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Visual computing emhpasizes visibility of information of interest and direct manipulation of visible information. It has become a dominant style of computing in recent years. In this paper, we review three major technologies that provide a platform for visual computing. These technologies reflect the needs of various people who use visual computers: programmers, end users, and scientists. We begin with a discussion of important developments in visual programming and follow with discussions of visual interfaces and visualization. We conclude with a summary of visual computing's current status and identify critical areas of research that should be emphasized in future work.

This chapter examines the problem of tracking community in social networks inferred from online interactions by tracking evolution of known subgroups over time. Finding subgroups within social networks is important for understanding and possibly influencing the formation and evolution of online communities. A variety of approaches have been suggested to address this problem and the corresponding research literature on centrality, clustering, and optimization methods for finding subgroupings is reviewed. This review will include a critical analysis of the limitations of past approaches. The focus of the chapter will then turn to novel methods for tracking online community interaction. First, the method proposed by Chin and Chignell called SCAN will be briefly introduced, where a combination of heuristic methods is used to identify subgroups in a manner that can potentially scale up to very large social networks. Then, we present the DISSECT method where multiple known subgroups within a social network are tracked in terms of similarity-based cohesiveness over time. The DISSECT method relies on cluster analysis of snapshots of network activity at different points in time followed by similarity analysis of subgroup evolution over successive time periods. The DISSECT method can be supplemented with behavioral measures of sense of community where administration of a questionnaire is feasible. Finally, we conclude the chapter with a discussion on possible applications and use of the DISSECT method.

Growing interest in emotional interfaces and systems motivates the need for a standard and well-accepted way to measure emotional responses. We introduce the concept of Emotional Majority Agreement: a metric to characterize affective self-report instruments. Emotional majority agreement scores describe the extent to which a sample of participants agrees with regards to their emotional responses. We present a video-watching case study where 12 participants continuously rated how they felt using three self-report prototypes. Majority agreement measures differentiated videos that elicited more or less agreement, prototypes that supported more or less agreement, and individual differences between participants. We conclude with insights gained and future work.

We present the coding tool VPAT (Verbal Protocol Analysis Tool), specifically designed to facilitate model driven analysis of users' verbal data. Such model-driven coding presents challenges in terms of efficiency and reliability. Engineers and researchers need effective means of coding with complex, hierarchical, multi-level coding schemes. VPAT allows input of customizable coding schemes, quick and easy insertion of codes into text documents with a user-friendly interface, and extraction of codes for analysis purposes. VPAT was developed for research purposes with user-centered design methods with various stakeholders. The VPAT prototype runs in conjunction with MS Access and MS Excel. Comparative task analysis breakdowns of main coding tasks in VPAT and a leading coding application are presented to demonstrate advantages and tradeoffs. A case study of coding usability data for a healthcare information retrieval system is presented to demonstrate usage and benefits. VPAT is a specific tool suited to model-based coding, and was shown to increase speed and reliability.

Understanding how people interpret robot gestures will aid design of effective social robots. We examine the generation and interpretation of gestures in a simple social robot capable of head and arm movement using two studies. In the first study, four participants created gestures with corresponding messages and emotions based on 12 different scenarios provided to them. The resulting gestures were then shown in the second study to 12 participants who judged which emotions and messages were being conveyed. Knowledge (present or absent) of the motivating scenario (context) for each gesture was manipulated as an experimental factor. Context was found to assist message understanding while providing only modest assistance to emotion recognition. While better than chance, both emotion (22%) and message understanding (40%) accuracies were relatively low. The results obtained are discussed in terms of implied guidelines for designing gestures for social robots.

Emotions are an important part of the user experience in human machine interaction. More standardized methods of emotion measurement are required to assist in evaluating and comparing these experiences. This research introduces the concept of Emotional Bandwidth, a psychometric property of self-reported emotion measured through a continuous, quantitative slider. Emotional Bandwidth is illustrated in a videoconference watching case study. The Shannon-Weaver measure of informational entropy was used to quantify the rating usage bandwidth, which relates to the number of levels of emotional rating effectively utilized by participants. Significant differences in rating usage strategy were found, with four groups being identified; across the four experimental blocks, entropy either increased, decreased, remained constant or irregular. Emotional Bandwidth, the information-theoretic analysis of affect ratings collected with a continuous slider, may be used to characterize changes in participants' emotional self-rating during experiments and evaluations.

