| Effects of the Workplace Game: A Case-Study into Anticipating Future Behavior of Office Workers | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 3-12 | |
| Annelise de Jong; Merlijn Kouprie; Evi De Bruyne | |||
| This paper describes the evaluation of the Workplace Game regarding the type
of information that it provides. The Workplace Game is intended to make
employees aware of the changes in the office and the implications thereof on
their behaviour and way of working. The game might also be helpful for
designers or architects of future flexible offices. To find out what type of
information the game provides and if the information can be of use for
designers the game was evaluated in an observational study of two playing
sessions. The study showed that the Workplace Game stimulates employees to talk
about their behaviour. The game makes players talk about their future work
behaviour by eliciting information about their present work behaviour. However,
the game needs adaptation to provide directions for designing future flexible
offices. Recommendations how the game can be made helpful to designers of
future flexible offices are discussed. Keywords: flexible office; participatory design game; empathic design; user
experience; office layout; innovative office design; office behaviour | |||
| Management Support and Worksite Health Promotion Program Effectiveness | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 13-22 | |
| David M. DeJoy; Heather M. Bowen; Kristin M. Baker; Bethany H. Bynum; Mark G. Wilson; Ron Z. Goetzel; Rod K. Dishman | |||
| The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and use of
management support measures in two worksite health promotion intervention
trials. Results from the two intervention trials suggest that management
support for health promotion can be assessed and tracked over time using both
perceptual and observational measures. These results also provide initial
evidence that an increase in management support can contribute to positive
changes in health related behaviors and outcomes. Specifically, longitudinal
results from the two studies suggest that interventions designed to increase
management support for health promotion resulted in changes in perceptions of
management support, actual changes in the work and organizational environment.
Preliminary results in these studies also suggest that increased management
support is important in weight loss. Keywords: health promotion; management support; organizational climate; workplace;
worksite | |||
| Usage of Office Chair Adjustments and Controls by Workers Having Shared and Owned Work Spaces | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 23-28 | |
| Liesbeth Groenesteijn; Merle Blok; Margriet Formanoy; Elsbeth de Korte; Peter Vink | |||
| In this study two seats were used by workers having shared and workers
having owned work spaces. 51 subjects (22 female, 29 male) participated in a
six week experiment in a naturalistic setting. The chairs were different with
respect to adjustability options, design of controls and external design. Most
of the subjects adjusted the office chairs the first time for seat height, arm
rest height and back rest inclination. Adjustment times of seat height and
armrest height were shorter for chair A. Back rest pressure adjustment takes
much time and it is difficult to adjust this without instruction. The workers
having shared desks adjust their chair more often and are faster in the
adjustment of the backrest pressure compared with workers with an owned work
space. The quality of adjustments of seat height, arm rest and back rest
pressure was improved by an instruction for 32% of the subjects. Keywords: office chair; shared workspace; chair controls; adjustment time | |||
| Health Promoting Leadership: The Mediating Role of an Organizational Health Culture | | BIBA | Full-Text | 29-38 | |
| Jochen Gurt; Gabriele Elke | |||
| Drawing from the findings within the safety literature, the present study identifies the effects of leadership on an organizational health culture and strain. The importance of leadership for the development of a corporate health culture is demonstrated as well as the positive effect of health culture on employee strain level. Empirical data from a longitudinal study in the German tax administration is presented. Leadership has a positive impact on the development of a corporate health culture, which in turn reduces employees' strain level. Discussion addresses the similarities of health and safety leadership regarding effects and mediating processes. | |||
| Increasing Information Worker Productivity through Information Work Infrastructure | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 39-48 | |
| Udo-Ernst Haner; Jörg Kelter; Wilhelm Bauer; Stefan Rief | |||
| Deploying high-quality information work infrastructure leads to higher
productivity levels of information workers, findings from empirical research
show. Different types of information workers use different sets of technologies
and devices. Knowledge workers with a high degree of autonomy depend on mobile
and flexible work infrastructure. The OFFICE21® Information Worker's
Workplace supports productive information work. Keywords: information work; knowledge work; productivity; workplace; work
infrastructure; technology profile; information and communication technology | |||
| Merging Virtual and Real Worlds -- Holistic Concepts for the Office of the Future | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 49-55 | |
