identification of disparities between grammatical classes pertaining to gender sets; and (3) the categorisation and grouping of feminine and masculine words, including their distinctive attributes. In regard to frequency groups, our investigation revealed a pervasive negative association of words with feminine terms in most subsets, indicative of a pronounced inclination of the model’s vocabulary towards the masculine references. Notably, among the 100 most frequent words, 89 exhibited a stronger association with masculine terms. In the scrutiny of grammatical classes, our analysis demonstrated a predominant association of adjectives with feminine references, underscoring the imperative for supplementary description when referring to women. Furthermore, a conspicuous prevalence of participle verbs associated with feminine terms was observed, a phenomenon distinct from their male counterparts and one that requires further expert attention to be properly explained. The categorisation process underscored the existence of gender bias, as exemplified by the association of words with masculine terms within the domains of sport, finance, and science, while words related to feelings, home furniture, and entertainment were associated with feminine terms. These findings assume significance in fostering a discourse on gender analysis within non-English models, such as Portuguese models, thereby encouraging the Brazilian community to actively investigate biases in NLP models.

Educational Games for Mobile Applications: A Systematic Literature Mapping

Jonathan José Cardoso de Sales — 2025-07-30

The increasing popularity of mobile devices and advancements in digital gaming have stimulated the development of educational solutions that combine entertainment and learning. As part of Mobile Learning (m-learning) and Game-Based Learning (GBL) approaches, mobile educational games have been shown to promote motivation, engagement, and autonomy in the teaching process. This article presents a Systematic Literature Mapping (SLM) analysis of 176 studies published between 2019 and 2024 in the Scopus, Web of Science and IEEE Xplore databases. The objective was to identify trends, technologies, methodologies, and evaluation strategies relating to the development and use of educational games in mobile applications. The SLM protocol comprised three stages: planning, execution, and reporting. The results reveal the diversity of approaches and technologies adopted, including game engines, augmented reality, and native languages, as well as the application of various methodologies and gamification elements. There was also a growing emphasis on personalization and user-centered design. However, challenges such as a lack of standardization, limited empirical validation, and accessibility and infrastructure barriers persist. The SLM highlights the potential of mobile games in developing cognitive and socio-emotional skills and emphasizes the need for future studies to improve evaluation models and the personalization and application of these resources in different educational contexts.

Usability and UX Evaluation in a Mixed Reality Puzzle Game Using Questionnaires

Thiago Prado de Campos — 2025-08-10

Background: Mixed Reality (MR) technologies present unique usability and user experience (UX) challenges, particularly in gesture-based interaction and spatial perception. Puzzle games in MR environments rely heavily on intuitive control and immersive feedback to maintain user engagement. Purpose: This study aims to evaluate the usability and UX of the Cubism puzzle game in an MR context, comparing different standardized instruments to capture user perceptions and identify specific interaction issues. Methods: The evaluation was conducted during a usability and UX workshop, where participants used Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest 3 headsets. Participants were divided into two groups: Group A completed the UUXE-ToH v4 questionnaire, while Group B answered the USE, Slater-Usoh-Steed (SUS), and UEQ questionnaires. In addition to quantitative assessments, participants reported issues, which were classified and analyzed thematically. Results: Cubism was positively evaluated in terms of learnability, memorability, and satisfaction. However, notable challenges were identified in object manipulation, gesture accuracy, and error recovery. Immersion and presence scores were comparatively lower, particularly in SUS, suggesting limited perceptual integration of virtual objects into the real environment. Interaction precision and environmental coherence were also affected by hardware limitations, especially on devices with monochrome passthrough. Conclusion: The findings highlight specific usability and UX limitations in MR puzzle games and illustrate how different instruments (applied to distinct groupings of participants) captured complementary aspects of the experience. Although no direct statistical comparison was performed, indirect analysis suggests varying diagnostic contributions across instruments. These findings suggest that multidimensional evaluation frameworks (either through a single comprehensive instrument or a combination of focused tools) can provide richer insights for guiding design improvements and identifying usability and UX issues in MR applications.

