Moving Usability Testing onto the Web

Abstract: In order to remotely obtain detailed usability data by tracking user behaviors within a given web site, a server-based usability testing environment has been created. Web pages are annotated in such a way that arbitrary user actions (such as "mouse over link" or "click back button") can be selected for logging. In addition, the system allows the experiment designer to interleave interactive questions into the usability evaluation, which for instance could be triggered by a particular sequence of actions. The system works in conjunction with clustering and visualization algorithms that can be applied to the resulting log file data. A first version of the system has been used successfully to carry out a web usability evaluation

WEST: A Web Browser for Small Terminals

We describe WEST, a WEb browser for Small Terminals, that aims to solve some of the problems associated with accessing web pages on hand-held devices. Through a novel combination of text reduction and focus+context visualization, users can access web pages from a very limited display environment, since the system will provide an overview of the contents of a web page even when it is too large to be displayed in its entirety. To make maximum use of the limited resources available on a typical hand-held terminal, much of the most demanding work is done by a proxy server, allowing the terminal to concentrate on the task of providing responsive user interaction. The system makes use of some interaction concepts reminiscent of those defined in the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), making it possible to utilize the techniques described here for WAP-compliant devices and services that may become available in the near future

Recycling Lingware in a Multilingual MT System

We describe two methods relevant to multi-lingual machine translation systems, which can be used to port linguistic data (grammars, lexicons and transfer rules) between systems used for processing related languages. The methods are fully implemented within the Spoken Language Translator system, and were used to create versions of the system for two new language pairs using only a month of expert effort.Comment: 6 pages, needs aclap.sty. To appear in "From Research to Commercial Applications" workshop at ACL-97, see also http://www.cam.sri.co

Natural Language in Model World Interfaces

An essay on rationale and methodology of combining natural language and other means of interaction in multimodal interfaces

Synergy Effects in Natural Language-Based Multimodal Interaction

: We discuss the synergetic effects that can be obtained in an integrated multimodal interface framework comprising on one hand a visual language-based modality and on the other natural language analysis and generation components. Besides a visual language with high expressive power, the framework includes a cross-modal translation mechanism which enables mutual illumination of interface language syntax and semantics. Special attention has been payed to how to address problems with robustness and pragmatics through unconventional methods which aim to enable user control of the discourse management process. Keywords: Multimodal interaction, Natural language interfaces. Also Published: This paper also appeared in the Proceedings of the ERCIM 1993 Workshop on Multimodal Human-Computer Interaction, Nancy, France, November 1993. ii 1 Introduction The main point with providing interaction through multiple modalities in the first place is that the total usability thus obtained is grea..

Worlds Without Words

This paper points out a deficiency in virtual worlds as they are envisioned today. Several of the more important aspects of human communicative behavior are missing, since there is no way to accommodate natural linguistic interaction with and through the interface. We point out some explicit cases where natural language interaction would be useful in a VR framework, and identify some areas where natural language interpretation actually might benefit from being situated in a highly formalized environment

Synergy Effects in Natural Language-Based Multimodal Interaction

A scheme for integration of a natural language interface into a multimodal environment is presented with emphasis on the synergetic results that can be achieved, which are argued to be: 1)Complementary expressiveness; 2) Mutual illumination of language syntax and semantics; 3) Robust pragmatics and graceful recovery from failed natural language analyses through the reification of discourse objects to enable user control of discourse management