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.
“An Integrated Expert System for Investment Consulting, developed by Olivetti Systems & Networks, is described. The definition of the best portfolio for a possible client of the bank is investigated like a configuration problem. The main goal obtained by using this system, to support, not to substitute, the bank operators during a session of investment consulting, is analyzed. A brief description of the system architecture, through its four main modules, is given.”
“This paper describes our experience with the design of a remote pathologist's workstation. We illustrate how our effort to apply direct manipulation principles led us to explore remote direct manipulation designs. The use of computer and communication systems to operate devices remotely introduces new challenges for users and designers. In addition to the usual concerns, the activation delays, reduced feedback, and increased potential for breakdowns mean that designers must be especially careful and creative. The user interface design is closely linked to the total system design.”
“Allocation of functions concerning humans and computers is a highly relevant and contradictory issue in human factors engineering. An effective computerized quality inspection system was developed in which the statistical inspection decisions were assigned to the computer. This strategy proved to be very productive, in comparison with the conventional practice of assigning the fraction of perceptual skill to advanced technologies, involving computers. An algorithm for the highly complicated statistical sequential sampling procedure was developed, using PC support and easy-to-use, portable, custom-designed terminals. Much effort was expended to encourage user acceptance. A work saving of 26% was achieved and reliability was improved significantly.”
“The processes used by organizations to conduct their information technology (IT) planning activities are widely recognized as an issue of critical importance (Brancheau and Wetherbe, 1987; Dickson, Leitheiser, Wetherbe, and Nechis, 1984). However, despite an accumulating IT planning literature (Synnott and Gruber, 1982; Earl, 1989; Cash, McFarlan, McKenney, and Vitale, 1988), empirical knowledge about the conduct of IT planning remains quite limited (Boynton and Zmud, 1987). This paper empirically examines a number of key issues associated with managing the conduct of IT planning within a single large enterprise.”
“Models and architectures have been developed for Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM). They focus on organizing the decision making of the automated equipment. The information management and its role for integrating the human decision maker is not considered in these CIM models.”
“Experiments using a computer game were conducted to analyze association operators made between colors and concepts. The experiments were designed to evaluate the associations commonly made between the four colors, green, yellow, orange, and red, and the three alarm levels, Normal, Caution, and Danger. Experimental results indicate that colors representing a set of concepts should be chosen as follows. 1. The order of the color associate with a word (concept) should match the users' study strategy. Our limited tests indicate that the sequence Danger, Normal, Caution requires the shortest time to remember. 2. Only colors that are "unambiguous" and can be easily named should be selected to represent concepts.”
“This paper presents a new concept of organization in manufacturing called "Autonomous Manufacturing Island (AMI)". New technology needs new work organization and personal qualification to match. The philosophy, software structure and CIM configuration are described. The benefits of AMI are remarkable. Three pilot installation in Chinese enterprises are introduced.”
“In this paper two aspects of multilingual information management are presented: i) the influence of new technologies on the translation process as an integral part of the overall documentation process and ii) the translators' impact on the development of a MAT (Machine Aided Translation) system, i.e. requirements specification and software evaluation.”
“The Incident and Accident Management Support System was developed to support the knowledge-based decision making processes for operators under abnormal plant conditions. This support system deduces guidance according to two kinds of deep knowledge representing plant functions and structures; i.e., a multilevel flow model and a physical plant structure model. The Incident and Accident Management Support System comprises five modules based on the operators' knowledge-based decision making model. Since the basis of this support system is the operators' decision making process, it provides useful information for operators in any abnormal plant status.”
“The real-time control problem of an FMS is not the simple task because of machine failures and other unanticipated events. This paper presents an architecture for a human-supervised control system in which the human is considered to be the major component and is integrated with a knowledge-based system and an intelligent interface that support the human's decision-making. Through an illustrative example, the feasibility and effectiveness of the system are evaluated.”
“A work analysis was carried out to analyze typical functions of operators and qualification requirements in small and medium sized metal-manufacturing companies. Heuristics and strategies of skilled maintenance and repair personnel were recorded with a verbal knowledge acquisition technique. Examples of how to design a decision support which corresponded with personal expert troubleshooting strategies were provided.”
“In a questionnaire study 362 users of CAD in 71 different companies were surveyed with respect to the factors which influence the individual acceptance of CAD.”
“The implementation of new data systems was analyzed as a continuous change process in six financial firms in Finland. The employees (n=690) were classified into four groups according to the changes in their mastery of computer applications in a two-year follow-up. The mastering style was connected with occupation. The four types of mastering styles represented persons who differed in their evaluations of the change process. Also the association between the mastering style and stress at work was analyzed.”
“A possible input device for individuals with limited hand mobility is a screen keyboard. On a screen keyboard a cursor sequentially scans portions of a graphical keyboard until the user selects first a row and then a specific character in that row. The present study investigated the effects of keyboard shape (triangle, rectangle or square) and the layout of the characters (frequency, alphabetic or random) on accuracy and speed in entering English sentences. User satisfaction was also assessed. Accuracy was uniformly high across conditions. As expected, the layout based on frequency produced the fastest keying rates. Unexpectedly, the fastest rates were associated with the triangle shape. The fastest configuration was triangle shape combined with a frequency layout. Satisfaction was highest for a frequency layout combined with either triangle or rectangle shape. The study indicates the importance of empirical testing of users.”
“This paper examines the effectiveness of computer support in unstructured tasks such as managerial decision making. The effectiveness of a particular decision support computer system especially developed for managerial planning tasks is examined comparing aided vs unaided managers' performance in an executive game. Since results from research so far that have been focus on improving of final decision have been inconclusive the emphasis in this study is placed on the evaluation not only of the decision outcome but also on the comparison of the process that led to the particular decision. The results of the present study showed that although there were not observed significant differences in the final outcome a significant improvement in managers' decision strategy when using the computer system was evident.”
“This contribution presents first results of the research project "Future of Secretaries, qualification and development of recommendations for work and organisational design for secretaries". The expected impact of new information technologies on characteristic profiles of secretaries as well as changes in secretarial tasks are described.”
“Usability and utility of systems can only be defined and discussed in operational terms, and that in turn means that they cannot be discussed without reference to the context in which the system is used. Systems need to be appropriate to the conjunction of user, task and environment. However this context is not stable, and thus what is appropriate changes all the time. This paper discusses the implications of this for the types of information systems we need to build. The advantages and disadvantages of adaptive and adaptable systems are discussed; it is argued that adaptive systems cannot realistically be built, but that there are inherent difficulties with adaptable systems as well. The DB_Builder project is described, which addresses some of the problems of adaptable systems by placing users in a context of "community computing".”
“ProMInanD's migration system deals with cooperative office work on different types of office tasks which consist of steps the performance of which is allocated to persons playing office roles. This typical kind of cooperation is supported by Electronic Circulation Folders (ECF). Instantiations of task related types of ECF's migrate automatically through an office organization following a migration specification which describes the steps to be performed, their possible sequences and the roles which have to be played for their performance. However, in real life offices task allocation has to be more advanced and to take into account non-deterministic human behavior, exception handling and changes of the organization.”
“The Process Support System (PSS), which was developed under the Alvey IPSE 2.5 project, provides a framework for building cooperative work systems. This paper discusses the theoretical underpinnings of PSS, in particular the concept of Process and the nature of Processes as subject to dialectical change. PSS as it stands provides a basic platform for system building. The challenges facing PSS designers, and their requirements for tools and design methodologies, are discussed.”
“An innovative approach based on a new software technology can help companies to realise evolutionary information management systems with non-programming staff. The main idea behind it is the control of processes and user interactions by means of software units (software chips) and graphs. The experience gained at various customer sites confirms that by use of the presented approach, reductions of up to 80% in project costs and realization times can easily be achieved.”
“The rapid development of the area of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) necessitates an overview to categorize recent research developments. The article lists a number of terms that are used to depict CSCW research. It then describes a framework for research in the field which is used to present past achievements, the state of the art and some assumptions about future directions.”
“The integration of broadband and multimedia communication leads to new applications in the field of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). Application projects in the BERKOM project support the investigation and evaluation of technical solutions, feasibility and user acceptance.”
“In this paper we investigate the effects of two forms of communication, face-to-face and via computer networks, on the process of solving a problem or reaching a common decision among a group of people. The work is based on an experimental study which was jointly conducted by computer scientists and psychologists and therefore involves both psychological aspects of cooperative decision making and proposals for the design of software suitable for group communication.”
“This paper discusses generic computer support for cooperative work. The relevance of CSCW for future information systems is motivated and a taxonomic approach is introduced. Requirements for a generic support system are presented and the architecture of our Group Interaction Environment GROUPIE is described, that comprises development and runtime support for collaborative applications as well as a number of basic collaborative tools. GROUPIE's relevance to the field of computer aided learning and project NESTOR is indicated.”
“Results show that typing movements on a keyboard follow a set motor program. During a typing action, feedback is continuously monitored and compared to an expected result. If the physical variables (pressure point, precise contact point) suit this motor program, then the execution of typing movements does not rely on peripheral feedback and a smooth continuous keying sequence results. Thus a flat keyboard is not necessarily worse than a keyboard with key travel!”
“Practitioners encounter many gaps in traditional information system design (ISD) methodologies, especially in respect with the needs for the design of user interfaces and other user aspects. When the ISD project leader selects and tailors a suitable ISD methodology and methods and tools for the project, it is of great importance to have a comparison framework for the evaluation of the ISD methodologies. For that purpose, there exist two reference frameworks for information systems development, viz. HECTOR Framework of Reference and IFIP 8.1 WG's Framework for Understanding. In this paper we present an analysis and comparison scheme which has been derived from a profound definition of the concepts ISD methodology and metamethodology. This scheme is here applied to the purpose of evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the two reference frameworks, but the project leader can also use it in the same way as the frameworks themselves, i.e. as a basis for comparing the ISD methodologies.”
“The paper presents the object-oriented design framework F-ORM (Functionality in Object with Roles Model) for building the specification requirements of office systems in terms of objects and their behavioral rules for communication and cooperation according to global processes.”
