Editorial: the evolving partnership between cognitive science and HCI

The theme of this special issue is “The Role of Cognitive Science in Human-Computer Interaction” (HCI). A generally accepted definition states that the main goal of HCI is to advance the design, implementation, and use of interactive computing systems by human beings (ACM, SIGCHI, 1992). Since the current primary use of computers is as tools for acting on and for observing the (information) world, the role of cognitive science-interpreted broadly as an endeavour to understand intelligent behaviour-is, consequently, tied to the questions:• how do our interactions with computing systems affect our representations of the objects that we manipulate?• how does interactions design influence our senses and our actions?• how does using computers to perform tasks transforms our notions of the relationships that exist in the world around us?     

Integrating methods of human-computer interface design with structured systems development

Various methods for specification and design of the human-computer interface have been proposed but practice of such methods is not widespread. Possible reasons for this may be the lack of integration of human-computer interface design with software engineering and the specialized nature of HCI methods. A method of interface design is proposed which integrates the development of the human-computer interface with structured systems analysis and design. The method covers task and user analysis, interface specification and dialogue design. A case study of a library system is used to illustrate the method which is discussed in relation to different approaches that have been adopted for interface specification and design. It is argued that software design methods should cover all aspects of process design and the human-computer interface.     

Applying the technology acceptance model in a study of the factors affecting usage of the Taiwan digital archives system

The rapid development of information and communication technology and the popularization of the Internet have given a boost to digitization technologies. Since 2001, The National Science Council (NSC) of Taiwan has invested a large amount of funding in the National Digital Archives Program (NDAP) to develop digital content. Some studies have indicated that most respondents had no confidence in particular digital archive websites. Thus, with the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as a theoretical basis, the focus of the present study was to identify the factors influencing usage. Extension of the roles of perceived playfulness and interface design was also explored to identify the reasons that digital archives might not be accepted by some users. The present study used a random sampling method to distribute questionnaires to digital archive users via e-mail. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) method was used to verify the appropriateness of the study model and whether the hypotheses were confirmed. Study results indicated that the “interface design” is an important factor that influences people to use the digital archives, and that it is separate from the “human factor” and the “human–computer interface” (HCI). Moreover, the results showed that HCI had a significant impact on the “perceived ease of use” and on “usage intentions.” However, the human factor interface showed a significant impact only on “perceived ease of use.” With respect to the hypotheses regarding “usage intentions,” the “perceived usefulness,” “perceived ease of use,” “attitude,” and “perceived playfulness” were not related to “usage intentions.” Therefore, it is necessary to consider the quality of interface design in the development of digital archives in order to promote usage.     

Integrating cognitive load theory and concepts of human–computer interaction

With the continually increasing complexity of e-learning environments, there is a need for integrating concepts of cognitive load theory (CLT) with concepts of human–computer interaction (HCI). Basic concepts of both fields were reviewed and contrasted. A literature review was conducted within the literature database “The Guide to Computing Literature,” searching for “cognitive load theory” and “Sweller.” Sixty-five publications contained “cognitive load” in their titles or abstracts. Each publication was checked to see whether it contained the concepts of intrinsic, extraneous, or germane cognitive load. The review showed that CLT concepts have been adopted in HCI. However, the concept of germane cognitive load has attracted less attention up to the present time. Two conceptual models are proposed. The first model divides extraneous cognitive load into load induced by the instructional design and load caused by software usage. The model clarifies the focus of traditional usability principles and of existing instructional design principles derived from CLT. The second model fits CLT concepts into the basic components of user-centered design. The concept of germane cognitive load illustrates that an increase of cognitive load can be desirable when designing e-learning environments. Areas for future interdisciplinary research are sketched.     

