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IT 08 036 Examensarbete 30 hp September 2008 An evaluation and improvement of Scania`s Fleet Management Portal and its graphical user interface Stefan Pettersson Institutionen för informationsteknologi Department of Information Technology

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IT 08 036

Examensarbete 30 hpSeptember 2008

An evaluation and improvement of Scania`s Fleet Management Portal and its graphical user interface

Stefan Pettersson

Institutionen för informationsteknologiDepartment of Information Technology

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Teknisk- naturvetenskaplig fakultet UTH-enheten Besöksadress: Ångströmlaboratoriet Lägerhyddsvägen 1 Hus 4, Plan 0 Postadress: Box 536 751 21 Uppsala Telefon: 018 – 471 30 03 Telefax: 018 – 471 30 00 Hemsida: http://www.teknat.uu.se/student

Abstract

An evaluation and improvement of Scania's FleetManagement Portal and its graphical user interface

Stefan Pettersson

This report is the result of a master thesis at the Department of InformationTechnology at Uppsala University. This master thesis has been performed at ScaniaCV AB, Södertälje, during 2008.The purpose of this master thesis was to improve the usability and design of thegraphical interface of the Scania Fleet Management Portal. Scania is one of the world'sleading manufacturers of trucks for heavy transport that has a solution whichconnects vehicles to the office. The web based portal is a way for the office to keeptrack of the logistics for the hauliage.A usability study was made with a number of interviews to gather responses from theusers of the portal. This evaluation, based on most of the interviews, but alsoopinions of my own, mentor and employees of Scania, resulted in a new, improvedprototype of the portal.This report is a summary of the project that was concluded with this master thesis. Itconsists of four major topics; an introduction to the theory of usability and analysistechnologies, a review of related portals, what kind of users there are and how theyuse the portal and finally, a usability analysis of usability problems with a solution thatresulted in the new, improved prototype.

Tryckt av: ITCIT 08 036Examinator: Anders JanssonÄmnesgranskare: Bengt SandbladHandledare: Peder Nordgren

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Sammanfattning

Detta ar den slutgiltiga rapporten av det examensarbete som utfordes vid ScaniaCV AB i Sodertalje under 2008. Examensarbete ar ett sjalvstandigt arbete somunder en termin genomforts i slutet av den Datavetenskapliga utbildningen vidinstitutionen for informationsteknologi vid Uppsala Universitetet.

Scania ar en av vardens storsta tillverkare av lastbilar, bussar och motorer.Det grundades 1891 och har sedan dess tillverkat mer an 1 000 000 lastbilar ochbussar. Det ar ett globalt foretag som ar representerade i mer an 100 landeroch har over 35 000 anstallda. Merparten av forskningen och utvecklingen skeri Sodertalje.

Scania erbjuder idag ett ”Fleet Management System” for lastbilsakerierinom logistik- och fordonsadministration. ”Fleet Management System” ar ettbrett samlingsnamn for en mangd tjanster som kopplar ihop akeriets fordonmed kontoret. Via en webbportal pa datorn pa kontoret kan akeriet till ex-empel koordinera och kontrollera var deras fordon ar, skicka en digital ordertill fordonet, fa fordonsdata sa som fordonets matarstallning, snitthastighet ochbransleforbrukning. I fordonet kan foraren bland annat via sin fordonsdator ac-ceptera en inkommande order, skota all sin tidsrapportering och fa en kraftfullGPS-navigator.

Malet med detta examensarbete var att se over och foresla en forbattringav denna webbportal med avseende pa anvandbarhet och utseende. Ny funk-tionalitet har utvecklas som ska stamma val overens med den tidigare designensamt riktlinjer for granssnittsdesign. Detta genom att ta fram anvandarna avwebbportalen, se hur de anvande den och hur ofta. En marknadsanalys ing-ick for att kartlagga liknande webbportaler. Examensarbetet resulterade i enforbattrad prototyp med en genomgaende och mer anvandarvanlig design. Pro-totypen ar tankt att anvandas till att utveckla en ny och forbattrad design forhela webbportalen.

Denna rapport ar ett sammandrag av examensarbetet och ar uppdelad i fyraavsnitt. Det forsta avsnittet blir en introduktion till amnet och en introduktiontill anvandbarhet i stort. Darefter en forklarande del om Scanias webbpor-tal, andra webbportaler pa marknaden och hur dessa ar utformade samt pavilket satt informationsinhamtning for examensarbetet gick till. Ett kort kapi-tel angaende hur integritet paverkas for ett ”Fleet Management System” ingaraven. Darefter ett avsnitt om vilka anvandarna ar och vilka problem de har.Slutligen ett avsnitt om utvardering av webbportalen och som resulterade i enforbattrad prototyp.

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Contents

1 Introduction 11.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2 Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.3 Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

2 Introduction to usability 32.1 Human-computer interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2.1.1 Usability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42.1.2 User . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2.2 Cognitive psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42.2.1 Human memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42.2.2 Visual perception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52.2.3 Mental model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2.3 Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.3.1 Colour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.3.2 Icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.3.3 Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design . . . . . . . . . . 11

2.4 Cultural usability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

3 Portals 143.1 Scania Fleet Management System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143.2 Volvo DynaFleet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173.3 Vehco Co-driver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203.4 Greater than . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

4 Gather information 234.1 Evaluation technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234.2 Questionnaires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234.3 Interviews and observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234.4 Workshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244.5 Prototype . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244.6 Iteration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

5 Integrity 28

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6 Users of SFMP 306.1 Differences among hauliers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306.2 Customer ambition with a fleet system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316.3 Key points from the interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

7 Evaluation of SFMP 35

8 Results of the final prototype 39

9 Conclusions 439.1 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439.2 Final words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

10 Sources 4510.1 Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4510.2 Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4510.3 Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

A Questionnaire 48

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List of Figures

2.1 Three coins from different angles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52.2 Which is the longer line? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62.3 Similar object groups together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62.4 Filestructure in Microsoft Explorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.5 Close objects tend to perceive as group together . . . . . . . . . 72.6 It easier to see the object as one circle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.7 Fraser’s spiral illusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82.8 Colour conventions in Western culture [Benyon, P. Turner and S.

Turner (2005)] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.9 Bad designed icons [InUse (2004)] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102.10 Too strong use of colours [InUse (2004)] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102.11 Good choice of colors [InUse (2004)] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102.12 An example of meaning for colours in different culture [Albert N.

Badre (2000)] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

3.1 Scania Fleet Management Portal’s homepage . . . . . . . . . . . 153.2 Vehicle position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163.3 Traffic Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173.4 Trip report as diagrammatic report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173.5 DynaFleet: Message tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183.6 Pocket PC in the Vehicle and Co-driver program for office . . . . 203.7 Greater Than Drive, measure drivers behavior . . . . . . . . . . . 22

4.1 Different kind of prototypes, features versus functionality . . . . 254.2 Paper prototype . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

6.1 Use of different vehicle group list text in SFMP . . . . . . . . . . 33

7.1 Three menu buttons; Operation, Analysis and Administration . . 357.2 Different buttons for view selected time of a period . . . . . . . . 367.3 Unused areas at homepage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377.4 Icon for shortcut to messaging window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377.5 Icons that represent if the interactor is on or off. . . . . . . . . . 387.6 Example of a screen with low resolution and few vehicles . . . . . 38

8.1 Vehicle position before . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408.2 Vehicle position in the prototype . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418.3 Background colours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

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List of Abbreviations

FMP . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fleet Management PortalFMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fleet Management SystemGPRS . . . . . . . . . . . . General Packet Radio ServiceGPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Global Positioning SystemHCI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Human-Computer InteractionHTML . . . . . . . . . . . Hypertext Markup LanguageISO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . International Organization for StandardizationMMI . . . . . . . . . . . . . Man-Machine InteractionPOI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Point of InterestRPM . . . . . . . . . . . . . Revolution Per MinuteSFMP . . . . . . . . . . . . Scania Fleet Management PortalSFMS . . . . . . . . . . . . Scania Fleet Management SystemSMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Short Message ServiceVOSP . . . . . . . . . . . . Volvo Service ProgramWWW . . . . . . . . . . . World Wide Web

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Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 Background

Scania is one of the world’s leading manufactures of heavy trucks. It was foundedin 1891 and since then the company has built and delivered more than 1 000 000trucks and buses. Scania is a global company with representation in about 100countries and has over 35 000 employees.1 Most of the research and developmenttake place in Sodertalje, Sweden, which is the headquarter for Scania.

Scania offers many different services to get more out of their trucks. Oneof these services is the Scania Fleet Management System (SFMS), which isone way for a hauling business to improve their efficiency. The SFMS consistsof two parts; in the trucks, an on-borad computer and at the office, a FleetManagement Portal (FMP). The on-board computer contains services such astransport management(driver logs, messaging service, positioning, tracking andan office map), vehicle management (vehicle data, trip report, zone alarm, ve-hicle alarm) and driver support (moving map and navigation). At the office thehaulier can supervise the transport management and the vehicle managementvia the SFMP.

1.2 Purpose

In 2004, an evaluation concerning the Scania Fleet Management Portal (SFMP)usability was made as a master thesis.2 Since then, new functionality hasbeen developed and added, without looking at the portal from the user’s views.Therefore, the purpose with this master thesis is to test and improve the us-ability and design for the SFMP’s graphical interface from the user’s views.Research is needed on what kind of users there are, how they use the portal andhow often they do it. This research will also include a background research atthe market for this type of product and how other portals look like. The goalwith this master thesis is to propose an improvement with a prototype, whichcan be used to develop a more usable portal.