“This paper outlines some of the main results of Project 2082 HECTOR (Harmonized European Concepts and Tools for ORganizational information systems), a one-year study, within the Business and Office Systems area of ESPRIT, which ended in May 1990. One of the main aims of this project was to identify market needs for methods and tools to help people wishing to improve Organizational Information Systems (OIS). The basis for the investigation of development opportunities was a "Framework of Reference" on the one hand and market data on the other. The Framework of Reference includes hierarchies of static entities for describing OIS, their environments and methods and tools for improving them, and a process model for all activities involved in improving OIS, from business strategy to the post-evaluation of OIS improvements which have been made. The market data was obtained from the HECTOR market surveys (case studies and postal survey in 7 European countries), from the existing knowledge of the team and other experts consulted, also from published sources and from vendors' literature.”
“Over the last two decades, formal methods and tools have been introduced into the process of planning, developing, implementing, and managing applications of information technology (IT). For the practical usage existing methods and tools often are seen as incomplete, poorly integrated, often ineffective, and typically insensitive to the application environment. How to make the most of what is available today? Methods and tools to support the newer and more integrated forms of IT applications are still at an early stage of development and are not in common use. A guidance on the selection of methods and tools is needed which shows both what can be achieved now and where developments will come in the future. To a considerable extent the solution of behavioural and organizational design problems are seen as critical. But are methods and tools available for this objective? How to bring together approaches which have so far been pursued along separate paths? What is the most suitable product supporting different environments? The selection and evaluation of appropriate methods and tools for a specific project in a company requires a considerable effort and is itself a difficult and complex task. The purposes of HECTOR project (Harmonized European Concepts and Tools for Organizational Information Systems, ESPRIT project no. 2082) have been to determine what is needed in the marketplace, where opportunities lie to better meet these needs, and to present a framework within which these issues could be studied. The term Organizational Information System (OIS) is used to describe any socio-technical system which supports the work of an organization by facilitating the collection, flow, and analysis of information within or between organizations. One result, described in this paper, is a mean to improve the selection of methods and tools.”
“The goal of strategic management consultants work is a comprehensive evaluation of the ethical values of the management, the capabilities of the employees as well as the performance of the administrative system to develop a well-suited corporate strategy. In order to fulfill all these requirements a management consultants has to take into consideration several hundred data. The human information processing capacity allows in such situations only an intuitive and condensed assessment of the strategic corporate status quo. The knowledge-based system CASA (Computer Aided Strategy Audit) [1] assists the management consultant during the process of enterprise segmentation to create strategic business units, the analysis of the corporate culture, the assessment of market and competition, and an evaluation of the strategic cost situation. The system CASA is now used since the CeBIT fair 1989, and includes: 5 MB code and help texts, 2000 rules in 44 knowledge bases and 200 pages of automatically generated reports and up to 100 business charts. The use of CASA reduces the costs for the management consultancy to 30% of the original costs, i.e. from $75,000 to $25,000 for a strategy development project.”
“This paper reports on how an intelligent support tool ('IT-USE the Product') will facilitate 'organisational learning' in the sense that users will be better able to understand and manage human and organisational factors associated with the uptake of IT systems in organizations. The notion of 'organizational learning' is briefly outlined and some critical issues and unresolved problems concerning this concept are discussed. The challenges posed by continuing failures in IT uptake processes are briefly discussed. An overview of the ongoing ESPRIT II Project 2144: IT-USE is presented together with a discussion of the opportunities and constraints presented through the usage of 'Electronic Books' such as those being developed through this project.”
“The confluence of high performance notebook computers and widespread acceptance of graphical user interfaces is renewing interest in keyboard-embedded pointing devices. In this paper we consider whether an isometric joystick can fulfill this need, and, if so, where the joystick should be placed. By examining typical task mix in computer use with today's software, a case will be made that inclusion of the joystick within the "home row" of the keyboard provides significant benefits. The cost of the necessary mode switching between typing and pointing will be examined, and this cost will be compared to the resultant benefits. A working model will be available for demonstration.”
“Office automation, which has been recognized as a promising approach to improve office productivity, is yet attributed to large firms in Indonesia due to the requirement for large investment and skilled labor formation. The market imperfection, which makes resource distribution skewed on large firms' side, limits even further the abilities of small firms to pursue it. This study is a record and an analysis of the computerization process in a small car-dealer firm in Indonesia. Despite the difficult conditions, this case is regarded as an example of successful computerization. The barriers faced during the process and their countermeasures will be disclosed.”
“Although the euphoria generated by the prospect of Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) that prevailed in the early 1980s has considerably abated, CIM still carries many high expectations for survival in the competitive markets of the future and continues to be a very current issue. In the Swiss "CIM Action Program", launched by the federal government, CIM is understood to be a concept that spans and integrates humans, technology and organizations. Only through the utilization of human resources and integration in this broader sense can the advantages of CIM be realized to their fullest extent. Our research project on the design and use of Computer Aided Integrated Production Systems provides a valuable database in this context. Selected results from the mechanical and electrical industrial sector are presented. Although Switzerland does not appear to be behind in the quantitative realization of CIM, new organizational options that accompany the introduction of computer aided technologies are not necessarily being utilized.”
“This paper discusses an industrial design procedure of a Human-Computer Interface (HCIF) for the implementation of an ergonomics solution in a banking terminal system. The procedure is intended to provide, in the design stage, a methodology for solving practical ergonomic problems to optimize various configurations of the operator's human factors. The following two factors are taken into consideration in this paper: First, the operator's working posture with the system, and second, biomechanical factors in the operator's working area and field of vision. The final conclusions discuss those procedures, and the factors of the HCIF are evaluated by using a mock-up called Electronic-Mock Up (EMU) to perform graphic modeling by personal computer aided design.”
“On the market are a multitude of systems for supporting a manager. These systems mainly deal with decision-support, (MSS, EIS or generally DSS) and focus on the integration in the existing business computer systems and on modelling the impact of certain decisions on the company (investment, gain a.s.f.). Here, a concept for the support of managerial work is proposed which integrates different methods from fields of artificial intelligence. The applicability of these methods is investigated.”
“This paper presents an approach for the design and the validation of a knowledge acquisition tool in the domain of business planning. KART is a knowledge acquisition and representation tool which has been developed to address specific issues of this task. Because of the complexity of business planning tasks, it is difficult for experts to describe their knowledge in an appropriate form. The decomposition and simplification techniques employed by KART, effectively model the decision making behaviour of the experts. The use of such techniques provides a powerful tool for the construction of a knowledge base.”
“Behind the image of the "Future Profession" we may find the high tech unskilled workers: data-entry clerks. This paper investigate the working life, the sexual division of labour and the occupational health of a data-entry sector in a public Data Processing Centre (DPC) in Brazil.”
“Multimedia systems offer an adequate technological basis for innovative concepts of recurrent education. Applications like Computer-Based-Training or Business-Television are characterized by specific strengths and costs. This paper discusses their typical system functionalities, costs of use and their usability for different requirement profiles in business environments.”
“In order to understand the processes that underlie learning by discovery, verbalizations and actions were collected from a learning by discovery situation. The task was to edit a graphical program with a direct manipulation device. This text presents a detailed analysis of reasoning about the effects of actions. We introduce the notion of discovery procedural schema. Two types of schemas are conceptually defined: simple schema and complex schema. The first concerns reasoning about actions in order to reach a subgoal. The second concerns reasoning about the goal structure. Instances of each type of schema are described in the text. The data support the view that two levels of learning should be differentiated: the subgoal level and the actions level.”
“In this study, the evaluation of six input devices for the pointing speed, accuracy and usability was tried in the sorting task of five 3-digit numbers. The joystick was found to be the fastest of all devices. With respect to the accuracy, the lightpen was the most accurate. Judging from the pointing speed, accuracy and subjective feeling on usability, the joystick was found to be the most effective.”
“This paper describes ways of improving methods and techniques used in the area of computer-based learning. In particular, an adaptive system is described, and ideas about how to apply it to the field of computer-assisted instruction. The system provides a model which contains information about the user's knowledge. On the one hand, the intention is to make the information about the student's abilities obvious to an instructor who will be able to support the student by individual instructions and learning facilities according to the student's knowledge. On the other hand, the system's adaptability will be used to support the instructor himself in designing learning sequences with respect to his/her pedagogic and didactic aims.”
“The paper describes the realization of a production control system as far as it was achieved in the first stage of a teaching project. The aim of the project was to integrate a database, an electronical control device and an expert system into a CIM environment for the control of job shop manufacturing processes.”
“In comparison with business organizations, the use information systems by cultural institutions appears to be less sophisticated and regarded by top management as strategically less critical. Yet, paradoxically, if we examine why this is the case and what should be done about it, we may learn some lessons for tomorrow's business organizations which will resemble today's non-profits in aspects such as coordinating loosely coupled decision-making units. This paper reports on some first steps in 1) discussing the problems of using information systems in cultural institutions and 2) defining the necessary tools for modeling the information requirements to tackle these problems. Work underway has begun to apply the tools in the development of such information systems.”
“Certain human activities face experts with the task of aiding non-experts in solving their problems by phone. This collective troubleshooting activity is constrained by the media -- the telephone. The constraints are mainly related to the impoverishment of the perceptual environment of the expert. The study of troubleshooting strategies employed by experts on the phone in helping non-experts out of their problems can be useful in designing Intelligent Decision Aid Systems (IDAS). Furthermore these IDAS should be extended so as to include more features than a traditional Expert System (ES). A special feature designed to enhance expert's assessment and representation of the problem can be used once the expert takes over a partially treated problem after a traditional ES has tried and failed to solve it.”
“This paper presents an overview of the key objectives of the ongoing ESPRIT II Project 5374: Quality of Life in the Information Society, outlines the approach being adopted for the development of a Generic Reference Framework (GRF) re Quality of Life in the Information Society with particular reference to the 'Work' and 'Home' areas of life; and briefly discusses the scientific and industrial impacts of the Project results. The primary focus of this paper is upon the GRF.”
