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Volume 60 of International Journal of Human-Computer Studies
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Publications in volume 60
-- Volume 60 --
Issue 5
Bristow, Huw W., Baber, Christopher, Cross, James, Knight, James F. and Woolley, Sandra I. (2004): Defining and evaluating context for wearable computing. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (5) pp. 798-819
“Defining 'context' has proved to be a non-trivial problem for research in
context-awareness. In this paper we address two questions: what features of
activity are required to define context? and does the use of context-awareness
measurably improve user performance? The first question was addressed by a
study of everyday activities, using a Photo Diary method to arrive at a set of
Context Identifiers. We feel that it is important to discover what features of
activity are needed in order to describe context. Two user trials were carried
out to address the second question. We conclude that the use of context
improves user task proficiency.”
Pendharkar, Parag C. (2004): HCI Issues in Mobile Computing. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (5) pp. 527-528
Rodger, James A. and Pendharkar, Parag C. (2004): A field study of the impact of gender and user's technical experience on the performance of voice-activated medical tracking application. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (5) pp. 529-544
“Speech recognition is a particularly important technology for mobile
computing since it provides a smaller, lighter interface than a keyboard. This
paper investigates the impact of user's gender and user's computer experience
on the performance of a speech recognition system. Using a field study of 33
users, voice-activated medical tracking application and a mobile healthcare
fieldwork environment, we illustrate that the user's gender, user's computer
experience and the interaction between the user's gender and computer
experience has an impact on the performance of a speech recognition system.”
Myung, Rohae (2004): Keystroke-level analysis of Korean text entry methods on mobile phones. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (5) pp. 545-563
“When predicting text entry performance time on mobile phones, Fitts' law has
been used to measure finger movement times on the keypad. However, mental
activities, such as remembering numbers and visual searches for the right key
on keypads, are necessary for text message exchanges. In order to include
physical and mental activities to better materialize phone-operating
behaviours, another predictive engineering model, the keystroke-level model
(KLM), was used with the concept of GOMS. The traditional KLM has six operators
but only two operators, K and M, were used for the evaluation of different text
entry interfaces in this study. The time for keystrokes (t{sub:K}) was
calculated with Fitts'-law-based model. To calculate the time for mental
activity, phone-operating behaviours were analysed and three mental activities
were found: recognizing the intended syllable, recalling the method for
composing graphemes and confirming the intended letter. Therefore, the time for
accommodating these mental activities is calculated to be 570 ms, which is the
sum of time for recognizing and recalling (340 ms) and the time for confirming
(230 ms). The KLM-GOMS was developed, validated and utilized to investigate the
availability in evaluating different interface alternatives in the design stage
and in the comparative study of existing Korean text entry interfaces. The
results showed that the model well represented the Korean phone-operating
behaviours with the significant statistical test of the average time difference”
Christie, John, Klein, Raymond M. and Watters, Carolyn R. (2004): A comparison of simple hierarchy and grid metaphors for option layouts on small-size screens. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (5) pp. 564-584
“Modern, technologically driven society is characterized by an increase in
the rate of mobile device use and an increase in the extent to which these
devices are used for more complex tasks than search for phone numbers. While
direct consequences of screen-size reduction on task performance are well
known, data are lacking on the impact of layout of multiple options in a
complex task environment. In this paper we describe the results of an end-user
study in which we compared two basic interface designs for the layout of
multiple options: a simple hierarchy and a single layer grid. These two designs
were presented to users on two screen sizes; a larger size approximating the
size of a standard laptop or desktop screen and a smaller size approximating
the size of a PDA screen. This study illustrates that while task performance in
accessing information was superior using the grid interface rather than the
simple hierarchy interface, users preferred the simple hierarchy interface.
Even as the complexity of the task increased, the physical size of the screen
had a significantly bigger impact on task performance than did the task
complexity. These findings indicate that the grid layout should be used when
task performance is of the paramount concern and the complexity of choices is
not expected to be large. When user preference/satisfaction is more important
than task performance the appeal of the simple hierarchy layout may supersede
the cost in performance it entails.”
Lee, Paul Ung-Joon and Zhai, Shumin (2004): Top-down learning strategies: can they facilitate stylus keyboard learning?. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (5) pp. 585-598
“Learning a new stylus keyboard layout is time-consuming yet potentially
rewarding, as optimized virtual keyboards can substantially increase
performance for expert users. This paper explores whether the learning curve
can be accelerated using top-down learning strategies. In an experiment, one
group of participants learned a stylus keyboard layout with top-down methods,
such as visuo-spatial grouping of letters and mnemonic techniques, to build
familiarity with a stylus keyboard. The other (control) group learned the
keyboard by typing sentences. The top-down learning group liked the stylus
keyboard better and perceived it to be more effective than the control group.