A hereditary attentive question answering framework for knowledge bases

Rômulo C. de Mello — 2025-08-22

Background. The rapid growth of online data has made retrieving relevant information a challenging task, prompting the rise of Knowledge Base Question Answering (KBQA) systems that handle complex, multi-hop queries. Purpose. This extended work refines our previous pipeline by introducing structured dummy templates, a Hereditary Tree-LSTM (HTL) for classification, and more comprehensive analyses of entity recognition, property extraction, and SPARQL assembly. Methods. We enhanced the LC-QUAD 2.1 dataset with standardized templates and evaluated a flexible pipeline that integrates DeepPavlov, Falcon, SpaCy, qualifiers constraints, and reverse lookups. Results. Our experiments reveal that multi-tool entity recognition outperforms single-tool methods, while property extraction benefits from extended property sets and refined ranking strategies. Overall SPARQL correctness reaches up to 70–80% in mid-complex queries but remains lower in domain-specific subsets. Conclusion. The proposed synergy of NLP tools and refined dummy templates increases coverage for complex KBQA, though further improvements in morphological handling and specialized embeddings may be needed to address challenging multi-hop or niche queries comprehensively.

Emotional Design, User Experience and Usability on Public Universities’ Websites in Mainland Portugal

Maria Inês Albuquerque — 2025-08-23

Universities’ online presence is essential in today’s digital age, and the Internet is a fundamental intermediary with universities’ various audiences. This study aimed to assess the usability, user experience (UX), and emotional impact of the 11 websites of public universities in mainland Portugal to determine if they met users’ expectations. A mixed-methods approach was employed to analyse the usability, user experience and emotional responses of 220 university students who interacted with these websites and subsequently completed an online questionnaire. To the best of our knowledge, this work provides the first comprehensive evaluation of all public university websites in mainland Portugal, establishing a benchmark for their UX quality and identifying opportunities for improvement. The results showed that although most of the websites demonstrated good usability, there were significant gaps. The highest usability ratings were given to the University of Beira Interior, ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon and the University of Lisbon, while NOVA University Lisbon and the University of Minho had the lowest ratings. User satisfaction requires improvement on all platforms, particularly in navigation, information structure and organisation. UX was considered negative for all universities when compared to industry standards, underlining a discrepancy between user needs and current implementations. Universities requiring urgent UX improvements include the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, the University of Minho and NOVA University Lisbon. The ‘Novelty’ metric received the lowest scores, indicating that users consider these websites non-innovative, with low creativity and limited ability to capture interest. However, the emotions generated were generally positive, especially for the University of Beira Interior, the University of Lisbon and the University of Aveiro. Based on these findings, key recommendations were formulated – for example, simplifying menu structures, improving information architecture, and incorporating more engaging content – in order to optimise usability, user experience and emotional impact on each platform. Implementing these improvements is expected to offer a more effective and positive online experience across all the universities’ websites.

Analyzing Accessibility, Usability, and User Experience in Mobile Apps Through User Reviews: An Extended Systematic Literature Review

Alberto Dumont Alves Oliveira — 2025-08-23

User reviews have become an essential source for evaluating quality attributes in mobile applications. Although prior research has examined privacy, security, and digital accessibility for people with disabilities through user feedback, comprehensive studies simultaneously analyzing accessibility, usability, and user experience (UX) through this lens remain scarce. This study expands on our earlier work by conducting a systematic literature review (SLR) to explore the connections between these three dimensions through user feedback analysis. From 670 studies published since 2013, we selected 42 for thematic analysis. The selected papers reflect the field’s multidisciplinary nature, encompassing computer science, health sciences, and social sciences, with most studies focusing on applications in both physical and mental health domains. The findings highlight accessibility as an ongoing challenge for users with disabilities and those with specific needs. Key results include: (i) a disparity between two positive and six negative accessibility factors; (ii) usability findings revealing six strengths (e.g., performance, design simplicity) but fourteen shortcomings (e.g., navigation difficulties, unintuitive interfaces); (iii) nine core UX elements, with accessibility and usability as central components; and (iv) thirty-three actionable recommendations for future research. This study provides a holistic understanding of how usability and UX improvements can enhance accessibility. The findings aim to assist developers and organizations in creating more inclusive mobile applications while guiding future research directions.

