| Representation of time in digital calendars: An argument for a unified, continuous and multi-granular calendar view | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1-11 | |
| Philipp M. Hund; John Dowell; Karsten Mueller | |||
| Digital calendars have been heavily influenced by the design of the physical
calendar and have invariably adopted their grid representation of days in the
month. We argue that the alternative of a continuous list representation of
successive days would offer several advantages such as faster calendar search,
a more natural linear view of time, a scrollable and zoomable interface and
better scalability for devices of different size. This alternative, linear
calendar appears to be well suited to modern touch-centric platforms with their
refined support for scrolling and zooming.
We tested search performance and navigation with digital calendars in a comparison of grid and list representations by employing a remote, web-based method. On their personal computers, participants performed a series of search tasks in a fictitious calendar. The results show that calendar search is faster in list view when searching for dates, between month breaks and in the next month (with and without navigation). Searching for days is faster in grid view, however, highlighting days in list view eliminates this difference. The results indicate substantial promise for the list view digital calendar and we describe a high fidelity rendering of the user interface for a digital calendar with a list view. Keywords: Digital calendars; Time management; Usability; Interaction techniques; Interface design | |||
| POETIC: Interactive solutions to alleviate the reversal error in student/professor type problems | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 12-22 | |
| Sung-Hee Kim; Daniel Phang; Tuyin An; Ji Soo Yi; Rachael Kenney; Nelson A. Uhan | |||
| The reversal error -- standing issue in mathematics education, despite its
apparent simplicity. In this paper, we describe and study POETIC, an
interactive web-based environment we developed to teach users to avoid the
reversal error. POETIC uses two types of novel interactive visualization,
called the Test-Case and Room-Metaphor approaches. To verify the effectiveness
of these approaches, we conducted crowdsourcing-based comparison studies with
200 participants and found that both approaches significantly decreased the
frequency of reversal errors for certain types of word problems. Our results
show that interactive visualization of equations can reduce the occurrence of
the reversal error. Keywords: Mathematics education; Reversal error; Interactive visualization; Test-Case; Room-Metaphor | |||
| Subjective evaluation of the audiovisual spatial congruence in the case of stereoscopic-3D video and Wave Field Synthesis | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 23-32 | |
| Cédric R. André; Étienne Corteel; Jean-Jacques Embrechts; Jacques G. Verly; Brian F. G. Katz | |||
| While 3D cinema is becoming increasingly established, little effort has been
focused on the general problem of producing a 3D sound scene spatially coherent
with the visual content of a stereoscopic-3D (s-3D) movie. The perceptual
relevance of such a spatial audiovisual coherence is of significant interest.
In this paper, a subjective experiment is carried out where an angular error
between an s-3D video and a spatially accurate sound reproduced through Wave
Field Synthesis (WFS) is simulated. The psychometric curve is measured with the
method of constant stimuli, and the threshold for bimodal integration is
estimated. The impact of the presence of background noise is also investigated.
A comparison is made between the case without any background noise and the case
with an SNR of 4 dBA. Estimates of the thresholds and the slopes, as well as
their confidence intervals, are obtained for each level of background noise.
When background noise was present, the point of subjective equality (PSE) was
higher (19.4° instead of 18.3°) and the slope was steeper (-0.077
instead of -0.062 per degree). Because of the overlap between the confidence
intervals, however, it was not possible to statistically differentiate between
the two levels of noise. The implications for the sound reproduction in a
cinema theater are discussed. Keywords: Spatial congruence; Bimodal integration; Stereoscopic video; Wave Field Synthesis; Psychometric curve; Background noise | |||
| How affective technologies can influence intimate interactions and improve social connectedness | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 33-43 | |
| Joris H. Janssen; Wijnand A. IJsselsteijn; Joyce H. D. M. Westerink | |||
| Affective computing holds the promise of creating effortless, integrated,
and automatic ways of communicating emotions within our intimate social
network. This could augment awareness systems and connectedness devices,
reducing loneliness and improving health and well-being. Through two
experiments, we investigate the effects of quantity and automaticity of emotion
communication on perceived intimacy in mediated settings. In the first
experiment (N=48), we manipulated the number of communicated emoticons. Results
show that increases in communicated emoticon quantity lead to strong increases
in perceived intimacy. In the second experiment (N=34), we compare automatic
and user-initiated communication of emoticons. Results show that user-initiated
communication of emoticons is experienced as more intimate than automatic
communication. These results are discussed in light of the interpersonal
process model of intimacy and can help the design of applications aimed at
improving social interactions through affective communication technology. Keywords: Intimacy; Emotion; Affective computing; Computer-mediated communication | |||
| Distributed user interfaces: Usability and collaboration | | BIB | Full-Text | 44 | |
| Jose A. Gallud; María D. Lozano; Jean Vanderdonckt | |||
| Electronic sketching on a multi-platform context: A pilot study with developers | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 45-52 | |
| Ugo Braga Sangiorgi | |||
| During the past 45 years there has been a recurrence of interest on
supporting sketching at electronic devices and interactive surfaces, and
despite being sketching recognition fairly well addressed on the literature,
the adoption of electronic sketching as a design tool is still a challenge.
The current popularization of touch screen devices allows designers to sketch using their device of preference, while the current multi-platform capabilities made possible by HTML5 allows sketching systems to run on many devices at the same time. Those two factors combined might pose new opportunities for researchers to explore how designers use sketching on flexible setups by combining heterogeneous sketching devices for design sessions. This may arise new possibilities in the field of prototyping user interfaces since, by using such multi-platform systems, designers would now be able of designing interfaces for multiple devices by producing and testing them on the device itself. This paper reports a pilot experiment conducted with 6 developers, grouped into pairs on design sessions using Gambit / a multi-platform sketching system that provides a lightweight approach for prototyping user interfaces for many devices at once. We performed a discourse analysis of the professionals based on recorded videos of interviews conducted during and after design sessions with the system and aggregated the data in order to investigate the main requirements for multi-platform sketching systems. Keywords: Sketching; Multi-platform; User interface design; Discourse evaluation | |||
| An approach for supporting distributed user interface orchestration over the Web | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 53-76 | |
| Sergio Firmenich; Gustavo Rossi; Marco Winckler; Philippe Palanque | |||
| Currently, a lot of the tasks engaged by users over the Web involve dealing
with multiple Web sites. Moreover, whilst Web navigation was considered as a
lonely activity in the past, a large proportion of users are nowadays engaged
in collaborative activities over the Web. In this paper we argue that these two
aspects of collaboration and tasks spanning over multiple Web sites call for a
level of coordination that require Distributed User Interfaces (DUI). In this
context, DUIs would play a major role by helping multiple users to coordinate
their activities whilst working collaboratively to complete tasks at different
Web sites. For that, we propose in this paper an approach to create distributed
user interfaces featuring procedures that are aimed to orchestrate user tasks
over multiple Web sites. Our approach supports flexible process modeling by
allowing users to combine manual tasks and automated tasks from a repertoire of
patterns of tasks performed over the Web. In our approach, whilst manual tasks
can be regarded as simple instructions that tell users how to perform a task
over a Web site, automated tasks correspond to tools built under the concept of
Web augmentation (as it augments the repertoire of tasks users can perform over
the Web) called Web augmenters. Both manual and automated tasks are usually
supported by specific DOM elements available in different Web sites. Thus, by
combining tasks and DOM elements distributed in diverse Web sites our approach
supports the creation of procedures that allows seamless users interaction with
diverse Web site. Moreover, such an approach is aimed at supporting the
collaboration between users sharing procedures. The approach is duly
illustrated by a case study describing a collaborative trip planning over the
Web. Keywords: Distributed user interfaces; Task and process modeling; Web application; Web augmentation; Collaborative Web tasks | |||
| A multi-formalism approach for model-based dynamic distribution of user interfaces of critical interactive systems | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 77-99 | |
| Célia Martinie; David Navarre; Philippe Palanque | |||
| Evolution in the context of use requires evolutions in the user interfaces
even when they are currently used by operators. User Centered Development
promotes reactive answers to this kind of evolutions either by software
evolutions through iterative development approaches or at runtime by providing
additional information to the operators such as contextual help for instance.
This paper proposes a model-based approach to support proactive management of
context of use evolutions. By proactive management we mean mechanisms in place
to plan and implement evolutions and adaptations of the entire user interface
(including behaviour) in a generic way. The approach proposed handles both
concentration and distribution of user interfaces requiring both fusion of
information into a single UI or fission of information into several ones. This
generic model-based approach is exemplified on a safety critical system from
space domain. It presents how the new user interfaces can be generated at
runtime to provide a new user interface gathering in a single place all the
information required to perform the task. These user interfaces have to be
generated at runtime as new procedures (i.e. sequences of operations to be
executed in a semi-autonomous way) can be defined by operators at any time in
order to react to adverse events and to keep the space system in operation.
