List of CHI 2004 Full Papers with rating, summary and assesment
Full Papers
- Acquiring In Situ Training Data for Context-Aware Ubiquitous Computing Applications
S. S. Intille, L. Bao, E. M. Tapia, J. Rondoni (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) - Analysis of Combinatorial User Effect in International Usability Tests
E. L.-C. Law, (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich)
E. T. Hvannberg (University of Iceland) - Animaatiokone: an Installation for Creating Clay Animation
P. Hämäläinen (Helsinki University of Technology) - Breaking the Book: Translating the Chemistry Lab Book into a Pervasive Computing Lab Environment
m.c. schraefel, G. V. Hughes, H. R. Mills, G. Smith, T. R. Payne, J. Frey (University of Southampton) - a CAPpella: Programming by Demonstration of Context-Aware Applications
A. K. Dey (Intel Research) - Caretta: A System for Supporting Face-to-Face Collaboration by Integrating Personal and Shared Spaces
M. Sugimoto, K. Hosoi (University of Tokyo) - Categorical Imperative NOT: Facial Affect is Perceived Continuously
D. J. Schiano (Stanford University) - Cluster-Based Find and Replace
R. C. Miller (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) - Collision Warning Design to Mitigate Driver Distraction
J. D. Lee, J. D. Hoffman (University of Iowa)
E. Hayes (DaimlerChrysler Research and Technology) - Combining 2D and 3D Views for Orientation and Relative Position Tasks
M. Tory, T. Möller, M. S. Atkins, A. E. Kirkpatrick (Simon Fraser University) - A Comparison of Consecutive and Concurrent Input Text Entry Techniques for Mobile Phones
D. Wigdor, R. Balakrishnan (University of Toronto) - A Comparison of Static, Adaptive, and Adaptable Menus
L. Findlater, J. McGrenere (University of British Columbia) - Computational GOMS Modeling of a Complex Team Task: Lessons Learned
D. E. Kieras (University of Michigan)
T. P. Santoro (Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory) - Connecting Time-Oriented Data and Information to a Coherent Interactive Visualization
R. Bade, S. Schlechtweg (Otto-von-Guericke University of Magdeburg)
S. Miksch (Vienna University of Technology) - "Constant, Constant, Multi-tasking Craziness": Managing Multiple Working Spheres
V. M. González, G. Mark (University of California at Irvine) - A Constraint Satisfaction Approach to Predicting Skilled Interactive Cognition
A. Vera (NASA Ames Research Center)
A. Howes (Cardiff University) - Deception and Design: The Impact of Communication Technology on Lying Behavior
J. T. Hancock, J. Thom-Santelli, T. Ritchie (Cornell University) - Design Guidelines for Learner-Centered Handheld Tools
K. Luchini, C. Quintana, E. Soloway (University of Michigan) - Designing a Compelling User Interface for Morphing
D. Vronay (Microsoft Research Asia)
S. Wang (Tsinghua University) - Designing the Whyline: A Debugging Interface for Asking Questions about Program Behavior
A. J. Ko, B. A. Myers (Carnegie Mellon University) - Designing To Support Awareness: A Predictive, Composite Model
R. Hourizi, P. Johnson (University of Bath) - DiamondSpin: An Extensible Toolkit for Around-the-Table Interaction
C. Shen (Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs)
F. D. Vernier (University of Paris 11) - A Diary Study of Task Switching and Interruptions
M. Czerwinski, E. Horvitz, S. Wilhite (Microsoft Research) - Dual Ecologies of Robot as Communication Media: Thoughts on Coordinating Orientations and Projectability H. Kuzuoka (University of Tsukuba)
K. Yamazaki (Saitama University) - Effects of Instant Messaging on the Management of Multiple Project Trajectories
S. R. Fussell, S. Kiesler, L. D. Setlock, P. Scupelli (Carnegie Mellon University)
S. Weisband (University of Arizona) - Energy-aware User Interfaces: An Evaluation of User Acceptance
