| The Human Factors of the Information Society | | BIBA | PDF | 1 | |
| Gavriel Salvendy | |||
| With the rapid introduction of highly sophisticated computers, (tele-)communications, service and manufacturing systems, a major shift has occurred in the way people use technology and work with it. Information Society Technologies are omnipresent not only in the workplace, but also in a variety of everyday life activities. The technological paradigm is gradually evolving towards interaction-intensive, collaboration intensive, group-centred, distributed (across the Global Internet) computing. This evolution creates new challenges for Human-Computer Interaction, and for the Human Factors field in particular. The latter is faced with the requirements posed by the diversification of target user groups, and the consequent shift from systems designed for professionals to systems designed for everyone, the proliferation of technological platforms and the appearance of a variety of different devices, and, finally, the shift from desktop based access to computer systems to ubiquitous access. Clearly, these challenges necessitate a systematic and well-structured engineering approach to Human-Computer Interaction, capable of studying, modeling and understanding context, of evaluating adaptable and adaptive behaviors of interactive systems, of understanding different user categories and their physical / cognitive / communicative / perceptual characteristics. In this context, Human Factors have several contributions to make towards the design of universally accessible and usable Information Society Technologies. Firstly, the rigorous experimental approach typical of Human Factors evaluation can constitute a solid base for capturing and understanding user requirements. Secondly, high-level principles and design guidelines, such as human-centred design, can inform the design process of such technologies. Some of these guidelines are explicitly focused on delivering access for disabled and elderly people. | |||
| A Simplistic Approach to Internationalization: Design Considerations for an Autonomous Intelligent Agent | | BIBA | PDF | 13 | |
| Theresa A. O'Connell | |||
| A pilot of an autonomous intelligent agent telecommunications application
offered the opportunity to investigate design issues for a diverse
international user group. Agent technology is new to most of these users.
Usability engineering efforts focused on the look, feel, sound and dialog of a
personal autonomous intelligent agent representation and the look and feel of
its onscreen Web environment.
The goal was to make agent benefits available across cultural and linguistic boundaries. In this pilot study, time and resource constraints ruled out localized software versions. This agent had to operate in several cultural environments under one look and feel. Its dialog had to be machine-translatable into a variety of languages. Usability engineering efforts were based on the belief that agents will radically change the way that humans interact with computers [Maes 94]. This hypothesis motivated the design of a non-traditional Web interface and the representation of an autonomous intelligent agent based on an inanimate object with human characteristics. Viewing agent attributes through the lens of traditional user experiences shed light on the characteristics the agent will need to convey. Instilling user trust in the agent became a primary usability engineering goal. Once established, trustworthiness can pave the way for a simple, easy to use Web interface. | |||
| Mindless Visualisations | | BIBA | PDF | 14 | |
| Claire Knight; Malcolm Munro | |||
| The wonder and, unfortunately, to the detriment of visualisation for the representation and comprehension of complex data sets is that to be most successful requires that they are tailored to suit the task and underlying data. Such a restriction enables visualisations to be well designed for the tasks to which they are known to be applied to, and also to accommodate the style and range of data to be expected as normal. The problem with this repeated redesign of visualisations is that the interface is often neglected, and can even be solely dependent on the implementing technology used for the visualisation. It is important to add such issues as the interface to visualisation considerations, and to provide reusable concepts that will integrate with a range of metaphors and displays. This position paper examines the issues surrounding such visualisation interfaces and presents a discussion of those issues. | |||
| Usability Issues in Software to Assist People with Brain Injuries | | BIBA | PDF | 15 | |
| E. Bonneville; J. C. Muzio; M. Serra | |||
| The problems of producing a software system to assist in the rehabilitation of people who have suffered serious traumatic brain injuries are described. The challenges of ensuring a high level of usability by incorporating the best of graphic and HCI design into a well established software engineering methodology are discussed. The resulting suite of programs is now in use at a rehabilitation hospital in Victoria. | |||
| Designing an Adaptive Virtual Guide for Web Applications | | BIBA | PDF | 11 | |
| Luisa Marucci; Fabio Paterno | |||
| Most applications accessible through the Web suffer from a noticeable lack of support for adapting to the different information needs that different users may have regarding a certain topic. However, completely automatic adaptive support can still be confusing for users who may not understand the reasons for the dynamic change in the behaviour of an application. In this paper, we present a possible solution to provide adaptive support that does not disorient the user. Such a solution integrates a virtual assistant able to provide adaptive support in an adaptable application. We discuss an example of application of this approach to support Web visits to museum information. | |||
| Intention-Guided Web Sites: A New Perspective on Adaptation | | BIBA | PDF | 15 | |
| M. Baldoni; C. Baroglio; A. Chiarotto; A. Martelli; V. Patti | |||
| Recent years witnessed a rapid growth of multimedia technologies for
offering information and services on the internet. One of the many problems
that are to be faced in this context is the great variety of possible users and
the consequent need to adapt both the presentation of information and the
interaction to the specific user's characteristics.
