The conference objective is to provide an international forum for the dissemination and exchange of up-to-date scientific information on theoretical, generic and applied areas of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Universal Access, Engineering Psychology, Cognitive Ergonomics, Virtual and Mixed Reality, Internationalization, Design and Global Development, Online Communities, Social Computing, Augmented Cognition , Digital Human Modeling and Human Centered Design.
“This paper introduces a CAD interface which uses purely graphic input gestures, without the necessity of translating graphic ideas into verbal commands or of using a menu-driven interface. The system infers the user's drawing intentions from pen movements, using basic graphic patterns stored in the knowledge base. The pen tablet mounted on a liquid crystal display, is both the input device and display for this system. It provides designers the similar feeling of drawing with pencil on paper. Another advantage is that designers who speak different languages can effectively collaborate on the same drawing.”
“The implementation of new VDT applications was followed up for seven years in a group of insurance employees. The first survey (n=101) was conducted before the implementation of the new integrated data system, the second survey (n=73) one year after it, and the third survey (n=43) five years later. The results showed a general trend to increased daily amount of VDT work and its better mastery. Most of the problems were encountered during the second survey, one year after the implementation. The results from the three study phases seemed to be qualitatively different in the analysis of the relations of VDT use to job demands and stressors, and well-being. The selection that occurred during the follow-up in the study groups also affected the results, and needs further analysis.”
“This paper proposes a real-time algorithm for segmenting handwritten text and editing-symbols from ink-data. This algorithm simplifies the development of "mode-less" editors for pen-based computers. Such editors enable users to create documents by writing characters and editing-symbols side-by-side (i.e. in "mode-less" fashion), and then executing the editing-operations corresponding to these editing-symbols. The proposed algorithm uses a segmentation decision-tree, and does not require a character-recognition dictionary. Using this algorithm, we segmented handwritten text and editing-symbols from ink-data (written by twelve writers) with an average segmentation accuracy of 97%.”
“Computer monitoring has been a controversial issue because of the distinct advantages and disadvantages associated with it. On the positive side, it can provide immediate and objective performance feedback, facilitate goal setting and lead to productivity gains. On the negative side, computer monitoring is often perceived as an invasion of privacy and as an excessive management control tool. It can lead to increased stress and lower job satisfaction among monitored workers. Findings of the six studies reported here demonstrated that computer monitoring is clearly associated with higher stress levels. Its effects on productivity however, are strongly affected by the complexity of the monitored task; monitoring facilitates simple task performance and impairs complex task performance. Computer monitoring with feedback does not appear to be sufficient for performance gains; goal setting must also be introduced to produce significant performance improvements.”
“A pen application interface (PAI) has been developed for efficient implementation of application systems for pen based computer. By providing many tools and commands, tool users can substantially shorten the development period. The PAI includes developing and executing environments. The developing environment consists of a Screen Designing Tool (SDT) for user interface and a Screen Controlling Editor (SCE) for data control. The executing environment provides a process control engine which consists of libraries and program modules in order to execute application systems. The engine has ten kinds of standard input-objects for such business use as button switches, handwriting character input, and list display functions. It also has a hundred kinds of commands for detailed controls. The tool users (developers of systems) determine the location and size of the object on the screen using the SDT, define types and control flow of input date using the SCE. Without our PAI, the tool users had to use programming language and need skills for developing pen based applications. This means that it requires long developing period for programming, training and system test. The outstanding advantages of our PAI was proved when we applied it for creating a system of processing application forms, as the developing period was shortened to almost one third, compared with that of traditional programming.”
“This paper discusses empirical evidence regarding the effect of electronic performance monitoring on job design and stress. Data from two studies show that electronic performance monitoring seems to have an indirect effect on worker stress via job design. Monitored employees report more negative perceptions of their working conditions and, in one of the two studies, more stress than non-monitored employees. Specific characteristics of electronic performance monitoring, such as completeness and comparison of ratings among co-workers, are related to job design and worker stress.”
“Various problems related to computer assisted project systems (CAD -- Computer Aided Design) have occurred, particularly regarding the user-system interface, due to the introduction of new computerized ways in project sectors. Through thorough ergonomic analysis, working conditions can be improved providing a more human, safe and productive environment for the worker. This paper proposes a new look at the analysis of work in graphic stations under the point of view of contemporary Ergonomics, aiming to spot the characteristics of this new process of work and its requirements, in order to identify the CAD system interface relevant points, its aspects related to training as well as evaluating the user's working conditions.”
“Recently, the pen as an input device has become the focus of attention. As a pioneer of the exploration for using the electronic pen, WACOM began its development by eliminating the need for a cord between a computer and a pen, which had limited free operation. In this development WACOM has been consistent in the pursuit of pen that is friendly to men, i.e. "easy-using" & "easy-writing" pen. On the basis of my experience, I will discuss in this paper the theme: what is an "easy-using" & "easy-writing" pen?”
“This study examined performance effects of using electronic performance monitoring (EPM) and feedback to induce compliance with performance standards in a data-entry task. The study focused on subjects who had difficulty meeting or maintaining performance standards. In an experimental group, EPM and feedback were used to induce compliance with pre-established speed and accuracy standards. In a control group, subjects were unaware of EPM and received no feedback. The introduction of EPM work management in the experimental group led to significant increases in data-entry speed which were accompanied by significant increases in data-entry errors. This "speed-accuracy tradeoff" effect is discussed in terms of relevant research on goal-setting and feedback utilization. The results suggest that when performance goals/standards which emphasize speed more than accuracy are applied in EPM-managed work settings, speed increments may be offset by decrements in work quality.”
“In this paper, the authors focus on the precise and minute operation of the tip of the pen of pen-based computers. As the first step, we focus our attention on minute operations that users make when writing characters. In doing so, we attempt to experimentally determine the followings: (i) what is the smallest possible size of the characters or symbols when they are written on the input screen of writing-tablet? (ii) the quasi-optimal sizes of the input square for characters. In this paper, we determine the above two by targeting three kinds of characters: (a) numbers, (b) small English letters, (c) capital English letters. From our experiments, we were able to determine the minimal sizes (i.e., the width and height) of the small English letters, capital English letters and numbers. We also obtained the preliminary approximation of the quasi-optimal sizes (i.e., the width and height) of the square enclosing the above three kinds of characters.”
“The article presents the method of ergonomic diagnosing of man-microcomputer systems. Explorated instrument used for elaborate a formal model is theory of fuzzy sets. The linguistic alphabet used in practice was determined in the artificial space of representation definited of the natural numbers interval from 1 to 9.”
“As compared to conventional computers, pen computers are being steadily miniaturized and are also becoming more portable. As a result of this, the display area as well as the writing area in such computers is getting smaller. In this context, the tip of pen is capable of very fine (i.e. minute) movements. The authors believe that, the above two factors motivate the creation of a pen-input interface in which such minute pen-movements are used to accomplish tasks such as writing, pen-gestures or scrolling. Pen input can accomplish various operations such as pointing, writing, recognition, gestures, scroll, etc. In this paper, we put forward a method of achieving these operations using the minute movements of pen tip. We call this proposed method as "minute operations." In this paper, we describe the characteristics, associated problems and applications of these minute movements.”
“In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the development of distortion-oriented presentation techniques for large scale information systems. Conflicting terminologies and principles in this area have given rise to confusion amongst interface designers. This paper presents a taxonomy of these graphical techniques. It highlights their differences and similarities, enabling sensible comparisons and selections to be made.”
“This paper proposes a new multi-hand human-computer interface environment based on real-time hand gesture detection. Our real-time hand gesture detection method uses image processing to allow unspecified individuals to convey their intentions to the computer by using their two hands without experiencing the sensation of wearing gloves. The multi-hand detection method, its implementation, and an evaluation of this multi-hand user interface in a virtual reality application are discussed.”
“This paper describes figure drawing interfaces on a display integrated tablet where one makes a rough sketch with a pen and then draws a neat copy with virtual drawing tools that are displayed on paper-like images and manipulated with a realistic feel. We call these the 'Stationery Metaphors'. In this paper, we present a hierarchical representation of document structure, how stationery metaphors work within this representation and their advantages.”
“Diagram editing is an attractive application of gestural interfaces and pen-based computers. Within a handsketch-based diagram editor, gesture commands must be specified and recognized. This paper presents a gesture specification mechanism which specifies a gesture command in gesture shape, gesture constraints, and gesture semantics. The structure recognition is based on the two-dimensional relationships between the handsketches and the graphical diagram representations. A Petri net editor is used as an example to illustrate details.”
“A study was performed using a self-administered questionnaire to determine the relationships that might exist between musculoskeletal discomfort and sickness absenteeism and between musculoskeletal discomfort and job performance among keyboard operators in an academic institution. A high prevalence of musculoskeletal discomfort among keyboard operators was documented. The severity of the discomfort was found to be positively associated with longer sickness absence and possibly also affecting job performance. Although most of the complaints were of a mild degree only, some were found to have adverse effects on the attendance and the job performance. Neck discomfort and shoulder discomfort were of particular concern in that they were both common and were also associated with longer sickness absence as well as worse job performance.”
“Participants performed a data-entry task on three commercially-available QWERTY-layout keyboards. Productivity, error-rate, reported discomfort, and subjective preference were compared.”
“The main objects of this study were to set up an intelligent keyboard layout process, and use Da-Yi method as an example to evaluate the different layouts. The keyboard layout frown this intelligent keyboard layout process come out to be better than the current layout, the process can be applicable to the similar keyboard layout design occasions. An evaluative experiment was conducted by using 24 subjects to compare their performance (speed, error rate) on the three keyboard layouts. Significant faster key-in speed but no significant difference in error rate was found between redesigned and current layouts. The usefulness of the intelligent keyboard layout process was supported.”
“The IBM Design Center in Boca Raton studied two integrated pointing devices for a portable computer keyboard. The first device was a trackball located on the right side of the typing keys. The second device was a roll bar located below the spacebar on the keyboard. The roll bar rolled up and down and could slide to the left or right. Twenty-one participants used the roll bar, the keyboard-integrated trackball, and an off-keyboard trackball to edit text. Then they wrote their comments about the devices and ranked the devices in order of preference. Participants edited significantly more characters with the trackballs than with the roll bar. Participants significantly preferred the trackballs over the roll bar. While the integrated trackball was clearly better than the roll bar, participants identified a number of problems with both devices.”
“The purpose of this paper is to identify and present numerous, and often overlooked, performance measures for the development of an ergonomically designed keyboard. The term ergonomically designed keyboard is commonly used to refer to a number of newly designed keyboards that incorporate human engineering and/or ergonomic principles into their designs. These keyboards attempt to optimize key layout in an effort to reduce finger travel and fatigue, promote a more natural hand, wrist, and arm typing posture through design and support structures, or employ various key activation schema in order to enhance typing performance. All of these keyboards were developed to attempt to remedy a variety of problems associated with the de-facto standard QWERTY keyboard. A more in-depth analysis and evaluation of factors that influence typing performance is presented to better understand the capabilities of the human, the keyboard, the typing task and the way in which they interact.”
“We've been building a user-friendly human-machine interface with multi-media and it can realize virtual face-to-face communication environment between an user and a machine. In this system, human natural face appears on the display of machine and can talk to user with natural voice and natural expression. Especially in this paper, face expression and animation synthesis schemes utilized in this interface system is presented. We express a human head with 3D model. The surface model is generated by texture mapping with 2D real image. All the motions and expressions are synthesized and controlled automatically by the movement of some feature points on the model.”
“The effects of modern process control systems on the operator's supervisory control task are described. Considering the approach that operators adopt to perform their task, the relative advantages and disadvantages of various means of disturbance support facilities are discussed. This development is set against the current practice of operators (if involved in display design) to aim for a small set of general purpose displays.”
“The synchrony between a speaker's voice and eye-blink, and a listener's eye-blink and nodding plays an important role in regulating human dialogue. This paper reveals significant synchronous as well as lagged relationships between: (a) a speaker's voice and his own eye-blinking response; (b) a speaker's voice and a listener's eye-blinking and nodding responses. On the basis of these findings, an eye-blinking feedback model of a voice reaction system is proposed. The model estimates blinking and nodding responses on the basis of on-off speech characteristics of speech input, and the effectiveness of the model is demonstrated.”
