Establishing Best Practices for Scholarly Research Based on the Tenets of Human-Computer Interaction

This commentary will not predict future directions of HCI, or impose a research agenda. Rather, I will reason general advice regarding the four main tenets of HCI in hopes of providing guidance for future research. Mindful that interaction is the ultimate phenomenon of interest to HCI; I assert that scholars should situate their work within the tenets in such a way as to address both design and use/impact (with one or both being emphasized). To assist toward this end, I provide a diagram and accompanying examples from the literature. I also address the importance of design as a component that distinguishes HCI from IS, drawing on more examples from the literature. This commentary is intended to serve academics by providing a clear framework in which to think about and compose their work going forward. I also encourage readers to challenge the model and examples I present here. At the most, this will spark a productive debate about the nature of HCI research in IS; while at the least, it will help the reader solidify an understanding of how to define HCI and conduct appropriate research

How to Teach Information Systems Students to Design Better User Interfaces through Paper Prototyping

Given the ubiquity of interfaces on computing devices, it is essential for future Information Systems (IS) professionals to understand the ramifications of good user interface (UI) design. This article provides instructions on how to efficiently and effectively teach IS students about “fit,” a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) concept, through a paper prototyping activity. Although easy to explain, the concept of “fit” can be difficult to understand without repeated practice. Practically, designing “fit” into UIs can be cost-prohibitive because working prototypes are often beyond students’ technical skillset. Accordingly, based on principles of active learning, we show how to use paper prototyping to demonstrate “fit” in a hands-on class exercise. We provide detailed step-by-step instructions to plan, setup, and present the exercise to guide students through the process of “fit” in UI design. As a result of this activity, students are better able to employ both theoretical and practical applications of “fit” in UI design and implementation. This exercise is applicable in any course that includes UI design, such as principles of HCI, systems analysis and design, software engineering, and project management

The Impact of Social Media Features on Teaching Presence in Communities of Inquiry

We examine which features of social media support teaching presence both in and outside of the classroom. Our findings have implications for both design and practice, showing that parsimonious communication tools (PCTs), liberal communication tools (LCTs), multimedia, and notifications support teaching presence. The affordances of these first two relate to immediacy, and hence, allow teaching presence to be expressed in different ways. Meanwhile, notifications allow for filtering incoming information, and thus, impact teaching presence holistically. Multimedia allows CoI members to embed more content and therefore, also have an overarching effect on teaching presence. The only social media feature noted to be conducive to expressing teaching presence inside of the classroom is PCTs

Applying Extended Adaptive Structuration Theory to Qualitative Research on Human-Computer Interaction

Interaction, as the central tenet in Human-Computer Interaction phenomenon, lends itself to considering those characteristics of technologies that humans can perceive and/or interact with directly. However, Griffith (1999) noted that deciphering technology features is ambiguous with multiple levels of granularity that can be further deconstructed. Deciding which granularity levels technological features should be considered at can be challenging to HCI scholars. This paper demonstrates how to apply extended Adaptive Structuration Theory (eAST) (Markus & Silver, 2008) to data collection and analysis in a way that can address phenomena at an appropriate level of technological abstraction. Our approach helps to provide researchers with clear guidance as to how to understand human interaction with technologies in such a way as to provide insight on information technology design. Such an illustration can be beneficial to HCI scholars because despite the popularity and wide application of AST and eAST, little research has demonstrated the direct application of these theories in guiding qualitative HCI work. This paper first establishes the importance of identifying the appropriate technological features when studying HCI. Then foundations of the extended AST (technical objects, functional affordances, and symbolic expressions) are explained with attention to how they can guide the identification of technological features at the appropriate granularity level. An example multi-case study is used to illustrate the applicability of eAST. Finally, some considerations for applying AST are summarized

State of IT Artifacts: An Analysis of ICIS 2009 Research Papers

The notion of IT artifact as the core of the IS discipline has been generally accepted by IS scholars, despite a thick gray area consisting of multiple and varied conceptualizations of IT artifacts. In this study, we do not seek to clarify this gray area, or to impose any specific worldview upon it. Rather, we strive to present an accurate representation of the current state of IT artifacts as researchers conceptualized them. We do so through content analysis of 134 research articles from the most recent proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) 2009. We consider three facets for our analysis: IT artifact conceptualization adopted from Orlikowski and Iacono’s (2001), context of a study, and granularity of IT artifact treatment. These facets inform us as to the current state of IT artifacts. We provide discussions about the intersections of these three facets, comparison of our analysis of IT artifacts to two other studies, and provide implications for IS scholars and the IS discipline as a whole

Group Maintenance in Technology-Supported Distributed Teams

Are geographically-distributed teams which exhibit high levels of group maintenance between members successful? We answer this through content analysis of emails from two Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) teams. Our results illustrate that the groups utilize low levels of organizational citizenship behaviors and high levels of positive politeness actions

Methods of Measuring Vapor Pressures of Lubricants With Their Additives Using TGA and/or Microbalances

The life of a space system may be critically dependent on the lubrication of some of its moving parts. The vapor pressure, the quantity of the available lubricant, the temperature and the exhaust venting conductance passage are important considerations in the selection and application of a lubricant. In addition, the oil additives employed to provide certain properties of low friction, surface tension, antioxidant and load bearing characteristics, are also very important and need to be known with regard to their amounts and vapor pressures. This paper reports on the measurements and analyses carried out to obtain those parameters for two often employed lubricants, the Apiezon(TM)-C and the Krytox(TM) AB. The measurements were made employing an electronic microbalance and a thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) modified to operate in a vacuum. The results have been compared to other data on these oils when available. The identification of the mass fractions of the additives in the oil and their vapor pressures as a function of the temperature were carried out. These may be used to estimate the lubricant life given its quantity and the system vent exhaust conductance. It was found that the Apiezon(TM)-C has three main components with different rates of evaporation while the Krytox(TM) did not indicate any measurable additive

Haematopoietic stem cells in perisinusoidal niches are protected from ageing.

With ageing, intrinsic haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) activity decreases, resulting in impaired tissue homeostasis, reduced engraftment following transplantation and increased susceptibility to diseases. However, whether ageing also affects the HSC niche, and thereby impairs its capacity to support HSC function, is still widely debated. Here, by using in-vivo long-term label-retention assays we demonstrate that aged label-retaining HSCs, which are, in old mice, the most quiescent HSC subpopulation with the highest regenerative capacity and cellular polarity, reside predominantly in perisinusoidal niches. Furthermore, we demonstrate that sinusoidal niches are uniquely preserved in shape, morphology and number on ageing. Finally, we show that myeloablative chemotherapy can selectively disrupt aged sinusoidal niches in the long term, which is linked to the lack of recovery of endothelial Jag2 at sinusoids. Overall, our data characterize the functional alterations of the aged HSC niche and unveil that perisinusoidal niches are uniquely preserved and thereby protect HSCs from ageing