Paper reading #25: Tagsplanations: explaining recommendations using tags

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Reference InformationTitle: Tagsplanations: explaining recommendations using tags
Authors: Jesse Vig, Shilad Sen, John Riedl
Presentation Venue: IUI 2009: Proceedings of the 14th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces; February 8-11, 2009; Sanibel Island, Florida, USA

Summary

In this paper, the authors talk about Tagsplanations: a design implemented on a movie recommender website. Not only are recommendations made to users but, these recommendations are also in turn explained for(i.e.: Why was a certain recommendation given). They discuss an algorithm used to determine tag relevance and tag preference and present a study to see how users like tagsplanations. If an item is similar in feature, for example,  the relevance would be high, but if the user preferred a certain type of item or brand, the preference would be high.

To test the implementation of tagsplanations, the researchers used MovieLens, a movie recommendation site. They computed tag preference based on user behavior (by movie ratings in their MovieLens implementation).

An experiment was also conducted in order to see how users responded to the different types of recommendations.  The conclusions were that tag preference was more important than tag relevance.  Concerning effectiveness, the two were about the same.  For mood compatibility, relevance was rated higher.

Discussion

I thought this paper was interesting and relevant. In looking at their interface, I think they’ve done a good job presenting their information in a concise and straightforward way.

The research reminded me of recommendation systems like Amazon, and Google. I can easily see this design as benefiting to users. The authors explained their motivations well and provided an in-depth user study. For future works the researchers mentioned possibly making a way in which users can inform the system when it is wrong and the system can inform users when different actions impact the results they receive. They also mentioned exploring other techniques to estimate tag preference.

Paper reading #24: Have a say over what you see: evaluating interactive compression techniques

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Reference Information
Title: Have a say over what you see: evaluating interactive compression techniques
Authors: Simon Tucker, Steve Whittaker
Presentation Venue: IUI 2009: Proceedings of the 14th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces; February 8-11, 2009; Sanibel Island, Florida, USA

Summary

This paper discusses Interactive Compression techniques that allow a user to remove information in documents they do not wish to see and making important information more visible.

Some of the different compression techniques explored are Word Excision(removing unimportant words by replacing them with periods), Utterance Excision(removing utterances and replacing them with white space), Highlighting Words(marking important words), Highlighting Utterances( marking important utterances), Keyword Context(use Utterance Excision but leave one word in place and grayed-out to let the user know the utterance is there), Fish-eye View(split the screen into five views that display certain things such as important words).

After an initial user study, the authors found that two most successful compression techniques were Word Excision and Word Highlighting. They performed another more in-depth study on these two specific techniques.

Their results showed that Word Excision and Word Highlighting allowed the users to extract the important information from documents more effectively even with the presence of an occasional error from the algorithm

Discussion
While reading this paper, I could not help myself thinking about how useful a tool this software would be with all the HCI reading assignments we have had.
Areas of future study that the researchers mention include improving their algorithms and exploring other ways to determine which parts of the document are important. They also want to test their system on other types of documents.

Paper reading #23: Improving meeting summarization by focusing on user needs: a task-oriented evaluation

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Reference Information
Title: Improving meeting summarization by focusing on user needs: a task-oriented evaluation
Authors: Pei-Yun Hsueh, Johanna D. Moore
Presentation Venue: IUI 2009: Proceedings of the 14th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces; February 8-11, 2009; Sanibel Island, Florida, USA

Summary

In this paper, the authors discuss a method of improving the summarization of meetings.

Much work on meeting browsers and search structures have been done that allow people to search for a specific part of the meeting, but often the most important part of the meeting is a decision that is made.  

The researchers discuss two types of summaries. The first provides a general summary of the meeting and is the type of summary produced by current. The second provides a more decision-focused summary that is shorter than the general summary.

The researchers performed a study in which they provided participants with four meetings through a Meeting Browser Interface. They asked the participants to summarize the decisions made in the meetings. Participants were randomly assigned one of four summary displays that were embedded into the browser interface that presented different information about the meeting.

The researchers found that displaying decision-focused summaries were more effective and helped users get a better overview of the meeting. However, it was found that decision-focused summaries written manually were still more effective than the ones generated by the algorithm.

Discussion
I think this research could be very useful for people who miss meetings or want to review meetings after they have occurred. Future studies suggests that the researchers will focus on further improving the algorithm and run more experiments on meetings that are more and less structured to better identify the strengths and weaknesses in their current algorithm.

Paper reading #22: User-oriented document summarization through vision-based eye-tracking

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Reference Information

Reference Information
Title: User-oriented document summarization through vision-based eye-tracking
Authors: Songhua Xu, Hao Jiang, Francis C.M. Lau
Presentation Venue: IUI 2009: Proceedings of the 14th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces; February 8-11, 2009; Sanibel Island, Florida, USA

Summary

In this paper, the researchers seek to create an algorithm that allows eye-tracking to aid in summarizing documents for users. Their approach is by estimating the average time spent on a single word in the documents the user is reading and extrapolating that data into the likely-hood the user will find a sentence interesting. Equipment used consists in a web-cam, and the document viewer the authors made. After this setup, the user can start reading. They restrict the algorithm to only output a percentage of the sentences given the most attention. The percentage is based on the size of the document. 