Such contextual, activity-related user interfaces complement the original user
interfaces designed for operating the command and control system. The resulting
user interface thus corresponds to a distribution of user interfaces in a
focus+context way improving usability by increasing both efficiency and
effectiveness. Keywords: Model-based approaches; Formal description techniques; Interactive software engineering; Automation; Distributed user interfaces; Dynamic reconfiguration of user interfaces | |||
| Designing peer-to-peer distributed user interfaces: Case studies on building distributed applications | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 100-110 | |
| Eli Raymond Fisher; Sriram Karthik Badam; Niklas Elmqvist | |||
| Building a distributed user interface (DUI) application should ideally not
require any additional effort beyond that necessary to build a non-distributed
interface. In practice, however, DUI development is fraught with several
technical challenges such as synchronization, resource management, and data
transfer. In this paper, we present three case studies on building distributed
user interface applications: a distributed media player for multiple displays
and controls, a collaborative search system integrating a tabletop and mobile
devices, and a multiplayer Tetris game for multi-surface use. While there exist
several possible network architectures for such applications, our particular
approach focuses on peer-to-peer (P2P) architectures. This focus leads to a
number of challenges and opportunities. Drawing from these studies, we derive
general challenges for P2P DUI development in terms of design, architecture,
and implementation. We conclude with some general guidelines for practical DUI
application development using peer-to-peer architectures. Keywords: Distributed user interfaces; Case studies; Design principles; Lessons learned; Implementation; DUI toolkits | |||
| Distributed user interfaces in public spaces using RFID-based panels | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 111-125 | |
| Ricardo Tesoriero; Pedro G. Villanueva; Habib M. Fardoun; Gabriel Sebastián Rivera | |||
| The combination and integration of services between mobile computing and
context-aware applications responds to the use of mobile devices defining a
wide range of distributed user interfaces to support social activities. In this
paper, we propose a novel solution that combines social software with context
awareness to improve users' interaction in public spaces. This approach is
based on the concept of collaborative interactive panels where users share
their opinions and ideas about environmental issues by performing natural
gestures. And so, taking advantage of physical resources already available in
public spaces combined with the use of well-known technologies, such as mobile
devices and RFID, we extend the concept of social software from the Web to
physical public scenarios, such as bus stations, squares, etc. As an example,
we present a case of study that encourage citizens' participation in decisions
related to the community environmental issues reducing the gap between the
social software and users. Keywords: Distributed user interfaces; RFID technology; Mobile devices | |||
| Sharing your view: A distributed user interface approach for reviewing emergency plans | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 126-139 | |
| David Díez; Sara Tena; Rosa Romero-Gomez; Paloma Díaz; Ignacio Aedo | |||
| Emergency planning is an ongoing activity in which a multidisciplinary group
of experts intermittently collaborate to define the most appropriate response
to risks. One of the most important tasks of emergency planning is the review
of plans as a way of maintaining, refining, and improving them. This review of
plans is based on exchanging knowledge and experiences in order to take into
account different perspectives and generate alternative solutions. An
exploratory case study carried out within municipal organizations has disclosed
how the application of rigid plan reviewing practices hinders team creativity
and, consequently, effective decision-making. This paper presents a
computer-based collaborative environment aimed at supporting unstructured team
discussion during the post-hoc review of emergency plan. This collaborative
environment allows emergency planning team members to share their view in a
free manner by interacting with user interface components distributed across
several input and output dimensions. The usage of the environment has proved
how the application of new interactive technologies can create more dynamic
work settings, fostering team creativity. Keywords: Emergency planning; Distributed user interfaces; Team collaboration; Creativity | |||
| Study on interaction-induced symptoms with respect to virtual grasping and manipulation | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 141-153 | |
| Yongwan Kim; Jinah Park | |||
| Owing to the popularity of various hand tracking interfaces, there have been
numerous applications developed to provide intuitive hand interaction with the
virtual world. As users start with great anticipation, they end up with
dissatisfaction due to difficulties of manipulation or physical tiredness
coming very short. Although the task itself is rather trivial in a real life
situation, it requires much effort in the virtual environment. We address this
awkwardness as 'VR interaction-induced fatigue symptom' and hypothesize its
causes based on our observations. We argue that the source of the fatigue comes
from the restricted sensory information of the VR interfaces, and that users
try to accommodate the missing sensory feedback by excessive motion leading to
wrong posture or bad timing. We demonstrate our hypothesis by conducting
experiments of two types of virtual interaction scenarios: object transport and
3D selection. Furthermore, by analyzing the behaviors of users' action
collected from our experiment, we derive essential factors to be considered in
designing VR applications, and propose a conceptual interaction model for
orchestrating virtual grasping. Keywords: Virtual reality; Hand interaction; Fatigue symptoms; Difficulty; Grasping; Design guidelines | |||
| Using the health belief model to explore users' perceptions of 'being safe and secure' in the world of technology mediated financial transactions | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 154-168 | |
| Nicola Davinson; Elizabeth Sillence | |||
| Fraudulent transactions occurring via the Internet or Automatic Teller
Machines (ATMs) present a considerable problem for financial institutions and
consumers alike. Whilst a number of technological improvements have helped
reduce the likelihood of security breaches, users themselves have an integral
role to play in reducing technology mediated fraud. This paper focuses on the
role of the user, specifically capturing information about their perceptions
and behaviour when using technology to complete financial transactions.
Semi-structured interviews with twenty-nine participants were conducted to
increase knowledge and understanding in this domain. The findings are guided by
the components of the health belief model (HBM) which is used as a framework
for exploring critical issues associated with behavioural change. Results
indicate that users typically felt safe and secure whilst conducting financial
transactions online and at the ATM. The users' perceived level of threat was
low mainly because they thought it unlikely that they would be a victim of
fraud and because of a reduced sense of responsibility for any negative
outcomes. Whilst users were aware at a superficial level of what fraudulent
activities take place they were less sure about behaviours designed to
counteract fraud and their potential efficacy. Furthermore, security concerns
among ATM users were not as high as concerns among Internet users with Internet
users appearing to take more individual responsibility for their more personal
technologies in more private spaces. The paper concludes with some practical
implications based around the HBM suggesting user focused ways forward for
encouraging secure behaviour. Keywords: Security perceptions; Behaviour change; Internet; ATM; Technology mediated communication; Health belief model | |||
| Capturing "cool": Measures for assessing coolness of technological products | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 169-180 | |
| S. Shyam Sundar; Daniel J. Tamul; Mu Wu | |||
| These days, when we float an idea for an interface or demo a prototype, the
compliment that we crave for is "This is Cool!" Coolness has become a major
design goal for HCI professionals. If we are serious about building Cool into
our products, we should also be serious about measuring it. With this in mind,
we performed a scientific explication of the concept in order to capture the
psychological essence of "coolness," covering a number of characteristics such
as trendiness, uniqueness, rebelliousness, genuineness and utility. Based on
the discourse in the literature, we arrived at a series of questionnaire
measures, which we subjected to an exploratory factor analysis in Study 1
(N=315). The factor structure that emerged was tested through a confirmatory
factor analysis in Study 2 (N=835), in which American and Korean respondents
rated their perceptions of a variety of old and new technologies. Converging
evidence suggests that in order for an interface to be rated as cool, it should
not only be attractive and original, but also help the user assert his/her
uniqueness or subcultural identity. Study 3 (N=317) tested the content validity
of our factors by comparing them with a holistic evaluation of coolness and
arrived at a parsimonious three-factor solution for conceptualizing it in terms
of originality, attractiveness and subcultural appeal. Together, these
constitute tangible user criteria that designers can strategically address and
researchers can systematically measure. Keywords: Coolness; User experience; Concept explication; Survey; Factor analysis; Development of measures; Scale validation | |||
| Designing for human/food interaction: An introduction to the special issue on 'food and interaction design' | | BIB | Full-Text | 181-184 | |
| Rob Comber; Jaz Hee-jeong Choi; Jettie Hoonhout; Kenton O'Hara | |||
| Collectivistic health promotion tools: Accounting for the relationship between culture, food and nutrition | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 185-206 | |
| Andrea G. Parker; Rebecca E. Grinter | |||
| Human/Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers are increasingly examining how
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can help people eat more
healthfully. However, within HCI, there has been little examination of the way
that cultural values influence how people think about food and wellness, and
how sociocultural context supports or impedes attempts to eat healthfully. Our
work focuses on the diet-related health challenges of African Americans within
low-income neighborhoods. This population disproportionately experiences
diet-related disease, and as such, researchers have consistently advocated
research that examines the way in which food practices are culturally situated.
Through formative focus groups with 46 participants we identified several design implications for tools that promote healthy eating while accounting for collectivism, a cultural value often ascribed to the African American population. Based on our design implications we developed, deployed and evaluated two systems that supported the sharing of community-held knowledge about making healthy eating decisions. In our discussion, we present implications for the design of collectivistic systems that address food practices. We conclude with recommendations for HCI research that investigates the relationship between culture and food more broadly. Keywords: Community computing; Collectivism; Culture; Health; Nutrition | |||
| Developing culturally relevant design guidelines for encouraging healthy eating behavior | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 207-223 | |
| Rita Orji; Regan L. Mandryk | |||
| Unhealthy eating behavior is a major contributing factor to the onset of
several diseases and health conditions (e.g., obesity, type 2 diabetes). It is
therefore not surprising that health interventions aimed at modifying dietary
behavior have been identified as the cornerstone treatment for many health
conditions. Interventions that use persuasive technology can be effective for
motivating healthy eating behavior, and recent years have witnessed an
increasing number of persuasive technologies with the purpose of promoting
healthy eating behavior or attitude by manipulating various determinants of
healthy behavior. However, these applications generally take a
one-size-fits-all approach that is biased toward individualistic cultures. To
resolve this problem, we propose culturally relevant design approaches for
tailoring persuasive technology interventions to collectivists and
individualistic cultures. Our guidelines are based on a large-scale survey of
554 participants' (collectivist=306 and individualist=247) eating behavior and
associated determinants / identified by Health Belief Model / to understand how
healthy eating behavior relates to various cultural groups and sub-groups. We
developed two models of healthy eating behavior for the collectivist and
individualistic cultural groups identified by Hofstede, and an additional eight
models to investigate the moderating effect of gender and age on healthy eating
behavior. We then explored the similarities and differences between the models
and developed persuasive profiles of motivators of healthy eating behavior for
each group. Additionally, we proposed two approaches for designing culturally
relevant persuasive applications based on our results. The first is a
one-size-fits-all approach that will motivate the majority of the population,
while not demotivating any user. The second is a personalized approach that
will best motivate a particular cultural group. Finally, to make our approaches
actionable in persuasive intervention design, we map the theoretical
determinants of healthy eating behavior as identified by Health Belief Model to
common persuasive system design strategies. Keywords: Healthy eating; Cultural orientation; Persuasive technology; HBM; Behavior theories; Intervention mapping; Persuasive strategies; Health; SEM; Individualism; Collectivism; Health determinants | |||
| Hybridizing food cultures in computer-mediated environments: Creativity and improvisation in Greek food blogs | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 224-238 | |
| Soo Hee Lee; Marios Samdanis; Sofia Gkiousou | |||
| This paper focuses on the ways in which food blogs influence the evolution
of food cultures in computer-mediated environments. Food blogs provide a unique
setting in which to study individual creativity and improvisation, as they make
everyday food practices visible, pubic and transmittable. This paper proposes a
cultural framework of human/computer interaction (HCI) and applies it to the
context of food blogging. It stresses the effects of remediation on
hybridisation of disciplines, roles and practices, which in turn lead to
individual creative practices in the form of bricolage. Three case studies of
Greek food blogs abroad are analysed to illustrate the proposed framework and
to develop research implications for human/food interaction (HFI). Keywords: Human/food interaction (HFI); Remediation; Hybridisation; Bricolage; Food blogging; Social media | |||
| Tweeting during food crises: A psychosocial analysis of threat coping expressions in Spain, during the 2011 European EHEC outbreak | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 239-254 | |
| Rui Gaspar; Sara Gorjão; Beate Seibt; Luisa Lima; Julie Barnett; Adrian Moss; Josephine Wills | |||
| Food crises imply responses that are not what people and organisations would
normally do, if one or more threats (health, economic, etc.) were not present.
