“It is Magic”: A Global Perspective on what Technology Means to Youth

As technology becomes ever more pervasive, it is increasingly important to understand the relationships between technology and youth. We seek to understand this bond at a global level. We have conducted focus groups and\ud video diaries with middle-school aged children in three different countries: Hungary, India, and Morocco. Our exploration has yielded five themes highlighting the emotional perspectives of youth regarding the devices in their everyday lives: 1) awe and appreciation, 2) fun and entertainment, 3) boredom, 4) communication, and 5) negativity. This paper discusses these themes and their\ud significance

Parents Views and Rules about Technology: As Told by\ud teir middle School Children in Hungary and India

To help us explore parental attitudes towards and usage of technology, we interviewed students ages 10-15 in Hungary and India in focus groups regarding their technology use. This paper focuses on the preliminary results of these students’ perceptions of parental limitations on their technology use. Parents in both countries limited children’s technology use; however, there were differences in the way these limitations were defined and expressed among our\ud participants. The students from Hungary stated that in many situations their parents have a negative attitude toward technology, however, they prescribed fewer rules and gave more freedom to their children to use the technology items\ud discussed. In India, the students indicated that their parents thought technology was useful, a helpful tool, and spent time using technology with their children and in front of their children. Yet the Indian parents limited their children’s use of technology more than the Hungarian parents

Interfaces and Tools for the Library of Congress National Digital Library

This paper describes a collaborative effort to explore user needs in a digital library, develop interface prototypes for a digital library, and suggest and prototype tools for digital librarians and users at the Library of Congress (LC). Interfaces were guided by an assessment of user needs and aimed to maximize interaction with primary resources and support both browsing and analytical search strategies. Tools to aid users and librarians in overviewing collections, previewing objects, and gatherin g results were created and serve as the beginnings of a digital librarian toolkit. The design process and results are described and suggestions for future work are offered. (Also cross-referenced as UMIACS-TR-98-09

Bringing Treasures to the Surface - Iterative Design for the Library of Congress National Digital Library Program

The Human-Computer Interaction Lab worked with a team of the Library of Congress (LC) to develop and test interface designs for LCUs National Digital Library Program. Three iterations are described and illustrate the progression of the design toward a compact design that minimizes scrolling and jumping and anchors users in a screen space that tightly couples search and results. Issues and resolutions are discussed for each iteration and reflect the challenges of incomplete metadata, data visualization, and the rapidly changing web environment

The Role of Interaction Histories in Mental Model Building and Knowledge Sharing in the Legal Domain

This paper reports on a study examining attorneys= and law librarians= use of their memory and information they record externally in searching for, using, and sharing legal information. The paper suggests automatically and manually recording search histories and basing user interface tools on this information to support mental model building and knowledge sharing in the legal information domain. The research described is part of the author's dissertation research [1] that examined the use of search histories in legal information seeking and use, and proposed interface design recommendations for information systems. While searching for and using information, attorneys learn about legal topics and use this knowledge in their work. They create mental models and share their new knowledge with colleagues. Computers can automatically record human-computer interaction events. This information can help searchers represent and share new knowledge. The recorded information can be provided back to the user through the user interface to support searching for and using information, learning about the subject matter and sharing this knowledge with others. In this study, attorneys and law librarians were interviewed and observed to assess their use of their memory and external memory aids while searching for and using legal information. The results reported here focus on the role of interaction histories and history-based interface tools in supporting mental model development of legal information seekers of a topical area and sharing this information with other users

The Role of Interaction Histories in Mental Model Building and Knowledge Sharing in the Legal Domain

This paper reports on a study examining attorneys and law librarians use of their memory and information they record externally in searching for, using, and sharing legal information. The paper suggests automatically and manually recording search histories and basing user interface tools on this information to support mental model building and knowledge sharing in the legal information domain. The research described is part of the author s dissertation research [1] that examined the use of search histories in legal information seeking and use, and proposed interface design recommendations for information systems. While searching for and using information, attorneys learn about legal topics and use this knowledge in their work. They create mental models and share their new knowledge with colleagues. Computers can automatically record human-computer interaction events. This information can help searchers represent and share new knowledge. The recorded information can be provided back to the user through the user interface to support searching for and using information, learning about the subject matter and sharing this knowledge with others. In this study, attorneys and law librarians were interviewed and observed to assess their use of their memory and external memory aids while searching for and using legal information. The results reported here focus on the role of interaction histories and history-based interface tools in supporting mental model development of legal information seekers of a topical area and sharing this information with other users

Task management support in information seeking: A case for search histories

This paper reports the results of an extensive user study that examined information seekers’ use of their memory and externally recorded search histories in searching for and using information in the legal domain. The ultimate goal of the research is to design search-historybased user interface tools to support information seeking. The results reported here focus on the management of complex information-seeking tasks. Computers can automatically record human–computer interaction events,allow the user to manipulate this information,and provide it back to the searcher through the user interface. In order to understand how this information can best support information seekers,the role of users ’ internal and external memory processes was examined using qualitative research methods (observations,interviews, and participatory user interface design sessions). The data collected were analyzed to identify potential task areas where search histories can support information seeking and use. The results show that many information-seeking tasks can take advantage of automatically and manually recorded history information. One of these areas is described in this paper: the management of complex tasks. Results of the study from the legal user group presented evidence of the utility of search histories and history-based interface tools

The Role of Interaction Histories in Mental Model Building and Knowledge Sharing in the Legal Domain

This paper reports on a study examining attorneys and law librarians use of their memory and information they record externally in searching for, using, and sharing legal information. The paper suggests automatically and manually recording search histories and basing user interface tools on this information to support mental model building and knowledge sharing in the legal information domain. The research described is part of the author s dissertation research [1] that examined the use of search histories in legal information seeking and use, and proposed interface design recommendations for information systems. While searching for and using information, attorneys learn about legal topics and use this knowledge in their work. They create mental models and share their new knowledge with colleagues. Computers can automatically record human-computer interaction events. This information can help searchers represent and share new knowledge. The recorded information can be provided back to the user through the user interface to support searching for and using information, learning about the subject matter and sharing this knowledge with others. In this study, attorneys and law librarians were interviewed and observed to assess their use of their memory and external memory aids while searching for and using legal information. The results reported here focus on the role of interaction histories and history-based interface tools in supporting mental model development of legal information seekers of a topical area and sharing this information with other users