“As human-computer interaction increasingly focuses on mediated interactions among groups of individuals, there is a need to develop techniques for measurement and analysis of groups that have been scoped at the level of the group. Bandura's construct of perceived self-efficacy has been used to understand individual behavior as a function of domain-specific beliefs about personal capacities. The construct of collective efficacy extends self-efficacy to organizations and groups, referring to beliefs about collective capacities in specific domains. We describe the development and refinement of a collective efficacy scale, the factor analysis of the construct, and its external validation in path models of community-oriented attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.”
“Cisco web-enabled numerous processes during a period of rapid growth, resulting in a number of disconnected sites and tools. Although this innovation cut costs, employees could not easily find information and had to learn new models of navigation and interaction. This paper describes how the Intranet Strategy team responded by designing a hierarchical navigation system that met user and business requirements, connected numerous isolated sites, and encouraged standardization and governance of the Intranet. The team leveraged prior work on navigation for Cisco's public web site, created and tested a series of prototypes, and integrated the final design with an innovative template framework. The result was better navigation, increased relevancy, and reduced costs.”
“We report on a study (N=36) of user preferences for balancing awareness with privacy. Participants defined permissions for sharing of location, availability, calendar information and instant messaging (IM) activity within an application called mySpace. MySpace is an interactive visualization of the physical workplace that provides dynamic information about people, places and equipment. We found a significant preference for defining privacy permissions at the group level. While "family" received high levels of awareness sharing, interestingly, "team" was granted comparable levels during business hours at work. Surprisingly, presenting participants with a detailed list of all pieces of personal context to which the system had access, did not result in more conservative privacy settings. Although location was the most sensitive aspect of awareness, participants were comfortable disclosing room-level location information to their team members at work. Our findings suggest utilizing grouping mechanisms to balance privacy control with configuration burden, and argue for increased system transparency to build trust.”
“This case study describes the creation of a user interface for a self-service kiosk that collects biographic and biometric data from non-English-speaking individuals who are unfamiliar with American/Western culture, with little formal education, and little-to-no experience with computers. The users were also completely unfamiliar with the task and in a very stressful environment. Therefore, unlike most commercial software interfaces that "tell" users how to complete a task by relying on entry fields labels and controls, or use language to provide context for tasks, we need to "show" users how to interact with interface. The goals for our user interface are similar to the goals of arcade video game machines that use a short demonstration video, without words, to draw the viewer's attention, create an expectation in the viewer of what is to come, and demonstrate the task to the viewer. User testing found that demonstration videos could meet these requirements.”
“"The World as your Palette" is our ongoing effort to design and develop tools to allow artists to create visual art projects with elements (specifically, the color, texture, and moving patterns) extracted directly from their personal objects and their immediate environment. Our tool called "I/O Brush" looks like a regular physical paintbrush, but contains a video camera, lights, and touch sensors. Outside of the drawing canvas, the brush can pick up colors, textures, and movements of a brushed surface. On the canvas, artists can draw with the special "ink" they just picked up from their immediate environment. We describe the evolution and development of our system, from kindergarten classrooms to an art museum, as well as the reactions of our users to the growing expressive capabilities of our brush, as an iterative design process.”
“Today digital photographs and videos are everywhere: on our computers, on our cell phones, on our PDAs. As palmOne releases new smartphones and handheld devices, we continually look for ways to make the experience of capturing, viewing, managing and sharing photos and videos easier, more enjoyable, and more integral to the overall user experience. This paper discusses the release of the latest version of the palmOne media applications for the Treo 650 and Tungsten T5. It steps through the 9-month development process and highlights many of the 'transparent' interactions that make the software compelling and simple to use.”
“In the contemporary information-saturated world, there is a need for an easier, faster, and more social way to keep office workers updated and better aware of surrounding activities. Today's information management systems tend to consume time rather than simplify information sharing. The Vista system tries to solve this problem. It is designed to be used in places of social interaction, where it displays information about professional activities happening in the department. In this paper, the origins of the project, the user-centered design process, and iterative evaluation of the concept are described. The paper concludes with observations regarding the social acceptance of Vista and reflections on future research aspects. Vista is the result of a design project conducted in cooperation between the User-System Interaction postgraduate program at Eindhoven University of Technology, and the Research Group of Oce Technologies in the Netherlands.”
“Current aspirations to coordinate the UX community should be complemented by a coordinated series of professional initiatives to raise the status of the UX profession so that it can take its rightful role at the heart of the development process.”
“The upcoming ACM SIGCHI Development Consortium is aimed at meeting the needs of multidisciplinary professionals that must choose among a variety of professional associations and their events. The position of AIS' (Association for Information Systems) SIGHCI is that the main problem lies in the deep chasms that separate the literatures of the related disciplines, and the solution is to provide an umbrella organization that enables a more organized federation of disciplines, groups, and associations. Problems identified include differences in terminology, competition for scarce resources, differences in how publications in various outlets are valued, and confusion about where should be the "home" for HCI/CHI majors. Suggestions include developing a framework for a federation, negotiating shared understandings about publication outlets, and coordinating information about meetings and other events.”
“I have been active in SIGCHI since 1983, serving on the Executive Committee and many conference and program committees. After editing ACM TOCHI for six years, I explored the history of CHI and related fields. The "conference-centered" model unique to U.S. computer science, wherein little published research reaches journals, and uncertainty regarding HCI's academic niche have created an unusual situation. I propose some paths forward.”
“There has been a substantial growth in the number of educational and networking opportunities for professionals in the computer graphics and related fields in the last three years. One of the fastest areas of growth is in the field of computer user experience and the development of cultural communities through the advent of portal technologies, blogs, and wikis.”
“This position paper represents my views on how we address the multi-disciplinary needs of the user experience industry. While each profession struggles to deepen its core skills and membership offerings, it also needs to branch out beyond its traditional borders to serve its members' needs within a broader industry. "User experience" should be the topic that unites all of various professional organizations under an umbrella. Because each organization has its special contribution to the network (some at the core, some as specialists and others as interested parties), and each person will have different needs, a personalized portal should be built for the UX topic to help individuals cross over existing boundaries.”
“This position paper for the CHI2005 Development Consortium introduces the Local Ambassadors Initiative of the User Experience Network (UXnet), a collaborative international vision that unites user experience professionals with a variety of skills and backgrounds in a shared effort to develop a productive user experience community.”
“We first describe the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES), then our challenges with respect to meeting the needs of multidisciplinary professionals. We discuss how HFES has tried, as a professional organization, to meet the needs of its diverse members.”
“Conferences are still valuable for established attendees and potential new audiences, and the overall audience for events can be increased, helping alleviate competition between professional organisations. In addition professional organisations need to avoid conferences being run-of-the-mill, and taking their audience for granted. They need to widen their primary and secondary audiences by helping potential attendees and presenters find out about events, evaluate those they might attend, and benefit in other ways from participating in; professionalising presentation and documentation; facilitating more controversial discussion; improving media relations (including with informal commentators).Some of the solutions involved re-designing and re-programming events, greater inter-organisational cooperation, technical developments, and greater intelligence when thinking about audiences and stakeholders.”
“This paper outlines my professional background and interests in the 'user-experience' field. I summarise my current relevant responsibilities related to my employment as a specialist in 'user experience' design and my SIGCHI activities. I also summarise some observations on the emergence of 'user experience' as a focus for the professional practice of interactive system design and observations on some directions for the future.”
“This position paper for the CHI2005 Development Consortium describes the vision that led to the formation of the User Experience Network (UXnet) and cross-disciplinary needs it addresses, for individual practitioners and for the ongoing development of the field as a whole.”
“Online communities need regular maintenance activities such as moderation and data input, tasks that typically fall to community owners. Communities that allow all members to participate in maintenance tasks have the potential to be more robust and valuable. A key challenge in creating member-maintained communities is building interfaces, algorithms, and social structures that encourage people to provide high-quality contributions. We use Karau and Williams' collective effort model to predict how peer and expert editorial oversight affect members' contributions to a movie recommendation website and test these predictions in a field experiment with 87 contributors. Oversight increased both the quantity and quality of contributions while reducing antisocial behavior, and peers were as effective at oversight as experts. We draw design guidelines and suggest avenues for future work from our results.”
“In this proposal I submit personal qualifications for participation in the CHI 2005 Development Consortium, along with a review of some issues to be discussed and possible resolutions.”
“In this submission for the CHI05 Development forum, I reflect on my experience leading the Experience Design community of interest of the American Institute of Graphic Arts and suggest that the focus of the group needs to shift in order to successfully accomplish our mission.”
“Thus far, researchers have not investigated gender HCI issues in the context of end-user problem-solving software. Designers' ignorance of gender differences is particularly evident in studies showing software is unintentionally designed for males. We are investigating gender HCI issues using quantitative and qualitative empirical methods, using formative work to consider gender-conscious design features, implementing these features in our research prototype, and following up with summative work to evaluate effectiveness.”
“Software systems are often complex in the number of features that are available through the user interface and consequently, the number of interactions that can occur. Such systems are prone to errors when interactions do not work as anticipated. This research introduces a combinatorial method for setting up task-based usability tests. The method bridges contributions from mathematics, design of experiments, software test, and algorithms for application to usability testing.”
“As part of a focus on electronic publications, we undertook an exploratory study of how people saved and used the information they encountered while reading. In particular, we wanted to understand the role of clipping and whether it would be a necessary form of interaction with electronic publications. We interviewed 20 diverse individuals at home and at work, bringing together narrative accounts and physical and digital examples to investigate how people currently collect and use clippings from their everyday reading. All study participants had examples of materials they had deliberately saved from periodicals, ranging from ads torn from newspapers and URLs received in email messages to large stacks of magazines. Participants rarely read periodicals specifically to clip but rather recognized items of interest when they were encountered. The work highlights the importance of encountering information as an activity distinct from task-focused browsing and searching and reveals design implications for online reading and clipping technologies.”
“In this paper I propose a context-aware collaborative filtering system that can predict a user's preference in different context situations based on past user-experiences. The system uses what other like-minded users have done in similar context to predict a user's preference towards an item in the current context.”
“The goal of this work is two-fold: (1) propose a model of communication initiation and response, and (2) evaluate the utility of a set of technology interventions based on that model for coordinating communication. The contribution to the field of HCI will be useful recommendations for the design of electronic communication systems.”
“This paper describes the background, research questions and methodology of user studies on the integration of non-speech sound and paralinguistic parameters in speech-enabled applications. Preliminary results are summarized and future directions are discussed.”
“The goal of this research is to elucidate the ways shared visual space supports group communication and performance. This work involves three stages: a series of empirical studies that decompose the features of shared visual space and task, a methodology for assessing the sequential structure of how visible actions serve to augment discourse, and the development of a computational model of discourse to further our theoretical understanding of the ways in which shared visual information serves communication in collaborative physical tasks.”
“Despite the proliferation of large-scale displays in the workplace, creating groupware applications that take advantage of their potential for collaboration and communication remains challenging. Interactions with large displays yield user experiences that are different from interaction with conventional desktop groupware. Thus, unique hurdles exist for designing large display groupware applications (LDGAs) that are integrated into actual work practice. Our research addresses these challenges through experimental design based on studies of workgroup practices, the formation of a framework of heuristics for LDGA adoption, and its application to the design and analysis of LDGAs.”
“Fitts' law, Steering law and Law of crossing, collectively known as the laws of action, model the speed-accuracy trade-offs in common hci tasks. These laws impose a certain speed ceiling on precise actions in a user interface. My hypothesis is that for some interfaces, the constraints of these laws can be relaxed by using context information of the task. To support this thesis, I present two systems I have developed for pen-based text input on stylus keyboards. These systems break either Fitts' law or the Law of crossing by taking advantage of high-resolution information from the pen, and the fact that words can be seen as patterns traced on the keyboard. Using these systems users can potentially gain higher text entry speed than on a regular stylus keyboard that is limited by the laws of action. I conclude by discussing planned future research, primarily improved visual feedback and empirical evaluation.”
