Bill Kules

Creativity Support Tools: Report From a U.S. National Science Foundation Sponsored Workshop

Creativity support tools is a research topic with high risk but potentially very high payoff. The goal is to develop improved software and user interfaces that empower users to be not only more productive but also more innovative. Potential users include software and other engineers, diverse scientists, product and graphic designers, architects, educators, students, and many others. Enhanced interfaces could enable more effective searching of intellectual resources, improved collaboration among teams, and more rapid discovery processes. These advanced interfaces should also provide potent support in hypothesis formation, speedier evaluation of alternatives, improved understanding through visualization, and better dissemination of results. For creative endeavors that require composition of novel artifacts (e.g., computer programs, scientific papers, engineering diagrams, symphonies, artwork), enhanced interfaces could facilitate exploration of alternatives, prevent unproductive choices, and enable easy backtracking. This U.S. National Science Foundation sponsored workshop brought together 25 research leaders and graduate students to share experiences, identify opportunities, and formulate research challenges. Two key outcomes emerged: (a) encouragement to evaluate creativity support tools through multidimensional in-depth longitudinal case studies and (b) formulation of 12 principles for design of creativity support tools.

What do exploratory searchers look at in a faceted search interface

This study examined how searchers interacted with a web-based, faceted library catalog when conducting exploratory searches. It applied eye tracking, stimulated recall interviews, and direct observation to investigate important aspects of gaze behavior in a faceted search interface: what components of the interface searchers looked at, for how long, and in what order. It yielded empirical data that will be useful for both practitioners (e.g., for improving search interface designs), and researchers (e.g., to inform models of search behavior). Results of the study show that participants spent about 50 seconds per task looking at (fixating on) the results, about 25 seconds looking at the facets, and only about 6 seconds looking at the query itself. These findings suggest that facets played an important role in the exploratory search process.

From Keyword Search to Exploration: Designing Future Search Interfaces for the Web

This monograph is directed at researchers and developers who are designing the next generation of web search user interfaces, by focusing on the techniques and visualizations that allow users to interact with and have control over their findings. Search is one of the keys to the Webs success. The elegant way in which search results are returned has been well researched and is usually remarkably effective. However, the body of work produced by decades of research into information retrieval continues to grow rapidly and so it has become hard to synthesize the current state-of-the-art to produce a search interface that is both highly functional, but not cluttered and distracting. Further, recent work has shown that there is substantial room for improving the support provided to users who are exhibiting more exploratory forms of search, including when users may need to learn, discover, and understand novel or complex topics. Overall, there is a recognized need for search systems to provide effective user experiences that do more than simply return results. With the aim of producing more effective search interfaces, human computer interaction researchers and web designers have been developing novel interactions and features that enable users to conveniently visualize, parse, manipulate, and organize their Web search results. For instance, while a simple set of results may produce specific information (e.g., the capital of Peru), other methods may let users see and explore the contexts of their requests for information (more about the country, city, and nearby attractions), or the properties that associate groups of information assets (grouping hotels, restaurants, and attractions by their type, district, or price). Other techniques support information-seeking processes that may last weeks or months or may even require collaboration between multiple searchers. The choice of relevant result visualization strategies in new search systems should reflect the searchers and the higher-level information needs that motivate their searches. These examples provide further motivation for supporting designers, who are challenged to synthesize and understand the breadth of advances in search, so that they can determine the benefits of varied strategies and apply them appropriately to build better systems. To support researchers and designers in synthesizing and understanding the advances in search, this monograph offers a structured means to think about web search result visualization, based on an inclusive model of search that integrates information retrieval, information seeking and a higher-level context of tasks and goals. We examine each of these levels of search in a survey of advances in browsers and related tools by defining search-related cognitive processes and analyzing innovative design approaches. We then discuss evaluations at each of these levels of search, presenting significant results and identifying both the traditional and novel means used to produce them. Based on this examination, we propose a taxonomy of search result visualization techniques that can be used to identify gaps for future research and as a reference for designers of next generation web search systems.

A comparison of voice controlled and mouse controlled web browsing

Voice controlled web browsers allow users to navigate by speaking the text of a link or an associated number instead of clicking with a mouse. One such browser is Conversa, by Conversational Computing. This within subjects study with 18 subjects compared voice browsing with traditional mouse-based browsing. It attempted to identify which of three common hypertext forms (linear slide show, grid/tiled map, and hierarchical menu) are well suited to voice navigation, and whether voice navigation is helped by numbering links. The study shows that voice control adds approximately 50% to the performance time for certain types of tasks. Subjective satisfaction measures indicate that for voice browsing, textual links are preferable to numbered links.

