Volume 23, Issue 3

People must perform bureaucratic, administrative work in daily life, such as applying for official documents, concluding contracts, organizing purchases, managing pension plans, etc. This work is time-consuming and unequally distributed in the household. At its best, it is perceived as boring; at its worst, it is mentally and emotionally stressful, leaving people overwhelmed and unable to fulfill their obligations. People can benefit from the digitalization of domestic bureaucracy automating repetitive tasks, reducing mental effort, and saving time for leisure activities. In recent years, there has been a need for more empirical knowledge about the use of technology or the working environment for this purpose. This paper presents insights from an online survey with 617 socio-demographically distributed participants highlighting the devices, tools, special software, and common places people favor for accomplishing these office-like household chores. Our results provide a solid empirical basis that not only quantifies previous qualitative results now using the German adult population but also offers orientation for further in-depth research as well as design.

Adaptive user interfaces enable the display of user-specific, relevant information in complex interactive systems. The user experience on platforms can be improved by taking the user’s needs (goals, system experience, etc.) and design preferences (in terms of design shapes) into account. In a Germany-wide online survey, n  = 1,044 young people (pupils and university students) aged between 14 and 35 were asked about their design shape preferences. The results show that, overall, the shape of the circle appears to be the most attractive for young people (14–35 years) and that gender and age have the greatest influence on design shape preferences. While men and generally older people (19–35 years, university students) prefer basic shapes to more complex shapes, women and generally younger people (14–19 years, pupils) find complex shapes more attractive than basic ones. The identification of preferences with regard to design shapes can provide developers of interactive systems with information for the design of (adaptive) user interfaces.

Design decisions have an impact on societies and the environment. Making the impact of design tangible facilitates the mitigation of its negative consequences. The purpose of this paper is to outline what methods and actions a User Experience (UX) practitioner could use in order to support sustainable development. At Ergosign GmbH, an agency creating digital experiences, we conducted a review of existing guidelines and principles to determine the relevance and usefulness of those frameworks in the User Experience Design (UXD) context. The analysis resulted in the creation of six guiding principles to introduce sustainability concerns into the design process. Additionally, we mapped related UX methods and heuristics to each principle. Each of the six principles, as well as an exemplary method, are described in detail in this article. A first practical evaluation of the principles suggests that assessing impact and identifying preventive actions is possible at all stages of the design process. Furthermore, there is no strict correlation of a principle with a particular project phase. While an early analysis generates a more holistic action plan, a later assessment provides more concrete advice. Both approaches can deliver notable improvements in the reduction of resource usage.

This article has been written as an attempt to partially answer a question we as HCI researchers often hear: What has HCI contributed to the practice of developing software – or: why do (complex) systems still often fall short of being usable? We are trying to frame the topic and list some problems, but also some upcoming solutions. As to be expected, the problem is not that there is no knowledge available about how to build usable systems, but the knowledge about the importance of this topic has not yet arrived everywhere in software development.