UCD Project News Edition 17, November 20, 2003
UCD Project News is a fortnightly e-newsletter devoted to increasing
awareness of user-centred design (UCD) principles and contributing
towards a culture of UCD within the Smart Internet Technology CRC.
This is the final issue of UCD Project News for 2003. On behalf
of the UCD team, I wish all of our subscribers and the greater SITCRC
community a merry Christmas and happy new year. We look forward
to bringing you more news of the UCD project in March 2004.
Charlotte Scarf, Editor
Charlotte.scarf@rmit.edu.au
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In this issue:
1. Supriya: Final Message for 2003
2. Meet the Newest Face of the UCD Group
3. Upcoming Conferences & Calls for Papers
4. Useful Links & References
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1. Supriya: Final Message for 2003
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We have had an exciting fortnight with visits from Clive Boughton
(head of the SIT architecture project), Reihaneh Safavi-Naini (head
of the DRM project) and Farzad (head of the SN/IE program. With
both Clive and Rei, the discussions revolved around incorporating
the users’ perspective into the frameworks. With Farzad and
Paul Boustead, we spent the time understanding the Swarm scenario
and its technical implications for smart networks.
Ron van Schyndel, Christine Satchell, and I met with Clive and his
wife Carol. Gunela Astbrink joined us by phone from Griffith. Clive
put before us how essential he thought the users’ perspective
was in the architecture project. He had analysed the project proposals
on the web and had come up with a list of non-functional attributes,
following the accepted definitions in software engineering. But
a talk especially with Gunela revealed that the project proposals
had not been detailed enough to reflect the needs of the different
user groups. Keeping in mind the needs of people with disabilities,
“accessibility” was the major addition. We hope to continue
talks in the new year.
Margaret Jackson, Ron van Schyndel and I met with Rei. Fresh from
the ACM conference in the US, Rei told us about the major developments
in the field. However, there are significant gaps relating to users’
perspectives and the Australian legal framework. We will be working
on a paper together trying to flesh out the implications of the
Australian legal context, charting the differences between legal
rights, perceived rights and users’ behaviour regarding sharing
and distributing copies of text, images and sound.
We met with Farzad and Paul Boustead on Thursday to work out the
different aspects of the swarm and what it will mean technically
and socially. It is conversations like these which demonstrate why
we are in the SITCRC.
Let me thank all the members of my team and all of you in SITCRC
for a stimulating year. Wishing you a happy Christmas and New Year.
I would like to thank Charlotte Scarf particularly for her work
on the newsletter and the web.
Supriya
Assoc Prof Supriya Singh,
Project Leader
supriya.singh@rmit.edu.au
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2. Meet the New Face of the UCD Group
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The UCD Group would like to extend a warm welcome to its newest
member:
Dr Kylie Cassar-Bartolo, Research Fellow, RMIT University
Dr. Kylie Cassar-Bartolo is a Research Fellow with the Faculty of
Business at RMIT University, working on the “Nymity”
Project. Kylie specialises in Psychology, Communication Studies
and group processes. Her Honours and Doctoral research has focused
on links between attitudes and behaviour, with a particular focus
on cross-cultural issues.
Kylie has ten years experience in psychology. Her doctoral thesis
focused on health issues, specifically relating to people with chronic
illness. Her research led to the discovery of value systems that
help explain why people do not adhere to life saving treatment plans.
These findings will inform the design of patient education programs,
particularly targeting the Maltese Australian community.
For the past five years, Kylie has lectured at the Victoria University
in the School of Psychology. She has published in a number of refereed
journals and worked on research projects both within Victoria University
and collaboratively with other organisations.
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3. Upcoming Conferences & Calls for Papers
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* CATaC
The fourth biennial international conference on Cultural Attitudes
Towards Technology and Communication (CATaC) will be held in Karlstad,
Sweden from 27 June – 1 July 2004. The conference provides
an international forum for the presentation and discussion of current
research on how diverse cultural attitudes shape the implementation
and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). It
brings together scholars from around the globe who provide diverse
perspectives, both in terms of the specific culture(s) they highlight
in their presentations and discussions, and in terms of the discipline(s)
through which they approach the conference theme.
The theme of the 2004 conference is “Off the Shelf or from
the Ground Up? ICTs and Cultural Marginalisation, Homogenisation
or Hybridisation.” The focus will be on understanding the
role of culture in how far minority and/or indigenous cultural groups
may succeed - or fail - in taking up ICTs designed for a majority
culture. Papers are invited, especially those that address the questions:
What is the role of culture in the development of ICTs "from
the ground up" - beginning with the local culture and conditions
- rather than assuming dominant "off the shelf" technologies
are appropriate? Is the empowering potential of ICTs successfully
exploited among minority and indigenous groups, and/or do they rather
engender cultural marginalization, cultural homogenization or cultural
hybridization?
