Andy Cockburn
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Publications by Andy Cockburn (bibliography)
» 2009 «
Alexander, Jason, Cockburn, Andy, Fitchett, Stephen, Gutwin, Carl and Greenberg, Saul (2009): Revisiting read wear: analysis, design, and evaluation of a footprints scrollbar. In: Proceedings of ACM CHI 2009 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2009. pp. 1665-1674. Available online
“In this paper, we show that people frequently return to previously-visited regions within their documents, and that scrollbars can be enhanced to ease this task. We analysed 120 days of activity logs from Microsoft Word and Adobe Reader. Our analysis shows that region revisitation is a common activity that can be supported with relatively short recency lists. This establishes an empirical foundation for the design of an enhanced scrollbar containing scrollbar marks that helps people return to previously visited document regions. Two controlled experiments show that scrollbar marks decrease revisitation time, and that a large number of marks can be used effectively. We then design an enhanced Footprints scrollbar that supports revisitation with several features, including scrollbar marks and mark thumbnails. Two further experiments show that the Footprints scrollbar was frequently used and strongly preferred over traditional scrollbars.”
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» 2008 «
Tanvir, Erum, Cullen, Jonathan, Irani, Pourang and Cockburn, Andy (2008): AAMU: adaptive activation area menus for improving selection in cascading pull-down menus. In: Proceedings of ACM CHI 2008 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems April 5-10, 2008. pp. 1381-1384. Available online
“Selecting items in cascading pull-down menus is a frequent task in most GUIs. These selections involve two major components: steering and selection, with the steering component being the most time-consuming and error-prone. We describe a new technique, called Adaptive Activation-Area Menu (AAMU) that eliminate corner steering. AAMUs contain an enlarged activation area which dynamically resizes itself providing a broader steering path for menu navigation. We also combined AAMUs with Force-field menus, to create Force-AAMUs. We empirically demonstrate that AAMUs and Force-AAMUs outperformed the current default menu. We also compared performances of various other menus including Enlarged activation area menus (EMUs) and Gesture based selection with mouse as an input device. Overall, users show higher satisfaction rates for AAMUs over other menu designs.”
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Alexander, Jason and Cockburn, Andy (2008): An Empirical Characterisation of Electronic Document Navigation. In: Proceedings of the 2008 Conference on Graphics Interface May 28-30, 2008, Windsor, Ontario, Canada. pp. 123-130.
“To establish an empirical foundation for analysis and redesign of document navigation tools, we implemented a system that logs all user actions within Microsoft Word and Adobe Reader. We then conducted a four month longitudinal study of fourteen users' document navigation activities. The study found that approximately half of all documents manipulated are reopenings of previously used documents and that recent document lists are rarely used to return to a document. The two most used navigation tools (by distance moved) are the mousewheel and scrollbar thumb, accounting for 44% and 29% of Word movement and 17% and 31% of Reader navigation. Participants were grouped into stereotypical navigator categories based on the tools they used the most. Majority of the navigation actions observed were short, both in distance (less than one page) and in time (less than one second). We identified three types of within document hunting, with the scrollbar identified as the greatest contributor.”
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Buchmann, Volkert, Billinghurst, Mark and Cockburn, Andy (2008): Directional interfaces for wearable augmented reality. In: CHINZ08 - the ACM SIGCHI New Zealand Chapters International Conference on Computer-Human Interaction 2008. pp. 47-54. Available online
“Wearable Augmented Reality can be used to overlay information onto the real world. Directional interfaces in wearable Augmented Reality aid users to orient themselves so that previously invisible targets are now inside their field of view. This is relevant when the user tries to find the next waypoint during a navigational task. We surveyed directional interfaces that have been used in Augmented Reality previously and compared their efficiency. We have found that a circular compass is the most efficient way to provide orientation cues.”
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Casiez, Géry, Vogel, Daniel, Balakrishnan, Ravin and Cockburn, Andy (2008): The Impact of Control-Display Gain on User Performance in Pointing Tasks. In Human-Computer Interaction, 23 (3) pp. 215-250
“We theoretically and empirically examine the impact of control display (CD) gain on mouse pointing performance. Two techniques for modifying CD gain are considered: constant gain (CG) where CD gain is uniformly adjusted by a constant multiplier, and pointer acceleration (PA) where CD gain is adjusted using a nonuniform function depending on movement characteristics. Both CG and PA are evaluated at various levels of relationship between mouse and cursor movement: from low levels, which have a near one-to-one mapping, through to high levels that aggressively amplify mouse movement. We further derive a model predicting the modification in motor-space caused by pointer acceleration. Experiments are then conducted on a standard desktop display and on a very large high-resolution display, allowing us to measure performance in high index of difficulty tasks where the effect of clutching may be pronounced. The evaluation apparatus was designed to minimize device quantization effects and used accurate 3D motion tracking equipment to analyze users' limb movements. On both displays, and in both gain techniques, we found that low levels of CD gain had a marked negative effect on performance, largely because of increased clutching and maximum limb speeds. High gain levels had relatively little impact on performance, with only a slight increase in time when selecting very small targets at high levels of constant gain. On the standard desktop display, pointer acceleration resulted in 3.3% faster pointing than constant gain and up to 5.6% faster with small targets. This supported the theoretical prediction of motor-space modification but fell short of the theoretical potential, possibly because PA caused an increase in target overshooting. Both techniques were accurately modeled by Fitts' law in all gain settings except for when there was a significant amount of clutching. From our results, we derive a usable range of CD gain settings between thresholds of speed and accuracy given the capabilities of a pointing device, display, and the expected range of target widths and distances.”