“This paper describes some further experimental work aimed at assessing the contribution of images to speech intelligibility. The experiments were designed to test the theory that speech is made more intelligible by presenting visual images of speakers along with the speech. These visual images were presented on a video monitor, and the experiments tested subjects at three levels of perception: 1. with no image, sound only (Audio); 2. sound plus head and shoulders of the speaker shown (Audio/Vis); 3. sound plus full situational context (Audio/Vis+). The preliminary conclusions drawn are that the accompaniment of a visual image (Audio/Vis) showing only head and lip movements of the speaker show no significant improved listening comprehension, and that images showing full situational contexts (Audio/Vis+) in this study do not appear to have any additional effect in enhancing intelligibility.”
“The Information-based User Interface Architecture described in this paper is an object oriented user interface architecture with support of two aspects which are insufficiently addressed in todays existing user interface architectures, namely (1) support of object collections and composite objects, and (2) a close mapping between the applications data model and the user interface. The Information-based User Interface Architecture implies a strong separation of application logic and user interface logic, and an abstract interface between the two.”
“In a teleconferencing system with realistic sensations, human images are generated by Computer Graphics (CG). This requires animating natural eye movement with CG. In this paper, we describe the results of an experiment on the perception of gaze direction by using CG eye-animation. We then describe a real-time CG eye-animation system combined with an eye movement detector. We also subjectively evaluate the allowable transmission delay time when using this system.”
“Bidirectional machine translation between sign language and Japanese is proposed as an application of nonverbal interfaces. The translating system employs a sign dictionary for translating sign gesture to Japanese words and vice versa. While sign gesture is tracked by gesture sensors and Japanese sentences are displayed, the system receives Japanese sentences and displays sign gesture animation. It has been confirmed that sign processing works properly.”
“It was examined whether an operator, when confronted with a variety of strategy-specific information aids during fault diagnosis, would have the ability to select the aid that matches his/her current strategy best. To answer this question, 18 process operators performed a simulated topographic search task to which several strategy-specific help functions had been added. The results indicated that the operators selected the help functions in accordance with the strategy they actually adopted. It is argued that for the task of fault diagnosis different types of information aids should be designed for different strategies and that the operator should be free to select the aid that suits his/her needs best.”
“Modern user interfaces have made tremendous progress in improving usability. However, as the functionality provided by software systems increases in sophistication and complexity, so too do the requirements on the interface to facilitate the access of that functionality. Additionally, as the increasing scope of functionality provided by software encourages more individuals to utilize computers, so too do the requirements for the software interface to support novice users. There have been numerous factors put forward in the literature to describe the relationship between interface design and user performance. The goal of this paper is to review the relevant literature across several fields, identify the factors which contribute to the link between interface design and user performance, and integrate these factors into a conceptual model to guide further research and practice. Improving our understanding of these factors can have dramatic effects on user performance, as well as reducing the costs of the software design process.”
“This paper describes the background, execution and results of two large ergonomics projects in a Centralized Control Room (CCR) of a highly automated chemical process plant in Rotterdam. Special emphasis will be put on the extensive use of user participation techniques throughout all phases of these projects.”
“Contemporary interfaces include menus and dialog boxes as major interaction techniques. Particular problems with this type of interaction are involved in complex systems with a rich functionality. Inexperienced users need to learn which actions in a complex menu hierarchy relate to their tasks. For experienced users, selecting actions from menus is costly, and this effort even sums up for frequently used actions. Dialog boxes are often used to prompt for function parameters. While many functions provide a large number of adjustable parameters the majority of these are rarely changed. Even with the simplest task users have to spend a considerable amount of mental effort due to the complex structure of dialog boxes. Adaptive prompting addresses these problems. An adaptive action prompter helps to select the needed action by presenting the most appropriate and most likely to be chosen actions in an additional dynamic menu. Adaptive dialog boxes use highlighting and colors to guide the users' focus and by this means make setting of parameters faster and easier. The involved adaptation strategies are implemented considering the ideas of computer-aided adaptation. The main goal of this approach is that users are in full control of the adaptation. On the one hand, they decide which changes take place, on the other hand, they can inspect and change the underlying user and task models.”
“The systematic involvement of human factors in the design of human-machine systems is only slowly gaining a foothold in the engineering world. Promoting this involvement is not a skill common among human factors specialists. Management has to be provided with convincing information detailing the knowledge and expertise available in order to justify the resource allocation required. In projects where, for various reasons, human factors specialists cannot be involved, the option should be explored to compile application specific design rules to guide the designers in their decisions. An example is described, demonstrating how general guidelines and standards can be converted into sets of application-specific rules intended for use in the design of the operator interface of production platform control rooms.”
“Prototyping has become quite popular as an approach to information systems development. This may be due to the advent of fourth generation software and the increase in the number of novice users finding difficulty expressing their computer requirements. While a major and key component of a prototype, is the user interface, the specification of its structure, format and dialogue style is often difficult to determine at the outset. Tools and techniques are needed to provide novice users with an awareness of alternative design scenarios and to enable their active participation in the selection of the appropriate interface. This paper addresses this need and introduces an approach based on interactive scenarios and a development tool designed as a 'front-end builder' of the interface prototype. The main objectives of this approach are to: * Enhance user awareness of alternate interface designs. * Produce a better fit between interface structure and user needs and style. * Speed-up interface prototyping. * Enhance the elicitation of user functional requirements. * Provide a tool that serves in tracing interface requirements for different problem contexts. The approach is presently being tested on two user groups in a university environment. The reaction of the users has been closely monitored illustrating to date the promising potential of this approach.”
“This paper describes a new set of tools for the evaluation of prospective HCI-based control room operator interfaces. Each tool is summarised and its application to an extensive control room interface is reported. It is concluded from this study that the new tool set is powerful in application and reduces much of the complexity associated with such evaluations hitherto, and has the potential in other HCI systems to minimise abortive systems design in advance of prototypes or simulation becoming available. The structured and systematic approach to HCI system evaluation, together with the scrutability and auditability of subjective judgements made and the human factors guidance given the analyst in making those judgements, ensures a very thorough and unbiased analysis.”
“Relational databases have successfully removed the need for physical navigation. However, they have failed to provide automatic logical navigation, that is, users must specify a logical access path (also known as a join path) when formulating a query. This becomes difficult and error-prone as the size and complexity of a database structure increase, especially for the casual user who may not be familiar with the structure of the database that he is attempting to query. Also, software applications, including artificial intelligence applications, involving relational databases often require some automated means of determining join paths in order to properly construct queries. In this paper, a solution based upon the concept of maximal objects is proposed to provide the automatic logical navigation. The proposed scheme is an extension of our previous approach [3], and consists of two parts: The first part is the design of database structures for storing the metadata of the database supported by this solution. The second part is the design of a join path generator which utilizes the metadata to provide a join path for an incomplete user query. The user specifies the target tables (relations) in the "FROM" clause of an SQL query, and the join path generator returns the complete "FROM" clause and the additional "WHERE" clause statements necessary in order to properly join the target tables.”
“In this paper, an overview of the factors that influence human performance in complex systems is given. The aim is to highlight and understand how some system design and task characteristics impact on human efficiency with complex technology. The details of a project aimed at improving operator performance through interface design are described. The project seeks to better enable operators in the task of process control under novel conditions.”
“This paper describes the cooperative mechanism which human cell schedulers in the cellular manufacturing system would use in making a schedule for their own cells. Several cooperative properties are extracted from the distributed scheduling experiment. From experimental results, it is shown that the flexible subordination between cell schedulers has strong possibility of producing a good schedule.”
“The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of vocabulary size and interface experience on the performance and acceptance of the user. Subjects performed a hands busy and eyes busy task while interacting with a speaker-dependent connected-speech recognition system with audio output. The time required to perform the task decreased significantly when the user acquired experience with the interface. A large inclusive vocabulary decreased the number of non-recognized words spoken by the user. The results of an interface-acceptance questionnaire reveal that subjects are more accepting of the spoken language interface as they gain experience.”
“The known human factors implications of air traffic control automation are surveyed broadly, with particular emphasis on some of the least familiar ones.”
“Past research on menu interfaces has been mostly concerned with textual menus. This paper is intended to address typical issues in iconic menu design, such as screen layout and semantic structure of multiple level iconic menus. Two types of iconic menu screen layouts were studied: circular and rectangular screen layouts. The semantic structures of these menus were characterized by: 2 menu sizes x 2 directions x 2 levels of depth. The design of the menus was based on existing iconic menus. In testing, subjects studied a target icon, searched for a "matching" icon by navigating through the menu structure, and finally selected the matching icon at the lowest level of the menu. Study time, response time, and error rate were used to measure user performance. Results indicate that screen layout and semantic structure of iconic menus significantly affect user performance, in a way that is similar to textual menus. With the same screen space, circular screen layout was superior to rectangular screen layout. It is suggested that iconic menu designers should probably consider to use results obtained from textual menus as references, with care taken for the differences between textual and iconic menus. Further studies need to investigate these differences before making any sound conclusions.”
“The design of user interfaces for skilled workers in professional work settings should be based on style-guides that certify efficiency. Most of todays style-guides and design guidelines over-emphasise general aspects or aspects relevant to novices. To increase efficiency both of the design process and of the resulting interface, more domain specific interface elements should be used. This paper explains the basic ideas of such domain specific style-guides and gives some examples from the health care domain.”
“The HCI issues in automation of corporate jets were examined. Pilots completed a questionnaire on programming procedures, crew coordination, understanding, cockpit design and general attitudes about automation. Results indicated that pilots had difficulties making programming changes, and understanding the outcome of their programming. Pilots also disliked the lack of consistency in keyboard design, and indicated a high degree of verbal communication was necessary in an automated cockpit. System design issues are considered and some recommendations are made.”
“An anthropomorphous agent is expected to play an important role toward advanced human-computer interaction. It permits wide communication spectrum between a human and a computer. We have proposed a concept called visual software agent (VSA). The VSA uses a realtime texture-mapping for interactive animated graphics. The anthropomorphous VSA with a realistic facial image naturally rocks his/her face all the time, winks his/her eyes, and talks to a user synchronized with a speech synthesizer. For reality and natural communication, it integrates several technologies such as a deformable three-dimensional wireframe model, texture-mapping, and parallel computing. This paper describes a realtime synthesis method of the realistic anthropomorphous agent using small-scale parallel transputers. The result of the prototype implementation shows that the speed of the realistic image synthesis is fast enough for the real usage.”
“A computer is no longer just an extension of a programmer. Today the computer is used as a tool by various people doing diverse tasks. Those tasks must be taken into account in the design of the human interface. Four applied projects with different human computer interface needs taking place at NASA/JSC HCIL will be discussed.”
“This paper describes an approach to design user friendly interfaces for computer based systems, especially for public use. The iterative prototyping process may not be genuinely new, however this study presents our experience with this approach. The task was to design a user-interface for a self-service terminal for train tickets, with an underlying fare system which was very complex. The system was to use a touchscreen as input media. The design process was divided into the steps problem analysis, identification of archetypes and prototyping. Prototyping was further divided into the three stages: Archetypes, screen layout and a functional model of the complete system. User tests in all prototyping phases showed that known ways of interaction are preferred, that a colourful screen is accepted better by users, and that a linear path through a program is initially better for untrained users, but is judged to be clumsy and slow for repetitive use or for experienced users. In general, the approach with small steps, involving users at several stages with tests has shown its advantages. The results of the tests are easier to interpret, as they are embedded in the whole process of development.”
“This presentation will discuss some of the issues faced by an international group of people from many professional disciplines in laying the groundwork for a world-wide communications network. For a network to truly connect the world, it has to reach remote regions which may not have the same type or level of communication access as the Western world. Expanding the network into space poses even further issues. Communication and technology issues, such as limited bandwidth and time-delay, impacted project definition. However, the need to provide an effective electronic environment for long-duration mission participants with different languages and cultural backgrounds also produced strong project drivers.”
