| Focusing Graphical User Interfaces in Model-Driven Software Development | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 3-8 | |
| Stefan Link; Thomas Schuster; Philip Hoyer; Sebastian Abeck | |||
| To meet fast changing demands on modern software architectures the ambition
to shorten and improve software development processes has increased. The
approach of model-driven software development focuses models as specification
of software and on transformations of those models to finally get source code.
The advantage of the model-driven approach still has to be proven because a
continuous tool-supported transformation process from model to source code with
regard to all aspects of a software system is not yet possible. This paper
concentrates on the aspect of user interaction by presenting an easy to apply
approach allowing for a tool-supported, model-driven software development of
graphical user interfaces for any kind of platform. A case study demonstrates
the usage and benefit of our model-driven approach applied to a common software
development process. Keywords: Graphical User Interfaces (GUI), Model-Driven Architecture (MDA),
Model-Driven Software Development (MDSD), Software Engineering | |||
| Studying Input Device Performance: An End-User Driven Experiment in wearIT@work | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 9-15 | |
| Hendrik Witt; Ernesto Morales Kluge | |||
| Interaction and usability aspects of software systems are critical software
quality measures. This paper reports on work done in the European funded
wearable computing project wearIT@work. Utilizing user centered design, we
present the results of a user study conducted to evaluate different wearable
input devices for menu-selection tasks in aircraft maintenance. Due to access
to end users provided by wearIT@work, study participants could be recruited
from both real maintenance workers and university students to study performance
and group differences. Results already exhibit strong group differences. An
unfamiliar data glove device using gestures was found to outperform natural
speech command interaction. A familiar mouse device exhibited best performance
and quick learnability but was judged inappropriate by maintainers for their
daily work. Besides suffering from handling problems, speech interaction was
found inapplicable for maintainers due to their language ability. Our results
suggest and emphasize the necessity to include real end-users in projects to
reasonably study industrial wearable computing applications and their
constraints. Keywords: wearable computing, subject selection, experiment design, user centered
design | |||
| A Convivial Interface for the Transfer of Medical Images | | BIBA | Full-Text | 16-20 | |
| Joséphine Kohlenberg; Anissa Abdejelil; Philippe Taguom Fogang; Moustapha Kane; Steve Pone Nguemdjom; Ion Valentin Vlasceanu | |||
| With the growing need of information sharing between entities geographically distant and the networks of machines for an exploitation distributed of the images, the development of tools for handling the digitized images became a major stake for the medical universe. The project of standardization in the field of the medical imagery, known as DICOM, supports the development of applications related to the model client/server with an aim of leading to systems distributed and heterogeneous, able to adapt to the current context. This article presents a software application which allows the medical images transfer, having a simple and convivial interface. The French expressions present in pictures are explained in the appendix. | |||
| Intelligent Camera Interface (ICI): A Challenging HMI for Disabled People | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 21-25 | |
| Malek Baklouti; Serge Couvet; Eric Monacelli | |||
| This paper presents key points of a Human Machine Interface (HMI) for
disabled people suffering from tetraplegia. It proposes an original HMI based
on a monocular camera that controls an exoskeletal orthosis for the upper limb.
The aim of this paper is to identify innovative research paths in Intelligent
Camera Interface (ICI). It shows how far can a camera be used as a control
Interface and its application to a 4 axis exoskeletal orthosis. Two methods are
presented: head control using planar face detection and 3D face modelling and
mouth expression control. The preliminary results show that the Intelligent
Camera Interface can be an effective issue in Human Machine Interaction
especially for disabled people since commonly used HMI are difficult to use,
unreliable or tiring. Keywords: Human Machine Interface, Rehabilitation robots, Human-friendly control,
Human disability, Face detection, Lips extraction | |||
| An Interactive and Immersive 3D Game Simulation Provided with Force Feedback | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 26-30 | |
| Lucio T. De Paolis; Marco Pulimeno; Giovanni Aloisio | |||
| Performance improvements in graphics hardware and the diffusion of the low
cost haptic interfaces have made it possible to visualize complex virtual
environments and provided opportunities to interact with these in a more
realistic way. In this paper a Virtual Reality application of a game of
billiards is presented. By means of a commercial haptic interface a force
feedback is provided, thus rendering the interaction realistic and exciting to
the user. The introduction of the force feedback makes it possible to obtain a
realistic simulation as it is possible to strike the billiard ball and to feel
the contact between cue and ball. The virtual environment has been built using
the development environment XVR and rigid body dynamics have been simulated
utilizing the ODE library. Since in the real game it is possible to use the
left hand when aiming and striking the ball, in the play modality it is
possible to fix the cue movement in the desired direction in order to allow a
more careful aim and a more stable interaction in the virtual environment. In
addition it is possible to choose the force with which the ball is hit. Keywords: Computer Game, Force Feedback, Simulation, Virtual Reality | |||
| Evaluating the Significance of the Desktop Area in Everyday Computer Use | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 31-38 | |
| Akrivi Katifori; George Lepouras; Alan Dix; Azrina Kamaruddin | |||
| Computers have become part of our homes and day-to-day lives. This paper
presents selected results of an interview-based user study focused on
information management on the personal computer. We focus on the Desktop,
confirming results of previous studies as well as revealing new issues and
ensuing design suggestions. While even basic competence users inventively
appropriated the desktop, some features, in particular user-defined shortcuts,
appeared counter-intuitive, and were underused. Users are still dissatisfied
with their information organization and the challenge is to provide tools that
support rather than replace the users' flexible and creative use of the current
desktop. Keywords: desktop area, user study | |||
| NALP: Navigating Assistant for Large Display Presentation Using Laser Pointer | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 39-44 | |
| Liang Zhang; Yuanchun Shi; Boliang Chen | |||
| In this paper, we present NALP (Navigating Assistant using Laser Pointer), a
novel interaction technique for large display presentation control. NALP is
based on laser dot detection, track recognition and space segmentation,
allowing users to manipulate the presentation software (such as
PowerPoint™) directly and freely using any kind of common laser pointer.
