Zoomable user interfaces (ZUIs) have received a significant amount of attention in the 18 years since they were introduced. They have enjoyed some success, and elements of ZUIs are widely used in computers today, although the grand vision of a zoomable desktop has not materialised. This paper describes the premise and promise of ZUIs along with…

Using touch screens presents a number of usability and accessibility challenges for blind people. Most touch screen-based user interfaces are optimized for visual interaction, and are therefore difficult or impossible to use without vision. This dissertation presents an approach to redesigning gesture-based user interfaces to enable blind people…

In spite of the goodwill and best efforts of software engineers and usability professionals, systems continue to be built and released with glaring usability flaws that are costly and difficult to fix after the system has been built. Although user interface (UI) designers, be they usability or design experts, communicate usability requirements to…

Mobile devices offer much potential to support older adults (age 65+). However, older adults have been relatively slow to adopt mobile devices. Although much ongoing HCI research has examined usability problems to address this issue, little work has looked at whether existing graphical icons are harder to use for this population compared with…

This dissertation explores the use of geometric and graphical models for a variety of information search and filtering applications. These models serve to provide an intuitive understanding of the problem domains and as well as computational efficiencies to our solution approaches. We begin by considering a search and rescue scenario where both…

Reinveting the Internet is not easy. Researchers working on a federally supported effort to design a replacement recently had to go back to the drawing board. They now think the best way to do it is to try several "best ways" instead of searching for just one--and to invite help from social scientists rather than just self-described computer…

This article is the fourth in a series of articles published annually by "Computers in Libraries" surveying integrated library systems and services (ILSs). The purpose of the annual survey is to enable comparison of the ILSs that are available. ILS vendors are in constant pursuit of an ever-changing, consistently vague definition of what the…

This article discusses the processes that occurred when the Library, Controller's Office, and Information Technology Department agreed to create an interface between the Library's Innovative Interfaces patron database and campus administrative software, Banner, using file transfer protocol, in an effort to streamline the Library's accounts…

Game-based learning harnesses the advantages of computer games technology to create a fun, motivating and interactive virtual learning environment that promotes problem-based experiential learning. Such an approach is advocated by many commentators to provide an enhanced learning experience than those based on traditional didactic methods.…

Typical web lectures consist of two different kinds of media linked together: an audio- or video-recording and the corresponding slides or desktop recording. Both media are synchronized so that the slide or image shown corresponds to the position currently played in the time-based media stream. Web lectures are thus composite media consisting of a…

In today's teaching and learning approaches for first-semester students, practical courses more and more often complement traditional theoretical lectures. This practical element allows an early insight into the real world of engineering, augments student motivation, and enables students to acquire soft skills early. This paper describes a new…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the usability of a remote learning system in its initial development phase, using a quantitative usability evaluation method through Markov models. Design/methodology/approach: The paper opted for an exploratory study. The data of interest of the research correspond to the possible accesses of users…

As part of the research carried out at the University of California, Santa Barbara's Center for Information Technology and Society (CITS), the Paper Authentication and Integrity Research (PAIR) project was launched. We began by investigating how one recent technology affected student learning outcomes. One aspect of this research was to study the…

This paper reports on an aspect of the EC funded Argunaut project which researched and developed awareness tools for moderators of online dialogues. In this study we report on an investigation into the nature of creative thinking in online dialogues and whether or not this creative thinking can be coded for and recognized automatically such that…

It turns out Al Wallace got my old space at Kitsap. It's a little hovel in what we call "The Outback," the octagon furthest from the administrative offices, an easy place to hide if you're really quiet. It?s triangular in shape and somewhat awkward, but that?s what you get when an architect knits together a bunch of 5,000-square-foot octagons in a…