- Why Do You Make A Folder?
Azrina Kamaruddin, Alan Dix, David Martin (Lancaster University)
Folder creation and file (or mail/url) placement are two common and important sub activities when managing information of various types and status. We conducted a study to understand how people manage information in their information workspace: desktop, in folders, email web bookmarks. A semi-structured interview on 17 users revealed two types of user folder creation strategies: prospective ("may want this sometime") and retrospective ("need to group these files somewhere now").
- Investigating the communication of emotions through multimodal technologies and gestures
Ravi Kuber (Queens University Belfast), Suziah Sulaiman, Ann Blandford (University College London)
In human–human interactions, touch is an important means of communicating emotional content. Touch-based technologies may have a role to play in augmenting computer-mediated communications, such as Chat and Instant Messaging. The study reported here investigated whether emotions could be effectively understood via haptic and gestural interfaces. Each interface was developed to communicate a specific emotion, based on established descriptions of the visual and gestural representations of positive and negative emotions. Sixteen subjects were asked to identify the emotion being expressed by reference to ‘emo-cards’ which displayed a larger range of emotions. Participants successfully identified the emotion of surprise, were partially successful in identifying happiness and disgust, but were unable to reliably identify sadness. We outline a programme of further research to determine which emotions can be reliably communicated, and how to design effective representations for communicating those emotions.
- An Empirical Study of a Question-Based Authentication Technique
Ann Nosseir, Richard Connor, Crawford Revie (University of Strathclyde)
Stolen or forgotten passwords and ID cards can limit users’ accessibility to and interaction with their personal devices or email and consequently limit users’ mobility. Further, biometric assessment and ID cards are costly in terms of equipment, installation and maintenance. Decisions on selecting authentication techniques tend to involve a trade-off between security and two other dimensions: mobility and cost. In low risk situations, where the implications of unauthorized access are limited, using an expensive technique cannot be justified. The use of passwords is thus the most common solution as they are the cheapest technique; however they have memorability problems. In this paper, we investigate a novel question-based authentication technique that uses electronic personal histories to generate questions. The aim is to investigate the possibility of differentiating between genuine users and impostors based on their respective answers to these generated questions. We have also investigated the impact of psychological parameters on memorability.
- An experimental interactive application managing cultural data, based on Customizable User Interface design
George Pehlivanides (University of the Aegean, Greece)
This poster presents an interactive game through which users could test their knowledge about the cultural identity of Lesvos (an island in the northeast of Greece). The application was implemented during the academic year 2005 by the students of the Department of Cultural Technology and Communication of the University of the Aegean, in collaboration with the academic staff of the module "Cultural Representation I". The objective of the research procedures which took place during the implementation phases was the exploration of cultural representation practices through the use of new technologies and in particular through Customizable User Interface design. To emphasize the physicality regarding the modes of interaction with the application, a custom built floor map with embedded sensors was especially developed. On this floor map, users were able to interact with the content by walking on geographically arranged areas, and simultaneously by answering questions related to various aspects of the cultural identity of the island.
- LiLiPUT: Lightweight Lab Equipment for User Testing in Telecommunications
Peter Froehlich, Peter Reichl, Raimund Schatz, Lynne Baillie, Wolfgang Weinberger, Florian Hammer (Telecommunications Research Center Vienna)
User testing in mobile HCI is still mostly conducted in stationary labs, even though the importance of field data is widely acknowledged. Starting from related work and a set of six key requirements for more successful and widespread field-based user testing, we present our Lightweight Lab Equipment for User Testing in Telecommunications environment (LiLiPUT).
- Usability evaluation - support for the inclusion of indirect social interactions
Robert Macredie, Emma Pickering (Brunel University)
This paper argues that indirect social communication (i.e., the projection of a fashionable image) is a noteworthy part of use of personal and mobile technological artefacts and, as such, should be included in any evaluation of use. To explore this position, data was collected from within a larger ethnographically-inspired study which focused on exploring interactions of "beyond the desktop" technologies in the real world. Four semi-structured qualitative interviews from this larger study were selected as having content relevant to indirect social communication and were analysed by interpretive phenomenological analysis. Of particular interest was the concern of fashionability, and the participants exhibition of tactics to manage communication. Conclusions drawn support the notion that the use of technological artefacts by a user is affected by indirect social interaction and so dimensions for indirect social interaction should be included in evaluations of use.
- A Model for Structuring UML Class Diagrams to Support Non-Visual Interpretation and Navigation
Oussama Metatla, Nick Bryan-Kinns, Tony Stockman (Queen Mary University London)
Accessing textual information non-visually can be performed directly using Braille translators or text-to-speech engines. Problems arise when faced with graphically represented information, such as a diagram. For blind and visually impaired people, screen-readers are the most commonly used tools for accessing on-screen information, but they typically fail to deliver graphical information in appropriate and flexible ways. As a result, diagrammatic representations are inaccessible for such a population of users. We present the design of an experiment exploring a task-oriented approach for integrating speech and non-speech sounds to support the interpretation and navigation of conceptually relevant information encoded in a diagram.