Modeling multimodal human-computer interaction

Incorporating the well-known Unified Modeling Language into a generic modeling framework makes research on multimodal human-computer interaction accessible to a wide range off software engineers. Multimodal interaction is part of everyday human discourse: We speak, move, gesture, and shift our gaze in an effective flow of communication. Recent initiatives such as perceptual and attentive user interfaces put these natural human behaviors in the center of the human-computer interaction (HCI). We've designed a generic modeling framework for specifying multimodal HCI using the Object Management Group's Unified Modeling Language. Because it's a well-known and widely supported standard - computer science departments typically cover it in undergraduate courses, and many books, training courses, and tools support it - UML makes it easier for software engineers unfamiliar with multimodal research to apply HCI knowledge, resulting in broader and more practical effects. Standardization provides a significant driving force for further progress because it codifies best practices, enables and encourages reuse, and facilitates interworking between complementary tools.     

A Case Study in the Specification and Analysis of Design Alternatives for a User Interface

There is considerable interest within the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) community in the use of media spaces to enhance awareness and interaction between workers in offices or other spatially distributed environments. In addition to the technical challenges of providing reliable and efficient audio-visual communication, there are important social questions, in particular how users are able to control access to their personal environments, and how to advise other users about their level of availability. Within AMODEUS-2¹, an ESPRIT Basic Research Action concerned with the development, transfer and assessment of techniques for modelling human-computer interaction, a prototype media space has been analysed by various user and system oriented modelling techniques. This paper describes how formal specification can be used to express requirements on the interfaces needed to control access and availability in a media space. Beyond its obvious use in clarifying the subtle relationship between these concerns, the paper describes how the specification assists in assessing design options originating from other modelling disciplines. Received August 1996 / Accepted in revised form April 1999     

Compositional verification of real-time systems with Explicit Clock Temporal Logic

To specify and verify real-time systems, we consider a real-time version of temporal logic called Explicit Clock Temporal Logic. Timing properties are specified by extending the classical framework of temporal logic with a special variable which explicitly refers to a global notion of time. Programs are written in an Occam-like real-time language with synchronous message passing. To show that a program satisfies a specification, we formulate a proof system which is proved to be sound and relatively complete. The proof system is compositional, which makes it possible to decompose the design of a large system into the design of subsystems. This is shown by the verification of a small part of an avionics system.This research was supported by ESPRIT-BRA project 3096 Formal Methods and Tools for the Development of Distributed and Real-Time Systems (SPEC).     

A consulting system for data base design

This paper proposes a methodology for automated data base design based on a set of managerial reports. We introduce the notion of report schemata, specified in terms of record types and binary relations, as a framework for analyzing report structures and interactions among reports. Four classes of binary relations are identified, each being characteristic of a certain type of elementary report. Multiple binary relations are used to specify more complex reports. We also discuss concepts such as report covering and the maximal members for transforming reports to a parsimonious representation for data base design. Finally, we formulate this report-driven data base design methodology as an expert consulting system in Artificial Intelligence.     

A pilgrim's progress: From cognitive science to cooperative design

This paper provides a glimpse of some different theoretical frameworks and empirical methods in the author's search for theories and practices that might improve the utility and usability of computer artifacts. The essay touches on some problematic aspects of currently accepted theories and techniques in the cognitive sciences, especially in their application to the field of human-computer interaction, and mentions some alternative conceptions based on a cultural-historical approach. The intent is to widen the nature of the debate about appropriate frameworks for discussing human activities especially when we discuss design activities in the context of computer systems development. The paper concludes with some suggestions for more fruitful research directions that involve the active participation of those for whom the research is ostensibly being done, and a greater emphasis on understanding how artifact design and use are inextricably intertwined.This paper originated from a talk entitled From Cognitive Science to Cooperative Design that later appeared in rough paper form in Finnemann, N. O. (Ed.) Proceedings from the Symposium Theories and Technologies of the Information Society (Centre for Cultural Research, Aarhus University, Denmark, Sept. 1989). Some of the ideas and material in the present paper first appeared in Bannon & Bødker (in press) and Bannon (in press).     

