Laura Marie Leventhal
Has also published under the name of:
"Laura Leventhal" and "Laura M. Leventhal"
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Publications by Laura Marie Leventhal (bibliography)
» 2001 «
Katz, Irvin R., Petre, Marian and Leventhal, Laura Marie (2001): Editorial: Empirical Studies of Programmers. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 54 (2) pp. 185-188
» 1996 «
Leventhal, Laura Marie, Teasley, B., Blumenthal, Brad, Instone, Keith, Stone, D. and Donskoy, Mikhail V. (1996): Assessing User Interfaces for Diverse User Groups: Evaluation Strategies and Defining Characteristics. In Behaviour and Information Technology, 15 (3) pp. 127-137
“User interface designers are challenged to design for diverse users, including those of different genders, cultures and abilities; however, little research has been directed at this problem. One factor which may inhibit such research is its cost. This paper presents an approach which offers a way to seek out important characteristics of designs in a cost-effective way and reports on the results. In a study reported here, subjects from different nationalities and of both genders evaluated three dialog boxes specifically designed for 'white American women'. 'European adult male intellectuals' and 'English-speaking-internationals'. The dialog boxes were evaluated with conjoint techniques of preference rankings and factor-analysed adjective ratings. These results showed that female subjects had stronger and more consistent patterns of preferences than the male subjects. All subjects preferred interfaces rated high on an accessibility factor and disliked complex layouts; this effect was even stronger for women. Nationality did not effect ratings. Gender had a stronger effect on the outcome than nationality.”
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» 1995 «
Price, Blaine, Blumenthal, Brad and Leventhal, Laura Marie (1995): EWHCI '94. In ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 27 (1) pp. 31-37
» 1994 «
Leventhal, Laura Marie, Teasley, Barbee Eve and Rohlman, Diane S. (1994): Analyses of Factors Related to Positive Test Bias in Software Testing. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 41 (5) pp. 717-749
“In earlier work, we have shown that software testers exhibit positive test bias. Positive test bias is the pervasive behavioral phenomenon in which hypothesis testers tend to test a hypothesis with data which confirms the hypothesis. However, in software testing this behavior may be counter-productive, since it may be more effective to test with data which are designed to disconfirm the hypothesis. The first study considered how positive test bias is influenced by the expertise level of the subjects, the completeness of the software specifications and whether or not the programs contained errors. The results demonstrated strong evidence of positive test bias regardless of condition. The effects appear to be partially mitigated by increasingly higher levels of expertise and by increasingly more complete specifications. In some cases, the effect is also increased by the presence of errors. A second study used talk-aloud protocols to explore the kinds of hypotheses testers generate during testing. The results further emphasize that subjects test their programs in a biased way and support the notion that the program specification drives testers' hypotheses. We conclude that positive test bias is a critical concern in software testing and may have a seriously detrimental effect on the quality of testing. The results further emphasize the importance of complete and thorough program specifications in order to enhance effective testing.”
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Teasley, Barbee Mynatt, Leventhal, Laura Marie, Blumenthal, Brad, Instone, Keith and Stone, Daryl (1994): Cultural Diversity in User Interface Design: Are Intuitions Enough?. In ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 26 (1) pp. 36-40
» 1993 «
Moher, Thomas G., Mak, David C., Blumenthal, Brad and Leventhal, Laura Marie (1993): Comparing the Comprehensibility of Textual and Graphical Programs: The Case of Petri Nets. In: Cook, Curtis, Scholtz, Jean and Spohrer, James C. (eds.) Empirical Studies of Programmers - Fifth Workshop December 3-15, 1993, 1993, Palo Alto, California. pp. 137-161.
“In an experiment inspired by Green, Petre, and Bellamy (1991), three forms of Petri net representations were tested against two textual program representations for comprehensibility. Two tasks were employed: question-answering and matching. The results reaffirmed the textual match-mismatch phenomenon frequently reported for circumstantial vs. sequential programs, but failed to find a match-mismatch for alternative net representations. Petri nets appeared to be more well-suited in general to backwards questions, but performance was strongly dependent to the layout of the Petri nets. In general, the results indicate that the efficacy of a graphical program representation is not only task-specific, but also highly sensitive to seemingly ancillary issues such as layout and the degree of factoring.”
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Teasley, Barbee Mynatt, Leventhal, Laura Marie and Rohlman, Diane S. (1993): Positive Test Bias in Software Testing by Professionals: What's Right and What's Wrong. In: Cook, Curtis, Scholtz, Jean and Spohrer, James C. (eds.) Empirical Studies of Programmers - Fifth Workshop December 3-15, 1993, 1993, Palo Alto, California. pp. 206-221.