“The main aim of this research is to understand how domestic technologies for collocated groups can be designed to afford enjoyable social interactions. A secondary aim is to devise process measures to assess the nature of these interactions. This study presents a number of process measures and uses them to evaluate differences in groups' social behaviour when sharing photos as prints compared to when photos are presented using a television. Differences in gesturing behaviour towards the photos were evident across the two conditions. However, aspects of verbal behaviour that were measured, which were taken to be indicative of enjoyable social interactions, were not found to vary.”
“Interruptions have gained in importance as a topic in current HCI research. Through a series of experiments, we take a step toward analyzing the active role of human memory in controlling interruptions. The results of these experiments lead us to propose a novel approach, the skilled memory approach, to how UIs can support memory in skilled man-agement of and recovery from interruptions.”
“Using the same application on different devices requires the user to perform a mental transformation in order to adapt his knowledge to a new platform. In this work we describe how this process can be employed in multi-device development.”
“The pervasive adoption of wireless technologies is creating a growing demand for seamless interaction with wireless services. By sharing resources across devices such as PDA's, sensors and cameras, Wireless Grids provide the opportunity to allow users seamless access to services via a new generation of user interfaces. These interfaces draw upon users existing skills of interaction with objects in the real physical world thus, we refer to them as reality-based interfaces. Although these interfaces offer the promise of ease of use, they are currently more difficult to build than traditional ones. The aim of this research is to simplify the task of developing reality-based interfaces and adapting them to a changing landscape of resources. This goal will be accomplished by providing developers with a high level user interface description language (UIDL) and a user interface management system (UIMS) which describes and enables to develop these interfaces given the uncertainty of the input-output devices they will employ.”
“Speech-based interfaces offer the promise of simple human-computer communication, yet the current state-of-the-art often produces inefficient interactions. Many inefficiencies are caused by understanding or recognition errors. Such errors can be minimized by designing interaction protocols in which users are required to speak in a standardized way, but this requirement presents additional difficulties: this way of speaking can be unnatural for users, and in order to learn the standardized interface, users must spend time in tutorial mode rather than in task mode. I propose a strategy of shaping that helps users adapt their interaction to match what the system understands best, thereby reducing the chance for misunderstandings and improving interaction efficiency.”
“The goal of my proposed thesis is to examine the role of working memory in processing route guidance information while driving. I will also assess how changes in the presentation and processing of route guidance and secondary task information influences the primary task of vehicle control. Results will be analyzed in terms of whether a change of route navigation presentation from visual to auditory will change the memory resources used to process the information. Furthermore, analyses will be done to assess whether changes in the processing of route navigation and secondary task information affect driving performance. To examine what working memory subsystems (i.e., phonological, visual, spatial, central executive) are used to process visual versus auditory route guidance information, the present research will require participants to drive a driving simulator while performing a route navigation task and a secondary working memory task. Performance of these secondary tasks will permit us to assess demands of route navigation tasks upon the various working memory subsystems. Accordingly, participants will retain a memory load while performing the route navigation tasks. This research is expected to raise significant HCI implications for the design of safer interfaces for vehicles and provide much needed detail about how specific mental codes and processes are involved in processing route navigation information.”
“This paper describes an investigation of using interactive sonification (non-speech sound) to present geo-referenced statistical data to vision-impaired users for problem solving and decision making. By working with vision-impaired users, the work will identify effective interaction and sound designs for geo-referenced data, and derive principles that can guide general interactive data sonification designs for auditory information seeking.”
“The problem of tracking hands and fingers on natural scenes has received much attention using passive acquisition vision systems and computationally intense image processing. We are currently studying a simple active tracking system using a laser diode, steering mirrors, and a single non-imaging detector, which is capable of acquiring three dimensional coordinates in real time without the need of any image processing at all. Essentially, it is a smart rangefinder scanner that instead of continuously scanning over the full field of view restricts its scanning area, on the basis of a real-time analysis of the backscattered signal, to a very narrow window precisely the size of the target. The complexity of the whole setup is equivalent to that of a portable laser-based barcode reader, making the system compatible with wearable computers.”
“Lighting assumes many aesthetic and communicative functions in game environments that affect attention, immersion, visibility, and emotions. Game environments are dynamic and highly unpredictable; lighting such experiences to achieve desired visual goals is a very challenging problem. Current lighting methods rely on static manual techniques, which require designers to anticipate and account for all possible situations and user actions. Alternatively, we have developed ELE (Expressive Lighting Engine) -- an intelligent lighting system that automatically sets and adjusts scene lighting in real-time to achieve desired aesthetic and communicative goals. In this paper, we discuss ELE and its utility in dynamically manipulating the lighting in a scene to direct attention, stimulate tension, and maintain visual continuity. ELE has been integrated within Unreal Tournament 2003. The videos shown at [14] shows a demonstration of a first person shooter game developed using the Unreal 2.0 engine, where ELE was configured to dynamically stimulate tension, while maintaining other visual goals.”
“"Magic Land" is a cross-section of art and technology. It not only demonstrates the latest advances in human-computer interaction and human-human communication: mixed reality, tangible interaction, and 3D-live human capture technology; but also defines new approaches of dealing with live mixed reality content for artists of any discipline. In this system, the user is captured by cameras from many angles and her live 3D avatar is created to be confronted with 3D computer-generated virtual animations. The avatars and virtual objects can interact with each other in a virtual scenery in the mixed reality context; and users can tangibly interact with these characters using their own hands.”
“SonicTexting is a system for inputting text -- 'texting' -- using gestures and sound. As in musical instruments and everyday mechanical objects, sound in SonicTexting is synchronous and responsive to actions. SonicTexting explores people's hand-ear coordination and demonstrates the use of informative digital sound. It proposes that through touch and sound, a functional activity like text entry can become an experience on the borders between performing a task, playing an instrument and playing a game.”
“In this demonstration, we introduce "curve dial" a technique designed to extend gesture-based interactions like FlowMenus with eyes-free parameter entry. FlowMenus, let users enter numerical parameters with "dialing" strokes surrounding the center of a radial menu. This centering requires users to keep their eyes on the Menu in order to align the pen with its center before initiating a gesture. Curve dial instead tracks the curvature of the path created by the pen: since curvature is location-independent, curvature dialing does not require users to keep track of the menu center and is therefore eyes-free. We demonstrate curvature dial with the example of a simple application that allows users to scroll through a document eyes-free.”
“Biometric technologies are becoming socially acceptable in the wake of recent terrorist events. Bio-data is developing into a legitimate source for identity detection and assessment. Acclairism is an attempt to bring to light some of the conflicts and questions these technologies give rise to: What defines us as unique individuals? What defines us as trusted members of society? How much personal information will we willingly give away and under which circumstances? Through Acclairism we explore a situation wherein people freely accept a highly invasive, highly authoritative manipulation in return for tangible rewards and an upgraded social status. We perform this investigation through Acclair, a company providing brain-testing services as part of an exclusive security clearance for air-travelers.”
“This paper presents a novel and intuitive paradigm for interacting with autonomous animated characters. This paradigm utilizes a mobile device to allow people to transport characters among different virtual environments. The central metaphor in this paradigm is that virtual space is like land and real space is like water for virtual characters. The tangible interface described here serves as a virtual raft with which people may carry characters across a sea of real space from one virtual island to another. By increasing participants' physical engagement with the autonomous characters, this interaction paradigm contributes to the believability of those characters.”
“This paper discusses the design of a physical and digital system intended to allow for easy manipulation and interaction with the tremendous amount of options present in advanced multimedia devices, such as digital cable television. As user demand for access to large quantities of data increases, and cable companies offer more choices to their audiences, traditional content selection techniques become less useful and much more difficult to understand. TRIBA is the result of a ten week research and design exploration investigating how users can easily manipulate and comprehend tremendously large data sets. The findings of this research indicate a need for utilizing interactive agents to bridge the gap between the user and their goal. As technology is created and consumer electronics becomes more integrated into our lives, devices speak a language that users are expected to learn. TRIBA is a product embracing the philosophical idea that users should not have to learn a new language to interact with a futuristic and useful product, but instead products and devices must learn to speak the same language as the user.”
“We propose a tactile sensor based on computer vision that measures a dense traction field, or a distribution of 3D force vectors over a 2D surface, which humans also effectively sense through a dense array of mechanoreceptors in the skin. The proposed "GelForce" tactile sensor has an elegant and organic design and can compute large and structurally rich traction fields in real time. We present how this sensor can serve as a powerful and intuitive computer interface for both existing and emerging desktop applications.”
“Physical and social interactions are constrained,and natural interactions are lost in most of present digital family entertainment systems [5]. Magic Cubes strive for bringing the computer storytelling, doll 's house,and board game back into reality so that the children can interact socially and physically as what we did in the old days. Magic Cubes are novel augmented reality systems that explore to use cubes to interact with three dimensional virtual fantasy world. Magic Cubes encourage discussion, idea exchange, collaboration, social and physical interactions among families.”
“In the business of "User Experience" (UX), collaboration across multiple disciplines is considered to be critical to achieving success. But the increasing number of professional associations and events of relevance to UX practitioners rely much less on collaboration with others in their pursuit of success. This panel reports on obstacles to and opportunities for increasing collaboration among professional organizations, and the effects increased collaboration can have on the service and support provided to the rapidly growing, multidisciplinary UX profession.”
“Are you facing a corporate re-org? Re-orgs can create exciting opportunities for HCI groups, or good people's careers can be set back. This panel of HCI managers will consult on corporate reorganizations described by audience members. First, panelists with different perspectives discuss the roles of HCI resources during re-orgs. Then the panel will address audience questions on how to be proactive about organizational changes. (Send your questions to stephanie@teced.com by March 15th.) This panel will be of special interest to the industry segment of the CHI community-and also to academics who are educating future practitioners.”
“The activity centered around the TX-2 computer at Lincoln Laboratory in the 1960's laid the foundation for much of HCI. Through the use of archival film footage, and live presentations by some of the key protagonists, this panel is intended to contribute to a more general awareness of this work, its historical importance to HCI, and its relevance to research today.”
“This panel examines the utility and effectiveness of various ways of making the business case for user-centered design (UCD). Most of the discussion in our field has assumed that measuring and demonstrating ROI for usability is the key to this effort. However, experience shows that the most brilliant ROI analysis may not win the day in the real world of business. Our panelists range from people who claim that ROI is an important persuasive tool as long as the communication about ROI is happening within a healthy business relationship, to people who claim that a focus on ROI can actually be destructive. We also explore the idea that there are important business contexts where ROI simply does not fit. Through the presentations by the panelists and through discussion of a business case scenario, we explore some alternatives to ROI in making the business case for user-centered design.”
“In a June 2003 survey, the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company reported that 51 percent of software executives surveyed have indicated that their offshore development strategy is already underway. Furthermore, another 20 percent of those surveyed indicated that they would move some portion of their product development offshore within the next 12 months. While offshore development has distinct advantages from the cost of labor perspective, it raises a significant number of challenges as well as opportunities for HCI practitioners and companies that wish to develop well designed, usable products. Offshoring is already changing the practice of HCI in industry, and will continue to impact practitioners more significantly over time.”
“From pre-schools to high schools, at home and in museums, the educational community has embraced the use of computers as a teaching tool. Yet many institutions will simply install "what everyone else is using" without questioning how technology can be best used to enhance education. For this panel, we have assembled a broad range of researchers and practitioners who are on the forefront of using computers to teach kids in novel ways. Each panelist will summarize their approach with examples of projects that they believe will demonstrate "what's new". We will then have videotaped children pose their toughest educational challenges to the panelists. Panelists will answer by talking about how they would meet these challenges. Finally, attendees will get to vote for their favorite solution. This will expose the CHI audience to a range of educational challenges, with a taste of the different ways that these problems can be solved.”
