An adaptive interface for a programmable system, for predicting a desired user function, based on user history, as well as machine internal status and context. The apparatus receives an input from the user and other data. A predicted input is presented for confirmation by the user, and the predictive mechanism is updated based on this feedback. Also provided is a pattern recognition system for a multimedia device, wherein a user input is matched to a video stream on a conceptual basis, allowing inexact programming of a multimedia device. The system analyzes a data stream for correspondence with a data pattern for processing and storage. The data stream is subjected to adaptive pattern recognition to extract features of interest to provide a highly compressed representation which may be efficiently processed to determine correspondence. Applications of the interface and system include a VCR, medical device, vehicle control system, audio device, environmental control system, securities trading terminal, and smart house. The system optionally includes an actuator for effecting the environment of operation, allowing closed-loop feedback operation and automated learning.

Ergonomic man-machine interface incorporating adaptive pattern recognition based control system

An adaptive interface for a programmable system, for predicting a desired user function, based on user history, as well as machine internal status and context. The apparatus receives an input from the user and other data. A predicted input is presented for confirmation by the user, and the predictive mechanism is updated based on this feedback. Also provided is a pattern recognition system for a multimedia device, wherein a user input is matched to a video stream on a conceptual basis, allowing inexact programming of a multimedia device. The system analyzes a data stream for correspondence with a data pattern for processing and storage. The data stream is subjected to adaptive pattern recognition to extract features of interest to provide a highly compressed representation that may be efficiently processed to determine correspondence. Applications of the interface and system include a video cassette recorder (VCR), medical device, vehicle control system, audio device, environmental control system, securities trading terminal, and smart house. The system optionally includes an actuator for effecting the environment of operation, allowing closed-loop feedback operation and automated learning.

Adaptive pattern recognition based control system and method

An Internet appliance, comprising, within a single housing, packet data network interfaces, adapted for communicating with the Internet and a local area network, at least one data interface selected from the group consisting of a universal serial bus, an IEEE-1394 interface, a voice telephony interface, an audio program interface, a video program interface, an audiovisual program interface, a camera interface, a physical security system interface, a wireless networking interface; a device control interface, smart home interface, an environmental sensing interface, and an environmental control interface, and a processor, for controlling a data transfer between the local area network and the Internet, and defining a markup language interface communicated through a packet data network interface, to control a data transfer or control a remote device.

Internet appliance system and method

The need for a more-readily usable interface for programmable devices is widely recognized. The present invention relates to programmable sequencing devices, or, more particularly, the remote controls for consumer electronic devices. The present invention provides an enhanced interface for facilitating human input of a desired control sequence in a programmable device by employing specialized visual feedback. The present invention also relates to a new interface and method of interfacing with a programmable device, which is usable as an interface for a programmable video cassette recorder.

Human factored interface incorporating adaptive pattern recognition based controller apparatus

classificatory schemes need to be justified in concrete terms. The dimensions concept can be justified by pointing to areas where progress is slow, as I have done above; or by criticising existing systems; or by raising design issues in relation to present growth areas. Let’s take the last, and look at OOPS. Object-oriented systems have been praised as resolving some cognitive problems (Rosson & Alpert 1988), at least in principle. I take no issue with that, but are they adequately usable yet? A fundamental claim in this paper is that system = notation + environment. Research papers on OOPS, however, offer a myriad new languages, with different ideas about the semantics of inheritance, etc., but say very little about environments. Here are some questions arising from the preceding discussion, with remarks relating to one OOPS, Smalltalk-80. I shall take the five dimensions I have described in order. 1. Are there hidden dependencies and one-way links in the structure? Smalltalk-80 scores fairly well here; most relationships can be browsed in both directions, although there are times when it would nice to make dependencies more immediately visible without having to search for them, so that they could at as reminders. However, there is little support in searching for ill-specified targets. “I want something that handles a bitmap, what can I find?” Nor is it easy to find out what kind of object can fill an instance variable slot in a method. 2. If the inheritance hierarchy viscous, or is it easy to reconstruct in a different fashion? The inheritance structure lends to be viscous. For instance, given a class Animal with many sub-classes Trout, Herring, Minnow, etc.. inserting a new class Fish between Animal and its subclasses requires many operations (add a new subclass, Fish, to Animal; move Trout to Animal, etc.) Moreover, changing the inheritance hierarchy normally means changing the pattern of class and instance variables in the hierarchy — our new class, Fish, will contain information relevant to all its subclasses, and this information will have to he extracted from its previous position in the hierarchy and brought together under the new heading. 3. Is the generative order adequately decoupled? Not in Smalltalk-80, where inheritance hierarchies must be created top-down. We lack at present any published evidence on how Smalltalk programmers work, but experts have criticised this aspect in precisely the terms I would expect, namely that when designing the inheritance hierarchy the mental order in which steps are generated is not top-down, so that the effect of the environment’s insistence on top-down working is constrictive (Goldstein & Bobrow 1981; LaLonde 1987). LaLonde’s description is that the expert first designs a specific data type, by focussing on a useful set of operations, and then that data type is positioned in a logical hierarchy. 4. Is it role-expressive? Again, not adequately; although the purpose of object-oriented programming is to clarify relations between parts of programs, one finds that relationships between methods are obscure. The only browsers provided operate on

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Cognitive dimensions of notations

Conceptual representation methods play a significant role in facilitating the software process. Recent studies explore and clarify the use of these representations and their impact on progress.

Designing documentation to compensate for delocalized plans

A cognitive analysis of a code inspection

Using protocol analysis to study the user interface

Studying software documentation from a cognitive perspective: A status report

In an effort to learn more about how testers test code, we observed several testers while they designed tests to check a change which had been made to code. Using a case study methodology, we gathered empirical data from the ‘real world’—professional testers, and actual software products. We found that testers do share some common work patterns. These patterns can be seen in their information gathering, their use of heuristics and their construction of mental models. This work is extremely knowledge intensive, experience appears to have a useful effect. In this paper we will discuss how we collected and analysed our data. Then we will present some of our observations about how the testers gathered information, used heuristics, formed mental models and were affected by their previous experience in the course of designing their test scenarios. Based on these observations we comment on training and tools for testers.

Robin Lampert

Papers

Designing documentation to compensate for delocalized plans

A cognitive analysis of a code inspection

Using protocol analysis to study the user interface

Studying software documentation from a cognitive perspective: A status report

A case study of software testers