| Hermann Hartenthaler | |||
| Information, communication, media, building and security technologies are
growing together. The key to the integration of all infrastructure systems is
the use of IP in all technical systems. The real and the virtual worlds are
merging. This means that the real world around us and the world of IT systems
are connected to one another. This paper shows how these concepts can be
implemented in an innovative office infrastructure to increase the efficiency
in the office. Keywords: Virtual and Real World; All-IP; Office of the Future; Location-based
Services; Building Automation | |||
| The Relationship between Working Conditions and Musculoskeletal/Ergonomic Disorders in a Manufacturing Facility -- A Longitudinal Research Study | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 56-60 | |
| Dennis R. Jones | |||
| I have done research on the relationship between working conditions and
musculoskeletal/ergonomic disorders in a manufacturing facility. I believe that
the biomechanical and psychosocial aspects of work have a significant influence
on the individual worker's health and well-being. The work organization at
which I have evaluated the employee's health and well-being and collected a
large amount of data; which I have analyzed; is at a large manufacturing
facility. This research is based upon the Balance Theory Model of Smith &
Carayon-Sainfort [2], [3]. This model specifies that the working conditions and
other factors outside of work can create a stress on the individual. That
stress can have physiological and psychological consequences. If the stress
exceeds the individual's capacity, the stress can produce a negative effect on
the individual which could result in a strain. This is a bad fit between the
individual resources and the work demands. If the stressful exposure continues
for a prolonged time period, then this can result in serious musculoskeletal
disorders. Keywords: Human Factors; Ergonomics; Musculoskeletal Disorders; Psychosocial; Balance
Theory Model; Applied Field Research; Manufacturing; Assembly; Production
Processes | |||
| Measuring Support for Health in Offshore Environments | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 61-69 | |
| Kathryn Mearns; Tom Reader | |||
| Health and safety are often discussed in the same breath but the
relationships between them are not clearly articulated. The current study was
conducted in the UK offshore oil and gas industry -- a physically and mentally
challenging work environment -- where the well-being of personnel is important
for their performance. This paper will describe the development of scales for
measuring support for health offshore and report the results obtained from a
sample of 703 workers from 18 installations regarding the relationship between
perceived support for health and health and organizational outcome measures. Keywords: Support for health; organizational commitment; organizational citizenship
behaviour; health activities | |||
| Understanding Patient User Experience in Obstetric Work Systems | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 70-77 | |
| Enid N. H. Montague | |||
| Patient user experiences with medical technology may be important predictors
of patient ratings of satisfaction with health care systems and of acceptance
of technologies used in their care. The purpose of this study was to understand
how patients experience medical technology during medical events as passive
users. 25 women were interviewed after the birth of their child about the
technologies that were used to provide them care. Interviews were transcribed
verbatim and reduced to codes in the qualitative data analysis tradition.
Results show that patients have user experiences with technologies as passive
users. Keywords: Patients; Technology; User Experience; Health Care | |||
| Unique Stressors of Cross-Cultural Collaboration through ICTs in Virtual Teams | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 78-87 | |
| Niina Nurmi | |||
| Geographically distributed virtual teams are increasingly prevalent in
global organizations. Despite the growing attention to virtual teams, there is
limited understanding of how cross-cultural collaboration and electronic
dependence in communication affect virtual workers' psychological reactions and
well-being. This qualitative multi-case study aims at understanding the
different causes of stress in cross-cultural collaboration. An overarching
analysis across seven case studies revealed that globally distributed team
members experienced job stressors such as language challenges in English, or
lingua franca, misunderstandings, and conflicts due to different mindsets,
communication and behavior styles, and work-leisure orientations. Without
adequate skills in lingua franca, or proper cultural and local awareness of
distant team sites, coping was not successful, thereby stressors lead to
distress. Keywords: Virtual Teams; Cross-Cultural Collaboration; Stress; Coping | |||
| Examining the Effects of Workstation Design Satisfaction, Computer Usage, Supervisory and Co-worker Support on Perceived Physical Discomfort and Psychosocial Factors | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 88-94 | |
| Michelle Robertson; Emily Huang; Nancy Larson | |||
| This study examined the factors of computer use, job tasks, musculoskeletal
and visual discomfort and organizational support to better understand the
magnitude of their impact on the safety and health of computer work employees.
