british inter aces - british computer societyprogramme for the edinburgh fringe, essentially giving...

Inter acesNo. 52 Autumn 2002

British

Groupwww.bcs-hci.org.uk

1Published by the British HCI Group • ISSN 1351-119XHuman–Computer Interaction

Spool spins against the grainBlythe & Hassenzahl have serious fun

McEwan swims against tideCockton uncorks a few bottlenecks

Cassandra reveals allProfile: Stefano Levialdi

“thanks for the

memorables”

180SBU - ELEPHANT

123

456

789

Youmayconfer!

MACKAY MONK HATTON LINDHOLM

2 Interfaces 52 • Autumn 2002

contents3 Editorial

4 The New Look BHCIG Executive CommitteeGilbert Cockton

5 British HCI Group AGM Notice

6 Jared Spool InterviewChris Rourke

8 Making IT a pleasure/Fun is a serious businessMarc Blythe & Marc Hassenzahl

10 Swimming against the tide – user-centred travelTom McEwan

11 View from the Conference ChairFintan Culwin

12 HCI2002/EUPA2002 Programme at a Glance

13 HCI2002/EUPA2002 Papers, Panels,Presentations and Posters

19 HIC2002 Supplement – MissingPapers

Cassandra Hall

20 They’ve given me a numberSo they won’t know it’s me

Cassandra Hall

22 Book reviews

26 ProfileStefano Levialdi

28 HCI Executive contact list

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3Interfaces 52 • Autumn 2002

RIGHT TO REPLY

Make Interfaces interactive! We invite you tohave your say in response to issues raised inInterfaces or to comment on any aspect of HCIthat interests you. Submissions should be shortand concise (500 words or less) and, whereappropriate, should clearly indicate the articlebeing responded to. Please send all contributionsto the Editor.

Deadline for issue 53 is 15 October 2002. Deadline for issue 54 is 15 January 2003. Electronic versions are preferred:RTF, plain text or MS Word, via electronic mail or FTP (mail [email protected] for FTP address) or on Mac, PC disks; butcopy will be accepted on paper or fax.

Send to: Interfaces, c/o Tom McEwan, School of Computing, Napier University, 10 Colinton Road, Edinburgh,EH10 5DTTel: +44 (0)131 455 2793; Email: [email protected]

and copy email submissions to Fiona Dix, Interfaces production editor; email: [email protected]

Interfaces welcomes submissions on any HCI-related topic, including articles, opinion pieces,book reviews and conference reports. The nextdeadline is 15 October, but don’t wait till then –we look forward to hearing from you.

NEXT ISSUE

with thanks to commissioning editors:

Book Reviews: Xristine Faulkner, [email protected]: Alan Dix, [email protected]

To receive your own copy of Interfaces, join the BritishHCI Group by filling in the form on page 27 and sending itto the address given.

In a few days’ time, many of us will convene ‘south of theriver’ for HCI2002. Although conference attendance isgenerally lower this year, it seems remarkable that so manyof us can still justify the expense and the time needed forsuch a gathering of the tribe, especially as we are all morethan familiar with the best of computer-mediated communi-cation. The answer lies in the nature of the conference’ssuper-heated, concentrated and sustained interaction of somany of those who are active, perhaps pre-eminent, in ourdiscipline. This itself may be one facet of this year’s ‘memora-ble yet invisible’ theme, for which chair Fintan Culwineruditely sets the scene.

This issue devotes generous space to previewing theconference, with a short description of every paper, panel,presentation and even poster. In assembling this (withparticular gratitude to Simon Hall who collated the data, andFiona Dix who made it presentable), I am reminded of theprogramme for the Edinburgh Fringe, essentially givingequal weight to every entry, no matter how distinguished orunknown the contributor(s). For those who are attending,hopefully this will help you plan your own trail through therich seams of the week. For those who can't make it, hope-fully this will help you keep in touch.

Fun is a recurring theme in the conference (and theactivities of the British HCI Group) and Mark Blythe & MarcHassenzahl's review of CHI’s Funology workshop is mostwelcome, doubly so, as the latter is one of the organisers ofour partner conference EUPA2002. Equally interestingpartnerships (with UPA and the BCS Edinburgh branch) led

to the recent successful seminars by Jared Spool in Edinburghand London, and Chris Rourke’s thoughtful interview withthe reluctant guru captures his visit and his themes.

It was the antithesis of fun that drove me to pen myreflections on the fraught process of booking my summerhols. Whither usability, if obfuscation is fundamental to thebusiness model? Cassandra takes a swipe at such sophistry,and I am most grateful for her two-piece peek behind thescenes at paper selection for HIC2002.

Gilbert Cockton also lifts the lid, to describe the restructur-ing underway in your group’s Executive Committee. Weshare ambitious plans to grow and develop the group,mirroring the radical changes at our parent, the BritishComputer Society. It is sobering to think that our member-ship totals around 1% of that of the BCS, which in turn isvariously estimated as only 10–30% of those employed in theICT industry. If we are to increase the impact of our ideas inthe industry, we need to grow and we need to influence.

The impeccably connected Alan Dix secures yet anotherhigh-profile profile piece this issue, with Stefano Levialdi.Hardworking Xristine Faulkner has not only coerced a bookreview from Arlene Kline, but contributed several herself.She appears inexhaustible, but we really do need additionalvolunteers both to read and review, and to write and sourcearticles, both for Interfaces (whose editor’s chair will soonbecome vacant) and for UsabilityNews.com.

Hope to meet you at the Elephant.

Tom McEwanEditor

Editorial


One of the greatest challenges for volunteer-based organisa-tions is being able to react to new opportunities andchallenges at the same time as proactively moving the fieldforward. Just keeping things going can be more than enoughfor the volunteers in any organisation.

Over the years, the British HCI Group has added newvolunteers to its Executive Committee to deal with newinitiatives, without always being able to ensure continuityand standards with its existing activities. As a result, we haveended up with a large Executive Committee and a range ofactivities that presented great challenges to volunteers whotried to understand everything! At the same time, each newcommittee member finds themselves faced with a large roomof enthusiastic volunteers and a set of ongoing discussions(mostly on email) that can be impossible to fully take in andcomprehend. In the middle of this, the three officers of Chair,Treasurer and Secretary try to hold everything together. As aresult, some activities can slip and cannot be fixed easily orreadily, while proposed innovations wait months or evenyears for stop–go decisions and champions.

What is to be done? It’s been done actually. We’ve decidedto shrink to a core committee of three officers and five chairsof strategy groups. These strategy groups will span existingoperations and also be the main source of new initiatives.

The five strategy groups (with acting chairs in brackets) are:

1. Membership (Peter Wild, also Secretary)2. Communications (Tom McEwan)3. Events (Chris Roast)4. Research (Dianne Murray)5. Competences (Janet Finlay)

In future, the slate for AGM elections will only comprise thethree officers (current holders in brackets): Secretary (PeterWild), Treasurer (Ian Benest), Chair (Gilbert Cockton); andthe five strategy group chairs. Student and practitionerrepresentatives will be members of strategy groups. Strategygroups will have one or more operational teams within theirremit. The main entry route for volunteers will be as mem-bers of operational teams, allowing volunteers to help withtasks that are hopefully easy to manage before moving up tobecoming active members of a strategy group, and thenperhaps onwards to becoming an officer or a strategy groupchair.

We will refine this structure over the next year. The initialresponsibilities and operations for each strategy group are(new planned activities are marked with an asterisk*):

MembershipResponsibilities: member services/benefits,recruitment, regional groups* (liaison with BCSregions*)Operational groups: membership operations, regionalgroups*

CommunicationsResponsibilities: PR and positioning*, campaigns*,identity*, branding*, information disseminationOperational groups: UN, Interfaces, Jiscmail, website, newgroups for specific projects and initiatives*

The New Look BHCIG Executive CommitteeGilbert Cockton, BHCIG Chair

EventsResponsibilities: half/one/two day meetings/workshops,(co-)sponsored, Annual Conference, conference planningOperational groups: conference planning, day meetings,co-sponsored meetings, current active conferences

ResearchResponsibilities: research students, doctoral consortium,archival publications, UK lobbying on research policy*,UK research/media directory*, new book seriesOperational groups: journals, conference publications, newgroups for expanded presence in this area*

CompetencesResponsibilities: HCI teaching, learning and practice informal education and industry, course directory,consultants’ directory, syllabus/curriculum, accreditation(and ISM for BCS), practice consortium for annualconference*Operational groups: accreditation, higher education, newgroups for expanded presence in this area*

Our hope is that this structure will allow BHCIG to be moreproactive and better able to react. The life of the groupshould reside in the strategy groups. This will reduce thetendency of the officers and executive to become uninten-tional bottlenecks in the way of decision making and/orimplementation. Also, where possible, strategy groups havebeen closely aligned to key BCS structures and roles tomaximise synergy with BCS activities and resources. Thisshould increase the resources at each strategy group’sdisposal. As ever, the main resource will be BHCIG memberswho are willing to volunteer some of their time. We hope thatthe new structure will make it easier for volunteers toidentify where they can help with the work of the group, andto volunteer for a role that matches the free time that they canconfidently commit.

I would like to thank all BHCIG members who haveoffered to serve as volunteers this year. If we have notcontacted you yet about specific roles, this is because we willbe passing your offers onto the strategy group chairs. If youhaven’t offered your services as a volunteer yet, then pleasecontact one of the acting strategy group chairs to offer helpwith specific responsibilities or operations. Elections for allofficers and strategy group chairs will be held at the AGM,co-located with HCI 2002 at South Bank University (17:30,Wednesday 4th September).

The core committee of officers and group chairs will nowbe responsible for allocation of resources, for relationshipswith the BCS and with HCI groups world-wide, and formonitoring, supporting, advising, creating and disbandingstrategy groups. The core committee will meet more oftenface to face, with additional conference calls as and whennecessary.

Gilbert CocktonUniversity of [email protected]


Email Moderator’s ReportThis year the Group’s News service has been complemented by Usability News, which also offers an email service. This is a periodic mail updateevery couple of weeks whilst Email News continues to operate with a rapid turnaround to ensure that notice of conferences, workshops, eventsand jobs are delivered within a few days. The list currently has 1790 members, a healthy increase on last year. This year the number ofmessages per month averaged 23, a substantial reduction on last year. As an explanation it has been noted that general activity has beenreduced this year, and of course there is a more diverse range of notification media available than ever before. Nevertheless the Group willcontinue to monitor the situation in case a different service is desirable.

As always we hope that our current mix and level of moderation is providing you with an effective stream of relevant information, but as alwaysfeedback on the service is welcomed at <[email protected]>.Adrian Williamson

Practitioner Member’s ReportOver the last year I’ve spent most of my time setting up and running UsabilityNews on behalf of the group. Since its pre-launch in September atLille, it has gone from strength to strength, and within less than a year has become well respected across the globe. This is all down to the hardwork of the UsabilityNews team (Ann, Nico, Eamonn, myself) and the excellent backing of the group.We now have over 800 users registered for the fortnightly email newsletter, and the Web-based newsfeed is increasingly being used on variouswebsite homepages. We’ve also had very positive remarks in the mainstream press (e.g. Internet Magazine).Our next task is to tackle sponsorship so that we can make the UN project self-funding.

In addition to UN, I also run the consultancy listing which will be given a ‘new lease of life’ when it is re-released on the new BHCIG web site (TBA).

Finally, I’ve contributed a few pieces to Interfaces over the last 12 months, mainly UN related.Dave Clarke, Director, Visualize Software Ltd

Conference Planning Report for British HCI GroupI am a Reader in Human–Computer Interaction at Sheffield Hallam University and responsible for conference planning for the British HCI Group.The group’s annual conference provides a meeting place for the British HCI community, to learn about some of the most recent work in the fieldand also to make informal contact with practitioners and researchers.

The success of the group’s conferences is dependent upon the involvement of the programme committee – bringing new ideas and new modelsof how best the event can operate to serve the community. If you’re interested in getting involved, or see an opportunity for innovative/alternativeactivities/events/sessions within the conference, please do get in contact. For HCI2002 this year, it is excellent to see a programme committeewith considerable expertise and some novel ideas about enhancing the conference experience.

My primary activity this year has been to enhance the guidance document for conference planning and to ensure that the experience andfeedback from previous conferences is available for the future. The most recent version is viewable at: http://homepages.shu.ac.uk/~cmscrr/PAPERS/confdoc/confdoc4.html.

Revisions to this reflecting experience from HCI2001 (IHM-HCI2001) are planned. This was the first time that the conference worked in collabora-tion with a continental HCI group (AFIHM). Feedback from delegates has been very positive, with very few delegates expressing a concern withits collaborative nature. The group’s thanks go to the conference chairs and committee – the considerable effort was clearly worth it. The groupwill be looking into further continental collaborations in the future.

HCI2002 is now nearly upon us thanks to the efforts of Fintan Culwin and his team. In particular, this year the conference incorporates theEuropean Usability Professionals’ Association’s event. This co-location will provide a good opportunity for a broader range of practitioners withcommon goals to meet each other.

The University of Bath is to host HCI2003. Contact: Eamonn O’Neill ([email protected])Dr. Chris Roast (Reader), School of Computing and Management Sciences, Sheffield Hallam University

Report of Interfaces Editor and Chair of Communications Strategy GroupI am a lecturer in Multimedia and Interactive Systems Design at Napier University, Edinburgh, and edit Interfaces , the magazine of the BritishHCI Group.

The magazine started the last year being voted the best magazine/bulletin of any BCS specialist group, a testament to the skills of Fiona Dix, theproduction editor, as well as those of the commissioning editors. Recent workflow improvements mean that the magazine is now usuallydelivered within 6 weeks of the copy deadline. All issues from June 1997 onwards, bar the current one, are now available on the group’s websitein pdf form at http://www.bcs-hci.org.uk/interfaces/

The magazine’s 50th issue was edited at short notice by a deputising editor, Alex Dixon, following my health problems last year, and he did amagnificent job, before work commitments reclaimed him. Commissioning editors Xristine Faulkner, Alistair Kilgour, Alan Dix and Martha Hausebetween them have contributed the bulk of the articles, and there are vacancies for another three such positions. No experience is required, justthe ability to twist arms or write readable copy.

