From the category archives:

hci

HF Potpourri

by Richard Pak
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Touch Usability’s Kevin Arthur is soliciting input for a presentation he’s doing at UPA
Designing for Human’s Rob Tannen posts an online video of a presentation (ergonomics for interaction designers) he gave at the School of Visual Arts in New York
Edward Tufte will help us understand and track where stimulus funds are going (via Slashdot)
The Internet does not replace health professionals.  [...]

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3D is better than 2D, right?

by Richard Pak
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It seems that every few years, 3D technology is in the zeitgeist (with 3d movies).  User interfaces are not immune to the frenzy of 3D.  However, there is quite a bit of past research in 3D interfaces (I won’t even scratch the surface but see this simple Google Scholar search to start). Much, but not all, relate to [...]

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Web-based tool to measure task workload

by Richard Pak
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I frequently use the NASA TLX workload assessment tool to measure a user’s perceived workload after they complete a task (e.g., complete an information search task). When the test is administered with paper it can be quite laborious to administer and score. A stand-alone computer-based version has been available but has some usability issues itself. For [...]

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Healthcare IT does not save money, increase efficiency

by Richard Pak
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The reasons for widescale introduction of information technology into health care is that: it will reduce costs, and reduce errors. We know that in some cases it may not necessarily reduce errors.  Now we know that it doesn’t necessarily reduce costs.  Harvard researchers examined 4000 “wired” hospitals to determine the effect of widespread adoption of IT in [...]

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HFES Conference in San Antonio, Part 2 – Eliciting Knowledge Structures

by Anne McLaughlin

I‘d like to highlight some of the talks I enjoyed last week and point our readers to their research.
First up, we have:
The Influence of Rating Method on Knowledge Structures.
Chad C. Tossell, Rice U.; Brent A. Smith, U.S. Air Force Academy; Roger W. Schvaneveldt, Arizona State U., Polytechnic
This talk was a great introduction to understanding how we organize information [...]

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Usability issues in navigating your life

by Richard Pak

Gordon Bell, a Microsoft Researcher, is recording his life in excruciating detail in a project dubbed MyLifeBits:
Web sites he’s visited (221,173), photos taken (56,282), emails sent and received (156,041), docs written and read (18,883), phone conversations had (2,000), photos snapped by the SenseCam hanging around his neck (66,000), songs listened to (7,139), and videos taken by him (2,164).
Why is he [...]

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A Blind Person’s Interactions With Technology

by Richard Pak

The latest issue of Communications of the ACM has an interesting story on the unique issues in interface design and usability when the user is blind.  The author/researchers Kristen Shinohara and Josh Tenenberg conducted interviews to examine limitations in current accessibility technologies for the blind.
Showing off her BrailleNote, she said she prefers [...]

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When Users Complain: Blackboard

by Anne McLaughlin
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There is a great article over at Inside Higher Ed. describing what happens when a company without evidence of a usability process finally asks its users for feedback.
At an open “listening session” with top executives of Blackboard here Wednesday at the company’s annual conference, college officials expressed frustration with many of the system’s fundamental characteristics. At times, the meeting seemed [...]

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Augmented Reality for Everyone

by Richard Pak

There have been many recent examples of consumer friendly augmented reality applications for smart phone users.  I remember reading about augmented reality research over a decade ago (in an HCI class) and remembering how bulky, expensive, experimental, and out-of-reach it seemed back then.  The systems back then required head-mounted displays and were physically attached to cameras and large computers.  Now [...]

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Time.com article on Anne’s research with Games & Aging

by Richard Pak
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Our own Anne McLaughlin was featured in a recent article in Time.com.  Anne and her colleagues Jason Allaire (NCSU) and Maribeth Gandy (Georgia Tech) were recently awarded a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to study using games to moderate cognitive decline in older adults.
Their plan is to study what parts of games might help cognitive performance and [...]

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New Interface for Online Banking

by Anne McLaughlin

There are many iPhone applications that integrate the phone camera with software in novel ways.  I came across this video demonstrating how it can be used to deposit checks electronically.
The interface demonstration starts at the 1 minute mark if you would like to skip the advertisement.*

*I’m not sure if it counts as an advertisement when most people aren’t allowed to [...]

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The Tactile Thinkpad: More Laptop Redesign from Lenovo

by Anne McLaughlin
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I posted earlier on the innovative data collection Lenovo did for a keyboard redesign. A new post on DesignMatters details the design and user testing of a new touch pad using tactile feedback.
Designers must often work within constraints induced by other portions of their product. In this case, the touchpad had to be flush with the hand rest of the [...]

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Heatmapping the Keyboard

by Anne McLaughlin

David Hill over at DesignMatters has an excellent post on how Lenovo collected data for a keyboard redesign.  Below is an excerpt, but please visit his site for the entire tale.
We thought that taking an updated look at key frequency of use would be a good place to start in order to uncover innovation opportunity. Things do change over the years. [...]

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(face) Gestures Interface

by Richard Pak

Peter Squire sends in what is most likely an early April fools joke by the creators of the Opera web browser (right before 4/1/09). It is an interesting interaction idea nonetheless.

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Book: Designing for Older Adults, 2nd edition

by Richard Pak

Things are quiet on the blog because Anne and I are recovering from the end of the Spring semester and we are furiously finishing our book (tentatively titled, “Designing Displays for Older Adults‘).  It will be one in a series of books in the Human Factors & Aging Series from CRC Press that will be “primers on designing for older [...]

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Dashboards meet the 21st century

by Richard Pak
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Reader Darin Ellis sends along this news item from MSNBC about the future of car dashboards (hint: analog is out, glass screens are in).  There is a great quote in the article from the visualization designer of Chrysler:
A lot of usability studies need to be done. Designing these is not a no-brainer.
In addition to this article, here are some other [...]

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