Mirrors of the World – Supporting Situational Awareness with Computer Screens

ABSTRACT
The use of information technology (IT) is spreading rapidly. Especially in complex situations and in complex task domains IT is applied to support, both, social and leisure activities, and work. In both types of applications, the functionality of the systems is what they are designed for in the first place. However, if the situation is really complex, the availability of relevant functionality does not solve all problems. The users of IT remain human, including the well known restricted capacity of working memory, processing, and attention. This frequently results in a problem of being aware of what is going on in the context. We will focus on the concept of awareness, and on envisioning directions for supporting this by applying state of the art IT. We develop a notion of support for social and situational awareness. Our initial ideas are based on the metaphor of using a mirror to see what you are not looking at. We provide two studies that, for different contexts, apply the metaphor to develop design ideas that fit the context of use.

 

Gerrit C. van der Veer

Gerrit van der Veer is Full Professor in Human-Computer Interaction at the Open University Netherlands, Emeritus professor in Interaction Design at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Guest Professor Human-Media Interaction at Twente University, all in The Netherlands. In addition he is Visiting Professor of Design at the University of Sassari, Alghero, Sardinia. In these Universities he teaches Visual Design, Task analysis and modeling, and Human Information Processing.

His research interests include task modeling, systematic user centered design methods, mental models, and cultural and individual differences between computer users.

He is the President of the European Association of Cognitive Ergonomics, and, from July 1 2009, he is the President of ACM SIGCHI.

Open University Netherlands (OUN)
School of Computer Science
Valkenburgerweg 177
6419 AT Heerlen
The Netherlands

Phone: +31-20-5987764
Email: gerrit@acm.org, gvv@ou.nl
http://www.cs.vu.nl/~gerrit

 

 

Noi direcţii în UI: WPF şi Silverlight

Autori: Dan Petric, Daniel Lăcătuş, Stefan Szasz

REZUMAT
Windows Presentation Foundation, sau WPF, este noul framework pentru dezvoltare de User Interface, din familia de tehnologii .NET 3.0+, care tinde să ia locul cunoscutului Windows Forms. Având un engine propriu, bazat pe Direct3D, oferind suport pentru video streaming sau operatii 3d, permite realizarea de efecte grafice deosebite, practic imposibile în Windows Forms. Silverlight este un framework destinat dezvoltării de aplicaţii web cu un conţinut vizual deosebit de atractiv. Acţionând ca un plugin de browser, permite rularea pe majoritatea sistemelor de operare, oferind un mediu cu mult mai multe posibilităţi decât amestecul tradiţional de HTML şi JavaScript. Ambele frameworkuri reprezintă noua generaţie de instrumente pentru crearea de User Interface deosebite, inovatoare, care se depărtează de posibilităţile tradiţionale.

 

 

Experienţa utilizator în Windows 7

Autor: Ioan Lazarciuc

REZUMAT
Experienţa oferită utilizatorilor de către un sistem de operare are puterea de a transforma produsul într-o reuşită sau un eşec. Noua versiune de Windows foloseşte feedback-ul de la programul de test şi ultimele tehnologii cum ar fi multi-touch pentru a oferi utilizatorilor un mediu de lucru organizat, intuitiv şi eficient.