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Mobile and ubiquitous systems designed to promote an increase in physical activity by harnessing social influence have so far had variable success. Taking a cardiac rehabilitation program as a specific health domain, in which physical inactivity is one of several targeted behaviours, the research described in this paper aims to elicit understanding of peer-involvement in health-related behavioural change and explore the potential for effective technological support. This paper introduces the technology probe Collabohab and discusses the accompanying methodological approach being adopted to establish insight into the important but so far little understood phenomenon of social support within health-related behavioural change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Credibility in mainstream media continues to wane, giving rise to new forms of journalism supported by the Internet. One of these new forms of journalism is participatory journalism. This is a form of journalism in which content is produced by ordinary citizens, usually on web sites. One of the most popular participatory journalism web sites at this time is ohmynews.com. Like mainstream media, this site, as well as ones like it, have credibility obstacles to overcome. This paper outlines a proposed study in which the researcher will test whether or not the presence of information about a writer and sources used to write a story on a participatory journalism web site affects the perceived credibility of the story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many systems such as PDAs, users access data through a limited viewport. This means that users have to frequently navigate to regions that are off-screen to view important content. Many techniques exist for moving to off-screen regions; However, none of these have been evaluated across a range of different types of off-screen tasks. In this video, we demonstrate the effectiveness of several major off-screen navigation techniques across a variety of tasks. We also include two newly developed techniques - WinHop and Multiscale Zoom - that were based on complementary features of existing systems. Our results suggest that integrating complementary properties from different approaches can significantly improve performance on a wide range of off-screen navigation tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iztmo is a conceptual project of an electronic percussion instrument that works under a network environment to establish communication among multiple users. A new language is then created, based on rhythm, and enriched by each person's cultural background - with the main purpose of being in harmony. Iztmo emits up to five sounds, divided in different ways of interaction: the user can strike it, rattle it, and scrape it. Some might play well, some might have no rhythm. But everybody will learn sharing this experience. A self-standing video was made to explain the concept and to demonstrate how the experience works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shortcuts is a critical design contribution to suggest us to think about interactive processes, regarding immediateness and automation promoted by digital technologies. A video illustrates this theoretical approach, enabling the visualization of simple interactions of everyday life. The video shows several ordinary interactions, which are, little by little, graphically represented by their duration associated with body movement. The goal is to promote the awareness of physical interaction, duration and sensorial perception when creating new products and technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Text entry research has received a lot of attention in recent years because of the need for more effective and usable entry methods on mobile devices. Technical limitations such as screen size have led to the design of entry interfaces that mentally load the user in order to obtain better performances. Current evaluation methodologies of these interfaces focus on text entry speed and error rate but don't pay enough attention to the mental load. In this paper, we concentrate on the evaluation of the load's effect on text entry process and we present a comparative evaluation of three mobile text entry methods with and without the application of a secondary task. We also define a performance measure that takes into account the mental load characteristic for a given text entry interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shared file repositories are a type of information technology application used by workgroups to store and share files online. Their use in organizations is becoming more frequent; however, repository users are not always able to effectively find and access information, especially when files in the repository have been created and maintained by others. Through field studies involving current users of shared file repositories, I will document and analyze the scope and consequences of the problem. In addition, I will test hypotheses about possible remedies through a series of experiments exploring the effects of common ground on folder hierarchy and naming structure, and the ability of users to find and access files. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The web has been largely mute and deaf but since the beginning of the 21st century this scenario is changing with the possibility of using intelligent voice interfaces on web systems. In this paper we present the Voice Mosaic - a system that allows voice interactions on the web through the telephone. Its voice interface uses speech recognition and synthesis solutions developed with VoiceXML, an open-standard in voice technologies adopted by the W3C. Voice Mosaic is an artwork that allows people to get in touch with the possibility of talking to the web, intending to cause awareness about it. Since the technology used in Voice Mosaic can be used to improve accessibility (for visual impaired people) and digital inclusion (since the telephone is one of the cheapest devices in the world), dissolving borders and amplifying the pervasiveness, we believe that the concepts presented here can be useful to other developers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We discuss requirements surrounding a mobile navigation system for visually impaired people. We describe an initial prototype based on a