“To some extent listening to digital music via storage devices has led to a loss of part of the physical experience associated with earlier media formats such as CDs and LPs. For example, one could consider the role of album covers in music appreciation. Previous efforts at making music interaction more tangible have focused mainly on access issues. A case study is presented in which several content attributes of Mp3 formatted music as well as control access are made more visible and tangible. Play lists, music rhythm, volume, and navigational feedback were communicated via multicolored light displayed in a tangible interface. Users were able to physically interact with music collections via the MusicCube, a wireless cube-like object, using gestures to shuffle music and a rotary dial with a button for song navigation and volume control. Speech and non-speech feedback were given to communicate current mode and song title. The working prototype was compared to an Apple iPod, along the dimensions of trust, engagement, ergonomic and hedonic qualities, and appeal. Subjects rated the MusicCube higher on scales associated with hedonic qualities, while the iPod was preferred for ergonomic qualities. Results on trust measures were found to correlate with ergonomic qualities, while sense of engagement related to hedonic aspects. Subjects generally valued the expressive and tangible interaction with music collections. Next design steps will focus on increasing ergonomic aspects of the MusicCube while maintaining a high hedonic rating.”
“A model for movement time for scrolling is developed and verified experimentally. It is hypothesized that the maximum scroll speed is a constant at which the target can be perceived when scrolling over the screen. In an experiment where distance to target and target width were varied, it was found that movement time did not follow Fitts' law. Rather, it was linearly dependent on the distance to the target, suggesting a constant maximum scrolling speed. We hypothesize that the same relationship between movement time and target distance apply to other computer interaction tasks where the position of the target is not known ahead of time, and the data in which the target is sought is not ordered.”
“Current standard interfaces for entering mathematical equations on computers are arguably limited and cumbersome. Mathematics notations have evolved to aid visual thinking and yet text-based interfaces relying on keyboard-and-mouse input do not take advantage of the natural two-dimensional aspects of math. Due to its similarities to paper-based mathematics, pen-based handwriting input may be faster, more efficient, and more preferable for entering mathematics on computers. This paper presents an empirical study that tests this hypothesis. We also explored a multimodal input method combining handwriting and speech because we hypothesize that it may enhance computer recognition and aid user cognition. Novice users were indeed faster, more efficient and enjoyed the handwriting modality more than a standard keyboard-and-mouse mathematics interface, especially as equation length and complexity increased. The multimodal handwriting-plus-speech method was faster and better liked than the keyboard-and-mouse method and was not much worse than handwriting alone.”
“The use of multiple LCD monitors is becoming popular as prices are reduced, but this creates problems for window management and switching between applications. For a single monitor, eye tracking can be combined with the mouse to reduce the amount of mouse movement, but with several monitors the head is moved through a large range of positions and angles which makes eye tracking difficult. We thus use head tracking to switch the mouse pointer between monitors and use the mouse to move within each monitor. In our experiment users required significantly less mouse movement with the tracking system, and preferred using it, although task time actually increased. A graphical prompt (flashing star) prevented the user losing the pointer when switching monitors. We present discussions on our results and ideas for further developments.”
“Emotions are now recognized as complex human control systems, crucial to decision making, creativity, playing and learning. Affective technologies may offer improved interaction and commercial promise. In the past, research has focused on technical development work, leaving many questions about user preferences unanswered. For this user-centered study, 60 participants played a simple 'word ladder' game under different controlled conditions. Using 2 x 2 factorial design, and a Wizard of Oz scenario, half the participants interacted with a system that adapted on the basis of the user's emotional expression and half were told the system could react to their emotional expressions. We established that when using an apparently affective system, users perform significantly better and report themselves as feeling significantly happier. We also discuss behavioral responses to the different conditions. These results are relevant to the design of future affective systems.”
“Large high-resolution screens are becoming increasingly available and less expensive. This creates potential advantages for data visualization in that more dense data and fine details are viewable at once. Also, less navigation may be needed to see more data. However, little work has been done to determine the effectiveness of large high-resolution displays, especially for basic low-level data visualization and navigation tasks. This paper describes an exploratory study on the effects of a large tiled display with a resolution of 3840x3072 as compared to two smaller displays (1560x2048 and 1280x1024). We conclude that, with finely detailed data, higher resolution displays that use physical navigation significantly outperform smaller displays that use pan and zoom navigation. Qualitatively, we also conclude that use of the larger display is less stressful and creates a better sense of confidence than the smaller displays.”
“This paper focuses on enabling interactions with large public displays using the most ubiquitous personal computing device, the mobile phone. Two new interaction techniques are introduced that use the embedded camera on mobile phones as an enabling technology. The "Point & Shoot" technique allows users to select objects using visual codes to set up an absolute coordinate system on the display surface instead of tagging individual objects on the screen. The "Sweep" technique enables users to use the phone like an optical mouse with multiple degrees of freedom and allows interaction without having to point the camera at the display. Prototypes of these interactions have been implemented and evaluated using modern mobile phone technologies. This proof of concept provides a performance baseline and gives valuable insights to guide future research and development. These techniques are intended to inspire and enable new classes of large public display applications.”
“The Restricted Focus Viewer (RFV) relates a small part of an otherwise blurred display to the focus of visual attention. A user controls which part of the screen is in focus by using a computer mouse. The RFV tool records these movements. Recently, some studies used the RFV to investigate the cognitive behavior of users and some others have even enhanced the tool for research of usability issues. We report on an eye-tracking study where the effects of RFV's display blurring on the visual attention allocation of 18 novice and expert programmers were investigated. We replicated a previous RFV-based study and analyzed attention switching and fixation durations reported by an eye tracker. Our results indicate that the blurring interferes with the strategies possessed by experts and has an effect on fixation duration: however, we found that debugging performance was preserved. We discuss possible reasons and implications.”
“Multiple-monitor computer configurations significantly increase the distances that users must traverse with the mouse when interacting with existing applications, resulting in increased time and effort. We introduce the Multi-Monitor Mouse (M3) technique, which virtually simulates having one mouse pointer per monitor when using a single physical mouse device. M3 allows for conventional control of the mouse within each monitor's screen, while permitting immediate warping across monitors when desired to increase mouse traversal speed. We report the results of a user study in which we compared three implementations of M3 and two cursor placement strategies. Our results suggest that using M3 significantly increases interaction speed in a multi-monitor environment. All eight study participants strongly preferred M3 to the regular mouse behavior.”
“In this paper the results of a two-year ethnographic study of the personal document management of 28 information workers is described. Both the paper and digital domain were taken into account during the study. The results reaffirmed that document management is strongly related to task management. Digital tools do not adequately support two important user needs related to task management, namely that documents should be embedded within meaningful (task-related) context information, and that they should be easily accessible for regrouping as the task goes on. In contrast, paper supports these needs very well. Following a discussion of personal document management using paper, email, and digital file folder structures, six implications are outlined for the design of digital document management systems that combine the advantages of both domains.”
“This study examines the acceptance and usability of an animated conversational agent designed to establish long-term relationships with older, mostly minority adult users living in urban neighborhoods. The agent plays the role of an exercise advisor who interacts with subjects daily for two months on a touch-screen computer installed in their homes for the study. Survey results indicate the eight subjects who completed the pilot study (aged 62-82) found the agent very easy to interact with, even though most of them had little or no previous experience using computers. Most subjects also indicated strong liking for and trust in the agent, felt that their relationship with the agent was more similar to a close friend than a stranger, and expressed a strong desire to continue working with the agent at the end of the study. These results were also confirmed through qualitative analysis of post-experiment debrief transcripts.”
“We report on one of several exploratory, formulative studies that we conducted to help inform the thoughtful use of mixed physical and digital interactivity in a wiki-based system targeted at design collaborations. This study had two parts, both involving bar-coded cards, a bar-code scanner, and a projector. One part emphasized a creative, synthesis-oriented design activity. The other part emphasized a decision-making design activity. We learned that our method of designing the physical cards and the variance in the types of information we included on the cards significantly affected the collaborative behaviors. We also learned that the extension of interactivity from the digital to the physical world and back again successfully scaffolded both creative and decision-making activities in our context, although with some very notable differences in interactive behaviors between the specific activities. This latter point notwithstanding, we learned that allowing high-resolution, small size physical cards to be arrayed and manipulated on a shared surface matters much more for the purposes of scaffolding the collaborative activities than the ability to scan and project large-size, low-resolution facsimiles of the same information, in specific contexts of collaborative story-creation and decision making.”
“Personalization and social awareness, important aspects in the definition of a place, are traditionally overlooked in the design of technology for museums. We describe Imprints, a system to enhance the role of visitor participation beyond information receiver to active creator of sense of place. Overall response to the Imprints system is explored through interviews and log analysis of use. Despite some usability issues, response to the system was positive, and it was appropriated for both personalization and awareness of others. The results suggest an opportunity to introduce technology that plays with the dynamic between private expression and public presence in the traditional environment of the art museum.”
“Computers are moving out of the home office and into other areas of the home. The problem today is not whether the technology that enables this transition is available, but whether people can use the technology as it is presented today. Unfortunately, for the average user, the initial experience of setting up and using some of the newest and most interesting digital home devices is challenging, at best, and impossible for many. This paper describes a unique research technique that has been used to create tools that predict the end-users' experience when setting up and using a variety of products (Lind & Michalak, 2001; Lind & Michalak, 2002). Most recently, we applied this approach to a new category of products called "Digital Media Adapters" (DMAs). As with its predecessors, this tool not only allows the prediction of an end-users' experience but provides guidance on how to improve their experience.”
“The objects and surfaces of a task-based environment can be layered with digital interfaces to make them easier and safer to use. Once information can be projected anywhere in the space, it becomes crucial to design the information to make optimal use of users' attention. We have prototyped and evaluated a real-world augmented reality kitchen where user-centered interfaces and displays can be projected anywhere in the space to improve its usability. The augmented environment is designed to support the activities of a variety of people in diverse kitchen environments. This paper presents five intelligent kitchen systems that layer useful interfaces onto the refrigerator, range, cabinets, countertops and sink. The interface design is driven by human factors, especially attention theory and user evaluations. By projecting interfaces where they require the least cognitive load, we hope to improve the performance and confidence of users. The design employs cueing and search principles from attention theory. We present the results of pilot studies and future directions for our work.”
“Can implicit interaction with a computer easily drive useful interface improvements in physical world settings? This paper presents a case study presenting multiple such context-aware interaction improvements in a sink. We have identified opportunities where automated interfaces at the sink have positive consequences for safety, hygiene and ecology. The danger of scalding oneself with hot water is confronted by transforming the water into a graphical user interface and using image understanding to dispense the proper temperature of water. Audio-visual feedback at the sink can motivate users to conserve water. Used in combination with an RFID reader, the sink can serve as an effective means of verifying hand-washing compliance for clean environments. Finally, automatic actuation of the sink's height based on the user and task can prevent burns and ergonomic injuries. This project demonstrates that the integration of digital interaction in a hostile environment can facilitate and improve our daily rituals.”
“The study of users' emotional behavior in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) field has received increasing attention during the last few years. Our work in this area focuses on the relationship between user emotions and perceived usability problems. Specifically, we propose to observe users' spontaneous facial expressions as a method to identify adverse-event occurrences at the user interface level. This paper reports on the results of an experiment designed to investigate the association between adverse-event occurrences during a word processing task and users' facial expressions monitored using electromyogram (EMG) sensor devices. The results suggest that an increase of task difficulty is related to an increase in specific facial muscle activity, thus creating a baseline for future developments using camera-based monitoring of facial activities.”
“Few systems combine both Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) and multimodal input. This research aims at modeling the behavior of adults and children during their multimodal interaction with ECAs. A Wizard-of-Oz setup was used and users were video-recorded while interacting with 2D ECAs in a game scenario with speech and pen as input modes. We found that frequent social cues and natural Human-Human syntax condition the verbal interaction of both groups with ECAs. Multimodality accounted for 21% of inputs: it was used for integrating conversational and social aspects (by speech) into task-oriented actions (by pen). We closely examined temporal and semantic integration of modalities: most of the time, speech and gesture overlapped and produced complementary or redundant messages; children also tended to produce concurrent multimodal inputs, as a way of doing several things at the same time. Design implications of our results for multimodal bidirectional ECAs and game systems are discussed.”
