From the Publisher:
Written by the author of the best-selling HyperText & HyperMedia, this book provides an excellent guide to the methods of usability engineering. Special features: emphasizes cost-effective methods that will help developers improve their user interfaces immediately, shows you how to avoid the four most frequently listed reasons for delay in software projects, provides step-by-step information about which methods to use at various stages during the development life cycle, and offers information on the unique issues relating to informational usability. You do not need to have previous knowledge of usability to implement the methods provided, yet all of the latest research is covered.

Usability Engineering

The concept of an agent has become important in both Artificial Intelligence (AI) and mainstream computer science. Our aim in this paper is to point the reader at what we perceive to be the most important theoretical and practical issues associated with the design and construction of intelligent agents. For convenience, we divide these issues into three areas (though as the reader will see, the divisions are at times somewhat arbitrary). Agent theory is concerned with the question of what an agent is, and the use of mathematical formalisms for representing and reasoning about the properties of agents. Agent architectures can be thought of as software engineering models of agents;researchers in this area are primarily concerned with the problem of designing software or hardware systems that will satisfy the properties specified by agent theorists. Finally, agent languages are software systems for programming and experimenting with agents; these languages may embody principles proposed by theorists. The paper is not intended to serve as a tutorial introduction to all the issues mentioned; we hope instead simply to identify the most important issues, and point to work that elaborates on them. The article includes a short review of current and potential applications of agent technology.

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Intelligent Agents: Theory and Practice

From the Publisher: 
A Question of Identity 
Life on the Screen is a fascinating and wide-ranging investigation of the impact of computers and networking on society, peoples' perceptions of themselves, and the individual's relationship to machines. Sherry Turkle, a Professor of the Sociology of Science at MIT and a licensed psychologist, uses Internet MUDs (multi-user domains, or in older gaming parlance multi-user dungeons) as a launching pad for explorations of software design, user interfaces, simulation, artificial intelligence, artificial life, agents, "bots," virtual reality, and "the on-line way of life." 
Turkle's discussion of postmodernism is particularly enlightening. She shows how postmodern concepts in art, architecture, and ethics are related to concrete topics much closer to home, for example AI research (Minsky's "Society of Mind") and even MUDs (exemplified by students with X-window terminals who are doing homework in one window and simultaneously playing out several different roles in the same MUD in other windows). Those of you who have (like me) been turned off by the shallow, pretentious, meaningless paintings and sculptures that litter our museums of modern art may have a different perspective after hearing what Turkle has to say. 
This is a psychoanalytical book, not a technical one. However, software developers and engineers will find it highly accessible because of the depth of the author's technical understanding and credibility. Unlike most other authors in this genre, Turkle does not constantly jar the technically-literate reader with blatant errors or bogus assertions about how things work. Although I personally don't have time or patience for MUDs,view most of AI as snake-oil, and abhor postmodern architecture, I thought the time spent reading this book was an extremely good investment.

스크린 위의 삶 = Life on the screen : identity in the age of the internet

Erik Eriksen is a remarkable individual. He has no college degrees yet is Professor of Human Development at Harvard University. He came to psychology via art, which explains why the reader will find him painting contexts and backgrounds rather than stating dull facts and concepts. He has been a training psychoanalyst for many years as well as a perceptive observer of cultural and social settings and their effect on growing up. This is not just a book on childhood. It is a panorama of our society. Anxiety in young children, apathy in American Indians, confusion in veterans of war, and arrogance in young Nazis are scrutinized under the psychoanalytic magnifying glass. The material is well written and devoid of technical jargon. The theme of the volume is that it is human to have a long childhood which will leave a lifelong residue of emotional immaturity in man. Primitive groups and

Childhood and Society.

How to ... be a reflective practitioner.

