Health artificial intelligence (AI) is often developed in high-stakes, data-scarce contexts, where both clinical validity and patient comprehension are critical; however, rigorous, multi-level evaluation of explanations in real-world patient-facing settings remains challenging. To enhance patient understanding and trust, we propose a practical blueprint for designing and evaluating medically aligned, patient-centered explanation (MAP-X). We propose this blueprint through MAP-X, a system that employs a large language model (LLM) with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to translate clinical assessments into an understandable interface. We conducted a three-phase evaluation following a multi-level validation framework: a functional evaluation of faithfulness, a clinician evaluation of workflow suitability, and a patient evaluation of perceived understanding and trust. Our findings suggest that MAP-X may support clinical adoption. In the patient study, MAP-X showed higher reported trust and a positive trend in explanation satisfaction. Interviews suggested clearer understanding of assessment results. Overall, MAP-X produced clinically relevant explanations with reasonable faithfulness and usability. Clinician oversight remains necessary.

Objectives This study aimed to assess the impact of cognitive training (CT) chatbots on older adults’ memory function and mental health. Specifically, it focused on the effects of engagement and adherence.Methods: A CT chatbot developed for this study incorporates motivational interviewing strategies and personalisation features to enhance engagement and adherence. Thirty-two participants (M = 73.3 years, SD = 5.85) used it for 90 days. Measures included Delayed Matching to Sample (DMS) and Paired Associated Learning (PAL) for memory, and depression and anxiety scales. Multiple regression analysis was used to identify the influence of engagement and adherence on these outcomes.Results: Engagement and adherence statistics were significant, with the percentage of days that the participants logged into the chatbot of 86.78%. Improved memory function was observed (p = 0.01); higher engagement was associated with better DMS scores (p = 0.001) and was linked to lower anxiety levels (p = 0.033), while greater adherence was correlated with reduced depression (p = 0.014).Conclusion: This study highlights the importance of engagement and adherence in enhancing CT chatbots’ effects on memory, depression, and anxiety among older adults. These insights suggest optimising chatbot-based cognitive training should focus on strategies that improve engagement and adherence.

Advanced artificial intelligence (AI)-based technologies offer great opportunities for enhancing the driving experience. Proactive voice agents (PVAs) present benefits by being proactive rather than responding to requests. This study uses a driving simulator to investigate whether PVAs can create value for drivers. We designed three types of PVAs: a task agent, a social agent, and a companion agent, as well as a control agent for a 2 (small talk vs. non-small talk) × 2 (task-based talk vs. non-task-based talk) between-subjects experiment. We found that PVAs (i.e., social or companion agents) engaging in small talk increased perceived intimacy, but task agents increased perceived pressure. Moreover, experienced drivers preferred PVAs that engage in small talk to avoid sleepiness or boredom, while novice drivers favored control agents. As younger, experienced drivers have the highest technology acceptance, they will be potential adopters of PVAs.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common childhood psychiatric disorder. Schools can play a vital role in the early detection and treatment of mental health issues. However, stigma and fear regarding mental health often prevent schools from engaging in active interventions. ADHD is characterized by deficits in executive function, a critical contributor to children's self-directed behavior. We developed a conversational agent to assist children in planning and accomplishing daily tasks, with the aim of enhancing their executive function. We also designed supportive systems for both parents and teachers, proposing a collaborative school mental health system that incorporates various stakeholders. Through practical implementation with first-graders, this study confirmed the system's potential to improve structured living and symptoms among children with ADHD. Surveys involving parents and teachers confirmed that the application improved executive function and reduced inattention. Therefore, we suggest an enhanced mental health support system.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) child patients have difficulty in starting and completing daily tasks successfully on time due to executive function impairment. As a result, issues arise due to the patient having low self-efficacy and frequent troubles with parents. This study is a parallel pilot randomized controlled trial that suggests the usefulness of a voicebot to assist children with ADHD in performing daily tasks. A dialogue structure to help children’s self-instruction training and a token-based economies method for task performance were applied to the voicebot. Sixteen children and their parents [Intervention group (n = 7), Control group (n = 9)] participated in an 8-week, home-based field study. We developed the voicebot using Raspberry Pi and allowed children with ADHD to use it four times a day through voice interaction. We found that children’s use of the voicebot helped them to increase their self-efficacy, decrease the inattentiveness, increase self-control in completing daily tasks, and decrease the severity of behavioral problems. The study also revealed that it can help improve parent-child relationships. This study will be informative for researchers who engage in future studies that seek to provide insights into the area of assistive care for children with ADHD.

