Speech-based Interaction: Myths, Challenges, and Opportunities
Course Overviews
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Penn, Gerald
Extended Abstracts of the ACM CHI'16 Conference on Human Factors in
Computing Systems
2016-05-07
v.2
p.992-995
© Copyright 2016 ACM
Summary: HCI research has for long been dedicated to better and more naturally
facilitating information transfer between humans and machines. Unfortunately,
humans' most natural form of communication, speech, is also one of the most
difficult modalities to be understood by machines -- despite, and perhaps,
because it is the highest-bandwidth communication channel we possess. While
significant research efforts, from engineering, to linguistic, and to cognitive
sciences, have been spent on improving machines' ability to understand speech,
the CHI community (and the HCI field at large) has been relatively timid in
embracing this modality as a central focus of research. This can be attributed
in part to the relatively discouraging levels of accuracy in understanding
speech, in contrast with often-unfounded claims of success from industry, but
also to the intrinsic difficulty of designing and especially evaluating speech
and natural language interfaces. As such, the development of interactive
speech-based systems is mostly driven by engineering efforts to improve such
systems with respect to largely arbitrary performance metrics. Such
developments have often been void of any user-centered design principles or
consideration for usability or usefulness. The goal of this course is to inform
the CHI community of the current state of speech and natural language research,
to dispel some of the myths surrounding speech-based interaction, as well as to
provide an opportunity for researchers and practitioners to learn more about
how speech recognition and speech synthesis work, what are their limitations,
and how they could be used to enhance current interaction paradigms. Through
this, we hope that HCI researchers and practitioners will learn how to combine
recent advances in speech processing with user-centred principles in designing
more usable and useful speech-based interactive systems.
Rethinking Mobile Interfaces for Older Adults
SIG Meetings
/
Charness, Neil
/
Dunlop, Mark
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Nicol, Emma
/
Oulasvirta, Antti
/
Ren, Xiangshi
/
Sarcar, Sayan
/
Silpasuwanchai, Chaklam
Extended Abstracts of the ACM CHI'16 Conference on Human Factors in
Computing Systems
2016-05-07
v.2
p.1131-1134
© Copyright 2016 ACM
Summary: This SIG advances the study of mobile user interfaces for the aging
population. The topic is timely, as the mobile device has become the most
widely used computer terminal and at the same time the number of older people
will soon exceed the number of children worldwide. However, most HCI research
addresses younger adults and has had little impact on older adults. Some design
trends, like the mantra "smaller is smarter", contradict the needs of older
users. Developments like this may diminish their ability to access information
and participate in society. This can lead to further isolation (social and
physical) of older adults and increased widening of the digital divide. This
SIG aims to discuss mobile interfaces for older adults. The SIG has three
goals: (i) to map the state-of-art, (ii) to build a community gathering experts
from related areas, and (iii) to raise awareness within the SIGCHI community.
The SIG will be open to all at CHI.
Ethical Encounters in Human-Computer Interaction
Workshop Summaries
/
Waycott, Jenny
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Davis, Hilary
/
Thieme, Anja
/
Moncur, Wendy
/
McNaney, Roisin
/
Vines, John
/
Branham, Stacy
Extended Abstracts of the ACM CHI'16 Conference on Human Factors in
Computing Systems
2016-05-07
v.2
p.3387-3394
© Copyright 2016 ACM
Summary: In the HCI community, there is growing recognition that a reflective and
empathetic approach is needed to conduct ethical research in sensitive settings
with people who might be considered vulnerable or marginalized. At our CHI 2015
workshop on ethical encounters, researchers shared personal stories of the
challenges and tensions they have faced when conducting HCI research in complex
settings such as hospitals, with young mental health patients, in schools for
children with disabilities, and with homeless people. These research contexts
can present significant challenges for HCI researchers who would not typically
receive the training that other professionals working in these environments
would normally receive. From our discussions with attendees at the CHI 2015
workshop, we identified a number of ethical issues that researchers are
grappling with. In this follow-up workshop we aim to build on the lessons
learned and to generate pragmatic but sensitive solutions to manage complex
ethical issues for HCI researchers working in challenging settings.