T. Harter, S. Vroegindeweij, E. Geelhoed, M. Manahan, P. Ranganathan (Hewlett Packard Laboratories) - Examining the Robustness of Sensor-Based Statistical Models of Human Interruptibility
J. Fogarty, S. E. Hudson (Carnegie Mellon University)
J. Lai (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center) - Exploring PC-Telephone Convergence with the Enhanced Telephony Prototype
JJ. Cadiz, A. Narin, g. Jancke, A. Gupta (Microsoft Real-Time Collaboration)
M. Boyle (University of Calgary) - The Familiar Stranger: Anxiety, Comfort, and Play in Public Places
E. Paulos, E. Goodman (Intel Research) - Fan-out: Measuring Human Control of Multiple Robots
D. R. Olsen Jr., S. B. Wood (Brigham Young University) - Feeling Bumps and Holes without a Haptic Interface: the Perception of Pseudo-Haptic Textures
A. Lécuyer (INRIA/IRISA)
J.-M. Burkhardt (University of Paris 5/INRIA) - Finding Meaningful Uses for Context-Aware Technologies: The Humanistic Research Strategy
A. Oulasvirta (Helsinki Institute for Information Technology) - Flat Volume Control: Improving Usability by Hiding the Volume Control Hierarchy in the User Interface
P. Baudisch (Microsoft Research)
J. Pruitt (Microsoft MSX)
S. Ball (Microsoft eHome) - Gummi: A Bendable Computer
C. Schwesig, I. Poupyrev (Sony CSL)
E. Mori (Sony Design Center) - If Not Now, When? The Effects of Interruption at Different Moments Within Task Execution
P. D. Adamczyk, B. P. Bailey (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) - IM Here: Public Instant Messaging on Large, Shared Displays for Workgroup Interactions
E. M. Huang (Georgia Institute of Technology)
D. M. Russell, A. E. Sue (IBM Almaden Research Center) - Impact of Interruption Style on End-User Debugging
T. J. Robertson, S. Prabhakararao, M. Burnett, C. Cook, J. R. Ruthruff, L. Beckwith, A. Phalgune (Oregon State University) - Improving Speech Playback Using Time-Compression and Speech Recognition
S. Vemuri, P. DeCamp, W. Bender, C. Schmandt (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) - I/O Brush: Drawing with Everyday Objects as Ink
K. Ryokai, S. Marti, H. Ishii (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) - Isolating the Effects of visual Impairment: Exploring the effect of AMD on the utility of multimodal feedback
J. A. Jacko, L. Barnard, T. Kongnakorn, K. P. Moloney P. J. Edwards, V. K. Emery, F. Sainfort (Georgia Institute of Technology) - Labeling Images with a Computer Game
L. von Ahn, L. Dabbish (Carnegie Mellon University) - Manipulating Music: Multimodal Interaction for DJs
T. Beamish, K. Maclean, S. Fels (University of British Columbia) - Master Usability Scaling: Magnitude Estimation and Master Scaling Applied to Usability Measurement
M. McGee (Oracle Corporation) - Model-based Evaluation of Cell Phone Menu Interaction
R. St. Amant, T. E. Horton (North Carolina State University)
F. E. Ritter (Pennsylvania State University) - Model for non-Expert Text Entry Speed on 12-Button Phone Keypads
A. Pavlovych, W. Stuerzlinger (York University) - Mouse and Touchscreen Selection in the Upper and Lower Visual Fields
B. A. Po, B. D. Fisher, K. S. Booth (University of British Columbia) - Multiblending: Displaying Overlapping Windows Simultaneously without the Drawbacks of Alpha Blending
P. Baudisch (Microsoft Reaearch)
C. Gutwin (University of Saskatchewan)
Summary and assessment: Multiblending describes a new way of blending overlapping windows, which preserves the readability of both the contents/colors in foreground and background windows. Multi-blending uses a vector of blending weights, one for each class of features, rather than a single transparency value as in alpha-blending. You should read this paper if you want to use blending in your own window system, applications, or games.