Demanding users only to sweep the pointer to and fro on display, this technique
to a large extent solved the problems caused by hand jitter, latency and
detection errors existing in other navigation assistant systems. Report on
evaluation experiments shows that when delivering an electronic and interactive
presentation with large displays, NALP can effectively meet the need and is
preferred over other laser pointer interactive methods. Keywords: Large Display, Direct Interaction, Space Segmentation, Laser Pointer,
Presentation Control | |||
| InfoCruise: Information Navigation Presenting a Focus Facet Based on Context | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 45-52 | |
| Izumi Kohno; Yoji Miyazaki; Masaki Hara; Teruya Ikegami | |||
| In order to find desired information on mobile phones, it is necessary to
set search keywords easily and to explore a search if a user's information
needs are not well defined. We propose an information navigation method to help
users succeed in finding information on mobiles. Our proposal method presents
to users a focus facet by analyzing context about contents, users and dialog.
The focus facet is presented each time users refine a search. Users can select
their desired keyword from the facet, and check the search results, and then
users can define their ambiguous needs through interaction. We evaluated our
method compared to a traditional search method. In our experiments, a user's
load for setting some keywords of our method is lower than the traditional
search method. Users can experience greater search success and satisfaction
using our method than the traditional search method. Keywords: information retrieval, user interface, faceted navigation | |||
| A MATLAB GUI for the Analysis and Exploration of Signal and Image Data of an Ultrasound Computer Tomograph | | BIBA | Full-Text | 53-58 | |
| T. Hopp; G. F. Schwarzenberg; M. Zapf; N. V. Ruiter | |||
| At Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, a new imaging system for early diagnosis of breast cancer is currently developed. The 3D Ultrasound Computer Tomography (USCT) is based on approx. 2000 ultrasound transducers which produce 20 GB of raw data consisting of 3.5 mio. A-scans (amplitude scans) for one image. The large number of A-scans, the large amount of data and the complex relationship between raw data and reconstructed image makes analysis, understanding and further development difficult for the scientists and especially for new employees and students. For this reason, an interactive graphical user interface (GUI) was developed using MATLAB. It integrates existent analysis methods and is easily extendable with new functionality via a plugin concept. The software provides several visualization functions for the raw data, the reconstructed 3D images, the USCT aperture and the relationships between them. The software shows the capability of MATLAB as programming language for numerical solutions as well as GUIs and complex software systems. It has a large benefit to the working group by integrating analysis methods and sharing them. The GUI and the visualization of the complex relationships of the USCT reduces the training period for new employees and students. | |||
| The Development of Automatic Speech Recognition Software for Portable Devices | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 59-62 | |
| Myoung-Wan Koo; Joon-Ki Choi; Young-Myoung Kim | |||
| In this paper, we show some the implementation issues of automatic speech
recognition (ASR) for portable devices. First, we propose free-running speech
recognition software which does not need to push the button before saying voice
command and is always running for detecting key-words under real environment.
Second, we propose a method for detecting keyword and rejecting
out-of-vocabularies (OOV). It consists of filler-modeling technique and
utterance verification. And finally, we implement the ASR software on PDAs
(Samsung SPH-M4300 and HP iPAQ-RW6100), one kind of portable devices. It works
in 54.7% of real-time with the recognition accuracy of 88.3%. Keywords: automatic speech recognition, ASR, portable devices, PDA | |||
| Multimodal Interaction -- Improving Usability and Efficiency in a Mobile GIS Context | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 63-68 | |
| Julie Doyle; Michela Bertolotto; David Wilson | |||
| The context of mobility raises many issues for GIS applications. Mobile
device limitations, including pen input whilst in motion, result in interfaces
which are difficult to navigate and interact with. However, comparatively
little research has been conducted to address the interface mobility problem
for GIS. We are particularly concerned with the limited interaction techniques
available to users of mobile GIS which play a primary role in contributing to
the complexity of using such an application whilst mobile. Our research focuses
on multimodal interfaces as a means to present users with a wider choice of
modalities for interacting with GIS applications. The focus of this paper
concerns a comprehensive user study which demonstrates the benefits, in terms
of usability and efficiency, of a multimodal interface for the CoMPASS mobile
GIS which we have developed. Keywords: multimodal, mobile, GIS, usability | |||
| Spatial Auditory Interface for an Embedded Communication Device in a Car | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 69-76 | |
| Jaka Sodnik; Saso Tomazic; Christina Dicke; Mark Billinghurst | |||
| In this paper we evaluate the safety of the driver when using an embedded
communication device while driving. As a part of our research, four different
tasks were preformed with the device in order to evaluate the efficiency and
safety of the drivers under three different conditions: one visual and two
different auditory conditions. In the visual condition, various menu items were
shown on a small LCD screen attached to the dashboard. In the auditory
conditions, the same menu items were presented with spatial sounds distributed
on a virtual ring around the user's head. The same custom-made interaction
device attached to the steering wheel was used in all three conditions,
enabling simple and safe interaction with the device while driving. The
auditory interface proved to be as fast as the visual one, while at the same
time enabling a significantly safer driving and higher satisfaction of the
users. The measured workload also appeared to be lower when using the auditory
interfaces. Keywords: visual interface, auditory interface, spatial sound, driving simulator | |||
| Texture and Shape Information Fusion for Facial Action Unit Recognition | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 77-82 | |
