Many, if not most, free mobile applications are supported by advertising. Ads can greatly affect ... more Many, if not most, free mobile applications are supported by advertising. Ads can greatly affect user perceptions and behavior. In mobile apps, ads often follow a so-called " native " format, i.e., they are designed to conform in both format and style to the actual content and context of the application. In many instances, clicking on the ad leads users to a second destination, outside of the hosting app. In such cases, the unified experience provided by native ads within the app is not necessarily reflected by the landing page the user arrives at. Little is known about whether and how this type of mobile ads is impacting user experience. In this paper, we use both quantitative and qualitative methods to study the impact of two design decisions for the landing page of a native ad on the user experience: (i) native ad style (following the style of the application) versus a non-native ad style; and (ii) pages with multimedia versus static pages. We found considerable variability in terms of user experience with mobile ad landing pages when varying presentation style and multimedia usage, especially interaction between presence of video and ad style (native or non-native). We also discuss insights and recommendations for improving the user experience with mobile native ads.
Sensemaking tasks are difficult to accomplish with limited time and attentional resources because... more Sensemaking tasks are difficult to accomplish with limited time and attentional resources because analysts are faced with a constant stream of new information. While this information is often important, the timing of the interruptions may detract from analyst's work. In an ideal world, there would be no interruptions. But that is not the case in real world sensemaking tasks. So, in this study, we explore the value of timing interruptions based on an analyst's state of arousal as detected by Electrodermal activity derived form galvanic skin response (EDA). In a laboratory study, we compared performance when interruptions were timed to occur during increasing arousal, decreasing arousal, at random intervals or not at all. Analysts performed significantly better when interruptions occurred during periods of increasing arousal than when they were random. Further, analysts rated process component of team experience significantly higher also during periods of increasing arousal than when they were random. Self-reported workload was not impacted by interruptions timing. We discuss how system designs could leverage inexpensive off-the-shelf wrist sensors to improve interruption timing.
This compilation thesis builds on a number of research projects within the domain of Human-Comput... more This compilation thesis builds on a number of research projects within the domain of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).
Synchronous colocated collaborative sensemaking requires that analysts share their information an... more Synchronous colocated collaborative sensemaking requires that analysts share their information and insights with each other. The challenge is to know when is the right time to share what information without disrupting the present state of analysis. This is crucial in ad-hoc sensemaking sessions with mobile devices because small screen space limits information display. To address these tensions, we propose and evaluate RAMPARTS—a spatially aware sensemaking system for col- laborative crime analysis that aims to support faster informa- tion sharing, clue-finding, and analysis. We compare RAM- PARTS to an interactive tabletop and a paper-based method in a controlled laboratory study. We found that RAMPARTS significantly decreased task completion time compared to pa- per, without affecting cognitive load or task completion time adversely compared to an interactive tabletop. We conclude that designing for ad-hoc colocated sensemaking on mobile devices could benefit from spatial awareness. In particular, spatial awareness could be used to identify relevant informa- tion, support diverse alignment styles for visual comparison, and enable alternative rhythms of sensemaking.
Proceedings of the 4th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development - ICTD '10, 2010
Lack of proper English pronunciations is a major problem for immigrant population in developed co... more Lack of proper English pronunciations is a major problem for immigrant population in developed countries like U.S. This poses various problems, including a barrier to entry into mainstream society. This paper presents a research study that explores the use of speech technologies merged with activitybased and arcade-based games to do pronunciation feedback for Hispanic children within the U.S. A 3-month long study with immigrant population in California was used to investigate and analyze the effectiveness of computer aided pronunciation feedback through games. In addition to quantitative findings that point to statistically significant gains in pronunciation quality, the paper also explores qualitative findings, interaction patterns and challenges faced by the researchers in dealing with this community. It also describes the issues involved in dealing with pronunciation as a competency.
Integration of the immigrant families in the host country has been an issue of discontent across ... more Integration of the immigrant families in the host country has been an issue of discontent across the world. It is felt more so in the developed world, which is the destination for most of the immigrants. According to the US Bureau of the Census, USA gains one net immigrant ...