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Quinn, Philip, Cockburn, Andy and Gutwin, Carl (2008): An investigation of dynamic landmarking functions. In: Levialdi, Stefano (ed.) AVI 2008 - Proceedings of the working conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces May 28-30, 2008, Napoli, Italy. pp. 322-325. Available online
» 2007 «
Ramos, Gonzalo, Cockburn, Andy, Balakrishnan, Ravin and Beaudouin-Lafon, Michel (2007): Pointing lenses: facilitating stylus input through visual-and motor-space magnification. In: Proceedings of ACM CHI 2007 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2007. pp. 757-766. Available online
“Using a stylus on a tablet computer to acquire small targets can be challenging. In this paper we present pointing lenses -- interaction techniques that help users acquire and select targets by presenting them with an enlarged visual and interaction area. We present and study three pointing lenses for pen-based systems and find that our proposed Pressure-Activated Lens is the top overall performer in terms of speed, accuracy and user preference. In addition, our experimental results not only show that participants find all pointing lenses beneficial for targets smaller than 5 pixels, but they also suggest that this benefit may extend to larger targets as well.”
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Hancock, Mark, Carpendale, Sheelagh and Cockburn, Andy (2007): Shallow-depth 3d interaction: design and evaluation of one-, two- and three-touch techniques. In: Proceedings of ACM CHI 2007 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2007. pp. 1147-1156. Available online
“On traditional tables, people frequently use the third dimension to pile, sort and store objects. However, while effective and informative for organization, this use of the third dimension does not usually extend far above the table. To enrich interaction with digital tables, we present the concept of shallow-depth 3D -- 3D interaction with limited depth. Within this shallow-depth 3D environment several common interaction methods need to be reconsidered. Starting from any of one, two and three touch points, we present interaction techniques that provide control of all types of 3D rotation coupled with translation (6DOF) on a direct-touch tabletop display. The different techniques exemplify a wide range of interaction possibilities: from the one-touch technique, which is designed to be simple and natural, but inherits a degree of imprecision from its simplicity; through to three-touch interaction, which allows precise bimanual simultaneous control of multiple degrees of freedom, but at the cost of simplicity. To understand how these techniques support interaction in shallow-depth 3D, we present a user study that examines the efficiency of, and preferences for, the techniques developed. Results show that users are fastest and most accurate when using the three-touch technique and that their preferences were also strongly in favour of the expressive power available from three-touch.”
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Cockburn, Andy, Kristensson, Per-Ola, Alexander, Jason and Zhai, Shumin (2007): Hard lessons: effort-inducing interfaces benefit spatial learning. In: Proceedings of ACM CHI 2007 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2007. pp. 1571-1580. Available online
“Interface designers normally strive for a design that minimises the user's effort. However, when the design's objective is to train users to interact with interfaces that are highly dependent on spatial properties (e.g. keypad layout or gesture shapes) we contend that designers should consider explicitly increasing the mental effort of interaction. To test the hypothesis that effort aids spatial memory, we designed a "frost-brushing" interface that forces the user to mentally retrieve spatial information, or to physically brush away the frost to obtain visual guidance. We report results from two experiments using virtual keypad interfaces -- the first concerns spatial location learning of buttons on the keypad, and the second concerns both location and trajectory learning of gesture shape. The results support our hypothesis, showing that the frost-brushing design improved spatial learning. The participants' subjective responses emphasised the connections between effort, engagement, boredom, frustration, and enjoyment, suggesting that effort requires careful parameterisation to maximise its effectiveness.”
