Papers by Rukshan Alexander
Research shows that different user interfaces are needed for successful communication with differ... more Research shows that different user interfaces are needed for successful communication with different cultural groups, yet studies on cross-cultural web-site usability are limited. This research works towards creating a culturally sensitive world wide web by addressing the gap with a novel cross-cultural website usability model. The authors' prior work evaluated Australian, Chinese, and Saudi Arabian web pages and revealed significant differences in the use of web attributes including: layout, navigation, links, multimedia, visual representation, colour and text. This paper extends those findings by mapping the usage of web attributes with theories of culture to create website design guidelines and a usability measuring instrument. The development of this model includes: evaluation of element use, identification of prominent elements, organisation of cultural factors, organisation of HCI factors, development of design guidelines and development of the usability measuring instrument. This model simplifies the creation of cross-cultural websites, while enabling developers to evaluate page usability for different cultures.
Behaviour & Information Technology, 2016
Since websites are developed and maintained by different cultures, web page design may be influen... more Since websites are developed and maintained by different cultures, web page design may be influenced by the originating culture. This study examines the usage of design attributes between Australian, Chinese, and Saudi Arabian cultures. This study used automated and manual techniques to investigate design attributes including layout, navigation, links, multimedia, visual representation, colour, and text. Significant differences were found in each of the listed design attributes, suggesting that different interfaces may be needed for successful communication with different cultural groups. The results of this study confirm and extend prior research and anthropological models. The contribution of this study is the scale (460 websites in total) and breadth (seven design attributes) of the research. It also provides revised insights into culture and website design and the concept of cultural translation of web content.
Since websites are developed and maintained by different cultures, web page design may be influen... more Since websites are developed and maintained by different cultures, web page design may be influenced by the originating culture. This study examines the usage of design attributes between Australian, Chinese, and Saudi Arabian cultures. This study used automated and manual techniques to investigate design attributes including layout, navigation, links, multimedia, visual representation, colour, and text. Significant differences were found in each of the listed design attributes, suggesting that different interfaces may be needed for successful communication with different cultural groups. The results of this study confirm and extend prior research and anthropological models. The contribution of this study is the scale (460 websites in total) and breadth (seven design attributes) of the research. It also provides revised insights into culture and website design and the concept of cultural translation of web content.
Dengue pose an outbreak threat in Sri Lanka. Due to slow, inefficient, and
repetitive collection... more Dengue pose an outbreak threat in Sri Lanka. Due to slow, inefficient, and
repetitive collection of data, in present paper based communicable disease notification system, and unorganized resources, public health care professionals face difficulties to manage day-to-day public health
responsibilities to effectively detect and manage dengue outbreak cases. Inspired by timely data, knowledge, and organized human resources, the main objective of this research is to outline a conceptual framework for real-time public health dengue surveillance in Sri Lanka. To provide timely data for public health care professionals and others, a web based dengue surveillance system, eDCS: eDengue Control System that was developed by Rukshan and Miroshan (2014), has been suggested. To optimally balance human and automated inputs
into ongoing, systematic public health dengue surveillance activities, the
existing human resources and man power structure, in local, regional, and national level, has been studied and organized. This work may help to minimize dengue outbreak cases in Sri Lanka. The conceptual framework validation will be made for future work.
International conference on Contemporary Management: 2014, Mar 14, 2014
Dengue is a notifiable communicable disease in Sri Lanka since 1996. Dengue fever
spread rapidly... more Dengue is a notifiable communicable disease in Sri Lanka since 1996. Dengue fever
spread rapidly among people living in most of the districts of Sri Lanka. The present
notification system of dengue communicable diseases which is enforced by law is a
passive surveillance system carried out by the public health care professionals. The
present notification of communicable disease system is manual, slow, inefficient, and
repetitive all of these lead to handle the dengue related health problems ineffectively.
Thus it is less effective in preventing a spreading epidemic, public health care
professionals and others require an operational support system to help for managing
day-to-day public health responsibilities as well as a method to effectively detect and
manage health problems such as Dengue. On the other hand the Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) in medical world has been widely used. To give the
information technology touch, a complementary web based open source software
application environment has been developed with minimum implementation and
recurrent costs critical for developing countries like Sri Lanka and named as eDCS: e
Dengue Control System based on the same principles of manual disease surveillance
system while taking steps to provide timely, accurate information in a reliable and
useable manner. The eDCS helps to manage outbreaks through early detection, rapid
verification, and appropriate response to Dengue. It allows health care professionals
and citizens to get early awareness about the dengue disease via Internet or mobile
phone and bring them for performing Dengue prevention and controlling operation
through the social media acceleration. The system is initially limited to dengue
communicable disease. It can be easily expanded to other communicable diseases,
and non communicable disease surveillance in future.
