Browsing by Author "Bederson, Benjamin B."
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Item Accuracy, Target Reentry and Fitts' Law Performance of Preschool Children Using Mice(2003-06-04) Hourcade, Juan Pablo; Bederson, Benjamin B.; Druin, Allison; Guimbretiere, FrancoisSeveral experiments by psychologists and human factors researchers have shown that when young children execute pointing tasks, they perform at levels below older children and adults. However, these experiments were not conducted with the purpose of providing guidelines for the design of graphical user interfaces. To address this need, we conducted a study to gain a better understanding of 4 and 5 year-old children's use of mice. We compared the performance of thirteen 4 year-olds, thirteen 5 year-olds and thirteen young adults in point-and-click tasks. As expected, we found age had a significant effect on accuracy, target reentry and Fitts' law's index of performance. We also found that target size had a significant effect on accuracy and target reentry. Measuring movement time at four different times (first entering target, last entering target, pressing button, releasing button) yielded the result tha Fitts' law models children well only for the first time they enter the target. Another interesting result was that using the adjusted index of difficulty (IDe) in Fitts' law calculations yielded lower linear regression correlation coefficients than using the unadjusted index of difficulty (ID). These results provide valuable guidelines for the design of graphical user interfaces for young children, in particular when it comes to sizing visual targets. They also suggest designers should adopt strategies to accommodate users with varying levels of skill. (UMIACS-2003-42) (HCIL-2003-16)Item Architecture and Implementation of a Java Package for Multiple Input Devices (MID)(1999-05-25) Hourcade, Juan Pablo; Bederson, Benjamin B.A major difficulty in writing Single Display Groupware (co-present collaborative) applications is getting input from multiple devices. We introduce MID, a Java package that addresses this problem and offers an architecture to access advanced events through Java. In this paper, we describe the features, architecture and limitations of MID. We also briefly describe an application that uses MID to get input from multiple mice: KidPad. Also cross-referenced as UMIACS-TR-99-26Item Automatic Thumbnail Cropping and its Effectiveness(2003-04-04) Suh, Bongwon; Ling, Haibin; Bederson, Benjamin B.; Jacobs, David W.Thumbnail images provide users of image retrieval and browsing systems with a method for quickly scanning large numbers of images. Recognizing the objects in an image is important in many retrieval tasks, but thumbnails generated by shrinking the original image often render objects illegible. We study the ability of computer vision systems to detect key components of images so that intelligent cropping, prior to shrinking, can render objects more recognizable. We evaluate automatic cropping techniques 1) based on a method that detects salient portions of general images, and 2) based on automatic face detection. Our user study shows that these methods result in small thumbnails that are substantially more recognizable and easier to find in the context of visual search. Keywords: Saliency map, thumbnail, image cropping, face detection, usability study, visual search, zoomable user interfaces UMIACS-TR-2003-39 HCIL-TR-2003-13Item Browsing Icons: A Task-Based Approach for a Visual Web History(2003-01-21) Mayer, Matthias; Bederson, Benjamin B.We have implemented a task and session based visual web history tool called Browsing Icons that dynamically draws animated graphs of the user's paths through the web. Using a proxy, it can be attached to any common web browser. Every web session builds an individual Browsing Graph with a characteristic shape. The graphs are organized in a hierarchy of user-defined tasks. Users can interrupt tasks and continue later using the graphs that provide access to all the web pages they have visited so far. The graphs can be reused for similar or recurrent tasks. By clustering the history hierarchically according to tasks, we try to cope with scale and to provide a powerful concept for easy revisitation. The visualizations have been implemented using the Jazz framework for zoomable user interfaces (ZUIs) in Java. A usability study showed that users like the system very much and appreciate its support of revisiting web pages. Ten users revisited web pages after a few minutes and other web pages after one to six days using both Netscape with Browsing Icons and Netscape alone. With the tool they completed the short-term revisits in 84% of the time required when using Netscape alone. The