Sentiment Analysis of Shared Content in Brazilian Reddit Communities

Giovana Piorino — 2025-08-24

The growth of social media in the present decade is one of the main drivers of studies on user-generated content. Reddit, a social network that has been gaining popularity among Brazilians, has become a source for sentiment analysis studies aimed at evaluating automated models for this task. This article reports a study on the development and evaluation of a dataset of human-annotated Reddit comments and its comparison with sentiment classification models. Comments retrieved from Brazilian Reddit communities were labeled by annotators and submitted to automated classification using 10 models with different architectures. Human labeling showed moderate agreement coefficients and reasonable disagreement, highlighting the subjectivity of the task. Models based on LLMs and BERT performed well with Brazilian Portuguese texts. The comparison revealed similarities in the challenges faced by humans and models, suggesting opportunities to improve automated language understanding. Both humans and models face similar difficulties in sentiment assignment, language characteristics of the texts being a major challenge for model classification, which points to the need for further advancement in this respect.

Interpersonal Trust Among Students in Virtual Learning Environments: A Comprehensive Review

Marcelo Pereira Barbosa — 2025-08-25

Interpersonal trust is recognized as one of the pillars of student collaboration and successful learning in virtual learning environments (VLEs). In order to identify the factors that influence interpersonal trust among students in VLEs, we conducted this systematic mapping study to investigate attributes, evolutionary phases of trust and resources that support interpersonal trust among students in VLEs. By analyzing 49 articles, we identified 37 attributes that influence the phases of trust acquisition and loss, categorized into four themes: Ability, Integrity, Affinity and Non-Personal Factors. Attributes such as collaborative and ethical behavior, academic skills and higher grades are often used to select colleagues, mainly through recommendation systems and user profiles. To organize our findings, we developed two concept maps that describe the main characteristics of the definitions of trust and the classification of attributes by phases and themes. This work presents significant findings that contribute to building and improving VLEs that promote trust among students.

Learning Operating Systems with Educational Games: A Systematic Mapping of the Literature

Vítor Hugo S. de Camargo — 2025-08-25

Background: Teaching Operating Systems (OS) is challenging due to the complexity of its concepts, requiring both theoretical understanding and practical application. Educational games have emerged as an engaging strategy to enhance learning, making abstract topics more interactive and accessible. Purpose: This study aims to systematically map the literature on educational games used for OS teaching, identifying their main characteristics, covered concepts, and effectiveness. The search was conducted in Google Scholar, IEEE Xplore, SciELO Portal, and CAPES Journals, targeting articles published between 2014 and 2024. Methods: The selected studies were analyzed according to research questions related to game content, effectiveness, challenges, and integration into teaching. Results: Sixteen educational games were identified, addressing 20 OS concepts. Process management and scheduling were the most covered topics, while mutual exclusion, critical sections, and virtual memory were less explored. All games were tested with students, showing positive learning outcomes. Challenges included errors, accessibility issues, and curricular integration. Conclusion: Educational games enhance engagement and learning in OS courses, but there is a need to develop more games covering underrepresented topics and improve their integration into curricula.

The Timing Game for Research on Temporal Perception

Alan Floriano Teixeira — 2025-08-26

This study presents a novel design and development for the Timing Game, a Serious Game for improving Temporal Perception Research. Often repetitive and time-consuming, traditional lab tasks are converted into engaging 2D mobile minigames through innovative design and compelling narratives. The game features two modes: Arcade, which focuses on specific temporal tasks, and Story, which integrates these tasks into a cohesive narrative. Enhancing user engagement improves data quality, providing deeper insights into temporal perception. The paper details the development process, including user feedback and expert consultations, and makes the game available for further research, demonstrating the potential of Serious Games in scientific applications.

