Checklist usage can increase performance in complex, high-risk domains. While paper checklists are valuable, they are static, slow to access, and show both too much and too little information. We introduce Dynamic Procedure Aids to address four key problems in checklist usage: ready access to aids, rapid assimilation of content, professional acceptance, and limited attention. To understand their efficacy for crisis response, we created the dpAid software system. Its design arose through a multi-year participation in medical crisis response training featuring realistic team simulations. A study comparing Dynamic Procedure Aids, paper, and no aid, found that participants with Dynamic Procedure Aids performed significantly better than with paper or no aid. This study introduces the narrative simulation paradigm for comparatively assessing expert procedural performance through a score-and-correct approach.

We present TimeNets, a new visualization technique for genealogical data. Most genealogical diagrams prioritize the display of generational relations. To enable analysis of families over time, TimeNets prioritize temporal relationships in addition to family structure. Individuals are represented using timelines that converge and diverge to indicate marriage and divorce; directional edges connect parents and children. This representation both facilitates perception of temporal trends and provides a substrate for communicating non-hierarchical patterns such as divorce, remarriage, and plural marriage. We also apply degree-of-interest techniques to enable scalable, interactive exploration. We present our design decisions, layout algorithm, and a study finding that TimeNets accelerate analysis tasks involving temporal data.

Software tools that make it easier for analysts to collaborate as a natural part of their work will lead to better analysis that is informed by more perspectives. We are interested to know if software tools can be designed that support collaboration even as they allow analysts to find documents and organize information (including evidence, schemas, and hypotheses). We have modified the Entity Workspace system, described previously, to test such designs. We have evaluated the resulting design in both a laboratory study and a study where it is situated with an analysis team. In both cases, effects on collaboration appear to be positive. Key aspects of the design include an evidence notebook optimized for organizing entities (rather than text characters), information structures that can be collapsed and expanded, visualization of evidence that emphasizes events and documents (rather than emphasizing the entity graph), and a notification system that finds entities of mutual interest to multiple analysts. Long-term tests suggest that this approach can support both top-down and bottom-up styles of analysis.

To understand how and why individuals make use of emerging information assimilation services on the Web as part of their daily routine, we combined video recordings of online activity with targeted interviews of eleven experienced web users. From these observations, we describe their choice of systems, the goals they are trying to achieve, their information diets, the basic process they use for assimilating information, and the impact of user interface speed.

Although information visualization (infovis) technologies have proven indispensable tools for making sense of complex data, wide-spread deployment has yet to take hold, as successful infovis applications are often difficult to author and require domain-specific customization. To address these issues, we have created prefuse, a software framework for creating dynamic visualizations of both structured and unstructured data. prefuse provides theoretically-motivated abstractions for the design of a wide range of visualization applications, enabling programmers to string together desired components quickly to create and customize working visualizations. To evaluate prefuse we have built both existing and novel visualizations testing the toolkit's flexibility and performance, and have run usability studies and usage surveys finding that programmers find the toolkit usable and effective.

I will talk about an emerging class of user interfaces that if not exactly intelligent are at least attention-reactive. They are being developed to handle "sensemaking" tasks, in which users find, analyze, and creation products or action from large collections of documents. Applications might be expected to develop in law, education, scholarship, security, and medicine. These interfaces have a focus + context visualization on the front end and a semantic contextual computing engine on the back end. Ultimately they can be expected to have mixed initiatives. These interfaces require the development of a supporting science of human information interaction that stresses interaction between the user and information and deemphasizes the platform through which this occurs.

Researchers have noticed that readers are increasingly skimming instead of reading in depth. Skimming also occur in re-reading activities, where the goal is to recall specific topical facts. Bookmarks and highlighters were invented precisely to achieve this goal. For skimming activities, readers need effective ways to direct their attention toward the most relevant passages within text. We describe how we have enhanced skimming activity by conceptually highlighting sentences within electronic text that relate to search keywords. We perform the conceptual highlighting by computing what conceptual keywords are related to each other via word co-occurrence and spreading activation. Spreading activation is a cognitive model developed in psychology to simulate how memory chunks and conceptual items are retrieved in our brain. We describe the method used, and illustrate the idea with realistic scenarios using our system.