“Although Instant Messaging (IM) is widely perceived as a communication mode with relaxed spelling and grammar rules, three measures show that people still perceive errors and often correct them. In two usability studies with different tasks, participants on average corrected 89 and 95 percent of their typographical and grammatical errors that they identified. However, their self-correction rates were substantially lower and more variable when compared to all errors found by independent proofreaders. The results from the second measurement showed that participants were aware of their own errors. They judged their own error rate to be significantly higher than the other person's even when that was not true. Using the third measure, correction rates in IM were found to be lower than "normal" typing. The self-sensitivity to errors prompts further investigation of techniques for error detection and correction appropriate for IM's rapid pace and relaxed linguistic register.”
“Although slideshow presentation applications, such as PowerPoint have been popular for years, the techniques commercially available to control them rely on mouse and keyboard, which can be restrictive for the presenters. We evaluated two representative alternative designs of presentation control techniques - Bare Hand and Laser Pointer, through a Wizard-of-Oz user study. The result showed that Bare Hand was better than Laser Pointer and Standard (mouse/keyboard) control in terms of acceptance and preference from both presenters and audience. We also proposed design directions based on user feedback.”
“Providing instructions via handheld prompters holds much promise for supporting independence for persons with cognitive disabilities. Because users of these tools are paired - caregivers who make scripts and a person with cognitive disabilities who uses them - designing such a system presents unique meta-design problems. The problems of changing content and configuration on a handheld computer, as needs and abilities change of the users with cognitive disabilities, produce a critical need for end-user programming tools. This paper describes the design and testing of the MAPS (Memory Aiding Prompting System) system, consisting of a handheld prompter and a multimedia editing tool for script creation, storage, and modification. The unique meta-design challenges of supporting end-user programming of context-responsive systems, and its broader implications, are presented.”
“Web logs, or blogs, challenge the notion of authorship. Seemingly, rather than a model in which the author's writings are themselves a contribution, the blog author weaves a tapestry of links, quotations, and references amongst generated content. In this paper, I present a study of the role of the author plays in the construction of topical blogs, in particular focusing on how blog authors make decisions about what to post and how they judge the quality of posts. To this end, I analyzed the blogs and blogging habits of eight participants using a quantitative analysis tool that I developed, a diary study, and interviews with each participant. Results suggest that authors of topical blogs often do not create new content but strive to, often follow journalistic conventions, use the content of their blogs as a reference tool for other work practices, and are connected as a community by a set of source documents. Results also show that Instant Messaging is useful as an interview medium when questions center around online content.”
“In this paper we present a user-centered design process for Active Capture systems. These systems bring together techniques from human-human direction practice, multimedia signal processing, and human-computer interaction to form computational systems that automatically analyze and direct human action. The interdependence between the design of multimedia signal parsers and the user interaction script presents a unique challenge in the design process. We have developed an iterative user-centered design process for Active Capture systems that incorporates bodystorming, wizard-of-oz user studies, iterative parser design, and traditional user studies, based on our experience designing a portrait camera system that works with the user to record her name and take her picture. Based on our experiences, we lay out a set of recommendations for future tools to support such a design process.”
“A new breed of mobile phones has been designed to enable concurrent vibration and audio stimulation, or audio-haptics. This paper aims to share techniques for creating and optimizing audio-haptic effects to enhance the user interface. The authors present audio manipulation techniques specific to the multifunction transducer (MFT) technology. In particular two techniques, the Haptic Inheritance and Synthesis and Matching methods are discussed. These two methods of haptic media generation allow simple creation of vibration content, and also allow for compatibility with non-haptic mobile devices. The authors present preliminary results of an evaluation of 42 participants comparing audio-based haptic user interface (UI) feedback with audio-only feedback. The results show that users were receptive to audio-haptic UI feedback. The results also suggest that audio-haptics seems to enhance the perception of audio quality.”
“Visualization techniques have proven to be critical in helping crime analysis. By interviewing and observing Criminal Intelligence Officers (CIO) and civilian crime analysts at the Tucson Police Department (TPD), we found that two types of tasks are important for crime analysis: crime pattern recognition and criminal association discovery. We developed two separate systems that provide automatic visual assistance on these tasks. To help identify crime patterns, a Spatial Temporal Visualization (STV) system was designed to integrate a synchronized view of three types of visualization techniques: a GIS view, a timeline view and a periodic pattern view. The Criminal Activities Network (CAN) system extracts, visualizes and analyzes criminal relationships using spring-embedded and blockmodeling algorithms. This paper discusses the design and functionality of these two systems and the lessons learned from the development process and interaction with law enforcement officers.”
“Immersion is recognised as an important element of good games. However, it is not always clear what is meant by immersion. Earlier work has identified possible barriers to immersion including a lack of coherence between different aspects of the game. Building on this work, we designed an experiment to examine people's expectations of how a game should behave and what would happen if that behaviour was deliberately made to be incoherent. The idea then is to understand immersion through seeing how immersion can be broken. The main manipulation was to alter the behaviour and realism of the graphics in the course of a simple game situation. Surprisingly, results indicated that participants could be so immersed within a simple environment such that even significant changes in behaviour had little effect on the level of immersion. In some cases, the attempted disruptions went completely unnoticed. These results suggest that immersion within an application can overcome effects which are completely against user expectations.”
“In this paper we introduce Sparks, an ambient social networking and communication facilitation interface. We developed the Sparks system as a physical alternative to existing connectedness mediator systems. While several systems are under investigation, they are limited by their confinement to the traditional display. We address this issue, in part, by collocating the visualization and the user within the physical environment of the scenario. We describe the specific aspects of the system that capitalize on both foreground and peripheral attention to facilitate communication throughout a conversation. We discuss our ongoing research where architectural surfaces are used to provide interactive layers of information related to elements present in the space, and conclude with a discussion of the benefits of the system in combining the immediacy of the physical environment with the dynamic data handling characteristics of a digital system.”
“Our Translation Assistant applies common sense logic to the problem of translating speech in real time from one language to another. Using speech recognition combined with a software translator to do word-by-word translation is not feasible because speech recognition is notorious for poor results. Word-by-word translation requires grammatically correct input to translate accurately. Therefore, translation of speech that is potentially already fraught with errors is not expected to be good. Our Translation Assistant works around these problems by using the context of the conversation as a basis for translation. It takes the location and the speaker as input to establish the circumstances. Then it uses a common sense knowledge network to do topic-spotting using key words from the conversation. It only translates the most likely topics of conversation into the target language. This system does not require perfect speech recognition, yet enables end-users to have a sense of the conversation.”
“The increase in channels and formats of personal communication such as email, instant messaging, and mobile phones, has generated new problems both with selecting the appropriate method to contact someone and communicating a preference for incoming communication. Some applications, such as instant messaging have partially addressed this problem with status and away messages, but this approach offers limited communication options and only works for this communication channel. Following a user-centered design approach, we explored the needs of users to manage their communication channels. Using diaries, observations, and directed story-telling interviews we generated a set of observed needs. We then generated concept scenarios that capture these needs and performed a concept validation with a focus group looking for an overlap between our observed needs and the focus groups perceived needs. This paper documents our findings and offers implications for designers addressing these communication needs.”
“We present a longitudinal study of mini-QWERTY keyboard use, examining the learning rates of novice mini-QWERTY users. The study consists of 20 twenty-minute typing sessions using two different-sized keyboard models. Subjects average over 31 words per minute (WPM) for the first session and increase to an average of 60 WPM by the twentieth. Individual subjects also exceed the upper bound of 60.74 WPM suggested by MacKenzie and Soukoreff's model of two-thumb text entry [5]. We discuss our results in the context of this model.”
“HCI's focus has shifted from the system, via the user, to the context of use. All are necessary but not sufficient for effective interactive systems design, which requires a 'fourth' value-centred focus. System-, user- and context-centred HCI must be coordinated within a value?centred framework with four main processes: opportunity identification, design, evaluation and iteration. The latter two are separate, since iteration requires skills and knowledge beyond those typically available to evaluators. Value-centred development adds new activities and artifacts to existing development methodologies. Opportunity identification has the goal of stating the intended value for a digital product or service. Value delivery scenarios refocus design on value in the world, as does value impact analysis for evaluation. The co?ordination of existing and new HCI activities within a value-centred framework is outlined using examples from an ongoing design project.”
“In this paper, we address the problem of maintaining a precise frequency in vibrating motors for use as vibrotactile cueing devices. Our solution utilizes a piezoelectric film sensor that measures the motor frequency and uses a feedback-loop circuit to dynamically adjust the motor power to maintain the target frequency. We confirmed the accuracy of the film with a laser sensor and tested the ability of the feedback system to match a target frequency by changing the physical load placed on the motor. A user study showed that subjects perceived a difference in vibration intensity under loaded conditions with and without our compensation system, indicating the usefulness of such a feedback system on influencing perception. The results can help designers create better interfaces when vibrotactile cues are employed.”
“In this paper we present a design project involving primary end users who have declining cognitive abilities such as memory, communication, and problem solving. We are designing interactive multimedia with personalized life stories for individuals with Alzheimer's disease. We conducted a case study to discover and address the design challenges for this project. A particular challenge is a limited ability to communicate with the primary end users. In this paper, we present design methods that take this challenge into consideration. Our goal is to contribute insight into designing for users with cognitive disabilities, and to present methodologies that are useful for designers who have a limited ability to interact or communicate with end users.”
“We present our experiences with evaluating an ambient display for the home using two different evaluation techniques: the recently proposed 'Heuristic Evaluation of Ambient Displays' and an in situ, 3-week long, Wizard of Oz evaluation. We compare the list of usability violations found in the heuristic evaluation to the set of problems that were discovered in the in situ evaluation. Overall, the 'Heuristic Evaluation of Ambient Displays' was effective - 75% of known usability problems were found by eight evaluators (39-55% were found by 3-5 evaluators). However, the most severe usability problem found in the in situ evaluation was not identified in the heuristic evaluation. Because the problem directly violated one of the heuristics, we believe that the problem is not with the heuristics, but rather that evaluators have minimal experience with ambient displays for the home.”
“As mobile devices become location-aware, it will become possible to know when people are physically co-located and to incorporate this information into social software. Is this valuable? A prototype social networking system based on physical co-presence was created and tested wizard-of-oz-style at four different physical social events by providing event attendees a digital link back to others at the event. Usage of the system was higher than expected, suggesting a meaningful role for incorporating shared physical events into social networking software. Usage and questionnaire analyses suggest some guidelines for design of such systems.”
“Long web search result lists can be hard to browse. We demonstrated experimentally, in a previous study, the usefulness of a categorization algorithm and filtering interface. However, the nature of interaction in real settings is not known from an experiment in laboratory settings. To address this problem, we provided our categorizing web search user interface to 16 users for a two month period. The interactions with the system were logged and the users' opinions were elicited with two questionnaires. The results show that categories are successfully used as part of users' search habits. They are helpful when the result ranking of the search engine fails. In those cases, the users are able to access results that locate far in the rank order list with the categories. Users can also formulate simpler queries and find needed results with the help of the categories. In addition, the categories are beneficial when more than one result is needed like in an exploratory or undirected search task.”
“One problem evaluating mobile and wearable devices is that they are used in mobile settings, making it hard to collect usability data. We present a study of tap-based selection of on-screen targets whilst walking and sitting, using a PocketPC instrumented with an accelerometer to collect information about user activity at the time of each tap. From these data the user's gait can be derived, and this is then used to investigate preferred tapping behaviour relative to gait phase, and associated tap accuracy. Results showed that users were more accurate sitting than walking. When walking there were phase regions with significantly increased tap likelihood, and these regions had significantly lower error rates, and lower error variability. This work represents an example of accelerometer-instrumented mobile usability analysis, and the results give a quantitative understanding of the detailed interactions taking place when on the move, allowing us to develop better mobile interfaces.”