When anger is abruptly triggered during driving, it becomes difficult to control one’s feelings. In this situation, other people can help mediate the angry emotional state through social interaction. However, it is not feasible to expect a passenger’s help for controlling the driver’s anger during every single drive. Failure to control the driver’s anger can lead to road rage, which can cause a critical danger. In this study, we addressed these concerns by designing and evaluating a driving companion bot that helps drivers control their anger. The bot was designed to deliver verbal comments which was developed based on five different cognitive coping strategies to the driver when the driver faced anger-inducing situations while driving. A within-subjects lab experiment was conducted with 38 participants who had driver’s licences. The results indicated that the use of a blaming others coping strategy was the most effective for anger reduction, perceived empathy, and companionship with no additional cognitive load compared to other strategies. Feedback from a post-experiment interview was also presented to discuss the long-term application of the study results. This includes theoretical findings and practical implications for designers and stakeholders focused on safe driving.

Quantified-self tools track personal data as well as emotional and psychological scores, in real time, of people who use such tools. Such data have potential uses for initiating interactions to induce personal health-related behavior changes. However, notwithstanding this potential, not much benefit has been derived from the data tracked using various devices such as smartphones and fitness trackers. The main research goal of this study is to investigate how interactions of quantified-self tools should be designed for inducing user perception and behavior change. Particularly, this study uses two message representation formats (MRF) for users to perceive self-tracking tools as companion devices because the MRFs of smartphones and fitness trackers are important to interact with users in conversational interaction. This study developed a message expression algorithm, “Samantha,” to deliver personalized-messages automatically in real time about the values tracked by these devices to their users. The study studied the effect of the four message representation formats on the perception of companion and to induce behavior change.

Human's direct supervision on robot's erroneous behavior is crucial to enhance a robot intelligence for a `flawless' human-robot interaction. Motivating humans to engage more actively for this purpose is however difficult. To alleviate such strain, this research proposes a novel approach, a growth and regression metaphoric interaction design inspired from human's communicative, intellectual, social competence aspect of developmental stages. We implemented the interaction design principle unto a conversational agent combined with a set of synthetic sensors. Within this context, we aim to show that the agent successfully encourages the online labeling activity in response to the faulty behavior of robots as a supervision process. The field study is going to be conducted to evaluate the efficacy of our proposal by measuring the annotation performance of real-time activity events in the wild. We expect to provide a more effective and practical means to supervise robot by real-time data labeling process for long-term usage in the human-robot interaction.

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is the most effective positioning technique and used mostly in outdoor environments. Unfortunately, GPS consumes considerably high power and excessively drains battery life while tracking locations. Wi-Fi positioning system (WPS) also suffers from the battery drain issues related to prohibitively enormous Wi-Fi scans and network connections while computing locations at a remote server. We point out that a wireless positioning based on cellular networks can provide a reasonable accuracy depending on cell density and in the meantime, impose negligible power consumption. However, the cellular networks were not designed for a positioning purpose. In this paper, we propose a downloadable radiomap database and a Device-Centric Positioning (DCP) based on the radiomap database stored at the mobile terminal's memory. The DCP is desirable for tracking locations and working at the mobile device in a background manner. The proposed methodology was implemented in the mobile device and evaluated through field tests.

