I analyzed master’s thesis by Yao Guo with the title „The Mapping Between Interactive Art and Classical Rhetoric: An Analogy Approach“. He has studied on university of art Linz in the institute „Interface Cultures“. In the thesis, the author first gives an overview about the history of rhetoric and the main characteristics of it and further tries to find similarities in interactive art.
Level of design
The thesis’ design looks like the classical design of most theses. The author used simple justified text, which sometimes is separated with images. But since the design is really simple, it is also easy to follow and you can really focus on the content. But just from the look of it, you would not think that this is a thesis of a art/design student.
Degree of innovation
In my opinion, the topic is very innovative. The author states in the beginning of the master’s thesis that the topic has not been addressed before and as I also stated in the beginning, I have not heard of something similar as well. Also through research on this topic I have not found a comparable work.
Independence
Focussing on the feeling I had when reading the text, I thought that he wrote the thesis independently. Especially in the chapter, where he tries to find similarities between the elements of rhetoric and interactive art, you get the feeling that he really understood what he was doing in order to be able to find those similarities. He also analyzes his artistic work that he did in the past and tries to find out which characteristics of rhetoric where more prominent than the others. As a last step, he also creates a diagram to analyze other art pieces. But, unfortunately I cannot be sure if everything written in the statements are correct, because there are a lot of sections, where no citations are used at all. Also, there where a few passages that were formatted like literal quotes but missed a citation, so I was not sure if that was something he thought or if it was a quote from another person.
Outline and structure
In my opinion, the structure made sense. He started with giving an introduction to rhetoric and outlined its main characteristics. Then, he states analogies between interactive art and rhetoric and uses artworks from other artists as examples. After that he analyzes a few of his own projects and evaluates how present those rhetoric elements in his work are. After that he visualizes a diagram on how to rate the presence of rhetoric elements in media art pieces. Each of the chapters was building on the previous one so overall the structure was great.
Degree of communication
As I will also mention later, the thesis unfortunately has a lot of spelling mistakes, which made it a bit hard for me to always understand what he wrote about. Occasionally image and tables where used to create a better understanding of the topic, which I appreciated.
Scope of the work
The scope of work is okay for a master’s thesis. With 56 pages, the thesis is not very long but it gives a good overview of the topic, although I think there is also a lot of potential to dive even deeper into the topic.
Orthography and accuracy
Unfortunately, I found a lot of spelling mistakes. Some of them where words that did not fit in the sentence, other ones where words that should not been there at all. There where also some minor mistakes, like the left out space and some singular/plural mistakes. Sometimes it was necessary for me to read a sentence or paragraph twice in order to understand what it was really about. In the chapter where he analyzes his own work, he mostly writes in first person (he writes about the artist) but then switches to the first person to explain his intentions while working on the project, which was a bit confusing for me. In general, unfortunately the thesis was not easy to read for me.
Literature
He mainly used books as literature which are a mixture out of older and newer ones. The bibliography contains also a view web resources, unfortunately there is no link to the websites included. As I mentioned before, in the thesis there where passages which missed a quotations, so some statements are not traceable. He also used Wikipedia as a resource for at least two times but did not include it in the bibliography.
The design is a bit basic and poor. It looks like a very technological and scientific thesis but the author didn’t take the opportunity to play with design options. Once said that the overall structure of the content is very clear and clean, which makes the thesis perfectly readable and manageable.
Degree of innovation
The thesis seems to dig very deep into innovative procedures related to a human-centered approach to treating the topic of eHealth and mHealth. She mentions also design thinking processes that aren’t usually connected to the eHealth topics when approached by the scientific community. I think she really tries to link the coldest side of medical and technological topics and human psychology. Therefore I think this work might not be innovative when choosing the processes to go through but it is innovative in the way she connects human behaviour and emotions to a very well-known scientific topic.
Independence
The author uses many resources which help her by providing valuable information but she is the only one involved in the development of the master thesis. – Of course, supervised by her tutor. I think she makes a very good design process on her own, using different tools to reach her final goal.
Outline and structure
As I already mentioned in the design section, the master’s thesis is an extensive work structured in different parts in a clean and clear way. It is very easy to find specific parts or chapters thanks to its good organization in the index and she structures it in a very organic way according to the design process, helping the reader from the beginning to create a complete idea of what a research paper like this one entails.
Degree of communication
The author offers clear and fluent communication throughout the entire work. In some parts where the use of more technical words is required, she manages to make the content equally understandable and accessible to the reader, without avoiding the use of appropriate terminology.
In other sections, she uses a much more concise and shorter style, in a more schematic format, but which also helps to understand other types of material and always in an organic way. I think he knows how to adapt his writing style very well to the context he is developing at the time, and he manages to make this subject, which at times may not be very attractive, seem accessible and interesting to many types of audiences.
