Browsing by Subject "Usability"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9

Open Access
Analyzing Turkish e-government websites by eye tracking
(IEEE, 2013) Albayrak, Duygu; Çaģiltay, K.
Usability studies provide essential information about users' views and perceptions of efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction of given online services. Nowadays, e-government web sites become popular. Therefore, there is a need for usability testing to specify the usability problems and to make the services of the e-government more usable. The purpose of this study is to investigate usability of some Turkish e-government services. The study examined usability of five Turkish e-government web sites: Ministry of National Education - Student Information System (eokul), Ministry of Justice - National Judicial Network Project (UYAP), Turkish National Police: Vehicle Search System, Social Security Institute: Service Details and General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre. It was conducted with nine participants. This study is a case study with mixed design methodology, in which both quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed and combined. Quantitative data were collected through an eye-tracker, a pre-test questionnaire of participants' demographics and previous utilization of egovernment web sites and a post-test questionnaire. Qualitative data were collected through both semi-structured individual interviews and observation during test. The study results identify the usability problems encountered while using government services. The study concludes with specific recommendations for improvement of e-government services in Turkey. © 2013 IEEE.
Open Access
Assessing usability of virtual reality for basic design education
(2018-07) Özgen, Dilay Seda
Being an emerging technology, virtual reality is used in a wide range of fields such as medicine, gaming, psychology and sociology. There are also wide range of researches that compare traditional and digital methodologies in design education. However, in design education, there is a limited research into the implementation of virtual reality (VR). Therefore, this thesis focuses on the usability of virtual reality in design education, especially during problem-solving activity in basic design education. This thesis presents the basic design education literature in terms of digital approaches, virtual reality technologies, usability criteria and also technology acceptance model. In order to to analyze the usability of virtual reality in basic design education, an experimental study conducted with 20 first year interior architecture and architecture students in the Spring semester of 2017-2018 academic year, at Bilkent University. It is found that there is a statistically significant difference in terms of intention to use and perceived enjoyment between the VR group and paper-based group. Moreover, there is also a statistically significant effectiveness difference between of VR and paper-based environment. As a result of that, it is stated that VR can support problem-solving activity of basic design education.
Open Access
Experiences with moodle as a communication tool for design teamwork: A users' perspective
(METU, 2011) Pektaş, S. T.; Demirkan H.
Open Access
Exploring the Poka-Yoke Concept as an extended usability criterion for age-friendly kitchen design
(2024-05) Aydıngün, Gülçin
This study proposes the Poka-Yoke Concept as a usability criterion for the improvement of residential kitchen design for older adults, using aging simulation suit (GERT suit). Thesis includes two separate study datasets. In the first data set, 152 older adults from the Geriatrics Department of Hacettepe Hospital participated to fill out the questionnaire. According to the results, error prevention, low physical effort, adequacy of lighting and workstation were the most important kitchen design criteria. In the second data set, tasks and scenarios were conducted with architects and interior architetcts using the kitchen of Bilkent University Graduate Housing. As a result of the heuristic evaluation adapted in the context of Poka-Yoke Concept, it can be used as a usability criterion by increasing empathy towards older adults with GERT simulation.
Open Access
HandVR: a hand-gesture-based interface to a video retrieval system
(Springer U K, 2015) Genç, S.; Baştan M.; Güdükbay, Uğur; Atalay, V.; Ulusoy, Özgür
Using one’s hands in human–computer interaction increases both the effectiveness of computer usage and the speed of interaction. One way of accomplishing this goal is to utilize computer vision techniques to develop hand-gesture-based interfaces. A video database system is one application where a hand-gesture-based interface is useful, because it provides a way to specify certain queries more easily. We present a hand-gesture-based interface for a video database system to specify motion and spatiotemporal object queries. We use a regular, low-cost camera to monitor the movements and configurations of the user’s hands and translate them to video queries. We conducted a user study to compare our gesture-based interface with a mouse-based interface on various types of video queries. The users evaluated the two interfaces in terms of different usability parameters, including the ease of learning, ease of use, ease of remembering (memory), naturalness, comfortable use, satisfaction, and enjoyment. The user study showed that querying video databases is a promising application area for hand-gesture-based interfaces, especially for queries involving motion and spatiotemporal relations.
Open Access
An interdisciplinary heuristic evaluation method for universal building design
(Elsevier, 2009) Afacan, Yasemin; Erbug, C.
