Human–Computer Interaction Series – serie

Ubiquitous environments are important because they allow users to move about freely and continue the interaction with the available applications through a variety of interactive devices (including cell phones, PDA's, desktop computers, digital television sets, and intelligent watches).A frustrating limitation is that people have to start their session over again from the beginning at each interaction device change. This book reports results based on the work in the OPEN project. It provides solutions able to address three key aspects: device change, state persistence and content adaptation. There is a lack of migratory services technology for the migration of applications in different usage scenarios.This book offers a general and open migratory service platform solution based on a sound and innovative scientific approach developed by a multi-disciplinary consortium combining the expertise of three technological world leaders, three well-known research organizations and one SME.

Interaction with computers is becoming an increasingly ubiquitous and public affair. With more and more interactive digital systems being deployed in places such as museums, city streets and performance venues, understanding how to design for them is becoming ever more pertinent. Crafting interactions for these public settings raises a host of new challenges for human-computer interaction, widening the focus of design from concern about an individual's dialogue with an interface to also consider the ways in which interaction affects and is affected by spectators and bystanders. Designing Interfaces in Public Settings takes a performative perspective on interaction, exploring a series of empirical studies of technology at work in public performance environments. From interactive storytelling to mobile devices on city streets, from digital telemetry systems on fairground rides to augmented reality installation interactive, the book documents the design issues emerging from the changing role of technology as it pushes out into our everyday lives. Building a design framework from these studies and the growing body of literature examining public technologies, this book provides a new perspective for understanding human-computer interaction. Mapping out this new and challenging design space, Designing Interfaces in Public Settings offers both conceptual understandings and practical strategies for interaction design practitioners, artists working with technology, and computer scientists.

The concept of usability has become an increasingly important consideration in the design of all kinds of technology. As more products are aimed at global markets and developed through internationally distributed teams, usability design needs to be addressed in global terms. Interest in usability as a design issue and specialist area of research and education has developed steadily in North America and Europe since the 1980’s. However, it is only over the last ten years that it has emerged as a global concern.Global Usability provides an introduction to the important issues in globalizing design and an insight into the development of usability expertise around the world. The book is divided into two sections. The first section deals with the general issues in cross-cultural design and the methods for conducting usability design and evaluation across geographical boundaries. The second section describes the state of usability development in fifteen countries. The descriptions include a history and review of activities and include some unique perspectives that have developed in relation to usability work. Researchers and practitioners from a variety of design-related disciplines will find the book a useful guide for understanding the issues and an excellent reference source for working in any of the countries covered.

This book looks at the future of advertising from the perspective of pervasive computing. Pervasive computing encompasses the integration of computers into everyday devices, like the covering of surfaces with interactive displays and networked mobile phones. Advertising is the communication of sponsored messages to inform, convince, and persuade to buy. We believe that our future cities will be digital, giving us instant access to any information we need everywhere, like at bus stops, on the sidewalk, inside the subway and in shopping malls. We will be able to play with and change the appearance of our cities effortlessly, like making flowers grow along a building wall or changing the colour of the street we are in. Like the internet as we know it, this digitalization will be paid for by adverts, which unobtrusively provide us suggestions for nearby restaurants or cafés. If any content annoys us, we will be able to effortlessly say so and change it with simple gestures, and content providers and advertisers will know what we like and be able to act accordingly. This book presents the technological foundations to make this vision a reality.

Whole Body Interaction is “The integrated capture and processing of human signals from physical, physiological, cognitive and emotional sources to generate feedback to those sources for interaction in a digital environment” (England 2009).Whole Body Interaction looks at the challenges of Whole Body Interaction from the perspectives of design, engineering and research methods. How do we take physical motion, cognition, physiology, emotion and social context to push boundaries of Human Computer Interaction to involve the complete set of human capabilities? Through the use of various applications the authors attempt to answer this question and set a research agenda for future work.Aimed at students and researchers who are looking for new project ideas or to extend their existing work with new dimensions of interaction.

