CapCHI Activities

Past Activities 2005-2006

• 2006/06/08 - "HCI Highlights ", presented by various members of CapCHI community.
• 2006/04/20 - "Open Source Software and Government", presented by Joseph Potvin.
• 2006/03/23 - "Elephant in the Living Room", presented by Kevin Grignon.
• 2006/02/23 - "Interface Design and Ergonomics of an Advance Immersive Command Workstation", presented by Tim Moore.
• 2006/01/27 - "Navigating User Interfaces", presented by Dr. Norm Vinson.
• 2005/12/06 - "Performing Email Tasks While Driving", presented by Joanne Harbluk.
• 2005/11/22 - Usability Bootcamp: Making Your Websites and Software Easy to Use, an all-day workshop, featuring Gitte Lindgaard, Amy Dillon, Dr. Helen Maskery, Mike Atyeo, and Hilary Little.
• 2005/10/04 - WorkWORLD, presented by Mike Hinde.

| Top |

HCI Highlights
Presented by various members of CapCHI community
Thursday June 08, 2006 at Adobe Systems Canada

HCI Highlights

For our final meeting of the season we featured highlights from recent HCI activities.

First up was "CHILghts" - highlights from the recent CHI 2006 conference held in Montreal.

Second, was a series of brief presentations about recent projects in the HOT Lab at Carleton University.

• Aida Hadziomerovic: “Tracking Learning and Engagement in a Computer Role Play Game”
  
  I will present a methodology for analyzing how people learn when playing videogames using activity theory’s concepts of contradictions and activity systems. Contradictions, which can be defined as blocks or obstacles in an activity system, can be used to point out discrete actions within the activity system of a computer role play game that can be observed and analyzed. These actions can then be used to measure outcomes such as learning or engagement.

• Meaghan Beirne: “The Impact of Narrative on the Update and Change of an Existing Cognitive Map”
  
  People are able to construct a representation of an environment based on verbal information; this has been shown for straightforward textual description ( e.g., Taylor & Tversky, 1992a, b; 1996) and for narrative text (Morrow, Greenspan, & Bower, 1987). Are there differences in the relative impact of these two types of verbal information on the construction and update of cognitive maps? We have developed a framework which postulates the mediation of a situation model, developed by narrative readers (van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983; Zwaan & Radvansky, 1998), facilitates incorporating changes to a previously acquired cognitive map more reading a simple description. The participants are presented with a map, followed by texts (narrative or descriptive) which describe changes to the environment in the map. The situation model, developed from reading the narrative, should facilitate the incorporation of the changes into the readers' cognitive maps. The preliminary results are discussed, with projections for upcoming research.
  

• Dev Sen: "Around the World Through University Homepages: What Attracts and Persuades Foreign Students?"
  
  In an increasingly global world, university websites often provide the first introduction to a university for many foreign students. Consequently, a university's ability to attract new students rests in large part to the persuasive appeal of its website. The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine if cross-cultural differences exist in 'trust markers' which may influence how much university homepages are trusted by people from varying cultural backgrounds. The identification of cultural markers in message content was guided by three of Geert Hofstede's value dimensions which identify how countries differ on various dimensions such as power distance (the extent to which weaker members of a society accept inequality in power), collectivism vs. individualism (the basic level of behaviour regulation, whether by individuals or groups), and uncertainty avoidance (the extent to which people feel threatened by ambiguity). After reviewing the presence of various cultural markers believed to influence persuasive appeal in 321 homepages from around the world, this study investigated aspects of user interface design that were believed to impact the cultural differences in the appeal and trustworthiness of each site. Contrary to expectations, it was found that Western participants chose a Chinese homepage as their favorite site, while Eastern participants chose an American homepage as their most preferred site. Content analyses further revealed features unique to sites favoured across and within each cultural group.

During this meeting we also held our annual general meeting and elections of officers. We also discussed some planning for the 2006-2007 season.

• CapCHI Looking for Volunteers (PDF file 48K)
• The Executive for the 2005-2006 season

We ended the evening by retiring to a local pub for some refreshments.

| Top |

Open Source Software and Government
The Intellectual Resources Canada (IRCan) Initiative
Presented by Joseph Potvin, Treasury Board of Canada
Thursday April 20, 2006 at Adobe Systems Canada

Download poster (PDF file 89K)

| Top |

What?

Intellectual Resources Canada (IRCan) is an emerging inter-departmental and inter-sectoral initiative to rationalize public spending on custom intellectual assets, including software. It is being created to support collective evolution of such assets across combinations of public sector, commercial, academic and civil society participants, while engaging the full spectrum of business methods and legislation, agreements, policies and guidelines. Through FY2006-07, IRCan will be piloted as a limited program led by Enterprise Stewardship, CIO Branch, Treasury Board Secretariat, with the participation of several departments and agencies, as well as other jurisdictions. Eventually, it is hoped that numerous organizations will be able to draw upon the policy framework, business design, and systems infrastructure of the IRCan Initiative to assist communities engaged in the creation and evolution of any intellectual assets under joint and collective copyright, that are of interest to the Government of Canada.