“Web design guidelines are often derived from best practices, conventional wisdom, or small-scale usability studies conducted in labs. We contend that if Web design guidelines are to inform the design of Web sites serving varied audiences with varied needs, the guidelines must be derived from empirical research that assesses users in their native environments as they interact with real Web sites. While we believe that the delivery of a remote Web-based experiment has many potential benefits, we acknowledge that it can be difficult to exercise experimental control so as to acquire reliable data, capture user behavior unobtrusively, extract meaningful information from server logs, and collect valid survey data. Therefore, we report on how we addressed some of the challenges of conducting remote empirical studies of the effect of navigational cues on Web browsing behavior.”
“Informal note taking is an essential activity in Personal Information Management (PIM). Most mobile devices support this via a suite of applications, employing both highly structured (e.g., calendar, task list, contacts) and loosely structured (e.g., memos) data formats. Contextual interviews and artifact inspections with expert PIM-on-PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) users explored task-to-application mapping. Structured tools were routinely avoided for informal note taking in favor of unstructured ones, even though this made managing the information more difficult. Improved support lies somewhere in between, suggesting the design of an integrated architecture, which links data across all PIM tools and provides a persistent, universal organizational system.”
“In this paper, we describe preliminary findings that indicate that managers and non-mangers think about their email differently. We asked three research managers and three research non-managers to sort about 250 of their own email messages into categories that "would help them to manage their work." Our analyses indicate that managers create more categories and a more differentiated category structure than non-managers. Our data also suggest that managers create "relationship-oriented" categories more often than non-managers. These results are relevant to research on "email overload" that has highlighted the use of email for activities beyond communication. In particular, our findings suggest that too strong a focus on task management may be incomplete, and that a user's organizational role has an impact on their conceptualization and likely use of email.”
“It is important for analysts to realize the connection between two distant nodes in a graph, which is not readily supported by existing space-filling techniques. We developed an experimental prototype, FocusTree, which displays graphs in two view modes: fisheye or tree. In fisheye view, selected nodes and the nodes connecting them remained full-sized while the other nodes were reduced in size. In tree view, all nodes remained the same size, regardless of selection state. We conducted a study to compare the speed of participants using the fisheye view to the tree view when determining the number of links between two nodes. There were two states for the degree of separation in the tasks: simple (four links) and complex (eight links). Results showed a main effect for view type with fisheye view being significantly faster than tree view for determining the connection between two nodes.”
“Substantial stumbling blocks confront computer-illiterate elders. We introduce a novel user interface technology to lower these start up costs: the book as user interface, or BUI. Book pages contain both step-by-step instructions and tangible controls, turning a complex interaction into a walk-up-and-use scenario. The system expands support past the technical artifact to a go-to relationship. ElderMail users designate an internet-savvy trusted friend or relative to help with complex tasks. In this paper, we conduct a preliminary evaluation of a BUI-based email system, and report our findings. While research has augmented paper artifacts to provide alternate access into the digital world, we find that elders use the BUI as a way to circumvent the digital world.”
“Cameraphones are rapidly becoming a global platform for everyday digital imaging especially for networked sharing of media from mobile devices. However, their constrained user interfaces and the current network and application infrastructure encumber the basic tasks of transferring, finding, and sharing captured media. We have deployed a prototype context-aware cameraphone application for mobile media sharing (MMM2) that aims to overcome these difficulties. MMM2 leverages the point of capture and of sharing to gather metadata, and uses metadata to support sharing. Based on the early results of the first 6 weeks of a six-month trial involving 60 users, indications are that with MMM2 users are actively capturing and sharing photos. The ability to automatically upload photos from a cameraphone to a web-based photo management application and to automatically suggest sharing recipients at the time of capture based on Bluetooth-sensed co-presence and sharing frequency promise to reduce the current difficulty of mobile media sharing.”
“One important tool for developing complex interactive applications is "Wizard of Oz "(WOz)simulation. WOz simulation allows design concepts,content and partially completed applications to be tested on users without the need to first create a completely working system. In this paper we discuss the integration of wizard interface tools into a Mixed Reality (MR)design environment and show how easier creation and evolution of wizard interfaces can lead to an expanded role for WOz-based testing during the design evolution of MR experiences. We share our experiences designing an audio experience in an historic site,and illustrate the evolution of the wizard interfaces alongside the user experience”
“Webcast systems support real-time webcasting, and may also support access to the stored webcasts. Yet, research rarely examines issues concerning the interface to webcast systems, another form of multimedia system. This paper focuses specifically on how stored webcasts are re-used. Sixteen participants performed three typical information tasks using ePresence, a webcasting system that handles both live and stored video, and contains several tools: a video window, a timeline of the webcast, slides used by the presenter, and a moderator-generated table of contents, that facilitate user access to the intellectual content of a stored video. Use takes place at the level of the webcast, and our analysis assessed user interactivity. The results showed that different types of tasks need different strategies and tools.”
“This paper describes the development of a new model of agent emotion elicitation called Nemesys. It enhances interfaces with emotional and social information. Nemesys is based on an artificial neural network and is able to learn six basic emotional states. The elicitation of emotions is based on models drawn from the state of the art in modeling emotions in the field of psychology. Further the described framework includes the Five-Factor Model of Personality to represent different agent personalities. Nemesys (called after Nemesis, the Greek goddess of righteous anger) is designed to perform in various types of interfaces. The usage of Nemesys is presented with an application scenario employing a commercial 3D game-engine. Additionally a critical review of the current elicitation behavior of Nemesys is presented and discussed.”
“Information visualisation systems frequently have to deal with large amounts of data and this often leads to saturated areas in the display with considerable overplotting. This paper introduces the Sampling Lens, a novel tool that utilises random sampling to reduce the clutter within a moveable region, thus allowing the user to uncover any potentially interesting patterns and trends in the data while still being able to view the sample in context. We demonstrate the versatility of the tool by adding sampling lenses to scatter and parallel co-ordinate visualisations. We also consider some implementation issues and present initial user evaluation results.”
“This paper describes a new way of visualizing threaded discussion forums on compact displays. The technique uses squarified treemaps to render the threads in discussion forums as colored rectangles, thereby using 100% of the limited screen space. We conducted a preliminary user study, which compared the treemap version and a traditional text based tree interface. This showed that the contents of the discussion forum were easily grasped when using a treemap, even though there were in excess of one hundred threads. In particular our technique showed a significant improvement in time for finding the largest and most active threads. Overall, it was shown that the benefits derived from using treemaps on desktop computers are still valid for small screens.”
“We present a new interaction technique for large direct-touch displays called Modal Spaces. Modal interfaces require the user to keep track of the state of the system. The Modal Spaces technique adds screen location as an additional parameter of the interaction. Each modal region on the display supports a particular set of input actions and the visual background indicates the space's use. This "workbench approach" exploits the larger form factor of display. Our spatial multiplexing of the display supports a document-centric paradigm (as opposed to application-centric), enabling input gesture reuse, while complementing and enhancing the current existing practices of modal interfaces. We present a proof-of-concept system and discuss potential applications, design issues, and future research directions.”
“Busy academics and professionals are being called upon to manage more and more relationships. Many details of collaboration are accessible in digital libraries and other repositories. With Relationship-Oriented Computing, we posit that network information embedded in these repositories can be leveraged to improve the human need to manage and form the most productive relationships. To explore this idea, we developed a relationship-network application, called Relescope, and deployed it at the ACM CSCW 2004 conference. It provided a personalized report to attendees based on publication and citation information. The report was intended to provide concrete insights into the relationship-network that could be acted upon. Results of a survey showed that 52% of responders used their report to recognize and talk to others or plan which talks to attend. People with fewer collaborators were more inclined to use Relescope than the people with the most collaborators. Lessons learned and future work are discussed.”
“The RhaiCAL system provides novel visualizations and interaction techniques for interacting with an intelligent agent, with an emphasis on calendar scheduling. After an agent interprets natural language containing meeting information, a user can easily correct mistakes using RhaiCAL's clarification dialogs, which provide the agent with feedback to improve its performance. When an agent proposes actions to take on the user's behalf, it can ask the user to confirm them. RhaiCAL uses novel visualizations to present the proposal to the user and allow them to modify the proposal, and informs the agent of the user's actions in a manner that supports long-term learning of the user's preferences. We have designed a high-level XML-based language that allows an agent to express its questions and proposed actions without mentioning user interface details, and that enables RhaiCAL to generate high-quality user interfaces.”
“Psychologists have found that actual and perceived similarity between potential romantic partners in demographics, attitudes, values, and attractiveness correlate positively with attraction and, later, relationship satisfaction. Online dating systems provide a new way for users to identify and communicate with potential partners, but the information they provide differs dramatically from what a person might glean from face-to-face interaction. An analysis of dyadic interactions of approximately 65,000 heterosexual users of an online dating system in the U.S. showed that, despite these differences, users of the system sought people like them much more often than chance would predict, just as in the offline world. The users' preferences were most strongly same-seeking for attributes related to the life course, like marital history and whether one wants children, but they also demonstrated significant homophily in self-reported physical build, physical attractiveness, and smoking habits.”
“We describe a technique that supports the previewing of navigation, exploration, and editing operations by providing convenient Undo for unsuccessful and/or undesirable actions on multi-level input devices such as touch screens and pen-based computers. By adding a Glimpse state to traditional three-state pressure sensitive input devices, users are able to preview the effects of their editing without committing to them. From this Glimpse state, users can undo their action as easily as they can commit to it, making Glimpse most appropriate for systems in which the user is likely to try out many variations of an edit before finding the right one. Exploration is encouraged as the cumbersome returning to a menu or keyboard to issue an Undo command is eliminated. Glimpse has the added benefits that the negative effects of inconsistencies in the Undo feature within an application are reduced.”
“In this user study, we address several open issues in the design of waiting cues for system response time (SRT) in interactive telephony speech applications. User observations and structured preference tests indicate that silent waiting times should not be longer than 4 -- 8 seconds. Already at short durations, music combined with speech was favored to silence. A preference test regarding several non-speech waiting cues proposed in literature suggests that music is preferred to more simple synthetic sounds and to natural sounds. The continuous indication of the remaining waiting time by speech was rated as much more pleasant and appropriate than a non-speech audio progress meter. Commercial announcements and navigational advice during waiting times were not accepted by the subjects. Empirically based guidelines for a maximum waiting duration in voice services is given. Implications for the design of auditory waiting cues for SRT are discussed.”
“Recent criticism of think-aloud testing (TA) discusses discrepancies between theory and practice, the artificiality of the test situation, and inconsistencies in the evaluators' interpretation of the process. Rather than enforcing a more strict TA procedure, we describe Cooperative Usability Testing (CUT), where test users and evaluators join expertise to understand the usability problems of the application evaluated. CUT consists of two sessions. In the interaction session, the test user tries out the application to uncover potential usability problems while the evaluators mainly observe, e.g. as in TA or contextual inquiry. In the interpretation session, evaluators and test users discuss what they consider the most important usability problems, supported by a video of the interaction session. In an exploratory study comparing CUT to TA, seven evaluators find that interpretation sessions contribute important usability information compared to TA. Also test users found participation in the interpretation session interesting.”
“Accessibility-related regulations and guidelines are contributing to the steady improvement of Web accessibility. There are various accessibility evaluation tools, and they also help Web authors make their pages compliant with guidelines. As a result, an increasing number of Web pages are compliant with the evaluation tools. These days, however, blind people face the serious problem that reading Web pages is quite difficult. Improvements in information density by using visual effects such as two-dimensional layouts are making it difficult for blind people to understand the page structure. Also, inappropriate alternative texts mislead or confuse blind users. In this paper, to evaluate these kinds of usability problems, we introduce two metrics: navigability and listenability. Navigability evaluates how well structured the Web content is by using headings, intra-page links, labels, etc. Listenability denotes how appropriate the alternative texts are. By using these metrics, we summarize the historical transition of Web usability for blind people.”