There is a general agreement that an adaptive web system should keep a model of the user's intentions, interests, and preferences, nevertheless, most of the research on adaptive web systems is based on the idea of associating each user with a "user model" and to dynamically build web pages, based on the profile given by that model. However, for the sake of a more complete adaptation -- especially at the navigation level -- it seems necessary to give a greater importance to the user's intentions both at the beginning of and during the interaction with the system. In our view this aspect of adaptation is currently underestimated. For achieving a dynamical site generation which is guided by the user's intentions, the system should keep track of such intentions and of their evolution during the interaction, and it should use them during its reasoning, when it plans dynamically personalized navigation routes. This is the topic of our current research, whose main lines are presented in this article. | |||
| A Structured Contextual Approach to Design for All | | BIBA | PDF | 15 | |
| Chris Stary | |||
| Although a variety of concepts have been published to implement the design principles for user interfaces for all, there is still a lack of techniques applicable for structured development of this type of user interfaces. This paper deals with an approach that has been developed in the course of an industrial design project. It suggests to gather design options and structure the design process through a formal decision making procedure, hence increasing the maintainability of deign solutions and products this way. | |||
| Trusty Interaction in Visual Environments | | BIBA | PDF | 12 | |
| P. Bottoni; M. F. Costabile; S. Levialdi; M. Matera; P. Mussio | |||
| End-user computing requires that end-users trust the system and the results obtained by its use. The approach we have elaborated at the Pictorial Computing Laboratory of the University of Rome "La Sapienza" is the result of several experiments through the years in design and use of end-user visual computing systems and is aimed at improving the system trustworthiness. To this end, our approach adopts the notation developed by the users in their working environment as the kernel for the Visual Language used during human-computer interaction, supports users while navigating in the virtual space by establishing a system of cornerstones, within a scaffold, and provides control on the system to trap user slips and errors. The paper reports and discusses some results from our experience in the design and use of end-users visual environments. | |||
| Visualizing Computational Wear with Physical Wear | | BIBA | PDF | 12 | |
| Xiaoyang Mao; Yuji Hatanaka; Atsumi Imamiya; Yuki Kato; Kentaro Go | |||
| Wear is an important source of information supporting our tasks in everyday life. This paper presents the idea of using wear as a new visual attribute for visualizing the computational wear of digital objects, which is defined as a set of attributes resulting from the history of user interactions on the digital objects. As a case study to investigate the feasibility of the proposed idea, we succeeded in visualizing the computational wear of WWW sites with the icons of physically worn appearance. | |||
| A Gesture-Based Interface for Seamless Communication between Real and Virtual Worlds | | BIBA | PDF | 13 | |
| Masaki Omata; Kentaro Go; Atsumi Imamiya | |||
| This paper proposes a gesture-based direct manipulation interface that can be used for data transfer among informational artifacts. "Grasp and Drop (Throw)" by hand gestures allows a user to grasp an object on a computer screen and drop (throw) it on other artifacts without touching them. Using the interface, a user can operate some artifacts in the mixed reality world in a seamless manner, and learn this interaction style easily. Based on this interaction technique, we developed a prototype of presentation system using Microsoft PowerPoint, a wall size screen, computer screens and a printer. The presentation system with gestures allows a presenter to navigate through PowerPoint slides and transfer a slide from one computer screen to another. We conducted an experiment which evaluate the interaction style of gestures and analyzed the user's satisfaction with a questionnaire. The result shows that the overall mean of successful recognition is 96.9%, and the learning of the system is easy. | |||
| Effect of "Sound Fonts" in an Aural Presentation | | BIBAK | PDF | 10 | |
| Philippe Truillet; Bernard Oriola; Jean-Luc Nespoulous; Nadine Vigouroux | |||
| This paper deals with research for the design of "sound fonts" and