Scope of the work
The work focuses on how technology can serve as a link between patients and medical professionals. Under this title, she focuses on topics related to human behavior, technological tools commonly used in medical practices (focusing especially on cardiology), eHealth, and mHealth, as cutting-edge examples of technology designed already taking into account the human-centered approach.
Orthography and accuracy
She writes the work in English. As far as I’ve read, I haven’t found any major spelling mistakes. It is obvious that English it’s not her mother tongue because the vocabulary she uses tends to be simpler than other papers or works from authors whose mother tongue is English. It’s still very well written and there is also usage of specific terminology, giving the text a scientific accuracy about the topics she is dealing with.
Literature
She uses many references both from books and scientific papers on the various topics she deals with, as well as from web pages where statistics from previous medical and psychological studies over the years can be found, medical and psychology journals, and articles related to human-centered design and the development of the user experience in the medical field.
The author of this master’s thesis kept the design rather minimalistic and probably used a standardized preset given by university. Simple headings, a single-column grid, and even margins define the layout. The only visible personalized design element is a very simple and low-impact graphic on the front page. However, a clear structure is given to the reader, which is of course crucial for a scientific paper.
DEGREE OF INNOVATION
The term “deceptive design pattern” (formerly “dark pattern”) is very young for a scientific topic and was first mentioned only in 2010. Nevertheless, the topic is very present and often dealt with in the context of ethics in digital design. Furthermore, there are already various studies about dark pattern-blindness, so it is nothing completely new. As stated by the author himself the question on useful countermeasures for deceptive design patterns would have been a step further and more innovative.
INDEPENDENCE
The work contains both a comprehensive search of the literature and a very detailed empirical method of data collection, analysis and interpretation. This suggests a neat and independent work. It can be said that the work stands on its own and does not require any swerving, additional research or deep prior knowledge on the part of the reader.
OUTLINE AND STRUCTURE
According to the table of contents, the thesis is divided into seven chapters, which in turn are broken down into up to three further sub-levels. The theoretical research, the objectives of the thesis, the method and the results are clearly delineated from each other. The literary and empirical parts complement each other well and result in a coherent overall concept.
DEGREE OF COMMUNICATION
In general I would say that the text is easy to read and understand. The author does not use a lot of technical jargon and most unknown terms are explained within the thesis. Tables, screenshots of the web applications shown and various infographics support the textual presentation of the results of the experiment. The appendix also contains the transcript of the experiment for review.
SCOPE OF THE WORK
The entire work comprises 230 pages, which makes it seem very time-consuming and precisely elaborated. In addition, the planning, execution and evaluation of the experiment is carried out in above-average detail. Even if, according to the author, some results did not turn out as desired and as a result the hoped-for comparisons could not be drawn, the work standard for a master’s thesis is definitely met.
ORTHOGRAPHY AND ACCURACY
Since English is not my native language, I found it a bit harder than usual to evaluate the orthography and accuracy of the text. All in all I would say that it is pretty well written and I could not find any obvious mistakes. The only thing I noticed is that the author often repeats the same words and phrases in sentences or paragraphs.
LITERATURE
It can be seen from the bibliography that the sources used cover a lush period from 1970 to 2022, and thus older and very recent works are consulted. The quotations are largely from conferences and articles and only very occasionally from experts’ books. Additionally a lot of internet sources are cited, however those are mostly from known authors in the field and trustful sources. Within the citations, the download links (e.g. Researchgate) of the full texts have been inserted, which looks a bit unprofessional.
My current research has led me to immersive experiences where people can dive into a new world and interact with an environment. But I got occupied with another topic and a question peaked my interest. Can a good user experience be bad for the user? The answer may seem obvious, great UX can lead to hours of engagement and low user-frustration with an application. But the system was designed that way.
We develop and design new addictive products with less and less obstacles and friction-less interactions and infinite-scrolls that are so highly immersive that people spend hours looking at their screens that keeps them so powerfully occupied. Technology has a huge effect on our mental structure and uses our psychological mechanism to manipulate our behavior.
Even user-centered design seems to be all about low error-rate and high conversion. In order to create a pleasant experience. We mustn’t mistake user-centered design with convenient consumption. Design could aim higher giving people their attention back and hand them a tool that benefit their needs and nobody else’s.
Eudaimonia-Centered Design
With eudaimonia-centered design human well-being is in the center. Aristotle argued that eudaimonia – human flourishing is the highest end we all strive for. Itrequires virtuous activity and not just being in a state of mind. So finding meaning and engagement in the things we do. This can be translated and implemented when we design new products for people. User-centered design does a great job, by putting learned patterns and behavior into the design process. Products get more accessible and user friendly in this sense. Eudaimonistic-centered design does the same but goes a step further and asks whether the product in itself is good for the user’s well-being.
