Gary Perlman
Has also published under the name of:
"G. Perlman"
Personal Homepage:
http://acm.org/perlmanCurrent place of employment:
OCLC Online Computer Library CenterGary Perlman develops useful and usable information systems. He is the world's leading organizer of information resources on human-computer interaction.
Publications by Gary Perlman (bibliography)
» 2002 «
Perlman, Gary (2002): Achieving Universal Usability by Designing for Change. In IEEE Internet Computing, 6 (2) pp. 46-55
» 2000 «
Perlman, Gary (2000): The FirstSearch User Interface Architecture: Universal Access for any User, in many Languages, on any Platform. In: Proceedings of the 2000 ACM Conference on Universal Usability 2000. pp. 1-8. Available online
“The OCLC FirstSearch service allows users to search for bibliographic and full text records in over 80 online databases. Web-based, FirstSearch was designed to adapt to unexpected user needs, platform considerations, languages, and changing requirements. The many unknowns during development necessitated an architecture that would allow many types of contributors to modify the interface easily and frequently. For example, marketing, documentation, and user interface designers edited the strings used in the interface, including translation; and user interface and graphic designers edited the screen layout. Structured initialization files with a simple convention for adapting to specific users, platforms, languages, etc., allowed continual broadening of the accessibility of the system without complicating the overall architecture. The paper begins with a discussion of the general requirements for FirstSearch (multi-platform, multilingual, levels of users, low-end hardware, accessible) and the need for better coordination of contributions from the FirstSearch team. The architecture is then described, which partitions the specification of the interface into platform-specific, language-specific, and language/platform independent functional components. The user interface, in the form of Web pages, is then generated dynamically (although it would also be possible to generate static pages). The paper ends with a discussion of experiences with the changes to the interface and a cost-benefit analysis of the architecture, with the overall conclusion that addressing many accessibility issues in the architecture facilitated individual accessibility issues.”
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» 1999 «
Perlman, Gary (1999): The HCI bibliography: ten years old, but what's it done for me lately?. In Interactions, 6 (2) pp. 32-35
“The idea for a free-access online bibliography on human-computer interaction, which resulted in the HCI Bibliography, is over ten years old. Although it started slowly, the HCI Bibliography has grown to over 18,000 entries, most with abstracts, with over 4000 links to full text. Now, with its own web site at www.hcibib.org and its own search service, the HCI Bibliography serves as a central repository for HCI information on the Web (with entries for about 800 Internet resources) and off (with entries for about 400 books over 15 conferences and over 10 major journals). This article (1) summarizes the history of the HCI Bibliography, (2) describes its current holdings, web site, and search service, and (3) considers how and why to offer a free service.”
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Perlman, Gary (1999): Universal Web Access: Delivering Services to Everyone. In ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 31 (4) pp. 53-54
“The following made brief presentations on their work and/or views on universal accessibility. No topic encompassed all possible dimensions of accessibility, but the diversity of topics highlights the potential to broaden markets to include more users. One goal of the session was to to consider how to broaden these and other projects, while another was to determine how a community of people interested in accessibility can share resources. Part of the discussion attempted to answer what to do next. An online repository is being maintained at: http://www.acm.org/~perlman/access/.”
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Perlman, Gary (1999): "Proceedings Sharing Program" at CHI 99. In ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 31 (4) p. 61
Perlman, Gary (1999): The HCI Bibliography and SIGDOC. In ACM SIGDOC *Journal of Computer Documentation, 23 (4) p. 36
“The URL, description, and coverage policy of a web site that unifies most of the HCI literature.”
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Hysell, Deborah A. and Perlman, Gary (1999): Lessons learned from internationalizing a global resource. In: Prabhu, Girish V. and delGaldo, Elisa M. (eds.) Designing for Global Markets 1 - IWIPS 1999 - First International Workshop on Internationalisation of Products and Systems May 20-22, 1999, Rochester, New York, USA. pp. 183-192.
