Introdução: Os Grandes Desafios de Interacão Humano-Computador (IHC) no Brasil (GranDIHC-BR 2025-2035) colocam luz para o futuro da pesquisa em IHC, no Brasil e no Mundo. Neste contexto, o Laboratório de Interação Flexível e Sustentável (LIFeS) vem trabalhando para o avanço do estado da arte, em especial em temas relacionados a personalização e ao empoderamento de usuários. Objetivo: Este position paper apresenta uma síntese das pesquisas do grupo, relacionando-as com os desafios, e sumariza reflexões para o futuro. Metodologia: O texto, construído colaborativamente, apresenta uma visão própria do grupo. Resultados: As pesquisas do grupo podem ser consideradas exemplos de ações, alinhadas aos GranDIHC-BR 2025-2035, visando buscar colaborações e apoiar o avanço na área.

Introduction: The university context has demands that can increase the risk of depression and other mental disorders in students. Conversational User Interfaces (CUI) have been explored to support the prevention, diagnosis and therapy of people with depression. However, the design of these CUI, focused on college students, has not been deeply investigated. Objective: Based on this context, the objective of this paper is to propose a codesign approach for CUI to support college students with depression. Methodology: The Design Science Research method was used to propose, instantiate, and evaluate the design generated using the proposed approach. Results: The results suggest that the approach led to enjoyable CUI in this domain. Finally, some lessons learned are discussed.

The number of individuals with depression is gradually increasing worldwide. In the university population, the prevalence of depression is even higher than in the general population. Health and computing researchers have sought to create computational solutions that can support diagnosis and create interventions for people with a possible depressive profile, analyzing their behavior through the collection of digital phenotyping data, such as heart rate and sleep quality, coming from sensors present in mobile and wearable devices, such as smartphones and smartwatches. Research in this area is multidisciplinary, and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers have a major role in supporting the design of this technology. In this sense, the goal of this paper is mapping, among others, how final users and health professionals have been involved in this type of research. We performed a Systematic Mapping focusing on the university environment. We extracted data about the methodological approach adopted, sensor data collected, and human involvement. The results show which data is being collected and correlated with depression indicators, the absence of multidisciplinary teams, and the lack of adoption of protocols to manage mental health emergencies. We also discussed possibilities for human-in-the-loop approaches and some design implications for HCI teams.

Emotion is an important factor in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) as it influences users’ behavior and satisfaction. Empirical  methods, i.e., when users are directly involved, are often applied to assess emotional responses evoked by the user interface, but the cost of data collection and analysis is generally high. The adoption of analytical methods is an alternative to the high cost. Although analytical methods are widely accepted in HCI, analytical evaluations for emotional responses are lacking. The proposed analytical method in this work adopts the semiotic framework and Peirce’s ten classes of signs for the analysis of the design proposal and by  the Scherer’s Semantic Space of Emotions for the association of possible emotional responses evoked by the interface signs. The  current version of the proposed method was applied to a case study, and results were considered consistent when compared with those obtained through empirical methods.

Additional therapy support for the treatment of Substance Use Disorders (SUDs) can be provided through digital games.  However, we still face challenges in including people in SUDs rehabilitation in the digital game design process. This work seeks to minimize these challenges by investigating how to build a web system that guides end users in recovery from SUDs in digital game design activities with therapeutic potential. We used the Design Science Research method. To evaluate the system, we conducted a usability test with health professionals. The results suggest that healthcare professionals would use the system as an alternative therapy with their patients in SUDs rehabilitation because they saw therapeutic potential in the proposed solution.

We propose a design process and a web system to support the design and development of digital games with therapeutic potential by people in recovery from Substance Use Disorders (SUDs). The proposal aims to generate more autonomy for end users as a means of scaling game design for therapy. This case study aims to evaluate the design process and the web system. We also assessed the autonomy of end users (patients). We employ a case study, as a methodological approach, conducting six meetings with design activities and the development of digital games with patients in recovery from SUDs and their therapists. Research data were collected through field diaries, observation, questionnaires, and interviews. Results suggest that participants were more autonomous with the support of the web system. This paper also features a discussion of the authors' perception of the activities, design implications, and recommendations for future research in the same domain.

Para além de inserir crianças em processos de design, é necessário repensar a forma como ensinamos e concebemos a tecnologia para e com as crianças, especialmente as mais novas. Este artigo apresenta um referencial teórico para apoiar o codesign de tecnologias computacionais por crianças de 4 e 5 anos. A proposta do arcabouço teórico considerou contribuições epistemológicas de codesign, meta-design e experiências práticas com crianças de 4 a 5 anos desenvolvendo tecnologia. Nossa solução enfatiza a necessidade de conhecimento prévio para apoiar o processo de design, bem como o papel do design no processo de aprendizagem, sem deixar de lado a diversão, a utilidade e o dia a dia da criança. Por fim, discutimos a aplicação do arcabouço teórico no projeto de um controle remoto para um carrinho de brinquedo.