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» 2006 «
Cockburn, Andy, Gutwin, Carl and Alexander, Jason (2006): Faster document navigation with space-filling thumbnails. In: Proceedings of ACM CHI 2006 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2006. pp. 1-10. Available online
“Scrolling is the standard way to navigate through many types of digital documents. However, moving more than a few pages can be slow because all scrolling techniques constrain visual search to only a small document region. To improve document navigation, we developed Space-Filling Thumbnails (SFT), an overview display that eliminates most scrolling. SFT provides two views: a standard page view for reading, and a thumbnail view that shows all pages. We tested SFT in three experiments that involved finding pages in documents. The first study (n=13) compared seven current scrolling techniques, and showed that SFT is significantly faster than the other methods. The second and third studies (n=32 and n=14) were detailed comparisons of SFT with thumbnail-enhanced scrollbars (TES), which performed well in the first experiment. SFT was faster than TES across all document types and lengths, particularly when tasks involved revisitation. In addition, SFT was strongly preferred by participants.”
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Hauber, Jorg, Regenbrecht, Holger, Billinghurst, Mark and Cockburn, Andy (2006): Spatiality in videoconferencing: trade-offs between efficiency and social presence. In: Proceedings of ACM CSCW06 Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work 2006. pp. 413-422. Available online
“In this paper, we explore ways to combine the video of a remote person with a shared tabletop display to best emulate face-to-face collaboration. Using a simple photo application we compare a variety of social and performance measures of collaboration of a standard non-spatial 2D interface with two approaches for adding spatial cues to videoconferencing: one based on simulated immersive 3D, the other based on video streams in a physically fixed arrangement around an interactive table. A face-to-face condition is included as a 'gold-standard' control. As expected, social presence and task measures were superior in the face-to-face condition, but there were also important differences between the 2D and spatial interfaces. In particular, the spatial interfaces positively influenced social presence and copresence measures in comparison to 2D, but the task measures favored the two-dimensional interface.”
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Cockburn, Andy and Gin, Andrew (2006): Faster cascading menu selections with enlarged activation areas. In: Proceedings of the 2006 Conference on Graphics Interface 2006. pp. 65-71. Available online
“Cascading menus are used in almost all graphical user interfaces. Most current cascade widgets implement an explicit delay between the cursor entering/leaving a parent cascade menu item and posting/unposting the associated menu. The delay allows users to make small steering errors while dragging across items, and it allows optimal diagonal paths from parent to cascade items. However, the delay slows the pace of interaction for users who wait for the delay to expire, and it demands jerky discrete movements for experts who wish to pre-empt the delay by clicking. This paper describes Enlarged activation area MenUs (EMUs), which have two features: first, they increase the area of the parent menu associated with each cascade; second, they eliminate the posting and unposting delay. An evaluation shows that EMUs allow cascade items to be selected up to 29% faster than traditional menus, without harming top-level item selection times. They also have a positive smoothing effect on menu selections, allowing continuous sweeping selections in contrast to discrete movements that are punctuated with clicks.”
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Cockburn, Andy and Brock, Philip (2006): Human on-line response to visual and motor target expansion. In: Proceedings of the 2006 Conference on Graphics Interface 2006. pp. 81-87. Available online
“The components of graphical user interfaces can be made to dynamically expand as the cursor approaches, providing visually appealing effects. Expansion can be implemented in a variety of ways: in some cases the targets expand visually while maintaining a constant smaller motor-space for selection; and in others both the visual and motor-spaces of the objects are enlarged. Previous research by McGuffin & Balakrishnan [15], and confirmed by Zhai et al. [19], has shown that enlarged motor-space expansion improves acquisition performance. It remains unclear, however, what proportion of the performance improvement is due to the enlarged motor-space, and what to the confirmation of the over-target state provided by visual expansion. We report on two experiments which indicate that for small targets, visual expansion in unaltered motor-space results in similar performance gains to enlarged motor-spaces. These experiments are based on tasks where users are unable to anticipate the behaviour of the targets. Implications for commercial use of visual expansion in unaltered motor-space are discussed.”
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Jurgens, Volkert, Cockburn, Andy and Billinghurst, Mark (2006): Depth cues for augmented reality stakeout. In: Proceedings of CHINZ06, the ACM SIGCHI New Zealand Chapters International Conference on Computer-Human Interaction 2006. pp. 117-124. Available online
“We present the results of a study that compares a range of depth cues for an augmented reality (AR) stakeout application. AR stakeout is the process of placing a real pole on a virtual marker on the ground. Such an application is for example relevant for construction work or surveying. In AR stakeout, interaction takes place at a distance of about 2m from the eye; a distance that has been neglected by AR depth perception research. We compared the performance of six different AR depth cue conditions at two different accuracy requirements. Subjective preferences were strongly in favour of "cast circle", a depth cue introduced in this paper, while there was no significant difference in performance between the conditions. An analysis of the movement patterns indicated that the participants' targeting strategy relied on kinesthetic rather than visual feedback. These movement patterns provide a vantage point for future strategies of targeting support.”