The researchers compare their results of summarization to two popular methods of summarization - Microsoft Word AutoSummarize and the MEAD summerizer system.  The experiment involves using sets of literature from science and leisure

The researchers found that their algorithm could create more personalized summaries based on the user’s interests, especially for the entertainment/leisure articles, than the other two algorithms could.

 Discussion

This paper was really interesting to read. I appreciated the work presented, and the ideas put forward. They didn’t give much information on how the users responded to their system though. They just said it was better than the others.

The researchers note that in future studies they would like to make it so that their algorithm can work even on articles that the user has not read They also mention improving the overall algorithm and implementing a training system by allowing for feedback from the user to improve summarization.

 

Paper reading #21: Towards maximizing the accuracy of human-labeled sensor data

Comments

Reference InformationTitle: Towards maximizing the accuracy of human-labeled sensor data
Authors: Stephanie L. Rosenthal and Anind K. Dey
Presentation Venue: IUI 2010: Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces; February 7-10, 2010; Hong Kong, China

Summary

In this paper, the authors discuss the impact that different amounts of information have on people when they label things. They discuss 5 main types of information given to labelers such a: Different amounts of contextual information, High and low level explanations, Prediction, User Feedback, and Level of uncertainty.

A study was conducted by the authors where they used the wizard-of-oz technique and presented labelers with varying amounts of information to test their labeling accuracy. They also focused on the differences between people labeling data they had not seen before and their own data.

After the study, they found that the five types of information had a positive affect on the labelers, because it gave them more information or helped to direct their thought processes.

Finally, the researchers found that whether the labeler was familiar with the had no impact on the accuracy of the label.

Discussion
The was one of those papers where I feel, if you do not have some type of background about the subject, you will be left in the dark. This paper was hard to follow, in my opinion. Nonetheless, the idea of labeling and the accuracy to which people do so was interesting. Either than that, I don't quite get the usefulness of this study.  I didn't understand why they were doing it as they did not have a good explanation in any part of the paper. 

Paper Reading #20: Designing a thesaurus-based comparison search interface for linked cultural heritage sources

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Reference Information

Title: Designing a thesaurus-based comparison search interface for linked cultural heritage sources

Authors: Alia Amin, Michiel Hildebrand, Jacco van Ossenbruggen, Lynda Hardman

Presentation Venue: IUI '10 Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces ;
February 7-10, 2009;

Hong Kong, China

Summary

 
This paper talks about comparison search, namely in the cultural heritage domain. The authors started with a preliminary study on experts trying to compare sets of artworks. From this study, the authors were able to identify certain areas of concern like name aliases, multiple languages, multiple terms, comparing many sets of data, single and multiple property comparison.  A thesaurus based algorithm solution is proposed in order to categorize data.  The uses are: learning about collections, planning exhibitions, and qualitative comparison.  They use a program called LISA in order to implement this. This paper mainly discusses the interface of the system and the interaction with it.
Some selection and comparison challenges mentioned are Searching artworks, Selecting artworks, and Comparing artworks. LISA was implemented on top of ClioPatria, a web-based application for searching through heterogeneous sets of data.

The researchers did two studies.  The first study was to get a grasp on problems experts have when doing comparison studies, and to determine the realistic use of comparisons.  The second study was to test a thesaurus-based comparison module that would be able to search, select, and compare different artifacts in cultural heritage.

LISA's ease of use was compared with RKDimages, a widely-used online cultural heritage archive. They found that overall LISA was easier to use than RKDimages, especially when it came to searching for many artworks and selecting artworksFuture works seem to indicate working on a better implementation of the auto-complete ability, supporting interactivity visualizations, and providing bookmarking and search history storage.

Discussion

 

I found this paper somewhat interesting. The target audience seems defined to art experts. Nonetheless,   the idea of using a Thesaurus to assist in search could be really useful. . It looked easy to use and looked self-explanatory.  One thing they could do for future projects would be to expand their domain to a different field.

Paper Reading #19: Local danger warnings for drivers: the effect of modality and level of assistance on driver reaction

Comments

Evin Schuchardt

Cindy Skach

Reference Information

Title: Local danger warnings for drivers: the effect of modality and level of assistance on driver reaction

Authors: Yujia Cao  University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands
              Angela Mahr  German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, Saarbrücken, Germany
              Sandro Castronovo  German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, Saarbrücken, Germany
             Mariët Theune  Universtiy of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands
            Christoph Stahl  University of the Saarland, Saarbrücken, Germany
             Christian A. Müller  German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, Saarbrücken, Germany

Presentation Venue: IUI '10 Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces ;
February 7-10, 2009;

Hong Kong, China

Summary

In this paper the authors discuss Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, and their use today. The user interface (the warning presentation), as the authors explain is "crucial to a successful danger avoidance". The authors have decided to perform a user study to investigate different types of warning presentations. This is mainly done by using a scenario of emergent road obstacles. The authors relate warning presentations with situation awarenes (SA) theory. Situation Awareness, the authors explain, has three hierarchical phases for a driver: perception of elements in the environment, interpretation and comprehension of the elements, and finally predicton of the future state of the environment.