120072Stina Nordberg (2004)

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Chapter 1. Introduction 2

1.3 Limitations

This thesis is an evaluation of the existing portal, whose purpose is to catchthe users’ issues, and create a prototype. The prototype is very simple and willbe used to do an early evaluation with the users. It is not a complete workingportal with real data, only a prototype to test the users’ reactions. The time isa major factor of how many test iterations that can be made of the prototype.

All the users that were a part of this thesis were from Sweden and the lan-guage of the portal was Swedish. This may influence the result of found usabilityproblems. There may exist more usability problems for other cultures that maynot be discovered. For instance, the translation among different languages. Theportal is developed in English but can be translated to 11 different languages,including Swedish. Some words in English are directly translated into Swedish,without seeing its intention.

This evaluation of the portal is only from the users’ and the graphical userinterface’s point of view. Things that work badly due to technical reasons willnot be covered, neither how the interactors and communicator work in thevehicle, nor how they communicates with the portal.

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Chapter 2

Introduction to usability

This chapter contains the theory for this master thesis. It can be read as anintroduction to what human-computer interaction is about and how it is usefulin this report.

2.1 Human-computer interaction

In beginning of the 1980s, the first real graphically based interface was intro-duced by Xerox Star, Apple Lisa and Apple Macintosh. At the same periodof time, the first publication of International Journal of Man-Machine Stud-ies was printed and the first conference in human-computer interface was held.One conference was held in the United States and the other in Europe. It wasfirst called man-machine interaction (MMI) or computer-human interaction, butlater it become human-computer interaction (HCI). Before, focus was at graph-ical user interface development, but today it is explained as:

Human-computer interaction is a discipline concerned with the design, evalu-ation and implementation of interactive computer systems for human use andwith the study of major phenomena surrounding them.(ACM Special interest Group On Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI) Cur-riculum Development Group, 1992)1

In the 1990s came colourscreen and multimedia, and the PC began to domi-nate the computer market. At the same period, the hypertext markup language(HTML) became very popular together with World Wide Web (WWW). It be-came revolutionary and wide spread for transmitting and sharing files. First,it was mostly for people with access for broadband communications, but today,58 percent of the population in Sweden use Internet on a daily basis (January-March 2007).2

The goal of HCI is to improve the interaction between users and computers.There are many models on how to achieve a good interaction. The main goal ofall models for graphical design is to minimize the barrier between the human’scognitive model, what the user wants to do, and the computer’s understanding

1Gulliksen, Goransson (2002)2Statistiska centralbyran 2008

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Chapter 2. Introduction to usability 4

of the task that the user wants to achieve. In a system design perspective, theHCI discipline is more than to minimize the barrier. It can be used through thewhole development process. HCI discipline also involve design, implementationand evaluation.

2.1.1 Usability

Usability is a widely spread term which can be used in several ways. It candiffer depending of who is using it and in what kind of context. In this thesis,the usability is defined as:The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specifiedgoals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.(ISO 9241-11)

2.1.2 User

Person/individual who interact with the product/system (ISO 9241)

ISO define ”user” as the person who interact with the system. The real user isnot often the same person who orders the system or specified what the systemshould do. It is important to know the user or users. Hence, there are the realusers who are going to use the system which is developed. In some cases theremight not be any previous users, for instance, during the development of anentirely new system.

2.2 Cognitive psychology

Cognitive psychology is referring to internal mental processes such as problemsolving, mental image, memory and language. Cognitive psychology is a widesubject and this thesis will not go deep into the subject.

2.2.1 Human memory

The human memory has three major components: sensory memory, workingmemory(also called short-term) and long-term memory. This three stage- modelof memory was developed by Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin at 1968.3

The sensory memory briefly holds incoming sensory information for a shorttime. Each sensory has it owns memory. Our auditorial memory can holdinformation about the precise details of a sound for several second against ourvisual memory that can only hold information for fraction of a second. Byselective attention, some information enters the working memory.

The working memory can store information in a limited amount of time andis also very limited in size. Some claim that working memory has a set limit offour ”chunks”, not the magic number 7 +/- 2 that George Miller proposed in1956. Contents of the memory can be stored up to 30 second before it needs tobe rehearsed.

The long-term memory has, opposite to working memory, unlimited capacityof storage and can hold information for a few seconds to an infinity of time. To

3E. Bruce Goldstein (2005)

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Chapter 2. Introduction to usability 5

access the information in long-term memory, it has to be transferred to workingmemory. This information from long-term memory can be processed to workingmemory by recall or recognition. Recall memory refer to doing an active searchfor a special piece of memory while recognition refers to searching in memoryand deciding whether the pieces of information match information stored inmemory. Often is referring easier and quicker.

Chunking is a well used technique that we are often not aware of. It groupsitems into larger units of meaning. One example of this is to try to recall asmany letters as possibly:

U N I C E F W W F E U N A T O F N

With chunking information into more meaningful chunks: UNICEF, WWF,EU, NATO, FN. These chunks are easier to rehears in working memory becausethey have a deeper meaning. Another technique for using deeper meaning is touse meaningful associations. One example is by using short command associ-ation for example in word processing programs: B stands for bold, I for italicand U for underline.

2.2.2 Visual perception

Visual perception is the ability to interpret information through our eyes. Theinformation that is interpreted must be filtered, processed and put in a meaning-ful context. From detecting colour, shapes and edges of object, the informationgives us a meaningful sentence that we use to recognize an object. With per-ceptual constancy, we will always see an object constant from different anglesand distances. A coin will always be round-shape no matter how we look at it.

Figure 2.1: Three coins from different angles

The Muller-Lyer illusion is an example how our visual system process candraw the wrong conclusion and our perception is not completely reliable. Infigure 2.2, most people claim that the upper line is shorter than the lower line,but the two lines are the same length. One potential explanation is that upperline is seen to be further away and therefore the shorter one.

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Chapter 2. Introduction to usability 6

Figure 2.2: Which is the longer line?

Perception and processing of text is important in design. Most of the infor-mation on a computer screen is text. Normally, adults read about 250 wordsper minute from a book, but when they are reading from a computer screen,it takes longer time. Probably because text line is longer than in a book andthere are fewer words in each line.4 A normal reader does not read words letterby letter. They scan familiar words for their shape and then recognize that asa word. This increases legibility, which is a measure of how fast a text can beread. With using a font size between 9 and 12 points with proportional spacebetween them, the legibility is equal. Same for a line length between 58 and132 mm.5

The gestalt laws are four visual perception theories of how people group andinterpret objects. These laws are useful when designing user interface with largenumber of objects.

The first law is the law of similarity: Similar object groups together as onegroup. It can be properties such as colour, shape or texture. The left part of

Figure 2.3: Similar object groups together

figure 2.3, people is tending to see horizontal or vertical lines of circles meanwhilein the right one, similar types of objects are grouped together as vertical lines ofcircles. A concrete design example of this is used in Windows Explorer, similarobject as maps or files are grouped together (Figure 2.4).

The second law is the law of proximity or nearness. Object that appearsclose to each other tend to be perceived and organized as one object, either byhorizontal or vertical line (figure 2.5)

The law of closure is the third law which is about people’s tendency to”close” the open edges or fill in the rest of the missing part of an object. It is

4Dix, Finlay, Abowd, Beale (2004)5Dix, Finlay, Abowd, Beale (2004)

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Chapter 2. Introduction to usability 7

Figure 2.4: Filestructure in Microsoft Explorer

Figure 2.5: Close objects tend to perceive as group together

easier to perceive a closed object than an open one. In figure 2.6, we tend tosee the object as more complete circle than it is. That is because it is easier toperceive patterns that make sense, like a continuous line or a circle.

Figure 2.6: It easier to see the object as one circle

The fourth and the last law is the law about continuity. In Fraser’s spiralillusion in figure 2.7, we tend to see it as a spiral. By following any line in the”spiral” it becomes lots of circles. This is because the perception in nervoussystem is more consistent with continuity of individual element than individualobjects. This law is frequently used in design. Example of continuity is thescroll-bar who shows that it is more documents to be seen below the window.Then the slider is used to slide the window smooth down, when sliding down,it seems continuous rather that discrete view of the window.

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Chapter 2. Introduction to usability 8

Figure 2.7: Fraser’s spiral illusion

2.2.3 Mental model

The mental model is our cognitive representation of our understanding. Themental model is a model of how the mobile phone, MP3-player or the softwarefor a system works. If a user does not have a good mental model of the softwareand a problem occurs, the user will not be able to recover from it. Whendesigning a system it is important to form a correct mental model of how theusers work, and what they do, so designers can create a good graphical userinterface that match the mental model the user has for the system.

Dix, Finlay, Abowd and Beale referred to Norman’s thoughts, that gooddesign depends upon a mapping between the user’s mental model and the de-signer’s design or conceptual model. However, this is not always the case ac-cording to Dix, Finlay, Abowd and Beale:6

1. The user’s metal model is developed through interaction with the system.

2. The designer expects the user’s model to be identical to the design model.

3. But the designer does not communicate directly with the user - all com-munications take place through what Norman calls the ”system image”and may be thought as the physical design. If the ”system image” is not aclear and consistent reflection of the design model, then the user will endup with the wrong mental model.

Mental models are unique for every person and are the simplest explanationspossible of the system. There are no ways to see another person’s mental models,but by experiment and testing, example by prototyping, there are ways to tryto understand them.

