“I use free sources like Interaction-Design.org so often that I have an obligation to recognize its value and support its continued presence”
Last 3 Donors
Support us
Funding progress for 2010:
Kent L. Norman
"Kent Norman" and "K. L. Norman"
About the author:
No description available of Kent L. Norman...Publications by Kent L. Norman (bibliography)
» 2006 «
Norman, Kent L. and Panizzi, Emanuele (2006): Levels of automation and user participation in usability testing. In Interacting with Computers, 18 (2) pp. 246-264
“This paper identifies a number of factors involved in current practices of usability testing and presents profiles for three prototype methods: think-aloud, subjective ratings, and history files. We then identify ideal levels to generate the profile for new methods. These methods involve either a human observer or a self-administration of the test by the user. We propose methods of automating the evaluation form by dynamically adding items and modifying the form and the tasks in the process of the usability test. For self-administration of testing, we propose similar ideas of dynamically automating the forms and the tasks. Furthermore, we propose methods of eliciting the user's goals and focus of attention. Finally, we propose that user testing methods and interfaces should be subjected to usability testing.”
Marsico, Maria De, Kimani, Stephen, Mirabella, Valeria, Norman, Kent L. and Catarci, Tiziana (2006): A proposal toward the development of accessible e-learning content by human involvement. In Universal Access in the Information Society, 5 (2) pp. 150-169
“Most of the existing efforts for supporting the design, preparation, and deployment of accessible e-learning applications propose guidelines that primarily address technical accessibility issues. Little, if any, consideration is given to the real actors involved in the learning experience, such as didactical experts and disabled learners. Moreover, implementing artifacts addressed to the e-learning world requires a wide range of particular skills which are related not only to technical but also to didactical, pedagogical, usability, and accessibility aspects of the produced material. This paper argues that the know-how of a number of stakeholders should be blended into a joint design activity, and that it should be possible to determine the role of each participant in the successive phases of the development lifecycle of e-learning applications. The paper sketches the methodological guidelines of a design framework based on involving the users with disabilities, as well as pedagogical experts, in the development process. The novelty of this proposal mainly stems from being built up around the core of strategies and choices specifically bound to accessibility requirements. Characteristic elements of learner-centered design are then further integrated into processes and methodologies which are typical of participatory and contextual design approaches. Following such guidelines, it will be possible to gain a deeper understanding of the requirements and of the operational context of people needing accessible material, either as learners or educators. The underlying objective is to increase the potential to realize learning systems that better meet different user needs and that provide a more satisfying learning experience. Moreover, when people get involved in the development process, they gain a sense of ownership of the system and are therefore more likely to accept and "promote" it.”
» 2003 «
Norman, Kent L., Zhao, H., Shneiderman, Ben and Golub, E. (2003): Dynamic Query Choropleth Maps for Information Seeking and Decision Making. In: Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction 2003. pp. 1263-1267.
» 2002 «
Zaphiris, Panayiotis, Shneiderman, Ben and Norman, Kent L. (2002): Expandable indexes vs. sequential menus for searching hierarchies on the World Wide Web. In Behaviour and Information Technology, 21 (3) pp. 201-207
“An experiment is reported that compared expandable indexes providing full menu context with sequential menus providing only partial context. Menu depth was varied using hierarchies of two, three and four levels deep in an asymmetric structure of 457 root level items. Menus were presented on the World Wide Web within a browser. Participants searched for specific targets. Results suggest that reducing the depth of hierarchies improves performance in terms of speed and search efficiency. Surprisingly, expandable indexes resulted in poorer performance with deeper hierarchies than did sequential menus.”
