Pei-Luen Patrick Rau

The Influence of Cultural Differences on the Use of Social Network Services and the Formation of Social Capital

With the advent of Web 2.0, social network services (SNSs), such as Facebook and MySpace, have grown explosively and globally as one of core Web 2.0 applications. However, as revealed in other cultural comparison studies in the field of human–computer interaction, it is believed that cultural differences profoundly impact on how people use SNSs. Unfortunately, the differences in using SNSs have not been systematically investigated, so this study presents a web-based survey study among three nations: Republic of Korea, Peoples Republic of China, and the United States of America. It was assumed that SNS users form bridging and bonding social capital (borrowed from social capital theory) through the five functions of SNS that were categorized: Identity, Expert Search, Connection, Communication, and Contents Sharing. A correlation between social capital-related activities and usage patterns of SNS was expected. A total of 489 responded to the web-based survey through the three counties. Although the theory of cultural differences turned out to be insufficient to explain diverse usage patterns of SNSs, the results showed that Korean and Chinese users form bridging and bonding social capital mainly through Expert Search and Connection functions, but American users mainly use the Communication function to form bonding Social Capital. Various implications of these results for researchers and practitioners who work on and for SNSs are described as well.

A Cross-cultural Study: Effect of Robot Appearance and Task

This study investigates the effects of culture, robot appearance and task on human-robot interaction. We propose a model with culture (Chinese, Korean and German), robot appearance (anthropomorphic, zoomorphic and machinelike) and task (teaching, guide, entertainment and security guard) as factors, and analyze these factors’ effects on the robot’s likeability, and people’s active response to, engagement with, trust in and satisfaction with the robot. We conducted a laboratory experiment with 108 participants to test the model and performed Repeated ANOVA and Kruskal Wallis Test on the data. The results show that cultural differences exist in participants’ perception of likeability, engagement, trust and satisfaction; a robot’s appearance affects its likeability, while the task affects participants’ active response and engagement. We found the participants expected the robot appearance to match its task only in the interview but not in the subjective ratings. Interaction between culture and task indicates that participants from low-context cultures may have significantly decreased engagement when the sociability of a task is lowered. We found strong and positive correlations between interaction performance (active response and engagement) and preference (likeability, trust and satisfaction) in the human-robot interaction.

Measuring Player Immersion in the Computer Game Narrative

In order to measure player immersion in the computer game narrative, this study explores and analyzes factors of the computer game narrative that influence players who are immersed in the game story world. Originally a questionnaire consisting of six dimensions—Curiosity, Concentration, Challenge, Control, Comprehension, and Empathy—was proposed. To evaluate the questionnaire, two surveys were conducted on the Internet, and data were collected from 734 respondents. After exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, the dimensions were modified to Curiosity, Concentration, Challenge and Skills, Control, Comprehension, Empathy, and Familiarity.

Use and Design of Handheld Computers for Older Adults: A Review and Appraisal

This article presents a comprehensive literature review to investigate whether and why older adults accept handheld computers and how to design elderly-friendly handheld computers. Findings about acceptance, input devices, menu and functions, and output devices are summarized. First, older adults were under social pressure to use mobile phones, but they had low acceptance of advanced functions. Also, they had a different way to judge acceptance factors from younger adults. Second, older adults preferred the physical keyboard to the on-screen keyboard for text entry, whereas they preferred tapping the touch pad to the joystick and buttons for pointing tasks. Third, older adults had shallower mental representation of the mobile phone menus than younger adults. Navigation aids providing contextual information and large cognitive preview per screen could help them. Finally, recommended size and spacing for text and icons are presented.

Developing web annotation tools for learners and instructors

Abstract This research develops Web annotation tools (WATs), allowing users to annotate on hypertexts, to build up knowledge structure, to browse instructions provided electronically by the system administrator or the instructor, to share annotations with the other learner, and to instruct other learners. The WATs is a distributed World Wide Web application based on HTTP access and allows annotations on HTML documents. The major functions of WATs include highlighting texts, inserting and editing annotations, organizing and presenting annotations hierarchically, as well as sharing annotations. There are two modes for WATs, individual and sharing modes. For the individual mode, the five interactive components are Main Tool Bar, Hypertext, Annotation Editor, Hierarchy Viewer, and Instruction Viewer. The sharing mode supports asynchronous and synchronous sharing of annotations and discussion for peer-to-peer and instructor-to-student collaborative learning.