revisits after one to six days users could accomplish in 57.8% of the time they needed when using Netscape, thereby visiting only 53.8% as many pages. Users were significantly more satisfied with Browsing Icons than with pure Netscape. KEYWORDS: Web History Visualization, Task Based Information Organization, Information Visualization, Web Browser Usability, Jazz. UMIACS-TR-2001-85 HCIL-TR-2001-19Item Building KidPad: An Application for Children's Collaborative Storytelling(2003-06-04) Hourcade, Juan Pablo; Bederson, Benjamin B.; Druin, AllisonCollaborating in small groups can be beneficial to children's learning and socializing. However, there is currently little computer support for children's collaborative activities. This was our motivation for building KidPad, a collaborative storytelling tool for children. KidPad provides children with drawing, typing, and hyperlinking capabilities in a large, two-dimensional canvas. It supports collaboration by accepting input from multiple mice. In building KidPad, we developed solutions to problems common to all single-display groupware applications for children: obtaining input from multiple devices, and using an intuitive user interface metaphor that can support collaboration. Our solution for obtaining input from multiple devices was MID, an architecture written in Java. We addressed the need for an appropriate user interface metaphor byusing the local tools metaphor. This paper describes our work on MID and local tools in the context of building of KidPad, and aims to provide developers with valuable insights into how to develop collaborative applications for children. (UMIACS-TR-2003-44) (HCIL-2003-18)Item A Collaborative Digital Library for Children: A Descriptive Study of Children's Collaborative Behavior and Dialogue(2003-01-21) Druin, Allison; Revelle, Glenda; Bederson, Benjamin B.; Hourcade, Juan Pablo; Farber, Allison; Lee, Juhyun; Campbell, DanaOver the last three years, we have been developing a collaborative digital library interface where two children can collaborate using multiple mice on a single computer to access multimedia information concerning animals. This technology, called "SearchKids" leverages our lab's past work in co-present collaborative zoomable interfaces for young children. This paper describes the differences in children's collaborative behavior and dialogue when using two different software conditions to search for animals in the digital library. In this study, half the children had to "confirm" their collaborative activities (e.g., both children had to click on a given area to move to that area). The other half used an "independent" collaboration technique (e.g., just one mouse click allows the pair to move to that area). The participants in this study were 98 second and third grade children (ages 7-9 years old) from a suburban public elementary school in Prince George's County, Maryland. The children were randomly divided into two groups and paired with a classmate of the same gender. Each pair was asked to find as many items as possible from a list of 20 items given a limit of 20 minutes. Sessions were video taped and the first and last five minutes of each session were coded for discussion type and frequency. The results of our study showed distinct differences between groups in how children discussed their shared goals, collaborative tasks, and what outcomes they had in successfully finding multimedia information in the digital library. These findings suggest various ways educators might use and technologists might develop new collaborative technologies for learning. Keywords Children, Collaboration, Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, Digital Libraries, Educational Applications, Single Display Groupware (SDG), SearchKids, Zoomable User Interfaces (ZUIs) (UMIACS-TR-2002-46) (HCIL-TR-2002-07)Item CounterPoint: Creating Jazzy Interactive Presentations(2001-05-10) Good, Lance; Bederson, Benjamin B.In this paper, we introduce Counterpoint, a zooming presentation tool. CounterPoint supports the construction of slide show style presentations with content arrangement in a 2.5D space. As with other Zoomable User Interfaces, CounterPoint provides animated navigations as transitions through this space. Our tool also supports both automated sequential paths and interactive navigation through the presentation. Multiple paths may also be defined within a single presentation space. This paper describes the functionality of our tool, some implementation details, and potential benefits of CounterPoint over more traditional slide show tools. (Cross-referenced as UMIACS-TR-2001-14) (Cross-referenced as HCIL-TR-2001-03)Item CounterPoint: OZONE: A Zoomable Interface for Navigating Ontology(2001-05-10) Suh, Bongwon; Bederson, Benjamin