“Information technology products and systems are presently penetrating broad areas of our daily life: we meet them at work, in the public domain, in our home. Questions on the impact of information technology on our quality of life become more and more important. The ESPRIT project QLIS aims at developing models, scenarios and support tools which help to assess new IT applications under quality of life criteria. This paper presents a first step towards a typology for classifying and assessing IT products in the home environment.”
“This paper describes an expert system for assessment of Quality of Life in the working environment. This prototype is based on a Quality of Life Model, and a Socio-Technical Model of organizations.”
“A method and tool for testing, evaluating and improving multi-medial and multi-modal user interfaces is described. Such a method is needed for designing a flexible interface for retail applications to be used by the customer. It is shown that designing this user interface requires an approach based on interaction theory instead on simple task analysis.”
“The requirements from the retail area for customer-computer interaction are described. A method and tool for evaluating and testing customer-computer interaction, M{sup:4}-EVAL (EVALuation of Multi-Medial Multi-Modal human computer interaction), and an architecture that allows for flexible design and adaptation of user interfaces, CIF (Communication InterFace), are a prerequisite in order to meet these requirements.”
“Planing and implementation any technological and managerial solutions in the VDT-centres cannot occur without taking into account the evaluation of the man-computer terminal compatibility degree with the ergonomic requirements. The purpose of this paper is to present a heuristic method of the ergonomicity evaluation of the present-day multiaccess computer systems. Practical application of the above method allows to control the level of working conditions in a complex way during modernization of the VDT-centres.”
“Nowadays, nobody seriously contests the necessity to make allowance for the needs of workers in the planning and design of office buildings more than in the past. Equally undisputed, the office has in the meantime been moved from the corner of unproductivity into the area of productivity and net product. Compared with the production area, however, the productivity progress in the office, in the opinion of many experts, has been considerably lesser. The productivity reserves existing in the office have either been underestimated or not utilized consistently so far. When planning and implementing an office building, there is the chance of realizing an all-embracing approach. In so doing, the requirements of man, organization and technology can be translated profitably under a multi-dimensional objective.”
“An essential assumption by the proponents of hypermedia is that the links between hotspots and the final pop-up information are defacto based on semantic relations like equivalence, taxonomy, causality, description etc. The first order browsing transitions in the presentation sequence can be evaluated by asking if the resulting passage is a zooming effect of the requested term or picture part indeed. Longer browsing sequences however may occur as obscure trails in the perception of a user, though each transition in itself is a logical one. The article below proposes a concept mapping technique based on graph theoretical concepts, in order to overcome the lack of macro structuring in hypermedia design and development.”
“Nowadays, nobody seriously contests the necessity of an ergonomically designed office chair or workplace. Functionality, ergonomics and efficiency are an integral part of the planning variables for office workplaces. However, office workers do not only use a specific workplace in an isolated form, but an entire room which has a wide variety of points of contact -- between men, office technology systems and environment, with psychological processes in conjunction with the location and arrangement of workplaces playing an important role. Office layouts must satisfy different job-specific requirements with regard to concentration and communication. The classical "vis-a-vis" block arrangement at the twin workplace (T-layout) and the "back-to-back" arrangement of seats (U-layout) have different qualities. The presentation and assessment of these different qualities are subjects of this contribution.”
“This paper presents the feature, structure, implementation technique and application for integrated framework and human-computer interface of the interactive system developed by the authors of this paper. This is based on the user interface generation and management system UIGMS which is also developed by the authors of this paper in recent years [1].”
“Conventional office space concepts can hardly keep up with the demands of office automation. Organizations crumble away in cellular offices with their endless corridors and isolation of the office workers from one another. Highly qualified staff are no longer willing to accept the atmospheric disturbances of open-plan or group offices imposed on them. A new kind of office is spreading across Europe. The Combi Office reconciles the demands of concentration and communication both for new buildings and for the remodeling of existing office premises.”
“From a wish to weight work environment in connection with the construction of a new office building, the employees' opportunities for influence on the final building are assessed. At the same time a work environment data base is established. The data base became a sectional element of the total process. With a view to the employees' experiences a conceivable method is summed up.”
“The heat load in rooms will rise drastically with increasing mechanization of office workplaces. In highly sophisticated traders desks, normally dimensioned air-conditioners are not sufficient to dissipate the heat load. An example will be demonstrated of how work-related cooling loads are dissipated by means of special recirculated air-coolers integrated in the desk.”
“The impact of the office environment (noise, air quality, lighting) on workers health was assessed in a four part study in German offices. Self-reported health symptoms are significantly correlated with the type of work (VDT-, typewriter-, conventional office work) and environmental factors such as noise, lighting or air quality. In general, VDT-users reported more health disorders than workers performing conventional office work. Artificial lighting has proven to be one major source of health disorders, as all complaints increased with growing distance of the workplace from the window. However, the impact depends on the type of artificial lighting, with overhead lighting with narrow radiating angle (so called VDT-Lighting) being the worst and twin-component-lighting with two sources (an indirect part as general lighting and a direct part as task lighting) the best.”
“The effects of computer aided design work on the design process are analysed by field experiments. The study focuses on the influence of 3 different design tasks (standard tasks) and 11 CAD-systems (2D and 3D), taking into account the performance and strain measurements of 43 subjects (15 design engineers, 8 technicians, 17 draughtsmen, 3 trainees). The 3 standard tasks differ in performance measurements, especially in time spent on task, quantity of generated elements, not in the quality of the solution. The kind of CAD-system influences the time spent on task as well as the design performance, with”
“To examine the expectation that high speed/function reduce the overload of engineers, a questionnaire survey was conducted. The results of 1203 engineers showed that the equipment of high speed/function machine invites a new king of work-situation which caused the engineers' workload. An increase in work-density was considered to be brought by the high speed/function machine.”
“Job stress and strain symptoms associated with problems in VDT application were studied among customer service (n=319) and office employees (n=219) in the banking and insurance sector. The first questionnaire survey was done in 1985 before the transition to more advanced data systems, and the second one two years later. The office employees suffered as often as the customer service employees from the breakdown and slow response times in VDT application, and their work was equally dependent on access to VDT applications. For the office workers, however, these problems were associated with job stressors, like haste at work, and strain symptoms, like excessive fatigue and nervousness. These relations decreased during the follow-up. One explanation might be that the work of office employees was more dependent on the functioning of VDT application than that of customer service employees.”
“This paper is a description of work in progress on a major multi client study the objective of which are to chart trends which will influence the office of the future, to find examples throughout Europe of how such tends are currently influencing the design of the working environment, and finally to recommend the kinds of features that architects should design to meet the challenge of new kinds of organisation, new technologies and new patterns of living, working and leisure.”
“In this paper, an attempt was tried to evaluate the effects of layout complexity in the location task on mental workload by means of HRV (Heart Rate Variability) measures. The mental workload value obtained by the method of paired comparison increased in proportion to the entropy of layout complexity. Moreover, the HRV measures TP, DSD{sub:b} and DSD{sub:c} were found to be effective measures of mental workload.”
“The effects of frequency of computer problems and computer use intensity on task characteristics and worker stress were examined in a sample of two-hundred-sixty-two office workers from three organizations. Results showed that computer system performance (defined as frequency of computer problems and computer use intensity) had indirect effects on worker stress through its influence on task characteristics. High frequency of computer problems and computer use intensity were related to high workload and work pressure, and low job control which, in turn, were associated with high worker stress.”
“An experiment was conducted and focused on the effects of the factors, e.g. format types (graphical vs. digital), volumes of data, and layout methods of data (process, function, and importance) on the man-machine interface design. From the results of the experiments, one could see that the main effects of format types, volumes, and layout methods of data and the two-way interaction effects, between format types and volumes of data and between volumes of data and layout methods of data were significant for the searching tasks. In addition, the main effects of volumes of data and format types and the interaction effect between layout method of data and volumes of data were also significant for the finding problem and the prediction tasks.”
“EASE-3 is a user-interface designed to extend computer use to the frail elderly, including those in nursing homes. User-centered design, iterative development, iterative evaluation, object-oriented software, and use of metaphor have produced a system that can be used by a class of elderly users.”
“The method being presented enables to ergonomic evaluate the computer systems in the complex way taking into account so-called softness of formal modelling. The linguistic alphabet used in practice was determined in the artificial space of representation definited of the natural numbers interval from 1 to 9.”
“The contribution makes an attempt to analyze the process of HCI-based engineering activities (focusing first of all at layout-design oriented CAD applications) with special emphasis on how some crucial properties of the involved human-computer interaction tools are to be determined, namely on how to display the layout geometry during the layout design process and how to provide special visual and sound-effect aids to user-made selection among the layout elements (geometric or textual type layout patterns). An experimental programme is briefly described and some significant consequences of the experimental results are derived. Finally, several important practical aspects of how to utilize these consequences in the development of computer aided engineering design systems are suggested.”
“The purpose of this study was to develop an aiding approach to help human operators to reach accurate diagnosis rapidly. In order to verify the effects of the two types of aiding information, Backward information (B) and Forward information (F), a simulated experiment of diagnosing the heat exchanger system was performed in this study. As shown in the experimental results, F and B have improved the diagnosis performance of the subjects successfully.”
“Cognitive load is an important issue in user interface design, yet it has been largely finessed in HCI, despite the availability of a range of methods for measuring mental workload developed in cognate domains. This paper illustrates the use of a popular physiological metric (heart rate variance, HV) to index workload in a process control task. Highly suggestive intra-task correlations between HV and behaviour are found which confirm the promise of HV as an index cognitive load and argue for its application in user interface design, especially where man-machine performance is critical.”
“The study ascertained the decrease in the pupil size and the decrease in the amplitude and velocity of accommodation following 4-hr VDT operation while the amplitude of pupillary reflexes was found to increase. A weak correlation between pupil size and accommodation was also found (r=0.72). However, the present study failed to corroborate the relationship between pupillary reflexes and accommodation. The subjects involved were five students with age range of 22 to 23 years.”
“The aim of this study was to investigate how to evaluate pupil movement while undertaking VDT operations. A few fundamental experiments which were counting and searching tasks on both paper and CRT screen under different illumination levels, were carried out. The amplitude histogram of the pupil diameter was influenced by the viewing objects and the difference of illumination. A certain difference of power spectrum density of the fluctuation of pupil diameter was dependent upon the amount of visual tasks.”