The rapid increase in the number of young adults living alone gives rise to a demand for the resolution of social isolation problems. Social robot technologies play a substantial role for this purpose. However, existing technologies try to solve the problem only through one-to-one interaction with robots, which in turn fails to utilize the real-world social relationships. Privacy concern is an additional issue since most social robots rely on the visual information for the interactions. To this end, we propose 'Fribo', auditory information centered social robot that recognizes user's activity by analyzing occupants' living noise and shares the activity information with close friends. A four-week field study with the first prototype of Fribo confirms that activity sharing through the use of anonymized living noise promises a virtual cohabiting experience that triggers more frequent real-world social interactions with less feeling of privacy intrusion. Based on this finding and the further qualitative analysis, we suggest a design principle of sound-based social networking robots and its associated new interactions, then present the second prototype of Fribo inspired by the implications from the field study.

In providing a better experience to users in terms of product usage, we focus on the important concept of a user-centred design (UCD), and explore a new approach to user experience (UX), with the effort to understand experience-driven innovation. Based on the conceptual framework of experiential network and the results of multiple case studies covering 643 successfully designed products or services providing an optimised UX, we categorise the UX context into the following four representative types: individualisation, combination, integration, and ecosystem. Furthermore, we identify the essential UCD concepts that reflect the core needs and expectations of users in each of the designed contexts, that is, specialty, usefulness, usability, and fluency. Finally, we discuss the dynamic concepts that help achieve a successful experience innovation. We expect these findings to play a crucial role in the development of novel design concepts or strategies, not only to better understand the needs of contemporary users, but also to better understand the dynamics of innovation.

As the number of features with smartphones is increasing, user interfaces have been advanced considerably with innovative ways for providing useful, multitasking interfaces. In particular, the z-axis of the user interface has been considered to help multitaskers control their smartphone more easily. However, relatively little research has been conducted on the significance of the z-axis on task switching. The main research goal of this study is to explain how a z-axis can affect the experience of multitasking on a mobile device. In particular, the authors focused on a hover interface because of its high functional relevance to multitasking as a form of task switching. Theoretically, the authors provide a conceptual model based on the concept of spatial presence. Systemically, they suggest the important system factors for implementing z-axis interface technology: controllability and naturalness. With regards to users, the authors assume that if the experience with the z-axis interface is increased, users’ intention to multitask is also increased, even when the task complexity is high. The influence of controllability on perceived spatial presence by the hover interface was negatively validated, and the influence of naturalness was positively validated. In addition, the influence of perceived spatial presence on users’ behavioral multitasking intention was positively validated. Finally, the influence from perceived spatial presence to users’ behavioral multitasking intention in the high level of task complexity was significantly stronger than in the low level. Implications and limitations of the study results are discussed in the final section of the article.

Recent technological advances in automated cars have brought them closer to regular use on the roads. Accordingly, research on the driver's perspective is increasing. However, previous studies have limitations in terms of the length of the study period and richness of the user's experience. In this paper, we conducted an ethnographic experiment to observe the interaction between humans and automated cars. Six participants rode in a prototype automated car on a real road one hour a day for six days under various weather conditions. We found that even after six days of utilizing it, participants did not fully trust the automated car. We identified nine distrust factors that strongly influenced their experiences in the automated car, classifying them according to Lee and See's classification of three trust categories: process, performance, and purpose. We also present serval ideas based on the study results.