Key architectural elements of the web, namely, HTTP, URL and HTML enable a very simple user model of the web based on hyperlinks. While this model allows browser-based access to a wide array of online content and resources, the limitations in user experience provided in this interaction model are increasingly apparent. Two decades after the birth of the web, new technologies such as Rich Internet Application, AJAX, and Web 2.0 seek to improve web user interfaces, but in general their main benefit is to individual server sites. Little advancement has been made to advance the user model of the web at a macro level where the interaction is driven not by the server but by the user. This paper proposes a novel approach to scientific study of the Web (Web science) where the traditional relationship between users and servers is inverted, so that web services are configured and integrated across multiple servers/sites in order to address the needs of users. The resulting interaction paradigm is referred to here as smart interaction. The Smart interaction approach is quite different from the current hyperlink-oriented user model driven from the perspective of the server side. Smart interactions require new web infrastructure (e.g., runtime components) and new patterns of services and resource interactions and compositions. A Complementary area of research is smart services; where the focus is on abstracting these web infrastructures and service interaction patterns into appropriate web models and algorithms. The combination of smart interaction and smart services will then result in a smart internet where user experience is enhanced, and user productivity unleashed, by passing control back to users.

Heart failure patients require complex, long-term care. Research shows that self-care education improves health outcomes of these patients. This study reports the results of a randomized trial which compared the effects of two remote educational interventions on heart failure patients' knowledge of self-care practices. The first group reviewed self-care content on a Web site and had email access to a cardiac nurse. The second group had access to the Web site, and participated in four telephone-based sessions with the cardiac nurse. The test scores of both groups significantly improved following the intervention. However, the post-intervention test scores of the group that included telephone sessions were significantly higher than the scores for the group that had access to the Web site only. These results show a benefit to learning of a teleconferencing intervention that is over and above the benefit of an intervention based on Web information and email access alone.

The Graphical user interface has traditionally supported personal productivity, efficiency, and usability. With computer supported cooperative work, the focus has been on typical people, doing typical work in a highly rational model of interaction. Recent trends towards mobility, and emotional and universal design are extending the user interface paradigm beyond the routine. As computing moves into the hand and away from the desktop, there is a greater need for dealing with emotions and distractions. Busy and distracted people represent a new kind of disability, but one that will be increasingly prevalent. In this panel we examine the current state of the art, and prospects for future collaboration in non-normative computing requirements. This panel draws together researchers who are studying the problems of mobility, emotion and universality. The goal of the panel is to discuss how progress in these areas will change the nature of future collaboration.

The goal of the Smart Internet initiative is to move beyond the present paradigm of manual navigation and combination of internet services and interactions in the Web Browser, initiated and managed solely by the users, to a new world in which the internet becomes a platform of services and resources dynamically and automatically configured and integrated for the primary purpose of supporting each user's goals; tasks and concerns, cognitively and socially, in a manner that the user as an individual would want. The initiative involves two specific areas of research: Smart Interactions, which addresses factors that impact the discovery, aggregation and delivery of resources and content from the internet that concentrates on users and their tasks, and Smart Services, which addresses the enabling infrastructure to support smart interactions - their requirements, functions and relationships. Each of these poses a range of research challenges that crosses disciplines, methods and technologies and will require the collaboration of researchers with many different kinds of expertise. In order to make the quantum leap that is required, it is clear that this is a much larger challenge than can be taken on by one group, and will require cross-disciplinary research in a range of areas. The purpose of this workshop is to bring together key researchers and practitioners in a range of related areas in order to organize and focus the research directions and challenges of the Smart Internet initiative, as the first step in the creation of a national strategic network.

This workshop was part of a set of workshops that examined issues relating to the design and implementation of smart interaction. This workshop focused on smart interactions in healthcare contexts. Healthcare is a critical activity that consumes a high proportion of the wealth of societies. Governments and healthcare systems around the world are seeking to limit runaway healthcare costs while providing high quality services in ways that balance the competing needs of different groups of people.