Rating: ** - One-Hundred Days in an Activity-Centric Collaboration Environment based on Shared Objects
M. J. Muller, W. Geyer, B. Brownholtz, E. Wilcox, D. R. Millen (IBM Research)
Summary and Assessment: This paper provides a detailed look at the first 100 days of use of a new collaboration environment by a community of 33 participants. The collaboration environment supports the collaboration needs of both small and large number of participants, brief and extended collaborations, as well as informal and formal collaborative tools. It remedies the disadvantages of using multiple traditional applications and paying attention to multiple media, such as email, chat, wikis, and structured workspaces, which either support short-term communication needs or large messages and files (but not both). This collaboration environment is useful because it keeps communication and data exchange between people simple.
Rating: * - Off-Task Behavior in the Cognitive Tutor Classroom: When Students "Game the System"
R. S. Baker, A. T. Corbett, K. R. Koedinger, A. Z. Wagner (Carnegie Mellon University)
Summary and Assessment: This paper investigates learning impact of off-task behavior in classrooms where students are using intelligent tutoring software. The behavior "gaming the system", where students misuse the software's help and feedback in order to get the correct answer without having to know why that answer was correct, has a strong negative correlation to learning. The authors claim to redesign tutoring software in order to detect when students are gaming the system and to respond in an appropriate fashion, which may provide a more positive experience using the tutor and help students learn more.
Rating: * - Orchestrating a Mixed Reality Game 'On the Ground'
A. Crabtree, S. Benford, T. Rodden, C. Greenhalgh, M. Flintham, R. Anastasi, A. Drozd (University of Nottingham)
M. Adams, J. Row-Farr, N. Tandavanitj (Blast Theory)
A. Steed (University College London)
Summary and Assessment: This paper covers design proposals for orchestration interfaces beyond the control room, which provide participants with mobile experiences that augment situational awareness, monitoring among mobile participants, or troubleshooting when participants are disconnected. The system supplies participants with control room information and representations that are relevant for decentralized 'on the ground' orchestration (e.g., dynamic color maps for past and predicted coverage of WiFi/GPS, status information of other people, last known state following disconnection, fall back solutions for wireless networking).
Rating: * - Papier-Mâché: Toolkit Support for Tangible Input
S. R. Klemmer, J. Li, J. Lin (University of California at Berkeley)
J. A. Landay (University of Washington)
Summary and Assessment: Papier-Mâché introduces a new toolkit for building tangible user interfaces using computer vision (web/video cameras), electronic tags (RFID), and barcodes. Technology-independent input abstractions facilitate portability by allowing applications to retarget to different input technologies (all event types are consistent across all technologies). The developer (1) selects the input type such as RFID or vision and (2) maps input to application behavior via associations, without the need to attach devices to computers, establish connections, or generate events from input. Once the input source is selected, Papier-Mâché generates events from a sensor's view including information such as the tag and reader ID for RFID input; the size, location, orientation, bounding box, and mean color of objects for vision input. Papier-Mâché is an interesting and important research paper as it describes the use of wireless and vision based tangible interfaces with minimal effort on the programmer's side.
Rating: *** - The Participatory Design of a Sound and Image Enhanced Daily Planner for People with Aphasia
K. Moffatt, J. McGrenere (University of British Columbia)
B. Purves (School of Audiology and Speech Sciences)
M. Klawe (Princeton University)
Summary and Assessment: This paper presents a multi-modal daily planner for use on a PDA that allows aphasic users (aphasia = cognitive speech disorder) to independently manage their appointments. The planner is enhanced with sound and images and uses triplets of images, sound, and text to redundantly encode information for the user, i.e., to represent appointment data.