Not least thanks to the contributions of Dave Clarke, the magazine enjoys a symbiotic existence with Usability News, which I am sure willcontinue to flourish.

Having accepted the role of chair of the communications strategy group for the group, I am now looking to ease my successor in as editor. I co-edited my first issue with Janet Finlay, then editor, in March 2000, and hope to find someone between now and the end of the year to graduallytake over the role, jointly editing issues 54 and 55 in 2003.

The communications strategy group was yet to meet at the time of writing but a meeting is planned before or at the conference, to which anyinterested person is welcome. The role of the group is adequately outlined in Gilbert Cockton’s piece in Interfaces 52, and I expect that some 15or so members will be needed in the first instance to carry out these roles, of which about 10 are already in harness.Tom McEwan, School of Computing, Napier University, Edinburgh

Notice of Annual General Meeting of the British HCI Group5.30pm, 4th September 2002

The Auditorium, South Bank University, London Road Building, London SE1

Agenda, accounts and other papers will be sent to members.A selection of officer’s reports are included here, and the remainder will be supplied separately.

http://homepages.shu.ac.uk/~cmscrr/PAPERS/confdoc/confdoc4.html

http://homepages.shu.ac.uk/~cmscrr/PAPERS/confdoc/confdoc4.html

http://www.bcs-hci.org.uk/interfaces/


CR How did you get into usability in the first place & whatattracted you to it?JS I got involved in usability over 20 years ago because I waswriting software for other people who had come up with thedesign. I couldn’t understand how anyone was going to use this.On one hand it was supposed to be an application senior execs atlarge companies would use but it had an interface that only acomputer programmer would appreciate. I just couldn’t imagine itworking and started asking questions – and the next thing I knowI’m a usability guy!

CR You just saw a natural need for it then?JS Yes, I didn’t have a word at that time, human factors wasn’t aterm bandied about per se. We didn’t have a language, we didn’thave jobs, we didn’t have techniques … we didn’t have any ofthat stuff.

CR What bits of research are you working on now and which ones aremost interesting?JS We’re focussing on understanding e-commerce, somethingwhich we refer to as the convenience store experiment. Imagineyou have this device that instantly tells you that someone withina 2-mile area has run out of milk. You rush to their house, andtake them to the nearest store and, just to make sure theypurchase, you give them the cash. E-commerce is alwaysmeasured on this notion of a conversion rate and you’d think inthat particular context you’d have 100% conversion rate – it’s veryunlikely this transaction will not succeed. Well, we’ve done justthis on the web. We’ve taken people who needed a product towebsites that had that product and given them the cash to buy it.The first time we did that we got a 30% conversion rate! We’vestudied the simplest e-commerce or web scenario – there are veryfew things simpler than this. We’ve studied this process and triedto figure out why we got such low conversion rates. For the firsttime we’ve been able to tie design elements to bottom linerevenue. I can tell you how much money your e-commerce site isleaving on the table, and how much is because people can’t findwhat they’re looking for, or search engine issues. I can tie specificdesign elements down to a dollar – and what the ROI is toimproving it. The ‘customer sieve’ is part of this. You end up withfewer customers at the bottom than at the top. If we can seewhere they’re being weeded out of the process we can look atgetting more of them out of the bottom. It’s the site design that’sweeding them out, not the product, as we’ve already establishedthis is the product they want to buy.

CR You & UIE seem driven by such empirical evidence. Do you findthis helps to put your point across to people you’re trying toconvince.JS We focus a lot on actual evidence. We take a lot of the thingspeople expound and create hypotheses of them. If the user hatesscrolling – one of those sweeping statements everyone makes –people go to great lengths to design websites to avoid it, JC

Penny’s for instance. Watching people do it we find they grab thescroll bar and try and move it – people are desperately looking forthings. Although the design doesn’t prevent them from scrolling,they actually scroll more on that design than other designs thatdon’t try and prevent them from scrolling. So they don’t purchaseas much or find their products as often.

CR Have there been any findings that you wouldn’t have discoveredwithout research?JS Yes, well scrolling is one. Finding the more you decrease whitespace, increasing the density of text on the page, the better theuser buys. Actual download time has no effect on the usability ofthe site. Many commonly held beliefs turn out not at all to betrue.

CR At times you’ve gone against the grain of conventional usabilitywisdom on topics such as usefulness of search engines, importanceof download times, even minimum number of users required forusability tests. Has coming to those conclusions been gratifying foryou?JS It convinces me that things I take for granted I shouldn’t andthat everything should be tested. When I was a kid I grew up notenjoying seafood at all. I moved to Boston with this perception. Itasted it first when I was 19 and realised that I’d spent 19 yearsof life with this misconception. I decided to throw out all mypreconceptions of what I liked and didn’t like and to try every-thing. To some extent that’s the way I attack this. I’m testing allthese conceptions as hypotheses now. To be fair there are manythings we’ve found that are true – they just don’t get headlines!

CR What about search engines? Your recent findings surprised a fewpeople.JS That’s a very controversial thing we’ve done. Search enginesseem to be a good idea, something you have real assurance fromand makes sense. People would say ‘when I know exactly what Iwant I’ll use the search engine, when I don’t I’ll browse’. When wewatched users we didn’t find that was the case. Users who knewexactly what they want didn’t seem any more likely to use thesearch engine than those who didn’t. One of the theories floatedabout is this notion of search dominance – this says somepercentage of the population will naturally use search first. Againwe didn’t see that – in none of our tests would any of our usersuse search first. There were sites where every user used searchfirst and sites where every user didn’t use search first. When youcompare the design of the site you can see why that happened.The design of the site causes people to use search first, ratherthan an inclination for search. When people use search you’ll findthey are less successful in finding what they want than when theydon’t use search. When you combine these two facts you wonderwhy are we bothering with this technology? People are working sohard to make search work well, when if they put that effort intothe underlying design of the site they could eliminate search. Oneof the most telling factors is in a recent study we did of 13

Jared Spool Interview

Jared Spool is the Founding Principal of User Interface Engineer-ing (UIE), a leading usability research firm based near Boston,USA. His recent talks in London and Edinburgh drew largeaudiences including web designers, usability professionals andothers interested in what his findings mean to usability ine-commerce. Chris Rourke of User Vision met with him to discusshis views.


apparel & home goods sites – 2 of the 3 best performing sites hadno search engine, and not a single user noticed.

CR So what makes up for the fact of lack of search engines then?How come they didn’t notice that?JS Because the site worked. In the apparel sites we noticed thatpeople don’t use the search until they’ve made on average 4 clicks.So they’re going into the site looking for what they want, it’s onlywhen they can’t find it on the site architecture they use thesearch. The Gap was our best performing site. Users found whatthey wanted on average within 12 clicks, whereas on our worstperforming sites, one of which was Macy’s, it took 51 clicks.

CR Another area where you’ve run against popular wisdom is yourviews on Flash. Any thoughts?JS The notion that Flash is 99% bad I’ve always felt is a bizarreway to go about it. This is very much a ‘blame the tool’ mentality.Flash is a tool that does some very cool things, but Flash makesbad design really easy. People who just want to play with the tool– and then take what they created and force it onto the public –are going to get their come-uppance. We took theidea that Flash is 99% bad and researched thishypothesis. We found that there are all sorts ofreally good applications with Flash – when wecompared the good ones with the bad ones westarted to see some patterns. The good applicationsall utilised certain aspects of Flash where HTMLreally suffered, e.g. representing something thathappens over time, such as a demo of how to puttogether a bookcase. When Ikea wanted to do thisusing HTML it was very clumsy, whereas a little Flashmovie showing the five steps it takes to put ittogether will convince people to purchase. So Flashis ideal for that. If you’re representing time or space, Flash is verygood. In terms of applications, it turns out it’s a great applicationdevelopment tool, it makes up for a lot of the failings that we seein HTML. You can also do really stupid things with it, there’snothing in the system that will tell you what you’ve done. It’s justa matter of educating the design teams.

CR What would you say are the most important aspects of good webdesign?JS Having a feedback route. In the IT world we get so involved inwhat we have to do that we take an application, and features endup not getting in due to being over-committed, under-resourced.Because of this you now have to start after launch to get the restof it in. The best teams break the cycle, they stop to create afeedback route and ask ‘did we achieve the goals we’ve set?’. Theyget to learn what worked and what didn’t so they can go forwardwith these learnings. You can learn a lot just by watching.

CR Does that sum up your view on usability testing? Some people goin for the big fancy usability labs. What’s your view on usabilitytesting for getting evidence in software development?JS I think usability testing is an unfortunate phrase – I’ve alwaysthought it should be usability watching. You go out and find usersin the first place and you just sit and watch them, see what noisesthey make. Just doing that will often yield so much value youdon’t need much more than a chair. All of the fancyequipment is just a distraction from the activity. It’s critical thatorganisations just spend the time watching.

CR Have you found that collecting such data increases theacceptance of your recommendations? Do you have more credencewhen you can show them evidence, numbers and maybe a snippet ofvideotape?JS We don’t use videotape anymore. The most credence comeswhen people see things for themselves. We found when workingwith clients the most effective thing was to bring them into thetest and have them sit in the chair themselves. Particularly if youget them to predict upfront what they think will happen and thenit turns out to be completely wrong. We have developers show usthe task that users should do, then we’ll have users do it and wefind the users do it a completely different way. But they can seewhy the users have done it that way.

CR Some people are often critical of usability, saying it stiflescreativity. What’s your response to that?JS This comes from a contention between the world of theusability evangelist and the designers. They say the designershave failed us because they were trying to be artistic. The issue is:who is the sponsor? Do the designers serve their sponsor or do

they serve their own artistic presence. Artists believeart should be art for art’s sake. Whereas design is allabout matching form and function. This goes againstthe training of the artist. I think there are designsout there for purely aesthetic reasons, rather thantaking into account of function. But who is thesponsor – is the design taking account of thesponsor’s need? So a website designed to promote amovie for teenagers needs a very different aestheticsense practically from a sponsor’s perspective than awebsite that helps you do your taxes if you’re 40 orover. You never want to mix the design aesthetic foreither of them.

CR What do you think of the promotion of certain usability profes-sionals as ‘gurus’?JS I cringe every time anyone refers to me as a guru. I don’t knowwhat that means. I don’t know anything about web design – andour research is proving that on a daily basis. What I thought Iknew it turns out I don’t. So for me to consider myself a guru, wellgurus are all knowing and wise and I find myself not knowing a lot& not very good at giving people advice about it. I think itspremature having gurus in our field. So far those people who seemto revel in the guru terms aren’t any better at telling people whatto do than anything else I’ve seen.

CR From your knowledge of user-centred design practices in the UKand the USA, are there any different practices, etc?JS I don’t know any differences. I don’t think in terms ofnationality. I think the community has grown together so muchyou can’t see in terms of geographic lines as before. I just see ablending, even as far as the Japanese, there’s a blending in what’shappening in the usability space.

CR Many thanks for your time and thoughts, and best of luck in thefuture.

Chris Rourke


At CHI2002 in Minneapolis the‘Funology’ workshop broughttogether a range of researchersand practitioners to discusstheir ideas on how to designenjoyable experiences. Theorganisers were: AndrewMonk, Mark Blythe andDarren Reed from the Univer-sity of York, and MarcHassenzahl from theDarmstadt University ofTechnology. The initial call forparticipation noted that overthe past thirty years theconcept of usability hasevolved from a narrow,

product-oriented attribute, to encompass broader concernswith the experience of use (Monk et al 2002). It also suggestedthat however broad the latest definition of usability is, it hasrecently acquired a new associate: the joy of use or perhaps‘enjoyability’. Participants included not only well-known HCIacademics but also industry representatives from suchcompanies as Microsoft and Siemens. The aims of theworkshop were to identify issues, and to discuss a researchagenda and a means of selling it to companies and researchfunders.

We received such a large number of interesting positionpapers that we decided to organise the day in a mini-conference format. The workshop was divided into foursessions; in each session four participants did ten-minutepresentations that were followed by group discussion. JohnKarat began with an overview of the problem, noting thatalthough usability is already defined by measuring effective-ness, efficiency and satisfaction, the latter is usually regardedas a weak measure. As Information and CommunicationTechnology (ICT) moves out of the office and into the home itis increasingly important for HCI to shift its focus fromproductivity tools towards non-utilitarian activities that mayhave only weakly defined goals. This viewpoint was echoedin many of the papers but it was quickly agreed that this wasnot incompatible with traditional usability testing. JakobNielsen argued that some of the greatest joys of computingcome from user empowerment and engagement, but he alsoagreed that ‘we need to modify the methodology toencompass more awareness of fulfilling, engaging, and fundesign elements.’ Some of the questions we then sought toaddress were: how can HCI address value, engagement,aesthetics and emotion; are these ‘messy’ categoriesmeasurable or formalisable; and what methods can wedevelop or adapt to gather data?

The workshop took place against the background of CHI’s20th anniversary celebrations. Throughout the conferencethere was reflection on how far HCI has moved as adiscipline since its beginnings and the extent to which manyof the early arguments have been won. Usability is now ofprime concern to most industrial developers. But there was

also a recognition that the proliferation of ICT meant that thediscipline faced new challenges. Although HCI can offer arange of methods and tools to improve usability, relativelylittle is known about enjoyment. Randy Pagualayan, amember of the Microsoft Games Studios User Testing Groupremarked that, while theoretical discussions were veryinteresting, he and his team needed techniques to testproducts that had to ‘ship tomorrow’. Current practice atMicrosoft involves traditional usability testing to removeimmediate barriers to fun but these are not sufficient toimprove a game. As Randy put it, if usability were the onlyconcern then there would be a big button on the first screenwhich said ‘You Win’. The group also used attitude andpreference questionnaires but these were acknowledged to beless than perfect tools. The theoretical work which appearedto be of most relevance to game design was that ofCsikszentmihalyi (e.g. Csikszentmihalyi 1975), whose studyof ‘flow’ is one of the few psychological accounts ofenjoyment. After studying diverse groups, such as rockclimbers, chess players and dancers, who were all engaged inactivities that were their own reward, Csikszentmihalyiidentified flow as a common characteristic of theirexperiences. Flow was a term used by the participantsthemselves to describe a peak experience of total absorptionin the activity.

