The System Usability Scale: Past,Present, and Future

The System Usability Scale (SUS) is the most widely used standardized questionnaire for the assessment of perceived usability. This review of the SUS covers its early history from inception in the 1980s through recent research and its future prospects. From relatively inauspicious beginnings, when its originator described it as a “quick and dirty usability scale,” it has proven to be quick but not “dirty.” It is likely that the SUS will continue to be a popular measurement of perceived usability for the foreseeable future. When researchers and practitioners need a measure of perceived usability, they should strongly consider using the SUS.     

面向可用性评估的协同工作系统建模

在开发以使用为中心的协同工作系统中,越来越要求在早期就能发现并修正可用性方面的缺陷,这就要求评估者对被评估系统的使用上下文有清晰的理解,进而要求在协同工作任务模型上得到充分的支持.然而,现有的界面模型和面向单用户的可用性评测技术却不能有效地覆盖最基础的协作原子行为和团队协作的上下文信息,于是从面向评估的角度提出了一种新的协同工作系统描述模型,在模型上应用快速评估方法中的遍历技术,通过迭代地模拟真实环境中系统的使用状况,可以实现低成本的早期可用性评估.实验表明,该方法较几种传统方法有一定的优势.     

数据集分类可用性评估的置信区间方法

如何有效评价训练数据集的可用性,一直是困扰智能分类系统应用的难点问题。针对机器学习领域的数据分类问题,提出了一种基于区间分析和信息粒化的数据集分类可用性的评估方法,用于评价数据集的可分程度。该方法将待评估的数据集定义为分类信息系统,提出了分类置信区间的概念,通过区间分析进行信息粒化。在此信息粒化策略下,定义分类可用性的数学模型,并进一步给出单个属性以及整体数据集的分类可用性的计算方法。选择18个UCI标准数据集作为评估对象,给出了部分数据集分类可用性的评估结果,并且选取3种分类器对所选数据集进行分类实验,最终通过对上述实验结果的分析证明了该评估方法的有效性和可行性。     

A Usability Management Framework for Securing Healthcare Information System

Transformation from conventional business management systems to smart digital systems is a recurrent trend in the current era. This has led to digital revolution, and in this context, the hardwired technologies in the software industry play a significant role However, from the beginning, software security remains a serious issue for all levels of stakeholders. Software vulnerabilities lead to intrusions that cause data breaches and result in disclosure of sensitive data, compromising the organizations’ reputation that translates into, financial losses and compromising software usability as well. Most of the data breaches are financially motivated, especially in the healthcare sector. The cyber invaders continuously penetrate the E- Health data because of the high cost of the data on the dark web. Therefore, security assessment of healthcare web-based applications demands immediate intervention mechanisms to weed out the threats of cyber-attacks for the sake of software usability. The proposed disclosure is a unique process of three phases that are combined by researchers in order to produce and manage usability management framework for healthcare information system. In this most threatened time of digital era where, Healthcare data industry has borne the brunt of the highest number of data breach episodes in the last few years. The key reason for this is attributed to the sensitivity of healthcare data and the high costs entailed in trading the data over the dark web. Hence, usability management of healthcare information systems is the need of hour as to identify the vulnerabilities and provide preventive measures as a shield against the breaches. The proposed unique developed model of usability management workflow is prepared by associating steps like learn; analyze and manage. All these steps gives an all in one package for the healthcare information management industry because there is no systematic model available which associate identification to implementation steps with different evaluation steps.     

Usability Testing and Instruction Librarians

ABSTRACT

This study examines how librarians are experiencing usability testing and how their observations are influencing library instruction. A survey of instruction librarians illustrates how usability testing and library instruction are connected. Survey results prove that instruction librarians are involved in usability testing. Furthermore, their participation in usability studies has led instruction librarians to alter their instructional methods. An overwhelming majority changed one or more instructional tools as a result of usability testing, and many reported creating new instructional resources. The authors add their own insights as both instruction librarians and participants in usability testing.     

软件过程中问题跟踪和分析系统的研究

在软件项目的实施过程中,开发和管理人员不可避免地会碰到各种各样的问题,如何及时、有效地解决这些问题,对一个软件项目最终的成功与否有着极大的影响。经大量的研究工作后,开发了问题跟踪和分析系统。介绍了该系统中对问题进行定义、跟踪、管理和解决的工具——问题跟踪工具的实现方法,以及对问题跟踪工具应用后积累的历史数据进行挖掘分析的方法。该系统的应用对提高软件生产率和软件质量起到了一定积极有效的作用。     

Usability inspection of digital libraries: a case study

This paper reports a case study about lessons learned and usability issues encountered in a usability inspection of a digital library system called the Networked Computer Science Technical Reference Library (NCSTRL). Using a co-discovery technique with a team of three expert usability inspectors (the authors), we performed a usability inspection driven by a broad set of anticipated user tasks. We found many good design features in NCSTRL, but the primary result of a usability inspection is a list of usability problems as candidates for fixing. The resulting problems are organized by usability problem type and by system functionality, with emphasis on the details of problems specific to digital library functions. The resulting usability problem list was used to illustrate a cost/importance analysis technique that trades off importance to fix against cost to fix. The problems are sorted by the ratio of importance to cost, producing a priority ranking for resolution.     