Enhancing Ethical Communication in Brazilian Computing Research: A Framework for Human Involvement Reporting

Luiz Paulo Carvalho — 2025-08-26

Background: Brazilian computing research exhibits notable deficiencies in reporting human participation, with inconsistent ethical communication practices that compromise transparency and reproducibility. Goal: This study analyzes current practices for reporting human involvement and proposes a standardized textual framework to enhance the communication of human participation in computing research. Methods: We conducted a secondary analysis of more than 10,000 publications from SBC symposia (2013–2022), identifying patterns through keyword searches and content analysis. Using a pragmatic methodology, we developed a framework grounded in ethical requirements from Brazil’s CEP/Conep system and best practices from the literature. Results: Our analysis revealed: (1) most studies involving humans lacked CEP documentation; (2) widespread inconsistencies in terminology; (3) insufficient participant characterization. The proposed framework addresses these issues by defining mandatory and recommended reporting elements, including types of involvement, ethical approvals, risk disclosures, and participant profiles. Conclusion: This work introduces the first standardized approach to reporting human participation in Brazilian computing research. Although simple in design, the framework represents an important step toward ethical transparency and provides a foundation for future improvements in research communication practices.

A Network-Driven Framework for Bidimensional Analysis of Information Dissemination on Social Media Platforms

Geovana S. Oliveira — 2025-09-17

Network modeling has become a foundational approach for analyzing information dissemination on social media platforms. Moreover, backbone extraction techniques, designed to isolate the most relevant structural patterns in noisy networks, have been widely employed to identify salient interactions, especially in the context of coordinated behavior and campaign detection. However, most of these approaches rely on a one-dimensional perspective, focusing primarily on interaction volume while neglecting temporal dynamics that are crucial to understanding how content spreads in real time. This limited view can obscure important distinctions between dissemination strategies that are fast but sparse or slow but voluminous. To address this gap, we introduce a bidimensional framework that integrates both interaction volume and speed, enabling a more comprehensive modeling of dissemination dynamics. Our approach applies state-of-the-art backbone extraction techniques independently to each dimension, classifying edges into four distinct dissemination profiles. This classification provides new analytical affordances for exploring both structural and textual patterns of information flow across social platforms. Applied to two case studies on Twitter/X and Telegram, the framework reveals contrasting dissemination strategies across platforms and shows how different edge classes contribute to the amplification of specific narratives. These findings advance the study of information dynamics by offering a finer-grained, multidimensional perspective on user interactions in complex social networks.

Prototypes of Digital Simulators and Board Games for Cervical Cancer Prevention: Insights from Cytology Professionals

Andressa Germano da Silva — 2025-09-19

Introduction: This study explores the importance of robust pathology education for health science students, emphasizing the challenges of curriculum standardization, inconsistencies, and limited access to practical experiences. In Brazil’s public health landscape, cervical cancer remains a significant challenge, underscoring the need for preventive measures such as Human Papillomavirus (HPV) detection testing. Objective: To address gaps in the educational field, tools like digital simulators and board games offer promising potential for fostering practical and dynamic learning experiences. Methods: A simulator was developed on the Unity platform, integrating features of a physical board game to enhance interactivity. In the first phase of this study, perceptions of gynaecological cytology professionals were evaluated regarding the use of a digital simulator as a complementary tool for skill development. Subsequently, a small group of students tested the simulator and assessed it using the categories of the Pleasure Framework to capture affective responses. Results: Among 74 professionals surveyed, 50% strongly agreed that using a digital simulator would improve their training in gynaecological cytology, and 36% believed it would positively contribute to clinical practice. Nursing students reported positive emotional engagement during the test sessions, particularly in the categories of simulation, exploration, and camaraderie. Conclusion: Assessing this educational technology is crucial for determining its effectiveness in improving the teaching and learning process and its potential integration into academic health training.