Possibility-Driven Design
Possibility-driven design is an approach that draws upon happiness to motivate the design of future technologies. Pieter Desmet and Marc Hassenzahl argue that problem-solving became an obsession beyond the acceptable. Problem-driven design is primarily about avoiding, solving, or neutralizing the negative, the moment it arises. But avoiding the problems in a design or system is not equal with a pleasurable experience. With every design iteration the solution evolves another problem and this never ending-cycle focusing on the problems rather the possibilities to transform and transcend an object, leaves us with new issues we never had to deal with before. Through the mindset of activities being problems that could be improved, our day-to-day activities became chores we want to avoid, than to simply looking at them in a pleasurable way. Because possibilities can become future prospects that drives innovation and to create new beneficial systems for people.
The main question for my thesis is:
How can immersive technology benefit our well-being?
Technology has the potential to thrive people’s ambitions and to contribute to their well-being. I want to explore the positive and negative effects of engaging technology. Comparing different studies on the impact on our mental health to find out what brings us peace and improve our life.
Steps for my thesis:
Collect evidence of harmful technology
Gain knowledge about technology having a positive effect on our well being
Having my master thesis in mind, I started to overthink my topic and the research I conducted throughout the last two semesters.
First, I went back to the beginning and asked myself again how a virtual fitting room could be included on a website to improve the shopping experience online. For this approach, I envisioned a virtual fitting room for swimwear and finally turned down the idea. I then focused on size guiding in swimwear and looked into existing online swimwear stores for women to compare their brand stories and business models. I compared their size guides, fabrication methods, sustainability, collections, designs, and supply. Many of those websites confused me a lot. I had the feeling of not quite understanding the brand’s values and story. I instantly thought about Miller’s quote (“you confuse, you lose”) and was thinking he is damn right, I would never order a bikini from this online store. This was a key moment for me because I finally found a way to combine branding/storytelling and interaction design. I took a step back from founding a sustainable brand with an immersive shopping experience and a step towards telling a story of a sustainable brand virtually. In my further research, I would like to focus on brand storytelling on websites and online stores. In addition, it would be interesting to even create a prototype website for a fictional brand (if I would have to choose now, I would build an online shop for women’s swimwear). The focus should be on connecting visitors of the website with the company’s story and values.
For my master thesis I can imagine to:
– dive deep into the theory of storytelling for a company
– find various methods to tell a brand story virtually
– create a universal framework on how to include a brand’s story into their web design
– designing a website/ an online store for a fictional company as a storytelling example
As mentioned in my last blog entry “Sustainability x Augmented Reality”, AR has the potential to improve a brand’s transparency and loyalty, as well as spread the brand’s message and support its sustainable endeavors.
Through further research, I looked into branding concepts and storytelling. I was interested in how companies bring their story to life and how they create a brand experience. During my research in this field, I found many examples of companies that try to create a stronger connection with their customers with branded interactions and experiences.
The question that stood out for me is how a brand can clarify its brand story for customers on their website/online shop. I was wondering if there is a way AR or technology, in general, can help to create a brand experience that fits the brand values perfectly. A was researching the combination of storytelling and technology in the following.
I got overwhelmed with the big fashion world, so I decided to narrow down “buying fashion online” to “buying sustainable swimwear for women online”. Researching a more specific field made it easier for me to compare existing brands and their stories. In the following, I will give a short introduction of my main findings on brand storytelling I found on my research journey.
Building a story brand and unleashing the power of storytelling
Since I got more and more interested in how to create a clear and well-rounded brand story, I read two books about storytelling in the branding process which gave me interesting insights. The first one by Donald Miller “Building a Story Brand”. The book by Miller is all about clarifying a brand’s message in order to get the customers’ attention. The author is focused on selling products online and turning the buying process into an adventure for the clients. In order to achieve the clearest possible message for a brand and get its audience to understand the brand and want to be part of it, the author identifies seven steps to a successful storytelling. The most important lessons I learned from the book are:
1) Make your customer the hero of the story and help them fulfill just one of their desires Simply listing the product or service a company offers is not enough. The brand has to make it clear by identifying how the offering will fulfill the customer’s needs.
2) Identify people’s problems and pain points as the villain to keep them interested Turning problems people need a solution to into villains that they, as the hero of the story, need to conquer, will work in favor of the brand. For instance, a painter could identify the feelings of embarrassment that a customer might have if their house paint looks shabby, as the villain.
3) Give customers a vision of the transformation they will accomplish by purchasing your product People desire success and a brand can help customers to have a vision of how its product can boost their success by appealing three desires: status, completeness and self-acceptance.