“This paper proposes a framework for integrating two different aspects of the redesign of artifacts, and their corresponding stages, using empirical methods: (1) the analytical process of identifying usability issues on the basis of empirical data, and (2) the creative process of formulating redesign ideas. An analysis-supporting tool based on the framework is also introduced. By using a formalized analysis procedure, this tool helps analysts to carry out consistent data analysis of a mass of empirical data, and to classify the usability issues in stage 1. It also provides an environment that facilitates the creative process of idea formulation in stage 2, especially, by providing an intelligent support function using the "Genetic Algorithm." By using the results of the analytical process in stage 1, this function supports the creative process whereby analysts discover latent relationships among the issues that may initially be considered irrelevant, in order to facilitate ideas for global higher-level solutions.”
“Electronic communications play an indispensable role in space flight. As human presence in space extends to longer stays and more distant goals, the dynamics of group interactions through electronic media (especially with accompanying transmission delays) play a critical performance role. Expected one-way transmission delays in near-planetary space missions (Moon or Mars) range from 1 second to over 20 minutes. This paper presents research examining situational and technology implementation factors which can affect acceptability of communications with transmission delays in this range. Results of the research provide insights and recommendations for appropriate design of communication and on-board information systems, as well as group performance and training issues, for space flight with significant communication delay constraints.”
“In a recent paper (Gillan & Bias, 1992), two of us considered the interaction between human factors (HF) professionals and other software designers. We couched our discussion in familiar human-computer interface (HCI) terms, and then addressed the design of this human-human interface. We identified the objectives or the HF-design interface, listed requirements, and evaluated early interface designs (e.g., where HF experts are involved only at the end of the development cycle). Further, we proposed three design concepts we expected to improve the HF-design interface: education, an electronic gatekeeper, and design analysis software.”
“This paper focuses upon the capacity to tolerate, recognize, and to control grasp forces experienced when operating a master-controller of a telemanipulator.”
“This is an empirical investigation of the effects of two hypertext topologies, a hierarchy and a hypertorus structure, on navigation performance under two different network entry conditions, enter at the top of the network and enter randomly at any node. It was hypothesized that hierarchy topology is better only if a user enters the network from the top and the hypertorus topology is better for random entry situations. Thirty two subjects were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions (hierarchy structure with top entry, hierarchy structure with random entry, hypertorus structure with top entry, or hypertorus structure with random entry). The subjects' task is to browse a hypertext network and retrieve facts about ten 1991 automobiles. Performance was determined by elapsed time, number of screens examined, and accuracy. Results showed a strong learning effect over the first ten trials but equivalent performance once subjects on either of the structures for all navigational performance measures except accuracy. The hypertorus topology fosters browsing more than the hierarchy topology. However, the more constrained hierarchy topology fosters more efficient navigation behavior.”
“Geographic information systems (GISs) are spatial database systems that provide users with a variety of sources of spatial information and a means to manipulate that information (e.g., merge, overlay, filter) within a single system. The underlying cause for the differences in human-computer interactions between traditional information systems and geographic information systems is the spatial nature of the latter. The Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory (HCIL) and the Space Shuttle Earth Observation Project (SSEOP), both at NASA Johnson Space Center, are currently developing a geographic information system to support SSEOP tasks.”
“User performance when using a hypertext electronic reference system was compared to that for a conventional reference book. The links in this hypertext were the same as the index entries in the corresponding book. Specific topics and particular facts were located much faster and more accurately using the hypertext system than the book, and especially so when searching for information indirectly referred to in the index. The conclusion was that hypertext appears to be superior for "reading to do" or reference type use. A second experiment compared user performance when links corresponded exactly to the original index of the book to performance when the links were generated by computer keyword searches. Strong advantages were found in speed, accuracy, and subjective ratings for links based on the author's original index.”
“Automated intelligent advisors will be important to many aspects of successful space missions. Ideally, these advisors free astronauts from constant monitoring tasks. As long as the advisors remain subordinate to human control, they remain one of many sources of information on which humans base decisions. Understanding what information is conveyed by the advisor and how multiple sources of information are used by the human is critical to predicting overall system performance. Various models of decision making attempt to account for the role of advice. Factors such as the independence of the information sources, the sequence of the information processed, response bias, and attentional filtering have been given consideration. Research conducted at the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space Center has examined the use of advisor's input to system diagnosis, verified the use of multiple sources of information, and summarized the implications of this research for the design of complex system monitoring environments which are an integral part of space exploration.”
“This paper reports explorations into the use of standard database technology to support applications in hypermedia and multimedia information retrieval, an application area growing in importance. Hypermedia is usually authored and browsed using proprietary software systems built for this special purpose. But there are advantages to building information retrieval systems (including hypermedia) using standardized, open database management systems technology, especially as the hypermedia base becomes large [1]. Today the "intergalactic" standard in database management is the relational model and SQL [2]. We report methods to support advanced hypermedia applications using SQL and relational database management systems.”
“Eight sighted college students tactually explored line drawings on a computer screen using an Optacon. Particular forms of primitive elements were shown to significantly affect the likelihood of correct identification of the shapes. Configuration of the tactile array does not appear to affect the perception of two-dimensional graphic forms. The findings of this study have implications in the design of tactile communication systems, especially graphic computer access systems for people with visual impairments.”
“This paper reviews the design philosophy, basic components, and preliminary evaluation data for the Remote Coaching Multimedia Research Laboratory (RCMRL) within the Spacecraft Data Systems Research Branch at Ames Research Center which is being used to evaluate a new multimedia hardware, software, and human-system interface designs to support future NASA science operations on Space Station Freedom (SSF).”
“In space, there are a variety of unique considerations that must be addressed in the design of workstations, or video display terminals (VDTs). In a micro-gravity environment, the human body assumes a neutral body posture that has direct implications for the relative positioning of the keyboard and display(s). Instead of chairs to sit upon, foot and/or body restraints are used. For Space Station Freedom, the design must accommodate body sizes ranging from a fifth percentile Japanese female to a ninety-fifth percentile American male. In addition to the "fixed" or rack-mounted workstations, there are also "portable workstations" used in space. Their use in a micro-gravity environment bring additional considerations that need to be addressed. These include workstation portage and restraint and location of the monitor relative to the crewmember's task-centered field-of-view. This paper expands on these issues and describes design approaches and options to accommodate them.”
“This work studies the use and sharing of customization in a campus setting where a large computing culture exists, but one that has many diverse interests rather than focusing on a cohesive project. As past of this work we explore the development of a tool to facilitate sharing and make customization features more accessible and understandable to novice users.”
“Lots of interesting problems are discovered when we extend the target of research on human-computer interaction from computers, which are essentially passive, to more active machines such as autonomous mobile robots. More appear if we further extend it to communities of robots and computers that interact with humans. This paper discusses some issues on human-robot-computer interaction in multiagent environments, and describes systems designed and implemented in our project as possible solutions to some of those issues.”
“In this paper an hypertextual environment for developing graphical interactive telematic applications is described. The development of these applications is based on a visual programming language which allows the parametric instantiation of generic objects and the customization of generic functions explicitly designed for the interaction with on-line services. The environment also provides the possibility of cross-compiling the prototyped application, thus it allows the automatic generation of C++ code implementing the application and its interface. Moreover the environment permits the delivery of stand-alone applications to many different application platforms. The environment was partially developed within the context of the ESPRIT project 'TOOTSI', because of its focus on the HCI that is a quite innovative aspect in the European context of telematic services.”
“The design of the Human-Computer Interface (HCI) onboard Space Station Freedom (SSF) is based on specific assumptions regarding how astronauts process information and the interaction between this information processing and the SSF vehicle's data architecture. The basic display building blocks of the SSF Common User Interface (CUI) as well as specific display designs have been developed based on analysis of crew tasks and the theoretical framework of the rational information processing model. This model as well as the resulting SSF HCI is detailed using example operations onboard SSF.”
“In this paper, an intelligent user interface for mineral multimedia database retrieval is presented. The query mechanism is based on multimedia object content search using a multimedia knowledge-based structure called cognitive network. The experimental results for the system retrieval effectiveness expressed by recall and precision parameters are also discussed.”
“This paper describes a new technology for human-computer interaction, known as Virtual Reality. The paper illustrates the potential of this new technology with the summary of recent development work at the Fraunhofer-Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation, which has made possible the use of Virtual Reality for the off-line programming and remote operation of industrial robots. The paper goes on to indicate how experience gained in engineering applications can provide significant benefits in medicine.”
“The purpose of this study was to identify combinations of dialog box, button, and button highlight colors that would allow users to easily identify the highlighted button in a text interface. A combination of research analysis, performance testing, and preference testing was used to provide the design data within a short time frame. A preference test showed that users preferred black text on a gray background for dialog boxes and gray text on a blue background for document windows. Research analysis was used to reduce the potential button colors to eighteen by eliminating colors that research showed could cause problems. In the button color study, 57 participants were asked to select which of two buttons was highlighted in 306 separate pairs of buttons. Dialog boxes with gray text on blue, gray on black, or gray on dark gray as the non-highlighted button colors produced the best performance scores. Preference data indicated that white on blue, white on light blue, or white on red were good choices as highlight colors.”
“A corporate reality, that poor user interface design negatively affects employees and customers, led us to develop a graphical user interface design guide. We discovered in developing the document that current reference materials are not very helpful and are hard to use. We considered several areas for improvement, including using copious examples, providing behavioral rationale for choice of interface controls, etc. Our experiences so far have been positive and we hope will result in achieving our desired results of improving overall interface design.”
“NASA plans to construct the Space Station Freedom (SSF) in one of the most hazardous environments known to humankind -- space. It is of utmost importance that the human-computer interface (HCI) required for telerobotic assembly and the procedures to assemble the SSF are both safe and effective. This paper describes a software system that facilitates the rapid development and testing of Space Station HCIs.”
“The problem of "getting lost" prevents hypermedia from exploiting their full power as a flexible and user-friendly tool for the sophisticated use of large information systems. The following paper proposes a solution to this problem by presenting an interactive information filter that supports the user in tuning the granularity level of access to the stored information.”
“A feedback model is presented showing the influence of psychological factors on the activity of cosmonauts in the process of space vehicle control. It is assumed in the model that the level of operational complexity subjectively evaluated by the operator regulates his control strategy and the workload. A number of examples are presented illustrating the influence of the operational complexity on the space vehicles control and cosmonauts training for fulfillment of tasks related thereto.”
“Structured methods based on dataflow diagrams and data modelling are widely used for system analysis and design, but they are not suited for dialogue design. This paper shows a method for dialogue design that is based on modified data modelling and dataflow diagrams: The usual datamodel is complemented with a forms-based or picture-based model. This model is later extended with function bubbles representing dialogue actions. The method allows a high degree of user participation, especially in the first steps, where the major design decisions seem to take place.”
“Human-robot-computer interaction has been studied in our laboratory to verify our idea by using autonomous mobile robots. We call the robot which express its internal states by sending out colors Expressive Machine (EM). This paper describes Robots' Internal States (RIS), some ways of expressing RIS, proposes that using colors is the better way to express robots' internal states and discusses one of merits of using colors through experiments.”
“This paper reports on the application of Task Analysis for Knowledge Descriptions (TAKD) to an area of ward activity, namely the requesting of pathology tests, leading to a design specification for the human-computer interface for a potential ward based computer system. It is argued that TAKD has been shown to be a powerful tool for the derivation of user interface requirements in a real world situation.”
“We believe that in the near future personal robots will be used at home and in the work place, just as computers are used today. One of the most important factors in realizing such personal robots is building user-friendly interfaces for end users. In this paper, we discuss a user interface design for personal robots considering the environment where personal robots will be used, and also discuss required features for personal robots. We then propose a new user interface concept called Active Interface, and introduce SONIC, a speech dialogue system for human-robot interaction based on the Active Interface concept. Finally, we discuss the efficiency of Active Interface through the experimental use of SONIC.”
