Sandrine Balbo

Evaluating the usability of a mobile guide: The influence of location, participants and resources

When designing a usability evaluation, choices must be made regarding methods and techniques for data collection and analysis. Mobile guides raise new concerns and challenges to established usability evaluation approaches. Not only are they typically closely related to objects and activities in the users immediate surroundings, they are often used while the user is ambulating. This paper presents results from an extensive, multi-method evaluation of a mobile guide designed to support the use of public transport in Melbourne, Australia. In evaluating the guide, we applied four different techniques; field-evaluation, laboratory evaluation, heuristic walkthrough and rapid reflection. This paper describes these four approaches and their respective outcomes, and discusses their relative strengths and weaknesses for evaluating the usability of mobile guides.

Towards co-design with users who have autism spectrum disorders

People with cognitive disorders, such as autism or Asperger’s syndrome, face many barriers when being involved in the co-design of information and communications technologies (ICT). Cognitive disorders may require that co-design techniques be modified to fit with individual abilities. Up until recently, with technology design, purpose and use being in the hands of ‘experts’ there was little opportunity for customisation. However, ICT bring together various threads that make open many new possibilities. Not only are technologies cheaper, more powerful and more available than ever, but now parents, support agencies and people with autism spectrum disorders expect information technologies to be part of their worlds, and they have the capacity to participate in co-design for customisation. However, co-design techniques have not evolved to the extent that they capture this potential democratisation of the ICT. This paper reports on an investigation of the potential to develop a set of guidelines for co-design techniques to enable people with autism spectrum disorders to participate in ICT design.

Appropriateness of user interfaces to tasks

In this paper we define the complex relation between task models and user interfaces in a declarative manner. We do this by describing how a task model can be transformed to other functionally equivalent task models, how it can be mapped to a user interface prototype, and how a user interface can be transformed to other functionally equivalent user interfaces. We use this relation in order to tackle the question whether a user interface is appropriate for a task, which leads us to a conceptual notion of usability. The user interfaces are modeled with form-oriented analysis.

From Task to Agent-Oriented Meta-models, and Back Again

In the research discussed here, in addition to extracting meta-models from numerous existing Agent architectures and frameworks, we looked at several Task meta-models, with the aim of creating a more comprehensive Agent meta-model with respect to the analysis, design and development of computer games. From the agent-oriented perspective gained by examining the resultant extensive agent meta-model --- named ShaMAN --- we then revisit the Task Analysis research domain, and consider what benefits Task Analysis and Modelling may draw from the Agent-oriented paradigm.

Embodied and enacted: the Janus faces of structure-of-use

In this paper, we introduce two sides of structure pertinent to the design and use of an artifact: embodied structure and enacted structure. We then locate these concepts in both historical and contemporary examples: the game of chess, the development of the rule of the road, and the implementation of an information technology artifact within a particular organization. The significance of our attempt is two fold. Firstly, it provides an alternative analytical view in examining the structures within interaction between an artifact and its users. Secondly, it calls for consideration of these two structures when designing an artifact.

A Composite Task Meta-model as a Reference Model

In this paper we develop a comprehensive composite meta-model from Task Analysis models called the Reference Task Meta-model (ReTaMeta model) for the purpose of comparing numerous Agent-Oriented meta-models. The reference model needed to be derived from a field independent of the Agent-oriented paradigm, yet based on Psychology. To arrive at the ReTaMeta model we first extracted the meta-models from several well-known cognitive task models including GOMS, GOMSL, TKS, GTA and also the CTT and Diane+H Task Modeling notations for fine grain task detail, and then combined their respective concepts in a complementary and comprehensive way.

TANDEM - a design method for integrating web services into multi-agent systems

This paper introduces a new design method for multi-agent systems (MAS) that incorporate logic programming. The DigitalFriend is an example of a MAS with a built-in logic language interpreter, which is aimed at having the end-user as developer. It uses small fragments of logic as dynamic glue, bringing together numerous sub-agents that may exist as Web services. However, application developers need to devise well-formed predicates and logic rules - and there lies the need for a specific design method. The well-established techniques of Task Analysis and entity relation Normalization are drawn together into our new design method (TANDEM), introduced here with an example application - the movie-cinema problem.

ShaMAN: An Agent Meta-model for Computer Games

In this paper, we detail recent research on agent meta-models. In par-ticular, we introduce a new agent meta-model called ShaMAN, created with a specific focus on computer game development using agent systems. ShaMAN was derived by applying the concept of Normalisation from Information Analy-sis, against a superset of agent meta-model concepts from the meta-models in-vestigated. A number of features are identified, including human-agent localesand socialworlds, that might be usefully added to a generic AO meta-model.

DIANEnx: Modelling Exploration in the Web Context

The process of exploring is an important aspect of a user’s general understanding of the environment they are navigating through in computational systems. The research outlined in this paper briefly presents an empirical study of user exploratory behaviour within the web context. It outlines the development of an exploratory grid obtained from this study and its use in forming the DIANEnx task model, enabling user interface and web designers to model users’ exploration.