Rating: * - The Perfect Search Engine Is Not Enough: A Study of Orienteering Behavior in Directed Search
J. Teevan, C. Alvarado (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
M. S. Ackerman (University of Michigan)
D. R. Karger (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Summary and Assessment: This diary study discusses the way people perform personally motivated searches in their emails, files, and on the web. It further reports the implications for the design of personal information management tools as well as search tools. Many users do not use keyword search but rather prefer to navigate to their target with small, local steps using their contextual knowledge as a guide, even when they know exactly what they are looking for in advance. This proceeding allows users to specify less of their information need and provides a context in which they understand the results. The conclusion is that search tools should also support this orienteering behavior and not only directed search.
Rating: * - Performance of Menu-Augmented Soft Keyboards P. Isokoski (University of Tampere)
Summary and Assessment: The paper evaluates a new stylus-based text entry system where a popup menu is added to a regular soft-keyboard in order to increase text-entry speed (menu-augmented soft keyboards for systems without a full sized keyboard). The menus are radial and pop up after a delay after the user sets the stylus down on a key, displaying vowels or most probable following characters, which the user can select by moving on them and then lifting the stylus. Results show that this method speeds up text entry for expert users (after training) by 11 - 37%, depending on the keyboard layout.
Rating: ** - Persistence Matters: Making the Most of Chat in Tightly-Coupled Work
D. Gergle (Carnegie Mellon University)
D. R. Millen (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center)
R. E. Kraut, S. R. Fussell (Carnegie Mellon University)
Summary and Assessment: The authors investigate the design for collaborative software that integrates visual information and text-based chat for tightly-coupled interactions, such as multiplayer games, airspace monitoring, medical teams, or student-teacher. The results show that systems need to provide a persistent dialogue history and a shared visual space for efficient grounding mechanism in order to support collaboration on visual tasks. Having the dialogue history in real-time chat helps collaborators communicate efficiently and leads to faster as well as better task performance.
Rating: * - Physically Large Displays Improve Path Integration in 3D Virtual Navigation Tasks
D. S. Tan, D. Gergle, P. G. Scupelli, R. Pausch (Carnegie Mellon University)
Summary and Assessment: This paper presents guidelines for the design and presentation of interactive 3D environments on physically large displays. Prior research revealed that users perform better on spatial orientation tasks (2D scenes) when working on physically large displays, as compared to small ones. This work demonstrates that users are more effective at performing 3D virtual navigation tasks on large displays. Large displays provide a greater sense of presence, which biases users to adopt more efficient strategies to perform tasks.
Rating: * - Pointing at Trivariate Targets in 3D Environments
T. Grossman, R. Balakrishnan (University of Toronto)
Summary and Assessment: The authors study and model user performance in the most fundamental interaction task - pointing - in a 3D display where the size of the target varies in three spatial dimensions. Systems utilizing the new three dimensional display technology (such as 3D volumetric display) require interfaces that enable users to easily select and manipulate virtual elements in the 3D display space. Results show that target size dimension along the primary axis of movement has a greater impact on performance than the other two dimensions. Implications of the results for the sizing and positioning of user interface widgets in three dimensional displays are presented. This study is useful if you want to create user interfaces for three dimensional volumetric displays.
Rating: ** - Predictive Human Performance Modeling Made Easy
B. E. John, K. Prevas (Carnegie Mellon University)
D. D. Salvucci (Drexel University)
K. Koedinger (Carnegie Mellon University)
Description: Presents tools for automatic construction of cognitive models of user performance from HTML mockups of graphical interfaces.
Rating: *
Relevance: Not relevant.
Summary and assessment:"Predictive Human Performance Modeling Made Easy" presents tools for automatic construction of cognitive models (Keystroke-Level Models) of user performance from HTML mockups of new interfaces. This is probably not very interesting for our work as we are more concerned with finding/creating new ways of interaction than with modeling user performance on mouse and keyboard.