Designing Speech and Multimodal Interactions for Mobile, Wearable, and
Pervasive Applications
Workshop Summaries
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Irani, Pourang
/
Oviatt, Sharon
/
Aylett, Matthew
/
Penn, Gerald
/
Pan, Shimei
/
Sharma, Nikhil
/
Rudzicz, Frank
/
Gomez, Randy
/
Nakamura, Keisuke
/
Nakadai, Kazuhiro
Extended Abstracts of the ACM CHI'16 Conference on Human Factors in
Computing Systems
2016-05-07
v.2
p.3612-3619
© Copyright 2016 ACM
Summary: Traditional interfaces are continuously being replaced by mobile, wearable,
or pervasive interfaces. Yet when it comes to the input and output modalities
enabling our interactions, we have yet to fully embrace some of the most
natural forms of communication and information processing that humans possess:
speech, language, gestures, thoughts. Very little HCI attention has been
dedicated to designing and developing spoken language and multimodal
interaction techniques, especially for mobile and wearable devices. In addition
to the enormous, recent engineering progress in processing such modalities,
there is now sufficient evidence that many real-life applications do not
require 100% accuracy of processing multimodal input to be useful, particularly
if such modalities complement each other. This multidisciplinary, two-day
workshop will bring together interaction designers, usability researchers, and
general HCI practitioners to analyze the opportunities and directions to take
in designing more natural interactions with mobile and wearable devices, and to
look at how we can leverage recent advances in speech and multimodal
processing.
Situational Ethics: Re-thinking Approaches to Formal Ethics Requirements for
Human-Computer Interaction
Rethinking Evaluation for Today's HCI
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Molyneaux, Heather
/
Moncur, Wendy
/
Romero, Mario
/
O'Donnell, Susan
/
Vines, John
Proceedings of the ACM CHI'15 Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems
2015-04-18
v.1
p.105-114
© Copyright 2015 ACM
Summary: Most Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers are accustomed to the
process of formal ethics review for their evaluation or field trial protocol.
Although this process varies by country, the underlying principles are
universal. While this process is often a formality, for field research or
lab-based studies with vulnerable users, formal ethics requirements can be
challenging to navigate -- a common occurrence in the social sciences; yet, in
many cases, foreign to HCI researchers. Nevertheless, with the increase in new
areas of research such as mobile technologies for marginalized populations or
assistive technologies, this is a current reality. In this paper we present our
experiences and challenges in conducting several studies that evaluate
interactive systems in difficult settings, from the perspective of the ethics
process. Based on these, we draft recommendations for mitigating the effect of
such challenges to the ethical conduct of research. We then issue a call for
interaction researchers, together with policy makers, to refine existing ethics
guidelines and protocols in order to more accurately capture the
particularities of such field-based evaluations, qualitative studies,
challenging lab-based evaluations, and ethnographic observations.
"My Hand Doesn't Listen to Me!": Adoption and Evaluation of a Communication
Technology for the 'Oldest Old'
HCI for the Elderly
/
Neves, Barbara Barbosa
/
Franz, Rachel L.
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Baecker, Ronald
/
Ngo, Mags
Proceedings of the ACM CHI'15 Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems
2015-04-18
v.1
p.1593-1602
© Copyright 2015 ACM
Summary: Adoption and use of novel technology by the institutionalized 'oldest old'
(80+) is understudied. This population is the fastest growing demographic group
in developed countries, providing design opportunities and challenges for HCI.
Since the recruitment of oldest old people is challenging, research tends to
focus on older adults (65+) and their use of and attitudes towards existing
communication technologies, or on their caregivers and social ties. Our study
deployed a novel communication appliance among five frail oldest old people
living in a long-term care facility, which included field observations and
usability and accessibility tests. Our findings suggest factors that facilitate
and hinder the adoption of communication technologies, such as social,
attitudinal, digital literacy, physical, and usability. We also discuss issues
that arise in studying technology adoption by the oldest old, including
usability and accessibility testing, and suggest solutions that may be helpful
to HCI researchers working with this population.
Ethical Encounters in HCI: Research in Sensitive Settings
Workshop Summaries
/
Waycott, Jenny
/
Davis, Hilary
/
Thieme, Anja
/
Branham, Stacy
/
Vines, John
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
Extended Abstracts of the ACM CHI'15 Conference on Human Factors in
Computing Systems
2015-04-18
v.2
p.2369-2372
© Copyright 2015 ACM
Summary: With HCI researchers conducting studies in increasingly sensitive and
difficult settings, ethics is emerging as a key concern for the HCI community.