Information visualization is the design and creation of interactive graphic depictions of information by combining principles in the disciplines of graphic design, cognitive science, and interactive computer graphics. This book describes a framework to make information visualization systems easier to develop through the creation of a reference model. It develops and discusses the general utility of this Data State Model, and validates it by applying it to various visualization techniques and showing several systems that illustrate issues such as how to model operators and interactions in visualization systems. The book also applies this reference model to make information visualization more accessible to potential users by creating a "Visualization Spreadsheet", where each cell can contain an entire set of data represented using interactive graphics.

The research on user modelling has developed a broad range of elaborated algorithms and techniques to support user adaptive applications with information about their users. Several empirical studies demonstrate their benefits in areas like education and training, online help for complex software, dynamic information delivery, and so forth. The main obstacles to wide-spread use of such systems have always been users' objections and to some extent laws regarding the usage of person-related data. This book offers a comprehensive analysis of security requirements for user modelling systems proceeding from requirements of general information systems and taking into account particular issues of user modelling. Solutions for these requirements are discussed in several ways. Existing solutions in user modeling systems are matched with these requirements. Solutions with a drawback to user modeling are displayed and weighed. New solutions for secrecy and integrity are developed and combined to a reference architecture for security in user modelling.Based on the solutions for encryption, authentication, and authorization, methods for empowering the user to define and enforce his individual requirements towards privacy and anonymity are described in detail. The reference architecture can serve as a default architecture for many user adaptive systems. It offers a modular approach that can adapt to different user requirements and protection goals.

This work reflects the move in human-computer interaction studies from standard usability concerns towards a wider set of problems to do with fun, enjoyment, aesthetics and the experience of use. Traditionally HCI has been concerned with work and task based applications but as digital technologies proliferate in the home fun becomes an important issue. There is an established body of knowledge and a range of techniques and methods for making products and interfaces usable, but far less is known about how to make them enjoyable. Perhaps in the future there will be a body of knowledge and a set of techniques for assessing the pleasure of interaction that will be as thorough as those that currently assess usability. This book is a first step towards that. It brings together a range of researchers from academia and industry to provide answers.

The web plays a significant role in the everyday life of people, yet many sites have inadequate usability and accessibility. Automated evaluation has gained prominence as a way to help web site builders to produce more usable and accessible sites. But what does it mean to automate web site evaluation? How effective are automated evaluation approaches and tools? Where do they fit into web practitioners' work practices? This book is a culmination of over five years of Melody Ivory's research and practical experience in the Web domain. It is an in-depth look at automated web site evaluation methodologies and existing software tools from both the researcher's and practitioner's perspectives. Ivory documents the current state of the field in 2003 and highlights promising research and tool development directions. She summarizes surveys and analyses of automated web site evaluation methodologies and tools, describes a novel automated evaluation approach that she developed (the WebTango approach), and presents results from empirical studies of automated evaluation tools and of the web site design process itself.She discusses the role of automated evaluation tools in practitioners' work practices, reports on tool usage, and compares tools along several dimensions.

How do you design personalized user experiences that delight and provide value to the customers of an eCommerce site? Personalization does not guarantee high quality user experience: a personalized user experience has the best chance of success if it is developed using a set of best practices in HCI. In this book 35 experts from academia, industry and government focus on issues in the design of personalized web sites. The topics range from the design and evaluation of user interfaces and tools to information architecture and computer programming related to commercial web sites. The book covers four main areas: This book will be a valuable tool in helping the reader to understand the range of factors to take into consideration in designing and building a personalized user experience. The authors of each of the chapters identify possibilities and alert the reader to issues that can be addressed in the beginning of a project by taking a 'big picture' view of designing personalized user interfaces.For anyone working or studying in the field of HCI, information architecture or eCommerce, this book will provide a solid foundation of knowledge and prepare for the challenges ahead.