A cross-sectional survey was administered to a large manufacturing company to
investigate these relationships. Associations between these study variables
were tested along with moderating effects framed within a conceptual model.
Significant relationships were found between discomfort, computer use and
psychosocial factors including supervisory relations moderating the
relationships between workstation satisfaction and visual and musculoskeletal
discomfort. This study provides guidance for developing recommendations in
designing office ergonomic interventions with the goal of reducing
musculoskeletal and visual discomforts while enhancing worker performance and
their quality of worklife. Keywords: Office ergonomics; computer workers; psychosocial factors; discomfort | |||
| Defeating Back Pain at the Workplace: Results of the "Healthy Back" Program | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 95-104 | |
| Christian Schwennen; Bernhard Zimolong | |||
| A holistic occupational health management system was implemented at the
German tax administration. It integrates a multi-component health program that
focuses on back pain prevention. The present study reports results from the
evaluation of the program. It consists of a health screening (N =1043) which
measured 13 risk factors followed by tailored interventions. One half of the
participants exhibit moderate to high risk for future back pain.
Participation-rate of the program is 48.46%. Results reveal a significant
increase in physical activity. Results of the pre-post-test evaluation show
moderate changes in the psychological variables, except for a decrease in
catastrophising. In addition, a substantial decrease in back pain frequency,
-intensity and impairment through back pain could be observed. The results of
the interventions are discussed with regard to participation issues of work
site health programs. Keywords: worksite health promotion program; multilevel program; back pain; health
management | |||
| Using the 'Balance Model' for Occupational Safety and Health Promotion | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 105-114 | |
| Michael J. Smith; Pascale Carayon | |||
| The 'balance model' of job design was introduced in 1989 [1] and expanded to
the enterprise level later [2-7]. The main idea of this model is that various
components of the workplace interact to increase and decrease workplace safety
and health risk, and that careful 'balancing' of the components can produce
reduced risk and improved employee safety and health. In this paper we discuss
how the 'balance model' can be used to promote occupational safety and health. Keywords: balance; design; hazard; health; risk; safety; system; wellness | |||
| Varying the Office Work Posture between Standing, Half-Standing and Sitting Results in Less Discomfort | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 115-120 | |
| Peter Vink; Ineke Konijn; Ben Jongejan; Monique Berger | |||
| In this study 10 subjects worked two weeks in their rather new normal work
station and two weeks in another work station. These VDU workers were trained
and received a table making standing work possible. They also received a chair
making half sitting possible. The effects on experienced variation in posture
and discomfort were studied. It appeared that most of the time people work in
the normal sitting situation (69% in the new and 90% in the old work station).
Sometimes the half sitting and standing posture was used in the new situation.
This new situation had a significant lower discomfort in the back, neck and
shoulder region compared with the old situation. Keywords: variation in posture; VDU work; sitting; discomfort; standing work | |||
| A Person-Centered Measurement System for Quantification of Physical Activity and Energy Expenditure at Workplaces | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 121-130 | |
| Britta Weber; Ingo Hermanns; Rolf P. Ellegast; Jens Kleinert | |||
| Accurate quantification of physical activity (PA) and energy expenditure
(EE) is a basic prerequisite to evaluate activity promoting measures. A novel
approach for determining EE by a person-centered measurement system which
operates with motion sensors is presented. The new EE prediction model combines
information on the type and intensity of PA as well as personal
characteristics. For model calibration eight subjects performed standardized
office and locomotion tasks while wearing the measurement system and an
indirect calorimeter simultaneously. Via multiple regression analyses different
EE prediction equations for sitting, standing, walking, climbing downstairs and
climbing upstairs are developed. Model fit statistics revealed good results
(adjusted R2 = 0.51-0.90). The developed model seems promising for precise EE
prediction during the investigated activities. Keywords: physical activity; inactivity; office tasks; energy expenditure; prediction
equation; motion sensors; CUELA Activity System; MetaMax 3B | |||
| Management of Work Site Health-Promotion Programs: A Review | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 131-140 | |
| Bernhard Zimolong; Gabriele Elke | |||
| The review starts with the assessment of needs for health promotion,
particularly drawing upon the aging of the workforce in Europe and U.S. Basic
intervention models for work site health promotion programs (WHP) are outlined.