The conditions for flow are a close match between skilland challenge, clear goals and constant feedback on perform-ance. It is characterised by a decrease in self-consciousnessand time distortion. This has a resonance not only with theexperience of game playing but some of the factors that gametesters consider in their evaluations of new products. It wasagreed, however, that an understanding of the kind of peakexperience which Csikszentmihalyi outlines does not entirelyaccount for fun, which may be more to do with distractionthan total absorption. ‘Flow’ seems to address a ‘deep’ kindof enjoyment which may be only rarely achieved (andactually called for by ICT users). To experience flow, we haveto go beyond our own limits. This, however desirable from ahumanistic view, is not the type of enjoyment most peoplechoose. Most of the time, more superficial, shallow, short-termed and volatile ‘pleasures’ are to the fore. Or, asSeligmana and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) put it: ‘Why do we sochoose to watch television over reading a challenging book,even when we know that our usual hedonic state duringtelevision is mild dysphoria while the book will produceflow?’

Of the papers that suggested theories and concepts thatmight be useful for thinking about fun, many were drawnfrom the humanities. Peter Wright argued that fun was anexperience and suggested that paradigms drawn fromliterary theory and art history can be useful. He had usedconcepts such as dialogism drawn from the work of Bakhtinto reason about on-line shopping interfaces, and also usedDewey’s theories of aesthetics and the co-construction ofmeaning between the artist, contemplator and art object, toconsider the enchantments of such technologies as mobilephones. Norbert Braun had also employed literary theory,

Making IT a pleasure/Fun is a serious businessReport on the CHI2002 workshop ‘funology: Designing enjoyment’

Mark and Marc gopleasure-seeking inMinneapolis and discoverthat, so far, the HCIcommunity can barelyarticulate what they meanby fun, never mind sell it tothe fun-funders. Perhapswe wouldn’t know a goodtime if it leapt out of thescreen and shook usaround the room? Thenagain who hasn’t beentaken out for the day bytheir parents and been toldthat you’ll enjoy yourselveswhether you like it or not…


Mark Blythe and Marc Hassenzahl

drawing on the work of Propp in order to develop an interac-tive story engine. Anton Nijholt had drawn on emotionmodelling – speech, gesture, posture, physiology – to informthe annotation of humorous events and the use of humour inembodied agents. Phoebe Sengers drew on such disciplinesas critical cultural studies, anthropology and ethnography toinspire the design of interactive installations in virtual realityand affective computing. Using hand drawn cartoons, inwhat we agreed was the ‘most fun’ of the presentations, sheattempted to summarise fifteen years of HCI research. Thejourney she had made took her from a computer sciencebackground and a love of abstract representation to a recog-nition of the importance of the ‘messy social stuff’ whereusers are. She also made one of the most provocative state-ments of the day when she said that fun was not formalisable.There were, then, a range of literatures which participantshad found useful in trying to address these issues; one of thequestions which emerged from discussion was how aretheories drawn from these diverse multi-perspectivaldisciplines to be selected? Which of the approaches addressthe needs of the HCI community best?

Several of the papers outlined designs for fun applicationsthat did not yet exist. Scott Nowson remarked that while itmay be difficult to say at an abstract level what fun orenjoyment is, it is very easy to say what is not fun and notenjoyable. His paper outlined how unenjoyable the commen-taries are in PC football games, which can be so repetitivethat people turn the sound off. He went on to suggest ways inwhich game developers might improve their systems. JennicaFalk talked about extending game space into the physicalworld and illustrated the idea with real world interfaces suchas a lamp and a book that could be operated from within aMulti-User Domain adventure game. Jon Sykes consideredfear as fun. Citing Dix’s deconstruction of the experience ofpulling a Christmas cracker in order to develop the highlysuccessful ‘virtual cracker’ software, Sykes attempted to findout what was scary about the allegedly haunted vaults ofEdinburgh by creating an immersive computer-generatedrepresentation so that visual stimuli could be manipulated toisolate fear factors.

Several of the participants told us about fun applicationsthat were either commercially available or had been built asworking prototypes. Sara Ljungblad told us about an‘informational art’ interface based on a Mondrian painting,which provided a weather forecast, a yellow square indicat-ing a sunny day and a blue one signifying rain. The idea wasreceived with great interest and other applications such as adisplay for traffic congestion or a movement monitor for theelderly were suggested. Klaus Wissman presented the‘EasyCom’ user interface for telephone call managementsoftware. Calls are transferred or activated with drag anddrop icons and addresses can be personalised withnicknames and graphics. He found that users would initiatemore complex calls than usual using this interface and thatthe EasyCom interface had been marketed as a unique sellingpoint. Wissman argued then, that the ‘fun of use’ can boostproductivity and sales.

Kees Overbeeke presented a manifesto including suchprovocative statements as ‘Metaphors Suck!’, and argued thatpsychologists have led designers to make overly cognitivedesigns. Design should be left to designers! Too often fun is‘glued on’ and interfaces smile. He argued that thephysicality of products should be restored and illustrated theidea with a novel design for an alarm clock. Laura Polazzidescribed a fun methodology for developing more engagingforms of long distance communication. Using a series of ‘ifonly’ games, she and her fellow researchers studied a groupof students who were all living outside their home countries,in order to identify the aspects of interaction that currentcommunication technologies fail to capture. Mary BethRosson told us about a project that attempted to makeprogramming fun and pointed out that, in her study,children and elderly participants had very different ideas ofwhat is or is not enjoyable. The contextuality of fun andenjoyable experiences was something that was returned tothroughout the day.

We ended the day by noting what seemed to be the mainissues. These included: the question of measuring or graspingenjoyable experiences; the importance of setting andcontextuality; and the problems of meeting or exceedingusers’ expectations. Some of the suggestions for a researchagenda were: the lack of a vocabulary in HCI for talkingabout user experiences (John Karat noted that he disliked theword fun and preferred instead ‘experiences that peoplevalue’ – he did not tell his colleagues he was going to aworkshop on fun but rather a workshop on experiencespeople value!); the selection of theory from other disciplines;meeting the needs of particular users; the role of formalism;the differences between short and long term enjoyment; andthe extent to which HCI can inform or inspire design. Finallywe discussed how we should ‘sell it’ to industry and researchfunders. The most important points appeared to be the moveof ICT out of the office and into the home, the notion that funcan sell even serious products and the possible innovationsthat might result from treating ICT as an art as well as ascience.

ReferencesCsikszentmihalyi, M. (1975). Beyond Boredom and Anxiety. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Dewey, J. (1959). Art as Experience. Pedigree Books.Dix, A. (2002). Absolutely Crackers: Designing An Experience. In ‘Computers

and Fun 4’, Interfaces 50, Spring 2002. British HCI Group.Monk, A. F., Hassenzahl, M., Blythe, M., & Reed, D. (2002). Funology:

designing enjoyment. In CHI2002: Changing the World, Changing Ourselves,Minneapolis, Extended Abstracts.

Morson, G.S. and Emerson, C. (1990). Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics.Stanford University Press.

Propp, V. (1958). Morphology of the Folktale. In International Journal of AmericanLinguistics, Vol. 24:4, Part III. Bloomington, IN.

Seligman, M. E. P. & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive Psychology: AnIntroduction. American Psychologist, 55, 5–14.

Mark Blythe and Marc [email protected]


It has always mystified me when I look at travel brochures.How can so much information, flexibility and choice bepresented in such a confusing manner? Why do I have towade through several pages at once to calculate the costs ofoptions? Why do prices get presented as ‘per person per night’,when at least two people and at least two nights are required, onpain of large surcharges? Why do so many prices assume twoadults and two children when so many of us are single parents,or have multiple children from different marriages?

More importantly, why is it so hard to deconstruct thefinancial model from the evidence available, and so create apackage that meets my own needs, and pockets? It’s prettyobvious really. They rely on you not fully understanding thebusiness model. Deliberately poor usability, as a route tobusiness success, is nothing new, especially in the travelindustry. The cheap prices are meant to hook you, then youpay a little bit more to get what you really want, and a lotmore if you need it in a hurry. This is the unpalatable contextwithin which usability evaluators of travel interfaces must work.

Some of you may have seen consumer programmes andnewspaper columns since 2000 about certain low-cost aircarriers. They make it easy for you to finalise an incorrect flightbooking without knowing fully the contents, because theycharged a fee for changes. The business model and user-centreddesign are diametrically opposed. Cut-price airlines don’t maketheir money on the flights; they make it from cancellations andnon-refundable fees charged for flight taxes. If you cancel, youlose not just the £5 seat charge, but also the £20+ taxes. Thecompany doesn’t have to pay this to the government; yet.

The entire process is designed so that you forget to takemarginal items into account – school holiday surcharges,various forms of insurance, fuel surcharges, meals in transit.Eventually, with a pressurising family and dwindlingpatience, you opt for the least bad solution and try not to letthe bad experience come to mind at the least provocation,once the holiday has begun (as my family will testify frombitter experience!).

Online travel sites have been a partial help, if onlybecause, in order to create a working site, the site-buildershave had to base their javascript calculations, if not theirinterfaces, around the underlying business models. Findingthese sites can be a bit hit or miss. During the ten days leadingup to writing this, I have been to about 30 travel-related sites,trying to find a way of booking a ferry to France, with variouspermutations of accommodation. Yet the sites I found had littleoverlap with those found in a brief, subsequent, literature searchon usability of travel agencies and brochures. A compellingargument, then, to do the research before the task! But there arean awful lot of travel sites out there – the string ‘travel agency’produces 420,000 hits in Google.

For example, not one of the many sites I chanced uponincluded the examples (Travelocity, Farebase and Reizen)cited in a COVEN report [1]* as successful sites for purchas-ing travel. Indeed, the site that I used (http://www.drive-alive.com/) was the last one that I found, and it grabbed myattention because they sold the same ferries, same date that Ihad previously started to book with the ferry company’sonline site, plus two hotel rooms each for two nights, for lessthan the ferry company were going to charge for the ferry

alone! So much for the benefits of disintermediation. I canonly guess that some very nice Web Services are creating anew form of wholesaling, to which we, the users, have nodirect interface. The tickets arrived as pdf files, and thesestayed on my palm pilot (backed up on the laptop, and ashard copy) for the duration of the holiday.

Brown [2] suggests that users surf not so much for fun butto achieve objectives – such as planning a trip. He describes anightmare of brochures similar to my own experience, andthe vested interests of the various forms of intermediary thatbecome a barrier to comparison-shopping. The naïve user-centred designer would simply see this as poor usability –but this ignores a sophisticated business and political context.In the end, the best Brown can say about the Internet andtravel is that online shopping is attractive because it savestime travelling to buy the tickets! Even this didn’t work forme. Twice now, I have found online prices from GNER fortrips to London, been unable to recall (or even reset) thepassword, and then gone into town to buy the tickets.

Most aspects of usability are increasingly the subject ofinternational standards, and it is no surprise that travelinformation has become so too. Dr. Holger Muehlbauer, DINGerman Institute for Standardization, describes [3] a numberof initiatives to standardise information about transportservices (for example timetables, now subject to DIN66359)and the EU initiative CEN/TC 329 for usability of tourismservices [4] which the objective ‘Standardizing description oftourism information services will improve consumer infor-mation within the travel industry and provide a betteroverview (transparency) of the market. At the same time,businesses will be able to market their services more effec-tively.’ This falls into a much bigger context – ISO standardsfor a variety of consumer services [5].

However, these evolve very slowly, and while designers ofsystems for websites dealing with travel would be wise topay attention to these standards (and the parts of the ISO9000family that relate to all commercial processes), as well as themore usual standards for the HCI community (ISO 9241,13407, 18529), the user, for the time being, must rely onadvice from others as to which sites to use. The travel indus-try itself is awake to the changes – by Nov. 2000, ECTAA (theEU association of travel agents and tour operators) [6] hadconcluded ‘Rather than being just a hype, it appears that“e-travel” will cause revolutionary changes in the way ourmembers are doing business’, and resolved to continue tomonitor the slow developments in CEN/TC 329 .

So, for now, the lesson seems to be that if you are attemptinguser-centred design for a travel company, expect some prettycomplex politicial and ethical issues. If you are a consumer, thenseek out sites, like drive-alive.com, that can sell you tickets andservices cheaper than the ferry companies’ sites will sell them toyou direct. Hopefully one day we will simply go to sites likeViamichelin.com (which proved very useful in planningitineraries), and the optimized route including restaurants,hotels and ferries will drop in our laps. Then again, after thedrive from Poole through Bath to Edinburgh, the new ferry fromRosyth to Zeebrugge ain’t cheap but looks awfully tempting.

Swimming against the tide – user-centred travelTom McEwan

Tom [email protected]

*References opposite

http://www.drive-alive.com/

http://www.drive-alive.com/


It is obvious that, if not by birth, certainly Shakespeare was aSouth London boy at heart. Why else would he give us suchblatant advertisement in Twelfth Night, which is also inrepertory at the Globe this season?

Antonio advises Sebastian ‘… at the Elephant, is best tolodge’, presumably with an eye on the future and HCI 2002.However, he may have been more than prescient in AMidsummer Night’s Dream, where Oberon quite clearlyindicates his intention to take advantage of the conferencetheme: ‘ I am invisible;’ he warns us, ‘and I will overheartheir conference.’