As each person feels emotions differently, web interactive systems may deliver personalized experiences trying to support users to achieve a desired emotional state. A common way of doing so is by providing user interface (UI) adaptation. However, the impact of such adaptations on the users’ emotions is not thoroughly studied. In this work, we describe a mixed factorial experiment with 44 participants in which each one should perform two tasks on the web: reading and transcription. Emotional data was provided by users through a form and also facial expressions via webcam. We represented the users’ emotional paths while performing the tasks and analyzed the most common emotional paths performed by participants. Although most participants reached their desired emotional state in both the experimental and placebo groups, we did not have statistical evidence to prove that users were more likely to achieve the desired emotion while using the adapted UI. 

The use of music to bring about health benefits is a well-established practice the outcomes of which have been confirmed by research in recent years. By leveraging this capability, the algorithmic composition aimed at producing specific effects on the listener has become a growing field for the automatic creation of well-being music. This work makes a contribution to this field, through a documentary investigative study that puts forward a comprehensive set of human-centered features that should be included in the algorithmic composition of music for well-being. The results are based on a systematic review of 60 papers published in the last few years. The set is divided into categories as a means of assisting their use by the teams involved.

End-User Development (EUD) solutions is a resource that empowers professionals from different domains to create their tools. However, the design of this type of solution must be well-thought-out so that such professionals can interact with the solution, creating your applications in a simple and intuitive way, without the presence of an IT specialist. Game design and development brings with it the inherent challenges of the media type. When creating a solution to make authoring viable, you should use holistic approaches that bring the target user to the focus of the process. This paper presents a platform for digital authoring games, named RUFUS, created with the precepts of EUD, Organizational Semiotics, and Participatory Design. The platform offers a guided walkthrough for professionals to create their own games. A previous evaluation pointed to the tool's advantages, but also revealed aspects that the tool should improve, such as help and documentation.

Although these systems are commercially available, their design rationale and evaluation are still not fully validated, and further research is needed. Therefore, in this study we (1) select and compare chatbots for depression; (2) present the results of the analysis to healthcare specialists for assessment; (3) formalize the design recommendations for chatbots for people with depression; and (4) check the recommendations with mental healthcare and HCI professionals. We carried out a benchmark of chatbots for people with depression and conducted three discussion sessions involving five experts in mental healthcare and one expert in HCI. As a result, we provide a list of 24 design recommendations encompassing user interface elements, conversation styles, personalization features, among others. Finally, two healthcare and another HCI professionals read the recommendations to check adequacy to both areas.

Esta comunicação é um resumo, em português, de um artigo apresentado no Simpósio ACM SIGCHI de Engenharia de Sistemas de Computação Interativa - EICS 2020. A intenção desta comunicação é discutir os resultados com a comunidade brasileira de Interação Humano-Computador como parte da sessão de Artigos Internacionais, durante o Simpósio Brasileiro de Fatores Humanos em Sistemas Computacionais - IHC 2022. O artigo apresenta o UIFlex, um plugin de navegador web que permite ao usuário definir seu perfil de interação. Nesta tarefa, os usuários são apoiados por quinze regras de design baseadas na web que foram extraídas da literatura e do conhecimento das autoridades. Para personalizar a apresentação das interfaces web, o UIFlex conta com um conjunto de regras definidas para cada usuário individualmente e "injeta" códigos JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) e, em alguns casos, códigos HyperText Markup Language (HTML) em qualquer página que siga W3C padrões.

Therapeutic games aim to support rehabilitation treatments and help patients understand, motivate and persist in therapeutic practices. This paper describes Rufus, a platform for authoring digital games configured by healthcare professionals to conduct therapeutic activities with their patients and their caregivers. The platform has a web interface for game authoring, currently composed of three different game mechanics, as well as the possibility of viewing interaction reports. A mobile app composes the infrastructure and displays the games created for patients. Participatory Design Techniques were used during the design and development of the solution to engage different stakeholders.

Personas is a consolidated technique to support design solutions and designers have successfully used the technique to build digital solutions in the health domain. There are several studies in the literature that examine the creation of Personas with the participation of health professionals. However, since patients are generally only information providers, there have been few studies of patients being involved by acting as creators of Personas for therapeutic reasons. This paper investigates the co-creation of Personas by patients undergoing rehabilitation for alcohol and drugs abuse. The activity was part of a larger project in which patients adopted the SemTh approach to co-create therapeutic digital games.   Twenty-one patients, one healthcare professional and four computing professionals took part in the Personas creation workshop and seven personas were created. By conducting a qualitative analysis, in this paper, we were able to determine eleven lessons learned from the process.

Emotions play a critical role in decision-making and behavior. Several elements in the web design combined evoke specific emotions, although typography is usually related to preferences rather than the emotion evoked. For this reason, the aim of this paper is to investigate the emotional effects of font types and sizes to support design decisions. The main stages in the study were: preparing web pages; varying the font types and sizes; carrying out a case study with 60 volunteers; statistical data analysis with various evaluative instruments to comprise emotional components (cognitive appraisals, behavioral tendencies, motor expressions and subjective feelings). From the data collected with the subjects, Arial was more closely allied to positive emotions than Times New Roman. Font size 8pt caused unpleasant experiences, with the highest number of errors. The medium and large sizes, represented by 12pt and 16pt, were mainly related to pleasant and comforting experiences. There were some differences in the findings on font types from the literature and further studies are necessary.