6Dix, Finlay, Abowd, Beale (2004)

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Chapter 2. Introduction to usability 9

2.3 Design

2.3.1 Colour

Colour is important to use in design. It can be used in two ways, ether fordecoration, making an object more beautiful and good looking, or to commu-nicate emotions to archive a certain reaction. When you drive your car andsee a red-light stop, your reaction is to hit the break. That red-light causes acertain reaction. Different colours trigger different emotions and different cul-tures can have different emotions for the same colour. Even in the same culture,different colours can have different meaning. More about this in the section 2.4on page 12. Figure 2.8 illustrate a guideline for how colours are associated inwestern culture (Western Europe, US and Australia):

Red Danger, hot, fireYellow Caution, slow, testGreen Go, Okay, clear, vegetation, safetyBlue Cold, water, clam, skyWarm colours Action, response required, proximityCool colurs Status, background information, distanceGreys, white and blue Neutrality

Figure 2.8: Colour conventions in Western culture [Benyon, P. Turner and S.Turner (2005)]

About seven percent of the male and 1 percent of the female population havea colour deficient vision.7 There are two types of colour blindness, dichromatand monochromat. A dichromat is a person who is only deficient in the blue-yellow system or in the red-green system. A monochromat is a person who istotally colour-blind and cannot see any colour, only black and white. A trick tocheck how it looks for a colour-blind person it is to print out the page on a black-white printer or adjust the colour balance on your monitor. In design, colourshould be familiar to the end-user with a high contrast between foreground andbackground. Colour should be motivated and used consistently throughout thedesign. Right use of colour can increase user effectiveness with 200 percent andpoor or wrong use of colour can decrease effectiveness with 50 percent. Strongcolour is used for a signal effect, some user may have to look at the screen forvery long time, and so they need a calm and pleasant work environment.

2.3.2 Icons

A picture can say more than a thousand words. The same applies to an icon, asmall picture used for representing a piece of functionality. An icon should beintuitive; by looking at it, you should understand what it does. The icon shouldrepresent what kind of functionality that lies behind it. What do the four firsticons in figure 2.9 do?

7Passer, Smith (2007)

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Figure 2.9: Bad designed icons [InUse (2004)]

What the icons in figure 2.10 do is still hard to understand, and they alsohave a strong use of colour which is tiresome to watch.

Figure 2.10: Too strong use of colours [InUse (2004)]

In figure 2.11 there are not so much use of colour and the icon are smallerthan in figure 2.10. Still, those icons are easier to understand.

Figure 2.11: Good choice of colors [InUse (2004)]

William Horton has produced a checklist for designing icons and visual sym-bols:8

- Understandable: Does the image spontaneously suggest the intendedconcept to the viewer?

- Unambiguous: Are additional cues (label, other icons, documentation)available to resolve any ambiguity?

- Informative: Why is the concept important?

- Distinct: Is every icon distinct from all others?

- Memorable: Where possible, does it feature concrete objects in action?Are actions shown as operations on concrete objects?

- Coherent: Is it clear where one icon ends and another begins?

- Familiar: Are the objects in the icons familiar to the user?

- Legible: Are icons legible at real reading distances. Can a user prop hisfeet up on his desk, plop the keyboard in his lap, lean back and still makeout icons on the screen?

- Few: Is the number of arbitrary symbols less than 20?

- Compact: Is every object, every line and every pixel in the icon neces-sary?

8William Horton (2007)

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Chapter 2. Introduction to usability 11

- Attractive: Does the image use smooth edges and line?

- Extensible: Can I draw the image smaller? Will users still recognize it?

To sum up, when creating an icon it is recommended to start with a sketchand then iteratively improve the design. It is difficult to know what the usersprefer and relate to, so evaluating the design by testing with users is preferred.Furthermore, add ”balloon help”, or tool tips, to increase usability and under-standability to what the icon does.

2.3.3 Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design

Ben Shneiderman is an American computer scientist who has come up witheight golden role of interface design 9. These heuristics were developed underhis years of experience in human-computer interaction. The eight golden rulesof interface design are used as a guide and have to be refined, extended andinterpreted for each system that is developed.

- ConsistencyConsistent sequences of interactions should be required in similar situ-ations and identical terminology should be used in prompts, menus andhelp screens.

- Increase use of shortcutsAs the frequency of use increases, so do the user’s desires to reduce thenumber of interactions and to increase the pace of interaction.

- Informative feedbackFor every action one user does, there should be some system feedback.Modest response for frequent and minor actions. Substantial response forinfrequent and major actions.

- Design dialog to yield closureSequences of actions should be organized into groups with a beginning,middle, and end. The informative feedback at the completion of a groupof actions gives the operators the satisfaction of accomplishment.

- Error handlingDesign the system so the user cannot make a serious error. If an erroris made, the system should be able to detect the error and offer simple,comprehensible mechanisms for handling the error.

- Easy reversal of actionsIt encourages exploration of unfamiliar options since the user knows thaterror can be done.

- Support internal locus of controlExperienced operators strongly desire the sense that they are in chargeof the system and that the system responds to their actions. Design thesystem to make users the initiators of actions rather than the responders.

9Wikipedia

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- Reduce short-term memory loadThe limitation of human information processing in short-term memory re-quires that displays be kept simple, multiple page displays be consolidated,window-motion frequency be reduced, and sufficient training time be allot-ted for codes, mnemonics, and sequences of actions.

2.4 Cultural usability

Today we live in a multicultural society and a Web page or a computer programcan be used in several countries and by people from different cultures. Culturalusability is a term for emphasizing the relationship between culture and usabilityin design.

One widespread misconception is that English is the universal language.10

Over one billion people speak at least a basic level of English, which can becompared with 6.5 billion people living in the world.11 English is a widespreadlanguage, but far from everyone understands and uses it. This is one examplewhy it is necessary to use internationalization to reach a larger group of people.

Only changing the language may not be enough. In English, and most ofthe European languages, people read from left-to-right and from top-to-bottom.In some countries, like Arabic countries, they read from right-to-left. This mayinfluence on the design of the layout. Icons and images are only meaningful ifthey are used in the right culture context. An example of this is that an arrowpointing forward may point in the opposite direction in another culture.

When making a Web page or a computer program for the internationalmarket, it has to be considered what context it is to be used in. This is forpresenting information in the right way, such as date, time and distances. Datecan be written as 050403 and mean three different dates, YYMMDD (Swedenand Japan), MMDDYY (United States) and DDMMYY (most of the Europe).The possibility for misinterpretation is very likely. ISO 8601 is an advised nu-meric representation of dates and times on an internationally agreed basis.12

By adding the full year, some misinterpretations can be avoided. Date is repre-sented from the largest to the smallest element: YYYY-MM-DD.

Different colours trigger different emotions, as shown in section 2.3.1 inpage 9. In figure 2.12 13, same colour can have different meaning in differ-ent parts of the world, even in the same culture, same colour can have differentmeaning. For instance, a web shop uses green colour for representing a safe areawhere you can buy items safely. For American readers it does, but for Frenchreader it will represent criminality.

10Stina Nordberg (2004)11Wikipedia12ISO, Numeric representation of Dates and Time13Albert N. Badre (2000)

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Colour China Japan Egypt France United States

Red Happiness Anger Death Aristocracy DangerDanger Stop

Blue Heavens Villainy Virtue Freedom MasculineClouds Faith Peace

TruthGreen Ming Future Fertility Criminality Safety

Dynasty Youth Strength GoHeavens Energy

Yellow Birth Grace Happiness Temporary CowardiceWealth Nobility Prosperity TemporaryPower

White Death Death Joy Neutrality PurityPurity

Figure 2.12: An example of meaning for colours in different culture [Albert N.Badre (2000)]

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Chapter 3

Portals

3.1 Scania Fleet Management System

The Scania Fleet Management Portal (SFMP) is a part of Scania Fleet Man-agement System (SFMS). The portal works with the vehicle platforms, calledcommunicators and interactors, in the vehicle. Communicators and interactorssend data from the vehicles, either automatically or on request, over GSM com-munication network to the SFMP. The portal can simply be obtained by anyPC connected to the Internet. No special software is required except WindowsInternet Explorer. The window is not resizable and is developed for a mini-mum screen resolution equal to or higher than 1024x768 pixels. After loggedin, a yellow pop-up textbox appears together with the start page. A drop-downmenu with three categories; Operations, Analysis and Administration is usedfor navigation. There are also three shortcuts at upper right; to vehicle position,alarm and message (upper right). It is highlighted from grey to blue when newinformation arrives, see figure 3.1

Order Support

It is an application that gives the transport planners at the haulier a fast andefficient way of handling job orders. The transport planner can send orders fromthe office to the interactors in the vehicle.

Driver Log

Driver log is an easy way for drivers to record their activities and hours in thevehicle. Activities are recorded by the driver on the vehicle’s interactor and sendthem to the office. From the SFMP, the office can see drivers’ time-consumingand activities. Information can be exported to Microsoft Excel or Word.

Messages

The message-function lets the user of the portal send and receives a text messageto vehicles or groups of vehicles. It is also possible to create a template formessages that are being sent often.

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Figure 3.1: Scania Fleet Management Portal’s homepage

Position and Office Map

Positioning and map´s are a central part of the portal and its users. The officecan see where their vehicles are and track where they have been. The trafficplanner can efficiently get a general overview of all vehicles. For instance, senda pickup order to the closest vehicle to the pickup location.

Left part of the screen in figure 3.2, contains information such as vehicleidentifier (set by the user in administration settings), position, driver, and if theinteractor and ignition is turned on or off. A haulier that has several vehicles cansort and create them into groups. Right part of the screen contains an officemap. It provides zoom and search function and detail positions of vehicles,Scania workshops and other Point Of Interest (POI).

Alarm and Tracking

The SFMP contains two different alarms, theft alarm and zone alarm. Thetheft alarm is a vehicle alarm that sends an alert when it is trigged. It sends aposition where the vehicle is, that can be monitored at SFMP. The zone alarmis triggered when a vehicle goes out of the zone. Zones are geographical areasthat are defined by five points on the map-application. In the administration-section, the haulier can set up to ten alarm receivers, which will get a SMS oran e-mail when a theft or zone alarm is triggered.

