| A framework for designing sensor-based interactions to promote exploration and reflection in play | | BIBA | Full-Text | 1-14 | |
| Yvonne Rogers; Henk Muller | |||
| Sensor-based interactions are increasingly being used in the design of user experiences, ranging from the activation of controls to the delivery of 'context-aware' information in the home. The benefits of doing so include the ability to deliver relevant information to people at appropriate times and to enable 'hands-free' control. A downside, however, is that sensor control often displaces user control, resulting in the user not knowing how to or being able to control aspects of a system. While this can be frustrating in many situations, it provides new opportunities for enhancing or augmenting various kinds of activities, where uncertainty can be exploited to good effect. We describe how we designed an adventure game for young children that incorporated a number of sensor-based interactions. We also present a preliminary conceptual framework intended to help designers and researchers develop novel user experiences using sensor-based interactions. A set of concepts are provided that characterize salient aspects of the user experience involved in sensing together with a discussion of the core properties of sensor technologies. | |||
| The perceived utility of standard ontologies in document management for specialized domains | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 15-26 | |
| Mihye Kim; Paul Compton | |||
| A user-based document management system has been developed for small
communities on the Web. The system is based on the free annotation of documents
by users. A number of annotation support tools are used to suggest possible
annotations, including suggesting terms from external ontologies. This paper
outlines some evaluation data on how users actually interact with the system in
annotating their document especially on the use of standard ontologies. Results
indicate that although an established external taxonomy can be useful in
proposing annotation terms, users appear to be very selective in their use of
the terms proposed and to have little interest in adhering to the particular
hierarchical structure provided. Keywords: Utility of standard ontologies; User-based document management | |||
| Personal assistants: Direct manipulation vs. mixed initiative interfaces | | BIBA | Full-Text | 27-35 | |
| Marcelo Armentano; Daniela Godoy; A Analia-Amandi | |||
| Interface agents are computer programmes that provide assistance to users dealing with computer-based applications. The introduction of agents to user interfaces caused the exploration of new metaphors to enhance user ability to directly manipulate interfaces. In this regard, mixed-initiative interaction refers to a flexible interaction strategy in which agents contribute with users by providing suitable information at the most appropriate time. Mixed-initiative approaches promise to dramatically enhance human-computer interaction by allowing agents to resemble human assistants. In this paper, we report a study on how the interaction metaphor can affect the user perception of agent capabilities and, in turn, the final success of agents. | |||
| Constructing computer-based tutors that are socially sensitive: Politeness in educational software | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 36-42 | |
| Richard E. Mayer; W. Lewis Johnson; Erin Shaw; Sahiba Sandhu | |||
| Students rated 16 tutorial statements on negative politeness (i.e., how much
the tutor "allows me freedom to make my own decisions") and positive politeness
(i.e., how much the tutor was "working with me"). Consistent with an adaptation
of Brown and Levinson's [1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use.
Cambridge University Press, New York] politeness theory, (a) students rated
direct commands and commands attributed to machines as lowest in negative and
positive politeness, (b) students rated guarded suggestions and guarded
questions as highest in negative politeness, and guarded suggestions and
statements expressing a common goal as highest in positive politeness, and (c)
the pattern of results was stronger for students with low rather than high
computing experience. Results have implications for designing polite
conversational agents in educational software. Keywords: Pedagogical agents; Educational technology; Computer-based learning;
Information and communication technology | |||
| Persuasion and social perception of human vs. synthetic voice across person as source and computer as source conditions | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 43-52 | |
| Steven E. Stern; John W. Mullennix; Ilya Yaroslavsky | |||
| There is evidence that people react more positively when they are presented
with faces that are consistent with their voices. Nass and Brave [2005]. Wired
for speech: How voice Activates and Advances the Human-computer Relationship.
MIT Press, Cambridge, MA] found that computerized and human faces were
perceived more positively when paired, respectively, with synthesized versus
human voices than when paired with inconsistent voices. The present study
sought to examine whether this type of inconsistency would effect perceptions
of persuasive messages delivered by humans versus computers. We created a
situation in which reactions to computer synthesized speech were compared to
human speech when the speech was either from a person or a computer. This paper
presents two studies, one using audio taped stimuli and one using videotaped
stimuli, with type of speech (human versus computer synthesized) manipulated
factorially with source (person versus computer). As hypothesized, both studies
suggest that in the human as source condition, human voice is perceived more
favorably than synthetic voice. However, in the computer as source condition,
both human and computer voice were rated similarly. We discuss these findings
in terms of consistency as well as group processes effects that may be
occurring. Keywords: Human factors; Speech technology; Ingroup/outgroup; Talking computers | |||
| The role of moderating factors in user technology acceptance | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 53-78 | |
| Heshan Sun; Ping Zhang | |||
| Along with increasing investments in new technologies, user technology
acceptance becomes a frequently studied topic in the information systems
discipline. The last two decades have seen user acceptance models being
proposed, tested, refined, extended and unified. These models have contributed
to our understanding of user technology acceptance factors and their
relationships. Yet they have also presented two limitations: the relatively low
explanatory power and inconsistent influences of the factors across studies.
Several researchers have recently started to examine the potential moderating
effects that may overcome these limitations. However, studies in this direction
are far from being conclusive. This study attempts to provide a systematic
analysis of the explanatory and situational limitations of existing technology
acceptance studies. Ten moderating factors are identified and categorized into
three groups: organizational factors, technological factors and individual
factors. An integrative model is subsequently established, followed by
corresponding propositions pertaining to the moderating factors. Keywords: User technology acceptance; Conceptual research; Moderating factors;
Research model | |||
| Current practice in measuring usability: Challenges to usability studies and research | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 79-102 | |
| Kasper Hornbaek | |||
| How to measure usability is an important question in HCI research and user
interface evaluation. We review current practice in measuring usability by
categorizing and discussing usability measures from 180 studies published in
core HCI journals and proceedings. The discussion distinguish several problems
with the measures, including whether they actually measure usability, if they
cover usability broadly, how they are reasoned about, and if they meet
recommendations on how to measure usability. In many studies, the choice of and
reasoning about usability measures fall short of a valid and reliable account
of usability as quality-in-use of the user interface being studied. Based on
the review, we discuss challenges for studies of usability and for research
into how to measure usability. The challenges are to distinguish and
empirically compare subjective and objective measures of usability; to focus on
developing and employing measures of learning and retention; to study long-term
use and usability; to extend measures of satisfaction beyond post-use
questionnaires; to validate and standardize the host of subjective satisfaction
questionnaires used; to study correlations between usability measures as a
means for validation; and to use both micro and macro tasks and corresponding
measures of usability. In conclusion, we argue that increased attention to the
problems identified and challenges discussed may strengthen studies of
usability and usability research. Keywords: Usability; User-centered design; Usability Engineering | |||
| Cultural differences on attention and perceived usability: Investigating color combinations of animated graphics | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 103-122 | |
| Jantawan Noiwan; Anthony F. Norcio | |||
| This experimental study investigates the effects of animated graphic colors
on attention and perceived usability of users from two cultural groups,
American and Thai. The experiment employs a three-way split-plot design with
one between-subjects factor and two repeated-measures factors. The
between-subjects factor contains two cultural groups, American and Thai. The
two repeated-measures variables are a banner background color factor with six
levels and a banner font color factor with two levels. Participants search for
target words from text on Web pages that contain three animated banner
graphics. The findings lead to the conclusion that users across cultures tend
to ignore animated banner graphics when they look for specific information on
highly informative Web pages. This study also suggests influences of culture on
overall performance, overall retention, and overall self-reports on usability,
regardless of differences in banner color combinations. Moreover, cultural
differences on the self-report of attention drawing are also revealed in each
banner color usage, except yellow banners with white text. This study does not
aim at exploring superiority of participants between cultures. Rather, it
attempts to explore some possible cultural differences in interacting with a
computer interface that could facilitate cognition and perception of users from
different cultural groups. Keywords: Culture; Animated graphic; Color; Banner; Attention; Usability; Visual
search | |||
| Cognitive styles as an explanation of experts' individual differences: A case study in computer-assisted troubleshooting diagnosis | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 123-136 | |
| Julien Cegarra; Jean-Michel Hoc | |||
| Individual differences are a crucial aspect of field studies because of the
consequences they can have on performance. However, in Cognitive Ergonomics,
individual differences have mainly been interpreted as expertise effects. As
can be noted from the literature, this limitation has led to difficulties in
explaining differences between experts. Using a case study which identifies
significant variations between expert performances [Jouglet, D., Piechowiak,
S., Vanderhaegen, F., 2003. A shared workspace to support man-machine
reasoning: application to cooperative distant diagnosis. Cognition, Technology
& Work 5, 127-139], we attempt to go beyond the traditional approach based on
expertise levels. Instead, we refer to the notion of cognitive styles. First,
we consider methodological issues raised by a posteriori identification of
cognitive styles within this diagnosis task. Second, we present the results of
our analysis showing that individual differences are related to a particular
dimension of cognitive style in which a balance between task requirements and
cognitive resources is managed. Finally, we draw conclusions on the importance
of cognitive styles in Cognitive Ergonomics. Keywords: Individual differences; Cognitive style; Expertise; Diagnosis; Strategy | |||
| A Gestalt-like perceptual measure for home page design using a fuzzy entropy approach | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 137-156 | |
| Shih-Wen Hsiao; Jyh-Rong Chou | |||
| A home page is an entry interface of hyperdocuments for presenting a
Website's information to visitors, which is mostly concerned with human
perception in terms of users' comprehension and mental representation. As the
theory of Gestalt psychology provides an important perspective in human
perception, it is appropriate to apply this theory in evaluating the
"wholeness" of a perceptual image. In home page design, organizing the visual
pattern on the basis of Gestalt principles can lead to an efficient model for a
better perception. However, human perception referring to the non-quantifiable,
subjective, and affect-based experience is difficult to be objectively and
uniformly measured by a conventional research approach. In this paper, we
propose a Gestalt-like perceptual measure method by combining Gestalt grouping
principles and fuzzy entropy. The purpose of this proposed method is not to
evaluate the grades of alternatives, but to measure the Gestalt-like perceptual
degrees for home page design. An experimental study was conducted to evaluate
the practicability of this method. In Part 1 of the experiment, the weights of
evaluated criteria were identified through the analytic hierarchy process (AHP)
operation. A Gestalt-like perceptual measure for six selected home pages was
further implemented in Part 2 of the experiment. The experimental study has
shown a credible result. In addition to measuring the Gestalt perception of a
Web page design, the proposed method can also be applied to related design
fields such as plane design and other visual interface design. Keywords: Home page; Human perceptual measure; Gestalt grouping principles; Analytic
hierarchy process (AHP); Fuzzy entropy | |||
| Interaction with virtual environments | | BIB | Full-Text | 157 | |
| John R. Wilson | |||
| Virtual and interactive environments for work of the future | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 158-169 | |
| John R. Wilson; Mirabelle D'Cruz | |||
| Virtual reality (VR) systems and the virtual environments (VEs) experienced
within them have presented challenges to human computer interaction over many
years. The sheer range of different interfaces which might be experienced and
of different behaviours which might be exhibited have caused difficulties in
general understanding of participants' performance within VR/VE and in
providing coherent guidance for designers. We have recently completed a
European Information Society Technologies (IST) project, Virtual and
Interactive Environments for Workplaces of the Future (VIEW of the Future),
which has made great strides in developing improved VR systems and interaction
concepts and devices, based upon good understanding of participation in VEs.
Particular emphasis in the VIEW of the Future project has been upon mobility
and multiple active collaboration in use of VR/VE. This paper introduces a
special issue devoted to this project and overviews the project as a whole. In
doing so it also reviews some of the human factors issues defined for VR/VE
over the years and the contribution of VIEW of the Future to addressing these. Keywords: Human factors; Virtual reality; Virtual environments; Mobile systems;
Collaboration | |||
| Extending the desktop workplace by a portable virtual reality system | | BIBA | Full-Text | 170-181 | |
| Hilko Hoffmann; Oliver Stefani; Harshada Patel | |||
| Users are increasingly recognizing the potential of virtual reality (VR)
technology for applications such as data analysis, design review, product
development, production planning, marketing, training, etc. The currently
established workflow is to design and construct at a desktop system with CAD or
modeling software, and visualize and evaluate the results at one or more VR
centers equipped with CAVEs or Powerwalls.