This paper describes the 3Book, a 3D interactive visualization of a codex book as a component for various digital library and sensemaking systems. The book is designed to hold large books and to support sensemaking operations by readers. The book includes methods in which the automatic semantic analysis of the book's content is used to dynamically tailor access.

This paper extends previous work on focus+context visualizations of tree-structured data, introducing an efficient, space-constrained, multi-focal tree layout algorithm ("TreeBlock") and techniques at both the system and interactive levels for dealing with scale. These contributions are realized in a new version of the Degree-Of-Interest Tree browser, supporting real-time interactive visualization and exploration of data sets containing on the order of a million nodes.

The Hyperbolic Tree is a focus + context information visualization that has been developed to amplify users' ability to navigate large tree-structured information systems. Information scent is a theoretical construct that captures one kind of interaction between task and display. Information scent is provided by task-relevant display cues, such as node labels on a tree that influence a user's visual search behavior and navigation decisions. An empirical Accuracy of Scent (AOS) score was developed to characterize a set of tasks that required users to find (Retrieval Tasks) or compare (Comparison Tasks) information in tree structures. Two experiments investigated the effect of information scent (tasks with different AOS scores) on performance with the Hyperbolic Tree Browser and the Microsoft Windows File Browser, which is a widely available conventional browser. Experiment 1 found no overall difference in performance time between the two browsers, but did reveal a marginal interaction of information scent with browser performance on Retrieval Tasks. On high AOS tasks the Hyperbolic showed faster performance, but on low AOS tasks the Windows File Browser showed faster performance. Experiment 2 focused only on the Retrieval tasks and revealed that Hyperbolic Tree users examined more tree nodes at a faster rate and visually searched through the tree hierarchy at a faster rate than users of a Windows File Browser lookalike, however, visual search paths were shortened in dense areas of the Hyperbolic Tree display when information scent was low. Two processes appear to affect visual search in the Hyperbolic display: strong information scent improves visual search, and the crowding of targets in a compressed region degrades visual search especially when there is weak information scent.

This paper proposes Degree-of-Interest trees. These trees use degree-of-interest calculations and focus+context visualization methods, together with bounding constraints, to fit within pre-established bounds. The method is an instance of an emerging "attention-reactive" user interface whose components are designed to snap together in bounded spaces.

We have developed a methodology for studying and analyzing the psychology of users performing ecologically valid WWW tasks. A user trace is a record of all significant states and events in the user-WWW interaction based on eye tracking data, application-level logs, and think-aloud protocols. A user-tracing architecture has been implemented for developing simulation models of user-WWW interaction and for comparing a simulation model (SNIF-ACT) against user-trace data. The user tracing architecture compares each action of the SNIF-ACT simulation directly against observed user actions. The model and architecture have been used to successfully match detailed user trace data from four users working on two tasks each.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a replicable WWW protocol analysis methodology illustrated by application to data collected in the laboratory. The methodology uses instrumentation to obtain detailed recordings of user actions with a browser, caches Web pages encoutered, and videotapes talk-aloud protocols. We apply the current form of the method to the analysis of eight Web protocols, visualizing the structure of the interaction and showing the strong effect of information scent in determining the path followed.

Eye tracking studies of the Hyperbolic Tree browser suggest that visual search in focus+context displays is highly affected by information scent (i.e., the proximal cues to the value of distal information). When users detected a strong information scent, they were able to reach their goal faster with the Hyperbolic Tree browser than with a conventional browser. When users detected a weak scent or no scent, they were less efficient in visually searching the areas of the Hyperbolic display that had a higher density of visual items. Two countervailing processes appear to affect visual attention in the Hyperbolic display: (1) Strong information scent expands the spotlight of attention, whereas (2) the crowding of targets in a compressed region narrows it. We interpret these results through an integration of the CODE Theory of Visual Attention with information foraging theory. Keywords Focus+context, Hyperbolic Tree, information foraging, information scent, information visualization, visu...