Enhancing Art Accessibility for Visually Impaired Individuals through Multisensory Technologies

Claudia F. Andrade — 2025-09-19

This study presents the development of an immersive multisensory system for the artwork ”A Cuca” by Tarsila do Amaral, designed for visually impaired individuals. The system integrates 3D models, audio descriptions, NFC tags, and an iOS app with native accessibility features, ensuring ease of use, scalability, and applicability in cultural spaces. The development process includes requirement gathering, technology selection, refinement of 3D models, and the integration of NFC tags with the iOS app. The goal is to provide visually impaired individuals with autonomy in interpreting and appreciating art, thereby promoting cultural accessibility. A systematic literature mapping was also conducted to identify existing studies on multisensory technologies for art appreciation by visually impaired audiences. The findings highlight the effectiveness of combining tactile and auditory stimuli, offering guidelines to enhance user experience and autonomy. This approach demonstrates the potential of multisensory technologies to foster inclusion and critical engagement with art.

Practices, Process Stages and Examples of an Extreme Programming Proposal in a Playable Mode

Victor Travassos Sarinho — 2025-09-21

Background: There are several studies focused on identifying and defining gamification strategies in software development processes. These strategies are also applied by agile methods, which can create a context of recognition and reward for the completion of activities in a software project. Purpose: This paper presents a reinterpretation of the Extreme Programming (XP) practices and process stages in order to provide a “playable mode” for the XP development. Methods: XP practices and process stages are linked to terms and activities applied in digital games, enabling a reinterpretation from a playable and gamified perspective. Results: Gamified XP practices and process stages are explained and exemplified, demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed gamified reinterpretation for the XP software development. Conclusion: A software development methodology based on agile gameplays obtained by the XP reinterpretation was proposed, becoming a possible solution to improve the flow state in XP developers.

A gamified solution to promote positive habits in children and adolescents with Intellectual Disabilities

Pedro Afonso F. Michalichem — 2025-09-22

This paper outlines the development and assessment of a gamified solution called Task Complete, designed to enhance productivity and promote positive habits, particularly among individuals with Intellectual Disabilities. The solution converts daily tasks into motivational elements, motivating users through virtual rewards. It was created using User-Centered Design principles and was developed and tested with a focus on accessibility and usability. The project incorporated the PENS model and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure the solution is inclusive and suitable for a wide range of user profiles. We also performed a heuristic evaluation aided with Large Language Models in some tasks to identify issues and create a better solution.

Beyond Acoustic Features: A Data-Driven Analysis of Music Consumption in Brazil

Filipe A. S. Moura — 2025-09-23

In the competitive streaming era, understanding regional music consumption is vital, particularly in culturally diverse nations like Brazil. While extensive research exists on national music trends, prior studies have overlooked the nuanced local variations in musical tastes and acoustic characteristics. This study addresses that gap with a data-driven methodology examining genre preferences and acoustic attributes across Brazilian regions using Spotify Charts data from 2022–2023. Our computational approach involved constructing bipartite genre-city networks, applying backbone extraction to identify key preferences, and using temporal analysis to assess their stability. We employed clustering techniques to uncover regional acoustic patterns independent of genre and association rules mining to pinpoint common and exceptional listening behaviors. Finally, we analyzed artist similarity to determine the influence of geography versus genre. Our findings reveal that while core genre preferences remain largely stable across regions and time, significant distinctions emerge from acoustic analysis. We identified distinct city clusters with unique sonic profiles, defined by variations in attributes like liveliness, speechiness, and valence. This demonstrates that regional identity is not solely shaped by genre. Furthermore, our analysis shows that artist similarity is strongly influenced by cultural and geographical proximity. Although many listening behaviors are shared nationally, unique patterns appear in specific clusters, especially during major holidays. This study contributes a robust computational framework for modeling music consumption at a granular geographical level. The results provide valuable insights for artists, digital platforms, and industry professionals, highlighting how regional musical identities are shaped by a complex interplay of genre, acoustic features, and cultural factors.

