IADIS INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL ON WWW/INTERNET

1-16

Authors: Friederike Rechl, Sandra Müller, Miriam Wagner, Josef Xu, Johannes Fottner and Dianjun Fang

In order to improve the intralogistics planning and intercultural competence of engineering students an international cooperative course in intralogistics planning has been initiated and realized between the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in Germany and the Tongji University in China. The course was launched in the summer of 2016 and has been offered three times so far. During the course, students work in global virtual teams (GVTs) and solve a case study in the field of intralogistics planning supported by modern communication media. As of the winter semester 2017/2018, this paper describes the course’s concept in detail and provides recommendations based on experiences from conducting the course as well as the students’ feedback. The main finding suggests that the usage of modern communication media as a lecture tool is supportive of teaching methods and approaches of intralogistics planning.

32-47

Authors: Robert Kutera, Karol Lopacinski, Maja Leszczynska and Wieslawa Gryncewicz

The authors address the issues of activating elderly people and improving their quality of life in the context of the possibility of increasing their effectiveness through the use of modern ICT solutions. The concept of the service e-marketplace platform for occupational activation of elderly people is presented and set in the context of Polish market conditions. Those entry data were gathered using three research methods: the extensive literature study, in-depth direct interviews and the survey dedicated to elderly people in Poland. On that basis the business model for implementation of such a platform for Polish market is proposed, what constitutes the main aim of the paper. The model includes the values provided to its users, the planned ways of achieving them, key market stakeholders and financial aspects following the Business Model Canvas methodology. Finally, the applicability of the business model in the light of the identified users’ needs has been proven by collating the model details with the particular needs. The results of the research could be a guide for institutional stakeholders of the market on their way to reach their strategic goals in the area of activation of elderly users.

62-77

Authors: Tobias Stein, Martin Seeger, Bernd-Burkhard Borys and Ludger Schmidt

Tactons are structured tactile messages and used to transmit information to users via the tactile sense. In recent studies, tactons were tested under various conditions and their benefits were demonstrated, while tactons were mostly applied on a non-interacting part of participants’ body. In future applications, e. g. in touch screen interaction, the device itself will probably generate the tactile feedback providing it to the user’s interacting finger. Therefore, common parameters (i. e., frequency, amplitude, rhythm, roughness, waveform, and duration) in such a setting were examined and tested for discriminability in order to derive guidelines for tacton design in touch screen interaction. 51 participants took part in the experiment, which consisted of 98 randomized tasks. In each task, participants were presented two vibration signals via a touch screen and had to decide, whether signals were identical or different. 87 tasks comprised a comparison between different signals, while only one parameter was altered in a single comparison, and 11 control pair signals were identical. The overall recognition rate was 0.69 ± 0.15 but various combinations showed recognition rates above 90%. It became clear that some parameters are more suitable in tacton design than others. Frequency and roughness achieved the best results, involving all paired comparisons which were correctly distinguished by each participant. Distinguishable levels of parameters and design recommendations were derived from the experiment, and considerations about future tacton design are presented.