The researchers considered two presentation factors: Modality, and Level of Assistance. Modality had 4 variants: speech warning, visual and speech warning with blinking cue, and visual warning with sound cue. The level of assistance varied with the presence or absence of Action Suggestions(i.e: change lanes’). For their experiment, the authors used simulation sofware that they put in a Mercedes-Benz. Scenes were projected of a highway with two lanes, with no "surrounding" vehicles. Visual warnings were displayed on a screen to the right of the steering wheel, and audio was fed through a speaker.  

The authors used different types of obstacles like fallen trees, rocks, lost cargo, or a broken-down vehicle appearing. These were described to the driver with the following parameters: type, location, distance from obstacle. Some setups they tested were:

Discussion

This paper presented interseting ideas. I was curious to know how one could test such a system, however the authors have managed a thorough experiment. The findings from the authors were interesting, and they corresponded to my predictions. As drivers often listen to music, I had a hard time seeing how to incorporate an auditory warning signal without disrupting a driver's listening experience. The researchers plan in the future to use a head-down display rather than a projected displayed on a vehicle's windshield.

• Visual warning with a blinking red bar
• Visual warning with an auditory signal
• Visual warning supplemented with speech
• Speech-only warnings

Results: Overall, the researchers found that adding warnings enhanced drivers' reaction time. For example, auditory warning aided in braking faster. As far as feedback from users, they expressed how they liked the assisstance provided, and found it useful. The authors also explained that a visual warning worked the best on drivers, and auditory warnings less so. The authors do explain, however, that a survery performed after their experiment revealed a preference for a beep rather than a bliking red bar, and that a visual warning without sound wasn't very popular.

Paper Reading #18: Speeding pointing in tiled widgets: understanding the effects of target expansion and misprediction

Comments
Shena Hoffman
Evin Schuchardt

Reference Information

Title: Speeding pointing in tiled widgets: understanding the effects of target expansion and misprediction

Authors:  Jaime Ruiz  University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada 
               Edward Lank  University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada 

        

Presentation Venue: IUI '10 Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces ;
ACM

New York, NY, USA ©2010

Summary

In this paper, the authors discuss a pointing facilitation technique, in addition to their desire to improve the time it takes a user to reach his/her pointing target when using a graphic interface. In particular, they wish to remedy tiled-like target arrangements via widget target expansion. We can give the example of the font and point size selection widgets, common in word processing programs like Microsoft Word.  A common problem that researchers face is the limited amount of screen space around tiled targets. Expansion of a target results in less available surface, and affects neighboring targets. Occlusion and displacement, the authors say, are two problems that can occur when a target is expanded. In this paper, the researchers have relied on previous work for single target expansion, to guide their design. The technique the authors have focused on is a technique for predicting where a user will select in real time. It is called kinematic endpoint prediction (KEP). The way it works is that it “uses the motion profile of a user to define a region of interest on the display.”

The researchers have performed two experiments to test the possibility of using KEP for multiple selected target expansion. In their first experiment, they tested to see expanding a certain set of targets'. In addition target displacement was assessed. Target displacement is the result of targets near the expanded targets shifting their positions to make room for the expanded target. They presented users with a random set of pointing tasks with some tasks using expansion with a simulated predictor said to be highly accurate and some using no expansion. There were seven possible tiles to select.

In the second experiment they used a similar setup, however in this case, the aim was to use the KEP algorithm to predict which targets should be expanded. The target arrangement used on the screen was different because the entire computer screen was filled with targets rather than just displaying seven targets.

Some of the findings of the two experiments were that:

• Target expansion does improve pointing and selecting performance, but better when there is a small set of targets.
• A minimum requirement for a target technique to be useful is an accuracy greater than 56.5 percent.
• There is a limit to how much a target can shift when expanded. As Fitt's Law explains, increase in distance reduces the likelihood of a user pinpointing his/her desired target.

DiscussionI liked this paper. The authors are trying to improve graphic interfaces by diminishing the time it takes a user to select their desired target. Current programs such as Microsoft Word that use the Ribbon style display, have organized targets in an intuitive way, however the sheer amount of widgets, and options eventually gets tiresome, especially when you are looking for a new widget. The authors' experiments were thoroughly explained, and the data they gathered was well analyzed. The technique the authors are trying to improve is very important as this is a very common task performed by users of graphic interfaces; therefore improving pointing performance by even a small margin can greatly improve a user’s productivity with graphical user interfaces.