Discussions with users of VR installations have shown that there is a demand for smaller and more cost efficient VR installations. We have proposed the concept of a small VR system, PI-casso, based on user requirements, guidelines for office workplaces and some end-user tests which showed important limitations and the ergonomics problems of current VR installations. PI-casso is a compact, fully immersive VR system which complements the classic desktop workplace. In this paper we describe a set of user requirements and the results of the design in forming end-user tests, in addition to the concept and the technical specifications of the newly developed system. The first prototype of PI-casso was demonstrated at HCII 2003, where specialists from the human factors/ergonomics and the VR communities used our system and provided suggestions for improvement. This expert feedback was used to develop the improved versions described in this paper. | |||
| Multimodal astronaut virtual training prototype | | BIBA | Full-Text | 182-191 | |
| Jukka Ronkko; Jussi Markkanen; Raimo Launonen; Marinella Ferrino; Enrico Gaia; Valter Basso; Harshada Patel; Mirabelle D'Cruz; Seppo Laukkanen | |||
| A few dedicated training simulator applications exist that mix realistic interaction devices -- like real cockpits in flight simulators -- with virtual environment (VE) components. Dedicated virtual reality (VR) systems have been utilized also in astronaut training. However there are no detailed descriptions of projection wall VR systems and related interaction techniques for astronaut assembly training in zero gravity conditions. Back projection technology tends to have certain advantages over head mounted displays including less simulation sickness and less restricted user movement. A prototype was built to evaluate the usefulness of projection technology VEs and interaction techniques for astronaut training. This was achieved by first constructing a PC cluster-based general purpose VE software and hardware platform. This platform was used to implement a testing prototype for astronaut assembly sequence training. An interaction tool battery was designed for the purposes of viewpoint control and object handling. A selected training task was implemented as a case study for further analysis based on laptop usage in the Fluid Science Laboratory (FSL) inside the Columbus module in the International Space Station (ISS). User tests were conducted on the usability of the prototype for the intended training purpose. The results seem to indicate that projection technology-based VE systems and suitably selected interaction techniques can be successfully utilized in zero gravity training operations. | |||
| Multiple decoupled interaction: An interaction design approach for groupware interaction in co-located virtual environments | | BIBA | Full-Text | 192-206 | |
| Victor Bayon; Gareth Griffiths; John R. Wilson | |||
| Interactive visualizations such as virtual environments and their associated input and interface techniques have traditionally focused on localized single-user interactions and have lacked co-present active collaboration mechanisms where two or more co-located users can share and actively cooperate and interact with the visual simulation. VR facilities such as CAVEs or PowerWalls, among many others, seem to promise such collaboration but due to the special requirements in terms of 3D input and output devices and the physical configuration and layout, they are generally designed to support an active controlling participant -- the immersed user -- and a passive viewing only audience. In this paper we explore the integration of different technologies, such as small handheld devices and wireless networks with VR/VEs in order to develop a technical and conceptual interaction approach that allows creation of a more ad hoc, interaction rich, multimodal and multi-device environment, where multiple users can access certain interactive capabilities of VE and support co-located collaboration. | |||
| Human centred design of 3-D interaction devices to control virtual environments | | BIBA | Full-Text | 207-220 | |
| Harshada Patel; Oliver Stefani; Sarah Sharples; Hilko Hoffmann; Ioannis Karaseitanidis; Angelos Amditis | |||
| It is commonly acknowledged that user needs should drive design, but often technical influences prevail. Currently, there are no standard interaction devices or interfaces used in 3-D environments, and there is a lack of specific best practice guidelines to develop these. This paper discusses the process of collecting feedback on prototype designs for VR/VE interaction devices from both expert users and non-expert users, and demonstrates how the information gained from human centred evaluation can be used to further the design process. Experiment 1 examined the usability of two magnetically tracked interaction devices with three different types of menus (Sphere, Linear and Fan). Quantitative and qualitative analysis was carried out on the results, and usability problems with the menus and devices are discussed. The findings from this experiment were translated into general design guidance, in addition to specific recommendations. A new device was designed on the basis of some of these recommendations and its usability was evaluated in Experiment 2. Feedback from participants in Experiment 2 demonstrated that the design recommendations emerging from Experiment 1 were successfully applied to develop a more usable and acceptable device. | |||
| Virtual prints: Augmenting virtual environments with interactive personal marks | | BIBA | Full-Text | 221-239 | |
| Dimitris Grammenos; Alexandros Mourouzis; Constantine Stephanidis | |||
| This paper introduces the concept of Virtual Prints (ViPs) as an intuitive
metaphor for supporting interaction and navigation, as well as a number of
additional tasks in virtual environments (VEs). Three types of ViPs are
described: Virtual Footprints, which are used for tracking user navigation
(position, orientation and movement), Virtual Handprints, which are used for
tracing user interaction with the VE, and Virtual Markers, which are 'special'
marks (usually coupled with information) that can be created upon user request.
In a VE, the ViPs concept is instantiated and supported through a software
mechanism (the ViPs mechanism) that allows users to create, manage and interact
with their personal ViPs, as well as other users' ViPs.
The paper presents the background and related work upon which the suggested concept builds, as well as the distinctive properties that differentiate ViPs from other related efforts. An account of how users can interact with ViPs is provided and related issues and challenges are discussed along with techniques and methods for addressing them. The paper also describes the process followed towards defining and experimenting with the concept of ViPs by means of iterative design and evaluation of an interactive prototype. This process involved exploratory studies, as well as several inspections and formal tests with both experts and potential end-users, in order to assess the usefulness of the concept and identify possible shortcomings, and also to evaluate and improve the usability of the proposed designs and software prototypes. In general, the findings of the studies reinforce the initial hypothesis that ViPs are an intuitive and powerful concept, and show that the related software is easy to learn and use. Overall, the results of the studies support strong evidence that an appropriately designed and implemented, fully functional ViPs mechanism can significantly increase the usability of VEs. | |||
| Performance of new participants in virtual environments: The Nottingham tool for assessment of interaction in virtual environments (NAIVE) | | BIBA | Full-Text | 240-250 | |
| Gareth Griffiths; Sarah Nichols Sharples; John R. Wilson | |||
| There is a need for an assessment tool which reliably distinguishes levels of participant performance in virtual environments (VEs) built within virtual reality (VR) systems. Such screening might be of potential users amongst a company's staff or might be carried out by human factors experimenters prior to the start of experiments in order to provide a base-line of participant competences. The Nottingham Tool for Assessment for Interaction in Virtual Environments (NAIVE) comprises a set of VE tasks and related tests, with appropriate performance criteria levels, covering the main aspects of navigation (viewpoint) control and object manipulation and operation. Trials with test participants enabled performance levels to be set to distinguish good, adequate and poor performers and tests to be distinguished according to whether performance in the general population is evenly spread or is skewed towards success or failure. | |||
| Evaluation of virtual reality products and applications from individual, organizational and societal perspectives -- The "VIEW" case study | | BIBA | Full-Text | 251-266 | |
| Ioannis Karaseitanidis; Angelos Amditis; Harshada Patel; Sarah Sharples; Evangelos Bekiaris; Alex Bullinger; Jolanda Tromp | |||
| Virtual reality (VR) has evolved in technology and applications within the
last decade. Technical advances have led to the development of novel
interaction devices, interaction concepts, more reliable and robust VR set-ups,
advanced visualization and modeling software. However, decisions regarding
which VR set-ups and devices are suitable for particular applications are
becoming more difficult due to the rapid stream of technical development.
In the "VIEW of the Future" project (IST-2000-26089), the development process was coupled with an extensive and multivariable evaluation procedure. The latter has taken advantage of direct neurophysiological and psychophysiological measurements and a variety of self-report tools administered in a set of different but closely linked experiments. Furthermore, the implementation of VR solutions in different applications was examined with a socio-economic perspective, by applying a multi-criteria analysis (MCA) using an analytical hierarchical model. The data collected during the experimental trials enabled us to reach general conclusions regarding the systems used, and to derive applicability guidelines to facilitate the implementation of VR products. This paper presents all aspects of the evaluation methodology: Usability Test Battery for neuro- and psycho-physiological measurements, VIEW-IT heuristic assessment tool, questionnaires, MCA methodology). A summary of the results includes usability and ergonomic findings for different VR set-ups, and the impact of VR implementation on a variety of applications. | |||
| Practical evaluations of real user company needs for visualization technologies | | BIBA | Full-Text | 267-279 | |
| Harshada Patel; Sarah Sharples; Severine Letourneur; Emma Johansson; Hilko Hoffmann; Jean Lorisson; Dennis Saluaar; Oliver Stefani | |||
| The use of visualization technologies by the automotive industry is
primarily aimed at increasing competitive advantage. Within the VIEW of the
Future project (IST-2000-26089), two automotive companies, PSA Peugeot Citroen
and Volvo Technology Corporation, had a need for targeted evaluation of
practical issues in their potential use of VR/VE technology. PSA Peugeot
Citroen would like to use visualization technology to accelerate and increase
the efficiency of their product design cycle. A series of short experiments
were conducted to enable PSA Peugeot Citroen to define the technological
specifications of a CAVE-type system they would be purchasing to achieve their
design goals. The results documented the fidelity of the visualization
environment and user experience of the different configuration set-ups. For
example, although passive stereo offered more brightness and better
representation of colours, PSA Peugeot Citroen employees preferred active
stereo due to the distracting ghosting effect present when using passive
stereo. Thus PSA Peugeot Citroen chose to implement active stereo in their new
system.
There is a need for the engineers at the Volvo product companies to present more realistic vehicle components, e.g. car interior parts, in early product development phases. It is not known if the present computer graphics technology can represent vehicle components with high realism in practical applications. In the study reported here, we investigated the perception of visual appearance of virtual surface materials as well as real material samples by Volvo engineers. There was a general loss of information in the VE material representations, e.g. in terms of depth and colour information resulting in dull images. Further research needs to be conducted to examine different methods of producing virtual materials and compare the differently generated virtual materials, in addition to assessing their realism using different types of display technology. This would enable us to find the best method of virtual material production in conjunction with a system which best displays these virtual representations. | |||
| Evidence in favor of visual representation for the dataflow paradigm: An experiment testing LabVIEW's comprehensibility | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 281-303 | |
| Kirsten N. Whitley; Laura R. Novick; Doug Fisher | |||
| This paper reports an experiment that examined the comprehensibility of the
LabVIEW programming representation. LabVIEW is a visual programming language
(VPL) based on the dataflow paradigm. The experiment compared LabVIEW to a
semantically equivalent textual language using three types of tasks: (1)
tracing problems: given code and input values, subjects were asked what output
the code would produce if executed. (2) Parallelism problems: given code with
several program statements highlighted, subjects were asked about the sequence
in which those statements could execute. (3) Debugging problems: given code and
its specifications, subjects were asked to find a logic error in the code. The
experiment measured the subjects' time to solve the problems and accuracy of
the answers. The subjects were upper-level university students who were
intermediate-level programmers with no prior exposure to LabVIEW. Their
performances showed differences due to representation for all three task types.
