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The paper presents a meta-design approach to the design and development of interactive systems, which bridges the communication gaps arising among the members of an interdisciplinary design team including different experts: software engineers, human-computer interaction experts, end users as domain experts. Each experts is a stakeholder that proposes design solutions from her/his perspective. The approach, which relies on a novel model of Interaction and Co-Evolution processes, also supports co-evolution of users and systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Information Society, end-users keep increasing very fast in number, as well as in their demand with respect to the activities they would like to perform with computer environments, without being obliged to become computer specialists. There is a great request to provide end-users with powerful and flexible environments, tailorable to the culture, skills, and needs of a very diverse end-user population. In this chapter, we discuss a framework for End-User Development and present our methodology for designing software environments that support the activities of a particular class of end-users, called domain-expert users, with the objective of making their work with the computer easier. Such environments are called Software Shaping Workshops, in analogy to artisan workshops: they provide users only with the necessary tools that allow them to accomplish their specific activities by properly shaping software artifacts without being lost in virtual space. Key words. end-user development, domain expert, user diversity, gain, co-evolution, implicit information, tacit knowledge, user notation, HCI model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Information Society, end-users keep increasing very fast in number, as well as in their demand with respect to the activities they would like to perform with computer environments, without being obliged to become computer specialists. There is a great request to provide end-users with powerful and flexible environments, tailorable to the culture, skills, and needs of a very diverse end-user population. In this chapter, we discuss a framework for End-User Development and present our methodology for designing software environments that support the activities of a particular class of end-users, called domain-expert users, with the objective of making their work with the computer easier. Such environments are called Software Shaping Workshops, in analogy to artisan workshops: they provide users only with the necessary tools that allow them to accomplish their specific activities by properly shaping software artifacts without being lost in virtual space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

User-centered product concept design aims at creating concepts of new products. Its success is dependent on the design team's ability to use present-day information to come up with concepts concerning future products. This paper takes as its task to investigate and explore what underlies this use of future-oriented information and what challenges it poses at the creative stages of a design process. The proposed solution is based on an analytic division of available information into (1) trends such as company strategies, trends in the society and working life that denote changing conditions, and (2) stable context features that describe issues that are unlikely to change in the timeframe concerned. A small case study is presented that exemplifies how this analytic distinction can be put into use. More broadly, the paper encourages designers to think reflectively about the nature of information on which design decisions are based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a vibrotactile display system designed with an aim of providing immersive live sports experience. Preliminary user studies showed that with this display subjects were 35% more accurate in interpreting an ambiguous visual stimulus showing a ball either entering or narrowly missing a football net. About 80% of subjects could judge the correct ball paths in the presences of ambiguous visual stimuli. Without the tactile display, only 60% correct paths are judged from the visual display. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the first of several tests of new auditory alarms originally proposed by Block et al. [1] and formalized in IEC 60601-1-8 for use in medical electrical equipment. We test whether participants who are supplied with the IEC-recommended mnemonics while learning label-alarm associations can more accurately identify the alarms after short periods of learning. Results for 18 participants strongly indicate that there is a mutual confusability between certain alarm pairs in both learning conditions, but that mnemonics may strengthen rather than diminish certain key confusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its rising success, interactive TV (iTV) has found very little attention in the field of HCI. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to investigate the usability of iTV services. It presents the results of a usability test and discusses the implications for further developments. The results show, that prior knowledge of Internet and mobile phones supports the usability of iTV services regarding navigation and text input, while the lack of it leads to great difficulties. Difficult tasks, such as writing a text message, had a success rate of only 20%, while guided tours proofed to be more usable with a success rate of 70%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interaction design patterns have yet to prove themselves in interaction design in the way that design guidelines have. This paper describes an empirical study comparing the use of patterns and guidelines. The study involved a heuristic evaluation of a web site, the redesign of the web site, and the design of a new web site. Preliminary results suggesting that developers find