PDA using GPS location tracking. This prototype has so far failed to provide reliable location detection, due to the use of GPS in built up environments. We discuss how our system may improve detection by switching between a range of different location tracking technologies. However, we conclude that there may still be times when these technologies fail, and more work is needed on how to support the user in such circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last few years the interest in Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) fields has spread towards wireless and mobile devices which can support activities in everyday life. Designing for play, learning and awareness is becoming more and more a factual aspects of research willing to meet users' needs. In such a broaden range of possible applications for the new ubiquitous and pervasive technologies, classical HCI methods for revealing efficiency and effectiveness of an innovative product are no more adequate. Taking into consideration human experience during the interaction with ICT devices needs a more creative and multidisciplinary design approach. This work was developed within a European project called MobileMAN whose aim was to develop a self-organizing and infrastructure-less network with the potentiality of the well-known MANET (Mobile Ad hoc NETwork) paradigm. Our goal in the MobileMAN project was to investigate with potential end users, the possible applications useful for everyday activities that could work with this emerging technology. We then tried to adopt a more creative and multidisciplinary approach, inspired by the "Probe Kit" developed at the Royal College of London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an open source podcast publishing application which has been implemented to create an educational podcasting service at the University of Bergamo (Italy) and has subsequently been adopted by several universities and other podcasters in Italy and abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we describe an interface for searching and conceptualizing related information. We describe a specific application of this interface for searching traditional artists in the state of Indiana. The interface employs multi-modal interaction by allowing the user to search for artists using a map of the state of Indiana alongside a conceptual hierarchical map of crafts and sub-crafts. The two interfaces work in parallel with each other so that as a user interacts with one interface, it affects what is displayed on the opposing map. The goal of this application is twofold. One goal is to provide users with a better and simpler means for searching a specific set of information using only relevant and related data. The second goal is to provide companies, organizations or institutions with an interface that will allow them to provide clients or targeted users with a more effective way to search their database. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development of a multi-user interactive display in the coffee corner that makes the office workers aware of events happening within the company aiming to stimulate social interaction. New input devices, i-Candies (fake candies integrated with RFID tags) are used as multi-user input devices for explicit interactions with the display. The interactive display and i-Candies have been deployed and tested within the office environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work introduces the design of a multimodal application allowing the user to sculpt 3D medical data. We are considering interaction modalities such as blowing and gesture to segment the 3D data visualized. Besides we present a multimodal platform for the rapid development of multimodal interactive systems as a central tool for an iterative user-centered design process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose consistency priorities to support multi-device interface design minimizing the user's cognitive effort while performing the same task on different interfaces. The methodology is being evaluated through a framework that generates Pocket PC interfaces from desktop web pages. Initial results point to the acceptance of the approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culture has already played an important role in the global market. It not only affects products, but also impacts on usability evaluation methods. This project aims to examine in the established thinking aloud usability evaluation method (TA UEM), how does the evaluator build a supportive relationship and communicate effectively with the user in order to find relevant usability problems in culturally localized applications. It includes three parts, pilot study, field study and experiments, to get both qualitative data and quantitative data. From this project, we hope to find an effective way to structure our TA UEM methodology to capture or be sensitive towards the mental models and ways of thinking in different cultural groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vast new datasets are available for social scientists to analyze with the increasing use of internet technologies. Email clients, instant messenger and chat; photo sharing and peer-to-peer file exchange; open-source programming platforms and online editable encyclopedias such as wikipedia-all give social scientists readyto- analyze data about how people communicate and collaborate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Programmers spend much of their time investigating the source code of a program, which often involves navigating and understanding delocalized code fragments. This Ph.D. project explores the use of information visualizations that are designed to support programmers in these activities. I use controlled experiments to provide precise measurements of the usability of visualizations and detailed insight into users' interaction with visualizations. Also, case studies are used to understand how professional programmers use visualizations in realistic work activity. Overall, this research will contribute empirically founded insight into the design and use of visualizations in programming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Result of my literature review shows the important characteristics of three distinct modalities and the factors influencing interaction in a ubiquitous computing context. Research aim is to develop