面向跨领域情感分类的统一框架

文本的情感分类问题,即判断文本中的论断是持支持态度还是反对态度.已有的研究表明,监督分类方法对情感分类很有效.但是多数情况下,已有的标注数据与待判断情感类别的数据不属于同一个领域,此时监督分类算法的性能明显下降,由此产生的即为跨领域情感分类问题.为解决此问题,提出一个统一框架,分多阶段进行跨领域情感分类:首先利用训练域文本的准确标签来得到测试域文本的初始标签;然后将测试域建成一个加权网络,将一些较准确的测试文本作为"源点"和"汇点",进一步利用热传导思想迭代进行跨领域情感分类.实验结果表明,此方法能大幅度提高跨领域情感分类的精度.     

网站可用性工程中的用户数据收集和分析方法

网站可用性分析的主要依据是用户的背景信息、主观数据和客观数据。目前 ,获得用户数据的主要途径是分析服务器端的 Log文件。根据所要分析数据类型的不同 ,在介绍 L og文件分析的同时 ,对几种主要用户数据的分析方法作了综合介绍     

Usability evaluation methods for the web: A systematic mapping study

Context

In recent years, many usability evaluation methods (UEMs) have been employed to evaluate Web applications. However, many of these applications still do not meet most customers’ usability expectations and many companies have folded as a result of not considering Web usability issues. No studies currently exist with regard to either the use of usability evaluation methods for the Web or the benefits they bring.

Objective

The objective of this paper is to summarize the current knowledge that is available as regards the usability evaluation methods (UEMs) that have been employed to evaluate Web applications over the last 14 years.

Method

A systematic mapping study was performed to assess the UEMs that have been used by researchers to evaluate Web applications and their relation to the Web development process. Systematic mapping studies are useful for categorizing and summarizing the existing information concerning a research question in an unbiased manner.

Results

The results show that around 39% of the papers reviewed reported the use of evaluation methods that had been specifically crafted for the Web. The results also show that the type of method most widely used was that of User Testing. The results identify several research gaps, such as the fact that around 90% of the studies applied evaluations during the implementation phase of the Web application development, which is the most costly phase in which to perform changes. A list of the UEMs that were found is also provided in order to guide novice usability practitioners.

Conclusions

From an initial set of 2703 papers, a total of 206 research papers were selected for the mapping study. The results obtained allowed us to reach conclusions concerning the state-of-the-art of UEMs for evaluating Web applications. This allowed us to identify several research gaps, which subsequently provided us with a framework in which new research activities can be more appropriately positioned, and from which useful information for novice usability practitioners can be extracted.     

数值分类在关中地区土壤分类中的应用

选取关中地区12个土壤剖面的15个理化指标,应用主成分分析方法和聚类分析方法对土壤进行了数值分类。研究结果表明,前4个主成分的累计贡献率达到86.41%,取阈值T=4.0,供试12个剖面划分为3类,不同类群之间土壤特性差异明显,类群内部土壤特性相似。数值分类结果与系统分类结果比较,虽然个别土壤的类别出现较大差异,但分类结果基本一致,说明数值分类应用于关中地区土壤分类是切实可行的。     

一种基于可用度的Web服务可用性测量模型

Web服务通常运行于一个动态和开放的网络环境中,其底层平台与面向的用户千差万别,这使得Web服务的可用性经常不能得以保证。如何对Web服务可用性进行合理评估并提高服务质量是一个具有挑战性的研究课题。从服务请求者的角度出发,设计一种基于可用度的Web服务可用性测试模型,通过采集原始指标数据对服务质量进行可用度量化评估,为服务请求者选择更佳的Web服务提供参考依据。     

Interpretation of a cross-cultural usability evaluation: A case study based on a hypermedia system for rare species management in Namibia

We present the results of a usability evaluation of a locally developed hypermedia information system aiming at conservation biologists and wildlife managers in Namibia. Developer and end user come from different ethnic backgrounds, as is common to software development in Namibia and many developing countries. To overcome both the cultural and the authoritarian gap between usability evaluator and user, the evaluation was held as a workshop with usability evaluators who shared the target users’ ethnic and social backgrounds. Different data collection methods were used and results as well as specific incidences recorded. Results suggest that it is difficult for Namibian computer users to evaluate functionality independently from content. Users displayed evidence of a passive search strategy and an expectation that structure is provided rather than self generated. The comparison of data collection methods suggests that questionnaires are inappropriate in Namibia because they do not elicit a truthful response from participants who tend to provide answers they think are “expected”. The paper concludes that usability goals and methods have to be determined and defined within the target users’ cultural context.     