| Irene Kotsia; Stefanos Zafeiriou; Nikolaos Nikolaidis; Ioannis Pitas | |||
| A novel method that fuses texture and shape information to achieve Facial
Action Unit (FAU) recognition from video sequences is proposed. In order to
extract the texture information, a subspace method based on Discriminant
Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (DNMF) is applied on the difference images of
the video sequence, calculated taking under consideration the neutral and the
most expressive frame, to extract the desired classification label. The shape
information consists of the deformed Candide facial grid (more specifically the
grid node displacements between the neutral and the most expressive facial
expression frame) that corresponds to the facial expression depicted in the
video sequence. The shape information is afterwards classified using a
two-class Support Vector Machine (SVM) system. The fusion of texture and shape
information is performed using Median Radial Basis Functions (MRBFs) Neural
Networks (NNs) in order to detect the set of present FAUs. The accuracy
achieved in the Cohn-Kanade database is equal to 92.1% when recognizing the 17
FAUs that are responsible for facial expression development. Keywords: Facial Action Unit Recognition, Discriminant Non-negative Matrix
Factorization, Support Vector Machines, Radial Basis Functions Neural Networks,
Fusion | |||
| Comprehension of Visualization Systems -- Towards Quantitative Assessment | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 83-88 | |
| Harkirat Padda; Sudhir Mudur; Ahmed Seffah; Yojana Joshi | |||
| Visual comprehension is the characteristic that deals with how efficiently
and effectively users are able to grasp the underlying design intent along with
the interactions to explore the visually represented information. To assess
comprehension i.e. to measure this seemingly immeasurable factor of
visualization systems, we are proposing a set of criteria based on a detailed
analysis of information flow from the raw data to the cognition of information
in human mind. Our comprehension criteria are adapted from the pioneering work
of two eminent researchers -- Donald A. Norman and Aaron Marcus, who have
investigated the issues of human perception and cognition, and visual
effectiveness respectively. These proposed criteria are refined by experts'
opinion in order to compose a minimal evaluation set that is then applied to a
bioinformatics visualization study tool to show the efficacy of criteria in
assessing comprehension in a more quantitative manner. Keywords: Comprehension, Evaluation, Criteria, Visualizations | |||
| Liberating the Desktop | | BIBA | Full-Text | 89-94 | |
| Tor-Magne Stien Hagen; Espen Skjelnes Johnsen; Daniel Stødle; John Markus Bjørndalen; Otto Anshus | |||
| We report on a system supporting cross-platform mirroring of user-selectable regions from one or multiple computer desktops onto nearby network accessible projectors and displays (NADs). The purpose is a simple and flexible use of nearby display resources requiring no permanent installation of new software on the desktop computer. The NAD system architecture consists of a NAD side and a desktop side. The desktop software is downloaded to the desktop computer on demand, from a web server running on the NAD. The desktop and NAD software handle the integration of user-selectable desktop regions and remote control between the desktop computer and the NAD. The system is implemented in Java 1.6. At a resolution of 800 by 600 pixels the system supports mirroring of dynamic content at 38.6 fps. At 1600 by 1200 pixels the refresh rate is 12.85 fps. For static content such as images and slideshow presentations the system's bandwidth usage is within the capacity of a 11 Mbit/s wireless network. For dynamic content such as videos and games the system requires at least a 100 Mbit/s connection. | |||
| Specification and Design Aspects of the Academic Researcher's Assistant (ARA) Software for Mobile Devices | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 95-100 | |
| Muhanna Muhanna; Sergiu Dascalu; Frederick C. Harris; Sherif Elfass; Marcel Karam | |||
| Mobile devices are being widely and increasingly used in many areas of human
activity. Designing applications for mobile devices has introduced several new
challenges that are currently being addressed by interested researchers and
developers. This paper explores different human-computer interaction challenges
in designing an Academic Researcher's Assistant (ARA) software application for
mobile devices. ARA is a tool for mobile devices designed to provide academic
researchers with a practical portable assistant that helps them organize their
daily research-related activities. The paper provides details of ARA's
organizing principles, software specification, design, and prototype
implementation. Several directions of future work are also presented. Keywords: human-computer interaction, interaction design, mobile devices, requirements
specification, use case modeling | |||
| Optimizing Regional Labour Market Policy with a User-Friendly Computer Interface | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 101-106 | |
| Andranik Tangian | |||
| A decision aid for optimizing regional labour market policy with a
user-friendly computer interface is developed. The distribution of subsidies
among 271 German regions is considered as an optimization problem with three
targets: (1) equalization of regional unemployment rates, (2) minimization of
unemployment, and (3) maximization of GDP, subject to budget constraints and
some administrative restrictions. The analysis of a three-year period reveals
that the results obtained for 6 Bio EUR could be attained for only 241 Mio EUR
(= 4% of the actual budget). Such a bad implementation of active labour market
policies can be the cause of their low efficiency often misinterpreted as their
uselessness. Among other things, it is shows that tax returns from the
additional GDP due to jobs subsidized can transform regional policy into a
profitable governmental enterprise. Keywords: Regional labour market policy, budget optimisation, subsidized jobs,
European structural funds, indicators | |||
| Study of Cockpit's Perspective on Human-Human Interactions to Guide Collaborative Decision Making Design in Air Traffic Management | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 107-113 | |
| Matthias Groppe; Marc Bui | |||
| This field research studies human-human interactions (HHI), seen from
cockpit's perspective in context of Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) during
flight operation situations. It is based on the assumption that cooperation
among all participating operators achieves positive effect on CDM operation.