the principles for the design of multimodal interactive systems in a ubiquitous environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information is being disseminated much faster than we can assimilate it, leading to information overload. In addition to desktop computers, users use a vast array of other devices to manage their information, which leads to information fragmentation. It has not yet been studied how users adapt their information management practices in response to the introduction of new devices into their personal information ecosystem. As part of my doctoral research, I plan to study this evolution, which is important for the design of next-generation devices and to establish future research directions in personal information management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Snip is a tool that allows a user to constrict the view onto any window. We report on a controlled study of the snip tool in the context of a multiple-monitor environment. The study was designed based on observed user behavior in a field study of multiple-monitor users' snipping habits. Analysis provided results that indicate that users can expect to reference information approximately 15% to 30% faster from snipped windows than from non-snipped windows. Further, users need to pay only a small overhead cost to perform the snip operation. The result extends to other recently presented region-based interface tools that aim to assist multiple-monitor users interact effectively and employ additional monitor space for information-referencing activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates novel ways to direct computers by eye gaze. Instead of using fixations and dwell times, this work focuses on eye motion, in particular gaze gestures. Gaze gestures are insensitive to accuracy problems and immune against calibration shift. A user study indicates that users are able to perform complex gaze gestures intentionally and investigates which gestures occur unintentionally during normal interaction with the computer. Further experiments show how gaze gestures can be integrated into working with standard desktop applications and controlling media devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present the results of a descriptive online survey conducted among Swiss software developers regarding their engineering practices with a special focus on the design and development of user interfaces. This enables an insight into the everyday life of a software engineer and can lead usability practitioners, project managers and clients to a better level of cooperation in designing user interfaces through understanding how software engineers work. While software is developed and tested in a professional way, several problem areas were detected: firstly, software engineers frequently develop user interfaces alone, without the help of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) professionals. Secondly, they have a limited knowledge of HCI. Thirdly, whilst they have contact to end users, they do not make use of this for user interface design. Finally, usability tests are rare and seldom result in big changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Justification of choices made throughout the design process of systems is a recurrent desire and quite often a formal request from certification authorities in the safety critical domain. However, even though some work has already been done in the early phases of the development processes, justifying choices in the later phases such as detailed design or implementation remain a cumbersome activity left (without any support) in the hands of the developers. This paper presents a notation called TEAM (Traceability, Exploration and Analysis Model) and its associated tool called DREAM (Design Rationale Environment for Argumentation and Modelling). The paper presents first the notation and its specificities with respect to other Design Rationale notations. Both the notation and the tools are presented on a case study showing how they can support design of interaction techniques for Air Traffic Control workstations. We also present the rationale that we have gathered while designing the graphical representation of the notation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

User-centered design is not just about building nice-looking and usable interfaces, and software development is not just about implementing functionality that supports user tasks. This paper aims to build a tighter fit between human-computer interaction and software engineering practices and research by addressing what software and usability engineering practitioners can learn from each other regarding the impact of usability on software development. More specifically we aim to support usability people in helping developers to elicit requirements that can incorporate usability functions into software development. The paper shows what type of impact usability has on software models and suggests how this impact can be dealt with at the requirements elicitation and specification stages of the development cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents markerClock, a communication appliance embedded into a clock and designed for seniors as a simple and intuitive device. MarkerClock enhances seniors' connectedness to their social networks, particularly friends, neighbors and relatives, therefore increasing the potential of human communication for providing and receiving care. In doing so, markerClock supports reciprocal care behaviors observed during our initial user study, which could be used to leverage the need for institutionalized care. This paper describes markerClock and its implementation of both passive and active communications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Usability is an important quality characteristic of software (SW) products and systems. Usability cost-benefit analysis models outline the potential benefits and costs of usability. This paper contrasts usability cost-benefit analysis literature with an empirical case in industrial setting, in which usability cost-benefit considerations (along with other usability activities) resulted in usability becoming a curse word. An interpretive case study was carried out in a SW development organization. Empirical analysis reveals that clearly divergent meanings and motives were attached to usability and its cost-benefit analysis