» 1997 «
Hewett, Thomas T., Baecker, Ronald M., Card, Stuart K., Carey, Tom, Gasen, Jean G., Mantei, Marilyn, Perlman, Gary, Strong, Gary W. and Verplank, William (1997). ACM SIGCHI Curricula for Human-Computer Interaction. Retrieved 7 August 2003 from ACM SIGHCI: http://sigchi.org/cdg/index.html
Perlman, Gary (1997): SIGCHI Mailing Lists and Aliases. In ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 29 (2) pp. 40-43
» 1995 «
Grissom, Scott B. and Perlman, Gary (1995): StEP(3D): A Standardized Evaluation Plan for Three-Dimensional Interaction Techniques. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 43 (1) pp. 15-41
“Usability evaluation is a critical component of software development. However skills necessary to develop a valid and reliable evaluation plan may deter some organizations from performing usability evaluations. These organizations would benefit by having an evaluation plan available to them that was already designed for their needs. A standardized evaluation plan (StEP) is designed to evaluate or compare a wide variety of systems that share certain capabilities. StEPs are developed for a specific domain by usability specialists. These plans can then be used by evaluators with limited experience or facilities because the skills necessary to use a StEP are not as demanding as the skills needed to develop a StEP. Techniques have been proposed to make three-dimensional interfaces more flexible and responsive to the user but the usability of these techniques have generally not been evaluated empirically. StEP(3D), a standardized evaluation plan for the usability of three-dimensional interaction techniques, combines performance-based evaluation with a user satisfaction questionnaire. It is designed to be portable and simple enough that evaluators can make comparisons of three-dimensional interaction techniques without special equipment or experience. It evaluates the usability of interaction techniques for performing quick and unconstrained three-dimensional manipulations. Two empirical experiments are reported that demonstrate the reliability and validity of StEP(3D). Experiment 1 shows StEP(3D) is appropriate for comparing techniques on different hardware platforms during summative evaluations. Experiment 2 shows StEP(3D) is sensitive enough to detect subtle changes in an interface during formative design. We make recommendations for developing StEPs based on data we collected and on our experiences with the development of StEP(3D). However, the recommendations are not limited to three-dimensional interaction techniques. Most of the recommendations apply to the development of StEPs in any domain and address issues such as portability, participant selection, experiment protocol and procedures, and usability measures. A collection of StEPs designed for particular domains and purposes would provide a library of reusable evaluation plans. This reusable approach to usability evaluation should reduce the cost of evaluations because organizations are able to take advantage of previously designed plans. At the same time, this approach should improve the quality of usability evaluations because StEPs are developed and validated by usability specialists.”
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Perlman, Gary, Green, Georgia K. and Wogalter, Michael S. (eds.) (1995): Human Factors Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction: Selections from the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society Annual Meetings 1983-1994. Santa Monica, California, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society
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» 1994 «
Gasen, Jean B., Perlman, Gary and Attaya-Kelo, Michelle (1994): Education: Update on the HCI Education Survey. In ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 26 (2) pp. 8-10
Perlman, Gary (1994): "Human-Computer Interaction," by Jenny Preece et al. In ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 26 (4) pp. 82-85
Perlman, Gary and Swan, J. Edward (1994): Relative Effects of Color-, Texture-, and Density-Coding on Visual Search Performance and Subjective Preference. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 38th Annual Meeting 1994. pp. 235-239.
“Previously, it had been found that texture-coding was ineffective at reducing search time (Perlman & Swan, 1993). In the experiment reported here, 16 subjects searched for blank-, color-, texture-, and density-coded targets of varying complexity in a naturalistic task. The data showed that all non-blank methods were significantly and about equally more effective at reducing search time than blank-coding (no coding). The difference of outcome with previous results is explained by task simplification and by the control of possibly confounding factors. The difference suggests that coding techniques using texture, and possibly other methods, should be evaluated in context. The similar performance of color-, texture-, and density-coding is explained by the use of equal-saturation and equal-brightness colors. Recommendations for the design of effective coding methods and for future research are discussed.”
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Perlman, Gary (1994): Electronic Resources for Human Factors and Ergonomics Education: Lessons from Human-Computer Interaction. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 38th Annual Meeting 1994. pp. 399-403.
“I describe four electronic educational resources available via computer networks and electronic mail: (1) a curriculum module on user interface development; (2) a bibliography on human-computer interaction; (3) a description of courses and curricula in human-computer interaction, and (4) a survey of educational opportunities in human-computer interaction. For each of these, I discuss: (1) why the resource was created, (2) how the information was gathered, (3) what information has been gathered, (4) how to access the information, (5) how it has been used in HCI education, and (6) how the information (or information like it) can be applied to Human Factors and Ergonomics (HF/E) education. I conclude with recommendations for the modernization of HF/E information infrastructure.”