A great quote from the book I will keep in mind: “NEVER PLAY THE HERO IN THE STORY, ALWAYS PLAY THE GUIDE.” and: “IF YOU CONFUSE, YOU LOSE”
Storybrand Outline
“Building a Brand Story” is an interesting and helpful book with many real-life examples. It offered me great support to get closer to the core message of a brand.
The other book “Unleash the Power of Storytelling” is by the author Rob Biesenbach. The chapter I found most interesting “Emotion Fuels Stories” is about giving a brand story an emotional core by winning hearts and changing minds. Biesenbach offers some guiding questions for creating a brand story:
– Is the character real and relatable? The brand story needs to be brought down to the human level
– Is there sufficient conflict? Drama is needed to hold the audience’s attention
– Are the stakes high enough? For a story to work, there has to be something important at stake
– Is there a clear cause and effect?
– Is there an emotional core? If the audience feels something, they are more likely to act
Biesenbach makes a point by saying that in most cases communication involves stories. He also suggests building one’s personal brand story to understand oneself better and assess various opportunities. Also a great book with sample stories.
REFERENCES
Biesenbach, Rob (2018): Unleash the Power of Storytelling. Win Hearts, Change Minds, Get Results.
Miller, Donald (2017): Building a Story Brand. Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen.
During the international week, I attended the workshop “prototyping phygical experiences to bring the lab closer to the street” by Carla Molins. Overall, the workshop was about how we can use interaction design to communicate scientific topics. Our task was to create a prototype that explains chromatin. Chromatin is a way of the DNA-string to fit untangled and in order into the chromosome.
Day 1 | Research and Ideation
On the first day, we got an explanation of Carla about what chromatin is and about the use of it. After that, we jumped right into the topic and had a brainstorming session together. We ask ourselves the question “Can we co-create different experiences to explain chromatin to non-scientists?” and wrote everything that came to our mind on post-it notes and put them on the wall. Afterwards, we tried to bring some order into it and grouped the words into 6 different categories: “What?”, “Where?”, “When?”, “How?”, “For whom?” and “Why?”. Then, we separated in different groups of two to work on our concept. In our group, consisting of Fridtjof and me, we started with trying to answer the question together again. That was kind of hard to do, because we felt like we did not know that much of chromatin yet to come up with a good concept.
Day 2 | Ideation and Prototyping
On this day, Carla was unfortunately sick and stayed at home, but we had zoom calls with her during the day to keep her up to date about our process. We started with researching more about the topic to get a deeper understanding of it and to make it easier for us to create a concept. We even called Fridtjofs mother, because she is a biologist, so she could also give us an explanation. Then, we all went in different directions with our prototypes and tried to explain different parts of it. Our concept was about to explain the different kinds of chromatin: Euchromatin and heterochromatin. Euchromatin is a “loose” structure, where the information can be easily accessed in contrast to heterochromatin. We decided to have the user build the structure him/herself to get a better understanding of it. To showcase the euchromatin, we made a “T-RNA Scanner”, which reads the information stored in the euchromatin to build protein, which the user got in form of a chocolate. During the day, we also pitched our concepts to each other and evaluate them together, which was really helpful. Then, we already started building the prototype. For our prototype, we used wool, pipe cleaner and Styrofoam. In addition, we created posters that gave instructions and explanations regarding our prototype. The creation of the concept and prototype was an iterating process, because we already made a few small tests and adapted the prototype/concept regarding the outcome.
Day 3 | Testing and Enhancing
On this day we performed around five test with different participants. The main outcome was that we should think about our posters again, since we had a lot of different posters with no clear hierarchy so the users got a bit confused or did not recognized them at all. So we spend a lot of the time trying to find out what information is important and should be on the posters, what we can exclude from it and what the overall structure should be. After we were happy with our poster, we enhanced our prototype with different supplies, we bought in the hardware store. We also managed to go to the photo studio to get some pictures of our prototype. We also spend a lot of the day testing the projects of the other people.
Conclusion
I overall really enjoyed the workshop and I think it is a really interesting topic, in which I would like to work on in the future as well. Carla was also a really great teacher. She could answer a lot of our questions and really helped us improve the projects. The workshop was really great to get a bit of an insight into the topic of science communication through interaction design. But I also think that the timeframe for the workshop was a bit too little, because I think we did not have a lot of time to do proper research about this topic and really understand what chromatin is, so I think our projects would need some further iterations to really work. But in general, it was really nice to have the opportunity to meet people out of different universities and dive into different fields for a week. It was also very interesting and inspiring to see what other workshops have done during the week.
“The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.”
