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ABSTRACTSUsing ‘Endowed Props’ In Scenario-Based Design.Steve Howard, The University of MelbourneJennie Carroll, The University of Melbourne John Murphy, Novell Jane Peck, Novell We have developed a form of scenario-based design that aims to increase stakeholders’ sense of ‘immersion’ in the happenings and situations depicted in the scenarios. In our approach, scenarios are ‘acted out’ by actors and/or candidate users during participatory design sessions, rather than being ‘walked through’ by designers and users. In form, our scenarios are bare and malleable and load on the context of use more than the activities and objectives of the candidate users. In usage, our scenarios play a role similar to stage directions in theatrical performance. Props are a vital accompaniment to such scenarios. Props focus the attention of the design team and stakeholders during participatory design sessions and this paper describes their form and usage.
Staging a Professional Participatory Design Practice - Moving PD beyond the Initial Fascination of User InvolvementSusanne Bødker, University of Aarhus; Department of Computer ScienceOle Sejer Iversen, University of Aarhus; Department of Computer Science Use and users have an important and acknowledged role to most designers of interactive systems. Nevertheless any touch of user hands does not in itself secure development of meaningful artifacts. In this article we stress the need for a professional PD practice in order to yield the full potentiality of user involvement. We suggest two constituting elements of such a professional PD practice. The existence of a shared ‘where-to’ and ‘why ‘artifact and an ongoing reflection and off-loop reflection among practitioners in the PD process.
Making User-Centred Design Common Sense: Striving for An Unambiguous and Communicative UCD Process ModelTimo Jokela, University of Oulu One organisational challenge in user-centred design, UCD, is to communicate its core substance to management and designers. For that, we propose a novel process model of UCD that was developed based on experiments in industrial settings. Its basis is in ISO 13407 and ISO 18529. The result is an outcome-driven, method-independent process model that identifies two categories of user-centred design processes: usability engineering and interaction design. The model seems to make the essence of UCD concrete and understandable. It also pinpoints the integration challenge that exists between usability engineering and interaction design. We have used the model in the assessment of performance of UCD processes ? the original purpose of the model - in project planning and training.
Mobile Text Entry Using Three KeysI. Scott MacKenzie, York University Six techniques for three-key text entry are described. The techniques use Left- and Right-arrow keys to maneuver a cursor over a linear sequence of characters, and a Select key to select characters. The keystrokes per character (KSPC) for the methods varies from 10.66 to 4.23. Two techniques were chosen for formal evaluation. Method #2 positions characters in alphabetical order, while Method #6 uses linguistic enhancement to reorder characters following each entry to minimize the cursor distance to the next character. Both methods position SPACE on the left and use a snap-to-home cursor mode, whereby the cursor snaps to SPACE after each entry. Entry rates were about 9-10 wpm for both techniques, as measured in an experiment with ten participants. Interaction issues are examined, such as the challenges in using linguistic knowledge to accelerate input, and the opportunity for using typamatic (viz. auto-repeat) keying strategies to reduce the number of physical keypresses.
Oops! Silly me! Errors in a Handwriting Recognition based Text Entry Interface for ChildrenJanet Read, University of Central Lancashire, England This paper describes an empirical study in which children aged 7 and
8 used handwriting recognition software and hardware to input their own
unconstrained text, into the computer. The children were observed using
the software, and the behaviour of both the children and the system is
described.
Understanding Remote PresenceKonrad Tollmar, The Interactive Institute In this paper, we discuss a study of new media for interpersonal communication. The paper motivates, designs and presents a small evaluation of a technology that is intended to support intimacy at distance. It first presents an ethnographic study examining family communication and the role of artifacts in supporting emotional closeness, e.g. heirlooms, activities and places in the house. The paper then describes a couple of prototypes that were designed to support different types of closeness and how we evaluated one of these prototypes in a study of 3 families (6 households), for two weeks each. The interview data that the study presents show that people were generally positive about the technology, although this depended on the nature of the users' pre-existing communication patterns. One critical point here is about the importance of pairing blue sky design with down-to-earth deployment and demonstrate commendable ethnographic-like work to inform design practice. Finally do we discuss some issues around users experiences of “telematic emotional communication” and how this has enriched our understanding of remote presence.
An Activity Theory Approach to AffordanceKlaus Bærentsen, Institute of Psychology, University of Aarhus, DenmarkJohan Trettvik, Institute of Psychology, University of Aarhus, Denmark We present an analysis of the concept of affordance as it was originally introduced by J. J. Gibson, and elaborate on this concept, acknowledging, that the general theoretical landscape in psychology is in fundamental ways different from the situation in which Gibson found himself when he crafted the notion. Specifically we will suggest the inclusion of the ecological theory of perception in the paradigm of cultural historical psychology and activity theory developed in the former Soviet Union by most notably Lev Vygotsky, S. L. Rubinshtein, A. N. Leont?ev and others. It will be suggested, that much of the confusion in HCI concerning the concept of affordance is a consequence of the attempt of using it inside a theoretical paradigm that is unable to capture and encompass one of the most essential aspect of Gibsons concept of Affordance, that is its foundation in activity.
