UCD Project News Edition 22, May 17, 2004
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.
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In this issue:
1. Supriya: Linking at RAC
2. User Environment Workshop
3. Asia Pacific Developments in ICT Accessibility
4. Upcoming Conferences & Calls for Papers
5. Useful Links & References
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1. Supriya: Linking at RAC
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The Research Advisory Committee Meeting was a good occasion to meet
face-to-face with project leaders, university representatives and
industry partners. Our challenge at this meeting was to demonstrate
value to the Smart Internet Technology CRC. Gunela is leading the
Amivox project where we are working together with NAUI. We are also
playing important roles in the Nymity, Gaming and Digital Rights
Management projects. I signalled our desire to work more closely
with the projects dealing with health, arguing we can bring the
patient’s perspective to design. Our work on linkages has
thrown up future projects on privacy rights management, group identity
and the personal control of health information. The first has interesting
implications in the way we track and control organisational use
of personal information. The Group Identity perspective is most
likely going to be an interesting bridge between DRM discussions
and user behaviour. The third, relating to personal health information,
addresses an important user problem, but requires a shift in the
discussion around health. There is also an exciting opportunity
to address the learners’ perspectives in the field of education
and technology.
The RAC meeting was a good time to review what we are contributing
in terms of methodology. We have articulated the concepts of “Discovery
UCD”; “translation” and the “scenario prototype”.
We need to continue reflecting on our experience with the technical
projects to see where and how we are communicating and contributing
to design. It became clear at the meeting that gathering “user
requirements” was being approached in several ways. Each project
had user requirements somewhere in the presentation. However these
could be addressed before, during or after the initial technical
design. User models, qualitative and quantitative methods were used
in gathering requirements. Software engineering has its own terminology.
The frameworks varied from the social to the technical. There is
an opportunity in Smart Internet to reflect on these different approaches,
to see how we can build on the strengths of each perspective.
What emerged after the meeting and the socialising, is that we have
to continue to build our intellectual capital in terms of methodology
and our knowledge of user groups across a range of different activities.
Supriya
Assoc Prof Supriya Singh,
Project Leader
supriya.singh@rmit.edu.au
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2. User Environment Workshop
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The User Environment Workshop of the Smart Internet CRC will be
held July 14-16, 2004 at the University of Melbourne, Parkville,
Melbourne. All currently approved researchers working on Smart Internet
projects, and our PhD students, are invited to attend. The CRC will
pay for economy return airfares for people who will be travelling
from interstate and for their two night's accommodation in Melbourne.
The purpose of the workshop is for all of our researchers to have
a productive engagement with others in our program, to get a good
working knowledge of our range of projects, and to be briefed on
some key management issues relating to our CRC. And we want to leave
ample time for you to raise issues about the UE Program with us
and feel that you can contribute to its development for 2005 and
beyond.
Darrell Williamson, our CEO, will open the workshop and I am hoping
that our other two Program Managers, Farzad and Wayne, are likely
to be able to attend for some of the time to discuss their projects
with you. I am also hoping that we can engage with our corporate
sponsors during that time.
Any ideas about the shape of the program, and how we best organise
things for July 14-16, will be welcome. I will be putting together
an agenda during the next couple of weeks. So please mark you diary
and please let me know by e-mail whether you are likely to attend.
Make sure you include all of your contact details.
Looking forward to seeing you in Melbourne in mid July,
Trevor
Professor Trevor Barr
Program Manager (UE)
tbarr@groupwise.swin.edu.au
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3. Asia Pacific Developments in ICT Accessibility
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Gunela Astbrink was invited by the Japanese Institute of Global
Communications to participate in the International Symposium on
ICT Accessibility in the Asia-Pacific Region in January 2004. She
did this in her capacity as Policy Advisor with TEDICORE (Telecommunications
and Disability Consumer Representation). Funded by the Commonwealth
government, TEDICORE works to achieve better access to and equity
in telecommunications for people with disabilities.
The day before the Symposium, a workshop was held on digital divide
issues in countries such as Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Philippines
and Australia. Projects such as language in relation to accessibility
and usability in Japan and alleviation of “knowledge poverty”
in Thailand were discussed. Asian languages using a range of different
characters, conveying characters vertically rather than horizontally,
different forms of pronunciation, spacing in relation to speech
reading software for blind people are all issues for consideration
where non-European based accessibility guidelines are important.
