Lucy T. Nowell

Glass Box: An Instrumented Infrastructure for Supporting Human Interaction with Information

In this paper, we discuss the challenges involved in developing an infrastructure to support a new generation of analytic tools for information analysts. The infrastructure provides data for establishing context about what the analyst is doing with the analytic tools, supports an integration environment to allow suites of tools to work together, and supports evaluation of the analytic tools. We discuss the functionality of the Glass Box, the challenges of evaluating adaptive systems including the capture of data for evaluation metrics, and lessons learned from our experiences to date.

Human—Computer Interaction with Global Information Spaces — Beyond Data Mining

This chapter describes a vision and progress towards a fundamentally new approach for dealing with the massive information overload situation of the emerging global information age. Today we use techniques such as data mining, through a WIMP interface, for searching or for analysis. Yet the human mind can deal and interact simultaneously with millions of information items, e.g. documents. The challenge is to find visual paradigms, interaction techniques and physical devices that encourage a new human information discourse between humans and their massive global and corporate information resources. After the vision and the current progress towards some core technology development, we present the grand challenges to bring this vision to reality.

Beyond the desktop: diversity and artistry

Two key challenges will rapidly change the character of computing: the growing divergence of computer platforms and the increasing use of rich media in engaging users. As human-computer interaction (HCI) professionals, we must consider the difficulties of designing systems that will run on both tiny hand-held devices and large wall displays. We must also keep in mind that the emerging generation of users not only expects but demands that systems be engaging, entertaining, and contain a variety of media types. The role of artists and media professionals on software development teams will increase and the skills of these team members will be necessary to deliver the values, esthetics, and overall quality of experience that future systems require.

Workshop 5: information visualization for digital libraries: defining a research agenda for heterogeneous multimedia collections

This workshop will emphasize small group discussion and brainstorming to explore issues of visualization for heterogeneous digital libraries. The power of visualization lies in its ability to convey information at the high bandwidth of the human perceptual system, facilitating recognition of patterns in the information space, and supporting navigation in large collections. How do we extend these benefits to collections that span the range of digital media? Participants will explore this issue, with the aim of identifying a research agenda.

Graphical encodings: bet you can't use just one!

We have developed a prototype collection browsing system that allows users to select graphical encodings for object attributes, based on their current information needs. The prototype uses the color, shape, and size of icons to encode object type, publication date, and authorship. By enabling users to specify the graphical encoding dynamically, this prototype gives control to users and provides useful information about the distribution of and interrelationships among a variety of metadata about collection members. During formative usability evaluation, our users have been successful in using up to three graphical encodings at once. They have also chosen to work with two windows simultaneously, using different encodings for color and shape in each window, to gain access to more information about the document space at once.