Prototyping and Evaluating TWIRL: A Temperature-Controlled DIY Airflow System for Enhancing Immersive Media

Aleph Campos da Silveira — 2025-09-24

This study presents the design, prototyping, and user-centered evaluation of TWIRL (Thermal Wind Right and Left), a low-cost, temperature-controlled airflow system aimed at enhancing immersion in multisensory media experiences. TWIRL integrates hot and cold airflow generation, via Peltier-based cooling modules and modified hairdryer heating units, synchronized with audiovisual content using Sensory Effects Metadata (MPEG-V). A preliminary user study (N = 12) evaluated perceived realism, enjoyment, comfort, and engagement while experiencing thermally congruent video stimuli. The results indicated high participant acceptance, with thermal effects classified as realistic, pleasant, and nonintrusive, supported by strong internal consistency metrics. The participants expressed a willingness to use TWIRL in the future and recommend it, suggesting the potential of TWIRL to increase the presence and enjoyment of multisensory systems. The findings contribute to the understanding of thermal-wind integration in mulsemedia and offer design guidelines for future scalable, multisensory systems in the entertainment, education, and accessibility domains.

Code.Ino: An Educational Game for Arduino Programming with Female Protagonism to Encourage Diversity in STEM

Aleteia Araujo — 2025-09-24

The use of digital games in teaching programming is a powerful strategy to engage students in a playful and meaningful way. By transforming abstract concepts into interactive challenges, games stimulate curiosity, creativity, and logical thinking—elements essential for learning computing. In this context, this article presents the educational digital game Code.Ino for teaching Arduino programming. This game was developed to teach programming playfully to middle and high school students, using female protagonism as a strategy to encourage diversity in STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics). The game features interactive challenges and engaging narratives, divided into ten levels that cover concepts of hardware and software in Arduino, while also highlighting important women in the history of Computing. An initial evaluation with students and teachers showed a positive reception of the tool as an interesting and motivating didactic resource for learning Arduino programming.

From Diagnosis to Action: Instructional Design for the Digital Inclusion of Older Women in the Amazon

Cecília Ionara Pinheiro de Araújo — 2025-09-25

Background: The digital divide disproportionately affects elderly women, especially those living in socioeconomically and geographically vulnerable contexts, such as the Brazilian Amazon. While digital technologies are increasingly embedded in everyday life, older women often face structural barriers to access, literacy, and meaningful use of mobile applications. Purpose: This study aims to present a structured, inclusive, and evidence-based educational model for digital inclusion of elderly women in the Amazon region. It focuses on the adaptation of theMobile Device Proficiency Questionnaire (MDPQ) and the development of a contextualized instructional design grounded in andragogy and lifelong learning principles. Methods: A quasi-experimental study was conducted involving 32 elderly women, with data collected using a linguistically adapted MDPQ-18. The data supported the planning and implementation of digital literacy workshops organized according to the ADDIE instructional model. Results: The adapted MDPQ-18 showed reliable internal consistency and helped identify specific gaps in digital competencies. Five workshops were conducted in partnership with local institutions, reaching 70 participants and achieving an overall completion rate of 84.3%. Participant feedback indicated high satisfaction and improved confidence in mobile device usage. Conclusion: The results highlight the feasibility and social relevance of tailored instructional approaches for empowering digitally excluded elderly women. The integration of diagnostic tools, accessible language, and intergenerational support can foster digital autonomy, improve well-being, and contribute to more equitable digital citizenship.