Recent findings of WHP outcomes underscore the requirement to integrate health
promotion into the management system of the organization. Based on the
framework of healthy work organization and of Health Management Systems the
research project INOPE is described. The objective is the development,
implementation, evaluation and transfer of a holistic health management system
within the German tax administration. Keywords: Review; occupational health promotion; healthy work organization; health and
safety management; tax administration | |||
| Development of Portable Robotic Operation Terminals to Achieve Increased Safety and Usability and a Study on the Effectiveness of Wireless Terminals | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 143-152 | |
| Hidetoshi Fukui; Satoshi Yonejima; Masatake Yamano; Masao Dohi; Tomonori Nishiki; Mariko Yamada; Toshihiro Fujita | |||
| In factory automation (FA) industry, it is essential for the working
environment using industrial robots to be provided with measures that assure
operator's safety and good usability of machines. We have studied the
operator's safety and usability of portable robotic operation terminals, and
have developed the standardized terminals for one-hand operation suitable to
many types of applications. The findings and knowledge we obtained through the
development materialized recently as the new two-hand portable robotic
operation terminal which is designed ergonomically. In this paper, we report on
the new operation terminal which provides excellent operational safety and
usability, and also a study on the effectiveness of wireless terminals for
improving the usability of entire system. Keywords: Teach pendant; enabling switch; robot; HMI environment; wireless; safety;
usability Note: Best Paper Award | |||
| Participatory Ergonomics as a Method of Quality Improvement in Maintenance | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 153-161 | |
| Malgorzata Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek | |||
| Modern enterprises are forced to constantly improve ways of management and
to introduce changes. One of the changes is a alteration of organizational
culture and acceptance of participation of employees in designing and
implementing new solutions. Striving for general improvement of system
efficiency involves joint design of technical and social systems to achieve the
best fitness to goals and requirements of system and its parts possible. Not
only technical objects, but also workers and workplaces (work environment)
require keeping in good condition. Such approach to maintenance stresses human
importance and workers place in systems they work in. It also stresses
necessity for not engineers, but also quality and ergonomics experts as well as
technical objects users to involve into maintenance actions and processes. The
paper presents potential of participatory ergonomics to maintenance quality
improvement use. Keywords: maintenance; participation; participatory ergonomics; stakeholders | |||
| What Is Prospective Ergonomics? A Reflection and a Position on the Future of Ergonomics | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 162-169 | |
| Jean-Marc Robert; Eric Brangier | |||
| This paper presents a reflection on the future of ergonomics and a clear
position for the use of prospective in this discipline. We propose to structure
ergonomic activities around corrective, preventive (design) and prospective
ergonomics, where the latter looks forward in time to defining human needs and
activities so as to create human-centered artifacts that are useful and provide
a positive user experience. The place of prospective ergonomics is upstream of
projects, before a problem or request is raised by a client, and before
projects exist. We describe several characteristics of prospective ergonomics
and compare them with those of corrective and preventive ergonomics. We show
that prospective ergonomics has major impacts on education and practice, since
ergonomists should not only be trained as human factor experts but also as
strategists to reflect on the future and as project managers. Prospective
ergonomics requires the "intelligence analysis" of a lot of data and experts'
opinions, as well as perspicacity, intuition, creativity, motivation and
initiative. It represents a huge potential for the advancement and evolution of
ergonomics and for the achievement of its full maturity. Keywords: Corrective ergonomics; Preventive ergonomics; Prospective ergonomics;
Design; Human-centered projects | |||
| Improving in-Vehicle Display and Control Design for Older Drivers | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 170-176 | |
| Jaeheok Ryu; Gyohyeon Song; Seongil Lee; Yoonhyung Cho; Gyouhyung Kyung; Hyungkee Kim; Kyungkuk Baek | |||
| Guidelines for older driver-friendly automobile interior design have been
determined by taking into account older people's physical and cognitive
characteristics. Twenty three older people (aged from 54 to 78) and five
younger people (from 20 to 29) performed several tasks in actual driving
conditions, in which their reaction times and performance errors were recorded.
