A user-centered design approach for crafting personalized guided meditation

R. Collaud; Y. P. Douillet; E. C. Groves; A. Sonderegger; C. Duchêne  et al.

Interest in technology supporting meditation continues to grow commercially and academically. Commonly, these approaches look at how audio-visual feedback based on physiological indicators can help induce a state of meditation. Haptic feedback is now seen as a promising alternative to audio-visual stimuli for meditation. However, as yet, little work has investigated how to personalize haptic feedback or how to combine it with other feedback modalities, notably audio-visual stimuli. In collaboration with a cognitive neuroscience laboratory, we investigated interactions between users and a haptic meditation device through three design research studies. Preparatory evaluations with 20 participants showed a preference for digital over analog interfaces for parametrization of the haptic meditation device. Based on these preliminary results, we developed a digital interface based on three scenarios of use. Extensive evaluations with 29 participants revealed high usability and aesthetic scores while highlighting different perceived user experience qualities. The final study with 21 participants found that the hedonic and pragmatic preferences depend on both the experience of a user and their age. The work gives new insights into designing multimodal interfaces for meditation which allow for parametrization of haptic feedback parameters, as well as a variety of options for the parameterization approach.

Toward Automatic Typography Analysis: Serif Classification and Font Similarities

S. T. Wasim; R. S. Collaud; L. Défayes; N. Henchoz; M. Salzmann  et al.

Whether a document is of historical or contemporary significance, typography plays a crucial role in its composition. From the early days of modern printing, typographic techniques have evolved and transformed, resulting in changes to the features of typography. By analyzing these features, we can gain insights into specific time periods, geographical locations, and messages conveyed through typography. Therefore, in this paper, we aim to investigate the feasibility of training a model to classify serif typeswithout knowledge of the font and character. We also investigate how to train a vectorial-based image model able to group together fonts with similar features. Specifically, we compare the use of state-of-theart image classification methods, such as the EfficientNet-B2 and the Vision Transformer Base model with different patch sizes, and the state-of-the-art fine-grained image classification method, TransFG, on the serif classification task. We also evaluate the use of the DeepSVG model to learn to group fonts with similar features. Our investigation reveals that fine-grained image classification methods are better suited for the serif classification tasks and that leveraging the character labels helps to learn more meaningful font similarities.

Adapting Haptic Feedback for Guided Meditation

Y. P. Douillet; R. S. Collaud; E. C. Groves; A. Sonderegger; C. Duchêne  et al.

Technology supporting meditation is a multimillion-dollar market that continues to grow. There is also strong academic interest to understand and improve the impact technology can have for the user experience of practitioners. However, little work investigates how to modulate haptic feedback to accommodate individual requirements without using biomarkers. In collaboration with a cognitive neuroscience laboratory, we investigated interactions between users and a haptic meditation device through two design research studies. Preliminary evaluations with 20 participants showed a preference for digital over analog interfaces for parametrization of the haptic meditation device. The final study with 21 participants found that the hedonic and pragmatic preferences depend on both the experience of a user and their age. The work gives new insights into designing interfaces for haptic meditation which allow for parametrization of haptic feedback parameters, as well as a variety of options for the parameterization approach.

Design standards for icons: The independent role of aesthetics, visual complexity and concreteness in icon design and icon understanding

R. Collaud; I. Reppa; L. Défayes; S. McDougall; N. Henchoz  et al.

Icons play an important role in modern interfaces and therefore recent empirical research has focused on enhancing icon processing — that is, icon perception and icon function understanding. However, in existing sets, icons vary simultaneously across different icon characteristics, confusing the contribution of each to icon processing. We developed icon design principles for aesthetics, complexity, and concreteness, and used them to create 64 icons that varied independently along each characteristic. Participants reported the icon function and rated each icon in terms of aesthetics, complexity and concreteness. The manipulated characteristics had independent effects on icon processing, with two exceptions, for which we propose evidence-based solutions. Based on these findings we propose guidelines for designing icons for research purposes.

Une apparente simplicité

R. S. Collaud

The influence of new UX principles for inclusive UI design: How older people perceive Facebook compared to a senior-dedicated social media platform

R. S. Collaud; A. Sonderegger; N. Henchoz

Contrary to preconceived ideas, the vast majority of older people have the necessary skills to use digital tools. Although they do not like to rely solely on digital solutions, they are willing to use digital tools to enhance their lives – but have specific needs with regard to the design of such tools. This study examined the effects of the application of specific design-heuristics in the development of a social media platform on several outcome-variables in UX tests. The resulting digital tool — Resoli — helps users create and publicize new events and share memories from past ones. The tool Resoli was compared to Facebook by 26 seniors (55-85 yrs.) who conducted similar tasks on both platforms. The goal was to determine the usefulness of the developed UX design-heuristics and their influence on typical measures of UX such as perceived usability, emotional state, aesthetic, and performance measures. The results showed that participants rated Resoli significantly more positive than Facebook on all UX-indicators and showed better performance. This indicates that the use of our UX design-heuristics is meaningful and useful for this group of users.

Designing for visual appeal, simplicity and concreteness: the development and evaluation of design standards to manipulate icon characteristics

R. S. Collaud; L. Défayes; S. McDougall; I. Reppa; N. Henchoz  et al.

Good icon design is now recognized as crucial in determining user experience with mobile, PC and other applications. However, research examining icon use and processing is based on the use of existing icon sets. This leaves many questions about how new icons can be created with specific characteristics. Based on extensive design research, specific design principles were established. In an experimentally controlled study, a set of 64 icons was then developed by designers applying these design principles to create 8 versions for 8 new icon-functions, differing with regard to visual appeal (appealing vs. unappealing), simplicity (complex vs. simple) and concreteness (concrete vs. abstract icons). Once created, participants (N = 276) were asked to rate visual appeal, simplicity and concreteness of 8 icons (from the 64 versions created) in order to ascertain the extent to which the design principles were effective in creating icon sets with different characteristics. Results demonstrated that an independent manipulation of each design dimension was successful, indicating that the suggested design principles provide valuable hints for the design of icons. These findings will be used to illustrate how experimental design can shed light on building guidelines for creating effective interaction designs.