(Summary presented by Ingo) - Presiding Over Accidents: System Direction of Human Action J. Heer, N. S. Good, A. Ramirez, J. Mankoff (University of California at Berkeley)
Description: Gives strategies for computer direction and computer mediation of human performance by computers (derived from interviews with experts on human direction and mediation of human performance).
Rating: *
Relevance: Not relevant.
Summary and assessment:"Presiding Over Accidents: System Direction of Human Action" dips into direction and mediation of human performance by the computer - for example, an "unaided computer can act as a photographer, film director, and cinematographer" "to provide enjoyable new experiences" to the user. If you like the idea of a world where your life is controlled by mindless machines, that's the way to go (but maybe you should first watch "Metropolis" and read "Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgement to Calculation").
(Summary presented by Ingo) - Privacy Policies as Decision-Making Tools: An Evaluation of Online Privacy Notices
C. Jensen, C. Potts (The Georgia Institute of Technology)
Description: Evaluates the usability of online privacy policies and examines how well they meet user needs and how they can be improved.
Rating: *
Relevance: Not relevant.
Summary and assessment:"Privacy Policies as Decision-Making Tools: An Evaluation of Online Privacy Notices" "evaluates the usability of online privacy policies" and examines "how well these policies meet user needs and how they can be improved". There is no direct connection to media computing and while we need to keep in mind privacy issues we should not make the formulation of easy to understand privacy policies one of our research topics.
(Summary presented by Ingo) - Putting the Users Center Stage: Role Playing and Low-fi Prototyping Enable End Users to Design Mobile Systems
D. Svanæs, G. Seland (Norwegian University of Science and Technology)
Description: Outlines experiences from workshops with end users designing mobile systems through scenario building, role playing and low-fidelity prototyping.
Rating: ***
Relevance: Definitely relevant as we're interested in designing mobile hardware interfaces (see iStuff).
Summary and assessment:"Putting the Users Center Stage: Role Playing and Low-fi Prototyping Enable End Users to Design Mobile Systems" outlines the experiences from several workshops with end users designing mobile systems through scenario building, role playing and low-fidelity prototyping. Read this paper if you plan to do or consider doing a similar workshop. The authors focus on techniques they think allow to tap the natural abilities of humans as tool makers and story tellers. Most important lessons learned.
(Summary presented by Ingo) - Pressure Widgets
G. Ramos, M. Boulos, R. Balakrishnan (University of Toronto)
Description: Presents controlled experiment on discrete target selection via pressure, discusses implications for design of pressure sensitive GUI-widgets.
Rating: *
Relevance: Not relevant (read it if you want to work with pressure sensors).
Summary and assessment:"Pressure Widgets" looks into using continuous pressure data (from a stylus) to operate widgets with several states, finding that "dividing pressure space into 6 levels is optimal" and that some sort of feedback on the selected state is necessary. Read it, if you want to work with pressure sensors... but it didn't convince me that pressure-operated multi-state widgets are a good idea, I think it's more promising to keep the pressure data continuous and map it to something that benefits from it.
(Summary presented by Ingo) - RAW: Conveying Minimally-Mediated Impressions of Everyday Life with an Audio-Photographic Tool
J. Bitton, S. Agamanolis, M. Karau (Media Lab Europe)
Description: Introduces digital still camera capturing pictures plus audio, gives strict guidelines how to treat and present captured data, gives results of usage studies.
Rating: **
Relevance: Not relevant (but an interesting idea and a good read).
Summary and assessment:"RAW: Conveying Minimally-Mediated Impressions of Everyday Life with an Audio-Photographic Tool" introduces a tool to facilitate cultural understanding: a digital still camera that captures 1 minute of binaural audio before and after the moment the picture is taken coupled with strict guidelines on how to treat and present the captured data. I like the authors' approach and I can even imagine the future of photography to look like their tool but I don't think it's an interesting area of research for us.