patterns useful in the interaction design process are presented. Further analysis using heuristics to compare the quality of the designs produced using patterns and guidelines will provide an objective assessment of the usefulness of patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a new initiative MAUSE of which the ultimate goal is to bring more science to bear on usability evaluation methods. This overarching goal will be realized through scientific activities of four Working Groups (WGs) with each of them having specific objectives, rationales, tasks and expected outcomes. Outlook for MAUSE's development is described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital inclusion promotes the reduction of social inequalities. Based on this principle, the Brazilian Government has been setting up an increasing number of Web access locations to render virtual support to its citizens. However, there are no guidelines for the construction and assessment of these electronic Government (e-Gov) sites. In this article we measure the web site quality in the e-Gov domain with the following proprieties: usability, accessibility, interoperability, security, privacy, information reliability, and service agility. We implemented our method, by using a checklist tool, in the evaluation of 127 Brazilian government sites (federal, state and municipal). Our method proved itself efficient in the diagnosis and identification of specific problems in the e-Gov site domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study of various evaluation-instruments, subjects fulfilled sev-eral tasks on two different operating systems and answered several question-naires, among them AttrakDiffTMand ISONORM 9241/10, and objective meas-ures were taken. A correlation between the "hedonic quality - identity"-scale of the AttrakDiffTM and the ISONORM 9241/10 was found. As the ISONORM 9241/10 measures usability as described in ISO 9241-10 and not hedonic quali-ty, the hedonic quality seems to have an influence on the tester ratings of usability. This is supported by the finding, that the hedonic quality does not correlate with the objective measures and therefore does not have any effective influence on the efficiency component of usability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe a system to ease long-term human monitoring of mood via facial expressions. Video images are processed in real-time to isolate the area of the face and record facial expressions. Optic flow is used to annotate motion of the face. A simple-to-use browser is used to navigate the facial expression record. A preliminary evaluation of both components is reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce the concept of identity-differentiating widgets (iDwidgets), widgets parameterized by the identity of their user. Although multi-user applications have become more common, most support only traditional "single-user" widgets. By adding user-identity information we allow interactions with today's widgets to be dynamically customized on a per-user basis in a group usage setting. The concept has inspired the design of new widgets as well. In this paper we describe example iDwidgets and define a conceptual framework based on what is being customized in the widget. iDwidgets can support novel interaction techniques in collaborative settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary Multi-player online games (MOGs) support only a single game platform. Our research goal is to provide an MOG service to ‘users from different platforms.' This paper presents the architecture of the world-wide first multi-platform online game, which consists of 3D game engines and a multi-platform game server. The experimental results through the prototype implementation show the feasibility of simultaneously supporting multiple game platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Text categorization technology can be used to streamline the process of content analysis of corpus data. However, while recent results for automatic corpus analysis show great promise, tools that are currently being used for HCI research and practice do not make use of it. Here, we empirically evaluate trade-offs between semi automatic and hand labeling of data in terms of speed, validity, and reliability of coding in order to assess the usefulness of incorporating this technology into HCI tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA) is a methodology for analysing complex socio-technical systems. It aims to structure system information in a manner that is meaningful for human control and interaction. The Abstraction Decomposition Space (ADS) in an important tool used during the first phase of CWA to describe the work domain. In this paper we create an ADS for a Semiconductor Fabrication Plant. This is a High Volume Manufacturing environment and its complexity necessitates a number of adjustments to the original ADS technique. The physical decomposition of the system is de-emphasised and a number of alternative decomposition hierarchies are used instead. The analysis aims to produce artifacts that aid in the design of decision support systems. These artifacts not only help to assess the information needs of workers, but also structure the work domain in a manner that will inform display design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The holistic understanding of human-computer interaction (HCI) is increasingly important, especially given the impending influx of older users who present dynamic needs that evolve with age. This study explores pupillary response behavior (PRB) during computer interaction to identify underlying differences between older adults of varying ocular profiles. PRB was measured from two groups of individuals diagnosed with Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and a visually healthy control group. Unconventional analytical techniques - wavelet-based multifractal analyses - were used to identify PRB anomalies resulting from the effects