At an individual level, this motivates individuals to implement coping
strategies aimed at adaptation to the threat that has been presented, as well
as the reduction of stressful experiences. In this regard, microblogging
channels such as Twitter emerge as a valuable resource to access individuals'
expressions of coping. Accordingly, Twitter expressions are generally more
natural, spontaneous and heterogeneous -- in cognitive, affective and
behavioural dimensions -- than expressions found on other types of social media
(e.g. blogs). Moreover, as a social media channel, it provides access not only
to an individual but also to a social level of analysis, i.e. a psychosocial
media analysis. To show the potential in this regard, our study analysed
Twitter messages produced by individuals during the 2011 EHEC/Escherichia coli
bacteria outbreak in Europe, due to contaminated food products. This involved
more than 3100 cases of bloody diarrhoea and 850 of haemolytic uraemic syndrome
(HUS), and 53 confirmed deaths across the EU. Based on data collected in Spain,
the country initially thought to be the source of the outbreak, an initial
quantitative analysis considered 11,411 tweets, of which 2099 were further
analysed through a qualitative content analysis. This aimed at identifying (1)
the ways of coping expressed during the crisis; and (2) how uncertainty about
the contaminated product, expressed through hazard notifications, influenced
the former. Results revealed coping expressions as being dynamic, flexible and
social, with a predominance of accommodation, information seeking and
opposition (e.g. anger) strategies. The latter were more likely during a period
of uncertainty, with the opposite being true for strategies relying on the
identification of the contaminated product (e.g. avoid consumption/purchase).
Implications for food crisis communication and monitoring systems are
discussed. Keywords: Food crisis; Coping; Qualitative social media analysis; Crisis communication | |||
| Cooking personas: Goal-directed design requirements in the kitchen | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 255-274 | |
| Steven J. Kerr; Odelia Tan; Jit Chee Chua | |||
| Technology to assist people in the kitchen has become a major research topic
as technology becomes more ubiquitous in the home. Research is being carried
out in numerous areas to assist with cooking, from solving difficulties in the
kitchen to more recently enhancing already good experiences related to cooking.
To design solutions that are not only usable, but useful in all related aspects
of cooking, we must get a good understanding of the needs of the user. It is
important that real needs are identified, so that products or systems designed
are adopted and are sustainable. There are various methods that researchers and
designers use to gain user insights and there is much debate on different
approaches and their effectiveness. Whilst there have been a number of
ethnographic style studies in people's homes, there has been little in the way
of understanding user goals in the kitchen which could lead to more effective
design solutions. In this paper, we present goal-directed research of cooking
needs in Singapore. We produce three primary design personas and three
secondary personas, describing their goals and needs and where they can be
helped through technology. An online survey was carried out to validate our
personas, comparing our qualitative and quantitative findings. We provide a
general holistic overview of kitchen requirements for these personas, whether
in helping correct problems or enhancing positive experiences and how these
needs can be connected. The user requirements provided can help guide
researchers and help designers produce more meaningful, complete and acceptable
technology solutions in the kitchen. Keywords: Personas; Goal-directed design; Cooking needs; User requirements | |||
| Quantifying target spotting performances with complex geoscientific imagery using ERP P300 responses | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 275-283 | |
| Yathunanthan Sivarajah; Eun-Jung Holden; Roberto Togneri; Greg Price; Tele Tan | |||
| Geoscientific data interpretation is a challenging task, which requires the
detection and synthesis of complex patterns within data. As a first step
towards better understanding this interpretation process, our research focuses
on quantitative monitoring of interpreters' brain responses associated with
geoscientific target spotting. This paper presents a method that profiles brain
responses using electroencephalography (EEG) to detect P300-like responses that
are associated with target spotting for complex geoscientific data. In our
experiment, eight interpreters with varying levels of expertise and experience
were asked to detect features, which are likely to be copper/gold rich porphyry
systems within magnetic geophysical data. The target features appear in noisy
background and often have incomplete shape. Magnetic images with targets and
without targets were shown to participants using the "oddball" paradigm. Event
related potentials were obtained by averaging the EEG epochs across multiple
trials and the results show delayed P3 response to the targets, likely due to
the complexity of the task. EEG epochs were classified and the results show
reliable single trial classification of EEG responses with an average accuracy
of 83%. The result demonstrated the usability of the P300-like responses to
quantify the geoscientific target spotting performances. Keywords: Complex image; Event related potential; P300; Target detection | |||
| Analysing interactive devices based on information resource constraints | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 284-297 | |
| José Creissac Campos; Gavin Doherty; Michael D. Harrison | |||
| Analysis of the usability of an interactive system requires both an
understanding of how the system is to be used and a means of assessing the
system against that understanding. Such analytic assessments are particularly
important in safety-critical systems as latent vulnerabilities may exist which
have negative consequences only in certain circumstances. Many existing
approaches to assessment use tasks or scenarios to provide explicit
representation of their understanding of use. These normative user behaviours
have the advantage that they clarify assumptions about how the system will be
used but have the disadvantage that they may exclude many plausible deviations
from these norms. Assessments of how a design fails to support these user
behaviours can be a matter of judgement based on individual experience rather
than evidence. We present a systematic formal method for analysing interactive
systems that is based on constraints rather than prescribed behaviour. These
constraints capture precise assumptions about what information resources are
used to perform action. These resources may either reside in the system itself
or be external to the system. The approach is applied to two different medical
device designs, comparing two infusion pumps currently in common use in
hospitals. Comparison of the two devices is based on these resource assumptions
to assess consistency of interaction within the design of each device. Keywords: Formal analysis; Task analysis; Distributed cognition; IV infusion pumps | |||
| Socially augmented argumentation tools: Rationale, design and evaluation of a debate dashboard | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 298-319 | |
| Luca Iandoli; Ivana Quinto; Anna De Liddo; Simon Buckingham Shum | |||
| Collaborative Computer-Supported Argument Visualization (CCSAV) is a
technical methodology that offers support for online collective deliberation
over complex dilemmas. As compared with more traditional conversational
technologies, like wikis and forums, CCSAV is designed to promote more critical
thinking and evidence-based reasoning, by using representations that highlight
conceptual relationships between contributions, and through computational
analytics that assess the structural integrity of the network. However, to
date, CCSAV tools have achieved adoption primarily in small-scale educational
contexts, and only to a limited degree in real world applications. We
hypothesise that by reifying conversations as logical maps to address the
shortcomings of chronological streams, CCSAV tools underestimate the importance
of participation and interaction in enhancing collaborative knowledge-building.
We argue, therefore, that CCSAV platforms should be socially augmented in order
to improve their mediation capability. Drawing on Clark and Brennan influential
Common Ground theory, we designed a Debate Dashboard, which augmented a CCSAV
tool with a set of widgets that deliver meta-information about participants and
the interaction process. An empirical study simulating a moderately sized
collective deliberation scenario provides evidence that this experimental
version outperformed the control version on a range of indicators, including
usability, mutual understanding, quality of perceived collaboration, and
accuracy of individual decisions. No evidence was found that the addition of
the Debate Dashboard impeded the quality of the argumentation or the richness
of content. Keywords: Computer-supported argument visualization; Grounding process; Common ground; Debate dashboard; Collective deliberation; Visual feedback | |||
| Photo mementos: Designing digital media to represent ourselves at home | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 320-336 | |
| Daniela Petrelli; Simon Bowen; Steve Whittaker | |||
| We examine photos in the family home as examples of mementos, cherished
objects kept in memory of a person or event. In a 'memory tour', we asked
participants to walk us through their family home selecting and discussing
significant mnemonic objects. With each personal narrative we recorded memento
location, i.e. the room, place within the room and any nearby objects. Although
photos were not the most popular mementos, when chosen they were highly
significant, and often unique. These photo mementos were usually not
representational but symbolic, where only the owner knows their many layers of
meaning. Photos from different times in the person's life were strategically
placed in different rooms. Their location afforded different functions, e.g.
photo mementos in family spaces reinforced family bonds, photo mementos in
personal spaces were for immersive reminiscing, whereas those in public rooms
had an aesthetic value and to spark conversations with visitors. Finally photo
mementos were rarely isolated: they were clustered in displayed albums or
stored with other memorabilia in boxes or drawers to represent a stage in life.
We explore the implications of these findings by designing potential new home
photo technologies, looking at how new designs might support the types of
behaviours observed. Through four conceptual designs we examine how photo
technology might integrate into the practices and aesthetic of the family home.
The concepts led to a set of concluding considerations that need to be taken
into account when designing new forms of display technology that are part of a
larger domestic photo system. Keywords: Personal memories; Digital photos; Material culture; Home; Interaction design; Qualitative research; Ethnography | |||
| Computer-supported mindfulness: Evaluation of a mobile thought distancing application on naive meditators | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 337-348 | |
| Luca Chittaro; Andrea Vianello | |||
| The last 2 decades have seen a constantly increasing interest in
mindfulness, due to its positive effects on health and well-being. Recently, a
number of mobile applications aimed at supporting people in practicing
mindfulness techniques have appeared, but their efficacy has not been formally
evaluated yet. In this paper, we first introduce the reader to mindfulness
techniques, traditional as well as computer-based. Then, we propose and
evaluate a mobile application (called AEON) aimed at helping users in
practicing thought distancing, i.e. a mindfulness technique that requires one
not to react in response to his/her thoughts but to be aware of them and
observe them while they go away. AEON allows the user to enter his/her thoughts
and visualize them as written in ink on a parchment placed under water. By
touching the screen, the user can interact with the water and produce waves
that progressively dissolve each written thought. We evaluate AEON on a sample
of naive meditators (i.e. people with no or minimal experience with
meditation), contrasting it with two traditional thought distancing techniques
that are not computer-based. The first traditional technique requires users to
mentally visualize their thoughts as printed on clouds and observe them as they
pass by, while the second requires users to write their thoughts on cards, then
pick up the cards one at a time, look at them and toss them into a wastepaper
basket. AEON obtained better results in terms of achieved mindfulness,
perceived level of difficulty and degree of pleasantness. Since practicing
mindfulness tends to be difficult for naive meditators, these results suggest
that AEON can be a novel and effective way to help them approach mindfulness. Keywords: Mindfulness; Mobile applications; Thought distancing; User study; Naive meditators | |||
| Using cursor measures to investigate the effects of impairment severity on cursor control for youths with cerebral palsy | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 349-357 | |
| Amur Almanji; T. Claire Davies; N. Susan Stott | |||
| Individuals with upper limb impairments due to cerebral palsy encounter
difficulties when using pointing devices and can be limited in communicating
and accessing education tools through computers. Analysis of cursor
trajectories can identify some of the factors limiting cursor movement, and
provide a better understanding of human movement to assist in designing
accessible computer interfaces. This study evaluated cursor trajectories from
29 individuals with bilateral cerebral palsy (CP) and different levels of
function. The functional level was classified based on the MACS (Manual Ability
Classification System). Results show that the contributors to a model that
assesses different MACS levels are the movement time, acceleration/deceleration
cycles and average speed. The model appears unaffected by accuracy measures.