Keywords: dengue communicable disease, dengue surveillance, rapid response, web
technologies, short messaging service
Dengue is a notifiable communicable disease in Sri Lanka since 1996. Dengue fever spread rapidly ... more Dengue is a notifiable communicable disease in Sri Lanka since 1996. Dengue fever spread rapidly among people living in most of the districts of Sri Lanka. The present notification system of dengue communicable diseases which is enforced by law is a passive surveillance system carried out by the public health care professionals. The present notification of communicable disease system is manual, slow, inefficient, and repetitive all of these lead to handle the dengue related health problems ineffectively. Thus it is less effective in preventing a spreading epidemic, public health care professionals and others require an operational support system to help for managing day-to-day public health responsibilities as well as a method to effectively detect and manage health problems such as Dengue. On the other hand the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in medical world has been widely used. To give the information technology touch, a complementary web based open source software application environment has been developed with minimum implementation and recurrent costs critical for developing countries like Sri Lanka and named as eDCS: e Dengue Control System based on the same principles of manual disease surveillance system while taking steps to provide timely, accurate information in a reliable and useable manner. The eDCS helps to manage outbreaks through early detection, rapid verification, and appropriate response to Dengue. It allows health care professionals and citizens to get early awareness about the dengue disease via Internet or mobile phone and bring them for performing Dengue prevention and controlling operation through the social media acceleration. The system is initially limited to dengue communicable disease. It can be easily expanded to other communicable diseases, and non communicable disease surveillance in future.
proceedings of International Conference on Business and Information (ICBI) 2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka, Nov 30, 2012
Web usability is continuing to be a pressing problem. For number of years researchers have been
... more Web usability is continuing to be a pressing problem. For number of years researchers have been
developed tools for doing automatic web usability testing. This study uses our own PHP, and MySQL based
tool AWebHUT: Automated Web Homepage Usability Tester to evaluate web usability of full Dmoz
(www.dmoz.org) Asia web sites (45126 on time stamp 2011-12-03 04:12:46 GMT). The tool uses an
extensive automated quantitative analysis of XHTML source code of homepages against seventeen organised
web usability guidelines. The automated quantitative approach is effective on large scale to achieve better
usability. The AWebHUT uses four web usability levels such as N: Neutral, V: Violate, R: Respect, and E:
Error to evaluate web usability. The main objective of the study is to produce data which is used to answer
research questions, (1) Are there any categories of web sites which have usability problems? Which ones?
and (2) Are there any categories in which the usability is typically higher? Why? The findings were indicated
that all Asia categories have usability problems. Furthermore, there are four web sites which have highest
web usability problem with violation percentage 71. One step further, the Asia category: Weather has highest
usability problems with 42.2819 as the average of the violation percentage. The category Weather uses tables
and images, considerable amount of those were not satisfying web usability guidelines which relates to tables
and images. One step further, the Asia wants to get the same level of usability as North America, Europe, and
Australia therefore it is essential to have an automated web usability evaluation in Asia web sites to identify
web usability problems which are important for improving Asia web sites.
Proceedings of the Third International Symposium, SEUSL, Jul 6, 2013
It is a long term desire of the computer users to
minimize the communication gap between the com... more It is a long term desire of the computer users to
minimize the communication gap between the computer and a
human. On the other hand, almost all ICT applications store
information in to databases and retrieve from them. Retrieving
information from the database requires knowledge of
technical languages such as Structured Query Language.
However majority of the computer users who interact with the
databases do not have a technical background and are
intimidated by the idea of using languages such as SQL. For
above reasons, a Natural Language Web Interface for
Database (NLWIDB) has been developed. The NLWIDB
allows the user to query the database in a language more like
English, through a convenient interface over the Internet.
proceedings of Advances in Computing …, Jan 1, 2011
Conference Presentations by Rukshan Alexander
2nd Research Conference on Business Studies - 2018, 2018
Adapting web pages to cultural preferences has been shown to improve communication effectiveness.... more Adapting web pages to cultural preferences has been shown to improve communication effectiveness. However, the lack of a set of research-based web design guidelines or best practices renders the creation of culturally tailored versions of a website a time-consuming, costly task which is rarely undertaken by designers. This research aims to develop guidelines for cross-cultural web design to overcome these issues. The authors' prior work has provided empirical data showing significant cultural differences in the usage of design web attributes. These are used to determine a relationship between design attributes, cultural factors, and HCI factors. The result is a synthesis of culturally specific design attributes and published theories of culture to create a set of website design guidelines. The development process involved five steps: evaluation of the usage of design elements between cultures, identification of prominent design elements, organisation of cultural factors, organisation of HCI factors, and finally development the cross-cultural design guidelines. It is hoped that these evidence and research based guidelines will ultimately enhance web-site usability for users from different cultural backgrounds.
