Interaction Design and Evaluation of a Digital Pen-Based Note Taking System Application to Abbs Control Room Environment
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IT 09 039 Examensarbete 30 hp Augusti 2009 Interaction Design and Evaluation of a Digital Pen-based Note Taking System Application to ABBs Control Room Environment Yujuan Zou Masterprogram i människa-datorinteraktion Master Programme in Human-Computer Interaction Abstract Interaction Design and Evaluation of a Digital Pen-based Note Taking System Yujuan Zou Teknisk- naturvetenskaplig fakultet UTH-enheten As realized from interviews and observations, operators in control rooms use conventional pen and paper as an essential way of recording information. As a Besöksadress: consequence, they need to fill in many forms and transfer handwritten notes into the Ångströmlaboratoriet Lägerhyddsvägen 1 system manually. This recording of daily activities takes extra time and workload. Hus 4, Plan 0 Moreover, it is a bit messy for the operators to navigate and search the notes they have written on the papers. Postadress: Box 536 751 21 Uppsala In recent years, pen-based user interfaces have become a popular research field. Various kinds of pen-based applications have been developed for different purposes, Telefon: such as sketching and note taking. Pen-based user interfaces promise to provide the 018 – 471 30 03 user with a natural and intuitive way of interaction. Telefax: 018 – 471 30 00 The goal for this thesis project is to explore and find out a natural way to digitalize the hand-written notes into the power grid control system. This will hopefully Hemsida: facilitate the process of real-time digital recording and communication. To achieve the http://www.teknat.uu.se/student goal, a user-centered design process was involved and prototypes of a digital pen-based user interface with a projection display were developed. Two fundamental aspects add value to the proposed prototypes: the use of conventional paper for natural interaction, and the use of gestures as a simple way of implementing data-entry operations required by the user. Pen-gestures were designed based on a quantitative user survey with 45 participants. Finally, the prototypes of digital form-filling and gestures proposed were evaluated by usability testing. The results showed that the gestures designed were easy to learn and use. Participants liked the ways to digitalize the handwriting notes into the system. In the future, more concepts can be developed to enable the pen as an embedded part of the control system, and more gesture operations can be designed and applied. Handledare: Mikko J. Rissanen Ämnesgranskare: Anders Jansson Examinator: Bengt Sandblad IT 09 039 Sponsor: ABB Research Tryckt av: Reprocentralen ITC Acknowledgment My deepest gratitude goes first and foremost to my supervisor Mikko Rissanen, Research & Development Scientist at ABB Corporate Research, Västerås, Sweden. He answered all of my questions as well as asked me questions that helped me to narrow my research focus. Further, he helped me to improve my research and analytical skills. I thank Magnus Larsson, head of the SARU group who offered me the great opportunity to work at ABB Corporate Research. I am thankful to the other team members of the Software Architecture and Usability Group, ABB Corporate Research, Dilip Kota, Christine Mikkelsen and Isak Savo who guided me patiently with their valuable feedback and support throughout this project. It is enjoyable to work with this professional and wonderful group of people. Their helpful suggestions throughout the work were the best motivation for me. I also owe my sincere gratitude to my university reviewer, Anders Jansson, Dept. of Information Technology, for all the help I have received. His extensive discussions and knowledge around my work have been very helpful for this study. Abbreviations HMI Human Machine Interface NM Network Manager WS500 Work Station 500 GUI Graphical User Interface PUI Pen‐based User Interface UCD User Centered Design Interaction design and evaluation of digital pen‐based note taking system Table of content 1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ............................................................................................................................ 1 1.2 DELIMITATIONS ..................................................................................................................................... 2 1.3 THESIS OUTLINE .................................................................................................................................... 2 2. BACKGROUND ................................................................................................................................ 3 2.1 NETWORK MANAGER ............................................................................................................................ 3 2.2 FIELD STUDY ......................................................................................................................................... 3 2.3 PEN‐BASED COMPUTING AND TECHNOLOGIES ............................................................................................. 4 2.3.1 Handheld computer ................................................................................................................ 4 2.3.2 Digital Pen............................................................................................................................... 5 3. THEORY ........................................................................................................................................... 6 3.1 INTERACTION DESIGN ............................................................................................................................. 6 3.2 USER‐CENTERED DESIGN ........................................................................................................................ 6 3.3 PROTOTYPING & USABILITY TESTING ......................................................................................................... 7 3.3.1 Prototyping ............................................................................................................................. 8 3.3.2 Usability testing ...................................................................................................................... 8 3.4 GESTURES DESIGN IN PEN‐BASED USER INTERFACE ....................................................................................... 9 3.4.1 Gesture design and classification ......................................................................................... 10 3.4.2 Analysis of gesture design and classification work ............................................................... 11 4. METHODS ..................................................................................................................................... 13 4.1 ANALYZING USER CONTEXT OF USE .......................................................................................................... 14 4.2 DEFINING USER REQUIREMENTS ............................................................................................................. 14 4.3 TECHNOLOGICAL MEANS ....................................................................................................................... 15 4.4 DESIGN PHASE .................................................................................................................................... 15 4.5 IMPLEMENTATION PHASE ...................................................................................................................... 15 4.6 EVALUATION WITH PROJECT GROUP ........................................................................................................ 16 4.7 USABILITY TESTING .............................................................................................................................. 16 5. RESULTS ........................................................................................................................................ 17 5.1 USER’S CONTEXT OF USE ....................................................................................................................... 17 5.2 DEFINE USER REQUIREMENTS ................................................................................................................ 18 5.3 TECHNOLOGICAL MEANS – “DIGISCRIBBLE” .............................................................................................. 20 5.4 DESIGN PHASE .................................................................................................................................... 21 5.4.1 Brainstorming & Low‐fidelity prototyping ............................................................................ 21 5.4.2 Evaluation with project group .............................................................................................. 23 5.5 IMPLEMENTATION PHASE ...................................................................................................................... 24 5.5.1 Hardware implementation ................................................................................................... 24 5.5.2 Implementation of free‐form discussion board .................................................................... 25 5.5.3 Implementation of form‐filling ............................................................................................. 26 5.5.4 Evaluation with project group .............................................................................................. 27 5.5.5 Pen gestures