of aging and/or ocular pathology. A distribution of regularity indices was extracted from the data signals to reveal signatures of PRB change patterns. One characteristic of the multifractal spectrum, Left Slope (LS), fully distinguished the user groups, revealing trends of increasing PRB irregularity with increasing levels of ocular dysfunction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on an investigation that found that conventional techniques for including users in technology design are likely to fail if the user has autism. The heterogeneity of autistic symptomatology across cognitive, social, behavioural and communication domains suggests a ‘single user' environment, while rendering typical design interaction techniques meaningless, making the need for assistive technologies great, and the risk of abandonment high. This complex problem of urgency and constraint was addressed through a Delphi study with a panel of psychologists critiquing design activities for people with autism. The major finding is that while each of the activities may work if modified, all require that the designer is well acquainted with autism in general and has a close working relationship based on trust with the individual user. If these requirements are met, there is no reason that the abandonment rate cannot be reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the rationale and design process of an authoring interface that enables didactic experts to create or modify eLearning content to make it accessible by learners with special needs. The tool has been designed according to a methodological framework and a set of guidelines for eLearning accessibility previously developed by our group. A key aspect of our framework consists in helping authors to preserve the didactic quality of the eLearning experiences provided to disabled learners (in particular, visually impaired ones) beyond assuring their mere physical access to online materials. A user-centred design process has been adopted to develop a usable prototype of the authoring interface, named aLearning, that we describe below. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes a research study to determine the usability of handwriting recognition technology on a tablet PC for free writing by children. Results demonstrate that recognition error rates vary according to the metrics used, and the authors discuss how some of the errors are created concluding that the error rates say very little about what was happening at the interface and that with research of this type (novel interfaces and young users) researchers need to be immersed in the context in order to produce useful results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose Mobile Reacher Interface (MoRIn) that is a new interface with a visual tag for a mobile device. MoRIn allows users to navigate sophisticated information structures by making natural hand gestures while holding a camera-equipped mobile terminal. The structure of an item of interest is acquired via a visual tag. The user can then navigate the structure as if he/she is handling physical objects. MoRIn greatly eases the user's cognitive loads. For instance, the user can alter the volume of an announcement by twisting terminal as if he/she were turning a dial. We describe MoRIn, some applications, and the results of a preliminary experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the problem of embedding explanation-aware intelligent systems into a workplace environment. We outline an approach with three different perspectives, focusing on the work process as a whole as well as user interaction from an interface and a system view. The theoretical background consists of Actor Network Theory, Semiotics, and Activity Theory. We further propose to integrate this workplace analysis into a design process for knowledge-intensive and explanation-aware Case-Based Reasoning systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study shows that both icon and function label characteristics combine subtly to affect the way that individuals perceive icons. Icon users unconsciously use the cues available to them: the extent to which these cues are utilised depends on the language background of the user. In order to optimise design we therefore need know more, not only about the effects of function label characteristics, but also about how they merge with icon and user characteristics to affect usability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abbrevicons are a technique for encoding audio information efficiently while still providing the user with useful and appropriate feedback. Ideally, abbrevicons are targeted towards audio interfaces that are infrequently used and where the user doesn't have the opportunity to develop a strong model of the system or make sense of rich encoding schemes. Abbrevicons allow us to present natural language feedback that is identifiable and comprehensible, while taking significantly less time than traditional verbal feedback. Abbrevicons can decrease the speed of short descriptive feedback by up to 200% while still ensuring user comprehension. These techniques seek to provide richer user feedback in audio interfaces while still keeping in mind the need for efficient user interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a novel methodology for selecting appropriate color scheme for a web site is presented. The methodology uses a machine learning algorithm for generating a network that relates the color model of a web site with the emotional values that are attributed to it by its users. The approach involves an empirical study to collect data, used to train the algorithm. A preliminary case study has been conducted to validate the applicability of the methodology. Description of the framework and of a set of tools that were built to support the methodology is also included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While new solutions for supporting migratory interfaces are emerging, there is