Sharon OviattPh.D
Has also published under the name of:
"S. Oviatt"
Personal Homepage:
http://www.incaadesigns.org SPECIALIZED PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE Human-centered design; Educational interfaces; Interfaces for universal access, lifespan use, and diverse populations (e.g., students varying in ability); Adaptive interfaces; Cognitive modeling and low-load interfaces; Mobile & ubiquitous interfaces; Multimodal interfaces; Pen-based and spoken language interfaces; Collaborative teamwork interfaces; Communication models and modality effects; Empirically-based interface design, evaluation and methodology
EDUCATION
1979 - Ph.D., Experimental Psychology, University of Toronto
1974 - M.A., Experimental Psychology, University of Toronto
1972 - B.A., Psychology, with Highest Honors
Publications by Sharon Oviatt (bibliography)
» 2008 «
Oviatt, Sharon, Swindells, Colin and Arthur, Alex (2008): Implicit user-adaptive system engagement in speech and pen interfaces. In: Proceedings of ACM CHI 2008 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems April 5-10, 2008. pp. 969-978. Available online
“As emphasis is placed on developing mobile, educational, and other applications that minimize cognitive load on users, it is becoming more essential to explore interfaces based on implicit engagement techniques so users can remain focused on their tasks. In this research, data were collected with 12 pairs of students who solved complex math problems using a tutorial system that they engaged over 100 times per session entirely implicitly via speech amplitude or pen pressure cues. Results revealed that users spontaneously, reliably, and substantially adapted these forms of communicative energy to designate and repair an intended interlocutor in a computer-mediated group setting. Furthermore, this behavior was harnessed to achieve system”
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» 2006 «
Oviatt, Sharon, Arthur, Alex and Cohen, Julia (2006): Quiet interfaces that help students think. In: Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology 2006. pp. 191-200. Available online
“As technical as we have become, modern computing has not permeated many important areas of our lives, including mathematics education which still involves pencil and paper. In the present study, twenty high school geometry students varying in ability from low to high participated in a comparative assessment of math problem solving using existing pencil and paper work practice (PP), and three different interfaces: an Anoto-based digital stylus and paper interface (DP), pen tablet interface (PT), and graphical tablet interface (GT). Cognitive Load Theory correctly predicted that as interfaces departed more from familiar work practice (GT > PT > DP), students would experience greater cognitive load such that performance would deteriorate in speed, attentional focus, meta-cognitive control, correctness of problem solutions, and memory. In addition, low-performing students experienced elevated cognitive load, with the more challenging interfaces (GT, PT) disrupting their performance disproportionately more than higher performers. The present results indicate that Cognitive Load Theory provides a coherent and powerful basis for predicting the rank ordering of users' performance by type of interface. In the future, new interfaces for areas like education and mobile computing could benefit from designs that minimize users' load so performance is more adequately supported.”
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Barthelmess, Paulo, Kaiser, Edward, Lunsford, Rebecca, McGee, David, Cohen, Philip and Oviatt, Sharon (2006): Human-centered collaborative interaction. In: Proceedings of the 2006 ACM International Workshop on Human-Centered Multimedia 2006. pp. 1-8. Available online
“Recent years have witnessed an increasing shift in interest from single user multimedia/multimodal interfaces towards support for interaction among groups of people working closely together, e.g. during meetings or problem solving sessions. However, the introduction of technology to support collaborative practices has not been devoid of problems. It is not uncommon that technology meant to support collaboration may introduce disruptions and reduce group effectiveness. Human-centered multimedia and multimodal approaches hold a promise of providing substantially enhanced user experiences by focusing attention on human perceptual and motor capabilities, and on actual user practices. In this paper we examine the problem of providing effective support for collaboration, focusing on the role of human-centered approaches that take advantage of multimodality and multimedia. We show illustrative examples that demonstrate human-centered multimodal and multimedia solutions that provide mechanisms for dealing with the intrinsic complexity of human-human interaction support.”
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» 2005 «
Oviatt, Sharon, Lunsford, Rebecca and Coulston, Rachel (2005): Individual differences in multimodal integration patterns: what are they and why do they exist?. In: Proceedings of ACM CHI 2005 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2005. pp. 241-249. Available online
“Techniques for information fusion are at the heart of multimodal system design. To develop new user-adaptive approaches for multimodal fusion, the present research investigated the stability and underlying cause of major individual differences that have been documented between users in their multimodal integration pattern. Longitudinal data were collected from 25 adults as they interacted with a map system over six weeks. Analyses of 1,100 multimodal constructions revealed that everyone had a dominant integration pattern, either simultaneous or sequential, which was 95-96% consistent and remained stable over time. In addition, coherent behavioral and linguistic differences were identified between these two groups. Whereas performance speed was comparable, sequential integrators made only half as many errors and excelled during new or complex tasks. Sequential integrators also had more precise articulation (e.g., fewer disfluencies), although their speech rate was no slower. Finally, sequential integrators more often adopted terse and direct command-style language, with a smaller and less varied vocabulary, which appeared focused on achieving error-free communication. These distinct interaction patterns are interpreted as deriving from fundamental differences in reflective-impulsive cognitive style. Implications of these findings are discussed for the design of adaptive multimodal systems with substantially improved performance characteristics.”