TV viewers today are exposed to overwhelming amounts of information, and challenged by the plethora of interactive functionality provided by current set-top boxes. To ensure broad adoption of this technology by consumers, future Digital Television will have to take usability issues thoroughly into account. In particular serious attention must be paid to facilitate the selection of content on an individual basis, and to provide easy-to-use interfaces that satisfy viewers' interaction requirements. This volume collects selected research reports on the development of personalized services for Interactive TV. Drawing upon contributions from academia and industry in the US, Europe and Asia, this book represents a comprehensive picture of leading edge research in personalized television.

Embodied conversational agents (ECAs) are autonomous software entities with human-like appearance and communication skills. These agents can take on a number of different roles, for example, as an assistant, tutor, information provider, or customer service agent. They may also simply represent or entertain a user.The precise nature and benefits of different characteristics of ECAs requires careful investigation. Questions range from the function of an eyebrow raise to mechanisms for assessing and improving ECA trustworthiness.This book will help experts and designers in the specification and development of applications incorporating ECAs. Part 1 provides guidelines for evaluation methodologies and the identification of design and evaluation parameters. Part 2 demonstrates the importance of considering the user's perspective and interaction experience. Part 3 addresses issues in fine-tuning design parameters of ECAs and verifying the perceived effect. Finally, in Part 4 lessons learned from a number of application case studies are presented.The book is intended for both ECA researchers in academia and industry, and developers and designers interested in applying the technology.

This book reflects the move in Human Computer Interaction studies from standard usability concerns towards a wider set of problems to do with fun, enjoyment, aesthetics and the experience of use. Traditionally HCI has been concerned with work and task based applications but as digital technologies proliferate in the home fun becomes an important issue. There is an established body of knowledge and a range of techniques and methods for making products and interfaces usable, but far less is known about how to make them enjoyable. Perhaps in the future there will be a body of knowledge and a set of techniques for assessing the pleasure of interaction that will be as thorough as those that currently assess usability. This book is a first step towards that. It brings together a range of researchers from academia and industry to provide answers. Contributors include Alan Dix, Jacob Nielsen and Mary Beth Rosson as well as a number of other researchers from academia and industry.

Human-CenteredSoftwareEngineering: BridgingHCI,UsabilityandSoftwareEngineering From its beginning in the 1980’s, the ?eld of human-computer interaction (HCI) has beende?nedasamultidisciplinaryarena. BythisImeanthattherehas beenanexplicit recognition that distinct skills and perspectives are required to make the whole effort of designing usable computer systems work well. Thus people with backgrounds in Computer Science (CS) and Software Engineering (SE) joined with people with ba- grounds in various behavioral science disciplines (e. g. , cognitive and social psych- ogy, anthropology)inaneffortwhereallperspectiveswereseenasessentialtocreating usable systems. But while the ?eld of HCI brings individuals with many background disciplines together to discuss a common goal - the development of useful, usable, satisfying systems - the form of the collaboration remains unclear. Are we striving to coordinate the varied activities in system development, or are we seeking a richer collaborative framework? In coordination, Usability and SE skills can remain quite distinct and while the activities of each group might be critical to the success of a project, we need only insure that critical results are provided at appropriate points in the development cycle. Communication by one group to the other during an activity might be seen as only minimally necessary. In collaboration, there is a sense that each group can learn something about its own methods and processes through a close pa- nership with the other. Communication during the process of gathering information from target users of a system by usability professionals would not be seen as so- thing that gets in the way of the essential work of software engineering professionals.

By now, most people have become familiar with the basic functionality and interfaces of computers. However, developing new or modified applications that effectively support users' goals still requires considerable expertise in programming that cannot be expected from most people. Thus, one fundamental challenge for the coming years is to develop environments that allow users who do not have background in programming to develop or modify their own applications, with the ultimate aim of empowering people to flexibly employ advanced information and communication technologies.The present book is an effort to make many important aspects of the international discussion on End-User Development (EUD) available to a broader audience. It provides a unique set of contributions from various research institutes in various countries addressing relevant issues and proposing original solutions.