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Gutwin, Carl and Cockburn, Andy (2006): Improving list revisitation with ListMaps. In: Celentano, Augusto (ed.) AVI 2006 - Proceedings of the working conference on Advanced visual interfaces May 23-26, 2006, Venezia, Italy. pp. 396-403. Available online
» 2005 «
Jones, Steve, Jones, Matt, Marsden, Gary, Patel, Dynal and Cockburn, Andy (2005): An evaluation of integrated zooming and scrolling on small screens. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 63 (3) pp. 271-303
“Speed-dependent automatic zooming (SDAZ) has been proposed for standard desktop displays as a means of overcoming problems associated with the navigation of large information spaces. SDAZ combines zooming and panning facilities into a single operation, with the magnitude of both factors dependent on simple user interaction. Previous research indicated dramatic user performance improvements when using the technique for document and map navigation tasks. In this paper, we propose algorithmic extensions to the technique for application on small-screen devices and present a comparative experimental evaluation of user performance with the system and a normative scroll-zoom-pan interface. Users responded positively to the system, particularly in relation to reduced physical navigational workload. However, the reduced screen space reduced the impact of SDAZ in comparison to that reported in previous studies. In fact, for one-dimensional navigation (vertical document navigation) the normative interface out-performed SDAZ. For navigation in two dimensions (map browsing) SDAZ supports more accurate target location, and also produces longer task completion times. Some SDAZ users became lost within the information space and were unable to recover navigational context. We discuss the reasons for these observations and suggest ways in which limitations of SDAZ in the small-screen context may be overcome.”
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Cockburn, Andy, Savage, Joshua and Wallace, Andrew (2005): Tuning and testing scrolling interfaces that automatically zoom. In: Proceedings of ACM CHI 2005 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2005. pp. 71-80. Available online
“Speed dependent automatic zooming (SDAZ) is a promising refinement to scrolling in which documents are automatically zoomed-out as the scroll rate increases. By automatically zooming, the visual flow rate is reduced enabling rapid scrolling without motion blur. In order to aid SDAZ calibration we theoretically and empirically scrutinise human factors of the speed/zoom relationship. We then compare user performance with four alternative text-document scrolling systems, two of which employ automatic zooming. One of these systems, which we term 'DDAZ', is based on van Wijk and Nuij's recent and important theory that calculates optimal pan/zoom paths between known locations in 2D space. van Wijk and Nuij suggested that their theory could be applied to scrolling, but did not implement or test their formulaic suggestions. Participants in our evaluation (n=27) completed scrolling tasks most rapidly when using SDAZ, followed by DDAZ, normal scrollbars, and traditional rate-based scrolling. Workload assessments and preferences strongly favoured SDAZ. We finish by examining issues for consideration in commercial deployments.”
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Billinghurst, Mark and Cockburn, Andy (eds.) AUIC 2005 - User Interfaces 2005 - Sixth Australasian User Interface Conference January-February, 2005, Newcastle, NSW, Australia.
Rennie, L. and Cockburn, Andy (2005): Aiding Text Entry of Foreign Alphabets with Visual Keyboard Plus. In: Billinghurst, Mark and Cockburn, Andy (eds.) AUIC 2005 - User Interfaces 2005 - Sixth Australasian User Interface Conference January-February, 2005, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. pp. 119-125. Available online
Blinman, Scott and Cockburn, Andy (2005): Program Comprehension: Investigating the Effects of Naming Style and Documentation. In: Billinghurst, Mark and Cockburn, Andy (eds.) AUIC 2005 - User Interfaces 2005 - Sixth Australasian User Interface Conference January-February, 2005, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. pp. 73-78. Available online
Wright, Timothy N. and Cockburn, Andy (2005): Evaluation of Two Textual Programming Notations for Children. In: Billinghurst, Mark and Cockburn, Andy (eds.) AUIC 2005 - User Interfaces 2005 - Sixth Australasian User Interface Conference January-February, 2005, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. pp. 55-62. Available online
» 2004 «
Cockburn, Andy (ed.) AUIC2004 - User Interfaces 2004 - Fifth Australasian User Interface Conference 18-22 January, 2004, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Wallace, Andrew, Savage, Joshua and Cockburn, Andy (2004): Rapid Visual Flow: How Fast Is Too Fast?. In: Cockburn, Andy (ed.) AUIC2004 - User Interfaces 2004 - Fifth Australasian User Interface Conference 18-22 January, 2004, Dunedin, New Zealand. pp. 117-122. Available online
Cockburn, Andy (2004): Revisiting 2D vs 3D Implications on Spatial Memory. In: Cockburn, Andy (ed.) AUIC2004 - User Interfaces 2004 - Fifth Australasian User Interface Conference 18-22 January, 2004, Dunedin, New Zealand. pp. 25-31. Available online
» 2003 «
Cockburn, Andy and Smith, Matthew (2003): Hidden messages: evaluating the efficiency of code elision in program navigation. In Interacting with Computers, 15 (3) pp. 387-407
“Text elision is a user interface technique that aims to improve the efficiency of navigating through information by allowing regions of text to be 'folded' into and out of the display. Several researchers have argued that elision interfaces are particularly suited to source code editing because they allow programmers to focus on relevant code regions while suppressing the display of irrelevant information. Elision features are now appearing in commercial systems for software development. There is, however, a lack of empirical evidence of the technique's efficiency. This paper presents an empirical evaluation of source code elision using a Java program editor. The evaluation compared a normal 'flat text' editor with two versions that diminished elided text to levels that were 'just legible' and 'illegible'. Performance was recorded in four tasks involving navigation through programs. Results show that programmers were able to complete their tasks more rapidly when using the elision interfaces, particularly in larger program files. Although several participants indicated a preference for the just legible elision interface, performance was best with illegible elision.”
