Engrafting support staff into dialogues between users and customer support systems can compensate for system design flaws. Further, such dialogues can give grounds for system development. This article surveys the levels of interactivity of user support systems, where overt or covert support agents take an active part in the communication between a customer and a system. The main purpose is to demonstrate the prevailing lack of multimedia outputs in the tools supporting human intervention in systems with a graphical user interface (GUI). This is followed by an account of experimentation with human support engrafted in a web system that has a fuller range of GUI expression. The experiment explores the possibility of using multimedia in intervention in human-computer interaction and how such intervention can be built when it is not yet part of the augmented system.

This chapter presents GUI-ii, Graphical User Interface interaction interview, a method used to remotely discuss, develop and test GUI prototypes with users and stakeholders. Examples of such sessions are presented to demonstrate that the main benefit of GUI-ii is that this way of co-designing allows for interaction-informed discussions around functions and user interfaces, where re-design and hands-on experience can be integrated and efficiently carried out remotely. Using a facilitation tool to enact GUI layout and responses allows participation and evaluation to be mixed in participatory design sessions in a productive way. This form of participatory design is discussed along the dimensions found in Sanders’ Map of Design Research. The discussion concludes that GUI-ii facilitates participation by relaxing demands for physical presence and by allowing people to participate from their own work environment while still making it easy for them to directly influence contents, structure and interaction.

Societal threats such as global warming and terror attacks make crisis preparedness and crisis training a major priority in governments worldwide. Unfortunately, training is limited, partly due to complex and resource-demanding planning of traditional exercises. Several crisis training software have been developed as a complement. However, reports in research on their usage are rare, which indicates that the diffusion is limited. A potential explanation is that the systems fail to meet important needs in the organizations and/or sound information systems (IS) design principles. This paper describes the first phase of a design science research (DSR) project aiming at developing information systems for disaster management (ISDM) training, and accompanying training methods in local and regional governments. The purpose of this paper is to investigate perceived problems in current crisis training and identify opportunities for ISDM training in the application domain. Another purpose is to outline expected artifacts in the project.

Inom ramen för projektet CriseIT (www.criseit.org) har en intervjustudie genomförts med norska och svenska krisberedskapsaktörer. 19 respondenter från totalt 16 aktörer intervjuades om deras syn på behovet av krisövning, vad som fungerar bra och dåligt med de övningsmetoder som vanligtvis används, och vilken nytta de kunde se med datorbaserade övningsverktyg. Svaren visar på ett stort behov av att öva mer, gärna i form av mindre och kortare övningar. Det finns en rörelse bort från scenariobaserade övningar till övningar där olika förmågor står i centrum. Flertalet aktörer anser att de planerar och genomför övningar med gott resultat men att det saknas en systematik i hur utvärderingar leds vidare i ett förbättringsarbete. Det finns intresse men också tveksamhet inför att involvera allmänheten i krisövning, men ett sätt att hantera bland annat säkerhetsaspekter vore att gå via frivilligorganisationer som kan bistå med organisering och viss utbildning.

Respondenterna visar stort intresse för datorbaserade övningsverktyg som ett medel för att öka krismedvetenheten och kunskapen som stödjer den egna rollen. De kan också se potentiella problem, t ex att vissa personer har svårt att ta till sig ny teknik och att det kan finnas risk att resurser till andra övningsformer minskas. Bland de fördelar som nämndes var möjlighet att öva oftare, med fler aktörer, och att öva på olika platser vid olika tidpunkter. Man ser också förbättrade möjligheter att öva utdragna kriser. Den målgrupp som lyfts fram som särskild intressant fördatorbaserade övningsverktyg är krisledningsorganisationen, dvs. den strategiskan ivån. Flera nämner också behovet av bättre planeringsstöd för säkerhets-/beredskapssamordnarna.

En slutsats vi dragit är att det är viktigt att digitala krisövningsverktyg är webbaserade och bygger på standarder. Detta för att möjliggöra att verktygen kan användas distribuerat, i samarbete mellan olika organisationer och inte kräver lokala installationer i de olika hårt styrda IT-miljöerna. Det bör också vara verktyg som fungerar på såväl smartphone som surfplatta och PC. I stort bör de system som används under verkliga kriser användas även under övning.

We present and discuss GUI-ii, Graphical User Interface interaction interview, a method used to remotely discuss, develop and test GUI prototypes with users and stakeholders. Examples of such sessions are presented to demonstrate that the main benefits of GUI-ii are that this way of co-designing allows for interaction-informed discussions around functions and user interfaces, where re-design and hands-on experience can be integrated and efficiently carried out remotely. Using a facilitation tool to enact GUI layout and responses allows participation and evaluation to take turns in participatory design processes in a productive way. We discuss this form of Participatory Design along the dimensions found in Sanders’ Map of Design Research. The discussion concludes that GUI-ii facilitates participation by relaxing demands for physical presence and by allowing people to participate from their own work environment while still making it easy for them to directly influence contents, structure and interaction.