development of an evaluation methodology suitable for use with non visual
presentation based on the speech modality or on multimodality (speech and
tactile). The work hypothesis of the study presented here relies on the fact
that both structure and typographic attributes increase the comprehension
process in visual presentation. Based on this constant, the Human Computer
Interaction (HCI) question is to find alternative sounds or prosodic variants
to display the typographic attributes -- bold, italic --, for instance. This
question takes part of the paradigm of the information accessibility problems. Keywords: Aural presentation, speech prosody, "sound fonts", blind people, efficiency
of presentation, evaluation methodology | |||
| GroupMark: A WWW Recommender System Combining Collaborative and Information Filtering | | BIBA | PDF | 13 | |
| Duncan Pemberton; Tom Rodden; Rob Procter | |||
| The objective of the SELECT project is to help Internet users find the most reliable, valuable, important and interesting information quickly and easily, hence reducing information overload. In these ways, SELECT will make a positive contribution to the problem of helping users tailor their information environments to meet their individual needs. The approach adopted in SELECT is to develop a general architecture for information filtering and recommendation systems, and to use this to implement and evaluate different strategies and techniques. In this paper we describe GroupMark, a prototype of a SELECT-based social recommendation tool for the WWW that is based upon shared bookmarks. We focus in particular on how GroupMark seeks to combine content-based and collaborative filtering techniques, and on the user interface issues raised by recommendation tools: i.e., the mechanisms for controlling behaviour and the visualisation of results. | |||
| Cognitive Training by Animated Pedagogical Agents (TAPA) -- Development of a Tele-Medical System for Memory Improvement in Children with Epilepsy | | BIBAK | PDF | 11 | |
| Holger Tebarth; Yehya Mohamad; Michael Pieper | |||
| Recent psychological research demonstrates, that children with cognitive
disorders can clearly benefit by special training of meta-memory strategies.
Though up to now this kind of memory training requires a specialized coach who
performs an individual motivational support. In the consequence we started to
develop a tele-medical Training system that is primarily based on the concept
of Animated Pedagogical Agents (TAPA). These agents that inhabit interactive
training environments can exhibit lifelike behaviours and are able to impart
and coach memory strategies in a very suitable way to children. In addition to
provide problem-solving advice in response to children's activities, these
agents may also be able to play a powerful motivational role. The TAPA-System
realizes furthermore a web-based use for an economical, prolonged and
controlled intervention in large numbers of neuropaediatric patients. The user
interface adaptivity to the individual child is based on nontrivial inferences
from input information. Keywords: HCI, Animated Pedagogical Agents, Virtual Characters, System Adaptivity,
User Modelling, User-Interface Evaluation, Universal Design Concepts,
Meta-Communication, Meta-Memory Training, Assistive Technologies, Telemedicine | |||
| Embedding Plasticity in the Development Process of Interactive Systems | | BIBA | PDF | 6 | |
| Gaelle Calvary; Joelle Coutaz; David Thevenin | |||
| This article briefly presents the notion of plasticity. Plasticity refers to a particular sort of user interface adaptation. A new process model that supports the structured development of plastic user interfaces is described and illustrated with a test case. | |||
| Interface Support for Elderly People with Impaired Sight or Memory | | BIBA | PDF | 6 | |
| Mary Zajicek | |||
| In an information society for all, everyone must have equal access to
information in order to function effectively. Those that are unable to access
vital information, which is increasingly distributed via the Internet, will
become marginalised within society. Elderly people using computers, and hence
Internet browsers, for the first time are faced with new ways of thinking and
have little experience to draw from. In order to map the task in hand onto a
set of tools that will support it, the user must have a strong conceptual model
of the underlying system and the dimensions of the task. Users must also
remember sequences of events to build up strategies for the computer use.
Impairment of short-term memory causes problems in developing conceptual models
at the interface and in developing strategies for software use.
