Knowledge-based Asynchronous Usability Test Environments for Consumer Products

消费品的基于知识的异步可用性测试环境

• 批准号: 262473-2012
• 负责人: Akgunduz, Ali
• 金额: $ 1.38万
• 依托单位: Concordia University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2012-01-01 至 2013-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=508932
• 关键词: Knowledge; based; Asynchronous; Usability; Test

The primary goal of the proposed research is to develop methodologies to realize fully autonomous usability testing applications. The motivations for the proposed research program and thus the rationale are comprised of the following: It is crucial for companies to shorten their design cycle times, increase quality, minimize design flaws that cause manufacturing and assembly problems, and comply with customer requirements. The usability tests are intended to evaluate design from the user's perspective. Usage of physical prototypes in usability, manufacturability and assembly testing is expensive, time-consuming, and inflexible. Virtual prototyping is a solution to this problem where low-cost and highly flexible design and development support is possible. Hence, our focus will be the development of Virtual Reality based asynchronous remote usability testing applications. There are three known drawbacks of the remote usability tests: post-hoc data analysis; the lack of real-time assistance; and difficulty of implementing think-aloud protocol. Advancements in ontology and semantic web researches and the real-time tracking capabilities of VR give us the opportunity to develop successful asynchronous remote usability tests that incorporate automated data analysis, think-aloud strategy and remote test supervisor. Thus, the goal in this research program is to contribute to the knowledge that is essential to develop asynchronous, VR based remote usability testing applications. This research program will contribute to train two PhD students and two MASc students in the field of information systems and product design.

本研究的主要目标是开发实现完全自主可用性测试应用的方法。提出的研究计划的动机和基本原理包括以下几点：对于公司来说，缩短设计周期、提高质量、最大限度地减少导致制造和组装问题的设计缺陷以及满足客户要求是至关重要的。可用性测试旨在从用户的角度评估设计。在可用性、可制造性和装配性测试中使用物理原型是昂贵、耗时且不灵活的。虚拟原型是解决这个问题的一种方法，它可以提供低成本和高度灵活的设计和开发支持。因此，我们的重点将放在基于异步远程可用性测试应用程序的虚拟现实开发上。远程可用性测试有三个已知的缺点：事后数据分析；缺乏实时援助；以及实现有声思维协议的困难。本体和语义网研究的进步以及VR的实时跟踪功能为我们提供了开发成功的异步远程可用性测试的机会，该测试结合了自动数据分析、有声思考策略和远程测试主管。因此，本研究计划的目标是为开发异步、基于VR的远程可用性测试应用程序提供必要的知识。本研究项目将在信息系统与产品设计领域培养2名博士生和2名硕士生。