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» 1993 «
Perlman, Gary (1993): Information Retrieval Techniques for Hypertext in the Semi-Structured Toolkit. In: Stotts, P. David and Furuta, Richard (eds.) Proceedings of ACM Hypertext 93 Conference November 14-18, 1993, Seattle, Washington. pp. 260-267. Available online
“The Semi-Structured Toolkit (SST) is a C library that provides universal functions based on abstractions for storage format- and data type-dependencies of semi-structured/frame-based information units. The SST provides searching, sorting, viewing, and linking operations for data stored in its native formats, without requiring proprietary formats or conversion. Hypertext capabilities such as linking and outlining are implemented in the SST with inverted indices for each of the fields in semi-structured records. This paper describes the implementation of hypertext capabilities in the SST.”
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Gasen, Jean B. and Perlman, Gary (1993): HCI Education Survey Now Available. In ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 25 (3) pp. 7-8
“The HCI Survey of Educational Programs is now available to colleges, faculty, and students. The survey, developed jointly by Gary Perlman and Jean Gasen, contains information about degree and non-degree programs, faculty, and courses on Human-Computer Interaction. The primary goal of the Survey is to provide prospective students (particularly graduate students) information about educational opportunities, and secondarily to provide HCI educators information about other HCI educators. Unlike some of the other surveys, we wanted the HCI Education Survey to be easily updated and accessed primarily in electronic form. The cost of printing and mailing the survey and the widespread availability of electronic mail and personal computers made the collection and dissemination of an electronic report preferred over print media.”
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Perlman, Gary (1993): The HCI Bibliography Project. In ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 25 (3) pp. 36-37
Perlman, Gary and Swan, II J. Edward (1993): Color versus Texture Coding to Improve Visual Search Performance. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 37th Annual Meeting 1993. pp. 343-347.
“An experiment is reported in which the relative effectiveness of color coding, texture coding, and no coding of target borders to speed visual search is determined. The following independent variables were crossed in a within-subjects factorial design: Color coding (present or not), Texture coding (present or not), Distance between similarly coded targets (near or far), Group size of similarly coded targets (1, 2, 3, or 4), and a Replication factor of target Border width (10, 20, or 30 pixels). Search times, errors, and subjective rankings of the coding methods were recorded. Results showed that color coding improved search time compared to no coding, but that texture coding was not effectively used by subjects, resulting in nearly identical times to encoded targets. Subjective preference rankings reflected the time data. The adequate power of the experiment along with the results of preparatory pilot studies lead us to the conclusion that texture coding is not an effective coding method for improving visual search time.”
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» 1992 «
Perlman, Gary (1992): A Vision of Universal Functionality for Tomorrow's User Interfaces. In: Proceedings of OZCHI92, the CHISIG Annual Conference on Human-Computer Interaction 1992. pp. 1-14. Available online
“In this paper, I describe universal functions -- functions that can be used in all applications -- and how they can be integrated in existing programs at the level of a common user interface. I consider reasons why some universal functions (e.g., search and sort) have failed to gain the same acceptance as others (e.g., print and copy). I describe a function library, the Semi-Structured Toolkit (SST), which provides universal functions based on abstractions for storage format- and data type-dependencies of semi-structured/frame-based information units. I explain how the SST overcomes obstacles to user acceptance of information technology, and end with a call for research on user interfaces for universal functions.”
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» 1991 «
Perlman, Gary (1991): Resources in Human-Computer Interaction: What's Out There and How to Use It. In: Robertson, Scott P., Olson, Gary M. and Olson, Judith S. (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 91 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference April 28 - June 5, 1991, New Orleans, Louisiana. p. 486. Available online
Perlman, Gary (1991): The HCI Bibliography Project. In ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 23 (3) pp. 15-20
“The HCI Bibliography project has just released its first collections of a free-access online extended bibliography on Human-Computer Interaction. The basic goal of the project is to put an online bibliography for most of HCI on the screens of all researchers and developers in the field through anonymous ftp access, mail servers, and Mac and DOS floppy disks. Through the efforts of volunteers, the bibliography is approaching 1000 entries, with abstracts and/or tables of contents; eventually, citation information and hypertext access will be added. The first release contains the complete contents of all the ACM CHI conferences, the complete journal Human-Computer Interaction, and several other important sources. Eventually, all of HCI will be online and freely accessible around the world.”