“We present SNIF: Social Networking in Fur, a system that allows pet owners to interact through their pets' social networks. SNIF comprises inexpensive hardware that can be unobtrusively and transparently affixed to pet collars and paraphernalia in order to augment pet-to-pet, pet-to-owner, and owner-to-owner interactions. SNIF devices aggregate pertinent environmental, social, and individual information that can be broadcast or addressed to other participating community members.”
“We present a search interface for large video collections with time-aligned text transcripts. The system is designed for users such as intelligence analysts that need to quickly find video clips relevant to a topic expressed in text and images. A key component of the system is a powerful and flexible user interface that incorporates dynamic visualizations of the underlying multimedia objects. The interface displays search results in ranked sets of story keyframe collages, and lets users explore the shots in a story. By adapting the keyframe collages based on query relevance and indicating which portions of the video have already been explored, we enable users to quickly find relevant sections. We tested our system as part of the NIST TRECVID interactive search evaluation, and found that our user interface enabled users to find more relevant results within the allotted time than those of many systems employing more sophisticated analysis techniques.”
“Full keyboards are difficult to implement on small mobile devices, and are sometimes replaced by keypads, with multiple characters assigned to each key. The Multitap method is often used for text entry on devices with keypads. While conceptually simple, Multitap requires one or more key presses to enter each desired letter, and is relatively inefficient from the standpoint of the number of keystrokes required to enter each word. It also requires a significant amount of visual searching to find a needed letter on a key. Fortunately, newer methods based on Multitap (such as LetterWise) have been shown to increase users' text entry efficiency. This paper presents an enhanced Multitap method that uses predictive next-letter highlighting to aid visual searching. Testing shows that this method, when compared to LetterWise, offers increased text entry speeds, fewer errors, and greater novice user satisfaction.”
“Intrusion detection (ID) analysts are charged with ensuring the safety and integrity of today's high-speed computer networks. Their work includes the complex task of searching for indications of attacks and misuse in vast amounts of network data. Although there are several information visualization tools to support ID, few are grounded in a thorough understanding of the work ID analysts perform or include any empirical evaluation. We present a user-centered visualization based on our understanding of the work of ID and the needs of analysts derived from the first significant user study of ID. The tool presents analysts with both 'at a glance' understanding of network activity, and low-level network link details. Results from preliminary usability testing show that users performed better and found easier those tasks dealing with network state in comparison to network link tasks.”
“With the advancement in technologies to locate individuals, there has been an emergence of information systems that link People-to-People-to-Geographical-Places, labeled P3-Systems. While various P3-System services have been proposed and deployed, there is limited knowledge on people's desires and attitudes towards such services. We used the P3-Systems framework to guide a survey study of the impact of 'place' on people's social information needs and willingness to share personal location data. At fourteen different place types (Restaurant, Post Office, Etc.) in Manhattan, New York, we surveyed 509 individuals over 3 weeks. The vast majority of respondents expressed a desire for and willing to share their personal location data. E.g., 77% of respondents were willing to reveal their current location to others (17% with complete strangers).”
“Aircraft inspection is a vital element in assuring safety and reliability of the air transportation system. The human inspector performing visual inspection of an aircraft is the backbone of this process and training is an effective strategy for improving their inspection performance. Previous studies have shown offline feedback training to be effective in improving subsequent visual inspection performance. Because experienced inspectors are known to adopt a better inspection strategy than novices, providing visualization of experts' cognitive processes a priori can accelerate novices' adoption of the experts' strategy. Using eye tracking equipment, we record the point of regard of an expert inspector performing an inspection task in a virtual reality simulator. Analysis of their eye movements leads to a visualization of their scanpaths and allows us to display the inspector's visual search (hence cognitive) strategy. We show how providing this type of scanpath-based feedforward training of novices leads to improved accuracy performance in the simulator coupled with an observed speed-accuracy tradeoff. We contend that the tradeoff results from trained novices adopting a slower paced strategy through increased fixation durations, suggesting trained novices learn a more deliberate target search/discrimination strategy that requires more time to execute.”
“The Intelligence Analyst (IA) community will soon be the designated users of many new software tools. In the multitasking world of the IA, any one tool cannot be permitted to greedily consume cognitive resources. This situation requires a new approach to usability assessment; one that profiles the moment-by-moment demands placed on embodied cognition by a given software tool during task performance. The approach we have taken relies on families of cognitive models that interleave cognition, perception, and action at the 1/3 to 3 sec timescale. This is the level of analysis where embodied cognition forms interactive routines that adapt to the cost-benefit structure of the software tool. Our proof-of-concept is a model that performs a task that the IAs find challenging. From the trace of the model, we derive a cognitive metrics profile that pinpoints dynamic changes in workload demands on human cognitive, perceptual, or action systems.”
“We examined the efficacy of providing dimensional feedback in the user interface as people construct business rules. Business rules often involve objects that have dimensions (e.g., area, cost, weight) and may entail complex calculations on these objects. Such mathematical expressions are error prone. We designed and tested a novel interface utilizing dimensional analysis to provide advice on expected dimensions, and error feedback on incorrect usage of dimensional objects. Experimental studies were carried out in which subjects used the interface to create rules based on word problems. In a balanced design, rule creation with dimensional feedback was compared to rule creation without such feedback. We found evidence for the usefulness of such feedback. In addition we observed the need to support higher level 'proxy variables' and stepwise definition of complex rules. The findings have implications beyond business rules tools and may be applied to any system requiring mathematical expressions with dimensional objects.”
“Several experimental studies have shown the usefulness of computers for autism, but software design remains poorly documented. Our multidisciplinary research focuses on educational HCI for autism. We compared two domains of learning: social dialogue understanding and spatial planning, our hypothesis being that people with autism will be less skillful in the first than in the second domain. Two sets of exercises were designed for each domain: one for training purposes and the other for performance assessment before and after training. We also tested the influence of the following output modalities: text, images, speech synthesis, visual and auditory feedback. Each exercise produced log files informing on duration, number of trials and successes. So far, eight teenagers with autism have completed a 13 week training program with one session a week. First analysis of log files suggests a significant progression in dialogic understanding but not in spatial planning; nor was significant influence of output modalities found.”
“In order to support increased consumer awareness regarding energy consumption, we have been developing new ways of representing and interacting with energy in electric products intended for domestic environments. The 'Power-Aware Cord' is a re-design of a common electrical power strip that displays the amount of energy passing through it at any given moment. This is done by dynamic glowing patterns produced by electroluminescent wires molded into the transparent electrical cord. Using this fully functional prototype, we have been investigating how such ambient displays can be used to increase energy awareness. An initial user study indicates that the Power-Aware Cord is a very accessible and intuitive mean for better understanding energy consumption. Future work includes further development of the mapping between load and visual pattern and in-depth studies of user perception and learning over time.”
“Despite much research on hypertext and web navigation, relatively little is known about the relationship between web navigation strategies and success. We present two exploratory studies designed to explore the relationships between several web navigation metrics that are based on similarity to an optimal path to predict task success. The data suggest that the relationships between these measures depend on the particular web navigation task.”
“This research introduces privacy issues related to the viewing of incidental information during co-located collaboration. Web browsers were the representative application used in this research as they have several convenience features that record and display traces of previous web page visits. A one-week field study examined how individuals perceive privacy needs relating to the later incidental viewing of traces of their browsing activity. Participants used a 4-tier privacy gradient to classify the privacy of their actual web browsing. The results revealed per window patterns of privacy during browsing with streaks at given privacy levels and relatively few transitions between levels. Management of incidental information is a complex problem due to multiple viewing contexts, individual differences, and the large volume of information. These privacy patterns suggest that a semi-automated approach to privacy management may be feasible.”
“Diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of interventions for children with autism can profit most when caregivers have substantial amounts of data they can easily record and review as evidence of specific observed behaviors over time. Through our work with one prototype system and interviews with caregivers, we have recognized the importance of socially appropriate ways to add rich data to the information recorded by caregivers. Analysts must be able to view incidents as they occurred without unnecessarily burdening caregivers and other children with always-on recording of data about them. In this paper, we introduce experience buffers, a collection of capture services embedded in an environment that, though always on and available, require explicit user action to store an experience.. This creates a way to balance the social, technical, and practical concerns of capture applications.”
“Qualitative concept maps are useful for sharing the structure of a domain and for assessing students' understanding. While concept maps made from links and nodes depict static causal relationships between concepts quite well, they provide little support for displaying conditional logic and thresholds for causation. In this paper, we describe the process of incorporating a representation for conditional reasoning into Betty, a computer agent students teach via concept maps. Betty helps students formalize their knowledge of a domain by acting as a novice learner. Students use Betty to construct and assess their knowledge of science topics. We tested several prototypes combining conditional logic with concept maps and found that people had difficulty keeping conditional states and conceptual nodes separate. In the end, the "Unless Switch" provided the closest semantic parallel to the type of reasoning we wanted students to learn and generated the least amount of confusion.”
“Although web browsing behaviour was studied in detail in the mid-to-late 1990s, few recent results have been reported. The nature of web browsing has changed significantly since these early studies, both in the profile of the typical web user and in the context of their browsing (e.g. location, connection speed, web browser features). This paper reports on per-session and per-browser window usage, such as the number of pages visited and the speed of browsing. Some of our findings differ from previously published results that continue to motivate research in this area. Our research indicates that changes in user behaviour, such as the magnitude of web browsing activity, may place restrictions on web-browser related applications.”
“The evaluation of paper prototypes is normally conducted in controlled settings such as a usability lab. This paper, in contrast, reports on a study where evaluations of a paper prototype were performed on the street with young adults. We discuss the merits of this approach and how it impacted the design process. A key finding is that the street location can enfranchise people who may otherwise be under-represented in design. We conclude that evaluating paper prototypes in public, street settings is feasible and informative.”
“Web usage mining, the analysis of user navigation paths through web sites, is a common technique for evaluating site designs or adaptive hypermedia techniques. However, often it is hard to relate aggregated clusters or measures to actual user navigation behavior. By contrast, basic graph-based visualizations of user navigation paths are easier to interpret, but it is difficult to find effective views that convey all the required information. In this paper we present the Navigation Visualizer, a web usage analysis tool that combines the two approaches. The Navigation Visualizer makes use of the rich data set that is collected by the Scone proxy-based web enhancement framework and facilitates dynamic selection of the data and interactive exploration with various layout mechanisms, color codings and markers. Several aggregated measures can be calculated and exported to statistical and data mining packages.”
“This paper describes cell phone text messaging during the 2004 US Democratic and Republican National Conventions by protesters using TXTmob -- a text-message broadcast system developed by the authors. Drawing upon analysis of TXTmob messages, user interviews, self-reporting, and news media accounts, we describe the ways that activists used text messaging to share information and coordinate actions during decentralized protests. We argue that text messaging supports new forms of distributed participation in mass mobilizations.”
“The construction of cognitive tutors is often focused on tightly constrained domains. This is because the creation of a cognitive tutor is a time-intensive process. Pseudo-tutors allow us to model a small number of problems in a relatively short time. There is no need to program a general cognitive model if we can demonstrate this model by example. The creation of a relatively small set of examples can have real cognitive benefit to the student. The LSAT Analytic Logic Tutor demonstrates that this is possible. This tutor was designed for teaching strategies for solving analytic logic games. Although such a task would be difficult to model in general, three rich problems produced enough of an impact to significantly improve student performance. This is an interesting example where a small suite of well-designed pseudo tutors are significantly more useful than a full cognitive tutor.”
“The importance of annotations, as a by-product of the reading activity, cannot be overstated. Annotations help users in the process of analyzing, re-reading, and recalling detailed facts such as prior analyses and relations to other works. As elec-tronic reading become pervasive, digital annotations will become part of the essential records of the reading activity. But creating and rendering annotations on a 3D book and other objects in a 3D workspace is non-trivial. In this paper, we present our exploration of how to use 3D graphics techniques to create realistic annotations with acceptable frame rates. We discuss the pros and cons of several techniques and detail our hybrid solution.”
