Former Graphical User Interface of the Carbon Footprint tool 

Contexts in source publication

Context 1

... the following section the execution of the first eye tracking study is de- scribed and some results are given (cf. Krehahn, et al., 2010). The use cases show how those studies are performed, which software problems are addressed and which results can be expected. In 2009 a research project at the HTW Berlin was started which had the scope to provide SME with information and software support in the field of material and resource efficiency. In that scope a web-platform was created were SME could find guidelines, partners and also small software tools to support several aspects in this field. One of the first software applications created during that project was the Resefi Carbon Footprint Tool, which aims to give the user the opportunity to create a quick and simple carbon footprint of their company or facilities. It was the first eye tracking study which was conducted at the UxLab. The reason for conducting a usability study here was to gather information about the user interface from real users. The developers of the software tool did not have any information about the end users perspective when working with the software. The implementation of the usability principles of ISO 9241-11 was the main goal. Figure 4 shows the former graphical user interface of the software. This interface is composed of different views, which are dockable at different positions of the screen. The composition of the elements consists of views to visualize analyses of input data in pie-charts and bar-charts (at the bottom), as well as the “Contingent Summary”, which can be seen in the upper right section of Figure 4. These three windows do not allow data input. On the left side of the upper section the project browser and the positions editor are displayed which are only shown when a position in the browser is selected. Finally the Carbon Footprint Editor is shown in the middle and allows the administration of the project name, project description and the number of employees. In order to get to the window shown in Figure 4 the software loads a welcome screen, which explains the methodology behind the Carbon Footprint. It also shows the provided functions of the tool. Seven tasks where conducted to find out if enough information about the carbon footprint methodology is given to understand the usage of the software (see Figure 5). As one important result Figure 6 shows that only one participant reads the welcome page carefully, while the others are trying to get started quicker and do not read the information on the screen intensively. Only the first lines of the explanation of the Carbon Footprint Tool stay in sight. The visual foci (shown as red bubbles) and saccades (shown as green lines) are marked which represent the transitions from a visual fixation to another. All participants said that the given information on the welcome screen was too much and that the description of the software features and the project information should be outsourced to the help content files. For each task which was executed with the test persons the observer of the eye tracking study measures if the task was executed with ease (1), with difficulty (2) or failed (3). Figure 7 shows that task 2, 4, 6 and 7 were solved with ease by every participant, while task 3 was more difficult and at task 5 three users failed to complete. After the evaluation of all results and an extensive discussion with the developers of the tool, changes of the graphical user interface were imple- mented. In that regard the former Carbon Footprint Editor was deleted, while however the Positions Editor was renamed to Carbon Footprint Editor. Also the graphical displays of the results (pie-chart, bar-chart) were increased in size and even the add-button, which the participants did not found during the usability experiment, was integrated i n the browser’s tool bar (see Figure 8). The objective of the project ‘Strukturbasierte Umweltbewertung von Chemikalien’ (StUChem, engl. structure -based environmental assessment of chemicals) was to develop a web-based software that aids closing data gabs in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies caused by scarce data for chemicals. The project was funded by the German Environmental Foundation (DBU). To conduct an LCA, databases with Life Cycle Inventories (LCI) are used to depict the background system. For Chemicals, these data are often not available as producers are restrictive about the information. During the project StUChem, a web-based database containing calculated data for the indicators Global Warming Potential (GWP), Cumulated Ener- gy Demand (CED) and EcoIndicator99 was developed. The basis is a methodology which enables estimating the environmental impacts caused by the production of chemicals (system boundary 'cradle-to-gate') from the molecular structure. This methodology was published as FineChem-Tool (Wernet et al., 2009).The project StUChem aimed at making use of this methodology by automatically calculating the indicators for a big number of molecules and providing them. This enables a broad community to ac- tually use the data (ifu Hamburg GmbH, ...