B.We present OZONE (Zoomable Ontology Navigator), for searching and browsing ontological information. OZONE visualizes query conditions and provides interactive, guided browsing for DAML (DARPA Agent Markup Language) ontologies. To visually represent objects in DAML, we define a visual model for its classes, properties and relationships between them. Properties can be expanded into classes for query refinement. The visual query can be formulated incrementally as users explore class and property structures interactively. Zoomable interface techniques are employed for effective navigation and usability. (Cross-referenced as UMIACS-TR-2001-16)Item Designing an Interactive Message Board as a Technology Probe for Family Communication(2001-10-10) Browne, Hilary; Bederson, Benjamin B.; Plaisant, Catherine; Druin, AllisonIn this paper, we describe the design issues and technical implementation of an interactive Family Message Board. The Family Message Board enables members of a distributed family to communicate with one another both synchronously and asynchronously via simple, pen-based, digital notes. Each household running thi$ Java-based software can view, create, and manipulate notes in a zoomable space. The Family Message Board will be used as a technology probe to help us unders$ the communication needs of distributed families, and to help us design new devi$ to meet those needs.Item Designing Storytelling Technologies to Encourage Collabortion Between Young Children(1999-12-08) Benford, Steve; Bederson, Benjamin B.; Akesson, Karl-Petter; Bayon, Victor; Druin, Allison; Hansson, Par; Hourcade, Juan Pablo; Ingram, Rob; Neale, Helen; O'Malley, Claire; Simsarian, Kristian T.; Stanton, Danae; Sundblad, Yngve; Taxen, GustavWe describe the iterative design of two collaborative storytelling technologies for young children, KidPad and the Klump. We focus on the idea of designing interfaces to subtly encourage collaboration so that children are invited to discover the added benefits of working together. This idea has been motivated by our experiences of using early versions of our technologies in schools in Sweden and the UK. We compare the approach of encouraging collaboration with other approaches to synchronizing shared interfaces. We describe how we have revised the technologies to encourage collaboration and to reflect design suggestions made by the children themselves. (Also cross-referenced as UMIACS-TR-99-76)Item Does a Sketchy Appearance Influence Drawing Behavior?(1999-01-06) Meyer, Jon; Bederson, Benjamin B.In this paper we examine the role of visual aesthetics in how people interact with computers. Specifically, we are interested in whether simply adopting a sketch-like visual appearance in a drawing application encourages users to interact with the application more freely or rapidly than they would if they were using the standard, precise, rectilinear appearance that most drawing applications now supply. We carried out two user studies. In the first study, we asked members of the University of Maryland Art History department to draw a series of diagrams using two different line styles. In the second experiment, we used the World Wide Web to collect drawing diagrams from a much broader set of participants. Both studies reveal that subjects draw more quickly using the sketch-like ('wavy') line style than the straight line style. (Also cross-referenced as UMIACS-TR-98-74)Item Does Animation Help Users Build Mental Maps of Spatial Information?(1998-12-18) Bederson, Benjamin B.; Boltman, AngelaWe examine how animating a viewpoint change in a spatial information system affects a user's ability to build a mental map of the information in the space. We found that animation improves users' ability to reconstruct the information space, with no penalty on task performance time. We believe that this study provides strong evidence for adding animated transitions in many applications with fixed spatial data where the user navigates around the data space. (Also cross-referenced as UMIACS-TR-98-73)Item Does Zooming Improve Image Browsing?