sábado, 24 de mayo de 2008

Improving a Zoom+Pan Interface with Overview+Detail or Focus+Context Features: A Comparative Evaluation

J. Urquiza-Fuentes, C.A. Lázaro-Carrascosa and J.Á. Velázquez-Iturbide. In Engineering the User Interface From Research to Practice, 2008, Pages 221-238

Abstract. We present an evaluation of adding Focus+Context vs. Overview+Deatil features to a Zoom+Pan interface. The framework of the evaluation is an interface to deal with large sets of items with specific structural properties (sequential order, heterogeneous sizes), and behavior requirements (flexible interaction, maximizing screen space, minimizing changes in screen). The evaluation involved 43 participants. We studied the effect of three factors (namely, experience with the tasks, size of the sets, and tasks performed with the same set) on effectiveness, efficiency and user's satisfaction. The results show that experienced users of the interface enhanced with the Focus+Context features obtained the best results on effectiveness and efficiency. Furthermore, a satisfaction questionnaire showed that users felt more comfortable with the Focus+Context approach.

sábado, 19 de enero de 2008

An approach to effortless construction of program animations

J.A. Velázquez-Iturbide and C. Pareja-Flores and J. Urquiza-Fuentes. Computers & Education 50(1), January 2008, Pages 179-192

Abstract. Program animation systems have not been as widely adopted by computer science educators as we might expect from the firm belief that they can help in enhancing computer science education. One of the most notable obstacles to their adoption is the considerable effort that the production of program animations represents for the instructor. We present here an approach to reduce such a workload based on the automatic generation of visualizations and animations. The user may customize them in a user-friendly way to construct more expressive program animations. These operations are carried out by means of a user-friendly manipulation based on the metaphor of office documents. We have applied this approach to the functional paradigm by extending the WinHIPE programming environment. Finally, we report on the successful results of an evaluation performed to measure its ease of use.
Open Access Archive at URJC