— Robert Swan, Author
Today, the word “sustainability” is widely applied to define the processes, measures and actions through which humanity avoids the exhaustion of natural resources to maintain an ecological balance that does not allow the quality of life of modern societies to decrease. Sustainability has these following three dimensions:
Social
Economic
Environmental
Taking these three pillars into account it becomes clear that all topics written about before in my blog entries are included in the topic of sustainability. So first of all I want to refine the working title of my research to Sustainable UX. So my Master’s thesis is intended to build on these three pillars of sustainability. The three dimensions as stated above should include popularising social diversity and equity, the 3 Rs (recycle, reuse, reduce), inclusive design, integrating environmental and social values, green consumerism …
“Interdisciplinary integrates separate disciplinary data, methods, tools, concepts, and theories in order to create a holistic view or common understanding of a complex issue, question, or problem.”
— Wenger, 1999
There is a parallel between design and interdisciplinarity. (design can be considered as a discipline and an industry.) Both are defining features of contemporary innovation practice. Interdisciplinarity is broadly defined as “the integration of knowledge across disciplines, both narrowly and broadly, and the exchange between disciplines and society.” (Frodeman, 2016)
At the same time, design connects multiple fields of knowledge and industries. Design permeates the complex realm of physical and digital products, blurring the boundaries of human interactions and experiences. Today’s design practice requires systems thinking and the collaboration of multiple disciplines to holistically solve complex human challenges. Thus innovation in the age of the circular economy requires comprehensive practice and an interdisciplinary process that brings together the systemic view of different disciplines – to define opportunities, design sustainable solutions with long-term impact and scale innovation. Circular innovation is about creating new value that balances the benefits for all stakeholders on the planet, rather than focusing on the needs of a single customer. By becoming more interdisciplinary, ecosystems for businesses and the environment can be created that become more circular and resilient.
Speculative design could be a possible approach, together with design thinking, to tie the complex problem of interdisciplinarity for Sustainable UX. It is one of the most exciting ways for designers to practice problem solving through design. With the help of design thinking and other methods, scopes can be expanded and transboundary systems and prototypes can be developed that stimulate discussion about alternative ways of living and allow the imagination to flow freely. Design speculation has the potential to become catalysts for redefining the way we relate to reality and cultures.
Although the topic “Augmented Reality in Education” is super interesting and definitely has potential for a master’s thesis, I realized that I don’t want to pursue it further. I originally chose it because I had little prior knowledge about AR and wanted to “plunge into uncharted waters”. However, I soon realized that it didn’t really fit my strengths and interests.
Therefore, I used the past semester to find a new topic for my master’s thesis. I started off with writing a list of requirements. My Master’s thesis should…
… have societal relevance and added value for people/the environment
… focus on visual design and user experience, since that’s where my strengths lie
… be realizable from abroad, since I’m planning to go on Erasmus
Having my list in mind, I started brainstorming. I read articles and abstracts of existing Master’s theses in the field of UI/UX design, I browsed through design platforms like Behance and collected examples, ideas and inspiration. So I made a looong list in the notes app on my phone with raw ideas that came to my mind during research. In the end that list ranged from female leaders in the interaction design field to accessibility issues to family banking to blood donation to pet adoption… and more. As a next step I started to narrow that list down and came to the conclusion that I wanted to work on a UX case study for some mobile app or web application following a design process (e.g. Human Centered Design Process, Design Thinking). I felt that I was finally getting somewhere, but the most important part was still missing: The concrete topic. A mobile app for WHAT? There is already an app for everything, I thought – What could I possibly create that would have an impact? That was when I realized that talking to other people might help. So I asked my sister, who is a doctor, if there was anything in her daily life at the hospital which could be improved by digitalization. And actually there was a lot ;). Ranging from analog patient files to rehab programs for stroke patients, she had some ideas where I could see potential. But it should be something that was within the scope of a Master’s thesis (e.g. digitizing the complete patient management system of a whole association of Austrian hospitals was not). In the end there was one idea left, that would perfectly fit my plan as well as my skills: A mobile app which would help pregnant women with gestational diabetes (GDM) to keep track of their blood sugar, diet, exercise and therapy.
What is GDM?
Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is one of the most common complications of pregnant women affecting up to 20% and can lead to many unfavorable outcomes for both mother and newborn. Hence, screening pregnant women for GDM and adequate treatment is essential for the short- and long-term outcome of mother and child. Being diagnosed with GDM comes with major effort including exercise, nutritional therapy, blood glucose monitoring and documentation four times per day, medical appointments every one to three weeks and in many cases insulin injections. Thus, patients tend to struggle with their compliance. Especially doctor appointments can be time-consuming, as patients usually have to document their measurement data in an analog diary. These data are then manually reviewed by the doctor and compared with data stored directly on the blood glucose meter to check for the patient’s reliability (Alfadhli, 2015).