This study highlights how heuristic evaluation as a usability evaluation method can feed into Current building design practice to conform to universal design principles. It provides a definition of universal usability that is applicable to an architectural design context. It takes the seven universal design principles as a set of heuristics and applies an iterative sequence of heuristic evaluation in a shopping mall, aiming to achieve a cost-effective evaluation process. The evaluation was composed of three consecutive sessions. First, five evaluators from different professions were interviewed regarding the construction drawings in terms of universal design principles. Then, each evaluator was asked to perform the predefined task scenarios. In subsequent interviews, the evaluators were asked to reanalyze the construction drawings. The results showed that heuristic evaluation could successfully integrate universal usability into Current building design practice in two ways: (i) it promoted an iterative evaluation process combined with multi-sessions rather than relying on one evaluator and on one evaluation session to find the maximum number of usability problems, and (ii) it highlighted the necessity of an interdisciplinary ad hoc committee regarding the heuristic abilities of each profession. A multi-session and interdisciplinary heuristic evaluation method can save both the project budget and the required time, while ensuring a reduced error rate for the universal usage of the built environments. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Open Access
A priority-based ‘design for all’ approach to guide home designers for independent living
(Taylor & Francis, 2014-04-22) Demirkan, H.; Olgunturk, N.
The aim is to provide a priority-based ‘design for all’ approach list that can be used as a guide in the architectural design process for independent living of the home users. It is important to prioritize ‘design for all’ factors and their items as well as the significant differences among adults, elderly and adults with physical disability and visual impairments for the design of homes. A survey was conducted with 161 participants, including adults, elderly and adults with physical disabilities and visual impairments. The results of a factor analysis test identified six high-loaded (adequate illumination level, ease of use in kitchen, adequate space for approach and use, adequate contrast between essential information and its surroundings, ease of use in accessories and functional vertical circulation) and three low-loaded factors (provision of privacy and safety in bathroom, safety of floors and accessibility to all spaces). Multiple comparison tests were done in order to determine the group differences in each prioritized factor for diverse users. Furthermore, a priority-based list with the characteristic features of the ‘design for all’ approach for independent living is developed as a guide for home designers.
Open Access
Revealing the potential of human-centered design in architecture
(2021-03) Gökoğlu, Münevver Duygu
The increase of everyday usage of technology has urged consideration of human factors in the human-computer interaction. This thesis focuses on the transformation of design going beyond the human being a factor to the human starting to be the actor by creating new interactions and environments in the human-computer interaction and architecture. Thus, architectural design processes have become a subject to a radical paradigm shift by technologies and digital way of design thinking. This thesis explores the human actor in the user experience design process by implementing the ten usability heuristics of interaction design in the architectural design process. Recently, the use of user data and creating a design thinking from a compiled data in an interactive environment have become the main topic of user experience design. However, Cybernetics laid the foundations of user experience design with a systematic design process in architecture by proposing a data-based understanding. To consider architecture as a system of which the user is introduced as an active matter, ten usability heuristics, utilized in user experience design will be discussed and explored in the case of architecture. Some of the ten usability heuristics principles will be depicted in order to offer possible opportunities of human actor in architectural design.
Open Access
Usability of virtual reality for basic design education: a comparative study with paper-based design
(Springer, 2019) Özgen, Dilay Seda; Afacan, Yasemin; Sürer, E.
Virtual reality (VR) is an emerging technology that is being used in a wide range of fields such as medicine, gaming, psychology and sociology. The use of VR is promising in the field of education and requires investigation, but research on the use of VR in education is still limited. This enables the exploration of new territories, and design education is one of them. Design education, an important part of the curriculum of architecture students who aim to conceptualize problem-solving, is still taught using traditional methodologies with touches of digital technologies. Thus, there is limited research into the implementation of VR. This study proposes using VR in basic design education and focuses on the usability of VR, especially for problem-solving activities. It presents the literature on basic design education of digital approaches, VR technologies, usability criteria and the technology acceptance model. In order to analyse the usability of VR, we conducted an experimental study with 20 first-year interior architecture and architecture students. We found that, statistically, there is a significant difference in terms of ‘the intention to use’ and ‘the perceived enjoyment’ between the VR group and the paper-based group. Moreover, there is, statistically, a difference in effectiveness within the paper-based group and the VR-based group when one compares the success of two types of design problems in the same group. Thus, one can summarize that using VR can strongly enhance problem-solving activities in interior architecture and for architecture students and that one can consider it to be a promising and complementary tool in basic design education.