Although interaction with computational systems influences human emotions, knowing what emotion emerges is a rather complex task. Researchers from the Human-Computer Interaction field employ several different methods to measure altered emotions and collecting data about users' subjective feeling is one of them. However, there is a lack of experimental studies that compare the different instruments used to evaluate these feelings. This paper carries out an investigation with four instruments - a set of emojis, the Self-Assessment Manikin, scroll sliders and Semantic Emotional Space - to find out which provides information about a subjective feeling that is closest to an emotion that has already been pre-classified by the literature for a given stimulus. The experiments involved 29 volunteers taking part in four experimental rounds. In each round, a volunteer watched a movie or part of a video clip and later randomly interacted with one of the instruments in a user interface. The results suggested that the scroll slider leads to a greater proximity to the pre-classified emotions. 

This article is of informative proposal about the first research network with Latin American scope in the area of Robotics in Education (RE). We came up with a heterogeneous and multidisciplinary group, with the participation of universities and federal institutes in Brazil and a Peruvian university. The network aims to Study and Develop Methodologies for Implementing Educational Robotics in Public Education Systems. The proposal emphasizes the analysis of policies and experiences in the Continuing Education of Teachers as well as the development and improvement of software, hardware, curricula, and teaching methodologies in the Robotics in Education area. During the manuscript, some of the state of the art is given on public policies aiming the use of Educational Robotics in the Brazilian education scenario, with a critical reflection on the contributions of RE, either as an active methodology for different purposes or in the teaching-learning process in public schools. Next, based on the initial study, we will be showing developed and improved tools for RE, including software and hardware. Our studies also seek the scientific foundations to propose improvements in curricula and course proposals for continuing education and learning of RE in schools.

As gaming acquires new purposes (for instance, entertainment, education and healthcare), game accessibility becomes increasingly important for multiple domains. For broader inclusion, game accessibility encompass both creation and play. Towards this goal, we have defined a framework to enable more people to create and play digital games In this paper, we present strategies resulting from developing and evaluating Lepi, an inclusive end-user tool for co-creation of inclusive storytelling-based games. Adults with heterogeneous interaction needs, levels of literacy and experience with computers used Lepi to co-create their games over ten creation workshops. Using Lepi and following the framework practices, the participants managed to co-create games accessible for themselves and their peers. From this experience, we have identified some strategies (Creation Commands, Interaction Alternatives for Input, Slots, Creation Alternatives, Assisted and Collaborative Co-Creation, Gentle Slopes, Multimodal Features, Playing Commands and Presenting Game Content) which can contribute towards more inclusive practices of game creation and play of storytelling-based games.

Therapeutic digital games are able to conceal therapeutic tasks behind a fantasy world, and thus increase patient motivation and adherence to therapies. The design of this category of games differs from others since it requires an understanding of the domain of therapy that has to be addressed, as well as the necessary knowledge of game development. Research in the literature has highlighted that there is a lack of a formal approach that can allow a multidisciplinary team to be involved in the design of this category of games. This paper adopts a semio-participatory approach to the design of therapeutic digital games, which includes a multidisciplinary team and supports the different profiles of professionals who take part in the whole design process. The approach, called SemTh, was based on a) data from the literature, b) reports of the experiences of professionals who have designed therapeutic games and c) an evaluation of researchers in the areas of computation and health. SemTh was used to devise a therapeutic game for children diagnosed with cancer. The approach was evaluated by the professionals involved in the process of game construction and obtained positive results, mainly with regard to understanding the domain, the needs of the target users and the therapeutic aspects of the game.

We are working towards establishing a framework to enable more people to create and play digital games. Our focus is on skills, communication, and collaboration, since these qualities can enable more people to co-create inclusive games. In this paper, we describe how the framework assisted adults involved in an alcohol and drugs rehabilitation program to co-create their own games. Ten adults in a healthcare service co-created games using the framework as a part of their rehabilitation, in ten meetings spanning four months. Two healthcare professionals evaluated the activities. Five additional collaborators (three with a Computer Science and two with a Nursing background) provided accessibility features and artistic improvements to the projects. During the meetings, we observed that game creation and playing helped the participants. They started in an uncertain frame of mind, with low-self esteem, and were scared to use computers and games, since they doubted they could succeed. However, they ended up more confident on their abilities and proud of their creations, as they were able to share their games and knowledge with their peers, and teach people how to play. The models and systems of the framework allowed the people to achieve better results. The game co-creation empowered the participants, and, hence, their abilities became opportunities for further collaborations. Co-creation consisted of a journey in which self-improvement superseded the created games.