Sangmi Kima, Seong-Gyu Kima, Yoonsin Jeona, Soojin Juna & Jinwoo Kimaa Yonsei University, South KoreaSangmi Kim () is a researcher in the HCI Lab and Institute of Cognitive Science at Yonsei University with an interest in interaction design, codesign process, and service design. Seong-Gyu Kim () is a researcher in the HCI Lab at Yonsei University with an interest in design process and methodology. Yoonsin Jeon () is a researcher in the HCI Lab at Yonsei University with an interest in creative coexperience. Soojin Jun () is an Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Communication and Arts at Yonsei University, specializing in interaction design, design research methods, and information visualization. Jinwoo Kim () is a Professor at the HCI Lab at Yonsei University with interests in human-centered innovation and experience design.Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/hhci.Even though negative aspects of making use of others’ work, such as illegal appropriation, have been found in online communities, remixing is considered a type of constructive creation for generating and recreating creative works. To make constructive creation via remixing sustainable, it is critical for users to share their own creations and allow others to use them in these online communities. We propose psychological ownership and social recognition as key antecedents for original creators to increase their intention to share their works in an online remix context. In this study, we aim to examine the relationships between intention to share, psychological ownership, and social recognition.To investigate the effects of psychological ownership and social recognition on intention to share, we proposed research hypotheses based on the theories of social recognition and psychological ownership. Prior to testing the hypotheses, we conducted a preliminary study including user interviews and community log analysis within an online remix community. Specific patterns of psychological ownership and social recognition in the online remix context were found in accordance with the theoretical background. The results from the preliminary study were applied to forms of apparatus and stimuli in the following experiment. A quasi-experiment was designed to test hypotheses of causal relationships between the key factors. A prototype of an online remix community for smartphone themes was developed based on the detailed findings of the preliminary study and utilized as an experimental apparatus. Sixty-nine participants carried out our experimental procedure of creating, sharing their own work, checking responses from others, and reporting their intention to share their future creations.The results of the quasi-experiment supported all our research hypotheses. Social recognition was found to increase the intention to share. Moreover, psychological ownership was found to increase the intention to share, an observation that may seem at odds with the exclusive aspects of ownership found in prior studies. More interesting, the positive effect of social recognition on intention to share becomes stronger with a higher perception of psychological ownership. This article ends with theoretical and practical implications of the study results.

We have entered the era of personal video sharing. Social media and wearable devices now offer new video interfaces, allowing users to record videos of their everyday experiences quite easily. Video-sharing users are mostly interested in creating narratives and promote active social interaction with others. A critical design feature for creating narratives that facilitate social interaction is the temporal format of the everyday experience video. Although the importance of video narratives as a way of representing the human experience has been emphasized, relatively little research has been carried out on the temporal format of video such as the duration of video and the number of scenes (NS) in the video. Therefore, we conducted a pre-study with qualitative research and a main study with experimental research to discover the impact of temporal format of everyday video on narrative engagement (NE) and social interactivity (SI). In the pre-study, we observed users' perceptions of shared videos on social media. In particular, we examined how people feel and become engaged based on the temporal format of narratives. In the main study, we examined the effect of temporal format on the NE and the effect of NE on social interaction. The results indicated that the NE fully mediates the effect of temporal format of video on SI. In other words, the duration of video and the NS in everyday videos do not affect the SI directly, only through the NE. The NS becomes more important, however, when the length of the video gets longer. The NE was not increased in correlation with the NS unless there is long enough overall time for the entire video. Implications and limitations of the study results are discussed in the final section of the paper.

The advent of information and communication technology has made people practice prosocial behavior in social networking services (SNSs) more easily. For this reason, the aim of the study was to identify the social and individual factors that induce prosociality in SNS. The concept of isomorphism for categorizing the characteristics of each social networks was adopted. The study also considered the concept of social presence for representing each individual. The experiment manipulated types of isomorphism (Mimetic, Normative, and Coercive) and degrees of social presence in an experimental SNS context. The study also measured individuals’ intention and activity of prosocial behavior. The experiment results indicate that mimetic and normative isomorphic conditions induce higher levels of prosocial intention and activity than coercive isomorphic condition. Also, a higher degree of social presence induces a higher level of prosocial intention. More interesting, the impact of mimetic condition is stronger when the social presence is higher.

The promise of collective intelligence emerging from voluntary participation, contribution and knowledge sharing brought about by ubiquitous information and communication technologies has recently attracted the attention of academics and practitioners alike. Of many related phenomena, open source software (OSS) development has been touted as one of the leading examples that speak to the potential of collective intelligence. Recently, the advent of novel open collaboration platforms for open source software development, such as Github, has prompted researchers to examine the impact of increased work transparency induced by the introduction of social features on voluntary self-organization and allocation of resources to projects. We present both qualitative and quantitative analyses from which we derive some initial propositions regarding the impact of transparency on voluntary self-organization processes and decision mechanisms.

