Tom Stewart

Knowledge sharing

The papers in this issue of Behaviour and Information Technology address knowledge sharing – an increasingly important topic in today’s connected world. The papers generally deal with intentional knowledge sharing behaviour and what motivates people to share and communicate knowledge about their behaviour. However, even when the initial intention is to share knowingly, one of the consequences of much of the digital world is to capture knowledge about our behaviour and use it to target advertisements about services and products. Many users of social media and other media forms are only dimly aware of such behaviour harvesting. Even if we are aware at an intellectual level, it can be a surprise when we discover tailored adverts following us around the internet. I heard a quote which summed up the current situation rather well. It pointed out that if you were using a service which appeared to be free, then you were probably the product being sold! The use of the term knowledge rather than information or data reminded me of the early days of computing. Before I discovered psychology, I nearly left university with a general science degree (maths and physics) and joined an ADP department as an O&M management trainee. ADP stood for Automatic Data Processing and referred to the use of punch card sorters and tabulators in the precomputing age. I believe the company was about to install a computer to help with this data processing and would change the name of the department to EDP (Electronic Data Processing) to reflect this new sophistication. O&M referred to Organisation and Methods which involved gathering data about business processes in order to improve efficiency and productivity and had grown out of the manually labour focussed Work Study. Looking back, my interest in how people could use information technology was clear even then. However, when I finished my psychology degree and began my research career at the Human Sciences and Advanced Technology Research Group in Loughborough in 1970, I noticed an interesting change in terminology. Commercial computer systems had promised to transform business in general and management decision making in particular, by providing endless data about business performance. But increasingly, managers found that they were swamped with data and that it was still difficult to make decisions. Clearly managers need data but it has to be the right data and presented in the right form and quantity to support their decisions. So we have seen the rise of Management Information Systems, Decision Support and Systems and even Data Mining Systems, which recognised that the useful information was probably buried in there somewhere! In my view, using the term ‘knowledge’ is an attempt to ensure that what is being gathered, managed and communicated is actually useful. Black cab drivers famously have to learn ‘the Knowledge’ to get their licence to work in London. They have to learn ‘320 routes across 25,000 streets and 20,000 landmarks and places of interest in the six mile radius of Charing Cross’. The key point is that this knowledge is immensely useful and practical for their future work. Of course, there are other terms which have perhaps been devalued in the digital world. Despite my obvious technology inclinations, I am not a keen user of social media. I have 67 Facebook ‘Friends’. However, when I look at that list of friends, it’s quite a mix of people, ranging from people I have met at conferences (who invited me for some reason, and whom I accepted) to close family. I’m not sure that ‘friends’ is an accurate description of this collection of people, although some clearly do fit this term. I note that Linked-in calls people connections, which seems more appropriate and indeed more business focussed. I have more than 400 of these connections, which probably reflects many years of business networking and the fact that I am more likely to accept a Linked-in contact from someone I only know a little than a Facebook request. Although I do still exert some editorial control. I recently rejected someone I am sure I have never met who claimed his job was ‘musician’ at a Chinese electronics company. For some reason, I did not trust that invitation. Hopefully, the term ‘knowledge’ which Wikipedia defines as ‘a familiarity with someone or something, which can include facts, information, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education’ will not be devalued in the digital world.

Ergonomics user interface standards: are they more trouble than they are worth?

The purpose of this paper is to review the history, progress and results of one area of international standardization—the ergonomics of human-system interaction. It is a personal perspective based on my experiences as Chairman of ISO/TC159/SC4 over the past 17 years. The paper starts with some historical background and summarizes the main work of the Committee. It then identifies five areas where the results of the standardization work could have been more successful and discusses what went wrong. These problems include the long time-scale for development, how the standards were misunderstood, how political the process can be, how we may have tried to be too clever and how the abundance of help at times may have been a problem. The paper concludes with an explanation of why the activity and the results were not all bad. The five positive areas include the benefits that can come from the slow pace of the work, the benefits of structure and formality, why standards do not have to be restrictive, how the standards themselves are only part of the outcome and how being a truly international experience makes it all worthwhile.

Ergonomics standards concerning human-system interaction: Visual displays, controls and environmental requirements

The main purpose of this paper is to explain one of the most important ergonomics standards for computer equipment (ISO 9241), and help the reader to understand how to use it when selecting or designing visual display unit (VDU) equipment and systems. In this paper, we cover general issues, then consider hardware and environmental issues. The software ergonomics and dialogue design issues and corresponding parts will be addressed by Susan Harker in another paper in this special issue.