Subjects using the textual representation completed the tracing problems
significantly faster than subjects using the visual representation. In
contrast, subjects using the visual representation were significantly faster
for the parallelism problems and significantly more accurate for both the
parallelism and debugging problems. These results contribute clear evidence for
selected benefits of a visual representation for small-sized code segments,
evidence that LabVIEW succeeds in highlighting data dependencies, and evidence
that LabVIEW helps programmers to maintain an overview of their code. The
authors consider the implications of these results for VPLs more generally. Keywords: Visual programming; LabVIEW; Empirical evaluation | |||
| Acquiring user tradeoff strategies and preferences for negotiating agents: A default-then-adjust method | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 304-321 | |
| Xudong Luo; Nicholas R. Jennings; Nigel Shadbolt | |||
| A wide range of algorithms have been developed for various types of
negotiating agents. In developing such algorithms the main focus has been on
their efficiency and their effectiveness. However, this is only a part of the
picture. Typically, agents negotiate on behalf of their owners and for this to
be effective the agents must be able to adequately represent their owners'
strategies and preferences for negotiation. However, the process by which such
knowledge is acquired is typically left unspecified. To address this problem,
we undertook a study of how user information about negotiation tradeoff
strategies and preferences can be captured. Specifically, we devised a novel
default-then-adjust acquisition technique. In this, the system firstly does a
structured interview with the user to suggest the attributes that the tradeoff
could be made between, then it asks the user to adjust the suggested default
tradeoff strategy by improving some attribute to see how much worse the
attribute being traded off can be made while still being acceptable, and,
finally, it asks the user to adjust the default preference on the tradeoff
alternatives. This method is consistent with the principles of standard
negotiation theory and to demonstrate its effectiveness we implemented a
prototype system and performed an empirical evaluation in an accommodation
renting scenario. The result of this evaluation indicates the proposed
technique is helpful and efficient in accurately acquiring the users' tradeoff
strategies and preferences. Keywords: Tradeoff strategy and preference; Knowledge acquisition; Preference
acquisition; Automated negotiation; Software agents | |||
| Design of animated pedagogical agents -- A look at their look | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 322-339 | |
| Agneta Gulz; Magnus Haake | |||
| A well-established effect of animated agents in educational and other
contexts is their potential to motivate and engage. "Increased motivation in
users" is also one of the more frequent answers given to the question, "What is
gained by adding an animated pedagogical agent to an intelligent tutoring
system?"
To further develop and exploit this potential, there are, however, several issues that need to be resolved. In this article we discuss the visual form and look of animated pedagogical agents. A survey is presented of how the area is approached (and, in particular, not approached) in research on animated pedagogical agents. Two possible reasons are proposed as to why visual form and look are so little addressed are also proposed. We also propose and discuss some key aspects of look that merit a systematic approach in future research. The main thesis of the paper is that users' visuo-aesthetic experience of animated pedagogical agents is too important with respect to the goals to motivate and engage, to be treated as a secondary issue. We do not deny that there are other pressing and fundamental issues that need to be solved, such as those concerning the content of the support and the competence level of agents, as well as various design elements that can contribute to making animated agents lifelike. But we argue that visual rendering issues are pressing and need to be seriously addressed as well. Keywords: Animated pedagogical agents; Motivational issues; Visual experience; Visual
form; Design space | |||
| An empirical investigation into user navigation of digital video using the VCR-like control set | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 340-355 | |
| Chris Crockford; Harry Agius | |||
| There has been an almost explosive growth in digital video in recent years.
The convention for enabling users to navigate digital video is the Video
Cassette Recorder-like (VCR-like) control set, which is dictated by the
proliferation of media players that embody it, including Windows Media Player
and QuickTime. However, there is a dearth of research seeking to understand how
users relate to this control set and how useful it actually is in practice.
This paper details our empirical investigation of the issue. A digital video
navigation system with a VCR-like control set was developed and subsequently
used by a large sample of users (n=200), who were required to complete a number
of goal-directed navigational tasks. Each user's navigational activity was
tracked and recorded automatically by the system. Analysis of the navigational
data revealed a range of results concerning how the VCR-like control set both
enhanced and limited the user's ability to locate sequences of interest,
including a number of searching and browsing strategies that were exploited by
the users. Keywords: Digital video; User navigation; Browsing; Searching; VCR; Media players;
Multimedia; Empirical study | |||
| The frequent wayfinding-sequence (FWS) methodology: Finding preferred routes in complex virtual environments | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 356-374 | |
| Pedram Sadeghian; Mehmed Kantardzic; Oleksandr Lozitskiy; Walaa Sheta | |||
| Advances in computing techniques, as well as the reduction in the cost of
technology, have made possible the viability and spread of complex virtual
environments (VEs). However, efficient navigation within these environments
remains problematic for the user. Several research projects have shown that
users of VEs are often disoriented and have extreme difficulty completing
navigational tasks. Furthermore, there is often more than one route to get to a
specified destination. Novice users often lack the spatial knowledge needed to
pick an appropriate route due to the deficiency of experience with the system.
A number of navigation tools such as maps, 3-D thumbnails, trails, and personal
agents have been proposed. The introduction of these tools have met with some
degree of success, but most researchers agree that new techniques need to be
developed to aid users efficiently navigate within complex VEs. In this paper,
we propose the frequent wayfinding-sequence (FWS) methodology that uses a
modified sequence mining technique to discover a model of routes taken by
experienced users of a VE. The model is used to build an interface that
provides navigation assistance to novice users by recommending routes. We
conducted both real world and simulation experiments using our methodology.
Results from the real world experiment suggest that the FWS approach has the
potential to improve the user's navigation performance and the quality of the
human-computer interaction. Our simulation studies showed that our approach is
scalable, efficient, and able to find useful route models for complex VEs. Keywords: Route recommendations; Wayfinding; Virtual environments; Sequence mining | |||
| A method and advisor tool for multimedia user interface design | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 375-392 | |
| Alistair G. Sutcliffe; Sri Kurniawan; Jae-Eun Shin | |||
| This paper describes a multimedia user interface design method and a design
assistant tool which supports the method. The method covers specification of
user requirements and information architecture, selection of appropriate media
to represent the information content, design for directing attention to
important information and interaction design to enhance user engagement.
Guidelines for media selection and design for attractiveness, i.e. usability
and user experience, are given. The method was evaluated in a case study design
of a crowd control simulation training system, which demonstrated the method
was usable and gave good solutions against an expert gold standard design. The
tool provides advice on media selection and attention effects that match
specification of the information content expressed as information types and
communication goals. A usability evaluation was carried out to measure the
usefulness and effectiveness of the tool in comparison to the method, and the
results showed that the tool has a positive impact on multimedia design. Keywords: Multimedia; Design method; Guidelines; Advisor tool; Aesthetics | |||
| The influence of font type and line length on visual search and information retrieval in web pages | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 395-404 | |
| Jonathan Ling; Paul van Schaik | |||
| Most web sites are heavily text-based. Previous research has indicated that
the way in which this text is presented may have a significant impact on
usability. This paper reports findings from two experiments that explored the
influence of font type and line length on a range of performance and subjective
measures. Experiment 1 used a visual search task and Experiment 2 examined
information retrieval. Overall, there was little impact of font on task
performance, although the effect of line length was significant, with longer
line lengths facilitating better scanning (Experiment 1) and shorter line
lengths leading to better subjective outcomes (Experiments 1 and 2).
Implications of these results for the design of web pages are discussed and
recommendations given. Keywords: Font; Line length; Web; Visual search; Information retrieval | |||
| Scale transformations and information presentation in supervisory control | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 405-419 | |
| Johannes Petersen; Michael May | |||
| It is commonly accepted that designers of supervisory control systems cannot
comprehensively anticipate operators' information needs. In order to compensate
the lack between the information presented by the supervisory control system
and the information needed, operators tailor the information presentation.
Currently, there is a lack of theoretical understanding of tailoring activities and hence fundamental principles for the design of supervisory control systems that support tailoring activities in a systematic manner. Any data being presented to the operator is on one of the four different scale types proposed by Stevens. The scale type of data is determined by how values are assigned to the dimensions of the system being supervised and each scale type specifies a set of operations that can be legitimately applied to data on this scale type. Based on the concept of scale transformation the paper proposes systematic principles for operator-initiated adaptation of the interpretation of system properties as presented by the supervisory control system. The value of the approach is illustrated by means of examples. Keywords: Supervisory control; Human-machine interaction; Information presentation;
Tailoring; Scale types | |||
| Sensemaking tools for understanding research literatures: Design, implementation and user evaluation | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 420-445 | |
| Victoria Uren; Simon Buckingham Shum; Michelle Bachler; Gangmin Li | |||
| This paper describes the work undertaken in the Scholarly Ontologies
Project. The aim of the project has been to develop a computational approach to
support scholarly sensemaking, through interpretation and argumentation,
enabling researchers to make claims: to describe and debate their view of a
document's key contributions and relationships to the literature. The project
has investigated the technicalities and practicalities of capturing conceptual
relations, within and between conventional documents in terms of abstract
ontological structures. In this way, we have developed a new kind of index to
distributed digital library systems. This paper reports a case study undertaken
to test the sensemaking tools developed by the Scholarly Ontologies project.
The tools used were ClaiMapper, which allows the user to sketch argument maps
of individual papers and their connections, ClaiMaker, a server on which such
models can be stored and saved, which provides interpretative services to
assist the querying of argument maps across multiple papers and ClaimFinder, a
novice interface to the search services in ClaiMaker. Keywords: Modelling interfaces; Search interfaces; User studies | |||
| Differential social attributions toward computing technology: An empirical investigation | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 446-460 | |
| Richard D. Johnson; George M. Marakas; Jonathan W. Palmer | |||
| A debate exists as to whether social cues should be intentionally designed
into the user interface. Some have argued that such interfaces will improve
comfort with the interface, create a more natural interaction and improve
productivity, although others have argued that these interfaces will lead
individuals to ascribe characteristics and responsibilities to computing
technology that it does not have. Despite the debate, limited research has
focused on the impact these interfaces have on how people ascribe
responsibility to computing technology. Drawing from social psychology,
empirical work regarding social responses toward computing technology, and
attribution theory, this research empirically tests a model developed by
Marakas et al. [2000. A theoretical model of differential social attributions
toward computing technology: when the metaphor becomes the model. International
Journal of Human Computer Studies 52, 719-750] which identifies and explains
several of the factors that contribute to differential social attributions
toward computing technology.
Using data from 240 students and professionals, results from a laboratory study indicate that attributions toward computing technology are influenced by an individual's core self-evaluations, their generalized beliefs about the social role of computing technology and the nature of the computer interface used. Specifically, the results provide support for the argument that certain individuals do indeed attribute independent agency to computing technology and respond accordingly, and that this propensity is magnified when exposed to a computer with a distinctly social interface. Implications for both the applied and academic research communities are discussed. Keywords: Interface design; Anthropomorphism; Core self-evaluations; Computer as
social actor; Social responses toward computing technology; Attribution theory | |||
| Constructing structure maps of multiple on-line texts | | BIBA | Full-Text | 461-474 | |
| Stephen J. Payne; William R. Reader | |||
| We propose that in many contexts of text use, people need to consult a mental representation of the mapping between the content of documents and their structure. We report three experiments that investigate the construction and use of such 'structure maps.' In each experiment people read multiple on-line texts on the same topic, and then searched for specific pieces of information in those texts. Search performance was compared with people who had not read the texts. People who had read multiple texts were, to some extent, able to recall where information was in the texts as shown by the locations in which they first searched (Experiments 1 and 2) or the number of pages opened during a search (Experiment 3). We also found that readers of multiple texts were able to find facts in those texts faster than were people who had not read the texts, and that this speedup was not a simple effect of faster reading while scanning for facts (Experiments 1 and 2) or of greater familiarity with the general topic (Experiment 3). These incidental effects of reading occurred whether or not participants were warned before reading that they would have subsequently to search the texts and were not compromised by transformations in the appearance of text (double column to single column) that disrupted the positions of facts on pages (Experiment 2). We conclude that readers spontaneously construct structure maps of multiple electronic texts, even when their reading goal stresses abstraction of meaning across sources. Structure maps likely play a vital role in many aspects of text use, such as re-reading and knowledge updating, so that their support is an important consideration in the design of on-line texts. | |||
| A powerful pseudo-syllabic text entry paradigm | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 475-488 | |
| Francesco Curatelli; Chiara Martinengo | |||
| This paper describes a powerful pseudo-syllabic paradigm for improving the
efficiency of typing in languages with transparent orthography (i.e., languages
with highly regular correspondence of orthography and phonetics). By adopting a
novel orthogonal framework, keyboards are defined as two-dimensional regular
arrays of keys. Non-expert users can fast and intuitively input any possible
combination of pseudo-syllables, which are text entry units with simpler
consonant-vowel phonemic structure. Moreover, it is possible to input single
characters in the typical letter-by-letter way. For transparent languages such
as Italian and Spanish, the performed tests have shown a significant
improvement in the efficiency of typing texts. Keywords: Text entry; Pseudo-syllables; Orthogonal keyboard; Transparent orthography | |||
| Methods for inclusion: Employing think aloud protocols in software usability studies with individuals who are deaf | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 489-501 | |
| Vera Louise Roberts; Deborah I. Fels | |||
| Usability is an important step in the software and product design cycle.