Procurer Usability Requirements: Negotiations in Contract DevelopmentHenrik Artman, Royal Institute of Technology This field study describes a case study of how a procurer is reasoning and working with usability related issues, and how the supplier or producer is handling the procurer’s requirements. Our aim by this study is point to the pro-curer’s responsibility and power to direct a system devel-opment process to more user centred principles. We also elucidate the different views of usability that a procurer respectively a producer has. Our results suggest that the project leaders from respectively organisations have quite different views on usability and that these views on us-ability are different from most usability literature. Fur-thermore we discuss what the procurer found important with the user centred activities, which was not the results as such but rather a possibility to understand the users point of view. Furthermore we analyse some contradic-tions within and between the two organisations from an activity theoretical point of view. The article suggests some mundane but still important aspects that procurers should think of when contracting consultants.
Complementarity and Convergence of Heuristic Evaluation and Usability Test: A Case Study of UNIVERSAL Brokerage PlatformLai-Chong Law, Computer Engineering and Networks
Laboratory, Eidgenössische
Technische Hochschule, Zurich The aim of this paper is twofold (i) comparing the effectiveness of two evaluation methods, namely heuristic evaluation and usability testing, as applied to an experimental version of the UNIVERSAL Brokerage Platform (UBP), and (ii) inferring implications from the empirical findings of the usability test. Specifically, eight claims derived from previous research works are reviewed with the data of the current study. While the complementarity and convergence of the results yielded by the two methods can be confirmed to a certain extent, no conclusive explication about their divergence can be obtained, especially the issue whether usability problems reported lead to failures in real use.
Sense-making of an emergency call - possibilities and constraints of a computerized case fileMaria Normark, KTH Work in control rooms, or so-called Centers of coordination,
challenges
both humans and technology. The people working there have to be able to
make quick decisions as well as be alert during less busy
times. The work
has to be coordinated within the group, since the operators
are much depending
on each other's work. This places special demands on the technology; it
should be fast, trustworthy and easy to manipulate so that
the complexity
of the work is reduced.
One for all and all for one? Case studies of using prototypes in commercial projectsNick Bryan-Kinns, Creative Interaction Design Initiative The HCI discipline has long promoted the communication and collaboration between usability experts and intended users of systems. We present case studies that highlight the importance of representations in communication between not just usability experts and end users, but also graphic designers, clients, and technologists. Our case studies are used to illustrate the need to select appropriate representations for the target audience and the stage of system development. We argue that relationships can be identified between representation fidelity, target audience, and stage of development. These relationships can then be used to inform the appropriate selection of representations.
Getting access to what goes on in people’s heads? - Reflections on the think-aloud techniqueJanni Nielsen, Department of Informatics, Copenhagen
Business School One of the basic usability testing techniques the HCI community draws on and which stands out as unique is thinking aloud. We introduce the many names, use and modifications of the classical think aloud technique. We ask the rhetorical question: What do researchers think they get when they ask people to think aloud, and answer it by discussion of the classical work of Ericsson and Simon (1984), in particular of their distinction between vocalisation, verbalisation and retrospective reports and the relation to short term memory. We reintroduce the psychological perspective and the focus on higher order cognitive processes. We suggest that access to subjective experience is possible, if done as introspection governed by an expert interviewer, and propose a technique for inviting the user to become a participant in the analysis of his or her own cognitive processes.
Bifrost Inbox Organizer: Giving users control over the inboxOlle Bälter, Nada, Royal Institute of Technology Many email users, especially managers, receive too many email messages to read in the time available to them. The solutions available today often require programming skills on the part of the user to define rules for prioritizing messages or moving messages to folders. We propose a different approach: categorize messages in the inbox with predefined rules that do not require maintenance and are scalable to handle anything from 50 to thousands of messages.
On the Effects of Viewing Cues in Comprehending DistortionsAna Zanella, University of Calgary, Department of
Computer Science As a community, human-computer information and interface
designers have
tended to avoid use of fisheyes, and multi-scale
presentations with their
attendant distortion because of concern about how this distortion may
lead to confusion and misinterpretation. On the other hand
for centuries
hand-created information presentations have made regular use
of distortion
to provide emphasis and actually enhance readability. Is this because
thus far in our computational uses of distortion we have
failed to provide
adequate support for the people to comprehend the manner in which the
information is being presented? We describe a study about
relative difficulty
in reading distortions that investigates the effect of use viewing cues
such as the cartographic grid and shading on people's ability
to interpret
distortions. We look at two interpretation issues: whether people can
locate the region of magnification and whether people can read changes
in degree of magnification of these regions. We present the findings of
this study and a discussion of its results.