Collaborative sensemaking requires that analysts share their information and insights with each o... more Collaborative sensemaking requires that analysts share their information and insights with each other, but this process of sharing runs the risks of prematurely focusing the investigation on specific suspects. To address this tension, we propose and test an interface for collaborative crime analysis that aims to make analysts more aware of their sensemaking processes. We compare our sensemaking translucence interface to a standard interface without special sensemaking features in a controlled laboratory study. We found that the sensemaking translucence interface significantly improved clue finding and crime solving performance, but that analysts rated the interface lower on subjective measures than the standard interface. We conclude that designing for distributed sensemaking requires balancing task performance vs. user experience and real-time information sharing vs. data accuracy.
When crime analysts collaborate to solve crime cases, they need to share insights in order to con... more When crime analysts collaborate to solve crime cases, they need to share insights in order to connect the clues, identify a pattern, and attribute the crime to the right culprit. We designed a collaborative analysis tool to explore the value of implicitly sharing insights and notes, without requiring analysts to explicitly push information or request it from each other. In an experiment, pairs of remote individuals played the role of crime analysts solving a set of serial killer crimes with both partners having some, but not all, relevant clues. When implicit sharing of notes was available, participants remembered more clues related to detecting the serial killer, and they perceived the tool as more useful compared to when implicit sharing was not available.
Many sophisticated tools have been developed to help analysts detect patterns in large datasets, ... more Many sophisticated tools have been developed to help analysts detect patterns in large datasets, but the value of these tools' individual features is rarely tested. In an experiment in which participants played detectives solving homicides, we tested the utility of a visualization of data links and a notepad for collecting and organizing annotations. The visualization significantly improved participants' ability to solve the crime whereas the notepad did not. Having both features available provided no benefit over having just the visualization. The results inform strategies for evaluating intelligence analysis tools.
SAVANT is a web-based tool that enables information and knowledge sharing between remote partners... more SAVANT is a web-based tool that enables information and knowledge sharing between remote partners through explicit and implicit communication to help them collaboratively analyze and make sense of distributed data. SAVANT's implicit sharing provides an opportunity to leverage partners' insights and reduce cognitive tunneling, and explicit sharing facilitates discussion. Both techniques assist collaborative sensemaking processes. Figure 1. SAVANT set up as a collaborative crime analytics tool spanning two screens: Document Space (left) that includes data about crime cases and Analysis Space (right) for organizing notes and communicating implicitly and explicitly for collaborative sensemaking. The Document Space and the Analysis Space are enlarged in Figure 2 and Figure 3.
Wiki-like or crowdsourcing models of collaboration can provide a number of benefits to academic w... more Wiki-like or crowdsourcing models of collaboration can provide a number of benefits to academic work. These techniques may engage expertise from different disciplines, and potentially increase productivity. This paper presents a model of massively distributed collaborative authorship of academic papers. This model, developed by a collective of thirty authors, identifies key tools and techniques that would be necessary or useful to the writing process. The process of collaboratively writing this paper was used to discover, negotiate, and document issues in massively authored scholarship. Our work provides the first extensive discussion of the experiential aspects of large-scale collaborative research.
Lack of proper English pronunciations is a major problem for immigrant population in developed co... more Lack of proper English pronunciations is a major problem for immigrant population in developed countries like U.S. This poses various problems, including a barrier to entry into mainstream society. This paper presents a research study that explores the use of speech technologies merged with activitybased and arcade-based games to do pronunciation feedback for Hispanic children within the U.S. A 3-month long study with immigrant population in California was used to investigate and analyze the effectiveness of computer aided pronunciation feedback through games. In addition to quantitative findings that point to statistically significant gains in pronunciation quality, the paper also explores qualitative findings, interaction patterns and challenges faced by the researchers in dealing with this community. It also describes the issues involved in dealing with pronunciation as a competency.
In this paper, we study the relevance of Hall and Hofstede's works to the web design beyond tradi... more In this paper, we study the relevance of Hall and Hofstede's works to the web design beyond traditional domain areas like e-commerce, and advertising. Existing theories explain how design may be affected by cultural differences, and we explore how those differences can be seen in the government website design across Brazil, Russia, India, China, and US. We describe our findings confirming that differences exist, more so between China and US than the rest, and point out where cultural theories fail to explain the results, in particular for Brazil, Russia and India and finally, focus more on the differences between China and US.
In this paper, we describe a novel way of collocated collaboration with mobile devices using phys... more In this paper, we describe a novel way of collocated collaboration with mobile devices using physical deformations to their shape. These deformations include bending and twisting gestures to improve user experience while collaborating with limited screen estate and device footprint.
