Richard and I are currently attending the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. I thought I’d report on some of the interesting work we saw this week.
First, a shameless plug for research conducted at my own university. David Sharek and Mike Wogalter presented data on how clueless and careless the “wired” generation can be when it comes to computer security. Briefly, undergraduates treated real and fake “security” announcements on PC’s similarly: by clicking “ok” to whatever it asked them. My mother has personal, recent experience that this is a GREAT way to get spyware and viruses on your computer. You might think that 20 year-olds would not be so easily fooled… but then David and Mike wouldn’t have their study buzzed on: Slashdot, ScienceDaily, Reddit, and the BBC.
Second, we have a new “technical group” called Augmented Cognition. Talks in this session included two talks on using physiological markers to predict display needs (an area long pursued without as much progress as one might hope). Check out “Using physiological measures to discriminate signal detection outcome during imagery analysis” and “Biomarkers for effects of fatigue and stress on performance: EEG, P300, and heart-rate variability.”
There is much more, too much to mention individually, but I’d like to invite the readers to comment on their personal favorites from the week.
Berka, C., Johnson, R., Whitmoyer, N., Behneman, A., & Popovic, D. (2008). Biomarkers for effects of fatigue and stress on performance: EEG, P300, and heart-rate variability.Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Santa Monica, CA, 192-196.
Hale, K. S., Fuchs, S., & Axelsson, P. (2008). Using physiological measures to discriminate signal detection outcome during imagery analysis. Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Santa Monica, CA, 182-186.
Sharek, D., Swofford, C. & Wogalter, M. (2008). Failure to recognize fake internet popup warning messages. Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Santa Monica, CA, 557-560.
I‘ve always thought text inputs from anything other than a keyboard were clunky. Cliff Kushler, the man who invented T9 (a word completion aid) has developed Swype, a new text entry method that capitalizes on eliminating the press and release component of the touchscreen. What was once a discrete target acquisition task becomes a continuous one.
In the CNET interview, Kushler points out his age (55) and his words-per-minute with Swype (50). Not bad.
If you’re interested in research on alternate text input devices, check out some of the following:
Wobbrock, J.O. and Myers, B.A. (2008). Enabling devices, empowering people: The design and evaluation of Trackball EdgeWrite. Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, 35-56.
I was recently interviewed by our campus news service about receiving a Google Research Award to study information retrieval and aging. The research involves designing information retrieval interfaces around the capabilities and limitations of older adults (those age 60 and above). Here is a snippet from the press release:
Richard Pak, an assistant professor of psychology, has received a $50,000 gift from Google to study how older adults navigate the Web and what Web site design features make searches easier. The grant will fund an extension of his research on aging and technology.
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“The findings are that when you take a Web site and organize it hierarchically — like how you might organize your documents on your computer with folders within folders — older adults are much slower and make more errors when they are searching for information compared to younger adults,” Pak said. “We think that this is the case because the situation does not allow older adults to use their greater knowledge toward the situation. However, when you take that same Web site and organize it around keywords or concepts instead of folders, older adults are able to bring their wealth of general knowledge to the situation and perform almost equivalently to younger adults in the task.”
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That is, older adults seem to perform better using so-called “tag-based sites,” which are Web sites that organize their information around frequently used keywords. Pak said that while tag-based sites are still relatively new, several popular sites use tags. These include Amazon.com, Gmail.com, and the photo sharing Web site Flickr.com.
So I finally made the plunge and obtained a Kindle E-book reader. This isn’t a gadget review site so don’t expect a full review but I just wanted to comment on some of the ergonomic/human factors considerations after using the device for the past few days. The bottom line? There are some critical “book behaviors” that the device does not afford but are critical to me. My reading material is primarily articles, reference books; not narrative fiction (that typically flows in a linear, page-by-page fashion).
The GOOD:
The hype concerning the display is warranted. It is extremely high contrast and easy to read even in dim light. What makes this different from reading on an LCD is that the pixels are actually closer to the reading surface (just like paper). The pixel density is also very high (167 dpi) compared to LCDs.
The device is very thin and light. The screen is small but not unusably so.
Search is a nice function. However, I am not sure if this perfectly replaces book indexes. With an index, you can rely on recognition instead of free recall (necessary in search).
