User and task analysis for interface design

Looking for Information -- A Survey of Research on Information Seeking, Needs, and Behavior by Donald Case

Purpose – One core element of interactive information retrieval (IIR) experiments is the assignment of search tasks. The purpose of this paper is to provide an analytical review of current practice in developing those search tasks to test, observe or control task complexity and difficulty. Design/methodology/approach – Over 100 prior studies of IIR were examined in terms of how each defined task complexity and/or difficulty (or related concepts) and subsequently interpreted those concepts in the development of the assigned search tasks. Findings – Search task complexity is found to include three dimensions: multiplicity of subtasks or steps, multiplicity of facets, and indeterminability. Search task difficulty is based on an interaction between the search task and the attributes of the searcher or the attributes of the search situation. The paper highlights the anomalies in our use of these two concepts, concluding with suggestions for future methodological research related to search task complexity and d...

Untangling search task complexity and difficulty in the context of interactive information retrieval studies

Visualization provides a powerful means for data analysis. But to be practical, visual analytics tools must support smooth and flexible use of visualizations at a fast rate. This becomes increasingly onerous with the ever-increasing size of real-world datasets. First, large databases make interaction more difficult once query response time exceeds several seconds. Second, any attempt to show all data points will overload the visualization, resulting in chaos that will only confuse the user. Over the last few years, substantial effort has been put into addressing both of these issues and many innovative solutions have been proposed. Indeed, data visualization is a topic that is too large to be addressed in a single survey paper. Thus, we restrict our attention here to interactive visualization of large data sets. Our focus then is skewed in a natural way towards query processing problem—provided by an underlying database system—rather than to the actual data visualization problem.

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Interactive Visualization of Large Data Sets

In a digital environment, it is feasible to integrate multimedia materials into a library collection with ease. However, it seems likely that nontextual surrogates for multimedia objects, e.g., videos, could effectively augment textual representations of those objects. In this study, five video surrogates were evaluated in relation to their usefulness and usability in accomplishing specific tasks. The surrogates (storyboards with text or audio keywords, slide shows with text or audio keywords, fast forward) were created for each of seven video segments. Ten participants, all of whom watch videos at least monthly and search for videos at least occasionally, viewed the surrogates for seven video segments and provided comments about the strengths and weaknesses of each. In addition, they performed a series of tasks (gist determination, object recognition, action recognition, and visual gist determination) with three surrogates selected from those available. No surrogate was universally judged "best," but the fast forward surrogate garnered the most support, particularly from experienced video users. The participants expressed their understanding of video gist as composed of three components: topicality, the story of the video, and the visual gist of the video. They identified several real-world tasks for which they regularly use video collections. The viewing compaction rates used in these surrogates supported adequate performance, but users expressed a desire for more control over surrogate speed and sequencing. Further development of these surrogates is warranted by these results, as well as the development of mechanisms for surrogate display.

Alternative surrogates for video objects in a digital library: Users’ perspectives on their relative usability

The present study reports on the information seeking processes in a visual context, referred to throughout as visual information seeking. This study synthesizes research throughout different, yet complementary, areas, each capable of contributing findings and understanding to visual information seeking. Methods previously applied for examining the visual information seeking process are reviewed, including interactive experiments, surveys, and various qualitative approaches. The methods and resulting findings are presented and structured according to generalized phases of existing information seeking models, which include the needs, actions, and assessments of users. A review of visual information needs focuses on need and thus query formulation; user actions, as reviewed, centers on search and browse behaviors and the observed trends, concluded by a survey of users' assessments of visual information as part of the interactive process. This separate examination, specific to a visual context, is significant; visual information can influence outcomes in an interactive process and presents variations in the types of needs, tasks, considerations, and decisions of users, as compared to information seeking in other contexts.

Visual information seeking

User-centered analysis can benefit the development of interactive video digital libraries Findings from this study support the idea that having additional understanding about the intended users of video digital libraries can help researchers match system designs with the envisioned use of prototype systems This study examines one user-centered factor specifically, familiarity with visual search topics, to explore if and how this may be associated with other factors within an interactive video retrieval context Twenty-eight users from the field of science education were recruited to complete six visual search topics using a prototype system to retrieve video clips from a collection of NASA Science Education Programs Analysis revealed that topic familiarity was associated with other factors that were examined throughout this study, including user-assessed and experimenter-assessed topic completion ratios, opinions of the prototype system, and interaction behaviors Such results can have a variety of implications for developing video digital libraries, especially those designed to support queries and interactions of knowledgeable users from a defined domain © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Influences of users' familiarity with visual search topics on interactive video digital libraries

This study investigates interactive video retrieval. The basis for this study is that user- and search task-centric research in video information retrieval can assist efforts for developing effective user interfaces and help complement the existing corpus of video retrieval research by providing evidence for the benefits of evaluating systems using such an approach. Accordingly, the results were collected and analyzed from the perspective of certain users and search tasks (i.e., information needs). The methodology of this study employed specially designed interactive search experiments to examine a number of different factors in a video retrieval context, including those that correspond to search tasks of a particular domain, interface features and functions, system effectiveness, and user interactions. The results indicated that the use and effectiveness of certain interface features and functions were dependent on the type of search task, while others were more consistent across the full experiment. Also included is a review of prior research pertaining to visual search tasks, systems development, and user interaction. ViewFinder, the prototype system used to carry out the interactive search experiments of this study, is fully described. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Analyzing user interaction with the ViewFinder video retrieval system

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a framework applicable to interactive video retrieval. The objective of the framework is so that it can be applied conceptually for understanding users and use of video digital libraries, and also practically for designing retrieval components like user interfaces. Design/methodology/approach – The framework was developed through a user-centered and analytical approach, and serves as an initial attempt at generalizing how users interact when searching and browsing digital video, throughout different situations, along with the general designs that can be supportive. Findings – The framework is two-fold, yet, together, comprises one set of conceptual findings. The first component of the framework depicts generalized user interactions throughout varying contexts of an interactive video retrieval process, followed by a second component, an illustration of the resulting supportive interface designs or sets of features. Cautions from previous studies not to over...

An interaction and interface design framework for video digital libraries

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on a user-centred analysis of video digital libraries and to present users’ criteria based on concepts emerging directly from the responses of study participants. As a time-based and multi-channeled format, video warrants considerations for information delivery through interactive tools such as digital libraries. Design/methodology/approach – A survey method was used to collect open-ended responses from participants. Content analysis was performed on the responses, and categories then emerged to form the coding scheme where simple and weighted frequencies were calculated to obtain a ranked set of users’ criteria. Cohen’s κ was 0.87, indicative of high-level of inter-coder reliability. In the end, 81 participants contributed a total of 385 open-ended responses, which were all then analysed and coded. Findings – The emergent coding method and continuous refinements to the coding scheme ultimately produced 28 criteria (subcategories) under four primary categor...

Dan Albertson

Papers

Visual information seeking

Influences of users' familiarity with visual search topics on interactive video digital libraries

Analyzing user interaction with the ViewFinder video retrieval system

An interaction and interface design framework for video digital libraries

Design criteria for video digital libraries: Categories of important features emerging from users’ responses