Many, if not most, free mobile applications are supported by advertising. Ads can greatly affect ... more Many, if not most, free mobile applications are supported by advertising. Ads can greatly affect user perceptions and behavior. In mobile apps, ads often follow a so-called " native " format, i.e., they are designed to conform in both format and style to the actual content and context of the application. In many instances, clicking on the ad leads users to a second destination, outside of the hosting app. In such cases, the unified experience provided by native ads within the app is not necessarily reflected by the landing page the user arrives at. Little is known about whether and how this type of mobile ads is impacting user experience. In this paper, we use both quantitative and qualitative methods to study the impact of two design decisions for the landing page of a native ad on the user experience: (i) native ad style (following the style of the application) versus a non-native ad style; and (ii) pages with multimedia versus static pages. We found considerable variability in terms of user experience with mobile ad landing pages when varying presentation style and multimedia usage, especially interaction between presence of video and ad style (native or non-native). We also discuss insights and recommendations for improving the user experience with mobile native ads.
Sensemaking tasks are difficult to accomplish with limited time and attentional resources because... more Sensemaking tasks are difficult to accomplish with limited time and attentional resources because analysts are faced with a constant stream of new information. While this information is often important, the timing of the interruptions may detract from analyst's work. In an ideal world, there would be no interruptions. But that is not the case in real world sensemaking tasks. So, in this study, we explore the value of timing interruptions based on an analyst's state of arousal as detected by Electrodermal activity derived form galvanic skin response (EDA). In a laboratory study, we compared performance when interruptions were timed to occur during increasing arousal, decreasing arousal, at random intervals or not at all. Analysts performed significantly better when interruptions occurred during periods of increasing arousal than when they were random. Further, analysts rated process component of team experience significantly higher also during periods of increasing arousal than when they were random. Self-reported workload was not impacted by interruptions timing. We discuss how system designs could leverage inexpensive off-the-shelf wrist sensors to improve interruption timing.
This compilation thesis builds on a number of research projects within the domain of Human-Comput... more This compilation thesis builds on a number of research projects within the domain of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).
Synchronous colocated collaborative sensemaking requires that analysts share their information an... more Synchronous colocated collaborative sensemaking requires that analysts share their information and insights with each other. The challenge is to know when is the right time to share what information without disrupting the present state of analysis. This is crucial in ad-hoc sensemaking sessions with mobile devices because small screen space limits information display. To address these tensions, we propose and evaluate RAMPARTS—a spatially aware sensemaking system for col- laborative crime analysis that aims to support faster informa- tion sharing, clue-finding, and analysis. We compare RAM- PARTS to an interactive tabletop and a paper-based method in a controlled laboratory study. We found that RAMPARTS significantly decreased task completion time compared to pa- per, without affecting cognitive load or task completion time adversely compared to an interactive tabletop. We conclude that designing for ad-hoc colocated sensemaking on mobile devices could benefit from spatial awareness. In particular, spatial awareness could be used to identify relevant informa- tion, support diverse alignment styles for visual comparison, and enable alternative rhythms of sensemaking.
Proceedings of the 4th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development - ICTD '10, 2010
Lack of proper English pronunciations is a major problem for immigrant population in developed co... more Lack of proper English pronunciations is a major problem for immigrant population in developed countries like U.S. This poses various problems, including a barrier to entry into mainstream society. This paper presents a research study that explores the use of speech technologies merged with activitybased and arcade-based games to do pronunciation feedback for Hispanic children within the U.S. A 3-month long study with immigrant population in California was used to investigate and analyze the effectiveness of computer aided pronunciation feedback through games. In addition to quantitative findings that point to statistically significant gains in pronunciation quality, the paper also explores qualitative findings, interaction patterns and challenges faced by the researchers in dealing with this community. It also describes the issues involved in dealing with pronunciation as a competency.
Integration of the immigrant families in the host country has been an issue of discontent across ... more Integration of the immigrant families in the host country has been an issue of discontent across the world. It is felt more so in the developed world, which is the destination for most of the immigrants. According to the US Bureau of the Census, USA gains one net immigrant ...
