Tech Reports
Tech Report kmi-98-09 Abstract
Training Software Engineers in a Novel Usability Evaluation Technique
Techreport ID: kmi-98-09
Date: 1998
Author(s): Ann Blandford, Simon Buckingham Shum and Richard Young
Novel approaches to designing or analysing systems only become useful when they are usable by practitioners in the field, and not just by their originators. Design techniques often fail to make the transition from research to practice because insufficient attention is paid to understanding and communicating the skills required to use them. This paper reports on work to train software engineering students to use a user-centred language for describing and analysing interface designs called the "Programmable User Model Instruction Language", or IL. Various types of data, including video, studentsŐ IL descriptions and brief usability reports were collected during training, and subsequently analysed. These show that after 6 hoursŐ training, students have a good grasp of the syntax of the notation, and are starting to use notational affordances to support their reasoning, but that their reasoning is still limited by a poor grasp of the underlying cognitive theory. A comparison of the analyses of trainees with those of experts provides a means of developing a better understanding of the nature of expertise in this area -- as comprising an understanding of the syntax and the surface semantics of the notation, the underlying cognitive theory, the method of conducting an analysis and the implications of the analysis for design. 1. School of Computing Science, Middlesex University, Bounds Green Road, London, N11 2NQ, UK. 2. Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK. 3. MRC Applied Psychology Unit, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge, CB2 2EF, UK.
Publication(s):
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (1998, in press)
Future Internet
KnowledgeManagementMultimedia &
Information SystemsNarrative
HypermediaNew Media SystemsSemantic Web &
Knowledge ServicesSocial Software
Semantic Web and Knowledge Services is...
Our research in the Semantic Web area looks at the potentials of fusing together advances in a range of disciplines, and applying them in a systemic way to simplify the development of intelligent, knowledge-based web services and to facilitate human access and use of knowledge available on the web. For instance, we are exploring ways in which tnatural language interfaces can be used to facilitate access to data distributed over different repositories. We are also developing infrastructures to support rapid development and deployment of semantic web services, which can be used to create web applications on-the-fly. We are also investigating ways in which semantic technology can support learning on the web, through a combination of knowledge representation support, pedagogical theories and intelligent content aggregation mechanisms. Finally, we are also investigating the Semantic Web itself as a domain of analysis and performing large scale empirical studies to uncover data about the concrete epistemologies which can be found on the Semantic Web. This exciting new area of research gives us concrete insights on the different conceptualizations that are present on the Semantic Web by giving us the possibility to discover which are the most common viewpoints, which viewpoints are mutually inconsistent, to what extent different models agree or disagree, etc...
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