Hence if, whilst you attend HCI 2002 at the Elephant, youcatch a glimpse of a fairy king illicitly attending any of thesessions, this would certainly add to what is already boundto be a memorable experience. A meeting with Cynthia isalready planned and just as memorable, as long as you don’tover-indulge on the cocktails. Shakespeare, wise as ever,warned, in Venus and Adonis, that, if over-indulgenceoccurred, Cynthia would also resort to the invisible and ‘Iperceive the reason: Cynthia for shame obscures her silvershine’. Let’s hope that the moonshine is reserved for TheDream!

Shakespeare’s blatant support of HCI 2002 apart, it hasbeen a difficult year in which to organise a conference. Therepercussions of the events of September 11th 2001 forcommercial attendees have combined with the fundingimplications of the Research Assessment Exercise foracademic attendees and made conference attendance ingeneral more problematic for many. Just as things seemed tobe starting to recover, and coinciding with the advance-booking deadline, the stock markets went into free fall.Consequently at the time of writing the likely attendance islower than had been anticipated a year ago.

However the likely lowering of the attendance has notcaused any lowering of the quality of the proceedings.

Several people have already commented that the quality andvariety of the programme will make it difficult for them toplan which sessions to attend. To assist with this, we haveasked every presenter to describe their contribution in thirtywords or less. These descriptions are included in the finalprogramme, to assist attendees in deciding what to go andsee. For those of you who are unable to attend, these descrip-tions are also contained within this edition of Interfaces.

This innovation, designed to improve the user’s experi-ence at the point of contact, was complemented by a lessvisible change designed to improve the main paper selectionprocess. For the first time at a HCI conference a two-stagereview process was used. Following the blind independentreviewing by volunteer reviewers, members of the conferencecommittee reviewed the reviews, in order to make a finalrecommendation. This strengthens the selection process byassuring a degree of consistency that can sometimes bemissing in a single stage process.

After last year’s joint conference with IHM in Lille, HCI2002 is pleased to continue and extend collaboration byincorporating the first European Usability Professionals’Association conference. This has added an additional track tothe programme containing presentations that differ in styleand emphasis from those contained in the HCI sessions.

The preparation for this conference has been a marathontask. I have been very fortunate in having a committed andhard-working conference committee. We hope that we havedone everything possible to ensure a stimulating conference,complemented by a social programme that will introduce thehigh points of South London culture. As they say round theElephant ‘It’s sorted yet hidden’. Shakespeare wouldapprove.

[1] http://coven.lancs.ac.uk/4/deliverables/del38b.pdf

[2] Studying the Internet Experi-ence, Barry Brown, March 26th ,2001. http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2001/HPL-2001-49.pdf )

[3] Standardization of Services, Feb1999. http://www.din.de/eustandconf/htdocs/3_For_4b.htm

[4] http://www.cenorm.be/standardization/tech_bodies/cen_bp/resources/a329.pdf

[5] http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/commcentre/pdf/Serviceindustry0107.pdf

[6] http://www.ectaa.org/ECTAA%20English/Publications_PressRelease/FP00-394.1.doc

References

View from the Conference Chair

Fintan CulwinSouth Bank University & HCI2002 [email protected]

HCI2002Memorable Yet Invisible

The 16th British HCI Group Annual Conference, incorporating European Usability Professionals’Association Conference, at South Bank University, Elephant & Castle, London

2nd to 6th September 2002

Conference Registration Fee (includes all sessions 4th–6th, social events and conference pack)

Rates apply to BHCIG/UPA members – non-members must also pay membership fees – see insideback cover

Delegate £380Student £225Special One-day rate £200

Workshops and Tutorials Fees

Workshop partipants must have been accepted by the workshop organisers

Tutorials £160 (full day)£85 (half-day)

Accepted workshop participants £50 (full-day)£20 (half-day)

Online booking at http://www.hci2002.org/ or phone +44 (0) 28 9036 8020

Fintan Culwin

http://coven.lancs.ac.uk/4/deliverables/del38b.pdf

http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2001/HPL-2001-49.pdf

http://www.din.de/eustandconf/htdocs/3_For_4b.htm

http://www.cenorm.be/standardization/tech_bodies/cen_bp/resources/a329.pdf

http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/commcentre/pdf/Serviceindustry0107.pdf

http://www.ectaa.org/ECTAA%20English/Publications_PressRelease/FP00-394.1.doc

http://www.hci2002.org/


The 16th British HCI Group Annual Conference, incorporatingEuropean Usability Professionals' Association Conference

London: 2nd to 6th September 2002

Programme at a GlanceImportant: times are provisional and subject to change.

HCI TRACKTutorials

HCI TRACKWorkshops

EUPA TRACKTutorials

EUPA TRACKWorkshops

Monday 2nd September09:30–12:3014:00–17:00 T4, T5

W1W1

T1T1

W2W2

Tuesday 3rd September09:30–12:3014:00–17:00

T6, T7, T8T6, T7, T8

W3, W4, W5, W6W3, W4, W5, W6

T9, T10, T11T9, T10, T11

W7, W8W7, W8, W9

HCI TRACK 1Castle Lecture Theatre

HCI TRACK 2Lodge Lecture Theatre

EUPA TRACKManor Lecture Theatre

PANELSAuditorium

Wednesday 4th September09:30–11:00 Opening and Keynote Address: Wendy E Mackay [Auditorium]

11:00–11:30 Coffee, Posters, and Interactive Experiences

Coffee, Posters, and Interactive Experiences



11:30–13:00 Multi-modal Interfaces CSCW(1) Communicating Usability Perspectives on Icon Design

13:00–14:30 Lunch

14:30–15:30 Browsing andSearching

EUPA Keynote:Christian Lindholm

15:30–16:00

16:00–17:30 Memorable Systems Evaluation Accessibility

EUPA Business17:30–18:00

18:00–21:00

British HCI Group AGM

Social Event

Thursday 5th September09:30–10:30

10:30–11:00

11:00–12:30

Keynote Address: Andrew Monk [Auditorium]

VE and Games CSCW(2) Web Evaluation Building the UsabilityProfessional CertificationScheme: Where Next?

12:30–14:00

14:00–15:30 Usability Evaluation

Lunch

Design Process

15:30–16:00

16:00–17:00 Personal Technologies Communication andCollaboration

Remote Evaluation Usability Managers’ Forum

EUPA Plenary:Aaron Marcus

17:00–18:1518:15 onwards

BreakSocial Event – A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Globe Theatre

Friday 6th September

09:30–11:00 Objective Usability Senses Usability in Germany,Austria & Switzerland

User-centred Design inPublic Sector Systems

Lunch and Leaving Social

11:00–11:30 Coffee11:30–13:0013:00 onwards

Keynote Address: Les Hatton – and closing speeches [Auditorium]


MondayEUPA Tutorial T1 (Full Day)The Art of Seeing: Observationaltechniques for learning aboutusers and their workobservation, ethnography, contextualinquiry, user studiesSusan M. Dray and David A. SiegelParticipants gain hands-onexperience with observationalmethods of users and their work,in context. Puts an emphasis oncreating an environment wherepeople can explore and have fun,promoting effective learning.

HCI Tutorial T4 (pm only)Presenting Your Conference Paperpublic presentation paper HCIAlistair EdwardsThe primary objective is to helpparticipants to think about how tomake better presentations andthen to give them the opportunityto practise in a supportiveenvironment.

HCI Tutorial T5 (pm only)Requirements for Socio-TechnicalSystems: An Integrated Methodrequirements engineering, activitymodellingNeil Maiden, Stephanie Wilson &Paola AmaldiThis tutorial presents a require-ments engineering method forsocio-technical systems in whicha key theme is identifyingrequirements from models ofwork activity. Offers a usefulintegration of HCI and softwareengineering approaches.

HCI Workshop W1 (Full Day)Goal-Oriented Business ProcessModellingIlia Bider & Paul JohannessonGroupware and workflow systemsrequire a new type of UserInterface, which is impossible todesign without understandingbusiness processes that suchsystems should support. Thus, westart with process modelling.

EUPA Workshop W2 (Full Day)Culture and Website UsabilityStrategies for Internationalisationand LocalisationAndy Smith, Tim French, ShaileyMinocha & Lynne DunckleyIntroduces theories that underpinglobal website design andsummarises practical approaches.Will allow those working oninternational website developmentto engage in a practically orientedinteractive environment, anddevelop good practice.

TuesdayHCI Tutorial T6 (Full Day)Enabling Technology for Userswith Disabilitiesdisability, DDA, HCIAlistair EdwardsMany designers are not aware of

the full range of potential usersincluding those identified ashaving disabilities. This tutorialwill raise participants’ awarenessof how to accommodate differ-ences in abilities.

HCI Tutorial T7 (Full Day)Information Visualizationinformation-visualization, hidden-dataProfessor Robert SpenceConsiderable volumes of dataoften ‘hide’ fundamentalrelationships – to view somegraphical presentation of it and beable to say ‘Ah ha! That isinteresting!’ is InformationVisualization.

HCI Tutorial T8 (Full Day)Creating Highly Satisfying UserExperiences Using A MethodicalSoftware Engineering ApproachUML design architectureDave Roberts & Dick BerryThis tutorial, based on our OVIDmethod, is about using UML toolsto coordinate the work of a multi-disciplined team to bring user andmarket data into a compellingdesign.

EUPA Tutorial T9 (Full Day)Introduction to HCI StructuredEngineering Design Methodsengineering, cognitive, theory, designSteve Cummaford, Ann Blandfordand John LongShows how a theoretically basedapproach to HCI design allowsdecisions to be made with explicitreference to performance,knowledge to be communicatedbetween team members, and thenre-used to solve similar problems.Is contrasted with a ‘prototype-and-test’ approach.

EUPA Tutorial T10 (Full Day)Exploring and Using QualitativeDataqualitative data analysis, ethnographySusan M. Dray and David A. SiegelEthnographic and other fieldresearch methods have becomeincreasingly popular. Learn howto gather, analyse and applyqualitative field data using avariety of tools. Apply to softwareevaluation to identify modifica-tions needed.

EUPA Tutorial T11 (Full Day)Cross-Cultural User-InterfaceDesign for Work, Home, Play, andOn the Wayculture, diversity, design, user-interfaces,information visualizationAaron MarcusSuccessful web-based systems,information appliances, andclient-server networks require UIsthat reach across culturallydiverse user communities. Thistutorial will provide informationabout cultural models and hands-on experience in designing forspecific target cultures.

HCI Workshop W3 (Full Day)A New Research Agenda for OlderAdultsStephen Brewster & Mary ZajicekThis workshop investigates the designof computer systems for elderlypeople. By means of presentationsfrom experts, demonstrations andbreakout sessions we hope to set anew research agenda for HCI andolder adults.

HCI Workshop W4 (Full Day)Literary Approaches to UserExperiencePeter Wright & Janet FinlayFunctional construals of interac-tion are limiting our understand-ing of user experience. Thisworkshop explores the applicationof ideas from literary theory anddevelops a novel research agendafor interaction design.

HCI Workshop W5 (Full Day)Usability and Evaluation Issues forInteractive TelevisionLyn Pemberton, Judith Masthoff,Anxo Cereijo Roibas, RichardGriffiths & Owen Daly-JonesInteractive Television (iTV) is anexciting new area for HCIspecialists. This workshop aims toestablish an HCI research agendafor iTV and to identify and extendthe research community.

HCI Workshop W6 (Full Day)Design and Evaluation of HCIEducational ResourcesJohn Rosbottom, Alistair Kilgour, JoHyde & Jonathan CrellinThe workshop matches appropri-ate modern learning methods tothe stages involved in the bestpractices of analysis, design,development and evaluation inHCI, in order to optimise the HCIlearning process.

EUPA Workshop W7 (Full Day)User Experience Notation For SoftwareDesign – How close are we?Graham Oakes, Ted Kilian &Geraldine FitzpatrickVarious methods and notations(such as UML and RUP) weredeveloped to communicate userrequirements into systems design.The workshop explores partici-pants’ own approaches toensuring that user requirementsare visible throughout the designprocess.

EUPA Workshop W8 (Full Day)How to Specify Usability Require-ments?Martin Maguire & Nigel BevanReviews approaches to specifyingusability requirements that arepractical, testable and effective.Participants will be invited tooffer their experiences and willwork on case study examples ofrequirement specification indifferent contexts.

EUPA Workshop W9 (pm only)Locating Me, Locating Others –Usability, Utility and EthicsEija Kaasinen, VTT, FinlandIntroduces new position-basedmobile services, i.e. routeguidance, locating people,property (cars, packages, pets)and location-aware services.Includes presentations on theusability and ethical issues oflocating people and teamworkshops developing usagescenarios.

Wednesday 09:30Keynote AddressWendy E. MacKayIN SITU ComputingComputer technology continues tochange and, with it, our understand-ing of the scope of the design ofinteractive systems. Althoughstandard desktop computers are stilla primary focus of HCI, we nowattempt to design systems that‘disappear’ into the environment orthat augment physical objectswithin that environment. The lattermake clear that users interact withcomputers ‘in situ’ or within acontext. Design techniques thatattempt to abstract use, withoutconsidering the user’s context, oftenresult in systems that are theoreti-cally elegant but practicallyunusable. Unfortunately, currentattempts to measure ‘context’ arelimited to crude environmentalsensors, such as motion detectorsand GPS. This talk will exploredifferent ways of interpretingcontext, from the perspective of theuser, not just the system, to createusable systems that are bothmemorable and invisible.

Wednesday 11:30Multi-modal InterfacesHCI Full PaperGuidelines for the Design of HapticWidgetshaptic, desktop, GUI, design guidelinesIan Oakley, Alison Adams, StephenBrewster, Philip GrayThis paper details a new methodfor augmenting complexarrangements of widgets withhaptic feedback. It includesseveral studies (showingsignificant results) and a set ofdesign guidelines.

