Clear Visual Separation of Temporal Event Sequences

Extracting and visualizing informative insights from temporal event sequences becomes increasingly difficult when data volume and variety increase. Besides dealing with high event type cardinality and many distinct sequences, it can be difficult to tell whether it is appropriate to combine multiple events into one or utilize additional information about event attributes. Existing approaches often make use of frequent sequential patterns extracted from the dataset, however, these patterns are limited in terms of interpretability and utility. In addition, it is difficult to assess the role of absolute and relative time when using pattern mining techniques. In this paper, we present methods that addresses these challenges by automatically learning composite events which enables better aggregation of multiple event sequences. By leveraging event sequence outcomes, we present appropriate linked visualizations that allow domain experts to identify critical flows, to assess validity and to understand the role of time. Furthermore, we explore information gain and visual complexity metrics to identify the most relevant visual patterns. We compare composite event learning with two approaches for extracting event patterns using real world company event data from an ongoing project with the Danish Business Authority.Comment: In Proceedings of the 3rd IEEE Symposium on Visualization in Data Science (VDS), 201

Cooperative Prototyping: Users and Designers in Mutual Activity

In most development projects, descriptions and prototypes are developed by system designers on their own, utilizing users as suppliers of information on the use domain. In contrast, we are proposing a cooperative prototyping approach where users are involved actively and creatively in design and evaluation of early prototypes. This paper illustrates the approach by describing the design of computer support for casework in a technical department of a Danish municipality. Prototyping is viewed as an on-going learning process, and we analyze situations where openings for learning occur in the prototyping activity. The situations seem to fall into four categories: 1) Situations where the future work situation with a new computer application is simulated to some extent to investigate the future work activity. 2) Situations where the prototype is manipulated and used as a basis for idea exploration. 3) Situations focusing on the designers' learning about the users' work in practice. 4) Situations where the prototyping tool or the design session as such becomes the focus. Lessons learned from the analysis of these situations are discussed. In particular we discuss a tension between the need for careful preparation of prototyping sessions and the need to establish conditions for user and designer creativity. Our conclusion is that users and designers should prepare to learn from breakdowns and focus shifts in cooperative prototyping sessions rather than they should try to avoid them

ApplBuilder: An Object-Oriented Application Generator Supporting Rapid Prototyping

This paper describes an object-oriented application generator, APPLBUILDER, currently being developed in the Mjølner BETA programming environment. APPLBUILDER supports several rapid prototyping styles as well as final development of BETA applications. User interface objects such as dialogs, menus, and windows are designed using direct manipulation graphical editors. Actions behind buttons and menu items are programmed as ''scripts'' in textual editors activated from within a graphical editor. The editors reflect changes in the code directly in an underlying Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) thus saving compilation time. Moreover, generated applications are modularized so that editing, for instance the script for a button, only requires re-compilation of the script itself. An advantage of APPLBUILDER compared to other user-interface design tools such as HyperCard is that APPLBUILDER's scripts are embedded in a general purpose programming language making it possible to avoid calls to external routines written in another language. In addition, APPLBUILDER's ability to work with ASTs instead of textual code skeletons supports reverse engineering

OPEN-ENDED INTERACTION IN COOPERATIVE PROTOTYPING: A Video-Based Analysis

Cooperative Prototyping can be characterized as the use and development of prototypes as catalysts during discussions between designers and potential users - the overall intention being one of mutual learning. On the one hand, the designers learn more about the work practices of the users in ways that are tied concretely to some current version of the prototype. On the other hand, the users learn more about the potential for change in their work practice, whether computer-based or otherwise. This paper presents the results of a field study of the cooperative prototyping process. The study is based on a fine-grained video-based analysis of a single prototyping session, and focuses on the effects of an open-ended style of interaction between users and designers around a prototype. An analysis of focus shifts, initiative and storytelling during the session is brought to bear on the question of whether and how cooperative prototyping can be successful with users who are reluctant to \u27play in the future.\u27 The paper also discusses issues in applying video analysis to system design

Rapid Prototyping with Fourth Generation Systems: - An Empirical Study

The focus of this paper is on design and evaluation techniques supporting active end-user involvement in Information System (IS) development based on rapid prototyping with Fourth Generation Systems. The paper discusses experiences on the development and use of mainly two sorts of prototypes denoted horisontal and vertical prototypes. The experiences result from an interview study, carried out by the author and two colleagues, in nine Danish development projects.A central result from the study is that users did not give sufficient response on presented horisontal prototypes. Moreover, unexpected iterations became necessary in most of the projects studied although horisontal prototypes had been accepted by the users. In contrast vertical prototypes, which are capable of handling realistic data from the use domain, appeared to stimulate extensive and constructive response from users before the final system tests. These observations lead to the daim that the developers should be aware of the tacit knowledge which plays an important role in users' work practices. To utilise the users' tacit knowledge, the design techniques based on prototyping should involve the end-users more actively, and the evaluation techniques should support testing in a work-like setting early in the development process.Three proposals on techniques to meet these requirements are given. The first proposal is aimed at having end-user representatives participating in certain design activities where Fourth Generation Systems are being used. The second proposal is aimed at utilising the potential of simulating functionality behind horisontal prototypes. The final proposal is aimed at performing ongoing evaluation activities in conjunction with design activities

Interactive Spaces Towards Collaborative Structuring and Ubiquitous Presentation in Domestic Environments

This paper analyses the use of media and material in private homes based on empirical studies in a project on designing interactive domestic environments. Based on the analyses we propose a Domestic Hypermedia infrastructure (DoHM) combining spatial, context-aware and physical hypermedia to support collaborative structuring and ubiquitous presentation of materials in private homes. With DoHM we propose establishing new relationship between digital and physical hyperspaces, folding hyperspaces into the physical space of the household. Thus we strive to combine the qualities of physical domestic materials and spaces with the flexibility and dynamics of digital hyperspaces. We propose a variety of new ubiquitous home appliances called MediaWall, MediaTable, MediaTray and MediaPort, which address these issues

Cooperative Prototyping Experiments: - Users and Designers Envision a Dental Case Record System

This paper describes experiments with a design technique that we denote cooperative prototyping. The experiments consider design of a patient case record system for municipal dental clinics in which we used HyperCard$^{TM}$, an off-the-shelf programming enviroment for the Macintosh. In the experiments we tried to achieve a fluent work-like evaluation of prototypes where users envisioned future work with a computer tool, at the same time as we made on-line modifications of prototypes in co-operation with the users when breakdown occur in their work-like evaluation. The experiments showed that it was possible to make a number of direct manipulation changes of prototypes in cooperation with the users, in interplay with their fluent work-like evaluation of these. However, brekdowns occurred in the prototyping process when we reached the limits of the direct manipulation support for modification. From these ecperiences we discuss problems in the process, requirements for design tools, and issues involved in getting going with cooperative prototyping with active user involvement