231,614 research outputs found

    Towards memory supporting personal information management tools

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    In this article we discuss re-retrieving personal information objects and relate the task to recovering from lapse(s) in memory. We propose that fundamentally it is lapses in memory that impede users from successfully re-finding the information they need. Our hypothesis is that by learning more about memory lapses in non-computing contexts and how people cope and recover from these lapses, we can better inform the design of PIM tools and improve the user's ability to re-access and re-use objects. We describe a diary study that investigates the everyday memory problems of 25 people from a wide range of backgrounds. Based on the findings, we present a series of principles that we hypothesize will improve the design of personal information management tools. This hypothesis is validated by an evaluation of a tool for managing personal photographs, which was designed with respect to our findings. The evaluation suggests that users' performance when re-finding objects can be improved by building personal information management tools to support characteristics of human memory

    Group and individual time management tools: what you get is not what you need

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    Some studies of diaries and scheduling systems have considered how individuals use diaries with a view to proposing requirements for computerised time management tools. Others have focused on the criteria for success of group scheduling systems. Few have paid attention to how people use a battery of tools as an ensemble. This interview study reports how users exploit paper, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and a group scheduling system for their time management. As with earlier studies, we find many shortcomings of different technologies, but studying the ensemble rather than individual tools points towards a different conclusion: rather than aiming towards producing electronic time management tools that replace existing paper-based tools, we should be aiming to understand the relative strengths and weaknesses of each technology and look towards more seamless integration between tools. In particular, the requirements for scheduling and those for more responsive, fluid time management conflict in ways that demand different kinds of support

    Information scraps: how and why information eludes our personal information management tools

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    In this paper we describe information scraps -- a class of personal information whose content is scribbled on Post-it notes, scrawled on corners of random sheets of paper, buried inside the bodies of e-mail messages sent to ourselves, or typed haphazardly into text files. Information scraps hold our great ideas, sketches, notes, reminders, driving directions, and even our poetry. We define information scraps to be the body of personal information that is held outside of its natural or We have much still to learn about these loose forms of information capture. Why are they so often held outside of our traditional PIM locations and instead on Post-its or in text files? Why must we sometimes go around our traditional PIM applications to hold on to our scraps, such as by e-mailing ourselves? What are information scraps' role in the larger space of personal information management, and what do they uniquely offer that we find so appealing? If these unorganized bits truly indicate the failure of our PIM tools, how might we begin to build better tools? We have pursued these questions by undertaking a study of 27 knowledge workers. In our findings we describe information scraps from several angles: their content, their location, and the factors that lead to their use, which we identify as ease of capture, flexibility of content and organization, and avilability at the time of need. We also consider the personal emotive responses around scrap management. We present a set of design considerations that we have derived from the analysis of our study results. We present our work on an application platform, jourknow, to test some of these design and usability findings

    Experiences of aiding autobiographical memory Using the SenseCam

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    Human memory is a dynamic system that makes accessible certain memories of events based on a hierarchy of information, arguably driven by personal significance. Not all events are remembered, but those that are tend to be more psychologically relevant. In contrast, lifelogging is the process of automatically recording aspects of one's life in digital form without loss of information. In this article we share our experiences in designing computer-based solutions to assist people review their visual lifelogs and address this contrast. The technical basis for our work is automatically segmenting visual lifelogs into events, allowing event similarity and event importance to be computed, ideas that are motivated by cognitive science considerations of how human memory works and can be assisted. Our work has been based on visual lifelogs gathered by dozens of people, some of them with collections spanning multiple years. In this review article we summarize a series of studies that have led to the development of a browser that is based on human memory systems and discuss the inherent tension in storing large amounts of data but making the most relevant material the most accessible

    Experiences of aiding autobiographical memory using the sensecam

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    Human memory is a dynamic system that makes accessible certain memories of events based on a hierarchy of information, arguably driven by personal significance. Not all events are remembered, but those that are tend to be more psychologically relevant. In contrast, lifelogging is the process of automatically recording aspects of one's life in digital form without loss of information. In this article we share our experiences in designing computer-based solutions to assist people review their visual lifelogs and address this contrast. The technical basis for our work is automatically segmenting visual lifelogs into events, allowing event similarity and event importance to be computed, ideas that are motivated by cognitive science considerations of how human memory works and can be assisted. Our work has been based on visual lifelogs gathered by dozens of people, some of them with collections spanning multiple years. In this review article we summarize a series of studies that have led to the development of a browser that is based on human memory systems and discuss the inherent tension in storing large amounts of data but making the most relevant material the most accessible

