Technical Reports from UMIACS
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/7
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Item 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 The International Children's Library: Viewing Digital Books Online(2003-06-04) Hourcade, Juan Pablo; Bederson, Benjamin B.; Druin, Allison; Rose, Anne; Farber, Allison; Takayama, YoshifumiReading books plays an important role in children's cognitive and social development. However, many children do not have access to diverse collections of books due to the limited resources of their community libraries. We have begun to address this issue by creating a large-scale digital archive of children's books, the International Children's Digital Library (ICDL). In this paper we discuss our initial efforts in building the ICDL, concentrating on the design of innovative digital book readers. (UMIACS-TR-2003-43) (HCIL-2003-17)Item SlideBar: Analysis of a linear input device(2003-06-04) Chipman, Leslie E.; Bederson, Benjamin B.; Golbeck, Jennifer A.The SlideBar is a physical linear input device for absolute position control of one degree of freedom, consisting of a physical slider with a graspable knob positioned near or attached to the keyboard. Its range of motion is directly mapped to a one dimensional input widget such as a scrollbar. The SlideBar provides absolute position control in one dimension, is usable in the non-dominant hand in conjunction with a pointing device, and offers constrained passive haptic feedback. These characteristics make the device appropriate for the common class of tasks characterized by one-dimensional input and constrained range of operation. An empirical study of three devices (SlideBar, mouse controlled scrollbar, and mousewheel) shows that for common scrolling tasks, the SlideBar has a significant advantage over a standard mouse controlled scrollbar in both speed and user preference and an advantage over the mousewheel in user reference. Keywords: : two-handed input, absolute, scrolling mechanisms, input devices, passive constrained haptic feedback (UMIACS-TR-2003-41) (HCIL-2003-15)Item 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 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 The International Children's Digital Library: Description and Analysis of First Use(2003-01-21) Druin, Allison; Bederson, Benjamin B.; Weeks, Ann; Farber, Allison; Grosjean, Jesse; Guha, Mona Leigh; Hourcade, Juan Pablo; Lee, Juhyun; Liao, Sabrina; Reuter, Kara; Rose, Anne; Takayama, Yoshifumi; Zhang, LinglingIn this paper we describe the first version of the International Children's Digital Library (ICDL). As a five-year research project, its mission is to enable children to access and read an international collection of children's books through the development of new interface technologies. This paper will describe the need for such research, our work in the context of other digital libraries for children, and an initial analysis of the first seven weeks of the ICDL's public use on the web. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.3.7 [Information Storage and Retrieval]: Digital Libraries - Dissemination, User Issues; H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: User Interfaces - Graphical User Interfaces (UMIACS-TR-2003-04) (HCIL-TR-2003-02)Item Toolkit Design for Interactive Structured Graphics(2003-01-21) Bederson, Benjamin B.; Grosjean, Jesse; Meyer, JonIn this paper, we analyze three approaches to building graphical applications with rich user interfaces. We compare hand-crafted custom code to polylithic and monolithic toolkit-based solutions. Polylithic toolkits follow a design philosophy similar to 3D scene graphs supported by toolkits including Java3D and OpenInventor. Monolithic toolkits are more akin to 2D Graphical User Interface toolkits such as Swing or MFC. We describe Jazz (a polylithic toolkit) and Piccolo (a monolithic toolkit), each of which we built to support interactive 2D structured graphics applications in general, and Zoomable User Interface applications in particular. We examine the trade-offs of each approach in terms of performance, memory requirements, and programmability. We conclude that, for most applications, a monolithic-based toolkit is more effective than either a hand-crafted or a polylithic solution for building interactive structured graphics, but that each has advantages in certain situations. Keywords Monolithic toolkits, Polylithic toolkits, Zoomable User Interfaces (ZUIs), Animation, Structured Graphics, Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs), Pad++, Jazz (UMIACS-TR-2003-03) (HCIL-TR-2003-01)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 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 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)