Stan Ruecker

Searchling: User-Centered Evaluation of a Visual Thesaurus-Enhanced Interface for Bilingual Digital Libraries

In this paper, we describe a qualitative user study of Searchling --- an experimental visual interface that allows users to leverage a bilingual thesaurus for query formulation and enhancement. The design of Searchling is based on theories of thesaurus-based interface design from Shiri et al. [1], combined with the principles of rich-prospect browsing [2]. The Searchling interface provides the user with three working spaces on one screen: the Thesaurus space, Query space, and Document space. We interviewed 15 graduate and faculty researchers at the University of Alberta, who carried out three structured tasks in a thinkaloud protocol, with simultaneous audio recording and screen capture. These participants identified a number of significant advantages to the researcher provided by Searchling, including the value of having an interface that could help with identifying search terms, suggesting preferred terms, and giving bilingual search support. They also suggested areas for future improvement, primarily related to our assumption that common knowledge of thesauri would be sufficient to make the various features clear if they were described using standard vocabulary from the thesaurus field.

The iterative design of a project charter for interdisciplinary research

This paper describes our experience with the iterative development and use of a project charter for helping to manage expectations of the various members of interdisciplinary research teams. Some of our team members may be working with other researchers for the first time, and many of them have not worked previously with researchers from other disciplines. The charter is based on the need to explicitly discuss principles and policies of research practice with people from different disciplines at the start of the project, and to have a common agreement to refer to if necessary during the project. Our current template contains the following principles: • We are interested in disseminating the results of this project as widely as possible, with credit to us for doing it. • We intend this work to move forward at a steady pace, given due awareness of the vagaries of life. • We would prefer for this work to be funded. • We understand that the work we do on this project may have future phases. Modifications and additions may be made to further the project by other members. • We wish to communicate in such a way as to preserve professional dignity. • We would like to foster goodwill among all the participants. Although these seem on the surface like motherhood statements that would go without saying, in practical terms these principles, and the longer list of policies that emerge from them, is actually the basis of fundamental misunderstandings between disciplines.

User Evaluation of Searchling and T-saurus: Multilingual Thesaurus-Enhanced Visual Interfaces for Digital Libraries / Évaluation par les usagers de Searchling et de T-saurus : Les interfaces visuelles à thesaurus multilingue pour les bibliothèques numériques

The objective of this paper is to report on a comparative user evaluation of two multilingual thesaurus-enhanced visual user interfaces—namely, T-saurus and Searchling, designed and developed for digital libraries. The study used 25 academic users carrying out three search tasks on both user interfaces. It applied usability and affordance strength questionnaires, interviews, think-alouds, and direct observation to investigate users’ evaluation of the key components of both user interfaces—namely, multilingual features, thesaurus and search functions, and visualization and visual appeal. Results of the study show that users were able to successfully carry out the search tasks using thesaurus-enhanced search interfaces. However, they preferred Searchling, a faceted search user interface, for its flexible language option, thesaurus browsing, and visualization. Users preferred the interface to show the thesaural relationships along with the selected term without interacting with the interface. The empirical data gathered and the design ideas implemented within the two user interfaces will be useful for designers of search interfaces that make use of thesaurus and multilingual features. The design and methodological framework of the developed user interfaces and the study could be used to create more information-rich multilingual academic search user interfaces for teaching and learning purposes. The design and representation of thesaural terms and structures in these two interfaces are designed using novel visualization techniques. L’objectif de cet article est de rendre compte de l’évaluation comparative effectuée par des utilisateurs de deux interfaces utilisateur visuelles multilingues, comportant un thésaurus, nommément T-saurus et Searchling, conçus et développés pour les bibliothèques numériques. L’étude a mis à contribution 25 universitaires effectuant trois tâches de recherche sur chacune des deux interfaces utilisateur. Des questionnaires sur l’utilisabilité et sur la force d’affordance, des interviews, des séances de protocole verbal (thinkaloud) ont été utilisés, ainsi que l’observation directe pour rendre compte de l’évaluation par les utilisateurs des composants clés des deux interfaces utilisateur, nommément les caractéristiques multilingues, les fonctions de thésaurus & recherche, l’attrait du mode de visualisation. Les résultats de l’étude indiquent que les utilisateurs ont été en mesure de mener à bien les tâches de recherche en utilisant les interfaces de recherche enrichies par thésaurus. Toutefois, ils ont préféré Searchling, une interface usager à facettes, pour la souplesse de son option de langue, et pour la navigation et la visualisation de son thésaurus. Les utilisateurs ont préféré que l’interface montre les relations de thésaurus en même temps que le terme sélectionné sans qu’ils aient à interagir avec l’interface. Les données empiriques recueillies et les idées de conception mises en œuvre dans les deux interfaces utilisateurs seront utiles pour les concepteurs d’interfaces de recherche qui utiliseront des thésaurus et des fonctionnalités multilingues. La conception et le cadre méthodologique des interfaces utilisateur développés et cette étude pourraient être utilisés pour créer d’autres d’interfaces utilisateur de recherche universitaire multilingues riches en information aux fins de l’enseignement et de l’apprentissage. La conception et la représentation des termes de thésaurus et des structures dans ces deux interfaces sont conçues en utilisant des techniques de visualisation nouvelles.