Making epistemological trouble: Third-paradigm HCI as successor science

Epistemological issues have long been debated by feminist philosophers aiming to answer the question, “what difference does it make to take gendered points of view seriously in the construction of knowledge?” Coming out of this history, a strand of work in feminist science studies has argued for the necessity of “successor science:” new forms of science based in standpoint epistemology, i.e. a recognition of the necessarily situated points of view of scientific knowledge-makers. In this paper, we argue that such a successor science has already come into being within the field of HCI, though it is perhaps not recognized as such by its practitioners.In particular, we identify a cluster of research we term the ‘third paradigm.’ This cluster of research cuts across HCI research areas as typically organized by topic area. Instead, this research shares an underlying epistemological orientation closely aligned with standpoint epistemology, focused around an acknowledgment of the social, cultural, and physical situatedness of both users and analysts. Feminist philosophers of science argue that a logical outcome of standpoint epistemology is the need for science to reflexively grapple with the limitations of its own ways of knowing; we conclude such an outcome may also be in store for the third paradigm.     

Foundations of dialog engineering: the development of human-computer interaction. Part II

The human-computer interface is increasingly the major determinant of the success or failure of computer systems. It is time that we provided foundations of engineering human-computer interaction (HCI) as explicit and well-founded as those for hardware and software engineering. Through the influences of other disciplines and their contribution to software engineering, a rich environment for HCI studies, theory and applications now exists. Many principles underlying HCI have systemic foundations independent of the nature of the systems taking part and these may be analysed control-theoretically and information-theoretically. The fundamental principles at different levels may be used in the practical design of dialog shells for engineering effective HCI. This paper surveys the development of styles of dialog through generations of computers, the principles involved, and the move towards integrated systems. It then systematically explores the foundations of HCI by analysing the various analogies to HCI possible when the parties are taken to be general systems, equipment, computers or people.     

Design and evaluation of virtual home objects with music interaction in smart homes

Well-designed virtual home objects and human-computer interactions (HCIs) can provide convenient ways to easily make use of home services for home inhabitants in smart homes. This work tries to design the virtual home objects with the ability of playing the music and implement a particular HCI interface accomplishing the music interaction with virtual home objects for deploying virtual home music services in smart homes. Each virtual home object is connected to a list of songs. When a home inhabitant holds a virtual home object and moves it as operating gestures upon the implemented HCI interface, the virtual home music service will be activated and the smart home will automatically play the favorite songs for its inhabitant. In this way, a highly interactive home music service for home inhabitants can be realized through the convenient operating interactions between the virtual home objects and the implemented HCI interface in smart homes.     

Feminism asks the “Who” questions in HCI

In this brief personal essay, I describe some of the ways that feminism has influenced my life as a researcher and practitioner in HCI and CSCW - in the creation of work to be read by others, in the critical reading of works that were created by others, and in the planning and framing of practical work in enterprise workplaces. I discuss three variations of “Who” questions that feminism helps us to ask in HCI: The “who” of the identity of the user; the “who” of the identity of organizational actors; and the “who” of the practitioner or researcher.     

Object modelling and formal specification during real-time system development

Object oriented techniques promote understanding of requirements leading to flexible and extendible designs. The use of formal specification techniques ensures a complete understanding of system requirements and provides sound foundations for subsequent testing and verification. This paper describes the use of the Z and Timed CSP formal specification techniques to support object modelling during real-time system development. Relationships between class attributes are specified within the corresponding Z schemas and inheritance relationships between classes are formally specified using the schema extension mechanism of Z. Z is used to specify the domain types of the attributes of classes identified during object oriented analysis and design. Z is also used to produce model based specifications of the methods within classes that are specified informally during functional analysis. Dynamic analysis identifies events, states and temporal relationships between events. Timed CSP is used to formally specify this information as well as timing information that is necessary during real-time system development.     