This paper addresses the challenges faced by elderly visually impaired people, with poor memories, using the internet to access information. It reports the results of experimentation with a talking interface to help elderly users get up and running on the Internet. The talking interface is a special enhancement of the web browser for visually impaired users called BrookesTalk. Issues of personal support, menu selection, understanding of synthetic speech and memory modeling are also discussed. | |||
| Experimenting with Metaphors for All: A User Interface for a Mobile Electronic Payment Device | | BIBA | PDF | 6 | |
| Kristiina Karvonen | |||
| To make payments on the move with a mobile, hand-held device is a novel thing for most users and presents the users with novel kinds of use situations to deal with. Being secure when making money transactions, is one of the most important criteria for such actions. To ensure secure use, we must be able to come up with a user interface design for such transactions that makes the system easy-to-use and understandable to even the most novice users. Finding a fit metaphor to accomplish this task is not an easy task but something that still has to be puzzled out. We tried to use a checkbook as a metaphor for handling these payments, and found that this metaphor was only partly successful in communicating the system to the users. | |||
| MFB (Music For the Blind): A Software Able to Transcribe and Create Musical Scores into Braille and to be Used by Blind Persons | | BIBAK | PDF | 6 | |
| Didier Langolff; Nadine Jessel; Danny Levy | |||
| This article describes MFB software, able to create and transcribe musical
scores, and its adaptability to blind users. Keywords: Transcription, musical scores, Braille, blind persons, accessibility. | |||
| Architectural Models for User Interfaces of Web-Based Applications | | BIBA | PDF | 6 | |
| Petr Hejda | |||
| Web-based applications are by far the most universally accessible. These applications evolved from simple document retrieval systems to online booking systems, online shopping malls, e-commerce websites, and collaborative systems, to name just few examples. Widely accepted software and networking standards allow for effective implementation of these applications. However, these standards do not help much with making the interface of these applications user friendly and easy to manage. In other words, there are no or little means to ensure that the user interface provides high quality in use for all users. We address this problem by introducing an architectural model for user interfaces of web-based applications. The model reflects both the physical partitioning of the application as well as the placement of user interface components. The presented model is a synthesis of two groups of models. The first group contains multi-tier architecture models currently used in the design of web-based applications. The other group of models consists of traditional models developed by the HCI community. Our model differentiates between local and remote communication lines. It can be further customized to fit concrete examples of web-based application types. | |||
| An Evaluation of a Graphical History Tool with an Eye Tracker | | BIBA | PDF | 6 | |
| Hisanori Masuda; Atsumi Imamiya; Kentaro Go; Xiaoyang Mao | |||
| In this paper we describe a graphical undo/redo tool, which visualizes user's command history and evaluate it using a survey technique and empirically assess with respect to eye movements. Our tool is implemented as part of a drawing tool, what and how users look at are the essential information on evaluating its effectiveness. Therefore, we investigate user's gaze information during a visual searching task. The task is to search a target snapshot through looking at a window and manipulating its scroll bar. We have presented the first results of empirical evaluation's data. The results of primary evaluation show that the tool for visual search has been positive. | |||
| Investigating the Use of Force Feedback for Motion-Impaired Users | | BIBA | PDF | 6 | |
| Simeon Keates; Patrick Langdon; John Clarkson; Peter Robinson | |||
| For users with motion impairments, the standard keyboard and mouse arrangement for computer access often presents problems. Other approaches have to be adopted to overcome this. There is evidence to suggest that increasing the degrees-of-freedom, and hence bandwidth, of human-computer interaction (HCI), can improve interaction rates if implemented carefully. Haptic feedback is not really exploited in the existing HCI paradigm, so offers a potential method for broadening the interaction bandwidth by complementing the existing interaction structure. This paper describes a series of experiments to assess the effectiveness of using haptic feedback to enhance the interaction. The experiments focused on the use of force feedback technology to assist in point-and-click activities. The results showed that, if implemented appropriately, force feedback offers a significant benefit to motion-impaired users and that the benefit obtained was increased with increasing severity of impairment. | |||
| Managing the Complexity of the User Interface of a MRI Guided Surgery System | | BIBA | PDF | 7 | |
| Lasse Jyrkinen; Risto Ojala; Lasse Haataja; Roberto Blanco; Rauli Klemola; Olli Silven; Osmo Tervonen | |||
| Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) guided procedures is an emerging field of
image guided surgery (IGS). Interventional radiologists have specialised in
image guided procedures that require the most intensive usage of imaging,
therefore interactivity of the system is an important issue.
Often slow image update rate of MRI is seen as a major reason for the system latency. The development of new faster imaging sequences does not provide the desired speedup, since significant latency is introduced by the user interaction mechanisms of the current systems. Our challenge was to design a user interface that enables the radiologists to control the system without compromising the power of MRI. This paper presents an analysis of the application and describes the user centered design and implementation of the system. | |||
| Tele-Nursing System with Realistic Sensations using Virtual Locomotion Interface | | BIBA | PDF | 7 | |
| Tsutomu Miyasato | |||
| The authors have been conducting research into new methods of communication via virtual space created by VR (Virtual Reality) technologies, including communication teleconferencing systems with realistic sensations. In addition, the authors have proposed "Tel-E-Merge" -- a system in which the user can enter the environment of another person in a remote location to carry on a conversation -- and are conducting research into new VR equipment aimed at the practical application of this system. This paper describes one application for making this system a reality: a "Tele-Nursing" system that combines locomotion interfaces which we have developed up to now with a wheelchair typed moving equipment from the viewpoint of communications that allow both shared experiences and shared emotions using VR technologies. | |||
| Towards an Inclusive Information Society: Some Principles from the Margins | | BIBAK | PDF | 12 | |
| Alexis Donnelly | |||
| As the Information Society develops, it is becoming clear that several
already disadvantaged groups are being excluded. This paper attempts to
identify these groups, the benefits that inclusion might bring and the barriers
obstructing their inclusion. We motivate and identify some general guiding
principles and illustrate them with some example policy initiatives and
recommendations drawn from the Irish context. The principles assume
availability of adequate resources and aim at efficient and effective
deployment of ICTs for inclusive social objectives. The paper provides a
timely, useful perspective for technologists engaged in the construction of
tomorrow's information society. The need for urgent action is clear, action
informed by the social context and the useful guiding principles presented
here. Keywords: Universal Design; Information Society; Social Inclusion; Social
Marginalisation; Policy Recommendations; guidelines for Inclusion; Principles
for Inclusion; Information and Communications Technology; Telecommunications
Regulation; E-Commerce Legislation | |||
| 'Open Access for All?' A Study of the Employment Service's Touch-Screen Kiosks from the Perspective of Disabled Job Seekers | | BIBA | PDF | 14 | |
| Tara Qavi; David Wastell | |||
| The UK Employment Service launched an initiative in 1996 to introduce
touch-screen kiosks in job centres as an alternative to the traditional vacancy
display boards. The system itself is called 'Open Access', as it enables job
seekers to gather sufficient information regarding vacancies to allow them to
contact employers directly, independent of any assistance from job centre
staff.
Since the duty to make 'reasonable adjustments' under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 came into effect in October 1999, service providers such as the Employment Service have been required to enable full access to its services for disabled people. This study focuses upon the usability of the Open Access system with emphasis on the perspective of disabled users. Using a mixed methodology which combined interviews, questionnaires and cognitive walkthroughs, data was collected from a sample of disabled and non-disabled job seekers. From this data, both generic and disability-specific usability issues were identified. These findings are discussed in detail and implications for kiosk design are addressed, in particular to take greater account of the needs of disabled users as well as improving the general level of service provision. | |||
| Mobile Communication for People with Disabilities and Older People: New Opportunities for Autonomous Life | | BIBA | PDF | 14 | |
| Julio Abascal; Anton Civit | |||
| The fast diffusion of mobile telephony is opening a vast diversity of new opportunities for people with different levels of physical restrictions, these due to disability or ageing. For this people mobile technology not only allows ubiquity for communications but also anytime access to some services that are vital for their security and autonomy. Together with the numerous advantages, remote services can also mean important social and ethical risks for this group of users making indispensable that these risks are detected, analysed and avoided. Therefore, this paper analyses the novelties that mobile technology has introduced into the lives of users with disabilities and older people, points out some dangers and challenges arising from the use of these technologies and revises some future applications of the present mobile technologies. | |||
| Context Separation Using Structured Knowledge Models For Reusable Interactive Computer Assisted Learning Resources | | BIBAK | PDF | 12 | |
| L. M. MacKinnon; K. E. Brown | |||
| In this paper, we describe a novel approach to the generation of reusable
computer-based assets to support the production and customisation of learning
materials for user and environment constrained learning scenarios. We present a
framework for learning which proposes that navigating within a space of many
models overcomes limitations inherent in mono-model approaches to learning
contextualised knowledge. The approach is based on work carried out by the
authors in knowledge base research, user modelling, training systems for
industry, and learning environment development. Work is now under way on a
project to develop both the technological solution and the pedagogic strategy
necessary to produce an adaptive learning system based on this approach. How
part of a professional's knowledge, for industrial process control, can be
structured for use by a learner for one particular approach to learning is
discussed to illustrate different elements of context. This combination of
different knowledge types allows a variety of learning situations to be
accommodated. Keywords: Material reuse, learning environments, learning scenarios, knowledge
structuring, context analysis | |||
| User Interface Approaches for Accessibility in Complex World-Wide-Web Applications -- An Example Approach from the PEARL Project | | BIBA | PDF | 9 | |
| Martyn Cooper; Liliana Patricia Santacruz Valencia; Alexis Donnelly; Paul Sergeant | |||
| Increasingly the WWW is being used to host complex applications in diverse
fields important for peoples work, study and leisure. Now the very complexity
and multi-modality of such applications presents a particular challenge in
seeking to design user interfaces to them that are accessible to people with
different disabilities.