Paper Reading # 17: A code reuse interface for non-programmer middle school students

Comments

Cindy Skach
Evin Schuchardt

Reference Information

Title: A code reuse interface for non-programmer middle school students

Authors: Paul A. Gross  Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA 
              Micah S. Herstand  Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA 
              Jordana W. Hodges  The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA 
              Caitlin L. Kelleher  Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA 
           

Presentation Venue: IUI '10 Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces; 
ACM New York, NY, USA ©2010

Summary

In this paper, the authors discuss an interface that allows non programmers (i.e: middle school students) to reuse code without requiring prior programming knowledge.  The interface is implemented for the Looking Glass IDE; the next version of storytelling Alice. Alice was a freeware object-oriented educational programming language with an integrated development environment (IDE) developed in the late nineties.

The way the environment is initially set up is with stories upon which functionality can be added. They give the example of a virtual girl, Melley, whose task is to develop super strength and knock a house over. After finding a similar story from a library(i.e: an agent who jumps at an "evil" doctor and knocks him down.), the user has to "steal" the story's Actionscript which starts the reuse process. The action occurring is then recorded. Provided with helper tools, the user can select the relevant code that will be used in his/her own story. To integrate the new code within the current story, the user must specify the taget actors of the script. In the example given, Melley would carry out the agent's task, and the house would carry out the "evil" doctor role. Hence, when the new script is played, you see Melley jumping, and knocking down a house just like we wanted. To resolve the possible issue of mapping actions to objects of different sizes the user has to reference subparts by name and choose more subparts if there is no match. 

A user study was performed with 47 students. The grade pool was from sixth to eighth grade. The students were given a tutorial, and then examples. They also were asked for feedback after usage. Students worked in groups and showed each other their animations. This encouraged them to reuse animations. 77% of the actions used in the animation contained more than five lines of code. Finally, the students took a quiz at the end of the study. They found that students who tried tinkering with the given code, rather than copying it, performed well on the quizzes.

Discussion

This paper was interesting. I always regretted not being exposed to programming concepts before arriving to college. With regards to the aforementioned program, Alice, I had read, and seen videos about it before. I believe it stems from Carnegie Mellon, and is related to the late Randy Pausch's research, if my memory serves me right. I actually tried the Alice program about two years back and liked it, so I'm on board with this present research.

Paper Reading #16: Using fNIRS brain sensing in realistic HCI settings: experiments and guidelines

Comments

Cindy Skach
Erin Schuchardt

Reference Information

Title: Using fNIRS brain sensing in realistic HCI settings: experiments and guidelines

Authors:Erin Treacy Solovey  Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA 
             Audrey Girouard  Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA 
             Krysta Chauncey  Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA 
             Leanne M. Hirshfield  Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA 
             Angelo Sassaroli  Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA 
             Feng Zheng  Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA
             Sergio Fantini  Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA 
             Robert J.K. Jacob  Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA 

Presentation Venue: UIST 2009: 22nd annual ACM  symposium on User interface software and technology; Date: 2009;
Location: New York, NY, USA

Summary
This paper deals with Functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS). In a nutshell, fNRIS measures the oxygen content of blood in the brain. It sends near-infrared light through the skull to a depth of 1.5 - 3 cm. This light is absorbed by both oxygenated hemoglobin and un-oxygenated hemoglobin and reflected back to sensors located near the light source. The data received from the sensors creates a cognitive state, which describes which sections of the brain are active.

 

As background, the authors give us some of the brain imaging techniques in use today:

• Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) which is very effective in neural imaging, however does not do a good job when it comes to head movement. The slightest head movement results in corrupted images. In addition, the use of magnetic fields forbids the use of metal objects near the head.

 

• Electroencephalography (EEG). It also falls short as a viable solution because it requires participants to put gel in their hair. Since fNIRS does not require gel and is portable, the researchers believe it is the best brain imaging technique to be used in HCI.

Some historical background given by the paper reveals that brain imaging devices have been traditionally designed for disabled users, many of which paralyzed to receive special training. For the uses of HCI, the aim is to implement some type of cognitive control system. This explains the need to make the current available technology portable, and catered to things like head movement. A series of experiments have been performed to test the effects of these different sources of interference called artifacts. They focused on reading brain activity while the subject did nothing, used the mouse, used the keyboard, moved its head, made facial expressions.

They found that using the mouse and keyboard produced little or no interference with the fNIRS reading, where as head movement and facial expressions made the readings incomprehensible.

Based on these findings during the experiments the team outlined a set of guideline for using fNIRS in HCI. Future improvements may include using a chin rest so major head movements can be avoided and adding an accelerometer to the device so that head movements can be detected.

Discussion

This paper gave me a good introduction to brain imaging though I am a Computer Engineering major. This is a multidisciplinary project, that presents some good methods for reducing noise in fNIRS data. As mentioned in the paper, issues like a person's head movement will need to be resolved though. I do feel, however, that the authors of this paper have done effective work in laying down the foundation for future work on fNIRS. Future work, from this point, should be interesting. I am eager to see if we will ever be able to control our computers solely from the mind.

