How Researchers Use Diagrams in Communicating Neural Network Systems

Neural networks are a prevalent and effective machine learning component, and their application is leading to significant scientific progress in many domains. As the field of neural network systems is fast growing, it is important to understand how advances are communicated. Diagrams are key to this, appearing in almost all papers describing novel systems. This paper reports on a study into the use of neural network system diagrams, through interviews, card sorting, and qualitative feedback structured around ecologically-derived examples. We find high diversity of usage, perception and preference in both creation and interpretation of diagrams, examining this in the context of existing design, information visualisation, and user experience guidelines. Considering the interview data alongside existing guidance, we propose guidelines aiming to improve the way in which neural network system diagrams are constructed.Comment: 19 pages, 6 tables, 3 figure

Effects of computer-supported collaboration script and incomplete concept maps on web design skills in an online design-based learning environment

Web design skills are an important component of media literacy. The aim of our study was to promote university students’ web design skills through online design-based learning (DBL). Combined in a 2x2-factorial design, two types of scaffolding were implemented in an online DBL environment to support the students through their effort to design, build, modify, and publish web sites on processes and outcomes measures, namely collaboration scripts and incomplete concept maps. The results showed that both treatments had positive effects on collaborative (content-related discourse quality, collaboration skills, and quality of published web sites) and individual (domain-specific knowledge and skills related to the design and building of websites) learning outcomes. There was synergism between the two scaffolds in that the combination of the collaboration script and incomplete concept maps produced the most positive results. To be effective, online DBL thus needs to be enhanced by appropriate scaffolds, and both collaboration scripts and incomplete concept maps are effective examples