» 2001 «
Norman, Kent L., Friedman, Zachary, Norman, Kent L. and Stevenson, Rod (2001): Navigational issues in the design of online self-administered questionnaires. In Behaviour and Information Technology, 20 (1) pp. 37-45
“Answering questions on surveys involves the access of internal knowledge structures, the retrieval of records from external databases and the navigation of items on the interface. In this study a number of alternative designs for online questionnaire presentation were investigated. A long heterogeneous survey was partitioned in four ways: whole form, semantic sections, screen pages and single items. Questionnaires were presented with or without an index, resulting in eight versions. Neither initial completion times nor subjective assessments differed among the eight versions due to the highly linear navigation of the surveys. Respondents were asked to revisit 16 questions based on the topic of the question or on the question number and to change their answers. Revision times reflected ease of finding items in the structure of the survey and the use of an index to the sections of the questionnaire.”
» 1998 «
Alonso, Diane Lindwarm, Rose, Anne, Plaisant, Catherine and Norman, Kent L. (1998): Viewing Personal History Records: A Comparison of Tabular Format and Graphical Presentation Using LifeLines. In Behaviour and Information Technology, 17 (5) pp. 249-262
“Thirty-six participants used a static version of either LifeLines, a graphical interface, or a tabular representation to answer questions about a database of temporal personal history information. Results suggest that overall the LifeLines representation led to much faster response times, primarily for questions which involved interval comparisons and making intercategorical connections. A 'first impression' test showed that LifeLines can reduce some of the biases of the tabular record summary. A post-experimental memory test led to significantly (p< 0.004) higher recall for LifeLines. Finally, simple interaction techniques are proposed to compensate for the problems of the static LifeLines display's ability to deal with precise dates, attribute coding and overlaps.”
Alonso, Diane Lindwarm and Norman, Kent L. (1998): Apparency of Contingencies in Single Panel and Pull-Down Menus. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 49 (1) pp. 59-78
“In menu interfaces what is shown is not always what is available and how to make it available is not always apparent. This is the problem when items on a single panel or a pull-down menu are disabled. Generally, the underlying structure of an interface is hidden from the user's view, and it may be quite difficult for the user to figure out the sequence of selections to enable the desired options. Users high in spatial visualization ability (SVA) are often quick to learn the contingencies underlying the menus and are not severely hindered by this problem; however, low SVA users generally experience substantial difficulty in visualizing these contingencies and often get lost. We conducted two experiments to determine whether revealing hidden contingencies through visual cues would facilitate the performance of low SVA users on a computerized path-finding task. In general, it was found that increasing interface apparency benefits all users, but particularly those with low SVA. Specifically, methods of displaying single paths in a menu hierarchy using either lines or color coding were the most effective.”
» 1995 «
Harper, Ben D., Mackenzie, Colin F. and Norman, Kent L. (1995): Quantitative Measures in the Ergonomic Examination of the Trauma Resuscitation Units Anesthesia Workspace. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 39th Annual Meeting 1995. pp. 723-727.
“This study examines the anesthesia care providers' workspace in the trauma resuscitation bay of the shock/trauma unit of a university hospital. Intubation, the placement of a tube into the trachea to facilitate ventilation, is performed in critical cases brought to the trauma resuscitation unit. This analysis focuses on the task of intubation and explores the utility of a measure of equipment location efficiency called Workspace Appropriateness.”
Shneiderman, Ben, Alavi, Maryam, Norman, Kent L. and Borkowski, Ellen Yu (1995): Windows of Opportunity in Electronic Classrooms. In Communications of the ACM, 38 (11) pp. 19-24
» 1994 «
Norman, Kent L. (1994): Navigating the educational space with hypercourseware. In Hypermedia, 6 (1) pp. 35-60
“Navigation is a spatial metaphor for the activity of steering a course through hypermedia. When hypermedia is used in the context of education, navigation takes on a number of critical functions related to learning (e.g. acquisition, generation, and organization of knowledge) as well as the service functions related to the database (e.g. retrieval, storage, and database management). This article attempts to articulate the concept of navigation in hypermedia for education and to unpack the complexity of the metaphor in the educational context. Principles of good hypermedia and interface design are proposed based on a review of relevant literature pertaining to navigation, menu selection, and information retrieval. In the course of this discussion, a number of tools are suggested that may serve as navigational aids, retrieval aids, organizational aids, and planning aids. Finally, the article considers the application of these ideas to the design of a hypermedia environment for interactive/collaborative learning in a fully integrated electronic classroom. An environment called HyperCourseware is described which acts as an infrastructure supporting the materials and methods of education. HyperCourseware instantiates in hypermedia form the traditional materials of education such as the syllabus, lecture notes, exams, and class roll as well as interactive methods for group discussion, exchange of ideas, student polling, feedback, and collaborative group note taking. Navigation in HyperCourseware involves the traversal of shared course materials as well as personal notes as they are generated in the hypermedia space. Furthermore, navigation must be considered as traversal by individual students, by the instructor, by the class as a group, and by various collaborative combinations.”