Éternelle Notre-Dame: From Multidisciplinary Design to Longitudinal Evaluation of the Large-Scale Cultural Heritage Virtual Reality Experience

Loris Belin — 2025-09-27

Background: When a blaze devoured the spire of Notre-Dame in April 2019, the cathedral’s future suddenly hinged on memory, measurement, and imagination. Purpose: Eternelle Notre-Dame responds by fusing sub-millimeter laser scans, archival iconography, and dramaturgical storytelling into a free-roam virtual-reality expedition that accommodates one hundred untethered visitors inside a 500 m² arena. Methods: This paper retraces the multidisciplinary pipeline behind that feat—from the historiographic choices that shaped a nine-scene narrative, through the ultra-low-latency networking stack that synchronizes Meta Quest headsets at 90 Hz, to the safety, accessibility, and comfort heuristics distilled from a three-week pilot deployment. We then triangulate ethnographic observations with 98 unsolicited online reviews collected over 42 months. Results: The analysis reveals how corporeal behavior, memorial imagination, and technological mediation intertwine to produce awe, vertigo, or scepticism in different audience segments. Conclusion: The findings not only validate crowd-scale heritage VR as a viable mode of public history but also surface open design tensions—between historicity and spectacle, agency and safety, immersion and reflection—that future cultural XR experiences must negotiate.

Unveiling the Intellectual Capital of a University: Teachers’ Knowledge Maps

Tatiana Gavrilova — 2025-10-09

Background: The importance of the university’s intellectual capital is obvious. In this resource, there is a great treasure that includes the knowledge, skills, competences, and expertise of the faculty. They are the teachers. Teachers’ knowledge map is a digital visual that shows where knowledge can be found within a college, university, or school. The subsequent development of knowledge maps simplifies the processes of knowledge sharing within the organization and the society. The paper discusses the novel methodology for the development of such digital maps, which forms a multidimensional interactive knowledge portrait of university teachers and researchers. The described study was a part of METACARTA project – “MEthodology and Technology for developing digitAl knowledge maps for eduCAtion and Research TeAms”. The project was based on the ontologies of university teachers’ knowledge. These ontologies reflect and unveil the structure both of the knowledge areas of competence and faculty activities. This text is an extended, enriched, and revised version of the article presented in the proceedings of ”The Internet and Modern Society InterSys2024 (IMS)“ conference. Purpose: The paper discusses the methods used for the development of digital maps, revealing a multidimensional knowledge portrait of teachers and researchers in the case of business school. Methodology for building enterprise and/or conceptual knowledge maps is proposed and may be re-used by other knowledge engineers and managers. Methods: The methodology is supported by the ontology-based approach and significantly expands the traditional knowledge engineering palette of methods. Ontologies as conceptual models of the subject areas are one of the most promising approaches to the development of knowledge bases and knowledge graphs. The teachers’ knowledge ontologies form the conceptual background of knowledge maps. The classical hierarchy of knowledge bodies is used and refined. The study of existing templates is made, and examples of knowledge maps layouts are analyzed and used for the draft of primary visual atlas. Some domain ontologies use the refined and customized SCOPUS / ASJC classifications of subject areas. In-depth interviews with faculty members were carried for empirical validation of the developed ontologies. The primary data was collected by filling the online questionnaire. Results: The approach and the methodology of visual mapping of the university faculty knowledge is proposed and described. It is based on the ontologies of faculty activities triad: teaching, research and consulting. The described ontologies reflect the structure of the teachers and researchers’ activities and disclose the levels of knowledge assets within the disciplines of business education. Conclusion: The suggested methodology gives universities an opportunity to create knowledge maps in order to unveil hidden knowledge as well as to integrate these maps into the university knowledge management systems.

