Extending the User Action Notation for Research in Individual Differences

Author(s):  
Derek Brock ◽  
Deborah Hix ◽  
Lynn Dievendorf ◽  
J. Gregory Trafton

Software user interfaces that provide users with more than one device, such as a mouse and keyboard, for interactively performing tasks, are now commonplace. Concerns about how to represent individual differences in patterns of use and acquisition of skill in such interfaces led the authors to develop modifications to the standard format of the User Action Notation (UAN) that substantially augment the notation's expressive power. These extensions allow the reader of an interface specification to make meaningful comparisons between functionally equivalent interaction techniques and task performance strategies in interfaces supporting multiple input devices. Furthermore, they offer researchers a new methodology for analyzing the behavioral aspects of user interfaces. These modifications are documented and their benefits discussed.

Author(s):  
Xiaojun Bi ◽  
Andrew Howes ◽  
Per Ola Kristensson ◽  
Antti Oulasvirta ◽  
John Williamson

This chapter introduces the field of computational interaction, and explains its long tradition of research on human interaction with technology that applies to human factors engineering, cognitive modelling, artificial intelligence and machine learning, design optimization, formal methods, and control theory. It discusses how the book as a whole is part of an argument that, embedded in an iterative design process, computational interaction design has the potential to complement human strengths and provide a means to generate inspiring and elegant designs without refuting the part played by the complicated, and uncertain behaviour of humans. The chapters in this book manifest intellectual progress in the study of computational principles of interaction, demonstrated in diverse and challenging applications areas such as input methods, interaction techniques, graphical user interfaces, information retrieval, information visualization, and graphic design.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. e25614 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Pellen ◽  
Sylvain Bouquin ◽  
Isabelle Mougenot ◽  
Régine Vignes-Lebbe

Xper3 (Vignes Lebbe et al. 2016) is a collaborative knowledge base publishing platform that, since its launch in november 2013, has been adopted by over 2 thousand users (Pinel et al. 2017). This is mainly due to its user friendly interface and the simplicity of its data model. The data are stored in MySQL Relational DBs, but the exchange format uses the TDWG standard format SDD (Structured Descriptive DataHagedorn et al. 2005). However, each Xper3 knowledge base is a closed world that the author(s) may or may not share with the scientific community or the public via publishing content and/or identification key (Kopfstein 2016). The explicit taxonomic, geographic and phenotypic limits of a knowledge base are not always well defined in the metadata fields. Conversely terminology vocabularies, such as Phenotype and Trait Ontology PATO and the Plant Ontology PO, and software to edit them, such as Protégé and Phenoscape, are essential in the semantic web, but difficult to handle for biologist without computer skills. These ontologies constitute open worlds, and are expressed themselves by RDF triples (Resource Description Framework). Protégé offers vizualisation and reasoning capabilities for these ontologies (Gennari et al. 2003, Musen 2015). Our challenge is to combine the user friendliness of Xper3 with the expressive power of OWL (Web Ontology Language), the W3C standard for building ontologies. We therefore focused on analyzing the representation of the same taxonomic contents under Xper3 and under different models in OWL. After this critical analysis, we chose a description model that allows automatic export of SDD to OWL and can be easily enriched. We will present the results obtained and their validation on two knowledge bases, one on parasitic crustaceans (Sacculina) and the second on current ferns and fossils (Corvez and Grand 2014). The evolution of the Xper3 platform and the perspectives offered by this link with semantic web standards will be discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Koessmeier ◽  
Oliver B. Büttner

Social media is a major source of distraction and thus can hinder users from successfully fulfilling certain tasks by tempting them to use social media instead. However, an understanding of why users get distracted by social media is still lacking. We examine the phenomenon of social media distraction by identifying reasons for, situations of, and strategies against social media distraction. The method adopted is a quantitative online survey (N = 329) with a demographically diverse sample. The results reveal two reasons for social media distraction: social (e.g., staying connected and being available) and task-related distraction (e.g., not wanting to pursue a task). We find individual differences in these reasons for distraction. For social distraction, affiliation motive and fear of missing out (FoMO) are significant predictors, while for task-related distraction, self-regulatory capabilities (self-control, problematic social media use) and FoMO are significant predictors. Additionally, typical distraction situations are non-interactive situations (e.g., watching movies, facing unpleasant tasks). Strategies used to reduce distractions mostly involved reducing external distractions (e.g., silencing the device). This paper contributes to the understanding of social media use by revealing insights into social media distraction from the user perspective.


Author(s):  
Andrew Dekker ◽  
Justin Marrington ◽  
Stephen Viller

Unlike traditional forms of Human-Computer Interaction (such as conducting desktop or Web-based design), mobile design has by its nature little control over the contextual variables of its research. Short-term evaluations of novel mobile interaction techniques are abundant, but these controlled studies only address limited contexts through artificial deployments, which cannot hope to reveal the patterns of use that arise as people appropriate a tool and take it with them into the varying social and physical contexts of their lives. The authors propose a rapid and reflective model of in-situ deployment of high-fidelity prototypes, borrowing the tested habits of industry, where researchers relinquish tight control over their prototypes in exchange for an opportunity to observe patterns of use that would be intractable to plan for in controlled studies. The approach moves the emphasis in prototyping away from evaluation and towards exploration and reflection, promoting an iterative prototyping methodology that captures the complexities of the real world.


Author(s):  
Andreas Lorenz

The use of mobile and hand-held devices is a desirable option for implementation of user interaction with remote services from a distance, whereby the user should be able to select the input device depending on personal preferences, capabilities and availability of interaction devices. Because of the heterogeneity of available devices and interaction styles, the interoperability needs particular attention by the developer. This paper describes the design of a general solution to enable mobile devices to have control on services at remote hosts. The applied approach enhances the idea of separating the user interface from the application logic, leading to the definition of virtual or logical input devices physically separated from the controlled services.


Author(s):  
Mario Ciampi ◽  
Antonio Coronato ◽  
Giuseppe De Pietro ◽  
Luigi Gallo

Virtual Environments are complex systems in that they involve the crucial concept of sharing. Users can share knowledge of each other’s current activities, environments, and actions. In this chapter, the authors discuss about interaction interoperability, intended to mean the ability of two or more users to cooperate despite the heterogeneity of their interfaces. To allow such interoperability, formal methods to formalize the knowledge and middleware solutions for sharing that knowledge are required. After introducing the state-of-the-art solutions and the open issues in the field, the authors describe a system for providing interaction interoperability among multi-user interfaces. Rather than focusing on the de-coupling of input devices from interaction techniques and from interaction tasks, this chapter suggests integrating interactive systems at higher level through an interface standardization. To achieve this aim, the authors propose: i) an architectural model able to handle differences in input devices and interaction tasks; ii) an agent-based middleware that provides basic components to integrate heterogeneous user interfaces. The chapter also presents a case study in which an agent-based middleware is used to support developers in the interconnection of monolithic applications.


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