“Using colour crts it is oftenly difficult to distinguish colour of thin lines. We investigate possibilities to improve the distinction of lines with various width in front of white, grey and black background. 20 colours were selected out of the colour gamut of a crt. We found through our experiment, that lines should have a minimum width of 4 pixels and should be shown be shown on gray background, to get the best results.”
“This paper describes PROMETHEUS, a system for programming graphical user interfaces. PROMETHEUS is based on its predecessors PRODIA and THESEUS. It integrates techniques for graphics, window and dialogue programming. The systems flexibility for the integration of new output (e.g. 3-d line graphics and video) and input features is achieved by PROMETHEUS' concepts for windows, so called frames, which can contain text, graphics, raster or graphical masks, control and dialogue management.”
“The paper discusses customers' views on professional tools for building user interfaces. It then positions user interface management systems according to other established technologies from the customers' point of view. The paper gives general concepts and a general architecture for a UIMS. In addition, it discusses the functional decomposition of such a system and gives some details on implementation strategies. The paper concludes with some highlights and benefits from using a state-of-the-art UIMS technology for the user.”
“Serpent represents a new generation of User Interface Management Systems which manage the total dynamic behavior of an interface and which allow applications to remain uninvolved with the details of the user interface. Serpent is designed to manage the specification and dynamic behavior of (relatively) arbitrary toolkits. It provides a fixed application programmer interface across changes in toolkits. This allows an application to evolve from one toolkit to another, or even to use multiple toolkits simultaneously.”
“The paper introduces software application architectures and open software environments as a framework for user interface management systems. It defines functional requirements for a dialog management system and gives an overview over available UIMS and related technologies. Experiences of Dialog management system users are reported and an outlook on the further development in this area is given.”
“It will be shown that the use of toolkit-based window management systems like e.g. OSF/Motif or OpenLook can lead to applications which are not well adapted to the needs of their users. As an alternative the TUWin and WindowNet methodology will be presented which supports a holistic design of the application.”
“This paper reports on an ongoing research project concerning task-oriented user interface management systems which are handling several knowledge bases. These knowledge bases operate on problem domain data as well as on interaction media and modes. For task-oriented user support the addressed knowledge categories have to be correlated according to end user tasks. We introduce a novel architecture for task-oriented dialogue management which is base on object-oriented programming and the blackboard concept.”
“The framework of a hierarchical architecture and its inheritance rules described here is formed to fulfill the special inheritance demands of an interactive object oriented graphical system. It specifies another style of inheritance as used in Smalltalk or C++.”
“Visualization and manipulation of knowledge is of great importance for any knowledge based system. Window based user interface management systems (UIMS) allow for building flexible and easy to use interactive graphical user interfaces. There is a need to integrate such UIMS into knowledge base programming environments. This paper addresses the integration of UIMS into the logic programming environment PROTOS-L. Our approach provides a small set of built-in predicates which defines an object oriented interface to UIMS within the logic programming language. The interface is realized by the PROTOS-L window manager. It uses a multiple process concept with asynchronous communication in order to cope with long lasting inference processes. The prototype of the PROTOS-L window manager is based on the standard user interface toolkit OSF/Motif.”
“The design of a user interface for a medical information system requires in particular a careful design of the interaction sequences. An approach to a dialogue manager is described which supports the definition of complex interaction, offers mechanisms for a user guidance based on colour coding and enables the analysis of interaction sequences with a dialogue graph. At the example of an infusion pump control panel the dialogue manager will be illustrated. Our experiences showed that the easy definition of complex interaction and the automated user guidance proved to be useful in practise; the graph-theoretical analysis of interaction sequences has to be developed further.”
“In this paper a broad perspective is presented of the history of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) over the last 30 years. Inevitably such must be omitted, but the referenced papers may fill many of the gaps. Various formative influences and contributing disciplines are noted. Although aspects of research and human factors knowledge are prominent, equivalent attention is given to technology, applied problems and design for usability.”
“This paper compares the evolutionary to the revolutionary (throw-away) approach to rapid prototyping. Several published case histories are reviewed and an assessment is made of which approach appears to have the most impact on both HCI design and software productivity. A hybrid approach is suggested which balances the two competing concerns.”
“The past few years have been an increase in the variety of software tools to support the development of interactive computer systems. One common theme that has emerged is the production of graphical interactive user interfaces. This paper suggests a taxonomical approach towards a better understanding of the former growing set of software tools. The first section describes the current state-of-the-art metaphors underlying most of the emerging user interface software, and dwells on various dimensions along which tools can be compared. The second section is a rather more subjective description of the current R & D trends within the field and illustrates extensions of the latter metaphors that will inhabit our future user interfaces.”
“The scope of this paper is twofold: to present the basic issues necessary to be considered while working in hypertext and hypermedia for information retrieval and to briefly present efforts currently under way in the lights of those basic issues.”
“Hypertext systems provide flexible information management by means of various links between chunks of information. However, the user had to know the functionality of those links in order to anticipate what will happen after traversing a link. The present study gives a classification of hypertext links and investigates the mental representation of those links after learning and working with an experimental hypertext system. The results indicate an organization of the mental link space by the dimensions Direction, Hierarchy and Structure, but indicate a further dimension as well. Conclusions concerning the user interface design of links are discussed.”
“This paper deals with the interactive user interface of the CONCORDE hypertext system. A first prototype of CONCORDE was shown at the German workshop on hypertext in April 1990. Main objective of the realization of the system is the support of active hypertext applications. In opposite to browsing applications, active hypertext applications change the data inside the system. In the next sections of this paper, a brief survey of CONCORDE and its user interface is given (section 2). We had to implement some graph-layout algorithm since CONCORDE uses a machine-driven graph-layout. The selection of a fitting algorithm surprisingly proved to be difficult, since often the computation of "nice graphs" consumes more time than bearable in an interactive system. We compare some algorithms we tried to apply in our system (section 3). Finally, we describe the solution implemented (section 4).”
“The translation of technical terminology causes nonexperts like translators or technical writers many problems. They are expected to write or translate texts even though they may not exactly know all the technical details about the object or method they are to describe. Machine translation does not and probably never will provide a solution to these problems. There is thus a need for CAT (Computer Aided Translation) systems in the form of termbanks which support translators in their daily work by providing them with technical terminology. In general, existing termbanks lack user-friendly interfaces. This paper describes a terminological database featuring a navigation tool which will improve the termbank by making it similar to a hypertext system on the interface level.”
“The multimedia model adopted by current commercial authoring systems is a score that mimics a multitrack magnetic tape; it is not well suited to support time scaling and provides a very low level description for a multimedia author. To address these problems this paper introduces SMES, a hierarchically structured multimedia model containing explicit synchronization constraints. (The name stands for "Structured Model with Explicit Synchronization".)”
“At present there is a continuously growing interest in using motion pictures in interactive video systems, hypermedia, or computer animation, and also as an additional component of future interactive videotex. Though it is evident that due to motion picture presentations knowledge relevant in various application domains can be acquired successfully, it is still an unsettled question under which conditions media combinations including motion pictures have substantial advantages in comparison to media combinations without motion pictures. Therefore in an ongoing project of the Heinrich-Hertz-Institute a series of by now nine learning experiments has been concerned with the question whether motion picture presentations are superior if spatial or temporal properties of motions are to be learned. Here with regard to criteria of efficiency (success and time required for successful learning) a substantial superiority of motion picture presentations was found only with regard to a rather complex motion pattern. However, concerning criteria relevant for user satisfaction (namely ease versus strain and enjoyability versus boredom of learning) present results support the expectation that in fact advantages result from the use of motion pictures in a comparatively broad domain of learning goals.”
“Up to today dynamic hypermedia have been used in cooperative writing, collaboration work, on line publishing and authoring courseware. In this paper we present an example of information system for managing and supporting activities in a research institute. The kind of information used in an institute is of different types; furthermore some data have to be frequently updated. The system helps the workers to fill, to update and to have access to information. We believe hypermedia is suitable in effectively managing these data and in this paper we'll examine how it can be used to create information systems based on an artificial reality reflecting this kind of organization. We'll then describe the structure of HyperITDF system and its use in the institute.”
“The Comandos system is an object-oriented platform for the development of integrated distributed applications. After a short presentation of the Comandos Platform, the main characteristics of the Comandos model are presented. Then the design of a cooperative distributed application developed using the Comandos platform is discussed.”
“User who must interact with many computer systems that have incompatible commands, displays, and dialog structures often encounter usability problems, especially when these systems must be accessed to perform their primary job function. Telephone company personnel who provide service to customers must deal with severe multi-system usability problems as a result of 1) a large and increasing number of computerized Operations Support Systems, and 2) increases in the number of systems that must be used to perform a single task. The User Access Management (UAM) software architecture provides a layer of software between the user and the multiple systems that must be used in their job function. Information from multiple systems can be acquired and intelligently integrated in a task-oriented display format through a single user action (e.g. menu selection). The StarRep and Craft Access applications provide integrated access to multiple Operations Support Systems to field technicians and customer contact personnel. The success of these applications proves that the UAM approach is an effective technique for improving user effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction when performing tasks using multiple systems. This approach may be employed in other multi-system domains including office automation, consumer information services (e.g. videotext), and factory automation.”
“The management of large heterogeneous networks is a very complex issue. In this short paper we have tried to give a feel for this complexity using a fault determination example derived from a real networking environment. We have presented an OSI based approach that can be used to address such class of problems.”
“Design and operation of a distributed information system have to consider a dynamic environment of requirements and opportunities. ESPRIT project COMANDOS takes an adaptive approach for the administration and management of distributed information systems that allows the original design of the infrastructure to be modified as experience is gained and as user requirements towards the operating environment change. The approach is based on an object oriented model of the information system. Three distinct tools and their integration into the running system are described in detail: DISDES -- a tool for organizational design, UsrAdm -- a tool for system administration and RiskMa -- a security management tool.”