Exploring approaches to compare emotional responses to the same stimuli from different individuals

Guilherme Oliveira Aguiar — 2025-10-11

Understand human emotional behavior is a challenging yet crucial endeavor for enhancing user experience through the application of Affective Computing techniques. These methods have the potential to foster more natural and emotionally responsive interactions between users and systems. In a multicultural world, it is equally important to understand the varied emotional responses individuals have to a same stimuli, ensuring that software adaptations and interventions are appropriately tailored. This study examines two methodologies for comparing how individuals from diverse backgrounds react emotionally to the two audiovisual stimulus. By utilizing data analysis and machine learning tools, the study aims to explore whether two individuals react similarly to a same stimulus. Alongside an exploration of the unique features of each approach, the research validates these methods by analyzing the emotional responses of 39 participants, identifying both commonalities and differences. The findings not only underscore the approaches' effectiveness but also highlight their potential for complementing one another.

Evaluating privacy threats in deployed OSNs: A case study on PTMOL

Andrey Rodrigues — 2025-10-15

Background: The growth of Online Social Networks (OSNs) has significantly expanded opportunities for interaction and information sharing, while also introducing increasing challenges to user privacy protection. The exposure of sensitive data and the misuse of shared information on these platforms highlight the need for effective methodologies to identify and mitigate privacy threats. Purpose and Methods: In this context, this study investigates the application of the PTMOL methodology to identify and describe privacy threats in already deployed OSNs, aiming to demonstrate its versatility in threat modeling. Results: The results indicate that PTMOL is well-suited for structuring the identification of privacy threats, providing a detailed view of the vulnerabilities present in the analyzed platform. The comparison between modeled threats and documented incidents further reinforces PTMOL’s ability to anticipate real-world risks. Conclusion: As a contribution, this study validates PTMOL’s applicability as a valuable approach for assessing threats in deployed OSNs, extending its use beyond the design phase. The impact of this research extends to strengthening privacy protection strategies and assisting researchers, developers, and policymakers in adopting more effective measures to ensure safer and more transparent digital environments.

UnnMindFlex: A prototype mobile application and case study on HRV-guided cognitive enhancement

Samuel Olawuwo — 2025-10-15

In today’s demanding world, cognitive fitness plays a vital role in academic success and overall well-being, particularly for students facing academic challenges. Essential cognitive abilities such as memory, attention, and problem-solving are crucial for personal and academic development. This paper introduces innovative research on the creation of a prototype mobile application designed to foster individualized cognitive enhancement through aerobic exercise. The UnnMindFlex prototype integrates principles from exercise science, cognitive psychology, and technology to provide personalized interventions. The application features customized exercise programs, real-time heart rate variability (HRV) monitoring, and cognitive assessment tools. By leveraging the cognitive benefits of aerobic exercise, UnnMindFlex aims to enhance cognitive performance and support neuroplasticity. This study outlines the theoretical framework, design principles, and implementation strategies underlying the development of UnnMindFlex. Additionally, it presents preliminary findings from a case study evaluating the application’s effectiveness in improving working memory performance. The results highlight significant associations between HRV metrics and cognitive improvements post-aerobic exercise, further validating the potential of UnnMindFlex as a tool for cognitive enhancement. This research provides an initial step toward creating scalable and accessible solutions for cognitive development, especially in high-demand academic environments.

Can (A)I help you? Comparing human and GenAI analysis of HCI qualitative research results

Mariana Gomes Borges — 2025-11-02

Generative AI (GenAI) is experiencing rapid growth, particularly in its application as a tool for qualitative text analysis—a key element of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research. This study examines the potential of GenAI, specifically ChatGPT, to assist in the analysis of qualitative research data. Four qualitative HCI studies, previously conducted and analyzed by our research group, were selected for this investigation. ChatGPT was employed to perform AI-assisted analyses on the raw data from these studies, and the AI-generated insights were then compared with the human-led analyses already completed. The results reveal significant alignment between the human and AI-assisted analyses, indicating that GenAI can serve as an effective support tool in qualitative research. However, while GenAI offers considerable advantages in enhancing research efficiency, human oversight remains crucial to ensuring accurate interpretation and contextual alignment. This study also provides practical recommendations for researchers interested in incorporating GenAI into their qualitative analysis processes.