At the SFMP it is also possible to track each vehicle and see how it hasprogressed along its route. Vehicles positions are shown on the map or in atext in a list, for instance ”2 km SE of Sodertalje, SE”, which means that the

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Chapter 3. Portals 16

Figure 3.2: Vehicle position

position was 2 km south-east of Sodertalje in Sweden.

Analysis and Report

Performance analysis is designed to record and report vehicles’ and drivers’specific data. Data and information such as distance, speed, fuel consumptionand odometer readings are automatically collected from the vehicle and sentwirelessly over to SFMP. The haulier can log in to SFMP and interpret thesedata in a few different ways, either by a function called Traffic Light, or createa report as an Adobe PDF document. Traffic Light (figure 3.3) compares afew key parameters with predefined parameters set in the portal. If the keyparameters are exceeded, they will be red or yellow. Green parameters meanthat all parameters are within the predefined values. These parameters can beset to a specific driver or a group of drivers/vehicles. By clicking on a driver orvehicle, it is possible to get more detailed information.

Trip report (figure 3.4) collects and presents detailed information about ve-hicle data based on a specific vehicle/driver for selected time periods. Thereport can either be created a diagrammatic report, which means a graph, ora text report. Information presented in the report would be: fleet goals (fuelconsumption, speed, revolution per minute (RPM)), time and fuel utilization,fuel consumption over distance and time, engine coolant temperature, engineutilization and optimum RPM.

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Chapter 3. Portals 17

Figure 3.3: Traffic Light

Figure 3.4: Trip report as diagrammatic report

3.2 Volvo DynaFleet

DynaFleet is Volvo’s fleet management system. It has many functions in com-mon with Scania fleet management system. In the vehicle, a display screen andkeyboard can be installed so that the driver can communicate with the office. It

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Chapter 3. Portals 18

also includes maps, traffic information and order handling. At the office, withDynaFleet Online, vehicle managers, administrators and dispatchers can followthe vehicle through GPS. It is also possible to send messages, see driver activityand service plan and get different types of reports.

DynaFleet uses a portal to log in with an administrator or a user account.From the administrator account, which is created from Volvo Trucks webpage, itis possible to create user accounts, driver accounts for drivers and add vehicles.The administrator account does not have access to online services as reports,maps and communication. A program is required at the office to get data fromthe driver card in the vehicle.

The portal is slightly confusing in the beginning, with plenty of buttons andactions. The window is not resizable and all information is in one window witha number of different tabs: Info, report, service plan, message, maps and driveractivity. In the left part of the window, the user can switch between differentresources like vehicles, drivers, users, POI and geofences.

The portal has good overview structure, but icons and the way they arestructured is not as intuitive as it could be. There are lots of icons here andthere. To understand and manage them all, the user has to be very experienced.DynaFleet can feel boring when the interface is in different shades of blue.

Figure 3.5: DynaFleet: Message tab

Report

In Dynafleet there are some predefined reports for analyzing drivers and vehicles.As in SFMP, the user can choose types of reports, drivers or vehicles, dateinterval and the result as a table or graphically. In the portal it is impossible todo any real analyzes or evaluations of its data, it is up to the user to do. Datain the table, such as summary report, is very universal, which results in some

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Chapter 3. Portals 19

information being useless. An example of this is how many kilometers a vehiclehas been driving in the idle mode. That should always be zero.

The report service misses information and explanations about what is pre-sented in a heading of a column in a table. The Economy and Coasting are twoof these headings that are measured in time and percent. However, it is difficultto understand what is being measured.

Service plan

Under this tab, the user can see the service plan for all his vehicles. Themaintenance plan can be registered in two ways; either registered by the userhimself or automatically by the Volvo Service Program (VOSP). The planningservice can be set in two ways, preliminary and no warning, that means that itwill be created or planned.

Message

The message module looks very similar to a usual email program. It is used tosend messages to a vehicle through mobile network. To the left is inbox, outbox,sent items, assistance and deleted items. The message list is shown to the upperright and the actual messages are below. (Figure 3.5)

Maps

DynaFleet’s map service has a nice layer of colour that is represented in commonmaps. Water is blue and land is green, yellow or pink depending on the size ofcity. The map is easy to zoom in and out, but difficult to move up and down orleft and right. The map contains plenty of icons that the user can choose to seeor not. Example of choose able icons in the map can be airports, bus stations,hospitals, gas stations and workshops. Just by clicking at a vehicle, the usergets detailed information about that vehicle, such as position, speed, driver, axleload and temperatures (including defroster). The same information is possibleto see just by clicking at an earlier position. The map can also illustrate wherethe vehicle has been by drawing a line between the earlier positions. This doesnot represent which way the driver has driven; it is just a straight line betweenthese positions.

The map service can neither measure a distance, search for a street norsuggest a good driving route.

Driver Activity

With Driver Activity, the office follows up which driver that is driving rightnow, when he took a break, how long time it took to load/unload and howmuch time he or she can drive (based on maximum daily driving time). Itis presented in three different types: The first one displays information aboutwarnings, last activity and a summary of time spent with each activity undera specific period. Under the second page, information is used to control thatthe driver is not breaking any rules in the portal defined by the Working TimeDirective. The third and last page illustrates information about warnings thathave been issued and the status of them.

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DynaFleet vs. SFMS

The two portals, DynaFleet and SFMS, are similar, with almost the same func-tions and same concept that is presented in almost the same way. The bigadvantage for DynaFleet is that it has a good user manual, in comparison toSFMP. It explains the DynaFleet system from the first contact to more difficultinteraction, and also that DynaFleet can schedule vehicle service in the Serviceplan.

Both DynaFleet and SFMP use a fixed window size that is not a goodsolution for users with low window resolution. DynaFleet is developed for aminimum screen with 1024x768 resolutions.

3.3 Vehco Co-driver

Vehco has a vehicle independent computer-based solution for vehicle monitoringand communication between the office and vehicles, so called Co-Driver. It hasa pocket PC with a mobile GPRS connection in the vehicle and an installedprogram in a PC at the office.

Figure 3.6: Pocket PC in the Vehicle and Co-driver program for office

Co-driver consists of five services, depending of the hauliage intention:

- Less administration with order handling and time report

- Improved fuel economy with fuel monitoring and eco-driving

- Safe transport with traffic safety follow-up and theft-tracking.

- More efficient communication with quick message, positioning, vehicle track-ing and temperature monitoring.

- Motivating drivers with navigation and Internet access.

Co-driver is very similar to SFMS with same services such as time report,fuel monitoring and quick messages. Even so, Vehco’s co-driving also has someadditional services, as temperature monitoring. From the office’s point of view,the office programs is easy and clean but with a boring user interface. Buttons

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Chapter 3. Portals 21

and background has different shade of grey, like a program in the beginning of90’s. A big advantage for Vehco’s office program over SFMP is that it is easy tocompare drivers in the company and print out a page to show the driver how heor she is driving. In SFMP, you print out and a page for every driver that showa lot of different parameters, like speed over time, highest speed, revolution perminute (RPM), idling over time, idling over fuel. Too many parameters canconfuse the hauliage and the driver. In Co-driver, the office can choose whichparameters to consider.

An advantage with the pocket PC in the vehicle is that it is mobile. Thedriver can bring the PC with him but the disadvantage is it that the screen andthe buttons are small. A driver does not want to answer a text message fromthe office if the keyboard is too small. It takes too long time to answer or thedriver can not see the buttons.

3.4 Greater than

”Greater than” is a tool to change drivers’ behaviour to drive more effectivelyand through that, decrease the company’s unnecessary outgoings. The focus isnot the vehicle or the portal as in SFMS, but the driver. This is a tool for mea-suring, analyzing and coaching the drivers, together with the company manager,to reducing unnecessary costs as fuel and more indirect cost as when the driversdrive more smoothly. To do this, Greater Than have come up with a database,called ”Greater Than Profile” which contains about twelve million well definedvalues and measuring points. It automatically measures the cost of driving thevehicles by well defined values and measuring points from the database. Then”Greater Than Drive” compares each driving against the database, and it’s”Best Practice”. It is a tool to give an objective comparison between actualand potential performance which results in a so called Gap analysis. Gap anal-ysis is a business resource assessment tool, enabling a company to compare itsactual performance with its potential performance. It has two questions: Whereare we and where do we want to be? To measure how the drivers drive, everyvehicle contains a black box that records speed, revolution per minute (RPM),idling time, retardation, braking by foot and letting the engine brake. All datais then sent to ”Greater than” database through GPRS and the statistics canbe viewed with the program Greater Than Drive.

The difference between the Greater Than-concept and the SFMS is that GreaterThan is focusing on measuring the drivers’ driving style and reduce unnecessarycosts, while SFMS has more functions, both in the vehicle and in the portalsuch as maps, vehicle positions and driver’s log. As shown in figure 3.7, GreaterThan Drive uses those five of parameter to evaluate a driver in a day, week ormonth. The grey area is how the driver drives right now and the green andyellow are the goals, so called best practice.

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Chapter 3. Portals 22

Figure 3.7: Greater Than Drive, measure drivers behavior

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Chapter 4

Gather information

4.1 Evaluation technology

There are a lot of different evaluation technologies, some cost more than othersin both man-hours and money. More expensive tehnologies may find moreusability problems though, what kind of system that is developed effects thechoice of evolution technologies. For instance, questions such as: Is the systemup and running and are there real users of the system that can be used tofind out usability problems need to be answered before developing the rightevaluation technique.

4.2 Questionnaires

The simplest form of usability evolution is questionnaires. The major advantageis that they can be sent to many people and be widely spread. However, theresult of a questionnaire is not a study of usability of user graphical interfacethough, it is just a result of people’s opinion.1 Another problem with question-naires is that they often have a low number of responses and the answers areshort and hard to interpret.