Usability measurement and metrics: A consolidated model

Usability is increasingly recognized as an important quality factor for interactive software systems, including traditional GUIs-style applications, Web sites, and the large variety of mobile and PDA interactive services. Unusable user interfaces are probably the single largest reasons why encompassing interactive systems – computers plus people, fail in actual use. The design of this diversity of applications so that they actually achieve their intended purposes in term of ease of use is not an easy task. Although there are many individual methods for evaluating usability; they are not well integrated into a single conceptual framework that facilitate their usage by developers who are not trained in the filed of HCI. This is true in part because there are now several different standards (e.g., ISO 9241, ISO/IEC 9126, IEEE Std.610.12) or conceptual models (e.g., Metrics for Usability Standards in Computing [MUSiC]) for usability, and not all of these standards or models describe the same operational definitions and measures. This paper first reviews existing usability standards and models while highlighted the limitations and complementarities of the various standards. It then explains how these various models can be unified into a single consolidated, hierarchical model of usability measurement. This consolidated model is called Quality in Use Integrated Measurement (QUIM). Included in the QUIM model are 10 factors each of which corresponds to a specific facet of usability that is identified in an existing standard or model. These 10 factors are decomposed into a total of 26 sub-factors or measurable criteria that are furtherdecomposed into 127 specific metrics. The paper explains also how a consolidated model, such as QUIM, can help in developing a usability measurement theory. Ahmed Seffah interests are at the intersection of human-computer interaction and software engineering, with an emphasis on human-centered software engineering, empirical studies, theoretical models for quality in use measurement, as well as patterns as a vehicle for capturing and incorporating empirically valid design practices in software engineering practices. He is a co-founder of the Usability and Empirical Studies Lab and the founder and the chair of the Human-Centered Software Engineering Research Group at Concordia University. Harkirat K. Padda is a Ph.D. candidate at Concordia University (Montreal) since 2003, where she completed her masters’ degree in computer science. Her research interests are software quality measurement, metrics, and empirical software evaluation. Being a member of Human Computer Software Engineering Group, she is exploring the comprehension and usability of software systems—in particular the visualization systems. In her masters’ work, she already defined a repository of different metrics to measure the ‘quality in use’ factors of software products in general. Currently, she is proposing a pattern-oriented measurement framework to measure comprehension of visualization systems.     

针对网络服务提供商的一种流量分类和应用架构

数据流量识别技术在应对网络病毒、网络入侵检测和网络管理等方面部有着重要的应用。当前主要的网络流量识别技术主要是DPI（Deep Packet Inspection）和DFI（Deep Flow Inspection）,两种技术都各自有优点和缺点。本史提出了一种网络架构,将DPI和DFI技术相结合,并通过数据挖掘技术来辅助发现分类规则,应用FPGA的可编程性和并发性来加速识别和处理过程。     

The Inverse Classification Problem

In this paper, we examine an emerging variation of the classification problem, which is known as the inverse classification problem. In this problem, we determine the features to be used to create a record which will result in a desired class label. Such an approach is useful in applications in which it is an objective to determine a set of actions to be taken in order to guide the data mining application towards a desired solution. This system can be used for a variety of decision support applications whic...     

The importance of task analysis in Usability Context Analysis - designing for fitness for purpose

Usability Context Analysis (UCA) suggests the use of task analysis in order to characterize the user's requirements of a product. This paper shows that a task analysis is a necessary (but not sufficient) part of a usability context analysis. Further, it is argued that it is necessary to carry out the task analysis to sufficient depth to establish fitness for purpose of the product under test. In addition, the analyst should have some knowledge of the application domain so that from various task sequences, that giving the best user-product task match can be used. The paper indicates by using an example of an echosounder that discrepancies of use can be highlighted through this task-based approach to usability context analysis.     

基于增量核主成分分析的数据流在线分类框架

核主成分分析(Kernel principal component analysis, KPCA)是一种非线性降维工具, 在降低数据流分类处理量方面发挥着积极作用. 然而, 由于复杂性太高, 导致KPCA的降维能力有限. 为此, 本文给出了一种增量核主成分分析算法(Incremental KPCA for dimensionality-reduction, IKDR), 该算法在每步迭代估计中只需线性内存开销, 大大降低了复杂性. 在IKDR的基础上, 结合BP (Back propagation)神经网络提出了数据流在线分类框架: IKOCFrame (Online classification frame based on IKDR). 通过一系列真实和人工数据集上的实验, 检验了IKDR算法的收敛性, 并且验证了IKOCFrame相对于同类基于成分分析的分类算法的优越性.