Reading on small displays: reading performance and perceived ease of reading

The present thesis explores and discusses reading continuous text on small screens, namely on mobile devices, and aims at identifying a model capturing those factors that most influence the perceived experience of reading. The thesis also provides input for the user interface and content creation industries, offering them some direction as to what to focus on when producing interfaces intended for reading or text-based content that is likely to be read on a small display. The thesis starts with an overview of the special characteristics of reading on small screens and identifies, through existing literature, issues that may affect fluency and ease of reading on mobile devices. The thesis then presents six experiments and studies on reading performance and perceived experience when reading on small screens. The mixed-methods research presented in the thesis showed that reading performance and subjective perception of reading fluency and ease do not always correspond, and perceived experience can have a strong influence over an end-user’s choice of whether to access text based content on a small display device or not. The research shows that it is important to measure interface quality not only in terms of functionality, but also for the user experience offered – and, ideally, to measure experience through more than one variable. The thesis offers a factor model (mobile reading acceptance model) of those factors that collectively influence subjective experience when reading via small screens. The key factors in the model are visibility of text, overview of contents, navigation within the contents and interaction with the interface/device. Further contributions include methods for cost-efficient user experience testing: a modified critical incident technique and using an optical character recognition to gauge legibility user experience at early design iterations

Disagreeable Privacy Policies: Mismatches between Meaning and Users’ Understanding

Privacy policies are verbose, difficult to understand, take too long to read, and may be the least-read items on most websites even as users express growing concerns about information collection practices. For all their faults, though, privacy policies remain the single most important source of information for users to attempt to learn how companies collect, use, and share data. Likewise, these policies form the basis for the self-regulatory notice and choice framework that is designed and promoted as a replacement for regulation. The underlying value and legitimacy of notice and choice depends, however, on the ability of users to understand privacy policies. This paper investigates the differences in interpretation among expert, knowledgeable, and typical users and explores whether those groups can understand the practices described in privacy policies at a level sufficient to support rational decision-making. The paper seeks to fill an important gap in the understanding of privacy policies through primary research on user interpretation and to inform the development of technologies combining natural language processing, machine learning and crowdsourcing for policy interpretation and summarization. For this research, we recruited a group of law and public policy graduate students at Fordham University, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Pittsburgh (“knowledgeable users”) and presented these law and policy researchers with a set of privacy policies from companies in the e-commerce and news & entertainment industries. We asked them nine basic questions about the policies’ statements regarding data collection, data use, and retention. We then presented the same set of policies to a group of privacy experts and to a group of non-expert users. The findings show areas of common understanding across all groups for certain data collection and deletion practices, but also demonstrate very important discrepancies in the interpretation of privacy policy language, particularly with respect to data sharing. The discordant interpretations arose both within groups and between the experts and the two other groups. The presence of these significant discrepancies has critical implications. First, the common understandings of some attributes of described data practices mean that semi-automated extraction of meaning from website privacy policies may be able to assist typical users and improve the effectiveness of notice by conveying the true meaning to users. However, the disagreements among experts and disagreement between experts and the other groups reflect that ambiguous wording in typical privacy policies undermines the ability of privacy policies to effectively convey notice of data practices to the general public. The results of this research will, consequently, have significant policy implications for the construction of the notice and choice framework and for the US reliance on this approach. The gap in interpretation indicates that privacy policies may be misleading the general public and that those policies could be considered legally unfair and deceptive. And, where websites are not effectively conveying privacy policies to consumers in a way that a “reasonable person” could, in fact, understand the policies, “notice and choice” fails as a framework. Such a failure has broad international implications since websites extend their reach beyond the United States

Vorschlag eines digitalen interface zur bewertung der sprachkompetenz von kindern portugiesischer herkunft in der diaspora