For both typically-developed youth and participants with CP, a good model of
index of difficulty must include the following predictors: rapidity / movement
time, average speed, zero acceleration crossings and accuracy, trajectory
distance, linearity index, and indices of vertical and horizontal components.
Models for those who are typically-developed should also include an index of
diagonal component and curvature index. Keywords: Feature extraction; Path evaluation measures; Human/computer interaction (HCI); Cursor trajectory; Cerebral palsy; Fitts's law | |||
| Predictivity of system delays shortens human response time | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 358-365 | |
| Roland Thomaschke; Carola Haering | |||
| System delays considerably affect users' experience and performance.
Research on the psychological effects of system delays has focused on delay
length and variability. We introduce delay predictivity as a new factor
profoundly affecting user performance. A system delay is predictive when its
duration is informative about the nature of consecutive interaction events. We
report an experiment (N=122) where short delays were differently distributed
across two alternative target stimuli in a choice response task. We manipulated
variability and predictivity of delays. For one group of participants the
delays were of constant duration. For three other groups the delays were
variable, but differed in predictivity. They were either non-predictive,
probabilistically predictive (they predicted the targets with a probability of
0.8), or deterministically predictive. Performance with constant delays was
superior to performance with variable non-predictive or with probabilistically
predictive delays. Surprisingly, participants with deterministically predictive
delays outperformed participants in all other groups. This has important
implications for interface design, whenever there is some degree of freedom in
scheduling system delays. Best performance is achieved with predictive delays,
but only when deterministic predictivity can be achieved. Otherwise, constant
delays are to be preferred over variable ones. Keywords: System delay; Human computer interaction; Predictivity; Predictability | |||
| How should I explain? A comparison of different explanation types for recommender systems | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 367-382 | |
| Fatih Gedikli; Dietmar Jannach; Mouzhi Ge | |||
| Recommender systems help users locate possible items of interest more
quickly by filtering and ranking them in a personalized way. Some of these
systems provide the end user not only with such a personalized item list but
also with an explanation which describes why a specific item is recommended and
why the system supposes that the user will like it. Besides helping the user
understand the output and rationale of the system, the provision of such
explanations can also improve the general acceptance, perceived quality, or
effectiveness of the system.
In recent years, the question of how to automatically generate and present system-side explanations has attracted increased interest in research. Today some basic explanation facilities are already incorporated in e-commerce Web sites such as Amazon.com. In this work, we continue this line of recent research and address the question of how explanations can be communicated to the user in a more effective way. In particular, we present the results of a user study in which users of a recommender system were provided with different types of explanation. We experimented with 10 different explanation types and measured their effects in different dimensions. The explanation types used in the study include both known visualizations from the literature as well as two novel interfaces based on tag clouds. Our study reveals that the content-based tag cloud explanations are particularly helpful to increase the user-perceived level of transparency and to increase user satisfaction even though they demand higher cognitive effort from the user. Based on these insights and observations, we derive a set of possible guidelines for designing or selecting suitable explanations for recommender systems. Keywords: Recommender systems; Decision support; Explanations; Interface design; Collaborative filtering; Tag clouds; User evaluation | |||
| Age differences in the control of a precision reach to grasp task within a desktop virtual environment | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 383-392 | |
| Patrick J. Grabowski; Andrea H. Mason | |||
| The purpose of this experiment is to investigate the fine motor performance
of young and older adults on a reach to grasp task in a desktop virtual
environment with increasing precision requirements. Aging brings about
potential loss of an individual's function due to disease, injury, or the
degenerative nature of aging itself. Three-dimensional virtual environments
have been identified as systems with good potential to ameliorate such problems
in older individuals, and precise fine motor skills represent an important
class of functional skills. Two groups of participants (Young, n=10, mean age
21.3 years, range 20/24, senior, n=10, mean age 70.7 years, range 60/85)
performed a reach to grasp in a desktop virtual environment with simple, low
contrast graphics. Results indicate that visual feedback of the hand for
sensory guidance of movement did not improve motor performance for either
group, and that as precision requirements of the task increased, age group
differences in movement time and peak grasp aperture also increased. These
findings extend the literature on age group differences in human motor control
across the lifespan and differ from previous studies which showed presence of
visual feedback of the hand improved motor performance in young adults.
Differences in luminance contrast levels in past studies and the current one
suggest that control over this feature of the visual scene is an important
design consideration for all end-users and warrants additional investigation.
Additional recommendations for age-specific design of three dimensional user
interfaces include usage of tangibles that are sufficient in size to limit
detrimental effects for older adults. Keywords: Aging; Motor control; Reach to grasp; Virtual environment; Luminance contrast | |||
| Exploration of architectural spaces by blind people using auditory virtual reality for the construction of spatial knowledge | | BIBAK | Full-Text | Corrigendum | 393-407 | |
| Lorenzo Picinali; Amandine Afonso; Michel Denis; Brian F. G. Katz | |||
| Navigation within a closed environment requires analysis of a variety of
acoustic cues, a task that is well developed in many visually impaired
individuals, and for which sighted individuals rely almost entirely on visual
information. For blind people, the act of creating cognitive maps for spaces,
such as home or office buildings, can be a long process, for which the
individual may repeat various paths numerous times. While this action is
typically performed by the individual on-site, it is of some interest to
investigate at which point this task can be performed off-site, at the
individual's discretion. In short, is it possible for an individual to learn an
architectural environment without being physically present? If so, such a
system could prove beneficial for navigation preparation in new and unknown
environments. The main goal of the present research can therefore be summarized
as investigating the possibilities of assisting blind individuals in learning a
spatial environment configuration through the listening of audio events and
their interactions with these events within a virtual reality experience. A
comparison of two types of learning through auditory exploration has been
performed: in situ real displacement and active navigation in a virtual
architecture. The virtual navigation rendered only acoustic information.
Results for two groups of five participants showed that interactive exploration
of virtual acoustic room simulations can provide sufficient information for the
construction of coherent spatial mental maps, although some variations were
found between the two environments tested in the experiments. Furthermore, the
mental representation of the virtually navigated environments preserved
topological and metric properties, as was found through actual navigation. Keywords: Blind people; Visually impaired; Spatial hearing; Binaural; Virtual reality; Spatial cognition; Room acoustic simulation | |||
| Comparative study of the bimanual and collaborative modes for closely coupled manipulations | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 408-421 | |
| Jean Simard; Mehdi Ammi; Anaïs Mayeur | |||
| The interactive manipulation of complicated environments poses a real
challenge since it involves the simultaneous management of several
heterogeneous constraints. For instance, molecular design requires the
simultaneous control of several connected kinematic structures, with strong
physical and chemical interactions, to provide the relevant conformation and
docking solutions. This paper investigates two working strategies for carrying
out closely coupled manipulations in such environments. We present an
experimental study which compares bimanual and collaborative configurations.
For both strategies, we provide users with the same number of resources, such
as the same visualization system and the same number of manipulation tools. The
performances are better in the collaborative configuration for the simultaneous
management of several constraints and the manipulation of distant regions.
However, this working strategy involves a strong communication flow to
coordinate the actions. The performances are better in the bimanual
configuration when the tasks involve a limited working space and a low level of
constraints. Keywords: Collaborative work; Molecular deformation; Haptic interaction | |||
| Audio-augmented paper for therapy and educational intervention for children with autistic spectrum disorder | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 422-430 | |
| Andrea Alessandrini; Alessandro Cappelletti; Massimo Zancanaro | |||
| Autism affects children's learning and social development. Commonly used
rehabilitative treatments are aimed at stimulating the social skills of
children with autism. In this article, we present a prototype and a pilot study
on an audio-augmented paper to support the therapy of children with autism
spectrum disorder (ASD). The prototype supports audio recording with standard
sheets of paper by using tangible tools that can be shared between the
therapist and the child. The prototype is a tool for the therapist to engage
the child in a storytelling activity. We use a progressive design method based
on a dynamic process that merges concept generation, technology benchmarking
and activity design into continuously enriching actions. The paper highlights
the qualities and benefits of using tangible audio-augmented artefacts for
therapy and educational intervention for children with ASD. The work describes
three main qualities of our prototype: from building cooperation to attention
control, flow control, and using the children's own voices to foster attention. Keywords: Autism spectrum disorder; Social competence; Social story; Audio-augmented paper; Interaction design; Tangible user interface | |||
| Playing vibrotactile music: A comparison between the Vibrochord and a piano keyboard | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 431-439 | |
| Carmen Branje; Deborah I. Fels | |||
| A novel vibrotactile musical input device called the Vibrochord, which is
designed to deliver patterns of vibration to the skin, not to the ear, through
the use of a vibrotactile display called the Emoti-Chair, is evaluated using
proposed evaluation frameworks. Findings show that the mixture of frameworks
used in this study provided valuable insight into the design of this novel
musical device. Results obtained through the implementation of a mixture of
these frameworks show that the Vibrochord facilitated an increased accuracy
rate over the traditional piano keyboard, when inexperienced vibrotactile
musicians tried to repeat vibrotactile patterns or "melodies". Keywords: Vibrotactile music; Human factors; HCI; Multimodal; Vibraction vibrochord; Emoti-chair | |||
| Stroke++: A new Chinese input method for touch screen mobile phones | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 440-450 | |
| Jianwei Niu; Yang Liu; Jialiu Lin; Like Zhu; Kongqiao Wang | |||
| Over the past few decades, users have been feeling clumsy inputting Chinese
on mobile devices, partly because the layout of the keyboard/keypad is
originally designed for inputting Latin alphabets. To improve this user
experience, we propose Stroke++, a novel Chinese input method for touch screen
mobile devices. More specifically, Stroke++ provides efficient keypad layout, a
friendly user interface and a intelligent character/phrase candidate set
generation algorithms. Stroke++ splits a Chinese character into multiple
radicals. By leveraging hieroglyphic properties of Chinese characters, our
method requires users to only input a subset of the radicals to identify the
target character, making it much faster and easier to input Chinese on mobile
phones. Our user study results show that Stroke++ outperforms most major
Chinese input methods on mobile devices, including Stroke, Pinyin and Hand
Writing Recognition (HWR), in terms of the input efficiency and usability.
