Christine A. Halverson

Patterns of entry and correction in large vocabulary continuous speech recognition systems

A study was conducted to evaluate user performance andsatisfaction in completion of a set of text creation tasks usingthree commercially available continuous speech recognition systems.The study also compared user performance on similar tasks usingkeyboard input. One part of the study (Initial Use) involved 24users who enrolled, received training and carried out practicetasks, and then completed a set of transcription and compositiontasks in a single session. In a parallel effort (Extended Use),four researchers used speech recognition to carry out real worktasks over 10 sessions with each of the three speech recognitionsoftware products. This paper presents results from the Initial Usephase of the study along with some preliminary results from theExtended Use phase. We present details of the kinds of usabilityand system design problems likely in current systems and severalcommon patterns of error correction that we found.

Activity Theory and Distributed Cognition: Or What Does CSCW Need to DO with Theories?

This essay compares activity theory (AT) with distributed cognitiontheory (DCOG), asking what each can do for CSCW. It approaches this task by proposing that theories – when viewed as conceptual tools formaking sense of a domain – have four important attributes: descriptivepower; rhetorical power; inferential power; and application power.It observes that AT and DCOG are not so different: both emphasizecognition; both include the social and cultural context of cognition;both share a commitment to ethnographically collected data. Startingwith a description of the distributed cognition approach, it uses anexample of a DCOG analysis to ground a discussion of the strengths andweaknesses of AT and DCOG as an approach to issues in CSCW. Finally,the essay considers what theoretical work is being done by theattributes of the respective theories, and whether AT, DCOG, or anytheory developed outside the context of group work, will workfor CSCW.

Considering an organization's memory

The term organizational memory is due for an overhaul. Memory appears to be everywhere in organizations; yet, the term has been limited to a few uses. In this paper we examine what memory in an organization really is. Based on an ethnographic study of a telephone hotline group, this paper presents a micro-level analysis of a hotline call, the work activity surrounding the call, and the memory used in the work activity. We do this analysis from the viewpoint of distributed cognition theory, finding it fruitful for an understanding of an organization’s memory.

Social translucence: designing social infrastructures that make collective activity visible

Making social cues visible and persistent helps online groups govern their activities.

Designing task visualizations to support the coordination of work in software development

Software development tools primarily focus on supporting the technical work. Yet no matter the tools employed, the process followed, or the size of the team, important aspects of development are non-technical, and largely unsupported. For example, increasing distribution of development teams highlights the issues of coordination and cooperation. This paper focuses on one area: managing change requests. Interviews with industry and open-source programmers were used to create designs for the visual inspection of change requests. This paper presents fieldwork findings and two designs. We conclude by reflecting on the issues that task visualizations that support social inferences address in software development.

Guest Editors' Introduction: Social Networks and Social Networking

This issues theme includes three articles on research activities that have drawn on ideas from social networking to drive innovative designs. The focus covers the design, development, and study of social technologies at the level of individuals, groups, and organizations. Although the tools described here are all intended for individuals, each article highlights how new technologies and technical competencies will further push our understanding of human social-networking drives and desires.

Organizational memory: processes, boundary objects, and trajectories

The term organizational memory is due for an overhaul. Memory appears to be everywhere in organizations; yet, the term has been limited to only a few uses. Based on an ethnographic study of a telephone hotline group, this paper presents a micro-level, distributed cognition analysis of two hotline calls, the work activity surrounding the calls, and the memory used in the work activity. We find a number of interesting theoretical concepts that are useful in further describing and analyzing organizational memory.

Overcoming unusability: developing efficient strategies in speech recognition systems

This paper describes changes in user error correction strategies over time in the use of large vocabulary desktop automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems. Users with minimal practice with such systems were found to have considerable difficulty with error correction [1,2]. Users with more extensive use were found to have improved overall performance compared to initial use subjects. This is attributed to development of multimodal strategies for error correction rather than to significantly improved speech recognition rates or use of speech-based error correction techniques. These results point to the importance of multimodal interaction in the acceptance of speech recognition technology.

An authoring technology for multidevice Web applications

The rapid proliferation of mobile computing devices has increased the complexity and cost of cross-platform application development. Multidevice authoring technology (MDAT) lets developers build a generic application common to multiple devices and customize it for specific devices. We developed MDAT an end-to-end development methodology and toolset, to reduce the complexity of creating interactive, form-based Web applications that execute on heterogeneous devices. Web application refers to conventional, servlet-based Web applications as well as portlet applications. A portlet is a Web application component that a Web portal server aggregates with other portlets.

Yeah, the rush ain't here yet - take a break : creation and use of an artifact as organizational memory

In order to understand organizational memory, it is important to understand how things become adopted as memory resources in organizations. In this paper, we describe the genesis and use of an artifact that became a memory resource for a wide range of activities. We discuss how the creation and use of the rush cheat sheet (RCS) and its associated representations at Dallas Ft. Worth TRACON brought together information and expert knowledge across organizational boundaries. Multi-organizational information became synthesized in a composite that could be used as a resource by the contributing organizations, acting as a boundary object. However, it is multiple representations of the same data that enable it to be so used. Using distributed cognition theory, we examined the conditions under which data transforms from an internal resource to a boundary object; speculating about domain generalization.