HCI Full PaperMulti Session VR Medical Training:The HOPS Simulatorhaptic, training, VR, medicalAndrew Crossan, Stephen Brewster,Stuart Reid & Dominic MellorThis paper examines the use of ahaptic interface to train vetstudents. An experiment isdescribed to examine progress of


students over 4 training sessions.It is a novel application area butsimilar studies exist in other areas.

HCI Short PaperBrowsing Modes for ExploringSonified Line Graphssonification, blind, line-graphs, sound-graphs, audioLorna Brown, Prof Stephen Brewster,Dr Ramesh Ramloll, Dr Wai Yu &Beate ReidelBuilding on existing research intosound-graphs for blind people,this paper presents a method forsonifying line graphs containingtwo data series, and evaluates twomodes for browsing these graphs.

HCI Short PaperGuidelines For Audio-Enhance-ment of Graphical User InterfaceWidgetsguidelines, toolkit, earcons, widgets, audiofeedbackJoanna Lumsden, Stephen Brewster,Murray Crease, & Philip GrayThis paper presents guidelines foraudio-enhanced widget-baseduser interface design. Based onempirical evaluation of a uniquetoolkit of audio-enhancedgraphical widgets, the guidelinesare novel yet simple and effective.

CSCW (1)HCI Full PaperA Tool for Performing andAnalysing Experiments onGraphical Communicationgraphical communication, shared whiteboardinteraction, collaborative drawing Pat Healey, Nik Swoboda & JamesKingThis paper is aimed at researchersinterested in computer-mediatedmulti-modal communication. Itdescribes a tool, available fordownload, for conducting andanalysing experiments ongraphically mediated humaninteraction.

HCI Full PaperImpedance Matching: When youneed to know Whatawareness, feedthrough, notificationmechanism, separable notification server,event notification, pace, CSCWinfrastructureDevina Ramduny & Alan DixIn CSCW, not everyone needs thesame detail at the same time. Wepresent a technical framework andinnovative exemplar, Getting toKnow, which dynamically alterthe pace of feedthrough andawareness.

HCI Full PaperMultiple Viewpoints On ComputerSupported Team Work: A CaseStudy On Ambulance Dispatchusability evaluation, emergency medicaldispatch, conceptual model, domainmodel, OSMAnn Blandford, B. L. William Wong,Iain Connell, & Thomas GreenOSM is a novel usability

evaluation method, still underdevelopment, that identifiesmisfits between user and devicerepresentations. This paperpresents a case study, applying itto ambulance control. Theapproach shows promise.

Communicating UsabilityEUPA PresentationRelating Usability to DesignPracticedesign usability digital mediaJohn Knight and Marie JefsioutineDiscusses the obstacles thatprevent digital media designersfrom adopting usability methodsand tensions between the usabilityand design communities. Exploreshow to enhance communicationbetween the two groups.

EUPA PresentationOptimising Uptake of UsabilityRecommendationsimplemention, recommendations,communication, usability, managementGerred BlythAnalyses the barriers to theuptake of usability recommenda-tions, and techniques thatminimise them. Offers anapproach for maximising HCIcontributions where input islimited and development teamsare large and distributed.

Panel SessionPerspectives on Icon Designicon design, standards, metrics, cognition,aestheticsDr Sine Mcdougall, et alCovers: icon design approaches;standards and metrics; cognition,context and workload in design;role of icons in the visual enhance-ment and commercial placement ofproducts. Explores how contribu-tions from each perspective canoptimise icon design.

Wednesday 14:30Browsing & SearchingHCI Short PaperInferences from Search EngineSummaries and Headingsinformation retrieval web search summaryAlan James Salmoni & ProfessorStephen J. PayneTwo experiments investigateddiscrimination between relevantand non-relevant documentsusing web search enginesummaries for a search task.Document titles elicited superiordiscrimination to automaticallygenerated summaries. Implica-tions are discussed.

HCI Short PaperA Keyboard-Based Graphical WebBrowser Interfaceaccessibility, web browsers, computerpointing devices, repetitive strain injuriesRobert J. HildermanThis paper describes TextMouse,

a keyboard-based graphical webbrowser that makes use of themouse optional, and enablesbrowsing via the keyboard.Experimental results show relieffrom the symptoms of repetitivestrain injury was realized whenusing this browser.

HCI Short PaperBrowsing versus Direct Queryingwithin a Content-Based ImageRetrieval Systemcontent based image retrieval, browsing,searchingSharon Mcdonald, Jill Bradnum &Ting Sheng LaiThis experimental study looks atpeople’s ability to use visual-search tools for image retrieval. Incontrast to previous studies, thesearch task is the focus rather thanfeature extraction techniques.

HCI Short PaperThe role of Trend Data asMnemonic Devicetrend data, graphs, monitoring tasks,social cognition, memoryAntonie Mahlerwein & Mark W.LansdaleVisualised trend data in safety-critical tasks is often remembered,and this is potentially exploitable.This paper investigates theparameters of visual memory incontext and considers its potentialadded value.

EUPA Keynote AddressChristian LindholmDesigning User Delight – NokiaUser Interface Strategy for 2.5Gand 3GThe Mobile Internet will not be onenew medium, but 4–5 unique newmedia with different capabilitiestargeted to different people wantingto communicate in rich ways. Weare at the dawn of a new era wherethe utility or function of the mobileInternet will start to change. We arenot merely creating voicecommunication products, but alsotext and image driven communica-tion products. The context of use,the ergonomics, and of course thetechnology will be so different, thatNokia believe content will have tobe redesigned and adaptedspecifically for this. Nokia haveconducted numerous experiments indesigning content for smallterminals. Nokia believe that theopening up of mobile SW platformswill have a profound impact on ourlives, as innovation is taken out ofthe labs and placed in the hands ofthe public. Services will have morepersonal, location and on-linerelevance than ever before.Christian’s presentation will discussthe reasoning behind Nokia’s UserInterface categories and the visionfor their evolution.

Wednesday 16:00Memorable SystemsHCI Full PaperAn Investigation of Memory forDaily Computing Eventsreminder systems, memory augmentation,free recall, memory prostheses, empiricalfindingsMary Czerwinski & Eric HorvitzEmpirical results from a videoenhanced memory studydemonstrate that software toolscould be used to significantlyenhance users’ memories of dailycomputing events. Extends thefield of computer event capture toreminding.

HCI Full PaperHow People Recognize PreviouslySeen Web Pages from Titles, URLsand Thumbnailshistory systems, revisitation, browserdesignSaul Greenberg, Shaun Kaasten &Christopher EdwardsHow should web browsers displaypages in history and bookmarklists? This study quantifies howwell people recognize titles,URLs, and image thumbnails atvarious sizes. Results are directlyusable by browser designers.

HCI Full PaperUser Interface Design as SystemsDesigndesign, context, systems, public, GUI,personalHarold Thimbleby, Ann Blandford,Paul Cairns, Paul Curzon and MattJones.Usability problems often resultfrom poor engineering. This paperanalyses many failings in a publicwalk up and use system andshows how careful use ofsoftware engineering and personaltechnologies can eliminateproblems.

EvaluationHCI Short PaperCategorising and ReportingUsability Problems of EducationalMultimedia Interfacesusability problems, educational multimedia,problem report format, usability evaluationMaia Dimitrova, Stephanie Wilson &Helen SharpThis paper concerns how usabilityproblems of educational multi-media can be categorised andreported using two structuredproblem report formats: one foruser interaction and one forcomprehension problems.

HCI Short PaperDiary Study on Internet PaymentSystemselectronic payment systems, usability,diaryDennis Abrazhevich & P.MarkopoulosIn order to advise the interactiondesign of electronic payment


systems, we are conducting adiary study of their use in anger.The paper presents some earlyand revealing insights from thisstudy.

HCI Short PaperEducational Multimedia CognitiveWalkthroughexpert-based usability evaluation,educational multimedia, evaluationeffectivenessMaia Dimitrova, Stephanie Wilson &Helen SharpA new usability inspectionmethod for educational multime-dia software is presented togetherwith a summary of the resultsfrom its empirical validation,demonstrating the method’sability to predict valid learnerproblems.

HCI Short PaperInteraction Design Issues for CarNavigation Systemsnavigation, interaction, in-car, cognitive-walkthroughPaul Curzon, Richard Butterworth,Ravinder Bhogal & Ann BlandfordThis paper studies the interactiondesign of an in-car navigationsystem using cognitivewalkthrough and critical incidentanalysis based on natural use. Itprovides a non-classic applicationof the former.

HCI Short PaperTesting a Conjecture based on theDR-AR model of UIM Effectivenessinspection method validity andthoroughnessAlan Woolrych & Gilbert CocktonThis paper challenges theestablished practice of the use ofmultiple analysts in usabilityinspections. We show thispractice increases false alarms at agreater rate than new problemdiscovery.

HCI Short PaperUsing Interfaces and LikingInteractionaesthetics, usability, navigation, empiricalChris Roast & Bob SteeleThe paper concerns webnavigation mechanisms, describ-ing results from two empiricalstudies exploring the relationshipbetween subjectively assessedusability and interface aesthetics.The results of these studies aresignificant and differ from othersimilarly motivated studies.

AccessibilityEUPA PresentationUser Centred Design - How toDesign Accessible Productsaccessibility of IT productsMartin Arnold, Paul Hopewell, ClairePaddison, Phil Parry, NadyaSustacheFind out how disabled users interactwith information technology andthe importance of a ‘design for all’

approach. Real life examples anddemonstrations of assistivetechnologies illustrate how todesign accessible products.

Thursday 09:30Keynote AddressAndrew MonkFun, Communication andDependability: Extending theconcept of usabilityThe traditional conception ofusability considers one user withone computer in a work context.Requirements elicitation andevaluation are based around tasksand task fit. This is no longerenough. As computers move out ofthe office, into the street and thehome, the design issues that arisebecome much broader. At work weare paid to use the technology, inthe home we pay for it. Productsneed to be attractive and fun. I canthink of several formal schemes forreasoning about task fit but how dowe advise a designer how to makeher product fun? Likewise,communication has rather differentfunctions in recreation. How shouldwe design effective systems forsocialising? Finally, informationand communication technology hasthe power to provide independencefor older people and the disabled; toenable them to stay longer in theirown homes, for example. Thistechnology has to be dependable. Ithas to protect against violations ofprivacy and guarantee security andsafety. In this talk I will illustratethese new issues by consideringsome of the basic research beingcarried out at York that extends theconcept of usability to include fun,communication and dependability.

Thursday 11:00VE & GamesHCI Full PaperNon-Verbal Communication Formsin Multi-player Game Sessioncollaboration, virtual, interaction,behaviour, simulationTony Manninen & Tomi KujanpääVerbal communication forms in amulti player game sessionorganised in a form of quasiexperiment. The ‘inside’ virtualenvironment perspective raisesthe importance of rich interaction.

HCI Full PaperSupport Robots for PlayingGames: The role of the player actorrelationshipsgame, robots, identification, relationshipsMark De Graaf & Loe FeijsThis paper presents an originaland useful approach for drivinggame support robot design andconstruction from theory. The

player actor relationships serve asleading principle.

HCI Short PaperA Comprehensive Usability Studyof a Virtual Reality Systemusability, virtual reality, navigation,individual differences, sense of presenceCorina Sas & Gregory O’HareThis paper presents a usability studyof a desktop virtual reality system. Itfocuses on the impact of variables likegender, computer experience andsense of presence upon users’performance and satisfaction relatedto navigational tasks.

HCI Short PaperEmotive Signals for Virtual WorldsVR, avatars, emotion, facial animationMarc Fabri, David Moore & DaveHobbsThis paper outlines an experimen-tal study investigating the use offacial expressions of emotion incollaborative VR. Whilst themodelling approach is not new,we intentionally use a simple yeteffective 3D head model.

CSCW (2)HCI Full PaperA Comparison of Text Messagingand Email Support for DigitalCommunities: A Case Studytext messaging, email, digitalcommunities, diary studies, principalcomponents analysisElizabeth Longmate & Chris BaberThis paper concerns a case studyof email and text messaging usewith a group of students. Itexamines technological supportfor community development.Community approach is novel butuncontroversial.

HCI Full PaperAn Affordance-based Frameworkfor CVE EvaluationEvaluation, CVE, affordancePhil Turner & Susan TurnerThe concept of affordance hasexclusively been used as designheuristic. We have extended theconcept to embrace embodimentand cultural aspects of artefactsand apply it as a framework forevaluation.

HCI Full PaperExtending Low Cost RemoteEvaluation with SynchronousCommunicationremote usability evaluation, real-timeconferencing toolsLucia Rapanotti, Lynne Dunckley, JonG. HallThe paper proposes an extensionof remote usability testing inwhich synchronous communica-tion is available to re-establish theconversational nature of theevaluation and support criticalincident resolution. The extensionis validated through an experi-ment. The approach is novel anduncontroversial.

Web EvaluationEUPA PresentationThe ‘Magic Number 5’: Is It Enoughfor Web Testing?usability testing, number of users,reliability, web usabilityCarol M. BarnumCommon practice holds that 80%of usability findings are discov-ered after five participants.Findings indicate that much largernumbers are required and thatindependent testers do notreplicate results. This shouldstimulate interesting debate.

EUPA PresentationA User Centred Approach toMeasure a Web Site’s Appeal usingthe Repertory Grid Techniquerepertory grid technique, web siteevaluation, appealRainer Wessler and Martin OrtliebThis session presents a case studyof the use of the Repertory GridTechnique that has proven to be apowerful method to evaluate websites from a user perspective.

Panel SessionBuilding the Usability ProfessionalCertification Scheme: Where Next?Jonathan Earthy & Nigel BevanFollowing last year’s panel,progress has been made indefining the components forcertification, but a survey hasshown that many challengesremain. Strategic decisions areneeded. Come and have your say.

Thursday 14:00Usability EvaluationHCI Full PaperA Comparison of Think aloud,Questionnaires and Interviews forUsability Testing with Childrenusability-testing comparing methods,childrenPanos Markopoulos & Afke DonkerThe paper describes an experimentsuggesting that children thinkingaloud during a usability test willreport more problems than withquestionnaires and interviews,independent of their extroversionand verbalisation skills.