Context 2

... the following section the execution of the first eye tracking study is de- scribed and some results are given (cf. Krehahn, et al., 2010). The use cases show how those studies are performed, which software problems are addressed and which results can be expected. In 2009 a research project at the HTW Berlin was started which had the scope to provide SME with information and software support in the field of material and resource efficiency. In that scope a web-platform was created were SME could find guidelines, partners and also small software tools to support several aspects in this field. One of the first software applications created during that project was the Resefi Carbon Footprint Tool, which aims to give the user the opportunity to create a quick and simple carbon footprint of their company or facilities. It was the first eye tracking study which was conducted at the UxLab. The reason for conducting a usability study here was to gather information about the user interface from real users. The developers of the software tool did not have any information about the end users perspective when working with the software. The implementation of the usability principles of ISO 9241-11 was the main goal. Figure 4 shows the former graphical user interface of the software. This interface is composed of different views, which are dockable at different positions of the screen. The composition of the elements consists of views to visualize analyses of input data in pie-charts and bar-charts (at the bottom), as well as the “Contingent Summary”, which can be seen in the upper right section of Figure 4. These three windows do not allow data input. On the left side of the upper section the project browser and the positions editor are displayed which are only shown when a position in the browser is selected. Finally the Carbon Footprint Editor is shown in the middle and allows the administration of the project name, project description and the number of employees. In order to get to the window shown in Figure 4 the software loads a welcome screen, which explains the methodology behind the Carbon Footprint. It also shows the provided functions of the tool. Seven tasks where conducted to find out if enough information about the carbon footprint methodology is given to understand the usage of the software (see Figure 5). As one important result Figure 6 shows that only one participant reads the welcome page carefully, while the others are trying to get started quicker and do not read the information on the screen intensively. Only the first lines of the explanation of the Carbon Footprint Tool stay in sight. The visual foci (shown as red bubbles) and saccades (shown as green lines) are marked which represent the transitions from a visual fixation to another. All participants said that the given information on the welcome screen was too much and that the description of the software features and the project information should be outsourced to the help content files. For each task which was executed with the test persons the observer of the eye tracking study measures if the task was executed with ease (1), with difficulty (2) or failed (3). Figure 7 shows that task 2, 4, 6 and 7 were solved with ease by every participant, while task 3 was more difficult and at task 5 three users failed to complete. After the evaluation of all results and an extensive discussion with the developers of the tool, changes of the graphical user interface were imple- mented. In that regard the former Carbon Footprint Editor was deleted, while however the Positions Editor was renamed to Carbon Footprint Editor. Also the graphical displays of the results (pie-chart, bar-chart) were increased in size and even the add-button, which the participants did not found during the usability experiment, was integrated i n the browser’s tool bar (see Figure 8). The objective of the project ‘Strukturbasierte Umweltbewertung von Chemikalien’ (StUChem, engl. structure -based environmental assessment of chemicals) was to develop a web-based software that aids closing data gabs in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies caused by scarce data for chemicals. The project was funded by the German Environmental Foundation (DBU). To conduct an LCA, databases with Life Cycle Inventories (LCI) are used to depict the background system. For Chemicals, these data are often not available as producers are restrictive about the information. During the project StUChem, a web-based database containing calculated data for the indicators Global Warming Potential (GWP), Cumulated Ener- gy Demand (CED) and EcoIndicator99 was developed. The basis is a methodology which enables estimating the environmental impacts caused by the production of chemicals (system boundary 'cradle-to-gate') from the molecular structure. This methodology was published as FineChem-Tool (Wernet et al., 2009).The project StUChem aimed at making use of this methodology by automatically calculating the indicators for a big number of molecules and providing them. This enables a broad community to ac- tually use the data (ifu Hamburg GmbH, ...