Moreover, we also demonstrate that Stroke++ offers a low entry barrier for
Chinese-input novices. Keywords: Chinese input method; Radical; Mobile phones; Touch screen; Virtual keyboard | |||
| Direct comparison of psychological evaluation between virtual and real humanoids: Personal space and subjective impressions | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 451-459 | |
| Hiroko Kamide; Yasushi Mae; Tomohito Takubo; Kenichi Ohara; Tatsuo Arai | |||
| The aim of this study was to compare psychological evaluations of a robot
constructed using a virtual reality (VR) system (VR robot) with a real robot.
The same design was used for both the VR and real robot in order to make a
direct comparison. For the psychological evaluation, we measured behavioral
reactions (the amount of personal space the participants desired between
themselves and the robot) and subjective impressions (from a psychological
scale). The psychological scale included six dimensions that are typically used
to evaluate a humanoid: utility, clumsiness of motion, possibility of
communication, controllability, vulnerability, and objective hardness.
Sixty-one participants observed both the VR and real robots walking toward them
and reported their level of desired personal space. Next, the participants
evaluated their psychological impressions of the robots. The results indicated
no significant difference in the level of desired personal space between the
situations with the real and VR robots. However, regarding the psychological
dimensions, participants reported higher scores for utility and the possibility
of communication, and lower scores for controllability for the real robot as
compared with the VR robot. The usability of a VR robot is discussed. Keywords: Psychological evaluation; Personal space; Subjective impressions; Virtual reality; Humanoid robot | |||
| ForgetMeNot: What and how users expect intelligent virtual agents to recall and forget personal conversational content | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 460-476 | |
| Deborah Richards; Karla Bransky | |||
| An important aspect of human interaction is our ability to store, retain,
recall and organise information. Memory assists in building rapport and gaining
trust. The growing field of artificial companions involving long term and
casual/social relationships will require appropriate handling of memories of
the user by an Intelligent Virtual Agent (IVA). This is a first study to
determine what types of personal information (i.e., domain/task and
casual/social) users expected an IVA to discuss and remember and how users
responded to various levels of IVA recall and forgetting of that information:
complete recall; total loss of recall; partial recall and incorrect recall. Our
experiment collected conversations and survey responses from participants who
interacted with a virtual real estate agent according to one of two treatments
over three experimental sessions. No significant differences were found in
participants' responses between task-focused or casual/social content, however
a larger sample size may produce different results and some participants were
not comfortable with answering the social questions. Recall was found to
increase the user's enjoyment of interacting with the agent and also to
increase the believability of the character over multiple interactions. We
found that characters who recall information incorrectly are highly
frustrating, are seen as having unnatural memory and this decreases the
believability of the character. However, characters that exhibit forgetting,
either explicitly stating their forgetfulness or not mentioning it at all, are
seen to have a more natural memory and can help to increase the believability
of the character. The study also suggests that forgetting affects the level of
trust the user feels for the character. Keywords: Intelligent virtual agents; Memory; Forgetting | |||
| Why are you so slow? / Misattribution of transmission delay to attributes of the conversation partner at the far-end | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 477-487 | |
| Katrin Schoenenberg; Alexander Raake; Judith Koeppe | |||
| This study addresses the question of how transmission delay affects user
perception during speech communication over telephone systems. It aims to show
that the occurrence of pure delay should not be neglected when planning a
telephone or conferencing system even if no impact on the perceived quality of
the call can be found. It is, for instance, known that, the communication
surface structure changes dramatically when transmission delay is inserted by
the communication system. Furthermore, studies suggest a change in the
perception of the interlocutor at the far-end. This paper describes two
experiments that assess the misattribution of the technical impairment delay to
personality and behavior-related attributes of the conversation partners. The
first experiment shows that interlocutors are perceived as being less attentive
when conversing in a three-party setting with symmetrical and asymmetrical
delay conditions. In the second experiment, the misattribution is considered in
more detail looking at ascribed personality attributes in two-party interaction
under transmission delay. For both experiments, comparing the conversation
surface structure of delayed to non-delayed calls helped to understand the
found outcomes. Keywords: Transmission delay; Conferencing; Conversation analysis; Attentiveness; Personality; Quality | |||
| Prototyping and analysing ubiquitous computing environments using multiple layers | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 488-506 | |
| José Luís Silva; José Creissac Campos; Michael D. Harrison | |||
| If ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) is to enhance physical environments then
early and accurate assessment of alternative solutions will be necessary to
avoid costly deployment of systems that fail to meet requirements. This paper
presents APEX, a prototyping framework that combines a 3D Application Server
with a behaviour modeling tool. The contribution of this framework is that it
allows exhaustive analysis of the behaviour models that drive the prototype
while at the same time enabling immersive exploration of a virtual environment
simulating the proposed system. The development of prototypes is supported
through three layers: a simulation layer (using OpenSimulator); a modelling
layer (using CPN Tools) and a physical layer (using external devices and real
users). APEX allows movement between these layers to analyse different
features, from user experience to user behaviour. The multi layer approach
makes it possible to express user behaviour in the modelling layer, provides a
way to reduce the number of real users needed by adding simulated avatars, and
supports user testing of hybrids of virtual and real components as well as
exhaustive analysis. This paper demonstrates the approach by means of an
example, placing particular emphasis on the simulation of virtual environments,
low cost prototyping and the formal analysis capabilities. Keywords: Ubiquitous and context-aware computing; Modelling; Prototyping; Interactive systems analysis; 3D virtual environments | |||
| Video diary as a means for data gathering with children / Encountering identities in the making | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 507-521 | |
| Netta Iivari; Marianne Kinnula; Leena Kuure; Tonja Molin-Juustila | |||
| This paper examines video diaries gathered from 10/11-year-old pupils with
the aim of inquiring children's technology use in their everyday life. A
discourse lens is utilized to provide novel insights into the nature and use of
videos and diaries in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) research and design. The
paper shows how the children, given the same assignment, produced their video
diaries from a range of different positions such as 'a diarist', 'a news
anchor' and 'a stage performer', and through a variety of widely known genres
such as 'an intimate, confessional diary entry', 'a news broadcast', and 'a
homework assignment'. The children also smoothly moved between the positions
and genres sometimes changing them several times even during one video clip.
Our findings bear implications on two types of HCI research: firstly, studies
using diaries for research and design purposes and, secondly, studies
interested in videos produced by the research subjects. The paper emphasizes
videos and diaries as a multifaceted resource not only revealing facts from the
producers' lives but also playful experimenting with different positions and
genres highlighting constant identity exploration and construction going on
during the creation of the data. During the data analysis it is useful to
consider within what kind of positionings and genres the pieces of data or
'facts' have been created as these genres and positions always frame and limit
what is said and how. The paper also suggests that researchers could try to
guide the research subjects to adopt certain positions and to rely on certain
genres in producing their diaries or video clips to obtain better-focused data
for particular research or design purposes. On the other hand, challenges
involved with this kind of an attempt are also highlighted. Keywords: Video diary; Children; Multimodality; Discourse; Nexus analysis | |||
| Interplay between User Experience (UX) evaluation and system development | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 523-525 | |
| Effie Lai-Chong Law; Silvia Abrahão | |||
| User Experience (UX) is a maturing research area pertaining to as well as
extending beyond the traditional usability. Issues in the realm of usability
may be amplified in UX because of its larger scope. Four key non-orthogonal
issues are definition, modeling, method selection, and interplay between
evaluation and development. Leveraging the legacy of a series of related
research activities, this Special Issue (SI) aims to develop a deeper
understanding of how evaluation feedback shapes software development,
especially when experiential qualities such as fun, trust, esthetic values are
concerned. Three articles addressing this specific topic from different
perspectives and with different approaches are included in this SI. Keywords: User experience; Usability; Software engineering; Interplay; Design; Evaluation | |||
| Attitudes towards user experience (UX) measurement | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 526-541 | |
| Effie Lai-Chong Law; Paul van Schaik; Virpi Roto | |||
| User experience (UX), as a recently established research area, is still
haunted by the challenges of defining the scope of UX in general and
operationalising experiential qualities in particular. To explore the basic
question whether UX constructs are measurable, we conducted semi-structured
interviews with 10 UX researchers from academia and one UX practitioner from
the industry where a set of questions in relation to UX measurement were
explored (Study 1). The interviewees expressed scepticism as well as
ambivalence towards UX measures and shared anecdotes related to such measures
in different contexts. Interestingly, the results suggested that
design-oriented UX professionals tended to be sceptical about UX measurement.
To examine whether such an attitude prevailed in the HCI community, we
conducted a survey / UX Measurement Attitudes Survey (UXMAS) / with essentially
the same set of 13 questions used in the interviews (Study 2). Specifically,
participants were asked to rate a set of five statements to assess their
attitude towards UX measurement, to identify (non)measurable experiential
qualities with justifications, and to discuss the topic from the theoretical,
methodological and practical perspectives. The survey was implemented in a
paper-based and an online format. Altogether, 367 responses were received; 170
of them were valid and analysed. The survey provided empirical evidence on this
issue as a baseline for progress in UX measurement. Overall, the survey results
indicated that the attitude towards UX measurement was more positive than that
identified in the interviews, and there were nuanced views on details of UX
measurement. Implications for enhancing the acceptance of UX measures and the
interplay between UX evaluation and system development are drawn: UX modelling
grounded in theories to link experiential qualities with outcomes; the
development of UX measurement tools with good measurement properties, and
education within the HCI community to disseminate validated models, and
measurement tools as well as their successful applications. Mutual recognition
of the value of objective measures and subjective accounts of user experience
can enhance the maturity of this area. Keywords: User experience; UX measurement; Survey; Experiential quality | |||
| Investigating and promoting UX practice in industry: An experimental study | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 542-551 | |
| Carmelo Ardito; Paolo Buono; Danilo Caivano; Maria Francesca Costabile; Rosa Lanzilotti | |||
| The efforts of addressing user experience (UX) in product development keep
growing, as demonstrated by the proliferation of workshops and conferences
bringing together academics and practitioners, who aim at creating interactive
software able to satisfy their users. This special issue focuses on "Interplay
between User Experience Evaluation and Software Development", stating that the
gap between human-computer interaction and software engineering with regard to
usability has somewhat been narrowed. Unfortunately, our experience shows that
software development organizations perform few usability engineering activities
or none at all. Several authors acknowledge that, in order to understand the
reasons of the limited impact of usability engineering and UX methods, and to
try to modify this situation, it is fundamental to thoroughly analyze current
software development practices, involving practitioners and possibly working
from inside the companies. This article contributes to this research line by
reporting an experimental study conducted with software companies. The study
has confirmed that still too many companies either neglect usability and UX, or
do not properly consider them. Interesting problems emerged. This article gives
suggestions on how they may be properly addressed, since their solution is the
starting point for reducing the gap between research and practice of usability
and UX. It also provides further evidence on the value of the research method,
called Cooperative Method Development, based on the collaboration of
researchers and practitioners in carrying out empirical research; it has been
used in a step of the performed study and has revealed to be instrumental for
showing practitioners why to improve their development processes and how to do
so. Keywords: Software life cycle; Human-centered design; Survey; Interview; Focus group; Cooperative Method Development | |||
| Using sketches and storyboards to assess impact of age difference in user experience | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 552-566 | |
| Giorgio Brajnik; Cristina Giachin | |||
| We compared two versions of a touch-screen digital thermostat using a
framework encompassing several user experience (UX) characteristics, and here
describe how the implementation of certain design factors (specialists,
praises, tooltips and increased interactivity) was done on mixed-fidelity
prototypes of the user interface. We illustrate how the experimental
comparison, involving 20 university students and 20 older adults, revealed
important differences in UX, including perceived ease of use, behavioral
intentions, enjoyment, quality, satisfaction, trust and usability, measured
mainly through established questionnaires.