Questionnaires for this thesis were used to extend interviews and increasenumber of opinions and frequency of users of a page or functionality. The firstproblem with this questionnaire was the number of users to send the question-naires to. The total number of users were eight, which is too low when noteveryone will answer. After the expiration date, none had answered the ques-tionnaires and after a reminder, two users finally answered. No conclusion ofthe questionnaires can be made due to lack of responses.

4.3 Interviews and observations

Interviews are like questionnaires but are more flexible and directly in contactwith the user. Interviews take more time but give a better result when a testperson can answer more freely. An interview can be very structural and follow

1Jan Gulliksen, Bengt Goransson (2002)

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Chapter 4. Gather information 24

a predefined form of questions, or it can be half structural and have some ques-tions that are discussed. If there are systems in use, a better way to find outusability problems is to observe the user at work together with an interview.This technology costs more money and man-hours, but gives a much betterresult. It can be used in different types of user groups to see how they workand variance between difference user groups. A problem with interviews is howrepresentative a user actually is for a whole group of users.

If the user also tells the test leader what he or she is doing and thinking, socalled talk-aloud, it is easier to understand what kind of user problem there is.Best result is obtained if the user that is studied is in the daily environment,because it reduces conceivable user problems when the user interacts with thesystem.

In this thesis, interviews with real users of the SFMP was the main input. Ifthe development of interface is to be for them, their answers to some questionsshould weight heavily when developing it.

A total of number of eight reel end-users have been interviewed about theSFMP and one has been interviewed about a competing portal. There were usersthat have not been using the portal so much compared to experienced users andusers with novice computer skills compared to users with more experience withcomputers. All interviews were in their daily environment, which means theiroffice. More about the result of the interviews in chapter 6.

4.4 Workshop

A workshop is a good way to get people’s opinions and come up with new ideas.Collect a group of people that has a good representation of the people relatedto the problem that should be discussed. A workshop is a good way to designan interface.

In this thesis a workshop with employees from Scania was done to get theiropinions. A workshop with real users’ was impossible because the real userswere geographically spread out throughout Sweden.

4.5 Prototype

A prototype can be as simple as a paper prototype as or complex as an almostfull working system. By using a prototype in a project, many usability problemscan be found early in a project, which saves time and money. What kind ofprototype that should be made depends on its purpose. A paper prototype ischeap and can be created early in a project. By having different papers thatcorrespond to a screen dump of a state in the system, a ”human computer”can simulate to be the system when showing these states for the test subjectlike it was a real system. Another more powerful prototype is to create anelectronic prototype with a computer program such as Microsoft PowerPoint orMacromedia Dreamweaver. The big advantage with an electronic prototype isthat this prototype makes it more obvious how the real system is going to look-n-feel, maybe so much that the test subject experiences it as the real functionalsystem. Same as with a paper prototype, an electronic prototype helps to findusability problems before any codes are written. There are three categories in

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Chapter 4. Gather information 25

which prototypes can be categorized, depending on how much look-n-feel versusdata that is behind it.(See figure 4.1)

In vertical prototyping users can test and perform some real tasks. The pro-totype does not include that many features, but the features that are includedare in detail. The opposite to vertical prototypes are horizontal prototypes. Ithas a fully working surface layer but a reduced underlying functionality. Themain advantage of horizontal prototypes is that, it can be tested early. A sce-nario based on a prototype is something between a vertical and a horizontalprototype. It works great as long as the test subject follows the predeterminedplan and gives a good estimate of how the system feels. It can easily be con-structed with various functionality depending on what should be tested.

Figure 4.1: Different kind of prototypes, features versus functionality

Paper Prototype

A quick paper prototype (figure 4.2) was made to test some ideas in this thesis.Are the ideas possible, how do they look like and what do the users think aboutit? These paper prototypes then became the starting point of the electronicprototype. These paper prototypes were very simple with one part computerprinted paper and one part hand written.

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Chapter 4. Gather information 26

Figure 4.2: Paper prototype

PowerPoint Prototype

Based on the information that was pointed out in the evaluation of the existingproduct, a PowerPoint prototype was created. It consists of a number of mod-ified screenshots from the existing product that had been modified in a simplegraphics painting program. All modified screenshots were then added togetherto PowerPoint as a presentation. Clickable buttons were later added so the usercould click during testing, and feel how the new prototype feels like.

During the development of the prototype, a number of issues were focused on:

- Every page should have a unique purpose. Two pages with same informa-tion should be as one page with only one way to navigate to it from themenu buttons.

- Every page should have relevant information and a consistent graphicaluser interface that helps the users to navigate and to recognize it self. Foritself an instance, a button with the same function should have the sametext.

- Using the empty areas in a useful way, for example add more information.For a user it will not be a problem with more information if the informationis structured in a meaningful way.

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Chapter 4. Gather information 27

4.6 Iteration

Iteration means making repetition or repeating, which is of the highest impor-tance when creating the user interface design, because no one knows in thebeginning how the interface should look like for the potential users. By do-ing a prototype for the user interface, which is repeated successfully with newprototypes, a good interface design can be developed. The leading question iswhen to stop the iteration. Every development process has its iteration processand its name for it. In general, an iteration round contains of an analysis ofusers requirement and its context, which leads to a new design phase. The lastphase is to get feedback and to get suggestions of what to change in the nextiteration.

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Chapter 5

Integrity

”No quantitative or qualitative control, through the data system, of the em-ployee’s work input may be undertaken without the employee’s knowledge.”1

Scania Fleet Management Portal is as a tool for controlling the employee’swork and see where the drivers are. The driver can experience this system asan infringement of his integrity which increases the psychical load on the driver.It is not considered as a good working environment if the employees control thedrivers without their knowledge. It is needed though, to control the drivers andthat is where the dilemma is; how can this be made without compromising withthe drivers’ integrity?

Three true examples from the real world using a fleet management system:

- A hauliage company has ten vehicles and uses a fleet management systemwith positioning and geofences. One of their vehicles takes an extra longtrip to a nearby city on its way back to the company during working hour.The office gets a message from the fleet management system that the driverhas taken an abnormal way. The head of the office calls the driver andasks what he is doing right now.

- The owner of a hauliage has heard that one of their drivers uses companyvehicles to do some cash-in-hand job at the end of the weekend without thecompany’s knowledge. With a fleet management system, the owner of thehauliage can set boundaries around a location where the vehicle is supposedto be when no one should be working. Then the owner of the hauliage getsan alarm when the vehicle is outside the boundaries.

- A Swedish company that sort out and transport environmentally danger-ous waste, installed a fleet management system with positioning serviceto increase customer satisfaction. With the system the office can tell thecustomer where their vehicles are and when they should be at the next cus-tomer. The employee’s didn’t get any information of how the drivers wereobserved or what the office should do with the information. A driver couldget a phone call from the office such as, ”Isn’t your break over? There ismore work to do” or ”Aren’t you driving a bit too fast right now?”.

1Swedish work environment authority (2001)

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Chapter 5. Integrity 29

A fleet management system is a good tool to increase a company’s effec-tiveness if it is being used in a good way. In the first example, the hauliage iswatching over his whole fleet to see if some driver are doing something wrong.The second example, the head of the hauliage uses the fleet management sys-tem to prove that a driver is doing something that he should not do. The thirdexample shows how a driver can experience that he is being observed withouthis knowledge of how he is observed. The drivers that are being observed mustbe aware of how he or she is observed and what the hauliage will do with theinformation. Probably, the driver would not take that extra trip if he knew thathe was being observed.

In different cultures it has to be handled in a different way. In Sweden thereare a strong union that takes care of the employee’s health and working envi-ronment. The union has to approve how the fleet management system shouldbe used for companies with union involvement. It is really important that thedriver is aware how he or she is observed. It differs between countries, for aninstance, in the United Kingdom it is likely that a driver can take a long breakfor about two hours, so he or she does not have to take one more delivery. Thedrivers just stop the vehicle and go to sleep for two hours and then go back tothe company. This is not something that is usual in Sweden.

An unpredicted outcome of using a fleet management system’s drivers report oranalysis is that when a good driver goes out and looks for a new job, he canbring a paper of how well he has been driving based on his earlier driving atthe company. When the fuel becomes very expensive, it becomes one of thelargest costs for a hauliage. If the driver can show that he can drive safely andeconomically to save fuel for the company, it is more likely that he can get thatjob he is searching for.

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Chapter 6

Users of SFMP

During this thesis, several customers that use the SFMP have been interviewed.Then that information became the primary input for this thesis, which thispart of the report summarizes. This part of the report begins with describingdifferences among hauliers, what kind of main differences there may be amongthe hauliers that use SFMP. This leads into what kind of goal a haulier can havewith using an FMS and finally, an overview of what the interviews resulted in.

The first goal was to get a list of hauliers that has an SFMP account. Un-fortunately, the list was not as big as wished, so sorting out any company wasnot necessary. Next step was to contact them all and do a pre-study of theirmain transport goods, size of the fleet and reason for using a fleet system. Afew companies on the list did not use the portal, so interviews with the eightremaining companies were then later executed. A half structured interview,with some predefined questions, was made at the company’s office. The usersthat were interviewed had different main tasks at the company compared tothe other companies. That was to obtain a good overview of which users thereare. The user could have one main task at the company, for instance a trafficplanner or have several tasks, for instance the owner of the haulier, driver of avehicle and do most of the administration work. The last one was more likelyfor smaller companies. The time the users spent on SFMP varied among users,from a pair of minutes per day to one user that has the portal open all day andchecked for something every now and then. The time that was possible to spendon the portal at the company depended on the company’s size and purpose witha FMS.

All users that were interviewed were very pleased that someone from Scaniawas meeting them, that could explain and answer their questions they hadabout using SFMP. Several of the users would like to assist and be a part of animprovement of a more user-friendly graphical interface.

