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The thrill of scientific discovery, the excitement of engineering development, and the fresh thinking of design explorations were invigorating as we participated in the birth of a new discipline: Information Visualization. This discipline, based on graphical user interfaces with pointing devices, became possible as software matured, hardware sped up, and screen resolution improved. Driven by the concepts of direct manipulation and dynamic queries, we made interactive interfaces that empowered users and opened up new possibilities for the next generation of designers. We worked with professionals who had real problems and tested real users to get their feedback. Some projects failed and some papers never got published, but many of the new ideas found their way into widely used commercial products. Our great satisfaction is that our students have spread the community spirit of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory as they continue to make further contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To support the study of effective human-surrogate interaction techniques and modalities, the Office of Naval Research awarded an equipment grant to support the development of a Human-Surrogate Interaction Space (HuSIS) at the University of Central Florida in the Institute for Simulation & Training. The HuSIS consists of a dedicated physical space, structures, and components designed specifically for carrying out controlled studies related to human-surrogate interactions. This article describes the motivation, design, and realization of the HuSIS and the benefits of the common data-collection and analysis framework developed for HuSIS research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students at Colorado State University built a virtual reality prototype for experimenting with cognitive control of connected household devices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article proposes a methodological approach to the historiography of computing in terms of information hiding--that is, the introduction of levels of abstraction (LoAs) between the human being and the computing machine. This approach applies the LoAs, in terms of the epistemological levelism proposed within the philosophy of information, to the transition from ancient to modern computing. In particular, the black-box metaphor and von Neumann's architectures are discussed. Also, the authors propose a formal LoAs method as a mathematical counterpart. Information itself is then treated as structure-preserving functions so that a LoA can distinguish what kind of information gets hidden when human beings interact with computing machines. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We present a field study on how testers use knowledge while performing exploratory software testing (ET) in industrial settings. We video recorded 12 testing sessions in four industrial organizations, having our subjects think aloud while performing their usual functional testing work. Using applied grounded theory, we analyzed how the subjects performed tests and what type of knowledge they utilized. We discuss how testers recognize failures based on their personal knowledge without detailed test case descriptions. The knowledge is classified under the categories of domain knowledge, system knowledge, and general software engineering knowledge. We found that testers applied their knowledge either as a test oracle to determine whether a result was correct or not, or for test design, to guide them in selecting objects for test and designing tests. Interestingly, a large number of failures, windfall failures, were found outside the actual focus areas of testing as a result of exploratory investigation. We conclude that the way exploratory testers apply their knowledge for test design and failure recognition differs clearly from the test-case-based paradigm and is one of the explanatory factors of the effectiveness of the exploratory testing approach. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many software systems must adapt to suit the particular context in which they are operating. Runtime variability mechanisms are suitable for systems that must configure optimally during execution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]