They also had better memory recall performance. Typing performance after the
top-down learning process was faster than the initial performance of the
control group, but not different from the performance of the control group
after they had spent an equivalent amount of time typing. Therefore, top-down
learning strategies improved the explicit recall as expected, but the improved
memory of the keyboard did not result in quicker typing speeds. These results
suggest that quicker acquisition of declarative knowledge does not improve the
acquisition speed of procedural knowledge, even during the initial cognitive
stage of the virtual keyboard learning. They also suggest that top-down
learning strategies can motivate users to learn a new keyboard more than
repetitive rehearsal, without any loss in typing performance.”
Kjeldskov, Jesper and Stage, Jan (2004): New techniques for usability evaluation of mobile systems. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (5) pp. 599-620
“Usability evaluation of systems for mobile computers and devices is an
emerging area of research. This paper presents and evaluates six techniques for
evaluating the usability of mobile computer systems in laboratory settings. The
purpose of these techniques is to facilitate systematic data collection in a
controlled environment and support the identification of usability problems
that are experienced in mobile use. The proposed techniques involve various
aspects of physical motion combined with either needs for navigation in
physical space or division of attention. The six techniques are evaluated
through two usability experiments where walking in a pedestrian street was used
as a reference. Each of the proposed techniques had some similarities to
testing in the pedestrian street, but none of them turned out to be completely
comparable to that form of field-evaluation. Seating the test subjects at a
table supported identification of significantly more usability problems than
any of the other proposed techniques. However a large number of the additional
problems identified using this technique were categorized as cosmetic. When
increasing the amount of physical activity, the test subjects also experienced
a significantly increased subjective workload.”
Bandelloni, Renata and Paterno, Fabio (2004): Migratory user interfaces able to adapt to various interaction platforms. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (5) pp. 621-639
“The goal of this work is the design of an environment for supporting runtime
migration of Web interfaces among different platforms. This allows users
interacting with a Web application to change device and continue their
interaction from the same point. The migration takes into account the runtime
state of the interactive application and the different features of the devices
involved. We consider Web interfaces developed through a multiple-level
approach using: the definition of the tasks to support, the abstract
description of the user interface and the actual code. The runtime migration
engine exploits information regarding the application runtime state and
higher-level information on the available target platforms. Runtime application
data are used to achieve interaction continuity and preserve usability, while
information on the different platforms is considered to adapt the application's
appearance and behaviour to the specific device. The paper also discusses a
sample application in order to provide concrete examples of the results that
can be achieved through our approach.”
Gulliver, S. R., Serif, T. and Ghinea, G. (2004): Pervasive and standalone computing: the perceptual effects of variable multimedia quality. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (5) pp. 640-665
“The introduction of multimedia on pervasive and mobile communication devices
raises a number of perceptual quality issues; however, limited work has been
done examining the three-way interaction between use of equipment, quality of
perception and quality of service. Our work measures levels of informational
transfer (objective) and user satisfaction (subjective) when users are
presented with multimedia video clips at three different frame rates, using
four different display devices, simulating variation in participant mobility.
Our results will show that variation in frame rate does not impact a user's
level of information assimilation, however, does impact a users' perception of
multimedia video 'quality'. Additionally, increased visual immersion can be
used to increase transfer of video information, but can negatively affect the
users' perception of 'quality'. Finally, we illustrate the significant affect
of clip-content on the transfer of video, audio and textual information,
placing into doubt the use of purely objective quality definitions when
considering multimedia presentations.”
Edwards, W. Keith, Newman, Mark W., Sedivy, Jana Z. and Smith, Trevor (2004): Supporting serendipitous integration in mobile computing environments. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (5) pp. 666-700
“In the richly networked world of the near future, mobile computing users
will be confronted with an ever-expanding array of devices and services
accessible in their environments. In such a world, we cannot expect to have
available to us specific applications that allow us to accomplish every
conceivable combination of devices that we may wish. Instead, we believe that
many of our interactions with the network will be characterized by the use of
"general purpose" tools that allow us to discover, use, and integrate multiple
devices around us. This paper lays out the case for why we believe that
so-called "serendipitous integration" is a necessary fact that we will face in
mobile computing, and explores a number of design experiments into supporting
end user configuration and control of networked environments through general
purpose tools. We present an iterative design approach to creating such tools
and their user interfaces, discuss our observations about the challenges of
designing for such a world, and then explore a number of tools that take
differing design approaches to overcoming these challenges. We conclude with a
set of reflections on the user experience issues that we believe are inherent
in dealing with ad hoc mobile computing in richly networked environments.”