The road ahead
Based on this medical procedure, the aim of my thesis is to find out how a mobile app could support the process of monitoring and analyzing blood glucose data and which advantages it could have for both the patient and the doctor. There are already several diabetes-monitoring apps on the market but none of them appear to be tailored to GDM patients. Therefore, this project offers the potential to specifically address the requirements and needs of GDM patients and provide them with a digital monitoring solution as an alternative to an analog diary. The concrete idea is to design and evaluate a high fidelity prototype of a mobile app using the design thinking process, which is an iterative process that includes five phases. Potential features of the app are:
automatic data transfer from the glucose meter to the app as well as the possibility to enter relevant data manually
automatic generation of comprehensive statistics with the ability to detect limit violations
reminders and notifications (e.g. blood glucose measurment, insulin injection, exercise)
suggestions on diet and exercise based on previously entered data
well-founded information about GDM (e.g. videos, articles, FAQs)
possibility to download a report for the doctor.
Conclusion
After spending so much time researching, brainstorming and talking to people I think I finally found a topic, that I “burn for” (as we say in german). I think the app could really help people affected by GDM and isn’t just another useless app on the market. As the Erasmus application required an abstract of the thesis topic, I have already written a preliminary research proposal and I am happy to have DI (FH) Anika Kronberger, MA as my supervisor.
________________
Sources:
Alfadhli E. M. (2015). Gestational diabetes mellitus. Saudi medical journal, 36(4), 399–406. https://doi.org/10.15537/smj.2015.4.10307
| a summary on first thoughts and findings on my possible master thesis topic
While I was continuing my research about different in-vehicle interface solutions and future trends, it became clear for me, that driver assistance systems and “autopilot” (autonomous driving) functions play a major role in the cockpits’ features. By assistance systems I mean on the one hand features like lane-keeping, speed control, parking and front distance controls, and on the other hand speaking assistants like Siri or Alexa built in to control navigation and other features. When thinking about the needs of interfaces and the human-machine-interaction with these assistants, for me the most interesting topic is how to get humans to trust the machine that they give the control over?
If Alexa cannot tell the exact weather outside or doesn’t find the song you want to hear, you forgive her and try another time. But if your car does an emergency braking without any reason or does not stop at a red light in autonomous mode, possibly threatening your life, you won’t forgive it and will probably never hand over the control again.
These are my thoughts why I would like to research this topic further:
How can we create trust in the vehicles’ assistance systems via interfaces and newest technologies, like augmented reality?
With carrying out case studies, user surveys and user testing of different concepts about existing solutions and new proposals, whether they help to build trust or not, I could imagine to create a master thesis on this question. But for that I start now with researching existing articles and papers on the topic of trust in the context of product design, UX and HCI. While researching keywords for the topic, I came across some scientific papers and articles available online, from which I want to sum up some interesting ideas here. These are only the first ideas I found, at the end I list up all publications that I found to be relevant to the topic as well.
Attributes of a product to build trust
In an article on uxdesign.cc about designing better products by building trust, Aimen Awan [1] mentions Erik Erikson’s stage model, where trust and mistrust is the first psychosocial development phase of a human being, until it has reached about 18 months of age. This period shapes their view of the world and their personality, so it is regarded as the most important period in a child’s life. [2] While the psychologists like Erikson see trust as a personal attribute and behavioral intention, there are other disciplines which handle the topic differently. Sousa, Dias and Lamas [4] describe the approach of computer scientists as observing trust as a rational choice against measurable risks. Further their second aspect of trust is the user’s cognition and affection, meaning the confidence in the system and their willingness to act. [4]
Awan further discusses the results of a study and experiment by P. Kulms and S. Kopp that people’s willingness to trust computer systems depend on the fundamental attributions of warmth and competence. When lacking the time and cognitive resources, people’s interpersonal judgements are mostly based on these two dimensions of social perception. [3]
Warmth can be described in HCI as confidence in the product, that it will help us reach a given goal. The overall user experience, design quality and visual consistency are largely influencing our perception of “warmth”, like transparent information display throughout the user’s journey with the product. E.g. if all details of a transaction are shown before decision making, we perceive the system as trustworthy and having good intentions. [1][3]
Competence is related to perceived intelligence – that a product can perform a given task accurately and efficiently. [1][3] As Awan mentions, Don Norman’s and Jacob Nielsen’s basic principles about usability represent the features of a product to be perceived as competent. Here Nielsen’s heuristics of “User freedom and control” are highlighted in particular. Unlike in human-human relationships, in HCI competence is not overruled by honesty, but is a crucial factor to build trust. [3]
She further discusses the importance of competence at the early stages of trust, depicted by expanding the trust pyramid model of Katie Sherwin. [5] In this new expanded concept, the foundational levels are the baseline relevance and trust that needs can be met and the interest and preference over other available options. These are definitely relying on the competence of the system and if these basic requirements are met, deeper trust can be built with personal and sensitive information (Level 3). From this level on the trust is deepened by perceived warmth, that could further lead to the willingness to commit to an ongoing relationship and even to recommendations to friends. [1] These stages may be more simple in the specific regard of automotive assistance systems, as in a car there aren’t several available options for the same task to choose from and only few tasks would require personal information. Nevertheless the concept can be relevant to an overall analysis of the topic.