“In this paper we describe the Sense Lounger, a method for simply and cheaply turning a lounge chair into an initial "ubicomp" device in a home; providing a beachhead for transforming the home into a rich ubicomp environment. The Sense Lounger employs fabric sensors sewn into a chair's slipcover and force sensors on each leg to detect both an occupant and their activity. Drawing insights from user needs, we developed the Sense Lounger to (i) fit into the home and lifestyle of elders, (ii) assist and add value to the lives of elders, (iii) provide a platform for expanding assistive devices within the home environment. The current Sense Lounger prototype can be used to detect signs of life, patterns of use, posture, and sitting duration.”
“A general problem identified in recent research on multiple monitor systems is the placement of small windows such as dialog boxes and toolbars. These small windows could be placed on top of the application window or on a monitor next to the application window; different situations call for different placements. We present mudibo, a component of the window manager that alleviates this problem by initially placing a window in multiple locations simultaneously and subsequently allowing the user to easily interact with the window in a desired location. Additional important contributions of mudibo are that as a general technique it can be applied to a number of situations and windows beyond simple dialog boxes, exploits the additional screen space that multiple monitors provide to solve a specific problem with dialog box interaction, and is among the first research prototype UIs that explicitly account for multiple-monitor users.”
“The ever decreasing size of information devices these days does not allow even the space for small input devices such as a touchpad or a 3x4 keypad. We introduce here an input device, FeelTip, as a solution for very small information devices. The main idea is to exchange the usual roles of a finger and a surface in a touchpad; a device has a tip and a finger now provides a surface. The result is an input device requiring minimal space but is potentially more efficient than a touchpad due to the tactile feedback of a tip on a finger. Our first prototype consists of a transparent tip and a small CMOS image sensor that tracks the movement of a finger on a tip. In a series of experiments, it outperformed a small analog joystick in free pointing tasks, and was comparable with a 3x4 keypad in text entry tasks.”
“Most computer users are accustomed to the QWERTY keyboard layout. This study was started from the hypothesis that a user's skill in a QWERTY keyboard may be transferred to a 3x4 keypad environment. In order to test the hypothesis, we designed an experiment where users are instructed to type a series of sentences on a "blank" keypad after they were informed that the underlying layout is either QWERTY-like or ABC-type (alphabetical). We observed a more localized layout of typed characters over keys in the QWERTY-like case than in the ABC case. Encouraged by the results, we carried out a series of experiments in order to compare a QWERTY-like layout and an ABC-type layout, and obtained consistently better learning curves and better final typing speeds with a QWERTY-like keypad. As an effort to explain the results, we carried out an eye-gaze analysis for the two cases, and the results are presented.”
“With the concept of 'human-machine interface', designed especially for visually impaired persons, we have developed an electric aid device for use in guiding orientation and locomotion. The device, which we call CyARM, measures the distance between a person and an object with an ultrasonic sensor and transmits the distance information to the user's haptic sense. In this report, we will: (1) outline the concept of CyARM, (2) describe its mechanism, and (3) demonstrate three preliminary experiments that verify the usability of CyARM. We conducted the experiments in terms of detection of objects, detection of space, and tracking object movement. As a result of these experiments, we have concluded that CyARM is potentially effective for visually impaired persons. Our study will encourage the related studies of user interfaces, particularly focusing on electric aid devices that guide visually impaired persons in detecting their environment.”
“This work investigates the use of workload-aligned task models for predicting opportune moments for interruption. From models for several tasks, we selected boundaries with the lowest (Best) and highest (Worst) mental workload. We compared effects of interrupting primary tasks at these and Random moments on resumption lag, annoyance, and social attribution. Results show that interrupting at the Best moments consistently caused less resumption lag and annoyance, and fostered more social attribution. Results demonstrate that use of workload-aligned models offers a systematic method for predicting opportune moments.”
“In the research project 'Reach', we investigate the potential for new forms of communication and expression to be incorporated dynamically and interactively into the things to be worn everyday. Through a series of iterative prototypes, we have explored both dynamic textile materials and the interactive behaviours of clothing and accessories, which change pattern through direct physical interaction as well as through sensing context. We have developed a series of working prototypes, where dynamic textile patterns are incorporated into wearable items to reflect and make visible social and contextual behaviours, such as person-to-person communication, proximity and local weather conditions. Ultimately, we aim to develop a new dynamic language of wearable expression integrating aesthetics, pattern and computation into everyday artifacts with increased personal and cultural meaning.”
“In this paper, we describe the design of eyeView, a video conferencing system that uses participant looking behavior to determine the size of online video conferencing windows. The system uses an elastic windowing algorithm that enlarges the image of the person most looked at by others, while maintaining a contextual view of other remote participants. eyeView measures interest by gauging whom participants look at using an eye tracker embedded in the display. Users can enter side conversations by looking at each other, and pressing the space bar. Cocktail-party filtering is aided by attenuating audio sources outside the social network constituted by glances between participants. By allocating both screen and audio real estate according to the joint attention of participants, eyeView supports smooth allocation of focus on the speaker, while maintaining awareness of the group.”
“Two non-profit organizations developed a Web application to help monitor U.S. elections: the Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS). The mostly-volunteer team had only four months to develop a workable system. The aggressive schedule, limited budget, and distributed team-structure challenged us to find creative ways to evaluate and improve EIRS' usability. We used an approach that combined expert UI review with opportunistic exploitation of venues for gathering data on EIRS' usability. This approach, which we call convergent usability evaluation, had, in the non-profit environment, advantages over the more formal methods typically used for commercial projects. In this paper we describe the usability evaluation methods we used for the EIRS project and discuss how they converged to provide a more complete picture than we would have obtained by conventional methods.”
“A study explores the way people organize information in support of projects ("teach a course", "plan a wedding", etc.). The folder structures to organize project information - especially electronic documents and other files - frequently resembled a "divide and conquer" problem decomposition with subfolders corresponding to major components (subprojects) of the project. Folders were clearly more than simply a means to one end: Organizing for later retrieval. Folders were information in their own right - representing, for example, a person's evolving understanding of a project and its components. Unfortunately, folders are often "overloaded" with information. For example, folders sometimes included leading characters to force an ordering ("aa", "zz"). And folder hierarchies frequently reflected a tension between organizing information for current use vs. repeated re-use.”
“This study examines the effect of colearner agent performance and social behavior on learner performance and subjective satisfaction in an interactive learning environment. In this 2 (high- or low-performing colearner) by 2 (socially supportive or competitive colearner) experiment (N=44), participants learned Morse Code alongside an agent colearner. Participants with high-scoring colearner agents performed significantly better than participants with low-scoring colearners. Participants liked and felt liked by socially supportive agents more than they did socially competitive agent participants. Implications for developing educational software are discussed.”
“In this paper, we present an attentive windowing technique that uses eye tracking, rather than manual pointing, for focus window selection. We evaluated the performance of 4 focus selection techniques: eye tracking with key activation, eye tracking with automatic activation, mouse and hotkeys in a typing task with many open windows. We also evaluated a zooming windowing technique designed specifically for eye-based control, comparing its performance to that of a stan-dard tiled windowing environment. Results indicated that eye tracking with automatic activation was, on average, about twice as fast as mouse and hotkeys. Eye tracking with key activation was about 72% faster than manual conditions, and preferred by most participants. We believe eye input performed well because it allows manual input to be provided in parallel to focus selection tasks. Results also suggested that zooming”
“SignalPlay is a sensor-based interactive sound environment in which familiar objects encourage exploration and discovery of sound interfaces through the process of play. Embedded wireless sensors form a network that detects gestural motion as well as environmental factors such as light and magnetic field. Human interactions with the sensors and with each other cause both immediate and systemic changes in a spatialized soundscape. Our investigation highlights the interplay between expected object-behavior associations and new modes of interaction with everyday objects. Here we present observations on embodied network interaction and suggest opportunities for further investigation in this field.”
“Automatically generated web search result categories were found to be beneficial in our previous study. In that study, we used 15 result categories and left the optimal number of categories issue deliberately untouched. To address this matter, we conducted a new experiment with 27 participants to compare search user interfaces with 10, 20, and 40 automatically generated categories. The results show that users prefer fewer categories. The use of fewer categories results in a slightly more accurate performance in result selection. In addition, the observed speed differences between the conditions were small. Although reading longer category lists requires more time, the users benefited from the increased descriptiveness, causing the overall speed to be almost equal. According to our results, the optimal number of categories is between 10 and 20.”
“The iBand is a wearable bracelet-like device that exchanges information about its users and their relationships. This exchange happens during the common gesture of the handshake, which is detected by the device. As such, iBand seeks to explore potential applications at the intersection of social networking and ubiquitous computing. In this paper, we discuss the iBand technology and feedback from an initial study in which 11 devices were used at two different social networking events. The results suggest that control over personal information is an ongoing issue, but they also highlight the possibility for wearable devices to enable the creation of a set of invented techno-gestures with different affordances and constraints that might be more appropriate for certain social interaction applications.”
“Online communities (OLCs) are gatherings of like-minded people, brought together in cyberspace by shared interests. Creating such communities is not a big challenge; sustaining members' participation is. In this paper, we describe a technique for presenting members' photos and evaluate how it affects member participation in the community. We compare three different policies for presenting peer photos on the home page of the web site. Our results show that explicit requests in the form of simple and short messages on the home page of a community can induce participation. We show that we were able to motivate members to (a) log into the system to see photos of fellow members, and (b) upload their personal photos.”
“In this paper, we present a study of 'minimal intimate objects': low bandwidth devices for communicating intimacy for couples in long-distance relationships. We describe a user study of a software intimate object built to communicate a single bit at a time. The results from both log data and journal entries suggest that even a one-bit communication device is seen by users as a valuable and rich channel for communicating intimacy, despite the availability of wider channels of communication such as email, instant messaging, and telephone. We suggest the constrained nature of the communication affords active reinterpretation by its users, and discuss the results in the context of the study of intimacy in human-computer interaction.”
“An essential aspect of mobile and ubiquitous computing research is evaluation within the expected usage context, including environment. When that environment is an urban center, it can be dynamic, expansive, and unpredictable. Methodologies that focus on genuine use in the environment can uncover valuable insights, although they may also limit measurement and control. In this paper, we present our experiences applying traditional experimental techniques for field research in two separate projects set in urban environments. We argue that although traditional methods may be difficult to apply in cities, the challenges are surmountable, and this kind of field research can be a crucial component of evaluation.”
“Navigational surrogates are representations that stand for information resources within search engine result sets, e?commerce sites, and digital libraries. They also form the basis of personal collections of media, such as web pages. Our hypothesis is that the formats of individual surrogates and collections play an important role in how people use collections. We are particularly interested in processes of information discovery, in which ideas are iteratively reformulated in the context of working with information. To investigate how the representation of navigational surrogates affects how people work with information, we have created a collection of undergraduate psychology curriculum resources in 3 alternative formats: a linear list of textual elements, a spatialized set of textual elements, and a spatialized set of labeled images that have been composited. To evaluate navigation with these surrogate formats during information discovery, we designed divergent browsing tasks, that is, tasks that require assembling information from multiple diverse sources. A within-subjects evaluation indicates that users prefer the spatial labeled images format, and navigate more effectively with it.”
“This paper presents aspects of a study into how and why people use camera phones. The study examined people's intentions at the time of image capture and subsequent patterns of use. Motivated by current interest in "picture messaging", we focus on images taken to communicate with absent people and look at how they were actually used. We consider the timeliness of communication and the role of common ground to derive implications for design.”
“There is growing interest in technologies that support user experiences emphasizing aesthetic satisfaction and enjoyment rather than task accomplishment. Evaluating such experiences remains an open research problem. Here we describe a methodology for evaluating the interactive drama Facade, and present the first experimental results. Interactive dramas are "pure" hedonic experiences, forcing a focus on experience quality rather than efficiency and ease of use. Through the coding of retroactive protocols, we reveal play patterns whereby interaction failures are leveraged into new player goals, thus supporting players in maintaining positive interest in the experience even in the face of interaction failures.”