» 1991 «
Norman, Kent L. (1991): The Psychology of Menu Selection: Designing Cognitive Control of the Human/Computer Interface. Norwood, NJ, Intellect
View info on Amazon.com or .co.uk 
» 1989 «
Norman, Kent L. and Chin, John P. (1989): The Menu Metaphor: Food for Thought. In Behaviour and Information Technology, 8 (2) pp. 125-134
“Menu selection in human/computer interaction is a metaphor of the restaurant menu. Although menu selection is widely used, its scope is currently limited, ill-defined, and information lean. A comparison of the restaurant menu and the computer menu reveal three avenues of improvement in menu systems. The correspondence of elements and features between restaurant and computer menus suggests that this powerful metaphor should be more fully developed. Second, there are a number of advantages of dynamic computer menus over static listings common to restaurants. Finally, restaurant menus currently have the advantage of breadth, richness, and graphic layout as well as a natural support system (the server) that is unparalleled in current computer applications. An analysis of deficiences in computer menus should prove invaluable in developing the next generation of menu selection techniques.”
» 1988 «
Chin, John P., Diehl, Virginia A. and Norman, Kent L. (1988): Development of an Instrument Measuring User Satisfaction of the Human-Computer Interface. In: Soloway, Elliot, Frye, Douglas and Sheppard, Sylvia B. (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 88 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference June 15-19, 1988, Washington, DC, USA. pp. 213-218. Available online
“This study is a part of a research effort to develop the Questionnaire for User Interface Satisfaction (QUIS). Participants, 150 PC user group members, rated familiar software products. Two pairs of software categories were compared: 1) software that was liked and disliked, and 2) a standard command line system (CLS) and a menu driven application (MDA). The reliability of the questionnaire was high, Cronbach's alpha=.94 The overall reaction ratings yielded significantly higher ratings for liked software and MDA over disliked software and a CLS, respectively. Frequent and sophisticated PC users rated MDA more satisfying, powerful and flexible than CLS. Future applications of the QUIS on computers are discussed.”
Norman, Kent L. and Chin, John P. (1988): The Effect of Tree Structure on Search in a Hierarchical Menu Selection System. In Behaviour and Information Technology, 7 (1) pp. 51-65
“Search processes in a hierarchical menu selection system were investigated in a study that varied the structure of the tree. A hierarchical data base was composed of 256 gift items grouped into different clusters and presented using menus. Depth of the tree was held constant while breadth varied with level. Five structures were explored with the following number of alternatives at each of four levels: constant (4 x 4 x 4 x 4), decreasing (8 x 8 x 2 x 2), increasing (2 x 2 x 8 x 8), concave (8 x 2 x 2 x 8), and convex (2 x 8 x 8 x 2). Subjects searched for either specifically named gifts (explicit targets) or gifts appropriate for a scenario situation (scenario targets). In general, explicit targets took less time to find and fewer frames to traverse than for scenario targets. For explicit targets, the increasing menu was slightly superior to the rest. Search time was about the same across the five tree structures for explicit targets, but differed greatly for scenario targets. The concave and increasing structures were faster than the constant structure and the convex and decreasing structures were slower. Similar results were found for the number of frames traversed. The patterns of search also differed greatly among the five structures in terms of the frequency of use of the 'previous' command and the 'top' command. The 'previous' command was used most frequently with the convex menu and least frequently with the concave menu. For scenario targets, the 'top' command was used most frequently with the decreasing menu and least frequently with the increasing menu. For explicit targets, the 'top' command was used most frequently with concave menu and least frequently with increasing menu. The pattern of search indicated that if subjects moved back up the tree they tended to move to a level with eight choices rather than two. Overall, it is concluded that the concave menu is superior when searching for scenario targets and the increasing menu is slightly superior when searching for explicit targets. A theory of menu uncertainly based on information theory is proposed which helps to account for some of the results.”