“We believe that in very near future personal robots will be used in our office and home like personal computers in current society. In order to develop such personal robots, the cooperation of human and robot will be crucial issues. In this paper we propose human-robot interface system named FRECS that recognizes fail states and requests human assistance. In the paper we describe how to classify fail states, how to recover by human assistance and proceed the task, and how to implement FRECS.”
“The Collaborative Desktop, CoDesk, consists of a set of generic tools for CSCW, Computer Supported Cooperative Work. CoDesk is an attempt to make collaboration a natural part of the daily use of a computer. Our way to achieve this is to put the user in the centre of the computing in a similar way that applications and documents are defined and visualized in the Apple Macintosh Finder metaphor of the daily-work desktop. TheKnowledgeNet is a vision of a system for collaboration in teams where the members have access to a common base of information, including knowledge about who-knows-what. The design of CoDesk is based on its function as an interface to TheKnowledgeNet. Basic principles in the CoDesk interface are object orientation, direct manipulation, a structured room metaphor, generic communication and co-editing tools.”
“Research in the area of human-computer interaction comprises more and more novel techniques of the artificial intelligence (AI) discipline. One specific AI knowledge representation paradigm is the topic of the present paper: constraint processing. A thorough elaboration of the constraint-oriented view enables both the designer and the user of a system to naturally express the meaning of the intended message in mind such that the computer may support the human in maintaining even the semantics of the implementation -- a welcome feature of sensible human-computer interaction.”
“The graphical UI design environment DIGIS facilitates designers to specify all aspects of UI design, including presentation and layout constraints, dynamic behavior, and coupling the UI with the (existing) application, with direct manipulation techniques. The software architecture of the interactive systems constructed with DIGIS is based on a multi-agent interaction model, and is to a large extent automatically generated from a formal domain application model which describes the application from the UI perspective.”
“We postulate that Industrial Designers, in general, solve a given problem by generating a series of proposed solutions to that problem, each proposal, in theory, helps the designer to converge on the ideal solution. Any number of solutions may be under continuous development at any one time and any previous solutions should always be available for appraisal and viewing. The single modeling environment provided in traditional Computer Aided Design (CAD) systems does not support this practice. Thus, CAD systems are primarily used to address the final phases of the design process, such as analysis, visualisation and detailing. This is surely not utilising the full potential of such a powerful design tool. In an attempt to develop a less restrictive working practice for CAD users, we consider a parallel modeling approach. This solution allows the simultaneous development, design and review of a number of computer based solutions.”
“JASPER (Jam Session Partner), a cooperative musical partner system is proposed in this paper. JASPER performs improvisation with a human musician and enjoys its performance. The purpose of our research is to realize communication including subjective information such as emotion between human and computer. We construct a performer model in computer which simulates a human improvising process such as [ listen -> feel -> perform ]. The performance style of JASPER is jam session. In jam session, it is very easy for performers to represent their emotion or intention and to communicate with each other through their performance. Performers represent uprush or depression of emotion in a performance. This system copes with such emotive variety as parameters named Tension Parameter. In experiments, we could get impressions that users could enjoy a jam session very much. Also most of them were much interested in possibilities of this system as a new style of uses of computer. We could find out the possibilities of cooperative works and communication including subjective information such as emotion between human and computer in this system.”
“This paper describes a method of communication between CAD and VR (Virtual Reality) interfaces. By allowing communication between these interfaces we can create precise 3D shapes and we can also recognize how large the 3D shapes are. To forge a communication link between these different types of interfaces, metaphors of tools and materials are introduced. Our experimental system called PLOTS was built upon these metaphors and uses the object oriented programming style. PLOTS manipulates polyhedrons.”
“The introduction of integrated broadband communication (IBC) to sales and information terminals offers a new range of possibilities, both to the supplier of goods or information and to the customer (the end user). The project ESSAI (Experimental Service Sale Automation on an IBC network, project R2029) which forms part of the European RACE II program is currently building such a system and is investigating the technical possibilities and the usability for the customer. A consortium of partners from Italy, France, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland is working on this project. Beside the technical realisation the main goal will be to investigate how the user can cope with the sudden access to large amounts of information and the combination of different services. The project will produce two demonstrator terminals for testing which will offer different services (tickets for cultural events such as theatre, cinema, concerts; travel tickets), goods (merchandising of products related to the services offered and other products) as well as information (how to get to places, what is on, etc.). The first will be tested this autumn in Milan (Italy), the second next year in Basel (Switzerland). New forms of help for the user will be provided (animated sequences with examples how to use the terminal, on-line voice/video transmission from a control centre of a person who will help the user). Cross-links between the different application allow users to combine the different products to a package which fulfills their precise needs.”
“The two case studies clearly demonstrate that work and organizational psychology offers useful concepts and instruments to help characterize, evaluate and theoretically order group work in advanced manufacturing systems. These methods and concepts of work psychology can be readily used to base the current discussion about "group work" or "teamwork" in "lean production" on more solid social scientific foundations. The authors would like to see the work and organizational psychology methods of analysis and results developed and improved over the course of the last several decades brought more to the forefront in popular science debate. This, for the simple reason that not everything called "group work" or "teamwork" deserves the name according to work psychology criteria. Should criteria fail to meet collective and individual autonomy to the slightest degree, then "group work" has hardly been realized; missing are the "creative contents" of mutual planning and decision-making (in the sense of Lewin), as is task-related communication. Perhaps similar work psychology case studies will serve as type models for work design in companies, providing they can be didactically prepared (see e.g. Weber & Oesterreich, 1992).”
“This paper describes the development of Electronic paper-and-pen (Elecpapen) which is a prototype of integrated and intelligent user interface system for computer aided design (CAD). Elecpapen is an integrated system referring to the integration of input devices (keyboard, mouse, digitizing tablet, etc.); the integration of input with display; the integration of CAD features with new input and display devices; etc. The prototype has some intelligence such as converting a sketch to a drawing; automatic dimensioning and positioning of the drawing; interactive pattern searching and matching; distinguishing between computer commands and drawing data; and so on. Comparing with the traditional user interface which consists of keyboard, mouse, monitor, menu, windows, icon, computer commands, etc., Elecpapen is much preferred by users, especially by novices and casual users, because they can learn the system quickly, operate it naturally, and do their design work much more efficiently.”
“The Computer Aided symbolic Simulation SYstem CASSY [1,2] is a new CAD tool that efficiently supports the early design stages of mixed analog and digital signal processing systems in an interactive way by fast simulation. This tool has been developed at the Fraunhofer Institute of Microelectronic Circuits and Systems in cooperation with the University of Dortmund, Chair I of the Department of Computer Science. CASSY operates at a high level of abstraction using a symbolic description of signals, components and architectures. As phases of simulation are supported by different tools embedded in an ergonomic graphic user interface based on the X-Window system and OSF/Motif. One of these is the graphical tool named AUCA [1,3] for presentation and analysis of CAD-simulation results. In what follows, the new tool AUCA will be presented.”
“Human-computer interface design guidelines are useful for developing well designed interfaces. The method of effectively retrieving guidelines appropriate for the designers' problems by using neural networks was examined to improve the productivity of software designers. Two learning methods for neural networks are proposed and the performance of each are compared in this paper. First, from software designers, who had used the guidelines experimentally, we found the relations between the words and guidelines the designers associated with a sample HI designed display. Next, many networks were trained using the relations, and the trained networks were evaluated using a criterion of appropriateness which had been defined in advanced. As a result, we found Method D which trained networks using the relations between each word and several guidelines was more effective than Method C which trained networks using the relations between several words and one guideline.”
“Since the dawn of the species, humans have employed technology such as fabricated weapons or dwellings to provide protection from dangerous environmental conditions. Use of technology to increase safety in the workplace also has a long history. For example, in his seminal De Re Metallica published in 1556, the first scientific treatise on human work, Agricola discusses use of technology for accident prevention in underground mining operations. Generally speaking, application of technology to provide safety at work is based on one of two strategies. The first is protection, such as use of protective clothing or equipment. The second is replacement, in which a technological surrogate is used to augment or replace the worker in performance of a dangerous, unhealthy, or arduous task or operation. An early example of the latter strategy is the plow. This example illustrates the point that mechanization of work usually has increased productivity as its primary aim, but improved safety and health typically is a welcome concomitant.”
“An experiment that four collaborators made a specification of a middle-scale software using a distributed and networking card-handling tool named KJ-Editor was conducted. The collaborators meet at a room and are provided with separate networked computers. According to our observation and analysis on this experiment, some features of cooperative work activity using KJ-Editor are identified; (1) a computer supported card-handling tool is a useful resource for the group in mediating their cooperative work, (2) pointing out a card or an element of the chart by a mouse has an effect for concentrating the discussion, and (3) WYSIWIS facilities sometimes become obstacles for personal viewing of the card-arrangement and cause collaborators to be uncomfortable.”
“Martin Marietta Aero & Naval Systems has completed an Independent Research and Development pilot study to isolate factors associated with operator performance while operating the large (25 Ton) Field Material Handling Robot (FMR) in a remote, teleoperated mode. Subjects for this pilot experiment were two trained FMR operators who received similar instruction in the teleoperation features of the equipment, and who were trained to reach a baseline level of performance across a series of representative tasks. Once baseline levels were demonstrated, operators were asked to perform a structured task from a remote operator console where tasks conditions were varied according to Visual Presentation Mode (Mono vs Stereo) and Ambient Light Levels (High, Medium, Low). Dependent measures included elapsed time, task performance (distance to a target in three dimensions) and subjective measures of operator workload. Substantial main effects are suggested for stereo viewing and lighting, and subjective workload appears to be a strong moderating variable. Results of this pilot study suggest that continued experimental work with a larger sample of subjects is needed to further understand the magnitude of such effects and associated confidence levels.”
“In the last three years a CAD-environment for a Computer Aided symbolic Simulation SYstem, called CASSY [1], has been developed at the Fraunhofer Institute of Microelectronic Circuits and Systems in cooperation with the University of Dortmund, Chair I of the Department of Computer Science. The environment is based on the X-Window system, OSF/Motif and the UIDS Motifation [2]. This tool supports the design of signal processing systems at a high level of abstraction. The main features of CASSY are a fast, symbolic simulation, which makes possible a fast design concept verification, an interactive, ergonomical user interface and an operating mode, which is adapted to the working style of design engineers (instead of forcing engineers to adapt themselves e.g., to a rigid HDL). The implementation of consecutive prototypes of CASSY has been carried out in close contact with experienced circuit designers, who contributed to the requirements definition and to the prototypes evaluation. Moreover CASSY has proven to be able to operate with additional simulators in a multilevel fashion [3]. Several reports on CASSY have been published in the past [4]. The reader not familiar with CASSY is kindly invited to read the proper references. In what follows, the newest developments within CASSY will be disclosed and discussed. These include the consistent duality in the representation of signals and systems, a tool to continuously update the methods library of the simulator and finally, a specification language to express both the functional and descriptive parts of a specification as well as a tool to display it and navigate through its information units.”
“The military flight environment faces some unique circumstances not encountered in the civilian flight arena. The fighter/attack aircraft, with one pilot, flying very low, and attempting to locate a target at night, in adverse weather conditions is one of the most difficult cases. Under these circumstances, automation becomes a key enabling technology, but questions such as, "What functions should be automated?" and once decided, "Can they be automated?" must be answered before automation can be successfully employed. This paper will discuss the role of automation in the military flight environment and the key aspects that determine its successful implementation, such as pilot and machine teaming.”
“The Task Oriented Modelling (TOM) approach to system development is based on the production of task-related models within an overall unifying framework. The models constructed using the TOM technique represent only those aspects of the domain of application, user, and device (computer system) which are directly related to the achievement of task goals. The models are used to generate quality and cost metrics which are then used to calculate performance metrics for the task. These performance metrics direct the system developer to problem areas which can be addressed by redesign of the device, user training, or reorganisation of the domain. This performance based approach is novel in the fields of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and system development. As part of its support for the system development process, the TOM project has produced prototype computer-based tools which assist in the construction of the domain, user, and device models. The TOM technique was developed using the real-time safety critical domain of Air Traffic Management (ATM), the users being Air Traffic Control Officers (ATCOs). Further work is being carried out on the transfer of the TOM approach to the domain of aviation.”