There are a number of methodologies such as talk aloud protocol, and cognitive
walkthrough that can be employed in usability evaluations. However, many of
these methods are not designed to include users with disabilities. Legislation
and good design practice should provide incentives for researchers in this
field to consider more inclusive methodologies. We carried out two studies to
explore the viability of collecting gestural protocols from sign language users
who are deaf using the think aloud protocol (TAP) method. Results of our
studies support the viability of gestural TAP as a usability evaluation method
and provide additional evidence that the cognitive systems used to produce
successful verbal protocols in people who are hearing seem to work similarly in
people who speak with gestures. The challenges for adapting the TAP method for
gestural language relate to how the data was collected and not to the data or
its analysis. Keywords: Usability; Usability evaluation methods; Deaf; Think aloud protocol;
Gestural think aloud protocol | |||
| Why structure and genre matter for users of digital information: A longitudinal experiment with readers of a web-based newspaper | | BIBA | Full-Text | 502-526 | |
| Misha W. Vaughan; Andrew Dillon | |||
| In an effort to understand the impact of designing for digital genres on
users' mental representations of structure, a two-phase study was conducted. In
phase 1, six expert news readers and a panel of HCI experts were solicited for
input regarding genre-conforming and genre-violating web news page design,
navigation, and story categorization. In phase 2, a longitudinal experiment
with a group of 25 novice web news readers who were exposed to one of the two
designs over 5 sessions is reported. During these sessions a variety of user
data were captured, including: comprehension (recall, recognition), usability
(time on task, accuracy, user satisfaction), and navigation (path length,
category node hits).
The between-group difference of web site design was significant for comprehension, usability, and navigation with the users of the genre-conforming design demonstrating better performance. The within-group difference of time was significant across these three measures as well, with performance improving over time. No interaction effect was found between web site design and time on comprehension or usability. However, a surprising interaction effect was found on navigation; specifically the breadth of navigation (i.e. the number of nodes visited for two classes of tasks) increased over time more dramatically for the genre-violating group than for the genre-conforming group. By examining the changes in these data over time and between the two designs, evidence for the development of users' mental representations of structure was captured. | |||
| Investigation of multi-modal interface features for adaptive automation of a human-robot system | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 527-540 | |
| David B. Kaber; Melanie C. Wright; Mohamed A. Sheik-Nainar | |||
| The objective of this research was to assess the effectiveness of using a
multi-modal interface for adaptive automation (AA) of human control of a
simulated telerobotic (remote-control, semi-autonomous robotic) system. We
investigated the use of one or more sensory channels to cue dynamic control
allocations to a human operator or computer, as part of AA, and to support
operator system/situation awareness (SA) and performance. It was expected that
complex auditory and visual cueing through system interfaces might address
previously observed SA decrements due to unannounced or unexpected
automation-state changes as part of adaptive system control. AA of the
telerobot was based on a predetermined schedule of manual- and
supervisory-control allocations occurring when operator workload changes were
expected due to the stages of a teleoperation task. The task involved simulated
underwater mine disposal and 32 participants were exposed to four types of
cueing of task-phase and automation-state changes including icons, earcons,
bi-modal (combined) cues and no cues at all. Fully automated control of the
telerobot combined with human monitoring produced superior performance compared
to completely manual system control and AA. Cueing, in general, led to better
performance than none, but did not appear to completely eliminate temporary SA
deficits due to changes in control and associated operator reorienting.
Bi-modal cueing of dynamic automation-state changes was more supportive of SA
than modal (single sensory channel) cueing. The use of icons and earcons
appeared to produce no additional perceived workload in comparison no cueing.
The results of this research may serve as an applicable guide for the design of
human-computer interfaces for real telerobotic systems, including those used
for military tactical operations, which support operator achievement and
maintenance of SA and promote performance in using AA. Keywords: Adaptive automation; Situation awareness; Multi-modal interface design;
Human-robot interaction | |||
| Presence, workload and performance effects of synthetic environment design factors | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 541-552 | |
| Ruiqi Ma; David B. Kaber | |||
| There remains a limited understanding of factors in presence and its
relation to performance. This research examined a range of synthetic
environment (SE) design features (viewpoint, auditory cue type and visual
background) suspected to influence presence, and evaluated differences in
presence, workload and task performance caused by manipulations of the factors
and task difficulty in a virtual-reality-based basketball free-throw task.
Thirty-two research participants were also required to perform
secondary-monitoring tasks to assess attention allocation to the virtual and
(surrounding) real environments, as an indicator of presence. Analysis of
variance results demonstrated immersiveness (viewpoint) and auditory cue type
to significantly influence the sense of subjective presence and perceptions of
workload. Virtual task performance was significantly affected by task
difficultly. This study also provided further evidence of significant positive
relations between presence and workload, but no evidence of a correlation of
objective presence and performance. These results have general applicability
for the design of multimodal SE-based interfaces for real-world tasks, such as
telerobot control. Keywords: Virtual reality; Presence; Multimodal display design; Workload;
Secondary-task performance; ANOVA, analysis of variance; HMD, head-mounted display; ITQ, Immersive
Tendencies Questionnaire; PQ, Presence Questionnaire; RW, real world; SD,
signal detection; SE, synthetic environment; SSQ, Simulator Sickness
Questionnaire; VR, virtual reality | |||
| A longitudinal evaluation of hands-free speech-based navigation during dictation | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 553-569 | |
| Jinjuan Feng; Andrew Sears; Clare-Marie Karat | |||
| Despite a reported recognition accuracy rate of 98%, speech recognition
technologies have yet to be widely adopted by computer users. When considering
hands-free use of speech-based solutions, as is the case for individuals with
physical impairments that interfere with the use of traditional solutions such
as a mouse, the considerable time required to complete basic navigation tasks
presents a significant barrier to adoption. Several solutions were proposed to
improve navigation efficiency based on the results of a previous study. In the
current study, a longitudinal experiment was conducted to investigate the
process by which users learn to use hands-free speech-based navigation in the
context of large vocabulary, continuous dictation tasks as well the efficacy of
the proposed solutions. Due to the influence initial interactions have on the
adoption of speech-based solutions, the current study focused on these
critical, initial, interactions of individuals with no prior experience using
speech-based dictation solutions. Our results confirm the efficacy of the
solutions proposed earlier while providing valuable insights into the
strategies users employ when using speech-based navigation commands as well as
design decisions that can influence these patterns. Keywords: Speech; Navigation; Strategy; Errors | |||
| Theoretical and empirical advances in groupware research | | BIB | Full-Text | 571-572 | |
| Gert-Jan de Vreede; Luis A. Guerrero | |||
| On theory-driven design and deployment of collaboration systems | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 573-582 | |
| Robert O. Briggs | |||
| Early efforts to design and deploy collaboration systems were more art than
science, but they produced some solid successes. Commercial groupware products
now support millions of collaborations per year. Under certain circumstances
teams that use group support systems perform far better than groups that do
not. However, as impressive as the achievements are in this field, we can do
better. A rigorous theoretical approach to the design of collaboration
technology and process can lead us to non-intuitive design choices that produce
successes beyond those possible with an intuitive, seat-of-the-pants approach.
This paper explains the simple structure of a rigorous scientific theory and
offers examples of theory-driven design choices that produced substantial
benefits. It then differentiates rigorous theory from several classes of theory
that have intuitive appeal, but cannot inform design choices. It concludes that
the logic of the theory-driven design approach suggests that the most useful
focus for collaboration technology researchers would be the
technology-supported work-process, rather than just the technology. Keywords: Theory; Collaboration; Collaboration technology; Design; System design | |||
| A framework for asynchronous change awareness in collaborative documents and workspaces | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 583-598 | |
| James Tam; Saul Greenberg | |||
| Change awareness is the ability of individuals to track the asynchronous
changes made to a collaborative document or graphical workspace by other
participants over time. We develop a framework that articulates what change
awareness information is critical if people are to track and maintain change
awareness. Information elements include: knowing who changed the artifact, what
those changes involve, where changes occur, when changes were made, how things
have changed and why people made the changes. The framework accounts for
people's need to view these changes from different perspectives: an
artifact-based view, a person-based view and a workspace-based view. Each
information element is further broken down into distinguishing features and
matched against these perspectives, e.g., location history within the where
category prompts the questions 'where was this artifact when I left' in the
artifact-based view, 'where in the workspace has a person visited' in the
person-based view and 'where have people been in the workspace' in the
workspace-based view. The framework can be used both to inform and critique
change awareness tools. Keywords: Change awareness; Asynchronous awareness | |||
| Groupware development support with technology patterns | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 599-610 | |
| Stephan Lukosch; Till Schummer | |||
| Groupware development support should educate developers on how to design
groupware applications and foster the reuse of proven solutions. Additionally,
it should foster communication between developers and end-users, since they
need a common language and understanding of the problem space. Groupware
frameworks provide solutions for the development of groupware applications by
means of building blocks. They have become a prominent means to support
developers, but from our experience frameworks have properties that complicate
their usage and do not sufficiently support groupware developers. We argue for
a pattern approach to support the technical aspects of groupware development.
Patterns describe solutions to recurring issues in groupware development. They
serve as educational and communicative vehicle for reaching the above goals. In
this article, we provide a pattern language focusing on technical issues during
groupware development. Experiences when using the language in an educational
setting and a product development setting have shown that the patterns are a
supportive means for the proposed goals. Keywords: Groupware development; Design patterns; Education of groupware developers;
Oregon Software Development Process (OSDP) | |||
| A conceptual foundation of the thinkLet concept for Collaboration Engineering | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 611-621 | |
| Gwendolyn L. Kolfschoten; Robert O. Briggs; Gert-Jan de Vreede; Peter H. M. Jacobs; Jaco H. Appelman | |||
| Organizations increasingly use collaborative teams in order to create value
for their stakeholders. This trend has given rise to a new research field:
Collaboration Engineering. The goal of Collaboration Engineering is to design
and deploy processes for high-value recurring collaborative tasks, and to
design these processes such that practitioners can execute them successfully
without the intervention of professional facilitators. One of the key concepts
in Collaboration Engineering is the thinkLet -- a codified facilitation
technique that creates a predictable pattern of collaboration. Because
thinkLets produce a predictable pattern of interactions among people working
together toward a goal they can be used as snap-together building blocks for
team process designs. This paper presents an analysis of the thinkLet concept
and proposes a conceptual object model of a thinkLet that may inform further
developments in Collaboration Engineering. Keywords: Collaboration Engineering; ThinkLets; Collaboration; Object oriented
modeling; Collaboration process design; Facilitation; Group Support Systems | |||
| A layered framework for evaluating on-line collaborative learning interactions | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 622-635 | |
| Thanasis Daradoumis; Alejandra Martinez-Mones; Fatos Xhafa | |||
| Evaluating on-line collaborative learning interactions is a complex task due
to the variety of elements and factors that take place and intervene in the way
a group of students comes together to collaborate in order to achieve a
learning goal. The aim of this paper is to provide a better understanding of
group interaction and determine how to best support the collaborative learning
process. To that end, we propose a principled framework for the study and
analysis of group interaction and group scaffolding which is built by combining
different aspects and issues of collaboration, learning and evaluation. In
particular, we define learning activity indicators at several levels of
description which prompt to the application of a mixed interaction analysis
scheme and the use of different data types and specific tools. At an initial
layer, the basis of the approach is set by applying a qualitative process for
evaluating the individual and group task performance as well as the group
functioning and scaffolding. The interaction analysis process is completed by
defining and applying two more layers: a social network analysis of the group
activity and participation behaviour and a quantitative analysis of group
effectiveness as regards task achievement and active interaction involvement.
Our work defines a grounded and holistic conceptual model that describes
on-line collaborative learning interactions sufficiently and applies it in a
real, web-based, complex and long-term collaborative learning situation. An
in-depth empirical evaluation of the conceptual model is fully discussed, which
demonstrates the usefulness and value of the approach. Keywords: Computer-supported collaborative learning; Interaction analysis; Evaluation | |||
| User perception of adapting video quality | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 637-647 | |
| Nicola Cranley; Philip Perry; Liam Murphy | |||
| In general, video quality adaptation and video quality evaluation are
distinct activities. Most adaptive delivery mechanisms for streaming multimedia
content do not explicitly consider user-perceived quality when making
adaptation decisions. Equally, video quality evaluation techniques are not
designed to evaluate instantaneous quality where the quality is changing over
time. We propose that an Optimal Adaptation Trajectory (OAT) through the set of
possible encoding exists, and that it indicates how to adapt encoding quality
in response to changes in network conditions in order to maximize
user-perceived quality. The subjective and objective tests carried out to find
such trajectories for a number of different MPEG-4 video clips are described.