In this session, the business requirements of two open source project communities initiated by the Canadian Government were outlined to explain the underlying purpose and strategy of the IRCan Initiative:

• "OPA" (Online Proposal Appraisal) is an open source (GNU-GPL) grants and contributions management system started in 1999 at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). For five years OPA has been used to run the largest international development research grants initiative at the World Bank.
• "ITERation" (IT for Expenditure Reporting Automation) is the first open source (GNU-GPL) solution to be initiated and shared by Treasury Board Secretariat. By facilitating more timely and auditable reporting from authoritative sources for any defined profile of investments or expenditures, ITERation should help Canadian federal organizations to meet the goals of the government's planned Accountability Act. The Reference Implementation should also be useful to other types of organizations.

| Top |

Who?

Joseph Potvin is an IT economist with the Enterprise Stewardship and Internal Services Strategies division, Chief Information Officer Branch, Treasury Board Secretariat, Government of Canada. He coordinates the synthesis of Government of Canada's IT expenditure reporting, and he initiated the ITERation Project to convert this process to an architected solution for expenditure data assembly, management, statistical analysis and reporting. For three years Mr. Potvin has also coordinated planning towards the creation of Intellectual Resources Canada (Ressources Intellectuelles Canada).

After working internationally in the private sector, Mr. Potvin joined the federal government in 1999, first with the International Development Research Centre. There he served as the lead architect and project manager of the third open source (GNU-GPL) software release by the Government of Canada, a grants and contributions management system for the Online Proposal Appraisal (OPA). In 2001, Mr. Potvin was invited to joined the IT Services Branch of PWGSC, to help broaden the use of open source methods in the Government. He represented the branch at the Inter-departmental Open Source Committee hosted by Treasury Board Secretariat.

On his own time, Potvin is co-coordinator of GOSLING (Getting Open Source Logic INto Governments), a voluntary, informal learning and knowledge-sharing community of practice, involving civil servants and other citizens who actively assist the engagement of free/libre open source methods and software solutions in government operations. www.goslingcommunity.org

Mr. Potvin completed an Honors BA (economics) at McGill University in 1983, and a Masters Degree (economics and technology) at Cambridge University, England in 1986. In the late 1980s he taught economic project appraisal, as well as macroeconomic development theory, at three universities in South America.

| Top |

Elephant in the Living Room
Presented by Kevin Grignon, IBM Canada
Thursday March 23, 2006 at Adobe Systems Canada

Download poster (PDF file 86K)

| Top |

What?

It has been suggested that to become a better user experience practitioner, one must “learn how to work with and change the organization.” While a solid UX methodology is critical to realizing value from UX participation in the design and development process, true results only come if the organization is the primary focus of user experience work. In addition to user needs, UX practitioners need to be increasingly mindful of organizational needs. Kevin lead a discussion on user experience design culture and its relationship with the organization.

| Top |

Who?

Kevin Grignon is a User Experience Designer with IBM Canada. When Kevin is not creating prototypes or capturing customer input, he can be found promoting the power and promise of design. With over 10 years of experience-based design, Kevin brings perspective to the strategic planning and tactical implementation of consumer-design investments.

| Top |

Interface Design and Ergonomics of an Advance Immersive Command Workstation
Presented by Tim Moore, Ergosum, Ltd.
Thursday February 23, 2006 at Adobe Systems Canada

Download poster (PDF file 84K)

| Top |

What?

The concept of total visual immersion in a helmet-mounted display (HMD) has been around for at least 30 years. It has been the subject of a number of movies and has been the basis of simulators and space viewers but very few applications have moved beyond the laboratory door.

This presentation examined the conceptual design of a fully immersive display for a complex command and control environment within a fighting vehicle. Display formats included external views, simulated views, augmented reality, maps and conventional GUIs. Input controls for the system included head movements, dual joysticks with multiple buttons and voice recognition.

The project was conducted to identify the likely impact and practicality of an extreme approach, which, while technologically feasible may not be desirable for a wide number of reasons.

| Top |

Who?

Tim Moore, Ergosum Ltd.

• Undergraduate in Psychology from London University just at the time when Cognitive Psychology emerged and Neisser, Chomsky, Norman etc were becoming known, although Norman was a memory expert and Chomsky was known for linguistics AND anti-Vietnam protest.
• 11 years in Human Factors research groups at Loughborough University. Human Science and Advanced Technology (HUSAT) and Institute for Consumer Ergonomics (ICE). During that time did research on displays for Process Control Industries and consulting for many companies.
• For 5 years while at Loughborough was the principal Human Factors expert for L.M. Ericsson in Sweden as an external consultant.
  • Designed 2 telephone operator systems, and
  • a network operations centre system.
  • Literature review on Computer Interfaces
• 16 years at Nortel designing telephones, advanced communication products, user interfaces etc and running the usability lab and a displays lab to define required qualities of LCDs.
• 3 years running Ergosum Ltd. doing consulting for Nortel, Mitel etc.
• 5 years at CMC Electronics designing systems for Helicopters, Tanks, Army Command centres. Nuclear Attack submarines and Destroyers
• 18 years teaching Human Factors and Ergonomics to Industrial Design students at Carleton.

| Top |

Navigating User Interfaces
Presented by Dr. Norm Vinson, Institute for Information Technology, National Research Council Canada
Thursday January 27, 2006 at Adobe Systems Canada

Download poster (PDF file 84K)

| Top |

What?