Sanna, A., Zunino, C. and Lamberti, F. (2004): A distributed architecture for searching, retrieving and visualizing complex 3D models on Personal Digital Assistants. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (5) pp. 701-716
“Mobile devices are significantly changing the human-computer interaction. In
particular, the ubiquitous access to remote resources is one of the most
interesting characteristics achievable by using mobile devices such as Personal
Digital Assistants, cellular phones and tablets.
This paper presents an architecture that allows users to search and
visualize complex 3D models over Personal Digital Assistants. A peer-to-peer
network of brokers manages queries for searching objects among several data
providers. The object selected for visualization is forwarded to a specialized
graphics provider; this provider allows the users to investigate the object
remotely rendering the scene and sending back to the Personal Digital Assistant
the computed image. The user can interactively analyse objects that would not
be otherwise visualizable locally on the Personal Digital Assistant.”
Paepcke, Andreas, Wang, Qianying, Patel, Sheila, Wang, Matthew and Harada, Susumu (2004): A cost-effective three-in-one personal digital assistant input control. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (5) pp. 717-736
“We attach an inexpensive pressure sensor to the side of a personal digital
assistant and use it as three input devices at once. Users can squeeze the
device to provide near-continuous input to applications. At the same time the
drivers interpret a sudden full squeeze as the push of a virtual button. A
user's sudden pressure release while squeezing is detected as the push of a
second virtual button. We briefly describe our hardware and signal processing
techniques. The remainder of the writing describes an experiment that explores
whether users can cope cognitively with the 3-in-1 control. We compare against
a three-control setup consisting of a jog wheel and two physical buttons. We
show that the three-in-one control enables a 13% faster reaction time over the
three-control one, but that the three-in-one control suffers a 4% penalty in
the accuracy of users choosing between the two buttons in response to cues from
an application. We show that a good choice of application cue is more important
for assuring accuracy in the 3-in-1 than in the more traditional set of
separate controls.”
Schrott, Gregor and Gluckler, Johannes (2004): What makes mobile computer supported cooperative work mobile? Towards a better understanding of cooperative mobile interactions. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (5) pp. 737-752
“Despite the high availability of mobile phones and personal digital
assistants with online capabilities, mobile computer supported cooperative work
is still in its infancy. So far, only little is known about the distinct
attributes of mobile cooperative work in comparison to its stationary
counterpart. Across which dimensions does cooperation via mobile devices differ
from traditional hard-wired settings and what implications have to be drawn for
future research? To bring more light to this question, we conducted an
experimental business-case at Frankfurt University with 16 graduate students
and analysed their collaborative behaviour across mobile and non-mobile
channels of communication over a 5 week period. We find that mobile messages
differed from stationary messages in terms of size and that the use of mobile
emails prevailed over stationary emails under conditions of stress. Finally, we
found that the social structure of mobile communication corresponded with the
structure of stationary communication. This indicates that mobile communication
technologies support existing communication relations rather than creating new
relations. From the perspective of system designers, these results may serve as
practical insights into the user behaviour of mobile technologies and might
support the future development of mobile computer supported cooperative work
environments.”
Parush, Avi and Yuviler-Gavish, Nirit (2004): Web navigation structures in cellular phones: the depth/breadth trade-off issue. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (5) pp. 753-770
“One can browse the web with a variety of devices, including hand-held
devices such as the cellular phone. The small screen of those devices poses
some serious usability issues, one of which is the appropriate hierarchy depth
of the web site. In this study, we empirically examined whether a broad
navigation structure, which was found to be superior in regular screen-size
platforms, also has an advantage for a small-screen device such as the cellular
phone where it may require more movements and scrolling between screens of the
same hierarchical level. Navigation times and success rates were measured for
two search tasks in a mock web site that was built in two versions: one with a
broad navigation structure and the other with a deep structure. Both structures
were tested with cellular phone emulation and a standard desktop personal
computer (PC). Results indicate that performance was better with the broad
navigation structure for both the cellular phone and the PC. In addition,
performance was better with the PC as compared to the cellular phone, and this
difference was pronounced in the broad structure. The results are discussed in
terms of the impact of device-independent characteristics of the hierarchy
depth along with the theoretical account of increased working memory load,
confusion and disorientation associated more with deep structures.”