Immediate usability: a case study of public access design for a community photo library

Abstract This paper describes a novel instantiation of a digital photo library in a public access system. It demonstrates how designers can utilize characteristics of a target user community (social constraints, trust, and a lack of anonymity) to provide capabilities, such as unrestricted annotation and uploading of photos, which would be impractical in other types of public access systems. It also presents a compact set of design principles and guidelines for ensuring the immediate usability of public access information systems. These principles and guidelines were derived from our experience developing PhotoFinder Kiosk, a community photo library. Attendees of a major HCI conference (CHI 2001 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems) successfully used the tool to browse and annotate collections of photographs spanning 20 years of HCI-related conferences, producing a richly annotated photo history of the field of human–computer interaction. Observations and usage log data were used to evaluate the tool and develop the guidelines. They provide specific guidance for practitioners, as well as a useful framework for additional research in public access interfaces.

Influence of training and stage of search on gaze behavior in a library catalog faceted search interface

This study examined how searchers interact with a web-based, faceted library catalog when conducting exploratory searches. It appliedmultiple methods, including eye tracking and stimulated recall interviews, to investigate important aspects of faceted search interface use, specifically: (a) searcher gaze behavior--what components of the interface searchers look at; (b) how gaze behavior differs when training is and is not provided; (c) how gaze behavior changes as searchers become familiar with the interface; and (d) how gaze behavior differs depending on the stage of the search process. The results confirm previous findings that facets account for approximately 10-30% of interface use. They show that providing a 60-second video demonstration increased searcher use of facets. However, searcher use of the facets did not evolve during the study session, which suggests that searchers may not, on their own, rapidly apply the faceted interfaces. The findings also suggest that searcher use of interface elements varied by the stage of their search during the session, with higher use of facets during decision-making stages. These findings will be of interest to librarians and interface designers who wish to maximize the value of faceted searching for patrons, as well as to researchers who study search behavior.

Exploratory search interfaces: categorization, clustering and beyond: report on the XSI 2005 workshop at the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory, University of Maryland

The development and testing of systems to support users engaged in exploratory search activities (i.e., searches where the target may be undefined) is an challenge for the online search community. In this article we report on a workshop on exploratory search issues organized in conjunction with the University of Maryland Human-Computer Interaction Laboratorys Annual Symposium and Open House in June 2005. This workshop brought together researchers from the fields of Information Seeking (IS), Information Retrieval (IR), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Information Visualization (IV) for a cross-disciplinary exploration of these and other issues. Although originally intended to focus on interfaces to support exploratory search the workshop blossomed into a rich discussion of not only interface issues, but also evaluation, the cognitive processes that underlie information exploration and research methods.

A photo history of SIGCHI: evolution of design from personal to public

For 20 years I have been photographing personalities and events in the emerging discipline of human--computer interaction. Until now, only a few of these photos were published in newsletters or were shown to visitors who sought them out. Now this photo history is going from a personal record to a public archive. This archive should be interesting for professional members of this community who want to reminisce, as well as for historians and journalists who want to understand what happened. Students and Web surfers may also want to look at the people who created better interfaces and more satisfying user experiences.

Designing exploratory search tasks for user studies of information seeking support systems

This poster describes a procedure for designing exploratory tasks for use in laboratory evaluations of information seeking interfaces. This procedure is grounded in the literature on information seeking and information retrieval and has been refined by an evaluation of four tasks designed for a study of a faceted library catalog. The procedure is intended to be extensible to generate exploratory tasks for other types of interfaces and domains.

Heuristic Evaluation of Healthy Eating Apps for Older Adults

The benefits of fruits and vegetables for older adults include reducing cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Tablets like the iPad can promote healthy behaviors, but usability issues for older adults remain unclear. Three experts evaluated five iPad apps related to fruit and vegetable intake using heuristics adapted from existing heuristics. Eight problems emerged: 1) icons use symbols and text with little connection to functionality; 2) unfamiliar symbols; 3) unnecessary steps required to complete tasks; 4) few accessibility features; 5) small text; 6) insufficient color contrast; 7) insufficient instructional features; and 8) unlabeled advertising. Design recommendations are presented for each problem.