(1999-03-31) Combs, Tammara T.A.; Bederson, Benjamin B.We describe an image retrieval system we built based on a Zoomable User Interface (ZUI). We also discuss the design, results and analysis of a controlled experiment we performed on the browsing aspects of the system. The experiment resulted in a statistically significant difference in the interaction between number of images (25, 75, 225) and style of browser (2D, ZUI, 3D). The 2D and ZUI browser systems performed equally, and both performed better than the 3D systems. The image browsers tested during the experiment include Cerious Software's Thumbs Plus, TriVista Technology's Simple LandScape and Photo GoRound, and our Zoomable Image Browser based on Pad++. Also cross-referenced as UMIACS-TR-99-14Item Domain Name Based Visualization of Web Histories in a Zoomable User Interface(2000) Gandhi, Rajiv; Kumar, Girish; Bederson, Benjamin B.; Shneiderman, Ben; ISRUsers of hypertext systems like the World Wide Web (WWW) often find themselves following hypertext links deeper and deeper, only to become "lost" and unable to find their way back to the previouslyvisited pages. We have implemented a web browser companion called Domain Tree Browser (DTB) that builds a tree structured visual navigation history while browsing the web. The Domain Tree Browser organizes the URLs visited based on the domain name of each URL and shows thumbnails of each page in a zoomable window. A usability test was conducted with four subjects.Item Electronic Voting System Usability Issues(2003-01-21) Bederson, Benjamin B.; Lee, Bongshin; Sherman, Robert M.; Herrnson, Paul S.; Niemi, Richard G.With the recent troubles in U.S. elections, there has been a nationwide push to update voting systems. Municipalities are investing heavily in electronic voting systems, many of which use a touch screen. These systems offer the promise of faster and more accurate voting, but the current reality is that they are fraught with usability and systemic problems. This paper surveys issues relating to usability of electronic voting systems and reports on a series of studies, including one with 415 voters using new systems that the State of Maryland purchased. Our analysis shows these systems work well, but have several problems, and a significant minority of voters have concerns about them. Keywords Electronic voting systems, Direct Recording Electronic (DRE), voting usability. (UMIACS-TR-2002-94) (HCIL-TR-2002-23)Item AN EVALUATION OF MARYLAND'S NEW VOTING MACHINE(2003-01-21) Herrnson, Paul S.; Bederson, Benjamin B.Four counties in Maryland used new touch screen voting machines in the 2002 elections, replacing their mechanical lever and punch card voting systems with the AccuVote-TS touch screen voting machine manufactured by Diebold Election Systems. The Center for American Politics and Citizenship (CAPC) and the Human-Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL) at the University of Maryland conducted an exit poll in Montgomery and Prince George's counties to evaluate the performance of the new voting machines. In this second of two reports prepared by CAPC and HCIL on the new voting machines, we found that most voters like the new voting machines and trust them to accurately record their votes. However, a significant number of voters still have concerns about the new machines, many needed help using them, and some continue to report technical problems with the machines. Voters who do not frequently use computers or have not attended college had the most difficulty using the machines. Major Findings: * Seven percent of voters felt that the touch screen voting machine was not easy to use, compared to 93 percent who felt it was easy to use or held a neutral opinion. * Nine percent of voters did not trust the touch screen voting machine, compared to with 91 percent who did. Only 70 percent trusted the mechanical lever or punch card system they previously used. * Three percent of voters reported encountering technical problems with the new machines. * Nine percent of the voters asked for and 17 percent received assistance using the new machine. * More than one-quarter of the voters who use computers once a month or less received assistance using the voting machine. * One-third of voters who have not attended college received assistance using the voting machine. * Voters in Prince George's County found the election judges to be more helpful than did voters in Montgomery County. Four counties in Maryland used new touch screen voting machines in the 2002 elections. Alleghany, Dorchester, Montgomery, and Prince George's replaced their mechanical lever and punch card voting systems with the AccuVote-TS touch screen voting machine manufactured by Diebold Election Systems. All 24 of Maryland's counties will purchase AccuVote-TS voting machines by 2006. The University of Maryland conducted an exit poll in Montgomery and Prince George's Counties to assess the performance of the new voting machine. Our sample included 1,276 respondents from 22 precincts in the two counties. The response rate was 74.6 percent. (UMIACS-TR-2002-107) (HCIL-TR-2002-25)Item Family Calendar Survey(2003-01-21) Hutchinson, Hilary; Bederson, Benjamin B.; Plaisant, Catherine; Druin, AllisonBeginning in late July 2002, we conducted a survey about people's personal and family calendaring habits. By the end of September, we had over 400 responses, which are summarized below. The survey was conducted to help