Showing papers on "User interface published in 2007"

Matplotlib: A 2D Graphics Environment

Abstract: Matplotlib is a 2D graphics package used for Python for application development, interactive scripting,and publication-quality image generation across user interfaces and operating systems

Primer3Plus, an enhanced web interface to Primer3.

Abstract: Here we present Primer3Plus, a new web interface to the popular Primer3 primer design program as an enhanced alternative for the CGI- scripts that come with Primer3. Primer3 consists of a command line program and a web interface. The web interface is one large form showing all of the possible options. This makes the interface powerful, but at the same time confusing for occasional users. Primer3Plus provides an intuitive user interface using present-day web technologies and has been developed in close collaboration with molecular biologists and technicians regularly designing primers. It focuses on the task at hand, and hides detailed settings from the user until these are needed. We also added functionality to automate specific tasks like designing primers for cloning or step-wise sequencing. Settings and designed primer sequences can be stored locally for later use. Primer3Plus supports a range of common sequence formats, such as FASTA. Finally, primers selected by Primer3Plus can be sent to an order form, allowing tight integration into laboratory ordering systems. Moreover, the open architecture of Primer3Plus allows easy expansion or integration of external software packages. The Primer3Plus Perl source code is available under GPL license from SourceForge. Primer3Plus is available at http://www.bioinformatics.nl/primer3plus.

Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design

Abstract: Bill Buxton and I share a common belief that design leadership together with technical leadership drives innovation. Sketching, prototyping, and design are essential parts of the process we use to create new products. Bill Buxton brings design leadership and creativity to Microsoft. Through his thought-provoking personal examples he is inspiring others to better understand the role of design in their own companies--Bill Gates, Chairman, Microsoft"Informed design is essential." While it might seem that Bill Buxton is exaggerating or kidding with this bold assertion, neither is the case. In an impeccably argued and sumptuously illustrated book, design star Buxton convinces us that design simply must be integrated into the heart of business--Roger Martin, Dean, Rotman School of Management, University of TorontoDesign is explained, with the means and manner for successes and failures illuminated by engaging stories, true examples and personal anecdotes. In Sketching User Experiences, Bill Buxton clarifies the processes and skills of design from sketching to experience modeling, in a lively and informative style that is rich with stories and full of his own heart and enthusiasm. At the start we are lost in mountain snows and northern seas, but by the end we are equipped with a deep understanding of the tools of creative design.--Bill Moggridge, Cofounder of IDEO and author of Designing Interactions"Like any secret society, the design community has its strange rituals and initiation procedures. Bill opens up the mysteries of the magical process of design, taking us through a land in which story-telling, orange squeezers, the Wizard of Oz, I-pods, avalanche avoidance, bicycle suspension sketching, and faking it are all points on the design pilgrim's journey. There are lots of ideas and techniques in this book to feed good design and transform the way we think about creating useful stuff". -Peter GabrielI love this book. There are very few resources available that see across and through all of the disciplines involved in developing great experiences. This is complex stuff and Buxton's work is both informed and insightful. He shares the work in an intimate manner that engages the reader and you will find yourself nodding with agreement, and smiling at the poignant relevance of his examples.--Alistair Hamilton, Symbol Technologies, NYBooks that have proposed bringing design into HCI are aplenty, though books that propose bringing software in to Design less common. Nevertheless, Bill manages to skilfully steer a course between the excesses of the two approaches and offers something truly in-between. It could be a real boon to the innovation business by bringing the best of both worlds: design and HCI. --Richard Harper, Microsoft Research, CambridgeThere is almost a fervor in the way that new products, with their rich and dynamic interfaces, are being released to the public-typically promising to make lives easier, solve the most difficult of problems, and maybe even make the world a better place. The reality is that few survive, much less deliver on their promise. The folly? An absence of design, and an over-reliance on technology alone as the solution.We need design. But design as described here depends on different skillsets-each essential, but on their own, none sufficient. In this rich ecology, designers are faced with new challenges-challenges that build on, rather than replace, existing skills and practice. Sketching User Experiences approaches design and design thinking as something distinct that needs to be better understood-by both designers and the people with whom they need to work- in order to achieve success with new products and systems. So while the focus is on design, the approach is holistic. Hence, the book speaks to designers, usability specialists, the HCI community, product managers, and business executives. There is an emphasis on balancing the back-end concern with usability and engineering excellence (getting the design right) with an up-front investment in sketching and ideation (getting the right design). Overall, the objective is to build the notion of informed design: molding emerging technology into a form that serves our society and reflects its values. Grounded in both practice and scientific research, Bill Buxton's engaging work aims to spark the imagination while encouraging the use of new techniques, breathing new life into user experience design.. Covers sketching and early prototyping design methods suitable for dynamic product capabilities: cell phones that communicate with each other and other embedded systems, "smart" appliances, and things you only imagine in your dreams;. Thorough coverage of the design sketching method which helps easily build experience prototypes-without the effort of engineering prototypes which are difficult to abandon;. Reaches out to a range of designers, including user interface designers, industrial designers, software engineers, usability engineers, product managers, and others;. Full of case studies, examples, exercises, and projects, and access to video clips (www.mkp.com/sketching) that demonstrate the principles and methods.About the AuthorTrained as a musician, Bill Buxton began using computers over thirty years ago in his art. This early experience, both in the studio an on stage, helped develop a deep appreciation of both the positive and negative aspects of technology and its impact. This increasingly drew him into both design and research, with a very strong emphasis on interaction and the human aspects of technology. He first came to prominence for his work at the University of Toronto on digital musical instruments and the novel interfaces that they employed. This work in the late 70s gained the attention of Xerox PARC, where Buxton participated in pioneering work in collaborative work, interaction techniques and ubiquitous computing. He then went on to become Chief Scientist of SGI and Alias|Wavefront, where he had the opportunity to work with some of the top film makers and industrial designers in the world. He is now a principal researcher at Microsoft Corp., where he splits his time between research and helping make design a fundamental pillar of the corporate culture. * Covers sketching and early prototyping design methods suitable for dynamic product capabilities: cell phones that communicate with each other and other embedded systems, "smart" appliances, and things you only imagine in your dreams;* Thorough coverage of the design sketching method which helps easily build experience prototypes-without the effort of engineering prototypes which are difficult to abandon;* Reaches out to a range of designers, including user interface designers, industrial designers, software engineers, usability engineers, product managers, and others;* Full of case studies, examples, exercises, and projects, and access to video clips that demonstrate the principles and methods.