HCI Full PaperNavigation in the SoftwareDevelopment Information Spaceusability, interface, design, navigation,softwareWayne H. HoThis paper describes a usabilitystudy comparing two interfacedesigns used to navigate thesoftware development informa-tion space. It raises interestingnavigational issues in the contextof existing navigational theories.


HCI Full PaperSelecting the ‘Invisible’ UserInterface Development ToolUIDT, evaluation, selection, context-sensitive, invisibleJoanna LumsdenThis paper outlines a facility foruser interface development toolevaluation. Contextually focussed,the empirically tested method andvisualisation environment reflectorganisational maturity.Addresses a much overlookedsoftware engineering need.

Design ProcessHCI Full PaperPattern Languages in ParticipatoryDesignparticipatory design, patterns, patternlanguagesJanet Finlay, Elizabeth Allgar, AndyDearden & Barbara McManusRevisits Alexander’s priorities inusing pattern languages andinvestigates how far they canempower users to participate in agenerative design process that haslife-enhancing outcomes.

HCI Full PaperProvoking Innovation: Acting outin Contextual Scenariosscenario-based design, contextualscenarios, acting-out, performanceSteve HowardProposes a new version ofscenario based design, andillustrates its application to anindustry funded project. Itfeatures ‘contextual scenarios’,based on current practice, andacted out by stakeholders inparticipatory design sessions.

HCI Short PaperA Graphical User InterfaceDevelopment ToolMB-UIDE, user interfaces, tools, modellingtechniquesMaría Lozano, Pascual Gonzalez &Isidro RamosThis paper presents a novelapproach for the automaticgeneration of graphical userinterfaces. It also shows thesoftware tool implemented tosupport the methodology with asimplified case study. Novel butuncontroversial.

HCI Short PaperExtending the Unified ModellingLanguagetimeline, multimedia, design, composition,UMLIan Smith, Phil Turner & IainMcGregorThis slightly controversial paperproposes extending the unifiedmodelling language (UML),enabling complex compositions ofsoftware objects, therebyeffecting a method of modellingdiverse timeline-based media.

Remote EvaluationEUPA PresentationRemote Usability EvaluationsUsing the Internetusability, method, remote, testing,evaluationRon PerkinsExplores some of the advantagesand disadvantages of remoteusability evaluation methods overlaboratory methods. The sessionwill discuss how to avoidwonderfully precise answers tothe wrong questions!

EUPA PresentationImproving Efficiency: ConductingWalkthroughs Remotelywalkthrough, remote evaluation,prototypesGaby Wenneker & Michael HatscherFind out about a walkthroughtechnique that saves time andmoney by facilitating the remoteevaluation of early prototypes.Provides rich insights intomismatches between users’expectations and needs, andinteraction design.

Panel SessionUsability Managers’ ForumSimon Tyler, David Followell & ErikGeelhoedUsability practitioners have toapply proven techniques tosurvive in a commercial environ-ment. Commercial usabilitymanagers usability teams balanceacknowledgment of currentacademic thinking and applyingthis in their day-to-day activities?

Thursday 16:00Personal TechnologiesHCI Full PaperMATI: A System for AccessingTravel Itinerary Information usingMobile Phonesmobile computing, information visualisa-tion, mobile phones, handheld devices,WAP, travel itineraryMasood Masoodian & Nicholas LaneThis paper is dealing withvisualisation of complex graphicalinformation using small handheldcomputing devices such as mobilephones. It describes a novelprototype system for accessinggraphical visualisation of travelitinerary information.

HCI Short PaperAchieving Accessibility throughPersonalisationLynne CoventryNovel design features to improvepublic technology accessibilityare evaluated using multiplemethods. Can one design suiteveryone or is personalisationrequired to meet individual needsof diverse disabilities?

HCI Short PaperAesthetic and Usability Considera-tions in Users’ Choice of PersonalMedia Playersaesthetics, usability, skins, preferences,personalizationNoam Tractinsky & Tali LavieThis study examines usability andaesthetic factors that affect users’preferences in choosing aninterface (‘skin’) for a PC-basedentertainment application. Usersexhibited heterogeneous tastes,driven mainly by aesthetic factors.

Communication andCollaborationHCI Short PaperIntelligent Instant MessagingAgents to Support CollaborativeLearninginstant messaging, intelligent agents,pedagogical agents, conversational agentsMike Thomas & Stuart WattThis paper describes our work inprogress on an intelligent agent torun within an instant messagingsystem and its potential impact oncollaborative learning communi-ties in regard to presence.

HCI Short PaperSupporting Relationships withAwareness Systemsawareness, emotions, communication,diaryPanos Markopoulos, O.Romijn,C.Huijnen & A.PhilipoulosDo grandparents and grand-children wish to be aware of eachother’s activities? This paperdescribes the design of anawareness system that support thispurpose and reflects on lessonslearnt.

HCI Short PaperThe Idea-collector: A device forcreative face-to-face meetingsbrainstorm, tangible interfaces, graspableuser interfaces, electronic whiteboardsK.g. Van Turnhout, A. Malchanau,R.M. Disaro & P MarkopoulosThis paper presents the design ofa device to support creative face-to-face meetings. The prototype:the Idea-collector is a tangibledevice that supports fast organiza-tion of ideas on an electronicwhiteboard.

EUPA PlenaryAaron MarcusCross-Cultural Communication in UserInterface DesignExplains the impact on the design ofuser interfaces and informationvisualization of cultural differences indimensions such as power distance,individualism, masculinity/femininity,uncertainty avoidance, and short termorientation.

Friday 09:30Objective UsabilityHCI Full PaperAn Eye Movement Analysis of WebPage Usabilityeye-movements, web-page, usability,performance, measuresLaura Cowen, Linden J Ball & JudyDelinThis paper reports an experimentdemonstrating that eye movementanalyses are a valid indicator ofwebpage usability. The criticalmessage, however, is that thistechnique needs refinement tocapture the micro-structure ofinterface use.

HCI Full PaperAuditory Emotional FeedbackFacilitates Human ComputerInteractionemotions, feedback, cognition,pupillometryAnne Aula & Veikko SurakkaThis paper presents a controlledexperiment about the effects ofemotional feedback in HCI. Theresults show that auditory emotionalfeedback can improve HCI.

HCI Short PaperPhysiological Responses to HCIEventsaffective computing, psychophysiology,usability testing, content evaluationDr Robert Ward, Bernadette Cahill,Dr Phil Marsden & Clive JohnsonAffective Computing. Discussesexperimental investigations intothe potential use of physiologicalindicators of arousal, such aschanges in skin conductance andcardiovascular activity, asobjective measures of usability.

HCI Short PaperThe Impact of Object Dimensionson Eye Gazeeye gaze tracking usability experimentTony Renshaw, Janet Finlay, RobertWard & David TyfaThis paper describes eye trackingexperiments, involving noninvasive techniques, designed todetermine the impact of size oneye gaze, but which actuallyproduced a more important andunexpected result.

SensesHCI Full PaperInvisible but Audible: EnhancingInformation Awareness throughAnthropomorphic Speechawareness, speech, anthropomorphic,interruptions, variation, politeness,notifications, remindersNuno M. Ribeiro & Ian D. BenestWhilst graphical interfaces withvisually multiplexed surfacesjostle rudely for the user’sattention, speech offers analternative and potentially noninvasive means of conveyinginformation. This paper reports on


the reactions raised by speechinduced anthropomorphicbehaviours.

HCI Full PaperUser Perception of Anthropomor-phic Characters with VaryingLevels of Interactionusability, processes, model, user-centred,methodsGuillermo Power, Gary Wills & WendyHallThis paper investigates userinteraction with anthropomorphicinterface agents. It describes thethree experiments, the characterdesign and identifies key patternsin user assumptions. Novel,experimental results.

HCI Short PaperOlder Adults’ Evaluation andComprehension of Speech asdomestic alarm system outputolder adults, speech output, intelligenthome systemsLorna Lines & Kate HoneThis paper summarises experi-mental findings investigatingspeech as output for noveldomestic alarm systems designedspecifically for older adults.Surprising results do not supportcurrent literature.

Usability in Germany,Austria &SwitzerlandEUPA PresentationIntroducing ‘Quality in Use’ - TheUsability Service Model of Swiss Reusability, user-centred design, usabilityengineering, user interface designAndreas Beu, Marc Hassenzahl &Markus GeissbühlerShows how the user-centredorganisational maturity of thecompany Swiss Re was assessed,the Usability Service Model(USM) was applied, and howusability was introduced into thesoftware development process.

EUPA PresentationTailored Usability EngineeringMethods and Toolsconsulting, tools, methodsJohann Schrammel, Verena GillerLearn an approach to enhancingand accelerating professionalusability consulting through thesupport of innovative methodsand tools. Examples are presentedto demonstrate the concept, showthe benefits, and provideexperiences from real-life-usage.

EUPA PresentationUsability Engineering in Germany:Situation, Current Practice andNetworking Strategiesusability practice Germany networkMatthias Peissner and Kzerstin RöseReviews the current status of theusability profession in Germany,illustrated by examples. Possibleinitiatives and ongoing activities

of the recently formed UPAGerman chapter in order tosupport usability will bediscussed.

Panel SessionUser Centred Design in PublicSector SystemsProfessor Brian Shackel, et alThe ISO standard on HumanCentred Design (ISO 13407) wasdeveloped to ensure designprocesses have a high likelihoodof developing usable systems.Panel to review human-centreddesign in the UK public sectorand in other countries.

Friday 11:30Keynote AddressLes HattonMemorability & invisibility: a tale oftwo alarm clocksThis talk will consider the conceptsof memorability and invisibility, ina variety of contexts that have beenpresented to me during my career.The alarm clocks in question areboth purpose-built, electronic,embedded systems. One is adelight, the other is a nightmare.These extremes have been repeatedmany times in my career. These andother examples will be used to teaseout some basic principles. It is mybelief that the historic architecturalconcepts of simplicity, eleganceand delight can be introduced tocomputing science where theymanifest themselves asmemorability and invisibility just asthe historical engineering conceptof designing to mitigate failure canbe introduced where it manifestsitself in trust and acceptance. Thereal enemy in both cases isunnecessary complexity.

Wednesday & ThursdayInteractive ExperienceHCI Interactive ExperienceDe-coupling Interaction in VirtualEnvironmentsvirtual environments, xml, pda. de-coupledinteractionVictor Bayon & Gareth GriffithsDecoupling interaction is a novelinteraction style in virtualenvironments that proposes toallow VE users access to certaininteractive features of the VE’susing different sorts of devices.

HCI Interactive ExperienceThe Illusion of Beingtent, sensors, artwork, experience,immersionJohn Waterworth & Eva LindhWaterworthThe Illusion of Being is aninteractive DVD that illustrates anapproach to HCI design throughthe creation of artistic productionsexercising theoretical predictions;

in this case, hypothesiseddimensions of ‘virtual experi-ence’.

HCI Interactive ExperienceMobile Services for Many DifferentDevicesuser interface, mobile, devices, adaptationStina Nylander & Markus BylundProviding suitable user interfacesof mobile services to manydifferent devices is a problem inthe mobile research community.We will have a demo applicationthat people can try and compareon different devices.

HCI Interactive ExperienceBrowsing Modes for ExploringSonified Line Graphssonification, blind, line-graphs, sound-graphs, audioLorna Brown, Prof Stephen Brewster,Dr Ramesh Ramloll & Dr Wai Yu &Beate ReidelBuilding on existing research intosound-graphs for blind people,this paper presents a method forsonifying line graphs containingtwo data series, and evaluates twomodes for browsing these graphs.

HCI Interactive ExperienceThe Evaluation of Interactivity inWeb-based Systemsweb-based systems, learning, problem-centred processes, heuristic evaluation,interactivity, feedback, modelChris Evans & Khaled SabryThis experience involves aninteractive learning package.Using an original adaptation ofheuristic evaluation to apply tointeractivity, it allows delegates toexperience the stages in theassessment of a web-basedsystem.

PostersHCI PostersAn Approach for a Quality Audit onMultiple Websitesusability, empirical, large-scale, audit,checklistJohn Eklund & Justin BicknellThe poster describes a cost-effective method for the compara-tive evaluation of 108 Australianwebsites against a range ofusability criteria and technicalstandards. The empirical methodinvolves the application of asuccessively refined checklist.

HCI PostersConceptual Design of CAUSE Toolfor Icon Testing in DesigningMemorable and Invisible IconsCAUSE tool, icon, usability, testingJafreezal Jaafar & Ghassan Al-QaimariThis poster is concerned with howan automated tool can be used inconducting usability testing. Itdescribes the conceptual designand development of the CAUSEtool for testing the usability oficons and screen layout.

HCI PostersDetermining User Requirementsusing Sensory Analysishuman-centred design, sensory analysis,marble method, correspondence analysis,invisible, memorableNaotsune Hosono, Yutaka Tomita &Yoshikazu Yamamoto & HiromitsuInoueThis poster discusses utilizing asensory analysis method appliedto the initial stage of a newmachine design to meet usersrequirements. It was accom-plished by combining theproposed Marble Method andCorrespondence Analysis. Theresults were verified by designers.

HCI PostersHigh Level Design of Object-oriented User Interfaces: Enhanc-ing the Rational Unified ProcessOO user interfaces, UML, RUP, use caserepresentation, interaction clusterdiagramsElizabeth A Kemp & Chris PhillipsThis poster presents a method forenhancing the Rational UnifiedProcess to provide better supportfor developing object-orientedgraphical user interfaces. Twonovel artifacts are proposed toassist with early design.

HCI PostersInvisibility vs Transparencye-democracy, transparency, invisibility,youth, discussionElla Smith, Ann Macintosh & AngusWhyteThis poster concerns a participa-tory design project with youngpeople for an e-democracy website. Standard GUI and CMCchallenges gain new spin from thedemocratic purpose and user agerange.