Recently, stereoscopic 3D technologies have come to be used widely in various applications including movies and computer games. Stereoscopic 3D is defined as that which provides visual depth and details by exploiting the stereoscopic vision of the eyes caused by binocular disparity. Prior studies proposed important system features of stereoscopic 3D that may increase the user’s sense of presence. However, few studies, either theoretical or empirical, have investigated how these perceived system features affect the user’s sense of presence. This study aims to construct a theoretical model that explains the perceived effects of stereoscopic 3D features on sense of presence, and to verify the validity of the model in the 3D computer game domain. The study focuses on spatial representation and perceived realism as important mediating factors between the perceived system features and sense of presence. According to the Dual Mode Model (DMM), two types of spatial representation are crucial for perceived realism and presence: egocentric representation and allocentric representation. Egocentric representation implies representing locations with respect to the particular perspective of the perceiver, while allocentric representation locates reference points outside of the perceiver, regardless of his or her position. Research questions in this study are: How strongly do perceived expression and manipulation features of stereoscopic 3D systems influence spatial representation? How does spatial representation influence perceived realism and presence in a stereoscopic 3D environment? In order to answer these research questions an empirical study was conducted in a controlled lab environment. A total number of 257 users participated in the study and collected data was analyzed by using structural equation modeling with SmartPLS2.0. The findings are as follows: First, both the perceived expression and manipulation features of the stereoscopic 3D system influenced spatial representation, but the perceived expression features had stronger effects than the perceived manipulation features. Second, both egocentric and allocentric representation were found to affect presence. In addition, egocentric representation was found to affect sense of presence both directly and indirectly through perceived realism, whereas allocentric representation contributed a sense of presence only indirectly through perceived realism. This paper concludes by discussing the study’s limitations and implications.

This study examines the effects of uncertainty avoidance (UA) at the individual level on continuance behavior in the domain of mobile data services (MDS). It proposes a research model for post-expectation factors and continuance behavior that considers the moderating effect of UA, and verifies the model with online survey data gathered in Korea and Hong Kong. Post-expectation factors are classified as either intrinsic or extrinsic motivational factors, while respondents are classified according to their propensities into low-UA and high-UA groups. The results indicate that UA has substantial effects not only on the mean values of the post-expectation factors studied but also on the strength of those factors’ impact on satisfaction and continuance intention. The effects of intrinsic motivational factors on satisfaction and continuance intention are stronger for the high-UA group than for the low-UA group. In contrast, the effects of extrinsic motivational factors are generally stronger for the low-UA group.

As the use of mobile data services has spread across the globe, the effect of cultural differences on user requirements has become an important issue. To date, however, little research has been conducted on the role cultural factors play in the design of mobile data services. This article proposes a set of critical design attributes for mobile data services that takes cross-cultural differences into account. To determine these attributes, a qualitative method was devised and in-depth interviews in Korea, Japan, and Finland were conducted. Twenty-one critical user-experience attributes that showed a clear correlation with characteristics of the user's culture were found. The article ends with a discussion of limitations and of implications for developers of mobile data services.

A wide variety of video content—news programs, documentaries, sports shows, movies, and the like—is broadcast today in digital format to interactive TVs. Unlike a conventional TV, an interactive TV allows the viewer to navigate back and forth in time through the available content. Surprisingly, few studies have addressed the problems that arise when navigation along the time dimension becomes possible. The aim of this study was to develop navigation aids for interactive TVs that are theoretically grounded and empirically verified. Toward this end, we first designed two new navigation aids based on episodic indexing theory (EIT): a recency-frame and a short-reminder. Second, we built an interactive TV simulator (ITS) to test the new navigation aids in a controlled experiment. Finally, we devised several measures appropriate for evaluating navigation aids for interactive TV in addition to traditional usability measures. Subsequently, employing the interactive TV simulator and the newly devised measures, we conducted an experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of the two proposed navigation aids. We found that both navigation aids enhanced the quality of the viewer’s experience. The paper concludes with a discussion of the study’s limitations and implications.

As the use of mobile data services has spread across the globe, the effect of cultural differences on user requirements has become important issue. To date, however, little research has been conducted on the role cultural factors play in the design of mobile data services. This paper proposes a set of critical design attributes for mobile data services that takes cross-cultural differences into account. To determine these attributes, we devised a qualitative method and conducted in-depth long interviews in Korea, Japan, and Finland. We found 52 attributes considered important by mobile data service users, and 11 critical attributes that showed a clear correlation with characteristics of the user's culture. The paper concludes with a discussion of limitations and of implications for developers of mobile data services.