User models for adaptive hypermedia and adaptive educational systems

Abstract: One distinctive feature of any adaptive system is the user model that represents essential information about each user This chapter complements other chapters of this book in reviewing user models and user modeling approaches applied in adaptive Web systems The presentation is structured along three dimensions: what is being modeled, how it is modeled, and how the models are maintained After a broad overview of the nature of the information presented in these various user models, the chapter focuses on two groups of approaches to user model representation and maintenance: the overlay approach to user model representation and the uncertainty-based approach to user modeling

Gestures without libraries, toolkits or training: a $1 recognizer for user interface prototypes

Abstract: Although mobile, tablet, large display, and tabletop computers increasingly present opportunities for using pen, finger, and wand gestures in user interfaces, implementing gesture recognition largely has been the privilege of pattern matching experts, not user interface prototypers. Although some user interface libraries and toolkits offer gesture recognizers, such infrastructure is often unavailable in design-oriented environments like Flash, scripting environments like JavaScript, or brand new off-desktop prototyping environments. To enable novice programmers to incorporate gestures into their UI prototypes, we present a "$1 recognizer" that is easy, cheap, and usable almost anywhere in about 100 lines of code. In a study comparing our $1 recognizer, Dynamic Time Warping, and the Rubine classifier on user-supplied gestures, we found that $1 obtains over 97% accuracy with only 1 loaded template and 99% accuracy with 3+ loaded templates. These results were nearly identical to DTW and superior to Rubine. In addition, we found that medium-speed gestures, in which users balanced speed and accuracy, were recognized better than slow or fast gestures for all three recognizers. We also discuss the effect that the number of templates or training examples has on recognition, the score falloff along recognizers' N-best lists, and results for individual gestures. We include detailed pseudocode of the $1 recognizer to aid development, inspection, extension, and testing.

