A Generative Programming Approach to Interactive Information Retrieval: Insights and Experiences

We describe the application of generative programming to a problem in interactive information retrieval. The particular interactive information retrieval problem we study is the support for out-of-turn interaction with a website – how a user can communicate input to a website when the site is not soliciting such information on the current page, but will do so on a subsequent page. Our solution approach makes generous use of program transformations (partial evaluation, currying, and slicing) to delay the site’s current solicitation for input until after the user’s out-of-turn input is processed. We illustrate how studying out-of-turn interaction through a generative lens leads to several valuable insights: (i) the concept of a web dialog, (ii) an improved understanding of web taxonomies, and (iii) new web interaction techniques and interfaces. These notions allow us to cast the design of interactive (and responsive) websites in terms of the underlying dialog structure and, further, suggest a simple implementation strategy with a clean separation of concerns. We also highlight new research directions opened up by the generative programming approach to interactive information retrieval such as the idea of web interaction axioms

Climate-Based Daylight Modelling for compliance verification: Benchmarking multiple state-of-the-art methods

Climate-Based Daylight Modelling (CBDM) gives designers the possibility to evaluate complex, long-term luminous environment dynamics. This complexity can be challenging to simulate, and even more challenging to communicate effectively through the use of performance metrics. A multiplicity of CBDM techniques and metrics has been developed over the last two decades, but these were rarely assessed against each other. This paper reviews four state-of-the-art techniques based on the Radiance raytracing engine and systematically compares them against a benchmark CBDM method. Four classroom spaces are used to carry out an inter-model comparison between performance metrics commonly used for compliance verification obtained from all analysed techniques. Additional sensitivity analyses assessed how changes in input variables influence such metrics. Results from the inter-model comparison showed that the representation of direct sunlight is markedly different between the various CBDM techniques, and that metrics based on horizontal direct sunlight are very sensitive to the choice of simulation method. This led to differences in predicted Annual Sunlight Exposure up to 39% points. Metrics that consider both direct and inter-reflected light were found to be more robust, with variations from benchmark results within 15%. The analysis of the input variables showed that sensor grid spacing and time-step interpolation do not significantly affect any of these metrics. Changes in orientation and sky discretisation scheme had different effects depending on the metric and technique considered. The need for authoritative benchmarking systems when introducing new performance metrics for compliance verification or new simulation methods is also discussed

Analysis Strategy of Visual Brand Adaptation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This study aimed to determine how companies successfully created visual brands during the COVID-19 pandemic that are easy to remember, contextually-relevant, and educated the public about the current pandemic. The phenomenology research method was used, which is a method to deeply observe actual and factual phenomena occurring at a specific time. This method runs with several steps to find out the essence of the phenomenon that occurs. The results of this study explain consumer behaviour, visual strategies that can be taken by companies in dealing with pandemic situations, and how companies and brands communicate in the new-normal era. It will be a valuable input, especially for visual communication design science, because the collected data can be used to determine strategies and visual communication techniques during a pandemic. Data related to the stage of consumer shifting during a pandemic can also be used to determine the direction of branding and brand communication with the community. Keywords: visual brand, visual adaptation, COVID-19 pandemi

A Generative Programming Approach to Interactive Information Retrieval:Insights and Experiences

Abstract. We describe the application of generative programming to a problem in interactive information retrieval. The particular interactive information retrieval problem we study is the support for ‘out of turn interaction ’ with a website – how a user can communicate input to a website when the site is not soliciting such information on the current page, but will do so on a subsequent page. Our solution approach makes generous use of program transformations (partial evaluation, currying, and slicing) to delay the site’s current solicitation for input until after the user’s out-of-turn input is processed. We illustrate how studying out-of-turn interaction through a generative lens leads to several valuable in-sights: (i) the concept of a web dialog, (ii) an improved understanding of web taxonomies, and (iii) new web interaction techniques and interfaces. These notions allow us to cast the design of interactive (and responsive) websites in terms of the underlying dialog structure and, further, suggest a simple implementation strategy with a clean separation of concerns. We also highlight new research directions opened up by the generative pro-gramming approach to interactive information retrieval such as the idea of web interaction axioms.

Learning Community Group Concept Mapping: Fall 2014 Outreach and Recruitment, Spring 2015 Case Management and Service Delivery. Final Reports

Beginning in 2014, the Federal Government provided funding to New York State as part of an initiative to improve services that lead to sustainable outcomes for youth receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits. As part of the NYS PROMISE initiative, Concept Systems, Inc. worked with the Learning Community to develop learning needs frameworks using the Group Concept Mapping methodology (GCM). This GCM project gathers, aggregates, and integrates the specific knowledge and opinions of the Learning Community members and allows for their guidance and involvement in supporting NYS PROMISE as a viable community of practice. This work also increases the responsiveness of NYS PROMISE to the Learning Community members’ needs by inspiring discussion during the semi-annual in-person meetings. As of the end of year two, two GCM projects have been completed with the PROMISE Learning Community. These projects focused on Outreach and Recruitment and Case Management and Service Delivery. This report discusses the data collection method and participation in both GCM projects, as well as providing graphics, statistical reports, and a summary of the analysis. In this report we refer to the Fall 2014 project as Project 1, and the Spring 2015 project as Project 2

Exploring the Affective Loop

Research in psychology and neurology shows that both body and mind are involved when experiencing emotions (Damasio 1994, Davidson et al. 2003). People are also very physical when they try to communicate their emotions. Somewhere in between beings consciously and unconsciously aware of it ourselves, we produce both verbal and physical signs to make other people understand how we feel. Simultaneously, this production of signs involves us in a stronger personal experience of the emotions we express. Emotions are also communicated in the digital world, but there is little focus on users' personal as well as physical experience of emotions in the available digital media. In order to explore whether and how we can expand existing media, we have designed, implemented and evaluated /eMoto/, a mobile service for sending affective messages to others. With eMoto, we explicitly aim to address both cognitive and physical experiences of human emotions. Through combining affective gestures for input with affective expressions that make use of colors, shapes and animations for the background of messages, the interaction "pulls" the user into an /affective loop/. In this thesis we define what we mean by affective loop and present a user-centered design approach expressed through four design principles inspired by previous work within Human Computer Interaction (HCI) but adjusted to our purposes; /embodiment/ (Dourish 2001) as a means to address how people communicate emotions in real life, /flow/ (Csikszentmihalyi 1990) to reach a state of involvement that goes further than the current context, /ambiguity/ of the designed expressions (Gaver et al. 2003) to allow for open-ended interpretation by the end-users instead of simplistic, one-emotion one-expression pairs and /natural but designed expressions/ to address people's natural couplings between cognitively and physically experienced emotions. We also present results from an end-user study of eMoto that indicates that subjects got both physically and emotionally involved in the interaction and that the designed "openness" and ambiguity of the expressions, was appreciated and understood by our subjects. Through the user study, we identified four potential design problems that have to be tackled in order to achieve an affective loop effect; the extent to which users' /feel in control/ of the interaction, /harmony and coherence/ between cognitive and physical expressions/,/ /timing/ of expressions and feedback in a communicational setting, and effects of users' /personality/ on their emotional expressions and experiences of the interaction