“Tele robotic or unmanned vehicles offer a great potential for tactical operations on the battlefield. Unmanned vehicle systems can protect soldiers from dangers inherent to many military tasks. As tele operated vehicle mission and operational requirements are developed by the military, many operator-robot interface questions have surfaced, dealing with how to maximize the effectiveness and use of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV). Remote military mission capabilities for surveillance, target acquisition, mine operations, NBC detection, and direct fire have been demonstrated. This paper will focus the results of a NATO workshop that was held in 1992 which involved discussions on operator robot interaction issues for military UGVs. Military operations using UGVs will have special data transmission requirements, due to military requirements for low bandwidth secure radio channels for battlefield operation. Transmission rates are projected at 16 Kb/second. Conventional video links are unsatisfactory for military operations, because of possible detection and jamming. Through the use of automation and algorithmic data compression techniques, reduced data transmission rates are possible. Experiments must be conducted in which data parameters and levels of supervisory control are manipulated to assess operator performance differences. Operator and system performance will be based on the UGV's ability to complete a mission.”
“The paper presents a tool-based architecture for the design and near-automatic construction of interactive software. AME (Application Modeling Environment) uses an object-oriented scheme for representing applications. The system integrates CASE-tool support for object-oriented analysis and design (OOAD) and a knowledge-based UIMS for automatic user interface generation and domain code integration.”
“This paper describes how the use of remotely operated systems has increased human's abilities to live and work in the hazardous environment of space. Brief descriptions of research projects at NASA's Johnson Space Center illustrate the importance of accommodating for human's capabilities and limitations during the design of space-based remotely operated systems. These research projects are examples of designing remotely operated systems well for the human at three major interface points: overall workstation, computer screen, and the remote worksite.”
“In this paper, we describe some aspects of our problem solving support system. We have developed this system as thinking acceleration tools. We have developed some thinking acceleration technique, and show how a system can offer effective support through them. Especially, we propose the idea of Active Memo as mechanism for thinking acceleration. We have developed this approach through experience with a prototypical support system (the task is card game calculation).”
“This paper reviews the current state of development and use of tethered and autonomous underwater vehicles. Man machine interface considerations and the potential for task automation are also discussed.”
“The specificity of Knowledge Based Systems (KBS) in comparison with conventional Computing Systems (CS) lies in the fact that they integrate the feature of "intelligence". Such systems incorporate the user in the problem solving and decision process [1]. As the user guides and participates in the problem solving, it becomes essential to turn the simple communication with the system into a real cooperation between the two partners. Modeling this cooperation as a communication activity at the conceptual level has been proved necessary in the development of KBS. We propose a Man-System Cooperation Model (MSCM) and a new software architecture model for Cooperative KBS. Their objective is to make easier the communication between the user and the system within the context of cooperative work. Moreover, we take into account the user's objectives and his knowledge about the domain. In this paper, we firstly present the contribution of the Seeheim model to the design of Man-Machine interfaces. Secondly, we state the specificity of KBS in relation to conventional CS. We insist, thirdly, on the interest of our MSCM. Finally, we detail the software architecture we propose for the design of cooperative KBS.”
“Over the past two decades, there has been growing interest in automating equipment in both underground and surface mining operations. This report reviews current applications of mining automation, and discusses some key human factors implications based on Bureau of Mines research. It concludes that although the trend towards automation of mining operations may have developed a strong if not irreversible impetus, serious questions remain pertaining to safety, health, and operational implications.”
“With recent trends in labor requirements moving from manual labor to cognitive oriented tasks, the need for understanding of the factors that effect skilled cognitive task performance has never been greater. A number of methods have been developed which attempt to identify, describe, or model these factors. Additionally, some of these models have been integrated and, using a multi-factor approach, have had reasonable success in explaining factors associated with human skilled cognitive task performance. This research proposes one such model combining the outstanding features of Cognitive Modeling techniques into a Knowledge Organization framework. The resulting Procedural Knowledge Structure Model (PKSM) is then evaluated to assess likely structural dimensions which have an effect on task performance. These dimensions are then defined in terms of quantifiable measures, which are then empirically validated. Results indicate that the PKSM measures, and thus model dimensions, are highly significant indicators of aspects of task performance. Furthermore, these measures provide greater predictive power than traditional knowledge structure dimensions, and a combined model (with both sets of measures included) provides yet even stronger predictions. The demonstrated capability of the PKSM indicates that it potentially has implications for user modeling in the areas of Human-Computer Interaction, task design, personnel selection and training, and task analysis. Furthermore, the model may also be applicable as a design tool in Knowledge-Based Systems research.”
“This paper presents an overview of the ESPRIT Project 5429 MUSiC -- Metrics for Usability Standards in Computing. The driving force for this project was the recognition of the industry need for effective tools and techniques to assess usability. The participants in this project have successfully developed a series of methods and tools in the four areas of: analytic measures, performance measures, cognitive workload measures and user attitude measures. In addition the importance of context in usability assessment, as recognised in ISO 9241 has formed a key component in the development of all MUSiC methods.”
“This paper gives preliminary information on the methodology needed for the construction of a knowledge-based system for shipping berth scheduling. For this purpose, a computer simulator for shipping berth scheduling was developed for eliciting knowledge from humans. The results of scheduling by humans were analyzed by the protocol analysis using a GOMS model which is a useful tool to elicit knowledge for shipping berth scheduling in a real-time interactive environment. Furthermore, the elicited knowledge was transferred into a computer as a knowledge-based system for shipping berth scheduling.”
“TWB aims to provide optimal machine support for the translator in the form of an integrated set of software tools which are designed to eliminate some of the tedium from the translation process, while leaving the translator to concentrate on the cognitively more complex tasks, such as the translation of idioms, neologisms, complex structures and decision-making at a textual or pragmatic level. The objective of the TWB consortium was to specify, design and build an integrated set of software tools tailored to the users' -- i.e. translators' -- requirements. The toolset comprises: a multilingual editor; document converters; spelling, grammar and style checkers; access to lexica and to terminological data banks (term banks for short); remote access to machine translation systems, such as METAL, and to the EC term bank EURODICAUTOM; term bank building tools -- System Quirk (previously 'MATE'); and a pre-translation tool for repetitive translation tasks with some facilities for learning.”
“It has been stated that a major problem in implementation of autonomous work groups is related to a change of the foremen's jobs. The foremen's work situation before and after implementing lean production is compared on the basis of interview and questionnaire data from a car manufacturing company in Germany. Results show that the foremen play an important role to implement lean production on the shop floor, that their job changes considerably when lean production is introduced and that their work behavior -- as perceived by their subordinates -- is of more relevance to the innovation process than their attitudes.”
“The major focus of this research is the acquisition of correct knowledge about how a skilled person makes plans in the development of the expert system. A second issue is to obtain specialized knowledge efficiently while reducing the stress on the experts who supply this knowledge.”
“This paper describes the peculiar features of Hyperface, a UIMS for process control, supervision or simulation applications, developed in Esprit II project 5391, (HYPERFACE) and Esprit III project 6061 (INTERACTORS). The following points are addressed: client-server architecture, separability, reuse of off-the-shelf widgets, user defined interaction objects, object scripts, hypertextual structure, hypershell, access control.”
“The paper identifies and illustrates the use of structured notations to support a more precise human factors specification of a system design. Structured notations are considered more suitable than formal or algebraic notations, since its graphical representations facilitates communication with users. Thus, user feedback and validation of a design may be supported better throughout system development. It is expected that the structured notations illustrated in the paper, could be used more widely since they have now been incorporated into a structured human factors method [10, 11, 12]. Off-the-shelf computer support for the notation is also available, e.g. PDF [13].”
“A method of the increase of efficiency of a multicomputer system "Human-Computer", functioning in the mode of simultaneous performance of functions, by means of its designing on the basis of interchangeable multifunctional elements (MFE) is presented. Models are given of a quantitative evaluation of effectiveness indices (flexibility and structural reliability) of functioning of MFE and of the system, designed on their basis.”
“This paper provides an overview of AMODEUS (Assimilating Models Of DEsigners Users and Systems), an Esprit Basic Research Action. The focus of the collaboration was the development of interdisciplinary methods and concepts for studying interactions between users and systems offering long-term implications for interface design and development.”
“This paper presents a methodology for modeling the knowledge requirements for training simulations for complex systems. By explicitly modeling the function, behavior, and connectivity of the components of a systems in one common representation, two capacities are provided. The first is a quantitative simulation of the system that the user can interact with to learn how the system behaves. The second capacity is a qualitative model of the system that be used to reason about the actions and mistakes of the user. This dual-purpose view of system models allows for a decrease in the effort required to produce a simulation-based intelligent tutoring system, compared to that associated with rule-based approaches.”
“JESSI-Common-Framework (JCF) is the name of an open framework that is developed in the JESSI-Common-Frame Project with ESPRIT-funding. It serves as a general, common infrastructure for efficiently building, maintaining and configuring open, integrated CAx-environments. In addition to domain-neutral services, domain-specific extensions are offered for optimizing the support of particular application domains "x". Within the JESSI-Common-Frame project itself, special services for x = "Microelectronic System Design" are supplied, while domain-specific services for other application domains are provided outside the scope of the JESSI-Common-Frame project.”
“Recent research into Intelligent Training Systems (ITS) has emphasized instruction of specific knowledge domains. An obvious next step is the development of an ITS shell. An intelligent shell should allow the incorporation of knowledge from different instructional domains into an ITS without the need for repeatedly developing intelligent features. This would enable instructional developers, with little understanding of artificial intelligence techniques, to produce an ITS solely based on their knowledge of the domain. As might be expected, there are problems associated with the design of an ITS that is not strongly coupled to a particular domain. However, progress in the development of certain domain-independent aspects [1-4] is producing several ITS shells with limited capabilities. ITS Challenger is a shell providing certain intelligent features for instruction in predominantly declarative domains. It employs a dual knowledge representation that allows for both an instructor's anticipation of students' needs and a domain experts point of view [4]. A set of pedagogical rules that rely upon the structure of the knowledge, but not its content, is the basis for de-coupling the system intelligence from the expert knowledge. A primary experimental design goal of ITS Challenger is to free the instructional developer from the need to be a programmer and a knowledge engineer. However, the knowledge representation of ITS Challenger is critical to adaptation, and a strict canonical data representation is used. Authoring tools and procedures were developed to assist an instructional designer, unfamiliar with the principles of knowledge engineering, in the effective acquisition and structuring of the knowledge needed for competent instruction by ITS Challenger.”
“In the following paper, the authors examine the introduction of office automation into the criminal justice system in the UK -- an area of administration which does not lend itself easily to the acceptance of new technologies. In order to facilitate the examination and, owing to the complexity of the justice system, the authors examined one aspect -- the Probation Service. This service is responsible for the supervision of offenders in the community as an alternative to imprisonment. Bearing in mind the limited use of technology in the Service, it was felt that the problem area should be analyzed using a three-layer model of Human-Computer Interaction. Within this framework, the key issue to be considered was the assessment of the net benefits to be gained through the introduction of office automation into the Probation Service over a period of time. To this end, the authors examined the problem areas using a time-phase model. In order to illustrate the issues involved the authors drew on their experience of advising a Probation Service on the problems of developing and extending its office document production facilities.”
“An extensive current literature review was conducted, as well as interviews and surveys with a small sample of aviation human factors scientists, aviation design engineers, and pilot selection specialists. Generally, the literature and interview/survey results indicated that the components of the "Right Stuff" necessary to pilot commercial flight decks had shifted. In addition, most agreed that there has been a shift in aircraft piloting from "human" to "human-computer interaction", requiring a new perspective, and increased study. It was recommended that appropriate aviation agencies take a leading role in determining the new selection criteria for future automated/supersonic/hypersonic flight crew selection.”
“This paper examines the role of information technology in supporting the efforts of a government agency to strengthen voluntary cooperation in regulatory relationships.”
