Introduction to the Special Issue on Usability and User Experience: Psychometrics

This special issue on usability and the user experience focuses on the application of psychometrics to the development and evaluation of standardized usability and user experience questionnaires. The six articles cover advances in the measurement of perceived usability (assessment of the instruments themselves and their application to measuring the perceived usability of mobile applications), attitude toward the Internet, need fulfillment, and the emotional consequences of interaction. Given the benefits of measurement standardization and the new research presented in this issue, the articles should be of interest to human–computer interaction researchers and practitioners.     

Innovative User Interfaces in Automation Engineering by Application of Usability Engineering Methods Shown by the Example of a Three-Dimensional Plant Representation

This article is the first of 3 that focus on user-centered design and usability in the field of industrial process control. This article starts with an introduction to this special domain and sets out the need for user-centered design of innovative user interfaces. The MediaPlant research project is then introduced. This project aims to generate innovative user interface solutions for process control. The usability engineering methods presented are well known in relation to office application software and were applied in the course of the project to (a) evaluate the potential and application fields of innovative multimedia technology and 3-dimensional information presentation (described at the end of this article), (b) define innovative user interface building blocks for process control that can be applied across sectors (described in the second article, Komischke & Burmester [this issue]) and (c) develop human-centered user interfaces for controlling paper recycling plants (described in the third article, Epstein & Beu [this issue]).     

Guest Editors' Introduction: Security & Privacy

Security and privacy concerns touch on all aspects of pervasive computing, including hardware, operating systems, networks, databases, user interfaces, and applications. The seven articles selected for this special issue draw on ideas from many of these fields and provide a flavor of the kinds of security and privacy challenges and opportunities in pervasive computing. This article is part of a special issue on security and privacy.     

Design for social interaction through physical play in diverse contexts of use

Products can support user groups in social interaction and/or physical play in various ways. Depending on the requirements and needs of specific user groups and contexts of use, different approaches are applied to create successful designs. This special issue contains papers that describe designs for children, adults and elderly for sports, home and outdoor contexts. The papers in this issue explore how technology can contribute to enhancing user experiences in terms of social interaction and physical activities. Knowledge from very diverse research areas, such as, social psychology, persuasive technology, child development, human–robot interaction, and creativity is used as an inspiration source for the various projects.     

Virtual Reality Software and Technology

This special issue contains an introductory survey on 3D user interfaces by leading VR authorities and significantly expanded versions of the four best short papers from the proceedings of the 14th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology (VRST 07).     

Spatial Input for Temporal Navigation in Scientific Visualizations

Scientific-visualization tools can make time-varying simulations easier to understand. The growing efficiency of today's high-performance computers enables simulation of physical phenomena with a high temporal resolution. Consequently, visualization systems require efficient navigation in the temporal dimension. This 3D user interface employs direct-manipulation metaphors for temporal navigation in scientific visualizations. By interacting with objects using their 3D trajectory, users can navigate in time by specifying spatial inputs. This article is part of a special issue on 3D user interfaces.     

Knowledge-Assisted Visualization and Segmentation of Geologic Features

The proposed approach employs domain knowledge about the structure and topology of geologic features in seismic data to steer dynamic surfaces into those features. Specialized attributes guide evolving surfaces by adapting to the features' known shape. Geometric, topological, and geologic information can be rendered on the evolving surface, which lets the user infer knowledge during the process. The approach is implemented in a 3D visualization environment. A user study demonstrates this approach's ability to transfer domain knowledge to nonexperts. This article is part of a special issue on knowledge-assisted visualization.     

Developments in sustainable energy and environmental protection

This special issue on sustainable energy and environmental protection concerns with simulation and modelling aspects in this research filed. This editorial introduction “EI” highlights the different articles presented and discussed in this issue. In this issue, simulation and modelling were implemented to study environmental aspect such as; the three-pass perforated tube, heat pipe-based radiator, energy storage and recovery, efficiency of PEM fuel cell. In this special issue, simulation and modelling to optimise the building heating efficiency was presented. Vehicle engine with alternative fuel systems is also presented, mainly the gasoline direct injection and the stirling engine. Water quality and the rehabilitation of Lake Izvorul Muntelui in Romania is presented. Finally, this issue is concluded with an article regarding an important environmental issue such as the fire risk simulation system for multi-purpose building based fire statistics.The contents of this issue will be discussed in details in the following sections.     

细粒度的基于角色的访问控制模型

RBAC模型是一种被广泛应用的访问控制模型。但是,RBAC模型是在角色级管理和控制权限,不能满足用户获得角色的部分权限和角色权限的部分继承等安全需求。针对这个问题,在RBAC模型中增加权限的重要程度要素,提出了FGRBAC模型（Fine-Grained Role-Based Access Control Model--细粒度的基于角色的访问控制模型）,并给出了在FGRBAC模型中求用户权限和角色权限的算法。FGRBAC模型不仅可以使用户获得角色的部分权限、父角色可以继承子角色的部分权限,而且RBAC模型可被看成是FGRBAC模型的一种特例。因此,FGRBAC模型不仅具有RBAC模型的所有优点,而且比RBAC模型具有更好的灵活性和实用性。     

Insights from Dividing 3D Goal-Directed Movements into Meaningful Phases

Existing measures for evaluating user performance on interaction tasks in virtual environments don't often provide sufficient information for improving these interactions. A new method for analyzing 3D goal-directed movements divides them into meaningful phases. The authors applied this method to experimental data collected for a 3D task resembling a standardized 2D multidirectional pointing task (ISO 9241-9). The results and analysis demonstrate that the method provides a more detailed insight into 3D goal-directed movements. This analysis can help researchers better identify input devices' and interaction techniques' strengths and weaknesses. This article is part of a special issue on 3D user interfaces.     