York, Judy and Pendharkar, Parag C. (2004): Human-computer interaction issues for mobile computing in a variable work context. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (5) pp. 771-797
“The current paper takes an introspective look at the human-computer
interaction (HCI) issues for mobile computing in a variable work context. We
catalogue the current research in four major categories. The major findings of”
Issue 4
Tanaka, Yuzuru, Ito, Kimihito and Kurosaki, Daisuke (2004): Meme media architectures for re-editing and redistributing intellectual assets over the Web. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (4) pp. 489-526
“While current Web technologies have allowed us to publish intellectual
assets in world-wide repositories, and to browse the resulting massive
accumulation, we have no effective tools yet to flexibly re-edit and
redistribute such intellectual assets for their reuse in different contexts.
Open Hypermedia Systems addressed the problem of augmenting third-party
applications in 90 s, and more recently Web augmentation. We need extended OHS
technologies for the advanced reuse of Web-published intellectual assets
through re-editing and redistributing them. Meme media and meme pool
technologies will work as such extended Open Hypermedia Systems technologies to
annotate, re-edit, and redistribute Web-published assets. This paper reviews
the IntelligentPad and IntelligentBox meme media architectures together with
their potential applications, and proposes both the use of XML/XSL or XHTML to
define two-dimensional meme media objects. When applied to Web contents, meme
media technologies make the World Wide Web operate as a meme pool, where people
can publish their intellectual assets as Web pages, access some Web pages to
extract some of their parts as meme media objects through drag-and-drop
operations, visually combine these meme media objects together with other meme
media objects to compose new intellectual assets, and publish these assets
again as Web pages. Our framework creates a new vista in the circulation and
reuse of our knowledge represented as multimedia documents and/or application
programs, especially in the field of science.”
Matsushita, Mitsunori, Maeda, Eisaku and Kato, Tsuneaki (2004): An interactive visualization method of numerical data based on natural language requirements. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (4) pp. 469-488
“This paper proposes an interactive visualization method to support the
exploration of data in decision-making and problem solving. Since this method
employs an asymmetric communication mode, i.e. taking queries and requests
expressed in a natural language as input and answering them with statistical
charts, it can convert the normally tedious repetitive human-computer
interaction into a felicitous dialogue. This is because the natural language
interface allows users to articulate their requests directly and intuitively,
and charts and graphics have many benefits when analysing a large amount of
data in order to determine overall characteristics or to resolve user
questions. The proposed method resolves the conundrum that the appropriateness
of a chart depends on the context. In this method, two factors are considered
in choosing chart type so as to satisfy the user requirement represented in a
natural language: the type of chart displayed and the type of user utterance.
Our proposed method allows the data to be visualized interactively to match the
changes in the user's viewpoint without interrupting the thinking process.”
Suzuki, Noriko, Kakehi, Kazuhiko, Takeuchi, Yugo and Okada, Michio (2004): Social effects of the speed of hummed sounds on human-computer interaction. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (4) pp. 455-468
“Our research focuses on the nature of voice interaction and activation of
psychological tendencies in humans by the power of prosody sounds. This study
examines whether people's impressions and behaviours are affected by variations
in the speed of hummed sounds. The sounds consist of just prosodic components
similar to continuous humming on the open vowel /a/ or /o/ without any language
information. In interaction between individuals as well as among animals,
temporal structures including voice speed or duration contribute rhythmic
interaction and are closely connected to the participants' dynamics of mental
or emotional states. We think that this phenomenon can be applied to
human-computer interaction, even through the variation in temporal structures
of hummed sounds used to reduce the influence of content or meaning in
language. Our interactive system mimics the prosodic features of the human
voice by using humming-only sounds under three different voice speed
conditions: (a) faster, (b) normal, and (c) slower than the original speaker.
We examine whether the variation in the sound's speed gives rise to both
psychological and behavioural influences in the relationship between the
computer and the subject through interaction. Subjects tend to prefer a
computer with a normal or faster speaking rate to that with a slower rate on
both usefulness and familiarity. Moreover, the speech rate of the subjects
changed inversely to the variation in a computer's hummed sounds. This study
demonstrates the importance of temporal structure and emphasizes the need for
an investigation of the fundamentals at work in interaction.”