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» 2004 «
Oviatt, Sharon and Seneff, Stephanie (2004): Introduction to mobile and adaptive conversational interfaces. In ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 11 (3) pp. 237-240
Oviatt, Sharon, Darves, Courtney and Coulston, Rachel (2004): Toward adaptive conversational interfaces: Modeling speech convergence with animated personas. In ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 11 (3) pp. 300-328
“The design of robust interfaces that process conversational speech is a challenging research direction largely because users' spoken language is so variable. This research explored a new dimension of speaker stylistic variation by examining whether users' speech converges systematically with the text-to-speech (TTS) heard from a software partner. To pursue this question, a study was conducted in which twenty-four 7 to 10-year-old children conversed with animated partners that embodied different TTS voices. An analysis of children's amplitude, durational features, and dialogue response latencies confirmed that they spontaneously adapt several basic acoustic-prosodic”
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» 2003 «
Oviatt, Sharon (2003): Flexible and robust multimodal interfaces for universal access. In Universal Access in the Information Society, 2 (2) pp. 91-95
“Multimodal interfaces are inherently flexible, which is a key feature that makes them suitable for both universal access and next-generation mobile computing. Recent studies also have demonstrated that multimodal architectures can improve the performance stability and overall robustness of the recognition-based component technologies they incorporate (e.g., speech, vision, pen input). This paper reviews data from two recent studies in which a multimodal architecture suppressed errors and stabilized system performance for accented speakers and during mobile use. It concludes with a discussion of key issues in the design of future multimodal interfaces for diverse user groups.”
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» 2001 «
Oviatt, Sharon (2001): Designing robust multimodal systems for universal access. In: Proceedings of the 2001 EC/NSF Workshop on Universal Accessibility of Ubiquitous Computing 2001. pp. 71-74. Available online
“Multimodal interfaces are being developed that permit our highly skilled and coordinated communicative behavior to control system interactions in a more transparent and flexible interface experience than ever before. As applications become more complex, a single modality alone does not permit varied users to interact effectively across different tasks and usage environments [11]. However, a flexible multimodal interface offers people the choice to use a combination of modalities, or to switch to a better-suited modality, depending on the specifics of their abilities, the task, and the usage conditions. This paper will begin by summarizing some of the primary advantages of multimodal interfaces. In particular, it will discuss the inherent flexibility of multimodal interfaces, which is a key feature that makes them suitable for universal access and mobile computing. It also will discuss the role of multimodal architectures in improving the robustness and performance stability of recognition-based systems. Data will be reviewed from two recent studies in which a multimodal architecture suppressed errors and stabilized system performance for accented nonnative speakers and during mobile use. The paper will conclude by discussing the implications of this research for designing multimodal interfaces for the elderly, as well as the need for future work in this area.”
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» 2000 «
Oviatt, Sharon (2000): Multimodal System Processing in Mobile Environments. In: Ackerman, Mark S. and Edwards, Keith (eds.) Proceedings of the 13th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology November 06 - 08, 2000, San Diego, California, United States. pp. 21-30. Available online
Oviatt, Sharon, Cohen, Philip R., Wu, Lizhong, Duncan, Lisbeth, Suhm, Bernhard, Bers, Josh, Holzman, Thomas C., Winograd, Terry, Landay, James A., Larson, Jim and Ferro, David (2000): Designing the User Interface for Multimodal Speech and Pen-Based Gesture Applications: State-of-the-Art Systems and Future Research Directions. In Human-Computer Interaction, 15 (4) pp. 263-322
“The growing interest in multimodal interface design is inspired in large part by the goals of supporting more transparent, flexible, efficient, and powerfully expressive means of human-computer interaction than in the past. Multimodal interfaces are expected to support a wider range of diverse applications, be usable by a broader spectrum of the average population, and function more reliably under realistic and challenging usage conditions. In this article, we summarize the emerging architectural approaches for interpreting speech and pen-based gestural input in a robust manner-including early and late fusion approaches, and the new hybrid symbolic-statistical approach. We also describe a diverse collection of state-of-the-art multimodal systems that process users' spoken and gestural input. These applications range from map-based and virtual reality systems for engaging in simulations and training, to field medic systems for mobile use in noisy environments, to web-based transactions and standard text-editing applications that will reshape daily computing and have a significant commercial impact. To realize successful multimodal systems of the future, many key research challenges remain to be addressed. Among these challenges are the development of cognitive theories to guide multimodal system design, and the development of effective natural language processing, dialogue processing, and error-handling techniques. In addition, new multimodal systems will be needed that can function more robustly and adaptively, and with support for collaborative multiperson use. Before this new class of systems can proliferate, toolkits also will be needed to promote software development for both simulated and functioning systems.”