The aim of the research is to identify, how factors driving cooperative
behaviour are established in flight operation situations during day-to-day HHI
at action level. Obtained results are used to guide future CDM design with
simulation software development and system behaviour simulation. In this paper,
a cockpit survey is introduced which examines two highly dynamic flight
operation situations. Both situations are usually time constrained, change
quickly and require synchronous human-human cooperation between pilots and
multiple other operators. The first one, turn-round operation, involves HHI
with information sharing via face-to-face or technological means and HHI with
task/decision making distribution between pilots and other operators. The
second one, the flight operation itself, involves HHI with information sharing
only via technological means and HHI with task/decision making distribution
between pilots and other operators. Keywords: Air traffic management, collaborative decision making, human-human
cooperation, human-human interaction | |||
| User-Centred Development of Mobile Interfaces to a Pervasive Computing Environment | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 114-119 | |
| Karin Leichtenstern; Elisabeth Andre | |||
| A challenging issue for HCI is the development of usable mobile interfaces
for interactions with a complex pervasive environment. We consider a need for
interfaces which automatically adapt their interaction and presentation
capabilities on the user's situational needs and expectations to decrease the
complexity of the environment and increase the usability of the system.
Therefore, a rule-set is required which gives knowledge on the mobile
interface's adaptations as a consequence on a user's situations within the
environment. This rule-set iteratively emerges within a user-centred
development process by considering and testing each contextual situation of the
user when interacting with the mobile interface. In this paper we describe an
approach of a usage model for specifying each context of the user and the
environment as well as the user's goals and mental model. Moreover, we describe
our used user-centred process to develop the usage model and rule-set,
practical experience in development of mobile interfaces, some guidelines and
our planned future work. Keywords: Mobile Interfaces, Pervasive Environment, Physical Mobile Interaction,
Adaptive Interface, User-Centred Design | |||
| Compact Anatomically Guided Ultrasound for Casualty Care | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 120-123 | |
| Barnabas Takacs; Kirby G. Vosburgh | |||
| We present a 3D anatomically guided diagnostic system to detect internal
bleeding of patients in the field. Our solution employs high fidelity digital
human models to help medics with minimal training to find anatomical structures
and subsequently obtain high quality ultrasound scans that may be shared with
doctors located remotely. Keywords: Image Guided Surgery, FAST exam, virtual human, ultrasound | |||
| Enhancing E-Learning Engagement Using Design Patterns from Computer Games | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 124-130 | |
| Therese McGinnis; David W. Bustard; Michaela Black; Darryl Charles | |||
| Playing computer games has a significant educational element. In particular,
this occurs in understanding the rules of a game, puzzling through the
ever-increasing difficulties posed as the game progresses, and developing
expertise in operating the controls quickly and accurately. Players typically
take on these challenges enthusiastically and are prepared to devote
substantial time to improving their knowledge and skills. This paper is based
on a belief that e-learning should be enjoyed in the same way and can be
enhanced by incorporating games techniques in e-learning system design and
delivery. The paper identifies some of the general problems with current
e-learning systems and consider show the main game patterns that promote
engagement might help to alleviate such problems. The main research challenge
here is to develop techniques that encourage learning and can be implemented at
reasonable cost. Keywords: E-learning, Engagement, Game Design | |||
| JDoc: A Serious Game for Medical Learning | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 131-136 | |
| Aidan Sliney; David Murphy | |||
| This paper presents initial research on a home based junior doctor medical
simulator (JDoc) to improve the efficiency of junior doctor training within the
restrictions imposed by the European Working Time Directive (EWTD). Our goal is
to make theoretical medical knowledge more accessible. We developed a high
fidelity test framework JDoc. Our objective is to understand the potential for
medical simulation in junior doctor training. The paper outlines the design
process and the construction of the simulator as well as a small scale
post-test usability study amongst junior doctors from which we can assess the
benefits of JDoc. Keywords: JDoc, Medical Learning, Serious Game, Simulation | |||
| Face Authentication for Banking | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 137-142 | |
| B. Hemery; J. Mahier; M. Pasquet; C. Rosenberger | |||
| This paper analyzes the benefit and the limitations of using a particular
biometric technology "namely face authentication" for banking applications. We
present first the general concepts of banking. We propose a method in order to
replace the PIN code authentication by using biometrics data. Biometric
authentication is then detailed. A face recognition method we developed is
presented revealing as itself as a biometric candidate solution. We show the
benefit and limits of this approach to be used in a real industrial context. Keywords: banking, security, biometrics, commerce, face recognition | |||
| From Visualization to Visual Mining: Application to Environmental Data | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 143-148 | |
| Elaheh Mozzafari; Ahmed Seffah | |||
| In the last decade, the technological changes in environmental data
acquisition, management, analysis, and dissemination have been astounding.
However, extracting patterns and knowledge for decision-making is still tedious
essentially because the human capacity to comprehend such large amount of
heterogonous data. Visualization tools are required to allow identifying
relationships and patterns that are not evident from raw data. Several
techniques have been proposed; most often they are borrowed from other fields
such as human computer interaction (HCI) and recently bio-informatics and
software visualization. This paper discusses some of the limitations of the
existing visualization techniques while introducing the concept of visual
mining. An illustrative exemplar from immersive visualization is given. Keywords: Visual mining, Environmental data, Scientific visualization, Comprehension | |||
| A Fast Pace Method for Involving Children in Edutainment-Technology Design | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 149-157 | |
| Angeliki Antoniou; George Lepouras | |||
| Aiming at edutainment technologies for museums, elements of participatory
design techniques and focus groups were combined under the theoretical
framework of the cycle of creative imagination in order to involve 10 year-old
children in the design process of such applications. In contrast to existing
practices where children are called to evaluate games designed by adults, the
proposed method involves children from the initial phases of development. The
main advantage of the proposed method is its short duration (1-2 school days)
allowing for its wide use. The distinct steps of the method assist children in
visualizing the possibilities of using new technologies in museums. The method
was tested with children in a primary school. The ideas produced by the
children demonstrated their ability to generate concepts and inspire the
development of new gaming technologies. Keywords: design technology, educational technology, method | |||
| Adaptive Self-Assessment Trying to Reduce Fear | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 158-163 | |
| Anastasios A. Economides; Christos N. Moridis | |||
| Almost everyone has experienced fear at least once in their life because of
a test. Fear can positively mobilise students, when it is under control.