6.1 Differences among hauliers

What kind of differences in the haulier can affect the use of SFMP? Down beloware a few important variations among hauliers that affect the use and purposeof using a fleet management system.

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Chapter 6. Users of SFMP 31

Size of the fleetA haulier with a fleet of numerous vehicles has personnel with specific tasks. Asmaller haulier with a few numbers of vehicles often has the same personnel fordifferent tasks at the companies, such as driving and officework. None of themhas time to learn and explore the SFMP, they just want to do their tasks as easyas possible. Hence, the interface needs to be easy to use. The size of the fleetalso affects the interface. A fleet with many vehicles wants a good overview oftheir entire fleet, as does the haulier with few vehicles. By adding the vehiclesinto groups, the users can get a better overview. Compare to a file system withfiles and folders. By adding files into folders, a better overview is archived. Thedesign of the portal must also support the users with few vehicles in the fleet.For instance, a very large table with only three vehicles results in a table witha lot of empty space with no use.

Long hauliage vs. distributionWhat types of cargo the hauliage transport influents what kind of fleet systemfunction they are searching for. For instance, how often should the vehicle sendits position to the company. Companies with fewer vehicles generally knowwhere their vehicles are because the vehicles go on the same route every week.Distribution within a short distance needs more frequent updates where thevehicles’ are positioned, compared to long hauliages. However, both hauliageswant frequent position updates in Sweden as well as outside the Swedish borders.

Administration personnelA smaller company generally does not have special administration personnel atthe office like a haulier with a large fleet does. When a haulier decides that heor she wants to start analysing some parameters to decrease unnecessary costsas fuel, it is not always clear who is going to do the analysis or has the time andknowledge for it.

Computer knowledgeKnowledge of how to use a computer differs in the companies. Not so long timeago, a haulier did not have any computer to use at the company. Nowadays,they need it to compete against each other and to reduce unnecessary cost. Ahaulier with younger personnel that has grown up with computers and hencefinds it natural to use one. Both groups want a system that is easy to use. Thegroup with the users that did not grow up with the computer needs it more.

6.2 Customer ambition with a fleet system

Different customers have different needs and requirements. All of these differ-ences can be compared with how many ways there are to build a truck for acompany.

Performance analysisOne of the biggest expenses for a haulier is the fuel cost. By decreasing the fuelconsumption, the haulier can save money. To assist the haulier lower their cost,Scania performs analysis, for both drivers and vehicles, which can be summa-rized in a report. A lot for customers spend money by buying a fleet manage-

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Chapter 6. Users of SFMP 32

ment system to do analysis and reduce fuel, which should save money for thecompany. This is one of the most common reasons why a customer buys a fleetmanagement system.

PositioningThe office can see in the portal where the vehicle is instantly and where it hasbeen. When a customer to a distribution haulier call and asks where his or herpackages are, the office can see in the portal where the vehicle with the packageis and answer the customers right away. Before the haulier installed the posi-tioning service, the office had to call the driver and ask where he or she was. Itis possible to track where the vehicle has been with the positioning service forinstance, if a driver is behaving badly, for instance taking two hour naps insteadof taking an extra delivery.

Zone alarmZone alarm is a way for the office to get an alert if the vehicle leaves a specifiedgeographic area. In the SFMP, it is possible to set a list of people that will geta message by email or to the mobile phone when a vehicle leaves that specifiedarea. A driver is using the company’s vehicle to earn some extra money underthe weekend without its chief’s knowledge. The user of the portal can set a zonealarm for the vehicle and get a message if someone is using the vehicle duringthe weekend. They can even see, by the positioning service, where the vehiclehas been.

Order supportOrder support increases effectiveness to handle job orders. It can be integratedwith the company’s existing transport management system and allow job ordersto be sent out and monitored from the office. The driver can easily accept ordersthat come to the interactor in the vehicle. The office can then easily see when adriver accepts an order and when he or she is done with it. It increases the com-pany’s effectiveness and same man-hours. If a new order comes in, the office cansend out the order very fast, no matter where the driver is or what he or she isdoing. The office does not need to call the driver that may be driving or sleeping.

Driver logDriver log is an effective way for a driver and office to record a driver’s activityand his/her time. With the interactor in the vehicle, the driver can report whathe or she is doing and all activities can be viewed at the office. It is also possibleto integrate the driver log with a salary administration system, which can makesome paperwork unnecessary. For a company that already has a working SFMPwith interactors in the vehicles, the extra money that is spent through installingdriver log can be saved in the future.

SummarySFMP includes several functions and covers many goals that customer can have.All these functions might confuse a customer if the whole package is installedright away. By specified, smaller packages, like the saving fuel-package thatincludes driver and vehicle analysis, a customer can understand easily what heor she has bought. All software that can be bought includes a time period forlearning how to use the software. If a customer installed a package for saving

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Chapter 6. Users of SFMP 33

fuel, and it is working well, that customer is more likely to extend and buyanother package, maybe a driver log package.

6.3 Key points from the interviews

A couple of points were consistent throughout all the interviews. These mainpoints are gathered here, and in more detail, they can be read in Scania’s inter-nal document about the summary of each interview.

Response timeThe response time, the time it takes from the user have clicked at a button tothe result is seen, is too long. More often than less, a customer did not seeany difference between a system in progress and the system standing still. Theresponse time was too long which made it hard to use. A guideline would beto show an hourglass if the system is busy more than eight seconds. Because,when the system is working, the user loses the control over system and it isimportant to know if the system is still working and how long the system willbe busy. Then the user can decide if it is worth waiting for or not. In SFMP, theloading icon did not always come up consistently throughout the whole portal.After half of the interviews were completed, an SFMP was updated. The timeresponse for a user became less time-consuming, and the user did not experienceit as a major problem anymore.

NavigationA few pages are the same or have almost exactly the same information in theportal. That result in a portal with more pages and more items at the menu toexplore, which make it harder for the users to see which page that was requested.For instance, every page should have a special purpose for the user. Now the

Figure 6.1: Use of different vehicle group list text in SFMP

user wants to go back to that special page. By clicking at all possible pages, andcompare it against each other, the user finally finds the page. The explanatorytext for what a button does, can have various contents depending on which pagethe button is on. This leads to an inconsistent interface. For example, the listfor choosing a vehicle group in figure 6.1. The overview explanatory text canbe: ”vehicle group”, ”group selection” or ”show data for” and the text in thelist can be: ”all vehicles”, ”all groups” or ”all vehicles groups”. It can also

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Chapter 6. Users of SFMP 34

have different sizes, positions and layouts among different pages, which leads toinconsistency.

Understanding dataUsers had a problem to understand what kind of data that were presented ona page at SFMP, especially novice users. A few pages were the same or hadalmost exactly the same data. A simple explanation would of the informationof what kind of data that are presented would be appreciated and increase theusability. The portal that is used today includes a help section, but it is on avery detailed level from the beginning.

Good connection with Scania workshopDuring these interviews with customers to SFMP, customers had a good com-munication with the local Scania workshop. Some of the customers also had agood communication with Scania Sweden in Sodertalje. It also surfaced thatsome of the local Scania workshops in Sweden did not have that much knowledgeof how SFMP works. The local workshop is a good way to promote informationand new utility.

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Chapter 7

Evaluation of SFMP

This evaluation is mostly based on the interviews that were made with users,but also opinions of the author, the author’s mentor and employees of Scania.This thesis is not going to deep into what kind of usability problems there are.It is more an overall view of the whole portal.

A general problem for the SFMP is that it is experienced as slow to interact,which results in a low feedback to the user. As an example, when users click ona button, sometimes nothing happens for few seconds. This confuses the user,because the user does not know if he or she should interact or if the system isworking properly. Before this master thesis was ended, there had been greatimprovement.

The portal is easy to navigate through with three menu buttons; operation,analysis and administration. Every button consists of a list of chooseable func-tion which the user can choose from, for example positioning, messaging or sitesettings. These three menu buttons are always visible in every window in theSFMP, so the user can interact with the portal quickly and easily. However,several windows are the same with the same information. Every window shouldbe distinct with a unique purpose.

Figure 7.1: Three menu buttons; Operation, Analysis and Administration

Ways to interact with the portal, such as buttons, are not continuouslylocated in same position for similar windows. Buttons with the same functionscan have different text for different windows. For instance, a button for viewinga selected time period can have the text: update, view, view list or an arrow(figure 7.2). When the user gets more experienced with a system, he/she anautomated process to navigate. By placing buttons with the same functions atsame position for similar windows, the user recognizes himself/herself and can

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Chapter 7. Evaluation of SFMP 36

use an automated processes.

Figure 7.2: Different buttons for view selected time of a period

The first page after login, so called homepage, does not contain very muchuseful information. This is demonstrated in figure 7.3 with lines.

Icons should be intuitive and easy to understand (more about icons undersection 2, Introduction to usability at page 3). Several icons in the portal areintuitive and easy to understand because they are associated in long-term mem-ory, for instance the messaging icon that leads to message window in figure 7.4.Other icons are more difficult to interpret and understand, of what it is repre-send. In figure 7.5, icons for representing if the interactor is on or off can beconfusing for the users, especially with the blue icon which is representing thatthe interactor is on.

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Chapter 7. Evaluation of SFMP 37

Figure 7.3: Unused areas at homepage

Figure 7.4: Icon for shortcut to messaging window.

The portal has a fixed screen size which results in that the users with a lowscreen resolution do not get as good an overview of the whole page, as the userswith high screen resolution do. An effect of that is the pages with importantbuttons at the bottom of the page. Buttons may not be discovered by theusers with low screen resolution. Figure 7.6 demostrate a user with low screenresolution and few vehicles in the table. The user does no get a good overviewof the page and the buttons under the table.

