Untethered Workspaces: A Zones Concept Towards Supporting Operator Movements
in Control Rooms
Case Study: Tools for Workers
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Domova, Veronika
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Azhar, Saad
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Ralph, Maria
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Brönmark, Jonas
Extended Abstracts of the ACM CHI'16 Conference on Human Factors in
Computing Systems
2016-05-07
v.2
p.680-689
© Copyright 2016 ACM
Summary: Within industrial domains there is a need for control room operators to be
in constant contact with the different processes they are responsible for
controlling. With this responsibility comes the need to constantly be near
their workstations in order to monitor, diagnose and quickly troubleshoot
issues presented. These workstations, however, restrict operators in control
rooms from moving freely within the control room itself, such as between their
own and their colleague's workstations since they cannot interact with the
system from a distance. These systems also restrict those operators who need to
continuously enter the control room from the plant/factory floor since
interacting with process graphics requires them to remove all of their
specialized equipment every time (e.g. large bulky safety gloves). We therefore
present a concept for control room operators that supports their untethering
from dedicated workstations, providing them with the ability to interact in a
more flexible way.
Supporting the uninitiated in user-centered design
Features
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Ralph, Maria
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Björndal, Petra
interactions
2014-03
v.21
n.2
p.60-65
© Copyright 2014 ACM
Summary: Practicing UCD is vital to helping non-UX practitioners acquire an
understanding of this new mindset.
An interactive surface solution to support collaborative work onboard ships
Latency and occlusion + CSCW
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Domova, Veronika
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Vartiainen, Elina
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Azhar, Saad
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Ralph, Maria
Proceedings of the 2013 ACM International Conference on Interactive
Tabletops and Surfaces
2013-10-06
p.265-272
© Copyright 2013 ACM
Summary: Industrial environments are notoriously known as difficult places to gain
access to conduct any type of contextual inquiry work, and marine vessels are
no exception. But once this initial hurdle is overcome, these environments
reveal interesting research directions. Challenges faced onboard ships range
from issues with communication links, to the lack of support for current work
practices. Based on findings from an earlier field study, the work presented in
this paper focuses on several challenges involving collaboration,
communication, information sharing such as video and images, and tracking task
completion of crew members. This paper therefore presents a prototype which
consists of a Microsoft surface, mobile phones, and PCs to enable crew members
onboard ships to effectively communicate and collaborate with their colleagues.
Challenges of using information technology onboard ships
APCHI 2013: industrial case studies
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Vartiainen, Elina
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Ralph, Maria
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Björndal, Petra
Proceedings of the 2013 Asia Pacific Conference on Computer Human
Interaction
2013-09-24
p.226-230
© Copyright 2013 ACM
Summary: The use of technology onboard ships is not typically studied within the HCI
community due mainly to the challenges researchers face in gaining access to
these environments. However, there is now a higher number of technological
devices being used onboard ships to assist crew members in their daily tasks.
So gaining access to these environments is even more important now since this
increased use of technology has impacted the work practices of crew members.
This paper is therefore a first step towards researching what technologies are
now being incorporated onboard ships, their impact, and proposed future HCI
solutions for the maritime domain.
Challenges of using mobile devices in process industry
APCHI 2013: industrial case studies
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Vartiainen, Elina
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Ralph, Maria
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Björndal, Petra
Proceedings of the 2013 Asia Pacific Conference on Computer Human
Interaction
2013-09-24
p.258-263
© Copyright 2013 ACM
Summary: Almost everyone today owns some type of mobile device that is not only being
used for routine tasks such as making phone calls, but also for more advanced
tasks such as social networking. Advances in hardware technology have seen the
cost of mobile devices reduce considerably. However, even with the advanced
capabilities and relatively low cost, there is still limited use of these
devices in industrial environments. In this paper we discuss observations made
from several field studies conducted that examine the challenges faced by
personnel working in three different process industry environments. We then
present design directions for how mobile devices could be used more effectively
to enhance their work practice. This paper therefore provides both a rare
glimpse for other researchers into industrial working conditions which are
often difficult to gain access to, and a possible way forward for how mobile
devices could effectively enhance users working experiences.
On the effect of the user's background on communicating grasping commands
Short papers
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Ralph, Maria
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Moussa, Medhat A.
Proceedings of the 1st ACM SIGCHI/SIGART Conference on Human-Robot
Interaction
2006-03-02
p.353-354
Keywords: grasping, human-robot interaction, natural language instruction, skill
transfer, user-adaptive robotics
© Copyright 2006 ACM
Summary: In this paper, we investigate the impact of the user's background on their
ability to communicate grasping commands to a robot. We conducted a study where
a group of 15 non-technical users use natural language to instruct a robotic
arm to grasp five small everyday objects. We found that users with less
technical backgrounds choose simple more predictable commands over complex
unpredictable movements. These users also required more time and commands to
complete a grasping task compared to users with more technical backgrounds.
Other results however suggest that the user's background is not the most
critical factor. Individual preferences and learning approaches also appear to
play a role in command choices.