New technologies are now being designed and evaluated in settings that involve
vulnerable or marginalized participants and that can be emotionally challenging
for researchers. Research in these settings can produce complex ethical
dilemmas that are often emergent, diverse, and highly contextualized. In
addition, there may be discrepancies between the realities of HCI fieldwork and
the formal and often rigid processes of obtaining ethics approval in research
institutions. Given these issues, it is important for researchers to communally
reflect on ethical encounters in HCI research. This workshop will provide a
forum for researchers to share experiences about ethical challenges they have
faced. These discussions will be used to develop a handbook of practical
lessons representing the breadth and depth of ethical issues emerging in HCI
research in sensitive settings.
Speech-based Interaction: Myths, Challenges, and Opportunities
Course Overviews
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Penn, Gerald
Extended Abstracts of the ACM CHI'15 Conference on Human Factors in
Computing Systems
2015-04-18
v.2
p.2483-2484
© Copyright 2015 ACM
Summary: HCI research has for long been dedicated to better and more naturally
facilitating information transfer between humans and machines. Unfortunately,
humans' most natural form of communication, speech, is also one of the most
difficult modalities to be understood by machines -- despite, and perhaps,
because it is the highest-bandwidth communication channel we possess. While
significant research efforts, from engineering, to linguistic, and to cognitive
sciences, have been spent on improving machines' ability to understand speech,
the HCI community has been relatively timid in embracing this modality as a
central focus of research. This can be attributed in part to the relatively
discouraging levels of accuracy in understanding speech, in contrast with
often-unfounded claims of success from industry, but also to the intrinsic
difficulty of designing and especially evaluating speech and natural language
interfaces. The goal of this course is to inform the CHI community of the
current state of speech and natural language research, to dispel some of the
myths surrounding speech-based interaction, as well as to provide an
opportunity for researchers and practitioners to learn more about how speech
recognition and speech synthesis work, what are their limitations, and how they
could be used to enhance current interaction paradigms. Through this, we hope
that CHI researchers and general HCI, UI, and UX practitioners will learn how
to combine recent advances in speech processing with user-centred principles in
designing more usable and useful speech-based interactive systems.
Speech-based Interaction: Myths, Challenges, and Opportunities
Tutorials
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Penn, Gerald
Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Intelligent User
Interfaces
2015-03-29
v.1
p.437-438
© Copyright 2015 ACM
Summary: HCI research has for long been dedicated to better and more naturally
facilitating information transfer between humans and machines. Unfortunately,
humans' most natural form of communication, speech, is also one of the most
difficult modalities to be understood by machines -- despite, and perhaps,
because it is the highest-bandwidth communication channel we possess. While
significant research efforts, from engineering, to linguistic, and to cognitive
sciences, have been spent on improving machines' ability to understand speech,
the HCI community has been relatively timid in embracing this modality as a
central focus of research. This can be attributed in part to the relatively
discouraging levels of accuracy in understanding speech, in contrast with
often-unfounded claims of success from industry, but also to the intrinsic
difficulty of designing and especially evaluating speech and natural language
interfaces.
The goal of this course is to inform the IUI community of the current state
of speech and natural language research, to dispel some of the myths
surrounding speech-based interaction, as well as to provide an opportunity for
researchers and practitioners to learn more about how speech recognition and
speech synthesis work, what are their limitations, and how they could be used
to enhance current interaction paradigms. Through this, we hope that IUI
researchers and general HCI, UI, and UX practitioners will learn how to combine
recent advances in speech processing with user-centred principles in designing
more usable and useful speech-based interactive systems.
Speech-based interaction: myths, challenges, and opportunities
Interactive tutorials
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Penn, Gerald
Proceedings of 2014 Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile
Devices and Services
2014-09-23
p.567-568
© Copyright 2014 ACM
Summary: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research has for long been dedicated to
better and more naturally facilitating information transfer between humans and
machines. Unfortunately, humans' most natural form of communication, speech, is
also one of the most difficult modalities to be understood by machines. This is
largely due to speech being the highest-bandwidth communication channel we
possess. As such, significant research efforts, from engineering, to
linguistic, and to cognitive sciences, have been spent during the past several
decades on improving machines' ability to understand speech. Yet, the MobileHCI
community (and HCI in general) has been relatively timid in embracing this
modality as a central focus of research. This can be attributed in part to the
relatively discouraging levels of accuracy in understanding speech, in contrast
with often-unfounded claims of success from industry, but also to the intrinsic
difficulty of designing and especially evaluating speech and natural language
interfaces.