“Software testing, which consumes substantial effort in software development, is a virtually unexplored area in human-computer interaction. At Bowling Green State University, we have a program of research which is looking at the application of judgment and decision-making theory to software testing, focusing on the role of positive test bias in software testing. Studies of naturalistic testing tasks, as well as ones which follow common laboratory models in this area, have found ample evidence that testers have a positive test bias. This bias is manifest as a tendency to execute about four times as many positive tests, designed to show that "the program works" (i.e., valid data), as tests which challenge the program (i.e., use invalid data). While positive tests do uncover errors in a program and need to be done, failure to do negative tests leaves much of the program invalidated. Our studies have also shown that the expertise of the subjects, the completeness of the software specifications, and the presence / absence of program errors may reduce positive test bias. Talk-aloud data suggests that advanced computer science students and professional programmers do invent specifications to test in the absence of actual specifications, but still exhibit positive test bias.”
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Leventhal, Laura Marie, Teasley, Barbee Mynatt, Instone, Keith, Rohlman, Diane S. and Farhat, John (1993): Sleuthing in HyperHolmes: An Evaluation of Using Hypertext vs. a Book to Answer Questions. In Behaviour and Information Technology, 12 (3) pp. 149-164
“Although hypertext offers exciting new ways of presenting and accessing information, there is little research which systematically compares the usability of hypertext against traditional media with an eye to improving the design of the hypertext. This paper presents the results of an experiment which examined the performance and navigation strategies of users engaged in a question-answering task using either a hypertext encyclopedia of Sherlock Holmes facts (the HyperHolmes system) or the traditional paper form. The results showed that, overall, the hypertext users were marginally more accurate in answering questions, and excelled at questions where the key information was embedded in a text entry. The book users were marginally faster overall, but excelled only in answering questions based on graphics. Hypertext users showed a preference for those tools which most closely mimicked use of a conventional book. They used a hierarchical structure to guide their navigation strategy in early trials, but soon learned to navigate in a non-hierarchical, flat way.”
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Instone, Keith, Brown, Erik, Leventhal, Laura Marie and Teasley, Barbee Mynatt (1993): The Challenge of Effectively Integrating Graphics into Hypertext. In: East-West International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Proceedings of the EWHCI93 1993. pp. 78-86.
“It is important that designers of hypertext do not assume that the way information is presented in traditional media such as paper books will necessarily be effective in hypertext. Several studies have shown that graphics presented with text on a screen are not necessarily used effectively, or even used at all. In our study, we explored three ways of presenting textual and graphical information about geographical locations and objects. In all cases, the user had to point with a mouse to a item name in order to see text, and the text appeared near the mouse cursor. In one presentation style, no graphic was present. In a second style, a graphic was present, but the text appeared as a caption. In the hypertext style, the user pointed to item names on the graphic. The results showed that the hypertext style resulted in about 20% better learning of both spatial information (which was illustrated by the graphic) and of information not illustrated by the graphic.”
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Leventhal, Laura Marie, Teasley, Barbee M., Rohlman, Diane S. and Instone, Keith (1993): Positive Test Bias in Software Testing among Professionals: A Review. In: East-West International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Proceedings of the EWHCI93 1993. pp. 45-54.
“Fundamental but virtually unexplored issues in human-computer interaction involve the roles of biases in software engineering tasks. In studies of naturalistic testing tasks, as well as ones which follow common laboratory models in this area, we have found ample evidence that testers have positive test bias. This bias is manifest as a tendency to execute about four times as many positive tests, designed to show that "the program works," as tests which challenge the program. In our prior work, we have found that the expertise of the subjects, the completeness of the software specifications, and the presence/absence of program errors may reduce positive test bias. Skilled computer scientists invent specifications to test in the absence of actual specifications, but still exhibit positive test bias.”
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» 1992 «
Mynatt, Barbee T., Leventhal, Laura Marie, Instone, Keith, Farhat, John and Rohlman, Diane S. (1992): Hypertext or Book: Which is Better for Answering Questions?. In: Bauersfeld, Penny, Bennett, John and Lynch, Gene (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 92 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference June 3-7, 1992, Monterey, California. pp. 19-25. Available online
“An important issue in the evolution of hypertext is the design of such systems to optimally support user tasks such as asking questions. Few studies have systematically compared the use of hypertext to books in seeking information, and those that have been done have not found a consistent superiority for hypertext. In addition, designers developing hypertext books have few guidelines. In the present study, users performed information-seeking tasks and answered a variety of types of questions about Sherlock Holmes stories using either a conventional paper encyclopedia or a hypertext encyclopedia. The questions varied on the amount of information needed to derive an answer (fact or inference), the location of the question's key phrase in the hypertext (entry title or entry content), and the format of the information (text or map). Accuracy and time were recorded. The hypertext group excelled in answering fact questions where the information was embedded in a text entry. The book group excelled only in answering fact questions based on maps. In spite of having far more experience using books, the book group was not significantly faster overall and did not perform as well on an incidental learning task. Our results suggest that a hypertext book with a nonlinear structure and including a variety of navigational tools can equal or surpass conventional books as an information-seeking medium, even with minimal training.”