The design of an application to monitor, analyze and report individual water consumption within a household is introduced. An interface design incorporating just-in-time feedback, positive and negative reinforcement, ecological contextualization, and social validation is used to promote behavior change. Reducing water consumption behavior in the shower is targeted, as it is the leading source of discretionary indoor water use in a typical home. In both in-shower and out-of-shower scenarios, interface designs aim to address user needs for information, context, control, reward, and convenience to reduce water consumption.

Most discussions of hypertext usability are not founded in empirical measurement but more on conjectures based on personal experience. In this paper we report on two empirical analyses of hypertext usability, focusing on the quality of links produced by different means. We conducted two experiments to test the predicted relevance and the evaluated relevance of links, that is, where links are evaluated either before or after they are traversed. In order to evaluate these two kinds of relevance, we conducted two experiments where a hypertext document was created from a printed text. In each experiment we compared the relevances of three different sets of links. One set was created by a human author, whereas the second set was created automatically using the HEFTI (Hypertext Extraction From Text Incrementally) model for converting text into hypertext. We also generated a third set of links by assigning links randomly between nodes. The main goal of this research was to develop empirical tests that evaluate the usability of hypertext links. A second goal was to test the validity of automatically generated links using the HEFTI model. In this paper we detail the two experiments, and discuss their implication for methods of hypertext usability assessment and design.

HYPERTEXT DOCUMENTS have the potential to be a new type of instructional resource that will be an effective supplement to linear text and existing methods of instruction. In this paper we describe the Jefferson Notebook system for creating and using hypertext instructional resources. We first describe the Project Jefferson model of integrated research and instruction and then describe some of the functionalities of the Jefferson Notebook software that is based on this model. We then discuss some of the authoring features contained in the Jefferson software. It is concluded that the Jefferson Notebook authoring system provides a method for building instructional resources within a comprehensive environment for research and writing.

In this research, the authors discuss the evolution of video games from the viewpoint of interaction design. It is argued that recent video games are qualitatively different from earlier video games in their use of multiple user layers and novel domains. These qualitatively different newer games are referred to as Game 2.0, with older games being referred to as Game1.0. Appropriate design of interactions is presented as a key issue in Game 2.0 development. The relationship between game interfaces and computer interfaces is also considered.

One of the challenges for people seeking health information online is the difficulty in locating health Websites that are personally relevant, credible and useful. We developed a Web-based recommender system in order to help address this problem in the context of prostate cancer. We are conducting an online randomized controlled trial to evaluate the accuracy of its recommendations and to compare the efficacy of content-based and collaborative filtering.

Web pages can be modeled as nodes in a social network, and hyperlinks between pages form links (relationships) between the nodes. Links may take the form of comments, for example on blogs, creating explicit connections between authors and readers. In this paper, we describe a novel methodology and framework for identifying subcommunities as cohesive subgroups of n-cliques and k-plexes within social hypertext. We apply our methodology to a group of computer technologists in Toronto called TorCamp who communicate using a Google group. K-plex analysis is then used to identify a group of people that forms a subcommunity within the larger community. The results are then validated against the experienced sense of community of people inside and outside the subcommunity. Statistically significant differences in experienced sense of community are found, with people within the subcommunity showing higher levels of perceived influence and emotional connection.

Background To identify individual differences in physicians' needs for the presentation of evidence resources and preferences for mobile devices. Methods Within-groups analysis of responses to semi-structured interviews. Interviews consisted of using prototypes in response to task-based scenarios. The prototypes were implemented on two different form factors: a tablet style PC and a pocketPC. Participants were from three user groups: general internists, family physicians and medicine residents, and from two different settings: urban and semi-urban. Verbal protocol analysis, which consists of coding utterances, was conducted on the transcripts of the testing sessions. Statistical relationships were investigated between staff physicians' and residents' background variables, self-reported experiences with the interfaces, and verbal code frequencies. Results 47 physicians were recruited from general internal medicine, family practice clinics and a residency training program. The mean age of participants was 42.6 years. Physician specialty had a greater effect on device and information-presentation preferences than gender, age, setting or previous technical experience. Family physicians preferred the screen size of the tablet computer and were less concerned about its portability. Residents liked the screen size of the tablet, but preferred the portability of the pocketPC. Internists liked the portability of the pocketPC, but saw less advantage to the large screen of the tablet computer (F[2,44] = 4.94, p = .012). Conclusion Different types of physicians have different needs and preferences for evidence-based resources and handheld devices. This study shows how user testing can be incorporated into the process of design to inform group-based customization.