Statistical methods for testing the visual quality of displays

Although the business benefits of usability testing are widely accepted, it is still rare to find visual displays tested against user performance standards. Part of the reason for this is the assumption that, to be valid, user performance testing requires a large number of subjects and hence takes too long. In this paper we review a range of statistical procedures that allow decisions to be made on the acceptability of a display using the minimum number of subjects, and show that valid decisions can be obtained with as few as 15 subjects.

Evaluating image quality

Abstract This report describes two procedures that aim to evaluate image quality. The first is an implementation of the ISO performance-based for visual displays. Subjects are presented with random characters presented in five blocks on the screen and asked to identify each character. This test evaluates displays on three dependent measures: average times, error rates and comfort ratings by subject. When the error rate and the subjective ratings are considered, the results that the adequately discriminates a display that meets the physical requirements of the standard from one toes not. However, when full keyboard input is used, timing scores are badly affected by practice effects. In a second modified procedure, subjects work for a fixed period of time and the task is a four-alternative forced-choice procedure with catch trials. This new procedure can distinguish a display that passes the physical measurements of part 3 of ISO 9241 from one that fails, on all three dependent measures. Compared with the original performance test method proposed in part 3 of ISO 9241, the new test method has a number of advantages. The results from this study suggest that the new test procedure is: (1) Valid: all dependent measures concur; (2) Simple: subjects learn the task quickly, and it is easy to analyse the data in real time; (3) Efficient: more than three times as fast as the old test; and (4) Flexible: keyboard, mouse or voice input may be used.

Advances in sociotechnical systems understanding and design: a Festschrift in honour of K.D. Eason.

1969 Occupational Psychologist, EMI Electronics 1970 Deputy Director, HUSAT Research Group and Research Fellow, Loughborough University of Technology 1971 Lecturer, Department of Ergonomics and Cybernetics, Loughborough University 1978–1989 Senior Lecturer, Lecturer and Reader in Cognitive Ergonomics 1989–2002 Professor of Cognitive Ergonomics 1989–1993/2000–2002 Head of the Department of Human Sciences, Loughborough University 1992–1996 Director of the HUSAT (Human Sciences and Advanced Technology) Research Institute 1999–2000 Director, Research School in Ergonomics and Human Factors 2002– Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Ergonomics 2002–2007 Director, The Bayswater Institute 2007– Senior Consultant, The Bayswater Institute

New year, new iPad

As I pointed out in my last Behaviour and Information Technology (BIT ) editorial of 2012, the iPad was only launched in April 2010, less than three years ago. You may not be surprised to know that I am an ‘early adopter’. Although I have no intention of ever showing the kind of excessive zeal which causes people to queue outside an Apple store in the middle of the night for what is ‘just’ a new phone, I was quite enthusiastic about buying my first iPad as soon as it was available (during normal shopping hours). I was therefore pleasantly surprised when, despite warnings of short supply, my local PC World store actually had some in stock a week or so after the launch. I believe they were receiving them in batches and selling out almost immediately. I was just in the right place at the right time. Nearly three years on, I was ready for an upgrade. I had looked at the new iPad with retina display but decided that neither my eyesight nor my digital content needed higher resolution. I have always been impressed with how good photos look on the iPad, even my first-generation one. However, having bought a 16 Gb model, I was experiencing the problem where I have to keep deleting content to make space for new stuff. I was also finding that whereas I had originally been impressed with how small and light the iPad was (comparing it with a laptop), I was now finding it quite heavy. Of course the real reason for the upgrade was that I had seen an iPad mini and decided that it was a great size (despite the late Steve Job’s dismissive comments about smaller tablets) and beautiful to hold. So once again, I tried dropping in on my local PC World on the off chance that my luck might repeat itself. This time, they had no mini iPads for drop-in customers, but explained that most of their stock was available on their website. Living in a small village, I was not keen on ‘delivery roulette’ where online purchases are replaced by a postcard explaining that they had called during the five minutes you had gone into the back garden and that if you wanted to argue with their voice response telephone system for ten minutes you could repeat the experience a few days later. If I was really unlucky, I would hear nothing at all and when I eventually tracked my order would discover that their driver could not find our house and had given up instead of phoning the mobile number I had carefully typed in to the order form. But a few days later, the lure of the iPad mini had grown and I checked the PC World website. Sure enough I could get a white 64 Gb one and ‘collect in store’ within one hour. Since my local store is only ten minutes away, this sounded ideal. When I turned up at the store, half expecting a blank look or a ‘sorry the computer got it wrong’, I was very surprised to be welcomed by a friendly sales assistant who seemed to think my request was entirely reasonable. Pointing me at various accessories for the mini iPad, she disappeared for a few minutes and returned with the beautiful box just in time for me to add a case to my purchase. It was a great customer experience and I have continued to be delighted with my new ‘toy’. One feature of the new Apple iGadgets is that the 30 pin connector has been replaced by the much smaller Lighting power and data connector. Whilst this has disadvantages for the user when attaching previously purchased accessories, it exhibits one significant improvement over the old connector. It cannot be put in the wrong way because it goes in either way! I have long been an advocate for designing things to minimise both the likelihood and the severity of errors, so really welcome this enhancement. I discovered recently that this approach is called poka yoke – a Japanese term first used by a Toyota engineer called Shigeo Shingo to describe the process of designing to minimise mistakes (link to article on SCL website http://www.system-concepts.com/articles/ usability-articles/2012/three-very-useful-ux-techniques. html?searched=poka&advsearch=allwords&highlight=ajax Search_highlight+ajaxSearch_highlight1). I guess that the Lighting connector might be described as level III poka yoke for a plug and socket. Level I involves clear labelling to show how the plug fits. Level II goes a step further and involves making the plug only fit one way (for example, a USB connector). In level III, the potential error is eliminated since the connector works both ways. It is a small point, but over the years I hate to think how much time I have spent trying to put USB plugs in the right way! Of course, I am also appreciating the smaller form factor, faster processor and higher memory. The iPad has become an integral part of my digital life and whilst I would not claim to suffer from a technology addiction, it is so useful that I can barely remember when I did not have Google and the power of the web at my finger tips. And I know that I am not alone. For many of us, it is hard to imagine (or remember) life without our digital products. My diary has been digital since I bought my first Palm Pilot in 1996 and I have been pleasantly surprised that it has survived technology upgrades and platform changes from Outlook to iPhones and mini iPads.