Exploiting user feedback to compensate for the unreliability of user models

Natural Language is a powerful medium for interacting with users, and sophisticated computer systems using natural language are becoming more prevalent. Just as human speakers show an essential, inbuilt responsiveness to their hearers, computer systems must tailor their utterances to users. Recognizing this, researchers devised user models and strategies for exploiting them in order to enable systems to produce the best answer for a particular user.Because these efforts were largely devoted to investigating how a user model could be exploited to produce better responses, systems employing them typically assumed that a detailed and correct model of the user was available a priori, and that the information needed to generate appropriate responses was included in that model. However, in practice, the completeness and accuracy of a user model cannot be guaranteed. Thus, unless systems can compensate for incorrect or incomplete user models, the impracticality of building user models will prevent much of the work on tailoring from being successfully applied in real systems. In this paper, we argue that one way for a system to compensate for an unreliable user model is to be able to react to feedback from users about the suitability of the texts it produces. We also discuss how such a capability can actually alleviate some of the burden now placed on user modeling. Finally, we present a text generation system that employs whatever information is available in its user model in an attempt to produce satisfactory texts, but is also capable of responding to the user's follow-up questions about the texts it produces.Dr. Johanna D. Moore holds interdisciplinary appointments as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and as a Research Scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests include natural language generation, discourse, expert system explanation, human-computer interaction, user modeling, intelligent tutoring systems, and knowledge representation. She received her MS and PhD in Computer Science from the University of California at Los Angeles, and her BS in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of California at Los Angeles. She is a member of the Cognitive Science Society, ACL, AAAI, ACM, IEEE, and Phi Beta Kappa. Readers can reach Dr. Moore at the Department of Computer Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260.Dr. Cecile Paris is the project leader of the Explainable Expert System project at USC's information Sciences Institute. She received her PhD and MS in Computer Science from Columbia University (New York) and her bachelor's degree from the University of California in Berkeley. Her research interests include natural language generation and user modeling, discourse, expert system explanation, human-computer interaction, intelligent tutoring systems, machine learning, and knowledge acquisition. At Columbia University, she developed a natural language generation system capable of producing multi-sentential texts tailored to the users level of expertise about the domain. At ISI, she has been involved in designing a flexible explanation facility that supports dialogue for an expert system shell. Dr. Paris is a member of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), the Cognitive Science Society, ACM, IEEE, and Phi Kappa Phi. Readers can reach Dr. Paris at USC/ISI, 4676 Admiralty Way, Marina Del Rey, California, 90292     

Correction to: Investigating socially assistive systems from system design and evaluation: a systematic review

Purpose The development of assistive technologies that support people in social interactions has attracted increased attention in HCI. This paper presents a systematic review of studies of Socially Assistive Systems targeted at older adults and people with disabilities. The purpose is threefold: (1) Characterizing related assistive systems with a special focus on the system design, primarily including HCI technologies used and user-involvement approach taken; (2) Examining their ways of system evaluation; (3) Reflecting on insights for future design research. Methods A systematic literature search was conducted using the keywords “social interactions” and “assistive technologies” within the following databases: Scopus, Web of Science, ACM, Science Direct, PubMed, and IEEE Xplore. Results Sixty-five papers met the inclusion criteria and were further analyzed. Our results showed that there were 11 types of HCI technologies that supported social interactions for target users. The most common was cognitive and meaning understanding technologies, often applied with wearable devices for compensating users’ sensory loss; 33.85% of studies involved end-users and stakeholders in the design phase; Four types of evaluation methods were identified. The majority of studies adopted laboratory experiments to measure user-system interaction and system validation. Proxy users were used in system evaluation, especially in initial experiments; 42.46% of evaluations were conducted in field settings, primarily including the participants’ own homes and institutions. Conclusion We contribute an overview of Socially Assistive Systems that support social interactions for older adults and people with disabilities, as well as illustrate emerging technologies and research opportunities for future work.