Deriving design elements from theory to support trust
Four professors of the University of Kassel, Germany have made an experiment in 2012 on how to define Trust Supporting Design Elements (”TSDE”) for automated systems using trust theory. [6] They validated their findings through a laboratory experiment / user testing with 166 participants on a “context sensitive, self-adaptive restaurant recommendation system”, the “Dinner Now” app. Although this app has no similarities to driver assistance systems, the concept of deriving TSDEs could work generally.
Their motivation to write a work-in-progress paper was the often perceived lack of consideration of behavioral research insights in automation system design. There is potential to raise the achievable utility of products when behavioral truths are implemented into the development process. [6]
Here, the definition of trust by Lee and See [7] was highlighted as “the belief that an agent will help achieve an individual’s goal in a situation characterized by uncertainty and vulnerability”.
By applying the behavioral study concept of three identifiable dimensions of a user’s trust in automated systems (performance, process and purpose), Söllner et Al. created the following model of formation of trust (see Figure 1). The three dimensions are further based on indicators / antecedents [8], that cover different areas of the artifact and its relation to the user.
Figure 1: The formation of trust in automated systems – by Söllner et Al. [6]
These antecedents are in short detail [8]:
Competence – helping to achieve the user’s goal
Information accuracy – of the presented information by the artifact
Reliability over time
Responsibility – the artifact having all functionalities to achieve the user’s goal
Dependability – consistency of the artifacts behavior
Understandability – how the artifact works
Control – how much the user feels to have the artifact under control
Predictability – anticipation of future actions of the artifact
Motives – how well the purpose of the artifact’s designers is communicated to the user
Benevolence – degree of positive orientation of the artifact towards the user
Faith – general judgement, how reliable the artifact is
The paper describes a four-step model to systematically derive TSDEs from behavioral research insights (Figure 2) [6]:
Identifying the uncertainties of the system that the user faces and Prioritizing the uncertainties based on their impact
Choosing suitable antecedents to counter each uncertainty
Interpreting and translating the antecedents into functional requirements
Including these requirements into the design process and creating TSDEs
Figure 2: The process steps to derive TSDEs – by Söllner et Al. [6]
In the case study, the specific uncertainties based on test-user prioritization were the quality of restaurant recommendations, the loss of control in the app and the reliability of user ratings.
Thus the selected antecedents were understandability, control and information accuracy. For keeping developments costs in acceptable range, only one factor was considered for each uncertainty.
From these antecedents, new requirements and features of the app were derived – like additional information to for more transparency, additional filtering possibilities for more control and friend’s ratings option for more reliability.
The final user studies and questionnaires resulted in the validation of the model to be effective and suitable to derive valuable design elements – the TSDEs were appreciated by the participants and the trust and chances of future adoption of the app were enhanced. [6]
To enhance in-vehicle user interfaces a similar approach could be applied to find helpful solutions strengthening the trust in the system.
Building trust in self-driving technology
In 2020, Howard Abbey, an autonomous car specialist ar SDB Automotive gave a presentation on “How Can Consumers Understand the Difference Between Assisted and Autonomous Driving?”. Emily Pruitt summed up the five key takeaways of this talk, how to increase the user’s understanding and adoption of ADAS systems. [9]
Design out potential misuse Users will push the limits of reasonable safety of automated systems. Therefor the systems have to be designed in a way to prohibit any misuse possibility. E.g. warn the driver if hands are off the steering wheel or eyes are not on the road, or stop self-parking assistance when doors get opened. It has to be clarified for the user, what is assistance and what is autonomous.