(Summary presented by Ingo) - Revealing Delay in Collaborative Environments
C. Gutwin (University of Saskatchewan)
S. Benford (The University of Nottingham)
J. Dyck (University of Saskatchewan)
M. Fraser, I. Vaghi, C. Greenhalgh (The University of Nottingham)
Description: Explores ways to give users useful information about latency and jitter, employing visual decorators for the mouse cursor.
Rating: **
Relevance: Let's hope it won't become relevant for us (having latency and jitter users can't help but notice should be considered a bug and not a feature ;-).
Summary and assessment:"Revealing Delay in Collaborative Environments" explores ways to give users useful information about latency and jitter, employing visual decorators for the mouse cursor. Interesting read but most of our work should avoid having latency and jitter users can't help but notice.
(Summary presented by Ingo) - Robotic Camera Control for Remote Exploration
S. Hughes, M. Lewis (University of Pittsburgh)
Description: Provides brief overview of viewpoint control research, sums up corresponding user study with a simulated robotic vehicle in a virtual environment, presents the obvious as results.
Rating: *
Relevance: Not relevant (I even think it is unnecessary research).
Summary and assessment:"Robotic Camera Control for Remote Exploration" "provides a brief overview of viewpoint control research" and sums up a corresponding user study with a simulated robotic vehicle in a virtual environment, finding that it's beneficial to be able to decouple camera and robot orientation and that two cameras might be more useful than one. Who could have imagined that?!
(Summary presented by Ingo) - Semantic Pointing: Improving Target Acquisition with Control-Display Ratio Adaptation
R. Blanch (Université Paris-Sud)
Y. Guiard (CNRS & Université de la Méditerranée)
M. Beaudouin-Lafon (Université Paris-Sud)
Description: Analyses how adjusting mouse cursor speed to the "importance" of what lies underneath the cursor improves pointing.
Rating: **
Relevance: Not really relevant (read it if you are interested in designing GUI widgets that need very little screen space).
Summary and assessment:"Semantic Pointing: Improving Target Acquisition with Control-Display Ratio Adaptation" analyses how adjusting mouse cursor speed to the "importance" of what lies underneath the cursor improves pointing (e.g. the cursor covers empty space a lot faster), allowing for faster interaction with widgets or allowing to shrink widgets visually without increasing interaction time. Nice idea but the paper falls into the category "evolution of classical GUIs" and thus probably isn't of that much interest to us.
(Summary presented by Ingo) - Semantic Speech Editing
S. Whittaker (Sheffield University)
B. Amento (AT&T Labs-Research) - Sharp or Smooth? Comparing the effects of quantization vs. frame rate for streamed video
J. D. McCarthy, M. A. Sasse, D. Miras (University College London) - Slash (dot) and Burn: Distributed Moderation in a Large Online Conversation Space
C. Lampe, P. Resnick (University of Michigan) - Social and Temporal Structures in Everyday Collaboration
D. Fisher, P. Dourish (University of California) - A Social Proxy for Distributed Tasks: Design and Evaluation of a Working Prototype
T. Erickson (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center)
W. Huang (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, University of Michigan)
C. Danis, W. A. Kellogg (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center) - A Study of Digital Ink in Lecture Presentation
R. J. Anderson, C. Hoyer, S. A. Wolfman (University of Washington)
R. Anderson (University of Virginia) - Studying Cooperation and Conflict between Authors with history flow Visualizations
F. B. Viégas (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
M. Wattenberg, K. Dave (IBM Research) - "Stuff Goes into the Computer and Doesn't Come Out" A Cross-tool Study of Personal Information Management
R. Boardman (Imperial College London)
M. A. Sasse (University College London) - A Suggestive Interface for Image Guided 3D Sketching S. Tsang, R. Balakrishnan, K. Singh, A. Ranjan (University of Toronto)
- Supporting Social Presence through Lightweight Photo Sharing On and Off the Desktop
S. Counts (Microsoft Research)
E. Fellheimer (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Summary and assessment:A prototype system for photo sharing was developed and proven successful in terms of number of photos shared and increased sense of social presence. - Tapping vs. Circling Selections on Pen-based Devices: Evidence for Different Performance-Shaping Factors