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Instone, Keith, Leventhal, Laura Marie, Teasley, Barbee Mynatt, Farhat, John and Rohlman, Diane S. (1992): What Do I Want? And How Do I Get There?: Performance and Navigation in Information Retrieval Tasks with Hypertext Documents. In: East-West International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Proceedings of the EWHCI92 1992. pp. 85-95.
“Two of the most important issues emerging in hypertext research deal with what do I want? and how do I get there? We have been exploring the issues of performance and navigation in a series of empirical studies of information retrieval using two hypertext documents, HyperHolmes and HyperAl. HyperHolmes is a hypertext version of an encyclopedia and can be navigated in many different ways, including searching, hypertext links, incoming links, and through an overlay of hierarchical overviews. HyperAl is a stack of a library card catalogue for an elementary school library and has similar design features and functionality to HyperHolmes. We have conducted several studies of information retrieval using these documents to identify factors that affect performance and patterns of navigation. In two performance studies, our results highlight that the task to be performed and characteristics of the users influence accuracy and speed of information retrieval. In navigation studies, we have found that users tend to follow hierarchical navigation patterns as they are learning to use hypertext documents. With practice, these users tend to follow less hierarchical navigation patterns.”
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» 1991 «
Leventhal, Laura Marie, McKeeby, Jon W. and Mynatt, Barbee T. (1991): Screen Keyboards: An Empirical Study of the Effects of Shape and Character Layout. In: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction 1991. pp. 108-112.
“A possible input device for individuals with limited hand mobility is a screen keyboard. On a screen keyboard a cursor sequentially scans portions of a graphical keyboard until the user selects first a row and then a specific character in that row. The present study investigated the effects of keyboard shape (triangle, rectangle or square) and the layout of the characters (frequency, alphabetic or random) on accuracy and speed in entering English sentences. User satisfaction was also assessed. Accuracy was uniformly high across conditions. As expected, the layout based on frequency produced the fastest keying rates. Unexpectedly, the fastest rates were associated with the triangle shape. The fastest configuration was triangle shape combined with a frequency layout. Satisfaction was highest for a frequency layout combined with either triangle or rectangle shape. The study indicates the importance of empirical testing of users.”
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» 1988 «
Leventhal, Laura Marie (1988): Experience of Programming Beauty: Some Patterns of Programming Aesthetics. In International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 28 (5) pp. 525-550
“There is, in the folklore of computer science, a strong suggestion that programs and the processes of programming can be beautiful. Surprisingly, these same issues of programming aesthetics have not been a focus of empirical research, to date. The purpose of the present work is to begin to address programming aesthetics from a 'non-folklore' perspective. Related literature is reviewed and an exploratory empirical study of programming aesthetics is described. The results of this study suggest that patterns of programming aesthetics share common features with patterns of aesthetics in other domains. In particular, programs which are familiar, highly structured, and contain suggestions of hidden information tend to be aesthetically pleasing. Novelty also appears to enhance the aesthetic character of programs.”
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» 1987 «
Leventhal, Laura Marie (1987): Discourse Rules in Program Comprehension: Emergence of a Construct Affordances Rule?. In: Bullinger, Hans-Jorg and Shackel, Brian (eds.) INTERACT 87 - 2nd IFIP International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction September 1-4, 1987, Stuttgart, Germany. pp. 297-302.
“Several investigators have suggested that rules of discourse for programming exist. These rules reflect programmer expectation and practice. Violations of these rules of discourse may have a negative impact on program comprehension, particularly among expert programmers. One general type of discourse rule is a Construct Affordances Rule. This rule states that a particular programming construct is appropriate for and should be used in certain situations. Soloway and Ehrlich [1] demonstrated that one instance of the Construct Affordances Rule had an effect on performance in a programming comprehension task, particularly among expert programmers. In the current study, both comprehension measures and interest measures were collected from novices, intermediates, and experts. The effects of instances of the Construct Affordances Rule involving the WHILE, FOR, IF, and REPEAT Pascal constructs on comprehension were measured using a fill-in-the-blank procedure. The results revealed that the discourse rules may influence programmer behavior but not necessarily in the predicted ways. However, expertise level had the predicted effect on comprehension. These results are discussed in terms of the role of discourse rules in the formation of problem representations, especially among experts.”
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Leventhal, Laura Marie (1987): Software Development Snapshots: A Preliminary Investigation. In ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 19 (2) pp. 26-29
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Mar 22nd, 2010
Changes to this page (author)
21 Feb 2010: Enabled abstracts to be shown on Laura Marie Leventhal's author page.25 Jul 2007: Author was edited 25 Jul 2007: Author was edited
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28 Jun 2007: Author was added to the bibliography
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28 Apr 2003: Added the author to the bibliography
