Cognitive engineering

Seeking meaning: A process approach to library and information services

In reaction to Norman's (1999) essay on misuse of the term affordance in human-computer interaction literature, this article is a concept paper affirming the importance of this powerful concept, reinforcing Norman's distinctions of terminology, and expanding on the usefulness of the concepts in terms of their application to interaction design and evaluation. We define and use four complementary types of affordance in the context of interaction design and evaluation: cognitive affordance, physical affordance, sensory affordance, and functional affordance. The terms cognitive affordance (Norman's perceived affordance) and physical affordance (Norman's real affordance) refer to parallel and equally important usability concepts for interaction design, to which sensory affordance plays a supporting role. We argue that the concept of physical affordance carries a mandatory component of utility or purposeful action (functional affordance). Finally, we provide guidelines to help designers think about how these fo...

Cognitive, physical, sensory, and functional affordances in interaction design

This document has been funded at least in part with federal funds from the US Department of Education under contract number ED-01-CO-0006 The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Department of Education nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the US Government Michael Arnold is now with Education Strategy Group, and John Newman is at Kutztown University Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Chris Briggs-Hale, McREL, 2550 S Parker Road, Suite 500, Aurora, CO 80014 (cbriggs-hale@mcrelorg) Citation: Arnold, M L, Newman, J H, Gaddy, B B, & Dean, C B (2005, April 27) A look at the condition of rural education research: Setting a difference for future research Journal of Research in Rural Education, 20(6) Retrieved [date] from http://wwwumaineedu/jrre/20-6pdf

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A Look at the Condition of Rural Education Research: Setting a Direction for Future Research

Smart home Internet of Things (IoT) devices are rapidly increasing in popularity, with more households including Internet-connected devices that continuously monitor user activities. In this study, we conduct eleven semi-structured interviews with smart home owners, investigating their reasons for purchasing IoT devices, perceptions of smart home privacy risks, and actions taken to protect their privacy from those external to the home who create, manage, track, or regulate IoT devices and/or their data. We note several recurring themes. First, users' desires for convenience and connectedness dictate their privacy-related behaviors for dealing with external entities, such as device manufacturers, Internet Service Providers, governments, and advertisers. Second, user opinions about external entities collecting smart home data depend on perceived benefit from these entities. Third, users trust IoT device manufacturers to protect their privacy but do not verify that these protections are in place. Fourth, users are unaware of privacy risks from inference algorithms operating on data from non-audio/visual devices. These findings motivate several recommendations for device designers, researchers, and industry standards to better match device privacy features to the expectations and preferences of smart home owners.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3274469

User Perceptions of Smart Home IoT Privacy

Although various methods exist for performing usability evaluation, they lack a systematic framework for guiding and structuring the assessment and reporting activities. Consequently, analysis and reporting of usability data are ad hoc and do not live up to their potential in cost effectiveness, and usability engineering support tools are not well integrated. We developed the User Action Framework, a structured knowledge base of usability concepts and issues, as a framework on which to build a broad suite of usability engineering support tools. The User Action Framework helps to guide the development of each tool and to integrate the set of tools in the practitioner's working environment. An important characteristic of the User Action Framework is its own reliability in term of consistent use by practitioners. Consistent understanding and reporting of the underlying causes of usability problems are requirements for cost-effective analysis and redesign. Thus, high reliability in terms of agreement by users on what the User Action Framework means and how it is used is essential for its role as a common foundation for the tools. Here we describe how we achieved high reliability in the User Action Framework, and we support the claim with strongly positive results of a summative reliability study conducted to measure agreement among 10 usability experts in classifying 15 different usability problems. Reliability data from the User Action Framework are also compared to data collected from nine of the same usability experts using a classic heuristic evaluation technique.

The user action framework

Smart technologies allow unprecedented visibility into activities in homes and buildings, while they enable new services that householders and workers will value. As people become increasingly aware of the magnitude and potentially sensitive nature of the data being collected through these technologies, privacy is emerging as a potential barrier to user adoption. In this paper, we apply leading privacy models to the results of qualitative research in which we solicited ideas for adding intelligence to homes and buildings, paying particular attention to information sensitivity about everyday activities that take place in those settings. We identify locations and activities that are particularly information-sharing sensitive, prioritize the salience of different types of privacy violations for householders and workers, and examine the influence of privacy attitudes on smart device ownership and desired future smart experiences.

The Contextual Complexity of Privacy in Smart Homes and Smart Buildings

This article is a description of how 24 rural, 5th-grade students with home Internet access used an Internet chat application after school and how this usage changed during a one-year period. Study results have implications for curriculum design (e.g., how teachers can use chat to stimulate collaborative learning after school), student-teacher interactions (e.g., how can teachers maintain their authority in this new environment), and research (e.g., how does gender affect student usage of chat).

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Chat rooms as Virtual Hangouts for rural elementary students

With the PCs for Families project, we wish to determine whether, under the best of circumstances, ubiquitous access to networked computing by both students and their families has measurable effect on long-term student achievement We are interested in how networked computing effects students' educational achievements, the attitude and professional development of the teacher and support instructor, and how families support their students and react to the new technologies in their homes In this article, we discuss the design of the PCs for Families experiment, a longitudinal quantitative and ethnographic study of networked computing in the fifth-grade classroom We cover our experimental methodology and provide an overview of what we have learned

Faith McCreary

Papers

The user action framework

The Contextual Complexity of Privacy in Smart Homes and Smart Buildings

Chat rooms as Virtual Hangouts for rural elementary students

Pcs for Families: A Study of Early Intervention Using Networked Computing in Education

Empirical Evaluation of a Technology-rich Learning Environment