Designing for Seamless Task Migration in MPUIs: Bridging Task-Disconnects

Today, the proliferation of mobile computing has changed the work environment forever. As a consequence, users are forced to orchestrate a complex interaction between multiple devices, moving data and information back and forth, to accomplish their tasks. Users trudge out USB key drives, remote desktop software, e-mail and network file storage in an attempt to mitigate this orchestration. We refer to this break from the task at hand as task-disconnect. Task-disconnect represents the break in continuity that occurs when a user attempts to accomplish his or her tasks using more than one device. Our objective is to study how software can bridge this task-disconnect, enabling users to seamlessly transition their tasks among their devices. We present the theory, definition, and discussion of task-disconnect; our approach towards bridging this disconnect; and our prototype application that was built to be used across the desktop computer and the Tablet PC platforms. We then describe our subjective evaluation to measure the effectiveness of the prototype in bridging the task-disconnect. We then conclude with the results and insights gained from our evaluation

Studying Group Decision Making in Affinity Diagramming

Affinity diagramming is a commonly used contextual design practice for which many tools have been developed. However, experts and novices alike eschew tool use, instead using traditional paper and whiteboard methods. This paper presents observations of traditional affinity diagramming sessions, focusing on three areas of consideration—shared awareness, cognitive offloading, and understanding, organizing and searching—that are important for collaborative tools. Specific design requirements for each of these three areas are described

The UX book: Process and guidelines for ensuring a quality user experience

Amsterdamxiv, 937 p.: fig., index; 25 c

Testbed evaluation of navigation and text display techniques in an information-rich virtual environment

The fundamental question for an information-rich virtual environment is how to access and display abstract information. We investigated two existing navigation techniques: Hand-Centered Object Manipulation Extending Ray-casting (HOMER) and Go-Go navigation, and two text layout techniques: within-the-world display (WWD) and heads-up display (HUD). Four search tasks were performed to measure participants ’ performance in a densely packed environment. HUD enabled significantly better performance than WWD and the Go-Go technique enabled better performance than the HOMER technique for most of the tasks. We found that using HOMER navigation combined with the WWD technique was significantly worse than other combinations for difficult naïve search tasks. Users also preferred the combination of Go-Go and HUD for all tasks. 1. Introduction an