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Wright, Timothy N. and Cockburn, Andy (2003): A language and task-based taxonomy of programming environments. In: HCC 2003 - IEEE Symposium on Human Centric Computing Languages and Environments 28-31 October, 2003, Auckland, New Zealand. pp. 192-194.
Jasonsmith, Michael and Cockburn, Andy (2003): Get a Way Back: Evaluating Retrieval from History Lists. In: Biddle, Robert and Thomas, Bruce H. (eds.) AUIC2003 - User Interfaces 2003 - Fourth Australasian User Interface Conference February , 2003, Adelaide, South Australia. pp. 33-38. Available online
Moyle, Michael and Cockburn, Andy (2003): The Design and Evaluation of a Flick Gesture for 'Back' and 'Forward' in Web Browsers. In: Biddle, Robert and Thomas, Bruce H. (eds.) AUIC2003 - User Interfaces 2003 - Fourth Australasian User Interface Conference February , 2003, Adelaide, South Australia. pp. 39-46. Available online
» 2002 «
Cockburn, Andy and McKenzie, Bruce (2002): Evaluating the effectiveness of spatial memory in 2D and 3D physical and virtual environments. In: Terveen, Loren (ed.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 2002 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference April 20-25, 2002, Minneapolis, Minnesota. pp. 203-210.
Cockburn, Andy, McKenzie, Bruce and Jasonsmith, Michael (2002): Pushing back: evaluating a new behaviour for the back and forward buttons in web browsers. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 57 (5) pp. 397-414
“The Back button on web browsers is one of the world's most heavily used user
interface components, yet its behaviour is commonly misunderstood. This paper
describes the evaluation of a "temporal" alternative to the normal
"stack-based" behaviour of Back and Forward. The main difference of the
temporal scheme is that it maintains a complete list of previously visited
pages. The evaluation compares the efficiency of the stack and temporal schemes
in an "out of the box" scenario in which participants were asked to use a "new"
version of a commercial browser without any explanation of the presence or
absence of new features. This scenario allows us to predict the likely
usability impact if commercial browsers were released supporting the temporal
scheme. The results showed that the relative efficiency of the two schemes
differed across different types of navigational task. In particular, the
temporal system poorly supported backtracking to parent pages, but performed
better for more distant navigation tasks. The temporal scheme also caused
extreme usage patterns, with the subjects either solving tasks very efficiently
or very inefficiently, depending on whether they used the Back menu. This
observation indicates that adaptations of the temporal system that improve the
effectiveness of the Back menu may enhance web navigation.”
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Wright, Timothy N. and Cockburn, Andy (2002): Mulspren: a MUltiple Language Simulation PRogramming ENvironment. In: HCC 2002 - IEEE CS International Symposium on Human-Centric Computing Languages and Environments 3-6 September, 2002, Arlington, VA, USA. pp. 101-103. Available online
Butts, Lee and Cockburn, Andy (2002): An Evaluation of Mobile Phone Text Input Methods. In: Grundy, John C. and Calder, Paul R. (eds.) AUIC2002 - User Interfaces 2002 - Third Australasian User Interface Conference January-February, 2002, Melbourne, Victoria. pp. 55-59. Available online
» 2001 «
Cockburn, Andy and McKenzie, Bruce (2001): 3D or Not 3D?: Evaluating the Effect of the Third Dimension in a Document Management System. In: Beaudouin-Lafon, Michel and Jacob, Robert J. K. (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 2001 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference March 31 - April 5, 2001, Seattle, Washington, USA. pp. 434-441. Available online
“Several recent research systems have provided interactive three-dimensional (3D) visualisations for supporting everyday work such as file and document management. But what improvements do these 3D interfaces offer over their traditional 2D counterparts? This paper describes the comparative evaluation of two document management systems that differ only in the number of dimensions used for displaying and interacting with the data. The 3D system is heavily based on Robertson et al.'s Data Mountain, which supports users in storing, organising and retrieving 'thumbnail' representations of documents such as bookmarked Web-pages. Results show that our subjects were faster at storing and retrieving pages in the display when using the 2D interface, but not significantly so. As expected, retrieval times significantly increased as the number of thumbnails increased. Despite the lack of significant differences between the 2D and 3D interfaces, subjective assessments showed a significant preference for the 3D interface.”
