Recall of Landmarks in Information Space

Research on navigation and landmarks in physical space, information space and virtual reality environments indicates that landmarks play an important role in all types of navigation. This dissertation tackles the problem of defining and evaluating the characteristics of landmarks in information space. This work validates a recent theory that three types of characteristics, structural, visual and semantic, are important for effective landmarks.This dissertation applies concepts and techniques from the extensive body of research on physical space navigation to the investigation of landmarks on a web site in the World Wide Web. Data was collected in two experiments to examine characteristics of web pages on the University of Pittsburgh web site. In addition, objective measurements were made to examine the characteristics of web pages with relation to the experimental data. The two experiments examined subjects' knowledge, use and evaluation of web pages. This research is unique in research on web navigation in its use of experimental techniques that ask subjects to recall from memory possible navigation paths and URLs.Two measures of landmark quality were used to examine the characteristics of landmarks; one, an algorithm that incorporated objective measures of the structural, visual and semantic characteristics of each web page, and the second, a measure based on the experimental data regarding subjects' knowledge and evaluation of the page.Analysis of this data from a web space confirms the tri-partite theory of characteristics of landmarks. Significant positive correlations were found between the objective and subjective landmark measures, indicating that this work is an important step toward the ability to objectively evaluate web pages and web site design in terms of landmarks. This dissertation further suggests that researchers can utilize the characteristics to analyze and improve the design of information spaces, leading to more effective navigation

A Pattern Approach to Examine the Design Space of Spatiotemporal Visualization

Pattern language has been widely used in the development of visualization systems. This dissertation applies a pattern language approach to explore the design space of spatiotemporal visualization. The study provides a framework for both designers and novices to communicate, develop, evaluate, and share spatiotemporal visualization design on an abstract level. The touchstone of the work is a pattern language consisting of fifteen design patterns and four categories. In order to validate the design patterns, the researcher created two visualization systems with this framework in mind. The first system displayed the daily routine of human beings via a polygon-based visualization. The second system showed the spatiotemporal patterns of co-occurring hashtags with a spiral map, sunburst diagram, and small multiples. The evaluation results demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed design patterns to guide design thinking and create novel visualization practices

Earth Observation Open Science and Innovation

geospatial analytics; social observatory; big earth data; open data; citizen science; open innovation; earth system science; crowdsourced geospatial data; citizen science; science in society; data scienc

Proceedings of the GIS Research UK 18th Annual Conference GISRUK 2010

This volume holds the papers from the 18th annual GIS Research UK (GISRUK). This year the conference, hosted at University College London (UCL), from Wednesday 14 to Friday 16 April 2010. The conference covered the areas of core geographic information science research as well as applications domains such as crime and health and technological developments in LBS and the geoweb. UCL’s research mission as a global university is based around a series of Grand Challenges that affect us all, and these were accommodated in GISRUK 2010. The overarching theme this year was “Global Challenges”, with specific focus on the following themes: * Crime and Place * Environmental Change * Intelligent Transport * Public Health and Epidemiology * Simulation and Modelling * London as a global city * The geoweb and neo-geography * Open GIS and Volunteered Geographic Information * Human-Computer Interaction and GIS Traditionally, GISRUK has provided a platform for early career researchers as well as those with a significant track record of achievement in the area. As such, the conference provides a welcome blend of innovative thinking and mature reflection. GISRUK is the premier academic GIS conference in the UK and we are keen to maintain its outstanding record of achievement in developing GIS in the UK and beyond

Text in Visualization: Extending the Visualization Design Space

This thesis is a systematic exploration and expansion of the design space of data visualization specifically with regards to text. A critical analysis of text in data visualizations reveals gaps in existing frameworks and the use of text in practice. A cross-disciplinary review across fields such as typography, cartography and technical applications yields typographic techniques to encode data into text and provides the scope for the expanded design space. Mapping new attributes, techniques and considerations back to well understood visualization principles organizes the design space of text in visualization. This design space includes: 1) text as a primary data type literally encoded into alphanumeric glyphs, 2) typographic attributes, such as bold and italic, capable of encoding additional data onto literal text, 3) scope of mark, ranging from individual glyphs, syllables and words; to sentences, paragraphs and documents, and 4) layout of these text elements applicable most known visualization techniques and text specific techniques such as tables. This is the primary contribution of this thesis (Part A and B). Then, this design space is used to facilitate the design, implementation and evaluation of new types of visualization techniques, ranging from enhancements of existing techniques, such as, extending scatterplots and graphs with literal marks, stem & leaf plots with multivariate glyphs and broader scope, and microtext line charts; to new visualization techniques, such as, multivariate typographic thematic maps; text formatted to facilitate skimming; and proportionally encoding quantitative values in running text – all of which are new contributions to the field (Part C). Finally, a broad evaluation across the framework and the sample visualizations with cross-discipline expert critiques and a metrics based approach reveals some concerns and many opportunities pointing towards a breadth of future research work now possible with this new framework. (Part D and E)

The Way Brands Work: Consumers' understanding of the creation and usage of brands