This paper introduces an approach that can be used to address this challenge, making complex applications accessible to people with differing needs and abilities. It is based on the ongoing work of the EU-IST funded project PEARL. An overview is given of this project together with an outline of the XML family of web technologies. The main tactic suggested to address the accessibility problem is to separate the interface from the application such that different users can have different interfaces to the system depending on their preferences, needs and the computer equipment they are using. This paper suggests how this can be facilitated given current and emerging web technologies, particularly XML and XSL. | |||
| A Ubiquitous Interaction Model for a Natural and Cultural Heritage Museum Proposal of the Montsec Area | | BIBAK | PDF | 11 | |
| Montserrat Sendin; Jesus Lores; Carles Aguilo; Xavier Palau | |||
| In this paper we present an interactive model to be applied to the natural
and cultural heritage museum proposal of the Montsec area, based on one of the
emergent interaction paradigms nowadays -- the ubiquitous computation --. The
Montsec is a mountains range located in the prePyrenees of Lleida (Spain),
characterized by its extraordinary and multi-thematic wealth.
The potential of the ubiquitous computation has had a substantial growth due to the new advances in mobile telephony and wireless computation. In our case, any visitor of the park will dispose of a third generation (3G) telephone which will permit to identify the user and offer him all types of information adapted to his consulting and interactive guide necessities, which will be customized according to the characteristics, position and other parameters of the user. This turns our information system into a valuable itinerant multimedia material, fulfilling with the ubiquity principles. We pretend the whole area to be visited behaves like a true "interactive space". Furthemore, the presence of an interface agent in the system will facilitate to a great extent the interaction, integrating that way the paradigm of the indirect management too. In short, our objective is to create a project designed to the preservation, management and diffusion of the real state and resources of the Montsec through the use of the new technologies, which is presented like a museographical proposal. Keywords: Direct manipulation, indirect management, interface agent, ubiquitous
computation, mobile terminals, ecomuseum | |||
| An Assessment of Using Integrated Information Sources in Clinical Environments | | BIBA | PDF | 12 | |
| Bob Steele; Susana Goncalves | |||
| This paper reports on continuing work being done at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield UK, which aims to provide a system where all reference and patient data are available within a single user interface -- the Web. Specifically, the work is investigating the application and evaluation of the integration of Web based resources into the clinician's working environment within an evolving Integrated Clinical Workstation. | |||
| From Adaptations to User Interfaces for All | | BIBAK | PDF | 11 | |
| Pier Luigi Emiliani; Constantine Stephanidis | |||
| This paper provides an overview of research efforts in the area of
accessibility over the past decade in Europe, and follows the evolution of
Research and Technological Development work from solutions based on 'a
posteriori' adaptation to the notion of User Interfaces for All. The aim of the
paper is to outline the beginning of an evolutionary path driving from reactive
accessibility solutions to the requirement for Universal Access in the
Information Society. Keywords: Accessibility of computer-based applications and services, adaptations, User
Interfaces for All, Unified User Interface Development | |||
| From User interfaces for all to an Information Society for All: Recent Achievements and Future Challenges | | BIBA | PDF | 14 | |
| C. Stephanidis | |||
| User Interfaces for All has been defined as a systematic approach to the design, implementation and evaluation of user interfaces that cater for the requirements of the broadest possible user population. The scope of User Interfaces for All, as a perspective on HCI, is necessarily broad and complex, involving challenges, which pertain to issues such as context-oriented design, diverse user requirements and adaptable and adaptive interactive behaviors. This paper attempts to address a two-fold objective: first, to review the premises of User Interfaces for All and how they have been realised by recent technical accomplishments; secondly, to sketch a transition towards an Information Society for All, by pointing out some of the challenges involved, and how they are being addressed by on-going work. | |||
| Interfaces for Geographic Applications on the World Wide Web: an Adaptive Computational Hypermedia | | BIBA | PDF | 2 | |
| P. Carrara; G. Fresta; A. Rampini | |||
| The creation of interfaces in complex projects involving geographic data, heterogeneous and distributed, also on the Web, are usually based on a centralized server collecting the geographic data to be delivered to clients: they are remote searching systems, in which users type or select keys, to obtain results from the server. Possible computations cannot be usually performed by users. Our proposal is to develop Web-based interfaces to geographic applications and data by combining hypertext navigation with more conventional computation. The idea is to go beyond the current concept of hypermedia by offering a desktop in which users may both explore pieces of knowledge and apply computational tools, with the possibility of interact in more than one session. The hypermedia interface development has been performed on the basis of a design methodology in order to obtain an adaptive hypermedia environment to be offered to various types of intended users, for their special purposes, in rapidly evolving geographic scenarios. | |||
