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- Y.S.Y.D. - You Stay You Demand: User-centered design approach for mobile hospitality applicationPublication . Esteves, Micaela; Pereira, AngelaThe evolution and widespread use of mobile technologies has boosted the hotel industry to develop applications for these devices. Several tourism applications and services for mobile devices have been developed in recent times. However, many of these services are not oriented for hotel guest, rather than these services are more focused on delivering information instead of targeting the specific needs of guests. Based on a study carried out in Portugal by the researchers, were found that the most mobile hotel applications and websites are focused on dreaming, planning and booking stages rather than in experiencing and sharing. Some of these mobile applications are reproduction of websites, which do not bring added value to the guests during their stay. Thus, it was developed the mobile hotel application, You Stay You Demand (Y.S.Y.D.), with a User-Centered Design approach that makes easier the communication between guests and hotel staff for guest satisfaction. During the study were integrated the Nielsen's heuristic evaluation with user testing to assess the usability which created a user-centered interface.
- A Technological Proposal Using Virtual Worlds to Support Entrepreneurship Education for Primary School ChildrenPublication . Pereira, Angela; Martins, Paulo; Morgado, Leonel; Fonseca, Benjamim; Esteves, MicaelaThe importance of entrepreneurship education from elementary school through college is now recognized as an important aspect of children’s education. At the level of basic education, the development of entrepreneurial activities using Information and Communication Technologies, specifically three-dimensional virtual worlds, is seen as an area with potential for exploration. The research presented herein is a model that allows the development of entrepreneurial activities in virtual worlds with children attending primary education. This model allows the preparation, monitoring and development of entrepreneurship education activities in virtual worlds, including safe interaction in virtual worlds between the children and the community. For this, we identified a set of requirements that would allow the teaching and learning of entrepreneurship in virtual worlds, from which a technological model was implemented through an application, EMVKids (after the Portuguese expression “Empreendedorismo em Mundos Virtuais com Crianças”, entrepreneurship with children in virtual worlds).
- Video game interaction and reward mechanisms applied to business applications: A comparative reviewPublication . Diogo Lopes; Esteves, Micaela; Carlos MesquitaUpon entering in a new institution, an employee has a learning curve to absorb new tools, this learning curve brings extra costs to the employing institution. Besides this, in 2008, a study from the National Institute of Statistics concluded that various Portuguese institutions have a low index of productivity. These two facts may make institutions feel more discouraged to make new hires. In this study we show that there is an unexplored potential in the adaptation of some of the gaming industry interaction and reward mechanisms to the corporate world, in order to improve the intuitiveness of business applications, by not only reducing learning and adjustment time for new users, but also to use the reward and fidelization mechanisms, as a means to motivate and increase overall productivity and employee involvement.
- Improving teaching and learning of computer programming through the use of the Second Life virtual worldPublication . Esteves, Micaela; Fonseca, Benjamim; Morgado, Leonel; Martins, PauloThe emergence of new technologies such as three‐dimensional virtual worlds brings new opportunities for teaching and learning. We conducted an action research approach to the analysis of how teaching and learning of computer programming at the university level could be developed within the Second Life virtual world. Results support the notion that it is possible to use this environment for better effectiveness in the learning of programming. The main results are the identification of problems hampering the teacher's intervention in this virtual world and the detection of solutions for those problems that were found effective to the success in using this environment for teaching/learning computer programming.