in the organization. Increased sales and reduced development costs were strongly emphasized as benefits of better usability. However, very surprising meanings were attached to them both. Furthermore, the increased development costs associated with better usability were the main failure factor of the whole usability improvement effort. Implications both for theory and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents three selection techniques (called Rubber-ling-sweep, Line-string and Coupling-with-pressure) to enhance multi-target acquisition in GUIs and to overcome the drawback of the standard rubber-band box technique, i.e., the limitation of not being able to select an irregular layout of targets. Rubber-line-sweep utilizes a rubber-band line to select targets by "sweeping" them. Line-string employs a line stroke to "string" targets together and select them. Coupling-with-pressure couples these two techniques with pressure as a switch mode. Experiments were conducted to compare these techniques with the standard Rubber-band box, which used a two-dimensional grid which could include varied target sizes, distances and target layouts, and which is applied by using pens as input devices. Experimental results indicate that Rubber-line-sweep, Line-string and Coupling-with-pressure show significant advantages for targets with irregular layouts. Taking performance and subjective ratings together, Coupling-with-pressure outperforms the other three techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper a novel zoom-based technique with pressure (hereafter referred to as "ZWPS") is proposed to improve small target selection in pen-based interfaces. In this technique pressure is used as a switch mode to couple a standard pointing technique and a zoomable technique together. ZWPS allows both precise and normal selections. We conducted an experiment to examine the effectiveness of ZWPS. The experimental results indicate that ZWPS significantly enhance small target selections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A longitudinal study of two non-speech continuous cursor control systems is presented in this paper: Whistling User Interface (U3I) and Vocal Joystick (VJ). This study combines the quantitative and qualitative methods to get a better understanding of novice users' experience over time. Three hypotheses were tested in this study. The quantitative data show that U3I performed better in error rate and in simulating a mouse click; VJ was better on other measures. The qualitative data indicate that the participants' opinions regarding both tools improved day-by-day. U3I was perceived as less fatiguing than VJ. U3I approached the performance of VJ at the end of the study period, indicating that these two systems can achieve similar performances as users get more experienced in using them. This study supports two hypotheses but does not provide enough evidence to support one hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

User interruptability has become an important topic of study in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). However, automatically determining the availability of users is still problematic. In this paper, we present a preliminary study of the use of physiological measurements for predicting user interruptability status. We measured Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and Electromyogram (EMG) signals whilst users performed a variety of tasks; including reading, solving word puzzles, mental arithmetic, typing, and playing a racing game. Results show high correlations for both HRV (r = 0.96) and EMG (r = 0.85) with user self-reports of interruptability. We combined these two measures into a single linear model, which predicted user interruptability with a combined r2 of 0.95, or 95% of the variance. Please note that our model, at this stage, describes interruptability across users rather than per individual. We describe an application of our findings in the Physiological Weblog, or 'Plog, a system that uses our model for automating online messaging status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effectiveness of conversational agent-based delivery of task strategy and operational help for an interactive search tool. The study tested three modalities of advice (text-only, text-and-audio, and text-audio-and-agent) in addition to a control group with no advice. User- and system- initiated advice modes were also compared. Subjects in the text-only group outperformed other modality groups in usability errors, search performance, advice uptake and in their positive comments in the debriefing interview and post-test questionnaire. User-initiated advice was preferred and was more effective. Users criticized speech advice for being too long and difficult to control. The results suggested that the computer as social actor paradigm might not be effective for advisory applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows an experimental study about the design of grammars for a voice interface system. The influence of the grammar design on the behavior of the voice recognition system regarding accuracy and computational cost is assessed through tests. With the redesign of a grammar we show that those characteristics can be expressively improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an eye tracking study to measure if and how including pictures - relevant or irrelevant to the text - affects online reading. In a between-subjects design, 82 subjects read a story on a computer screen. The text was accompanied by either: (a) pictures related to the text, (b) pictures unrelated to the text (advertisements), or (c) no pictures. Reading statistics such as reading speed and regressions were computed, as well as measures of picture gazes. When pictures related to the text were replaced with advertisements, we observed a number of significant differences, including speed, regressions, and re-reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on of the use of animation to alert students to incoming messages and system updates in an online environment. It describes an experiment which compares an animation- and a text-based interface in terms of how the students perceived the alerting system. Relationships between the number of interactions, performance, and perceived social presence are examined. The results indicate that the animation-based interface group