» 1987 «
Laverson, Alan, Norman, Kent L. and Shneiderman, Ben (1987): An Evaluation of Jump-Ahead Techniques in Menu Selection. In Behaviour and Information Technology, 6 (2) pp. 97-108
“Menu selection systems provide a means of selecting operations and retrieving information which requires little training and reduces the need for memorizing complex command sequences. However, a major disadvantage of many menu selection systems is that experienced users cannot traverse the menu tree significantly faster than novices. A common solution to this problem is to provide the menu selection system with a jump-ahead capability. The purpose of this research was to evaluate two jump-ahead methods (type-ahead and direct-access). In the type-ahead method the user anticipates a selection on each of several successive menus and enters as many selections at one time as desired. In the direct-access method, each menu frame is assigned a unique name which the user must enter to locate it. Thirty-two students were given training on an information retrieval system for college course information and were required to learn the two jump-ahead methods in a counterbalanced design. The direct-access method resulted in fewer traversals to learn the system, lower error rates, and reduced learning time. The subjective impressions, obtained from post-experiment questionnaires and oral comments, indicated that the direct-access jump-ahead method was also preferred in a frequently used menu selection system.”
Laverson, Alan, Norman, Kent L. and Shneiderman, Ben (1987): An Evaluation of Jump-Ahead Techniques in Menu Selection. In Behaviour and Information Technology, 6 (2) pp. 97-108
“Menu selection systems provide a means of selecting operations and retrieving information which requires little training and reduces the need for memorizing complex command sequences. However, a major disadvantage of many menu selection systems is that experienced users cannot traverse the menu tree significantly faster than novices. A common solution to this problem is to provide the menu selection system with a jump-ahead capability. The purpose of this research was to evaluate two jump-ahead methods (type-ahead and direct-access). In the type-ahead method the user anticipates a selection on each of several successive menus and enters as many selections at one time as desired. In the direct-access method, each menu frame is assigned a unique name which the user must enter to locate it. Thirty-two students were given training on an information retrieval system for college course information and were required to learn the two jump-ahead methods in a counterbalanced design. The direct-access method resulted in fewer traversals to learn the system, lower error rates, and reduced learning time. The subjective impressions, obtained from post-experiment questionnaires and oral comments, indicated that the direct-access jump-ahead method was also preferred in a frequently used menu selection system.”
» 1986 «
Schwartz, Jeffrey P. and Norman, Kent L. (1986): The Importance of Item Distinctiveness on Performance Using a Menu Selection System. In Behaviour and Information Technology, 5 (2) pp. 173-182
“Novice computer users searched an interactive menu system given either an explicit target phrase or a subject-matter topic. Two menus were used: an original menu as designed by a commercial timesharing service and a slightly modified version intended to increase the distinctiveness of same-level items. Subjects acquired knowledge about the system through one of four study methods: trial-and-error exploration, study of a diagram of the menu structure, trial-and-error exploration with documentation, or study of the diagram with documentation. Subjects using the modified menu (a) took less time per problem: (b) found targets in a more direct path: and (c) gave up on fewer problems than subjects using the original menu. These results are consistent with a theory of choice that predicts that decision processes are facilitated by the distinctiveness of the alternatives. Overall the effect of study method was not significant. For highly meaningful menus, type of exposure, whether trial-and-error or study of the global tree, does not seem to matter.”