still a lack of analysis of their impact on users. In this paper we discuss the design of a solution for trans-modal migratory interfaces in multi-device and results obtained testing it with users. We conducted a study aimed at evaluating the user impact of a migration service applied to platforms supporting different interaction modalities (graphic vs. vocal) in Web environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent technological evolution has enabled environments accessible through a wide variety of interactive devices. Such devices can differ also in terms of interaction modality. In this paper we show how it is possible to generate multi-modal interfaces for different platforms starting with logical user interface descriptions. This approach simplifies the development of applications that can be accessed through a variety of interactive devices and modalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a novel camera-based adaptable user interface system that uses hotspot components for 2D gesture-based interaction. A camera points to the desktop and the image captured by the camera appears on the user's screen. A hotspot area is activated when a user's hand passes through the rectangle that defines it. For example, a right_left hotspot activates when the user moves his hand from right to left, entering and exiting the rectangle. Our system is highly flexible because it allows the user to customize the interface as follows: (1) hotspot areas can be created anywhere within the camera-captured image; (2) new commands can be assigned to particular hotspots or composite hotspot sequences (e.g., right_left for previous webpage; up+right+down for webpage reload); (3) a physical workspace on the desktop can be defined by pointing the camera to any location; (4) different hotspot layouts for different applications can be created and saved. The system works with an inexpensive webcam in real time and uses machine learning to automatically detect skin areas for robust gesture recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We used eye-tracking to study 28 users when they evaluated result lists produced by web search engines. Based on their different evaluation styles, the users were divided into economic and exhaustive evaluators. Economic evaluators made their decision about the next action (e.g., query re-formulation, following a link) faster and based on less information than exhaustive evaluators. The economic evaluation style was especially beneficial when most of the results in the result page were relevant. In these tasks, the task times were significantly shorter for economic than for exhaustive evaluators. The results suggested that economic evaluators were more experienced with computers than exhaustive evaluators. Thus, the result evaluation style seems to evolve towards a more economic style as the users gain more experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report an experimental study that aims at investigating the influence of spatial layout on visual search efficiency and comfort. 4 layouts were used for displaying 120 scenes comprising 30 realistic colour photos each: random, elliptic, radial and matrix-like. Scenes (30 per structure) were presented to 5 participants who had to select a pre-viewed photo in each scene using the mouse. Eye-tracking data indicate that elliptic layouts provided better visual comfort than any of the other layouts (shortest scan paths), and proved to be more efficient than matrix layouts (shorter search times). These results are statistically significant (paired t-tests). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual performance with a large video projection screen is popular for various entertainment events such as DJ events. Some performers use computers to generate visuals, but using a keyboard or a mouse to control the visuals in front of a large screen is neither exciting nor intuitive for performers and audiences. We developed an interactive display system using camera-tracked laser pointers that enables performers to interact with the screen directly. The system can also detect shapes of the laser trails that enables the performer to move the laser pointers quickly. Most of existing systems employ color and pattern matching techniques that are not suitable for visual performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents smooth haptic interaction methods for an immersive and interactive broadcasting system combining haptics in augmented reality. When touching the broadcasted augmented virtual objects in the captured real scene, problems of force trembling and discontinuity occur due to static registration errors and slow marker pose update rate, respectively. In order to solve these problems, threshold and interpolation methods are proposed respectively. The resultant haptic interaction provides smoother continuous tremble-free force sensation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most documents dynamically generated by a web server are in HTML format. However the use of dynamic HTML documents severely limits the amount of user interface (UI) validation that can be done. In order to generalize the abstract UI platform and strengthen the UI validation process, we developed a novel platform to support both UI adaptation and dynamic UI construction. It provides a generic architecture for runtime adaptive UI development based on various XML technologies. As well as making use of different built-in modules, one can extend the platform by adding new functionalities into it. The ease of use of the platform is illustrated using a case study of an on-line accommodation booking form based on the official web site of the English town of Windsor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we propose the concepts of virtual reflections, lights and shadows to enhance immersion in mixed reality (MR) environments, which focus on merging the real and the virtual world seamlessly. To improve immersion, we augment the