S. Mizobuchi (Nokia Japan Co., Ltd., Keio University)
M. Yasumura (Keio University)
Summary and assessment: Circling and tapping were compared as selection methods for objects on handheld displays. Tapping was found to be faster and more accurate for selecting single objects, but slower for selecting a group of objects and for selecting complex forms. - Telemurals: Linking Remote Spaces with Social Catalysts
K. Karahalios, J. Donath (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Summary and assessment: Telemurals are walls with simplified video projections of a remote camera that is also connected to a telemural. The two videos are blended together and speech is displayed as text on the screen. More an art-project than a video-conferencing solution. - Telepresence Control of the NASA/DARPA Robonaut on a Mobility Platform
S. M. Goza, R. O. Ambrose (NASA/Johnson Space Center)
M. A. Diftler, I. M. Spain (Lockheed Martin Corporation)
Summary and assessment: A humanoid robot torso was developed and mounted on a modified Segway. Built for work in areas that are dangerous for humans, the robot is controlled remotely using VR-goggles, datagloves and pedals. The interface has proven to be quite natural and easy to learn. - Think Different: Increasing Online Community Participation Using Uniqueness and Group Dissimilarity
P. J. Ludford, D. Cosley, D. Frankowski, L. Terveen (University of Minnesota) - TNT - A Numeric Keypad Based Text Input Method
M. Ingmarsson, D. Dinka (Linköpings Universitet)
S. Zhai (IBM Almaden Research Center)
Summary and assessment: A new method of text input using the standard number block on a TV-remote-control is introduced. The user types a key by first selecting one of 9 groups of letters and then selecting a character from that group. The method was found to be relatively easy to learn and efficient compared to multi-tap, making it an interesting option for home entertainment settings. - Topobo: A Constructive Assembly System with Kinetic Memory H. S. Raffle, A. J. Parkes, H. Ishii (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Summary and assessment: Topobo is system designed for school children to help them learn physical principles, modular robotics, system coordination, emergent dynamics (local vs. global behavior) and locomotion. It consists of a toolkit containing static and movable parts. The movable parts are able to learn movements through demonstration or control through a special control unit. Experiments were done with young children playing with Topobo, showing that it was easy to understand, fun to play with and useful in learning. - Transcendent Communication: Location-Based Guidance for Large-Scale Public Spaces
H. Nakanishi (Kyoto University)
S. Koizumi (JST CREST Digital City Project)
T. Ishida (Kyoto University, JST CREST Digital City Project)
H. Ito (Kyoto University)
Summary and assessment: A system was developed to guide users through a public environment using a computer-generated bidseye-visualization of the scene. Information about the environtment is captured with video cameras. Sample implementations were an environmental education support system in a forest and and evacuation guidance system in a railroad station. - Trust and Mistrust of Online Health Sites
E. Sillence, P. Briggs, L. Fishwick (Northumbria University)
P. Harris (Sheffield University)
Summary and assessment: The authors discuss how trust develops in an online health context, i.e. which factors will lead to people trusting or mistrusting a site. A long-time study with a group of women gathering information on Hormone Replacement Therapy was conducted. The results are showing that bad design quickly leads to rejecting a website while good and well-presented content gets more important during deeper exploration. - Twiddler Typing: One-Handed Chording Text Entry for Mobile Phones
K. Lyons, T. Starner, D. Plaisted, J. Fusia, A. Lyons, A. Drew, E. W. Looney (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Summary and assessment: The paper presents a longitudinal study, where the text input speed of a multi-tap mobile phone and a one-hand chording keyboard (Twiddler) is compared. It turns out, that after some learning time, the method of chord-typing significantly outperforms the multi-tap interface. - Ubiquitous Computing for Firefighters: Field Studies and Prototypes of Large Displays for Incident Command