Visualizing Plot in 3D

We describe the design of several new forms of interactive 3D visualizations, to be used in teaching the concept of plot in fiction. Conventional approaches to teaching plot tend to rely on a Victorian visualization known as Freytag’s Pyramid, which is well suited to a certain range of material but is not appropriate for all fiction currently being taught. Our new visualizations have the potential to allow teachers and students to explore different approaches to understanding plot. We focus in particular on three visual strategies, each of which describes significant features such as characters, objects, events, and transitions in space and time, while respectively emphasizing recurring elements in a primarily sequential structure, complexity of structure, and centrality of some designated feature or features. The technical aspects of the visualizations emerge from the availability of digital text that can be encoded for plot elements using XML.

The Big See: Large Scale Visualization

Display size and resolution has been increasing at a steady pace with the economies of scale of computing. Wall-sized displays, previously only seen in specialized centres are now affordable and being used for information visualization. But what do we know about the constraints and opportunities in designing for such Large Scale Information Displays (LSiDs)? How can one design text visualizations to take advantage of the large scale and public space of a LSiD? In this paper we describe the variety of technologies being used to create LSIDs and some example installations. We then discuss the literature about LSID information design and present two visualization ideas we have developed for LSiDs called the Big See and LAVA. We conclude with design principles that we have drawn up to guide our work.

The role of conversational models in design practice

Conversational models are a means to capture and effectively represent the complexity of discussions by applying a process to create interactive three-dimensional outcomes. Whereas a conversation proceeds linearly in time, the relationship between the topics covered can often be decidedly nonlinear, as the interlocutors build on previous parts of the sequence: adding, subtracting, modifying, providing nuance, suggesting supporting anecdotes or other forms of evidence, and adjusting detail. This paper describes an initial attempt to transfer this form of design activity to the office space. During a conference on design and healthcare participants were briefed on the concept and the process of creating physical models of conversations, then asked to create a model of their own discussions on suggested conference topics. Results of the pilot indicate that this exercise allowed participants to quite thoroughly explore the topic, with an interesting movement from summaries of content to a cycle of expressions of opinions and refinements of those opinions, followed by questions and more refinements. There may also be additional benefits in somewhat slowing down the conversation, allowing for a more evenly distributed contribution from all the participants, including those working with English as an additional language.

