Young people and the evaluation of information on the World Wide Web: Principles, practice and beliefs

A recurrent theme in LIS literature is the tendency of young people not to evaluate rigorously the information with which they come into contact. Although many information literacy models stress the need to take a critical approach, the reality of behaviour is often very different. Recent research conducted in an English high school has explored the importance that teenagers attach to ten particular evaluative criteria. 149 youngsters contributed data via an online questionnaire. Participants felt that information on the Web should be current/topical, free from spelling and grammatical errors and easily verifiable elsewhere but authorship was much less of a priority to them. The findings are likely to be of special relevance to information literacy teachers who are defining priorities for their own programmes

How do you say ‘hello’? Personality impressions from brief novel voices

On hearing a novel voice, listeners readily form personality impressions of that speaker. Accurate or not, these impressions are known to affect subsequent interactions; yet the underlying psychological and acoustical bases remain poorly understood. Furthermore, hitherto studies have focussed on extended speech as opposed to analysing the instantaneous impressions we obtain from first experience. In this paper, through a mass online rating experiment, 320 participants rated 64 sub-second vocal utterances of the word ‘hello’ on one of 10 personality traits. We show that: (1) personality judgements of brief utterances from unfamiliar speakers are consistent across listeners; (2) a two-dimensional ‘social voice space’ with axes mapping Valence (Trust, Likeability) and Dominance, each driven by differing combinations of vocal acoustics, adequately summarises ratings in both male and female voices; and (3) a positive combination of Valence and Dominance results in increased perceived male vocal Attractiveness, whereas perceived female vocal Attractiveness is largely controlled by increasing Valence. Results are discussed in relation to the rapid evaluation of personality and, in turn, the intent of others, as being driven by survival mechanisms via approach or avoidance behaviours. These findings provide empirical bases for predicting personality impressions from acoustical analyses of short utterances and for generating desired personality impressions in artificial voices

Dimensions of web site credibility and their relation to active trust and behavioural impact

This paper discusses two trends that threaten to undermine the effectiveness of online social marketing interventions: growing mistrust and competition. As a solution, this paper examines the relationships between Web site credibility, target audiences’ active trust and behaviour. Using structural equation modelling to evaluate two credibility models, this study concludes that Web site credibility is best considered a three-dimensional construct composed of expertise, trustworthiness and visual appeal, and that trust plays a partial mediating role between Web site credibility and behavioural impacts. The paper examines theoretical implications of conceptualizing Web sites according to a human credibility model, and factoring trust into Internet-based behavioural change interventions. Practical guidelines suggest ways to address these findings when planning online social marketing interventions

A Web2.0 Strategy for the Collaborative Analysis of Complex Bioimages

Loyek C, Kölling J, Langenkämper D, Niehaus K, Nattkemper TW. A Web2.0 Strategy for the Collaborative Analysis of Complex Bioimages. In: Gama J, Bradley E, Hollmén J, eds. Advances in Intelligent Data Analysis X: 10th International Symposium, IDA 2011, Porto, Portugal, October 29-31, 2011. Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol 7014. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011: 258-269

Evaluating the End-User Experience of Private Browsing Mode

Nowadays, all major web browsers have a private browsing mode. However, the mode's benefits and limitations are not particularly understood. Through the use of survey studies, prior work has found that most users are either unaware of private browsing or do not use it. Further, those who do use private browsing generally have misconceptions about what protection it provides. However, prior work has not investigated \emph{why} users misunderstand the benefits and limitations of private browsing. In this work, we do so by designing and conducting a three-part study: (1) an analytical approach combining cognitive walkthrough and heuristic evaluation to inspect the user interface of private mode in different browsers; (2) a qualitative, interview-based study to explore users' mental models of private browsing and its security goals; (3) a participatory design study to investigate why existing browser disclosures, the in-browser explanations of private browsing mode, do not communicate the security goals of private browsing to users. Participants critiqued the browser disclosures of three web browsers: Brave, Firefox, and Google Chrome, and then designed new ones. We find that the user interface of private mode in different web browsers violates several well-established design guidelines and heuristics. Further, most participants had incorrect mental models of private browsing, influencing their understanding and usage of private mode. Additionally, we find that existing browser disclosures are not only vague, but also misleading. None of the three studied browser disclosures communicates or explains the primary security goal of private browsing. Drawing from the results of our user study, we extract a set of design recommendations that we encourage browser designers to validate, in order to design more effective and informative browser disclosures related to private mode

Security and Trustworthiness as Drivers of E-shop Competitiveness (Opinions of Young Customers)

Although the overall share of B2C e-commerce on the total retail turnover in the Czech Republic is low, e-shopping still indicates quite impressive year-to-year growth rates. Though very popular - especially in certain customer segments, such as young people - there are serious problems and challenges observed in this domain. Problems and challenges such as security and trustworthiness issues are often discussed and scrutinized. Thus, it is very important for both e-retailers and researchers to find out which factors drive e-shops’ competitiveness. In the introductory part, this paper presents useful and clear definitions to enlighten and clarify the topic. The description of Czech B2C e-commerce market follows, and it emphasizes the issues of ethics, security and trustworthiness and problems customers often face. Results of empirical research focused on issues on security and trustworthiness in relation to e-shop competitiveness are then presented and discussed. Suggestions for future research form the final part of the article