Eye tracking on mobile devices

The research project (e-Me) that I am connected to at the Norwegian Computing Center have recently gotten the Tobii X60/X120 Mobile Device Testing Solution which enables you to do eye tracking on mobile devices. Because of my connection to e-Me I will get an introduction to the system and will have the opportunity to use it in my master, which I’m really excited about!

 

Shared Experience

W3C states that people with disabilities using computers have similar interaction limitations as people without disabilities who are using mobile devices. Both experience similar barriers when interacting with Web sites (source).

This is an comparison I haven’t thought about before, and that I find quite interesting! This means that by following the guidelines for mobile (MWBP) you will automatically avoid some issues regarding accessibility (WCAG) and vice versa.

 

Pilot interview

Today I did a pilot interview with one of the participants from the probe study. Went well, but I will reformulate and add some questions before I conduct the rest of the interviews.

All of the interviewees will be people that agreed to be contacted after the joining the probe study. So they already know what the project is about, however before the interview they have to sign a form describing among other things the project, the purpose of the interview, that the data will be anonymised and that they agree to the terms.

The interviews are still focusing on peoples understanding of security and how that affect their behavior in connection to authentication. I have separated the interview into two parts, starting with some initial questions about the interviewee, then some questions about their mobile and computer habits. The second part of the interview will be used to discuss some of the results from the probes. To facilitate the discussion I have printed out some graphs, some examples of different authentication methods and some of the context pictures that I received from the probes.

 

Rappid prototyping tool: Flowella

I was introduced to the prototyping tool Flowella on a meetup with IXDA Oslo for a couple of weeks ago, Flowella is a free prototyping tool created by Nokia, and I have decided to test it out in context of my master thesis. Usually at one point in the design process I create sketches in photoshop, but photoshop in it self does not support transactions and interaction.

What Flowella does is that it allows you to drag and drop image files into a library and put them together with easy image mapping, one good thing is that you can import all sorts of images, it doesn’t need to be high-fidelity photoshop sketches, it could for instance also be images of low-fidelity sketches drawn by hand if you want the focus of the testing to be mostly on the concept and content and not on details as font or color.

When you are finished putting together your sketches you can export the file to flash, WRT or QML and test the prototype on a phone that support one of these files.

I have still not created proper sketches that I can try out, but I have tested the functionality and can confirm that it at least is really easy to use. My interests are mostly design and interaction and since my coding skills are quite poor I need a tool for prototyping that do not require me to use to much time on coding and give me more time to focus on designing for a good user experience. So far Flowella looks like tool that will allow me to do this.

Source: http://www.allaboutsymbian.com

 

Master Thesis: an instrumental case study

I have now decided which case I will focus on in my Master thesis. This is a project where my main purpose is to provide knowledge about accessible authentication on touch phones. I will try to achieve this by study one individual case. The case in it self is not the main focus, but are used as an instrument to provide insight into the issue. This is thus an instrumental case study.

The case I will use in my thesis is Feide (Felles Elektronisk IDEntitet, eng. Common electronic Identity). Feide is a solution for secure identification to educational web services in Norway, chosen by the Ministry of Education and Research.