Studies show that music is an effective form of emotional induction and can change the emotional behavior of the user. In view of this, this article seeks to create a "selection" algorithm that includes a subset of songs chosen by the user, while taking account of their current emotional state and allowing them to achieve the emotional state that is desired. In carrying out the experiment, we established the current emotional state, the desired emotional state and 20 suggestions of musical items from a sample of 20 users. With the aim of achieving the desired emotional state, the proposed algorithm returned a new list of musical items for each participant. The participants underwent an evaluation during and after playing the music to assess the effectiveness of the returned list. The results suggest that when listening to the songs selected by the algorithm, the user can approach the desired emotional state.

Studies show that music is an effective way of emotional induction and can change the emotional behavior of the user. The current methods of recommendation and reproduction of digital music, basead on emotion, require manual user interaction and most of them select from a set of generic music and not from the user's taste. Therefore, this paper proposes a mobile application, m-Motion, that elects a subset of songs from the user, considering his current emotional state and supports the user to achieve a desired emotional state. An experiment was conducted by a group of 8 users. We collected the current emotional state, the desired emotional state and 20 suggestions of music from the user. m-Motion returned a playlist for each participant based on the songs suggested by the user. Adaptations of the Self Assessment Manikin (SAM) and Scherer's Semantic Emotional Space were used for the evaluation of the emotion achieved. The results suggest that when listening to the songs selected by m-Motion, the user approached the desired emotional state. There were 40 recommendations made by m-Motion, and in 95% of the recommendations, the users achieved the desired emotion in both evaluations.

Since urban computing is concerned with integrating technologies with urban environments, ubiquitous computing must take account of the users that occupy these spaces. It is noted that many of the research related to Urban Computing seek to improve urban mobility through solutions for bus stops, however, the focus is on solving technical problems and software solutions placed in the spaces and not on adapting the interfaces to the users' needs and preferences. Following the premises of the Universal Design, this work proposes the development of a flexible system for bus stops that considers the diversity of users during the design process. To verify aspects related to the users' calmness and emotional response, the system was evaluated with real users in the laboratory and "in the wild". Considering the results obtained, the proposed system is shown as a viable solution to offer access to the greatest possible number of users.

A atual Revolução da Informação, destacada pelo uso constante de dispositivos como smartphones, smartwatches, tablets, entre outros, impulsiona a produção contínua de hardware e software, com impactos diretos no ambiente, na economia e na sociedade. O que se percebe, no entanto, é que não tem existido uma preocupação com questões relacionadas à sustentabilidade no desenvolvimento dessas soluções computacionais. Inspirados no primeiro desafio do GrandIHCBr - “Futuro, Cidades Inteligentes e Sustentabilidade”, este trabalho busca fornecer diretrizes que apoiem os profissionais dessa área, e os permita avaliar os aspectos de sustentabilidade em suas soluções. O trabalho partiu de um levantamento da literatura e uma consulta à comunidade de Computação no Brasil. Os resultados permitiram conhecer o estado da arte e o conhecimento tácito no tema. A literatura também apoiou a escolha de um modelo de referência que foi instanciado com a participação de cinco analistas de sistemas e três pesquisadores da Computação. Vinte e uma diretivas foram formalizadas e apresentadas a um profissional da indústria e a um professor universitário, ambos pesquisadores, para apreciação. Os resultados sugerem que as diretivas levantadas podem ser consideradas fatores norteadores de sustentabilidade para a avaliação de soluções computacionais.

Sustainability is an updated research topic. In Computer Science, researchers especially from Human-Computer Interaction and Software Engineering areas have started to focus on how to design and build more sustainable technologies and mainly how to build technologies that could help us to live in a more sustainable way. In this last sense, several solutions have been studied and developed to be used at home. The concept of sustainable houses is growing and generally relies on technological solutions which we should interact with. However, how human-centered aspects have been considered in these works? Which aspects of sustainability have been addressed? In this work, we present a critical view on the works found in literature and also a discussion about the research gap considering the design and evaluation methodologies for such technology.

Healthcare professionals may employ therapeutic games as playful activities to promote rehabilitation for their patients. However, despite the importance, currently the literature does not provide multidisciplinary approaches to support designing these games. To overcome this scenario, we propose a semiotic-based approach to aid stakeholders with different backgrounds on designing therapeutic digital games. The approach results from a study of the literature and reports of the experience of a multidisciplinary team on the creation of therapeutic games. It explores Participatory Design and Organizational Semiotics methods and artifacts to promote the Problem Clarification, Interaction Modeling, Design Materialization, and Evaluation as fundamental design practices of effective solutions. The approach was evaluated to design new therapeutic games and the results suggest that it helps the team on identifying therapeutic objectives and reaching them.

