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A research project tested graduate students on the use of a metaphorical computer system based on the Yellow Pages. Three types of information retrieval strategies were identified. Interfaces must be designed to incorporate the different methods that people naturally use.

The role of information technology in increasing the level of integration in society at the start of the twenty-first century is considered, with focus on the requirement to be aware of the human dimension in fast-moving situations.

A haptic interface is a kinesthetic link between a human operator and a virtual environment. This paper addresses fundamental stability and performance issues associated with haptic interaction. It generalizes and extends the concept of a virtual coupling network, an artificial link between the haptic display and a virtual world, to include both the impedance and admittance models of haptic interaction. A benchmark example exposes an important duality between these two cases. Linear circuit theory is used to develop necessary and sufficient conditions for the stability of a haptic simulation, assuming the human operator and virtual environment are passive. These equations lead to an explicit design procedure for virtual coupling networks which give maximum performance while guaranteeing stability. By decoupling the haptic display control problem from the design of virtual environments, the use of a virtual coupling network frees the developer of haptic-enabled virtual reality models from issues of mechanical stability. Index Terms - Absolute stability, force feedback, haptic interface, impedance control, two-port network, unconditional stability, virtual reality.

The present studies were designed to test whether people are 'polite' to computers. Among people, an interviewer who directly asks about him- or herself will receive more positive and less varied responses than if the same question is posed by a third party. Two studies were designed to determine if the same phenomenon occurs in human-computer interaction. In the first study (N = 30), participants performed a task with a text-based computer and were then interviewed about the performance of that computer on I of 3 loci: (a) the same computer, (b) a paper-and-pencil questionnaire, or (c) a different (but identical) text-based computer. Consistent with the politeness prediction, same-computer participants evaluated the computer more positively and more homogeneously than did either paper-and-pencil or different-computer participants. Study 2 (N = 30) replicated the results with voice-based computers. Implications for computer-based interviewing are discussed.

Research into human-computer interaction has revealed many factors that affect the success of computer-mediated tasks such as information seeking and retrieval. This research is relevant to information professionals, including librarians […]

A special questionnaire (VRUSE) has been designed to measure the usability of a VR system according to the attitude and perception of its users. Important aspects of VR systems were carefully derived to produce key usability factors for the questionnaire. Unlike questionnaires designed for generic interfaces VRUSE is specifically designed to cater for evaluating virtual environments, being a diagnostic tool providing a wealth of information about a user's viewpoint of the interface. VRUSE can be used to great effect with other evaluation techniques to pinpoint problematical areas of a VR interface. Other applications include bench-marking of competitor VR systems. Keywords: VR; Virtual environments; Usability; Human performance; Evaluation; User performance

It is important to explore ways of making connections between the human brain and computers, according to Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics at Reading University, England. He has already had a silicon chip implanted in his arm for nine days, and now plans to insert a chip in his arm and another in his wife. His chip, operated by electrical impulses carried along his nerve endings, will transmit signals to a computer which will then transmit them to his wife's chip. He enjoyed having a chip in his body, believing that this made him feel much closer to his computer.

Development of effective measures for the complexity of human - computer interface design based on a proper model is desirable in order to improve the human performance and to facilitate the system development. In this paper, the authors propose the task-to-action (TTA) model which can describe the task-performing procedure of human operators. Quantitative interface design complexity measures using an informational entropy concept are also proposed to determine the user interface complexity, i.e., operation complexity, transition complexity, and screen complexity. Two experiments are performed in this work to show the validity of the proposed model and the measures: one is to test the validity of the TTA model with the case of information-seeking problem and the other for the suggested entropy measures. Index Terms - Complexity evaluation, entropy-based measure, human performance, user interface.

INTRODUCTION In recent years virtual environment (VE) techniques have become successfully operational in the design world for communication and evaluation purposes. Now the combination of head-mounted displays, head trackers, and […], We studied manipulation performance in virtual environments using two types of controllers: virtual hand control and three-dimensional (3D) mouse/cursor control. These manipulation methods were tested under monoscopic and stereoscopic viewing conditions. Participants were asked to discriminate, grasp, pitch, roll, and position virtual objects. Speed and accuracy of manipulation tasks were measured. Virtual hand control proved to be significantly faster and more accurate than 3D mouse cursor control. Participants made more head movements in the virtual hand condition than in the mouse-cursor condition. Further, it was shown that the speed and accuracy of manipulations are much improved under stereoscopic viewing conditions. Actual or potential applications of this research include virtual training environments (assembly, maintenance, etc.) virtual prototyping, teleoperations, and so forth.

INTRODUCTION Until recently, most studies concerning the design of see-through virtual image displays have considered systems that present virtual images focused only at large distances from the users' eyes (> […], We examined errors in the localization of nearby virtual objects presented via see-through helmet-mounted displays as a function of viewing conditions and scene content in four experiments using a total of 38 participants. Monocular, biocular, and stereoscopic presentation of the virtual objects, accommodation (required focus), participants' age, and the position of physical surfaces were examined. Nearby physical surfaces were found to introduce localization errors that differ depending on the other experimental factors. These errors apparently arise from the occlusion of the physical background by the optically superimposed virtual objects, but they are modified by participants' accommodative competence and specific viewing conditions. The apparent physical size and transparency of the virtual objects and physical surfaces, respectively, are influenced by their relative position when superimposed. The design implications of the findings are discussed in a concluding section. Head-mounted displays of virtual objects are currently being evaluated as aids for mechanical assembly and equipment maintenance. Other applications include telesurgery, surgical planning, telerobotics, and visualization aids for robotic programming.

Computer Scientist and Author Roz Picard is unsure if computers should be given emotions but feels they should be aware of human emotions. Picard has been working with her students in the MIT Media Lab on human and computer interaction. They are developing computers which can identify facial expressions. Picard points out people do not interact with computers without emotion. Picard has a background in electric engineering.