     

交互式用户界面的形式化描述与性质验证

随着人机交互技术的发展,计算机和用户之间的接口越来越自然,但用户界面管理系统内部的复杂度却大大地增加了.目前提出的新一代用户界面的模型大都停留在概念模型阶段,缺乏对模型的严格描述和证明.该文结合对基于自然交互方式的用户界面的研究成果,归纳出了一个交互式用户界面的通用模型.为了保证系统设计的正确性,文章讨论了如何使用形式化描述语言LOTOS(language of temporal ordering specification)和基于动作的时序逻辑ACTL(action based temporal log     

Putting ‘felt-life’ at the centre of human–computer interaction (HCI)

In this article, we argue that putting felt-life, that is life as lived, sensed and experienced, at the centre of human–computer interaction (HCI) both focuses attention on the sensual and emotional and throws new light on the cognitive and intellectual aspects of people’s interactions with technology. As a consequence, it offers an opportunity to address issues such as resistance, identity, and attachment that are not otherwise addressed in HCI. Some of the analytic and empirical possibilities for addressing issues such as these are described, and the methodological requirement for local, context-rich research discussed. Finally, the opportunity that a felt-life approach opens up to raise critically reflective questions about technology and self is discussed. In this context, a framework for exploring interaction by placing technologies and activities in relation to each other on felt-life dimensions, such as interpassive–interactive and mutual-one-sided, is exemplified. The framework is used here to address design and evaluation questions that relate to self and agency in human computer interactions. This article is a revised version of a paper originally presented at ECCE’12, the conference of the European Association of Cognitive Ergonomics, held in York, UK in 2004.     

Modeling user action planning: A comprehension based approach

We review our efforts to model user command production in an attempt to characterize the knowledge users of computers have at various stages of learning. We modeled computer users with a system called NETWORK (Mannes and Kintsch, 1988; 1991) and modeled novice, intermediate, and expert UNIX command production data collected by Doane et al. (1990b) with a system called UNICOM (Doane et al., 1989a; 1991). We use the construction-integration theory of comprehension proposed by Kintsch (1988) as a framework for our analyses. By focusing on how instructions activate the knowledge rele/ant to the performance of the specified task, we have successfully modeled major aspects of correct user performance by incorporating in the model knowledge about individual commands and knowledge that allows the correct combination of elementary commands into complex, novel commands. Thus, experts can be modeled in both NETWORK and in UNICOM. We further show that salient aspects of novice and intermediate performance can be described by removing critical elements of knowledge from the expert UNICOM model. Results suggest that our comprehension-based approach has promise for understanding user interactions and implications for system design are discussed.Dr. Stephanie Doane is Assistant Professor of Psychology and appointed at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois. Shereceived her BAin Experimental Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, her MS in Experimental Psychology from Villanova University, and her PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Doane's research has focused on skill acquisition and the development and validation of theoretically-based computational models of cognitive processes. Her current research addresses issues of learning to interact with complex systems and the role of learning context in skill acquisition.Dr. Suzanne Mannes is Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Delaware. She received her BA in Psychology from the State University of New York College at Plattsburgh and received her PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her experimental research focuses on the role of prior knowledge in text comprehension, particularly as it pertains to problem-solving abilities. She also investigates the use of hybrid computer systems to simulate results from such studies.Dr. Walter Kintsch is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He received his MA and PhD degrees in Experimental Psychology from the University of Kansas. His main area of interest has been the psychology of language and memory. He is currently the editor of the Psychological review.Peter Poison is Professor of Psychology and member of the Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado. He received his BA degree in Psychology and BS degree in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University and his PhD degree in Psychology from Indiana University. Dr. Poison's research has focused on the development and empirical evaluation of mathematical and computer simulation models of cognitive processes including transfer of training, problem solving, and the acquisition of cognitive skills. His current research deals with quantitative models of human-computer interaction and the application of such models to the design of more easily learned computer systems.