Therapeutic games not only entertain but also support rehabilitation treatments and help patients and caregivers to understand the therapeutic practices. This kind of game requires careful and responsible development. To the best of our knowledge, there is no variety of methodologies in the literature specifically tailored to develop them. It essentially requires collaborative creation between different domain specialists. Moreover, it is necessary to avoid ad-hoc design processes and favor the structured ones, which can effectively involve and guide stakeholders. Thus, we have adopted a methodology based on Participatory Design and Organizational Semiotics artifacts to guide the design of a therapeutic game that could entertain and inform children who were diagnosed with cancer, as well as their caregivers. The methodology includes the enrichment of Personas, aiming to characterize the intended audience of the therapeutic application. This paper presents an instantiation of such methodology and also describes how the information obtained during that process can aid on therapeutic games design aiming to support the rehabilitation of children under treatment for cancer. We also report some lessons learned from that instantiation, regarding both the methodology application and the specificities of the target audience that should be carefully considered when developing games to support chronic pathologies, especially those involving children. 

To meet the diversity of users and the different interaction needs, user interfaces could be more flexible and adapted according to each user profile. The flexibility achieved by the interfaces of current web applications is scarce enough, preventing the power of meta-design. In addition, to adapt the web today the user has to configure each application separately and not all users are aware of the different possibilities of presentation and configuration of each of them. Thus, this article proposes a tool, named UIFlex, that assists the user in the construction of his/her interaction profile considering guidelines and good design recommendations. A set of rules is therefore defined and the tool adapts the presentation of different websites to each user. UIFlex was used by people with different interaction profiles and the results suggest improvements in the users' perceptions regarding satisfaction and efficiency.

Ubiquitous systems can be characterized as providing transparency, while being context-sensitive and dynamically interactive. Evaluating ubiquitous environments involves challenges ranging from multidisciplinary areas to environmental simulations. However, few studies have been carried out on the user's feelings and moods in these environments, i.e. within mental contexts. This paper undertakes an observational case study which involves evaluating emotional responses in ubiquitous environments. A number of volunteers were exposed to stimuli with the aim of changing their mood through colors and images, in accordance with their initial emotional state. Emotional responses were evaluated by means of a hybrid approach that entailed employing different evaluation instruments at different periods of the interaction and which took account of different stakeholders. The results suggest that the approach is appropriate, although some adjustments are required for the evaluation instruments, as well for the interaction time with the environment so that it is possible to collect further data about the user's experience.

Healthcare professional use therapeutic applications as an aid on treating their patients. The Literature describes the importance of including multiple stakeholders for creating effective therapeutic applications; therefore, it is important to support co-design activities including as many stakeholders as possible. This paper describes an interaction modeling language for therapeutic applications. The language's goal is enabling stakeholders to contribute towards the creation, by offering their domain knowledge, and expressing their desires and longings to collaborate on the development of more effective therapeutic applications. The language was successfully used to model applications for two different institutions, each of which treating patients with different therapeutic and interaction needs. Professionals and students of computer science, healthcare, and arts collaborated on the design of those applications, and have used the language for the modelling.

Organizational Semiotics (OS) is a discipline that supports analyzing and modeling organizations as Information Systems (IS). This paper investigates the use of OS theories in studies published in the last five years, aiming to identify how researchers have been employing the OS theory and the current approaches derived from OS. In this sense, we conducted a systematic review in four scientific databases. Starting with an initial set of 91 papers, we selected 53 for this review. The results suggest almost twenty new modeling approaches using OS artifacts and ideas. Moreover, the number of publications has been increasing and publications have occurred in several different journals and conference proceedings.

Ubiquitous technology has great power to simplify and improve people's life. However, as the 4th Grand Research Challenge for the Brazilian Computer Society mentions, it is necessary to extend computational systems to all Brazilians, respecting their diversity and differences. Most studies in the literature consider the participation of users with different profiles during the design process. However, there is not a concern with interface adaptation to user's needs and interaction preferences. This paper presents a design process which guides the ubiquitous systems design from the relevant users' features identification to adapt the user interface, to the evaluation of the created prototype. The user's characteristics identification is performed by applying the UbiCARD technique in the system context to be developed. A prototype is presented as a proof of concept. 

Emotion is an important factor in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) that influences users' behavior and satisfaction. Empirical methods are often applied to assess emotional responses evoked from a user interface, but the cost of data collection and analysis is generally high. The adoption of analytical methods is an alternative to the high cost. Although the analytical methods, such as usability, accessibility, and communicability, are widely accepted in the HCI area, there is a lack of evaluation through emotional response. Semiotics is a way to understand what the elements of an interface represent for the user. This paper proposes a method based on semiotics for evaluation of possible emotional responses evoked by presented elements on the interface. This method was applied in a case study and the results were considered consistent when compared to those achieved by empirical methods.

Color is one of the most important dimensions of visual understanding and it has the power to evoke emotions. In this sense, choosing the appropriate color for user interface design may cause specific emotions, improving human-computer interaction. However, current studies do not support the designer in the choice of appropriate colors when it comes to a spectrum of emotions. Thus, this article proposes Bianchi's Color Wheel, which combines colors to Scherer's Semantic Space of Emotion. This association is the result of a systematic review conducted in seven databases. The proposed wheel allows designers to choose colors, including variations in saturation and brightness, taking into account the emotions mapped in Semantic Space. 