“Public network technology is rapidly developing. Increased bandwidth coupled with the processing power of the desktop micro-computer will bring multimedia communications services onto the office desktop. This mixture of communications and computing technology will need to take account of the way in which it will be used. These systems must be simple to learn, easy to use and appealing for their intended customers. This paper reports the work carried out in the ESPRIT MIAS project to address usability engineering issues for multipoint teleconferencing over the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN).”
“This paper describes the development of a prototype for the documentation of the diagnosis of throat cancer. If further discusses the integration of this documentation system into a distributed environment. Finally it is outlined how to expand the system to a multimedia workstation supporting the complete documentation of a patient.”
“Office procedure support addresses the integration of static information objects such as documents with the definition and support for dynamic office work sequences involving several work places within an office domain. The concept of procedure support offers new qualities in contrast to bare computer support for information manipulation tasks (mechanization of office tasks). It comprises features for the synchronization and coordination of work sequences in the sense of the management of office work constraints. This paper defines the central aspects and concepts of office procedure support. It also shows how far open distributed information systems set the basis for such support. The second part of the article illustrates how office procedure support fits into the concept of Computer Integrated Business (CIB). Four central stages are discussed, illustrating how procedure support fits into the path to enterprise wide computer based integration.”
“Multimedia and it's benefits are surfacing in a variety of application arenas. This paper describes some successful implementations using this new media and documents some evaluations of their potential strengths and weaknesses. It seems as of the main stumbling block to the successful integration of multimedia technologies is the creation and design of an integrated media capable interface. Long term success factors lie with the design of a usable, flexible interface which matches the technology capabilities with the needs of the user.”
“The paper describes the implementation strategy applied when the student information system of the University of Helsinki was decentralized. The strategy was based on the perceived organizational context, taking into account the special kind of the organizations of higher education. The strategy appeared to be quite successful in an area that had otherwise been problematic.”
“It is described why and how we involved office workers (from the application domain) in product development as an interface with reality. In a way, this enabled us to actually interact with the application domain on the basis of feature concepts and partial prototypes. Presence of the office workers in the product development activity also supported consensus management in multidisciplinary teams.”
“This contribution is concerned with the optimization of preventive maintenance strategies in complex production systems. In a simulated maintenance task the quality of the strategies depended especially on two cognitive requirements: knowledge about the maintenance strategy and knowledge about the problem space. Based on these results, a method is suggested that is expected to promote the optimization of preventive maintenance strategies by improving the knowledge in these domains. This method is called Behavior-Outcome-Feedback (BOF) and is characterized by a periodical feedback of the maintenance strategy and the resulting efficiency of the production system.”
“A framework for mapping between user task models and user interface architectures is presented. A particular form of task modelling (Task Knowledge Structures) is outlined and a method of task analysis (Knowledge Analysis of Tasks). Task Knowledge Structure models can be used to represent existing user tasks and in terms of the changes designs bring to user tasks. The paper considers how task models and user interface architectures can be related.”
“Some of the limits and problems of the desktop metaphor are highlighted. Based on theory of goal-directed behaviour and on experimental results about mental representation of computer supported tasks, an alternative metaphor for the user interface is proposed. It maps an abstract globe on the screen and the whole functionality of the system is arranged on the surface of the globe and within the globe according to some principles. A first empirical evaluation by means of judgements of utility and usability showed acceptance of this kind of interface.”
“User interfaces that employ direct manipulation techniques have been found to be superior to command language interfaces with respect to measures of user performance. However, there is little evidence on how users' mental models are shaped by the interface they use. This study compared mental models of users who worked with direct manipulation interfaces with those using command language interfaces. Information on users' mental models was inferred through verbal protocols and computer logs. Results indicate that users given direct manipulation interfaces form better models of the task and device, i.e., use fewer production rules, attain better task-to-device mapping and carry out fewer unnecessary steps in executing their tasks. The implications of the results are discussed in terms of learning, transfer of knowledge between tasks, and efficiency of performance.”
“The neural networks' ability to learn by examples is combined into the design of an adaptive interface. This adaptive menu based interface between the user and the UNIX system can accommodate differences in user's experience about the system and individual differences among users.”
“A good cooperation between users and interactive systems often requires an adjustment of the man-machine interface to the specific user needs and requirements. Adaptive systems able to change their behaviour according to the characteristics of different classes of users have been proposed. They are typically based on user models and are targeted at specific application realities. In this paper we propose and discuss a general architecture for a User Interface Management System integrating application-independent user modeling capabilities. An object oriented prototype implemented to show the feasibility of the proposed approach is also presented.”
“The user interface design and evaluation of an interactive schema integration tool is presented. The tool consists of a browser of the database schemas and a query facility to specify the required data and their definitions. Results from evaluating the user interface suggest that a query facility should provide functions that match the user's preferred query writing strategy and a browser of the data definitions has to provide different visual representations and search strategies to assist the user in interpreting the meaning of the data.”
“Since their introduction, electronic spreadsheets have become a very popular tool in the office environment. This paper describes the application of the Generic Office Reference Model to carry out requirements capture for the introduction of spreadsheets in a teleconferencing environment.”
“The revolution in information technology has made relatively little use of the auditory channel of communication. This is perhaps not surprising given that the tasks for which the computer has been used hitherto are typically ones for which there was already a corresponding manual visual version. However the prevalence of the manual visual interface may soon be diminished. As computers become more powerful and more functionally diverse, devices are being developed that can generate and perceive speech. Thus research into the effects of modality on communication behaviour is becoming increasingly salient to the human factors of interface design. Using voice in the human computer interface has several potential advantages but the realisation of these advantages will depend upon the sophistication of the technology and the appropriateness of its implementation. Speech liberates the user by allowing movement away from terminal while input and output continue. Moreover it allows interaction when the hands and/or eyes are busy. The auditory channel is well suited to bringing urgent information to the attention of an operator, regardless of the direction of the current visual focus and is not reduced even if the user is relatively remote from a terminal. Many physically handicapped users, hitherto disenfranchised by need for sight, finger dexterity and the paucity of specially adapted interfaces, come within the catchment area of speech-based computer users. In its most highly developed form the speech based computer could take the form of a telephone hand-set, perhaps coupled with all ordinary domestic television set. Some of the computer's intelligence may be local, but the greater burden of processing could be centrally located at a remote site. Yet despite the availability of speech I/O devices for some years, their introduction into day-to-day use has been relatively slow. While technological sophistication has clearly played a role in determining the development of the visual and auditory channels in the interface, a human factors perspective is also required to further explain the emphasis on the visual/manual medium.”
“The authors propose two cognitive evaluation methods for multimedia presentations. One is to examine the cognitive process on the bases of the human memory. The other is to test subjective responses using instructions involving from the perceptual level to the cognitive level. The authors attempted to obtain optimal discrepancy between presentation timings (time lags) of text and speech, as a case study on cognitive evaluation, in the following two experiments with Japanese word presentation. Experiment 1 examined memory effects induced by the time lags using an incidental learning paradigm. The words, presented synchronously in the orienting task (subjective evaluation), resulted in high recognition rate. In Experiment 2, two subjective evaluation tasks, which were concerned with the impairment for word understanding due to presentation timings (cognitive level) and the existence of the time lags (perceptual level), were carried out. The subject's word understanding was disturbed by more than 0.2 second time lags, and more than 0.35 second time lags were perceptible. Moreover, we found out a non-symmetric interaction between visual and auditory functions at the cognitive level. That is, the impairment for the word understanding due to time lags in speech-presented-faster-than-text conditions was larger than the reverse conditions. The other hand, there was no such interaction at the perceptual level.”
“Information and communication systems with speech input or output interfaces will soon become available in various domains of professional and public life [1]. The basic technology for speech input, i.e. speech recognition algorithms and devices, has matured and is ready for implementation. The same holds for speech output technology, i.e. algorithms and devices for speech reproduction or synthesis. Furthermore, research on large-vocabulary, speaker-independent, continuous-speech recognition makes steady progress, and techniques for adequate handling of prosodic features of natural speech are under development. Although it will take some years before the results of these theoretical and technical advances will be applicable and visible, one should not wait any longer with the development and testing of comprehensive assessment methodologies for systems incorporating speech technology. As the temporal-acoustic interaction mode is quite different from the spatial-visual one, it is neither possible nor advisable to rely on existing design guide-lines for graphical user interfaces. This paper describes the main components of a framework and strategy for design-oriented system evaluation, and shows how this methodology has been introduced and will be worked out in a large-scale project aimed at the development of speech applications.”
“Voice-reactive visual feedback with both cartoon-face-like graphics and model-based analysis-synthesis facial graphics, can be used to make the human-to-computer speech input environment seem warmer, more interpersonal, and more natural for the speaker. First the facial expressions used by human listeners in face-to-face human interactions were identified. Then computer graphics were used to simulate these expressions, and human subjects evaluated the effectiveness of these graphics. A model system using voice-activated input and providing feedback to the user using these graphics was tested with the object of developing more user-friendly computer systems.”
“A novel programming method for the work shop was described. A major element in the development of the programming method for welding robots involved testing whether speech input could satisfy technical and industrial science requirements. Therefore an experimental programme has been developed and the results are discussed.”
“This paper gives an introduction to the objectives of our multimedia project. The longterm goal of the project is to develop a computer animation environment with a speech dialog interface. The combination of computer animation and a speech dialog interface in a multimedia system will enhance the work effectivity of a user in future. We sketch the state-of-the-art in computer animation and speech understanding and describe the current state of our prototype.”
“Research was carried out on the application of speech in three areas of man-computer communication: instruction, voice commands for system control and annotation of documents. As to instruction, learning was found to proceed equally fast with speech and written text; a number of subjects preferred speech. Secondly, in speech-to-text conversion, subjects preferred voice commands to manual commands for layout and typographic control, although text input was slower with voice commands. Thirdly, voice annotations are more readily made than text annotations, but processing times may be longer for voice than for text annotations. In conclusion, speech is a valuable medium for human-computer interaction, provided the applications are carefully chosen and a proper user interface is made.”
