Hiroko Shoji

S-Conart: an interaction method that facilitates concept articulation in shopping online

This study addresses building an interactive system that effectively prompts customers to make their decision while shopping online. It is especially targeted at “purchasing as concept articulation” where customers initially have a vague concept of what they want and then gradually clarify it in the course of interaction, which has not been covered by traditional online shopping systems. This paper proposes information presentation methods to effectively facilitate customers in their concept articulation process, and the framework for interaction design to enable the methods. Specifically, this study builds a system called S-Conart that facilitates purchasing as concept articulation through support for customer’s conception with spatial-arrangement style information presentation and for their conviction with scene information presentation, and then makes a set of evaluation experiments with the system to verify that the approach used in building the system is effective in facilitating the purchasing as concept articulation.

Creative communication for chance discovery in shopping

This study considered an information presentation method to help customers make a concept-articulation type of purchase. When customers follow the concept-articulation type of thinking, they only have vague requirements and try to make a gradual clarification of what they really want through the interaction with salesclerk(s). Skillful salesclerks can communicate with their customers appropriately to discover an opportunity for bringing the customers to their concept-articulation, which often leads to a successful sale. Based on the observations from our analysis of these human behavior in actual purchase activities, we constructed a system called S-Conart (Concept Articulator for Shoppers) to support the concept-articulation type of purchase. The user study conducted using S-Conart shows that using a different method of presenting information can cause a change in the user’s mental world, which is also observed in a real-life shopping situation, although in a different form. The result of this user study suggests the possibility of chance discovery by customers themselves, which is expected to be useful for building support systems for concept-articulation type of shoppers.

Chance Discovery by Creative Communicators Observed in Real Shopping Behavior

Analyzing conversation between customers and salesclerks in actual purchase activities, we have found that appropriate information given by the clerk in a timely context often caused a change in customers focus, which then led to her decision on what to buy. This mental leap phenomenon is similar to the one often observed in creative activities such as design or concept formation. We expect that the effect provided by the creativity support systems can be expected to plays a similar role in purchase consulting systems as well. The examples described in this paper can be thought as cases of chance discovery by skillful sellers as creative communicators.

Mobile Information Service Adapted to Social, Temporal and Dynamic Situational Requirements of Individuals

The visualization of Web service execution process is an emerging research in service-oriented computing (SOC) area. This paper presents a practical visualization framework in putting service discovery and selection process based on quality of service (QoS) attributes into a visual context. The proposed practical architecture serves as a foundation for designing the novel GUIs for different users. By considering the preferences and priorities for service consumers and service providers, we adopt different application UI design criteria and design patterns which tailored to service-based visualization design. Based on that, evaluation is carried out to test the usability, effectiveness and acceptability of the proposed visualization framework.Human thinking may vary according to the situation. Consequently, the requirements also change according to the situation. In everyday life, we find some requirements are changeable such as: cuisine, refreshment. Some requirements are not changeable such as: type of book, movies genre. Furthermore, people often make choices not only based on their personal preference but also opinions or choices of other people such as their companion. From various requirements, we need a service that can provide desired information for the user depending on the prevailing situation on each occasion. In this paper, we have proposed information service adapted to three dimensions of the user requirements which are temporal: short term and long term preference, dynamic: dynamic and static preference, and social preference: the user and companion preference. This study also creates rules, algorithm to this service.

PLASIU: a system that facilitates creative decision-making in job-hunting

Through an analysis of university students’ job-hunting logs, we have found that their introspection via rereading their log sometimes helps them discover themselves. Then we have built a system called PLASIU designed to support job-hunter’s creative decision-making based on the observations from their actual job-hunting process. This paper provides an overview of PLASIU and describes the findings from a user study using PLASIU.

Application of Modeling and Recommendation of Sensitivity to Get Tired

Most previous studies on the recommendation of the rut and sensitivity to aspects will feel tired and if the user continued use of the same systems and services has not taken into account. Continue to get service users continue to use, it is necessary to recommend considering information on their characteristics. This study is intended for planning meals, we propose a model sensitivity people get tired, we have applied to the verification and recommendation. An experiment to compare the results of subjective evaluation of real data and simulation results showed that a mathematical model representing the human feeling of mannerism proposed model. We also implemented the system, we evaluate the actual users, and other relevant planning meals to assist in creating, was found to be very effective considering the recommendation sensibility get tired.

A Study on Group Decision Making with Observation on the Process of Consensus Building

It can be said that consensus building is group decision making. In group decision making support method, it has been focused on whether we can make a rational decision by using mathematical method. However, in daily life, people perform harmonious consensus naturally and make a decision that all the members satisfy. Therefore, the authors observed the process on consensus building with selection problem and compared a decision by mathematical method with it by discussion. Then, we proposed method that input a personal evaluation reason to choices in online and discuss GDSS (Group Decision Support System).

How to Model Value-Creating Communication

The authors are conducting research on “Value-creating communication”. Value-creating communication process is a process that people embody and clarify their own values and form new values through communication. Therefore, we analyze the collaboration process of interior coordination as an example of value-creating communication. First, we took notice of remarks and analyzed collaboration process qualitatively. Then, we revealed the characteristics of the internal value creation. Second, we modeled collaboration process using Bayesian network and examined the validity and usefulness of the constructed model. A feature of the Bayesian network is to predict the likelihood and possibility of occurrence of an uncertain event by expressing the causal structure as a network and then performing probabilistic reasoning. As a result, we found that the point which participants pay attention to is different in respective items. Furthermore, “conception” affected the choice of the item, and it was suggested that the share of “conception” is important to support collaboration process.

Difference in focus points between experts and non-experts while watching soccer game

As study on information recommendation suitable for individuals, there are many study consideration of personal preference, but few studies consider the degree of specialization. Therefore, in this study, we aim to propose information recommendation method suitable for personal degree of specialization. In this paper, as the first stage, we will clarify the difference between the viewpoint of experts and non-experts in watching soccer game. We converted the conversation about soccer game into text data and analyzed it. As a result, the expert group used the vocabulary such as technique, position and area to grasp details of the game. It turned out that non-expert group focused attention on visual information.

How to Model Value-Creating Communication: Coaching Process as an Example

The authors are conducting research on “Value-creating communication”. Therefore, we analyze the career coaching process as an example of value-creating communication. First, we took notice of remarks and analyzed coaching process qualitatively. Then, we revealed three types of coaching pattern and we found that the career coaching process had two phases, in which under-standing and then consent is enhanced. Second, we modeled coaching process using Bayesian network and examined the validity and usefulness of the constructed model. As a result, we clarified the change of client’s consciousness using mathematical method Bayesian network.