Volume 16, Issue 1

Several collaborative search systems build upon real-time collaboration during search processes. With the software SearchTrails, we present a novel way of capturing and exchanging the search process between collaborators. We achieve this by asynchronously exchanging the newly developed search trails between collaborators and thus overcome the necessity of real-time interaction for search support. In a study with 29 participants, we evaluate the value of search trails as collaboration artifacts to answer the research question whether search trails improve the quality of collaborative search results. We confirm this and show that users can build upon work of co-searchers in a very efficient way by analyzing and extending the given search trails.

Computer-related attributions are cognitions related to the causes and effects of user interactions – or, in other words, subjective explanations of users of why specific system reactions occur. Prior research has revealed different attribution styles, which influence how users interact with computers and how they perceive situations of failure and success. In this paper, we report on a study investigating how computer-related attributions influence users’ perceptions and evaluations of interactive systems. To that end, we conducted usability tests with N=74$\mathrm{N}=74$ users and measured both system evaluations and attributions. Results show correlations between attributions and usability as well as user experience measures, indicating that users’ attributions do influence their evaluations of the test systems. Furthermore, gender differences were revealed. Practical and research implications are described.

Advisory service encounters change their character from expertise provision to interactive problem solving, thus increasingly relying on mutual and intensive interaction between the advisor and the advisee: they turn into interactive advisory service encounters . Simultaneously, modern collaborative IT finds its way into service encounters as a method to engineer, enrich, and standardize them. An IT system equipped with interactive features may enhance the encounter’s interactivity, but it may also limit it by capturing participants’ attention. This study explores the influence of IT on the interactivity in advisory service encounters. It arrives at the conclusion that an extensive tuning in precedes a phase of enhanced interactivity in IT-supported advisory service encounters.

In this article we investigate how orientation and navigation in (extensive) spaces consisting of digital resources can be supported by using hierarchical visualizations. Such spaces can consist of heterogeneous sets of digital resources as for instance articles from Wikipedia, textbooks, and videos. Due to easier access to digital resources in the Internet age, a manual exploration of these spaces might lead to information overload. As a result, techniques need to be developed in order to automatically analyze and structure sets of resources. We introduce a prototypical implementation of a visualization pipeline that extracts information dimensions from resources in order to group them into semantically similar clusters, and visualizes these clusters using two different visualizations: a treemap visualizing clusters and nested subclusters, and a rooted tree visualizing groups of semantically similar resources as subtrees. In a lab study we evaluated the two visualizations and compared them to two control groups. The results may hint to users’ better understanding of the resources’ underlying knowledge as compared to using typical approaches (e.g. web search results as list) when using hierarchical visualizations.

Digital media offers multiple possibilities for inclusion of people with disabilities. Nevertheless, they pose barriers especially for blind learners as they hinder an active participation in synchronous learning settings. Virtual classrooms are a particularly good example for a complex media application as they combine various media types such as audio, video, graphical content and text which can only partially be perceived. Our work pursues the goal to facilitate an equal participation in virtual classrooms for blind users. In order to overcome these barriers, alternative user interface concepts for the display on a two-dimensional tactile Braille device have been conceived. Based on these concepts, the virtual classroom solution BigBlueButton was improved thereupon. A subsequent evaluation simulated a learning session with blind users in order to determine the acceptance and usability of the software adaptation. This user study shows that an active participation of blind learners in virtual classroom sessions can be achieved by using multimodal output devices and alternative concepts.

With the development of social robots that are primarily designed for interacting with humans, particular facets of interaction need to be explored. One of them is the manifestation of robot personalities, which have the potential to raise acceptance and enhance user experience if done appropriate – or ruin both if done wrong. The present paper argues for the relevance of suitable robot personalities and discusses the factors that affect suitability, in particular interaction domain and personal preferences. An experiment (N=30$\mathrm{N}=30$) with four different interaction scenarios (goal- and experience oriented) and three robot personalities (positive, neutral, negative) was performed to explore effects of personality and domain on personality suitability and acceptance. Results indicate that users can differentiate between different robot personalities and evaluate accordingly. In a goal-oriented stressful situation (train-ticket purchase under time pressure) the neutral personality was rated best. In experience-oriented scenarios, the positive robot personality was preferred. In the context of strictly performance oriented tasks, the effect of robot personality seems to be insignificant. Personal preferences for personalities seem to be influential, however, no clear pattern could be found. Lastly, directions for future research are depicted and implications for researchers and designers are discussed.