| MAGUS: Modelling Access with GIS in Urban Systems: An Application for Wheelchair Users in Northamptonshire | | BIBA | PDF | 2 | |
| Linda Beale; Hugh Matthews; Phil Picton; David Briggs | |||
| The project aims to develop, test and apply a Geographical Information System (GIS) for modelling access for wheelchair users in urban areas. The principal focus is to provide a GIS system that will work as a decision support and mapping tool for urban planners. In addition, the system has been designed to encompass future developments, including use as a guidance device to help wheelchair users to assess and select optimal routes through the urban environment. The study employs and integrates two contrasting methodological approaches: social science techniques, aimed at investigating and quantifying the factors that need to be considered in modelling access to the urban environment by wheelchair users; and computer technologies (including GIS and AI) to translate these into an operational route assessment and modelling package. This tool is to be applied and tested in Northampton, U.K., using volunteers from both wheelchair users and urban planners. | |||
| Aiding Designers to Design for All: The IRIS Approach | | BIBA | PDF | 3 | |
| Koutsabasis Panayiotis; Jenny S. Darzentas; Thomas Spyrou; Kostas Lambrinoudakis; John Darzentas | |||
| Over the last few years, work on accessibility has created an increased
awareness regarding the incorporation of requirements of people with special
needs into systems designs. However the extent and impact of this work in
Internet-based services has not yet been seen, for at least two reasons.
Firstly, a large part of recommendations and guidelines regarding the
accessibility of Internet-based services has been developed quite recently and
thus has not been widely taken up in design and development. Secondly, most of
this work has not been provided to designers and IT industry in a form that can
enable them to easily include it to service designs.
IST-2000-26211 project IRIS (Incorporating Requirements of People with Special Needs or Impairments to Internet-based Systems and Services) is a recently started European project, which aims to design an architecture and develop and validate an environment which will aid designers to design for all. IRIS argues that design-for-all practical tools and methods need to be presented to designers, if possible as easily customisable software components, which will be, of course, generic in their design, in order to cover a wide range of requirements. This presentation overviews the basic concepts of the IRIS project. | |||
| User Interface for Efficient Querying in Picture DBS | | BIBA | PDF | 2 | |
| Zdenek Mikovec; Pavel Slavik | |||
| Increasing complexity of queries on the one side and UI limitations of new technologies (e.g. handheld devices) on other enforce new flexible and dynamic querying methods development. Experimental system for testing UI for efficient querying in picture DBS was built. New approach applied. This approach, based on a richer (than MPEG-7) picture description defined in XML allows more efficient querying. | |||
| Adaptable Speech-Based Interfaces | | BIBA | PDF | 2 | |
| Pavel Zikovsky; Pavel Slavik | |||
| As there are many voice systems, which can stand for user interface for visually impaired people, there is still a problem with explaining more complicated structures such as trees, etc. through speech. The output of such an interface is then crippled into a text reader. The problem is, that we have lost the (graphical) information about the structure. This paper will describe a solution to this problem, based on using more than one voice color to represent the described structure and position within it. | |||
| Fischlar on a PDA: A Handheld User Interface to a Video Indexing, Browsing and, Playback System | | BIBA | PDF | 2 | |
| Hyowon Lee; Alan F. Smeaton; Peter McCann; Noel Murphy; Noel E. O'Connor; Sean Marlow | |||
| Fischlar is a web-based system for recording, analysing, indexing, browsing and playback of broadcast TV programs, in digital format [Lee 00a]. It allows a user to initiate the recording of TV programmes from one of 8 major TV channels in Ireland and that programme, when broadcast, is recorded in MPEG-1 format. This is then subjected to analysis to determine shot and scene bounds and to select representative frames, and these are then used in a browsing interface, allowing a user to navigate through, as well as among, recorded programmes. Currently about 500 programmes have been recorded, archived and are available for browsing and playback, corresponding to about 300 hours of video content. A conventional web browser is used for browsing and playback of video contents, with multiple distinctive browsing interfaces provided as options and playback capable of simultaneous streaming to almost 150 client users. From this system different applications are being developed, including Fischlar-PTV, a personalised recommender system which uses case based reasoning and a population of users to recommend TV programmes which users are likely to want to watch [Smyth 00]. Although Fischlar has been originally developed as a desktop application with a web browser and a mouse, we are also working on SMS and WAP applications for TV programme notification, alerting, recording request, etc. | |||
| VITIPI: A Universal Writing Interface for All | | BIBA | PDF | 2 | |
| Philippe Boissiere; Daniel Dours | |||
| VITIPI's aim is to increase speed text acquisition in all computer
applications. Unlike the others systems, it doesn't display lists of unexpected
words but provides the ending of words without end-user's intervention. When
VITIPI faced with an unknown or unexpected word, containing typing errors or
orthographic mistakes, it can continue to predict the end of the word. It takes
into account previous words for prediction. VITIPI database is made up with
user's corpus so that it is well adapted to user's vocabulary and grammar. It
will not be linked to a devoted word processor, it will could run on all
windows applications.