Experimental subjective testing results are presented that demonstrate the
dynamic nature of user perception with adapting multimedia. The results
demonstrate that adaptation using the OAT out-performs conventional adaptation
strategies in which only a single aspect of the video quality is adapted. In
contrast, the OAT provides a mechanism to adapt multiple aspects of the video
quality thereby giving better user-perceived quality in both the short and long
term. Keywords: Video quality; Evaluation/methodology; Perception; Subjective and objective
quality; Adaptation | |||
| The problem of describing a problem: Supporting laypersons in presenting their queries to the Internet-based helpdesk | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 648-669 | |
| Matthias Nuckles; Anna Ertelt | |||
| Internet-based helpdesks for hardware and software are a common way to get
expert advice. To communicate effectively with experts, laypersons should be
able to provide the expert with a concise and comprehensive description of
their computer problem. However, previous research on computer helpdesks has
shown that laypersons' problem descriptions typically exhibit a number of
unfavourable features making it difficult for the helpdesk expert to develop a
correct understanding of the problem. Based on a discussion of these features,
we developed a problem formulation script that supports laypersons in
describing their computer problems. We conducted an experimental study (54
laypersons and 54 experts), which tested the effectiveness of different
versions of the problem formulation script to improve the quality of
laypersons' problem descriptions. The results show that computer experts were
best able to reconstruct the actual problem from the layperson's description if
they were prompted to describe successively (1) the goal of their interaction
with the computer, (2) the steps they had undertaken so far and (3) a
hypothesis why they had failed to reach the aim. The script helped the
laypersons provide the relevant context information necessary to develop an
adequate mental model of the problem. Hence, guiding laypersons' problem
descriptions by a problem formulation script proved to be a successful approach
to support Internet-based helpdesk communication between computer experts and
laypersons. Keywords: Helpdesk support; Expert-layperson communication; Asynchronous interaction;
Electronic mail; Problem solving; Human information processing;
Computer-supported cooperative work | |||
| Computational modeling and experimental investigation of effects of compositional elements on interface and design aesthetics | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 670-682 | |
| Michael Bauerly; Yili Liu | |||
| This article describes computational modeling and two corresponding
experimental investigations of the effects of symmetry, balance and quantity of
construction elements on interface aesthetic judgments. In the first
experiment, 30 black and white geometric images were developed by
systematically varying these three attributes in order to validate
computational aesthetic quantification algorithms with subject ratings. The
second experiment employed the same image layout as Experiment 1 but with
realistic looking web pages as stimuli. The images were rated by 16 subjects in
each experiment using the ratio-scale magnitude estimation method against a
benchmark image with average balance and symmetry values and a standard number
of elements. Subjects also established an ordered list of the images according
to their aesthetic appeal using the Balanced-Incomplete-Block (BIB) ranking
method.
Results from both experiments show that subjects are adept at judging symmetry and balance in both the horizontal and vertical directions and thus the quantification of those attributes is justified. The first experiment establishes a relationship between a higher symmetry value and aesthetic appeal for the basic imagery showing that subjects preferred symmetric over non-symmetric images. The second experiment illustrates that increasing the number of groups in a web page causes a decrease in the aesthetic appeal rating. Keywords: Aesthetics; Engineering aesthetics; Balance; Symmetry; Display evaluation | |||
| Understanding e-learning continuance intention: An extension of the Technology Acceptance Model | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 683-696 | |
| Juan Carlos Roca; Chao-Min Chiu; Francisco Jose Martinez | |||
| Based on the expectancy disconfirmation theory, this study proposes a
decomposed technology acceptance model in the context of an e-learning service.
In the proposed model, the perceived performance component is decomposed into
perceived quality and perceived usability. A sample of 172 respondents took
part in this study. The results suggest that users' continuance intention is
determined by satisfaction, which in turn is jointly determined by perceived
usefulness, information quality, confirmation, service quality, system quality,
perceived ease of use and cognitive absorption. Keywords: Technology acceptance model; Expectancy disconfirmation theory; Satisfaction | |||
| A framework for understanding trust factors in web-based health advice | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 697-713 | |
| Elizabeth Sillence; Pam Briggs; Peter Harris; Lesley Fishwick | |||
| Trust is a key factor in consumer decisions about website engagement.
Consumers will engage with sites they deem trustworthy and turn away from those
they mistrust. In this paper, we present a framework for understanding trust
factors in web-based health advice. The framework is derived from a staged
model of trust and allows predictions to be made concerning user engagement
with different health websites. The framework is then validated via a series of
qualitative, longitudinal studies. In each study, genuine consumers searched
online for information and advice concerning their specific health issue. They
engaged in free searching and were directed towards sites previously reviewed
using the framework. Thematic analysis of the group discussions provided
support for the framework and for the staged model of trust wherein design
appeal predicted rejection (mistrust) and credibility of information and
personalization of content predicted selection (trust) of advice sites. The
results are discussed in terms of the merits of the framework, its limitations
and directions for future work. Keywords: Trust; Credibility; Health; Social identity; Internet; Computer-mediated
communication; Framework | |||
| Effects of introducing collaborative technology on communications in a distributed safety-critical system | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 714-726 | |
| Sudhendar Hanumantharao; Martha Grabowski | |||
| Communication and collaborative decision-making are critical activities in
safety-critical systems such as marine transportation. As a result, new group
technologies have been introduced to enhance communication and decision-making
in these settings. Unfortunately, little research examining the impact of these
new collaborative technologies has been undertaken, and most of it has been
undertaken in laboratory environments, rather than in operational or
safety-critical settings. Two primary differences of the operational setting in
this study suggest that results may differ from studies undertaken in
laboratory environments: (1) the system has a strong hierarchical organization
and culture with clearly defined roles and (2) roles in the system are
associated with different information access privileges. This paper explores
the impact of introducing new technology on communication and collaboration
between dispersed decision-making groups in marine transportation, and focuses
on the differences in results observed in this operational setting. Keywords: Technology impact; Technology introduction; Automation; Group support
systems; Group decision support systems; Decision support systems;
Safety-critical system; Marine transportation; Vessel traffic systems; Case
study; Communication; Lean media; Rich technology environment; Saint Lawrence
Seaway | |||
| Unsupervised learning techniques for fine-tuning fuzzy cognitive map causal links | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 727-743 | |
| Elpiniki I. Papageorgiou; Chrysostomos Stylios; Peter P. Groumpos | |||
| Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCMs) constitute an attractive knowledge-based
methodology, combining the robust properties of fuzzy logic and neural
networks. FCMs represent causal knowledge as a signed directed graph with
feedback and provide an intuitive framework which incorporates the experts'
knowledge. FCMs handle available information and knowledge from an abstract
point of view. They develop behavioural model of the system exploiting the
experience and knowledge of experts. The construction of FCMs is based mainly
on experts who determine the structure of FCM, i.e. concepts and weighted
interconnections among concepts. But this methodology may not be a sufficient
model of the system because the human factor is not always reliable. Thus the
FCM model of the system may requires restructuring which is achieved through
adjustment the weights of FCM interconnections using specific learning
algorithms for FCMs. In this article, two unsupervised learning algorithms are
presented and compared for training FCMs; how they define, select or
fine-tuning weights of the causal interconnections among concepts. The
implementation and results of these unsupervised learning techniques for an
industrial process control problem are discussed. The simulations results of
training the process system verify the effectiveness, validity and advantageous
characteristics of those learning techniques for FCMs. Keywords: Fuzzy cognitive maps; Learning algorithms; Hebbian learning; Process
modeling and control | |||
| Computer use has no demonstrated impact on the well-being of older adults | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 744-753 | |
| Anna Dickinson; Peter Gregor | |||
| Technology is frequently presented as a panacea for the support needs of the
ageing population, based in part upon the commonly cited assertion that
computer and internet use has an empirically verified positive effect on the
well-being of older people. In this paper we review the studies that this
assertion is based on and conclude that they do not support it. While the
original studies rarely make unsupportable claims, the secondary literature
which cites them is frequently very misleading; limitations include, failure to
distinguish between the effects of training/support and computer use;
misattributing causality; inappropriately generalising results from a different
population. Keywords: Older adults; Computer use; Well-being | |||
| Visualisation improves the usability of voice-operated mobile phone services | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 754-769 | |
| Mark Howell; Steve Love; Mark Turner | |||
| Three different versions of a voice-operated mobile city guide service with
a hierarchically structured dialogue were evaluated in a mobile setting. One
numbered menu style (standard) service, and two services which contained terms
derived from underlying real-world referents, were implemented. The real-world
referents (metaphors) used were: an office filing system and a computer
desktop. It was hypothesized that the use of interface metaphors would allow
more participants to visualize the service structure, leading to an improvement
in performance relative to the standard service. Forty-two phone users
undertook three different tasks with one of the three phone services. User
performance and attitudes to the services were recorded, and post-task
interviews were conducted. Results showed that significantly more participants
using the metaphor-based services visualized the services. Visualizers
performed significantly better than non-visualizers, with visualization
emerging as a significant predictor of both attitude and performance. We argue
that designing speech-based mobile phone services using an appropriate spatial
metaphor leads to high levels of visualisation, which allows participants to
orient themselves and to navigate more effectively within the hierarchical
service architecture. The usability benefits afforded by visualization may
become especially important when using phone services in cognitively demanding
mobile settings. Keywords: Visualization; Interface metaphor; Usability; Mobile phone; Speech
interaction | |||
| On the role of metaphor and language in design of third party payments in eBanking: Usability and quality | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 770-784 | |
| Catherine S. Weir; James N. Anderson; Mervyn A. Jack | |||
| This paper describes results of a usability study of contrasting
user-interface designs for Internet Banking (eBanking). Two specific interface
metaphors were compared in the first experiment, linear form filling and array
editing interaction modes. Terminology in the interaction dialogue was compared
in the second experiment, using typical banking language and a generic, plain
language interface. This research aimed to perform usability evaluation and
comparison of the alternative interface designs to illuminate the development
of new eBanking services. This research involved sixty-one participants
(Internet users and customers of the involved Bank) exploring the designs in
controlled experiments involving hands-on experience. Banks are interested in
ensuring their eBanking services are highly customer-centric and that the
interface matches customer expectations in order to drive customers towards
this lower cost channel. The results of the first experiment (N=32, where N
indicates the number of participants in the cohort) concluded that the simple
form-filling metaphor, taken from the traditional paper-based procedure, was
generally more usable than a Spreadsheet metaphor. In the second experiment
(N=29), it was found that although banking terminology was not completely
understood across the cohort, the instructional language changes did not impact
significantly on usability. Keywords: Usability; User-interface; Design; Internet Banking; Experiment | |||
| Human-computer interaction research in the management information systems discipline | | BIB | Full-Text | 787-788 | |
| Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah; Ping Zhang; Scott McCoy; Mun Y. Yi | |||
| Weblog success: Exploring the role of technology | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 789-798 | |
| Helen S. Du; Christian Wagner | |||
| Weblogs have recently gained considerable media attention. Leading weblog
sites are already attracting millions of visitors. Yet, success in the highly
competitive world of weblogs is not easily achieved. This study seeks to
explore weblog success from a technology perspective, i.e. from the impact of
weblog-building technology (or blogging tool). Based on an examination of 126
highly successful weblogs tracked over a period of 3 months, we categorized
weblogs in terms of popularity rank and growth, and evaluated the relationship
between weblog success (in terms of popularity) and technology use. Our
analysis indicates that weblog success is associated with the type of blogging
tool used. We argue that technology characteristics affect the presentation and
organization of weblog content, as well as the social interaction between
bloggers, and in turn, affect weblog success or popularity improvement. Based
on this analysis, we propose a techno-social success model for weblogs. This
model postulates that a weblog's success is mainly associated with its ability
to provide value for its users and readers at the content, the technology, and
the social levels. Keywords: Weblog (blog); Blogging tool; Weblog success categories; Success model;
Value proposition; Techno-social perspective | |||
| The effects of post-adoption beliefs on the expectation-confirmation model for information technology continuance | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 799-810 | |
| James Y. L. Thong; Se-Joon Hong; Kar Yan Tam | |||
| The expectation-confirmation model (ECM) of IT continuance is a model for
investigating continued information technology (IT) usage behavior. This paper
reports on a study that attempts to expand the set of post-adoption beliefs in
the ECM, in order to extend the application of the ECM beyond an instrumental
focus. The expanded ECM, incorporating the post-adoption beliefs of perceived
usefulness, perceived enjoyment and perceived ease of use, was empirically
validated with data collected from an on-line survey of 811 existing users of
mobile Internet services. The data analysis showed that the expanded ECM has
good explanatory power (R{sup:2}=57.6% of continued IT usage intention and
R{sup:2}=67.8% of satisfaction), with all paths supported. Hence, the expanded
ECM can provide supplementary information that is relevant for understanding
continued IT usage. The significant effects of post-adoption perceived ease of
use and perceived enjoyment signify that the nature of the IT can be an
important boundary condition in understanding the continued IT usage behavior.