“The opinions of secretarial staff to computer technology and their reported level of anxiety and perceived likelihood of experiencing anxiety-causing events are investigated. Significant agreement among participants (n = 100) was found for both rated anxiety and the likelihood of the computing events. Six key opinions were identified through principal components analysis and were found to significantly predict procedural and conceptual performance with computers through multiple regression analysis. A major conclusion is the dominance of anxiety as a key opinion area and influence on performance. Recommendations for in-house support are provided and include a programme to increase confidence among the user group and promote a transfer of training from conventional secretarial skills.”
“This paper describes a prototype natural language query interface (NLQI) to the AtmNet Operational Support System (OSS). The AtmNet OSS is an integrated network management system for MPR's cell relay multimedia networking system for MPR's cell relay multimedia networking system based on Asynchronous Transfer Mode technology. NLQI provides a more flexible and user friendly user interface to query configuration and traffic data from the system database over the existing menu based graphical user interface (GUI). Approximately one man-year was spent to produce the prototype, which is developed using an off-the-shelf natural language application development package. The background, implementation and evaluation of NLQI are presented.”
“The growing literature within the past years has emphasized the major role played by cognition in mediating the complex process of human-computer interaction. This trend is also seen in the field of educational computing where some cognitive strategies have been used in order to improve the quality of educational software. This study examines the use of concept maps as metalearning and metaknowledge tools for educational software development. It also describes a new methodology used to apply constructivist learning ideas through concept maps to design and develop educational software. As a result of the application of qualitative research methods, we propose the use of current cognitive learning theory as theoretical framework for educational software production and suggest the utilization of concept maps as powerful metalearning and metaknowledge tools to interface adequately the human-computer interaction for learning purposes.”
“Computer-based learning recognised the importance of user models long ago. Important works has been done on dialogue based user models and advances were made on natural language as the medium of computer-based learning. On the other hand, natural language as object of computer-based learning is a growing field. This paper intend to expose problems that typically arise when natural language is both the object and the medium of computer-based learning. Writing aids available in the market are based on relatively superficial analysis of input text and extensive elaboration of descriptive material. Our system intend to analyse in depth and elaborate a complete representation of written text with a minimal explanatory material. Finally, the system is met to reduce the explanation provided to a list of examples and contra-examples.”
“As a consequence of the availability of high level, software development environments, self tailored software can now be developed by small organisations for whom this form of tool was previously unavailable. As the ability to produce effective software without low level programming language experience is recognised widely, the number and diversity of software applications is likely to greatly increase. By taking an iterative prototyping approach to development an in-house developer can tailor products to meet the actual requirements of the real user group.”
“On-line help facilities are essential in any complex system, especially for introductory or naive users. Previous studies have highlighted the need for appropriate examples along with the description. This paper describes a help/documentation facility built within an explanation framework that plans the presentation of text and examples using techniques in natural language generation. The paper shows how text and examples can influence each other and enumerates some of the other issues that arise in planning such presentations.”
“The present paper reports on two experiments that examine the psychological effects of dynamic icons and propose the desirable size and speed of icon animation representation in human-computer interaction. The first experiment compared two types of icon representation: conventional static representation and dynamic representation. Comprehensibility of icons' image and function is evaluated by a rating method. The second experiment reveals what is a desirable speed and size of dynamic representation. Results show that dynamic representation has larger effects on understanding of and feeling toward icons. The comprehensibility of dynamic icons is influenced not only by the size and speed of animated images but also by the difference between drawn objects. We propose requirements in designing dynamic icons: the size should be above 36x36 pixel area and the speed should be about 10 frames per seconds on the condition that the number of cels is under ten.”
“In order to set up a testing system to evaluate different approaches of typing Chinese characters into computers, a model of typing Chinese characters into computers was proposed and a set of experiments were carried out to verify the model and to determine indices and functions of information processing of typing Chinese characters into computers with either phonetic rules or graphic rules. This paper reports some of the results found by the experiments.”
“The work described in this paper takes place in the ILLICO project which aims at the development of natural language interfaces allowing a guided composition of sentences. The time necessary for the composition of sentences is all the more reduced since the selection of the expressions is accurate at different levels: lexical, syntactic, semantic, conceptual, pragmatic. We describe here how we build and use the conceptual model of the interfaced application in order to prevent the production of conceptually incorrect sentences. In this model, we define two types of conceptual constraints: a domain constraint on a relational symbol R specifies the domains the arguments of R must belong to, and a connectivity constraint on R specifies the number of individuals that can simultaneously be interrelated by R. Respecting these constraints excludes sentences such as the dog is reading, or expressions like the dates of birth of Joan, the six grand-fathers of Peter (false existential presuppositions).”
“In this paper, the Pilot Intent and Error Recognition module as part of a knowledge based Cockpit Assistant System is presented. This Cockpit Assistant System mainly supports the pilot crew with regard to the monitoring and planning task and provides assistance for a number of plan execution functions for the civil flight operation under Instrument Flight Rules. A brief survey of the concept and the function of the main system is given. Thereafter, the structure of the Pilot Intent and Error Recognition is described in more detail. Finally, the integration of the module within the main system and some results of first low scale experiments in a flight simulator are presented.”
“In a wide range of software technologies, authors have highlighted the need for the user perspective to be considered. However, little improvement has been noted, and even where the 'users' are themselves software developers, for example, in CASE tools, major problems are perceived. If the software community is serious about the adoption of quality management standards e.g. ISO9001, ISO9000/3, EN29001, then software must be fit for its intended purpose. The hypothesis underpinning this paper is that fitness for purpose is essentially an HCI issue. This paper considers existing definitions of usability and compares them with criteria suggested by a number of Information Technology (IT) practitioners in a recent study by the author. The article then goes on to consider long term fitness for purpose of software in terms of three levels of human/computer interaction. Finally, the article considers three different examples of information systems that have been noted for their fitness for purpose and considers the lessons that may be drawn.”
“A person can normally act appropriately by comprehending their surrounding situation. Correspondingly, it is believed that computers can interact appropriately with users through the computer acquiring an understanding of the users' plans. In this study, a sequence of the OS commands is regarded as an act in "plan recognition". That is, a computer recognizes the user's plan by identifying the sequence of the OS command lines. Here an algorithm for recognizing the plan of the user from the sequences of the real MS-DOS command lines is proposed. Moreover, a system to transform the sequence of command lines into the UNIX command lines by using this recognition is implemented. The algorithm uses the hierarchy of a goal-subgoals in the plan and rules transforming a goal into its lower goals. An experiment was carried out employing real sequences of the command lines and confirmed that plan recognition is possible within a certain range of tasks.”
“This paper provides an overview of our efforts at providing high-quality, 3-D visualizations of information about programs. This data is generated by querying the different information sources through a single object-oriented database schema. The result of the query is a set of abstraction objects that are then mapped, through a set of user-definable translations, into a set of abstract graphical objects that represent the display. A separate package handles layout, constraints, and presentation of these graphical objects. The resultant display is interactive at three levels. Syntactic interactions allow the user to pan, zoom and fly around in 3-D space. Semantic interactions allow user actions to affect the translations from abstraction objects into abstract graphical objects and to change the set of abstraction objects by modifying the initial query.”
“The Dual Design Approach will be used to describe the complex air traffic control system as a human-machine system. The Dual Design Approach is a set of principles to ensure appropriate development of both the technical and human aspects of human-machine systems. Both the technology-based design and the working-process-based design should be used in parallel to obtain an optimum. This is exemplified by two components of the air traffic control system. Examples of specific support systems -- especially from EUROCONTROL -- are shown. Based on these support systems for the radar controllers the capacity of air traffic control systems can be increased without additional risks in case of technical failures. But fully automated systems for air traffic control -- even if it was feasible -- will not be acceptable.”
“Hierarchical 3D graphical editors allow the user to create three-dimensional designs and rapidly expand on existing designs by making use of libraries of three-dimensional objects previously constructed. When the editor has the possibility of incorporating geometrical constraints into the 3D objects, development and editing is speeded up again because invalid constructions cannot be made: fixed length edges will remain of the same length, joined edges will remain joined at the same points and so on. To handle such hierarchically nested constraint systems by the traditional method of an external constraint equation solver would be increasingly difficult due to the rapidly increasing complexity and number of constraint equations to solve at one time. Additionally, this method violates the software engineering principles of information hiding and its structure does not reflect the hierarchical structure of the three-dimensional scene. An alternative approach (the "Democracy Algorithm") using distributed constraint resolution at all levels of the scene hierarchy has been found to handle increasing complexity very effectively. This paper addresses issues concerned with certain constraint-based editing of polyhedral objects.”
“In trying to develop software that is usable and that meets customers needs, two problems arise. First, although customer input may be collected at the beginning of the project, this information may be neglected as the design and implementation of the software gets underway. Second, even when customer feedback survives throughout development, members of the project team may interpret the customer feedback in different ways due to different internal objectives, leading to less than optimal designs. This paper describes a case study in the use of QFD (Quality Function Deployment) as a method to promulgate accurate customer feedback throughout the entire design cycle of a software product.”
“People producing illustrations with graphical editors often need to repeat the same steps over and over again. This paper describes five techniques that reduce the amount of repetition required to create graphical documents, by having the computer play a role in automating repetitive tasks. These techniques: graphical search and replace, constraint-based search and replace, constraints from multiple snapshots, editable graphical histories, and macros by demonstration, have all been implemented within the Chimera editor framework. Chimera, which contains an object-based editor for producing 2D illustrations, was built as a testbed for this research. All of these techniques are demonstrational or example-based. The user specifies concrete examples of tasks, and the system applies the tasks to other data. In addition to reducing repetition, these techniques allow users to customize the editor for the tasks that they frequently perform, and expert users to encapsulate their knowledge in a form that other users can exploit.”
“The work described here represents an attempt to devise CAD techniques appropriate to the apparel industry. An integrated approach is outlined which provides a greater justification for CAD, other than the ability to produce a single image of a design concept. In addition, high level tools are described which enable 3D design specifications to be evolved without exhaustive dimensional input.”
“This paper describes a development environment for constructing a class of graphical user interfaces namely application-specific graph editors. It discusses the advantages of separating the process for specifying a graph notation from that for programming a graph editor, and the importance of organising software components of graph editors in an object oriented as well as modular manner. It is concluded that the use of an object-oriented approach is the key to the automation in the process of constructing this class of graphical user interfaces.”
“The selection of work center furniture is critical to the continued productivity of telecommunications workers in VDT-intensive environments. This paper describes the design three separate ergonomic studies, conducted over a period of six months, whose goal was to select ergonomic furniture in a working environment. The first study assessed user comfort and user perceptions of furniture features for each of eight adjustable worktables. The second study applied this same methodology to each of ten chairs. The third study consisted of ergonomically-oriented inspections and checklist ratings in the human factors laboratory for the eight adjustable worktables and the ten chairs. The results suggest that the three factors (user body discomfort, user perceptions of furniture features and ergonomic evaluation) are tapping different aspects of furniture usability. Each measure contributes to an informed selection decision, but should not be used in isolation. A careful consideration of the total configuration of measures may lead to better furniture selection.”
“Good documentation is a critical component of usable systems. While documentation commonly focuses on system features and functions, it is often more effective when based on a user- and task-oriented view. It must also keep pace with rapid changes in the design of a system during an iterative development process. The User Action Notation (UAN), a user- and task-oriented notation that describes the behavior of the user and the interface during their cooperative performance of a task, helps support these requirements. We present a case study of an industrial software development project that used the UAN as part of the documentation process, and show how the UAN supported translation from an interface design to user documentation.”
“On basis of interviews and observations, user requirements for home shopping systems (HSS) were formulated. The results demonstrate that HSS have to be regarded as a service and as a system. User satisfaction is mainly related to aspects concerning the systems' service components while problems re communication media were downgraded. The system input /the order/ is, however, critical. Choice and design of media is consequently vital. Telefax is recommended in favour of the computer (videotex), being easier to handle and accept by users.”
“Existing software development tools and user interface toolkits assist application programmers in developing and implementing single-user applications with graphical user interface. However, multi-media and multi-user applications introduce new dimensions, like temporal aspects, concurrency, or sharing of objects, that are usually not supported by these tools. In this paper we describe the experience we made as we developed and implemented a distributed multi-user application in the domain of hyper-media document production. We describe the chosen event-based approach and how it makes it easier to augment existing software in order to support cooperative work as well as new kinds of temporal media.”