We present the design and evaluation of earPod: an eyes-free menu technique using touch input and reactive auditory feedback. Studies comparing earPod with an iPod-like visual menu technique on reasonably-sized static menus indicate that they are comparable in accuracy. In terms of efficiency (speed), earPod is initially slower, but outperforms the visual technique within 30 minutes of practice. Our results indicate that earPod is potentially a reasonable eyes-free menu technique for general use, and is a particularly exciting technique for use in mobile device interfaces.

As online communities proliferate, methods are needed to explore and capture patterns of activity within them. This paper focuses on the problem of identifying active subgroups within online communities. k-plex analysis and hierarchical clustering are used to identify and contrast subgroups, and the methodology is demonstrated in a case study involving the TorCamp Google group community. We assessed the validity of the subgroups obtained in the case study by comparing them with the members' experienced sense of community, and their self-reported acquaintanceships. Results suggest that active subgroups of people not only interact with each other at a higher rate, but also have a greater experienced sense of community. It is concluded that detection of active subgroups in online communities can be implemented widely using automated tools for analyzing the social networks implied by online interactions.

This paper describes an e-learning interface with multiple tutoring character agents. The character agents use eye movement information to facilitate empathy-relevant reasoning and behavior. Eye Information is used to monitor user's attention and interests, to personalize the agent behaviors, and for exchanging information of different learners. The system reacts to multiple users' eye information in real-time and the empathic character agents owned by each learner exchange learner's information to help to form the online learning community. Based on these measures, the interface infers the focus of attention of the learner and responds accordingly with affective and instructional behaviors. The paper will also report on some preliminary usability test results concerning how users respond to the empathic functions and interact with other learners using the character agents.

This paper describes a multiple user e-learning interface with multiple tutoring character agents. The character agents use eye movement information to facilitate empathy-relevant reasoning and behavior. Eye Information is used to monitor user?s attention and interests, to personalize the agent behaviors, and for exchanging information of different learners. The system reacts to multiple users? eye information in real-time and the empathic character agents owned by each learner exchange learner?s information to help to form the online learning community. Based on these measures, the interface infers the focus of attention of the learner and responds accordingly with affective and instructional behaviors. The paper will also report on some preliminary usability test results concerning how users respond to the empathic functions and interact with other learners using the character agents.

An evaluation framework and simulator of an interactive information retrieval system (SIIIRS) is introduced. SIIIRS is designed to allow researchers to conduct many exploratory studies that can help to narrow the focus of future human subject studies by showing which differences in information exploration style and functionality are likely to produce significant differences in future human subject studies. An experiment was carried out to demonstrate how SIIIRS could be used to predict performance when using different search strategies in a dynamic hypertext environment. The analysis of both the performance and behavioural measures obtained in the experiment showed significant differences in how the different agents (search strategies) performed when using different combinations of query difficulty, newness, and query tail size (as defined in the research reported in this paper). Overall, the agents differed in terms of their behaviours compared to one another and in terms of their interaction with the simulator parameter of newness and the dynamic hypertext control parameter of query tail size. The analysis of the behavioural measures showed the same pattern as found in the performance measures, with query tail size (an indicator of how easy it is to modify the topic during the search) having a strong influence on performance. The results of this study are discussed in terms of their implications for future automated evaluation of hypertext search interfaces.

Blogging has become the newest communication medium for creating a virtual community, a set of blogs linking back and forth to one another's postings, while discussing common topics. In this paper, we examine how communities can be discovered through interconnected blogs as a form of social hypertext [14]. We propose a method and model that detects structures of community in the social network of blogs by integrating McMillan and Chavis' sense of community [26] along with network analysis [8, 11]. From the model, we measure community in the blogs by aligning centrality measures from social network analysis [17] with measures of sense of community obtained using behavioural surveys. We then illustrate the use of this approach with a case study built around an independent music blog. The strength of community measures were found to be well aligned with the network structure, based on centrality measures. Even though the sample size from the case study was small, once the structure and measure of communities are calibrated according to our social hypertext model, communities can be automatically found and measured for other blogs without the need for behavioural surveys.