Nakanishi, Hideyuki (2004): FreeWalk: a social interaction platform for group behaviour in a virtual space. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (4) pp. 421-454
“FreeWalk is a social interaction platform where people and agents can
socially and spatially interact with one another. FreeWalk has evolved to
support heterogeneous interaction styles including meetings, cross-cultural
encounters, and evacuation drills. Each of them is usually supported by an
individual virtual environment. This evolution extended the capability to
control social interaction. The first prototype only provides people with an
environment in which they can gather to talk with one another while the third
prototype provides them with a whole situation to behave according to their
assigned roles and tasks. FreeWalk1 is a spatial videoconferencing system. In
this system, the positions of participants make spontaneous simultaneous
conversations possible. Spatial movements are integrated with video-mediated
communication. FreeWalk1 is able to make social interaction more casual and
relaxed than telephone-like telecommunication media. In contrast to
conventional videoconferencing systems, people formed concurrent multiple
groups to greet and chat with others. In FreeWalk2, a social agent acts as an
in-between of people to reduce the problem of the low social context in virtual
spaces. When the agent notes an awkward pause in a conversation, it approaches
those involved in the conversation with a suggestion for a new topic to talk
about. We used this agent to support cross-cultural communication between Japan
and US. Our agent strongly influenced people's impressions of their partners,
and also, their stereotypes about their partner's nationality. FreeWalk3 is a
virtual city simulator to conduct virtual evacuation drills. This system brings
social interaction into crisis management simulation. People can join a virtual
scene of a disaster at home. Social agents can also join to play their roles
assigned by simulation designers. The system architecture has a split control
interface to divide control of multiple agents into high-level instruction for
them and simulation of their low-level actions. The interface helps simulation
designers to control many agents efficiently.”
Nakakoji, Kumiyo (2004): Special issue on human-computer interaction research in Japan. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (4) pp. 417-420
Issue 3
Marsico, Maria De and Levialdi, Stefano (2004): Evaluating web sites: exploiting user's expectations. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (3) pp. 381-416
“A new goal-based approach to measure usability of web sites is presented,
strongly taking into account the customers' expectations, which are often
hardly foreseeable as a whole. After a general discussion on web site design
issues, we present a short survey of evaluation methods currently used for web
sites. We next introduce a new taxonomy of site categories in a
three-dimensional space, derived from Aristotle's rhetorical triangle,
including different aspects of the site designer's goals. In our approach, we
use this taxonomy to identify a number of sites belonging to the same category,
in order to carry out a comparative analysis of their features. This analysis
is the basis for a two-shot generation of a form for the evaluation of that
category of sites. In the first shot, the users fill a generic evaluation form,
acquainting them with sites characteristics. They are next asked to perform
specific tasks of their choice, according to what they expect from a site of
the given category. They note their impressions and list those features they
found useful; the analysis of their comments is exploited to formulate
statements specific to the given category, to be added to the initial form
(second shot). We found that the responses to the second, expanded form,
provide more comprehensive criteria for site evaluation, and turn helpful to
precisely locate flaws in site functionalities. After testing, our methodology
has proved very promising and may be applied for the evaluation of any other
site category, most of all those providing a set of special services.”
Swigger, Kathleen M., Alpaslan, Ferda, Brazile, Robert P. and Monticino, Michael (2004): Effects of culture on computer-supported international collaborations. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (3) pp. 365-380
“This paper discusses results of a case study from an on-going project to
investigate how cultural factors, as identified by the Cultural Perspectives
Questionnaire (CPQ), affect the performance of distributed collaborative
learning teams. The results indicate that a team's cultural composition is a
significant predictor of its performance on programming projects. Cultural
attributes most strongly correlated to group performance included those related
to attitudes about organizational hierarchy, organizational harmony, trade-offs
between future and current needs, and beliefs about how much influence
individuals have on their fate. Moreover, the type of programming task affected
the strength of the relationship between individual cultural attributes and
performance. Participants in the study included computer science students from
the University of North Texas (Texas, USA) and students from the Middle East
Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. Students were divided into culturally
diverse work-teams and assigned programming projects to be completed using
special collaborative software. The programming tasks ranged from simple design
projects to more complicated programs that required extensive collaboration.