Focus + context information visualizations have sought to amplify human cognition by increasing the amount of information immediately available to the user. We study how the focus + context distortion of the Hyperbolic Tree browser affects information foraging behavior in a task similar to the CHI '97 Browse Off. In comparison to a more conventional browser, Hyperbolic users searched more nodes, searched at a faster rate, and showed more learning. However, the performance of the Hyperbolic was found to be highly affected by “information scent”, proximal cues to the value of distal information. Strong information scent made hyperbolic search faster than with a conventional browser. Conversely, weak scent put the hyperbolic tree at a disadvantage. There appears to be two countervailing processes affecting visual attention in these displays: strong information scent expands the spotlight of attention whereas crowding of targets in the compressed region of the Hyperbolic narrows it. The results suggest design improvements.

Digital books can significantly enhance the reading experience, providing many functions not available in printed books. In this paper we study a particular augmentation of digital books that provides readers with customized recommendations. We systematically explore the application of spreading activation over text and citation data to generate useful recommendations. Our findings reveal that for the tasks performed in our corpus, spreading activation over text is more useful than citation data. Further, fusing text and citation data via spreading activation results in the most useful recommendations. The fused spreading activation techniques outperform traditional text-based retrieval methods. Finally, we introduce a preliminary user interface for the display of recommendations from these algorithms.

Information Foraging (IF) Theory addresses user strategies and technology for seeking, gathering, and using on-line information. We present IF-based models and evaluations of two interfaces: the Scatter/Gather browser for large document collections, and the Butterfly interface for surfing the citation link structure of scientific literatures. A computational cognitive model, ACT-IF, models observed users by assuming that they have heuristics that optimize their information foraging behavior in accordance with IF theory.

Several visualizations have emerged which attempt to visualize all or part of the World Wide Web.Those visualizations, however, fail to present the dynamically changing ecology of users and documents on the Web.We present new techniques for Web Ecology and Evolution Visualization (WEEV).Disk Trees represent a discrete time slice of the Web ecology.A collection of Disk Trees forms a Time Tube, representing the evolution of the Web over longer periods of time.These visualizations are intended to aid authors and webmasters with the production and organization of content, assist Web surfers making sense of information, and help researchers understand the Web.

No abstract available.

The World-Wide Web has achieved global connectivity stimulating the transition of computers from knowledge processors to knowledge sources.But the Web and its client software are seriously deficient for supporting users' interactive use of this information.This paper presents two related designs with which to evolve the Web and its clients.The first is the WebBook, a 3D interactive book of HTML pages.The WebBook allows rapid interaction with objects at a higher level of aggregation than pages.The second is the Web Forager, an application that embeds the WebBook and other objects in a hierarchical 3D workspace, Both designs are intended as exercises to play off against analytical studies of information workspaces.

This paper describes Butterfly, an Information Visualizer application for accessing DIALOG'S Science Citation databases across the Internet.Network information often involves slow access that conflicts with the use of highly-interactive information visualization.Butterfly addresses this problem, integrating search, browsing, and access management via four techniques: 1) visualization supports the assimilation of retrieved information and integrates search and browsing activity, 2) automatically-created "link-generating" queries assemble bibliographic records that contain reference information into citation graphs, 3) asynchronous query processes explore the resulting graphs for the user, and 4) process controllers allow the user to manage these processes.We use our positive experience with the Butterfly implementation to propose a general information access approach, called Organic User Inteifacesfor Infomiation Access, in which a virtual landscape grows under user control as information is accessed automatically.