Increased website popularity through compliance with usability guidelines

To create more interest is usability awareness in website development, further benefits of usability need to be introduced and examined. This paper attempts to identify and measure a positive correlation between compliance with usability guidelines and the popularity of a website. Showing a significant correlation between usability and popularity would promote further investigations into the importance of usability and could lead to an increase in usability studies within website development projects. There is a gap of knowledge in this area and this study is intended to create a foundation for future research into this issue. To identify and measure this relationship, a sample of E-learning websites were reviewed and their usability scored using a web-based evaluation system developed during the study. This usability score was then tested against five different ranking systems using Spearman‟s Rank correlation method. The results of these tests show a strong correlation between compliance with usability guidelines and website popularity. The five ranking systems also showed positive correlations to each-other and to the usability of the sites. The conclusion drawn from these results is that compliance with usability guidelines could be a way to achieve higher website popularity and visitor numbers.UnpublishedAdamic, L. A., & Huberman, B. A. (2001). The Web's hidden order. Communications of the ACM, 44(9), 55-60. Alexa. (2007). Alexa the Web Information Company. Retrieved 7th May 2007, from http://www.alexa.com/ Belanger, F., Fan, W., Schaupp, C. L., Krishen, A., Everhart, J., Poteet, D., et al. (2006). Web site success metrics: addressing the duality of goals. Communications of the ACM, 49(12), 114-116. Brajnik, G. (2000). Automatic Web Usability Evaluation: What Needs to Be Done? Retrieved May 05, 2007, 2007, from http://www.dimi.uniud.it/~giorgio/papers/hfweb00.html Brin, S., & Page, L. (1998). The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine Paper presented at the International Conference on World Wide Web, Brisbane, Australia. Cho, J., & Roy, S. (2004). Impact of search engines on page popularity. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 13th international conference on World Wide Web, New York, NY, USA. ComScore. (2003). comScore Media Metrix Launches Breakthrough System to Track Actual Consumer Search Queries. Retrieved 28th September 2007, from http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=325 De Angeli, A., Sutcliffe, A., & Hartmann, J. (2006). Interaction, usability and aesthetics: what influences users' preferences? Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 6th ACM conference on Designing Interactive systems, University Park, PA, USA. Del.icio.us. (2007). del.icio.us. Retrieved 7th May 2007, from http://del.icio.us/ Gladwell, M. (2000). The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. New York: Time Warner Book Group. Google. (2007a). Advanced Google Search Operators. Retrieved 7th May 2007, from http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/operators.html Google. (2007b). Webmaster Guidelines. Retrieved 28th September 2007, from http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769 HHS. (2006). Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines. Retrieved March 13th, 2007. from http://www.usability.gov/pdfs/guidelines.html. Instone, K. (1999, July 21, 1999). How to test usability. from http://usableweb.com/instone/howtotest/ ISO. (1998). International Standard ISO 9241-11: Ergonomic requirements for office work with visual display terminals (VDTs) - Part 11: Guidance on usability. Retrieved March 13th, 2007. from http://www.idemployee.id.tue.nl/g.w.m.rauterberg/lectures.html. Ivory, M. Y., & Megraw, R. (2005). Evolution of web site design patterns. ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 23(4), 463-497. Kavassalis, P., Lelis, S., Rafea, M., & Haridi, S. (2004). What makes a Web site popular? Communications of the ACM, 47(2), 50-55. Keevil, B. (1998). Measuring the usability index of your Web site. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 16th annual international conference on Computer documentation, Quebec, Quebec, Canada. Koyani, S., & Allison, S. (2003). Use of research-based guidelines in the development of websites, CHI '03 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems. Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA: ACM Press. Lederer, A. L., Maupin, D. J., Sena, M. P., & Zhuang, Y. (1998). The role of ease of use, usefulness and attitude in the prediction of World Wide Web usage. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 1998 ACM SIGCPR conference on Computer personnel research, Boston, Massachusetts, United States. McDonald, J. (2006). Spearman's Rank Correlation. Retrieved September 9, 2007, from http://www.udel.edu/~mcdonald/statspearman.html Nielsen-Netratings. Retrieved July 9, 2007, from http://www.nielsennetratings.com/ Nielsen, J. (1993). Usability Engineering: Academic Press, Inc., San Diego. Nielsen, J. (1999). User interface directions for the Web. Communications of the ACM, 42(1), 65-72. Nielsen, J., & Mack, R. (1994). Usability Inspection Methods: Wiley. Ohnemus, K. R. (1997). Web style guides: who, what, where. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 15th annual international conference on Computer documentation, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. Oxford. Compact Oxford English Dictionary (Ask Oxford). Retrieved July 08, 2007, from http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/popular?view=uk Petrie, H., & Kheir, O. (2007). The relationship between accessibility and usability of websites. Paper presented at the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, San Jose, California, USA. Preece, J., Rogers, Y., Sharp, H., Benyon, D., Holland, S., & Carey, T. (1994). Human-Computer Interaction. Wokingham, England: Addison-Wesley. Schonberg, E., Cofino, T., Hoch, R., Podlaseck, M., & Spraragen, S. L. (2000). Measuring success. Communications of the ACM, 43(8), 53-57. Spearman, C. (1904). The Proof and Measurement of Association between Two Things. The American Journal of Psychology, 15(1), 72-101. Sullivan, T., & Matson, R. (2000). Barriers to use: usability and content accessibility on the Web's most popular sites. Paper presented at the Proceedings on the 2000 conference on Universal Usability, Arlington, Virginia, United States. Theofanos, M. F., & Redish, J. (2003). Bridging the gap: between accessibility and usability. Interactions (ACM), 10(6), 36-51. Usablenet. (Thu, 12 Apr 2007). LIFT Online from http://www.usablenet.com/products_services/lift_online/lift_online.html W3C. (2001). 29 March 2001 WCAG WG minutes. Retrieved 20 July, 2007, from http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2001/03/29-minutes.html Wattenberg, T. (2004). Beyond standards: reaching usability goals through user participation. SIGACCESS Accessability and Computing(79), 10-20. Weinschenk, S. (2007). Trends in User-Centred Design (White Paper). Fairfield, IA: Human Factors International. Yahoo. (2007). Yahoo Site Explorer. Retrieved 7th May 2007, from http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com

