This paper investigates the possibility that ultra-compact dwarf (UCD) galaxies in the Fornax cluster are formed by the threshing of nucleated, early-type dwarf galaxies (hereafter dwarf galaxies). Similar to the results of Côté et al. for the Virgo cluster, we show that the Fornax cluster observations are consistent with a single population in which all dwarfs are nucleated, with a ratio of nu...

Usability capability is a characteristic of a development organization that predicts the level of usability the development projects are capable of achieving. Our experiments with the existing usability capability models indicate that current process assessment methods do not discover all relevant problems that might impede effective user-centered design (UCD) in development organizations. We p...

1 Department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3QY, Scotland, UK [email protected] 2 Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YX, UK [email protected] 3 University College Dublin, UCD College of Business, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland [email protected], [email protected] 4 MIT Sloan School of Management, 100 Main Street...

This paper describes the use of skill atoms as a design lens for gameful design that focuses the optimal structuring of challenges inherent in a user’s goal pursuit. Author

Like other user-centered approaches, scenario-based design changes the focus of design work from defining system operations (i.e., functional specification) to describing how people will use a system to accomplish work tasks and other activities. However, unlike approaches that consider human behavior and experience through formal analysis and modeling of well-specified tasks, scenario-based de...

Recently there has been increasing research into mobile physiological sensing devices to explore the benefits in the areas of monitoring health and well-being. However, previous works have mainly focused on functionality, and less so on affective shape, comfort use, and stable sensing. In this work, we propose a stone-type physiological sensing device for general users, rather than professional...

Innovative healthcare services and technologies show great promises for reducing individual and societal burdens, but predominantly fail to attract sufficient end user acceptance and usage. This renders the aspect of technology adoption as key weakness of most health technology development endeavors, but also as most promising area for implementing changes that can dramatically increase the lik...

Interest is growing in studying canine and human relationships, especially working canines and their role in society. Interest is also growing in designing informed, user centered interactive technologies for animals. Combining these two themes, my doctoral research looks at creating user-centered, ethnographically informed designs for working animals (working dogs). The work examines existing ...

There is increased awareness of the need for design to be driven by deep understanding of users, their activity patterns, processes, needs and external influences--understanding that can only be gained by studying user behavior in the user’s context. This requires understanding of how to plan and carry out observational studies of users, which is a new skill for many. In addition, fieldwork is ...