The mobile Internet, which gives access to the World Wide Web through a mobile device, has been gaining in popularity. The mobile Internet differs from the traditional stationary Internet in that it can be used in a wider variety of contexts. However, no studies have identified the contexts in which mobile Internet services are used most frequently, or determined which contexts exert significant influence on a user's choice of mobile service. This article proposes a framework of use contexts that reflects the characteristics of the mobile Internet. To explore these contexts, a research method was devised and a longitudinal monitoring study was conducted. The results indicate that mobile Internet use is heavily clustered around a few key contexts, rather than dispersed widely over diverse contexts. Further, participants in the monitoring study were found to concentrate their use on a few mobile services, rather than on exploring diverse services. Perhaps most interestingly, some contextual factors were found to correlate closely with the selection of specific mobile Internet services. On the basis of these results, the article concludes with implications for developers of mobile Internet services.

The brand personality of an online product and service, usually represented by a Web site, is known as its e-brand personality. In the competitive conditions of online markets, e-brand personality is agreed to be an important factor in securing distinctive identity; however, few studies have suggested how to establish e-brand personality through the visual design of Web sites. This study explores the feasibility of constructing target e-brand personalities for online services by using visual attributes. It consists of 3 consecutive studies. The 1st study identified four major dimensions of e-brand personality on diverse Web sites. The 2nd study used 52 experimental home pages to identify key visual attributes associated with those 4 personality dimensions. The 3rd study explored whether those findings from the 2nd study can be applied in constructing Web sites for online services. The results showed that 2 visual attributes-simplicity and cohesion-are closely related to a bold personality. Three attributes-contrast, density, and regularity-can be used to create a Web site that has an analytical personality. Contrast, cohesion, density, and regularity are closely related to a Web site that is perceived to have a friendly personality. Regularity and balance were expected to be related to the sophisticated personality dimension, but no such relation was identified in the 3rd study. The article concludes with a discussion of implications, limitations, and future research directions.

The small screens of mobile Internet devices, combined with the increasing complexity of mobile tasks, create a serious obstacle to usability in the mobile Internet. One way to circumvent the obstacle is to organize an information structure with efficient depth/breadth trade-offs. A controlled lab experiment was conducted to investigate how screen size and information structure affect user behaviours and perceptions. The moderating effects of task complexity on the relationship between screen size/information structure and user navigation/perceptions were also investigated. Study results indicate that both information structure and screen size significantly affect the navigation behaviour and perceptions of mobile Internet users. Task complexity was also found to heighten the influence of information structure on user behaviour and perceptions. The paper ends with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications, among them a key implication for mobile Internet businesses: for corporate intranet systems as well as m-commerce transaction systems, the horizontal depth of information structures should be adapted to task complexity and anticipated screen size.

With the rapid development of the Internet, many types of websites have been developed. This variety of websites makes it necessary to adopt systemized evaluation criteria with a strong theoretical basis. This study proposes a set of evaluation criteria derived from an architectural perspective which has been used for over a 1000 years in the evaluation of buildings. The six evaluation criteria are internal reliability and external security for structural robustness, useful content and usable navigation for functional utility, and system interface and communication interface for aesthetic appeal. The impacts of the six criteria on user satisfaction and loyalty have been investigated through a large-scale survey. The study results indicate that the six criteria have different impacts on user satisfaction for different types of websites, which can be classified along two dimensions: users' goals and users' activity levels.

Recent advances of the broadband Internet and multimedia contents let web users demand from web pages not only cognitive usability but also appropriate feelings. At the same time, web designers also want to use web pages not just for conveying information but also for affecting users' impressions. However, despite users' needs and designers' desires, users do not always experience the same kinds of impressions that designers intended to convey through their web pages. The main goal of this paper is to identify critical factors that are closely related to the aesthetic fidelity of web pages, which is defined as the degree to which users feel the target impressions intended by designers. In order to achieve our goal, we have conducted three consecutive studies: an exploratory study with web users, a longitudinal experiment with professional web designers, and finally an online survey with web users. The results from the three studies indicated that the variability of user perception and appropriateness of visual elements were closely related to the aesthetic fidelity of web pages, whereas reliability of aesthetic dimensions was not. This paper ends with the limitations and implications of the study results.