Online communities

The papers in this issue deal with online communities. As a psychologist interested in the relationship between people and technology, I regularly get enquiries from journalists who have contacted the British Psychological Society looking for an ‘expert opinion’ about a technology-related story. Actually that’s not quite true. Many of them are not really interested in my expert opinion, especially if it does not align with their ‘doom and gloom’ storyline. Whether it is internet use frying our brains or computer games turning us into zombies they are regularly disappointed when I cast doubt on the latest horror story. One topic which crops up fairly often is the worry that computers are locking people in their rooms and destroying society. Online communities seem to contradict this simplistic analysis. However, even here there is concern that online relationships are not quite the same as ‘real’ relationships. As I wrote in my blog (http://econsultancy. com/uk/blog/4691-dont-blame-social-media-for-badbehaviour) some time ago, when I was an academic, I used to write to authors of interesting papers in the published literature asking for a free reprint of their papers. Most journals offered authors 50 copies of their papers for such purposes (and BIT was no exception). As technology progressed, we cut out the author and simply photocopied papers (for ‘personal research only’ to circumvent the copyright laws). I regularly replied to a question ‘have you read . . .’ by saying ‘yes, I’ve got a copy of it’. Having a copy was the functional equivalent of reading a paper. In practice, one read the abstract, looked at any figures and checked the references but maybe never actually got round to reading the whole text – so maybe not really equivalent, except in the researcher’s head. One recurrent concern is whether Facebook friends are functionally equivalent to ‘real’ friends. Some people seem to send out friend requests the way I used to send out reprint requests. Just as I never read some of those reprints, I guess I have no intention of doing more with some of my Facebook friends than acknowledging that I recognise their name. But we need to be careful about how we use this new power. There was a well-reported story about a girl who twittered details of a sleep-over at her grandparents’ house. 150 drunken teenagers later, the house was a wreck and the teenager wasn’t much better. As I pointed out at the time, the girl would not have put up a poster in the roughest part of town saying that the house was empty that weekend. Blaming social media seems unfair. Twitter may have been how people heard about the party but smashing up a house is just yobbish behaviour – hardly the fault of the medium. Most online communities do not result in drunken damage. They enable many people to keep in touch with friends, especially physically distant friends, in a way which was unheard of a few decades ago. Of course the telephone had a similar impact, especially the proliferation of mobile phones, which means that we are never truly alone (unless we are in bad reception area where we fret about lack of signal!). The integration of social media and the telephone greatly enhances our ability to keep in touch and share our experiences. I am far from a Luddite but I am still not convinced that I want the ‘blow by blow’ updates on their daily lives which some people seem determined to share. But then, what do I know? When I first saw an early demonstration of email at the National Physical Laboratory in 1970, I never thought that sending electronic messages to colleagues down the corridor was ever going to get out of the laboratory. In fact, they were pioneering packet switching technology, which underpins all digital communication. So maybe I do need to know more about what my ‘friends’ are doing all the time. In the first paper in this issue, Shih-Wei Chou and Chun-Tung Lin from the National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology, with Hui-Tzu Min from the National Cheng Kung University and Yu-Chieh Chang from the Shu-Te University, all in Taiwan, report a survey of two online communities. They collected responses from 213 participants in Baidu (China) and 216 responses from Yahoo knowledgeþ (Taiwan) and used these data to develop and test their model, based on expectation–confirmation Behaviour & Information Technology Vol. 29, No. 6, November–December 2010, 555–556