However, when fear becomes excessive, it can completely destroy students'
performance. Moreover, when dealing with a computerised test, fear can have an
even more intense influence on students. The objective of this paper is to
analyze about these issues and to propose an adaptive self-assessment system
for reducing fear and supporting students' learning during the preparation for
exams. Keywords: self-assessment system, fear of failure, feedback, reducing fear | |||
| Towards Leveraging Inference Web to Support Intuitive Explanations in Recommender Systems for Automated Career Counseling | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 164-169 | |
| Tejaswini Narayanan; Deborah L. McGuinness | |||
| We consider the problem of supporting intuitive explanations in Recommender
Systems used for Automated Career Counseling. Explanations enhance the
transparency in operation of a Recommender System and facilitate
user-acceptance, adoption, and trust in the system. We leverage the Inference
Web (IW) Infrastructure and the Proof Markup Language (PML) as a foundation for
supporting intuitive explanations in Recommender Systems for Automated Career
Counseling. We present the design and implementation of our system,
highlighting the salient features of our approach using an illustrative
example. Keywords: Explanation Generation, Recommender Systems, Automated Career Counseling,
Semantic Web User Interfaces | |||
| Turning Web 2.0 Social Software into Versatile Collaborative Learning Solutions | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 170-176 | |
| Denis Gillet; Sandy El Helou; Chiu Man Yu; Christophe Salzmann | |||
| In the framework of the European Integrated Project PALETTE, the
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) is
developing the eLogbook Web 2.0 social software. The purpose of eLogbook is to
support tacit and explicit knowledge management in communities of practice. It
can be customized by the users to serve as an asset management system, as a
task management system or as a discussion platform. In this paper, the
innovative Computer-Human Interaction features of eLogbook are introduced and
its deployment scenario to support collaborative laboratory activities in
engineering education is described. The main idea is to sustain interaction for
learning purpose within self-organized teams that integrate -- on a seamless
level -- both human actors (students, teaching assistants) and non-human actors
such as laboratory equipments or software agents. Keywords: Social Software, Engineering Education, Remote Laboratory,
Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning | |||
| Advancing the Multidisciplinary Nature of Human Computer Interaction in a Newly Developed Undergraduate Course | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 177-182 | |
| Cynthia Y. Lester | |||
| Human computer interaction is a multidisciplinary field, which often
involves the design, implementation and evaluation of interactive systems for
human use. Therefore, an ideal designer of these systems would have expertise
in a wide variety of topics which include but are not limited to psychology,
sociology, ergonomics, computer science and engineering, business, art and
graphic design, and technical writing. However, it is impractical to assert
that any one designer should have expertise in all these areas. Furthermore,
when the concepts of HCI are introduced, the course is typically taught in a
computer science department, by a computer science professor, to computer
science majors. The aim of this paper is to describe the development of an
undergraduate HCI course that is taught from a multidisciplinary perspective to
a multidisciplinary audience using themes from the various disciplines that are
encompassed within HCI. Suggestions for future changes to the course are also
provided. Keywords: HCI education, multidisciplinary collaboration, peer teaching | |||
| A Platform for Mobile Text Entry Methods Evaluation | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 183-188 | |
| Franck Poirier; Hamed H. Sad | |||
| We present a platform for mobile text entry evaluation. The platform
comprises two parts: the experimentation part and the analysis and design
support part. The experimentation part is available in two environments: it can
run, on top of the .NET framework, on a mobile device or on the desktop
computer. This part is designed to save time and effort in the empirical
evaluation process and to enhance the comparison of results from different
experiments. The analysis and design support part is a collection of tools
designed to support the evaluation. Our goal is to help in carrying out
evaluation and to make a step on the way to the standardization of the
evaluation process. Keywords: Interface evaluation, Mobile text entry, Evaluation platform, Usability | |||
| User Interface Design for a Mobile Multimedia Application: An Iterative Approach | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 189-194 | |
| Zahid Hussain; Martin Lechner; Harald Milchrahm; Sara Shahzad; Wolfgang Slany; Martin Umgeher; Thomas Vlk; Peter Wolkerstorfer | |||
| Mobile phones have become full-featured mobile computers. Applications
providing good user experience and taking full advantage of the increasing
capabilities of mobile phones are still rare. One such application is audio and
video on mobile phones which is expected to become a killer application in the
near future. A lot of valuable audio and video content is hidden in archives of
content providers. We are developing an application that enables a user to
perform content-based search for audio and video content in large databases and
play it on a mobile phone virtually anywhere, at any time. Our approach to
application development focuses on the adoption of agile software development
methodologies and user-centered design, emphasizing iterative user-interface
development involving usability engineers and non-technical users. Thus, the
application evolves according to the needs of the end user, providing maximized
usability and customer satisfaction. Keywords: Usability, Iterative User Interface Design, Mobile Application, Multimedia,
Extreme Programming | |||
| Development of an Academic Research Information Service through Repeated Usability Evaluations | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 195-199 | |
| Hanmin Jung; Mikyoung Lee; Seung-Woo Lee; Won-kyung Sung | |||
| Academic research information service is a must for surveying relevant
studies in research and development activities. However, in-depth usability
evaluation studies about the service are not enough when compared with its
importance. This study emphasizes needs of the evaluation in a way that
introduces the case of OntoFrame improved by repeated usability evaluations. We
perform two different kinds of usability evaluations; first is for confirming
service objectives through FGI (Focus Group Interview), second is for verifying
service usefulness through FGI and usability test. Many usability problems were
found and solved in the next version indebted with the evaluations. Keywords: usability evaluation, focus group interview, semantic web, academic research
information service, OntoFrame | |||
| Towards Deeper Understanding of Persuasion in Software and Information Systems | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 200-205 | |
| Harri Oinas-Kukkonen; Marja Harjumaa | |||