Adoption and use of novel technology by the institutionalized 'oldest old' (80+) is understudied. This population is the fastest growing demographic group in developed countries, providing design opportunities and challenges for HCI. Since the recruitment of oldest old people is challenging, research tends to focus on older adults (65+) and their use of and attitudes towards existing communication technologies, or on their caregivers and social ties. Our study deployed a novel communication appliance among five frail oldest old people living in a long-term care facility, which included field observations and usability and accessibility tests. Our findings suggest factors that facilitate and hinder the adoption of communication technologies, such as social, attitudinal, digital literacy, physical, and usability. We also discuss issues that arise in studying technology adoption by the oldest old, including usability and accessibility testing, and suggest solutions that may be helpful to HCI researchers working with this population.

/pdf/my-hand-doesn-t-listen-to-me-adoption-and-evaluation-of-a-3hpijjxyg4.pdf

"My Hand Doesn't Listen to Me!": Adoption and Evaluation of a Communication Technology for the 'Oldest Old'

Our aim is to introduce techniques that allow for active involvement of users throughout the design process, starting with the very early stages of ideation and exploration. The approach discussed in this study augments conventional usability testing with a user sketching component. We found that enabling users to sketch their ideas facilitated reflection, and provided a rich medium for discovery and communication of design ideas. We believe that this technique has the potential to complement usability testing in general, in order to generate "reflective" as opposed to purely "reactive" user feedback.

/pdf/user-sketches-a-quick-inexpensive-and-effective-way-to-vtm7e6wcu5.pdf

User sketches: a quick, inexpensive, and effective way to elicit more reflective user feedback

Increasingly, systems are being developed and used in ways that involve end of life issues such as death, dying, and bereavement. Yet design considerations and guidelines for technologists working in this sensitive area are not well-established. We therefore report on exploratory fieldwork consisting of focus groups, observations, and consultation with bereavement experts aimed at understanding how technology might be designed to support bereaved parents. From this fieldwork, we derive a set of considerations useful for researchers and designers developing systems that deal specifically with bereavement, and with the end of life more broadly. These considerations focus on interpersonal communication, new ways of being in the world, and materiality. We conclude with a distillation of these considerations into practical design guidelines for working in this area.

http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/%7Emikem/pubs/MassimiBaecker-CHI2011.pdf

Dealing with death in design: developing systems for the bereaved

The widespread availability of broadband connections has led to an increase in the use of Internet broadcasting (webcasting). Most webcasts are archived and accessed numerous times retrospectively. In the absence of transcripts of what was said, users have difficulty searching and scanning for specific topics. This research investigates user needs for transcription accuracy in webcast archives, and measures how the quality of transcripts affects user performance in a question-answering task, and how quality affects overall user experience. We tested 48 subjects in a within-subjects design under 4 conditions: perfect transcripts, transcripts with 25% Word Error Rate (WER), transcripts with 45% WER, and no transcript. Our data reveals that speech recognition accuracy linearly influences both user performance and experience, shows that transcripts with 45% WER are unsatisfactory, and suggests that transcripts having a WER of 25% or less would be useful and usable in webcast archives.

The effect of speech recognition accuracy rates on the usefulness and usability of webcast archives

We present the participatory design and evaluation of an orientation aid for individuals who have anterograde amnesia. Our design team included six amnesics who have extreme difficulty storing new memories. We describe the methods we used to enable the participation of individuals with such severe cognitive impairments. Through this process, we have conceived, designed, and developed the OrientingTool, a software application for Personal Digital Assistants that can be used by amnesics to orient themselves when feeling lost or disoriented. Two complementary studies were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of this tool in ecologically valid contexts. Our findings suggest that the OrientingTool can improve an amnesic's independence and confidence in managing situations when disoriented, and that participatory design may be productively used with participants who have significant cognitive disabilities.

/pdf/participatory-design-of-an-orientation-aid-for-amnesics-1k7oaffx2k.pdf

Ronald M. Baecker

Papers

"My Hand Doesn't Listen to Me!": Adoption and Evaluation of a Communication Technology for the 'Oldest Old'

User sketches: a quick, inexpensive, and effective way to elicit more reflective user feedback

Dealing with death in design: developing systems for the bereaved

The effect of speech recognition accuracy rates on the usefulness and usability of webcast archives

Participatory design of an orientation aid for amnesics