Swipe gestures for touch screen keyboards

Abstract: Systems, methods, and devices for interpreting manual swipe gestures as input in connection with touch-sensitive user interfaces that include virtual keyboards are disclosed herein. These allow for a user entering text using the virtual keyboard to perform certain functions using swipes across the key area rather than tapping particular keys. For example, leftward, rightward, upward, and downward swipes can be assigned to inserting a space, backspacing, shifting (as for typing capital letters), and inserting a carriage return and/or new line. Various other mappings are also described. The described techniques can be used in conjunction with a variety of devices, including handheld devices that include touch-screen interfaces, such as desktop computers, tablet computers, notebook computers, handheld computers, personal digital assistants, media players, mobile telephones, and combinations thereof.

Automatic prediction of frustration

Abstract: Predicting when a person might be frustrated can provide an intelligent system with important information about when to initiate interaction. For example, an automated Learning Companion or Intelligent Tutoring System might use this information to intervene, providing support to the learner who is likely to otherwise quit, while leaving engaged learners free to discover things without interruption. This paper presents the first automated method that assesses, using multiple channels of affect-related information, whether a learner is about to click on a button saying ''I'm frustrated.'' The new method was tested on data gathered from 24 participants using an automated Learning Companion. Their indication of frustration was automatically predicted from the collected data with 79% accuracy (chance=58%). The new assessment method is based on Gaussian process classification and Bayesian inference. Its performance suggests that non-verbal channels carrying affective cues can help provide important information to a system for formulating a more intelligent response.

System and methods for interacting with a control environment

Abstract: A system and methods for facilitation of user interactions with an electronic device. A number of user interface methods are described and may be used alone or in combination with one another to present an enhanced interface to a user. A method of providing user interaction using a compact status indicator is described. A method for providing a virtual scroll wheel to a user for interaction with content sets is described. A method for allowing a user to dynamically modify a scalable user interface is described. A method for providing gesture based input to a user via a virtual gesture pad is described. A method of providing an interactive graphic search query interface is described. A method for indicating and selecting available content type is described.

Human Performance Issues and User Interface Design for Teleoperated Robots

Abstract: In the future, it will become more common for humans to team up with robotic systems to perform tasks that humans cannot realistically accomplish alone. Even for autonomous and semiautonomous systems, teleoperation will be an important default mode. However, teleoperation can be a challenging task because the operator is remotely located. As a result, the operator's situation awareness of the remote environment can be compromised and the mission effectiveness can suffer. This paper presents a detailed examination of more than 150 papers covering human performance issues and suggested mitigation solutions. The paper summarizes the performance decrements caused by video images bandwidth, time lags, frame rates, lack of proprioception, frame of reference, two-dimensional views, attention switches, and motion effects. Suggested solutions and their limitations include stereoscopic displays, synthetic overlay, multimodal interfaces, and various predicative and decision support systems.

Show Me: Automatic Presentation for Visual Analysis

Abstract: This paper describes Show Me, an integrated set of user interface commands and defaults that incorporate automatic presentation into a commercial visual analysis system called Tableau. A key aspect of Tableau is VizQL, a language for specifying views, which is used by Show Me to extend automatic presentation to the generation of tables of views (commonly called small multiple displays). A key research issue for the commercial application of automatic presentation is the user experience, which must support the flow of visual analysis. User experience has not been the focus of previous research on automatic presentation. The Show Me user experience includes the automatic selection of mark types, a command to add a single field to a view, and a pair of commands to build views for multiple fields. Although the use of these defaults and commands is optional, user interface logs indicate that Show Me is used by commercial users.