At a practical level, the expanded ECM presents IT product/service providers
with deeper insights into how to address IT users' satisfaction and continued
patronage. Keywords: Information technology continuance; Expectation-confirmation model;
Technology acceptance; Post-adoption beliefs; Mobile internet services | |||
| Studying information seeking on the non-English Web: An experiment on a Spanish business Web portal | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 811-829 | |
| Wingyan Chung | |||
| The Internet is estimated to grow significantly as access to Web content in
some non-English languages continues to increase. However, prior research in
human-computer interaction (HCI) has implicitly assumed the primary language
used on the Web to be English. This assumption is not true for many
non-English-speaking regions where rapidly growing on-line populations access
the Web in their native languages. For example, Latin America, where the
majority of people speak Spanish, will have the fastest growing population in
coming decades. However, existing Spanish search engines lack search, browse,
and analysis capabilities. The research reported here studied human information
seeking on the non-English Web. In it we developed a Spanish business Web
portal that supports searching, browsing, summarization, categorization, and
visualization of Spanish business Web pages. Using 42 Spanish speakers as
subjects we conducted a two-phase experiment to evaluate this portal and found
that, compared with a Spanish search engine and a Spanish Web directory, it
achieved significantly better user ratings on information quality,
cross-regional search capability, system performance attributes, and overall
satisfaction. Subjects' verbal comments strongly favored the search and browse
functionality and user interface of our portal. As the Web becomes more
international, this research makes three contributions: (1) an empirical
evaluation of the performance level of a Spanish search portal; (2) an
examination of the information quality, cross-regional search capability and
usability of search engines for the non-English Web; and (3) a better
understanding of non-English Web searching. Keywords: Internet; Web; Searching; Browsing; Spanish; Non-English Web content; Web
portal; Information quality; Cross-regional search capability; User
satisfaction; User study | |||
| Identifying usability and fun problems in a computer game during first use and after some practice | | BIBA | Full-Text | 830-846 | |
| W. Barendregt; M. M. Bekker; D. G. Bouwhuis; E. Baauw | |||
| This paper describes an experiment to discover the change in the types of detected problems and the attitude of children towards a game when user testing a computer game for young children during first use and after they have practiced with a game. Both the numbers of different types of identified problems and the severity of the problems are investigated. Based on this knowledge, practitioners could adapt the set up of their user tests to effectively find as many aspects of the game as possible that merit change, according to the aims of the developers. The study shows that usability problems caused by a lack of knowledge were more often identified during first use. Furthermore, fun problems related to a too-high challenge level may disappear after some practice, whereas fun problems caused by the game taking over control for too long while the user wants to proceed playing the game were identified more often after some practice. The study shows that the impact severity of problems detected during first use was higher than when children had more practice with a game. As a result of these changes in experienced problems the commonly used measures efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction increased when children had practiced with the game. Finally, the study also shows that the set of most severe problems identified during first use may be radically different from the set of most severe problems identified after some practice. | |||
| Toward a decision-theoretic framework for affect recognition and user assistance | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 847-873 | |
| Wenhui Liao; Weihong Zhang; Zhiwei Zhu; Qiang Ji; Wayne D. Gray | |||
| There is an increasing interest in developing intelligent human-computer
interaction systems that can fulfill two functions -- recognizing user
affective states and providing the user with timely and appropriate assistance.
In this paper, we present a general unified decision-theoretic framework based
on influence diagrams for simultaneously modeling user affect recognition and
assistance. Affective state recognition is achieved through active
probabilistic inference from the available multi modality sensory data. User
assistance is automatically accomplished through a decision-making process that
balances the benefits of keeping the user in productive affective states and
the costs of performing user assistance. We discuss three theoretical issues
within the framework, namely, user affect recognition, active sensory action
selection, and user assistance. Validation of the proposed framework via a
simulation study demonstrates its capability in efficient user affect
recognition as well as timely and appropriate user assistance. Besides the
theoretical contributions, we build a non-invasive real-time prototype system
to recognize different user affective states (stress and fatigue) from
four-modality user measurements, namely physical appearance features,
physiological measures, user performance, and behavioral data. The affect
recognition component of the prototype system is subsequently validated through
a real-world study involving human subjects. Keywords: Affective computing; Human-computer interaction; Influence diagrams; Active
sensing; Stress modeling; Fatigue recognition | |||
| Affective affordances: Improving interface character engagement through interaction | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 874-888 | |
| Henriette C. van Vugt; Johan F. Hoorn; Elly A. Konijn; Athina de Bie Dimitriadou | |||
| The nature of humans interacting with interface characters (e.g. embodied
agents) is not well understood. The I-PEFiC model provides an integrative
perspective on human-character interaction, assuming that the processes of
engagement and user interaction exchange information in explaining user
responses with interface characters. An experiment using the Sims2 game was
conducted to test the effects of aesthetics (beautiful versus ugly, as
engagement factor) and affordances (help versus obstacle, as interaction
factor) of interface characters on use intentions, user engagement, and user
satisfaction. Results of the experiment showed that (1) people tended to use
helpful characters more than obstructing characters, (2) user engagement was
enhanced by beauty and perceived affordance of the character whereas (3)
intentions to use the character were not affected by good looks, and (4) the
most satisfied users were those that were engaged with the character as well as
willing to use it. This stresses the importance of enhancing affordances so to
increase user engagement with interface characters. The I-PEFiC model provided
a valuable framework to study the (interdependent) effects of relevant factors
in human-character interaction. Keywords: Human-computer interaction; Media entertainment; Interface characters;
I-PEFiC model; Empirical study; Engagement; Use intentions | |||
| A longitudinal investigation of continued online shopping behavior: An extension of the theory of planned behavior | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 889-904 | |
| Meng-Hsiang Hsu; Chia-Hui Yen; Chao-Min Chiu; Chun-Ming Chang | |||
| The purpose of this study is to propose an extended model of Theory of
Planned Behavior (TPB) by incorporating constructs drawn from the model of
Expectation Disconfirmation Theory (EDT) and to examine the antecedents of
users' intention to continue using online shopping (continuance intention).
Prior research has demonstrated that TPB constructs, including attitude,
subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control, are important factors in
determining the acceptance and use of various information technologies. These
factors, however, are insufficient to explain a user's continuance intention in
the online shopping context. In this study we extended TPB with two EDT
constructs -- disconfirmation and satisfaction -- for studying users'
continuance intention in the online shopping context. By employing longitudinal
method with two-stage survey, we empirically validated the proposed model and
research hypotheses. Keywords: Online shopping behavior; Continued usage; Theory of planned behavior;
Expectancy disconfirmation theory | |||
| Effects of watermark and music on mobile message advertisements | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 905-914 | |
| Pei-Luen Patrick Rau; Duye Chen | |||
| The development of mobile telecommunication has made breakthrough advances
in recent years. Compared to the Internet, mobile telecommunications has
anywhere, anytime and always online characteristics. As growth in the Internet
advertising market continues, mobile advertising has attracted attention. In
this research, the effectiveness of two types of mobile message advertisements,
watermarks and music are studied and compared. Two experiments were carried out
to test four proposed hypotheses. The independent variable in experiment 1 was
the watermark transparency (20%, 40% and 60%). The independent variable in
experiment 2 was the music format with five levels: no music, vocal and
instrumental version at high volume, vocal and instrumental version at low
volume, instrumental version at high volume and instrumental version at low
volume. The results showed that the watermarks transparency and format were
effective in mobile advertising. The 60% watermark was found better than the
20% and 40% watermarks. The 40% watermark was found better than the 20%
watermark for advertisement recall only. Music and vocal/instrumental music
versions were effective in mobile advertisements. The vocal music version was
found effective in mobile advertising. Music with both vocal and instrumental
versions was more effective in advertisement recall than instrumental music for
mobile device users. Keywords: Transparent user interface; Mobile advertisements; Watermark; Advertisement
music | |||
| Pair programming productivity: Novice-novice vs. expert-expert | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 915-925 | |
| Kim Man Lui; Keith C. C. Chan | |||
| Agile Software Development methodologies have grown in popularity both among
academic researchers and industrial practitioners. Among the various
methodologies or practices proposed, pair programming, which is concerned with
two programmers collaborating on design, coding and testing, has become a
controversial focus of interest. Even though some success stories have been
reported with the use of pair-programming in real software development
environment, many people remain rather skeptical of the claims on
pair-programming productivity. Previous studies in pair programming have only
addressed the basic understanding of the productivity of pairs and they have
not addressed the variation in productivity between pairs of varying skills and
experience, such as between novice-novice and expert-expert. Statistical
productivity measurements reported by different researchers also seem to lead
to contradictory conclusions. Until now, the literature has not addressed how
those results and experiments were related to each other. In this paper, we
propose a controlled experiment called repeat-programming which can facilitate
the understanding of relationships between human experience and programming
productivity. Repeat-programming can be performed when controversial issues in
non-traditional programming methodologies and development productivity need to
be investigated into. To illustrate how the proposed empirical experiment can
put arguable, divisive problems into perspective, we have examined the
productivity in pair programming as a case study. With repeat-programming, we
are able to (i) better understand why results of previous pair programming
control experiments reached different conclusions as to the productivity of
pair programming and (ii) most importantly, present a case in which
novice-novice pairs against novice solos are much more productive than
expert-expert pairs against expert solos. Keywords: Programming model; Pair programming; Programmer productivity | |||
| Assessment of employees' perceptions of service quality and satisfaction with e-business | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 926-938 | |
| Jung-Yu Lai | |||
| In a competitive environment of frequent and rapid change, electronic
business (e-business), whose supply, production, and logistics and distribution
networks are enabled digitally, is increasingly dependent on electronic
interconnections that are innovative in their functionality. Conceivably, its
ability to deliver functions and services is closely associated with and
helpful for the completion of employees' tasks and jobs, leading to service
quality being critically important for both the employees and e-business (EB).