virtual objects with real world information regarding the virtual reality (VR) system environment, e.g., CAVE, workbench etc. Real-world objects such as input devices or light sources as well as the position and posture of the user are used to simulate global illumination phenomena, e.g., users can see their own reflections and shadows on virtual objects. Besides the concepts and the implementation of this approach, we describe the system setup and an example application for this kind of advanced MR system environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present an evaluation of an adaptive annotation technique (the use of icons to help the user in the selection of the most relevant suggested item), using the Grounded Theory methodology. The goal of the evaluation was to find out the best icon in order to communicate the system recommendations in the most effective way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A computer-adaptive test (CAT) is a software application that makes use of Item Response Theory (IRT) to create a test that is tailored to individual learners. The CAT prototype introduced here comprised a graphical user interface, a question database and an adaptive algorithm based on the Three-Parameter Logistic Model from IRT. A sample of 113 Computer Science undergraduate students participated in a session of assessment within the Human-Computer Interaction subject domain using our CAT prototype. At the end of the assessment session, participants were asked to rate the level of difficulty of the overall test from 1 (very easy) to 5 (very difficult). The perceived level of difficulty of the test and the CAT scores obtained by this group of learners were subjected to a Spearman's rank order correlation. Findings from this statistical analysis suggest that the CAT prototype was effective in tailoring the assessment to each individual learner's proficiency level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The glut of information produced by ubiquitous computing in augmented reality environments requires that the resulting information displays be tailored to the attention of users and mapped directly to the objects and surfaces of the space. This paper proposes a method for designing and implementing ambient information displays combining ambient displays and augmented reality to produce useful intuitive interfaces that are concretely mapped to architectural spaces for the purposes of expanding and enriching the quality and sensuality of user experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present the Interactive 3D BreakAway Map (I3BAM), an extension of Worlds In Miniature (WIM) that works not only as a navigation aid for virtual buildings but also provides a means of examining any floor of a virtual building without having to navigate it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indexes such as bookmarks and recommendations are helpful for accessing multimedia documents. This paper describes the 3D Syllabus system, which is designed to visualize indexes to multimedia training content along with the information structures. A double-sided landscape with balloons and cubes represents the personal and group indexes, respectively. The 2D ground plane organizes the indexes as a table and the third dimension of height indicates their importance scores. Additional visual properties of the balloons and cubes provide other information about the indexes and their content. Paths are represented by pipes connecting the balloons. A preliminary evaluation of the 3D Syllabus prototype suggests that it is more efficient than a typical training CD-ROM and is more enjoyable to use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When passing a document to someone across a table, the person passing the document often rotates it to face the receiver. In this paper, we present the results of a user evaluation of three Push-and-Rotate schemes that offer different underlying control semantics for how an electronic document can automatically rotate as it is pushed across an interactive tabletop surface. The effects of document size are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses how Clark's theory of Common Ground can be applied to analyse how individuals connected by Awareness Systems conjointly meet and coordinate their privacy needs. Relevant aspects of Common Ground theory for the analysis of human communication behaviours are used in this study to understand privacy as a collaborative coordination process. The exposition illustrates how Awareness Systems are a mechanism for helping individuals to meet their privacy needs rather than as a privacy threat, as a first impression might suggest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key challenge in supporting face-to-face collaborative work is edocument micro-mobility: supporting movement of digital content amongst shared display surfaces and personal devices at arbitrary levels of document granularity. Micro-mobility is a dexterity that physical paper artifacts afford - the ability to be handled with any position and placement, to be dismantled, cut and torn apart, marked up, reassembled and sorted. To support micromobility for electronic content and group work, we propose DocuBits and Containers. DocuBits offer the metaphor of a paper-cutter and a scanner for electronic documents. A portion of screen ‘bits' from any application or any parts of visible display can be cut, grabbed, sent and launched onto a different display surface or device with minimal interaction - merely three mouse/stylus click-select. Once arrived on the target display surface, DocuBits can be arbitrarily positioned, re-oriented, marked up, and pulled into other documents, or again sent to other display surfaces. A Container is a composite draft of DocuBits and other documents, usually composed as the outcome of a collaborative meeting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present the design of a tool that allows a hearing-impaired