Designing reality-based interfaces for experiential bio-design

Reality-based interfaces (RBIs) such as tabletop and tangible user interfaces draw upon ideas from embodied cognition to offer a more natural, intuitive, and accessible form of interaction that reduces the mental effort required to learn and operate computational systems. However, to date, little research has been devoted to investigating the strengths and limitations of applying reality-based interaction for promoting learning of complex scientific concepts at the college level. We propose that RBIs offer unique opportunities for enhancing college-level science education. This paper presents three main contributions: (1) design considerations and participatory design process for enhancing college-level science education through reality-based interaction, (2) reflections on the design, implementation, and validation of two case studies—RBIs for learning synthetic biology, and (3) discussion of opportunities and challenges for advancing learning of college-level sciences through next-generation interfaces.     

Designing interfaces that support formation of cognitive maps of transitional processes: an empirical study

Many conditions, phenomena, and concepts are of a transitional nature. Transitional processes involve change from one form to another, such as biological, chemical, and geological metamorphoses. Transitional processes take place in time-space and are not always easy to encode, communicate, and understand. The purpose of this research is to investigate how to design human-computer interfaces that support users in their formation of cognitive maps of transitional processes. To conduct this investigation, geometric shapes were used as the testbed, and their metamorphic transformations were captured and communicated using three different interface styles: temporally stacked, spatially distributed, and spatio-temporal. The usability and effectiveness of each interface was evaluated. The results of the study indicate that the spatio-temporal interface is the most effective of the three interfaces. The findings of this research imply that many kinds of transitional processes, such as rock metamorphoses, historical changes, or economical processes, may best be explored and understood using spatio-temporal interfaces.     

Multimedia interfaces for users with high functioning autism: An empirical investigation

This article focuses on issues relevant to human–computer interaction in the case of autism. We designed training software that target specific communicative disorders attributed to autism and defined an empirical protocol to test this software. The experimental software platform that we developed manages each game's interface modalities and logs users’ actions, for the purpose of exploring the impact of various human–computer interfaces, which involve text, speech and images. Ten adolescents diagnosed with autism used this software during 13 sessions, at the rate of one session per week. The first and last sessions were dedicated for evaluating participants’ skills. The experiment was also performed by a group of 10 typically developing children matched on developmental age and academic level. Results show that participants with autism had poorer performances on the richer multimedia interfaces. They seemed to lack the initiative of organizing the available multimodal sources of information. In this article, we specifically discuss the impact of executive disorders on the use of multimodal interfaces with an emphasis on Animated Conversational Agents.     

Designing a smart-card-based face verification system: empirical investigation

To design a smart card face verification system many key factors have to be considered. In this study we discuss the implementation of such a system and investigate the trade-off between performance and computational complexity. Two optimisation strategies are considered. The studies are performed on the XM2VTS, BANCA and FERET databases demonstrating that the judicial choice of spatial and grey level resolution as well as JPEG compression settings for face representation can optimise verification error. We show that the use of a fixed precision data type does not affect system performance very much but can speed up the verification process. Since the optimisation framework of such a system is very complicated, the search space is simplified by applying some heuristics to the problem. In the adopted suboptimal search strategy one or two parameters are optimised at a time. The system was evaluated using half total error rate (HTER) as the performance criterion. The conclusions reached on different databases indicate that the selection of the optimum parameters may call for different optimum operating points.

Refactoring the aspectizable interfaces: an empirical assessment

Aspect oriented programming aims at addressing the problem of the crosscutting concerns, i.e., those functionalities that are scattered among several modules in a given system. Aspects can be defined to modularize such concerns. In this work, we focus on a specific kind of crosscutting concerns, the scattered implementation of methods declared by interfaces that do not belong to the principal decomposition. We call such interfaces aspectizable. All the aspectizable interfaces identified within a large number of classes from the Java Standard Library and from three Java applications have been automatically migrated to aspects. To assess the effects of the migration on the internal and external quality attributes of these systems, we collected a set of metrics and we conducted an empirical study, in which some maintenance tasks were executed on the two alternative versions (with and without aspects) of the same system. In this paper, we report the results of such a comparison.     