    Translation and human-computer interaction

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    This paper seeks to characterise translation as a form of human-computer interaction. The evolution of translator-computer interaction is explored and the challenges and benefits are enunciated. The concept of cognitive ergonomics is drawn on to argue for a more caring and inclusive approach towards the translator by developers of translation technology. A case is also made for wider acceptance by the translation community of the benefits of the technology at their disposal and for more humanistic research on the impact of technology on the translator, the translation profession and the translation process

    This Time It's Personal: from PIM to the Perfect Digital Assistant

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    Interacting with digital PIM tools like calendars, to-do lists, address books, bookmarks and so on, is a highly manual, often repetitive and frequently tedious process. Despite increases in memory and processor power over the past two decades of personal computing, not much has changed in the way we engage with such applications. We must still manually decompose frequently performed tasks into multiple smaller, data specific processes if we want to be able to recall or reuse the information in some meaningful way. "Meeting with Yves at 5 in Stata about blah" breaks down into rigid, fixed semantics in separate applications: data to be recorded in calendar fields, address book fields and, as for the blah, something that does not necessarily exist as a PIM application data structure. We argue that a reason Personal Information Management tools may be so manual, and so effectively fragmented, is that they are not personal enough. If our information systems were more personal, that is, if they knew in a manner similar to the way a personal assistant would know us and support us, then our tools would be more helpful: an assistive PIM tool would gather together the necessary material in support of our meeting with Yves. We, therefore, have been investigating the possible paths towards PIM tools as tools that work for us, rather than tools that seemingly make us work for them. To that end, in the following sections we consider how we may develop a framework for PIM tools as "perfect digital assistants" (PDA). Our impetus has been to explore how, by considering the affordances of a Real World personal assistant, we can conceptualize a design framework, and from there a development program for a digital simulacrum of such an assistant that is not for some far off future, but for the much nearer term

    Augmenting human memory using personal lifelogs

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    Memory is a key human facility to support life activities, including social interactions, life management and problem solving. Unfortunately, our memory is not perfect. Normal individuals will have occasional memory problems which can be frustrating, while those with memory impairments can often experience a greatly reduced quality of life. Augmenting memory has the potential to make normal individuals more effective, and those with significant memory problems to have a higher general quality of life. Current technologies are now making it possible to automatically capture and store daily life experiences over an extended period, potentially even over a lifetime. This type of data collection, often referred to as a personal life log (PLL), can include data such as continuously captured pictures or videos from a first person perspective, scanned copies of archival material such as books, electronic documents read or created, and emails and SMS messages sent and received, along with context data of time of capture and access and location via GPS sensors. PLLs offer the potential for memory augmentation. Existing work on PLLs has focused on the technologies of data capture and retrieval, but little work has been done to explore how these captured data and retrieval techniques can be applied to actual use by normal people in supporting their memory. In this paper, we explore the needs for augmenting human memory from normal people based on the psychology literature on mechanisms about memory problems, and discuss the possible functions that PLLs can provide to support these memory augmentation needs. Based on this, we also suggest guidelines for data for capture, retrieval needs and computer-based interface design. Finally we introduce our work-in-process prototype PLL search system in the iCLIPS project to give an example of augmenting human memory with PLLs and computer based interfaces

    Space for Two to Think: Large, High-Resolution Displays for Co-located Collaborative Sensemaking

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    Large, high-resolution displays carry the potential to enhance single display groupware collaborative sensemaking for intelligence analysis tasks by providing space for common ground to develop, but it is up to the visual analytics tools to utilize this space effectively. In an exploratory study, we compared two tools (Jigsaw and a document viewer), which were adapted to support multiple input devices, to observe how the large display space was used in establishing and maintaining common ground during an intelligence analysis scenario using 50 textual documents. We discuss the spatial strategies employed by the pairs of participants, which were largely dependent on tool type (data-centric or function-centric), as well as how different visual analytics tools used collaboratively on large, high-resolution displays impact common ground in both process and solution. Using these findings, we suggest design considerations to enable future co-located collaborative sensemaking tools to take advantage of the benefits of collaborating on large, high-resolution displays
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