Fernando Loizides

Investigating document triage on paper and electronic media

Document triage is the critical point in the information seeking process when the user first decides the relevance of a document to their information need. This complex process is not yet well understood, and subsequently we have undertaken a comparison of this task in both electronic and paper media. The results reveal that in each medium human judgement is influenced by different factors, and confirm some unproven hypotheses. How users claim they perform triage, and what they actually do, are often not the same.

The myth of find: user behaviour and attitudes towards the basic search feature

The ubiquitous within-document text search feature (Ctrl-F) is considered by users to be a key advantage in electronic information seeking [1]. However what people say they do and what they actually do are not always consistent. It is necessary to understand, acknowledge and identify the cause of this inconsistency. We must identify the physical and cognitive factors to develop better methods and tools, assisting with the search process. This paper discusses the limitations and myths of Ctrl-f in information seeking. A prototype system for within-document search is introduced. Three user studies portray shared behaviour and attitudes, common between participants regarding within-document searching.

Presenting Cypriot Cultural Heritage in Virtual Reality: A User Evaluation

This paper presents a user evaluation related to the overall experience of a number of volunteers obtained by visiting two virtual museums populated with digitized Cypriot cultural heritage/art items using different virtual reality display systems. The two virtual museums used are replicas of an engraving museum and a virtual Byzantine icons museum. During the experiment visitors were able to use a Head Mounted Display or a stereoscopic Powerwall projection in order to obtain an immersive 3D experience. The results of the user evaluation indicate that both ways of presenting the museum received an equal usability score among the users but at the same time a number of drawbacks of each method were indicated. The findings of the research are crucial in enabling the use of a user-centered design process approach to improve the prototypes and develop virtual experiences for additional museums. The ultimate aim of our approach is to develop applications that showcase Cypriot Cultural Heritage in a way that attracts visitors to visit the original museums.

Performing document triage on small screen devices. part 1: structured documents

Document triage is defined as the rapid process by which information seekers make relevance decisions on a set of documents [1]. With the rising popularity of small screen readers such as Amazons Kindle and the ubiquity of smartphones capable of displaying documents, we are faced with the challenge of facilitating information seekers with effective ways of searching for information using these small screen devices, while bypassing the space limitation affordance. In this paper we begin to explore how information seekers go about their document triage process on small screens beginning by looking at structured documents.

Towards a Framework for Human Manual Information Retrieval

Information retrieval work has mostly focused on the automatic process of filtering and retrieving documents based on a query search. The subsequesnt manual process by which the information seeker will scrutinise and triage through the retrieved documents is not thoroughly understood. Limited work, particularly for human factors in web searching have been reported on but this is usually case specific and difficult to cross reference or cross examine and compare. Furthermore, the majority of the work is also qualitatively reported on while there are no clear measures for empirically and quantitatively evaluating user behaviour and interactive systems. In this work, we introduce a universal framework which conceptualises the behavioural and procedural human process. Beyond the scholarly contribution, the framework can be employed and adapted in order for practitioners and researchers to have a foundation for evaluating both user performance and interactive systems.

Theory, Practice and Policy: An Inquiry into the Uptake of HCI Practices in the Software Industry of a Developing Country

ABSTRACT With almost four decades of existence as a community, human–computer interaction (HCI) practice has yet to diffuse into a large range of software industries globally. A review of existing literature suggests that the diffusion of HCI practices in software organizations lacks theoretical guidance. Although many studies have tried to facilitate HCI uptake by the software industry, there are scarce studies that consider HCI practices as innovations that software organizations could or should adopt. Furthermore, there appears to be a lack of structure in the facilitation of HCI methodological development within the specialized emerging regions field such as Sub-Saharan Africa. In order to address this gap, an exploratory investigation regarding the state of uptake of HCI practices in Nigeria is conducted. The aim of this article is to improve our understanding regarding the state of HCI uptake in developing countries and the challenges prevailing. The findings show that HCI practice still remains within its infancy stage in most software companies. Universities are also lacking the required knowledge transfer of HCI to the students, and in effect themselves contributing to the lack of HCI skills in industry. Furthermore, government policies are in need of refinement and end-users’ involvement in software development is not prioritized.

User experience in using surface computing for collaborative decision making

Purpose – This paper aims to report work regarding the design, development and evaluation of a surface computing application to support collaborative decision making. The domain-independent application, the so-called Ideas Mapping, builds on the principle of affinity diagramming to allow participants to analyze a problem and brainstorm around possible solutions, while they actively construct a consensus artifact – a taxonomy of their ideas. Design/methodology/approach – Ideas Mapping was designed using a user-centred approach. During idea generation, Ideas Mapping replicates physical post-it notes on a multi-touch tabletop. Additional functionality supports student collaboration and interaction around the organization of ideas into thematic categories associated with the problem at hand. The tool was evaluated in two studies using quantitative and qualitative data. Findings – The paper reports on the functionality and user experience while interacting with the application. The paper also reports initial findings regarding the affordances of surface computing for collaborative decision making. Originality/value – The studies reported give insides regarding the affordances of multi-touch tabletops to support collaborative decision making. Information regarding the user experience in using such applications is reported.

A personal tour of cultural heritage for deaf museum visitors

This paper describes the first milestone and results of an ongoing project involving the implementation and pilot testing of an application aiming to promote cultural heritage and dissemination of information with the use of interactive small screen technology. The bespoke application was designed for deaf visitors to enable a museum experience without the support of a physical sign language interpreter. The application was pilot tested in the Pattichion Municipal Museum in Cyprus. Our findings showed high levels of user satisfaction and usefulness of the application in allowing deaf museum visitors to have an enjoyable tour, using their mobile devices as the only means of support.

On Interactive Interfaces for Semi-Structured Academic Document Seeking and Relevance Decision Making

The process undertaken by an information seeker, in order to form relevance decisions regarding documents, is defined as “Document Triage.” To better facilitate users’ needs in their triage activities, interactive interfaces have begun to evolve within on-line academic repositories. In order to complement current work on interface design and interaction, and produce custom guidelines to inform the creation of triage interfaces, we examine how interfaces that alter the document presentation and structure affect information seekers’ visual and navigational attention. We present a set of heuristics for both creating and evaluating such interfaces.

Information seekers' visual focus during time constraint document triage

Time-constraints are a commonly accepted limitation to a users information seeking process. Physical time constraints can cause users to have a low tolerance of time consuming information seeking tasks. This paper examines the effects of time constraints on the document triage process in an eye-tracked lab-based study. The visual attention of three time constraints are reported on. Similarities and differences to previous triage data are also reported on, contributing to an ongoing research investigation of the general document triage process.