Group differences in physician responses to handheld presentation of clinical evidence: a verbal protocol analysis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To identify individual differences in physicians' needs for the presentation of evidence resources and preferences for mobile devices.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Within-groups analysis of responses to semi-structured interviews. Interviews consisted of using prototypes in response to task-based scenarios. The prototypes were implemented on two different form factors: a tablet style PC and a pocketPC. Participants were from three user groups: general internists, family physicians and medicine residents, and from two different settings: urban and semi-urban. Verbal protocol analysis, which consists of coding utterances, was conducted on the transcripts of the testing sessions. Statistical relationships were investigated between staff physicians' and residents' background variables, self-reported experiences with the interfaces, and verbal code frequencies.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>47 physicians were recruited from general internal medicine, family practice clinics and a residency training program. The mean age of participants was 42.6 years. Physician specialty had a greater effect on device and information-presentation preferences than gender, age, setting or previous technical experience. Family physicians preferred the screen size of the tablet computer and were less concerned about its portability. Residents liked the screen size of the tablet, but preferred the portability of the pocketPC. Internists liked the portability of the pocketPC, but saw less advantage to the large screen of the tablet computer (F[2,44] = 4.94, p = .012).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Different types of physicians have different needs and preferences for evidence-based resources and handheld devices. This study shows how user testing can be incorporated into the process of design to inform group-based customization.</p

Individual Differences in Personal Information Management

In an increasingly complex world where people routinely handle large amounts of information, individuals are constantly challenged to manage and effectively use the information that they are responsible for. While email is the canonical example of an information overloading application, other well known PIM applications and tasks cited in earlier chapters of this book include maintaining addresses and contacts, scheduling, and organizing the various documents and bookmarks that one is interested in. Not surprisingly, there are individual differences (ID) in how, and how well, people cope with the challenge of personal information management. This greatly complicates any scientific analysis of PIM behavior. Thus, in addition to the evaluation methods discussed in the previous chapter, researchers and designers need to consider when and how individual differences should be included within parsimonious interpretations and explanations of PIM behavior. In this chapter we propose an approach where differences between individuals are considered last, after the influences of the environment and the task context have first been considered, and after group difference (e.g., between job classifications) have been investigated. We believe that this is a logical way to proceed, since like observing an ant walking over sand-dunes (cf. Simon, 1996) we should not ascribe complexities to an individual if they can instead be explained as due to properties of the environment. The goal of this chapter will be to review and synthesize some of the key findings in how PIM behavior differs between individuals. Some of the reasons why these differences occur and what can be done about them will also be discussed

Discriminating Meta-Search: A Framework for Evaluation

There was a proliferation of electronic information sources and search engines in the 1990s. Many of these information sources became available through the ubiquitous interface of the Web browser. Diverse information sources became accessible to information professionals and casual end users alike. Much of the information was also hyperlinked, so that information could be explored by browsing as well as searching. While vast amounts of information were now just a few keystrokes and mouseclicks away, as the choices multiplied, so did the complexity of choosing where and how to look for the electronic information. Much of the complexity in information exploration at the turn of the twenty-first century arose because there was no common cataloguing and control system across the various electronic information sources. In addition, the many search engines available differed widely in terms of their domain coverage, query methods and efficiency.Meta-search engines were developed to improve search performance by querying multiple search engines at once. In principle, meta-search engines could greatly simplify the search for electronic information by selecting a subset of first-level search engines and digital libraries to submit a query to based on the characteristics of the user, the query/topic, and the search strategy. This selection would be guided by diagnostic knowledge about which of the first-level search engines works best under what circumstances. Programmatic research is required to develop this diagnostic knowledge about first-level search engine performance. This paper introduces an evaluative framework for this type of research and illustrates its use in two experiments. The experimental results obtained are used to characterize some properties of leading search engines (as of 1998). Significant interactions were observed between search engine and two other factors (time of day and Web domain). These findings supplement those of earlier studies, providing preliminary information about the complex relationship between search engine functionality and performance in different contexts. While the specific results obtained represent a time-dependent snapshot of search engine performance in 1998, the evaluative framework proposed should be generally applicable in the future

ClickIR: Text Retrieval using a Dynamic Hypertext Interface

In this report we describe our model of dynamic hypertext and how the ClickIR system uses this model to assist users in interactive search. The system was used in both the ad hoc task and the interactive track. In the context of the ad hoc task we were interested in the effects relevance feedback would have on our system. Comparison of ClickIR performance with and without relevance feedback showed that relevance feedback was critical in boosting the performance of the system from below median performance to the upper rank of TREC-7 systems. In the interactive track we compared the ClickIR (experimental) system where the tasks of querying and browsing were integrated, with a system which closely approximated a Web search engine, where the task of querying is separated from the task of browsing a list of hits. A trade-off between recall and precision was observed, with ClickIR leading to significantly greater recall, but at the expense of significantly lower precision and longer time tak..

Missing link? Comparison of manual and automated linking in hypertext engineering

Proceedings of the Human Factors Society1310-314PHFS

Virtual reality for palmtop computers

We are exploring how virtual reahty theories can be applied toward palmtop computers. In our prototype, called the Chameleon, a small 4-inch hand-held monitor acts as a palmtop computer with the capabihties of a Silicon graphics workstation. A 6D input device and a response button are attached to tbe small monitor to detect user gestures and input selections for issuing commands. An experiment was conducted to evaluate our design and to see how well depth could be perceived in the small screen compared to a large 21-inch screen, and the extent to which movement of the small display (in a palmtop virtual reality condition) could improve depth perception, Results show that with very little training, perception of depth in the palmtop virtual reality condition is about as good as corresponding depth perception in a large (but static) display. Variations to the initial design are also discussed, along with issues to be explored in future research, Our research suggests that palmtop virtual reality may support effective navigation and search and retrieval, in rich and portable information spaces

The privacy attitudes questionnaire (paq): initial development and validation

Privacy has been identified as a key issue in a variety of domains, including electronic commerce and public policy. While there are many discussions of privacy issues from a legal and policy perspective, there is little information on the structure of privacy as a psychometric construct. Our goal is to develop a method of measuring attitudes towards privacy that can guide the design and personalization of services. This paper reports on research that we have been carrying out on the development of a Privacy Attitudes Questionnaire (PAQ). The development of an initial version of the PAQ is described. The factor structure of the PAQ is assessed, and cluster analysis is used to identify potential stereotypes with respect to attitudes towards privacy amongst different groups of people. The results of this study are then discussed in terms of a) the refinement and utility of the PAQ, and b) their implications for further research on attitudes towards privacy.