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Cockburn, Andy and McKenzie, Bruce (2001): What do Web Users Do? An Empirical Analysis of Web Use. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 54 (6) pp. 903-922
“This paper provides an empirical characterization of user actions at the web browser. The study is based on an analysis of 4 months of logged client-side data that describes user actions with recent versions of Netscape Navigator. In particular, the logged data allow us to determine the title, URL and time of each page visit, how often they visited each page, how long they spent at each page, the growth and content of bookmark collections, as well as a variety of other aspects of user interaction with the web. The results update and extend prior empirical characterizations of web use. Among the results we show that web page revisitation is a much more prevalent activity than previously reported (approximately 81% of pages have been previously visited by the user), that most pages are visited for a surprisingly short period of time, that users maintain large (and possibly overwhelming) bookmark collections, and that there is a marked lack of commonality in the pages visited by different users. These results have implications for a wide range of web-based tools including the interface features provided by web browsers, the design of caching proxy servers, and the design of efficient web sites.”
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McKenzie, Bruce J. and Cockburn, Andy (2001): An Empirical Analysis of Web Page Revisitation. In: HICSS 2001 2001. . Available online
» 1999 «
Cockburn, Andy and Weir, Philip (1999): An Investigation of Groupware Support for Collaborative Awareness Through Distortion-Oriented Views. In International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 11 (3) pp. 231-255
“This article reviews models and theoretical frameworks of collaborative awareness in the use of real-time groupware systems. The review is used to motivate and guide an investigation of distortion-oriented mechanisms for supporting collaborators' fluid and dynamic awareness requirements. We describe our development and evaluation of DOME, a distortion-oriented multiuser editor. Although we designed DOME to provide a realistic and useful platform for the investigation of awareness concepts, our evaluation revealed major flaws in its support for distortion-oriented awareness. We analyze the cause of these errors, some of which were not detected in prior work, and provide precise formulations that will overcome them.”
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» 1998 «
Cockburn, Andy and Greenberg, Saul (1998): The Design and Evolution of Turboturtle, a Collaborative Microworld for Exploring Newtonian Physics. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 48 (6) pp. 777-801
“TurboTurtle is a dynamic multi-user microworld for the exploration of Newtonian physics. With TurboTurtle, students can alter the attributes of the simulation environment, such as gravity, friction, and presence or absence of walls. Students explore the microworld by manipulating a variety of parameters, and learn concepts by studying the behaviours and interactions that occur. TurboTurtle has evolved into a "group-aware" system where several students, each on their own computer, can simultaneously control the microworld and gesture around the shared display. TurboTurtle's design rationale includes concepts such as equal opportunity controls, simulation timing, concrete vs. abstract controls, recoverability, and how strictly views should be shared between students. Teachers can also add structure to the group's activities by setting the simulation environment to an interesting state, which includes a set of problems and questions. Observations of pairs of young children using TurboTurtle highlight extremes in collaboration styles, from conflict to smooth interaction. Finally, the technical work in making TurboTurtle group-aware is slight, primarily because it was built with a groupware toolkit called GroupKit.”
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Weir, Philip and Cockburn, Andy (1998): Distortion-Oriented Workspace Awareness in DOME. In: Johnson, Hilary, Nigay, Laurence and Roast, C. R. (eds.) Proceedings of the Thirteenth Conference of the British Computer Society Human Computer Interaction Specialist Group - People and Computers XIII August 1-4, 1998, Sheffield, UK. pp. 239-252.
“Distortion-oriented visualization techniques such as magnification-lenses, zooming functions and fish-eye views are useful in a wide range of single-user computing systems. They assist visualization of large information spaces by easing the transition between high-levels of detail in a local area of interest and the global context of the information space. In real-time groupware environments, distortion-oriented visualizations offer additional benefits. By providing one distorted region for each user of a groupware workspace, users can maintain an awareness of the location and activities of their colleagues while simultaneously having a focused area of detail for their own work. We describe the design and evaluation of DOME, a fully-functional distortion-oriented multi-user editor. Unexpected usability problems and potential solutions are discussed.”