The fixed size of the text may dramatically reduce a user’s ability to read andinterpret the information. The web browsers that are used today can changesize of the text to help users that need a larger size text. However, if a userincreases the size of the text in the browser, it will not affect the size of thewindow.

A simple overview text that explains what kind of information that is pre-sented for every page would be nice. It would improve the ability to understandwhat kind of information that is presented, for a novice user. In SFMP today,there is a help section that is rather smart. If the user clicks on the questionmarker, information can be read about this particular page that is open. How-ever, the information in the help section is going into a very detailed level atthe beginning. It skips some overview-information that explains what kinds ofinformation that is presented in the page or where it comes from.

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Chapter 7. Evaluation of SFMP 38

Figure 7.5: Icons that represent if the interactor is on or off.

Figure 7.6: Example of a screen with low resolution and few vehicles

Most parts of the information are presented in a table which is a good wayto present a large amount of information. That is one of the reason why it isimportant to have a consequent table style for the whole portal layout. For anexample, no horizontal scrolling if it is not required.

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Chapter 8

Results of the finalprototype

This chapter presents highlights and evaluations of the final prototype that be-came the prototype for this thesis. A prototype with very much look-n-feel andvery little data behind it was developed because was easy and cheap to create.Even so, it is a good way to analyse new design solutions which easily can bechanged without writing any code. The general direction for designing the in-terface was to make a more general graphical interface with consequent looksthrough out all pages and functions such as calendars and buttons.

SFMP in generalA new design of the head of the portal was proposed in the prototype. Thehead of the portal is always visible to the user, so it should contain useful infor-mation for the user for all pages. In the prototype, the head got thinner thanthe original one, which saves space that can be used to present more valuableinformation. The shortcut buttons also got bigger which makes them stand outmore. These shortcut buttons is a fast way for the user to navigate to three ofthe most used function.

Under the head in the portal, every page got a text line of information inthe prototype. This information explains what kind of data that is presented inthe page that is open. It helps the user to understand the data more.

TablesTables are used more or less in every page, often together with tabs. A stan-dardized table was then needed so the tables look the same for the whole portal.The adjustments of the tables were:

- No scroll-bars when there is no extra information to show. A scroll-barsteals valuable screen space and also hides important information. Severalof the tables in the portal had horizontal scroll-bars without any function.They were taken away and there was an extra row instead.

- The message page has a long table with a lot of rows. Navigating tomessage in the row, the user have a vertical scroll-bar and page index asnumber to switch between pages. Those are two design solutions for the

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Chapter 8. Results of the final prototype 40

same problem. For a user with low screen resolution, the web browseralso has its own vertical scroll-bars. By reducing it to navigation withonly page indexes, it helps the user to navigate easier.

- Some tables are wider than others in the portal. Wider tables makes itharder for the user to follow a row from left to right. By colouring everyother row between a light and a dark colour, it helps the user to interpreta row.

- A tab is often used to navigate between different pages in a table. In theportal that is used today, it is not that easy to see which tab is in view.By sharpening lines around the tab that is in view that makes it easier tosee which tab is being view.

- In the prototype it is also possible to sort a column by its icons, for instancethe interactor icon in the vehicle position page. The user would like tosort a table by its vehicles that have an interactor on.

HomepageThe first page after login, the so called homepage, was before a page with nouse. It did not contain any kind of useful information, as displayed in figure 7.3.However, by adding little information such as the five newest messages or the fiverecent vehicle positions to the homepage, the users get some kind of informationof what has happened since the last time they logged in.(figure 8.1)

Figure 8.1: Vehicle position before

The homepage in the prototype also has the news concerning the portal. Itcan be news concerning smaller updates of the portal or a problem concerningthe mobile network. It is a good way to spread the information quickly andefficiently to the users. It saves support time if the user can read it here insteadof calling the support. Many users, especially novice users, would like to havea manual of how to use the portal. A link to a simple text document with thatkind of information can be placed on the homepage for an instance. What kindof information to present on the homepage does not have a straightforward solu-tion, because different users have different needs and thereby different requestsof what kind of information they want. This prototype is just a prototype, andthe homepage can be developed into a page with even more information that auser may need. The homepage should be more than is just a starting page toconfirm that the login was correct.

Vehicle positionThe most important and frequently used page is the vehicle position page.

That requires a very good design that supports the user’s task within the page.From here the user gets a good overview of the fleet and the latest position from

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Chapter 8. Results of the final prototype 41

Figure 8.2: Vehicle position in the prototype

each vehicle. This page is used from a couple of minutes to all day dependingon what task the users have.

The buttons for ”request vehicle data”, if the user wants an update of thevehicle position and ”zoom in”-button, that zoom in where the vehicle is atthe map. These two buttons were before under the table but are now in theprototype placed above, this is because of several reasons; one was for userswith a low screen resolution. They did not see these buttons before withoutscrolling down the page. Another reason is that the tables are at a fixed size.A user with few vehicles in the table had a long empty table and under therewere these buttons.

If the difference between the time the position was taken and the time theposition was sent is big, this was indicated by a yellow background (figure 8.3)colour in the row. These colours were very intense and distracted the eye frommore important information.

Figure 8.3: Background colours

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Chapter 8. Results of the final prototype 42

There are several icons to represent important information such as if theinteractor is on or off. In the vehicle position page, there were several differeticons representing different interactors in the vehicles. There were big, smal,tall, blue, black, grey and green icons, such as figure 7.5. For a user of theportal, this information is useless and only confuses the user. The icons for theprototype were only green for representing that the interactor is on, and grey ifif was off.

AdministrationFrom the administration menu (figure 7.1), the user can change their site-, fleet-,vehicle-, driver- and map-settings for the portal. Each setting has its own pagewith several tabs. The first tab for each setting contains an overview. Theseoverviews consist of information from the other tabs, a summary. This overviewdoes not, in most cases, have any useful information. Hence, it might seem un-necessary to have it. For every other tab, there are settings to change. For anexample, it is possible to change the language in one tab, change the passwordfor the portal in another tab and in a third, choose how to measure a unit in theportal, in metric units (km) or imperial unit (miles). With this design solution,there are plenty of tabs which result in problems for the user to find the tabhe/she is searching for.

In the prototype, there have been several changes to decrease these tabsto achieve a better overview with fewer tabs. For instance, the site settingsonly contain four tabs; User, information, templates and map. The user andinformation tab contains more settings in each page than before.

The map settings contain only three tabs; overview, map and zone. Theoverview contains useful information that can also be reached from other tabs.The map tab contains adjustments for the user to set a standard map scale. Inthe last tab, that is the zone tab, the user can allocate a vehicle to a drivingzone or opposite, which is more natural to find under the section where theuser uses these driver zones, that is in operation menu under zones in positions.Finally, there is only one tab left out which naturally can be placed under thesite settings.

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Chapter 9

Conclusions

9.1 Summary

The prototype that was made for this thesis is a way to show some ideas ofa more usable portal with a few simple modifications. Creating a new designof the whole portal with a new look is not the right way to achieve a betterproduct. The users of the portal today know how to use it, and by introducinga whole new graphic interface might only confuse them more. Transforming theportal step by step to a more consequent and user-friendly graphical interfacesens to be a better approach.

Creating guidelines how a table should look like or what kind of icons thereshould be would help to increase the usability development. Creating theseguidelines is a massive work, but in the long run, it is a very helpful documentwhen a new page is created or knowing what kind of text-buttons there are inthe portal. Creating this guideline is continuous process that never ends and itcan be done in several ways.

There are a few standard windows in the portal; window with a big table,window with a half table and a half map or a window with other sorts of infor-mation. Creating guidelines for how they should look like, where the buttonsshould be placed and so forth, helps forming a new page to be consequent withthe rest of the portal.

9.2 Final words

The ambition with this thesis was to evaluate and propose an improvement ofthe graphical user interface to the Scania Fleet Management Portal. Its focuswas to understand the customers more, who they are, what they think andwhat kind of problems they have. Another indirect goal with this thesis was tostart discussions about to the interface among the developers and get customers’approach. Not at the end of the project, but while it is in the testing phase, inthe early stage, to obtain a more user friendly and consequent graphically withuseful functionality.

I believe that the next phase for this project is to create some more pro-totypes, not only graphical look-n-feel prototypes, but prototypes with databehind it and true coding to test that it is possible to build the ideas that were

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Chapter 9. Conclusions 44

made in the look-n-feel prototypes. A clear involvement of users is necessaryhere, but also a good view of the market. Another approach is to decide what tochange, for instance the text on a button, and then change it consequently forthe whole portal. With this approach, a more consequent design can be builtwith small steps, for a more coherent graphical interface of the portal.

I hope that my work with this thesis has increased a better view of the portaland the users, but also a beginning to a more usable portal. As Peder Nordgrenwrote in his thesis, the design process is a continuous process that does not endwith this master thesis.