Web usability is continuing to be a pressing problem. For number of years researchers have been d... more Web usability is continuing to be a pressing problem. For number of years researchers have been developed tools for doing automatic web usability testing. This study uses our own PHP, and MySQL based tool AWebHUT: Automated Web Homepage Usability Tester to evaluate web usability of full Dmoz (www.dmoz.org) Asia web sites (45126 on time stamp 2011-12-03 04:12:46 GMT). The tool uses an extensive automated quantitative analysis of XHTML source code of homepages against seventeen organised web usability guidelines. The automated quantitative approach is effective on large scale to achieve better usability. The AWebHUT uses four web usability levels such as N: Neutral, V: Violate, R: Respect, and E: Error to evaluate web usability. The main objective of the study is to produce data which is used to answer research questions, (1) Are there any categories of web sites which have usability problems? Which ones? and (2) Are there any categories in which the usability is typically higher? Why? The findings were indicated that all Asia categories have usability problems. Furthermore, there are four web sites which have highest web usability problem with violation percentage 71. One step further, the Asia category: Weather has highest usability problems with 42.2819 as the average of the violation percentage. The category Weather uses tables and images, considerable amount of those were not satisfying web usability guidelines which relates to tables and images. One step further, the Asia wants to get the same level of usability as North America, Europe, and Australia therefore it is essential to have an automated web usability evaluation in Asia web sites to identify web usability problems which are important for improving Asia web sites.
Uploads
Papers by Rukshan Alexander
repetitive collection of data, in present paper based communicable disease notification system, and unorganized resources, public health care professionals face difficulties to manage day-to-day public health
responsibilities to effectively detect and manage dengue outbreak cases. Inspired by timely data, knowledge, and organized human resources, the main objective of this research is to outline a conceptual framework for real-time public health dengue surveillance in Sri Lanka. To provide timely data for public health care professionals and others, a web based dengue surveillance system, eDCS: eDengue Control System that was developed by Rukshan and Miroshan (2014), has been suggested. To optimally balance human and automated inputs
into ongoing, systematic public health dengue surveillance activities, the
existing human resources and man power structure, in local, regional, and national level, has been studied and organized. This work may help to minimize dengue outbreak cases in Sri Lanka. The conceptual framework validation will be made for future work.
spread rapidly among people living in most of the districts of Sri Lanka. The present
notification system of dengue communicable diseases which is enforced by law is a
passive surveillance system carried out by the public health care professionals. The
present notification of communicable disease system is manual, slow, inefficient, and
repetitive all of these lead to handle the dengue related health problems ineffectively.
Thus it is less effective in preventing a spreading epidemic, public health care
professionals and others require an operational support system to help for managing
day-to-day public health responsibilities as well as a method to effectively detect and
manage health problems such as Dengue. On the other hand the Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) in medical world has been widely used. To give the
information technology touch, a complementary web based open source software
application environment has been developed with minimum implementation and
recurrent costs critical for developing countries like Sri Lanka and named as eDCS: e
Dengue Control System based on the same principles of manual disease surveillance
system while taking steps to provide timely, accurate information in a reliable and
useable manner. The eDCS helps to manage outbreaks through early detection, rapid
verification, and appropriate response to Dengue. It allows health care professionals
and citizens to get early awareness about the dengue disease via Internet or mobile
phone and bring them for performing Dengue prevention and controlling operation
through the social media acceleration. The system is initially limited to dengue
communicable disease. It can be easily expanded to other communicable diseases,
and non communicable disease surveillance in future.
Keywords: dengue communicable disease, dengue surveillance, rapid response, web
technologies, short messaging service
developed tools for doing automatic web usability testing. This study uses our own PHP, and MySQL based
tool AWebHUT: Automated Web Homepage Usability Tester to evaluate web usability of full Dmoz
(www.dmoz.org) Asia web sites (45126 on time stamp 2011-12-03 04:12:46 GMT). The tool uses an
extensive automated quantitative analysis of XHTML source code of homepages against seventeen organised
web usability guidelines. The automated quantitative approach is effective on large scale to achieve better
usability. The AWebHUT uses four web usability levels such as N: Neutral, V: Violate, R: Respect, and E:
Error to evaluate web usability. The main objective of the study is to produce data which is used to answer
research questions, (1) Are there any categories of web sites which have usability problems? Which ones?
and (2) Are there any categories in which the usability is typically higher? Why? The findings were indicated
that all Asia categories have usability problems. Furthermore, there are four web sites which have highest
web usability problem with violation percentage 71. One step further, the Asia category: Weather has highest
usability problems with 42.2819 as the average of the violation percentage. The category Weather uses tables
and images, considerable amount of those were not satisfying web usability guidelines which relates to tables
and images. One step further, the Asia wants to get the same level of usability as North America, Europe, and
Australia therefore it is essential to have an automated web usability evaluation in Asia web sites to identify
web usability problems which are important for improving Asia web sites.
minimize the communication gap between the computer and a
human. On the other hand, almost all ICT applications store
information in to databases and retrieve from them. Retrieving
information from the database requires knowledge of
technical languages such as Structured Query Language.