Article Free Access Share on Information foraging in information access environments Authors: Peter Pirolli Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, 3333 Coyote Hill Road, Palo Alto, CA Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, 3333 Coyote Hill Road, Palo Alto, CAView Profile , Stuart Card Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, 3333 Coyote Hill Road, Palo Alto, CA Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, 3333 Coyote Hill Road, Palo Alto, CAView Profile Authors Info & Claims CHI '95: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsMay 1995 Pages 51–58https://doi.org/10.1145/223904.223911Published:01 May 1995Publication History 231citation4,388DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations231Total Downloads4,388Last 12 Months767Last 6 weeks210 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteView all FormatsPDF

In this paper we present a method, the Cost-of-Knowledge Characteristic Function, for characterizing information access from dynamic displays.The paper works out this method for a simple, but important, class of dynamic displays called direct-walk interactive information visuatizations, in which information is accessed through a sequence of mouse selections and key selections.The method is used to characterize a simple calendar task for an application of the Information Visualizer, to compute the changes in characterization as the result of possible program variants, and to conduct empirical comparison between different systems with the same function.

We present a new visualization, called the Table Lens, for visualizing and making sense of large tables. The visualization uses a focus+context (fisheye) technique that works effectively on tabular information because it allows display of crucial label information and multiple distal focal areas. In addition, a graphical mapping scheme for depicting table contents has been developed for the most widespread kind of tables, the cases-by-variables table. The Table Lens fuses symbolic and graphical representations into a single coherent view that can be fluidly adjusted by the user. This fusion and interactivity enables an extremely rich and natural style of direct manipulation exploratory data analysis.

Although the document imaging industry has taken off in the last few years, document image filing for the individual information worker is still not widespread or effective. In this paper, we focus on building an electronic tiling system for paper documents that supports the ad hoc, multifarious work of information workers. Motivated by interviews with researchers and a survey of descriptive studies of paper document filing, we have focussed on minimizing or delaying costs of document filing and supporting a rich variety of methods for accessing and using stored documents. We have implemented a prototype system called Protofoil for storing, retrieving, and manipulating paper documents as electronic images that integrates many user interface-paper and workstation—and information retrieval technologies. Protofoil has been tested through use in our laboratory. and has been deployed in a field study at a lawyer’s office.

Abstract

No abstract available.

The Information Grid (InfoGrid) is a framework for building information access applications that provides a user interface design and an interaction model. It focuses on retrieval of application objects as its top level mechanism for accessing user information, documents, or services. We have embodied the InfoGrid design in an object-oriented application framework that supports rapid construction of applications. This application framework has been used to build a number of applications, some that are classically characterized as information retrieval applications, others that are more typically viewed as personal work tools.

Article The information visualizer, an information workspace Share on Authors: Stuart K. Card Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Palo Alto, California Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Palo Alto, CaliforniaView Profile , George G. Robertson Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Palo Alto, California Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Palo Alto, CaliforniaView Profile , Jock D. Mackinlay Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Palo Alto, California Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Palo Alto, CaliforniaView Profile Authors Info & Claims CHI '91: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsApril 1991 Pages 181–186https://doi.org/10.1145/108844.108874Online:01 March 1991Publication History 367citation3,492DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations367Total Downloads3,492Last 12 Months153Last 6 weeks18 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteGet Access

Tasks that involve large information spaces overwhelm workspaces that do not support efiicient use of space and time. For example, case studies indicate that information often contains linear components, which can result in 2D layouts with wide, inefficient aspect ratios. This paper describes a technique called the Perspective W’aU for visualizing linear information by smoothly integrating detailed and contextual views. It uses hardware support for 3D interactive animation to fold wide 2D layouts into intuitive 3D visualizations that have a center panel for detail and two perspective panels for context. The resulting visualization supports efficient use of space and time.

No abstract available.

The task of managing and accessing large information spaces is a problem in large scale cognition.Enwrging technologies for 3D visualization and interactive aninlaiion offer potential solutions to this problenl, especially when the structure of the information can be visualized.We describe one of these Information Visualtzaiion techniques, called the Cone Tree, which is used for visualizing hierarchical information structures.The hierarchy is presented in 3D to nlaxilnize effective use of available screen space and enable visualization of the whole structure.Interactive aninlation is used (,o shift sonle of the user's cognitive load to the human perceptual system,

No abstract available.