Cultural distinctions between work-teams were based upon the students'
responses to the CPQ. Project performance was evaluated with respect to
programming accuracy, efficiency, completeness, and style. The results
presented here have important implications for the formation of distributed
collaborations and, in particular, to educational institutions offering
distance-learning programs that require team projects.”
Pace, Steven (2004): A grounded theory of the flow experiences of Web users. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (3) pp. 327-363
“This paper presents a grounded theory of the flow experiences of Web users
engaged in information-seeking activities. The term flow refers to a state of
consciousness that is sometimes experienced by individuals who are deeply
involved in an enjoyable activity. The experience is characterized by some
common elements: a balance between the challenges of an activity and the skills
required to meet those challenges; clear goals and feedback; concentration on
the task at hand; a sense of control; a merging of action and awareness; a loss
of self-consciousness; a distorted sense of time; and the autotelic experience.
The grounded theory research method that was employed in this study is a
primarily inductive investigative process in which the researcher formulates a
theory about a phenomenon by systematically gathering and analysing relevant
data. The aim of this research method is building theory, not testing theory.
The data that was gathered for this study primarily consisted of
semi-structured in-depth interviews with informants of varying gender, age,
educational attainments, occupations and Web experience who could recall
experiencing flow while using the Web.”
Ruddle, Roy A. and Peruch, Patrick (2004): Effects of proprioceptive feedback and environmental characteristics on spatial learning in virtual environments. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (3) pp. 299-326
“The effect of proprioceptive information and environmental characteristics
on spatial learning was investigated when participants repeatedly navigated
complex three-dimensional virtual mazes. Proprioceptive information, provided
by viewing the mazes using a head-mounted display, was found to have little
effect. The primary environmental characteristics were layout orthogonality
(using paths that intersected at either oblique or 90{deg} angles), lines of
sight (controlled using computer-generated "fog"), a visually defined perimeter
and global landmarks. Participants travelled less far in orthogonal than
oblique environments, even when fog was used to make the distance that
participants could see equivalent. The removal of fog caused a further,
substantial reduction in the distance participants travelled, indicating the
importance of extended lines of sight, as predicted by the architectural theory
of space syntax. Global landmarks promoted a similar rate of spatial learning
to a visual perimeter.”
Lavie, Talia and Tractinsky, Noam (2004): Assessing dimensions of perceived visual aesthetics of web sites. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (3) pp. 269-298
“Despite its centrality to human thought and practice, aesthetics has for the
most part played a petty role in human-computer interaction research.
Increasingly, however, researchers attempt to strike a balance between the
traditional concerns of human-computer interaction and considerations of
aesthetics. Thus, recent research suggests that the visual aesthetics of
computer interfaces is a strong determinant of users' satisfaction and
pleasure. However, the lack of appropriate concepts and measures of aesthetics
may severely constraint future research in this area. To address this issue, we
conducted four studies in order to develop a measurement instrument of
perceived web site aesthetics. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor
analyses we found that users' perceptions consist of two main dimensions, which
we termed "classical aesthetics" and "expressive aesthetics". The classical
aesthetics dimension pertains to aesthetic notions that presided from antiquity
until the 18th century. These notions emphasize orderly and clear design and
are closely related to many of the design rules advocated by usability experts.
The expressive aesthetics dimension is manifested by the designers' creativity
and originality and by the ability to break design conventions. While both
dimensions of perceived aesthetic are drawn from a pool of aesthetic judgments,
they are clearly distinguishable from each other. Each of the aesthetic
dimensions is measured by a five-item scale. The reliabilities, factor
structure and validity tests indicate that these items reflect the two
perceived aesthetics dimensions adequately.”
Issue 2
Blandford, Ann, Butterworth, Richard and Curzon, Paul (2004): Models of interactive systems: a case study on programmable user modelling. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (2) pp. 149-200
“Models of interactive systems can be used to answer focused questions about
those systems. Making the appropriate choice of modelling technique depends on
what questions are being asked. We present two styles of interactive system
model and associated verification method. We show how they contrast in terms of
tractability, inspectability of assumptions, level of abstraction and
reusability of model fragments. These trade-offs are discussed. We discuss how
they can be used as part of an integrated formal approach to the analysis of
interactive systems where the different formal techniques focus on specific
problems raised by empirical investigations. Explanations resulting from the
formal analyses can be validated with respect to the empirical data.