On the other hand, since EB utilizes enterprise applications, user
satisfaction, as a surrogate measure of information system (IS) or information
technology (IT) effectiveness/success is also important for enterprise
applications success. Thus, this research attempts to extrapolate the results
of marketing research concerning customers' perceptions of service quality and
IS/IT research as to employees' perceptions of service quality with EB. First,
we revise the SERVQUAL instrument to fit the new context of EB and measure
employees' perceived service quality with EB. Based on a survey of 161
respondents practicing mostly in seven international electronic businesses in
Taiwan, a 13-item EB-SERVQUAL instrument is proposed. This can be used to
improve and diagnose the service quality of EB. Second, we examine user
satisfaction with enterprise applications and its causal link in relation to
service quality with EB. The instrument and our findings in this paper will be
valuable to researchers and practitioners interested in designing,
implementing, and managing EB. Keywords: E-business; Enterprise applications; Service quality; User satisfaction | |||
| Surviving task interruptions: Investigating the implications of long-term working memory theory | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 941-961 | |
| Antti Oulasvirta; Pertti Saariluoma | |||
| Typically, we have several tasks at hand, some of which are in interrupted
state while others are being carried out. Most of the time, such interruptions
are not disruptive to task performance. Based on the theory of Long-Term
Working Memory (LTWM; Ericsson, K.A., Kintsch, W., 1995. Long-term working
memory. Psychological Review, 102, 211-245), we posit that unless there are
enough mental skills and resources to encode task representations to retrieval
structures in long-term memory, the resulting memory traces will not enable
reinstating the information, which can lead to memory losses. However, once
encoded to LTWM, they are virtually safeguarded. Implications of the theory
were tested in a series of experiments in which the reading of an expository
text was interrupted by a 30-s interactive task, after which the reading was
continued. The results convey the remarkably robust nature of skilled memory --
when LTWM encoding speed is fast enough for the task-processing imposed by the
interface, interruptions have no effect on memory, regardless of their pacing,
intensity, or difficulty. In the final experiment where presentation time in
the main task was notably speeded up to match the limits of encoding speed,
interruptions did hamper memory. Based on the results and the theory, we argue
that auditory rehearsal or time-based retrieval cues were not utilized in
surviving interruptions and that they are in general weaker strategies for
surviving interruptions in complex cognitive tasks. We conclude the paper by
suggesting three ways to support interruption tolerance by the means of task
and interface design: (1) actively facilitating the development of memory
skills, (2) matching encoding speed to task processing demands, and (3)
supporting encoding-retrieval symmetry. Keywords: Interruptions; Working memory; Expertise; Human factors; Human-computer
interaction; User psychology; Long-term working memory | |||
| Are physically embodied social agents better than disembodied social agents?: The effects of physical embodiment, tactile interaction, and people's loneliness in human-robot interaction | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 962-973 | |
| Kwan Min Lee; Younbo Jung; Jaywoo Kim; Sang Ryong Kim | |||
| Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of physical
embodiment in human-agent interaction. Experiment 1 (N=32) shows positive
effects of physical embodiment on the feeling of an agent's social presence,
the evaluation of the agent, the assessment of public evaluation of the agent,
and the evaluation of the interaction with the agent. A path analysis reveals
that the feeling of the agent's social presence mediates the participants'
evaluation of the social agent. Experiment 2 (N=32) shows that physical
embodiment with restricted tactile interaction causes null or even negative
effects in human-agent interaction. In addition, Experiment 2 indicates that
lonely people feel higher social presence of social agents, and provide more
positive social responses to social agents than non-lonely people. The
importance of physical embodiment and tactile communication in human-agent
interaction and the diverse role of social robots, especially for the lonely
population, are discussed. Keywords: Physical embodiment; Human-robot interaction; Presence; Social presence;
Social agents; Computers are social actors (CASA); Social robots; Human-agent
interaction; Tactile communication; Loneliness | |||
| Supporting knowledge-intensive inspection tasks with application ontologies | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 974-983 | |
| Nicole J. J. P. Koenderink; Jan L. Top; Lucas J. van Vliet | |||
| One of the major challenges in computer vision is to create automated
systems that perform tasks with at least the same competences as human experts.
In particular for automated inspection of natural objects this is not easy to
achieve. The task is hampered by large in-class variations and complex
3D-morphology of the objects and subtle argumentations of experts. For example,
in our horticultural case we deal with quality assessment of young tomato
plants, which requires experienced specialists. We submit that automation of
such a task employing an explicit model of the objects and their assessment is
preferred over a black-box model obtained from modelling input-output relations
only. We propose to employ ontologies for representing the geometrical shapes,
object parts and quality classes associated with the explicit models. Our main
contribution is the description of a method to develop a white-box computer
vision application in which the needed expert knowledge is defined by: (i)
decomposing the task of the inspection system into subtasks and (ii)
identifying the algorithms that execute the subtasks. This method describes the
interaction between the task decomposition and the needed task-specific
knowledge, and studies the delicate balance between general domain knowledge
and task-specific details. As a proof of principle of this methodology, we work
through a horticultural case study and argue that the method leads to a robust,
well-performing, and extendable computer vision system. Keywords: Knowledge intensive information processing; Application ontology; Seedling
classification; Cognitive vision; CommonKADS | |||
| Measuring Internet usage: The Israeli case | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 984-997 | |
| Yael Fisher; Orit Bendas-Jacob | |||
| The article describes two instruments for measuring Internet Usage and the
changes in subjects' Internet usage following a controlled intervention. It
focuses on the use of usage and lack of usage for measuring the digital gap.
The "digital gap" is defined as the gap between individuals with and without
access to technology (telephones, computers, Internet access) and related
services. Since its emergence, the Internet has become the most important form
of information and communication technology (ICT).
The goal of the present research was to develop ways of measuring Internet usage for different segments of the Israeli population (it can also be used to measure Internet usage outside Israel). For the past few years, the Israeli government has sponsored programs designed to increase Internet usage in specific segments of the Israeli population. Some of these programs have been "controlled programs". Controlled Internet Usage Programs are planned and monitored programs, which use research methods to discover whether they have increased Internet usage and changed Internet habits. The population of Internet users in Israel is presently 45.8% (compared with 68.2% in the US population). The past 5 years has witnessed a significant rise in the number of Internet users in the West in general and in Israel specifically: an increase of 152% in the number of Israeli households connected to the Internet during the period 2000-2005. However, large differences are apparent between the stronger and weaker sections of the Israeli population where the Internet is concerned, and controlled intervention is therefore a very important means of reducing these discrepancies. The present article describes two measurement instruments: the first instrument examines on-line proficiency, while the second determines patterns of Internet use and the status of respondents' "Internet awareness". The instruments were built to determine the reduction in the digital divide associated with Internet usage following controlled intervention, and the population's Internet usage status before and after intervention. The difference between the two measurements represents the increase or decrease in Internet usage. These two instruments may be used by agencies making decisions about resource disbursement to reduce the digital divide in a variety of populations. Keywords: Intenet usage; Digital divide; Computers; Intervention programs; Measuring
Internet usage; Internet proficiency; On-line skills; Israeli on-line
proficiency; Digital awareness | |||
| Supporting creative and reflective processes | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 998-1030 | |
| Hilary Johnson; Lucy Carruthers | |||
| One of the major challenges in computer vision is to create automated
systems that perform tasks with at least the same competences as human experts.
In particular for automated inspection of natural objects this is not easy to
achieve. The task is hampered by large in-class variations and complex
3D-morphology of the objects and subtle argumentations of experts. For example,
in our horticultural case we deal with quality assessment of young tomato
plants, which requires experienced specialists. We submit that automation of
such a task employing an explicit model of the objects and their assessment is
preferred over a black-box model obtained from modelling input-output relations
only. We propose to employ ontologies for representing the geometrical shapes,
object parts and quality classes associated with the explicit models. Our main
contribution is the description of a method to develop a white-box computer
vision application in which the needed expert knowledge is defined by: (i)
decomposing the task of the inspection system into subtasks and (ii)
identifying the algorithms that execute the subtasks. This method describes the
interaction between the task decomposition and the needed task-specific
knowledge, and studies the delicate balance between general domain knowledge
and task-specific details. As a proof of principle of this methodology, we work
through a horticultural case study and argue that the method leads to a robust,
well-performing, and extendable computer vision system. Keywords: Knowledge intensive information processing; Application ontology; Seedling
classification; Cognitive vision; CommonKADS | |||
| Web designers and web users: Influence of the ergonomic quality of the web site on the information search | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1031-1048 | |
| Aline Chevalier; Maud Kicka | |||
| Despite rapid growth in the number of web sites, there is still a
significant number of ergonomic problems which hinder web users. Many studies
focus on analysing cognitive processes and difficulties experienced by web
users, but very few are interested in web designers' difficulties or in
comparing their respective activities. Towards this end, the two experimental
studies presented in this article compare the strategies developed both by
professional web designers and (novice vs. experienced) web users while
searching for information on web sites of varying ergonomic quality. More
precisely, we investigated whether web designers can effectively use their own
strategies as web users when designing web sites. We presented a comparison of
novice web users, experienced web users and professional web designers
searching behavior and cognitive load when using ergonomic and non-ergonomic
web sites. In addition, we asked web designers to predict the strategy used by
novice web users. Based on the results obtained in the two experiments, we
conclude that web designers are not able to predict strategies of novice users
and do not behave like novice users. Consequently, ways for supporting web
designers in developing a user-centered activity are necessary, and certain
ways are suggested at the end of this article. Keywords: Web designers; Web users; Information search; Cognitive load; Ergonomics;
Experience | |||
| Identity and role -- A qualitative case study of cooperative scenario building | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1049-1060 | |
| David Dinka; Jonas Lundberg | |||
| In this study, we argue that users participating in the design process will
form the participation as a function of their professional role, but also as a
function of their identity more or less independent from their role. In order
to get the full potential of cooperative design the user identity in general
and in this case their attitudes towards technology in particular should be
incorporated into the design process. This case study consists of participatory
design sessions with two different organizations, in the context of a media
production tool development project. Facilitator skills, and workshop
interventions to balance attitudes and to take them into account in design are
discussed. Furthermore, we argue that attitudes will affect a subsequent
implementation of a technical system, and that knowledge about stakeholder
identity can be useful for further design activities and for planning system
implementation. Keywords: Role; Identity; User-centred design; Cooperative design | |||
| Revising (multi-) media learning principles by applying a differentiated knowledge concept | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1061-1070 | |
| S. Guttormsen Schar; J. Kaiser | |||
| This paper reports on a study investigating the effect of single-media and
multimedia presentations on the resulting knowledge. First, this study
investigated the stability of established multimedia learning principles by
measuring acquired knowledge in different ways. Second, we aimed at testing the
effect of cognitive load induced by various media combinations. Third and most
important, we investigated the effect of various media combinations on the
resulting kind of knowledge using a differentiated knowledge concept. Our study
delivered interesting insight about multimedia effects, suggesting that the
effect of (multi-) media must be evaluated with regard to the learning goals.
Students do not either learn or not learn. Rather various kinds of information
can be acquired depending on the representation with verbal and visual media.
Experimental research in this domain should apply a more differentiated
knowledge concept than often is the case today. Our results offer an
interesting differentiated view of the effect of media in this context. Keywords: Multimedia; Cognitive load; Learning; Testing; Knowledge | |||
| Evaluating the consistency of immediate aesthetic perceptions of web pages | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1071-1083 | |
| Noam Tractinsky; Avivit Cokhavi; Moti Kirschenbaum; Tal Sharfi | |||
| Two experiments were designed to replicate and extend [Lindgaard et al.'s,
2006. Attention web designers: you have 50 ms to make a good first impression!
Behaviour and Information Technology 25(2), 115-126] findings that users can
form immediate aesthetic impression of web pages, and that these impressions
are highly stable. Using explicit (subjective evaluations) and implicit
(response latency) measures, the experiments demonstrated that, averaged over
users, immediate aesthetic impressions of web pages are remarkably consistent.
In Experiment 1, 40 participants evaluated 50 web pages in two phases. The
average attractiveness ratings of web pages after a very short exposure of 500
ms were highly correlated with average attractiveness ratings after an exposure
of 10 s. Extreme attractiveness evaluations (both positive and negative) were
faster than moderate evaluations, landing convergent evidence to the hypothesis
of immediate impression. The findings also suggest considerable individual
differences in evaluations and in the consistency of those evaluations. In
Experiment 2, 24 of the 50 web pages from Experiment 1 were evaluated again for
their attractiveness after 500 ms exposure. Subsequently, users evaluated the
design of the web pages on the dimensions of classical and expressive
aesthetics. The results showed high correlation between attractiveness ratings
from Experiments 1 and 2. In addition, it appears that low attractiveness is
associated mainly with very low ratings of expressive aesthetics. Overall, the
results provide direct evidence in support of the premise that aesthetic
impressions of web pages are formed quickly. Indirectly, these results also
suggest that visual aesthetics plays an important role in users' evaluations of
the IT artifact and in their attitudes toward interactive systems. Keywords: Web-page design; Aesthetic perceptions; Attractiveness; Classical
aesthetics; Expressive aesthetics; Response latency; Response time; First
impression | |||
| The use of interface agents for email notification in critical incidents | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1084-1098 | |
| Alexander Serenko | |||
| This study reports on several typical scenarios of the use of email
notification interface agents under the influence of critical incidents. An
interface agent is a reactive, collaborative, and autonomous visual
computational system, which communicates directly with a person offering
assistance and advice in performing computer-related tasks. The critical
incident technique was employed to survey the actual users of an interface
agent-based email notification application. Respondents were asked to provide
the last most significant either positive or negative incident of the usage of
interface agents in their email application. They were also asked to offer
recommendations for designers and marketers of this technology. Sixty critical
incidents were obtained and analysed. With regards to positive-outcome
situations, one representative scenario was constructed. With respect to the
negative-outcome events, three distinct scenarios were identified. Based on the
critical incident technique, it is concluded that users acknowledge the quality
of an agent when it acts reliably, an agent's intrusive behaviour results in an
immediate agent usage termination, operability issues sometimes force people to
reject the technology, and users attempt to preserve the employment of an agent
under the negative impacts of external factors. A number of other practical
recommendations for manufacturers and marketers are also outlined. Keywords: Interface agents; Human-agent interaction; Email notification; Critical
incident technique | |||
| An interactive environment for the modeling and discovery of scientific knowledge | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1099-1114 | |
| Will Bridewell; Javier Nicolas Sanchez; Pat Langley; Dorrit Billman | |||
| Existing tools for scientific modeling offer little support for improving
models in response to data, whereas computational methods for scientific
knowledge discovery provide few opportunities for user input. In this paper, we
present a language for stating process models and background knowledge in terms
familiar to scientists, along with an interactive environment for knowledge
discovery that lets the user construct, edit, and visualize scientific models,
use them to make predictions, and revise them to better fit available data. We
report initial studies in three domains that illustrate the operation of this
environment and the results of a user study carried out with domain scientists.