“The European Directive on the "minimum health and safety requirements for work with display screen equipment" contains minimum ergonomic requirements for the equipment, environment and operator/computer interface. National legislation which implements the Directive is required by the end of 1992, and may make reference to relevant standards. ISO 9241 is being developed as a multi-part standard which has a similar scope to the Directive, and provides a potential means for interpreting some of the more general requirements of the Directive which include: "software must be easy to use" and "the principles of software ergonomics must be applied".”
“This paper reports a short case study on the introduction of internal user interface standards in the information technology department of the headquarters of a large UK organisation. It discusses the relationship between such in-house standards and current developments in European and International standards.”
“The reference model for CAD systems developed by the Gesellschaft fur Informatik (GI -- the German membership organization of IFIP) is a frame for classifying the functionality of CAD systems. Whereas the reference model regards the user interface as one of several modules of the CAD system, the user interface appears to the user as being the whole system. This is the reason why an additional task working group on CAD user interfaces has been established by the GI in order to develop recommendations for the design of CAD user interfaces. Proceeding and preliminary results of the working group are described.”
“Impact of the economy, standard of living and developments in computer technology on advances in and usage of human aspects of computerized technology is discussed. The development and use of adaptive interfaces is proposed in order to increase the effectiveness of communications between the users and the computer. A methodology is outlined to achieve this objective. Since knowledge-based systems are an integral part of communications between users and computers, hence a method is proposed for the development of flexible mass production factories for modular production and assembly of knowledge-based systems. This would result in decreased cost and lead time to produce knowledge-based systems.”
“In this introduction to the conference stream "Software Engineering -- Methods, Techniques and Tools" some fundamental issues of the software developing process and the underlying attitudes of software developers are investigated. The author stresses the necessity of a change of the technology-centered production process approach towards the human-oriented attitude of architects.”
“Software development is not merely a mathematical or technological challenge, but a complex social process, in which the kind of communication and cooperative, creative interaction of the participants determine the quality of the collaboratively developed product. Qualified design is not primarily tied to given guidelines, but is guided by insights emerging in the design process and by the quest for quality shared by all participants. In this paper I discuss the role of models in the design process. The results of a field study show that a consensual definition of the situation is a prerequisite for dialogical design. During the design process the participants developed techniques of mutual contradictions.”
“This paper looks at the issues raised by integrated project management support in software development environments. In particular, the difference between prescriptive and constraint-based process models is analyzed, and the suggestion is made that an object-oriented approach is one of the most promising paths to the practical application of software engineering principles in software projects.”
“Most program development tools do not provide for testing of multi-process programs. We have developed the Concurrent Process Environment Monitor (CPEM), which facilitates debugging of UNIX/C concurrent programs. CPEM monitors programs comprised of many concurrent processes, and informs the user of the status and interactions of the processes. CPEM presents information either graphically or in a more traditional textual form. A controlled experiment was conducted to assess the relative effectiveness of the two CPEM presentations. The graphical CPEM was found to be superior to the textual CPEM in helping programmers debug two different concurrent programs. Furthermore, programmers overwhelmingly preferred the graphical presentation to the equivalent textual interface.”
“This paper presents an organisational model of a typical software development team. This is used to illustrate the interaction of tasks and actors in that team that need to be supported by any proposed integrated project support environment (IPSE). The conclusion is drawn that an advanced interface management system is the key to providing integrated project support for interworking in any advanced software development group. Further, an explicit and comprehensive organisational model is essential for defining the human-computer interface requirements in such environments. The conclusions are generalised to cover any groups of users accessing multi-user application software in closely integrated working environments.”
“The authors propose a principled design of human-computer interaction following a software ergonomics phase model, which separates the conceptual design decisions affecting the work organisation on the background of the tasks, user characteristics and qualifications from the structuring of the dialog for functional requirements and from concretizing the general cognitive considerations regarding the screen layout and dialog sequencing, while the realization will transfer all design decisions into a software product or prototype. The paper describes briefly a knowledge based system for user interface development support presently under development which will counsel software developers in regard all human factors design decisions.”
“The quality of user interfaces (Ui/f) becomes more and more the crucial point for the acceptance and usability of software systems. Despite user interface toolkits and UIMS's, the necessary effort to develop state-of-the-art Ui/f's increases constantly. This paper discusses two major issues in developing good user interfaces in the context of several research projects as well as customer projects NTE is involved in. * what should the Ui/f look like and how should it behave? * how can these specification be transformed into an effective user interface design? It is shown how the analysis of co-operation behaviour in a certain environment (such as a company or an organization) is used for the specification as well for the design of Ui/f's. A representation schema for co-operation modelling is described in detail, and the transformation process towards the design based on this schema is explained.”
“This article proposes a visual programming system with resuable specifications described by a conceptual data model- and dependency constraint-based language. The visual HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) with the language improves the comprehensibility and extensibility of specifications to be reused. Moreover, the HCI assists in macroscopic comprehension using the conceptual schemata, and supports the extraction of a program specification to be converted into a C program.”
“We discuss a finding from our observations of novice computer programmers. This finding reveals one of the major barriers to effective debugging performance: novices are unable to distinguish between that information provided by the programming environment which is relevant to diagnosing their bugs, and that which is irrelevant to the task. We hypothesise that if irrelevant information is hidden from the novice programmer automatically, it is likely that debugging performance will improve. We propose a debugging technique designed to do this. We label this debugging technique selective information hiding. It can be implemented using existing compiler technology. A debugging aid that uses this technique hides from the view of the user those program's expressions (and their value) which were not defined or referenced in the most recently executed statement(s) of a program. We present the design of a prototype user interface to a debugging aid which performs selective information hiding. We discuss future research directions and relate this work to the wider context of user-centred design of software development tools.”
“Several usability evaluation methods are examined to assess their effectiveness in a practical software development process. Four criteria were used: the times at which an evaluation can be conducted, the type and the number of usability problems it can detect, the workload it involves, and the variations in measurement caused by evaluators. These criteria were applied to four evaluation methods that were used in an actual development process: a simplified check-list, mock-up prototyping, a formal analysis of memory load, and a verbal protocol analysis. As a result of the examination, several methods of categorizing usability evaluation methods were proposed -- formal/heuristic, specification/system, and hypothetical users/real users. With the above criteria and categorizations, it was concluded that a single evaluation method could not have discovered all the usability problems, and that several evaluation methods skillfully combined can detect a larger number of usability problems in an actual development process.”
“This paper describes a tool in which we test automatically our applications built on top of OSF/Motif graphical toolkits. The tool itself is also based on X Window, so a good portability is guaranteed. The testing tool allows to generate test cases in a WYSIWYG style. The testing tool provides also classical facilities like editing test cases and setting stop points.”
“Verbal protocol analysis can be an effective means for evaluating a product's usability. We carried out the practical usability evaluation of an integrated CAD system by applying a formalized verbal protocol analysis method, the VPA Method. This method is expected to provide a stable and reliable analysis procedure for maintaining consistency in the data analysis of bulk verbal reports from users. This study showed that the "thinking-aloud + the VPA Method" was an effective technique for relatively large-scale practical usability evaluation. A wide range of usability issues, including users' general requirements for a product, were identified on the basis of the rich verbal protocol data, according to the standard analysis procedure of the VPA Method. For the development team, the persuasiveness of the evaluation results was enhanced by the overall effects of open testing using the thinking-aloud method, data analysis using a formalized verbal protocol analysis procedure, and management of the testing by inter-disciplinary teamwork.”
“Usability evaluation requires appropriate procedures according to request and scope at different occasions. For this purpose an evaluation system has been developed. The scheme of the evaluation system can be used for designing and carrying out adapted usability evaluations. An evaluation with ISO WD 9241-14 of three CAD user interfaces shows one application of the evaluation system.”
“The ability to carry out high quality scientific procedures remotely from one's laboratory or office is referred to as telescience. This paper presents a human factors oriented throughput (Tp) model useful for evaluating advanced manned telescience systems. The model's first two input parameters involve nominal and off-nominal predicted events. The first of these calls for a detailed task analysis while the second a contingency event assessment. The last two parameters involve measured human performance and continuous system performance events. Using digital simulations and identical, representative, random data an expression combining these four parameters was found which yielded the smallest output variance. Manned simulations are underway at Ames to further evaluate this throughput model.”
“A program tool is presented that integrates design and evaluation of dialogue systems in motor-cars. The design component is realized with a prototyping tool for user interfaces. The evaluation component is based on an approach modelling the driver's task-related knowledge by means of production systems. Cognitive complexity measures of driver-vehicle interactions, such as visual distraction, learning and execution time are derived. The integration of design and evaluation is achieved by generating the production system models of the driver's tasks automatically when the tasks are executed with the prototyped dialogue system.”
“Rapid Prototyping involves the creation of software prototypes of user interfaces for demonstrating and evaluating design concepts. The rapid prototyping tool EMSIG supports a system developer in the following steps: to simulate a physical system, to design an interface for this system, to test the quality of the design and to evaluate alternative designs. The paper describes briefly the tool and an experimental investigation, where EMSIG had been used to simulate a trim system of a submarine as well as to construct alternative interface layouts for comparison and evaluation.”
“An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of different interaction techniques on dialogue performance. Results show a time advantage of using pull-down menus in comparison with form-filling interaction techniques, when a textprocessing task had to be performed, which required a high amount of knowledge. A micro-analysis of the data demonstrated very short action sequences on keystroke-level but a high error rate in this context. Time differences were insignificant, when tasks required less knowledge.”
“In the present study, we propose a two-stage method for analyzing and evaluating cognitive tasks based on human information processing, and apply it to the operation of a high-speed train. In the analysis stage of the proposed method, human activities in performing a task are modeled using a proposed modeling scheme called Information Transition Model. Next, in the evaluation stage, potential problems in the existing system are identified through calculation of the reliability and work load based on the constructed task model.”
“As part of the ESPRIT MUSiC Project, literature recently published on measuring the performance of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) was I surveyed. 'Indicators of usability based on performance' were identified and assigned to generic groups. Using the experience of NPL and the HUSAT Research Institute in Loughborough, coupled with evidence from the literature survey, a set of indicators of usability based on performance were proposed for validation. The NPL work was jointly supported by the CEC and by the UK Department of Trade and Industry.”
