Log in to like this post! HCII 2013 Highlights: Healthcare and Automobile Advances in the Pursuit of User Experience Miao Wang / Thursday, August 8, 2013 At the HCI International 2013 conference on 21-26 July in Las Vegas, the experts from academia, research institutes, industry and governmental agencies all over the world shared their latest research and development efforts in the areas of human cognition, information technology, design, usability and culture, etc. I’ve been impressed by the breadth of application areas that user experience has been penetrating and advancing for the sake of behavior changing, knowledge acquisition, life improving, and performance boosting. Specifically I’ve seen the significant adaption in the healthcare and automobile industries: they’ve incorporated user experience as a strategy to make critical decisions for their future. Here are my notes from the conference: Healthcare Trends Lots of projects have been done to prove the emerging trend of mobile app adoption in personal wellness management. User experience is an approach to make the correct decision with a good appreciation of user requirements. By taking advantage of the user interface design, the social-enhanced apps are more capable to motivate people to live an active and healthy lifestyle with physical exercise. Well-designed, intuitive mobile apps can significantly improve the standardization and ease of care within the complicated medical transition process. Early research shows the big potential of mobile devices supporting real-time coaching in training and reflective learning through web interfaces. Mobile persuasive apps positively influence the attitude and self-efficacy of users, which is further reinforced by social influences through the app. The use of emotional interfaces in healthcare systems should be able to comfort the user, make him or her feel secure and entertained, and thereby cause a shift in the emotional state from negative to positive. Hybrid healthcare apps on smartphones are emerging to leverage the strength between native and web apps, providing cross platform solutions with abstraction via usage of the same native APIs so that developers can write apps only using JavaScript and HTML5. Challenges Potential concerns exist when transferring traditional medical user interfaces to mobile interfaces as the latter involve a wide variety of platforms, screen sizes and resolutions. The development of online health information systems and services must take into account users’ emotions which significantly impact users’ healthcare decisions. The decision to build either native (healthcare) apps or a web apps depends not only on technical requirements and functional requirements, but budget, resource constraints and time. Automobile Trends Numerous approaches have been explored for non-distracting and natural interaction with the in-vehicle information and communication system: Head-up displays (HUDs), Eye-gaze systems, tangible tracking, haptic interfaces, speech UIs, etc. The design of persuasive mobile apps could assist drivers in changing their negative behaviors (e.g., speeding etc.) into a more appropriate manner for specific driving situations and contexts. Speech has been readily adopted by in-vehicle speech systems as the safest way to both communicate to the driver and to have the driver provide input to the system. Early stage experiments on vision-based driving systems present the potential of helping people with motor-skill limitations in their arms or legs to drive vehicles. Mobile apps are becoming an important source of information, control, and motivation for Electric Vehicle (EV) drivers Challenges Driver emotion is strongly linked to behavior on the roadway. Speech-based in-vehicle interfaces will have the need and opportunity to be emotionally responsive. There are barriers for EV drivers to use mobile apps and some opportunities for improvement, e.g., a lack of uniformity and standards between both vehicle and charger systems. For our Infragistics presentation and detailed notes of user-centered design with Agile development, please check out Tobias' blog. Other references could be found from HCII2013 official website.