Jérôme Dinet

Older people as information seekers: exploratory studies about their needs and strategies

In two studies, we investigated the influences of some individual variables that are related to information search strategies and information access in general for old end-users, and we investigated experimentally the influences of metamemory on their performances and strategies. The first study investigated the Internet access, interests, and information search from the Internet among seniors, by using interviews with a semi-directed questionnaire performed with 47 old end-users (ages from 68 to 73 years). The second study investigated the impacts of a specific cognitive ability, i.e., metamemory abilities, on the information search activities performed by 50 old end-users. Results have shown that the World Wide Web emerged as a major information resource for them, their opinions are modulated by Web experience, locating relevant information among information provided by the search engines emerged as a major problem for the old end-users, and metamemory abilities do not seem to be implicated in the computerized information search activities: No significant result was obtained in the experiment conducted in the second study. Additional research with old end-users is needed to determine the generalisability of the results obtained in our two studies.

Draw me the Web: impact of mental model of the web on information search performance of young users

The aim of this experiment conducted with 51 French children was to understand the relationships between childrens information search performances and their mental model of the Web. Each participant was individually asked (a) to complete a demographic questionnaire asking experience with the Web, (b) to draw a picture of her/his perception about the Web, and (c) to perform two search tasks. The results showed that several mental models existed for young users about the Web, independently of their experience with the Web. Moreover, the results confirmed that mental model of the Web could have an effect on the performance.

From gaze plots to eye fixation patterns using a clustering method based on Hausdorff distances

Eye-tracking studies have provided us with interesting findings regarding the way users explore Web pages. Usually, visual fixations are represented using gaze plots and heatmaps. Probably one of the most cited studies on Web page exploration is the one by Nielsen [15] who demonstrated that users often read Web pages in an F-shaped pattern. However, this conclusion is based on aggregated data that do not represent any real user. In order to characterize and to compare scanpaths so as to uncover possible scan-patterns, a clustering method based on the Hausdorff distance has been applied to the data from 113 users. The results have shown that scan-patterns could be identified. Groups of users have been identified and their behaviors have been described with diverse eye-tracking metrics. The contributions of this study are outlined as well as its drawbacks. Research perspectives are proposed.

Towards Future Methods to Take into Account Cross-Cultural Differences in Design: An Example with the “Expert Community Staff” (ECS)

Nowadays, ergonomics tries to imagine and to create new methods based on social situations to understand users’ needs when these end-users are issued from different cultures. Because these needs are socially and culturally determined, new technology cannot be designed without understanding how it is embedded in its socio-cultural context. The aim of this paper is to present the Expert Community Staff (ECS) method, an innovative participatory method to enlarge real users’ needs. First, we present the theoretical background of this method. Second, we present the methodological implications for the design. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of this new participatory method are discussed.

Definition of Tactile Interactions for a Multi-Criteria Selection in a Virtual World

Tablets, smartphones are becoming increasingly common and interfaces are predominantly tactile and often multi-touch. More and more schools are testing them with their pupils in the hope of bringing pedagogic benefits. With this new type of devices, new interactions become possible. A lot of studies have been done on the manipulation of 3D objects with 2D input devices but we are just at the beginning of studies that made a link between needs of pedagogy and possibilities of these new types of interactions. FINGERS© is an application for learning spatial geometry. It’s written for pupils from 9 to 12 years old. Interactions have been designed with teachers. Some interactions are specifics for 3D geometry (3 DOF translations, rotations, nets, combinations of cubes, etc) and someone are general like designation or multi-selection. A lot of grammars of gesture propose a set of interactions to select an object or a group of objects. Multi-taps or lasso around an area are commonly adopted interactions. Performing geometry exercises needs imaging another interactions. For example how selecting all Cubes, how selecting all green objects. The real question is how introduce a parameter in selection. After presenting the limits of current solutions, this communication presents the solutions developed in FINGERS©. We explain how they allow a “parameterized” selection.

Typographie et sélection de sites internet

This paper investigates the impact of typographical cues on Websites selection. 174 participants (Grade 5, 7, 9, and 12) were asked to select relevant Websites for six different search tasks. In each list of Websites, some of them were relevant while other were irrelevant, with or without typographical cues on the keywords extracted of the search topic. Results obtained have mainly shown that the presence of these typographical cues influenced the strategies of selection for younger pupils who used essentially a simple lexical matching.