inform our work in designing new technologies for families, motivated in part by our work on the interLiving project. InterLiving is a 3 year, European Union-funded project where we work with distributed, multi-generational families as design partners to create new technologies (see http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/interliving for details). The survey was administered from a web page (https://www.cs.umd.edu/users/hilary/survey/survey.htm), and participants were solicited via a "chain-mail" email approach. We began by sending a request to fill out a survey to our friends, families, and colleagues. We asked that they forward the request on to their friends, family and colleagues as well. While we realize that this was an imperfect approach, we believed that the respondents would be representative of the users we are initially targeting in our research on family calendaring and coordination - individuals who are already making relatively heavy use of computers at home and/or work. The results seem to validate this assumption. Many of our respondents likely come from the HCI community as the mailing went to our large lab mailing list. We may have some pollution in the data as a result of people in the same household (e.g. husband and wife) both filling out the survey. Despite these issues, the results we got were helpful in eliciting a number of important findings, namely that people rely on multiple calendars, many of which are still paper. (UMIACS-TR-2002-92) (HCIL-TR-2002-21)Item Favorite Folders: A Configurable, Scalable File Browser(2003-04-04) Lee, Bongshin Lee; Bederson, Benjamin B.Microsoft Windows Explorer, the most widely used file browser in Microsoft Windows, shows almost all directories in the file system. However, most users usually access only a subset of the directories in their machine. If the file browser shows only the directories users are interested in, they can select the directory they want more easily and quickly. This paper introduces a configurable, scalable file system explorer that reduces selection time by showing only the directories users want to see. We give users an easy way to hide directories behind a special ellipsis node. In addition, those hidden directories are one click away. We present a preliminary field study conducted to validate the concept of Favorite Folders and a theoretical model to predict the performance times. Keywords: Windows Explorer, file browser, adaptive interfaces, customizable interfaces UMIACS-TR-2003-38 HCIL-TR-2003-12Item A Fisheye Calendar Interface for PDAs: Providing Overviews for Small Displays(2003-01-21) Bederson, Benjamin B.; Czerwinski, Mary P.; Robertson, George G.Calendar applications for small handheld devices such as PDAs are growing in popularity. This led us to develop FishCal, a novel calendar interface for PDAs. It supports users in performing planning and analysis tasks by using a fisheye representation of dates coupled with compact overviews, user control over the visible time period, and integrated search. This enables users to see overviews and to easily navigate the calendar structure, and to discover patterns and outliers. FishCal was evaluated in a benchmark usability study comparing it to Microsoft's Pocket PC 2002(tm) calendar. Eleven users performed complex tasks significantly faster and completed them more often with FishCal. Task by task user satisfaction data showed a significant advantage for FishCal as well. A number of usability issues were identified to aid in the iterative refinement of FishCal. Keywords Fisheye Views, Information Visualization, Calendar Interfaces, PDAs, Animation, Graphics. (UMIACS-TR-2002-48) (HCIL-TR-2002-09)Item Graphical Multiscale Web Histories: A Study of PadPrints(1998-11-12) Hightower, Ron R.; Ring, Laura T.; Helfman, Jonathan I.; Bederson, Benjamin B.; Hollan, James D.We have implemented a browser companion called PadPrints that dynamically builds a graphical history-map of visited web pages. PadPrints relies on Pad++, a zooming user interface (ZUI) development substrate, to display the history-map using minimal screen space. PadPrints functions in conjunction with a traditional web browser but without requiring any browser modifications. We performed two usability studies of PadPrints. The first addressed general navigation effectiveness. The second focused on history-related aspects of navigation. In tasks requiring returns to prior pages, users of PadPrints completed tasks in 61.2% of the time required by users of the same browser without PadPrints. We also observed significant decreases in the number of pages accessed when using PadPrints. Users found browsing with PadPrints more satisfying than using Netscape alone. (Also cross-referenced as UMIACS-TR-98-33)