Visiting Student Seminar - Liisa Kuparinen, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

[Elyse Perin]

Dear Colleagues

 

You are invited to attend a research seminar by Liisa Kuparinen, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

 

Date: Thursday, 14^th Feb 2013

 

Time: 4.30pm

 

Location: D1-05, Mawson Lakes

 

Visitor to Dr. Christian Sandor & the Magic Vision Lab

 

 

Title:                                                                   Designing Mobile Map Services: the Viewpoint of Spatial Cognition in Navigation

 

Abstract:

This presentation is about designing user interfaces (UI) for mobile map services with special attention to supporting users to locate and orientate themselves.

 

In new fields, development is typically technology-driven and the human-centered perspective is lagging behind. That is also the case in the field of mobile map services, which is in a constant development regarding the technology (e.g., positioning technologies and mobile devices), features of the application (e.g.,  input/output modalities used and connections to social networks), their intended environment (e.g., navigation in cars or pedestrian navigation in forests) and the use cases (e.g. navigation, self locating, recording sports, or creating a travel diary). The spectrum is wide and so are the implementations; many usability problems occur in the field.

 

When designing mobile map services, a special focus should be on the clarity of the user interface, as interface ambiguities may have serious consequences; e.g., getting lost. Getting lost in an unfamiliar environment usually happens for three reasons ( even with a paper map): 1) poor interaction design, which results in poor user experience, 2) insufficient addressing of human perception and human characteristics, and 3) the user ignoring the environment.

 

This presentation is in more detail about: 1) the reasons of getting lost when using a mobile map service, 2) eye-tracking as a methodology for approaching the issue, and 3) UIs that support the user’s location-awareness and navigation.

 

Biography:

Liisa Kuparinen is a doctoral student of information systems science in the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She graduated as a master of economic sciences,  specialized in user-friendly information technology from the University of Jyväskylä’s Department of Computer Science and Information systems in 2008.

 

In her PhD thesis, which is positioned in the field of Human-Technology Interaction (HTI), she focuses on the problem of perceiving mixed reality UIs in contrast to the physical environment. She has found out that the current mobile map services do not sufficiently support the user’s orientation- or location-awareness.

 

Previously, she has worked in research projects, concerning user psychology and user-centered design (UCD) and she has been coordinating Finland’s national education network of cognitive science and cognitive technology (CONNET). She was awarded a Nokia Foundation scholarship in the year 2009. In 2012, she won the innovation competition of the University of Jyväskylä.

 

She is a student member of the board of Finland’s national Doctoral Program in User-Centered Information Technology (UCIT) and a representative of the Federal Assembly in the The Finnish Information Processing Association, as well as the University of Jyväskylä’s Member of the Equality Committee. Previously, she served as a member of the board of SIGCHI Finland, Special Interest Group of Computer-Human Interaction.

 

She is currently supervising a master’s thesis about integrating agile methods to UCD and five bachelor theses about the topics related to indoor positioning, social media, and human-animal interaction (HAI) within HTI.

 

From February to March 2013, she is visiting UniSA’s Magic Vision Lab to strengthen her thesis by examining the influences of Augmented Reality on spatial cognition.

 

 

Kind regards

Elyse