| A growing number of information technology systems and services are being
developed for persuasive purposes, i.e. to change users' attitudes or behaviour
or both. Despite the fact that attitudinal theories from social psychology have
been quite extensively applied to the study of user intentions and behaviour,
computer scientists and user interface designers are not very familiar with the
theories related to attitude change. Moreover, these theories are not directly
applicable for developing software and information systems. This paper builds
upon the attitude change theories from social psychology recognising dimensions
and approaches that help move towards a practical conceptual framework for
understanding and designing persuasion in information systems. Keywords: Computer-human interaction, human factors, persuasive technology, social
factors, systems design | |||
| A Dynamic Agent-Based Web Service Invocation Infrastructure | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 206-211 | |
| Hao Yang; Junliang Chen; Xiangwu Meng; Ying Zhang | |||
| Web services have led a revolution of Internet technology architecture by
their platform-independence, language-independence and other characters. But
traditional Web service architecture is based on "Client/Server" model, where
server is always providing service reactively. Software agents are now
increasingly used in commercial applications to solve complex engineering
problems, for their autonomous, proactive and social capabilities. And these
applications often make use of Web services. As such, this paper presents a Web
service invocation infrastructure based on software agents. The infrastructure
is a hybrid peer-to-peer model, using agents to describe service providers and
service customers. This invocation model is more flexible than traditional Web
service model, for (1) agents can invoke services in a proactive manner no
matter whether they act like service customers or providers, and (2) agents can
also act as multi-role actors in service domain. And with inspiration from
Aspect-Oriented programming, web services are mapped as aspects, while agents
are mapped as node. In this way, Web service policies in an agent can be
considered to be form an filter chain, either incoming filter chain or outgoing
filter chain, which is used to describe agent's request or response filter
policies. When service contractor satisfies both the incoming filter chain and
the outgoing filter chain at the same time, the corresponding service can be
invoked dynamically. And experiments show that dynamic service invocation can
be achieved in our infrastructure. Keywords: Web service, software agent, dynamic service invocation | |||
| AMANDA V3: Toward a Common Workspace between Air Traffic Controllers | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 212-217 | |
| David Annebicque; Serge Debernard; Thierry Poulain; Igor Crévits | |||
| This paper presents the different tools developed in the LAMIH, in optics to
assist air traffic controllers in their tasks, to decrease their workloads, and
to enable them to support the ceaseless increase of the traffic. Common
philosophy to all these tools is to preserve the controllers in the loop: we do
not try to develop tools entirely automatic. The platform AMANDA V2 made it
possible to set up and to evaluate a common workspace, which allows the two
controllers of a sector to cooperate and to share the same representation of
their traffic and conflicts. This space maintains common situation awareness.
This tool was very appreciated by professional controllers and we now wish to
extend this principle to the co-operation between two planning controllers of
two adjacent sectors. It is what we present in this paper which begins with a
presentation of the ATC then a point on the platforms of the laboratory and
particularly AMANDA V2, to conclude with the objectives of AMANDA V3. Keywords: Air Traffic Control, Human-Machine cooperation, dynamic allocation of
function, support tool, common workspace | |||
| Multimodal Metric Study for Human-Robot Collaboration | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 218-223 | |
| Scott A. Green; Scott M. Richardson; Randy J. Stiles; Mark Billinghurst; J. Geoffrey Chase | |||
| The aim of our research is to create a system whereby human members of a
team can collaborate in a natural way with robots. In this paper we describe a
Wizard of Oz (WOZ) study conducted to find the natural speech and gestures
people would use when interacting with a mobile robot as a team member.
Results of the study show that in the beginning participants used simple speech, but once the users learned that the system understood more complicated speech, they began to use more spatially descriptive language. User responses indicate that gestures aided in spatial communication. The input mode that combined the use of speech and gestures was found to be best. We first discuss previous work and detail how our study contributes to this body of knowledge. Then we describe the design of our WOZ study and discuss the results and issues encountered during the completion of the experiment. Keywords: Human-Robot Interaction, Multimodal Interfaces, Spatial Dialog System,
Speech, Gesture, Natural Language, Wizard-of-Oz | |||
| Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Video in Multi-robot Search | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 224-229 | |
| Prasanna Velagapudi; Jijun Wang; Huadong Wang; Paul Scerri; Michael Lewis; Katia Sycara | |||
| Camera guided teleoperation has long been the preferred mode for controlling
remote robots, with other modes such as asynchronous control only used when
unavoidable. In this experiment we evaluate the usefulness of asynchronous
operation for a multirobot search task. Because controlling multiple robots
places additional demands on the operator, removing the forced pace for
reviewing camera video might reduce workload and improve performance. In the
reported experiment participants operated four robot teams performing a
simulated urban search and rescue (USAR) task using either conventional
streaming video plus a map interface or an experimental interface without
streaming video but with the ability to store panoramic images on the map to be
viewed at leisure. Search performance was somewhat better using the
conventional interface, however, ancillary measures suggest that the
asynchronous interface succeeded in reducing temporal demands for switching
between robots. Keywords: human-robot interaction, interface evaluation, multi-robot system, human
factors, teleoperation | |||
| UPOS: User Profile Ontology with Situation-Dependent Preferences Support | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 230-235 | |
| Michael Sutterer; Olaf Droegehorn; Klaus David | |||
| Context-aware adaptive systems aim at automatically personalizing the user's
environment depending on the user's situation, and hence, minimizing user
interaction with the system. We present a novel user profile ontology that is
dedicated to describe situation-dependent sub-profiles. This ontology can be
used by context-aware adaptive service platforms for mobile communication and
information services to automatically trigger the situation-dependent
personalization of services. The design of this novel ontology also takes into
consideration recommendations from the human factors research area. In