“Experiments were conducted to investigate the interdependency of frame rates (30, 15, 10 fps) and audio-visual skew (from +163 to -233 ms). Noised nonsense words like 'abagava' were presented to 20 participants who were asked to identify the middle consonant. At low frame rates (10 fps) consonant perception was impaired when audio ran ahead of video content (skew of -113 to -233ms). When audio lagged video, performance improved monotonically to a maximum at +167ms, where performance equaled 30fps in synch. The results suggest that frame rate and skew are not orthogonal parameters but must both be taken into consideration for AV-delivery. The findings do not support the current notion that 10 fps videos do not adequately capture visual content for speech perception. Participants were able to integrate the given bi-modal information as well as the 30 fps condition if the audio channel was subjected to an additional 167ms delay.”
“A detailed study of Java programmers' text editing found that the full flexibility of unstructured text was not utilized for the vast majority of programmers' character-level edits. Rather, programmers used a small set of editing patterns to achieve their modifications, which accounted for all of the edits observed in the study. About two-thirds of the edits were of name and list structures and most edits preserved structure except for temporary omissions of delimiters. These findings inform the design of a new class of more flexible structured program editors that may avoid well-known usability problems of traditional structured editors, while providing more sophisticated support such as more universal code completion and smarter copy and paste.”
“In this paper we report an ethnographic study of workarounds-informal temporary practices for handling exceptions to normal workflow-in a hospital environment. Workarounds are a common technique for dealing with the inherent uncertainty of dynamic work environments. Workarounds can help coordinate work, especially under conditions of high time pressure, but they may result in information or work protocols that are unstable, unavailable, or unreliable. We investigated workarounds and their effects through observation and interviews in a major teaching medical center. Our results suggest 4 key features of workarounds that technologies might help address: (a) workarounds differ as a function of people's role; (b) workarounds draw on tacit knowledge of others' abilities and willingness to help; (c) workarounds can have a cascading effect, causing other workarounds down the line; (d) workarounds often rely on principles of fairness and who owes whom a favor. We provide recommendations for designing systems to better support workarounds in dynamic environments.”
“DVD menus often miss out on usability and are complex and difficult to navigate through. One of the main problems is the lack of design standards. By conducting an expert walkthrough we identified typical usability issues of DVD menus and verified them with usability testing and a user survey. Our research goal is to develop a set of specific solutions for designing usable DVD menus to improve the overall user experience. As a first step towards this goal we present an initial set of usability issues that are specifically relevant for DVD menu design.”
“The steering law model describes pointing device motion through constrained paths. Previous uses of the model are deficient because they are built using only error-free responses, ignoring altogether the path of the cursor. We correct this by proposing and validating a technique to include spatial variability, including errors. The technique is a variant of the well-known "effective target width" used in Fitts' law models. An experiment designed to test our technique demonstrates the improvement: Correlations are consistently higher when spatial variability is included in building the model. Suggestions to aid further development of the steering law model are included.”
“We apply HCI design principles to redesign the dashboard of the automobile to address the problem of speeding. We prototyped and evaluated a new speedometer designed with the explicit intention of changing drivers' speeding behavior. Our user-tests show that displaying the current speed limit as part of the speedometer visualization (i.e. the dynamic speedometer) results in safer driving behavior. Designing with the intent to achieve a particular behavior can be an effective approach for increasing the safety of mission-critical systems. This is an area in which HCI designers can have a significant impact.”
“Eye contact is an effective means of controlling human communication, such as in starting communication. It seems that we can make eye contact if we simply look at each other. However, this alone does not establish eye contact. Both parties also need to be aware of being watched by the other. We proposed an eye-contact method between humans and robots satisfying these two conditions. In our previous work, however, we mainly consider eye contact from humans to robots. In this paper, we consider the reversal case. We deal with cases where a robot wants to start communication with a particular person. In such cases, the robot needs to make the person aware of its gaze. The robot should make the person feel clearly that it is none other than him/her who the robot is looking at. We show through experiments that the body action of the robot is effective for this.”
“Authoring tools routinely include a timeline representation to allow the author to specify the sequence of animations and interactions. However, traditional static timelines are best suited for static, linear sequences (such MIDI sequencers) and do not lend themselves to interactive content. This forces authors to supplement their timelines with scripted actions which are not represented. Timelines also force frame-accuracy on the author, which interferes with rapid exploration of different designs. We present a redesign of the timeline in which users can specify the relative ordering and causality of events without specifying exact times or durations. This effectively enables users to "work rough" in time. We then implement a prototype and perform a user study to investigate its efficiency.”
“Motion is the strongest visual appeal to attention [2], yet it is rarely used in the visualization of large-scale quantitative information. Motion is complex; it can vary across numerous dimensions, each of which is potentially an information-bearing element in the visualization. Which dimensions are used and how the data is mapped onto them are the key questions in using motion effectively. In this paper we present two interfaces that use motion as the primary visual element for representing data. These interfaces, Seascape and Volcano, use periodic animation loops to represent key social interaction features in online discussions. We propose that motion may be particularly well suited for representing data about behavior and actions, creating visualizations that intuitively depict different levels and types of activity. In this paper we describe the interfaces we have built and present the results of preliminary user studies.”
“We present a system designed to facilitate language development in deaf children. The children interact with a computer game using American Sign Language (ASL). The system consists of three parts: an ASL (gesture) recognition engine; an interactive, game-based interface; and an evaluation system. Using interactive, user-centered design and the results of two Wizard-of-Oz studies at Atlanta Area School for the Deaf, we present some unique insights into the spatial organization of interfaces for deaf children.”
“Developing more effective and efficient Chinese character input methods has the potential to help Chinese mobile phone users (currently 320 millions) input text messages. iTAP(R) supports input based on the writing structure of Chinese characters. Current keypad graphics include three items: digits (0-9), letters (A-Z), and symbols that represent the minimum writing units of Chinese characters (strokes). Our study revealed the difficulties of mapping these strokes to individual keys using the current symbols. We present a case study illustrating the user-centered redesign of these symbols. The new symbols allow for faster entry speeds and lower error rates as compared to the current commercial solution. Results with our solution were also favorable when compared to Pinyin, a popular cross-cultural solution relying on the Roman alphabet. The new design is in the process of being integrated into commercial mobile phones for users who would prefer native input methods for Chinese.”
“An important way of making interfaces usable by non-expert users is to enable the use of natural language input, as in natural language query interfaces to databases, or MUDs and MOOs. When the subject matter is about procedures, however, we have discovered that interfaces can take advantage of what we call Programmatic Semantics, procedural relations that can be inferred from the linguistic structure. Roughly, nouns can be interpreted as data structures; verbs are functions; adjectives are properties. Some linguistic forms imply conditionals, loops, and recursive structures. We illustrate the principles of Programmatic Semantics with a description of Metafor, a "brainstorming" editor for programs, analogous to an outlining tool for prose writing. Metafor interactively converts English sentences to partially specified program code, to be used as "scaffolding" for a more detailed program. A user study showed that Metafor is capable of capturing enough Programmatic Semantics to facilitate non-programming users and beginners' conceptualization of programming problems.”
“The most common technique for resizing 3D objects in virtual environments is the use of 3D widgets. However, such techniques often exhibit usability problems due to difficulties in selecting and manipulating the widgets. We have developed two novel interaction techniques for resizing objects in immersive VEs. Our two techniques, the Pointer Orientation-based Resize Technique (PORT) and the Gaze-Hand resize technique, take advantage of the user's proprioceptive sense and their spatial knowledge of the environment. We designed these techniques as an alternative to 3D widgets and performed a usability study to compare the effectiveness of all three techniques. Our results show that participants were able to perform tasks significantly faster with the two new techniques than with the existing 3D Widgets technique.”
“The Keystroke-Level Model (KLM) has been shown to predict skilled use of desktop systems, but has not been validated on a handheld device that uses a stylus instead of a keyboard. This paper investigates the accuracy of KLM predictions for user interface tasks running on a Palm OS based handheld device. The models were produced using a recently developed tool for KLM construction, CogTool, and were compared to data obtained from a user study of 10 participants. Our results have shown that the KLM can accurately predict task execution time on handheld user interfaces with less than 8% prediction error.”
“Re-finding information on the Web is a common yet often time consuming and challenging task. Even with the use of traditional bookmarks, which allow users to return to a previously visited page, it can be hard to re-find facts within that page. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for users to have long and unmanageable lists of bookmarks, making it difficult to identify the purpose of individual bookmarks. In this paper, we present an extension to traditional bookmarks called landmarks, a user-directed technique that aids users in returning to specific content within a previously visited web page. We investigate the efficiency of landmarks for re-finding information on web pages and present the findings of a study in which participants were first primed on two web pages and returned at a later date to re-find the information using both traditional bookmarks and landmarks.”
“EyeDraw is a software program that, when run on a computer with an eye tracking device, enables children with severe motor disabilities to draw pictures by just moving their eyes. This paper discusses the motivation for building the software, how the program works, the iterative development of two versions of the software, user testing of the two versions by people with and without disabilities, and modifications to the software based on user testing. Feedback from both children and adults with disabilities, and from their caregivers, was especially helpful in the design process. The project identifies challenges that are unique to controlling a computer with the eyes, and unique to writing software for children with severe motor impairments.”
“As part of a comparative ethnographic study of everyday life of young professionals in London, Los Angeles, and Tokyo, we conducted a detailed survey of wallets and their contents, through photographs, interviews, diary studies, and observation. Despite prominent differences in culture and lifestyle, there were remarkable similarities across all three sites in terms of what wallets contained and how they were used. Individuals arrived at similar (if imperfect) solutions to common problems of temptation management and access control, identity management and partitioning, and collecting tokens of affiliation and history. Our findings suggest that future electronic wallets (e-wallets), whether physical devices or distributed functionalities, will be able to capitalize on these existing patterns, solve some of the existing problems, and encounter new challenges. Furthermore, they frame the potential value of e-wallets in a broader context than traditional concerns over privacy, security, and efficiency.”
“Experiences of intimacy and connectedness through social networks are vital to human sense of well-being. We live in an electronic habitat. Electronic mail functions as a medium of interpersonal exchange. As it accumulates, email data becomes more than a collection of reminders. It is a diary we didn't know we were keeping, and a potential source of valuable insight into the structure and dynamics of one's social network. Current interfaces do little to help users see patterns of social interaction within email data. We introduce a multiscale email interface that utilizes computed intimacy measures and chronology as parameters for information visualization. Rhythms of intimacy in email experience are made visible as patterns of color and shapes in a zoomable chronological grid. Qualitative user experience data indicates that such an email visualization can provide striking insights into the experience of social connectedness over time. These insights potentially enable users to better manage how they invest time and energy into personal and work relationships, and thus to improve overall sense of well-being.”
“People use multiple monitors to increase their display surface and to facilitate multitasking. However, if windows are maximized to fill one screen, users may have difficulties accessing widgets and tools on the borders of the displays, accidentally crossing over to the other display. To assist users of multi monitor displays, we developed a pseudo-haptic approach to enhance boundary widgets. We compared our sticky widget to a standard widget for two multi monitor display configurations: two identical side-by-side monitors, and two separated monitors of different sizes. Our enhancement improved performance by significantly reducing errors for accessing a boundary widget, reducing the number of accidental crossovers to the wrong display and consequently decreasing selection time.”
“Spatial audio displays have been criticized because the use of headphones may isolate users from their real world audio environment. In this paper we study the effects of three types of audio reproduction equipment (standard headphones, bone-conductance headphones and monaural presentation using a single earphone) on time and accuracy during interaction with a deictic spatial audio display. Participants selected a target sound emitting from one of four different locations in the presence of distracters whilst wearing the different types of headphones. Target locations were marked with audio feedback. No significant differences were found for time and accuracy ratings between bone conductance and standard headphones. Monaural reproduction significantly slowed interaction. The results show that alternative reproduction equipme