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Cockburn, Andy and Bryant, Andrew (1998): Cleogo: Collaborative and Multi-Metaphor Programming for Kids. In: Third Asian Pacific Computer and Human Interaction July 15-17, 1998, Kangawa, Japan. pp. 189-195. Available online
» 1997 «
Cockburn, Andy and Dale, Tony (1997): CEVA: A Tool for Collaborative Video Analysis. In: Payne, Stephen C. and Prinz, Wolfgang (eds.) Proceedings of the International ACM SIGGROUP Conference on Supporting Group Work 1997 November 11-19, 1997, Phoenix, Arizona, USA. pp. 47-55. Available online
“Video protocol analysis is a standard technique in many research disciplines including human-computer interaction and computer supported cooperative work. It is notoriously time consuming, and a variety of single-user computer based tools have been developed to ease the task. This paper examines collaborative video analysis. The motivation for groupware tools for video analysis is described, and the desirable features of such tools are identified. The design, implementation, and preliminary evaluation of a prototype synchronous groupware tool for video analysis, CEVA, are described.”
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» 1996 «
Jones, Steve and Cockburn, Andy (1996): A Study of Navigational Support Provided by Two World Wide Web Browsing Applications. In: Hypertext 96 - Proceedings of the Seventh ACM Conference on Hypertext March 16-20, 1996, Washington, DC. pp. 161-169. Available online
“This paper describes a usability study of the Hypertext navigation facilities provided by two popular World Wide Web client applications (also termed 'browsers'). We detail the navigation tools provided by the clients and describe their underlying page retrieval models. We introduce a notation that represents the system states resulting from the user's navigation actions in World Wide Web subspaces. The notation is used to analyse the client applications. We find that the client user interfaces present a model of navigation that conflicts with the underlying stack-based system model. A small usability study was carried out to investigate the effects of the clients' browser behaviour on users. The study reveals that users have incorrect models of their navigation support, and they have little confidence in the application of their models when using the clients. The paper concludes with a description of future work and a discussion of implications for WWW page and client designers.”
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Cockburn, Andy and Jones, Steve (1996): Which Way Now? Analysing and Easing Inadequacies in WWW Navigation. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 45 (1) pp. 105-129
“This paper examines the usability of the hypertext navigation facilities provided by World Wide Web client applications. A notation is defined to represent the user's navigational acts and the resultant system states. The notation is used to report potential, or "theoretical" problems in the models of navigation supported by three web client applications. A usability study confirms that these problems emerge in actual use, and demonstrates that incorrect user models of the clients' facilities are common. A usability analysis identifies inadequacies in the clients' interfaces. Motivated by the analysis of usability problems, we propose extensions to the design of WWW client applications. These proposals are demonstrated by our system WEBNET which uses dynamic graphical overview diagrams to extend the navigational facilities of conventional World Wide Web client applications. Related work on graphical overview diagrams for web navigation is reviewed.”
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Greenberg, Saul, Gutwin, Carl and Cockburn, Andy (1996): Using Distortion-Oriented Displays to Support Workspace Awareness. In: Sasse, Martina Angela, Cunningham, R. J. and Winder, R. L. (eds.) Proceedings of the Eleventh Conference of the British Computer Society Human Computer Interaction Specialist Group - People and Computers XI August, 1996, London, UK. pp. 299-314.
“Desktop conferencing systems are now moving away from strict view-sharing and towards relaxed 'what you see is what I see' (relaxed-WYSIWIS) interfaces, where distributed participants in a real time session can view different parts of a shared visual workspace. As with strict view-sharing, people using relaxed-WYSIWIS require a sense of workspace awareness -- the up-to-the-minute knowledge about another person's interactions with the shared workspace. The problem is deciding how to provide a user with an appropriate level of awareness of what other participants are doing when they are working in different areas of the workspace. In this paper, we propose distortion-oriented displays as a novel way of providing this awareness. These displays, which employ magnification lenses and fisheye view techniques, show global context and local detail within a single window, providing both peripheral and detailed awareness of other participants' actions. Three prototypes are presented as examples of groupware distortion-oriented displays: the fisheye text viewer, the offset lens, and the head-up lens.”
Copyrights may apply
Greenberg, Saul, Gutwin, Carl and Cockburn, Andy (1996): Awareness through fisheye views in relaxed-WYSIWIS groupware. In: Graphics Interface 96 May 22-24, 1996, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. pp. 28-38. Available online
» 1995 «
Cockburn, Andy and Jones, Steve (1995): Four Principles of Groupware Design. In Interacting with Computers, 7 (2) pp. 195-210
“Groupware design is at a stage where identification, clarification and validation of best practice is critical if its potential is to be realised. The paper examines and records the major causes of groupware failure, and provides four groupware design principles that encapsulate the problems and guide design teams around them. The principles provide an extendable framework that is a synthesis of design lessons recorded in CSCW literature.”