Some design factors were found to be related to older drivers' visibility and
controllability. Several design guidelines were proposed in terms of cluster
color and font, display location, and HVAC control type. Proposed guidelines
are expected to satisfy a wider range of older drivers as these will facilitate
automobile interior designs which are fitter to older drivers' visual,
cognitive, and manual capabilities. Keywords: older driver; automobile interior; automotive ergonomics; visibility;
controllability | |||
| Relationship between Emotional State and Pupil Diameter Variability under Various Types of Workload Stress | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 177-185 | |
| Kiyomi Sakamoto; Shoichi Aoyama; Shigeo Asahara; Haruki Mizushina; Hirohiko Kaneko | |||
| We carried out two experiments to explore the relationship between the
frequency characteristic of pupil diameter variability and emotional state
under various types of workload. The workload required the subjects to listen
to spoken words and categorize them. The difficulty of the task was adjusted by
changing the time interval of the stimulus presentation in Experiment 1
(time-based task) and the number of categories in Experiment 2 (cognitive-based
task). Pupil diameter was monitored and recorded using an infrared video camera
while observers were performing the tasks. In both experiments, a significant
correlation was observed between the frequency characteristic of pupil diameter
variability and emotional state. Our results indicated the frequency
characteristic of pupil diameter variability to be a potentially useful index
for evaluating mental stress. Keywords: Pupil diameter; audio stimuli; psychological state; variability in pupil
diameter | |||
| Combined Measurement System for the Evaluation of Multi Causal Strain | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 186-194 | |
| Holger Steiner; Dietmar Reinert; Norbert Jung | |||
| This work addresses the problem of measuring psychological strain in humans
by the use of physiological data. The aim of the work is the research,
development and evaluation of a measurement system for the acquisition of such
data from humans and the differentiation of psychological and physical strain
with the help of machine learning algorithms. The developed system records and
analyzes the ECG, the EMG, as well as the skin conductance, and combines these
physiological parameters with the subject's physical activity. The main purpose
of this measurement system is to assess both types of strain in employees at
their workplaces. Keywords: multi causal strain; stress; strain; ambulatory monitoring; physiological
monitoring; physical activity; decision tree learning; machine learning | |||
| Development of Non-contact Monitoring System of Heart Rate Variability (HRV) -- An Approach of Remote Sensing for Ubiquitous Technology -- | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 195-203 | |
| Satoshi Suzuki; Takemi Matsui; Shinji Gotoh; Yasutaka Mori; Bonpei Takase; Masayuki Ishihara | |||
| The aim of this study was to develop a prototype system to monitor cardiac
activity using microwave Doppler radar (24.05 GHz frequency, 7 mW output power
in average) without making contact with the body and without removing clothing;
namely, a completely noncontact, remote monitoring system. In addition, heart
rate and changes in heart rate variability (HRV) during simple mental
arithmetic and computer input tasks were observed with the prototype system.
The experiment was conducted with seven subjects (23.00 ± 0.82 years
old). We found that the prototype system captured heart rate and HRV precisely.