Paper Reading #15:Interactions in the air: adding further depth to interactive tabletops

Comments
Cindy Skach
Evin Schuchardt

Reference Information

Title: Interactions in the air: adding further depth to interactive tabletops

Authors: Otmar Hilliges  Microsoft Research Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom 
              Shahram Izadi  Microsoft Research Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom 
              Andrew D. Wilson  Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA, USA 
              Steve Hodges  Microsoft Research Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom 
              Armando Garcia-Mendoza  Microsoft Research Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom 
              Andreas Butz  University of Munich, Munich, Germany 

Presentation Venue: UIST 2009: 22nd annual ACM  symposium on User interface software and technology; Date: 2009;
Location: New York, NY, USA

Summary
This paper deals with interactive surfaces. The authors want to improve interaction with tabletops by allowing users to utilize the space above the surface, and hence intuitively manipulate three dimensional objects. The authors have implemented two prototype systems which I will describe. These prototypes were done while keeping in mind the need to enable richer depth-based interactions, without compromising an integrated hardware form factor. Two rear projection-vision tabletops are used. Both use special projection screen materials to allow sensing at significant depths beyond the display. Existing and new computer vision techniques are used to sense hand gestures and postures above the tabletop, which can be used alongside more familiar multi-touch interactions.

The first system uses a diffuser to extend the input space so that it can recognize what the users are gesturing.
The second system uses a shadow-based technique with two implementations. In the first they use a shadow-mapping technique. In the second,  they generated a shadow map for all the virtual objects and stored each pixel’s z-value to be compared when determining how a user is manipulating an object. This provides useful feedback for the user. 

Hundreds of users, all colleagues of the authors, have interacted with the system and helped the authors determine that without the shadows being displayed, the users had trouble learning how to work the system on their own. In additioan, users attempted to grab the objects only to find out that grabbing was not supported by the system.
 

 

Discussion
This paper presented potential models to implement a more seemless experience when manipulating 3D objects. The user studies are not elaborate, however it does seem they have been able to pinpoint areas on which to improve thanks to their colleagues, and some of their debugging techniques. I do think enhancing tabletop interfaces is important. It decreases any learning curve by using familiar gestures to manipulate 3D objects.

Paper Reading #14: Bonfire: a nomadic system for hybrid laptop-tabletop interaction





Comments
Cindy Skach
Evin Schurchardt

Reference Information

Title: Bonfire: a nomadic system for hybrid laptop-tabletop interaction

Authors: Shaun K. Kane  University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
              Daniel Avrahami  Intel Research Seattle, Seattle, WA, USA
              Jacob O. Wobbrock  University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
              Beverly Harrison  Intel Research Seattle, Seattle, WA, USA
              Adam D. Rea  Intel Research Seattle, Seattle, WA, USA
              Matthai Philipose  Intel Research Seattle, Seattle, WA, USA 
              Anthony LaMarca  Intel Research Seattle, Seattle, WA, USA

             

Presentation Venue: UIST 2009: 22nd annual ACM  symposium on User interface software and technology; Date: 2009;
Location: New York, NY, USA

Summary

This paper presents Bonfire, a system that uses two laptop-mounted laser micro-projectors to project an interactive display space to either side of a laptop keyboard. Coupled with each micro-projector is a camera to enable hand gesture tracking, object recognition, and information transfer within the projected space. The authors explain that the idea is novel because thus far we have only seen work on improving laptops, and tabletop systems respectively, but this project aims to merge the two ideas and make a mobile solution out of it.

Bonfire currently uses  two laser-based micro projectors, two cameras, two custom mounts and two mirros. This setup allows the use of computer vision techniques to recognize objects in the projection space and to track hands and gestures on the table. These techniques were implemented using the Intel OpenCV computer vision libraries and Python 2.5. To identify ojects on the tabletop, the authors are also using a background substitution technique that is constantly monitoring the projection space. 


As far as user input methods, Bonfire currently supports four which are tapping, dragging, flicking, and crossing.

Some usage scenarios the authors list are:

•  physical objects as contextual cues: I could be listening to music with headphones on, and when I would put my headset on the table, the music would stop.
• seamless cross-device interaction: the user transfers photos between his mobile device and their laptop by interacting in the physical space between them.
• enhanced gampeplay experience: a laptop displays the main game screen while on the right side of the laptop a map is projected and on the left of the laptop, an inventory is projected.
• object capture and share: the system captures a photo from a travel magazine that gets put into an e-mail. 
• social interaction through physical interaction: you have a cup of coffee on the table. Bonfire recognizes it and gives the option of sharing this information with your social network.

Future work, the authors explain, may be adding additional cameras or other sensors to learn more about the user’s activities. Other work may be using Bonfire to enhance co-located collaboration. They plan to explore the possibilities for control, sharing, and collaboration that emerge from overlapping camera and projection views.

Discussion

This paper was an easy read, as well as interesting. The authors have used the technique of merging two current existing technologies into one to implement a mobile solution. I like that approach. I think Bonfire has a lot of potential, however the authors will have to make user case studies to determine whether people will be on board with the idea. Speaking of being on board, I wonder how one could use this on a plane considering you need space for your projections. Lighting of the area one is in conditions could also pose a problem.