A high-level user interface toolkit, called XButtons, has implementation issues encountered in building XButtons on top of the X window system.

The market now contains a bewildering variety of input devices for communication from humans to computers.This paper discusses a means to systematize these devices through morphological design space analysis, in which different input device designs are taken as points in a parametrically described design space.The design space is characterized by finding methods to generate and test design points.In a previous paper, we discussed a method for generating the space of input device designs using primitive and compositional movement operators.This allowed us to propose a taxonomy of input devices.In this paper, we summarize the generation method and explore the use of device footprint and Fitts's law as a test.We then use calculations to reason about the design space.Calculations are used to show why the mouse is a more effective device than the headmouse and where in the design space there is likely to be a more effective device than the mouse.

A bewildering variety of devices for communication from humans to computers now exists on the market. In order to make sense of this variety, and to aid in the design of new input devices, we propose a framework for describing and analyzing input devices. Following Mackinlay's semantic analysis of the design space for graphical presentations, our goal is to provide tools for the generation and test of input device designs. The descriptive tools we have created allow us to describe the semantics of a device and measure its expressiveness. Using these tools, we have built a taxonomy of input devices that goes beyond earlier taxonomies of Buxton & Baecker and Foley, Wallace, & Chan. In this paper, we build on these descriptive tools, and proceed to the use of human performance theories and data for evaluation of the effectiveness of points in this design space. We focus on two figures of merit, footprint and bandwidth, to illustrate this evaluation. The result is the systematic integration of methods for both generating and testing the design space of input devices.

Claims of increased pointing speed by users and manufacturers of variable-gain mice (“powermice”) have become rife. Yet, there have been no demonstrations of this claim, and theoretical considerations suggest it may not even be true. In this paper, the claim is tested.

Computer graphics hardware supporting real-time interactive 3D animation has the potential to support effective user interfaces by enabling virtual 3D workspaces. However, this potential requires development of viewpoint movement techniques that support rapid and controlled movement through workspaces. Rapid movement through large distances avoids wasted work time; controlled movement near target objects allows the user to examine and interact with objects in the workspace. Current techniques for viewpoint movement typically use high velocities to cover distances rapidly, but high velocities are hard to control near objects. This paper describes a new technique for targeted viewpoint movement that solves this problem. The key idea is to have the user indicate a point of interest (target) on a 3D object and use the distance to this target to move the viewpoint logarithmically, by moving the same relative percentage of distance to the target on every animation cycle. the result is rapid motion over distances that slows as the viewpoint approaches the target object. The technique can be used with 2D and multidimensional input devices. We also extend the technique to move objects in the workspace.

A bewildering variety of devices for communication from humans to computers now exists on the market. In this article, we propose a descriptive framework for analyzing the design space of these input devices. We begin with Buxton's (1983) idea that input devices are transducers of physical properties in one, two, or three dimensions. Following Mackinlay's semantic analysis of the design space for graphical presentations, we extend this idea to more comprehensive descriptions of physical properties, space, and transducer mappings. In our reformulation, input devices are transducers of any combination of linear and rotary, absolute and relative, position and force, in any of the six spatial degrees of freedom. Simple input devices are described in terms of semantic mappings from the transducers of physical properties into the parameters of the applications. One of these mappings, the resolution function, allows us to describe the range of possibilities from continuous devices to discrete devices, including possibilities in between. Complex input controls are described in terms of hierarchical families of generic devices and in terms of composition operators on simpler devices. The description that emerges is used to produce a new taxonomy of input devices. The taxonomy is compared with previous taxonomies of Foley, Wallace, and Chan (1984) and of Buxton (1983) by reclassifying the devices previously analyzed by these authors. The descriptive techniques are further applied to the design of complex mouse-based virtual input controls for simulated three-dimensional (3D) egocentric motion. One result is the design of a new virtual egocentric motion control.