The first modelling style, which we term 'operational', is derived directly
from principles of rationality that constrain which user behaviours are
modelled. Modelling involves laying out user knowledge of the system and task,
and their goals, then applying the principles to reason about the space of
rational behaviours. This style supports reasoning about user knowledge and the
consequences of particular knowledge in terms of likely behaviours. It is well
suited to reasoning about interactions where user knowledge is a key to
successful interaction. Such models can readily be implemented as computer
programs; one such implementation is presented here.
Models of the second style, 'abstract', are derived from the operational
models and thus retain important aspects of rationality. As a result of the
simplification, mathematical proof about selected properties of the interactive
system, such as safety properties, can be tractably applied to these models.
This style is well suited to cases where the user adopts particular strategies
that can be represented succinctly within the model.
We demonstrate the application of the two styles for understanding a
reported phenomenon, using a case study on electronic diaries.”
Kim, Mihye and Compton, Paul (2004): Evolutionary document management and retrieval for specialized domains on the web. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (2) pp. 201-241
“Domain-specific information retrieval normally depends on general search
engines, which make no use of domain knowledge and require a user to look at a
linear display of loosely organized search results or handcrafted specialized
systems with a better browsing interface but which are costly to build and
maintain. As an alternative, a Web-based document management and retrieval
system has been developed aimed at small communities in specialized domains.
The system is based on the free annotation of documents by users and is browsed
using the concept lattice of formal concept analysis (FCA). A number of
knowledge acquisition techniques were developed to aid the annotation process.
Experiments were conducted using the system to assist in finding staff and
student home pages at the School of Computer Science and Engineering,
University of New South Wales. Results indicated that the annotation tools
provided a good level of assistance so that documents were easily organized and
a lattice-based browsing structure that evolves in an ad hoc fashion provided
good efficiency in retrieval performance. Results also indicated that the
concept lattice helped take users beyond a narrow search to find other useful
documents. These findings suggest that the concept lattice of FCA, supported by
annotation techniques is a useful way of supporting the flexible open
management of documents required by individuals, small communities and in
specialized domains.”
Kolikant, Yifat Ben-David (2004): Learning concurrency: evolution of students' understanding of synchronization. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (2) pp. 243-268
“This paper describes an investigation of high-school students' understanding
of synchronization as they studied a course in concurrent and distributed
computation. The research followed the students for 2 months, and consisted of
both quantitative and qualitative analysis of the students' performance. We
found that most of the students had a rich understanding of various
synchronization problems. However, many of them developed a pattern-based
technique that successfully solved synchronization problems, thus elegantly
exempting them from dealing with the dynamics of the synchronization
mechanisms; consequently, concepts regarding this theme became inert. Moreover,
we were able to uncover reasonable, yet faulty connections that many students
had made between the new knowledge and their existing knowledge; these
connections were the source of their difficulties. From the findings, we were
able to make valuable recommendations for the next version of the course: (a)
encouraging alternative connections to existing knowledge by redesigning the
instruction, such as representing semaphores in a way that resembles a complex
data structure rather than as variables of type integer, and (b) integrating
knowledge found to be productive by the students into the instruction to anchor
more advanced knowledge, for example utilizing the pattern-based technique as a
tool for correctness verification.”
Issue 1
Schiaffino, Silvia and Amandi, Analia (2004): User-interface agent interaction: personalization issues. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (1) pp. 129-148
“Interface agents are computer programs that provide personalized assistance
to users with their computer-based tasks. Most interface agents achieve
personalization by learning a user's preferences in a given application domain
and assisting him according to them. In this work we adopt a different approach
to personalization: how to personalize the interaction between interface agents
and users in a mixed-initiative interaction context. We have empirically
studied a set of interaction issues that agents have to take into account to
achieve this goal and we present our results in this article. Some of these
personalization issues are: discovering the type of assistant a user wants,
learning when (and if) to interrupt the user, discovering how the user wants to
be assisted in different contexts. As a result of our experiments, we have
defined the components of a user interaction profile that models a user's
interaction and assistance preferences. This profile will enable interface
agents to enhance and personalize their interaction with users by discovering
how to provide each user assistance of the right sort at the right time.”
Besnard, Denis, Greathead, David and Baxter, Gordon (2004): When mental models go wrong: co-occurrences in dynamic, critical systems. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (1) pp. 117-128
“This paper highlights a psychological phenomenon affecting the accuracy of
mental models. It occurs when two consecutive events happen as expected by an
operator. Typically, such a situation reinforces the confidence in one's mental
model. However, consecutive events can happen as a random co-occurrence, for
reasons that actually differ from the ones believed by the operator.