Norman, Kent L., Weldon, Linda J. and Shneiderman, Ben (1986): Cognitive Layouts of Windows and Multiple Screens for User Interfaces. In International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 25 (2) pp. 229-248
“In order to make computers easier to use and more versatile many system designers are exploring the use of multiple windows on a single screen and multiple coordinated screens in a single work station displaying linked or related information. The designers of such systems attempt to take into account the characteristics of the human user and the structure of the tasks to be performed. Central to this design issue is the way in which the user views and cognitively processes information presented in the windows or in multiple screens. This paper develops a theory of the "cognitive layout" of information presented in multiple windows or screens. It is assumed that users adopt a cognitive representation or layout of the type of information to be presented and the relationships among the windows or screens and the information they contain. A number of cognitive layouts are derived from theories in cognitive psychology and are discussed in terms of the intent of the software driving the system and congruence with the cognitive processing of the information. It is hypothesized that the particular layout adopted by a user will drastically affect the user's understanding and expectation of events at the human-computer interface and could either greatly facilitate or frustrate the interaction. Ways of ensuring the former and avoiding the latter are discussed in terms of implementations on exiting multiple-window and multiple-screen systems.”
» 1985 «
Parton, Diana, Huffman, Keith, Pridgen, Patty, Norman, Kent L. and Shneiderman, Ben (1985): Learning a Menu Selection Tree: Training Methods Compared. In Behaviour and Information Technology, 4 (2) pp. 81-91
“Menu selection systems sometimes present learning problems for novice users. This comparison of four training methods for novice users found that the global tree diagram of the menu system was superior to command sequence and frame presentation methods, and somewhat better than trial and error. Methods were evaluated on the basis of (1) number of target nodes found, (2) mean number of selections to a target node, (3) recall of the menu structure, and (4) subjective rating of ease of learning.”
SHOW THIS LIST ON YOUR HOMEPAGE
What do YOU think?
Give us your opinion! Do you have any comments/additions
that you would like other visitors to see?
You say:
Mar 22nd, 2010
#1
Be the first to add a thoughtful note to this page !
Changes to this page (author)
13 Feb 2010: Enabled abstracts to be shown on Kent L. Norman's author page.18 Aug 2009: Author was edited
06 Jun 2008: Author was added to the bibliography (approved by an editor)
12 May 2008: Author was edited
28 Jun 2007: Author was added to the bibliography
27 Jun 2007: Author was edited
27 Jun 2007: Author was edited
27 Jun 2007: Author was edited
23 Jun 2007: Author was edited
28 Apr 2003: Added the author to the bibliography
28 Apr 2003: Added the author to the bibliography
12 May 2008: Author was edited
28 Jun 2007: Author was added to the bibliography
27 Jun 2007: Author was edited
27 Jun 2007: Author was edited
27 Jun 2007: Author was edited
23 Jun 2007: Author was edited
28 Apr 2003: Added the author to the bibliography
28 Apr 2003: Added the author to the bibliography
Publication statistics
Publication period:1985-2006
Publication count:20
Number of co-authors:26
Productive colleagues
Kent L. Norman's 3 most productive colleagues in number of publications:
Ben Shneiderman:206Catherine Plaisant:67
Tiziana Catarci:27
Collaboration count
Number of publications with 3 favourite co-authors:
Ben Shneiderman:7John P. Chin:3
Diane Lindwarm Alonso:2
Other options
Learn more about Kent L. Norman:
- Google Scholar
- ACM
- CSB
Mar
22
“ I'm an enemy of what I call 'computer theology.' There's a class conflict out there. There's a techno-elite that lives in a different world. ”
-- Walter Mossberg
”
- Share this quote on...
- Get more quotes
Eva Hornecker on Tangible Interaction
Eva Hornecker explains the evolving concept of Tangible Interaction.
Read Eva's insightful entry here..Help us help you!
- Spread the word:
- Donate
- Other ways to help
