Apprendimento in digitale e processi cognitivi: problemi aperti e riflessioni da ri-avviare

This paper aims to analyse national and international contributions of empirical researches, realised in the field of Media Education, by referring to the connection among technologies, digital devices and learning process. In the first part of the paper, we tried to provide an epistemological framework focused on the transition from a mono-sensorial society to a plural-sensorial society, always dominated by digital artefacts. The second part is focused on reading digital supports, e-book in particular. After analysing the technologies used for reading digital texts and describing the advantages and disadvantages of digital media, we wonder if and how promising is the use of e-books in educational environment. There are several open issues and potential research suggestions: empirical evidences, that on this topic are opposing, require additional future deepening, even of epistemological nature

Designing Information-Abundant Websites

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. (Also cross-referenced as CAR-TR-824) (Also cross-referenced as ISR-TR-96-40

Image Browsers: Taxonomy, Guidelines, and Informal Specifications

Image browsing is necessary in numerous applications. Designers have merely used two one-dimensional scroll bars or they have made ad hoc designs for a two-dimensional scroll bar. However, the complexity of two-dimensional browsing suggests that more careful analysis, design, and evaluation might lead to significant improvements. We present a task taxonomy for image browsing, suggest design features and guidelines, assess existing strategies, and introduce an informal specification technique to describe the browsers. (Also cross-referenced as CAR-TR-712) (Also cross-referenced as ISR-TR-94-47

IMPROVING REVISITATION IN LONG DOCUMENTS WITH TWO-LEVEL ARTIFICIAL-LANDMARK SCROLLBARS

Revisitation – returning to previously-visited locations in a document – is commonly done in the digital world. While linear navigation controls provide a spatial representation of the document and allow effective navigation in short documents, they are not effective in long documents, particularly for revisitation. Bookmarks, search and history dialogs, and “read wear” (visual marks left as the user interacts with the document) can all assist revisitation; however, for long documents all of these tools are limited in terms of effort, clutter, and interpretability. Inspired by visual cues such as coloured edges and “thumb indents” in hardcopy books, recent work has proposed artificial landmarks to help users build up natural spatial memory for the locations in a document; in long documents, however, this technique is also limited because of the number of pages each landmark represents. To address this problem, this thesis proposes a Double-Scrollbar design that uses two columns of artificial landmarks that can provide greater specificity for spatial memory and revisitation in long documents. We developed three versions of landmark-augmented Double-Scrollbar, using icons, letters, and digits as landmarks. To assess the performance and usability of the Double-Scrollbar design, two studies were conducted with 21 participants, each visiting and revisiting pages of a long document using each of the new designs, as well as a single-column design and a standard scrollbar. Results showed that two levels of icon landmarks were significantly better for assisting revisitation, and were preferred by participants. The two-level artificial-landmark scrollbar is a new way of improving revisitation in long documents by assisting the formation of more precise spatial memories about document locations

Personalized Navigation Instruments for Map User Interfaces

A map is a big multi-scale information space. The size of a computer display, however, is limited. Users of digital maps often need to repeatedly resize and reposition the map to seek information. These repeated and excess interactions mar the user experience, and create bottlenecks for efficient information processing. We introduce personalized navigation instruments, a class of navigation instruments that leverage personal important spatial entities (e.g., landmarks and routes) to tackle navigation challenges in map user interfaces. Specifically, we contribute the following three instruments, each of which embodies a novel research idea: 1) Personalized Compass (P-Compass) is a multi-needle compass that extends the concept of a conventional compass to help users establish a reference frame. P-Compass localizes an unknown reference point by visualizing its relationship with respect to landmarks. P-Compass leverages what a user knows to help them figure out what they do not know. 2) SpaceTokens are interactive map widgets that represent locations, and help users see and link locations rapidly. With SpaceTokens, users can use locations directly as controls to manipulate a map, or building blocks to link with other locations. SpaceTokens make locations first-class citizens of map interaction. 3) SpaceBar associates a simple linear scrollbar with a complex nonlinear route, thus facilitates efficient route comprehension and interaction. SpaceBar is akin to a scrollbar for a route. We prototyped these three instruments in a custom smartphone application, used the application regularly in daily life, and validated our design in two formal studies. While maps are the focus in this dissertation, our ideas need not be limited to maps. For example, we have prototyped P-Compass with Google Street View and a 3D virtual earth tour application. We conclude this dissertation with several directions for future work, such as AR/VR and personalized spatial information user interfaces involving sound, gestures, and speech

The calibration and evaluation of speed-dependent automatic zooming interfaces.

Speed-Dependent Automatic Zooming (SDAZ) is an exciting new navigation technique that couples the user's rate of motion through an information space with the zoom level. The faster a user scrolls in the document, the 'higher' they fly above the work surface. At present, there are few guidelines for the calibration of SDAZ. Previous work by Igarashi & Hinckley (2000) and Cockburn & Savage (2003) fails to give values for predefined constants governing their automatic zooming behaviour. The absence of formal guidelines means that SDAZ implementers are forced to adjust the properties of the automatic zooming by trial and error. This thesis aids calibration by identifying the low-level components of SDAZ. Base calibration settings for these components are then established using a formal evaluation recording participants' comfortable scrolling rates at different magnification levels. To ease our experiments with SDAZ calibration, we implemented a new system that provides a comprehensive graphical user interface for customising SDAZ behaviour. The system was designed to simplify future extensions---for example new components such as interaction techniques and methods to render information can easily be added with little modification to existing code. This system was used to configure three SDAZ interfaces: a text document browser, a flat map browser and a multi-scale globe browser. The three calibrated SDAZ interfaces were evaluated against three equivalent interfaces with rate-based scrolling and manual zooming. The evaluation showed that SDAZ is 10% faster for acquiring targets in a map than rate-based scrolling with manual zooming, and SDAZ is 4% faster for acquiring targets in a text document. Participants also preferred using automatic zooming over manual zooming. No difference was found for the globe browser for acquisition time or preference. However, in all interfaces participants commented that automatic zooming was less physically and mentally draining than manual zooming

Use of Landmarks to Improve Spatial Learning and Revisitation in Computer Interfaces

Efficient spatial location learning and remembering are just as important for two-dimensional Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) as they are for real environments where locations are revisited multiple times. Rapid spatial memory development in GUIs, however, can be difficult because these interfaces often lack adequate landmarks that have been predominantly used by people to learn and recall real-life locations. In the absence of sufficient landmarks in GUIs, artificially created visual objects (i.e., artificial landmarks) could be used as landmarks to support spatial memory development of spatial locations. In order to understand how spatial memory development occurs in GUIs and explore ways to assist users’ efficient location learning and recalling in GUIs, I carried out five studies exploring the use of landmarks in GUIs – one study that investigated interfaces of four standard desktop applications: Microsoft Word, Facebook, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Reader, and other four that tested artificial landmarks augmented two prototype desktop GUIs against non-landmarked versions: command selection interfaces and linear document viewers; in addition, I tested landmarks’ use in variants of these interfaces that varied in the number of command sets (small, medium, and large) and types of linear documents (textual and video). Results indicate that GUIs’ existing features and design elements can be reliable landmarks in GUIs that provide spatial benefits similar to real environments. I also show that artificial landmarks can significantly improve spatial memory development of GUIs, allowing support for rapid spatial location learning and remembering in GUIs. Overall, this dissertation reveals that landmarks can be a valuable addition to graphical systems to improve the memorability and usability of GUIs