Whether you're using an iPod, a text editor, an immersive 3D virtual environment, or surfing the web you will have to navigate. Navigating, making your way from one interface state to another, is ubiquitous across all types of user interfaces.

In this presentation, Dr. Vinson discussed the differences in the navigational supports commonly provided for different types of interfaces (e.g. hypertext, applications). He also discussed how some supports typically used for one interface type (e.g. websites) can be applied to other interface types (e.g. applications) to better support user navigation.

| Top |

Who?

Dr. Norm Vinson is a cognitive psychologist in the Interactive Information Group at the Institute for Information Technology, National Research Council Canada. His research focuses on visual perception and spatial cognition as they relate to human-computer interaction. He is also interested in the psychological processes involved in data visualization and analysis. He has published in the fields of spatial cognition, software engineering, human-computer interaction, and research ethics.

| Top |

Performing Email Tasks While Driving
The Impact of Speech-based Tasks on Visual Detection (Plus Other Research Activities)
Presented by Joanne Harbluk, Human Factors Specialist, Transport Canada
Tuesday December 06, 2005 at Adobe Systems Canada

Download poster (PDF file 86K)

| Top |

What?

Summary: In this study, drivers listened and responded to email messages presented in a human voice and two types of synthetic speech while driving a simulator. Their performance for visual event detection, vehicle control, and message responses was assessed. The results indicated that although drivers were not required to direct their attention away from the road, using the speech-based interfaces reduced drivers' visual event detection and their response accuracy to messages themselves.

| Top |

Who?

Joanne Harbluk is a Human Factors Specialist with the Ergonomics and Crash Avoidance Division of Transport Canada. Currently her research is focused on Intelligent Transportation Systems and human interaction with these systems. Current research interests include driver distraction and methods for assessing the safety of in-vehicle information and communication systems. She has a background in Cognitive Psychology and holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Western Ontario. Joanne is an adjunct Research Professor in the Psychology Department at Carleton University, and an associate member of the Center for Applied Cognitive Research (Carleton University). She is member of the Human Factors and Ergonomic Society, the American Psychological Association, and a member of the Transportation Research Board Committees on Vehicle User Characteristics (AND10) and Simulation and Measurement of Vehicle and Operator Performance Committee (AND30).

| Top |

Usability Bootcamp:
Making Your Websites and Software Easy to Use
An Introduction to Usability, featuring Gitte Lindgaard, Amy Dillon, Dr. Helen Maskery, Mike Atyeo, and Hilary Little
Tuesday November 22, 2005 from 9:00 AM - 5:30 PM at the Crowne Plaza Ottawa Hotel

In celebration of World Usability Day, CapCHI was proud to announce a Usability Bootcamp to be held on November 22, 2005.

Download poster 1a (8.5 x 11" Letter size) (PDF 151K)

Download agenda and speaker bios (PDF file 220K)

Read the Summary of Participant Evaluation (PDF file 115K) New

| Top |

What?

CapCHI, the Ottawa Chapter of the ACM Special Interest Group on Human Computer Interaction, was proud to present a full-day workshop on an Introduction to Usability. This program was designed for developers, web architects, managers, executives, and anyone else who needs to learn about usability.

The Usability Bootcamp was developed for participants to:

• Understand the skills, processes, tools and techniques required to design usable web sites and applications;
• Have had hands-on experience of the key usability design and testing activities;
• Come away with some tools and techniques to help you back at work;
• Have networked with other people interested in usability;Have had fun!

The workshop featured presentations by

• Gitte Lindgaard (Keynote)
• Amy Dillon
• Dr. Helen Maskery
• Mike Atyeo
• Hilary Little

| Top |

Where and When?

This all-day event was held at the Crown Plaza Hotel in downtown Ottawa on Tuesday November 22, 2005 from 9:00 AM - 5:30 PM with breakfast and registration at 8:00 AM.

Crowne Plaza Ottawa Hotel
101 Lyon Street North
Ottawa, ON K1R-5T9
(613) 237-3600 (Telephone)
(613) 237-2351 (Fax)
http://www.crowneottawa.ca/

| Top |

WorkWORLD
A Decision Support System to Empower Persons with Disabilities
Presented by Mike Hine, PhD from Carleton University
Tuesday, October 4, 2005 at Adobe Systems Canada

Download poster (PDF file 84K)

| Top |

What?

WorkWORLD is a knowledge-based Decision Support System that empowers persons with disabilities through increased awareness and understanding of complex and convoluted work incentives associated with federal and state disability and poverty benefit programs. The background, motivation, and implementation details associated with the system were presented.

| Top |

Who?

Mike Hine, PhD, Assistant Professor of Information Systems, Sprott School of Business, Carleton University.

| Top | Home | About Us | Activities | Resources | Job Postings |

© Copyright 2007-2008 CapCHI. All Rights Reserved.

Send questions/comments about this website to the webmaster.