H.C.I News Item Research

Research Article used was “What Does It Really Mean to Delight Users?” by Karah Salaets.
Click Here to Access Karah Salaets Article

Project Overview

The project overview was centered on one picking up a UI/UX Research Article and delivering an awesome presentation on the article content. The article I picked was titled "What Does It Really Mean to Delight Users?" by Karah Salaets. Her article identifies the purpose for User Interface and User Experience Designers to design applications that delight users. To accomplish this objective, Karah Salaets in her article specifies three steps to follow.

My Contributions

I gave a presentation on this remarkable UI/UX research article by Karah Salaets to my fellow course mates on the need to design to delight users. I also gave a relation of her article content to my in-class Human-Computer Interaction concepts and the relevance of her research in the UI/UX field.

In brief, Karah Salaets expresses the idea about how User Experience as a field is fast growing hence gaining industry awareness and acceptance across domains. Hence she also stresses the idea that this awareness calls for the urgent need for UX designers to embrace the term "delight" when it comes to designing interfaces for users. This is because as User Experience defines the idea of designing to fit the experience of the user, delight which according to her is "the act of guiding designs" would help UX designers to effectively design to fit user experience. She illustrates three steps to identify delight in context. The next section illustrates them.

Brief Content of Article

"What Does It Really Mean to Delight Users?"

By Karah Salaets

According to Karah Salaets, to better have a great idea about users' experience to help you know how to design to fit the user, you have to observe "delight" to guide you to effectively know your users. Below are the steps she defines to help achieve them:
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Step 1: Identify Key Moments or Interactions that generate anxiety or confusion. This step according to her explains you as a UX designer identifying or anticipating areas where users may have issues with or are stressed about when going about a task. Hence having identified them, try to design interventions to assist users either by introducing a better approach they can use throughout their user journey to make their interaction now easier.
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‍Step 2: Analyze Comparable Experiences. This next step according to her depicts UX designers identifying some user experiences that are capable of compelling users to avoid interactions with a design and analyzing such experiences to avoid them in your designs. For example, if you are designing a form for users to fill out their details, try to use plain language, and understandable options so users feel at ease interacting with the application.

Step 3: Design to Delight. With Step 1 and Step 2 observed, Karah explains how one can design to delight because users are not Prepared(understanding the task to be completed when they view your design), Competent(Having a simplified design to help them in interaction) and lastly Confident(by following UX design conventions).

Identifying Delight in Context

By Karah Salaets

1. Karah's article stresses the idea that Users in the field of User Experience are of very high importance hence the need to make one design delight them. In-class HCI content also defines the User-Centered/Human-Centered Approach to Design as a vibrant approach to Human-Computer Interaction. Hence her theory and my in-class HCI content resonate well.

2. According to Karah, the first step in identifying delight is to Identify Key Moments or Interactions that generate anxiety or confusion. This defines looking out for areas in users' tasks that introduces the problem they face. In H.C.I, looking out for users' existing tasks helps to know users' current state to help you as a UI/UX designer know how to assist users to address their problems. This is another relation as well.

How this Article was related to In-Class Content

Computer Science Research Seminar

The Importance of Human Speech Data: Recognizing Human Input Speech in Speech-to-text Systems
Click Here to Access My Research Paper Article

Project Overview

The increased availability of Speech-to-Text systems today has led to its utilization in various sectors. This project highlights the relevance and importance of human speech in today's Speech-to-Text Systems. This research highlights how Speech-to-Text systems are highly recognized for their functionality but little attention is given to recognizing how the introduction of the human speech made this technology possible. Some Speech-To-Text Systems were discussed to understand the importance of human speech in the success of these systems.

My Contributions

My contribution to this project was recognizing human speech in Speech-to-Text Systems such as the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) System and the Speech2Health System and indicating how relevant it is for human speech input to be provided before these Speech-to-Text Systems become operational.

Other contributions include an educational insight into the Evolution of Natural Language Processing by looking at the activities of ELIZA, a Chatbot created between 1964 and 1966. Insights were also provided into how we have transitioned with regards to Natural Language Processing from ELIZA to this present day by looking at some advancements in the Social, Technological, Educational, and Health sectors.

Statistics & Probability

"Association Between Getting Medical Help for Self and the Type of Place of Residence Among Women in Ghana"

Project Overview

Child mortality forms one of the major problems which is been addressed by the World Health Organization.• This topic is of interest to me because, the W.H.O recommends that pregnant women receive at least four antenatal checkups during pregnancy but, rural settings in Ghana due to poor traveling conditions, lack of resources and education and social constraints, makes it difficult for pregnant women to receive good health care”. Following up on the report, I believe that the issue of child mortality, one way or the other has got to do with women especially pregnant women failing to get access to the health center for delivery, antenatal education, and periodic checkups. This may be as a result of lack of transportation, availability of vehicles, and the absence of medical facilities in their jurisdiction.