The Wizard-of-Oz method has been around for decades, allowing researchers and practitioners to conduct prototyping without programming. An extensive literature review conducted by the authors revealed, however, that the re-usable tools supporting the method did not seem to last more than a few years. While generic systems start to appear around the turn of the millennium, most have already fallen out of use.

Our interest in undertaking this review was inspired by the ongoing re-development of our own Wizard-of-Oz tool, the Ozlab, into a system based on web technology.

We found three factors that arguably explain why Ozlab is still in use after 15 years instead of the two-three years lifetime of other generic systems: the general approach used from its inception; its inclusion in introductory HCI curricula, and the flexible and situation-dependent design of the wizard’s user interface.

This paper elaborates on the potential to design and conduct process-oriented user tests on public e-Services. The purpose is to use key constructs of business process orientation (BPO) to develop a basis for design and communicating the value of user tests in a public e-Service context. Our hypotheses are that user tests can provide valuable results for all actors involved in e-Service development, not only in terms of how to conduct user tests per se, but also to provide incentives for a customer driven focus and highlighting the value derived from user tests. In the municipality case, actors and stakeholders are involved municipalities in an inter-organisational collaboration on e-Service development, i.e. different municipalities, locally and regionally, as well as the supplier.  Citizens partaking in a university course conduct the user tests with the eye tracking technology. In total 71 users performed in test sessions on 11 different e-Services in a standard platform provided by one supplier. In this paper, we elaborate on a BPO test design based on basic constructs in the approach compared with findings from reconstructing the test process design used with an implicit approach 2012 and an explicit BPO approach in 2013. Contributions include a generic test-process design for data collection, analysis and delivery to stakeholders in an overall e-Service development. Furthermore, findings from our test sessions and test process design will inspire and guide other universities to collaborate with practitioners. Beside the strength with a real case for the students, user test sessions in collaboration can be an eye-opener to not only for municipalities but also suppliers. Thus, the potential for impacts from test results to be applied in the further development of e-Services has thereby increased.  

The Wizard-of-Oz method has been around for decades, allowing researchers and practitioners to conduct prototyping without programming. The extensive literature review in the field reported here, however, revealed that the re-usable tools supporting the method do not seem to last more than a few years. Generic systems started to appear around the turn of the millennium, but very few are still in use. New systems are designed nevertheless. The systems and issues presented here should be of interest to people in the field of prototyping interaction design.

This review was inspired by the authors’ ongoing re-development of their own Wizard-of-Oz tool, the Ozlab, into a system based on web technology. The report takes stock of some key features of Ozlab as well as reviews and contrasts other re-usable Wizard-of-Oz tools with the ambition to list every generic tool.

The introductory chapter compares and contrasts prototyping in general with Wizard-of-Oz prototyping and provides an historical overview of Wizard of Oz in the development of digital interactive systems, spanning the years 1971-2013. Chapter 2 briefly describes the operation of Ozlab, and Chapter 3 presents the literature review of generic WOz tools. Chapter 4 discusses how interaction is supported by WOz tools and Chapter 5 how platform dependency affects the longevity of generic tools, while Chapter 6 points to the limitations in the Wizard-of-Oz method itself from several perspectives. Chapter 7, finally, presents concluding remarks including a list of points for future methodological analysis and development.

This paper focuses on the ability to communicate public e-Services, as one part of e-Service evaluation. The purpose is to use and further develop the emerging concept of “communicability” to be used as a base in an evaluation tool in the context of public e-Services. The ability of citizens’ to find, understand and use the e-Services provided is return on investment for public sectors, governments and agencies. The point of departure in this paper is to elaborate on a test process design for data collection and analysis from an empirical driven approach. Empirical grounding is based on a Swedish municipality case with a pilot usability test with eye tracking in 2012 and a second further improved test sessions 2013 on e-Services with citizens partaking in a university course. The research contributions include a further defined concept together with a generic test process for data collection and analysis to be useful as an evaluation tool, in research as in practice. Our research design and experiences from test sessions might also work as an inspiration to other university courses. Further more, findings from our test sessions can be used as a point of departure in formulating guidelines in a handbook to improve communicability in public e-Services.

In this paper, a case of testing public e-Service communicability is analysed in terms of process as well as outcomes. Key elements in test processes are defined, together with the meaning of communicability identified in terms of information-oriented metrics. The purpose of our paper is to develop knowledge about how e-Service providers should improve their ability to communicate and support users in finding, understanding and using e-Services. The reconstructed test process design is based of an analysis of gaze replays in citizen test sessions by means of eyetracking technology. Empirical findings on communicability metrics are further grounded in theory. Our main contribution to the research community and the field of practice, are a test process and a communicability framework to support the assessing of e-Service information. The use of wireframes for the e-Service five layers, together with a multifunctional template for data collection, analysis and presentation are introduced.