Increased website popularity through compliance with usability guidelines

To create more interest is usability awareness in website development, further benefits of usability need to be introduced and examined. This paper attempts to identify and measure a positive correlation between compliance with usability guidelines and the popularity of a website. Showing a significant correlation between usability and popularity would promote further investigations into the importance of usability and could lead to an increase in usability studies within website development projects. There is a gap of knowledge in this area and this study is intended to create a foundation for future research into this issue. To identify and measure this relationship, a sample of E-learning websites were reviewed and their usability scored using a web-based evaluation system developed during the study. This usability score was then tested against five different ranking systems using Spearman‟s Rank correlation method. The results of these tests show a strong correlation between compliance with usability guidelines and website popularity. The five ranking systems also showed positive correlations to each-other and to the usability of the sites. The conclusion drawn from these results is that compliance with usability guidelines could be a way to achieve higher website popularity and visitor numbers.UnpublishedAdamic, L. A., & Huberman, B. A. (2001). The Web's hidden order. Communications of the ACM, 44(9), 55-60. Alexa. (2007). Alexa the Web Information Company. Retrieved 7th May 2007, from http://www.alexa.com/ Belanger, F., Fan, W., Schaupp, C. L., Krishen, A., Everhart, J., Poteet, D., et al. (2006). Web site success metrics: addressing the duality of goals. Communications of the ACM, 49(12), 114-116. Brajnik, G. (2000). Automatic Web Usability Evaluation: What Needs to Be Done? Retrieved May 05, 2007, 2007, from http://www.dimi.uniud.it/~giorgio/papers/hfweb00.html Brin, S., & Page, L. (1998). The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine Paper presented at the International Conference on World Wide Web, Brisbane, Australia. Cho, J., & Roy, S. (2004). Impact of search engines on page popularity. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 13th international conference on World Wide Web, New York, NY, USA. ComScore. (2003). comScore Media Metrix Launches Breakthrough System to Track Actual Consumer Search Queries. Retrieved 28th September 2007, from http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=325 De Angeli, A., Sutcliffe, A., & Hartmann, J. (2006). Interaction, usability and aesthetics: what influences users' preferences? Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 6th ACM conference on Designing Interactive systems, University Park, PA, USA. Del.icio.us. (2007). del.icio.us. Retrieved 7th May 2007, from http://del.icio.us/ Gladwell, M. (2000). The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. New York: Time Warner Book Group. Google. (2007a). Advanced Google Search Operators. Retrieved 7th May 2007, from http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/operators.html Google. (2007b). Webmaster Guidelines. Retrieved 28th September 2007, from http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769 HHS. (2006). Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines. Retrieved March 13th, 2007. from http://www.usability.gov/pdfs/guidelines.html. Instone, K. (1999, July 21, 1999). How to test usability. from http://usableweb.com/instone/howtotest/ ISO. (1998). International Standard ISO 9241-11: Ergonomic requirements for office work with visual display terminals (VDTs) - Part 11: Guidance on usability. Retrieved March 13th, 2007. from http://www.idemployee.id.tue.nl/g.w.m.rauterberg/lectures.html. Ivory, M. Y., & Megraw, R. (2005). Evolution of web site design patterns. ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 23(4), 463-497. Kavassalis, P., Lelis, S., Rafea, M., & Haridi, S. (2004). What makes a Web site popular? Communications of the ACM, 47(2), 50-55. Keevil, B. (1998). Measuring the usability index of your Web site. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 16th annual international conference on Computer documentation, Quebec, Quebec, Canada. Koyani, S., & Allison, S. (2003). Use of research-based guidelines in the development of websites, CHI '03 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems. Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA: ACM Press. Lederer, A. L., Maupin, D. J., Sena, M. P., & Zhuang, Y. (1998). The role of ease of use, usefulness and attitude in the prediction of World Wide Web usage. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 1998 ACM SIGCPR conference on Computer personnel research, Boston, Massachusetts, United States. McDonald, J. (2006). Spearman's Rank Correlation. Retrieved September 9, 2007, from http://www.udel.edu/~mcdonald/statspearman.html Nielsen-Netratings. Retrieved July 9, 2007, from http://www.nielsennetratings.com/ Nielsen, J. (1993). Usability Engineering: Academic Press, Inc., San Diego. Nielsen, J. (1999). User interface directions for the Web. Communications of the ACM, 42(1), 65-72. Nielsen, J., & Mack, R. (1994). Usability Inspection Methods: Wiley. Ohnemus, K. R. (1997). Web style guides: who, what, where. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 15th annual international conference on Computer documentation, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. Oxford. Compact Oxford English Dictionary (Ask Oxford). Retrieved July 08, 2007, from http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/popular?view=uk Petrie, H., & Kheir, O. (2007). The relationship between accessibility and usability of websites. Paper presented at the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, San Jose, California, USA. Preece, J., Rogers, Y., Sharp, H., Benyon, D., Holland, S., & Carey, T. (1994). Human-Computer Interaction. Wokingham, England: Addison-Wesley. Schonberg, E., Cofino, T., Hoch, R., Podlaseck, M., & Spraragen, S. L. (2000). Measuring success. Communications of the ACM, 43(8), 53-57. Spearman, C. (1904). The Proof and Measurement of Association between Two Things. The American Journal of Psychology, 15(1), 72-101. Sullivan, T., & Matson, R. (2000). Barriers to use: usability and content accessibility on the Web's most popular sites. Paper presented at the Proceedings on the 2000 conference on Universal Usability, Arlington, Virginia, United States. Theofanos, M. F., & Redish, J. (2003). Bridging the gap: between accessibility and usability. Interactions (ACM), 10(6), 36-51. Usablenet. (Thu, 12 Apr 2007). LIFT Online from http://www.usablenet.com/products_services/lift_online/lift_online.html W3C. (2001). 29 March 2001 WCAG WG minutes. Retrieved 20 July, 2007, from http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2001/03/29-minutes.html Wattenberg, T. (2004). Beyond standards: reaching usability goals through user participation. SIGACCESS Accessability and Computing(79), 10-20. Weinschenk, S. (2007). Trends in User-Centred Design (White Paper). Fairfield, IA: Human Factors International. Yahoo. (2007). Yahoo Site Explorer. Retrieved 7th May 2007, from http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com