interact more than the text-based interface group and perceptions of social presence might be stronger for those students who post more messages. In addition, the results suggest that those students who perceived a stronger social presence also performed better. These findings have implications for designing online course environments where the design of the interface should be considered as a variable that enhances social presence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present CodeSaw, a social visualization of distributed software development. CodeSaw visualizes a distributed software community from two important and independent perspectives: code repositories and project communication. By bringing together both shared artifacts (code) and the talk surrounding those artifacts (project mail), CodeSaw reveals group dynamics that lie buried in existing technologies. This paper describes the visualization and its design process. We apply CodeSaw to a popular open source project, showing how the visualization reveals group dynamics and individual roles. The paper ends with a discussion of the results of an online field study with prominent open source developers. The field study suggests that CodeSaw positively affects communities and provides incentives to distributed developers. Furthermore, an important design lesson from the field study leads us to introduce a novel interaction technique for social visualization called spatial messaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The promises of multimodal interaction to make interaction more natural, less error-prone and more enjoyable have been controversially discussed in the HCI community. On the one hand multimodal interaction is being adopted in fields ranging from entertainment to safety-critical applications, on the other hand new forms of interaction techniques (including two-handed interaction and speech) are still not in widespread use. In this paper we present results from a usability evaluation study including eye-tracking on how two mice and speech interaction is adopted by the users. Our results show evidence that two mice and speech can be adopted naturally by the users. In addition, we discuss how eye-tracking data helps to understand advantages of two-handed interaction and speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a focus+context visualization and interaction technique for displaying large lists on handheld devices. This technique has been specifically designed to fit the constraints of small tactile screens. Thanks to its spiral layout, it provides a global view of large lists on a limited amount of screen real-estate. It has also been designed to allow direct interaction with fingers. This technique proposes an alternative to multi-focus visualization, called "augmented context", where several objects of interest can be pointed up simultaneously. We propose two implementations of this approach that either use spatial or temporal composition. We conducted a controlled experiment that compares our approach to standard scrollable lists for a search task on a PDA phone. Results show that our technique significantly reduces the error rate (about 3.7 times lower) without loss of performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the emergence of pervasive technology, pervasive games came into existence. Most are location-aware applications, played with a PDA or mobile phone. We argue that the interaction paradigm these games support, limits outdoor play that often involves spontaneous social interaction. This paper introduces a new genre of pervasive games we call Head Up Games. The paper describes these games and how they differ from current research prototypes of pervasive games. Also, it outlines their characteristics and illustrates our vision with Camelot, an outdoor game for children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social basis for learning, particularly in childhood, has been acknowledged since the seminal research of the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Although his theory is very often cited in HCI literature as a theoretical basis for the design of multi-user interactive artefacts, little empirical data is available that assess Vygotsky's thesis in this domain. This paper presents an empirical study that investigated the learning impact of social interaction in the context of childrenonlineedutainment. We developed "multiplayer" and "individual" configurations of an educational internet game and measured the learning benefits of "playing together" and "playing alone" in 54 children from a local elementary school. Not surprisingly, our findings confirm that Vygotsky was right. They provide some empirical evidence that in contexts of online gaming, the presence of interpersonal communication, collective goals, and social activities has measurable beneficial effects on children learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Daily Activities Diarist is an awareness system that supports social connectedness between seniors living alone and their social intimates. The Daily Activities Diarist extracts automatically an Activity-of-Daily-Life (ADL)-journal from data collected through a wireless sensor network installed at the home of the seniors. We describe the design of the system, its implementation and the lessons from two trials lasting 2 weeks each. The paper makes the case for narrative presentation of awareness information and for seamful design of awareness systems of this ilk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a novel kinesthetic interaction technique for interactive floors. The interaction techniques utilize vision-based limb tracking on an interactive floor - a 12 m2 glass surface with bottom projection. The kinesthetic interaction technique has been developed for an interactive floor implemented in a school square. The paper discusses the kinesthetic interaction technique and its potentials in the domain of learning applications: Kinesthetic interaction supports body-kinesthetic learning as argued in the learning literature. Kinesthetic interaction is fun and motivating thus encourages children to explore and learn. Kinesthetic interaction on large display surfaces supports collaborative, co-located play and learning through communication and negotiation among the participants. Finally, the paper discusses prospects and challenges in development of kinesthetic