Institute for Systems Research Technical Reports

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/4376

This archive contains a collection of reports generated by the faculty and students of the Institute for Systems Research (ISR), a permanent, interdisciplinary research unit in the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland. ISR-based projects are conducted through partnerships with industry and government, bringing together faculty and students from multiple academic departments and colleges across the university.

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Subject: search.filters.subject.human computer interaction

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Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    User Interfaces for a Complex Robotic Task: A Comparison of Tiles vs. Overlapped Windows
    (1997) Lane, J. Corde; Kuester, Steven P.; Shneiderman, Ben; ISR
    High complexity tasks, such as remote teleoperation of robotic vehicles, often require multiple windows. For these complex tasks, the windows necessary for task completion, may occupy more area than available on a single visual display unit (VDU). Since the focus of the robotic task constantly changes, modular control panels that can be opened, closed, and moved on the screen are invaluable to the operator. This study describes a specific robotic task and the need for a multi window interface that can be easily manipulated. This paper examines two multi-window management strategies: tiled (fixed size) and arbitrary overlap. Multi-window searches were performed using the two management styles and they were compared on the basis of search completion time and error rates. Results with 35 novice users showed faster completion times for the tiled management strategy than for the arbitrary overlap strategy. Over factors such as the number of windows available, the number of displayed windows workload of opening or closing windows, and effect of learning are discussed.
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    Design and Evaluation of Incremental Data Structures and Algorithms for Dynamic Query Interfaces
    (1997) Tanin, Egemen; Beigel, Richard; Shneiderman, Ben; ISR
    Dynamic query interfaces (DQI) are a recently developed database access mechanism that provides continuous real-time feedback to the user during query formulation. Previous work shows that DQI are an elegant and powerful interface to small databases. Unfortunately, when applied to large databases, previous DQI algorithms slow to a crawl. We present a new incremental approach to DQI algorithms that works well with large databases, both in theory and in practice.
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    The Eyes Have It: A Task by Data Type Taxonomy for Information Visualizations
    (1996) Shneiderman, B.; ISR
    A useful starting point for designing advanced graphical user interfaces is the Visual Information-Seeking Mantra: Overview first, zoom and filter, then details-on-demand. But this is only a starting point in trying to understand the rich and varied set of information visualizations that have been proposed in recent years. This paper offers a task by data type taxonomy with seven data types (1-, 2-, 3- dimensional data, temporal and multi- dimensional data, and tree and network data) and seven tasks (overview, zoom, filter, details-on-demand, relate, history, and extract).
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    Designing Information-Abundant Websites
    (1996) Shneiderman, B.; ISR
    The deluge of web pages has generated dystopian commentaries on the tragedy of the flood as well as utopian visions of harnessing the same flood for constructive purposes. Within this ocean of information there are also lifeboat web pages with design principles, but often the style parallels the early user interface writings in the 1970s. The well-intentioned Noahs who write from personal experience as website designers, often draw their wisdom from specific projects, making their advice incomplete or lacking in generalizability. Their experience is valuable but the paucity of empirical data to validate or sharpen insight means that some guidelines are misleading. As scientific evidence accumulates, foundational cognitive and perceptual theories will structure the discussion and guide designers in novel situations.
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    Data Structures for Dynamic Queries: An Analytical and Experimental Evaluation
    (1994) Jain, Vinit; Shneiderman, Ben; ISR
    Dynamic Queries is a querying technique for doing range search on multi-key data sets. It is a direct manipulation mechanism where the query is formulated using graphical widgets and the result s are displayed graphically preferably within 100 milliseconds.

    This paper evaluates four data structures, the multilist, the grid file, k-d tree and the quad tree used to organize data in high speed storage for dynamic queries. The effect of factors like size, distribution and dimensionality of data on the storage overhead and the speed of search is explored. Analytical models for estimating the storage and the search overheads are presented, and verified to be correct by empirical data. Results indicate that multilists are suitable for small (few thousand points) data sets irrespective of the data distribution. For large data sets the grid files are excellent for uniformly distributed data, and trees are good for skewed data distributions. There was no significant difference in performance between the tree structures.

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    When an Intermediate View Matters a 2D-browser Experiment
    (1992) Plaisant, Catherine; Carr, David A.; Hasegawa, Hiroaki; ISR
    The browsing of two dimensional images can be found in a large number of application. When the image to be viewed is much larger than the screen available, a two dimensional browser has to be provided to allow users to access all parts of the image. We show the diversity of tasks and systems available and the need for 2D browser design guidelines. In the context of a microscope image browser, we investigate one common technique consisting of a global view of the whole image, coupled to a detailed, magnified view of part of the image. In particular we look at the benefits of providing an intermediate view when the detail- to-overview ratio over 20:1. Our experience is also a good example of a real world application for which added features and added hardware need to be justified.
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    Systems Engineering an Interactive Software Tool for Creating Interactive Graphical User Interfaces
    (1991) Opiekun, D.D.; Asbjornsen, O.A.; ISR
    This thesis presents the Systems Engineering Life Cycle and its application to the development of an interactive software tool, XMISE. This software tool allows users to interactively create and specify interactive graphical user interfaces for X Window System- and OSF/Motif-based software applications. This thesis describes each phase in the Systems Engineering Life Cycle and details how each phase was performed during the development of XMISE, including the Computer-Aided Systems Engineering (CASE) tools employed, the required team interaction, the outputs produced, the reviews held, and the lessons learned. Examples of the different types of documentation produced during each life cycle phase are included.

    By following the Systems Engineering Life Cycle and applying principles of Systems Engineering, a software tool was produced that meets customer and user requirements, solves the stated needs, and is documented with requirements traced from analysis through implementation and testing.