Design and implementing accessible games can be challenging, particularly when the designers wish to address different interaction capabilities. Universally-Accessible Games (UA-Games), for instance, follow the principles of the Design for All, aiming to enable the broadest audience as possible to play. Although there are papers regarding the design of UA-Games, the implementation can still be challenging. This paper presents a flexible and extensible approach to implement an UA-Game. The approach relies in a data-driven and component based architecture to allow game entities to be created, managed and customized during run-time. Doing so, it is possible to change the behavior and presentation of the game whilst it is running, allowing the game to adapt itself to better address the interaction needs of the user. Furthermore, being data-driven, it is possible to create and customize user profiles to address specific interaction requirements. 

This content was added in excerpts with narrative structures that can trigger feelings of doubt or dissatisfaction and require reasoning or prior knowledge of the subject. The results suggest that the elderly prefer to watch TV more passively and without the intervention of other media. Considering the results a set of good practices and strategies was formulated for the design and of TV programs for this audience. 

• The results suggest that among the different methodological approaches adopted, literature reviews and criticism still form the main basis to underpin the outcomes. Moreover, climate change and energy savings were found to be the specific areas that were most researched. The results obtained make it possible to suggest opportunities for further research.

These methods, on the other hand, do not consider emotional responses. There are gestures and facial expressions which are inherent in the interaction with this kind of media and must be taken into account. We propose the TV Emotion Heuristics (TVEH), a set of 23 heuristics that represent viewer’s behavioral patterns when interacting with TV programs or movies. These heuristics allow a comprehensive assessment of the viewers’ emotional responses. This paper reports the creation process of the TVEH and describes how to apply the method. Two case studies are reported using the proposed heuristics and we discuss some of the lessons that have been learned.

Mental health therapeutic digital applications can be used in supporting the rehabilitation treatment and help patients to understand and motivate themselves and persist in therapeutic practices. Although the importance and use of such software systems continue to increase, the literature does not specify a consolidated methodology to be employed in the design of such application. There is consensus, however, that in the complex scenario of health, it is beneficial to involve different stakeholders. Thus, this paper reports a collaborative process, which is guided in the frame of the organizational semiotics, for the enrichment of Personas characterizing target users of therapeutic applications in the context of mental health. The paper discusses the application of this process in creating user profiles to therapeutic games that aim to support the rehabilitation of chemical dependent and depressive patients.

The operator of a Command & Control (C2) system has a crucial role on the improvement of information that is processed through data fusion engines to provide Situational Awareness (SAW). Through direct access to data transformations, operators can improve information quality, by reducing uncertainty, according to their skills and expertise. Uncertainty, in this work, is considered an adverse condition, which can make the real information less accessible. Although relevant solutions have been reported in the literature on innovative user interfaces and approaches for quality-aware knowledge representation, these are concerned mostly on transforming the way information is graphically represented and on quantitatively mapping the quality-aware knowledge acquired from systems, respectively. There are few studies that deal more specifically with accessibility for decision-makers in safety-critical situations, such as C2, considering the aspect of data uncertainty. This paper presents a model to help researchers to build uncertainty-aware interfaces for C2 systems, produced by both data fusion and human reasoning over the information. Combined to environmental and personal factors, a tailored and enriched knowledge can be built, interchangeable with systems intelligence. A case study on the monitoring of a conflict among rival soccer fans is being implemented for the validation of the proposed solution.

One of the core requirements of Ubiquitous Computing is to be context-aware. This means that in ubiquitous applications, there is a need to know, among other information, the user profile so that it can be adapted to the different skills and capabilities of users, with regard to physical and cognitive characteristics, and interaction preferences. In the literature, different ways of establishing the user profile can be found, in particular, the use of sensors and software agents. However, each application or service is responsible for collecting user data. No specific applications for data collection have been found that can be used on a large-scale and in an interoperable manner. This paper proposes a set of guidelines that should be followed during the design and development stage of the user's data collection applications. The guidelines were drawn up in the light of the literature and an analysis of the results based on an application of the PICTIVE participatory design technique.

For many people, television is still the main form of entertainment. The elderly population, in particular, spends much time at home and uses the television for companionship and entertainment. However, in some countries, due to low education level or the absence of it, to physical limitations and/or cognitive difficulties, to the lack of prior knowledge, among other difficulties, part of the elderly viewers do not enjoy enough the programs to have satisfaction with them. With the interactivity provided by the Digital TV, additional information may help the elderly viewer to better appreciate television programs and have more fun. This paper presents data from an observational case study conducted in the Brazilian scenario to analyze the interaction of elderly viewers with TV programs enriched with additional multimedia content in different formats. From the experience, some good practices for the design of additional multimedia content to the elderly viewer were formalized.

