HCI Practise
Keynote: Breaking Through The Invisible Walls of Usability Research
Jared Spool (User Interface Engineering)
The methods and practices of today's usability research have pretty much remained the same for the last 30 years. Not much new has happened. Yet the systems we're researching have changed tremendously. They are bigger, more capable, and more integrated with our lives.
In this presentation, Jared will discuss the invisible walls today's usability practitioners run into. He'll show examples of where today's technological advances make it virtually impossible to to assess the experience users have, making for a very difficult time for designers and developers trying to improve our experiences. He'll discuss where tomorrow's academic researchers could help break through some of these barriers.
Information Architecture with IBM Task Modeler
Mark Farmer & Colin Bird (IBM United Kingdom Ltd)
The IBM Task Modeler was originally developed as a graphical tool to support pure task analysis techniques. It allows an overall goal to be decomposed into tasks, and further into subtasks in a drag-and-drop environment. The result is a Hierarchical Task Analysis (HTA). Later versions of Task Modeler also support the development of hierarchical models other than the classic HTA.
Mark will illustrate the basic constituents of a model and demonstrate how the facilities of Task Modeler, such as the visualization options, enable the rapid creation, analysis, and communication of the model.
Task Modeler supports the rapid creation and analysis of hierarchical task models, providing a valuable and naturally visual tool for information architects. Colin will demonstrate how Task Modeler not only facilitates the essential processes of design, validation, and modification but also enables an information architect to develop and apply schemes for information classification.
Eye Tracking in Practice
Tony Renshaw (Usability North, Leeds Metropolitan University) & Natalie Webb (Amberlight Partners Ltd)
Tony and Natalie have conducted a series of very successful eye tracking workshops at HCI 2005 (Edinburgh, Scotland), UPA 2006 (Broomfield, USA) and CHI 2006 (Montreal, Canada). At HCI 2007, they will bring together their findings and experiences to describe the practical side of eye tracker use in the field of human-computer interaction.
In particular, they will discuss the use of eye tracking in usability evaluations, covering those topics of primary importance to practitioners. This will include the business case for eye tracking and the technique's benefits and limitations. They will relay hints and tips, based on practical experience, to help ensure success with eye tracking, and provide some useful links and references for those audience members who are considering adopting the technique.
Technologies for deaf and blind users
Ben Fletcher (IBM United Kingdom Ltd)
Today, two worlds are available to us: the real world and the virtual world. These worlds are often kept separate. Where it gets really interesting is when the two integrate, particularly if you are sensory-disabled.
The emergence of eye technologies like the bionic eye, and medical advances like gene therapy, have been fascinating from a metaverse standpoint: a virtual world that is immersed in the real world, where, using pervasive messaging technologies, everything real is appropriately represented for the individual's seeing abilities.
Human trials show that the world patients actually see is very varied: some see certain colours, the dots, or only the blocks, in the dark, or in the light. For them, this is the world we are in today. The real world.
This real world can be shaped into a digital world that is potentially more accessible. By integrating local awareness with pervasive messaging, we can use virtual worlds to give the sensory-disabled a world where more things are within reach; the real world and the virtual world are intertwined. Ben will look at examples of this integration, some using pervasive messaging technologies from IBM.
HCI 2.0? usability meets Web 2.0
Chairs: Alan Dix (Lancaster University) & Laura Cowen (IBM United Kingdom Ltd)
with panellists:
Elizabeth Churchill (Yahoo!)
Pat Healey (Queen Mary, University of London)
Nadeem Shabir (Talis)
Paula Gomes da Silva (Lancaster University)
The web has already dramatically changed society, but the web itself is changing. Web2.0 sites mean that users have become the producers of content and the designers of each others' viewing experience. Technologies such as AJAX combined with public Javascript libraries have allowed applications to be deployed that once would have required extensive programming. Open APIs and mashups make it difficult to tell the difference between a service, and application or a web page. So what are the challenges for HCI when every user is designer, and every menu a different behaviour, when experience outranks efficiency, and connectivity replaces consistency?
