Cognitive engineering

The "Encyclopedia of Human Computer Interaction" is the most thorough and definitive source providing coverage of everything related to the field of human computer interaction (HCI). This encyclopedia covers a wide range of HCI related topics such as concepts, design, usability, evaluation, innovations, and applications of HCI in organizations around the globe. Hundreds of contributors and advisors from around the world have conferred their expertise to this publication, making this encyclopedia a single source of authoritative and contemporary research in field of human computer interaction. The "Encyclopedia of Human Computer Interaction" also includes coverage of real life experiences and cases of HCI and the lessons learned helping readers to learn extensively about this important field of study.

Encyclopedia of Human Computer Interaction

Usability testing of software applications developed for mobile devices is an emerging research area that faces a variety of challenges due to unique features of mobile devices, limited bandwidth, unreliability of wireless networks, as well as changing context (environmental factors) Traditional guidelines and methods used in usability testing of desktop applications may not be directly applicable to a mobile environment Therefore, it is essential to develop and adopt appropriate research methodologies that can evaluate the usability of mobile applications The contribution of this article is to propose a generic framework for conducting usability tests for mobile applications through discussing research questions, methodologies, and usability attributes The article provides an overview of existing mobil application usability studies and discusses major research questions that have been investigated Then, it proposes a generic framework and provides detailed guidelines on how to conduct such usability

Challenges, Methodologies, and Issues in the Usability Testing of Mobile Applications

The advancement of mobile and wireless communication technologies has encouraged an increasing number of studies concerning mobile learning, in which students are able to learn via mobile devices without being limited by space and time; in particular, the students can be situated in a real-world scenario associated with the learning content. Although such an approach seems interesting to the students, researchers have emphasized the need for well-designed learning support in order to improve the students' learning achievements. Therefore, it has become an important issue to develop methodologies or tools to assist the students to learn in a mobile learning environment. Based on this perspective, this study proposes a formative assessment-based approach for improving the learning achievements of students in a mobile learning environment. A mobile learning environment has been developed based on this approach, and an experiment on a local culture course has been conducted in southern Taiwan to evaluate its effectiveness. The experimental results show that the proposed approach not only promotes the students' learning interest and attitude, but also improves their learning achievement.

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A formative assessment-based mobile learning approach to improving the learning attitudes and achievements of students

This paper reports a study that attempts to explore how using mobile technologies in direct physical interaction with space and with other players can be combined with principles of engagement and self-motivation to create a powerful and engaging learning experience We developed a mobile gaming experience designed to encourage the development of children's conceptual understanding of animal behaviour Ten children (five boys and five girls) aged between 11 and 12 years played and explored the game The findings from this study offer interesting insights into the extent to which mobile gaming might be employed as a tool for supporting learning It also highlights a number of major challenges that this format raises for the organisation of learning within schools and the design of such resources

Savannah: mobile gaming and learning?

The convergence of mobile communications and handheld computers offers the opportunity to develop technology that will assist individuals and groups to learn anytime, anywhere. We describe the theory-informed design, implementation and evaluation of a handheld learning device. It is intended to support children to capture everyday events such as images, notes and sounds, to relate them to web-based learning resources, to organise these into a visual knowledge map, and to share them with other learners and teachers. A working prototype system, for children aged 9–11, is discussed and evaluated, as an exemplar of personal mobile systems for life-long learning.

Oliver Westmancott

Papers

The Design and Implementation of a Mobile Learning Resource