Designing interfaces for programmers

Describes tools, techniques and concepts to optimize user interfaces. Increasingly, individual tools are being replaced by programming environments, which increase productivity and usability by tight integration with and knowledge of the user's working context. An integrated environment provides several benefits, such as preventing users from making mistakes that cause rework. Recently, as integrated environments have demonstrated higher levels of usability and the ability to enhance productivity, experienced developers have overcome their resistance to them     

Internet-based e-shopping and consumer attitudes: an empirical study

This paper analyses consumer attitudes towards Internet-based e-shopping. It aims to provide a theoretically and empirically grounded initial reference position, against which later research can explore and interpret the effects of changes in variables representing consumer preferences and shifts in these preferences on the success or failure of B2C e-commerce over the Internet. Because of the opportunity to sample at the outset and of ceteris paribus conditions following from the tendency for other factors such as e-transactions cost to remain small and constant, Singapore data were employed. Regression analysis shows that the life content of products, transactions security, price, vendor quality, IT education and Internet usage significantly affect the initial willingness of Singaporeans to e-shop on the Internet. Generalising, we suggest that Internet-based B2C e-commerce can profitably be introduced or promoted along similar dimensions in socio-geographically and technologically similar situations.     

Internet-based e-banking and consumer attitudes: an empirical study

Consumer attitudes toward the usefulness of and willingness to use Internet e-retail banking were identified and measured. Our survey was undertaken in Singapore, because its geography and well-developed infrastructure implied similar and small physical- and tele-communication costs, thereby highlighting the differences between traditional and Internet-based retail banking upon the latter’s introduction. The data showed that expectations of accuracy, security, network speed, user-friendliness, user involvement and convenience were the most important quality attributes underlying perceived usefulness. Regression discovered that willingness to use depended significantly on the first five factors, allowing the interdependencies or marginal rates of substitution between them to be estimated. Our results draw attention to demand-side changes in explaining the recent slowdown in Internet e-retail banking, and may also be useful for development planning and marketing.     

An empirical investigation of the consumer demand for digital television application services

In the era of convergence of digital television (DTV) broadcasting and internet, DTV application services will be the key to success. Through theoretical and empirical analysis, this study showed that the integrated model which includes basic products/services, value-added services, interactive services, and behavioural intention is applicable to explain consumer's demands of DTV application services. Results indicated that value-added services is the most important factor affecting the behavioural intention to adopt DTV application services, while interactive services is the best way to create consumer's emotional value. In addition, this study also provided some impetus for both researchers and practitioners.     

Designing presence for real locomotion in immersive virtual environments: an affordance-based experiential approach

This paper describes a framework for designing systems for real locomotion in virtual environments (VEs) in order to achieve an intense sense of presence. The main outcome of the present research is a list of design features that the virtual reality technology should have in order to achieve such a goal. To identify these features, an approach based on the combination of two design strategies was followed. The first was based on the theory of affordances and was utilized to design a generic VE in which the affordances of the corresponding real environment could be evoked. The second was the experiential design applied to VEs and was utilized to create an experience of locomotion corresponding to that achievable in a real environment. These design strategies were chosen because of their potential to enhance the sense of presence. The proposed list of features can be utilized as an instrument that allows VE designers to evaluate the maturity of their systems and to pinpoint directions for future developments. A survey analysis was performed using the proposed framework, which involved three case studies to determine how many features of the proposed framework were present and their status. The result of such analysis represented a measure of the completeness of the systems design, of the affordances provided to the user, and a prediction of the sense of presence.     

