Wooseob Jeong

Usability study on mobile Web newspaper sites

Despite the explosion of mobile web on various devices, its interface is rather primitive due to the limited space available and it seems that the richness of interface studies for the desktop web display has not been adopted for the mobile web. To address this gap, we reviewed 775 American newspaper mobile web sites in terms of their space usage for important contents. The descriptive statistics showed various aspects of the selected mobile newspaper sites: the number of content words, percentage of advertising space, percentage of content image, location of content image, URL hiding, weather information, link to the full site, timestamp for individual articles, current date and time information, search box and search link. The inferential statistics showed the relationships between the number of content words and other aspects of mobile homepages. We identified various space wasting interfaces such as not hiding URL box, menu-only homepage, and too much advertising spaces. We also suggested necessary features such as weather information and current date and time. Issues on preference of mobile web to “apps,” search options and links to the “full” sites were addressed as well.

Log Analysis of Academic Digital Library: User Query Patterns

This study analyzed user queries submitted to an academic digital library for four weeks (July 2012 to August 2012). We examined users’ query behaviors and compared external and internal users’ query patterns for image-based collections. The results of this study identified the most frequently occurring queries, the mean of query strings, the term frequency, the most frequently used word pairs and the relationship between query terms. Transaction log analysis is useful to examine users’ information seeking behavior effectively due to the richness of data. The query analysis of this study shows not only users’ information seeking behaviors for image-based collections but also the differences between external and internal users’ query patterns clearly.

Blind Users Searching Digital Libraries: Types of Help-seeking Situations at the Cognitive Level

Universal access is the objective of digital library development. However, it is a challenge for blind users to search information effectively in digital libraries because of their dynamic design and multimedia collections. Serving as the preliminary study of a large scale project, this study focuses on the identification of types of help-seeking situations unique to blind users at the cognitive level. Based on the analysis of 15 blind users’ pre-questionnaires, pre-interviews, think-aloud protocols, transaction logs and post-interviews, the authors identified blind users’ typical help-seeking situations in relation to cognitive overload, comprehension and reasoning. Implications for how to design better help features for blind users to overcome these situations are also discussed.

Image similarity as assessed by users: A quantitative study

Image retrieval systems are generally based on the notion of image similarity: they compute similarity scores between the images of the database and a query (image or text), and organize the images according to these scores. However, this notion is ill-defined, and the collections used to train and evaluate image retrieval systems are based on similarity judgments that rely on simplistic, non-realistic, assumptions. This paper addresses the issue of the definition of image similarity, and more precisely the two following questions: do humans assess image similarity in the same way? Is it possible to define reference similarity judgments that would correspond to the perception of most users? An experiment is proposed, in which human subjects are assigned two tasks that fall in principle to the system: rating the similarity of images and ranking images according to a reference image. The data provided by the subjects is analyzed quantitatively to the light of the two aforementioned questions. Results show that the subjects do not have collective strategies of similarity assessment, but that a satisfying consensus can be found individually on the data samples used in the experiments. Based on this, methods to define reference similarity scores and rankings are proposed, that can be used on a larger scale to produce realistic ground truths for the evaluation of image retrieval systems. This study is a first step towards a general, realistic, definition of the notion of image similarity in the context of image retrieval.

On the consistency and features of image similarity

Image indexing and retrieval systems mostly rely on the computation of similarity measures between images. This notion is ill-defined, generally based on simplistic assumptions that do not fit the actual context of use of image retrieval systems. This paper addresses two fundamental issues related to image similarity: checking whether the degree of similarity between two images is perceived consistently by different users and establishing the elements of the images on which users base their similarity judgment. A study is set up, in which human subjects have been asked to assess the degree of the pairwise similarity of images and describe the features on which they base their judgments. The quantitative analysis of the similarity scores reported by the subjects shows that users reach a certain consensus on similarity assessment. From the qualitative analysis of the transcripts of the records of the experiments, a list of the features used by the subjects to assess image similarity is built. From this, a new model of image description emerges. As compared to existing models, it is more realistic, free of preconceptions and more suited to the task of similarity computation. These results are discussed from the perspectives of psychology and computer science.

Spatial perception of blind people by auditory maps on a tablet PC

Although a tablet PC is designed mainly for sighted people, there are potential applications for the blind. An auditory map system for the blind is proposed as one of the applications on a tablet PC. The proposed application requires no additional devices or software other than a table PC, which would be a cheap alternative to expensive existing tools for the blind people. With the frame work of dimensionality from geography, point-line-area, more systematic testing is conducted with 20 totally blind people, to provide valuable information about the potential implementation of an auditory interface on a geographic information system for the blind. Moreover, since the participants are totally blind and the number of them is much more than other research on the blind, it will provide more valid information and conditions necessary for the implementation.

Touchable online braille generator

Using the force feedback technology which has been used in video games for years, a prototype of an online Braille generator was developed for the visually impaired or blind user. Without any expensive devices, the prototype lets sightless persons use the information on the web by touching the output Braille displays on screen with a mouse. User studies will be conducted with blind people, and their data will provide valuable information about the optimal conditions for the online Braille display in the prototype, such as how strong the force should be and how big those Braille dots should be. The final product of this research will enable visually impaired people to enjoy all the library services and resources as well as the enormous amount of information on the web more freely.

The usability study on the multicultural children’s book project of the National Library for Children and Young Adults (NLCY) in Korea

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to identify usability issues on a storytelling digital library with six languages provided by the National Library for Children and Young Adults (NLCY) in Korea, and to provide suggestions for future improvement to create a better interface. Design/methodology/approach – In this study, usability issues at the multicultural children’s book project Web site of the NLCY were identified, with comparison between the previous interface and the current one, based on the findings of established literature on children’s use of computer applications and web interface. Findings – Suggestions for improvements include brighter colors, bigger fonts and graphics, more lively animation and sound, easier navigation, consistent interface, summary availability, better organization of information and labeling and multilingual searching and browsing function. A user study is being planned for future development. Originality/value – There is a great value in making 400 children’s books av...

Are We There Yet? Calculating Wait Time for Popular Digital Titles

ABSTRACT E-books and audiobooks are becoming increasingly popular in the United States. Unfortunately, the supply of digital titles does not meet the demand. Library patrons must frequently wait for weeks to receive popular e-books. We examined the issue of wait time for e-book and audiobook titles using three public library patron accounts to gather data consisting of the average daily number of wait spots for each title, and days until the title was available. Based on our observations, we propose the Waiting Reduction Rate (WRR) formula to determine the average number of wait spots per title as a metric to help determine a better holds-to-copy ratio for electronic materials and reduce patron wait time.

Leveraging the power of social reading and big data: an analysis of co-read clusters of books on Goodreads

Readers’ advisory services must keep up with ever-increasing numbers of published titles. We explore a method to identify potentially appealing book recommendations based on the use of bibliographic coupling from data gathered from the social reading site, Goodreads. In this case, books are considered to be similar in appeal to other books read by a user if a co-read pair of books occurs. Co-read book pairs were processed and rendered visually in Gephi, creating two visualizations: one with extremely popular titles, and one without. This method has the potential to augment traditional readers’ advisory services by leveraging readily available big data and open source software.