However majority of the computer users who interact with the
databases do not have a technical background and are
intimidated by the idea of using languages such as SQL. For
above reasons, a Natural Language Web Interface for
Database (NLWIDB) has been developed. The NLWIDB
allows the user to query the database in a language more like
English, through a convenient interface over the Internet.
Conference Presentations by Rukshan Alexander
repetitive collection of data, in present paper based communicable disease notification system, and unorganized resources, public health care professionals face difficulties to manage day-to-day public health
responsibilities to effectively detect and manage dengue outbreak cases. Inspired by timely data, knowledge, and organized human resources, the main objective of this research is to outline a conceptual framework for real-time public health dengue surveillance in Sri Lanka. To provide timely data for public health care professionals and others, a web based dengue surveillance system, eDCS: eDengue Control System that was developed by Rukshan and Miroshan (2014), has been suggested. To optimally balance human and automated inputs
into ongoing, systematic public health dengue surveillance activities, the
existing human resources and man power structure, in local, regional, and national level, has been studied and organized. This work may help to minimize dengue outbreak cases in Sri Lanka. The conceptual framework validation will be made for future work.
spread rapidly among people living in most of the districts of Sri Lanka. The present
notification system of dengue communicable diseases which is enforced by law is a
passive surveillance system carried out by the public health care professionals. The
present notification of communicable disease system is manual, slow, inefficient, and
repetitive all of these lead to handle the dengue related health problems ineffectively.
Thus it is less effective in preventing a spreading epidemic, public health care
professionals and others require an operational support system to help for managing
day-to-day public health responsibilities as well as a method to effectively detect and
manage health problems such as Dengue. On the other hand the Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) in medical world has been widely used. To give the
information technology touch, a complementary web based open source software
application environment has been developed with minimum implementation and
recurrent costs critical for developing countries like Sri Lanka and named as eDCS: e
Dengue Control System based on the same principles of manual disease surveillance
system while taking steps to provide timely, accurate information in a reliable and
useable manner. The eDCS helps to manage outbreaks through early detection, rapid
verification, and appropriate response to Dengue. It allows health care professionals
and citizens to get early awareness about the dengue disease via Internet or mobile
phone and bring them for performing Dengue prevention and controlling operation
through the social media acceleration. The system is initially limited to dengue
communicable disease. It can be easily expanded to other communicable diseases,
and non communicable disease surveillance in future.
Keywords: dengue communicable disease, dengue surveillance, rapid response, web
technologies, short messaging service
developed tools for doing automatic web usability testing. This study uses our own PHP, and MySQL based
tool AWebHUT: Automated Web Homepage Usability Tester to evaluate web usability of full Dmoz
(www.dmoz.org) Asia web sites (45126 on time stamp 2011-12-03 04:12:46 GMT). The tool uses an
extensive automated quantitative analysis of XHTML source code of homepages against seventeen organised
web usability guidelines. The automated quantitative approach is effective on large scale to achieve better
usability. The AWebHUT uses four web usability levels such as N: Neutral, V: Violate, R: Respect, and E:
Error to evaluate web usability. The main objective of the study is to produce data which is used to answer
research questions, (1) Are there any categories of web sites which have usability problems? Which ones?
and (2) Are there any categories in which the usability is typically higher? Why? The findings were indicated
that all Asia categories have usability problems. Furthermore, there are four web sites which have highest
web usability problem with violation percentage 71. One step further, the Asia category: Weather has highest
usability problems with 42.2819 as the average of the violation percentage. The category Weather uses tables
and images, considerable amount of those were not satisfying web usability guidelines which relates to tables
and images. One step further, the Asia wants to get the same level of usability as North America, Europe, and
Australia therefore it is essential to have an automated web usability evaluation in Asia web sites to identify
web usability problems which are important for improving Asia web sites.
minimize the communication gap between the computer and a
human. On the other hand, almost all ICT applications store
information in to databases and retrieve from them. Retrieving
information from the database requires knowledge of
technical languages such as Structured Query Language.
However majority of the computer users who interact with the
databases do not have a technical background and are
intimidated by the idea of using languages such as SQL. For
above reasons, a Natural Language Web Interface for
Database (NLWIDB) has been developed. The NLWIDB
allows the user to query the database in a language more like
English, through a convenient interface over the Internet.