The goal of this course is to inform the MobileHCI community of the current
state of speech and natural language research, to dispel some of the myths
surrounding speech-based interaction, as well as to provide an opportunity for
researchers and practitioners to learn more about how speech recognition and
speech synthesis work, what are their limitations, and how they could be used
to enhance current interaction paradigms. Through this, we hope that MobileHCI
researchers and practitioners will learn how to combine recent advances in
speech processing with user-centred principles in designing more usable and
useful speech-based interactive systems.
Designing speech and language interactions
Workshop summaries
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Jones, Matt
/
Whittaker, Steve
/
Oviatt, Sharon
/
Aylett, Matthew
/
Penn, Gerald
/
Brewster, Stephen
/
d'Alessandro, Nicolas
Proceedings of ACM CHI 2014 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
2014-04-26
v.2
p.75-78
© Copyright 2014 ACM
Summary: Speech and natural language remain our most natural forms of interaction;
yet the HCI community have been very timid about focusing their attention on
designing and developing spoken language interaction techniques. While
significant efforts are spent and progress made in speech recognition,
synthesis, and natural language processing, there is now sufficient evidence
that many real-life applications using speech technologies do not require 100%
accuracy to be useful. This is particularly true if such systems are designed
with complementary modalities that better support their users or enhance the
systems' usability. Engaging the CHI community now is timely -- many recent
commercial applications, especially in the mobile space, are already tapping
the increased interest in and need for natural user interfaces (NUIs) by
enabling speech interaction in their products. This multidisciplinary, one-day
workshop will bring together interaction designers, usability researchers, and
general HCI practitioners to analyze the opportunities and directions to take
in designing more natural interactions based on spoken language, and to look at
how we can leverage recent advances in speech processing in order to gain
widespread acceptance of speech and natural language interaction.
Speech-based interaction: myths, challenges, and opportunities
Courses
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Penn, Gerald
Proceedings of ACM CHI 2014 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
2014-04-26
v.2
p.1035-1036
© Copyright 2014 ACM
Summary: HCI research has for long been dedicated to better and more naturally
facilitating information transfer between humans and machines. Unfortunately,
humans' most natural form of communication, speech, is also one of the most
difficult modalities to be understood by machines -- despite, and perhaps,
because it is the highest-bandwidth communication channel we possess. While
significant research efforts, from engineering, to linguistic, and to cognitive
sciences, have been spent on improving machines' ability to understand speech,
the CHI community has been relatively timid in embracing this modality as a
central focus of research. This can be attributed in part to the relatively
discouraging levels of accuracy in understanding speech, in contrast with
often-unfounded claims of success from industry, but also to the intrinsic
difficulty of designing and especially evaluating speech and natural language
interfaces. As such, the development of interactive speech-based systems is
mostly driven by engineering efforts to improve such systems with respect to
largely arbitrary performance metrics, often void of any user-centered design
principles or consideration for usability or usefulness.
The goal of this course is to inform the CHI community of the current state
of speech and natural language research, to dispel some of the myths
surrounding speech-based interaction, as well as to provide an opportunity for
researchers and practitioners to learn more about how speech recognition and
speech synthesis work, what are their limitations, and how they could be used
to enhance current interaction paradigms. Through this, we hope that HCI
researchers and practitioners will learn how to combine recent advances in
speech processing with user-centered principles in designing more usable and
useful speech-based interactive systems.
Fieldwork with vulnerable populations
Features
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Molyneaux, Heather
/
O'Donnell, Susan
interactions
2014-01
v.21
n.1
p.50-53
© Copyright 2014 ACM
Summary: Ethical implications for human-computer interaction research
An accessible, large-print, listening and talking e-book to support families
reading together
Demos
/
Attarwala, Abbas
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Baecker, Ronald
Proceedings of 2013 Conference on Human-computer interaction with mobile
devices and services
2013-08-27
2013-08-27
p.440-443
© Copyright 2013 ACM
Summary: Reading is an activity that is not only informative or pleasurable, but can
have significant social benefits. Especially in a family setting, it is part of
the interaction between children and their parents, it helps create a bond
between children and their grandparents, and even bring adults and their older
parents closer. However, with families increasingly living or spending time in
different locations or managing busy schedules that afford very little time
together, the social opportunities enabled by reading are often lost.