By now, most people have become familiar with the basic functionality and interfaces of computers. However, developing new or modified applications that effectively support users' goals still requires considerable expertise in programming that cannot be expected from most people. Thus, one fundamental challenge for the coming years is to develop environments that allow users who do not have background in programming to develop or modify their own applications, with the ultimate aim of empowering people to flexibly employ advanced information and communication technologies.The present book is an effort to make many important aspects of the international discussion on End-User Development (EUD) available to a broader audience. It provides a unique set of contributions from various research institutes in various countries addressing relevant issues and proposing original solutions.

The recent advances in display technologies and mobile devices is having an important effect on the way users interact with all kinds of devices (computers, mobile devices, laptops, tablets, and so on). These are opening up new possibilities for interaction, including the distribution of the UI (User Interface) amongst different devices, and implies that the UI can be split and composed, moved, copied or cloned among devices running the same or different operating systems. These new ways of manipulating the UI are considered under the emerging topic of Distributed User Interfaces (DUIs).DUIs are concerned with the repartition of one of many elements from one or many user interfaces in order to support one or many users to carry out one or many tasks on one or many domains in one or many contexts of use – each context of use consisting of users, platforms, and environments.The 20 chapters in the book cover between them the state-of-the-art, the foundations, and original applications of DUIs. Case studies are also included, and the book culminates with a review of interesting and novel applications that implement DUIs in different scenarios.

The notion of Minimalism is proposed as a theoretical tool supporting a more differentiated understanding of reduction and thus forms a standpoint that allows definition of aspects of simplicity. Possible uses of the notion of minimalism in the field of human–computer interaction design are examined both from a theoretical and empirical viewpoint, giving a range of results. Minimalism defines a radical and potentially useful perspective for design analysis. The empirical examples show that it has also proven to be a useful tool for generating and modifying concrete design techniques. Divided into four parts this book traces the development of minimalism, defines the four types of minimalism in interaction design, looks at how to apply it and finishes with some conclusions.

People go about their daily tasks with an in-built awareness of their social and physical environments. This awareness helps them to work cooperatively in groups, coordinate actions, and to maintain and enhance social communication with others. Networked technology has extended the reach of people's awareness to remote and distributed groups and provided access to a much larger social network than was previously feasible.Awareness systems that are designed to support people to build up, maintain and make use of these extended networks are attracting the interest of industry, and include buddy lists in instant messaging, sustained audio-video links, active contact lists on mobile phones and so forth. This book contains contributions from leading researchers in the field and looks at the design of awareness systems from theoretical foundations through to empirical studies and design concepts and will be of interest to practitioners and researchers in the field of HCI.

This preface tells the story of how Multimodal Usability responds to a special challenge. Chapter 1 describes the goals and structure of this book. The idea of describing how to make multimodal computer systems usable arose in the European Network of Excellence SIMILAR – “Taskforce for cre- ing human-machine interfaces SIMILAR to human-human communication”, 2003– 2007, www. similar. cc. SIMILAR brought together people from multimodal signal processing and usability with the aim of creating enabling technologies for new kinds of multimodal systems and demonstrating results in research prototypes. Most of our colleagues in the network were, in fact, busy extracting features and guring out how to demonstrate progress in working interactive systems, while claiming not to have too much of a notion of usability in system development and evaluation. It was proposed that the authors support the usability of the many multimodal pro- types underway by researching and presenting a methodology for building usable multimodal systems. We accepted the challenge, rst and foremost, no doubt, because the formidable team spirit in SIMILAR could make people accept outrageous things. Second, h- ing worked for nearly two decades on making multimodal systems usable, we were curious – curious at the opportunity to try to understand what happens to traditional usability work, that is, work in human–computer interaction centred around tra- tional graphical user interfaces (GUIs), when systems become as multimodal and as advanced in other ways as those we build in research today.