In Thailand, the Assistive Technology Center (part of the National
Science and Technology Development Agency) designs and develops
devices suitable for Thai people with disabilities. Often imported
products are too expensive and inappropriate. A variety of communication
devices for people with speech impairments have already been developed.
Research is currently being undertaken on speech recognition software
to train Thai people with speech impairments to enhance their speech
patterns.
The Symposium, attended by about 100 people, comprised 10% people
with disabilities, 30% academics and 50% industry representatives.
Gunela Astbrink was the only person from a Western-based culture
at the Symposium and spoke about Australian activities in standards
development for accessibility and the important role that consumers
played in consultation.
Further information about the Symposium is available at: http://www.glocom.org/special_topics/activity_rep/20040123_miyao_access/
The day after the Symposium was taken up with site visits to Microsoft,
NEC and the Universal Design Institute for Information Technology
(UDIT). One of the highlights was a demonstration at the NEC Laboratories
of PaPeRo, a home-based robot. It uses speech and face recognition
and is designed to look “cute” and speak “cutely”
aiming to suit a Japanese market. User research has found that families
with children and older people rather than single people enjoy the
continuing interaction with PaPeRo.
Further information is available at:
http://www.incx.nec.co.jp/robot/PaPeRo/english/p_index.html
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4. Upcoming Conferences & Calls for Papers
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*!CCD 2004
The 22nd International Conference on Computer Design will be held
October 11 - 13, 2004 in San Jose, California. The IEEE Computer
Society and the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society sponsor the conference
in cooperation with the IEEE Electron Devices Society.
The theme for the 2004 ICCD conference is: "The Convergence
of Computing, Communications, and Consumer Electronics." The
submission deadline for papers has been extended until Friday, May
21st.
For further information, please visit: http://www.iccd-conference.org/
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5. Useful Links and References
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* Behaviour & Information Technology, Taylor & Francis,
Volume 23, Number 3, May June 2004
This special issue of BIT includes expansions of the best papers
from the "HCI Studies in MIS" minitrack at AMCIS 2003
in Tampa, FL (the second minitrack sponsored by AIS SIGHCI). The
following are included in the BIT special issue:
1) Ping Zhang, Fiona Fui Hoon Nah, Jenny Preece, “Guest Editorial:
HCI studies in management information systems” pp. 147-151
2) Fiona Fui Hoon Nah, “A study on tolerable waiting time:
how long are Web users willing to wait?” pp. 153-163
3) Minhee Chae, Jinwoo Kim, “Do size and structure matter
to mobile users? An empirical study of the effects of screen size,
information structure, and task complexity on user activities with
standard web phones” pp. 165-181
4) Richard H Hall, Patrick Hanna, “The impact of web page
text background colour combinations on readability, retention, aesthetics
and behavioural intention” pp. 183-195
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/0144929X.asp
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* IS World Design Research in Information Systems Web Page
A Web page on Design Research in Information Systems has recently
been developed for ISWORLD. The editors of the page are currently
seeking feedback and short abstracts of items for the references
section (100 words max) from the design research community. To contribute,
please email Vijay Vaishnavi on vvaishna@gsu.edu or Bill Kuechler
on kuechler@unr.edu.
http://www.isworld.org/Researchdesign/drisISworld.htm
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* Kathleen Swigger, Ferda Alpaslan, Robert Brazile and Michael Monticino
(2004) “Effects of culture on computer supported international
collaborations” International Journal of Human-Computer Studies,
60(3), March, pp 365-380
This paper discusses results of a case study from an on-going project
to investigate how cultural factors, as identified by the Cultural
Perspectives Questionnaire (CPQ), affect the performance of distributed
collaborative learning teams. The results indicate that a team's
cultural composition is a significant predictor of its performance
on programming projects. The cultural attributes most strongly correlated
to group performance included those related to attitudes about organisational
hierarchy, organisational harmony, trade-offs between future and
current needs, and beliefs about how much influence individuals
have on their fate. Moreover, the type of programming task affected
the strength of the relationship between individual cultural attributes
and performance. The results presented have important implications
for the formation of distributed collaborations and, in particular,
for educational institutions offering distance-learning programs
that require team projects.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6WGR-4B6CNHY-1/2/28236b377fdd6598b1840ac6c4209501
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