Context 3

... the following section the execution of the first eye tracking study is de- scribed and some results are given (cf. Krehahn, et al., 2010). The use cases show how those studies are performed, which software problems are addressed and which results can be expected. In 2009 a research project at the HTW Berlin was started which had the scope to provide SME with information and software support in the field of material and resource efficiency. In that scope a web-platform was created were SME could find guidelines, partners and also small software tools to support several aspects in this field. One of the first software applications created during that project was the Resefi Carbon Footprint Tool, which aims to give the user the opportunity to create a quick and simple carbon footprint of their company or facilities. It was the first eye tracking study which was conducted at the UxLab. The reason for conducting a usability study here was to gather information about the user interface from real users. The developers of the software tool did not have any information about the end users perspective when working with the software. The implementation of the usability principles of ISO 9241-11 was the main goal. Figure 4 shows the former graphical user interface of the software. This interface is composed of different views, which are dockable at different positions of the screen. The composition of the elements consists of views to visualize analyses of input data in pie-charts and bar-charts (at the bottom), as well as the “Contingent Summary”, which can be seen in the upper right section of Figure 4. These three windows do not allow data input. On the left side of the upper section the project browser and the positions editor are displayed which are only shown when a position in the browser is selected. Finally the Carbon Footprint Editor is shown in the middle and allows the administration of the project name, project description and the number of employees. In order to get to the window shown in Figure 4 the software loads a welcome screen, which explains the methodology behind the Carbon Footprint. It also shows the provided functions of the tool. Seven tasks where conducted to find out if enough information about the carbon footprint methodology is given to understand the usage of the software (see Figure 5). As one important result Figure 6 shows that only one participant reads the welcome page carefully, while the others are trying to get started quicker and do not read the information on the screen intensively. Only the first lines of the explanation of the Carbon Footprint Tool stay in sight. The visual foci (shown as red bubbles) and saccades (shown as green lines) are marked which represent the transitions from a visual fixation to another. All participants said that the given information on the welcome screen was too much and that the description of the software features and the project information should be outsourced to the help content files. For each task which was executed with the test persons the observer of the eye tracking study measures if the task was executed with ease (1), with difficulty (2) or failed (3). Figure 7 shows that task 2, 4, 6 and 7 were solved with ease by every participant, while task 3 was more difficult and at task 5 three users failed to complete. After the evaluation of all results and an extensive discussion with the developers of the tool, changes of the graphical user interface were imple- mented. In that regard the former Carbon Footprint Editor was deleted, while however the Positions Editor was renamed to Carbon Footprint Editor. Also the graphical displays of the results (pie-chart, bar-chart) were increased in size and even the add-button, which the participants did not found during the usability experiment, was integrated i n the browser’s tool bar (see Figure 8). The objective of the project ‘Strukturbasierte Umweltbewertung von Chemikalien’ (StUChem, engl. structure -based environmental assessment of chemicals) was to develop a web-based software that aids closing data gabs in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies caused by scarce data for chemicals. The project was funded by the German Environmental Foundation (DBU). To conduct an LCA, databases with Life Cycle Inventories (LCI) are used to depict the background system. For Chemicals, these data are often not available as producers are restrictive about the information. During the project StUChem, a web-based database containing calculated data for the indicators Global Warming Potential (GWP), Cumulated Ener- gy Demand (CED) and EcoIndicator99 was developed. The basis is a methodology which enables estimating the environmental impacts caused by the production of chemicals (system boundary 'cradle-to-gate') from the molecular structure. This methodology was published as FineChem-Tool (Wernet et al., 2009).The project StUChem aimed at making use of this methodology by automatically calculating the indicators for a big number of molecules and providing them. This enables a broad community to ac- tually use the data (ifu Hamburg GmbH, ...

Context 4

... tasks as shown in figure 4 were conducted to find out if the users are able to find given chemicals (Vanillin, Piperonal, Glucose, Bismuthine) in different ways (full-text search, Chemical Abstracts Service Number, structure drawing tool). StUChem was analyzed according to the three quality attributes defined by the DIN EN ISO 9241-11. The effectiveness shows the capability of pro- ducing a desired result. It is measured by the ratio of how many people completed or failed the tasks. The target value is that every task is passed with ease. The efficiency shows how quickly users can work on the tasks. It was measured by the time spend to reach the given task goal. For each task a maximum time limit was specified in which the test person should have passed the task. The satisfaction illustrates how pleasant it is to use the application. It was covered by two questionnaires based on the AttrakDiff survey of Hassenzahl, Burmester & Koller, 2014. This is an instru- ment to measure the hedonic and pragmatic quality of software in form of semantic differentials. A survey with ten items with seven-step poles with opposite adjectives was used. Each of the middle values of an item group creates a scale value for the pragmatic quality, the hedonic quality and the attractiveness. The pragmatic quality shows how controllable it is perceived subjectively and is evaluated with the four bipolar items "complicated - simple", "obstructing - supporting", "unpredictable - predicta- ble", "confusing - clear". The hedonic quality records how satisfying the application is with the four bipolar items "standard - exclusive", "cheap costly", "conservative - innovative", "dull - exciting", while the attractiveness shows if the graphical user interface is likeable for the users (bipolar items: "unattractive - attractive", "good - bad"). The test persons had to fill out the survey after the first task (Questionnaire A) and again after the last task (Questionnaire B) to check if and how the evaluation of the three quality categories changed during the course of the study. At the end of the study the participants were surveyed with further questions which came up during the study process. They also had to give three tops and flops that they recognized in ...