reacTIVision: a computer-vision framework for table-based tangible interaction

Abstract: This article provides an introductory overview to first-time users of the reacTIVision framework -- an open-source cross-platform computer-vision framework primarily designed for the construction of table-based tangible user interfaces. The central component of the framework is a standalone application for fast and robust tracking of fiducial markers in a real-time video stream. The framework also defines a transport protocol for efficient and reliable transmission of object states via a local or wide area network. In addition, the distribution includes a collection of client example projects for various programming environments that allow the rapid development of unique tangible user interfaces. This article also provides a discussion of key points relevant to the construction of the necessary table hardware and surveys some projects that have been based on this technology.

What are you looking for?: an eye-tracking study of information usage in web search

Abstract: Web search services are among the most heavily used applications on the World Wide Web. Perhaps because search is used in such a huge variety of tasks and contexts, the user interface must strike a careful balance to meet all user needs. We describe a study that used eye tracking methodologies to explore the effects of changes in the presentation of search results. We found that adding information to the contextual snippet significantly improved performance for informational tasks but degraded performance for navigational tasks. We discuss possible reasons for this difference and the design implications for better presentation of search results.

The BikeNet mobile sensing system for cyclist experience mapping

Abstract: We describe our experiences deploying BikeNet, an extensible mobile sensing system for cyclist experience mapping leveraging opportunistic sensor networking principles and techniques. BikeNet represents a multifaceted sensing system and explores personal, bicycle, and environmental sensing using dynamically role-assigned bike area networking based on customized Moteiv Tmote Invent motes and sensor-enabled Nokia N80 mobile phones. We investigate real-time and delay-tolerant uploading of data via a number of sensor access points (SAPs) to a networked repository. Among bicycles that rendezvous en route we explore inter-bicycle networking via data muling. The repository provides a cyclist with data archival, retrieval, and visualization services. BikeNet promotes the social networking of the cycling community through the provision of a web portal that facilitates back end sharing of real-time and archived cycling-related data from the repository. We present: a description and prototype implementation of the system architecture, an evaluation of sensing and inference that quantifies cyclist performance and the cyclist environment; a report on networking performance in an environment characterized by bicycle mobility and human unpredictability; and a description of BikeNet system user interfaces. Visit [4] to see how the BikeNet system visualizes a user's rides.

System and method for providing a natural language voice user interface in an integrated voice navigation services environment

Abstract: A conversational, natural language voice user interface may provide an integrated voice navigation services environment. The voice user interface may enable a user to make natural language requests relating to various navigation services, and further, may interact with the user in a cooperative, conversational dialogue to resolve the requests. Through dynamic awareness of context, available sources of information, domain knowledge, user behavior and preferences, and external systems and devices, among other things, the voice user interface may provide an integrated environment in which the user can speak conversationally, using natural language, to issue queries, commands, or other requests relating to the navigation services provided in the environment.

Location-based recommendation system using Bayesian user's preference model in mobile devices

Abstract: As wireless communication advances, research on location-based services using mobile devices has attracted interest, which provides information and services related to user's physical location. As increasing information and services, it becomes difficult to find a proper service that reflects the individual preference at proper time. Due to the small screen of mobile devices and insufficiency of resources, personalized services and convenient user interface might be useful. In this paper, we propose a map-based personalized recommendation system which reflects user's preference modeled by Bayesian Networks (BN). The structure of BN is built by an expert while the parameter is learned from the dataset. The proposed system collects context information, location, time, weather, and user request from the mobile device and infers the most preferred item to provide an appropriate service by displaying onto the mini map.