“In testing interface usability several aspects are relevant: effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction. In this paper, emphasis is on user efficiency, and this is operationalised by the ratio of mental effort and performance. Valid and reliable indices for mental effort investment in a human computer setting may be physiological measures. An inventarisation of psychophysiological measures has been completed in the context of an ESPRIT project [1]. Heartrate variability, temporal indices of respiration and cortisol excretion are discussed in this respect. It is concluded that heartrate variability may be an appropriate indice for mental effort in human computer interaction settings, and that saliva cortisol may be an appropriate to measure of feelings of lost control.”
“Predictive metrics of usability are developed to permit the prediction of aspects of usability from formal specifications of user tasks and device functionality. We use the SANE model of cognitive skills as a basis for calculating various indicators of usability, mainly relating to the complexity of user procedures. The validation process is analogous to the validation of psychometric tests, but limited by the impossibility to draw representative samples from the space of design alternatives.”
“We outline a methodological framework for the development of (direct manipulation) user interfaces, which enables to integrate usability issues into the software development process from the very beginning. The focal point of this approach is a psychologically based task analysis documented by means of a formal task description, which serves as the central reference for designing and testing the usability of the user interface under development. A syntax-driven graphical editor delivers support for the method.”
“A novel user interface design methodology called the Multiview Model (MVM) is proposed, and a user interface design system, U-face, developed with this methodology is shown to contribute to improved user interface quality. The MVM focuses on the full variety of user interface aspects and consists of three operational components: design, operational simulation, and verification. U-face is a design system mainly for use with menu-driven application software on generic terminal screens. It provides design views, a simulation view, and verification views. The design views consist of a screen layout view and an operation rule view. The simulation view is used to check each operation, such as runtime, step by step. The verification views include displays of a screen transition network, a mode sequence diagram, and a key-binding graph. Simulation views and verification views are automatically produced from a designed interface. U-face represents an important new step in interface design because it allows designers to verify various aspects of their creations from points of view different than those used in the design process itself. It may be expected to contribute significantly to the development of improved interface quality.”
“In this contribution a number of approaches to the design of usable systems are considered. A distinction is made between formal and non-formal approaches. The formal approaches are characterized by the use of models containing formal notations. The action facilitation approach is presented as an instance of a non-formal approach. The implications of this approach for user oriented interface design and evaluation are discussed. Further, the question is raised whether a fruitful integration is possible between formal approaches and the action facilitation approach.”
“The human brain has to interact instantaneously with a hypercomplex environment. This prevents prediction of forthcoming events, but stimulates the inferential power concerning local regularities, usable for local valid predictions. Human knowledge is due to four sources: (1) Innate of "prewired" structures concerning some invariants in the environment; (2) learning by doing or systematizing similar personal experiences; (3) learning by tutoring or instruction (with language as the most prominent vehicle), and (4) learning by inference. Whereas (2) and (3) have been widely investigated, the basic mechanisms of the fourth source are fairly unknown. The frame of the speech is a model of how conceptual knowledge is organized in the human memory. The key points are levels with sets of invariant properties and well defined labels for the relations between them. Properties are the invariants in sets of objects, and conceptual relations are invariants concerning roles which objects play in events. A special point is how the relations are implemented with the conceptual knowledge.”
“An user interface is developed for spatial layout planning problems with embedded reasoning ability to refine the decision making process in multiobjective optimization from a human problem solving orientation. A combination of a "communication-oriented" approach as well as a "problem solving-oriented" approach is used. The embedded reasoning capabilities leads to a reasoning-level user communication. The problem solving involves a technique known as "causal ordering" to reduce the entire multiobjective problem, with many nonlinear objectives, into sets of single objective linear optimization problems. The nonlinear objectives are not explicitly stated but are derived from the structure of the problem.”
“"Every designer wants to build a high quality system that is admired by colleagues, celebrated by users, circulated widely and frequently imitated" (Shneiderman, 1987, p 8). Interactive multimedia in public spaces represents the biggest challenges for the designer and the implementor. This paper identifies the characteristics for computing access in public spaces, highlights design issues, and describes the implementation of one system.”
“This paper gives an overview of a user interface design guideline defined for the ESPRIT Project CIMple aiming to construct user-driven and configurable tool set supporting planning and implementation of CIM in SMEs.”
“Ethnographic workflow analysis is a design methodology developed to study information-related behavior in the work place. Designers in the Physician Workstation Project used this methodology to study the work practice of physicians. This paper describes a minimal conceptual framework and techniques for data collection and analysis, presents ethnographic data collected in the teaching and private clinics of two health care institutions, and illustrates the translation of ethnographic data into functional specifications for the design of the physician workstation interface.”
“The basis of the work described in this paper is the attempt to build on well established interaction possibilities between humans, which are natural to users without the computer, and to bring some of advantages of natural interaction into human-computer interaction. This cannot be done in one step, but some of the paradigms and the human factors related findings or restrictions can serve as models for advanced and multimodal interfaces. One aim is to improve Human-Computer Interaction by gesture interaction in order to achieve multimodal interaction. Developed systems for gesture interaction (character recognition of handwritten text, and correction signs) are presented.”
“Conceptual models of interactive software systems are suited to explain the static appearance and the dynamic behaviour of user interfaces, but they usually do not incorporate the interactive design process of user interfaces. This paper illustrates which models are relevant for interactive design and how they relate to each other. An approach called "Direct Composition" of user interfaces is presented. With this approach the user interface objects comprise aspects of manipulation visualization, and construction, and can take different roles according to the models involved.”
“An experimental study was carried out on the granularity and range of the undo function in user interfaces. Eight subjects were asked to report on how they would undo word processing tasks they had just carried out. The main results show that several actions are integrated into UNDOs, that there are large between-subject differences in undo strategies and that layout and content modification actions were more often included in the reported UNDOs than other actions.”
“To improve the quality and usability of a finished system or product and eradicate or minimise the impact of usability problems identified during evaluation, requires a total integrated team approach to systems development. How is this to be achieved? This paper examines processes used in a real working environment and provides some solutions to this question. It describes evaluation techniques used by a large corporation in its quest to improve the usability and total quality of its products. Benefits are noted, particularly in terms of the integration of usability evaluation with systems design and its effects on the total product team.”
“For CNC machine tools a graphical-interactive programming environment has been designed and implemented by means of a user interface management system. The system has been evaluated in the laboratory by experts. In a last step it has been evaluated in a field test carried out in a user organisation.”
“Motivated by the lack of ergonomic design and the deficiency of todays human interfaces in matching the needs of non-computer professionals in the area of production, an adaptable/adaptive user interface management system (uims) was designed. The paper describes the architecture model of an adaptable/adaptive uims containing an user modelling, a task modelling and a strategy component. Further, some useful representation notation for the components are discussed, well-suited in a software engineering tool for adaptable/adaptive uims.”
“The BOOK HOUSE is a system designed for fiction retrieval in public libraries based on a cognitive task analysis and intended to support casual, novice end users' retrieval and decision making. The structure of the work domain is represented by a metaphor familiar to users, which provides the proper associations for the information retrieval task. An iconic interface display of a complex, rich information context within which they can navigate freely without being constrained by the system provides the capability of information retrieval by means of visual exploration of icons representing book contents. Search procedures are performed through direct perception and manipulation of the iconic objects of the BOOK HOUSE.”
“Although the future of work looks much brighter than scenarios of the 70ies would make us believe much R&D activity is needed for the design of computerized work according to human needs. Principles of the "Work and Technology Programme" by the Federal Minister for Research and Technology are outlined focussing on the promotion of software design projects. Finally some future subjects for R&D-promotion in this field are discussed.”
“Accuracy of input using touch panel devices is affected by a number of variables, particularly those relating to the target of the touch. Because of the number of variables potentially affecting performance, a screening experiment was conducted using a central-composite design (CCD; a special case of response surface methodology) to examine further the effects of target position and size upon accuracy of the touch input for both infrared and resistive panels. Examination of first point of contact, last point of contact, and averaged intermediate points indicated that averaging did not substantially reduce error for the resistive panel. Although multiple regression analyses for x and y error indicated that gender, feedback condition, and use of gloves were significant predictors, the overall variance accounted for was low (R{squared} of .13 and .20). Prediction of contact duration and reaction time was better (R{squared} of .54 and .68) with group and gender accounting for much of the variability. Results suggest that error for right-handed users is least near the resting position of the hand (lower right corner of display) and that response times were similarly affected. Variable error was less for targets demanding higher precision. Simple variation in instructions across blocks of trials reduced variable error. Instructions suggesting more precise input behavior ("touch the center of the target") produced less variable error than those that were less specific ("touch the target"). In general, although the methodology has limitations, the CCD was useful in economically identifying error trends.”
“Improvements of working conditions both for the software engineer and the user require more suitable methods and tools. Currently, most software engineers and programmers still use methods and tools developed in the 70's and earlier. What they need are practical methods and tools which reduce life cycle costs and gain productivity at the same time. Moreover, there is an increasing demand for systems, which consider the user's needs and are better suited for their tasks. The most important approaches of today are: user participation and prototyping, automated support of style guides, task analysis and modeling, CASE tools, UIMS and collaborative work, and object-oriented design. TASK, a method currently under development will be introduced.”
“This paper discusses the changing needs of the scientific computing community and the associated challenges facing developers in this field. An architecture for developing the required systems is being investigated as part of the work in the ESPRIT 2 Project (no. 2620) -- FOCUS. A very brief description of the work of the project is given, with particular reference to the FOCUS architecture for constructing the required scientific computing environments.”
“This paper describes an approach to the identification of user requirements for Knowledge Based Front Ends (KBFEs) to existing software systems. The work took place as part of the FOCUS Project, the main goal of which is to provide KBFE support to users in scientific and industrial environments. Investigations into end-user requirements that assume the use of existing software are described and a framework for the structuring of user requirements obtained from field investigations is presented.”