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» 1999 «
Oviatt, Sharon (1999): Mutual Disambiguation of Recognition Errors in a Multimodal Architecture. In: Altom, Mark W. and Williams, Marian G. (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 99 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference May 15-20, 1999, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. pp. 576-583. Available online
“As a new generation of multimodal/media systems begins to define itself, researchers are attempting to learn how to combine different modes into strategically integrated whole systems. In theory, well designed multimodal systems should be able to integrate complementary modalities in a manner that supports mutual disambiguation (MD) of errors and leads to more robust performance. In this study, over 2,000 multimodal utterances by both native and accented speakers of English were processed by a multimodal system, and then logged and analyzed. The results confirmed that multimodal systems can indeed support significant levels of MD, and also higher levels of MD for the more challenging accented users. As a result, although speech recognition as a stand-alone performed far more poorly for accented speakers, their multimodal recognition rates did not differ from those of native speakers. Implications are discussed for the development of future multimodal architectures that can perform in a more robust and stable manner than individual recognition technologies. Also discussed is the design of interfaces that support diversity in tangible ways, and that function well under challenging real-world usage conditions.”
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» 1997 «
Oviatt, Sharon, DeAngeli, Antonella and Kuhn, Karen (1997): Integration and Synchronization of Input Modes during Multimodal Human-Computer Interaction. In: Pemberton, Steven (ed.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 97 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference March 22-27, 1997, Atlanta, Georgia. pp. 415-422. Available online
“Our ability to develop robust multimodal systems will depend on knowledge of the natural integration patterns that typify people's combined use of different input modes. To provide a foundation for theory and design, the present research analyzed multimodal interaction while people spoke and wrote to a simulated dynamic map system. Task analysis revealed that multimodal interaction occurred most frequently during spatial location commands, and with intermediate frequency during selection commands. In addition, microanalysis of input signals identified sequential, simultaneous, point-and-speak, and compound integration patterns, as well as data on the temporal precedence of modes and on inter-modal lags. In synchronizing input streams, the temporal precedence of writing over speech was a major theme, with pen input conveying location information first in a sentence. Linguistic analysis also revealed that the spoken and written modes consistently supplied complementary semantic information, rather than redundant. One long-term goal of this research is the development of predictive models of natural modality integration to guide the design of emerging multimodal architectures.”
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Oviatt, Sharon and Wahlster, Wolfgang (1997): Introduction to This Special Issue on Multimodal Interfaces. In Human-Computer Interaction, 12 (1) pp. 1-5
Oviatt, Sharon (1997): Multimodal Interactive Maps: Designing for Human Performance. In Human-Computer Interaction, 12 (1) pp. 93-129
“Dynamic interactive maps with powerful interface capabilities are beginning to emerge for a variety of geographical information systems, including ones situated on portables for travelers, students, business and service people, and others working in field settings. In part through the design of more expressive and flexible input capabilities, these map systems can provide new capabilities not supported by conventional interfaces of the past. In this research, interfaces supporting spoken, pen-based, and multimodal input were analyzed for their effectiveness in interacting with map systems. Input modality and map display format were varied as people completed realistic tasks with a simulated map system. The results identified a constellation of performance difficulties with speech-only map interactions, including elevated performance errors, lengthier task completion time, and more complex and disfluent input -- problems that declined substantially when people could interact multimodally. These difficulties also mirrored a strong user preference to interact multimodally. The error-proneness and unacceptability of speech-only input to maps was traced to people's difficulty articulating spatially oriented descriptions. Analyses also indicated that map displays can be structured to minimize performance errors and disfluencies effectively. Implications of this research are discussed for the design of high-performance multimodal interfaces for future map systems.”
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» 1996 «
Oviatt, Sharon (1996): Multimodal Interfaces for Dynamic Interactive Maps. In: Tauber, Michael J., Bellotti, Victoria, Jeffries, Robin, Mackinlay, Jock D. and Nielsen, Jakob (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 96 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference April 14-18, 1996, Vancouver, Canada. pp. 95-102. Available online
“Dynamic interactive maps with transparent but powerful human interface capabilities are beginning to emerge for a variety of geographical information systems, including ones situated on portables for travelers, students, business and service people, and others working in field settings. In the present research, interfaces supporting spoken, pen-based, and multimodal input were analyze for their potential effectiveness in interacting with this new generation of map systems. Input modality (speech, writing, multimodal) and map display format (highly versus minimally structured) were varied in a within-subject factorial design as people completed realistic tasks with a simulated map system. The results identified a constellation of performance difficulties associated with speech-only map interactions, including elevated performance errors, spontaneous disfluencies, and lengthier task completion time -- problems that declined substantially when people could interact multimodally with the map. These performance advantages also mirrored a strong user preference to interact multimodally. The error-proneness and unacceptability of speech-only input to maps was attributed in large part to people's difficulty generating spoken descriptions of spatial location. Analyses also indicated that map display format can be used to minimize performance errors and disfluencies, and map interfaces that guide users' speech toward brevity can nearly eliminate disfluencies. Implications of this research are discussed for the design of high-performance multimodal interfaces for future map systems.”
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Dumas, Bruno, Lalanne, Denis and Oviatt, Sharon (): . In: "".
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Feb 9th, 2010
Changes to this page (author)
13 Feb 2010: Enabled abstracts to be shown on Sharon Oviatt's author page.23 Jul 2009: Author was edited 27 Jun 2009: Author was edited
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