The strong relationship between the heart rates during tasks (r = 0.963), LF
(cross-correlation = 0.76) and LF/HF (cross-correlation = 0.73) of HRV
calculated from the microwave radar data and from electrocardiograph (ECG)
measurements were confirmed. Keywords: noncontact monitoring; microwave radar; heart rate variability | |||
| PC-Based Rehabilitation System with Biofeedback | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 204-211 | |
| Chih-Fu Wu; Jeih-Jang Liou | |||
| The purpose of this research is to emphasize on the concept of integrating
computer and interactive technologies to the rehabilitation robotic with
biofeedback. First, the robot is actuated with pneumatic muscle actuator which
have interesting characteristics that can be exploited for upper limbed
machines. The rehabilitation robotic system is using measurement which has two
channels to detect and collect the rehabilitation robotic system from
electromyography and the rotary encoder. Through PCI interface transferring the
rehabilitation robotic system to personal computer, we can use our algorithms
to attain real-time the force and/or contraction velocity of the muscle
detection and other common information like the frequency of under muscle curve
of user. Finally, the human-computer interface for rehabilitation system is
designed. In this human computer interface consists of three main parts: detect
the signal; a control scheme of robotic system combined with multimodal
environment based biofeedback system; clinical database. Keywords: rehabilitation robotic; biofeedback; human computer interface | |||
| LED Backlight for Better Accuracy in Medical Imaging | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 215-222 | |
| Silvio Bonfiglio; Luigi Albani | |||
| In clinical tasks the display is often the natural interface between the
medical system and the medical professionals and in the current image-centric
healthcare the accuracy of the visualized images represents a key requirement;
ideally no compromise would be acceptable. In the recent past LED backlights
for liquid-crystal displays have been intensively investigated for their use in
displays addressed to the mainstream markets (mobile and portable displays,
computer displays and TV). Accordingly adapted, they could offer new
opportunities also to the displays used in healthcare by allowing better
accuracy and consistency of the medical images. In this respect they could make
possible a new, important advance towards a better quality of care. In this
paper we will describe a novel LED backlight solution suitable for medical
imaging. Keywords: BLU; backlight; backlight unit; color gamut; display; healthcare; LCD; LED;
imaging; image accuracy; medical imaging | |||
| Human Factors in Lighting | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 223-230 | |
| Martin Braun; Oliver Stefani; Achim Pross; Matthias Bues; Dieter Spath | |||
| This paper addresses current research activities on the interaction between
light and humans, including visual perception as well as cognitive, biological,
and emotional factors. We focus on issues which can be deployed at office
workplaces and describe how we adopt these findings at the "nLightened
Workplace" at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering. The
nLightenend Workplace integrates illumination and information displays in
offices. We present our latest developments such as "Heliosity". We will give
an outlook on our future research work on human factors in lighting. Keywords: Lighting; Office Work; Human Factors; Performance and Health | |||
| Lighting as Support for Enhancing Well-Being, Health and Mental Fitness of an Ageing Population -- The FP6 EU Funded ALADIN Project | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 231-240 | |
| Inge Gavat; Ovidiu Grigore; Marius Cotescu; Markus Canazei; Hermann Atz; Klaus Becker; Lajos Izsó; Guido Kempter; Herbert Plischke; Wilfried Pohl | |||
| The paper presents the ALADIN prototype for adaptive lighting control
designed to assist elderly in achieving a state of well-being, developed as a
FP6 EU funded project. It uses psycho-physiological features extracted from
Electro-Dermal Activity (EDA) and Pulse signals to determine the subject's
mental state and adapts the lighting parameters in order to achieve a certain
desired state. One of the controller implementations was done using Simulated
Annealing. Field test evaluations of this implementation are discussed. Keywords: adaptive lighting; psycho-physiological parameters; optimization algorithms | |||
| The Evaluation of Operating Posture in Typing the QWERTY Keyboard on PDA | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 241-249 | |
| Han-Chi Hsiao; Fong-Gong Wu; Ronald Hsi; Chih-I Ho; Wen-Zhou Shi; Chien-Hsu Chen | |||
| In this research, we observed the user's posture while using PDA. 30
participants typed the keys with standard QWERTY keyboard on the PDA. At the
