Cognitively Engineering a Virtual Collaboration Environment for Crisis Response

Crisis response situations require collaboration across many different organizations with different backgrounds, training, procedures, and goals. The Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 and the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts in 2005 emphasized the importance of effective communication and collaboration. In the former, the Multinational Planning Augmentation Team (MPAT) supported brokering of requests for assistance with offers of help from rapidly deployed military and humanitarian assistance facilities. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the National Guard Soldiers and active component Army Soldiers assisted other state, federal, and non-government organizations with varying degrees of efficiency and expediency. Compounding the challenges associated with collaboration during crisis situations is the distributed nature of the supporting organizations and the lack of a designated leader across these military, government, nongovernment organizations. The Army Research Laboratory is collaborating with the University of Edinburgh, University o

Evaluating and Testing User Interfaces for E-Learning System: Blackboard Usability Testing

E-learning usability studies require the involvement of real end-users. Different users with varying background of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) knowledge behave differently when using any e-learning tools. To study user behaviour in the e-learning context, an empirical usability study on a specific e-learning tool is conducted. The study is performed by using usability evaluation questionnaires collected from two different groups of real users of the tool; one group with HCI knowledge and the other without HCI knowledge. It is found that end users without HCI knowledge are more satisfied than the end-users with HCI knowledge, as they have more expectations concerning the tool. Categories and Subject Descriptors: H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation (e.g., HCI)]: User Interfaces-User-centered design, Evaluation/methodology; H 5.3 [Information Interfaces and Presentation (e.g., HCI)]: Group and Organization Interfaces-Evaluation/methodology, Web-based interaction; K.3.1 [Computers and Education]: Computer Uses in Education-Collaborative learning Keywords: E-learning usability heuristics, Blackboard, e-learning tool, Usability evaluation, HCI

User roles in asynchronous distributed collaborative idea generation

This paper presents the findings of an exploratory study within a real-life context that investigates participant behaviour and emergent user roles in asynchronous distributed collaborative idea generation by a defined community of users. In the study, a high-fidelity prototype of an online virtual ideas room was built and used by a Community of Interest consisting of representatives from 10 different voluntary organisations spread across Denmark. The study revealed five user roles, which the authors propose that future asynchronous distributed collaborative idea generation platforms should consider

Government as a social machine in an ecosystem

The Web is becoming increasingly pervasive throughout all aspects of human activity. As citizens and organisations adopt Web technologies, so governments are beginning to respond by themselves utilising the electronic space. Much of this has been reactive, and there is very little understanding of the impact that Web technologies are having on government systems and processes, let alone a proactive approach to designing systems that can ensure a positive and beneficial societal impact. The ecosystem which encompasses governments, citizens and communities is both evolving and adaptive, and the only way to examine and understand the development of Web-enabled government, and its possible implications, is to consider government itself as a “social machine” within a social machine ecosystem. In this light, there are significant opportunities and challenges for government that this paper identifies

Implicit search trails for video recommendation

In this demo paper we demonstrate our approach and system for using implicit actions involved in video search to provide recommendations to users. The goal of this system is to improve the quality of the results that users find, and in doing so, help users to explore a large and difficult information space and help them consider search options that they may not have considered otherwise. Results of a user evaluation show that this approach achieves all of these goals

PaperChain: A Collaborative Healthcare System Grounded in Field Study Work

In this extended abstract we summarise our recent experiences of designing and deploying PaperChain, a system to support real-time information sharing in healthcare work. A guiding principle has been the development of a deep understanding of the work as the foundation for effective system design. We summarise the field work that motivated the development of PaperChain, some of the key findings and the resulting system. We briefly reflect on the benefits gained from undertaking substantial HCI work in the design of a healthcare system

Can Intelligent Environments be Trustworthy? Designing for trust in Scientific Communication: Concept of Habitable Interfaces (Position Paper)

In this paper we propose the concept of Habitable Interfaces. This concept builds on values-based trust. We hypothesise that representations and interactions built on scientific metaphors and concepts and organised based on the knowledge whithin particular scientific domain will enable values-based trust. Habitable interfaces may provide better information exchange within scientific communities