particular, the ontology enables the easy specification of situational
conditions and situation-dependent user sub-profiles. Keywords: Context-aware system, ontology, situation, user modeling | |||
| Nursing Training: 3D Game with Learning Objectives | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 236-242 | |
| Fatma Mili; Jonathan Barr; Meghan Harris; Laura Pittiglio | |||
| Practical training is an essential component of nursing students'
preparation to entering the workforce and making decisions that impact
patients' health and often lives. We designed a 3D game (VI-MED) to support
virtual training to be used as a precursor and as a supplement to real
practical training. The VI-MED system has two main components: 1. A gaming
component which simulates a hospital environment with patients generated for
each session and a full spectrum of interventions that the player can use on
the patients, and 2. An Assessment component which monitors the players
progress, updates their profile, and customizes their experience with the games
accordingly. We discuss here the design of VI-MED with a special focus on the
modeling of the user's (student) profile and the modeling of the patients that
get generated at each game session. Both of these are driven by the learning
outcomes that the nursing faculty sets for their students. Keywords: 3D Game, Education, Student Modeling, Student Assessment | |||
| Specification for User Modeling with Self-Observing Systems | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 243-248 | |
| Mathias Funk; Piet van der Putten; Henk Corporaal | |||
| The complicated user interfaces and complex functionality of nowadays
interactive products lead to a new class of failures: People do not understand
their products and thus fail to use them successfully; many products are
returned for which no detectable errors can be found. These field problems of
interactive products cannot be found by traditional testing methods. Industry
needs reliable and structured information about the users' behavior to get
understanding about the root cause of so called soft product failures. In this
paper we present a framework that helps usability and quality experts to derive
user models from product observation. This is supported by a novel visual
language for specification what should be observed and how collected data is
represented, and a system architecture for distributed self-observing systems.
This approach separates the concern definition of observation from the
implementation of observation facilities. Keywords: user modeling, visual language, interactive product, self-observation,
specification language, distributed system | |||
| Examining Programmer's Cognitive Skills Using Regular Language | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 249-256 | |
| Anthony Cox; Maryanne Fisher | |||
| Regular expressions -- a notation for regular languages -- provide
alternation and iteration operators, and can thus be viewed as highly
simplified programming languages. Insight into the manipulation of regular
expressions will consequently provide insight on the cognition underlying the
human-computer interaction of programming. We predicted a relationship between
accuracy and completeness, thereby indicating that no tradeoff exists, as one
would expect to find in a pattern-matching task. As well, we hypothesised a
close relationship between the tasks of pattern application and creation, since
analogously to reading and writing, they potentially rely on associated
cognitive abilities. Our findings indicate that one's skills in using regular
expressions do not match one's ability to learn natural language, or to perform
pattern matching. However, we do find evidence that the manipulation of regular
expressions is similar to the manipulation of Boolean expressions and suggest
that the ability to use formal languages, and hence program computers, is thus
rooted in the skills associated with rule-based systems such as mathematics. Keywords: formal language, regular languages, regular expressions, cognitive skills,
programming skills, program comprehension | |||
| A Dynamical Document Structure to Capture the Semantics of Mathematical Concepts | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 257-264 | |
| Jackson Marques de Carvalho; Helmut Jürgensen | |||
| A grammar-based approach to the specification of mathematical notation is
proposed. The method is based on a meta-structure using attributed context-free
grammars for capturing the meaning of mathematical concepts. The proposal is
based on an authoring model which addresses the user needs as a fundamental
requirement. It is structured around a scope mechanism allowing the mapping
between semantics and syntax to be modified at any time during authoring. This
process supports the dynamics of the meaning-to-syntax binding necessary in the
authoring of mathematical concepts. Modular grammar fragments characterized by
a one-to-one mapping between mathematical concept and grammar representation
provide the adequate support for the definition of the various scopes. An
incremental update process is defined to modify the grammar fragments which
support the changes needed in the authoring process. Keywords: meta-structure, grammar fragments, attributed context-free grammars,
authoring model, incremental update, meaning-to-syntax binding, extensibility | |||
| Usability Practice: The Appealing Way to HCI | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 265-270 | |
| Cristian Rusu; Virginia Rusu; Silvana Roncagliolo | |||
| The importance of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) education for software
professionals should be evident and well understood, when designing Computer
Science (CS) programs, at all levels. Unfortunately there is a lack of HCI
courses in Chilean CS programs. It is difficult and usually highly bureaucratic
to change curricula. It is only a matter of good will to make small changes in
the courses' approach and emphasis. An appealing way to introduce HCI at all
computer science curricula levels is by systematically including usability
practices, especially usability evaluations. Keywords: Human-Computer Interaction, Computer Science Curricula, Usability
Evaluation, Usability Engineering Practices | |||
| Mandos: A User Interaction Method in Embedded Applications for Mobile Telephony | | BIBA | Full-Text | 271-276 | |
| Mauro Teófilo; Lucas Cordeiro; Raimundo Barreto; José Raimundo Pereira; Ayres Mardem; Pedro Freitas | |||
| With the intense use of applicative in mobile device, the question "usability" begins to invigorate strongly as a study object, it is being considered a determinant factor of the success of this segment of the mobile computation. This article proposes an improvement way in the usability of the embedded applicative in mobile devices, considering a new method of user interaction. The Mandos interaction method is based on task idea, which consists in a possible operation that could be executed in an applicative by the user and probabilities between task changes. The cited probabilities will be used for construction of the user interface to interact dynamically with the user. To validate the considered method was developed a framework, called Mandos, which propitiates functionalities to the applicative developer that uses Java technology. A case study will be presented where some prototypes of embedded applicative mobile was developed, using Mandos framework for the interaction method evaluation. The evaluation was established in order to identify any relation of usability gain or loss of applicative, having like approvers the own users of the embedded applicative in mobile telephones. | |||