Dissertação de mestrado em Estudos Luso-AlemãesO presente trabalho tem como objetivo apresentar uma proposta de interface digital que permita avaliar a proficiência, no Português Europeu (PE), de crianças lusodescendentes na diáspora, e que forneça material informativo sobre a aquisição precoce de línguas de herança. No desenvolvimento deste trabalho foram expostos e discutidos os obstáculos à aquisição de uma língua de herança, ligados aos sistemas educativos, contextos socioculturais, e fatores extralinguísticos. Discutiu-se a fiabilidade da utilização dos quadros de nível de língua já existentes, aplicados ao ensino de línguas de herança. A interface pretende disponibilizar um Cloze Test como ferramenta de avaliação fiável de competências linguísticas, uma vez que se revela a falta de ferramentas adaptadas à avaliação de proficiência e, também, ao contexto de aquisição e necessidades de aprendizagem dos falantes de herança. O Cloze Test é um teste de preenchimento de lacunas de um texto que agrega a avaliação de conhecimentos lexicais, morfossintáticos e discursivos, correspondentes a diferentes níveis de dificuldade. O teste permite distribuir os falantes em grupos diferentes de proficiência e detetar em que estruturas da língua apresentam mais dificuldades. Relativamente ao método de avaliação, foi concebido um modelo de pontuação e distribuição de níveis de proficiência, acompanhado das respetivas descrições de nível, que deriva do grau de dificuldade de estruturas linguísticas. A interface é apresentada em formato de protótipo interativo que resultou da criação de Personas (utilizadores-alvo), da análise das suas necessidades e objetivos, e a incorporação de conceitos relevantes da componente do design de interfaces web. Por fim, realizou-se a testagem da usabilidade do protótipo, através de entrevistas, na qual se destacou a importância do planeamento do design de interação e navegação e do posicionamento e clareza do conteúdo informativo. Com as entrevistas, o problema do sistema de ensino do português como língua de herança voltou a surgir, ressaltando a disparidade dos formatos de ensino entre países. Concluiu-se que a interface está em conformidade com as necessidades dos utilizadores-alvo e que possui várias possibilidades de expansão. Prevê-se que o futuro lançamento desta interface permita contribuir para esta área de investigação da linguística. Esta interface digital tem como público-alvo professores, educadores, pais e demais agentes educativos.This paper aims to present a proposal of a digital interface which allows the assessment of proficiency in European Portuguese (EP) of Portuguese-descent children in the diaspora and provides information about the early acquisition of heritage languages. This work discusses the obstacles to the acquisition of a heritage language, in relation to educational systems, sociocultural contexts, and extralinguistic factors. The feasibility of using existing language level frameworks applied to heritage language education is also further discussed. The interface aims to provide a Cloze Test as a reliable language proficiency assessment tool, since there is a lack of tools adapted to proficiency assessment and also to the acquisition context and learning needs of heritage speakers. The Cloze Test is a gap-fill test that comprises the assessment of lexical, morphosyntactic, and discourse knowledge, corresponding to different levels of difficulty. The test enables the distribution of speakers into different proficiency groups and detects in which language structures they encounter greater difficulty. Regarding the evaluation method, a scoring and distribution model of proficiency levels was designed, supported by the corresponding level descriptions, which derive from