Universal games aim to allow a game to be played by the largest possible extension of users -- regardless of the users' sensorial, physical, cognitive and emotional capabilities. The Unified Design presents a process to design universal games, describing how one can design a game in a more abstract way. The conceived abstract design can be specialized according to the users' interaction needs, allowing users with different interaction abilities to play. However, implementing the specializations might be expensive. This paper presents an approach to aid the prototyping of high fidelity universal games by using events and abstract classes to represent game entities. A case study was performed, illustrating the approach in the development of a Pong clone, allowing average users, hearing impaired users and visually impaired users to play the game.

Ubiquitous environments are a trend in today's world and are increasingly available to the general population. The flexibility is an inherent feature of these environments, but the focus of research has been to adapt those to different devices. With regard to adaptation to different profiles, further investigation is still need, especially how to understand and model the physical and cognitive characteristics, and users' preferences. This paper proposes UbiCARD technique creation to identify the users' profile of ubiquitous environments. From the data collected, the resulting profile is mapped to an XML file for later delivery to ubiquitous applications. The paper discusses the using advantages of the UbiCARD technique and mapping using XML files.

The elderly population grows and it is necessary to develop appropriate technologies to them. Although many elderly afford a mobile phone, several of them only receive calls and do not benefit from other mobile phones' functions due to interaction problems. The current design of mobile devices applications favor young audience, instead of also considering the elderly different interaction needs. The elderly population has different educational levels, experience with technology, cognitive skills and physical dexterity. This paper presents the designs of user interfaces that are flexible to meet the diverse requirements of elderly when interacting with smartphones. A framework for the design of flexible user interfaces was applied, and interaction requirements were formalized considering syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects. A set of rules defining the design of the system adaptable behavior was specified. A middleware was adopted and customized, and flexible user interfaces to a commercial Android smartphone were developed. The flexible solution was evaluated by elderly users. The results suggest a reduction in the interaction time with the use of flexible user interfaces and an increase in users satisfaction.

This paper presents guidelines to aid on the design of audio games. Audio games are games on which the user interface and game events use primarily sounds instead of graphics to convey information to the player. Those games can provide an accessible gaming experience to visually impaired players, usually handicapped by conventional games. The presented guidelines resulted of existing literature research on audio games design and implementation, of a case study and of a user observation performed by the authors. The case study analyzed how audio is used to create an accessible game on nine audio games recommended for new players. The user observation consisted of a playtest on which visually impaired users played an audio game, on which some interaction problems were identified. The results of those three studies were analyzed and compiled in 50 design guidelines.

Ubiquitous technology has great power to simplify and improve people’s life. However, as the 4th Grand Research Challenge for the Brazilian Computer Society mentions, it is necessary to extend computational systems to all Brazilians, respecting their diversity and differences. This paper presents an analytical approach to evaluate ubiquitous environments which considers the Personas technique as well as videos, scenarios and the GQM (Goal, Question and Metric) method. A feasibility study in the Brazilian scenario reveals that known ubiquitous environments partially meet the interaction requirements of disable people. 

The Human-Computer Interaction community has been discussing ways to consider the user’s emotions while interacting with computers. Emotions are a complex phenomenon, are difficult to identify and measure and are linked to several components as cognitive aspects, subjective feelings, behavioral tendencies, physiological responses and motor expressions. In the literature, it is possible to identify various techniques, methods and tools for assessing the user’s emotional state. Considering the complexity of the subject, it is necessary to combine methods to minimize the detection of false positives in the evaluation of the user’s emotional state while interacting with information systems. This paper presents a hybrid approach based on the emotion model described by Scherer (1984), which allows designers to check whether the information system creates a positive, neutral or negative emotional reaction in the user. A feasibility study was conducted in which an emotional evaluation of a web system was performed based on a group of elderly users using tablet devices.

and possible to enrich media television with additional multimedia content, increasing the satisfaction of the viewers while watching TV programs. However, considering the collective audience, the additional content on TV can be intrusive. By combining the provision of additional content with the use of multiple devices for interaction, is possible promote personalized support and in a non-intrusive way, thus maintaining the individuality of each viewer. This combination is evaluated in this paper, through a case study conducted with a group of viewers who watched a video enriched with additional content and interacted using the remote control and/or cell phone.

This paper presents PLuRaL - a framework to design flexible systems that considers a broader and deeper understanding of the domain and the context of use and proposes a norm-based representation for the different “behaviors” the system should have. A feasibility study was conducted, and the results suggest a positive evaluation of PLuRaL's utility, flexibility in supporting design changes, creative freedom and satisfaction with the results.

This paper presents the design of interfaces that are flexible to meet the diverse requirements of elderly when interacting with cell phones. A framework for the design of flexible user interfaces was applied in a case study. Considering the results of this study with elderly users, interaction requirements were formalized considering syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects. Finally, a set of rules defining the design of the system flexible behavior was specified.

Human interaction with Information and Communication Technologies relies on the manipulation of signs represented in different interface elements. While designing interfaces, several decisions may be taken as which interface elements will be added, where, which size, shape or color must have. More than context knowledge (as who is the user, devices’ characteristics and environmental conditions), information from the system domain should be used to support interface design. This paper presents preliminary results of an exploratory study about how affordances and norms may inform user interface design decisions. The results suggest that some categories of affordances are represented in the interface by similar types of signs and are placed in specific positions. Moreover, MONA, a tool to help designers to structure user interfaces and determine the behavior of each element using norms, is presented. 