“The first and direct objective of this paper is to discuss a method of building large models to solve large scale problems in computer systems. In order for a computer to be generic enough and able to support total problem solving by human users, it must be provided with the very general problem solving methods so that human users can use it for his/her problem solving without special knowledge of the computer system. Model based methods of problem solving are very generic and suited to the purpose. But there arises the problem of representing the large scale model building process in the computer. In this paper the author discusses this problem and presents a method. The second and implicit objective is to make the concept of future computers clear through this discussion. In order to realize the generic method of large scale model building, new software technologies becomes necessary. In this paper, an approach to future knowledge processing technology is implied.”
“Providing a new user interface to an existing program means more than just bolting some new features on an old system. It will change the way people work with the program. This change is unpredictable in advance. Various factors influence this change, for instance the structure of the organization, the company culture and the people involved. The requirements of the user interface are difficult to capture, because they do not exist until the user interface has been specified or even created. The whole process of requirements capturing has to be considered as an organic process, in which the attitude of the people changes while they create or discover the requirements. Often also the organizational circumstances are influenced. Development methods and tools should be suited for incremental development.”
“The users of scientific programs constitute a very diverse group, ranging from domain specialists with little knowledge about the program to users/developers, who know all details of the code, the input, the meaning and reliability of the output and the applicability of the program. Support for the use of scientific programs could be given by a knowledge based user interface. The scope of such a user interface has to be restricted. Some requirements are given for the structure of the user interface and for the tools to build them.”
“In this paper we describe a knowledge-based front end for a mathematical simulation program. This program shows that the lifetime of a computer program can be very long; it has been developed in the seventies and is still used today. Looking at this program from a contemporary viewpoint as a cognitive ergonomist is shocking. Nevertheless a re-implementation, with a good integrated interface, was out of the question because of the program's complexity. The best solution was to develop a knowledge-based front end, that interfaces to the original program to help the user with the data entry.”
“Industrial and scientific development environments often involve the use of software such as statistical packages, optimisation packages, numerical algorithm libraries, etc. which represent an enormous body of very complex and valuable knowledge that is becoming increasingly difficult to assess. End users have to cope simultaneously both with the intricacies of the software and with the increasing complexity of the application domain problems. For these systems, knowledge-based front-ends (KBFEs) can provide co-operative assistance to end users, enabling them to use the systems successfully, whilst preserving know-how contained in the libraries and packages and extending their working life. FOCUS (Front Ends for Open and Closed User Systems) is an ESPRIT-2 project No. 2620 (#) currently in its third of four budgeted years whose goal is to develop generic tools and techniques for constructing and maintaining KBFEs for open user systems (e.g. libraries, reusable software components) and closed user systems (e.g. free standing software, packages) for industrial and scientific applications. The participating partners are drawn from both industrial and academic Institutions providing a wide cross-section of software researchers, producers and users, and the project has taken a pragmatic approach with the industrialisation of products developed playing a prominent role. This paper will describe part of the work undertaken during the first two years of the FOCUS project. It will state the aims of the project, describe a core element of the emerging FOCUS design strategy, namely a separable architecture for knowledge-based front-ends, and describe work done on KAFTS (Knowledge Assisted Forecasting of the Time Series) -- a prototype KBFE built with this architecture.”
“A psychophysics study was performed to investigate the relationship between computer graphics rendering techniques and subjective ratings of realism for computer-synthesized images. By manipulating the lighting and shading characteristics of computer-synthesized images, 31 different variations of a standard image were created. The experiment task was to rate the realism of each computer-synthesized image in comparison to two standards; a wireframe image representing the low end of realism, and a picture of the real image, representing the high end of realism. The results indicated that smooth shaded images were perceived as significantly more realistic than a flat shaded image, while color-mapped images were perceived as significantly more realistic than images rendered without a color map. However, there were no significant differences in perceived realism as a function of one versus two point light sources or between one versus two specular highlights. These and other findings are used to evaluate the psychological validity of several mathematical analysis of shading information that are used to render realistic three-dimensional images.”
“This paper focuses on techniques to display effectively the whole and details of diagrams on screens. First, user requirements for display methods are analyzed from a cognitive viewpoint. Then, a multi-viewpoint perspective display method (MVP) is proposed, and three variations are formulated. Finally, it is shown that one variation of MVP is adaptable for compound graphs, which are abstractions of diagrams used in idea-organizing methods.”
“This paper reports on work carried out by the Speech and Language Technology Group at Hatfield Polytechnic into the design of speech interfaces. It presents a design for a generic user interface management system (UIMS) which allows the user access to any PC application via both speech and switched input. This generic UIMS allows an instantiation of an interface which is tailored to the requirements of a particular individual and which can, if necessary, be changed over time as his/her condition changes.”
“To investigate the interactive nature of design processes, we have developed an intelligent design support environment for the design of CNC-machines. KONEX+ combines a traditional expert system with the interactive interface of a construction kit. "Design experts" give advice, evaluate and criticize designs, and take part in the overall design process. They may be communicated with through forms which allow to inspect and to enter parameters according to the expert's knowledge.”
“This paper examines the direct and indirect acquisition of knowledge for systems designed to aid the diagnosis of faults in complex electro-mechanical equipment. We report on current work that is utilising model based reasoning in conjunction with simulation to provide both assistance with fault finding and better understanding of diagnostic strategy. A parallel simulator, running on a number of INMOS transputers, will provide data streams simulating both correct and faulted mode operation of components in complex machines. The latter is characterised by a flow of discrete material through the machine, which processes the material and controls the flow. Distributed, process based, discrete simulation is being used as the development technology. A host machine runs two sub-systems. A hypertext based CBT component provides the user with a demand driven interface to structured information about the simulated machine. The information includes diagnostic strategies, failure modes and correct operation components. A knowledge based system implements a high level model of the machine and provides an active example of the application of the diagnostic strategy. Knowledge elicitation is important at several different levels of abstraction within this approach. There is a level of classical expert knowledge about the behaviour of the machine and at a deeper level we require detailed information about the design of the machine to build accurate models that can be used to simulate real behaviour. Yet another level is that of interpreting the information from all sources. We first discuss the general issues concerning knowledge elicitation then we briefly present some details of the prototype system we are using to explore the ideas. Finally we present our perception of the opportunities for direct and indirect knowledge elicitation for systems of the type discussed here.”
“Expert systems have been developed in a quite unstructured way up to now without regarding aspects of well-known software project management principles and needs for organizational integration. Thus, most of the systems implemented as a prototype, have never reached the status of a fully functional piece of software. This paper describes an integrated methodology for expert system development under organizational aspects, taking into account different concepts of classical software engineering as well as experiences in our projects.”
“The paper presents (1.) quasi-experimental comparisons of the GOMS-, the W-question- and a decision- decomposition model of knowledge description and (2.) comparisons of a concept-structuring versus a group discussion procedure. There is a model x domain interaction. Interview structuring aids are highly effective and differ in their qualitative results.”
“Complex planning tasks like environmental impact assessment require knowledge-based systems to justify their results by comprehensive explanations. Model-based knowledge engineering methodologies like KADS developed within the last few years recommend a knowledge level approach to explanations. Our model-based approach allows to anticipate a user's questions and to design answering mechanisms already during the knowledge engineering stage. Several question types are identified and their semantics is related to the structuring components of KADS.”
“The abbreviation KUSBER stands for the German term for "consulting system for lubricants": Kuhlschmierstoff-Beratungssystem. The integration of a knowledge-based system with an existent database is demonstrated by means of an application for the selection of cooling lubricants. The chemical ingredients and the environmental characteristics of the lubricants used within the authors' company are stored in a relational database (Oracle). The knowledge-based component was implemented by using the expert system shell Nexpert Object and the corresponding database bridge. This paper states some facts about - the modelling of expert knowledge with Nexpert Object - the functions realized in the system - the database integration facilities using relational databases - the applied user interface.”
“In this paper we discuss some aspects of a graphical language for querying object oriented databases. The main features of such a querying tool are its integration in a browsing environment, facilitating both the query formulation and the exploration of the answers, and the by-example approach on which the formulation is based.”
“This paper proposes a method for identifying reading styles based on the relationship between reading time and a Japanese text readability measure. The readability measure for Japanese text (RGV) proposed by us in 1989 can be used to measure the difficulty of passages based on school grade levels. The results of a VDT text reading experiment indicate that a few reading styles can be identified based on differences in reading time variance patterns.”
“Knowledge Acquisition is still an art, only partially supported by methodologies and computer-based tools. In particular, one of the main activities not yet fully supported is the design and performance of interviews to elicit knowledge from experts. We present a model for a knowledge-based system supporting both the choice of the interview technique and the performance of the interview in a given phase of the design process. Our model is based on a set of conceptual primitives to organize the knowledge elicited at a given time, and on a corpus of problem-independent knowledge. A computer-based tool implementing the ideas presented here is under development.”
“This paper is concerned with improving of the acceptance of AI applications. A discussion is provided how some of the essential risks and problems of AI applications can partially be avoided through the application of new opportunities offered by the hypermedia methodology and technology.”
“Automatic reasoning is shown as the matching of two or more different classifications of a problem state through cartesian products in order to discover hidden inconsistencies or gaps and as the navigation through hierarchies of inheritances in order to detour forbidden nodes of the system relationships.”
“This paper describes the human factors approach taken in the development of integrated expert system dialogues designed to support BT personnel in dealing with customers. It describes the requirements capture techniques, the resultant dialogue styles and their evaluation in terms of efficiency gains, customer satisfaction and user evaluation. Multi-media future requirements are also outlined.”
“This paper presents a frontend to an intelligent help system based on plans called InCome (Interaction Control Manager). It visualizes user actions previously executed in a specific application as a graph structure and enables the user to navigate through this structure. A higher level of abstraction on performed user actions shows the dialog history, the interaction context and reachable goals. Finally, the user is able to act on the application via InCome by performing undo mechanisms as well as specifying user goals inferred already by the help system.”
“The following research note presents the idea of a natural language help system for text processing systems, and sketches its basic assumptions and principles. The prototypical implementation of such a system for TA's and OLIVETTI's text processing system DOCUMENT 1.1 on a 386 DOS-PC under Windows 2.11 is briefly described.”