the level of difficulty of the linguistic structures. The interface is presented in the format of an interactive prototype that resulted from the creation of Personas (target users), the analysis of their needs and objectives, and the incorporation of relevant concepts from web interface design in general. Lastly, the usability of the prototype was tested by conducting interviews, in which the importance of interaction and navigation design planning and the positioning and clarity of the information content were key factors for determining the success of the interface. Throughout the interviews, the problem of the educational system of Portuguese as a heritage language arose consistently, highlighting the disparity of teaching formats between countries. It was concluded that the interface meets the needs of the target users, and it has several possibilities for expansion. The future release of this interface will contribute to the field of research and education on heritage language development. This digital interface is designed for teachers, educators, parents and other educational agents.Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, einen Vorschlag für eine digitale Platform zu unterbreiten, die es ermöglicht, die Kenntnisse im europäischen Portugiesisch (EP) von Kindern portugiesischer Abstammung in der Diaspora zu bewerten und Informationen über den frühen Erwerb von Herkunftssprachen zu liefern. In dieser Arbeit werden die Schwierigkeiten für den Erwerb einer Herkunftssprache in Bezug auf Bildungssysteme, soziokulturelle Kontexte und außersprachliche Faktoren erläutert und diskutiert. Außerdem wird erörtert, inwieweit es möglich ist, die bestehenden Rahmenwerke für das Sprachniveau auf den Unterricht in den Herkunftssprachen anzuwenden. Das Interface zielt darauf ab, einen Lückentest (der Cloze Test) als zuverlässiges Instrument zur Bewertung von Sprachkenntnissen bereitzustellen, da ein Mangel an Instrumenten besteht, die sowohl für die Bewertung von Sprachkenntnissen als auch für den Erwerbskontext und die Lernbedürfnisse von Herkunftssprechern geeignet sind. Der Cloze Test ist ein Lückentest, der die Bewertung von lexikalischem, morphosyntaktischem und diskursivem Wissen in verschiedenen Schwierigkeitsgraden umfasst. Der Test ermöglicht die Einteilung von Sprechern in verschiedene Sprachniveaus und zeigt, bei welchen Sprachstrukturen sie Schwierigkeiten aufweisen. Zur Auswertung wurde ein Modell zur Bewertung und Verteilung der Kompetenzstufen entwickelt, welche sich aus dem Schwierigkeitsgrad der sprachlichen Strukturen ableiten. Die Schnittstelle wird in Form eines interaktiven Prototyps präsentiert, der aus verschiedenen Prozessen hervorging: Erstellung von Beispielnutzern der relevanten Zielgruppen (Personas), der Analyse ihrer Bedürfnisse und Ziele und der Einbeziehung relevanter Konzepte aus dem Design von Webschnittstellen im Allgemeinen. Schließlich wurde die Benutzerfreundlichkeit des Prototyps mithilfe von Interviews getestet, in denen ermittelt wurde, dass die Navigation sowie das Design und die Klarheit der Informationsdarstellung Schlüsselfaktoren für den Erfolg der Schnittstelle sind. In den Interviews wurde immer wieder das Problem des Bildungssystems für Portugiesisch als Herkunftssprache angesprochen, wobei die unterschiedlichen Unterrichtsformate in den einzelnen Ländern hervorgehoben wurden. Es wurde festgestellt, dass die Schnittstelle den Bedürfnissen der Zielnutzer entspricht und mehrere Möglichkeiten zur Erweiterung bietet. Es wird davon ausgegangen, dass die künftige Veröffentlichung der Schnittstelle einen Beitrag zu diesem Forschungsbereich in der Sprachwissenschaft leisten wird. Diese digitale Schnittstelle ist für Lehrer, Erzieher, Eltern und andere Bildungsakteure gedacht