HCI PostersPerceptual Organization withinWeb SitesWWW, design, perception, grouping, popoutJari LaarniThe poster analyzes a selection ofweb pages looking for use ofGestalt organizing principles anduse of pop-out features. Sugges-tions are made how to betterorganize information fordifferent-sized screens.

HCI PostersSafer Navigation at Sea ThroughAugmented Reality?augmented reality for navigationalinformationEva Olsson, Anders Jansson &Stefan SeipelThis poster describes an attemptto try out a presentation ofnavigational information on thewindscreen on ship bridges. Threeexperienced captains haveassessed the subjective merits of alab set-up.


The conference will bring together, from allover the world, researchers, practitionersand educators with interests in the manyfacets of human–computer interaction,usability and interactive systems.

It is by now almost a truism that theconcerns and goals of HCI have shiftedover the years from a focus on individualinteraction between a human and acomputer to understanding, designing,constructing and evaluating complexinteractive systems involving many peopleand many technologies. Developments insoftware and hardware technologies havepushed applications towards supportingour collaborative and communicativeneeds as social beings, both at work andat play. At the same time, similar develop-ments are pushing the human–computerinterface beyond the desktop and into our

pockets, streets and buildings. Thesedevelopments provide exciting challengesand opportunities for HCI. How do wedesign for usability when the human–computer interface is dispersed andinterwoven throughout our environment?How can we understand and account forthe web of influences amongst society,environment and technology? At HCI 2003,we provide a forum for you to tackle theseand related issues.

Bath is perhaps the most beautiful city inEngland. The entire city is a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site. Situated in the idyllicCotswold hills, the natural hot springs haveprovided bathing since before the RomanEmpire arrived to build its magnificent bathsaround the springs. Medieval Bath saw thecrowning of Edgar, first King of England, inits abbey. ‘Modern’ Bath is an essay in

HCI PostersSolutions to the New Demands ofTelevision Navigationtelevision, navigation, electronicprogramme guide, multi-modal interfaces,personalisationClare Borras, Dr. Daniel Brown &Mike GibneyArchitecture for a multi-modaluser interface accommodatingdiverse user interaction patternsand providing uniformity ofcontent selection across a range ofcontent delivery mechanisms withvarying constraints.

HCI PostersV-Lab: Virtual Laboratory andFieldtrip Environmentse-learning, laboratory, field-trip, simulation,pedagogyDr Colin Calder & Phil MarstonThis poster focuses on designparadigms for interactive webbased learning environments inhigher education, comparinginterfaces developed to supportvirtual laboratory exercises andfield visits at the tertiary level.

HCI PostersDesigning Interaction Spaces toSupport Successful Participationand Collaborationcollaboration, design, resources,participationEamonn O’Neill, Dawn Woodgate,Hilary Johnson & Peter JohnsonThis poster outlines ongoingresearch across various domainsincluding Accident and Emer-gency, veterinary surgery andgames, analysing collaborativeactivities and developing theoryto account for the use ofsupporting artifacts.

HCI PostersThe Effects of Cognitive Style on

Navigation and Task Performancein 3D Interfacesnavigation, virtual, 3D, cognitive, factorsEyal Haik, Trevor Barker, JohnSapsford & Simon TrainisThis poster reports on aninteresting and innovativeinvestigation into the effect ofcognitive style on navigation in3D environments. The hypoth-eses, experimental method and theinitial results are presented.

HCI PostersExperience of User RequirementsElicitation for a Climate MonitoringSystemuser, requirements, needs, survey,environmentMartin MaguirePresents approach and outcomesof a user requirements study forEUROCLIM – a system providinginformation on climate change inEurope. Shows how the resultsinfluenced the presentation ofinformation at the user interface.

HCI PostersA Framework for SharingInteractive Museum ArtifactsAfrican art, interactive museum, virtualreality, collaborative artDavid England, Yu Ming Tai &Oladele BamgboyeWe demonstrate how museumexhibits can be made more thaninteractive. We combineapproaches from HCI, fine art andmuseum curators to allow artisticinteraction and sharing ofdisplayed artifacts.

HCI PostersInterleave Factor and MultimediaInformation Visualisationmultimedia, visualisation, meetingmemories, browsingSaturnino LuzA simple cross-modal activity

metric is presented which mayhelp build effective meetingbrowsing interfaces. It iscontroversial insofar as it raisesthe possibility of speech indexingwithout speech recognition.

HCI PostersLEMUR: LEarning with MUseumResourcesmuseums, web, interface design, virtuallearning, digitisation, pedogogIain A. Middleton, Dr Colin Calder &Neil CurtisLEMUR has brought together awide range of academics,designers and multimediaspecialists to specify and developteaching packages and interfacesonto a museum’s collectiondatabase. Cross-disciplinarycommunication and HCImediation are key.

HCI PostersMechanisms to Support UserProfiling for Information Presenta-tionpersonalisation on the webEuan W Dempster, L. MacKinnon, H.Williams, D. Pacey, D. Marwick, A.Cawsey & D. BentalThis poster discusses mechanismsfor obtaining user profiles forpersonalised systems whereinformation sensitivity is aproblem. We present a prototypewhich uses possible reasons forgaps in the profile.

HCI PostersMultimodal Human–computerInterfaceelderly, motives, multimodal interface,earconsFausto J. Sainz Salces, Dr. DavidEngland & Dr Paul VickersInvestigation into the use ofauditory and visual output in a

multi-modal interface for thedelivery of appliance stateinformation in an experimentalhousehold control device for theelderly.

HCI PostersSelling HCI to the General PublicHCI education, public awarenessDavid EnglandThis poster is about selling HCI tothe user community. Users canexplore the issues that HCIdesigners face when constructingand evaluating interactivesystems.

HCI PostersStudent Involvement in Designingan On-Line Foreign LanguageCoursedistance learning, online communities,participatory designPanayiotis Zaphiris & GiorgosZachariaThis poster presents the imple-mentation of a participatorydesign methodology for develop-ing an online Modern Greeklanguage course. The studentscollaborate in transcribinglessons, publish and peer reviewshared notes.

HCI PostersA Usable Web For Long-StayHospitalised Childrenusability, disabilities, children, distance,educationAndres Baravalle, Alessandro Beria,Silvia Guberti, Vitaveska Lanfranchi &Gabriella PravettoniSituated within the broad field ofusability research, this posteruniquely presents guidelines fordesigning web sites for hospital-ised children. It is based on a casestudy in a children’s hospital.

Georgian elegance. Built largely from1728 to 1796 in the honey-coloured stoneof the region, the city was designed bythe architect John Wood and his son as aplayground for Georgian ‘society’. Thecity itself, its spa baths and town houseswere designed and built for Georgian highsociety to meet and be seen. Visitorsincluded Jane Austen, who set parts ofher novels in Bath. Visitors to Bath forHCI 2003 will find a warm welcome andan opportunity to explore the design anddevelopment of interactive technologiesto serve all of our society.

For more information on HCI 2003contact Eamonn O’Neill[[email protected]].

HCI 2003, the 17th annual Human–Computer Interaction Conference organised by the British Computer Society HCI Group,will take place in Bath, England, 8–12 September 2003.

Designing for Society


IntroductionIt is a well-known fact that the educational system is now insuch crisis (Hall 2001) that academics spend a lot of their timetrying to impress each other at conferences. It is also a wellknown fact (Hall 2002) that academics are much better atlistening to themselves than they are at listening to otherpeople. This is evidenced by the fact that 84.3% of them go toconference sessions so they can have the microphone to makespeeches at the end and quite clearly haven’t listened to aword. Not that this matters, since 72.35% of authors arehappy to talk to themselves in any case and 85.62% actuallydo. However, the evidence is anecdotal at this juncture (Hall2002b) and this study attempts to put that to rights byanalysing the behaviour of academics at a recent conference(Hall 2002c). For the purposes of anonymity certain detailswill be excluded from this paper since if the reviewer knew itwas me who was writing it this may unfairly bias his/herresponse towards this erudite contribution (not Hall at all).However, this means that at certain points the reader mayfeel that evidence is missing. The reader needs to realise thisis not because the evidence isn’t there but in the interests ofhygiene the information is being withheld until later and willbe presented at a bigger conference somewhere else providedI get the funding.

MethodI’m not telling. Find your own method. This one took meages. OK. I’ll give you a clue, it’s based on diaries… well, onediary.

Findings95.53% authors are reasonable, polite, pleasant human beings.4% authors are unreasonable, impolite, unpleasant, arrogantand authoritarian and you wouldn’t drink with them unlessyou were dead first, 0.26% aren’t human. 1.6% probably can’tread or at least can’t follow simple instructions like ‘fill in thenames’, ‘mail this to me when you’ve completed it’. Theyblame the interface (nice try) and failing that the guy whoruns the website. The author is of the opinion that if Godreally believes that stuff about the meek inheriting the earth,there will be many academics testing the veracity of Books 1and 2 of Paradise Lost.

Given a deadline, 91.3% of authors will manage to complywith it. 8.7% won’t though of those 4.25% will tell you inadvance that they won’t and 0.25% will say, ‘deadline, whatdeadline???’ 87% of authors quite clearly don’t read anyinstructions about formatting the final, accepted papers;luckily most papers look roughly the same so it probablydoesn’t matter. However, if there’s a mistake in the format-ting instructions that calls for the delivery of a paper thatwould look incredibly stupid, 98% of authors will stick to itassiduously then save the documents in an unknown formatthat can’t be deciphered, retrieved or altered in any way.Thus necessitating the proceedings to be bound like a joinedup length of jokes in a cracker and satisfying only the 1.666%of the conference audience that are obsessed with bus ticketmachines.

Given a page limit, 8.6% will ignore it and give you morethan you asked for. 58.7% can’t follow instructions aboutremoving their identities. 2.16% will use themselves in anyexample thus giving the reviewer a sense of bluff or doublebluff: that is did this incredibly famous person write thispaper or is some crafty individual trying to piggy back onreputation or malign him/her/it. 12.6% are so ruthless andneurotic about removing their identities and any references tothemselves, their organisation, city, country, planet anduniverse that the resulting paper is bordering on the incoher-ent. Every fourth word is replaced by a gap or by a set of Xsthat makes Xristine Faulkner look coy in her use of that muchunderused letter. By the way, 1.5% of reviewers think thatchecking anonymity means placing keywords into a searchengine and ensuring that the authors can’t be found. So bewarned. Potential chairs should ensure that the 12.6% ofpapers go to the 1.5% of reviewers thus ensuring accordunless they couldn’t give an XXXX for anything.

87.5% of authors like to add graphs and pictures and ofthose 99.45% look as though they’ve been left out in the rain.58.756% would have been better off left in a thunderstorm,preferably at sea with the author wearing a copper vest.Quite clearly, the software houses are in league with this toproduce diagrams and figures that disprove those ideasabout a picture being worth a thousand words. Though, to be

HIC2002 Supplement – Missing PapersThe organising committee wish to apologise for the following omission from the proceedings of the conference

Memorable yet Invisible: a time whose idea has come…Cassandra Hall

The Invisible [email protected]

AbstractIf you think the author has time to write a summary so youdon’t have to read the whole thing but can pretend that youhave, then dream on.Keywordsbuzz word, pay rise, RAE, academic, promotion, waffle,league tables.

Permission to make digital or hard copies or any sort of copy at allthat is not yet invented and may never be invented of all or part ofthis work for personal or classroom use or any use at all withoutfee or any charge at all provided that copies are not made ordistributed in any way at all for profit or commercial advantage orany advantage at all and that copies bear this notice and the fullcitation or any citation at all. To copy otherwise, to republish, topost on servers or to stuff into people’s pockets or anywhere at all,requires prior specific permission from the person what wrote thisnotice or anyone at all or we will send the boys round.

Proceedings Volume 2 of the16th British HIC Conference

London, Northbank UniversityNorthbank, London, September 2002

(c) 2002 British HIC Group, Britain


Figure 1: Showing relative intelligence and rudeness.

fair, I can think of a thousand words to describe my feelingswhen I see them. The average length of papers is 11.14%longer than you want and 111.14% longer than is necessary.The standard deviation is 1.2% and the number of deviants100%.

Dealing with reviewers is equally fun. 21% have systemsthat can’t unravel zip files and 0.23% oh, ok, one person –nameless – can’t receive attachments of the e-mail varietythough actually, to be fair, he has problems with the romanticvariety as well. Actually, why mess about – that guy hasproblems full stop. (Evidence removed for reviewing pur-poses.) (No, I’m not bitter.) (Yes, I do like brackets.) (HalloMum!)

There is no correlation between unpleasantness andreputation except on an adverse scale. See Figure 1. The

smartest ones are the most charming; it seems likely that theyhave nothing to prove. The ones that wish they were smart ortry to portray smartness are the most abusive.

DiscussionThere’s nothing to discuss. This lot explains it all and if youdon’t understand, why are you reading this in the first place?Academics know everything by definition.

RecommendationsAcademics can’t follow instructions so try not to have any.Work on the principle they will write what they like, in theformat they like and give it to you when they feel like it. Thatway you’ll have no expectations, indefinite deadlines andwill not be disappointed.

AcknowledgementThis paper was funded under the Reciprocal AgreementGrant 666 of the Back-Scratching Initiative.

ReferencesHall Cassandra (2001) Personal comment to best friend, December 31, late at

night after several bottles of bubbly stuff.Hall Cassandra (2002a) ‘A time whose idea has come’, in T. McEwan. (ed)

Interfaces, vol 52.Hall Cassandra (2002b) ‘Some thoughts on academics and what they do’, in

Proceedings of Proceedings held at The London Northbank University ofNorthbank, in Northbank, London, (That’s London UK, where all the otherLondon UK universities are but in the north part, i.e. opposite the southpart), NUNN Press, stuck in press.

Hall Cassandra (2002c) ‘Academics – you can’t live with them and you can’tlive without them’, in Hall C. (ed.), The only person to read this is RusselWinder when it’s being checked, vol XI 2, 345(2),(7) pp 112234–5.