Use common naming Safety critical features should have naming conventions across different OEM platforms. As long as there are different descriptions for similar systems, the driver cannot rely on their previous experiences and has to learn the systems in case of change of vehicles again and again. (Currently there are 100+ names for emergency braking, 77 for lane departure, 66 for adaptive cruise control and 57 for blind spot monitoring. Though progress is already made by SAE International together with other organisations to recommend common naming, so that drivers can be educated on the same fundamentals)
Be clear SDB Automotive carried out a user study on driver interaction with HMI systems – assigning them tasks to use assistants and and measuring completion time and mental workload. The assessment was done in regard to differences in HMI systems of several manufacturers. Results show three issues that lead to comprehension difficulties when finding the right system, engaging it and reading its feedback:
confusing display graphics
unclear system status
inconsistent icons
Unify Systems Several industry experts believe that ADAS systems should be simplified or combined if possible, as the number of seemingly similar systems is growing. Drivers shouldn’t think about the functionality of systems to choose for the specific situation, instead of focusing on the road. One holistic overall system should work in the background and “take care of the complexity for the user”.
Give simple choice Within the holistic system, there is no need to let the driver choose from seemingly similar systems and get confused (e.g. cruise control vs. automated cruise control vs. traffic jam assist). The options should be held simple with driving states: manual, mixed or autonomous.
[9]
Further questions
Further questions arise if we think about state-of-the-art (2022) and future technologies – also with regard to the possibilities of multimodal interaction and augmented reality.
Are the further above mentioned antecedents applicable for fully automated, safety critical systems and are there further ones?
How can we find the most suitable design solutions to fulfill the specific requirements to build more trust?
What augmentation technologies apply the best as additional solutions? Visual, sound or haptic feedbacks, or all of them?
Vehicles can be used for many tasks. Are there different use cases with special uncertainties to be consider?
Vehicles’ user groups vary a lot. Are there design solutions that can fulfill requirements for different use cases and user groups?
What different trust aspects arise when the automated system is equipped with Artificial Intelligence?
During my research per date I found many more scientific publications that are of interest and have to be read next. I hope to find material to be able to answer these questions. I just found a master thesis from the Chalmers University of Technology written in 2020 (see at the bottom of the list below) that already discusses my proposed topic very similarly. So further on I have to focus on the still to be researched areas to build my master thesis on, like probably the AR implementations in regard of the trust issues.
Literature sources to consider further:
Söllner, M.; Hoffmann, A.; Hoffmann, H. & Leimeister, J. M. (2011): Towards a Theory of Explanation and Prediction for the Formation of Trust in IT Artifacts. In: 10. Annual Workshop on HCI Research in MIS, Shanghai, China.
Lee, J. D. and See, K. A. (2004) ‘Trust in Automation: Designing for Appropriate Reliance’, Human Factors, 46(1), pp. 50–80. doi: 10.1518/hfes.46.1.50_30392.
Hoff, K. A. and Bashir, M. (2015) ‘Trust in Automation: Integrating Empirical Evidence on Factors That Influence Trust’, Human Factors, 57(3), pp. 407–434. doi: 10.1177/0018720814547570.
Parasuraman, R. and Riley, V. (1997) ‘Humans and Automation: Use, Misuse, Disuse, Abuse’, Human Factors, 39(2), pp. 230–253. doi: 10.1518/001872097778543886.
Molina, M. D. and Sundar, S. S. (2022) ‘Does distrust in humans predict greater trust in AI? Role of individual differences in user responses to content moderation’, New Media & Society. doi: 10.1177/14614448221103534.
Dixon L., Megill W., Nebe K. (2019).: Trust in Automation: An On-Road Study of Trust in Advanced Driver Assistance Systems. In: VEHICULAR 2019: The Eighth International Conference on Advances in Vehicular Systems, Technologies and Applications, Rome, Italy
Steven D. Lubkowski, Bridget A. Lewis, Valerie J. Gawron, Travis L. Gaydos, Keith C. Campbell, Shelley A. Kirkpatrick, Ian J. Reagan, Jessica B. Cicchino: Driver trust in and training for advanced driver assistance systems in Real-World driving, Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, Volume 81, 2021, Pages 540-556, ISSN 1369-8478, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2021.07.003. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369847821001625)
Julia Orlovska, Fjollë Novakazi, Bligård Lars-Ola, MariAnne Karlsson, Casper Wickman, Rikard Söderberg: Effects of the driving context on the usage of Automated Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) -Naturalistic Driving Study for ADAS evaluation, Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Volume 4, 2020, 100093, ISSN 2590-1982, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2020.100093. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S259019822030004X)
[3] Kulms P., Kopp S. (2018): A Social Cognition Perspective on Human–Computer Trust: The Effect of Perceived Warmth and Competence on Trust in Decision-Making With Computers. Front. Digit. Humanit. 5:14. doi: 10.3389/fdigh.2018.00014 retrieved on 11.07.2022 from: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fdigh.2018.00014/full
[8] Söllner, M.; Hoffmann, A.; Hoffmann, H. & Leimeister, J. M. (2011): Towards a Theory of Explanation and Prediction for the Formation of Trust in IT Artifacts. In: 10. Annual Workshop on HCI Research in MIS, Shanghai, China.