Human interaction with digital ink : legibility measurement and structural analysis

Literature suggests that it is possible to design and implement pen-based computer interfaces that resemble the use of pen and paper. These interfaces appear to allow users freedom in expressing ideas and seem to be familiar and easy to use. Different ideas have been put forward concerning this type of interface, however despite the commonality of aims and problems faced, there does not appear to be a common approach to their design and implementation. This thesis aims to progress the development of pen-based computer interfaces that resemble the use of pen and paper. To do this, a conceptual model is proposed for interfaces that enable interaction with "digital ink". This conceptual model is used to organize and analyse the broad range of literature related to pen-based interfaces, and to identify topics that are not sufficiently addressed by published research. Two issues highlighted by the model: digital ink legibility and digital ink structuring, are then investigated. In the first investigation, methods are devised to objectively and subjectively measure the legibility of handwritten script. These methods are then piloted in experiments that vary the horizontal rendering resolution of handwritten script displayed on a computer screen. Script legibility is shown to decrease with rendering resolution, after it drops below a threshold value. In the second investigation, the clustering of digital ink strokes into words is addressed. A method of rating the accuracy of clustering algorithms is proposed: the percentage of words spoiled. The clustering error rate is found to vary among different writers, for a clustering algorithm using the geometric features of both ink strokes, and the gaps between them. The work contributes a conceptual interface model, methods of measuring digital ink legibility, and techniques for investigating stroke clustering features, to the field of digital ink interaction research

