Ingrid Teixeira Monteiro

Embedded cultural features in the design of an accessibility agent for the web

This paper presents the Web Navigation Helper (WNH), an interface agent for users with special needs originally developed for Brazilian users. WNH mediates scripted interaction with web sites, by providing alternative dialogs with appropriate style, structure, etc. The paper reports the results of qualitative empirical studies done at the early design stages. In particular, it shows how our design vision changed when findings from initial studies revealed that the technology we were about to develop was implicitly guided by a sociability model that was not prevalent in the Brazilian culture. The main contributions of the paper are to expose the process by which we became aware of cultural factors affecting the design of accessibility agents, and to propose a kind of technology that may be adopted in cultures whose sociability models are based on personal relations with friends and family members.

On signifying the complexity of inter-agent relations in agentsheets games and simulations

This paper reports the results of an empirical study about the semiotic engineering of signs of complexity for live documentation of games and simulations built with a visual programming learning environment. The study highlights the essence of the semiotic engineering process and shows how its outcome has been received by a group of users who can speak for a large portion of the live documentation systems user population. It also shows how the communication of complexity is, in and of itself, a major design challenge, especially when mastering complexity is one of the prime purposes of the documented object. Because the study was carried out in the context of a live documentation system, its conclusions can also illustrate how to conduct semiotically-inspired interaction design.

Signifying software engineering to computational thinking learners with AgentSheets and PoliFacets

Nonprofessional end user programs have increased remarkably in volume and diversity. However, for such programs to be usable and reliable, their creators should be familiar with software engineering practices that are typically not part of their range of competence and source of enjoyment. While the expansion of computational thinking acquisition (CTA) initiatives at schools and the availability of improved programming environments have contributed to facilitate the learners’ coding tasks, much less has been done to facilitate the acquisition of software quality notions. This paper reports on a Brazilian CTA program guided by semiotic principles and describes a study of how the technology used in it prefigures elements of software engineering in the participants’ programs created with AgentSheets. Our research contributions touch on the semiotic potential of CTA infrastructures and on associated pedagogical considerations for expanding CTA programs with software engineering basics. We also propose items for an interdisciplinary research agenda.

My Program, My World: Insights from 1st-Person Reflective Programming in EUD Education

An important factor underlying the entire EUD enterprise is how to incorporate basic computer programming in school curricula. Rapidly increasing initiatives towards this goal have typically explored two kinds of abilities associated with learning how to program: logical problem solving and digital (multimedia) storytelling. In this paper we report on an exploratory qualitative study with a group of middle school children from a one-semester computational thinking acquisition class. We combined three technologies with which participants: (i) created a game; (ii) explored the representation of implicit and explicit meanings in their game; and (iii) created a scripted asynchronous Web-based conversation with their teacher about their game. We concluded that this combination can not only introduce new forms of 1st-person expression through software in basic education, but also and more importantly give teachers and learners a lead into program reflection, one of the most powerful concepts in programming and computing.

Web Scripts and Mediation Dialogues as a Quality Factor in the Interaction of the Deaf

The difficulty in reading and interpreting textual information interferes in the quality of the interaction of pre-linguistic deaf in the web. This article aims at determining whether the use of new communication strategies improves interaction of the deaf. The stage of data collection and observation involved the participation of eight volunteers. Two sessions of observation of interactions were held, one with the system original interface, and another with the use of new communication strategies, using the communicability evaluation method (CEM) of Semiotic Engineering. The survey results identified that the development of communication strategies meeting the specific language of pre-linguistic of the deaf improves the quality of metacommunication, thus encouraging accessibility during interaction with the system.

Evaluating devices and navigation tools in 3D environments

3D environments have been used in many applications. Besides the use of keyboard and mouse, best suited for desktop environments, other devices emerged for specific use in immersive environments. The lack of standardization in the use and in the control mapping of these devices makes the design task more challenging. We performed an exploratory study involving beginners and advanced users in the use of three devices in 3D environments: Keyboard-Mouse, Wiimote and Flystick. The navigation in this kind of environment is done through three tools: Fly, Examine and Walk. The study results showed how the interaction in virtual reality environments is affected by the navigation mechanism, the device, and the users previous experience. The results may be used to inform the future design of virtual reality environments.

Understanding what is important in iStar extension proposals: the viewpoint of researchers

AbstractiStar is a goal-based requirements modelling language, being used in both industrial and academic projects of different domains. Often the language is extended to incorporate new constructs related to a particular application domain or to adjust it to practical situations during requirements modelling. Currently, the language is undergoing standardisation, and several studies have focused on the analysis of iStar variations to identify similarities and to define a core. This does not imply or constrain the need for iStar to continue to be extended. This paper contributes to the understanding of how iStar is extended by analysing how iStar researchers perform iStar extensions. To address this question, we followed a qualitative approach based on interviews involving 20 researchers from different research groups that proposed iStar extensions. The analysis revealed a good understanding about what extending a modelling language means and pointed out differences about how extensions are proposed. We discovered categories that impact positively on iStar extensions (such as reusing existing extensions, proposing extensions in abstract and concrete syntaxes, and creating new modelling tools), and other categories that impact negatively (such as modifying representations of the original constructs, proposing extensions in an ad hoc fashion and not carefully choosing graphical representations). We also evaluated the findings of interviews through an online survey answered by 30 iStar researchers. Finally, we proposed a set of guidelines to support the proposal for better future iStar extensions.

Communicability Evaluation of Privacy Settings on Facebook for Android

With the widespread popularization of Facebook, which is considered the most used social network nowadays, a concern has become constant among its users: How is users’ data privacy being assured, since one of the purposes of Facebook is actually the exposure of user data? Facebook provides privacy settings that help its users to preserve their information. However, users are not always able to access these settings easily. In order to analyze this question, two methods of evaluation were used: Semiotic Inspection Method (SIM) and Communicability Evaluation Method (CEM). The evaluation was carried out considering a very particular profile: users located in Quixada, a small city of Ceara contryside, a state located in the northeast of Brazil who access Facebook exclusively by mobile phone. We concluded that Facebook has a real concern with its users’ information, however, in some cases, they are not receiving this message accordingly. As result, although users understand the risks of lack of privacy, they generally did not know how to use Facebook’s tools to ensure their privacy.

Game for Heuristic Evaluation (G4H): A Serious Game for Collaborative Evaluation of Systems

Many initiatives have promoted Collaborative Heuristic Evaluation in order to avoid discrepancies between evaluator’s ratings. This paper presents a gamification called G4H (Game for Heuristic Evaluation), a card game proposed to increase the engagement of different evaluators in an evaluation process based on Heuristic Evaluation. This paper presents all the rules, cards, game loop and the results of a preliminary study made to validate the game. The G4H can be used as complementary material in HCI courses. The preliminary study demonstrated an increase in satisfaction in participating of system evaluation using the G4H.

Communicability evaluation in systems created by designer-users

The number of people who strive to build their own systems grows every day, and for this type of activity we use the expression End-User Development (EUD). Communicability defines whether a system can make the user understands what the designer wanted to communicate when building a system. In this work, we evaluated the communicability in systems built by end users. For this evaluation, we used two methods: the Semiotic Inspection Method (SIM) and the Communicability Evaluation Method (CEM). Through these methods, we evaluated systems built by volunteers in a tool called SideTalk, which helps people with little or no programming knowledge to create conversations. We also evaluated the visualization of these conversations by other volunteers. We found a series of breakdowns in communication, either from the conversations or from the system itself. The main contribution of this paper is to present an innovative research in the area EUD which uses two methods of semiotics engineering, SIM and CEM, to evaluate the communicability of non-professional systems.