Tom Owen

Improving skim reading for document triage

When users seek for information, they repeatedly make relevance judgements on individual documents: the act of document triage. Recent research demonstrates that document triage decisions are prone to significant error rates. Document triage also affects the future course of information seeking: users form beliefs about the availability of information, determine new information goals and conclude others. Developing effective interactions to support document triage is therefore critical. This paper investigates how improve support for the quick review of a document, exploiting the principle of semantic zooming. We discover that applying semantic zooming improves the legibility of heading text during the rapid scrolling and overview reading that is associated with the earliest phases of document triage.

Improving navigation interaction in digital documents

This paper investigates novel interactions for supporting within-document navigation. We focus on one specific interaction: the following of figure references. Through this interaction we illuminate factors also found in other forms of navigation. Three alternative interactions for supporting figure navigation are described and evaluated through a user study. Experimentation proves the advantages of our interaction design, and the degree to which the interaction of existing reader software can be improved.

Strategies for conducting situated studies of technology use in hospitals

Ethnographic methods are widely used for understanding situated practices with technology. When authors present their data gathering methods, they almost invariably focus on the bare essentials. These enable the reader to comprehend what was done, but leave the impression that setting up and conducting the study was straightforward. Text books present generic advice, but rarely focus on specific study contexts. In this paper, we focus on lessons learnt by non-clinical researchers studying technology use in hospitals: gaining access; developing good relations with clinicians and patients; being outsiders in healthcare settings; and managing the cultural divide between technology human factors and clinical practice. Drawing on case studies across various hospital settings, we present a repertoire of ways of working with people and technologies in these settings. These include engaging clinicians and patients effectively, taking an iterative approach to data gathering and being responsive to the demands and opportunities provided by the situation. The main contribution of this paper is to make visible many of the lessons we have learnt in conducting technology studies in healthcare, using these lessons to present strategies that other researchers can take up.

ConCap: Designing to Empower Individual Reflection on Chronic Conditions using Mobile Apps

The world is faced with a growing number of people who live with chronic medical conditions. There have been numerous digital interventions into personal management of these diseases in recent years, yet gaps remain in the HCI literature. In particular, we lack a systematic understanding of user requirements in tools that support independent management while away from external influences. This paper presents a first investigation into low-intervention support for self-management. A mobile application enabled individuals to capture contextual information related to their health in the form of photographs. Through a month-long user study, we identify four management trends amongst our participants and describe their influence on mobile application adoption.