Built-in 3G wireless for free.
The software is very simple and the navigation is easy. It is similar to an ATM with soft-options.
The BAD (in no particular order):
Page turning is a bit sluggish (probably .5 to 1 second). I don’t have empirical data to back up actual “performance” differences but it bothers me.
The page forward and backward buttons are too easily pressed when you pick the device up (not a big deal but an inconvenience).
I can dog-ear pages and include notes on pages or passages. My notes are accessible as a text file for use later. However, the text file is sort of meaningless. While my note is there, it is devoid of context (I don’t know where it goes). It would be nice if this functionality was improved.
The on-off switch is located on the back of the device. So when I want to turn it off, I always inadvertently jump a page or two.
Instead of using page numbers to navigate the text, it uses something called “Locations.” I still have not figured out what this is. At the bottom of the screen, it might display, “Locations 203-15″. Are these lines? Paragraphs? Pages?
There is the “previous page” button, but also a “Back” button…and they seem to function similarly under some circumstances but differently in others.
Anne and I are writing a book and I’ve been doing quite a bit of research with articles and books. Typically, I will read a page from a book or article and make notes. Currently, there is not an easy way to export these notes or even email them to myself from the device. As I mentioned, the notes it creates are unusable. Another big thing is that I cannot open multiple books or articles at once–this is a problem with the whole class of devices, not just the Kindle.
These are just some of my recent thoughts on the device. The tentative bottom-line is that I probably won’t be buying expensive reference books on the device (it just can’t yet replace a paper book for my use cases). But reading PDF articles and Word .docs is quite pleasant.
Here are some pictures (the device and the device’s text presentation compared to a real book).
Interesting scenario of the future web browser from Adaptive Path and Mozilla. I can see many potentially interesting human factors research questions. It seems overly complicated on first look but I guess that’s an empirical question!
I‘ve previously posted on the topic of tagging. As more products attempt to automate the process of creating tags from content, more problems are bound to appear like below. A pretty clear case of automation gone wrong!:
It wasn’t what anyone expected to see while perusing a news article. But there, in the final paragraph of an online story about the call girl involved in the Eliot Spitzer scandal, Yahoos automated system was inviting readers to browse through photos of underage girls.
Yahoo Shortcuts, which more frequently offers to help readers search for news and Web sites on topics like “California” or “President Bush,” had in this case highlighted the words “underage girls.” Readers who passed their mouse over the phrase in The Associated Press story were shown a pop-up window with an image from Flickr, Yahoos photo-sharing Web site.
Those interested in creative usability, learning, and feedback should check out Moe’s Southwest Grill nutrition information website. Of course, as delightful as the menu interface is, it is very difficult to link.
3. Wait through annoying splash screen, circa 1995
4. Mouse over “Menu” and click on “nutrition”
5. Enjoy learning about every optional ingredient in your food
I think this interface is especially interesting by comparison. McDonald’s and otherrestaurants seem to have directly translated the difficult to read “nutrition chart” posted in their stores. Granted, it is probably in their interest to make this information difficult to access and understand. Burger King attempted more advanced interface, though I find it more difficult to use than Moe’s, (and I found their home site almost impossible to navigate. Check out the icons(?) to the right of the “search” bar that isn’t actually a search bar). Moe’s, however, takes full advantage of the computer medium to allow a simple, informative interaction.
What makes it even more interesting than just providing information is that Moe’s allows customers to learn about different choices and maybe even plan their order beforehand. After all, many foods are misleading. Who knew the drizzle of dressing on your taco multiplies total fat by a factor of 6? At Moe’s website you can play around with different choices to compromise with a meal that weighs your preferences against what is good for you. You may still choose that Chipolte Ranch dressing, but at least it’s an informed decision.
Here are some ideas for the Moe’s paradigm:
1. Widely available interfaces like this could be used to teach restaurant “reality” to families as we try to curb the obesity epidemic.
2. The same interface (or one with different “choices”) could be used in studies of decision making.
3. Actually, tweaks to this program could be used to study learning from feedback. I can imagine having a version that provides even more information, such as how the meal you choose fits into a personalized food pyramid and recommended daily allowances.
Richard and I are currently attending the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. I thought I’d report on some of the interesting work we saw this week.