“Computer games can provide insight into interface design. One particular category of game, the adventure game, has elements that highlight particular aspects of user-system interaction, particularly for spatial systems. We discuss the reasons why we are developing such games and some empirical observations on navigation and action issues. These issues are then related to the use of space in interface representations.”
“In this paper, we describe an approach for the automatic synthesis of multimedia documents in which different media, such as text and graphics, are smoothly integrated. The approach we have taken has its roots in text generation. We start from the assumption that textlinguistic concepts such as speech acts, coherence relations, and discourse structure can be generalized in a way that they also become useful for the generation of multimedia presentations. We briefly describe a prototype of a multimedia presentation system. By means of an application example we demonstrate the system's ability to adapt its presentations to particular presentation situations.”
“This hypertext was created to provide users with a problem-oriented tool, dealing with the presentation of an occupational disease case report. The hypertext covers the case report containing the clustered information about the patient and the library including educational material. Information elements of the 2 domains are linked in a network structure, allowing the user to match himself with a current world situation (the patient) and to switch from it to the library information network. This feature would lead the user to the perception and the awareness of the relationship between facts (presented in the case report) and concepts (expressed in the library).”
“Educators evaluated two sets of icons (41 total), designed for an educational software environment, for appropriateness, discrimination, and recognition and recall. The icon sets differed in the types of objects represented. Appropriateness and discrimination indicated a clear separation of the icons, which provided direction for redesign within a product development schedule. Recognition and recall provided little distinction of the icons, probably because of the limited time available in which to run the test.”
“Human computer interaction (HCI) can be based on interaction models. The IFIP-Model is best known for a layered structure of HCI (cmp. e.g. [1]). Interaction forms are under intensive research and can be distinguished according to DIN 66234 part 8 [2] and ISO 9241 part 10 [3]. In our research-oriented model we focus on three interaction modes: Natural language, direct manipulation and formal interaction languages.”
“The present paper introduces the "CTP Project", that intends to develop a computer assisted instruction system in the field of psychology. This system consists of a) main instruction frame system that works as a platform for easy and integrated presentation of what we know in psychology, as text, picture, animation and simulation; b) authoring system that allows instructors to establish the knowledge-modules describing psychological facts and theories; and c) presentation managing system so that we can customize the presentation sequence and to modify the interconnections among the knowledge-modules.”
“When developing advanced intelligent user interfaces composing text, graphics, animation, hypermedia etc., the question of automatically designing the graphical layout of such multimedia presentations in an appropriate format plays a crucial role. This paper introduces the task, the functionality and the architecture of the constraint-based multimedia layout manager LayLab.”
“This paper describes the evolution and application of a method of usability testing. The case study evaluates the human-computer interface of a multimedia information system. The method of evaluation can be integrated into the design process of similar highly interactive systems. The objective of the work described in this paper is to improve the chances of success of any multimedia system in casual and long term use. This is done by offering two types of guidelines: 1) For usability testing of interfaces to multimedia systems, and 2) for the design of these interfaces. These guidelines are targeted at the designers and developers themselves, i.e. no expert-level knowledge of human-computer interaction is assumed. ShareME, the multimedia information system, was tested for its usability among 39 target users. During the case study it was discovered that seemingly small changes to the interface can turn a partly frustrating system into a pleasant and engaging one.”
“A basic model of Multimedia comprehension is proposed. The model is used to demonstrate how a Walkthrough critiquing method may be developed for MM presentations. An expository presentation (changing a Laser Writer toner cartridge) is used to illustrate the methodology.”
“In this paper we present a framework for applying QFD (Quality Function Deployment) techniques to user interface design in embedded real-time computer systems. We also discuss value analysis as a design method, and finally we describe the experiences that we have learned in applying QFD in an industrial design case.”
“This paper explores how multi-media technologies may be utilised to support the early phases of user interface design. It presents a conceptual model for the support of up-stream user interface design and highlights the problems current technology has in supporting the design process.”
“The objective of this study was to determine if more efficient performance in hierarchical computer environments could be obtained from field-dependent (low technical aptitude) individuals by manipulating information structuring requirements. Three levels of structuring were investigated: recognizing existing structure, structure recognition with concurrent task processing, and imposing structure where no salient organization exists. Thirty-six subjects, 18 identified as field-dependent and 18 as field-independent performed 60 information search tasks under three task conditions, two structured by the experimenter and one by the subjects. The results indicated that the effects of differences in the organization of task information on computer performance time can be controlled for by providing subjects with a period of time dedicated to the acquisition of a system's structure.”
“We prescribe a user interface that supports the case-base method of teaching engineering design using hypermedia enhanced with multimedia to maximize concept relationships, knowledge integration, knowledge organization, and guided-discovery learning. Hypotheses pertaining to navigational issues to support education goals are presented along with their experimental validation on two implementations that were tested on a variety of users. Lessons learned from our experiments on the case studies are formulated as general rules for use of hypermedia for instructional software that use historical cases for teaching good design practice. Results indicate that (1) The navigational backbone should serve as a concept map to reinforce important principles to help novices to organize their own knowledge. (2) The hyperlinks should make important connections explicit, but not haphazard; they should be used as a pedagogical tool. (3) Navigation should accommodate the experience level of the user, both in computer use and in domain knowledge. It should be both flexible and structured. (4) Integrated use of multimedia should accommodate differences in learning styles.”
“Sophisticated user interfaces will need to communicate facts, concepts, and emotional values in multimedia environments, especially for large amounts of data and large numbers of functions in consumer products for increasingly diverse users. Using metaphors to embody complex structures and processes is one technique familiar to user interface developers. The article discusses kinds of metaphors, metaphor design scenarios, and demonstrates cultural diversity in user interface design.”
“This paper will show how modelling of the cognitive and communicative skills of individuals in the group context combined with analysis of media-usage within an architectural design group can lead to design guide-lines for a specific multimedia application and the basis for a framework to produce many such applications in the spatial planning domain.”
“In the European ESPRIT project 'MUSiC', metrics, methods and standards are developed for industrial use. In this paper a validation study is reported in which metrics of cognitive workload, performance and subjective usability are tested. Subjects were studied working with a menu oriented and with a graphical object-oriented wordprocessor. The main hypothesis of the study is that the packages induce a different level of user efficiency. All measures added unique information to the usability evaluation, and the combination of the domains of measurement is most informative. Contrary to the expectations, it could not be concluded unambiguously, that user efficiency is better when individuals use a package with a graphical object-oriented interface.”
“We present in this paper some results of a research project that explores: a) the advantages of hypertext as a metaphor by means of which psychotherapists represent and access information and knowledge acquired during the psychotherapeutic process and b) the potential of hypermedia as a tool for building learning environments for future psychotherapists. We discuss the outstanding features of a hypermedia-based environment that provide support for learning the complex relationships presented in a psychotherapeutic process. We analyze some implementation issues and discuss some future work in this area.”
“Very often, complex decisions must be made by a group of specialists rather than a single decision maker. To make an effective decision, the combination of the group's expertise must be brought to bear on the situation. Fusing expertise where individuals have very detailed knowledge in their own areas and much weaker understanding of others introduces many difficulties: (1) agents cannot communicate their expertise in an intelligible way to non-experts because of differences in vocabulary and conceptual content, (2) the process allows for incorrect inferences, and (3) no one knows what anyone else needs to know. This impasse cannot be broken until shared mental models are developed to provide a level of agreement in evaluating alternatives needed to focus the activity of the group. This paper presents a model of decision making by teams of specialists in which agents' evaluations confound expert and naive inferences in judging alternatives. The robustness of the model in accommodating a variety of communications and modeling their impact on group process is illustrated using examples involving a turbine blade and a tricycle from the domain of cooperative design.”
“The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of software architecture and individual differences of learners with respect to knowledge transfer. We conducted an experiment using hypermedia courseware based on an existing and widely used multimedia program that teaches French language and culture. Empirical data representing subjects' individual learning styles and learning performance with the courseware was collected and analyzed. In this paper, quantitative methods and results are presented, followed by a qualitative discussion. Here, three different perspectives on this experiment are applied: 1) The Message -- what is being conveyed; 2) The Medium -- how the message is being conveyed; and 3) The Mind -- how the message is accepted. Finally, conclusions and recommendations for further research are made.”
“The study intends to examine the effects of task complexity and knowledge level on the selection of decision making strategies in using a decision support system (DSS). A theoretical framework is depicted and a laboratory experiment at a management task domain is planned.”
“The objective of this project was to discover and describe how people view computer displayed textual information. In particular, individual viewing strategies for bibliographic citations were studied. Analysis of eye movements and fixations illuminated actual behavior. Two conditions were studied: viewing of relevant and not relevant material. Behavior in viewing differed between conditions. Viewing time for the relevant condition was longer. Movement between content areas displayed different patterns for the two conditions as did percentages of direction of movement between individual fixations. It appeared that subjects treated relevant material sequentially but that not relevant was treated non-linearly.”
“The area of appliance-level information/transaction systems exists now only in its infancy, but will, as it matures, emerge even more rapidly than did personal computers. This is in part because the costs will be lower. More importantly, however, the information systems will be designed to be very user-friendly, they will address the information needs of daily living of a much broader range of people, and they will be delivered directly into our homes as well as public environments. As a result, these technologies are likely to affect the lives of a much greater number of people with disabilities than has the use of personal computers. The importance of extending the human interface of these systems to include access by people with disabilities will therefore be more important, and may be required by law. To address this issue, a "seamless" approach to extending the interface of public and standard consumer product information appliances is proposed to allow their use by people with reduced physical or sensory abilities. This seamless interface protocol would allow an interface to take full advantage of the sensory and motor systems of people without limitations to maximize their ease and convenience in using the information systems (including graphics and touch windows) while providing the interface adjustability to adapt to people with temporary or permanent limitations in their physical or sensory abilities (including total blindness) to allow them to access and use the information systems as well. Key to the seamless approach is the ability to provide access to the information using the same underlying flow control (rather than a separate interface protocol for specific disabilities) and its ability to adapt to a wide variety of interface/presentation designs. Using the same underlying flow control allows users with only mild limitations to invoke only those aspects of the interface options necessary to meet their needs, and allows them to work the system in the same basic manner and to access the same information as their peers (both without and with severe disabilities). The use of a general protocol rather than a specific interface format provides manufacturers with the ability to vary the interface for their products as is necessary to innovate and to differentiate their products from others. The use of standard underlying and predictable interface/control options and conventions (the protocol) allows people with sensorimotor limitations to approach and use these very different-appearing systems without special instructions (in the same way that conventions are used in most interfaces, so that the public at large is be able to figure out new information systems and kiosks as they encounter them).”
“It is frequently suggested that hypertext and hypermedia may have a significant effect on the learning process [1-5]. However, before we can build the most effective hypermedia systems to support learning at different levels, we must first understand in detail how hypermedia systems may be used. Various studies have shown that simply letting learners wander freely within a complex, highly interwoven network of information nodes is not sufficient for quality learning to occur [6,7]. Instead, learners need to be guided, given prompts, clues and suggestions as to which parts of the information network are appropriate to their needs. At the same time however, learners must be able to branch out from these guidelines and to determine their own needs. A variety of tools and devices have been developed which are intended to help users to accomplish this sort of discovery learning without becoming lost or disoriented in the forest of information [8-12]. It is not clear however, how these facilities will be used by learners in their quest for knowledge, or even whether they will be used at all. If they are used, do they serve the designers intended purpose of reducing the 'lost in hyperspace' effect? We present here three studies looking in turn at the effects of task, interface design, and individual learning style on the behaviour of users interacting with an educational hypermedia application on cell biology. These findings are used to converge on a possible model of hypermedia interaction which can provide a significant analytical base for looking at other hypermedia systems.”