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Chapter 10

Sources

10.1 Literature

Alan Dix, Janet Finlay, Gregory D. Abowd, Russell Beale (2004), Human-computer interaction, Third edition, Pearson Education Limited, ISBN 0-13-046109-1

David Benyon, Phil Turner, Susan Turner (2005), Designing Interactive System- People, Activities, Contexts, Technologies, Addison-Wesley, England, ISBN0-321-11629-1

E. Bruce Goldstein (2005), Cognitive Psychology - Connecting mind, Researchand Everyday Experience, Thomson Wadsworth, ISBN 0-534-57726-1

Jan Gulliksen, Bengt Goransson (2002), Anvandarcentrerad systemdesign, Stu-dentlitteratur, ISBN 91-44-02029-5

Michael W. Passer, Ronald E. Smith (2007), Psychology - The science of mindand behavior, Third Edition, Mc Graw Hill, ISBN 0-07-110715-0

10.2 Publications

Albert N. Badre (2000), The Effect of Cross Culture Interface Design Orienta-tion on World Wide Web User Performance, Georgia Institute of Technology,GIT-GVU-01-03

Helena Kovacs, Innovating regions in Europe, Chalmers School of entrepreneur-ship,http://www.innovating-regions.org/download/Helena\%5FKovacs\%2Epdf,(visited 21 May 2008)

InUse (2004), Riktlinjer for granssnittsdesign, Version 1.01,http://www.inuse.se/?oid=publications&pc1=3\&_locale=1 (visited 18 Febru-ary 2008)

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Chapter 10. Sources 46

Martin Larsson (2007), Benchmarking of Scania FMP, Scania, REI08095

Nacka Varmdo posten (2008), Serviceforetag punktmarkerar sina anstallda, 13may 2008, volume 19 number 20

Stina Nordberg (2004), Master Thesis; Usability and Design of Scania FleetManagement Portal, Linkoping University, LITH-IDA-EX-04/028-SE

Swedish work environment authority (2001), Working with Display Screen Equip-ment, AFS 1998:5 section 10

Vehco, Value added telematics services for a transportation company - How dothey look in real life?,http://www.eastwesttc.org/websites/eastwest/sd_page/54/magnusPresentation_english_060907.pdf

10.3 Internet

Greater Than webpage,http://www.greaterthan.info (visited 21 May 2008)

ISO, Numeric representation of Dates and Time,http://www.iso.org/iso/support/faqs/faqs_widely_used_standards/widely_used_standards_other/date_and_time_format.htm (visited 6 March 2008)

Nationalforeningen for trafiksakerhets framjande (NTF), Varfor gor vi dennasatsning?,http://www.ntf.se/gotland/pdf/Presentation\%20LE.ppt (visited 21 May2008)

Scania webpage,http://www.scania.com, (visited 12 February 2008)

Statistiska centralbyran (2007), Daglig anvandning av Internet uppdelat pa kon,samtliga och alder,http://www.scb.se/templates/tableOrChart____187909.asp (visited 18 Febru-ary 2008)

Vehco webpage,http://www.vehco.se (visited 21 May 2008)

Wikipedia, Shneiderman’s rules for design,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shneiderman’s_rules_for_design (visited21 February 2008)

William Horton (1997), Designing icons and visual symbols,http://sigchi.org/chi97/proceedings/tutorial/wh.htm (visited 21 Febru-ary 2008)

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Chapter 10. Sources 47

Volvo Trucks,http://www.volvo.com/trucks/global/en-gb/services/tis/DFOL-2006, (vis-ited 22 May 2008)

Vovlo webpage, DynaFleet Online Anvandarguide,http://www.volvo.com/NR/rdonlyres/CE49D82F-8AF5-49DF-A26A-3B9030827E30/0/Guide2006_21_4_sve.pdf, (visited 22 May 2008)

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Appendix A

Questionnaire

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Till dig använder portalen till Scania Fleet Management Utvärdering av Scania Fleet Management Portal Jag gör mitt examensarbete vid Uppsala Universitetet där jag ska förbättra portalen till Scanias ”Fleet Management” med avseende på användarvänlighet och utseende. Som underlag till denna förbättring behöver jag dina åsikter om portalen. Därför önskar jag att ni tar er tiden för att fylla i denna enkät och skicka tillbaka den antingen per e-post: [email protected] eller per post: -------- Naturligtvis är ni välkomma kontakt mig med frågor eller synpunkter till e-postadress ovan. Som tack för att du tog dig tid och svarade på denna enkät, så vill jag skicka en present till er när jag fått tillbaka den ifyllda enkäten. Bifoga namn och adress vart jag ska skicka presenten. Enkäten består av tre delar: företagsuppgifter och allmänna frågor om portalen, funktionaliteten hos menyerna ”Aktiviteter” och ”Analys” (Fordon/Förare) i portalen samt en avslutade del om användningen av den sista menyn, ”Administration”. Skriv gärna kommentarer och förslag till förbättring eftersom dina synpunkter är mycket viktiga för fortsatt arbete. Besvarar enkäten med portalen framför dig. Tack för hjälpen! Med vänliga hälsningar Stefan Pettersson

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1. Företagets namn: 2. Antal anställda: (På kontor) (Som chaufförer)

3. Hur skulle du beskriva din datorvana? 4. Hur många timmar per dag i snitt använder du en dator? 5. Antal fordon och huvudsaklig godstyp för:

- Stadsdistribution - Regional distribution

- Fjärrtransport

6. Vad är din huvudsakliga arbetsuppgift? 7. Vad använder du portalen främst till? 8. Hur länge har du använt portalen? 9. Hur ofta använder du på portalen? 10. Vilken är den första information du tar fram efter inloggningen? (det första du klickar på) 11. Hur mycket använder du ”hjälpen”? (FMPHelp )

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Logga in i portalen och under menyn ”Aktiviteter”: 1. Hur ofta använder du ”Aktuella händelser”? (Kryssa för lämpligt alternativ)

Dagligen Flera gånger vecka

Flera gånger månad

Flera gånger år

Aldrig

1.1 Önskar du någon ytterligare information i tabellen? 1.2 Får du bra överblick på alla fordon? 1.3 Kommentarer och förslag till förbättring av ”Aktuella händelser”: 2. Hur ofta använder du ”Positionering – Fordonsposition”? (Kryssa för lämpligt alternativ)

Dagligen Flera gånger vecka

Flera gånger månad

Flera gånger år

Aldrig

2.1 Får du god överblick vart alla bilar är? 2.2 Får du en god överblick var en speciell bil är? 2.3 Använder du ”grupper” för att gruppera bilar? 2.4 Tycker du att det är lätt att använda kartan? 2.5 Kommentarer och förslag till förbättring av ”Fordonsposition”: 3. Hur ofta använder du ”Positionering – Spåra fordon”? (Kryssa för lämpligt alternativ)

Dagligen Flera gånger vecka

Flera gånger månad

Flera gånger år

Aldrig

3.1 Tycker du att det är lätt att välja en viss tidsperiod för att spåra ett fordon? 3.2 Kommentarer och förslag till förbättring av ”Spåra fordon”: 4. Hur ofta använder du ”Positionering – Körområde”? (Kryssa för lämpligt alternativ)

Dagligen Flera gånger vecka

Flera gånger månad

Flera gånger år

Aldrig

4.1 Vad för information letar du efter när du är på denna sida? 4.2 Kommentarer och förslag till förbättring av ”Körområde”:

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5. Hur ofta använder du ”Meddelande”? (Kryssa för lämpligt alternativ) Dagligen Flera

gånger vecka

Flera gånger månad

Flera gånger år

Aldrig Har ej funktionen

5.1 Har du några problem med att skicka ett meddelande till person/fordon 5.2 Använder du ”mallar”? 5.3 Kommentarer och förslag till förbättring av ”Meddelande”: 6 Hur ofta använder du ”Larm”? (Kryssa för lämpligt alternativ)

Dagligen Flera gånger vecka

Flera gånger månad

Flera gånger år

Aldrig Har ej funktionen

6.1 Tycker du att sidan ger tillräcklig information om vilket fordon, var och när ett larm gick? 6.2 Använder du funktionen ”inaktivera larm”? 6.3 Kommentarer och förslag till förbättring av ”Larm”: I menyn ”Analys -> Fordon”: 7. Hur ofta använder du ”Trafikljus”? (Kryssa för lämpligt alternativ)

Dagligen Flera gånger vecka

Flera gånger månad

Flera gånger år

Aldrig

8. Hur ofta använder du ”Översikt körningar”? (Kryssa för lämpligt alternativ)

Dagligen Flera gånger vecka

Flera gånger månad

Flera gånger år

Aldrig

9. Hur ofta använder du ”Spåra fordon”? (Kryssa för lämpligt alternativ)

Dagligen Flera gånger vecka

Flera gånger månad

Flera gånger år

Aldrig

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I menyn ”Analys - Förare” 10. Hur ofta använder du ”Trafikljus – Förare”? (Kryssa för lämpligt alternativ)

Dagligen Flera gånger vecka

Flera gånger månad

Flera gånger år

Aldrig

11. Hur ofta använder du ”Översikt Körningar”? (Kryssa för lämpligt alternativ)

Dagligen Flera gånger vecka

Flera gånger månad

Flera gånger år

Aldrig

12. Hur ofta använder du ”Körrapporter”? (Kryssa för lämpligt alternativ)

Dagligen Flera gånger vecka

Flera gånger månad

Flera gånger år

Aldrig

13. Hur ofta använder du ”Förarloggar”? (Kryssa för lämpligt alternativ)

Dagligen Flera gånger vecka

Flera gånger månad

Flera gånger år

Aldrig

14. Hur ofta använder du ”Förarloggar – kommunikation”? (Kryssa för lämpligt alternativ)

Dagligen Flera gånger vecka

Flera gånger månad

Flera gånger år

Aldrig

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I menyn ”Administration”:

(kryssa för lämpliga alternativ) Har

använt

Inte behövt

använda

Onödig funktion

Vet ej

vad det är

Kommentarer och förslag till

förbättring

1. Programinställningar Översikt Lösenord Fordonsidentifierare Enheter Automatisk utloggning

Mallar Språk Optimalt varvtal Nyhetsruta 2. Flottans inställningar Översikt Loggfiler Larm 3. Fordonsinställningar Översikt Alias Rapportering

Grupper Trafikljus – Fordon Körklass 4. Förarinställningar Översikt Grupper Namn Förarloggar Ladda upp användarkonto

Trafikljus – Förare 5. Kartinställningar Översikt Karta Körområde Har du några övriga synpunkter på portalen som helhet eller på denna enkät? Tack för er att ni to er tiden! Skicka svar till -----------------------