The training of knowledge structures for manufacturing tasks: an empirical study

Abstract

Knowledge structure refers to the manner in which a human organizes knowledge with a given domain. Research has identified knowledge structure as a determinant of the human ability to perform cognitive-oriented tasks. Yet uncertainty still exists about how to improve an individual's cognitive task performance through the controlled utilization of the individual's knowledge structure. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the development of individual's knowledge structure in a particular domain can be manipulated through training. The experiment utilized the manufacturing domain of plastic extrusion machine operation. Sixteen subjects, having no previous knowledge of the domain, were randomly assigned to one of two experimental groups. Each of the experimental groups corresponded to a distinct training condition. Over a three-day period, both training groups received the same instructional content; however, the sequence in which the training material was presented differed. One group initially received the abstract, conceptual relationships between domain concepts, followed by more detailed relationships associated with the lower level aspects of the domain. The other group received the training material in the reverse order; i.e. the lower level information followed by the abstract. Prior to and concluding the training sessions, each individual's knowledge structure was assessed along two dimensions, hierarchical levels and multiple relations, through a computer-based measurement technique.entitled KSAT. The group which received the abstract relationships first showed significant improvement following training along both dimensions of knowledge structure. No significant changes in the knowledge structure dimensions were found for the group which received the lower level relationships first. This study suggests that an individual's knowledge structure can be manipulated through training, with a significant effect being attributed to the training sequence of abstract material followed by the more detailed material.     

Designing interfaces for the organization

Multiuser systems force interface designers to consider a web of interacting users. Our challenge is to design interfaces that help users understand not only how the application program works, but also how work within the organization itself is done. Future organizational applications thus demand that interface design goes well beyond graphical representations and interactive dialogues. We must design interfaces that make relevant organizational resources comprehensible and accessible to users     

Talking to computers: an empirical investigation

This paper describes an empirical study of man-computer speech interaction. The goals of the experiment were to find out how people would communicate with a real-time, speaker-independent continuous speech understanding system. The experimental design compared three communication modes: natural language typing, speaking directly to a computer and speaking to a computer through a human interpreter. The results show that speech to a computer is not as ill-formed as one would expect. People speaking to a computer are more disciplined than when speaking to each other. There are significant differences in the usage of spoken language compared to typed language, and several phenomena which are unique to spoken or typed input respectively. Usefulness for work in speech understanding systems for the future is considered.     

Designing interfaces for explicit preference elicitation: a user-centered investigation of preference representation and elicitation process

Two problems may arise when an intelligent (recommender) system elicits users?? preferences. First, there may be a mismatch between the quantitative preference representations in most preference models and the users?? mental preference models. Giving exact numbers, e.g., such as ??I like 30?days of vacation 2.5?times better than 28?days?? is difficult for people. Second, the elicitation process can greatly influence the acquired model (e.g., people may prefer different options based on whether a choice is represented as a loss or gain). We explored these issues in three studies. In the first experiment we presented users with different preference elicitation methods and found that cognitively less demanding methods were perceived low in effort and high in liking. However, for methods enabling users to be more expressive, the perceived effort was not an indicator of how much the methods were liked. We thus hypothesized that users are willing to spend more effort if the feedback mechanism enables them to be more expressive. We examined this hypothesis in two follow-up studies. In the second experiment, we explored the trade-off between giving detailed preference feedback and effort. We found that familiarity with and opinion about an item are important factors mediating this trade-off. Additionally, affective feedback was preferred over a finer grained one-dimensional rating scale for giving additional detail. In the third study, we explored the influence of the interface on the elicitation process in a participatory set-up. People considered it helpful to be able to explore the link between their interests, preferences and the desirability of outcomes. We also confirmed that people do not want to spend additional effort in cases where it seemed unnecessary. Based on the findings, we propose four design guidelines to foster interface design of preference elicitation from a user view.     