end of the experiments the participants who have professional background in
design were asked to complete an open-ended questionnaire, which is in order to
evaluate the usability of the PDA. In the final, we presented the suggestion of
design criterion for keyboard, as to provide the references for future PDA
design. The statistical result of the posture while using the PDA revealed that
the most users held PDA with both hands and pressed keys with both thumbs. The
findings in this research suggest that when we design small input devices such
as PDA in the future, the stability of the keyboard usage should be taken into
considerations to enhance its input performance and improve user experience. Keywords: Letters Key Design; PDA Typing Posture | |||
| Vector Keyboard for Touch Screen Devices | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 250-256 | |
| Martin Klíma; Vaclav Slovacek | |||
| Paper introduces a vector keyboard for touch screen devices. Characters are
typed by drawing a vector starting from a dedicated area. The typing area is
divided into three clusters, each containing 9 characters. Measurement of
typing speed and of number of typos reveals that the keyboard is comparable to
ABCDEF virtual keyboard. Keywords: vector keyboard; virtual keyboard; touch screen; PDA; QWERTY | |||
| Evaluation of a Functional Film Attached on Top of a Tablet PC | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 257-263 | |
| Yugo Kobayashi; Tatsuya Terada; Toshiyuki Kondo; Masaki Nakagawa | |||
| This paper presents usability evaluation of a functional film named PenFit
attached on top of a tablet PC. We compared a tablet PC with PenFit and that
without PenFit from the viewpoint of the ease of writing. We considered several
measures to evaluate the ease of writing. We propose "how people can write
letters neatly (neatness)", "how people can write quickly (speed)" and "how
people can write without fatigue (fatigue)" as the measures to evaluate the
ease of writing. As a result, it is suggested that the functional film provides
the ease of writing. Keywords: pen interface; functional film; ease of writing; electromyogram | |||
| Interaction between Dynamic LED-Light and Color Surfaces | | BIBA | Full-Text | 264-267 | |
| Ralf Michel | |||
| The many different interactions between light and colours represent a very important research topic at the Zurich University of the Arts. This is why the Zurich ColourLight-Center was set up at the Institute for Design und Technology, idt. For more than 15 years, we have been investigating the potential of interactions of light and colour and asking fundamental questions about the relevance of the subject to the development of design education and practice. In the ColourLight-Lab, the research project, which we present from the Zurich ColourLight-Center, products and methods of presentation were created, which describe the sensory perception of light and colour as a phenomenon of seeing. The LED-ColourLab research project specially takes as its theme, the interaction of dynamic LED light and colour surfaces. | |||
| Color Model for Human Visual Environment and Physical Interaction | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 268-275 | |
| Tsutomu Mutoh; Kazuo Ohno | |||
| The authors explored a method to control dynamic RGB light source in
accordance with human visual environment and possibilities of physical
interaction with light source of full color capabilities. We developed a color
model composed of hue, grayscale, brightness components and an algorithm to
transform RGB values into the color space of the model. We implemented the
color model using full color light emitting diode (LED) in a light source
device designed for people to interact with color physically. We set up an
experimental environment for human color perception to prove visual and
physical interaction effect of dynamic light source and object with color
composition governed by the color model and the device. Keywords: color model; visual interaction; physical interaction; full color LED | |||
| Improvement of the Design Quality of 3D-Input Devices Using Motion Analyses and Biomechanical Comparisons | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 276-285 | |
| Tobias Nowack; Stefan Lutherdt; Manuel Möller; Peter Kurtz; Hartmut Witte | |||
| Due to the lack of investigations and standards describing the design of
real 3D input devices a real 3D input device was develop. To compare several
devices a test task was created and performed with combination of a motion
capturing system. During the experiment 19 attendees with different levels of
experience performed the test with this setup. Several intra-individual motion
patterns and using strategies belonging to different input devices could be
observed. Keywords: User-centred design; 3D-input; evaluation software; reachable space of
motion; ergonomically motivated equipment; motion analyses of input tasks | |||