Paper Reading #13: SemFeel: a user interface with semantic tactile feedback for mobile touch-screen devices

picture from paper

Comments
Cindy Skach
Angel Narvaez

Reference Information
Title: SemFeel: a user interface with semantic tactile feedback for mobile touch-screen devices

Authors: Koji Yatani University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

              Khai Nhut Truong University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Presentation Venue: UIST 2009: 22nd annual ACM  symposium on User interface software and technology; Date: 2009;
Location: New York, NY, USA

Summary

This paper, presents a prototype for a new kind of vibration system for touch-screen devices. The purpose is to improve on current tactile feedback solutions that implement vibration with either one actuator on the whole phone, or in one specific location by varying intensity and frequency. This paper introduces Semfeel which is a system that implements “motion vibration". The idea is to have five strategically placed vibrators that enables users to distinguish between different patterns. With current touch-screen keyboards that don’t have any vibration feedback, it can be hard to tell what you’re typing without looking at the screen. SemFeel is designed to allow a user to use their device without looking at the screen.

As mentioned before, SemFeel uses 5 different vibrators that can be tuned to 3 different vibration strengths to produce different patterns, such as top to bottom, or in a clockwise circular fashion. The picture below shows the eleven types of patterns. The researchers, after an extensive user study test, found that 83.3 – 93.3% of the time, users can distinguish between the different patterns. The applications the authors suggest for Semfeel range from enabling the Blind to read Braille on touch screens, to improving response time when typing on a touch-screen keyboard.

picture from paper



Discussion

I found this research paper really interesting and appreciated the part where it gave a brief overview of the history behind tactile feedback and the researchers responsible for finding out that tactile feedback could be used to convey rich information content. I also like the whole idea of adding more vibration motors to the phone to give feedback for gestures.  

Paper Reading #12: Disappearing Mobile Devices

Comments
Cindy Skach
Evin Schuchardt

Reference Information
Title: Disappearing Mobile Devices

Authors: Tao Ni Hasso Plattner Institute & Virginia Tech, Potsdam, Germany

              Patrick Baudisch Hasso Plattner Institute, Potsdam, Germany

Presentation Venue: UIST 2009: 22nd annual ACM  symposium on User interface software and technology;
Date: 2009;
Location: New York, NY, USA

Summary

In this paper, the authors try to find out the technology that would suit implementing invisible devices. The challenge is in implementing a solution small enough that it "blends" with the user, but at the same time having functionality. They call the process of making devices smaller and smaller "miniaturization". Miniaturization has progressed from notebook computers and PDAs to increasingly smaller devices.

What hinders miniaturization, say the authors, is the device's user interface hardware, the size of which is linked to human constraints. Screens have to be large enough to be seen, keyboards large enough to be typed on. So one solution is to make non-user interface hardware. This requires removing all interface hardware that is linked to the user's finger size, eyesight, or other human constraints.

The main focus in this paper is on methods of input.

Some of the technologies the authors have considered are:

• Touch: a device can tell whether it is being touched or not with the aid of capacitive sensors and threshold light sensors.
• Pressure: humans are able to operate buttons of about 1 mm in diagonal.
• Motion: not a popular solution because when devices are scaled down, motion sensors don't always continue to work, and may require the inclusion of a camera

Because of the limitation of input by pressure, the authors have decided to focus on touch and motion. 

They go on to describe three classes of devices: 

• a motion scanner: consisting in a touch screen combined with with a motion sensor. 
• a touch scanner: consists of only a single touch sensor.
• a direction scanner: consists of three collocated touch sensors. 

In addition to these hardware considerations, the input language also has to be considered. The authors explain that one of the input language of touch scanners is Morse code. The input language for direction scanners is Marking. Marking consists in setting up a timeout as a delimiter to gestures. Finally, the input to motion scanners is unistroke. Motion scanners have the task of recognizing the path of a gesture, and should be able to distinguish gestures such as dialing, or entering a character.

The authors then go on to talk about some of the prototypes they have made, and user studies they have conducted. The first user study they did was on the "marking" method of input. In it, they asked users to enter marks by swiping with their index finger. They could be asked to swipe "up", "up-right", "right", etc.. . 
The authors found that users mainly made two types of errors. The first is that users would occasionally rotate the device as they were holding it. The second would occur when participants would stay in the range of the sensor after the gesture was presumably complete. 

 In their second user study, they tested the "unistroke" method of input. This investigated text entry on motion scanners. They found that users would make a lot of mistakes on this type of input method. 

These case studies have allowed the authors to layout a list of things to consider when designing an input method:

• use the entire hand for input
• preferably use marks that do not suffer from the incomplete lift-off problem
• preferably use unistroke gestures
• if orientation matters, provide a frame of reference.
• provide a tactile feature. 
• etc..

Discussion

This paper was interesting, and provided good insight into techniques that could possibly be used for input on invisible devices. The authors also alluded to methods that could be used for output such as visual, tactile, and audio feedback . I personnally don't like the idea of having a device implanted under my skin just for convenience. However, I do find some the methods of input discussed quite interesting.