Analysis revealed that using that kind of artifacts is a very cost effective way to elicit interesting and useful results; many UX variables are significantly affected by design factors and by age differences, as expected; effects of design factors go well beyond usability and therefore could not be caught by running an investigation focused only on usability. Age difference matters: older adults do not respond to addition of specialists, praises and tooltips as younger users do. We argue that potential benefits of these design choices are outweigh by the increase in complexity of the user interface. From a methodological viewpoint we suggest using a particular array of UX characteristics and metrics when testing mixed-fidelity prototypes. Not all the metrics that we adopted were equally useful, and in particular perceived usability, subjective mental effort, and emotions did not help us highlighting differences. Keywords: User experience; Usability; Ambient assisted living; Older adults; Experimental evaluation; Prototypes and storyboards | |||
| A framework for the assessment of synthetic personalities according to user perception | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 567-583 | |
| Zoraida Callejas; David Griol; Ramón López-Cózar | |||
| Endowing artificial conversational agents with personality is a very
promising way to obtain more believable user interactions with robots and
computers. However, although many authors have studied how to create an agent's
personality and how it affects performance and user satisfaction, less
attention has been paid to assess whether the designed agent's personality
corresponds to the users' perception, whether it is easily recognizable, and
what is the effect that the user's own personality has in the discrimination of
the agents' personality. In this paper we present an assessment framework to
address these issues in an integrated way, which in our opinion offers enough
flexibility to consider the diversity of application domains and evaluation
approaches that can be found in the literature. The framework is based on
numerical measures, which facilitate the interpretation of results and makes it
possible to compare and rank different agents with respect to the user's
perception of the rendered personality. In addition, we have developed a tool
that implements the framework, which may be very useful for researchers in
order to easily evaluate different agent personalities. Keywords: Personality; Evaluation; Conversational agents; Human/computer interaction; Human/robot interaction | |||
| HAUSS: Incrementally building a summarizer combining multiple techniques | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 584-605 | |
| Filippo Galgani; Paul Compton; Achim Hoffmann | |||
| The idea of automatic summarization dates back to 1958, when Luhn invented
the "auto abstract" (Luhn, 1958). Since then, many diverse automatic
summarization approaches have been proposed, but no single technique has solved
the increasingly urgent need for automatic summarization. Rather than proposing
one more such technique, we suggest that the best solution is likely a system
able to combine multiple summarization techniques, as required by the type of
documents being summarized. Thus, this paper presents HAUSS: a framework to
quickly build specialized summarizers, integrating several base techniques into
a single approach. To recognize relevant text fragments, rules are created that
combine frequency, centrality, citation and linguistic information in a
context-dependent way. An incremental knowledge acquisition framework strongly
supports the creation of these rules, using a training corpus to guide rule
acquisition, and produce a powerful knowledge base specific to the domain.
Using HAUSS, we created a knowledge base for catchphrase extraction in legal
text. The system outperforms existing state-of-the-art general-purpose
summarizers and machine learning approaches. Legal experts rated the extracted
summaries similar to the original catchphrases given by the court. Our
investigation of knowledge acquisition methods for summarization therefore
demonstrates that it is possible to quickly create effective special-purpose
summarizers, which combine multiple techniques, into a single context-aware
approach. Keywords: Knowledge acquisition; Natural language processing; Automatic summarization; Legal documents | |||
| AttachedShock: Design of a crossing-based target selection technique on augmented reality devices and its implications | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 606-626 | |
| Chuang-Wen You; Yung-Huan Hsieh; Wen-Huang Cheng; Yi-Hsuan Hsieh | |||
| The prevalence of touch devices in daily lives offers increasing
opportunities for users to navigate the real world. However, as users move,
on-screen targets move unpredictably, and eventually disappear from the screen
in mobile navigation scenarios. The changing target movement pattern creates
difficulties in selecting targets in time before targets escape from the
screen. This study proposes a novel selecting technique, AttachedShock, for
easing target selection tasks on augmented reality devices by crossing a
naturally expanding wave pattern attached to targets. We evaluated the
effectiveness of our technique by conducting three sets of comparative studies
on measuring the performance of four techniques under various mobile navigation
scenarios, i.e., various combinations of the identified factors. The results
indicate that the proposed technique assists users in selecting moving targets
to improve the error rate substantially, by a minimum of 76.51%, 61.75%, and
72.77% in Experiment-I, -II, and -III relative to state-of-the-art techniques,
and incurs acceptable distractions to users, compared to other techniques. Keywords: Target acquisition; Moving target selection | |||
| Emotional Wellbeing | | BIB | Full-Text | 627-628 | |
| David Coyle; Anja Thieme; Conor Linehan; Madeline Balaam; Jayne Wallace; Siân Lindley | |||
| Designing audio-enhanced paper photos for older adult emotional wellbeing in communication therapy | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 629-639 | |
| Anne Marie Piper; Nadir Weibel; James D. Hollan | |||
| This article introduces audio-enhanced paper photos enabled by digital pen
technology as an interaction paradigm for supporting and understanding
emotional wellbeing in late adulthood, particularly in the context of
communication therapy activities and related social interactions. We describe
the development of a multimodal pen-based system that enables creation of
audio-enhanced paper photos and the application of this technology to two
domains: older adults with aphasia working to regain expressive and receptive
language after a stroke, and older adults wanting to interact with a family
member of advanced age with memory loss. Our pen-based authoring software
enables caregivers, both therapists and family members, to create
audio-enhanced paper photos to encourage meaningful and emotionally appropriate
interaction with the older adults they support. We examine the ways in which
emotional information is embedded in audio-enhanced photos and how this
approach addresses various aspects of emotional wellbeing in late adulthood. Keywords: Emotional wellbeing; Digital pen; Communication; Older adults; Therapy; Audio | |||
| Exploring ambient technology for connecting hospitalised children with school and home | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 640-653 | |
| Greg Wadley; Frank Vetere; Liza Hopkins; Julie Green; Lars Kulik | |||
| Children undergoing long-term hospital care face problems of isolation from
their familiar home and school environments. This isolation has an impact on
the emotional wellbeing of the child. In this paper we report on research that
explores the design of technologies that mitigate some of the negative aspects
of separation, while respecting the sensitivities of the hospital, school and
home contexts. We conducted design workshops with parents, teachers and
hospital staff and found that there was a strong desire for mediated
connection, but also a significant need to protect privacy and avoid
disruption. In response we designed a novel technology that combined an ambient
presence with photo-sharing to connect hospitalised children with schools and
families. This paper reports on the field trial of the technology. The research
provides new insights into how technology can support connectedness and
provides a foundation for contributing to the wellbeing of children and young
people in sensitive settings. Keywords: Hospitalised children; Social connectedness; Wellbeing; Ambient technology; Awareness; Photo sharing | |||
| Switch on to games: Can digital games aid post-work recovery? | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 654-662 | |
| Emily Collins; Anna L. Cox | |||
| Recovery is a necessary factor in avoiding work-related strain and in
feeling prepared for the next day of work. In order for recovery to be
successful, an individual must experience psychological detachment from work,
relaxation, mastery experiences and a sense of control, all of which have been
argued to be assisted by digital game use. However, it is unclear whether these
associations will be greater for certain digital game genres, or whether this
would extend to other recovery-related outcomes, for instance work home
interference (WHI), where the stress from work interferes with home-life. These
factors may be vital in determining whether interventions aimed at improving
recovery using digital games would be effective, and what form these should
take. The present research surveyed 491 participants and found that the total
number of hours spent playing digital games per week was positively correlated
with overall recovery. Correlations varied with genre, highlighting the
importance of game characteristics in this relationship: first person shooters
and action games were most highly correlated with recovery. Moreover, digital
game use was not related to a reduction in work/home interference. When
restricting the analysis to gamers who report to have developed online
relationships, online social support mediated the relationship between digital
game use and recovery. Results are discussed in terms of how digital games may
be utilised to improve recovery and reduce work-related stress. Keywords: Recovery from work; Digital games; Wellbeing; Work-related stress | |||
| Affective computing vs. affective placebo: Study of a biofeedback-controlled game for relaxation training | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 663-673 | |
| Luca Chittaro; Riccardo Sioni | |||
| Relaxation training is an application of affective computing with important
implications for health and wellness. After detecting user's affective state
through physiological sensors, a relaxation training application can provide
the user with explicit feedback about his/her detected affective state. This
process (biofeedback) can enable an individual to learn over time how to change
his/her physiological activity for the purposes of improving health and
performance. In this paper, we provide three contributions to the field of
affective computing for health and wellness. First, we propose a novel
application for relaxation training that combines ideas from affective
computing and games. The game detects user's level of stress and uses it to
influence the affective state and the behavior of a 3D virtual character as a
form of embodied feedback. Second, we compare two algorithms for stress
detection which follow two different approaches in the affective computing
literature: a more practical and less costly approach that uses a single
physiological sensor (skin conductance), and a potentially more accurate
approach that uses four sensors (skin conductance, heart rate, muscle activity
of corrugator supercilii and zygomaticus major). Third, as the central
motivation of our research, we aim to improve the traditional methodology
employed for comparisons in affective computing studies. To do so, we add to
the study a placebo condition in which user's stress level, unbeknown to
him/her, is determined pseudo-randomly instead of taking into account his/her
physiological sensor readings. The obtained results show that only the feedback
presented by the single-sensor algorithm was perceived as significantly more
accurate than the placebo. If the placebo condition was not included in the
study, the effectiveness of the two algorithms would have instead appeared
similar. This outcome highlights the importance of using more thorough
methodologies in future affective computing studies. Keywords: Affective computing; Placebo effect; Evaluation methods; Biofeedback; Embodiment; Relaxation; Training; Virtual characters | |||
| Interactively mediating experiences of mindfulness meditation | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 674-688 | |
| Jay Vidyarthi; Bernhard E. Riecke | |||
| Sonic Cradle is a human/computer interaction paradigm designed to foster
meditative attentional patterns. A user's body is suspended comfortably in a
completely dark sound chamber while the interaction paradigm subtly encourages
them to focus on their breathing to summon and progressively shape an abstract
immersive sound experience. Basic interpretive qualitative methods with a
purposive sample of 39 participants were used to systematically analyze
interview data after a 15-min experience of the system. Results suggest that
this persuasive medium can pleasantly encourage an experience comparable to
mindfulness by consistently inducing a calm mental clarity and loss of
intention. Surprisingly, participants also reported perceptual illusions,