The primary goal of this paper is to identify critical design factors that have substantial effects on the performance of e-commerce systems. This paper presents a theoretical model that examines the relationships among detailed design factors, perceived quality level and final performance of e-commerce systems. Two consecutive empirical studies were conducted to verify the theoretical model. Results from these studies reveal that the information phase among four transaction phases was the most influential in the final performance of e-commerce systems. Among the myriad design factors related to the information phase, product-related information, depth and variety of the system structure, variety of list view for products, consistency of product and background presentation, and variety of presentation for product information were all found to be closely related to the perceived quality level. This paper ends with the theoretical and practical implications of the study results.

Retaining customer loyalty is crucial in electronic commerce because the value of an Internet store is largely determined by the number of its loyal customers. This paper proposes a multi-phased model of customer loyalty for Internet shopping, which fully takes the characteristics of the Internet and cyber shopping into consideration. In order to validate the model, we conducted a web-based survey of the customers of various Internet stores, and the data was processed using structural equation analysis. The results indicate that several factors can effectively increase customer loyalty towards an Internet store and that the relative importance of the identified factors varies according to the level of involvement with the product purchased through the store. We suggest several managerial implications in developing Internet stores for higher customer loyalty based on these results.

In spite of the radical enhancement of web technologies, many users still continue to experience severe difficulties in navigating web systems. One way to reduce the navigation difficulties is to provide context information that explains the current situation of users in the web systems. In this study, we empirically examined the effects of two types of context information, namely, structural and temporal context. In the experiment, we evaluated the effectiveness of the contextual navigation aids in two different types of web systems: an electronic commerce system and a content dissemination system. In our experiment, subjects performed several browsing tasks and answered a set of post-questionnaires. The results of the experiment reveal that the two types of contextual navigation aids significantly improved the performance of browsing tasks regardless of different web systems. Moreover, context information changed the users' navigation patterns, and increased their subjective ease of navigation. This study concludes with implications for understanding the users' browsing patterns and for developing effective navigation systems.

In spite of the radical enhancement of Web technologies, many users still continue to experience severe difficulties in navigating Web systems. One way to reduce the navigation difficulties is to provide context information that explains the current situation of Web users. In this study, we empirically examined the effects of 2 types of context information, structural and temporal context. In the experiment, we evaluated the effectiveness of the contextual navigation aids in 2 different types of Web systems, an electronic commerce system that has a well-defined structure and a content dissemination system that has an ill-defined structure. In our experiment, participants answered a set of postquestionnaires after performing several searching and browsing tasks. The results of the experiment reveal that the 2 types of contextual navigation aids significantly improved the performance of the given tasks regardless of different Web systems and different task types. Moreover, context information changed the users' navigation patterns and increased their subjective convenience of navigation. This study concludes with implications for understanding the users' searching and browsing patterns and for developing effective navigation systems.

Designing effective navigation aids for customer interfaces is critical for the success of cyber shopping malls. Navigation aids can be classified into either basic ones which are based on the structure of the malls or add-ons which are not. Add-on navigation aids provide various short-cuts to promote efficient traversal of the cyber shopping malls, but too many of them would increase the complexity of the customer interface. Metaphors have been used widely for the design of add-on navigation aids, but little research evaluates their impact on the processes and outcomes of customers' behavior in cyber shopping malls. This paper presents an empirical study that investigates the navigation process of customers and the subjective evaluation of their shopping experience. This research implemented two versions of a test-bed cyber shopping mall according to different metaphors used; one based on a spatial metaphor, and the other based on a non spatial metaphor. The results of the experiment indicate that navigation aids based on the spatial metaphor were used more frequently, which resulted in better understanding about the entire structure of the cyber shopping malls, which in turn led to an increased ease of finding target items and also a more pleasant shopping experience. The benefits of navigation aids based on the spatial metaphor became more evident when customers were looking for ad hoc category items rather than common items. This paper presents plausible explanations for the results and implications for the design of navigation aids for cyber shopping malls.