Minis in Business: an International Perspective

This special issue on minicomputer systems in business is motivated by my personal philosophy of computing. I call this philosophy the common computer attitude. This attitude has come about because systems are being dispersed into local standalone systems or as local stations that are part of networked mini/microcomputer systems. The user is less knowledgeable and yet intensely involved in such local computing.     

Usability laboratories

This article provides a table with summary statistics for the thirteen usability laboratories described in the papers in this special issue. It also gives an introduction to the main uses of usability laboratories in usability engineering and surveys some of the issues related to practical use of user testing and CAUSE tools for computer-aided usability engineering.     

国际化标准框架下蒙文操作系统的设计

蒙文操作系统实现较为复杂的原因在于两个方面:①传统蒙文采用自顶向下竖写、每列从左向右排列的书写方式;②蒙文字符在不同文本上下文中采用变化相当复杂的显现字形.基于操作系统国际化体系结构,从蒙文字符集、蒙文字符的变形显现、蒙文文本的垂直显示、蒙文独特的图形用户界面等多个方面阐述了传统蒙文操作系统实现中面临的难点和技术方案;简要介绍了基于QtKDE桌面系统的实现;最后提出了蒙文操作系统实现仍需要解决的问题.     

3D User Interfaces

The articles in this special issue present recent developments in research on 3D user interfaces. Topics covered include reality- and imagination-based interaction, pointing techniques, analysis of rapid aimed movements, temporal-data visualizations, and navigation of augmented CAD models.     

An RSVP based seamless resource reservation scheme for wireless mobile networks

In order to achieve continuous QoS provision to a mobile user, it is required to deploy a mechanism which reserves resources in advance at the locations to which the mobile user is expected to move. An important issue with regards to these mechanisms is to minimize the waste of resources caused by aforementioned reservations while keeping up the QoS guaranteed services to the user. In this paper, we propose a wireless network domain structure which deploys a special cell, called a gray cell. The boundaries of wireless network regions are surrounded by the gray cells that belong to all of its neighboring regions. Based on this wireless domain structure, we propose a mechanism which completely removes the waste of redundant resource reservation in the wireless network domain while greatly reducing the risk of reservation disruption caused by inter-region handovers. Using simulation, it is shown that the proposed mechanism can deal with inter-region handover as effectively as it does with intra-region handover. It is also presented that the proposed mechanism outperforms existing mechanisms with respect to reservation disruption time and packet losses caused by handovers for various mobility patterns of a mobile user.     

A brief history of A-MOST Special Issue containing selected papers from A-MOST 2008

This special issue contains the revised and extended versions of three papers presented in the 4th Workshop on Advances in Model-Based Testing (A-MOST 2008). In addition to an executive summary of these three papers, this preface briefly reviews the papers published in the four editions of the A-MOST workshop. We hope that the reader will find this special issue interesting and informative.     

Usability laboratories

Abstract

This article provides a table with summary statistics for the thirteen usability laboratories described in the papers in this special issue. It also gives an introduction to the main uses of usability laboratories in usability engineering and surveys some of the issues related to practical use of user testing and CAUSE tools for computer-aided usability engineering.     

SIP UA与STUN CLIENT互通的新方案

针对SIP用户代理和STUN客户端互通方案的不足,提出了一种新的互通方案.该方案设计了一个SIP用户代理和STUN客户端都可以访问的配置文件作为接口文件,从而使二者成为相互独立的实体.SIP用户代理不需要嵌入STUN客户端,也无需改造其整体架构,仅需读取接口文件的配置信息来完成其系统的初使化,并以文件读取的方式实现SI...     

Guest Editors' Introduction: Intelligent Systems for Interactive Entertainment

This special issue presents research in innovative aspects of intelligent interactive entertainment (IE) that haven't seen much publication yet. AI researchers find IE interesting because it requires systems that think, behave, and interact the way that real people do. An invited article discusses the challenges, important trends, and future directions for intelligent IE. The other selected articles deal with a variety of topics: generating nonrepetitive behavior of nonplayer characters in video games; 3D virtual characters using speech, posture, pointing, and involuntary movements to interact with 2D presentations; applying a movie set metaphor to manage multiple software agents in dynamic scenarios; using spatial and temporal coherence as constraints for defining synchronization of actions and turn-taking in location-based games; adding humorous one-liners to text-based applications; and a user interface in which objects react and adapt to the user's focus of attention. This article is part of a special issue on interactive entertainment.