Paper Reading #11: Activity analysis enabling real-time video communication on mobile phones for deaf users

Comments
Cindy Skach
Evin Schuchardt

Reference Information
Title: Activity analysis enabling real-time video communication on mobile phones for deaf users

Authors: Neva Cherniavsky  University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA 

              Jaehong Chon  University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA 
              Jacob O. Wobbrock  University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA 
              Richard E. Ladner  University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA 
              Eve A. Riskin  University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Presentation Venue: UIST 2009: 22nd annual ACM  symposium on User interface software and technology;

Date: 2009;
Location: New York, NY, USA

Summary

This paper presents a system called MobileASL for real-time video communication on the current U.S. mobile phone network. The goal is to enable Deaf people to communicate with Sign Language over mobile phones via sign language video in real-time.

The authors talk about some of the techniques they have been using to implement this system as well as prior work that has been done on video compression, and sign language video compression.

Challenges

The authors are faced with three main challenges that they need to resolve for MobileASL:

• Low bandwidth: the majority of U.S. mobile phone networks use GPRS
• Low processing speed: the best mobile phones out there have a 400 MHz processor, so the authors have to deal with this constraint and optimize the encoding of video in real-time
• Limited battery life: the authors are dealing with video compression which drains battery life fast.

All these challenges must be resolved while producing intelligible video.

The two main techniques the authors are using are:

• variable frame rate (VFR)
• region-of-interest (ROI)

Variable frame rate saves processor cycles by automatically determining whether a user is signing and encoding accordingly  at the highest possible frame rate, and reducing the frame rate to 1 frame per second when the user is not signing. The authors are using a Baseling differencing technique that calculates the sum of absolute differences between successive frames to evaluate whether a user is signing.

As far as the region-of-interest technique, the authors explain that prior researchers found that most of signers watching sign language video focused almost entirely on the face. This one reason why the authors are using the ROI technique. ROI is an area of the frame that is coded at a higher quality at the expense of the rest of the frame. An example can be seen below.

The technique used for evaluating ROI is a quantizer step size or QP. Lower QP indicates higher quality of a frame but also requires a higher bit rate.   

As far as the phones used, the authors are currently using HTC TyTN-II phones. These phones have Windows mobile 6.1, Qualcomm MSM7200, 400 MHz ARM processor, Li-polymer battery, and QCIF(176*144) video size.

To evaluate their system, the authors did a series of user studies with a combination of objective and subjective measures and questionnaires. This helped them determine whether users liked their VFR technique, ROI technique, and the likelihood they would want to use the system. It also allowed them to find out how much users had to guess when conversing, how much they had to ask a person to repeat him/herself, and how much they would get annoyed by the system.

The authors mention that the interest from users in using the system has encouraged them to pursue this project, however they do realize that they need to refine the techniques they use, in particular VFR as it received mixed responses.

The techniques they are using also do not allow them to distinguish between a person signing and a person drinking coffee. The authors also plan to move out of the lab and into the field to test their system.  

Discussion

This was an interesting paper to read. Unlike previous papers where the math would discourage me from reading on, the math described here was not as hard to follow. I also appreciated how the authors put their work in context of previous work done in the field. This gave a clear view of what has been done, what and why the authors are currently doing what they do, and future work they plan to do. 

The application in itself is interesting and could be a very useful tool for the Deaf community. Users from the case studies have already shown interest in the system and were somewhat disappointed that it wasn't available in the market yet.

Paper Reading #10: A screen-space formulation for 2D and 3D direct manipulation

 

Comments
Cindy Skach
Luke Robert

Reference Information
Title: A screen-space formulation for 2D and 3D direct manipulation

Authors: Jason L. Reisman, Perceptive Pixel, Inc., New York, NY, USA

              Philip L. Davidson, Perceptive Pixel, Inc., New York, NY, USA

              Jefferson Y. Han, Perceptive Pixel, Inc., New York, NY, USA

Presentation Venue: UIST 2009: 22nd annual ACM  symposium on User interface software and technology;
Date: 2009;
Location: New York, NY, USA

Summary

This paper presents a new approach to touch-screen interaction techniques to handle manipulation of 3D as well as 2D objects. The authors begin by pointing out that Rotate-Scale-Translate (RST) transformations have become the de facto standard for 2D single and multi-touch interfaces. Preserving this standard for 2D applications, they want to extend it to 3D in a way that feels as natural as RST. 

According to the authors, RST is popular because it is an intuitive 1-to-1 mapping of screen-points to users' fingers. It is a way to directly manipulate objects on the screen. But this currently does not exist for 3D objects. 

The authors designed and developed a system that captures the 2D semantics of RST, but allows for any number of control points. The system works by mapping the points in an object's local space to point in screen-space using a continually updating transformation. The transformations are solved using a best-fit numerical approach so that the solution chosen is the one that minimizes the energy in the system. Using a best-fit solution ensures that adding extra input points does not significantly skew the results.

 They then tested their own system to discover issues and try to resolve them.