Collaborative sensemaking requires that analysts share their information and insights with each o... more Collaborative sensemaking requires that analysts share their information and insights with each other, but this process of sharing runs the risks of prematurely focusing the investigation on specific suspects. To address this tension, we propose and test an interface for collaborative crime analysis that aims to make analysts more aware of their sensemaking processes. We compare our sensemaking translucence interface to a standard interface without special sensemaking features in a controlled laboratory study. We found that the sensemaking translucence interface significantly improved clue finding and crime solving performance, but that analysts rated the interface lower on subjective measures than the standard interface. We conclude that designing for distributed sensemaking requires balancing task performance vs. user experience and real-time information sharing vs. data accuracy.
When crime analysts collaborate to solve crime cases, they need to share insights in order to con... more When crime analysts collaborate to solve crime cases, they need to share insights in order to connect the clues, identify a pattern, and attribute the crime to the right culprit. We designed a collaborative analysis tool to explore the value of implicitly sharing insights and notes, without requiring analysts to explicitly push information or request it from each other. In an experiment, pairs of remote individuals played the role of crime analysts solving a set of serial killer crimes with both partners having some, but not all, relevant clues. When implicit sharing of notes was available, participants remembered more clues related to detecting the serial killer, and they perceived the tool as more useful compared to when implicit sharing was not available.
Many sophisticated tools have been developed to help analysts detect patterns in large datasets, ... more Many sophisticated tools have been developed to help analysts detect patterns in large datasets, but the value of these tools' individual features is rarely tested. In an experiment in which participants played detectives solving homicides, we tested the utility of a visualization of data links and a notepad for collecting and organizing annotations. The visualization significantly improved participants' ability to solve the crime whereas the notepad did not. Having both features available provided no benefit over having just the visualization. The results inform strategies for evaluating intelligence analysis tools.
SAVANT is a web-based tool that enables information and knowledge sharing between remote partners... more SAVANT is a web-based tool that enables information and knowledge sharing between remote partners through explicit and implicit communication to help them collaboratively analyze and make sense of distributed data. SAVANT's implicit sharing provides an opportunity to leverage partners' insights and reduce cognitive tunneling, and explicit sharing facilitates discussion. Both techniques assist collaborative sensemaking processes. Figure 1. SAVANT set up as a collaborative crime analytics tool spanning two screens: Document Space (left) that includes data about crime cases and Analysis Space (right) for organizing notes and communicating implicitly and explicitly for collaborative sensemaking. The Document Space and the Analysis Space are enlarged in Figure 2 and Figure 3.
Wiki-like or crowdsourcing models of collaboration can provide a number of benefits to academic w... more Wiki-like or crowdsourcing models of collaboration can provide a number of benefits to academic work. These techniques may engage expertise from different disciplines, and potentially increase productivity. This paper presents a model of massively distributed collaborative authorship of academic papers. This model, developed by a collective of thirty authors, identifies key tools and techniques that would be necessary or useful to the writing process. The process of collaboratively writing this paper was used to discover, negotiate, and document issues in massively authored scholarship. Our work provides the first extensive discussion of the experiential aspects of large-scale collaborative research.
Lack of proper English pronunciations is a major problem for immigrant population in developed co... more Lack of proper English pronunciations is a major problem for immigrant population in developed countries like U.S. This poses various problems, including a barrier to entry into mainstream society. This paper presents a research study that explores the use of speech technologies merged with activitybased and arcade-based games to do pronunciation feedback for Hispanic children within the U.S. A 3-month long study with immigrant population in California was used to investigate and analyze the effectiveness of computer aided pronunciation feedback through games. In addition to quantitative findings that point to statistically significant gains in pronunciation quality, the paper also explores qualitative findings, interaction patterns and challenges faced by the researchers in dealing with this community. It also describes the issues involved in dealing with pronunciation as a competency.
In this paper, we study the relevance of Hall and Hofstede's works to the web design beyond tradi... more In this paper, we study the relevance of Hall and Hofstede's works to the web design beyond traditional domain areas like e-commerce, and advertising. Existing theories explain how design may be affected by cultural differences, and we explore how those differences can be seen in the government website design across Brazil, Russia, India, China, and US. We describe our findings confirming that differences exist, more so between China and US than the rest, and point out where cultural theories fail to explain the results, in particular for Brazil, Russia and India and finally, focus more on the differences between China and US.
In this paper, we describe a novel way of collocated collaboration with mobile devices using phys... more In this paper, we describe a novel way of collocated collaboration with mobile devices using physical deformations to their shape. These deformations include bending and twisting gestures to improve user experience while collaborating with limited screen estate and device footprint.
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