Browsing by Author "Peres, S. Camille"

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    Dimensions of sound in auditory displays: The effects of redundant dimensions
    (2005) Peres, S. Camille; Lane, David M.
    Three experiments are presented comparing the effectiveness of several parameters of sound for the auditory presentation of statistical data. The dimensions of pitch, loudness, panning, and time were used alone and redundantly to map the values of a box plot to an auditory display. Temporal mappings resulted in better performance than mappings using pitch, panning, or loudness. In the first two experiments, there was no benefit when the mapping condition used two dimensions redundantly over mappings using one dimension. However, for the third experiment, there was a benefit of a redundant design when the dimensions of sound used were integral whereas there was no benefit when they were separable. This third experiment used a task more closely approximating a real-life application of auditory displays. Its results suggest that sonification can be used effectively in situations requiring the monitoring of more than one source of information.
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    Evaluation of Home Health Care Devices: Remote Usability Assessment
    (JMIR Publications Inc., 2015) Kortum, Philip; Peres, S. Camille
    Background: An increasing amount of health care is now performed in a home setting, away from the hospital. While there is growing anecdotal evidence about the difficulty patients and caregivers have using increasingly complex health care devices in the home, there has been little systematic scientific study to quantify the global nature of home health care device usability in the field. Research has tended to focus on a handful of devices, making it difficult to gain a broad view of the usability of home-care devices in general. Objective: The objective of this paper is to describe a remote usability assessment method using the System Usability Scale (SUS), and to report on the usability of a broad range of health care devices using this metric. Methods: A total of 271 participants selected and rated up to 10 home health care devices of their choice using the SUS, which scores usability from 0 (unusable) to 100 (highly usable). Participants rated a total of 455 devices in their own home without an experimenter present. Results: Usability scores ranged from 98 (oxygen masks) to 59 (home hormone test kits). An analysis conducted on devices that had at least 10 ratings showed that the effect of device on SUS scores was significant (P<.001), and that the usability of these devices was on the low end when compared with other commonly used items in the home, such as microwave ovens and telephones. Conclusions: A large database of usability scores for home health care devices collected using this remote methodology would be beneficial for physicians, patients, and their caregivers.
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    Software use in the workplace: A study of efficiency
    (2005) Peres, S. Camille; Lane, David M.
    Although existing laboratory research shows that software is often used inefficiently, relatively little is known about (a) how efficiently software is used in a real work environment and (b) the factors that influence the efficiency of individual users. The present research consists of an ethnographic investigation of software use in an office setting. The study occurred over a four-week period and consisted of observations, in-depth interviews, and an online survey of employees at a large energy company in Houston, Texas. Employees frequently used their software inefficiently and when they were efficient, were not consistent with their efficient use of software. They tended to approach using and learning software programs differently depending on whether the program was associated with their area of expertise. For those programs associated with their expertise, they were more likely to seek out learning new and more efficient methods of using the software for doing their job. However, for other software they would learn as little about it as possible, even if they spent most of their working day on the latter type of software. Furthermore, employees consistently reported that, regardless of the complexity of the program, they primarily learned to use programs by exploring the interface. Through this exploration, they would learn enough about the program (or would reach a sufficient level of knowledge) to do their job. Any knowledge of alternative features or efficient methods of using these features would subsequently be learned through peers.