A ciência da leitura e a produção acadêmica: caminhos trilhados

Linguistics focuses on the different phenomena of language. In macrolinguistics areas, there is Psycholinguistics. This subfield researches (de)coding processes of messages with verbal codes. Thus, one of its influential fields of activity is reading. Reading is one of the most complex information processing tasks. It begins with the graphemes decoding and it finishes with the text comprehension. Regarding the assessment of reading, there are several exams and large-scale tests, such as Pisa, Saeb (Aneb and Anresc/Prova Brasil), ENEM. Alarming statistics come with the indicators from these evaluative instruments. There are, among Brazilians, low levels of reading comprehension and marked functional illiteracy rate. Therefore, this study aimed to research what scientific communication has shared in terms of knowledge about reading. Specifically, the objectives were synthesize, considering the psycholinguistic approach of reading research, studies and research with the most recurrent theme in the reading field evidenced from the electronic communication, in order to investigate the dimensions and limitations of knowledge about this subject. For this, through WebQualis system, Qualis A1 and A2 scientific journals with electronic format and with focuses/scopes related to reading from the areas of (1) Language Arts/Linguistics, (2) Psychology and (3) Education were selected. With the selected journals and through Capes Journals Portal, all their volumes and issues from 2011 to 2015 were analyzed. With this, scientific articles related to reading were mapped. With the mapped articles abstracts, the recurrent themes in reading in the scientific production were observed. Finally, with the full articles that had the recurrent theme, the researches results were integrated, synthesizing and pondering about them. With a critical-reflexive assessment of the data, relevant information was found. First, on one hand, it was noted that the reading has achieved a stable and upward space through the electronic communication. On the other one, it was checked that the contributions of Psychology have a great influence in reading and comprehension research. Second, it was shown that the most frequent theme in electronic productions is comprehension. Finally, with the synthesis, it was found that, increasingly, comprehension topics related to reading neurobiological aspects were empirical and directly investigated. In addition, there are several studies that propose reading teaching methods as well as strategies for improving the comprehension, including the use of TICs. Moreover, it was found that many research results are limited. This is because the comprehension involves several components – cognitive processes and skills. Researches often focus attention on one or the other component of it only, and each research fixes a specific methodology design and that vary considerabably. Regarding the assessment of reading, many of the methodological apparatus tasks evaluate only the product of comprehension and not its process. In other words, built mental representations are evaluated and not how the encoding of this text occurred. Therefore, in short, both the researches advancement in the comprehension field and several limitations were observed.A Linguística atém-se aos mais diferentes fenômenos da língua(gem). Nos domínios macrolinguísticos, há a Psicolinguística. Essa subárea tem como foco de investigação os processos de (de)codificação de mensagens de códigos verbais. Assim, um de seus influentes campos de atuação é o de leitura. A leitura é uma das tarefas de processamento de informações mais complexas. Ela tem como princípio a decodificação grafêmica e como fim a compreensão textual. Em relação à avaliação da leitura, existem diversos testes e provas em larga escala, como o Pisa, o Saeb (Aneb e Anresc/Prova Brasil), o ENEM. Com os indicadores desses instrumentos avaliativos, vêm estatísticas alarmantes. Há, entre os brasileiros, baixos níveis de compreensão leitora e acentuado índice de analfabetismo funcional. Por conseguinte, este trabalho pretendeu investigar o que a comunicação científica tem compartilhado em termos de conhecimento sobre leitura. Especificamente, objetivou-se sintetizar, considerando a abordagem psicolinguística de investigação da leitura, estudos e pesquisas cuja temática evidenciada da comunicação eletrônica fosse a mais recorrente no campo da leitura, a fim de investigar dimensões e limitações do conhecimento a respeito dessa temática. Para isso, selecionaram-se, por meio do sistema WebQualis, periódicos científicos Qualis A1 e A2 em formato eletrônico e com focos/escopos relacionados à leitura, das áreas de (1) Letras/Linguística, (2) Psicologia e (3) Educação. Com os periódicos selecionados e por meio do Portal de Periódicos Capes, analisaram-se todos os seus volumes e números de 2011 a 2015, a fim de mapear artigos científicos com assunto em leitura. Com os resumos dos artigos mapeados, evidenciaram-se temáticas mais recorrentes na produção científica em leitura. Por fim, dos artigos completos cuja temática era a mais recorrente, integraram-se resultados das pesquisas, fazendo-se uma análise, com fins de síntese e reflexão. Da apreciação crítico-reflexiva dos dados, constataram-se relevantes informações. Em primeiro lugar, de um lado, observou-se que a leitura tem conquistado um estável e ascendente espaço em meio à comunicação eletrônica. De outro, demonstrou-se que contribuições da Psicologia têm forte influência na pesquisa de leitura e compreensão. Em segundo, evidenciou-se que a compreensão é a temática mais frequente nas produções eletrônicas. Por fim, com a síntese, constatou-se que, cada vez mais, se investiga empírica e diretamente facetas da compreensão em relação às bases neurobiológicas da leitura. Igualmente, há diversas pesquisas que propõem metodologias de ensino da leitura, bem como estratégias para a melhoria da compreensão, incluindo a utilização das TICs. Além disso, concluiu-se que muitos resultados de pesquisas são limitados. Isso porque a compreensão envolve diversos componentes – processos cognitivos e habilidades. E as pesquisas, muitas vezes, apenas focam a atenção em um ou em outro componente, além de definirem específicos e variados designs de metodologia. Em relação à avaliação da leitura, muitas das tarefas do aparato metodológico das pesquisas apenas avaliam o produto da compreensão e não o seu processo. Ou seja, avaliam-se representações mentais construídas e não como ocorreu a codificação desse texto na mente do leitor. Por conseguinte, em suma, tanto o avanço de pesquisas no campo de compreensão quanto, também, diversas limitações ficaram evidentes