An increasing number of systems are exploiting mixed reality but to date there are no systematic methods, techniques or guidelines for the development of such systems. In bringing together contributions on a broad range of mixed reality development issues this book provides a sound theoretical foundation for a disciplined approach to mixed reality engineering.Divided into three parts: interaction design, software design and implementation, the first section covers generic and specific mixed reality design elements and provides an overview of the design method; Part 2 addresses technical solutions for interaction techniques, development tools and a global view of the mixed reality software development process. The final section contains detailed case studies to highlight the application of mixed reality in a variety of fields including aviation, architecture, emergency management, games, and healthcare.

Developing usable, useful, and appealing solutions for the customer or user experience requires customization according to specific users' needs amidst frequently changing physical and social environments. Complex design problems like these require interdisciplinary perspectives that cover software functionality, human interaction and communication experiences, and perceived value. After defining and summarizing current research and development, this book focuses on Mobile TV experience in everyday life, innovative conceptual and participatory design methods, contextual analysis methods, social context for interactive multimedia systems, advanced interaction with mobile digital content, and future trends for the wide range of products and services that will be offered in the decade to come.The Editors have carefully balanced the theoretical and empirical approaches providing a valuable insight into principles and methods, as well as actionable guidelines and recommendations for all those interested in exploring how to achieve the core objectives of usability, usefulness, and social appeal of this new mobile-video technology. The book answers many questions, and raises some new ones that only future technology development and deployment in mobile human-computer interaction and communication can answer.

Most of the chapters in this book are extended papers from Research Learning in Virtual Environments (reLIVE08), an international conference held by the UK Open University in Milton Keynes in November 2008. Authors of the best papers and presentations from the conferences were invited to contribute to Research Learning in Virtual Worlds, the first book to specifically address research methods and related issues for education in virtual worlds.The book covers a range of research undertaken in virtual worlds. It opens with an accessible introduction both to the book and to the subject area, making it an ideal springboard for those who are new to research in this area. The subsequent ten chapters present work covering a range of research methodologies across a broad discipline base, providing essential reading for advanced undergraduate or postgraduate researchers working in education in virtual worlds, and engaging background material for researchers in similar and related disciplines.

The objects displayed on a table can take multiple forms. In meetings, it is still very often printed paper although its content was originally created on a computer. The content can also be a “table”, but now in the mathematical sense, showing, e. g. , the budget of a project. Then, we have a “table” on the table. Most often, the computer-generated contents are subject of frequent changes or dynamic in nature. It is a logical consequence to avoid the detour and the inherent media break by transforming the surface of the table into a display able to show media that are active and can be computer-generated and computer-controlled. At the same time, it is desirable to maintain the inherent features and affordances of working with the objects and the contents while sitting or standing around a table. Electronic Meeting Rooms On the basis of these and other elaborate considerations, we started to design in 1992/1993 an electronic meeting room in Darmstadt at GMD-IPSI (later Fraunhofer IPSI). The setup of our custom-built DOLPHIN-System consisted of a “traditional” large rectangular wooden table with four physically integrated workstation-like computers with at screens. This set-up was complemented by linking a large ver- cal pen-operated interactive display, at that time the rst LiveBoard outside of Xerox PARC (two of which I was able to get to Darmstadt after my stay at Xerox PARC in 1990).

It was a pleasure to provide an introduction to a new volume on user experience evaluation in games. The broader eld of HCI can begin to look toward game evaluation for fresh, critical, and sophisticated thi- ing about design evaluation and product development.

