Engaging students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields is critical to ensure the success of the next generation of scientists and engineers. Given that 97% of American teens play video games, there is a tremendous opportunity to facilitate interest in STEM topics through the design of engaging learning games. While a growing number of serious games have been developed for biological science and computer science learning, few address the communication and technical challenges that arise in cyberinfrastructure intensive projects, where multiple domain scientists and computer scientists collaborate. This paper describes empirical data collected during a year-long human centered game design process, in which design ideas generated by high school students were bridged with cyberinfrastructure and bioinformatics learning concepts. Our research shows that "fun" and engaging game elements are well suited for addressing the sociotechnical aspects of cyberinfrastructure projects. In this research we provide a human centered game design methodology for science educators and science game designers, as well as design implications for integrating game-based experiences into the use of large-scale shared computing resources and services.
Thermostats control heating and cooling in homes - representing a major part of domestic energy use - yet, poor ergonomics of these devices has thwarted efforts to reduce energy consumption. Theoretically, programmable thermostats can reduce energy by 5-15%, but in practice little to no savings compared to manual thermostats are found. Several studies have found that programmable thermostats are not installed properly, are generally misunderstood and have poor usability. After conducting a usability study of programmable thermostats, we reviewed several guidelines from ergonomics, general device usability, computer-human interfaces and building control sources. We analysed the characteristics of thermostats that enabled or hindered successfully completing tasks and in a timely manner. Subjects had higher success rates with thermostat displays with positive examples of guidelines, such as visibility of possible actions, consistency and standards, and feedback. We suggested other guidelines that seemed missing, such as navigation cues, clear hierarchy and simple decision paths.Our evaluation of a usability test of five residential programmable thermostats led to the development of a comprehensive set of specific guidelines for thermostat design including visibility of possible actions, consistency, standards, simple decision paths and clear hierarchy. Improving the usability of thermostats may facilitate energy savings.
Geographically distributed collaborative teams often rely on synchronous text-based online communication for accomplishing tasks and maintaining social contact. This technology leaves a trace that can help researchers understand affect expression and dynamics in distributed groups. Although manual labeling of affect in chat logs has shed light on complex group communication phenomena, scaling this process to larger data sets through automation is difficult. We present a pipeline of natural language processing and machine learning techniques that can be used to build automated classifiers of affect in chat logs. Interpreting affect as a dynamic, contextualized process, we explain our development and application of this method to four years of chat logs from a longitudinal study of a multi-cultural distributed scientific collaboration. With ground truth generated through manual labeling of affect over a subset of the chat logs, our approach can successfully identify many commonly occurring types of affect.
Scientists in all fields are acquiring data at a rate that is challenging the limits of human cognitive capacity. At the same time, researchers' attention is increasingly claimed by ever more diverse demands on their time. Visual perception is the highest bandwidth channel into the human brain, yet many existing visualization tools require a period of training rendering them inaccessible from a practical standpoint for many users. In addition, appropriate visualizations for cognitively overloaded users may differ from those optimized for analysis. We present VizDeck, a web-based visualization system for relational data that uses a card game metaphor and automatic visualization techniques to assist scientists and researchers in creating interactive visual dashboard applications in seconds with no programming necessary.
Residential thermostats have been a key element in controlling heating and cooling systems for over sixty years. However, today’s modern programmable thermostats (PTs) are complicated and difficult for users to understand, leading to errors in operation and wasted energy. Four separate tests of usability were conducted in preparation for a larger study. These tests included personal interviews, an on-line survey, photographing actual thermostat settings, and measurements of ability to accomplish four tasks related to effective use of a PT. The interviews revealed that many occupants used the PT as an on-off switch and most demonstrated little knowledge of how to operate it. The on-line survey found that 89% of the respondents rarely or never used the PT to set a weekday or weekend program. The photographic survey (in low income homes) found that only 30% of the PTs were actually programmed. In the usability test, we found that we could quantify the difference in usability of two PTs as measured in time to accomplish tasks. Users accomplished the tasks in consistently shorter times with the touchscreen unit than with buttons. None of these studies are representative of the entire population of users but, together, they illustrate the importance of improving user interfaces in PTs.
Residential thermostats have been a key element in controlling heating and cooling systems for over sixty years. However, today’s modern programmable thermostats (PTs) are complicated and difficult for users to understand, leading to errors in operation and wasted energy. Four separate tests of usability were conducted in preparation for a larger study. These tests included personal interviews, an on-line survey, photographing actual thermostat settings, and measurements of ability to accomplish four tasks related to effective use of a PT. The interviews revealed that many occupants used the PT as an on-off switch and most demonstrated little knowledge of how to operate it. The on-line survey found that 89% of the respondents rarely or never used the PT to set a weekday or weekend program. The photographic survey (in low income homes) found that only 30% of the PTs were actually programmed. In the usability test, we found that we could quantify the difference in usability of two PTs as measured in time to accomplish tasks. Users accomplished the tasks in consistently shorter times with the touchscreen unit than with buttons. None of these studies are representative of the entire population of users but, together, they illustrate the importance of improving user interfaces in PTs.
Residential thermostats play a key role in controlling heating and cooling systems. Occupants often find the controls of programmable thermostats confusing, sometimes leading to higher heating consumption than when the buildings are controlled manually. A high degree of usability is vital to a programmable thermostat's effectiveness because, unlike a more efficient heating system, occupants must engage in specific actions after installation to obtain energy savings. We developed a procedure for measuring the usability of thermostats and tested this methodology with 31 subjects on five thermostats. The procedure requires first identifying representative tasks associated with the device and then testing the subjects ability to accomplish those tasks. The procedure was able to demonstrate the subjects wide ability to accomplish tasks and the influence of a device's usability on success rates. A metric based on the time to accomplish the tasks and the fraction of subjects actually completing the tasks captured the key aspects of each thermostat's usability. The procedure was recently adopted by the Energy Star Program for its thermostat specification. The approach appears suitable for quantifying usability of controls in other products, such as heat pump water heaters and commercial lighting.
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