Websites – Quality and Usability

I regularly find myself acting like a ‘grumpy old man’ complaining about newcomers to the usability field, who make (what are in my opinion) two serious mistakes. Firstly, they think usability is just about making things ‘easy’. They are not alone in this. Organisations which should know better but which have shared this opinion include IBM and the UPA World Usability Day team. Fortunately, there is a growing body of opinion which recognises the ISO 9241-11 usability standard definition, which says that something is usable if it is effective, efficient and satisfying to use – far more than just ‘easy’. Whilst ‘easy’ is often desirable, it is often the first thing to be sacrificed when project timescales and budgets are tight. However, few would sacrifice effectiveness and efficiency without a fight. The second mistake is to think that usability is new and has only been around as long as the World Wide Web. There is a long tradition of more than 60 years in human factors and ergonomics of usability engineering and testing the usability of a wide range of products from aircraft cockpits and complex computer systems to ticket machines and kitchen appliances. What websites have done is make usability far more visible to managers. Competitors are literally a click away and website owners cannot afford to regard good usability as a luxury. I am still left with a concern that much of the website industry in general and usability research in particular reflects an unduly simplified view of what constitutes good usability for a website. As I write this editorial, I am preparing to present a short course in User Centred Design based on ISO 9241-210. One of the first exercises involves showing the participants different designs of tin openers and getting them to judge their usability. It is a trick question as we don’t specify the users or the context. The second step is to show some brief personas from young back packer to arthritic pensioner and start again. This time, the answers are quite different and show the importance of context of use. So asking what makes a good website may also be a rather oversimplified question. It seems to me that websites are a bit like print – a way of communicating text and images. We do not assume that there is only one correct answer to what makes good printed material. Even categories of print such as books can range from Peppa Pig to Jeffrey Archer (perhaps not a great stretch in some people’s opinion) to the Encyclopedia Britannica (which curiously enough has just decided to drop its print version!). The idea that all books should follow the same rules is only true to a very limited extent and hides the greater importance of them being designed to suit their quite different target audiences. I am therefore pleased that although all the papers in this issue of Behaviour and Information Technology address website quality and usability, they recognise that not all websites should be the same and that understanding the context of use is vital to getting the design right. Tomáš Kincl from the Faculty of Management, University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic and Pavel Štrach from the Institute of Management and Marketing, Škoda Auto University, Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic, report a study on business school homepages. The participants rated the website on six usability criteria and completed a randomly assigned yet typical task. The authors argue that user satisfaction, just like consumer satisfaction, is asymmetric and non-linear. They identified content and navigation as the key factors involved in the users’ judgement of website quality in this context. Website accessibility is not only important commercially and morally but is also a legal requirement in many countries. Yet it has not received the attention it deserves in many countries. Ramiro Gonçalves, José Martins and Jorge Pereira from the Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Manuel Au-Yong Oliveira and Jo from INESC Porto, Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade do Porto, and José Pinto Ferreira from the Department of Economics, Management and Industrial Engineering, University of Aveiro, all in Portugal, have assessed several hundred websites in Portugal using both automated tools and qualitative methods. Their results paint a disappointing picture in Portugal both in small companies (who might have an excuse due to lack of knowledge or resources) and in major companies and organisations (who do not). Given the importance of the web for spreading information and for promoting interaction between Behaviour & Information Technology Vol. 31, No. 7, July 2012, 645–646

The role of HCI standards in relation to the Directive

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to review the role of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) standards in relation to the EC Directive on Display Screen Equipment, we identify the relevant committees in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the European Committee for Standardization (CEN). Next we review their current progress and finally we relate the standards under development to the specific requirements in the technical Annex to the Directive.