Some of the problems encountered were in:

• controlling the two new DOF(degrees of freedom) which was resolved by learning the best way to rotate objects using both hands. 
• resolving ambiguous rotational problems which  occurs when the object rotates in the opposite direction from what is expected.
• resolving rotational exhaustion  which occurs when the distance between two contact points change as the object is moved by the user.
• resolving error distribution 

Discussion

This was a technical, and detailed paper which I had a hard time following at times,especially the parts where  math formulas were involved. Nonetheless, I do think the solution presented by the authors is a good solution. Given the constraints they have, the solution given seems to be very realizable.

Paper Reading #9: EverybodyLovesSketch: 3D sketching for a broader audience

Comments
Cindy Skach
Vince Kocks

Reference Information
Title: EverybodyLovesSkectch: 3D sketching for a broader audience

Authors: Seok-Hyng Bae, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
              Ravin Balakrishnan, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
              Karan Singh, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Presentation Venue: UIST 2009: 22nd annual ACM  symposium on User interface software and technology;
Date: 2009;
Location: New York, NY, USA

Summary

This paper introduces EverybodyLovesSketch, a 3D curve sketching system that helps non-professional users visualize and evolve designs directly in 3D with minimum knowledge and skills needed. This is done by providing ways of sketch surface definition and dynamic perspective drawing hints. A tick crossing a 3D curve, or global axis defines a horizontal sketch plane attaching to the 3D tick point, and  having orthographic assissting lines on it. Two consecutive ticks crossing 3D curves define a vertical sketch plane having the two 3D tick points in it. 3 consecutive ticks crossing the 3D curves define an oblique sketch plane. The user does not have to worry about perspictive line construction since the system automatically displays horizontal and perpendicular assisting lines on the selected sketch plane. By applying a small lasso gesture on a 3D curve, the user activates the access widget, and applies an angled flick to define an arbitrary direction of a surface without the need of a view change. Another feature of EverybodyLovesSketch is multi-selection. The user can select more than one 3D curve by applying small lasso gestures on them, and then extrude all of them by using the access widget. The user can also copy sets of 3D curves, and change their viewpoint.
In any plain sketch mode, two taps on the plain creates an interactive grid, which is similar to traditional perspective grid sheets used in perspective drawing practice. A stroke drawn  along a grid line is approximated to an exact straight line.  An elliptic stroke within a grid rectangle is approximated to an ellipse or circle. The user is also able to adjust the resolution(size) of the sketch.

The authors brought their system to high school design classes for evaluation. They instructed three classes of high school students in their system for two days, and then the students used their system for nine days, 75 minutes each day. The first class was instructed to design free form architecture. The second mice and cars, and the third anything including 3D cartoon characters. Most students created their first meaningful model in the first two days, and 47 of the 49 students eventually succeeded in creating their own sketch. The students commented on the system's ease of use, and sometimes addictive aspect.

Discussion

This was a long paper, but it however presents interesting work. I am not a drawer myself so I would be curious if spending time with this software could improve my sketch abilities.

Paper Reading #8: Shadow no. 4: Belly dance and interactive electroacoustic musical performance

Comments

Cindy Skach
Evin Schuchardt
Reference Information

Title: Shadow no. 4: Belly dance and interactive electroacoustic musical performance

Authors: Aurie Y. Hsu, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA
              Steven T. Kemper, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA
Presentation Venue: CHI 2010: 28th ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems;
Date: April 10-15, 2010;
Location: Atlanta, GA, USA

Summary

This paper talks about Shadows no. 4, a piece for a tribal-fusion belly dancer, wireless sensor network, and electronics. The movement vocabulary is derivative of Middle Eastern dance. During performances, dancers have wearable sensors capturing the dancer's movement producing a range of salient and subtle variations of the music. Shadows no. 4 tries to implement a multi-dimensioned composition process that meshes music, technology, and movement. This piece presents the movement vocabulary of belly dance as a promising partner to electroacoustic music performance. As far as the aesthetics, essentially, sensors translate movements into data which are in turn mapped to musical parameters. The sensor network enables a solo performer to create effects and illusions. As far as the technical specifications of the system, the authors designed the system with the goal of minimizing the amount of interference with the dancer's movement. The system is constructed using the LilyPad arduino microcontroller (a 2" diameter disc) . At first the microcontroller was sewn to fabric with conductive thread, but that proved to break, and short a lot so they resolved to using high gauge stranded wire.

LilyPad Arduino

The LilyPad contains 6 analog input used to connect a variety of sensors, as well as 14 digital I/O pinis used for serial communication, and digital input from switches, buttons, etc...

Wireless connectivity is achieved using Xbee chips.

Discussion

This work that aims to integrate belly dance with interactive electroacoustic music performance is still in its infancy. This was a short paper that only talked about their initial implementation of the system. The authors point out in their conclusion that future design goals will include refinement of the sensor network, and incorporating biosensors, and motion capture. Though the project is not quite like that of Dr. Latulipe who is working on her Dance.Draw project, I feel that the authors of this paper could use some of the techniques she is using for their refinements.