Furthermore, reading can be a challenge for older adults or for those with
impaired eyesight. To address these problems, we are proposing ALLT -- an
Accessible, Large-Print, Listening and Talking e-book. ALLT is a tablet-based
e-reading application that enhances the capabilities of e-book readers through
customizable and intelligent accessibility features. It provides support for
asynchronous "reading together" by synchronizing the audio recording of one
user with the text that is later read by another user. This addresses the needs
of a variety of users, from visually impaired adults reading together with a
loved one, to children being able to replay an interactive story previously
read together with their grandparents. In this demo paper we present ALLT's
features and detail how they support asynchronously reading together.
We'll take it from here: letting the users take charge of the evaluation and
why that turned out well
Case studies: in the wild
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Fournier, Hélàne
/
Lapointe, Jean-François
/
Emond, Bruno
/
Kondratova, Irina
Extended Abstracts of ACM CHI'13 Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems
2013-04-27
v.2
p.2383-2384
© Copyright 2013 ACM
Summary: The operational challenges faced by law enforcement and public safety
personnel are constantly evolving, while the training and certification process
has stayed the same. New technologies such as virtual reality, mixed reality,
or game-based simulators are being researched as promising enhancements to
traditional training methods. However, their widespread adoption, particularly
by smaller units, faces barriers such as cost -- due in no small part to the
difficulties of developing and especially evaluating such large-scale
interactive systems. In this case study, we present MINT -- a low-cost
mixed-reality Multimodal INteractive Training system, aimed at supporting the
training of small- and medium-sized law enforcement and infantry units. We
discuss the challenges and approaches taken in the participatory design of the
training system, its agile-based development and implementation, and its
qualitative evaluation with users and subject-matter experts.
We need to talk: HCI and the delicate topic of spoken language interaction
Panels
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Jones, Matt
/
Oviatt, Sharon
/
Brewster, Stephen
/
Penn, Gerald
/
Whittaker, Steve
/
Rajput, Nitendra
/
Nanavati, Amit
Extended Abstracts of ACM CHI'13 Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems
2013-04-27
v.2
p.2459-2464
© Copyright 2013 ACM
Summary: Speech and natural language remain our most natural form of interaction; yet
the HCI community have been very timid about focusing their attention on
designing and developing spoken language interaction techniques. This may be
due to a widespread perception that perfect domain-independent speech
recognition is an unattainable goal. Progress is continuously being made in the
engineering and science of speech and natural language processing, however, and
there is also recent research that suggests that many applications of speech
require far less than 100% accuracy to be useful in many contexts. Engaging the
CHI community now is timely -- many recent commercial applications, especially
in the mobile space, are already tapping the increased interest in and need for
natural user interfaces (NUIs) by enabling speech interaction in their
products. As such, the goal of this panel is to bring together interaction
designers, usability researchers, and general HCI practitioners to discuss the
opportunities and directions to take in designing more natural interactions
based on spoken language, and to look at how we can leverage recent advances in
speech processing in order to gain widespread acceptance of speech and natural
language interaction.
Tale of two studies: challenges in field research with low-literacy adult
learners in a developed country
Case studies
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Molyneaux, Heather
/
Maitland, Julie
/
McDonald, Daniel
/
Leung, Rock
Extended Abstracts of ACM CHI'12 Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems
2012-05-05
v.2
p.489-504
© Copyright 2012 ACM
Summary: Efforts to address the problems of literacy are often focused on developing
countries. However, functional illiteracy is a challenge encountered by up to
50% of adults in developed countries. In this paper we reflect on the
challenges we faced in trying to design and study the use of a mobile
application to support adult literacy with two user groups: adults enrolled in
literacy classes and carpenters without a high school education enrolled in an
essential skills program. We also elaborate on aspects of the evaluations that
are specific to a marginalized, functionally illiterate, group in a developed
country -- aspects that are less frequently present in similar studies of
mobile literacy support technologies in developing countries. We conclude with
presenting the lessons learnt from our evaluations and the impact of the
studies' specific challenges on the outcome and uptake of such mobile assistive
technologies in providing practical support to low-literacy adults in
conjunction with literacy and essential skills training.