For further information, please visit: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/catac/
Or email: catac@it.murdoch.edu.au
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* WTS 2004
The third annual Wireless Telecommunications Symposium (WTS 2004)
will be held in Pomona, California on May 14-15, 2004. The Symposium
brings together industry professionals and the academic community
from companies, governmental agencies, and universities around the
world to exchange information on advances in mobile communications
and wireless networking technology, applications, management, and
security.
Planned highlights of WTS 2004 include executive presentations and
keynote addresses, accepted technical research papers, a wireless
network security tutorial, a doctoral students session, and a reception
and tour of the Nixon Library. Among the organizations that will
be represented are Bell Laboratories, the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
Gartner, IBM Research, SBC Communications, and Verizon Wireless.
The call for papers is now open and applied research papers are
invited on a range of topics.
For further information, please visit: http://www.csupomona.edu/wtsi
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4. Useful Links and References
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* Zhang, Ping and Dillon, Andrew (2003), “HCI and MIS: Shared
Concerns,” Editoral Introduction, International Journal of
Human-Computer Studies, Special Issue on HCI and MIS, 59(4), pp
397-522 (October 2003).
In an age of disciplinary shift and calls for greater cross-disciplinary
interaction among various disciplines, it is timely to consider
how related are those research areas that take the human use of
computers as their basic area of concern. It is clear that research
into the human response to technology has taken many forms and been
given many names over the last few decades: human factors, information
design, human-computer interaction, ergonomics, management information
systems, information management, computer-supported collaborative
work etc. Unfortunately, it is also too apparent from the literature
on these topics that many of the key researchers and thinkers in
these areas have tended to address audiences who identify with one
rather than all of these areas. It may be that the issues involved
are too wide for any one field to cover but it is also true that
the exchange of ideas and the sharing of theoretical insights have
been vexingly limited. Specifically, two largely independent literatures
on humans and technology have emerged since the 1970s: Human-Computer
Interaction (HCI) and Management Information Systems (MIS). Both
have their own conferences, journals, professional societies, and
research agenda yet both have research agendas on very similar problems.
This special issue of IJHCS is the result of an attempt to bring
these two fields of practice closer together. It is the first of
a continuous effort of the Special Interest Group on Human-Computer
Interaction of the Association for Information Systems (AIS SIGHCI)
to disseminate research results on human aspects in MIS to other
related fields.
http://melody.syr.edu/hci/ijhcs03/Zhang.pdf
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* Portigal, Steve (1997) Visual Interaction Design: Design as a
Cultural Activity, SIGCHI 29(3), July 1997.
Academics and practitioners in the field of computer-human interaction
are active champions of products (computer-based and otherwise)
that can be effectively used by humanity at large. But is usability
enough? Does a usable product necessarily make a desirable product?
Or a successful product? Of course not. Cultural fit is critical
to a product’s success. It is the starting point, not the
end point of development and should be the foundation for functionality,
ergonomics, and cognitive fit. This paper examines discovery and
synthesis tools found in methods such as applied ethnography and
puts forward the argument that they are effective in helping HCI
practitioners to understand the culture of users; an understanding
which they say is essential if we are to build products that provide
meaning to those users.
http://www.acm.org/sigchi/bulletin/1997.3/vid.html
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* Barber, Wendy, and Bade, Albert (1998) “Culturability: The
Merging of Culture and Usability,” Conference Proceedings
of the 4th International Conference on Human Factors and the Web,
NJ, USA, June 5, 1998.
The electronic environment of the World Wide Web evolves daily,
increasing the likelihood of international participants and transactions.
With this in mind, this paper seeks to address three interrelated
questions: 1.) Are there design elements which can be identified
as culturally specific? 2.) Are there design elements which can
be identified as genre specific? 3.) What, if any, relationship
exists between culture and genre as reflected in Web design? As
a consequence of existing international WWW users and in anticipation
of potential users, usability takes on an immediate and relevant
cultural context. To identify localization elements and generalize
them to "cultural markers" that are specific to a given
culture, and/or, perhaps influenced by genre, the authors perform
a systematic usability inspection of several hundred websites originating
in different countries and languages. Cultural markers are those
elements that are most prevalent, and possibly preferred within
a particular cultural group. Ultimately, they argue, cultural markers
can directly impact user performance, hence the merging of culture
and usability.
http://www.research.att.com/conf/hfweb/proceedings/barber/
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