Modeling Human Behavior to Reduce Navigation Time of Menu Items

With the increase in the number of menu items and the menu structure complexity, users have to spend more time in locating menu items when using menu-based interfaces. Recently, adaptive menu techniques have been explored to reduce the time and menu item prediction plays a crucial role in the techniques. Unfortunately, there still lacks effective prediction models for menu items. This chapter per the authors explores the potential of three prediction models based on Markov chain in predicting top n menu items with human behavior data while interacting with menus - the users' historical menu item selections. The results show that Weighted Markov Chain using Genetic Algorithm can obtain the highest prediction accuracy and significantly decrease navigation time by 22.6% when N equals 4 as compared to the static counterpart. Two application scenarios of these models on mobile devices and desktop also demonstrated the potentials in daily usage to reduce the time spent to search target menu items.

Assessing the Performance of Decision Support Systems in Military Environment

This article explores the ability of a decision support system (DSS) to improve the quality of decision making in extreme environment. This DSS is actually based on a networked information system. Academic literature commonly mentions models of fit to explore the relationship between technology and performance, reckoning users' evaluations as a relevant measurement technique for Information System (IS) success. Although effective contributions have been achieved in measurement and exploration of fit, there have been few attempts to investigate the triangulation of fit between “Task-DSS-Decision Maker” under stressful and uncertain circumstances. This article provides new insights regarding the advantages provided by networked IS for making relevant decisions. An original case study has been conducted. It is focused on a networked decision support system called Link 16 that is used during aerial missions. This case study shows that the system improves decision making on an individual basis. Our result suggest the importance of three main fit criteria – Compliance, Complementarity and Conformity – to measure DSS performance under extreme environment and display a preliminary decisional fit model.

What Motivates Online Shoppers to “Like” Brands' Facebook Fan Pages?

Brands' Facebook fan pages have been frequently used as a marketing tool to reach to more individuals; however, Facebook users' motivations to participate in those fan pages are still unclear. This paper investigates the motives that stimulate online shoppers to “like” brands' Facebook fan pages. This study is interested in knowing if online shoppers' proclivity to “like” brands' Facebook fan pages is based on their hedonic or utilitarian motivations. The authors propose a model based on hedonic and utilitarian motivations and uses and gratifications theoretical framework. An online survey was conducted among college students who shopped online in Northwest Ohio (N=198). The findings show that utilitarian motivations have positive significant relationships with “liking” brands' Facebook fan pages.

Do College Students Benefit from Their Social Media Experience?

As young people are increasingly dependent on Social Networking sites (SNS) to socialize, seek information, and self-broadcast, their SNS consumption has been found to be associated with social capital and social support in a positive way especially among individuals with low psychological assets. This exploratory study investigated SNS involvement in relation to college students' perceived self-efficacy change afterwards based on the social cognitive theory and literature review on social media effects studies. Undergraduate students (N = 395) in a Midwest U.S. public university participated in a web survey in September 2012. Results indicated a positive potential of involving in SNS activities to strengthen users' self-efficacy. Research data also point to the mediating roles of social support and social learning on SNS involvement and self-efficacy, especially among low self-efficacy college students with homogenous SNS networks. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Towards Intelligent Window Layout Management

Large displays are becoming increasingly pervasive. Larger screen size provides an opportunity for users to see more information simultaneously, but at the cost of managing a larger amount of screen space, which is a great burden declining task performance and user experience. User would do/feel better if this burden could be takeover by the computer itself employing techniques that automate the management of screen space. Some studies on automatic window management have been carried out with some success. However, they mainly focus on utilization of empty screen space and/or overlap elimination while ignore preservation of the mental map of users, which tends to cause user confusion and disorientation in practical use. In this chapter, an empirical model is proposed to identifying the degree of mental map preservation for a window layout rearrangement. Furthermore, a method combining high-level window importance with a genetic multi-objective optimization algorithm is presented to generate recommended window layouts featuring a tradeoff among several conflicting goals: (1) better usage of screen space, (2) lower degree of window overlaps, and (3) better mental map preservation. Results suggest that the method is capable of generating suitable window layouts for users and takes a key step toward developing an automated windows manager.