Quality and Inequity in Digital Security Education

Few users have a formal, authoritative introduction to digital security. Rather, digital security skills are often learned haphazardly, as users filter through an overwhelming quantity of security education from a multitude of sources, hoping they're implementing the right set of behaviors that will keep them safe. In this thesis, I use computational, interview, and survey methods to investigate how users learn digital security behaviors, how security education impacts security outcomes, and how inequity in security education can create a digital divide. As a first step toward remedying this divide, I conduct a large-scale measurement of the quality of the digital security education content (i.e., security advice) that is available to users through one of their most cited sources of education: the Internet. The results of this evaluation suggest a security education ecosystem in crisis: security experts are unable or unwilling to narrow down which behaviors are most important for users' security, leaving end-users -- especially those with the least resources -- to attempt to implement the hundreds of security behaviors advised by educational materials

Enhancing the Communication of Law: a cross-disciplinary investigation applying information technology

Law is pervasive in culture. It is a form of communication between government and citizens. When effective, it is a tool of government policy. If poorly designed,law results in unnecessary costs to society. Impediments to understanding of the law limits and distorts democratic participation. Yet, historically, the law has been inaccessible to most. Thus enhancing the communication of law is an important and standing problem. Much work has been done (for example through the plain language movement) to improve the communication of law. Nonetheless, the law remains largely unreadable to non-legal users. This thesis applies information technology to investigate and enhance the communication of law. To this end, this thesis focusses on four main areas.To improve the readability of law, it must be better described as a form of language. Corpus linguistics is applied for this purpose. A linguistic description of contract language arose from this work, which, along with the corpus itself, has been made available to the research community. The thesis also describes work for the automatic classification of text in legal contracts by legal function.Reliable measures for the readability of law are needed, but they do not exist. To develop such measures, gold standard data is needed to evaluate possible measures.To create this gold standard data, the research engaged citizen scientists, in the form of the online “crowd”. However, methods for creating and using such user assessments for readability are rudimentary. The research therefore investigated,developed and applied a number of methods for collecting user ratings of readability in an online environment. Also, the research applied machine learning to investigate and identify linguistic factors that are specifically associated with language difficulty of legislative sentences. This resulted in recommendations for improving legislative readability. A parallel line of investigation concerned the application of visualization to enhance the communication of law. Visualization engages human visual perception and its parallel processing capacities for the communication of law. The research applied computational tools: natural language processing, graph characteristics and data driven algorithms. It resulted in prototype tools for automatically visualizing definition networks and automating the visualization of selected contract clauses. Also, the work has fostered an investigation of the nature of law itself. A “law as” framework is used to query the nature of law and illuminate law in new ways. The framework is re-assessed as a tool for the experimental investigation of law. This results in an enhanced description of law, applying a number of investigatory frames:law; communication; document; information; computation; design and complex systems theory. It also provides a contrastive study with traditional theories of law - demonstrating how traditional theories can be extended in the light of these multidisciplinary results. In sum, this thesis reports a body of work advancing the existing knowledge base and state of the art in respect of application of computational techniques to enhancing the communication of law

Exploring CALL Options for Teaching EFL in Vietnam

Research has demonstrated that computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has the capacity to enhance second language learning. Therefore, in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts like Vietnam, the government has invested in computers in schools as a way to address the lack of quality in education. However, Vietnamese EFL teachers have made little or no use of these computers. The purpose of this Alternate Plan Paper (APP) is to assist Vietnamese ESL teachers in choosing appropriate CALL programs. I select some of the most effective, user-friendly, and cost-effective CALL options for language areas and language skills. The options are selected based on the availability of resources, the teachers\u27 and learners\u27 computer proficiency levels, and the Vietnamese institutional context. The recommended options are also based on my personal experience as a CALL learner and user, and a one-month observation of CALL applications in a classroom at Minnesota State University, Mankato. The paper also discusses the pedagogical principles for using the recommended options effectively and efficiently

Domain Specialization as the Key to Make Large Language Models Disruptive: A Comprehensive Survey

Large language models (LLMs) have significantly advanced the field of natural language processing (NLP), providing a highly useful, task-agnostic foundation for a wide range of applications. However, directly applying LLMs to solve sophisticated problems in specific domains meets many hurdles, caused by the heterogeneity of domain data, the sophistication of domain knowledge, the uniqueness of domain objectives, and the diversity of the constraints (e.g., various social norms, cultural conformity, religious beliefs, and ethical standards in the domain applications). Domain specification techniques are key to make large language models disruptive in many applications. Specifically, to solve these hurdles, there has been a notable increase in research and practices conducted in recent years on the domain specialization of LLMs. This emerging field of study, with its substantial potential for impact, necessitates a comprehensive and systematic review to better summarize and guide ongoing work in this area. In this article, we present a comprehensive survey on domain specification techniques for large language models, an emerging direction critical for large language model applications. First, we propose a systematic taxonomy that categorizes the LLM domain-specialization techniques based on the accessibility to LLMs and summarizes the framework for all the subcategories as well as their relations and differences to each other. Second, we present an extensive taxonomy of critical application domains that can benefit dramatically from specialized LLMs, discussing their practical significance and open challenges. Last, we offer our insights into the current research status and future trends in this area

Proceedings of the Eighth Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics CliC-it 2021

The eighth edition of the Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-it 2021) was held at Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca from 26th to 28th January 2022. After the edition of 2020, which was held in fully virtual mode due to the health emergency related to Covid-19, CLiC-it 2021 represented the first moment for the Italian research community of Computational Linguistics to meet in person after more than one year of full/partial lockdown