How to select search keywords for online advertising depending on consumer involvement: An empirical investigation

In paid search advertising on Internet, advertisers bid for specific keywords. Consumer involvement affects a consumer’s purchase intention. However, there has been no research on selecting keywords in paid search advertising depending on consumer involvement from the advertisers’ perspective. Our paper investigates the effects of several factors including impressions, click-through rate, conversion rate, the number of competitors and the quantity of online customer reviews on the performance of individual keywords. Our analysis shows that regardless of consumer involvement, the conversion rate and the number of reviews significantly affect to the performance of individual keywords but the click-through rate does not. In addition, the effects of impressions and the number of competitors partially exist depending on consumer involvement. This study provides managerial insights into paid search advertising and can give some assumptions in the theoretical modeling literature for allocating advertising budgets.     

Designing video games for the blind: results of an empirical study

Universal Access in the Information Society - Understanding non-functional software requirements and developing realizable operationalizations of them are critical to the success of any information...     

Directed test suite augmentation: an empirical investigation

Test suite augmentation techniques are used in regression testing to identify code elements in a modified program that are not adequately tested and to generate test cases to cover those elements. A defining feature of test suite augmentation techniques is the potential for reusing existing regression test suites. Our preliminary work suggests that several factors influence the efficiency and effectiveness of augmentation techniques that perform such reuse. These include the order in which target code elements are considered while generating test cases, the manner in which existing regression test cases and newly generated test cases are used, and the algorithm used to generate test cases. In this work, we present the results of two empirical studies examining these factors, considering two test case generation algorithms (concolic and genetic). The results of our studies show that the primary factor affecting augmentation using these approaches is the test case generation algorithm utilized; this affects both cost and effectiveness. The manner in which existing and newly generated test cases are utilized also has a substantial effect on efficiency and in some cases a substantial effect on effectiveness. The order in which target code elements are considered turns out to have relatively few effects when using concolic test case generation but in some cases influences the efficiency of genetic test case generation. The results of our first study, on four relatively small programs using a large number of test suites, are supported by our second study of a much larger program available in multiple versions. Together, the studies reveal a potential opportunity for creating a more cost‐effective hybrid augmentation approach leveraging both concolic and genetic test case generation techniques, while appropriately utilizing our understanding of the factors that affect them. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adapting funding processes for agile IT projects: an empirical investigation

Agile software development that provides software development organizations, the ability to respond to changes in turbulent business environments, has been gaining wide adoption. Agile software development projects are characterized by ‘just enough’ planning and lack of upfront commitment to scope, cost, and schedule. These characteristics pose conflicting demands on managers responsible for making funding decisions, because traditional approaches to funding IT projects are often based on well-defined scope, cost, and schedule. These conflicts demand the adaptation of traditional funding processes to suit to agile projects. We draw from Adaptive Structuration Theory to understand the nature of conflicts between traditional IT project funding processes and the dynamic nature of agile projects, and how these conflicts are addressed by practices that are appropriated in the process of social interaction between funding decision makers and development teams. On the basis of a multisite case study, we present a framework that explains how organizations adapt traditional IT funding approaches to accommodate the unique characteristics of agile IT projects.     

Adoption of mobile ICT for health promotion: an empirical investigation

This research is an unbiased empirical evaluation of user reasons to accept or resist a mobile information and communication technology (ICT) application for health promotion. This innovative use of mobile ICT consists of developing services that educate people to stay healthy, with clear benefits for both individuals and society. Receiving customized health advice through mobile devices may be an attractive service. However, despite their ability to support users, mobile services may sometimes irritate by being too intrusive. A 1-month experiment exposed participants to a health promotion application, delivered through their cell phones. This was the framework for the evaluation of an adoption model that included both positive and negative user adoption factors. Findings revealed intrinsic motivation to be a sufficient reason for adoption and a multi-faceted perceived overall risk factor as the main obstacle. Accordingly, when usefulness is less apparent, enjoyment may be a key factor for the adoption of mobile ICT for health promotion.