Method apparatus and business system for online communications with online and offline recipients

Abstract: The present invention comprises a method, apparatus and business system for allowing on-line communications with members of a group of recipients for whom the invention has been implemented. A group may, for example, comprise members of a particular business or profession. For example, a group may consist of doctors admitted to practice medicine in the United States. Individual members of the group may or may not have existing internet presences. The invention allows online users to communicate with each member of a given group regardless of whether or not the member has an existing internet presence. In one or more embodiments, the invention does so by setting up a database of contact information for members of the group, creating an internet presence for each member of such group, creating an on-line user interface allowing a user to access the member's created internet presence, and providing means of communications between the created internet presence and the member recipient.

Designing for flexible interaction between humans and automation: delegation interfaces for supervisory control.

Abstract: OBJECTIVE: To develop a method enabling human-like, flexible supervisory control via delegation to automation. BACKGROUND: Real-time supervisory relationships with automation are rarely as flexible as human task delegation to other humans. Flexibility in human-adaptable automation can provide important benefits, including improved situation awareness, more accurate automation usage, more balanced mental workload, increased user acceptance, and improved overall performance. METHOD: We review problems with static and adaptive (as opposed to "adaptable") automation; contrast these approaches with human-human task delegation, which can mitigate many of the problems; and revise the concept of a "level of automation" as a pattern of task-based roles and authorizations. We argue that delegation requires a shared hierarchical task model between supervisor and subordinates, used to delegate tasks at various levels, and offer instruction on performing them. A prototype implementation called Playbook is described. RESULTS: On the basis of these analyses, we propose methods for supporting human-machine delegation interactions that parallel human-human delegation in important respects. We develop an architecture for machine-based delegation systems based on the metaphor of a sports team's "playbook." Finally, we describe a prototype implementation of this architecture, with an accompanying user interface and usage scenario, for mission planning for uninhabited air vehicles. CONCLUSION: Delegation offers a viable method for flexible, multilevel human-automation interaction to enhance system performance while maintaining user workload at a manageable level. APPLICATION: Most applications of adaptive automation (aviation, air traffic control, robotics, process control, etc.) are potential avenues for the adaptable, delegation approach we advocate. We present an extended example for uninhabited air vehicle mission planning. Language: en

Intelligent multimedia e-catalog

Abstract: An intelligent product catalog system provides for electronic creation, management and viewing of product information using a multimedia display system. A central database repository stores the product information and provides for an unlimited number of product attributes and dynamic reconfiguration of the product information. The central database repository comprises a meta data system, a scheme system and an object model system. A plurality of applications access the central database repository, the applications being automatically adaptive to the dynamic reconfiguration of the product information. A user interface provides display, sorting and filtering of the product information including the unlimited number of product attributes.

The Extensible Neuroimaging Archive Toolkit: an informatics platform for managing, exploring, and sharing neuroimaging data.

Abstract: The Extensible Neuroimaging Archive Toolkit (XNAT) is a software platform designed to facilitate common management and productivity tasks for neuroimaging and associated data. In particular, XNAT enables qualitycontrol procedures and provides secure access to and storage of data. XNAT follows a threetiered architecture that includes a data archive, user interface, and middleware engine. Data can be entered into the archive as XML or through data entry forms. Newly added data are stored in a virtual quarantine until an authorized user has validated it. XNAT subsequently maintains a history profile to track all changes made to the managed data. User access to the archive is provided by a secure web application. The web application provides a number of quality control and productivity features, including data entry forms, data-type-specific searches, searches that combine across data types, detailed reports, and listings of experimental data, upload/download tools, access to standard laboratory workflows, and administration and security tools. XNAT also includes an online image viewer that supports a number of common neuroimaging formats, including DICOM and Analyze. The viewer can be extended to support additional formats and to generate custom displays. By managing data with XNAT, laboratories are prepared to better maintain the long-term integrity of their data, to explore emergent relations across data types, and to share their data with the broader neuroimaging community.