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» 1990 «
Perlman, Gary, Egan, Dennis E., Ehrlich, Kate, Marchionini, Gary, Nielsen, Jakob and Shneiderman, Ben (1990): Evaluating Hypermedia Systems. In: Carrasco, Jane and Whiteside, John (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 90 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference 1990, Seattle, Washington,USA. pp. 387-390. Available online
“Hypermedia systems provide online access to complex networks of information with the goal of making it easier to find and use information. To validate the utility of their systems, several researchers and system developers have attempted to collect evaluation data on the usability and effectiveness of their systems and the features in their systems. Because of the potential complexity of hypermedia systems and the information structures they may represent, a variety of evaluation measures and methods have been used. These trade off the need for timely feedback in the development of new technology, the difficulty of controlling one or two variables in systems with dozens or hundreds of components, and the goal of gaining an understanding of hypermedia systems. The key issues discussed by the panel include: Ecological Evaluation of New Technologies Embedded in Complex Systems: How can the utility of new technologies be evaluated validly when they must be embedded in complex software systems that include a hardware platform, underlying user interface, and a myriad of functions? Are controlled experiments necessary and can they be performed economically? What problems can occur in naturalistic settings? Measures of Learnability, Usability and Effectiveness: What performance measures are most useful? How does the choice of measure depend on the maturity of a system? on the tasks to be done with a system? Application to Human-Computer System Evaluation in General: What have been some results about hypermedia systems as a result of empirical evaluation? How does the evaluation of hypermedia systems apply to the evaluation of general systems? What guidance can be given to designers and users of hypermedia systems?”
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Thakkar, Umesh, Perlman, Gary and Miller, Dave (1990): Evaluation of the NeXT Interface Builder for Prototyping a Smart Telephone. In ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 21 (3) pp. 80-85
“The programming-by-example paradigm promises to allow non-programmers and programmers alike to develop software more effectively. The NeXT Interface Builder is a tool for prototyping and developing highly graphical user interfaces. To evaluate the effectiveness of the NeXT Interface Builder, we developed the smartPhone application and collected data on the efforts of four programmers' development of a programmable telephone user interface. The main result was that with minimal training, The NeXT Interface Builder allows programmers to develop non-trivial application user interfaces in about an hour. On the negative side, more expertise and effort is required to develop object-oriented applications required for interface to the Interface Builder. We conclude with a recommendation for more empirical evaluation of the NeXT system.”
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Perlman, Gary (1990): Teaching User Interface Development to Software Engineering and Computer Science Majors. In ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 22 (1) pp. 61-66
“There is a critical need for timely and usable curriculum development materials for teaching user interface development to software engineering and computer science students. An updated version of the Software Engineering Institute's curriculum module on User Interface Development has been released. This paper provides an overview of the module, its history, and how it has been used. At the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University there is a Curriculum Development Project as part of the Education Program (Gibbs, 1989). A major goal of the curriculum development project is to devise model curricula and support-materials for teaching all topics in software engineering. For topics such as unit testing, software design, requirements analysis, and so on, there are curriculum modules to help teachers prepare courses. I have written, and recently revised, a module on User Interface Development (Perlman, 1989b), described in detail below. It has proven to be useful to all people interested in the teaching of user interface development to software engineers. Some of my experiences with the module are summarized in Perlman (1988). The module is not a book nor a course, but contains information to help others prepare short- or full-term courses on user interface development.”
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» 1989 «
Perlman, Gary (1989): Asynchronous Design/Evaluation Methods for Hypertext Technology Development. In: Halasz, Frank and Meyrowitz, Norman (eds.) Proceedings of ACM Hypertext 89 Conference November 5-8, 1989, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. pp. 61-81.
“A process model used in the design and evaluation of hypertext systems is discussed. The model includes asynchronous processes of task analysis, document analysis, literature survey and systems evaluation, interpretation of data, designing and building systems, and collecting data. For each process, experiences with NaviText SAM, a hypertext interface to a reference source, are discussed. A variety of new methods for evaluation of experimental systems are presented along with several empirical results.”
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Grissom, S. B., Carlson, W. E. and Perlman, Gary (1989): Tablet-Based Valuators: A Comparison of Virtual Buttons and Hand Gestures for Interactive Computer Graphics. In: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction 1989. pp. 476-483.
“An experiment is conducted to compare two tablet-based virtual input devices for interactive computer graphics. The Gesture method uses hand gestures (kinesthetic correspondence) and the Button method uses a collection of virtual buttons to manipulate graphic objects. Although the Button method is shown to be a simpler design, it performs as well as the Gesture method when a low degree of accuracy is allowed. However, the Gesture method is found to increase user productivity when high accuracy is required. Suggestions are made to improve the performance of the Button method.”
