Introduction to the Special Issue on the 50th Anniversary of IJHCS

This special issue celebrates the 50th anniversary of the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (IJHCS), which published its first volume in January 1969. The special issue comprises 15 contributions from a number of experts in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and other areas relevant to IJHCS. These contributions are best characterized as ‘landscape papers’, providing insightful analyses about the evolution (i.e., the past, the present and the future) of research areas relevant to IJHCS. The areas covered in this special issue include: the history and scope of the journal; foundational concerns in HCI; critical discussions about the issues surrounding digital living in a variety of areas, from healthcare and cybersecurity to digital games and art; the making of interactive products and services, as seen through the viewpoints defined by research in psychology of programming, end-user development and participatory design; and, finally, the issues associated with adapting to various novel emerging technologies, including automated systems, online personalisation, human augmentations, mixed reality, and sonic interfaces. In this short essay, we introduce the special issue, reflecting on the nature and evolution of the journal, before providing short outlines of each of the contributions to this special issue

An empirical investigation into strategies for guiding interactive search

One activity people engage in when using the web is estimating the likelihood that labelled links will lead to their goal. However, they must also decide whether to select one of the assessed items immediately or make further assessments. There are a number of theoretical accounts of this behaviour. The accounts differ as to whether, for example, they assume that people consider all of the items on a page prior to making a selection, or tend to make a selection immediately following an assessment of a highly relevant item. A series of experiments were conducted to discriminate between these accounts. The empirical studies demonstrated that people are in fact more strategic and sensitive to context than previous models suggest. People sometimes choose an option which appears good enough, but sometimes choose to continue checking. The decision to select an item was found to be sensitive to the relevance of labels in the immediate and distal choice set and also the number of options in the immediately available choice set. The data were used to motivate computational models of interactive search. An implication of the work presented here is that engineering models that aim to predict the time required by a typical user to search web page structure or which labelled link a user is likely to select for a given goal need to be updated so that they are sensitive to the extent to which people adapt strategy to the features of the context, such as the distractor semantics and number of distractor

Why Are Cross-Device Interactions Important When It Comes To Digital Wellbeing?

Under the overwhelming amount of distractions in our multi-device environment, we have come to realise that more work could be put into evaluating cross-device ecosystems to enhance digital wellbeing. In the workshop, we would like to address and exchange ideas about the topic of digital wellbeing in the following areas of cross-device interactions: 1) the tracking of cross-device activities (how to better track users’ interactions on multiple devices, and how to deliver cross-device actionable insights), and 2) cross-device notifications (how to better fit cross-device notifications into users’ lives)

Crowdworkers' temporal flexibility is being traded for the convenience of requesters through 19 'invisible mechanisms' employed by crowdworking platforms

Crowdworking platforms are a prime example of a product that sells flexibility to its consumers. In this paper, we argue that crowdworking platforms sell temporal flexibility to requesters to the detriment of workers. We begin by identifying a list of 19 features employed by crowdworking platforms that facilitate the trade of temporal flexibility from crowdworkers to requesters. Using the list of features, we conduct a comparative analysis of nine crowdworking platforms available to U.S.-based workers, in which we describe key differences and similarities between the platforms. We find that crowdworking platforms strongly favour features that promote requesters’ temporal flexibility over workers’ by limiting the predictability of workers’ working hours and restricting paid time. Further, we identify which platforms employ the highest number of features that facilitate the trade of temporal flexibility from workers to requesters, consequently increasing workers’ temporal precarity. We conclude the paper by discussing the implications of the results

Capturing the distinction between task and device errors in a formal model of user behaviour

In any complex interactive human-computer system, people are likely to make errors during its operation. In this paper, we describe a validation study of an existing generic model of user behaviour. The study is based on the data and conclusions from an independent prior experiment. We show that the current model does successfully capture the key concepts investigated in the experiment, particularly relating to results to do with the distinction between task and device-specific errors. However, we also highlight some apparent weaknesses in the current model with respect to initialisation errors, based on comparison with previously unpublished (and more detailed) data from the experiment. The differences between data and observed model behaviour suggest the need for new empirical research to determine what additional factors are at work. We also discuss the potential use of formal models of user behaviour in both informing, and generating further hypotheses about the causes of human error

"Oops...": : Mobile Message Deletion in Conversation Error and Regret Remediation

Message deletion in mobile messaging apps allows people to “unsay” things they have said. This paper explores how and why people use (or do not use) this feature within remediation strategies after a communication error is identified. We present findings from a multi-stage survey designed to explore people’s general experiences of the message deletion feature (N = 401), peoples’ experiences of using this feature during the remediation of an error (N = 70), and receivers’ perceptions around recent message deletions (N = 68). While people are typically aware of the deletion feature, it is infrequently used. When used, it is primarily done so to improve conversations by reducing confusion between conversation partners. We found people being aware of message deletions creating information-gaps which can provoke curiosity in recipients, causing them to develop narratives to help address the uncertainty. We found concerns amongst senders that these narratives would be of a negative nature, having an undesirable impact on how others perceive them. We use our findings to suggest ways in which mobile messaging apps could improve conversational experiences around erroneous and regrettable messages

Short links and tiny keyboards::A systematic exploration of design trade-offs in link shortening services

AbstractLink-shortening services save space and make the manual entry of URLs less onerous. Short links are often included on printed materials so that people using mobile devices can quickly enter URLs. Although mobile transcription is a common use-case, link-shortening services generate output that is poorly suited to entry on mobile devices: links often contain numbers and capital letters that require time consuming mode switches on touch screen keyboards. With the aid of computational modeling, we identified problems with the output of a link-shortening service, bit.ly. Based on the results of this modeling, we hypothesized that longer links that are optimized for input on mobile keyboards would improve link entry speeds compared to shorter links that required keyboard mode switches. We conducted a human performance study that confirmed this hypothesis. Finally, we applied our method to a selection of different non-word mobile data-entry tasks. This work illustrates the need for service design to fit the constraints of the devices people use to consume services

The Emergence of Interactive Behaviour: A Model of Rational Menu Search

ABSTRACT One reason that human interaction with technology is difficult to understand is because the way in which people perform interactive tasks is highly adaptive. One such interactive task is menu search. In the current article we test the hypothesis that menu search is rationally adapted to (1) the ecological structure of interaction, (2) cognitive and perceptual limits, and (3) the goal to maximise the trade-off between speed and accuracy. Unlike in previous models, no assumptions are made about the strategies available to or adopted by users, rather the menu search problem is specified as a reinforcement learning problem and behaviour emerges by finding the optimal policy. The model is tested against existing empirical findings concerning the effect of menu organisation and menu length. The model predicts the effect of these variables on task completion time and eye movements. The discussion considers the pros and cons of the modelling approach relative to other well-known modelling approaches