feelings of floating, and emotional responses. Mounting evidence implies
mindfulness meditation as an effective practice for self-regulation; this study
represents a first step toward realizing technology's potential to increase
wellbeing by introducing people to this psychologically beneficial
contemplative practice. Keywords: Respiration; Mindfulness; Stress; Biofeedback; Qualitative; Music; Persuasive technology; Immersive systems; Engagement; Emotion | |||
| Augmenting graphical user interfaces with haptic assistance for motion-impaired operators | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 689-703 | |
| C. T. Asque; A. M. Day; S. D. Laycock | |||
| Haptic assistance is an emerging field of research that is designed to
improve human/computer interaction (HCI) by reducing error rates and targeting
times through the use of force feedback. Haptic feedback has previously been
investigated to assist motion-impaired computer users, however, limitations
such as target distracters have hampered its integration with graphical user
interfaces (GUIs). In this paper two new haptic assistive techniques are
presented that utilise the 3DOF capabilities of the Phantom Omni. These are
referred to as deformable haptic cones and deformable virtual switches. The
assistance is designed specifically to enable motion-impaired operators to use
existing GUIs more effectively. Experiment 1 investigates the performance
benefits of the new haptic techniques when used in conjunction with the densely
populated Windows on-screen keyboard (OSK). Experiment 2 utilises the ISO
9241-9 point-and-click task to investigate the effects of target size and
shape. The results of the study prove that the newly proposed techniques
improve interaction rates and can be integrated with existing software without
many of the drawbacks of traditional haptic assistance. Deformable haptic cones
and deformable virtual switches were shown to reduce the mean number of
missed-clicks by at least 75% and reduce targeting times by at least 25%. Keywords: Haptic assistance; Haptics; Computer accessibility; Human/computer interaction | |||
| Lessons learned: Evaluating visualizations for occluded objects in handheld augmented reality | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 704-716 | |
| Arindam Dey; Christian Sandor | |||
| Handheld devices like smartphones and tablets have emerged as one of the
most promising platforms for Augmented Reality (AR). The increased usage of
these portable handheld devices has enabled handheld AR applications to reach
the end-users; hence, it is timely and important to seriously consider the user
experience of such applications. AR visualizations for occluded objects enable
an observer to look through objects. AR visualizations have been predominantly
evaluated using Head-Worn Displays (HWDs), handheld devices have rarely been
used. However, unless we gain a better understanding of the perceptual and
cognitive effects of handheld AR systems, effective interfaces for handheld
devices cannot be designed. Similarly, human perception of AR systems in
outdoor environments, which provide a higher degree of variation than indoor
environments, has only been insufficiently explored.
In this paper, we present insights acquired from five experiments we performed using handheld devices in outdoor locations. We provide design recommendations for handheld AR systems equipped with visualizations for occluded objects. Our key conclusions are the following: (1) Use of visualizations for occluded objects improves the depth perception of occluded objects akin to non-occluded objects. (2) To support different scenarios, handheld AR systems should provide multiple visualizations for occluded objects to complement each other. (3) Visual clutter in AR visualizations reduces the visibility of occluded objects and deteriorates depth judgment; depth judgment can be improved by providing clear visibility of the occluded objects. (4) Similar to virtual reality interfaces, both egocentric and exocentric distances are underestimated in handheld AR. (5) Depth perception will improve if handheld AR systems can dynamically adapt their geometric field of view (GFOV) to match the display field of view (DFOV). (6) Large handheld displays are hard to carry and use; however, they enable users to better grasp the depth of multiple graphical objects that are presented simultaneously. Keywords: Augmented reality; Handheld devices; Experiments; Visualizations for occluded objects; Outdoor environments | |||
| Comparative analysis of emotion estimation methods based on physiological measurements for real-time applications | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 717-727 | |
| Davor Kukolja; Siniša Popovic; Marko Horvat; Bernard KovaÃ; Krešimir Cosic | |||
| In order to improve intelligent Human-Computer Interaction it is important
to create a personalized adaptive emotion estimator that is able to learn over
time emotional response idiosyncrasies of individual person and thus enhance
estimation accuracy. This paper, with the aim of identifying preferable methods
for such a concept, presents an experiment-based comparative study of seven
feature reduction and seven machine learning methods commonly used for emotion
estimation based on physiological signals. The analysis was performed on data
obtained in an emotion elicitation experiment involving 14 participants.
Specific discrete emotions were targeted with stimuli from the International
Affective Picture System database. The experiment was necessary to achieve the
uniformity in the various aspects of emotion elicitation, data processing,
feature calculation, self-reporting procedures and estimation evaluation, in
order to avoid inconsistency problems that arise when results from studies that
use different emotion-related databases are mutually compared. The results of
the performed experiment indicate that the combination of a multilayer
perceptron (MLP) with sequential floating forward selection (SFFS) exhibited
the highest accuracy in discrete emotion classification based on physiological
features calculated from ECG, respiration, skin conductance and skin
temperature. Using leave-one-session-out crossvalidation method, 60.3% accuracy
in classification of 5 discrete emotions (sadness, disgust, fear, happiness and
neutral) was obtained. In order to identify which methods may be the most
suitable for real-time estimator adaptation, execution and learning times of
emotion estimators were also comparatively analyzed. Based on this analysis,
preferred feature reduction method for real-time estimator adaptation was
minimum redundancy / maximum relevance (mRMR), which was the fastest approach
in terms of combined execution and learning time, as well as the second best in
accuracy, after SFFS. In combination with mRMR, highest accuracies were
achieved by k-nearest neighbor (kNN) and MLP with negligible difference (50.33%
versus 50.54%); however, mRMR+kNN is preferable option for real-time estimator
adaptation due to considerably lower combined execution and learning time of
kNN versus MLP. Keywords: Affective computing; Physiology; Emotion estimation; Feature reduction; Machine learning | |||
| The design of hand gestures for human/computer interaction: Lessons from sign language interpreters | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 728-735 | |
| David Rempel; Matt J. Camilleri; David L. Lee | |||
| The design and selection of 3D modeled hand gestures for human/computer
interaction should follow principles of natural language combined with the need
to optimize gesture contrast and recognition. The selection should also
consider the discomfort and fatigue associated with distinct hand postures and
motions, especially for common commands. Sign language interpreters have
extensive and unique experience forming hand gestures and many suffer from hand
pain while gesturing. Professional sign language interpreters (N=24) rated
discomfort for hand gestures associated with 47 characters and words and 33
hand postures. Clear associations of discomfort with hand postures were
identified. In a nominal logistic regression model, high discomfort was
associated with gestures requiring a flexed wrist, discordant adjacent fingers,
or extended fingers. These and other findings should be considered in the
design of hand gestures to optimize the relationship between human cognitive
and physical processes and computer gesture recognition systems for
human/computer input. Keywords: Gesture-based interaction; Computer interface; Hand postures; Multi-touch; Computer input | |||
| Mediating intimacy in long-distance relationships using kiss messaging | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 736-746 | |
| Elham Saadatian; Hooman Samani; Rahul Parsani; Anshul Vikram Pandey; Jinhui Li; Lenis Tejada; Adrian David Cheok; Ryohei Nakatsu | |||
| Intimate interactions between remotely located individuals are not well
supported by conventional communication tools, mainly due to the lack of
physical contact. Also, haptic research has not focused on the use of a kiss as
a mode of interaction that maintains intimacy in long distance relationships.
In this study, we designed and developed a haptic device called Kissenger
(Kiss-Messenger) for this issue. Kissenger is an interactive device that
provides a physical interface for transmitting a kiss between two remotely
connected people. Each device is paired with another and the amount of force
and shape of the kiss by the user is sensed and transmitted to another device
that is replicated using actuators. Kissenger is designed to augment already
existing remote communication technologies. Challenges in the design and
development of the system are addressed through an iterative design process
involving constant evaluation by users after each stage. The devices are
evaluated through a short- and a long-term user study with remotely located
couples. The results point to an initial acceptance of the device with feedback
from the users on directions to improve the overall experience. This study
discusses potential issues that designers should be aware of when prototyping
for remote intimate interactions. Keywords: Kiss transmission; Tangible user interface; Haptic interpersonal communication; Remote tactile communication; Kissenger | |||
| Impressions of computer and human agents after interaction: Computer identity weakens power but not goodness impressions | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 747-756 | |
| Daniel B. Shank | |||
| Although computer agents routinely replace people as companies'
representatives, few researchers consider the impressions customers develop
about these computers and humans in the same organizational positions. I ask:
how do customers develop impressions of the goodness and power for computers
agents compared to human agents? I propose a theoretical model by which the
agent's computer identity weakens social processes that lead to goodness and
power impressions. This model explains conflicting prior research and proposes
specific hypotheses for the current study. I test the hypotheses with a
laboratory experiment where participants believe they are buying products
online from a representative of a real organization. I manipulate product
quality to alter goodness impressions, the organization's constraint of the
representative to alter power impressions, and human versus computer identity
to test the hypothesized weakening interaction effects. The weakening
hypothesis for goodness is not supported, while the weakening hypothesis for
power is fully supported. Future work should test the goodness and power
weakening hypotheses under different conditions and with different
manipulations to determine under what conditions the former operates and to
provide additional support for the latter. Keywords: Impressions; Computer-mediated communication; Organizations; Valence; Potency | |||
| Empirical analysis of GUI programming concerns | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 757-771 | |
| Zarko Mijailovic; Dragan Milicev | |||
| The focus of this paper is on identification of typical graphical user
interface (GUI) programming concerns. As opposed to some other proposals
available in the literature that indicate GUI programming concerns by simple
intuition, we have conducted a systematic empirical analysis to derive our
proposal. It included an analysis of an existing application programming
interface (API), its use in industrial projects, and an analysis of the
requirements and issues reported during software maintenance. In addition, we
have evaluated more than 50 GUI frameworks and APIs and proved usefulness and
generality of our classification of concerns. As an additional proof of
applicability of the proposed classification, we have refactored the
inheritance hierarchy of the selected GUI API using concern-oriented
interfaces. We have implemented a supporting tool that complements the
developed API and supports its concern-oriented use. The evaluation of the
refactored API showed positive effects on API usability. Keywords: Graphical user interfaces (GUI); GUI programming; GUI application programming interface (API); GUI concerns; Separation of concerns | |||
| Operators' adaptation to imperfect automation / Impact of miss-prone alarm systems on attention allocation and performance | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 772-782 | |
| Linda Onnasch; Stefan Ruff; Dietrich Manzey | |||
| Operators in complex environments are often supported by alarm systems that
indicate when to shift attention to certain tasks. As alarms are not perfectly
reliable, operators have to select appropriate strategies of attention
allocation to compensate for unreliability and to maintain overall performance.