An ecologically valid evaluation of speech summarization
Work-in-progress
/
McCallum, Anthony
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Penn, Gerald
/
Zhu, Xiaodan
Extended Abstracts of ACM CHI'12 Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems
2012-05-05
v.2
p.2219-2224
© Copyright 2012 ACM
Summary: The past decade has witnessed an explosion in the size and availability of
online audio-visual repositories, such as entertainment, news, or lectures.
Summarization systems have the potential to provide significant assistance with
navigating such repositories. Unfortunately, automatically-generated summaries
often fall short of delivering the information needed by users. This is due, in
no small part, to the fact that the natural language heuristics used to
generate summaries are often optimized with respect to currently-used
evaluation metrics. Such metrics simply score automatically-generated summaries
against subjectively-classified gold standards without taking into account the
usefulness of a summary in assisting a user achieve a certain goal or even
overall summary coherence. We have previously shown that an immediate
consequence of this problem is that even the most linguistically-complex
summarization systems perform no better than basic heuristics, such as picking
the longest sentences from a general-topic, spontaneous dialog, or the first
few sentences from a news recording. Our hypothesis is that complex systems are
in fact better, if measured properly. What is thus needed instead are
evaluation metrics (and consequently, automatic summarizers) that incorporate
features such as user preferences and task-orientation. For this, we propose an
ecologically valid evaluation metric that determines the value of a summary
when embedded in a task, rather than how closely a summary matches a gold
standard.
"Showing off" your mobile device: adult literacy learning in the classroom
and beyond
Learning
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Molyneaux, Heather
/
McDonald, Daniel
/
Lumsden, Joanna
/
Leung, Rock
/
Fournier, Hélène
/
Maitland, Julie
Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Human-computer interaction with mobile
devices and services
2011-08-30
p.95-104
© Copyright 2011 ACM
Summary: For a very large number of adults, tasks such as reading. understanding, and
using everyday items are a challenge. Although many community-based
organizations offer resources and support for adults with limited literacy
skills. current programs have difficulty reaching and retaining those that
would benefit most. In this paper we present the findings of an exploratory
study aimed at investigating how a technological solution that addresses these
challenges is received and adopted by adult learners. For this, we have
developed a mobile application to support literacy programs and to assist
low-literacy adults in today's information-centric society. ALEX© (Adult
Literacy support application for Experiential learning) is a mobile language
assistant that is designed to be used both in the classroom and in daily life
in order to help low-literacy adults become increasingly literate and
independent. Through a long-term study with adult learners we show that such a
solution complements literacy programs by increasing users' motivation and
interest in learning, and raising their confidence levels both in their
education pursuits and in facing the challenges of their daily lives.
ALEX: mobile language assistant for low-literacy adults
Demos & experiences
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Lumsden, Joanna
/
Fournier, Hélène
/
Leung, Rock
/
D'Amours, Danny
/
McDonald, Daniel
/
Maitland, Julie
Proceedings of 12th Conference on Human-computer interaction with mobile
devices and services
2010-09-07
p.427-430
Keywords: assistive technology, educational interfaces, interface design, mobile
computing, mobile learning
© Copyright 2010 ACM
Summary: Basic literacy skills are fundamental building blocks of education, yet for
a very large number of adults tasks such as understanding and using everyday
items is a challenge. While research, industry, and policy-making is looking at
improving access to textual information for low-literacy adults, the
literacy-based demands of today's society are continually increasing. Although
many community-based organizations offer resources and support to adults with
limited literacy skills, current programs have difficulties reaching and
retaining those that would benefit most from them. To address these challenges,
the National Research Council of Canada is proposing a technological solution
to support literacy programs and to assist low-literacy adults in today's
information-centric society: ALEX© -- Adult Literacy support application
for EXperiential learning. ALEX© has been created together with
low-literacy adults, following guidelines for inclusive design of mobile
assistive tools. It is a mobile language assistant that is designed to be used
both in the classroom and in daily life, in order to help low-literacy adults
become increasingly literate and independent.