One approach for suiting the diverse and mutable interaction requirements is to tailor interfaces according to the users' preferences or needs. Although literature regarding tailoring presents results with diverse foci, there has been a lack of works considering methods and techniques to support designers in their practice. This paper presents a practical approach to elicit and formalize the tailorable behavior making interactive systems more flexible. The elicitation of the different possible interfaces is performed with users' participation and the tailorable behavior is formalized with a norm-based structure. A case study is described as well as the evaluation with final users.

E-government services should be accessible to every citizen. However, user interfaces, as designed today, hardly enable interaction for all, as they do not reach the different interaction needs in the population, especially in developing countries. This paper proposes an approach to develop tailorable interfaces aiming at the digital inclusion; a case study is conducted within a Brazilian project. The approach is based on Organizational Semiotics and Participatory Design to elicit users’ and system’s requirements, getting to an interaction model and from the model to tailorable solutions that fit different interaction needs. Several prototypes resulted from the model and were evaluated with representative users. 

Helping teachers in their activities has been an issue more and more explored in Computer Science. However, in order to support teachers effectively, it is necessary to understand their needs and to design tools that they can easily manage. One of those needs is undoubtedly to put in practice pedagogical principles. This paper presents the design of PACO-T, a tool for helping teachers in planning learning activities (LAs) supported by common sense knowledge, based on PACO, a seven-step textual framework for planning pedagogically suitable LAs. The design was based on the results of a case study carried out to investigate how teachers can plan LAs following PACO steps, using common sense knowledge from a common sense knowledge base collaboratively built through the web. Moreover, the interface design was ruled by a Web Design Pattern Language, attempting to improve the usability of the tool. PACO-T aims to help teachers to put in practice the recommendation for contextualizing LAs to the target group, found in several learning theories. 

Information and Communication Technology has the potential of benefiting citizens, allowing access to knowledge, communication and collaboration, and thus promoting the process of the constitution of a fairer society. The design of systems that make sense to the users' community and that respect their diversity demands socio-technical views and increased knowledge of the involved parties. We have adopted Organizational Semiotics and Participatory Design as theoretical and methodological frames of reference to face this challenge in the design of Inclusive Social Network System for the Brazilian context. This paper presents the way we are using some artifacts adapted from Problem Articulation Method to clarify concepts and prospect solutions. Results of this clarification fed the Semantic Analysis Method from which we present and discuss an Ontology Chart for the domain.

Sistemas de Redes Sociais Online favorecem a comunicação entre pessoas em contextos variados e podem ser considerados aliados importantes em processos de inclusão digital. No entanto, a socialização desses sistemas em contextos de diversidade de acesso ao conhecimento, como ocorre no Brasil, depende da adequação de tais sistemas para uso por todos. Este artigo investiga e discute sistemas de Redes Sociais Online frente às necessidades de interação identificadas para o contexto da diversidade de nossa sociedade. Adicionalmente o trabalho apresenta um conjunto de diretrizes para nortear o design de sistemas dessa natureza para o nosso cenário. 

Existem diversas barreiras que impedem o acesso do cidadão brasileiro ao conhecimento, entre elas a própria maneira como a tecnologia computacional se apresenta frente à diversidade de competências de nossa população. Para se tratar esse desafio, se faz necessário: conhecer tais usuários em suas habilidades, formalizar requisitos de interação e investigar soluções de interfaces e interação. Este artigo apresenta resultados de atividades desenvolvidas em um Cenário* (microcosmo da população brasileira), que permitiram melhor conhecer características desses usuários, bem como o levantamento de requisitos de interação e o apontamento de possíveis soluções de design de acordo com os princípios do Design para Todos.

Many computer tools have been developed to be used in learning activities. However, the effective use of these resources depends on the teachers’ decisions, therefore, it is necessary to assist teachers in the planning of learning activities. This paper presents PACO - a framework for Planning learning Activities supported by COmputers. The essence of PACO is that the design of activities and the choice of computer tools should be addressed by Pedagogical aspects and characteristics of the target-students. 

The social value of Web applications is in their potential to be the conduit for many different types of applications to many different people, using different resources and embedded in diverse contexts. Designing for flexibility involves many people, with different skills, interests and levels of commitment, including, designers, developers and users. Tailorable features in the user interface demand a clear bond between the phases in the whole software lifecycle, starting from requirements elicitation to the design and development stages. As interaction patterns have been considered a promising approach to bridge the gaps between analysis, design and implementation of usability related features, this work first investigates and synthesizes from literature a set of interaction patterns related to tailoring activities. From this analysis, a semiotic-informed categorization of tailorable user interface features is presented and discussed; an elicitation pattern for tailorable user interface features illustrates the usefulness of the proposal.