X. Jiang, J. I. Hong (University of California at Berkeley)
L. A. Takayama (Stanford University)
J. A. Landay (University of Washington)
Summary and assessment: The paper describes how a combination of field studies, interviews and participatory design using low-fidelity prototypes results in a ubiquitous computing application to support the work of firefighters. The application introduced is a large electronic display to help the incident commander coordinating the overall response stratgy in an emergency. - Understanding the Micronote Lifecycle: Improving Mobile Support for Informal Note Taking
M. Lin, W. G. Lutters (University of Maryland, Baltimore County)
T. S. Kim (Rice University)
Summary and assessment:The paper analyzes how todays mobile computing devices support the different lifecycle strata of micronote taking (immediate use, temporary storage, and prospective memory aid). It suggests to move away from the current attempt to support the entire lifecycle and instead promotes a vision for integrated paper-digital micronote systems. - Unintended Effects: Varying Icon Spacing Changes Users' Visual Search Strategy
S. P. Everett, M. D. Byrne (Rice University)
Summary and assessment:The paper describes an experiment where the thesis that larger icon spacings leads to slower search times was to be confirmed. Surprisingly it turned out that out that the test users performed much worse than it had been predicted because the change in the icon spacing caused the test subjects to adopt suboptimal search strategies. - The Usability of Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games: Designing for New Users
S. Cornett (Indiana University)Summary and assessment:The paper evaluates the usability of multiplayer online roleplaying games in an experiment with potential users who are not from the genre. As those users encounter serious problems playing the tested games it is concluded that usability testing for video games is both applicable and important for attracting new users. - Variation in Element and Action: Supporting Simultaneous Development of Alternative Solutions M. Terry, E. D. Mynatt (Georgia Tech)
K. Nakakoji, Y. Yamamoto (University of Tokyo)
Summary and assessment:The paper adresses the difficulties arising when working on "ill-defined" problems, which do not have a single, best solution (e.g. most design problems). In those cases it is often desirable or even neccessary to develop several slightly different solutions in a parallel process in which they be manipulated "as if they were the same object" or independently. The paper presents "Parallel Paths" a novel model of interaction allowing "the active, simultaneous development of multiple, alternative solutions". - Virtual Guiding Avatar: An Effective Procedure to Reduce Simulator Sickness in Virtual Environments
J. J. W. Lin, H. Abi-Rached, M. Lahav (University of Washington)
Summary and assessment:In order to reduce virtual environment-induced sickness the paper introduces a virtual guiding avatar, combining self-motion prediction cues and an independent visual background. This procedure can be used to aid motion simulator design as well as user experiences in virtual environments. - WaveLens: A New View onto Internet Search Results
T. Paek, S. Dumais, R. Logan (Microsoft Research)
Summary and assessment:The paper introduces "Wave Lens", a dynamic layout technique for displaying internet searching results. It adresses the tradeoff between the lenght of the result descriptions and the number of results shown, which are limited by real screen estate. Therefore a fish-eye lens effect to compact the result list is combined with progressive exposure of the page content. User performance results for different parameter settings of the "Wave Lens" are also given. - What a To-Do: Studies of Task Management Towards the Design of a Personal Task List Manager
V. Bellotti, B. Dalal (Palo Alto Research Center)
N. Good (University of California at Berkeley)
P. Flynn (Cornell University)
D. G. Bobrow, N. Ducheneaut (Palo Alto Research Center)
Summary and assessment:Aiming at the development of a cognitive, learning personal task list manager in the long run, the paper presents the results of studies on how users manage their tasks. It turns out that the problems arising in task planning are usually not with prioritizing the tasks but "the effort it requires and have outlined resources and methods people use that help ensure they are effective at this". A prototype TLM reducing this effort is introduced.