Cell phone software aiding name recall
Spotlight on work in progress session 2
/
Fenwick, Kent
/
Massimi, Michael
/
Baecker, Ronald
/
Black, Sandra
/
Tonon, Kevin
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Rochon, Elizabeth
/
Ryan, David
Proceedings of ACM CHI 2009 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
2009-04-04
v.2
p.4279-4284
Keywords: elderly, handheld devices and mobile computing, user-centered design /
human-centered design
© Copyright 2009 ACM
Summary: Senior citizens often find it difficult to remember names. This paper
describes a novel cell phone application that uses information about one's
social network and the places one frequents to suggest the names of individuals
one might plausibly encounter in a particular place. We anticipate that this
"names prosthesis" will help senior citizens to improve socialization,
functional memory and levels of autonomy. We motivate the need for this
application space before describing our design process, first implementations,
and early testing and iterative improvement of both the concept and the
implementation.
Collaborative editing for improved usefulness and usability of
transcript-enhanced webcasts
Collaborative User Interfaces
/
Munteanu, Cosmin
/
Baecker, Ron
/
Penn, Gerald
Proceedings of ACM CHI 2008 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
2008-04-05
v.1
p.373-382
© Copyright 2008 ACM
Summary: One challenge in facilitating skimming or browsing through archives of
on-line recordings of webcast lectures is the lack of text transcripts of the
recorded lecture. Ideally, transcripts would be obtainable through Automatic
Speech Recognition (ASR). However, current ASR systems can only deliver, in
realistic lecture conditions, a Word Error Rate of around 45% -- above the
accepted threshold of 25%. In this paper, we present the iterative design of a
webcast extension that engages users to collaborate in a wiki-like manner on
editing the ASR-produced imperfect transcripts, and show that this is a
feasible solution for improving the quality of lecture transcripts. We also
present the findings of a field study carried out in a real lecture environment
investigating how students use and edit the transcripts.
Automatic speech recognition for webcasts: how good is good enough and what
to do when it isn't
Poster Session 1
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Munteanu, Cosmin
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Penn, Gerald
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Baecker, Ron
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Zhang, Yuecheng
Proceedings of the 2006 International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces
2006-11-02
p.39-42
Keywords: automatic speech recognition, collaboration, webcasts
© Copyright 2006 ACM
Summary: The increased availability of broadband connections has recently led to an
increase in the use of Internet broadcasting (webcasting). Most webcasts are
archived and accessed numerous times retrospectively. One challenge to skimming
and browsing through such archives is the lack of text transcripts of the
webcast's audio channel. This paper describes a procedure for prototyping an
Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) system that generates realistic transcripts
of any desired Word Error Rate (WER), thus overcoming the drawbacks of both
prototype-based and Wizard of Oz simulations. We used such a system in a user
study showing that transcripts with WERs less than 25% are acceptable for use
in webcast archives. As current ASR systems can only deliver, in realistic
conditions, Word Error Rates (WERs) of around 45%, we also describe a solution
for reducing the WER of such transcripts by engaging users to collaborate in a
"wiki" fashion on editing the imperfect transcripts obtained through ASR.
The effect of speech recognition accuracy rates on the usefulness and
usability of webcast archives
Visualization and search
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Munteanu, Cosmin
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Baecker, Ronald
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Penn, Gerald
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Toms, Elaine
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James, David
Proceedings of ACM CHI 2006 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
2006-04-22
v.1
p.493-502
© Copyright 2006 ACM
Best paper nominee: The authors have conducted an important
experiment that establishes minimum levels of accuracy that will make
automatic speech recognition useful for navigating transcriptions of
webcasts. This result is particularly timely given the growing
availability and use of webcasts in research and education.
Summary: The widespread availability of broadband connections has led to an increase
in the use of Internet broadcasting (webcasting). Most webcasts are archived
and accessed numerous times retrospectively. In the absence of transcripts of
what was said, users have difficulty searching and scanning for specific
topics. This research investigates user needs for transcription accuracy in
webcast archives, and measures how the quality of transcripts affects user
performance in a question-answering task, and how quality affects overall user
experience. We tested 48 subjects in a within-subjects design under 4
conditions: perfect transcripts, transcripts with 25% Word Error Rate (WER),
transcripts with 45% WER, and no transcript. Our data reveals that speech
recognition accuracy linearly influences both user performance and experience,
shows that transcripts with 45% WER are unsatisfactory, and suggests that
transcripts having a WER of 25% or less would be useful and usable in webcast
archives.