| Training and Deployment as a Basis for Usability Engineering of Mobile Systems | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 277-284 | |
| Bente Skattør | |||
| Usability engineering of mobile systems challenges existing methods and
raises new concerns. Usability evaluations are frequently described as a
separate discipline and in many cases usability evaluations are separate
activities within the design and development of systems. This paper presents a
development project where training in and the deployment of a mobile system
were used to identify usability problems. The project aimed to develop a mobile
system to supporting information processes for workers on building sites. An
iterative usability evaluation process was conducted the process was refined
and validated using two action research projects. The approach of the research
was user-centered system design (UCSD). When evaluating the mobile system
during training and deployment vital usability problems of a rich variety and
complexity were identified. These usability problems related to mobility,
location, culture and weather were identified. This research reveals strong
similarities between usability evaluations and action research that were an
advantage for the usability process. The users participated actively and were
inspired by experiencing the improvements. This iterative usability process
contributed to improvements of the mobile system. Keywords: Usability evaluations, mobile systems, software development, user-centered
system design, mobility, mobile work | |||
| Obstacle Avoidance Path Planning for Mobile Robot Based on Multi Colony Ant Algorithm | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 285-289 | |
| Nguyen Hoang Viet; Ngo Anh Vien; SeungGwan Lee; TaeChoong Chung | |||
| The task of planning trajectories for a mobile robot has received
considerable attention in the research literature. The problem involves
computing a collision-free path between a start point and a target point in
environment of known obstacles. In this paper, we study an obstacle avoidance
path planning problem using multi ant colony system, in which several colonies
of ants cooperate in finding good solution by exchanging good information. In
the simulation, we experimentally investigate the behaviour of multi colony ant
algorithm with different kinds of information among the colonies. At last we
will compare the behaviour of different number of colonies with a multi start
single colony ant algorithm to show the good improvement. Keywords: path planning, multi colony ant algorithm | |||
| Utilization of Fuzzy Theory in the Modeling of Users of Adaptive Hypermedia Systems | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 290-296 | |
| Valéria Farinazzo Martins Salvador; André Luiz Satoshi Kawamoto; João Soares de Oliveira Neto | |||
| Most of the software systems are not developed taking into account the
heterogeneous needs of users. It is known that each user has different levels
of knowledge, goals, abilities, and preferences. This fact emphasizes the need
of developing systems which can adapt themselves to different types of user, or
stereotypes. Since the description of the knowledge and features of the user
involves uncertainness and imprecise sense, the Fuzzy Theory can be applied in
order to deal with this vagueness. This paper proposes a user model for
adaptive hypermedia systems using a structure, based on Fuzzy Theory. This
model is able to properly reflect some of the user characteristics in the
model, and adapt its own navigation and the content of hypermedia nodes for the
user needs. Keywords: User centered design, user interfaces, user modeling | |||
| Enhancing Multi-user Interaction with Multi-touch Tabletop Displays Using Hand Tracking | | BIBA | Full-Text | 297-302 | |
| K. C. Dohse; Thomas Dohse; Jeremiah D. Still; Derrick J. Parkhurst | |||
| A rear-projection multi-touch tabletop display was augmented with hand tracking utilizing computer vision techniques. Touch detection by frustrated total internal reflection is useful for achieving interaction with tabletop displays, but the technique is not always reliable when multiple users in close proximity simultaneously interact with the display. To solve this problem, we combine touch detection and hand tracking techniques in order to allow multiple users to simultaneously interact with the display without interference. Our hope is that by considering activities occurring on and above a tabletop display, multiuser interaction will become more natural and useful, which should ultimately support collaborative work. | |||
| Tailoring Model-Based Techniques to Facial Expression Interpretation | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 303-308 | |
| Matthias Wimmer; Christoph Mayer; Sylvia Pietzsch; Bernd Radig | |||
| Computers have been widely deployed to our daily lives, but human-computer
interaction still lacks intuition. Researchers intend to resolve these
shortcomings by augmenting traditional systems with human-like interaction
capabilities. Knowledge about human emotion, behavior, and intention is
necessary to construct convenient interaction mechanisms. Today, dedicated
hardware often infers the emotional state from human body measures.
Similar to humans interpreting facial expressions, our approach acquires video information using standard hardware that does not interfere with people to accomplish this task. It exploits model-based techniques that accurately localize facial features, seamlessly track them through image sequences, and finally interpret the visible information. We make use of state-of-the-art techniques and specifically adapt most of the components involved to this scenario, which provides high accuracy and real-time capability. We base our experimental evaluation on publicly available databases and compare its results to related approaches. Our proof-of-concept demonstrates the feasibility of our approach and shows promising for integration into various applications. Keywords: Emotion Recognition, Multi-modal User Interfaces, Facial Expression
Interpretation, Real-time Systems, Vision and Scene Understanding, Face and
Gesture Recognition | |||
| Requirement Engineering Contributions to Voice User Interface | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 309-314 | |
| Valéria Farinazzo Martins Salvador; João Soares de Oliveira Neto; André Satoshi Kawamoto | |||
| This paper aims to contribute to the Voice User Interface Systems area by
establishing directions to be used during the Requirements Engineering phase of
the development of this type of system. The process of Requirements Engineering
proposed here takes into account specific characteristics of voice user
interface, and is based on concepts deriving from the Software Engineering
area, namely the elicitation, specification, and evaluation phases. In order to
illustrate the process, a case study is discussed and presented, as well as the
conclusions obtained during the development of the research. Keywords: Voice user interface, requirements specification, user centered design,
interactive applications | |||