Recent interest in the use of software character agents raises the issue of how many agents should be used in online learning. In this paper we review evidence concerning the relative effectiveness of multi-agent systems and introduce a multiple agent system that we have developed for online instruction. A user test is carried out that compares one and two agent versions of the learning system. The results are interpreted in terms of their implications for selecting when and how more than one agent should be used in online learning. We conclude with some recommendations on when multiple agents may help online learners to interact with the learning environment more easily and efficiently.

We investigate the use of elastic hierarchies for representing trees, where a single graphical depiction uses a hybrid mixture, or "interleaving", of more basic forms at different nodes of the tree. In particular, we explore combinations of node link and treemap forms, to combine the space efficiency of treemaps with the structural clarity of node link diagrams. A taxonomy is developed to characterize the design space of such hybrid combinations. A software prototype is described, which we used to explore various techniques for visualizing, browsing and interacting with elastic hierarchies, such as side by side overview and detail views, highlighting and rubber banding across views, visualization of multiple foci, and smooth animations across transitions. The paper concludes with a discussion of the characteristics of elastic hierarchies and suggestions for research on their properties and uses.

It is argued that the information processing model represents an incomplete foundation for a human-factors account of cognitive tasks. The authors propose the inclusion of purposive and proactive accounts that are more consistent with the requirements for explaining goal-oriented reasoning and behavior. They review a number of related approaches and sketch out the beginnings of a theoretical foundation for human factors in the form of assumptions that bound human behavior. The initial focus is on basic assumptions governing the availability and use of cognitive resources, but the assumptions suggested elsewhere (e.g. the model human processor approach) are also utilized. >

The current role of ergonomics in design is reviewed. The authors begin by reviewing the importance of the user interface and briefly consider the iterative design process that is frequently used in designing and developing interfaces. They then characterize design as a relationship between task, user, and artifact and discuss the role of ergonomics in design. The current contributions of ergonomics are contrasted with the needs of the designer, based on experiences in usability engineering. The various types of design relevant information are classified in terms of data, guidelines, process, and knowledge. A need for more design relevant information in terms of ergonomic knowledge for designers is identified. It is suggested that this knowledge will be the key to integrating ergonomics completely into design. >

An assessment is made of the role of truncated experiments in usability analysis, and experimental results are used to indicate some of the problems that occur in truncated experiments. A discussion is presented of the use of field studies to provide supplementary information for usability analysis. A description is given of some of the logging tools the authors have developed to make comprehensive field studies more practicable. >

This paper is part of a case study of collaborative environment use and part of a proposition for methodological approach for evaluating virtual environments based on the findings from that case study. We review the literature on evaluating collaborative environments and we also report on a usability study carried out on a research oriented virtual community. The report includes a cluster analysis of the questionnaire results and the use of those results in profiling user attitudes. We propose that this type of differential cluster analysis should be used in the future to identify people who are generally better able to make discriminating judgements, and also to identify people who are able to analyse the usability of different components of an environment rather than just the overall environment.

Medical doctors require high quality clinical evidence at the point of care in order to support their decision-making. Presentation of clinical evidence on handheld devices, and in a timely fashion, requires an integrated approach to documentation and ergonomic design. This paper reports on results from The Bringing Evidence to the Point of Care Project at the University of Toronto, concerning the display of quantitative data as part of clinical evidence. After introducing the problem and some of the relevant background literature, we indicate some prototype designs for presenting quantitative information on a handheld device, as graphs or tables. We then report on an initial usability study that compares the different prototypes. The results indicate that the doctors preferred statistical information to be presented as tables on the handheld device used in this study (in preference to lists or graphs).