If we only consider isolated French words, VITIPI provides 26% of predicted letters on a vocabulary size 5,930 words. 72% of typing errors are corrected and 75% of orthographic mistakes. | |||
| Self-Organising Map Browser for Database Retrieval | | BIBA | PDF | 2 | |
| Antti Kerminen; Antti Raike; Mauri Kaipainen | |||
| We introduce a web tool to access database information by clicking and dragging on similarity-clustered item labels on a two-dimensional map visualization of a multi-dimensional data corpus, formed using the self-organizing map (SOM) algorithm. | |||
| Designing and Using Efficient Interfaces for Switch Accessibility | | BIBA | PDF | 2 | |
| David Colven; Andrew Lysley | |||
| Access to Windows and Internet environments is now almost essential for learning and employment. These interfaces are not universally accessible to people with disabilities. However, they could provide such people with powerful tools for independence. There is therefore, a requirement for an alternative means of operating these systems. It is no longer acceptable or necessary to use conventional emulation of slow keyboard and mouse controls for doing this. This paper will demonstrate how such systems can be created, stressing the importance of providing alternative custom ergonomic solutions for people with severe physical disabilities. We shall also emphasise the important role the designer of a switch user's interface plays in this process and the requirements made of the 'normal' operating system. Examples of successful outcomes will be demonstrated. | |||
| FACT-V: Universal Access and Quality of Interaction for Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) | | BIBA | PDF | 2 | |
| Iwao Kobayashi; Akihiro Iwazaki; Katsuhiro Sasaki | |||
| In this paper we showed our ATM named "FACT-V" to improve universal access and quality of interaction from two viewpoints: (1) input methods for the blind to operate complicated function and (2) ergonomic design of ATM for wheelchair users. | |||
| Age-Related Differences in Driver-INFO2000 Interaction | | BIBA | PDF | 2 | |
| A. Toffetti; E. Nodari; C. Zoldan; A. De Angeli; W. Gerbin | |||
| These pages summarize the user-based evaluation of INFO2000, the prototype of a multifunctional in-car information system. The aim of the study was to investigate the very first impact of INFO2000 on both young and elderly potential users. It emerged that INFO2000 was initially less usable for elderly. Nevertheless, this difference tended to diminish with the practice and the elderly attitude towards the system was positive. | |||
| The User Centered Design Approach to Develop an Adaptive Web-Based IR System | | BIBA | PDF | 2 | |
| Francesca Rizzo | |||
| In recent years, computer based repositories are becoming larger and more diverse thanks to the diffusion of technologies such as the Internet and the World Wide Web. In this context one of the most common problems people have when using the net is finding specific information (Bernard, Chaparro, 2000). It is clear that the complexity and the amount of data requires an adaptation of the tools which support information searching processes to the requirements of their users. This paper deals with the OMERO project (national research project n.41902). The project aims at designing, developing and testing the interface of Omero system in order to support effective and intelligent information searching processes. | |||
| Consumeter -- An Information Tool | | BIBA | PDF | 2 | |
| Antti Ellonen | |||
| The development of the information society enables more effective dissemination of information, new ways of organising activities and new forms of communication between people and institutions. Today's consumers have limited ability to make decisions based on knowledge. In the future things might be different. We might see tools which can ease the information gap so that consumers can manage the huge amount of information. Consumeter is an application oriented scenario which aim is to wake thoughts about the present problems in our everyday information processing and outline solutions we might benefit from in the future. Consumeter is part of my own input to Design Fiction -project, organised by Media Lab, at the University of Art and Design, Helsinki. | |||