Effects of different scenarios of game difficulty on player immersion

This study investigates the effects of game difficulty on players immersion. Key factors in this study are difficulty of direction changes, including three directions (up and down, down and up, and continuously increasing) and difficulty of rate changes, with three rates (slow, medium, and fast). An experiment was conducted with 48 participants, each playing the same experimental games with different difficulty of direction or rate changes. The results indicate that the players have better immersion when the difficulty changes up and down than when it changes down and up or when the difficulty is continuously increased. And the participants have better immersion when the difficulty changes at a medium rate than when it changes slowly or fast.

Interaction Devices and Web Design for Novice Older Users

ABSTRACT This study investigated the effects of interaction devices on the Internet performance of novice older users, and ways to provide appropriate voice assistance to enhance browsing and searching performance of such users. Three experiments were designed and conducted to test three hypotheses. The results indicated that touch screen and handwriting recognition are better than mouse and keyboard in browsing time in the third trial. Touch screen was also found to be better in terms of performance time for keyword search tasks than mouse and voice input in the second trial, and is better in terms of user error for keyword search tasks than mouse and voice input in the first trial. Learning effects were found for using touch screen and handwriting recognition, and mouse and keyboard for browsing and searching tasks. Furthermore, voice-menu assistance was associated with higher satisfaction for browsing tasks.

Measuring perceived interactivity of mobile advertisements

Interactivity is considered a prominent characteristic of mobile advertising; however, a properly developed tool to measure the concept has not been developed. This study focusses on the development and validation of an instrument for measuring the interactivity perceived by individuals who interact with mobile advertisements on handheld devices. The confirmatory factor analysis results show that perceived interactivity in mobile advertising is comprised of six correlated but distinct constructs: user control, synchronicity, two-way communication, connectedness, playfulness and interpersonal communication. The result from a series of tests and examinations indicated that the multidimensional scale exhibits content validity and discriminant validity. The internal consistency of the scale reaches an acceptable level. The relationship with personal variables was also analysed. Gender, education, monthly income, years using cell phones, monthly cell phone charges, monthly cost for data services on cell phones and previous experiences with mobile advertisements have no influences on respondent interactivity perception with mobile advertisements. But user age is negatively correlated with perceived interactivity and years using the Internet are positively correlated with perceived interactivity. Young people with more Internet experience are more likely to perceive interactivity of mobile advertisements.

Internationalization and localization: evaluating and testing a Website for Asian users

The objective of this study was to combine internationalization and localization of Websites and improvement of Website usability with user-centred design methods. This study designed for internationalization and localization of Websites for Asian users, and implemented usability engineering into every phase of Website usability testing, based on the internationalization and localization perspectives of the honeywell.com/your home Website. The first step was to develop the usage scenarios. Three Asian usability specialists carried out one heuristic evaluation session for the current honeywell.com/your home Website. The usability problems were analysed and possible solutions to these problems were discussed. In the next phase, cluster analysis was utilized to test current information architecture. The results provided options for future information architecture development for this Website. Finally, a performance measurement test was conducted to investigate the performance for Asian users. Based on the results, suggestions for improving the Website usability from the localization perspective were provided. The results demonstrate the user-centred design (UCD) approach and stress international and local issues in Website development to Website designers.

Older Adults' Acceptance of Information Technology.

This study investigated variables contributing to older adults’ information technology acceptance through a survey, which was used to find factors explaining and predicting older adults’ information technology acceptance behaviors. Four factors, including needs satisfaction, perceived usability, support availability, and public acceptance, were found using factor analysis. According to older adults’ self-reported scores, the factors of needs satisfaction and support availability are relatively more important among the four factors. According to linear regression results, the factors of needs satisfaction and perceived usability are significantly related to use intention of information technology.