This paper discusses the problem of how to grow and evolve virtual infrastructures that support the development and growth of geographically dispersed research communities. It will describe ongoing research into personalization within a collaborative environment intended as a "virtual campus". As part of this research we will provide initial reports on a project that is developing collaborative workspaces for dispersed research teams, and we will review relevant literature pertaining to the use of online collaborative workspaces to build virtual communities.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the psychology of augmented human behavior. The evolution of human-computer interfaces and the implications of technological augmentation for the study of human psychology are discussed. Human capability and behavior are changing as more artifacts become part of the standard equipment that people carry around and use. This chapter reviews human–computer interaction and shows the way the constructive nature of perception and cognition may facilitate the implementation of augmenting technologies. Human–computer interaction is seen as a discipline that identifies principles and techniques for designing and evaluating user interfaces in human–computer systems. Attempts to model the psychology of human–computer interaction have generally led to a detailed analysis of tasks and to engineering models of human performance that focus on modeling of information processing activity in terms of response times. Psychology as a discipline is yet to describe the functions and properties of humans, per se, let alone the functions and properties of people interacting with complex technology.

Bookmarks are used as "personal Web information spaces" to help people remember and retrieve interesting Web pages. A study of personal Web information spaces surveyed 322 Web users and analyzed the bookmark archives of 50 Web users. The results of this study are used to address why people make bookmarks, and how they create, use, and organize them. Recommendations for improving the organization, visualization, representation, and integration of bookmarks are provided. The recommendations include simple mechanisms for filing bookmarks at creation time, the use of time-based visualizations with automated filters, the use of contextual information in representing bookmarks, and the combination of hierarchy formation and Web page authoring to aid in organizing and viewing bookmarks.

Usability analysis has to be cost-effective. In this paper we discuss the role of video analysis in usability engineering, outlining an approach for making it easier and less time consuming. After reviewing the various approaches to usability analysis, the role of video in iterative design and evaluation is discussed. A method is proposed for simplifying video analysis by automating clip segmentation based on sound analysis and other techniques. This is followed by a brief description of a direct manipulation video editor that we are developing for usability engineers.

Background Asthma action plans improve asthma outcomes and are recommended in guidelines. However, delivery by physicians and usage by patients remain low. This may be because of variability in existing plans and a failure to consider visual design and usability factors in plan development. Objective To characterize the variability in both the content and the format of existing plans, and the extent to which their format conforms to evidence-based visual design recommendations. Methods We collected plans from the internet, Canadian experts and associations, guidelines, and published trials. We inductively developed analytic criteria for format and content analyses. Results We collected 69 unique English or French-language adult outpatient plans from around the world. We found large variability in format, and plans fulfilled a mean of only 3.5 out of 8 evidence-based visual design recommendations. Content was also variable, including different descriptions of the baseline clinical state and descriptions and instructions at each “action point” (point recommending a change in treatment). Conclusion Existing plans vary widely in content and format. Accordingly, studies evaluating the effectiveness of action plans may not be directly comparable. Also, visual design may affect usability, uptake, and effectiveness. Our results suggest that this has not been adequately addressed in most plans, and design evidence and experts should be included in future development.

— The benefits of stereoscopic viewing were explored in searching in words superimposed over a background. In the first experiment, eight participants searched for text in a normal 2-D display, a 3-D display using a parallax barrier, and a darkened 2-D display of equivalent brightness to the 3-D display. Word-search performance was significantly faster for the bright 2-D display vs. the 3-D display, but when brightness was controlled, performance on the 3-D display was better relative to the 2-D (dim) display. In a second experiment, the effect of floating text vs. sinking background disparity was assessed across four background conditions. Twenty participants saw only the floating-text (FT) condition and 20 participants saw only the sinking-background (SB) condition. Performance of the SB group was significantly better than that of FT group, and the advantage of SB disparity was greater with the more-complex backgrounds. Thus, when a parallax-barrier 3-D display is used to view text or other figural information overlaid on a background, it is proposed that the layer of primary interest (foreground) should be displayed with zero disparity (on the physical display surface) with the secondary layer (background) appearing to be sunk beneath that surface.

We examine the problem of identifying, measuring and evaluating communities in blogs. In our approach, we use sense of community (McMillan and Chavis, 1986) and centrality measures derived from social network analysis. We then describe a method for identifying communities in blogs using both sense of community measurement and Social Network Analysis (SNA). We apply this framework to a blog on Canadian independent music. Hypotheses are developed concerning the specific structural properties of social networks formed by blogging relationships and how those properties are related to the sense of community experienced by the participants (authors and readers of the blogs). Finally, we discuss the implications for blog implementation and use.