Finally, we discuss related efforts on model formalisms and revision and
suggest priorities for additional research. Keywords: Scientific modeling; Interactive knowledge discovery; Model revision | |||
| The influence of information presentation formats on complex task decision-making performance | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1115-1131 | |
| Cheri Speier | |||
| Understanding the influence of information presentation formats on
decision-making effectiveness is an important component of human-computer
interaction user interface design. The pervasive nature and ease of use
associated with information display formats in widely used personal
productivity software suggests that decision-makers are likely to create and/or
use documents with both text-based and more visually oriented information
displays. Past research has investigated the role of these displays on simple
decision tasks; however, empirical research has not extended to more complex
tasks, more comparable to the types of tasks decision-makers face every day.
Results from the empirical analysis suggest that the relationship between
information presentation format and decision performance is moderated by the
complexity of the task. More specifically, spatial formats result in superior
decision accuracy for simple- and complex-spatial tasks and faster decision
time for all tasks except the complex-symbolic task where graphs and tables
result in equivalent decision time. Keywords: Complex task; Decision-making; Information presentation | |||
| Evaluating mass knowledge acquisition using the ALICE chatterbot: The AZ-ALICE dialog system | | BIBA | Full-Text | 1132-1140 | |
| Robert P. Schumaker; Ying Liu; Mark Ginsburg; Hsinchun Chen | |||
| In this paper, we evaluate mass knowledge acquisition using modified ALICE chatterbots. In particular we investigate the potential of allowing subjects to modify chatterbot responses to see if distributed learning from a web environment can succeed. This experiment looks at dividing knowledge into general conversation and domain specific categories for which we have selected telecommunications. It was found that subject participation in knowledge acquisition can contribute a significant improvement to both the conversational and telecommunications knowledge bases. We further found that participants were more satisfied with domain-specific responses rather than general conversation. | |||
| Predicting user satisfaction, strain and system usage of employee self-services | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1141-1153 | |
| Udo Konradt; Timo Christophersen; Ute Schaeffer-Kuelz | |||
| In this study, we explore attitudinal and behavioural patterns when using
employee self-service (ESS) systems by using an expanded technology acceptance
model (TAM). We examine the relationship between organizational support and
information policy on the one hand and ease of use and usefulness on the other,
and then the relationship between ease of use and usefulness with satisfaction,
strain and system usage. To explore question order effects, user satisfaction
was assessed prior to or after survey items. Data was collected from 517
employees using an ESS system. Results from partial least squares structural
equation modelling suggests that (a) organizational support and information
policy were positively related to ease of use, (b) usefulness was positively
related to satisfaction and system usage, (c) ease of use and usefulness were
negatively related to user strain and (d) ease of use fully mediates the
relation between organizational support and strain as well as between
information policy and strain. Evidence for a question order effect was found
with increased satisfaction judgements, when satisfaction was assessed after
the survey items. Results are discussed in terms of the theoretical and
methodological aspects of the TAM and their implications for ESS system
implementation. Keywords: Employee self-service; Technology acceptance model; System usage; Question
order effect; Partial least squares analysis | |||
| Modelling discourse in contested domains: A semiotic and cognitive framework | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1154-1171 | |
| Clara Mancini; Simon J. Buckingham Shum | |||
| This paper examines the representational requirements for interactive,
collaborative systems intended to support sensemaking and argumentation over
contested issues. We argue that a perspective supported by semiotic and
cognitively oriented discourse analyses offers both theoretical insights and
motivates representational requirements for the semantics of tools for
contesting meaning. We introduce our semiotic approach, highlighting its
implications for discourse representation, before describing a research system
(ClaiMaker) designed to support the construction of scholarly argumentation by
allowing analysts to publish and contest 'claims' about scientific
contributions. We show how ClaiMaker's representational scheme is grounded in
specific assumptions concerning the nature of explicit modelling, and the
evolution of meaning within a discourse community. These characteristics allow
the system to represent scholarly discourse as a dynamic process, in the form
of continuously evolving structures. A cognitively oriented discourse analysis
then shows how the use of a small set of cognitive relational primitives in the
underlying ontology opens possibilities for offering users advanced forms of
computational service for analysing collectively constructed argumentation
networks. Keywords: Argumentation; Discourse representation; Coherence relations; Ontologies;
Semantic annotation; Semantic web; Semiotics | |||
| The visual characteristics of avatars in computer-mediated communication: Comparison of Internet Relay Chat and Instant Messenger as of 2003 | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1173-1183 | |
| Hye-Seung Kang; Hee-Dong Yang | |||
| This research focuses on computer-mediated communication where users are
represented by a graphical avatar. An avatar represents a user's self-identity
and desire for self-disclosure. Therefore, the claim is made that there is a
relationship between the characteristics of media and the choice of avatar.
This study supports the claim by examining the difference between Internet
Relay Chat (IRC) avatars and Instant Messenger (IM) avatars as of 2003 when
both media had distinct characteristics and popular avatar service in Korea.
Users of IRC are generally anonymous and involved with topic-based group
discussions, whereas users of IM are known by their "real" names and
communicate via one-on-one chitchatting. We found that avatars as symbols for
users can have different characteristics in terms of self-identity and
self-disclosure in different media. Gender is found to have significant
moderation effect on avatar usage, whereas age is shown to have a mixed
moderation effect. Keywords: Computer-mediated communication; Avatar; Instant Messenger; Internet Relay
Chat; Anonymity; Cyberspace | |||
| Assessing facial beauty through proportion analysis by image processing and supervised learning | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1184-1199 | |
| Hatice Gunes; Massimo Piccardi | |||
| Perception of universal facial beauty has long been debated amongst
psychologists and anthropologists. In this paper, we perform experiments to
evaluate the extent of universal beauty by surveying a number of diverse human
referees to grade a collection of female facial images. Results obtained show
that there exists a strong central tendency in the human grades, thus
exhibiting agreement on beauty assessment. We then trained an automated
classifier using the average human grades as the ground truth and used it to
classify an independent test set of facial images. The high accuracy achieved
proves that this classifier can be used as a general, automated tool for
objective classification of female facial beauty. Potential applications exist
in the entertainment industry, cosmetic industry, virtual media, and plastic
surgery. Keywords: Facial beauty classification; Observer agreement; Proportion analysis;
Golden Proportion; Facial Thirds; Facial features; Supervised learning;
Performance evaluation | |||
| A cognitive approach to user perception of multimedia quality: An empirical investigation | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1200-1213 | |
| Sherry Y. Chen; Gheorghita Ghinea; Robert D. Macredie | |||
| Whilst multimedia technology has been one of the main contributing factors
behind the Web's success, delivery of personalized multimedia content has been
a desire seldom achieved in practice. Moreover, the perspective adopted is
rarely viewed from a cognitive styles standpoint, notwithstanding the fact that
they have significant effects on users' preferences with respect to the
presentation of multimedia content. Indeed, research has thus far neglected to
examine the effect of cognitive styles on users' subjective perceptions of
multimedia quality. This paper aims to examine the relationships between users'
cognitive styles, the multimedia quality of service delivered by the underlying
network, and users' quality of perception (understood as both enjoyment and
informational assimilation) associated with the viewed multimedia content.
Results from the empirical study reported here show that all users, regardless
of cognitive style, have higher levels of understanding of informational
content in multimedia video clips (represented in our study by excerpts from
television programmes) with weak dynamism, but that they enjoy moderately
dynamic clips most. Additionally, multimedia content was found to significantly
influence users' levels of understanding and enjoyment. Surprisingly, our study
highlighted the fact that Bimodal users prefer to draw on visual sources for
informational purposes, and that the presence of text in multimedia clips has a
detrimental effect on the knowledge acquisition of all three cognitive style
groups. Keywords: Cognitive style; Perceptual quality; Quality of service | |||
| Knowledge engineering and psychology: Towards a closer relationship | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1214-1229 | |
| Nick Milton; David Clarke; Nigel Shadbolt | |||
| Knowledge engineering projects deal with a wide range of domains within
organizational and academic contexts. A number of elicitation techniques are
used to acquire knowledge from experts. Most of these techniques originated
within psychology but have been developed by knowledge engineers to become more
structured, efficient and systematic. Until now, nobody has tried to re-apply
these modified techniques back into psychology. This paper describes work that
addresses this matter. It focuses on the psychological knowledge possessed by
all people that enables them to deal with everyday problems and make life
decisions. We refer to this as 'personal knowledge'. To take a knowledge
engineering approach to personal knowledge, we investigated the use of
knowledge elicitation techniques to capture personal knowledge. We describe an
empirical study involving ten participants and 80 knowledge acquisition
sessions that assessed eight elicitation techniques in this context. The
results revealed that each of the techniques showed promise at efficiently
capturing and structuring aspects of an individual's personal knowledge. A
content analysis of the acquired knowledge led to the construction of a
meta-model (a primitive ontology) of personal knowledge and to the design for a
new methodology for psychological research. From the perspective of psychology,
the paper shows that knowledge engineering methods can be of value to
psychologists. From the perspective of knowledge engineering and the wider
computer science community, the paper shows that empirical methods used by
psychologists can benefit the development and evaluation of ontologies and
elicitation techniques. Keywords: Knowledge elicitation; Knowledge acquisition; Psychology; Psychotherapy;
Meta-model; Qualitative methods; PCPACK | |||
| Matching users' diverse social scripts with resonating humanized features to create a polite interface | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1230-1242 | |
| Jeng-Yi Tzeng | |||
| Knowledge engineering projects deal with a wide range of domains within
organizational and academic contexts. A number of elicitation techniques are
used to acquire knowledge from experts. Most of these techniques originated
within psychology but have been developed by knowledge engineers to become more
structured, efficient and systematic. Until now, nobody has tried to re-apply
these modified techniques back into psychology. This paper describes work that
addresses this matter. It focuses on the psychological knowledge possessed by
all people that enables them to deal with everyday problems and make life
decisions. We refer to this as 'personal knowledge'. To take a knowledge
engineering approach to personal knowledge, we investigated the use of
knowledge elicitation techniques to capture personal knowledge. We describe an
empirical study involving ten participants and 80 knowledge acquisition
sessions that assessed eight elicitation techniques in this context. The
results revealed that each of the techniques showed promise at efficiently
capturing and structuring aspects of an individual's personal knowledge. A
content analysis of the acquired knowledge led to the construction of a
meta-model (a primitive ontology) of personal knowledge and to the design for a
new methodology for psychological research. From the perspective of psychology,
the paper shows that knowledge engineering methods can be of value to
psychologists. From the perspective of knowledge engineering and the wider
computer science community, the paper shows that empirical methods used by
psychologists can benefit the development and evaluation of ontologies and
elicitation techniques. Keywords: Knowledge elicitation; Knowledge acquisition; Psychology; Psychotherapy;
Meta-model; Qualitative methods; PCPACK | |||