Various diagrams have been used heavily in systems analysis and design without proper verification of their usability. However, different diagrammatic representations of the same information may vary in the computational efficiency of working with these diagrams. The objective of this research was to explore the effects of diagrammatic representations on the task of integrating multiple diagrams. The domain of systems analysis and design was used to generate examples and test the theory. A cognitive model of diagram integration was proposed, and an experimental study was conducted, both to explore the effects of representa-tional features of diagrams on the cognitive process of diagram integration. Results of the experiment show that the representational features of the diagrams acted as the criteria for selecting among various methods for analyzing and designing the integrated diagram. In addition, the difference in the selected methods resulted in different task performances in terms of analysis and design errors. This article concludes with the implications of the results for the development of cognitively compelling diagrams.

This study examines the effects of the utilization of information in new product design. In order to discover the effects of the information, experiments were done by researchers who are actually involved in the design process. The information provided for new product design can be divided into two categories. One is relative information, which can be used in a comparisons such as patents. The other is absolute information that must be fulfilled in the such as customers' requirements. It was found that the group with the relative information regarding patents, they extended their suggested ideas and created a superior new product with application, appearance and productivity. The group with absolute information pertaining to health repeatedly recognized the provided information in the design of the new product. It is found that relative and absolute information have influenced on the suggested idea and the final fixed product in the new product design.

In this research we investigate the possibility of designing a user interface for electronic commerce systems that will evoke target feelings in the customer. The focus is on the impact of visual design factors on the feeling of trustworthiness because of its significant effect upon the behavior of customers using electronic commerce systems. Four empirical studies were conducted in the domain of cyber-banking systems. The subjects were cyber-banking system developers, bank personnel and potential customers of cyber-banking systems in Korea ranging in age from late teens to early forties. The first study was directed at developing the self-report questionnaire that faithfully reflects the emotional factors related to cyber-banking systems. The resulting questionnaire consisted of the forty bipolar emotive differential scales representative of the emotions most important in interacting with cyber-banking systems, e.g. reliable-not reliable. The second study focused on determining the important visual design factors from the customer's perspective. Fourteen design factors identified from subjects' descriptions were classified into the four design categories of title, menu, main clipart and color. The third study investigated the correlations between the emotional factors and design factors. The design factors were found to have significant effects upon the extent of feelings related to symmetry, trustworthiness, awkwardness and elegance. In the final study, two interfaces were designed based on the results of the third study to differentiate the extent of trustworthiness evoked. The results indicate that it is possible to manipulate the visual design factors of the customer interface in order to induce a target emotion, such as trustworthiness. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the empirical results on the design and implementation of customer interfaces to electronic commerce systems in general.

This article proposes a cognitive framework describing the software development process in object-oriented design (OOD) as building internal representations and developing rules. Rule development (method construction) is performed in two problem spaces: a rule space and an instance space. Rules are generated, refined, and evaluated in the rule space by using three main cognitive operations: Infer, Derive, and Evoke. Cognitive activities in the instance space are called mental simulations and are used in conjunction with the Infer operation in the rule space. In an empirical study with college students, we induced different representations to the same problem by using problem isomorphs. Initially, subjects built a representation based on the problem description. As rule development proceeded, the initial internal representation and designed objects were refined, or changed if necessary, to correspond to knowledge gained during rule development. Differences in rule development processes among groups created final designs that are radically different in terms of their level of abstraction and potential reusability. The article concludes by discussing the implications of these results for object-oriented design.

This study aims at developing and empirically testing hypotheses about professional designers' cognitive activities when using object-oriented methodology (OOD) versus using traditional functional decomposition methodologies (TFD). Our preliminary results indicate that OOD may achieve substantial time savings over TFD in logical design. The verbal protocols from a pilot study show that OOD may achieve these time savings: 1) by simplifying rule induction processes used in functional decomposition; 2) by guiding designers on how to build more effective problem spaces; and 3) by allowing designers to run mental simulation more efficiently and more effectively.