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» 1988 «
Perlman, Gary and Sherwin, Leo C. (1988): Designing Menu Display Format to Match Input Device Format. In ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 20 (2) pp. 78-82
“We report the results of an experiment designed to measure the effects of modeling menu format to match the format of input devices. Subjects were presented with menus in layouts of varying compatibility with two common input devices: IBM PC function keys in a matrix format and the digit keys at the top of standard keyboards. The results showed that the better the match between formats of menus and devices, the lower the selection times. Guidelines for the design of displays suggest that the best way to show items is in a vertical sorted list, which is incompatible with the format of IBM function keys. We conclude that software designers should model menu display formats after the selection hardware.”
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Perlman, Gary (1988): Teaching User Interface Development to Software Engineers. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 32nd Annual Meeting 1988. pp. 391-394.
“Most software engineers have weak backgrounds in areas where human factors engineers are strong: task analysis, applied psychology, and empirical evaluation. Software engineers can become better builders of user interfaces if they are instructed in these techniques, and that is the main goal of the Software Engineering Institute's graduate curriculum module on user interface development. Parts of the module provide instruction about when, where, and how consultants such as human factors engineers can contribute to the design and evaluation of user interfaces. It is critical that human factors engineers understand how they can contribute during development, so that they can have the greatest positive impact.”
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» 1987 «
Perlman, Gary (1987): An Axiomatic Model of Information Presentation. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 31st Annual Meeting 1987. pp. 1229-1233. Available online
“The goal of information layout is to physically display information to reinforce the underlying structure of the information. In this paper, I describe an axiomatic model of information layout. The model has three levels: (1) a device-independent representation for structured information, (2) set of axioms (or rules) relating information structure with display attributes, (3) a set of device dependent display attributes used to distinguish differences and show similarities in information structure. The model infers, using logical deductions from its axioms, how display attributes should be used to show the structure of information. A prototype software system exists that allows interactive design and evaluation of screen layouts. Future research is planned to develop an expert system to aid in the automatic design of layouts, and to refine the prototype into a usable system.”
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» 1985 «
Perlman, Gary (1985): Multilingual Programming: Coordinating Programs, User Interfaces, On-Line Help and Documentation. In: ACM Fourth International Conference on Systems Documentation 1985. pp. 123-129.
“The high cost of software is not due to the difficulty of coding, but in recoding and redocumenting software. This can be better understood when one considers how many expressions of the same ideas must be constructed and coordinated. Program code and comments, user interface and on-line help, and a variety of off-line documents, all must be consistent. A solution to the coordination problem is presented in this paper. Multilingual programming is a method of developing software that uses a database of information to generate multiple target languages like commented program code, user interface languages, and text formatting languages. The method begins with an analysis of a domain to determine key attributes. These are used to describe particular problems in the domain and the description is stored in a database. Attributes in the database are inserted in templates of idioms in a variety of target languages to generate solutions to the original problem. Because each of these solutions is based on the same source database of information, the solutions (documents, programs, etc.) are consistent. If the information changes, the change is made in the database and propagated to all solutions. Conversely, if the form of a solution must change, then only the templates change. In sum, the method saves much effort for updates of documents and programs that must be coordinated by designing for redesign.”
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» 1984 «
Perlman, Gary (1984): Making the Right Choices with Menus. In: Shackel, Brian (ed.) INTERACT 84 - 1st IFIP International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction September 4-7, 1984, London, UK. pp. 317-321.
“Menus provide an effective way to present a limited set of options to users. System designers have to decide how many options to present in what format, and how users will indicate their choices. Two experiments are reported that manipulate (1) menu size, (2) option ordering, (3) option selector type, and (4) selector/option compatibility. The results show (a) people use simple search strategies for ordinary menu sizes, (b) people are sensitive to menu length, (c) sorted menus are easier to search, and (d) letter selectors can produce the best or worst performance depending on compatibility. Some guidelines for menu design and suggestions for further research are discussed.”
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Perlman, Gary (1984): Natural Artificial Languages: Low Level Processes. In International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 20 (4) pp. 373-419
“An artificial language is one created for concise and precise communication within a limited domain such as mathematics. A natural artificial language is one that people find easy to learn and use. I discuss low level properties of natural artificial languages, especially those in which names are chosen for concepts, and symbols are chosen for names, a class of artificial languages I call linguistically mediated artificial languages. These properties include choosing mnemonic symbols for names, and suggestive names for concepts, and using both internally and externally consistent syntax. I outline a model of processing linguistically mediated artificial language and present results from experiments in support of the model. The results of the experiments are applied to the design of a user interface to a programming system, demonstrating their practicality along with their theoretical interest. The research shows the trade-offs in designing natural artificial languages: naturalness in a specific domain is gained at the cost of generality for other domains.”
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Mar 16th, 2010
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