Critical Approach to 3D Virtual Realities for Group WorkSamuli Pekkola, University of Jyvaskyla Collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) have been studied extensively during the past few years. In this paper, the concept of virtual reality (VR), and its value for group work are critically examined. To ground the discussions, experiences from a virtual reality project, from 3D chats, and from present CVE applications are analysed in the light of human communication. It is argued that the value of virtual reality is often overemphasised and overrated in the group work context, especially when concerning desktop virtual realities and generic groupwork without explicitly defined task or purpose. The main problems with VR are its self-centricity and inadequate support for shared real-life related objects.
Physically Embodied Video Snippets Supporting Collaborative Exploration of Video Material During Design SessionsTomas Sokoler, Interactive Institute In this paper we explore the idea of using physically embodied video snippets as an alternative to today’s means for control of video playback during collaborative design oriented meetings. We aim to make video snippets a more integral part of the shared resources and opportunities for action already present at brainstorm like meetings. We present our VideoTable and VideoCards. The VideoTable is an augmented meeting table. The VideoCards are paper card representations of video snippets embedding means for control of video playback. Our implementation is based on modified passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags. Preliminary observations of use indicate that our VideoTable and VideoCards enable the seamless mix of video snippets with other physical design artifacts we are aiming for.
The Design of Auditory User Interfaces for Blind UsersHilko Donker, OFFIS, Oldenburg Previous screen readers provide blind WWW-users only with the textual
contents of the web pages, but exclude the access to
important information
coded in the layout of web pages. The approach we introduce here shall
overcome the layout barrier of webpages with the help of
three-dimensionally
auditory objects ("hearcons") which are positioned
in an auditory
interaction space (AIR – in German "Akustischer
InteraktionsRaum").
The elements of a webpage are reproduced in the AIR by a
reference model
("torch metaphor").
Textile Displays: Using Textiles to Investigate Computational Technology as Design MaterialLars Hallnäs, Interactive Institute, PLAY research
studio As we face an increasingly heterogeneous collection of computational devices, there is a need to develop a general approach to what it is that we design as we create computational things. One such basic approach is to consider computational technology to be a design material. In the present paper, we describe how a traditional material – textiles – can be used to investigate aspects of the expressiveness and aesthetics of computational technology as design material. As an example of this approach, we use an experimental design project made for an art museum. We describe a series of conceptual sketches of how textile artefacts can be used to re-interpret elementary acts of information technology use and the experiences from working with the final installation of one of them. Finally, we discuss properties of textiles and computational technology, such as expressions related to vagueness, unpredictability and slowness.
Imagining and experiencing in design, the role of performancesGiulio Iacucci, University of Oulu What is the role of performative activities in design? Several works have been published describing group performances to experience ideas during early design phases. Beyond these practical accounts, performances have been considered poorly in the design literature. Analysing these works along with ours we have inferred three roles of performance in design of interactive systems: supporting the exploration of new ideas, helping to communicate concepts, and supporting testing. We further discuss the implications of considering performance more explicitly in design considering the creativity of group performances, the contingency of performance and the limits of anticipating aspects of future practices.
Designing for AccountabilitySara Eriksén, Blekinge Institute of Technology Accountability is an important issue for design, in more than one sense. In software engineering literature, accountability is mainly seen as a goal for quality assurance of design processes. In ethnomethodologically informed field studies, accountability is a central concept for understanding how people organize their everyday actions and interactions. In Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) literature, where the different research approaches meet, new and hybrid understandings of accountability arise. In this paper, I explore and compare uses of the concept of accountability in a selection of texts. Finally, I discuss what focusing on accountability, and deliberately shifting between different interpretations of the concept, might imply for design of information technologies in some specific cases.
Pivots and Structured Play: Stimulating Creative User Input in Concept DevelopmentTore Urnes, Telenor R&D Design methods based on participatory design need to stimulate creativity in potential users. We propose the pivot method to address this need during the concept development stage of the broader interactive system development process. Pivots are symbolic, yet physical, representations that allow a person to move back and forth between a figured (imagined) world and the real world. This movement generates experiences that can be exchanged and that stimulate creativity. We offer insights into the theoretical foundations of pivots and the pivot method. We also report on our experience from employing the pivot method during the development of a "universal remote controller" concept for a smart home. |