“The study reports results from interviews with ten visually impaired persons, employed at different work places, in all eight. For each person there is a description of the information technology (in a wide sense) used by the employee. Examples of questions included are the effect of computerization on work tasks, social contacts at the work place, short and long-term effects of computerization, and effects in particular for visually impaired. The data will be reported as summaries of case studies, but tentative generalizations will also be made.”
“This paper describes the design of a software system which will provide tools to produce a text document with a group of people. It will operate on a network of distributed workstations and will have some novel features in its human-computer interface.”
“Based on a partial model of the user, the persona construct dynamically alters the appearance of a multimedia information base. Personae were implemented in the Drexel Multimedia Demo. This project, the concept of persona, development of the specific museum persona, and discussion of the implications of using any project in multiple environments are presented.”
“This paper introduces technologies used by deaf and hard of hearing people in the U.S. for communication, and suggests strategies for making products accessible to these populations.”
“To test which individual difference characteristics influence performance in a hyper/multimedia system, we studied student performances on a specially designed multimedia system, which presented information in various interaction modes using a direct manipulation interface. While the influence of visual ability could not be tested because almost all students were high visuals, 'computer affinity' influenced performance; the 'dynamic' learning style showed significance on tasks based on the text+sound+icon mode. Sex also showed a significant effect in this mode. Personality traits, language and ethnicity did not show any effect. We suggest improvements to such empirical studies that can help determine which media and interface benefit which type of user.”
“The problem of locating a particular file from among all those stored on an individual's personal computer disks is becoming increasingly difficult. Directory (or "folder") and file names are both too difficult for a user to remember, and not sufficiently descriptive to remind a user of a document's contents or purpose. New systems need to be developed which capture, and make effective use of, those features of a document that users find truly memorable. In this paper, we describe a prototypic retrieval system that was developed to conduct experiments with users. Through these experiments, we hope to identify memorable document features, to develop methods for exploiting them.”
“The authors describe the current status and results from a two year collaborative research project which investigated the requirements for a future generation of knowledge-based criminal intelligence analysis computer systems. Based upon an international review of current practice in criminal intelligence analysis a series of system design recommendations were produced. These recommendations have led the authors to review the design issues and requirements for such a multi-user, multi-media knowledge based criminal intelligence analysis system. The paper concentrates on the issues of matching shared multi-media knowledge representations to individual user's optimum cognitive representations; shared computer based problem solving and knowledge representation in CSCW; the suitability of object oriented design to multi-media interface design; the representations available for knowledge modeling in intelligent systems; and interface considerations when supporting multi-media data manipulations. The paper concludes by summarizing the problems and opportunities which remain for the project.”
“There are a variety of different CSCW applications for group collaboration. Among others, systems for asynchronous coordination as well as synchronous multiuser editors are current research topics. Each system has its advantages. Thus, combining the advantages of such systems should be even more advantageous. We have developed a new object-oriented, asynchronous activity support system, called TACTS, and a new synchronous multiuser editor, called IRIS. We explain how both systems can be combined using the underlying state models, and show the advantages of the combination.”
“This paper discusses a hypertext-based system which can be used to support transfer from one procedural language to another. This tool uses plan knowledge as the transfer vehicle and is based on empirical studies of transfer between programming languages. The design and use of the system are discussed and results from empirical studies of its use are described.”
“An experiment, using 163 subjects, investigated the extent to which visual momentum is supported by four computer task and navigational aid combinations. Results demonstrated a task-dependent interference effect for learning a cognitive map of the display network. Subjects who concentrated on method rather than outcome were impaired in learning the organization of the display network. This finding suggests that outcome-based tasks seem to allow the user to explore the display network and learn its organization whereas method-based tasks require attention-diverting serial visual searching for objects on a display. When a map of the display network was provided as a navigational aid, performance was improved regardless of whether the task was method-based or outcome-based. However, results showed some evidence that method-based tasks require more spatial inferencing than do outcome-based tasks even when a map is present. These findings suggest some guidelines for the design of human-computer interfaces.”
“This paper describes the user interface and functionality of a system that supports definition and generalization of reusable modules implemented within existing hypermedia projects. It focuses of the component that allows the module's author to parametrize the module's functionality without increasing the complexity of the resulting code. While the proposed system can find immediate practical application since it extends the functionality of a popular authoring environment, the described framework can be applied to object-oriented programming in general.”
“Many recent studies of the software design activity have shown that design is inherently opportunistic and that it displays few of the characteristics attributed to prescriptive models. This paper suggests that these more recent studies may be methodologically flawed, arguing that the elicitation of concurrent verbal protocols may cause opportunistic deviations from a top-down approach. Moreover, the use of verbal protocols to characterise temporally bound events, such as a design decomposition, has implications for the way in which such events are described. The paper reports a study of a software design task which shows that described behaviour elicited in the form of concurrent verbal protocols can differ significantly from observed behaviour. It is argued that this arises because of a tendency to linearise verbal descriptions of non-linear behaviour. This paper suggests that some care should be taken when using verbal protocols to characterise events which have a strong temporal dimension such as design. Finally, the implications of this work for tool building and for characterisations of design problem solving are considered.”
“The central focus of this research is the production of rudimentary multimedia tutorials that teach the fundamental skill of reading the graphical notations associated with diagrams. The target audience for these tutorials is beginning users of computer interfaces which incorporate diagrams to communicate about an advanced topic.”
“Active user involvement is one of the most important factors for successful system development and human-computer interface design. This is widely recognized both by software engineers as well as end users. However, for most software developers it is still a difficult task to properly involve users in their projects. A field study of 10 projects was conducted to enlighten the process of user participation and to gather valuable information both from the users and the developers. Results show that there are deficits in the organization of user participation, user motivation is weak, and users and developers have insufficient qualifications. Users and developers have different requirements and different abilities which can often result in conflicting situations. As the results indicate, a better organizational support is needed of the users' management. In addition, software developers need better methods and tools for successful user involvement.”
“According to the natural and historical background, Japanese top managers usually consider the progress and happiness of the workers most important. A fully automated VLSI factory was built based on this concept in 1983, where the workers' human skill was regarded essential as well as the engineers' high technology. As the results, a close collaboration organization was established among the workers, the engineers and the facilities.”
“This paper presents results from an experiment which compared animated demonstrations with textual instructions and a combination of the two. The results show that combining spoken text with animation provides the most optimal instructional content for the tasks which were used in the experiment. In addition, the different instructions seem to lead to different processing, depending upon type of task. Preliminary suggestions are made for the use of animated demonstrations within multimedia applications.”
“The user interfaces of modern automation systems as well as plant documentation are mostly device-oriented and structured according to the process or device hierarchy. Higher level concepts, such as the goals of the plant or the tasks of the operator, are rarely visible to the operators. However, these concepts do exist during the design process, but are neither recorded nor communicated and thus remain vague. This may lead to significant differences between the operators' understanding about the process they are assigned to, and to less-than-optimum performance during some shifts. In our view, these concepts should be captured when and where they are initially born -- in the design process. However, tools and representations in current design practice cannot deal with such knowledge. We propose the use of Multilevel Flow Modeling in industrial plant projects to provide a common conceptual model among the various participating design disciplines and finally the end users. In this paper, we present how such a model can be utilised as a guideline for the documentation and user interface development.”
“The design of a user interface for multimedia computer-based training (CBT) courseware is arguably one of the most important areas within the overall design process for todays changing learning environments. A methodology for the design, implementation and evaluation of multimedia CBT courseware, called MIDAS (Multimedia Interactive Design Aided System) is proposed. The model is centered upon the use of high quality and creative instructional design embracing the changing technologies, coupled with clear principles of learning and cognitive psychology which enables usability evaluation. A set of design usability principles, rules for the production of multimedia courseware and an evaluation document for use in individual and institutional learning environments are discussed in this paper.”
“We present a domain independent object-oriented framework for supporting programming-by-example in user interfaces. It simplifies the construction of domain-specific customizations by providing programming abstractions that are common across domains. It defines three basic abstractions: primitive customization objects encapsulate the recording and replay mechanisms for individual interactive objects in a domain, the modeling component records user's interaction, identifies the user's behavior pattern and creates a simulation agent; and the simulation agents perform the tasks on behalf of the user. This paper describes the methodology as well as design and implementation issues of the proposed framework.”
“A case study has been performed to develop function-based displays to support power plant operators controlling component stress in a set of steam generators during heat-up and cool-down manoeuvres. Based on a function and task analysis, a set of displays has been developed to show the multidimensional relationship between the process parameters and to support the operators in detection, diagnosis, prediction, and incident recovery. Display options include 2D and 3D graphic representations. It has been concluded that 2D graphic displays are more effective than 3D displays for representing the multidimensional relationships. Further, displays have been developed to allow operators to predict the effects of changes in controllable variables on the key parameters that impact component stress.”
“For the construction of data base systems the process of data modeling is becoming increasingly important. The development of a data model requires the cooperation of software engineers and employees of an organization as the potential users to analyze the specific business terms, to specialize the data objects and to create the definitions of the data elements. Questionnaires, interviews or workshops can be used as empirical methods to improve the communication between software specialists and work specialists. The purpose of this study was to investigate which of these methods provides the best means to further the collaboration. In a data modeling project these three methods were used to collect information on the definitions of the entity-types of the data model. With each method, six selected employees of the participating departments accomplished the task. The final data model was used to evaluate the results of each method. The workshop led to the best results with respect to the effort for the data analysis and the quality of the results. The acceptance of the entity types was higher when the respective definitions had a higher proportion of specifications developed in the workshop. The percentage of specifications from the document analysis without user participation also correlated with better acceptance.”
“Project Envision, a large research effort at Virginia Tech, focuses on developing a user centered, multimedia database from the computer science literature, with full text searching and full content retrieval capabilities. Available bibliographic databases and on-line public access catalogs present search results as lists of text. We describe the Envision search results display, which presents search results in a Graphic View window as a scatterplot of document icons, with the semantic value of six icon attributes under user control. Bibliographic information about user-selected documents is displayed in an Item Summary window, while the document abstract and other user-selected data are available in a Preview Item window. Results of formative usability evaluation are discussed.”
“The utility of 3-d diagrams for knowledge engineering was evaluated in six case studies. Knowledge engineers were asked to collaborate in the design of 3-d diagrammatic representations of knowledge structures. The knowledge engineers then carried out a series of simple tasks using these representations. Performance in these tasks was observed and think aloud protocols were recorded. Structured interviews were also used to elicit the opinions of the knowledge engineers regarding the utility of 3-d diagrammatic representations in their normal working practices. It was judged that 3-d diagrams are likely to be more useful than 2-d in the development of object or frame-based (rather than rule-based) systems. Engineers predicted that 3-d would be more useful than 2-d in design and debugging tasks, but that the advantage in knowledge acquisition, validation, verification and maintenance would not be as great. It was noted that the utility of 3-d diagrams need not be severely limited either by the need for specialised hardware, or by variations in user experience. It is concluded that future tools for knowledge engineering could benefit from the inclusion of a 3-d interface component. Tools supporting the development of conventional systems, in which various kinds of relationship between system objects are used in design and development, might also benefit in the same way.”
“Environmental management requirements facing U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) facilities are detailed, complex, and often subject to rapid change. DOE's Office of Environmental Guidance, RCRA/CERCLA Division (EH-231), is responsible for developing and issuing guidance to assist DOE facilities in interpreting and complying with Federal, State, and local requirements. Recognizing the potential for computerization of the guidance, EH-231 requested that Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) develop an approach for preparing automated guidance. The approach developed by PNL, termed "user-centered guidance," combines participatory design and traditional rapid prototyping techniques to produce a new form of environmental guidance that emphasizes the user's needs. This paper describes the objectives, processes and current status of this effort.”
“This paper describes four important points in collaboration with 3-dimensional (3-D) objects and introduces Romeo system to handle the objects. Romeo system enables a physically dispersed worker to work with partners through a mobile robot. The robot as a medium leads to a new stage that the remote operator 1) can touch the 3-D object, 2) can see a sight from anywhere, and 3) can show the partner his behavior; a behavior of the robot shows what the operator is willing to do. We made a prototype of Romeo and made an experiment with miniature models. The end of this paper summarized to a feature of our system and the results of the experiment.”