For generations, humans have fantasized about the ability to create devices that can see into a person’s mind and thoughts, or to communicate and interact with machines through thought alone. Such ideas have long captured the imagination of humankind in the form of ancient myths and modern science fiction stories. Recent advances in cognitive neuroscience and brain imaging technologies have started to turn these myths into a reality, and are providing us with the ability to interface directly with the human brain. This ability is made possible through the use of sensors that monitor physical processes within the brain which correspond with certain forms of thought.Brain-Computer Interfaces: Applying our Minds to Human-Computer Interaction broadly surveys research in the Brain-Computer Interface domain. More specifically, each chapter articulates some of the challenges and opportunities for using brain sensing in Human-Computer Interaction work, as well as applying Human-Computer Interaction solutions to brain sensing work. For researchers with little or no expertise in neuroscience or brain sensing, the book provides background information to equip them to not only appreciate the state-of-the-art, but also ideally to engage in novel research. For expert Brain-Computer Interface researchers, the book introduces ideas that can help in the quest to interpret intentional brain control and develop the ultimate input device. It challenges researchers to further explore passive brain sensing to evaluate interfaces and feed into adaptive computing systems. Most importantly, the book will connect multiple communities allowing research to leverage their work and expertise and blaze into the future.

How can we increase awareness and understanding of other cultures using interactive digital visualizations of past civilizations? In order to answer the above question, this book first examines the needs and requirements of virtual travelers and virtual tourists. Is there a market for virtual travel? Erik Champion examines the overall success of current virtual environments, especially the phenomenon of computer gaming. Why are computer games and simulations so much more successful than other types of virtual environments? Arguments that virtual environments are impeded by technological constraints or by a paucity of evaluation studies can only be partially correct, for computer games and simulations are also virtual environments. Many of the underlying issues are caused by a lack of engagement with the philosophical underpinnings of culture, presence and inhabitation, and there are few exemplars that engage the public with history and heritage using interactive media in a meaningfuland relevant manner. The intention of Playing With the Past is to help designers and critics understand the issues involved in creating virtual environments that promote and disseminate historical learning and cultural heritage through a close study of the interactive design principles at work behind both real and virtual places. Topics discussed include the design of virtual environments, and especially virtual heritage environments, virtual place-making, cultural presence, the pros and cons of game-style interaction, augmented reality projects, and appropriate evaluation methods. Virtual heritage environments discussed in the book include projects from Antarctica, Australia, Mexico, Malta, Egypt, Babylon, the Netherlands, Cambodia, and India.

Interaction with computers is becoming an increasingly ubiquitous and public affair. With more and more interactive digital systems being deployed in places such as museums, city streets and performance venues, understanding how to design for them is becoming ever more pertinent. Crafting interactions for these public settings raises a host of new challenges for human-computer interaction, widening the focus of design from concern about an individual's dialogue with an interface to also consider the ways in which interaction affects and is affected by spectators and bystanders. Designing Interfaces in Public Settings takes a performative perspective on interaction, exploring a series of empirical studies of technology at work in public performance environments. From interactive storytelling to mobile devices on city streets, from digital telemetry systems on fairground rides to augmented reality installation interactive, the book documents the design issues emerging from the changing role of technology as it pushes out into our everyday lives. Building a design framework from these studies and the growing body of literature examining public technologies, this book provides a new perspective for understanding human-computer interaction. Mapping out this new and challenging design space, Designing Interfaces in Public Settings offers both conceptual understandings and practical strategies for interaction design practitioners, artists working with technology, and computer scientists.

Ubiquitous environments are important because they allow users to move about freely and continue the interaction with the available applications through a variety of interactive devices (including cell phones, PDA's, desktop computers, digital television sets, and intelligent watches).A frustrating limitation is that people have to start their session over again from the beginning at each interaction device change. This book reports results based on the work in the OPEN project. It provides solutions able to address three key aspects: device change, state persistence and content adaptation. There is a lack of migratory services technology for the migration of applications in different usage scenarios.This book offers a general and open migratory service platform solution based on a sound and innovative scientific approach developed by a multi-disciplinary consortium combining the expertise of three technological world leaders, three well-known research organizations and one SME.