Performance of Biometric Quality Measures

Abstract: We document methods for the quantitative evaluation of systems that produce a scalar summary of a biometric sample's quality. We are motivated by a need to test claims that quality measures are predictive of matching performance. We regard a quality measurement algorithm as a black box that converts an input sample to an output scalar. We evaluate it by quantifying the association between those values and observed matching results. We advance detection error trade-off and error versus reject characteristics as metrics for the comparative evaluation of sample quality measurement algorithms. We proceed this with a definition of sample quality, a description of the operational use of quality measures. We emphasize the performance goal by including a procedure for annotating the samples of a reference corpus with quality values derived from empirical recognition scores

Integrated decision support systems: A data warehousing perspective

Abstract: Successfully supporting managerial decision-making is critically dependent upon the availability of integrated, high quality information organized and presented in a timely and easily understood manner. Data warehouses have emerged to meet this need. They serve as an integrated repository for internal and external data-intelligence critical to understanding and evaluating the business within its environmental context. With the addition of models, analytic tools, and user interfaces, they have the potential to provide actionable information resources-business intelligence that supports effective problem and opportunity identification, critical decision-making, and strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. Four themes frame our analysis: integration, implementation, intelligence, and innovation.

National Instruments LabVIEW: A Programming Environment for Laboratory Automation and Measurement

Abstract: National Instruments LabVIEW is a graphical programming language that has its roots in automation control and data acquisition. Its graphical representation, similar to a process flow diagram, was created to provide an intuitive programming environment for scientists and engineers. The language has matured over the last 20 years to become a general purpose programming environment. LabVIEW has several key features which make it a good choice in an automation environment. These include simple network communication, turnkey implementation of common communication protocols (RS232, GPIB, etc.), powerful toolsets for process control and data fitting, fast and easy user interface construction, and an efficient code execution environment. We discuss the merits of the language and provide an example application suite written in-house which is used in integrating and controlling automation platforms.

The relationship between accessibility and usability of websites

Abstract: Accessibility and usability are well established concepts for user interfaces and websites. Usability is precisely defined, but there are different approaches to accessibility. In addition, different possible relationships could exist between problems encountered by disabled and non-disabled users, yet little empirical data have been gathered on this question. Guidelines for accessibility and usability of websites provide ratings of the importance of problems for users, yet little empirical data have been gathered to validate these ratings. A study investigated the accessibility of two websites with 6 disabled (blind) and 6 non-disabled (sighted) people. Problems encountered by the two groups comprised two intersecting sets, with approximately 15% overlap. For one of the two websites, blind people rated problems significantly more severely than sighted people. There was high agreement between participants as to the severity of problems, and agreement between participants and researchers. However, there was no significant agreement between either participants or researchers and the importance/priority ratings provided by accessibility and usability guidelines. Practical and theoretical implications of these results are discussed.

Operating an infusion pump system

Abstract: Some embodiments of a medical infusion pump system include a pump device and a removable controller device. When the pump device and the removable controller device are removably attached to one another, the components may provide a portable infusion pump unit to dispense medicine to a user. In particular embodiments, the removable controller device includes a user interface to readily provide information, for example, about the operation of the pump.

Siftables: towards sensor network user interfaces

Abstract: This paper outlines Siftables, a novel platform that applies technology and methodology from wireless sensor networks to tangible user interfaces in order to yield new possibilities for human-computer interaction. Siftables are compact devices with sensing, graphical display, and wireless communication. They can be physically manipulated as a group to interact with digital information and media. We discuss the unique affordances that a sensor network user interface (SNUI) such as Siftables provides, as well as the resulting directness between the physical interface and the data being manipulated. We conclude with a description of some gestural language primitives that we are currently prototyping with Siftables.

Audio user interface for computing devices

Abstract: An audio user interface that generates audio prompts that help a user interact with a user interface of a computing device is disclosed. The audio prompts can provide audio indicators that allow a user to focus his or her visual attention upon other tasks such as driving an automobile, exercising, or crossing a street, yet still enable the user to interact with the user interface. As examples, the audio prompts provided can audiblize the spoken version of a user interface selection, such as a selected function or a selected (e.g., highlighted) menu item of a display menu. The computing device can be, for example, a media player such as an MP3 player, a mobile phone, or a personal digital assistant.