person to participate in a meeting. The tool combines speech recognition with a table top augmented reality system. One of the foremost requirements was that the tool should not stigmatize the hearing-impaired user. Therefore the tool supports features that are attractive to all participants in the meeting. The final prototype has the following features: it can convey (some of) the meeting content to the hearing-impaired person, it supports eye contact between participants, it allows an interaction with words and sentences, it provides a meeting history and instant minutes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the performance of collaborative spatial/visual tasks under different input configurations. The configurations used are a traditional mouse-monitor, a shared-monitor with multiple-mice, and a multi-user input device (DiamondTouch). Our experiments indicate that there is a significant variation in performance for the different configurations with pairs of users, while there is no such variation with individual users. The traditional configuration is not well-suited for collaborative tasks, and even after augmenting it to a shared monitor with multiple-mice it is still significantly inferior to the multi-user input device. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional group scheduling applications often treat users' availability as binary: free or busy. This is an unrealistic representation because not all times are equally free or busy. The inflexibility makes it difficult to find times with which everyone is truly satisfied. We present an online group scheduling approach by which users indicate four-tier preferences for meeting times on a calendar, which dynamically adjusts to provide instant feedback and suggests optimal meeting times for all participants. Our prototype is geared toward college students and the scheduling is done through a democratic and open negotiation process where everyone's preference is heard. Students who evaluated the prototype thought that the scheduling process was more efficient than the widely-used e-mail scheduling among college students, which is largely based on binary availability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present BROAFERENCE, a test bed for studying future oriented multimedia services and applications in distributed environments. The BROAFERENCE system provides a method of direct feedback of audience satisfaction level by means of real-time smile-detection. We describe the realtime system components and we will show the result of our approach to record and transmit the data of smile intensity as a hint for "how much the audience enjoys" the TV program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current systems for synchronous, text-based communication offer more varied interactions than e-mail, but cannot easily convey non-verbal or emotional information in an unobtrusive and intuitive manner. In this report we introduce ChatAmp, a new chat system which incorporates music as a central part of social interaction. Music is used in order to create an unobtrusive ambient soundscape that gives information about conversational activity and emotion using changes to instrument behavior. This soundscape acts as a peripheral channel to let a multitasking user monitor the conversation while focused else-where without being interrupted by jarring alert sounds. By combining this with non-sequential visualization which groups all of a user's activity in his area of the screen, ChatAmp provides "at-a-glance" information through both auditory and visual channels. Informal user tests support the effectiveness of integrating music and conversation in achieving the goals above and suggest directions for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When scrolling through a list on a small display, such as that on a cell phone, the "focus" is the currently highlighted item that would be selected were the user to stop scrolling and choose select. When scrolling through a list that is longer than the number of items that may be displayed simultaneously, the focus position becomes stationary and the items scroll under it. An experiment is reported which varies this stationary focus position in a five item display. It was either: the last item in window (end stop scheme), the next to last (view forward one item) or the centre (view forward two items). The centre position allowed significantly faster scrolling than the other two positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a text-based chat system designed to support conversations anchored to specific locations of shared images and reports our experience in operating it at a technical conference. Our system is unique in that it focuses on supporting communications scattered around among multiple images, while other systems for anchored conversations are designed for deeper discussions within a single document. Our system was used in a technical conference as a space for anchored conversations over presentation slides and we observed that audiences actively participated in discussions during the presentation. The detailed chat log was also useful for both audiences and presenters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasingly large part of online communication is inherently social in nature. This social interaction is limited by the modalities of online communication, which do not convey tone or emotion well. Although some solutions have evolved or have been proposed, they are inherently ambiguous. We present a system, TextTone, for the explicit expression of emotion in online textual communication. TextTone incorporates reader-specific preferences for the visualization of tone and emotion. We describe social interaction and visualization scenarios that TextTone can be meaningfully used for and discuss an initial implementation. Finally, we present the results of a preliminary evaluation of this implementation of TextTone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]