Nonetheless, because of the consistency between the environmental data and the
operator's expectations, one event can be taken to be the cause of the other.
When this false belief happens, the mental model is erroneously assumed to be
valid. We discuss this phenomenon and its potential disastrous consequences
using the example of a real commercial air crash. We finally address some
implications for systems' design and support tools.”
Paradowski, Michael and Fletcher, Adam (2004): Using task analysis to improve usability of fatigue modelling software. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (1) pp. 101-115
“The design of any interactive computer system requires consideration of both
humans and machines. Software usability is one aspect of human-computer
interaction that can benefit from knowledge of the user and their tasks. One
set of methods for determining whether an application enables users to achieve
their predetermined goals effectively and efficiently is task analysis. In the
present study, a task analysis was applied to the graphical user interface of
fatigue modelling software used in industry. The task analysis procedure
allowed areas of usability improvement to be identified and then addressed with
alternate interface prototypes. The present method of task analysis illustrates
a practical and efficient way for software designers to improve software
usability, user effectiveness and satisfaction, by involving users in the
design process.”
McClelland, Kent (2004): The collective control of perceptions: constructing order from conflict. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (1) pp. 65-99
“This article offers a new perspective on sociological theory, based on
psychological insights from Perceptual Control Theory. After describing this
cybernetic model of goal-directed behavior and reviewing its empirical support,
I present results from computer simulations applying the model to the social
interactions of elementary control agents. My key finding is that agents
controlling their own perceptions of a single environmental variable can
stabilize it even when their intentions conflict. The concluding section
discusses implications of this model of collective control processes for the
sources of order, conflict, continuity, and change in social life.”
Shamsfard, Mehrnoush and Barforoush, Ahmad Abdollahzadeh (2004): Learning ontologies from natural language texts. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (1) pp. 17-63
“Research on ontology is becoming increasingly widespread in the computer
science community. The major problems in building ontologies are the bottleneck
of knowledge acquisition and time-consuming construction of various ontologies
for various domains/applications. Meanwhile moving toward automation of
ontology construction is a solution.
We proposed an automatic ontology building approach. In this approach, the
system starts from a small ontology kernel and constructs the ontology through
text understanding automatically. The kernel contains the primitive concepts,
relations and operators to build an ontology. The features of our proposed
model are being domain/application independent, building ontologies upon a
small primary kernel, learning words, concepts, taxonomic and non-taxonomic
relations and axioms and applying a symbolic, hybrid ontology learning approach
consisting of logical, linguistic based, template driven and semantic analysis
methods.
Hasti is an ongoing project to implement and test the automatic ontology
building approach. It extracts lexical and ontological knowledge from Persian
(Farsi) texts.
In this paper, at first, we will describe some ontology engineering
problems, which motivated our approach. In the next sections, after a brief
description of Hasti, its features and its architecture, we will discuss its
components in detail. In each part, the learning algorithms will be described.
Then some experimental results will be discussed and at last, we will have an
overview of related works and will introduce a general framework to compare
ontology learning systems and will compare Hasti with related works according
to the framework.”
Bhatt, G. (2004): Bringing virtual reality for commercial Web sites. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60 (1) pp. 1-15
“In today's competitive environment, a growing number of firms are
establishing their presence in the market space. Even though the potential of
the Internet in shaping business strategies has been widely acknowledged, firms
in an array of industries are still struggling to attract customers through
their Web sites. Based on Steuer's (J. Commun. 42(4) (1992) 73) and Rheingold
(The Virtual Community, ACM/Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1993) arguments on
perceptual experience in the virtual space, we present a theoretical framework
that highlights the relative importance of interactivity, immersion, and
connectivity for attracting customers through a Web site. Interactivity has
been measured through the speed of interactivity, range of interactivity, and
significance. Immersion has been measured through the breadth of immersion and
depth of immersion. Connectivity has been measured through the scope of
connectivity. Through an experimental study, the features of amazon.com,
ebay.com, schwab.com, and victoriasecret.com have been analysed with respect to
interactivity, immersion, and connectivity. We argue that in order to attract
customers through their Web sites, dot-coms are required to balance a trade-off
between interactivity, immersion, and connectively, depending on their business
objectives.”
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22
“ I'm an enemy of what I call 'computer theology.' There's a class conflict out there. There's a techno-elite that lives in a different world. ”
-- Walter Mossberg
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