My Contributions

Some key findings I found was that:
•There was an establishment of a Portable Gynecological Examination Table to Improve Access to Antenatal Care in Rural Ghana“ (Perosky et al, 2012).
•The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that “the Maternal Mortality Ratio in Ghana is 350 deaths per 100,000 live births and that the Infant Mortality Rate is 76 deaths per 1,000 live births”(W.H.O, 2010).

My contribution was to use data from the Demographic and Health Survey to answer the research question of "Is there a significant association between getting medical help and the type of place of residence among women in Ghana?"

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Hypotheses

Statistics and Probability

Null hypothesis (H₀): There is no significant association between getting medical help and the type of place of residence among women in Ghana.
Alternative hypothesis (H₁): There is a significant association between getting medical help and the type of place of residence among women in Ghana.

Methods Employed

Statistics and Probability

Questionnaires: Questionnaires was mainly used for my research topic. This is because, the research involves enquiries from women as to whether they do get medical help to the health facility taking into consideration their place of residence.
Sample: Secondly, the source of my sample was from the Demographic and Health Survey (Individual response) and a random sample of 3,746 women whose ages were subset to greater than 20.
‍Measures: I used the variables “Type of Place of Residence” (rural or urban) and “Getting medical help for self” (did not get help or did get help). Both variables are categorical. “Type of Place of Residence” served as the explanatory variable, while “Getting medical help for self” was the response variable.
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The variable “Type of Place of Residence” was measured using the question, “What is your place of residence?” Respondents selected either a rural settlement, coded as 1, or an urban settlement, coded as 2. Similarly, the variable “Getting medical help for self” was measured using the question, “Do you have a problem getting medical help at a health facility?” Respondents answered either “Did not get help,” coded as 1, or “Did get help,” coded as 2.

Analysis using RStudio and R Programming Language

Statistics and Probability

Codes for data import and data analysis were written in R Markdown. Using the R programming language, a step-by-step analytical process was carried out to perform exploratory data analysis, as documented in the R Markdown files uploaded to my Git repository.
Click Here to Access RMarkdown files for Project
Data visualization was conducted using both Univariate and Bivariate graphing techniques.
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Univariate Graphing

Statistics and Probability

Since the variables “Type of Place of Residence (rural or urban)” and “Getting medical help for self (did not get help or did get help)” are both categorical, bar charts were used to visualize the distribution of women based on their place of residence.

Below is a screenshot of the visualization.

Bivariate Graphing

Statistics and Probability

With the two categorical variables, “Type of Place of Residence (rural or urban)” and “Getting medical help for self (did not get help or did get help),” bivariate graphing was used to explore the relationship between them. This allowed visualization of how the two variables are associated and the patterns or insights that can be drawn from their interaction.
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Below is a screenshot of the visualization
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RESULTS DERIVED FROM BIVARIATION

Statistics and Probability

From the displayed graph and calculated percentages, 81.5% of women in urban settlements have access to medical help at health facilities, compared to 63.4% of women in rural settlements.

In conclusion, a higher proportion of women in urban areas access medical help compared to those in rural areas. Conversely, a larger proportion of women in rural areas (36.6%) do not receive medical help, compared to 18.5% of urban women. These findings support the alternative hypothesis.

Bivariate Hypothesis Test
‍The chi-squared test for independence was used to examine the association between the two categorical variables. The analysis revealed that the type of place of residence (rural or urban) is significantly associated with whether women receive medical help at health facilities. The test produced a chi-squared statistic (X²) of 153.83 and a p-value of 2.2 × 10⁻¹⁶, indicating a highly significant association. Therefore, the null hypothesis of no association is rejected, confirming that place of residence influences access to medical help among women in Ghana.

Conclusion

Statistics and Probability

One key research finding is that the World Health Organization recommends that all pregnant women receive antenatal care (ANC) at least four times during the course of their pregnancy (Afulani, 2015).

Secondly, based on other research findings, theoretical frameworks, and analysis conducted for this study, it is evident that a woman’s place of residence significantly influences her decision to seek medical care. The chi-square test results indicate a clear relationship between place of settlement and healthcare-seeking behavior. Factors such as transportation challenges, limited availability of vehicles, and the absence of nearby medical facilities were found to impede women from accessing health services.

Therefore, a woman’s place of residence plays a critical role in determining whether she is able to obtain the necessary medical care during pregnancy.

List of references

Statistics and Probability

Afulani, P. (2015, February 19). Rural/urban and socioeconomic differentials in quality of antenatal care in Ghana. Retrieved from search.ebscohost.com: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mnh&AN=25695737&site=ehost-live

DemographicAndHealthSurvey. (n.d.). The DHS Program. Retrieved from www.dhsprogram.com: https://www.dhsprogram.com/Topics/

Perosky, J.E., Gienapp, A. P., Rabban, R. N., Ofosu, A. A., Bradshaw, J. G. T., &Sienko, K. H. (2012). Designing a Portable Gynecological Examination Table: Improving Access to Antenatal Care in Rural Ghana. International Journal for Service Learning in Engineering, 7(1), 1–14. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=82689030&site=ehost-live

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