During the recent years the concept or phenomenon of brands and the importance ascribed to them by the traditional marketing discourse seems to have spread to the every day discourse of ordinary consumers. Consumers are therefore thought to posses some kind understanding of how brands as a phenomenon work. This study sets out to investigate how consumers construct such a brand understanding, and what such brand understanding contains. Prior consumer literature mainly conceptualizes consumers’ understanding construction as a vertical top-down process, where consumers either learn about consumption phenomenon from traditional socialization agents, or when the consumers are subjected to and individually handle the ideological infrastructure of a consumer culture. In this study it is however argued that a substantial part of consumers’ brand understanding construction is horizontal and occurs in consumers’ peer-to-peer micro level interactions. By employing a “Netnographic” method to capture and analyze young Swedish consumers’ online micro level interactions, I have managed to identified three major types of micro interactions, consultative, disputative and normative, in which consumers’ brand understanding is thought to be formed. Their brand understanding contained both cynical reasoning and underlying paradoxes. By being cynical of the workings of brands the consumers creates a cynical distance that enables them to both assume a critical stance towards brands as a phenomenon, simultaneously as they may confess to fully participate in the brand consumption game. Consumer cynicism concerning the workings of brands may not emancipate consumers from the structures of the market, but displaying cynical reason may be important to receive recognition from peers and to gain status positions in ones social group

Stuck in the Last Ice Age: Tracing the Role of Document Design in the Teaching Materials of Writing Courses

Teaching materials play vital roles in writing classrooms, yet they are understudied genres in English Studies. Teaching materials are inherently visual genres; the document design choices made by teachers illuminate values held about writing and writing classrooms. They are understudied genres, in part, because of the feminized position of composition. A professional writing investigation of the document design of teaching materials offers opportunities to rectify this. I developed a technofeminine genre tracing methodology focused on exploring the visual convention choices made by teachers and how these visual conventions are interpreted by students across the three levels of activity: the activity-driven macroscopic level, the action-based mesoscopic level, and the operation-embedded microscopic level. Two case studies were conducted with two composition teachers and one section of composition students each. Teachers were interviewed, observed, and their documents for this section were collected. Students were observed and surveyed twice during the semester. By considering how external practical, discourse community, and rhetorical factors influence teaching material design at the macroscopic and mesoscopic levels, I found that this resulted in a deep grip of print based, microscopic choices. One external practical factor, technology, is changing the evolutionary path of teaching materials. It is a messy evolution during which teachers are trying to blend traditional teaching material design with new exigencies and technologies. Conclusions indicate that we cab address the feminized and understudied position of teaching materials and their design by making use of the principles of deconstruction by asymmetries as articulated by Louise Wetherbee Phelps. This schema of conditions, structures, and exemplification considers what paths forward exist. Institutional critique of the materiality of teaching materials in local contexts is a means to promote the conditions for critical collaboration within writing programs. Pedagogical applications of usability and rhetorical design to teaching materials, as Susan Miller-Cochran and Rochelle Rodrigo advocate for online writing instruction, can create structures that nurture and sustain teachers and students in writing programs. Finally, ethical leadership and community initiatives are intrinsically necessary to establish and maintain the kind of relationship building necessary to promote active and evolving design work

Artech 2008: proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Digital Arts

ARTECH 2008 is the fourth international conference held in Portugal and Galicia on the topic of Digital Arts. It aims to promote contacts between Iberian and International contributors concerned with the conception, production and dissemination of Digital and Electronic Art. ARTECH brings the scientific, technological and artistic community together, promoting the interest in the digital culture and its intersection with art and technology as an important research field, a common space for discussion, an exchange of experiences, a forum for emerging digital artists and a way of understanding and appreciating new forms of cultural expression. Hosted by the Portuguese Catholic University’s School of Arts (UCP-EA) at the City of Porto, ARTCH 2008 falls in alignment with the main commitment of the Research Center for Science and Technology of the Arts (CITAR) to promote knowledge in the field of the Arts trough research and development within UCP-AE and together with the local and international community. The main areas proposed for the conference were related with sound, image, video, music, multimedia and other new media related topics, in the context of emerging practice of artistic creation. Although non exclusive, the main topics of the conference are usually: Art and Science; Audio-Visual and Multimedia Design; Creativity Theory; Electronic Music; Generative and Algorithmic Art; Interactive Systems for Artistic Applications; Media Art history; Mobile Multimedia; Net Art and Digital Culture; New Experiences with New Media and New Applications; Tangible and Gesture Interfaces; Technology in Art Education; Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. The contribution from the international community was extremely gratifying, resulting in the submission of 79 original works (Long Papers, Short Papers and installation proposals) from 22 Countries. Our Scientific Committee reviewed these submissions thoroughly resulting in a 73% acceptance ratio of a diverse and promising body of work presented in this book of proceedings. This compilation of articles provides an overview of the state of the art as well as a glimpse of new tendencies in the field of Digital Arts, with special emphasis in the topics: Sound and Music Computing; Technology Mediated Dance; Collaborative Art Performance; Digital Narratives; Media Art and Creativity Theory; Interactive Art; Audiovisual and Multimedia Design.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio