A partir da experiência na condução da disciplina Usuários da Informação e de ações de extensão e de pesquisa desenvolvidas junto a usuários de uma biblioteca itinerante, objetiva-se a reflexão sobre o relacionamento entre os estudos sistemáticos de usuários da informação e o papel de mediação informacional. A fundamentação teórica baseia-se em definições de estudos de usuários correntes na literatura da Ciência da Informação bem como em autores que discutem o conceito de mediação. Descrevem-se, sucintamente, pesquisas (estudos de usuário) realizadas em situações que privilegiam a função de mediação. Três estudos de usuários são mencionados: dois estudos qualitativos, em que entrevistas foram utilizadas como método de coleta de dados, para propiciar o desenvolvimento de ações de mediação; e um estudo quantitativo, que visou avaliar os resultados obtidos por uma ação de mediação já implementada. Conclui-se que a mediação pode ser facilitada pela prática de se realizar sistematicamente estudos de usuários bem como pela adoção de alguns métodos e técnicas dos estudos de usuários no cotidiano do trabalho do mediador. E ainda que, embora o trabalho do mediador esteja mudando devido à mudança de suporte da informação (informação em suporte eletrônico), sua função de mediação permanece cada vez mais necessária e deve ser cada vez mais privilegiada na formação do profissional.  

It addresses the notion of informational practices taking into account the interdisciplinary nature of Information Science, based on the theoretical unfolding of user studies. As methodology, it adopts the exploratory research, also resorting to the bibliographical and documentary research, focusing on the notion of informational practices and on the theory of bourdieusian practice. From the analysis of the literature, the text call attention to notion of information practices is closely linked to the social paradigm of Information Science by incorporating broader issues related to information, contributing to development of a sociocultural approach within the scope of user studies. It concludes that the theory of practice assists the notion of informational practices in the understanding that the actions of individuals are conformed by a clash between agency and structure, interiority and externality, individual and society, offering important theoretical-conceptual contributions to Information Science at reinforce the idea that information is constituted from its relation with the individual, and from this with the world.

Although designers aim at ofering the best possible user experience, products are designed for a general audience with a common pool of characteristics. Since intrinsic psychological characteristics model the human interaction, ignoring that each individual has diferent experiences may lead to a failed product. From these constructs, personality has shown strong results by shaping how users process and act on the world, and how individuals perceive and accept technology. In this work, we focus on conscientiousness, a personality trait that models one’s organization, persistence, and motivation for goal-oriented behavior. In particular, we study (N = 40) whether conscientiousness afects the design preferences for graphical elements in a user interface. Additionally, we assess (N = 60) if designing graphical user interfaces based on the design preferences of individuals with diferent conscientiousness scores afects perceived usability and ease-of-use. Results show that designing interfaces for conscientiousness-based personality profles infuences user preference but has no signifcant efect on perceived usability and ease-of-use. Our fndings support the incorporation of conscientiousness in the design process to develop graphic user interfaces that focus on goal-oriented behavior for the correct audience.

The authors argue in favor of introducing user studies into computer graphics, human-computer interaction, and information visualization courses. They discuss two sets of user studies they developed and performed over several years, with student collaboration, and the different aspects of the studies they had to consider. They also discuss a user study they designed for an information visualization course. © 2011 IEEE.

There 1 is an emerging consumer-driven demand for a more personalised health system and, there is no question, the rapid evolution of the mobile apps market became an important driver for personalisation in the health field. The MAiThE (Mobile Apps to improve ThErapy) project focuses on the deployment and study of personalised mHealth apps to provide patients and carers with self-management capabilities to help them feel empowered in their ability to find strategies in a more informed and collaborative way, and to optimise therapy outside the clinical context, with remote support from health practitioners. The insight gathered with the development and assessment of the apps tailored to the end-users’ needs will result in a conceptual model to guide in the development of future mHealth apps. The project will produce an impact study based on thorough apps evaluations conducted on the field with participants from different contexts.

The general aim of this study is to analyse the information behaviour of users of the Porto Municipal Public Library (BPMP), with the aim of understanding public libraries (PB) in the 21st century, analysing their concepts and specificities in user studies, namely in terms of information needs, uses and information behaviour. In addition, the aim is to describe the evolution of these studies, identify their importance for information behaviour and survey BPMP users face-to-face, allowing us to gain a detailed perception of the library from users. The aim is to understand not only their information needs, searches and uses, but also the importance of the BPMP in their personal lives.Methodologically, the study was based on a literature review to concretise the theoretical and conceptual framework. The applied study followed a mixed methodology, combining qualitative and quantitative approaches. A questionnaire survey of BPMP users was used to understand their characteristics, needs and behaviour in relation to the services and products offered by the library.The results indicated that users go to the library mainly to study, work remotely and carry out online research. The search for a quiet, well-equipped environment for study and concentration was one of the most cited reasons for attending the BPMP. Users expressed a high level of satisfaction with the services and products offered by the library, but also made some suggestions for improvement, such as increasing the supply of digital resources, the need for more cultural events that promote interaction, learning and continuous development of the community, as well as improving communication and publicising cultural activities.To sum up, this study has made it possible to recognise the need and importance of listening to library users as a management strategy for total quality and to carry out studies on its impact. In this way, it is possible to continually improve the services and products offered, responding to user needs and adapting to the constant changes in information habits and uses.

In this paper, we present the design and evaluation of Watt-I-See (WISE), a tangible interactive installation aimed at probing awareness in two target audiences (children and adults) about renew able energy resources that could inform eco-feedforward strategies. Our system combines a tan gible interface representing five different energy sources, with a set of Lego™ blocks used to manipulate different weather conditions that affect the available energy mix. Through the evalu ation of WISE, our main goal was to expose users to the effort necessary to produce the energy used in our day-to-day lives. We evaluated the installation separately for children and adults. The focus on children was due to their importance in the overall household consumption and their role in future scenarios where consumers will have to adapt to the availability of renewable energy sources. The focus on adults was to observe the impact of such information in their decision mak ing regarding their routines. Our findings highlight the success of the interface in engaging chil dren and adults, creating awareness between weather conditions and energy production and the fossil-fuel energy baseline in the grid. Overall, the study highlights the importance of providing a close point-of-interaction feedback as it enables a better understanding of energy-related decisions, reactions, and availability of resources.

Clinical decision support systems have the potential to improve work flows of experts in practice (e.g. therapist’s evidence-based rehabilitation assessment). However, the adoption of these systems is challenging, and the gains of these systems have not fully demonstrated yet. In this paper, we identified the needs of therapists to assess patient’s functional abilities (e.g. alternative perspectives with quantitative information on patient’s exercise motions). As a result, we co-designed and developed an intelligent decision support system that automatically identifies salient features of assessment using reinforcement learning to assess the quality of motion and generate patient-specific analysis. We evaluated this system with seven therapists using the dataset from 15 patients performing three exercises. The results show that therapists have higher usage intent on our system than a traditional system without patient-specific analysis ( < 0.05). While presenting richer information ( < 0.10), our system significantly reduces therapists’ effort on assessment ( < 0.10) and improves their agreement on assessment from 0.66 to 0.71 F1-scores ( < 0.01). This work discusses the importance of human centered design and development of a machine learning-based decision support system that presents contextually relevant information and salient explanations on its prediction for better adoption in practice.