Using High-Frequency Interaction Events to Automatically Classify Cognitive Load

There is still a challenge of creating an evaluation method which can not only unobtrusively collect data without supplement equipment but also objectively, quantitatively and real-time evaluate cognitive load of users based the data. The study explores the possibility of using the features extracted from high-frequency interaction (HFI) events to evaluate cognitive load to respond the challenge. Specifically, back-propagation neural networks, along with two feature selection methods (nBset and SFS), were used as the classifier and it was able to use a set of features to differentiate three cognitive load levels with an accuracy of 74.27%. The main contributions of the research are: (1) knowledge about what detailed features may be predictive of cognitive load changes; (2) demonstrating the potential of using the HFI features in discriminating different cognitive load when suitable classifier and features are adopted.

Effects of Display Characteristics on Presence and Emotional Responses of Game Players

Large displays are becoming ubiquitous and one important property of large displays is that they afford larger visual angles and physically larger screen sizes. However, there has been little investigation of the effects of large displays on users; furthermore, few studies have employed physiological measures, nor isolated the effects on presence and emotional responses of large visual angle and physically large screen size. This study, then, examines specifically the effects of these two properties of large displays on presence and emotional responses, using physiological as well as subjective methods. The results indicate that the larger visual angle offered by a large display can increase the sense of presence, engagement, and emotional responses when players are playing games. More interestingly, the physically larger sizes offered by a large display seem to also be able to affect these player experiences, even at identical visual angles with small displays.

The Environmental and Technological Factors of Multitasking

Research on multitasking, that is, conducting two or more tasks simultaneously or switching quickly between two or more tasks, has focused mostly on a human's capacity to do so inside their brain. However, our daily life experience indicates that our ability to multitask is not only dependent on our brain capacity, but is also related to other factors such as our environments and available resources. Different individuals may have different abilities to multitask due to their expertise, situational awareness, or ability to plan ahead. This chapter discusses the environmental and technological factors of multitasking based on a prior study. The goal is to expand interdisciplinary dialogues and research methodologies to better understand this prevalent phenomenon in our society.

Giving Up Smoking Using SMS Messages on your Mobile Phone

The current tendency to use cell phones or other mobile devices for healthcare purposes offers a huge opportunity to improve public health worldwide. In that direction, mobile devices make it easier to offer coaching services through text/video messages, to support individuals trying to break addictions such as smoking. Given that use of such services is still low in France and other countries, it is important to have greater understanding of what leads users to adopt them. Therefore, we propose and validate an explanatory model for the intention to adopt a mobile coaching service to help people to stop smoking. This chapter uses the concepts of vicarious innovativeness, social influence, perceived monetary value, perceived enjoyment, and perceived irritation.

Blogs' Potentialities in Learning

Growing literature on the impact of new technologies on learning processes suggests that blogs can be effective tools to empower cognition. The chapter describes a line of research which is aimed at exploring the possibility that blogging is related to cognitive skills and can be effectively used in educational settings. In the main study reported in the paper fifty blogs were analysed and classified according to both their content and formal structure. The right (i.e., intuitive-holistic) vs. left (i.e., systematic-analytical) thinking style of blog owners was also assessed, as well as the blog owners' awareness of the psychological processes, activated by the blog that they had devised, both in their own and in other people's mind. Results showed that blog owners are able to use effective communication strategies by differentiating the formal structure of bogs according to the content, but they lack metacognitive awareness about the mental processes activated by the blog. No relation between the blog owner's cognitive style and blog style was found. Implications for the educational use of blogs are discussed. In other two studies such implications were tested in samples of teachers and students. Blogs' potentialities to enhance metacognitive awareness and control in both teachers and students, as well as cooperative learning in students,were critically evaluated. Altogether, results from this research line provide evidence that blogging can be useful to foster cognitive skills in education by empowering the bloggers' awareness of the implied mental processes.