interaction for interactive floors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There occur a great number of breakdowns in online communities caused by the natural gap between face-to-face and virtual relationships. In addition to this shortcoming, creating, managing and promoting participative online communities is frequently arduous work, and there usually are few tools to help the administrators through this endeavor. So, in this paper we present some results of a research carried out for the implementation of a tool for managing online communities called OriOnGroups, which aims to help in the administrator's decision-making when creating and managing communities. We introduce a categorization for communities profiles and make use of personas, which helped us to select different tools for each one of these profiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social tagging has been applied to many applications including image sharing, bookmarking and music recommendations. We have developed a application for the social tagging of people to support contact management and browsing profiles in an enterprise directory. As we expected, we found that users tag people for personal organization and for "social" motivations just as in other systems. However, an unexpected result is that users tag other users in order to create communities. By tagging, encouraging others to tag, and sharing links to tags, an active minority of users is using people-tagging to bring people together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a new kind of learning environment called an adaptive simulation that more deeply explores and exploits the potential of simulations as pedagogical and explanatory tools. In an adaptive simulation, the simulation configuration is not fixed but rather can be modified by an instructional agent for optimal pedagogical effect. Types of adaptations include manipulations of simulation time and state, changes in representation to facilitate explanations and/or task performance, and adjustments in simulation complexity by the addition and/or removal of components. We briefly describe a system we are developing called PASTEL that is designed to enable these kinds of adaptations. Open research issues include precisely how to perform these adaptations and when to employ them for optimal effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the visualization of the collaboration history in the development of software items using a simple interactive representation called Revision Tree. The visualization presents detailed information on a single software item with the intention of supporting the awareness of the project managers and developers about the item evolution and the collaboration taking place on its development. We considered that repositories of Software Configuration Management tools are the best information source to extract relevant information dealing with the relationships between the programmers and software items, as well as information regarding the creation of baselines, branches and revisions, and useful date and time details for the arrangement of the development timeline and collaboration representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses learnings from the development of Reading Companion, a web-based system that uses speech recognition technology to help children and adults increase their literacy skills. An animated tutor character both 'speaks' and 'listens' to the reader, guiding them as they read e-books selected by their teacher from a virtual library. The system creates detailed performance reports for each student and because it is available on the internet, the learners can continue reading where they left off once they get home to share their progress with their family. We discuss implementation challenges that were overcome, as well as feedback from users and teachers. To our knowledge this is the first successful implementation of real-time interactive speech recognition using Flash on the internet. We believe this presents a valuable model of how speech can be used on the web as part of interactive applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visualizing social networks presents challeges for both node-link and adjacency matrix representations. Social networks are locally dense, which makes node-link displays unreadable. Yet, main analysis tasks require following paths, which is difficult on matrices. This article presents MatLink, a hybrid representation with links overlaid on the borders of a matrix and dynamic topological feedback as the pointer moves. We evaluated MatLink by an experiment comparing its readability, in term of errors and time, for social network-related tasks to the other conventional representations on graphs varying in size (small and medium) and density. It showed significant advantages for most tasks, especially path-related ones where standard matrices are weak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen an explosion in online collaborative tagging, the most prevalent visualization of which are tag clouds. Despite their popularity, tag clouds suffer from limitations of separation from tagged items, lack of relational information between tags and a less-than-fully interactive experience. In this paper we introduce Tagscape, a tag system interface that attempts to address these issues. Tagscape uses a magnet analogy to represent relationships between tags and tagged items as attractions and repulsions. Preliminary informal evaluations of the interface were positive and revealed avenues for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most visualization systems fail to convey uncertainty within data. To provide a way to show uncertainty in similar hierarchies, we interpreted the differences between two tree structures as uncertainty. We developed a new interactive visualization system called CandidTree that merges two trees into one and visualizes two types of structural uncertainty: location and sub-tree structure uncertainty. We conducted a usability study to identify major usability issues and evaluate how our system works. Another qualitative user study was conducted to see if biologists, who regularly work with hierarchically organized names, are able to use CandidTree to complete tree-comparison tasks. We also assessed the "uncertainty" metric we used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]