Copyrights may apply
» 1994 «
Cockburn, Andy and Jones, Steve (1994): Four Principles for Groupware Design. In: Proceedings of OZCHI94, the CHISIG Annual Conference on Human-Computer Interaction 1994. pp. 21-26.
“Participatory design amalgamates the expertise of interdisciplinary specialists with the task-specific expertise of end-users. Groupware design is widely recognised as benefiting from participative approaches. Recognition of this ideal, however, does not preclude the failure of groupware design due to poor communication and inadequate understanding. This paper provides a grounding in the problems affecting groupware's success, and introduces four design principles. These principles guide all those involved in design around the pitfalls that have been encountered, some repeatedly, by groupware.”
Copyrights may apply
Cockburn, Andy (1994): Turbo-Turtle: Educating Children in an Alternative Reality Universe. In: Proceedings of OZCHI94, the CHISIG Annual Conference on Human-Computer Interaction 1994. pp. 99-105.
“This paper describes an educational programming language called turbo-turtle. Turbo-turtle is an extended dialect of Logo that allows Logo turtles to be assigned physical properties such as mass, velocity, friction, and acceleration. The users, primarily children, experiment with Newtonian Laws of motion in an abstracted, dynamic, and engaging environment. In turbo-turtle's "alternative reality universe" children play with physics. The human factors and interface issues that govern the success of turbo-turtle are examined both a the interface and through it.”
Copyrights may apply
» 1993 «
Cockburn, Andy and Thimbleby, Harold (1993): Reducing User Effort in Collaboration Support. In: Gray, Wayne D., Hefley, William and Murray, Dianne (eds.) International Workshop on Intelligent User Interfaces 1993 January 4-7, 1993, Orlando, Florida, USA. pp. 215-218. Available online
“The value of electronic mail as a medium for collaborative and coordinated work can be enhanced by relating messages to conversations. While some groupware systems have offered such facilities, their ability to assess conversational context is dependent on explicit user action and the use of specific systems by all collaborators. This paper describes Mona, a novel conversation based email platform. Mona provides a hypertext representation of conversational context without requiring any additional effort from the user or the use of specific email systems by other collaborators. Mona's lack of requirements and independence is made possible by inferring conversational context with heuristics using information inherently transferred in all email communications. Mona's heuristics are described, as are its mechanisms for personalising conversation views.”
Copyrights may apply
Cockburn, Andy and Greenberg, Saul (1993): Making Contact: Getting the Group Communicating with Groupware. In: Kaplan, Simon M. (ed.) Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Organizational Computing Systems 1993 November 1-4, 1993, Milpitas, California, USA. pp. 31-41. Available online
“While groupware is readily available, people on wide area networks -- such as the Internet -- have considerable trouble contacting each other and setting up groupware connections. To pinpoint why this occurs, this paper identifies human factors critical to getting a group communicating through groupware. It addresses how people find suitable partners, and how people choose appropriate communication mediums. These factors are discussed in detail, and form a design foundation for systems that promote social presence and that integrate communication. Existing systems are critically reviewed and shown to be inadequate for general use over a wide area net, for they either do not meet some basic design criteria, or they require a very high technological entry level that is beyond the reach of most computer users. As an alternative, the paper presents the design considerations behind TELEFREEK, a flexible, extensible, and customizable platform for collaboration. Drawing on resources freely available to the Internet community, TELEFREEK assists people making contact with others, and integrates access to common communication facilities.”
Copyrights may apply
» 1992 «
Cockburn, Andy and Thimbleby, Harold (1992): Automatic Conversational Context: Avoiding Dependency on User Effort in Groupware. In: Proceedings of OZCHI92, the CHISIG Annual Conference on Human-Computer Interaction 1992. pp. 142-149.
“Relating individual messages to their on-going conversations enhances the value of electronic mail as a medium for collaborative and coordinated work. Some groupware systems have offered these facilities, but their ability to determine conversational context is dependent on explicit user actions -- being told -- and the use of specific systems by all users involved. This paper describes Mona, an email system that provides an automatic hypertext representation of conversational context. Mona is novel in that conversation facilities are provided without requiring any user effort or the use of particular systems by other collaborators. This lack of requirements and independence is made possible by inferring conversational context with heuristics from information inherent in all email communications. Mona's heuristics are described, together with its central design motivation: that the cost/benefit disparity resulting from dependency on user actions is liable to cause system rejection.”
Copyrights may apply
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Mar 18th, 2010
Changes to this page (author)
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