Abstraction and realism in the design of avatars for the simulated environment for theatre

The Simulated Environment for Theatre (SET) is an experimental three-dimensional interface for use in blocking plays. Created using the Unity3D game engine, SET allows directors or student directors to associate character movement and speech with a timeline that represents the line of action, as well as to annotate choices, change the script, place viewpoints in the audience, and specify the scale-model stage and set. In this article, the authors discuss the iterative design choices involved in creating an appropriate range of characters and character attributes, where they were conscious of the need to keep complexity to a minimum while simultaneously providing as wide a range as possible of the features necessary for a director planning blocking. These include considerations of character attributes such as direction of movement, posture, age, and species, while at the same time the authors decided to de-emphasize control of features such as height, weight, gender, costume, and limbs. The purpose of this discussion is twofold: to cast light on the intricacies of the design decisions around what appear to be relatively simple objects; and to help inform related discussions for other researchers making decisions about avatar design, whether in virtual theatre projects or other broader contexts.

Codex Redux: books and new knowledge environments

In this paper, we present the work of the INKE (Implementing New Knowledge Environments) research group, a large international, interdisciplinary research team studying reading and texts, both digital and printed. The INKE team is comprised of researchers and stakeholders at the forefronts of fields relating to textual studies, user experience, interface design, and information management. We aim to contribute to the development of new digital information and knowledge environments that build on past textual practices. We discuss our research questions, methods, aims and research objectives, the rationale behind our work and its expected significance.

Conversation modeling: how the 3D aspect can influence collaborative interpretation.

Collaboration is a complex process that involves human and non-human factors. Although technology has improved and facilitated collaborative projects, interpretation, as the process of discovering and creating meaning, is often perceived as an individual act. This research aims to facilitate collaboration by better understanding how groups of people can make and maintain multiple interpretations. After a series of more than two dozen prototypes and 40 workshops for co-design and usability testing, the video records of the workshops have been categorized using protocol analysis and the foundations of discourse analysis. We hypothesize that the physical 3D aspect of these prototypes helps users not only in sharing their interpretations but also in co-creating them. Moreover, this is an essential finding for the next steps of this research, which will try to replicate the results of the physical models by attaching them as an interface to an online environment.

Design Research: Objects, Procedures, and New Understanding

Jennifer Roberts-Smith University of Waterloo Introduction Design Research has an epistemological mode that differs from those in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, but is shared with some aspects of other generative fields such as engineering and computer science. Because the mode is generative, it relies heavily on creative practices, which means that some of its standards for determining validity are distinct from the standards in the other modes. However, it shares with the other modes the goal of producing new knowledge. That understanding might be predicated on a range of new or improved information, processes, models, or theories. One can develop expertise if they can: describe what is already understood; identify where that understanding was communicated; and evaluate and explain the relative strength of the supporting evidence and arguments. Basic research outcomes can be identified and assessed using a mode of research in design that is distinct from the epistemological modes found in the sciences and humanities (Cross 2007). Both of the authors of this paper are practitioners and researchers in information and communication design, and share a background in the digital humanities. They have worked collaboratively for more than a decade on projects involving simulated environments, experience design, and concept modeling for decision-making in design. This paper presents reflections on design research from the authors’ perspective. In general, the majority of sciences develop new knowledge or understanding in a sequential manner, with new, valid theories either displacing old theories or else filling in their gaps. The humanities, on the other hand, enrich the understanding of an object of study (for example, an historical event) by making valid examinations of it from different perspectives or lenses. The epistemological mode is aggregative rather than sequential. Social sciences use both approaches. In the generative disciplines there is an interest in understanding not only what is, but also what will be (Gaver 2012). There is a further distinction to be made between design and research. In his essay “The Project of Design Research,” David Leatherbarrow observes three differences: ...their objects (creation of something totally new versus presentdiscovery of what already exists); their procedures (mysterious whim of a creative genius versus methodical process worked out beforehand); and their time frames (future versus present; Leatherbarrow 2012, 112). These distinctions are stereotyped and perhaps a little tongue-in-cheek, but they can still be a useful shorthand. However, they do need to be shifted slightly to accommodate the differences between design research and other research.