This study explores how humans adapt to differing alarm reliabilities. Within a
multi-task simulation consisting of a monitoring task and two other concurrent
tasks, participants were assigned to one of five groups. In the manual control
group none of the tasks was supported by an alarm system, whereas the four
experimental groups were supported in the monitoring task by a miss-prone alarm
system differing in reliability, i.e. 68.75%, 75%, 87.5%, 93.75%. Compared to
the manual control group, all experimental groups benefited from the support by
alarms, with best performance for the highest reliability condition. However,
for the lowest reliability group the benefit was associated with an increased
attentional effort, a more demanding attention allocation strategy, and a
declined relative performance in a concurrent task. Results are discussed in
the context of recent automation research. Keywords: Alarm systems; Reliability; Miss-prone automation; Attention allocation; Adaptive behaviour | |||
| How social distance shapes human/robot interaction | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 783-795 | |
| Yunkyung Kim; Bilge Mutlu | |||
| This paper investigates how social distance can serve as a lens through
which we can understand human/robot relationships and develop guidelines for
robot design. In two studies, we examine the effects of distance based on
physical proximity (proxemic distance), organizational status (power distance),
and task structure (task distance) on people's experiences with and perceptions
of a humanlike robot. In Study 1, participants (n=32) played a card-matching
game with a humanlike robot. We manipulated the power distance (supervisor vs.
subordinate) and proxemic distance (close vs. distant) between participants and
the robot. Participants who interacted with the supervisor robot reported a
more positive user experience when the robot was close than when the robot was
distant, while interactions with the subordinate robot resulted in a more
positive experience when the robot was distant than when the robot was close.
In Study 2, participants (n=32) played the game in two different task distances
(cooperation vs. competition) and proxemic distances (close vs. distant).
Participants who cooperated with the robot reported a more positive experience
when the robot was distant than when it was close. In contrast, competing with
the robot resulted in a more positive experience when it was close than when
the robot was distant. The findings from the two studies highlight the
importance of consistency between the status and proxemic behaviors of the
robot and of task interdependency in fostering cooperation between the robot
and its users. This work also demonstrates how social distance may guide
efforts toward a better understanding of human/robot interaction and the
development of effective design guidelines. Keywords: Social distance; Human/robot interaction; Power distance; Task distance; Proxemic distance; User experience | |||
| A study of detecting and combating cybersickness with fuzzy control for the elderly within 3D virtual stores | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 796-804 | |
| Cheng-Li Liu | |||
| Elderly individuals can access online 3D virtual stores from their homes to
make purchases. However, most virtual environments (VEs) often elicit physical
responses to certain types of movements in the VEs. Some users exhibit symptoms
that parallel those of classical motion sickness, called cybersickness, both
during and after the VE experience. This study investigated the factors that
contribute to cybersickness among the elderly when immersed in a 3D virtual
store. The results of the first experiment show that the simulator sickness
questionnaire (SSQ) scores increased significantly by the reasons of
navigational rotating speed and duration of exposure. Based on these results, a
warning system with fuzzy control for combating cybersickness was developed.
The results of the second and third experiments show that the proposed system
can efficiently determine the level of cybersickness based on the fuzzy sets
analysis of operating signals from scene rotating speed and exposure duration,
and subsequently combat cybersickness. Keywords: Navigational rotating speed; Cybersickness; Elderly; Virtual store; Fuzzy control | |||
| A model of scrolling on touch-sensitive displays | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 805-821 | |
| Jian Zhao; R. William Soukoreff; Xiangshi Ren; Ravin Balakrishnan | |||
| Scrolling interaction is a common and frequent activity allowing users to
browse content that is initially off-screen. With the increasing popularity of
touch-sensitive devices, gesture-based scrolling interactions (e.g., finger
panning and flicking) have become an important element in our daily interaction
vocabulary. However, there are currently no comprehensive user performance
models for scrolling tasks on touch displays. This paper presents an empirical
study of user performance in scrolling tasks on touch displays. In addition to
three geometrical movement parameters -- world scrolling tasks, which are drawn
from the analysis and observations of user scrolling actions. The results of a
control experiment reveal that our model generalizes well for direct-touch
scrolling tasks, accommodating different movement parameters, scrolling modes
and feedback techniques. Also, the supporting blocks of the model, the four
basic assumptions and three important mathematical components, are validated by
the experimental data. In-depth comparisons with existing models of similar
tasks indicate that our model performs the best under different measurement
criteria. Our work provides a theoretical foundation for modeling sophisticated
scrolling actions, as well as offers insights into designing scrolling
techniques for next-generation touch input devices. Keywords: Modeling; Touch displays; Scrolling; Fitts' law | |||
| A function-to-task process model for adaptive automation system design | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 822-834 | |
| Jason M. Bindewald; Michael E. Miller; Gilbert L. Peterson | |||
| Adaptive automation systems allow the user to complete a task seamlessly
with a computer performing tasks at which the human operator struggles. Unlike
traditional systems that allocate functions to either the human or the machine,
adaptive automation varies the allocation of functions during system operation.
Creating these systems requires designers to consider issues not present during
static system development. To assist in adaptive automation system design, this
paper presents the concept of inherent tasks and takes advantage of this
concept to create the function-to-task design process model. This process model
helps the designer determine how to allocate functions to the human, machine,
or dynamically between the two. An illustration of the process demonstrates the
potential complexity within adaptive automation systems and how the process
model aids in understanding this complexity during early stage design. Keywords: Adaptive automation; Function allocation; Man/machine allocation; Inherent tasks; Interaction design | |||
| Overcoming the pitfalls of ontology authoring: Strategies and implications for tool design | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 835-845 | |
| Markel Vigo; Samantha Bail; Caroline Jay; Robert Stevens | |||
| The process of authoring ontologies appears to be fragmented across several
tools and workarounds, and there exists no well accepted framework for common
authoring tasks such as exploring ontologies, comparing versions, debugging,
and testing. This lack of an adequate and seamless tool chain potentially
hinders the broad uptake of ontologies, especially OWL, as a knowledge
representation formalism. We start to address this situation by presenting
insights from an interview-based study with 15 ontology experts. We uncover the
tensions that may emerge between ontology authors including antagonistic
ontology building styles (definition-driven vs. manually crafted hierarchies).
We identify the problems reported by the ontology authors and the strategies
they employ to solve them. These data are mapped to a set of key design
recommendations, which should inform and guide future efforts for improving
ontology authoring tool support, thus opening up ontology authoring to a new
generation of users. We discuss future research avenues in light of these
results. Keywords: Ontologies; Semantic web; Authoring tools | |||
| Effects of device obtrusion and tool-hand misalignment on user performance and stiffness perception in visuo-haptic mixed reality | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 846-859 | |
| L. Barbieri; F. Bruno; F. Cosco; M. Muzzupappa | |||
| The Visuo-Haptic Mixed Reality (VHMR) is a branch of the Mixed Reality (MR)
that is acquiring more and more interest in the recent years. Its success is
due to the ability of merging visual and tactile perceptions of both virtual
and real objects with a collocated approach. Like any emerging technology, the
development of the VHMR systems is accompanied by challenges that, in this
case, deals with the efforts to enhance the multi-modal human perception with
the user-computer interface and interaction devices at the moment available.
This paper deals with two of the typical problems related to VHMR systems, that are device obtrusion and tool/hand misalignment, and suggests solutions whose effectiveness has been tested by means of user studies. First, the paper analyzes the obtrusion problem and the benefits that users may gain performing task in a mixed environment with unobstructed haptic feedback, performed by means of a novel technique. Secondly, it investigates the effects of tool/hand misalignment on user perception and verifies the efficacy of a proposed misalignment correction technique by means of a comparative user test. Experimental results show that users would benefit from using the proposed unobstructed visuo-haptic approach and the misalignment compensation technique. These enhancements demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed solutions and at the same time get stronger the awareness that obtrusion and misalignment problems are fundamental issues to take into account for producing a realistic perception of a visuo-haptic mixed environment. Keywords: Visuo-Haptic Mixed Reality; Occlusion handling; Haptic interaction; User evaluation | |||
| Hierarchy of users' web passwords: Perceptions, practices and susceptibilities | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 860-874 | |
| S. M. Taiabul Haque; Matthew Wright; Shannon Scielzo | |||
| In this study, we propose a hierarchy of password importance, and we use an
experiment to examine the degree of similarity between passwords for
lower-level (e.g. news portal) and higher-level (e.g. banking) websites in this
hierarchy. We asked subjects to construct passwords for websites at both
levels. Leveraging the lower-level passwords along with a dictionary attack, we
successfully cracked almost one-third of the subjects' higher-level passwords.
In a survey, subjects reported frequently reusing higher-level passwords, with
or without modifications, as well as using a similar process to construct both
levels of passwords. We thus conclude that unsafely shared or leaked
lower-level passwords can be used by attackers to crack higher-level passwords. Keywords: Security; Usability; Password; Survey | |||
| Corrigendum to "Exploration of architectural spaces by blind people using auditory virtual reality for the construction of spatial knowledge" [Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud. 72 (4) (2014) 393-407] | | BIB | Full-Text | 875 | |
| Lorenzo Picinali; Amandine Afonso; Michel Denis; Brian F. G. Katz | |||