The Information Lens provides electronic mail users with the ability to write rules that automatically sort, select, and filter their messages. This paper describes preliminary results from an eighteen-month investigation of the use of this system at a corporate test site. We report the experiences of 13 voluntary users who have each had at least three months experience with the most recent version of the system. We found that:

The graphics capabilities and speed of current hardware systems allow the exploration of 3D and animation in user interfaces, while improving the degree of interaction as well. In order to fully utilize these capabilities, new software architectures must support multiple, asynchronous, interacting agents (the Multiple Agent Problem), and support smooth interactive animation (the Animation Problem). The Cognitive Coprocessor is a new user interface architecture designed to solve these two problems, while supporting highly interactive user interfaces that have 2D and 3D animations. This architecture includes 3D Rooms, a 3D analogy to the Rooms system with Rooms Buttons extended to Interactive Objects that deal with 3D, animation, and gestures. This research is being tested in the domain of Information Visualization, which uses 2D and 3D animated artifacts to represent the structure of information. A prototype, called the Information Visualizer, has been built.

An interface is presented that is designed to help users switch among tasks on which they are concurrently working. Nine desirable properties for such an interface are derived. It is argued that a key constraint to building interfaces that support task switching is that low user-overhead switching among tasks requires a large amount of display space, whereas actual display space is limited. A virtual workspace design is presented that greatly speeds the inevitable task-switching induced window faulting. The resulting interface is presented as a study in theory-based human-interface design. It is shown how in this case theory is important in inspiring a design, but design entailments outside the theory raise new issues that must be faced to make the design viable. These design experiences, in turn, help inspire new theory.

Carroll and Campbell have exercised themselves over a straw man not subscribed to by us. In the process, our position has not been accurately represented. In reply, we restate as clearly as we can the position for which we actually did and do argue. The underlying issue seems to concern the advantages of using technical psychological theories to identify underlying mechanisms in human-computer interaction. We argue that such theories are an important part of a science of human-computer interaction. We argue further that technical theories must be considered in the context of the uses to which they are put. The use of a theory helps determine what is a good approximation, the degree of formalization that is justified, and the appropriate commingling of qualitative and quantitative techniques. Technical theories encourage cumulative progress by abetting the classical scientific heuristic of divide and conquer.

A key constraint on the effectiveness of window-based human-computer interfaces is that the display screen is too small for many applications. This results in “window thrashing,” in which the user must expend considerable effort to keep desired windows visible. Rooms is a window manager that overcomes small screen size by exploiting the statistics of window access, dividing the user's workspace into a suite of virtual workspaces with transitions among them. Mechanisms are described for solving the problems of navigation and simultaneous access to separated information that arise from multiple workspaces.

This paper discusses the prospects of psychology playing a significant role in the progress of human-computer interaction. In any field, hard science (science that is mathematical or otherwise technical) has a tendency to drive out softer sciences, even if the softer sciences have important contributions to make. It is possible that, as computer science and artificial intelligence contributions to human-computer interaction mature, this could happen to psychology. It is suggested that this trend might be prevented by hardening the applicable psychological science. This approach, however, has been criticized on the grounds that the resulting body of knowledge would be too low level, too limited in scope, too late to affect computer technology, and too difficult to apply. The prospects for overcoming each of these obstacles are analyzed here.

Menu-based command systems, in which a user selects a command from a set of choices displayed to him, have acquired widespread use as a human-computer interface technique. The technique is especially attractive for use with new or untrained users since the user need not recall the command he wishes, but merely recognize it. But menu systems also find application in more sophisticated systems meant for expert users (for example, Teitelman, 1977) where they can be used to reduce the complexity of the options with which the user is presented.

This paper describes a graduate seminar given by the authors at Stanford University in the Department of Psychology in the Spring of 1980. Although the seminar was also listed as a Computer Science course and was attended by students and faculty from Computer Science and other departments, the course was addressed to Ph.D. students in cognitive psychology. The seminar assumed that the students were familiar with modern cognitive psychology, but did not assume that they necessarily had much experience with interactive computing.