Cassandra Hall

Some people have asked how my paper:Memorable yet Invisible – a timewhose idea has come did in the reviewprocess. One of the reviewers has agreedthat his review can be made public, to helpnew reviewers get some idea of the sort ofthing your British HIC communityexpects. It should reassure those of youworried about the decline in standards thatstandards are as high as they ever were.

Please provide a short summary ofthe paper.

What do you mean by short? Do youmean length by short? Or curt byshort? Or caught short? It’s no goodjust writing down any old questions; aconference is only as good as itsreviewers, which means it’s only asgood as its review questions. Whothought these up? Did you try them

out? I assume you refer to length butyou don’t say how long short is. Thelong and the short of it is, how can Iwrite a short summary if I don’t knowhow long the summary is meant to bein the first place?

Does the paper present an ideasuitable for the HIC 2002 audience?

It depends on your definition ofsuitable. If what is meant here issuitable according to Vikram Seth’sdefinition of suitable (1993) then no,it isn’t suitable. However, if you meanis it possible to accept it becausesubmissions are down this year thenyes. The paper is no worse than anyother paper I’ve seen recently thoughwhat conferences are coming to Idread to think. I remember saying toS… (name removed for purposes ofanonymity) only ten years ago that

conference papers were definitely onthe decline and I note to my disgustthat the decline continues to beincipient.

Anyway, how do I know who’s going tobe there? You should know that.That’s what a committee’s for. If thecommittee doesn’t know what it’sdoing what’s it doing being a commit-tee?

Does the paper adequately build onand refer to previous work?

No, no, no. No work has been done sohow can it build on anything? Whothinks of these daft questions in anycase and have you tried entering youranswers into this web page? I’m tryingto send this from home. My wifewants to phone her sister and I’mstuck here having to answer irrelevant

“They’ve given me a numberSo they won’t know it’s me...”

Cassandra Hall


Does the paper include evidence forany statements/conclusions that itcontains?

Read it yourself. I have dinner to goto in five minutes and have betterthings to do than to do your work foryou. Call yourself a committee! WhenI was on a committee we read thepapers. All the way through. Wedidn’t have loads of people giving upunpaid time to do our work for us.

Has the paper been effectivelyanonymised?

What you mean is ‘Has the paper beenanonymised effectively.’

There were references to people whocould be identified but I couldn’tfigure out what minx had written this.I tried putting some of it throughGoogle but found nothing. Eventually Iphoned old Bob Pound up at theresearch grant centre and he told methat the RAG 666 grant went toCassandra Hall at the Invisible Univer-sity. Good looking article but a bitthin. If we’re going to have a womanat conference then it ought to havemore substance, some meat on it as itwere. In any case it’s too late to startworrying about whether or not it wasanonymous after you’ve sent it! Youshould have checked that first. That’snot just rearranging deck chairs onthe Titanic but making a seating planas well.

Please indicate an overall score forthis paper (Grades 3—6 indicatepossible acceptance)

1, only suitable for the planet Zog.

I don’t like these figures. She onlyquestioned 5,000 academics and someof them were foreign. Who were they?No one asked me. How do we knowthey were real academics from realuniversities and not one of those newfangled places with a long fancy nameand commas. Universities in my daywere named after cities. None of thisRobert The Bruce University,Drumnichie, nonsense. No wonderthey have to resort to commas. Realuniversities don’t have commas. Don’tneed them. Everyone knows that theUniversity of Cardiff must be inCardiff. If it was in Glasgow it’d becalled the University of Glasgow.

Please indicate how certain you areabout this score: confident, verycertain, certain, sure, not sure,sorry what was the question?

For goodness sake of course I’m

certain. I wouldn’t be doing reviews ifI wasn’t certain. I’ve been in Comput-ing 60 years. I invented the subject.Of course I know what should be atconference. What are you doingasking people to review who aren’tcertain? A reviewer has to be certain.That’s like expecting a circle to beround. Of course it’s round. If itwasn’t round it wouldn’t be a circle.

In any case, those certainties are inthe wrong order. Certain should comefirst, not confident. Certain is morecertain than confident. And it’s acertainty, an absolute. You can’t havea certain that’s not totally certain.You’re either certain or you aren’t.You can’t be a bit certain.

Comments to the committee

The wine at the last conferencedinner wasn’t up to scratch. I’ve toldyou before. If you’re going to servewine then serve wine. Don’t servesome awful slop you’ve got cheap at asupermarket. A good claret is allthat’s needed with roast beef. Notthat the roast beef was roast beef.And what’s this about no Conferencedinner? Never did trust a man withpigtails. Get that C (name deleted foranonymity) on your committee. Heknows a good wine. Saw him downingit on the cover of an old Interfaces.Catch him drinking beer. Bet hedoesn’t run. Academics aren’t meantto run. They’re meant to think.Whoever saw a thin, fit academic?Contradiction in terms. They have tobe unfit and portly. All that sittingabout thinking. It’s obvious.

Send me a copy of this, by the way.It’s not clear to me how I can keep acopy. Send it to my home. Don’t mailit as an attachment as it causes mymachine to crash and I don’t havetime to rebuild a ZX81 every timesomeone wants to send me a docu-ment. And keep it short. I’m payingthe phone bills here! And they cost afortune. I tell you.

Comments to the author(s)

What are you doing next Sunday?

questions. You assume that everyonehas a computer and a telephone line.Some of us don’t. I’ve had to go togreat lengths to make this possibleand it’s taken some time I can tellyou. You try getting a stable connec-tion with a ZX81, two empty beancans and a length of string. It isn’teasy.

Does the paper make sufficientreference to previous work?

How can it refer to previous work ifwork has not been previously done?

Is the idea/work presented original?

Again, it depends on your definition oforiginal. If you mean has this paperbeen written before then it hasn’t. Ifit had been written before we’d haveheard it and I wouldn’t be wasting mytime here.

Is the paper sufficiently referenced?

It’s OK. Why it hasn’t referred to mywork of 1953, 1955, 1959, 1962, 1976,1981, 1982, 1982, I don’t know. Isuggest the author reads my work on‘Imperceptible changes in electricitysupply and their absolute null effecton anything at all’ and revises thispaper in the light of that. It will meanbuying my book.

Is the paper presentation (organisa-tion & writing style) of good quality?

There aren’t enough brackets. Thereshould be at least 50 pairs of bracketsin a paper this size. I don’t know whatauthors are coming to the way theyuse dashes instead of brackets. Giveme those curvy, wiggly or straightbrackets any day of the week.

I don’t like the colour of the graphson page 2. That graph would actuallybe better as a Venn diagram (Venn1886). Has the author thought aboutVenn diagrams? Good sort old Venn.Bit dead now.

The questions here aren’t wellstructured. Watch those adverbs.Adverbs should come after the verb.They add to it. They can’t add tosomething that hasn’t arrived yet. Ifthey were meant to come beforethey’d be called something else.

As for format. How should I know? It’snot the job of a reviewer to wonderabout layout. I’m here to look atacademic content. If you wantcomments about layout then ask aprinter.


As a usability specialist I found the usability advice wellbalanced with practical tips that those of us on ‘the frontlines’ have picked up through experience. This is a good basicguide to user-centred design using Flash. It discusses thefundamental issues that need to be considered when design-ing usable systems: know what your users truly require fromthe system, design the system with these users’ requirementsin mind, then test the system with target users to ensure thatit is easy to learn, easy to use, easy to remember, effective,efficient, fit for purpose and consistent.

This book is geared towards Flash programmers/design-ers and gently introduces the concept of usability; what it is,why it’s necessary and how to begin coding Flash compo-nents that are ‘user-friendly’ and reusable. Easily digestibleconclusions reinforce the key points from each chapter andprovide a firm foundation to build on.

Skip Intro discusses the usability benefits of employingcertain Flash components such as gesture-driven scrolling,dynamic cursors, tabbed windows and hierarchical menus.Using design techniques such as scenarios and personas itthen provides usability guidelines on when these componentsshould be used and why. The actual code is also provided ina step-by-step manner, with guidance provided all along theway.

I would recommend this book as a good starting point forFlash programmers/designers who are keen to quickly startbuilding a library of usable components. The book offerssound, basic usability advice, despite the misspelling of JakobNielsen as ‘Neilsen’ and Bruce Tognazzini as ‘Brice’, whichreally says it all in terms of the depth of usability to whichthis book extends. However, dropping these components intoa Flash site will not provide a panacea for a poorly conceivedsite. A sound information architecture and good, appropriatecontent and features are essential building blocks of a usablewebsite, no matter what technology is used to implement it.

Steve Krug says he has ‘worked hard to keep this book short’.He has succeeded. At 195 pages it looks short and soundsshort and if I add that there are many pages of illustrationsand ample use of white space then maybe I begin to conveyjust how short. Unfortunately, sad obsessive that I am, I’mneither sad nor obsessive enough to count the words, thoughI was tempted to – so you’ll have to make do with myimpression. Take it from me, it’s short. I took it into a two

hour and 10 minute examination and finished it with time tospare and I was keeping a firm eye on the candidates at thesame time.

Krug’s book is concise. He has centred it very firmlyaround a simple but heartfelt message that the content ofwebsites should be kept to a minimum, they should beevaluated with a few users and usability isn’t expensive. It’s avery generous open-hearted book that leaves you feeling that,while you won’t be the next winner of the Website of the YearAward, you can design a reasonable site that will do the job.Added to this, Krug gives you the confidence to try.

It’s packed full of useful advice and tips. It has examplesof poor design and redesigns but Krug doesn’t use the bookto poke fun or name and shame. He’s too generous for thatand cheap laughs don’t seem to be something his generositywould allow. He makes an excellent and sympathetic teacherand I can imagine companies going to him for help, knowingthat they’ll receive it without a lecture and at the level theyneed and can afford.

Who should read it? It’s fine as a very introductory bookfor students aiming to build websites. Any student whoappears in my office wanting to build a site, and hasn’t comeacross me via Human Factors and HCI, will be pointed to thisbook. It might well prevent some of the over-fussy, over-cluttered builds I see too often. It will be valuable to those inbusiness too who have to design, build and evaluate a siteand aren’t too sure how to begin. This is a ‘can do’ book witha ‘can do’ attitude and I love it for that.

I have a feeling it could date pretty quickly as the ideasbecome just too obvious because the web is growing up soquickly. However, Krug doesn’t strike me as someone whowill mind (I’m not so sure about New Riders though). Hereally does convey a desire to make sites better and has nopersonal axe to grind and no huge ego to sell.

It may be rather too geared for the American market forsome stomachs but it’s a nice, friendly book and I waspleased with it. I will be recommending it to non-HCI web-building students. But I suspect for HCI experts it’ll be justtoo superficial and lacking in something to get your teethinto.

I have the usual gripe about references. I realise this is alonely furrow I plough but, like Macbeth, I fear there’s noturning back now so I’ll trudge wearily on, alone, shouting‘references please!’. There’s also the remarks about thingsAmerican which were also lost on me. I have no objections towriters using their own culture to explain things but please,guys and gals, explain the explanations to the rest of us.

Put some copies in the library. If you’re going on a shortjourney and don’t want to be taxed then take this as well. It isentertaining and fun. I’m left a bit puzzled though as to whythe gorgeous looking woman, whom he says is his wife,married the cartoon figure on the inside back cover. I canonly assume that Graves is right and lovely, gifted girlsmarry impossible men. But I knew that.

Book reviews

Skip IntroDuncan McAlester, Michelangelo CapraroNew Riders 2002pp 325; £34.99 (Amazon price £24.49)ISBN: 073571178X

Don’t Make Me ThinkSteve KrugNew Riders, 2000pp 195; £25.50ISBN 0-7897-2310-7

Arlene Kline, Usability SpecialistThe Usability [email protected]

Xristine FaulknerCISE, [email protected]


Don’t be put off by the blurb on the back cover which hasmore commas than you can shake a stick at. This is actuallyan interesting and readable book though I’m not sure it’sabout ‘everlasting truth’ which is how James Foley hasdescribed it. He obviously doesn’t read what I read or he’d bemore worried about what he means by truth in the first place.But that’s another book and another review and it isn’t myjob to quarrel with blurb writers.

This is a different slant on designing websites with anapproach that starts off well by explaining culture andcontext and then goes on to provide a short history of HCIwhich amused me no end. It’s amazing what a sprinkling ofwater and slightly different spelling can do to your view ofhistory. He then looks at scenarios. Though, actually, Badredoesn’t introduce scenarios as requirements gathering, that’swhat it turns out to be and this does introduce requirementsin a constructive way. He goes on to discuss users and howthey view the web. He manages to combine seamlessly theuser’s psychology with what that must mean in terms ofdesign. This is very nicely done and will serve as a reinforce-ment to students who are studying human informationprocessing as part of a human factors course. And this is atext aimed at students rather than the business world thoughI’m certain business would find this interesting and useful. Ithas more by way of explanation than either of the Nielsentexts or the Krug Don’t Make Me Think. It’s therefore a book Iwould be more than happy to have my students read.

Badre has a chapter on older adults as well which Ienjoyed a great deal. There is some excellent and well-supported material there and those of you who, like me, havehad experience of watching and listening to older adultsusing the web will be pleased to see this area handled so well.There’s also a chapter on web genre which is nice to see andanother on mobile devices. Badre finishes by placing the webin its cultural context and then giving a chapter over tousability evaluation. There’s an extensive bibliography whichcontains books and papers that students should be able to gethold of fairly readily. It is a very broad book and will makean excellent introductory text for students, and which offers awealth of design principles and lists, all carefully sourcedand referenced and explained in the same no-nonsense andreadable style that characterises it.

The covers for web books become more esoteric by thesecond. I blame Fintan Culwin and his daft if very strikingcovers for his Java books. This one shows a potter shaping apot. I can’t see the connection at all and it reminded me ofsomething about wallowing in the potsherds, which isn’t aconnection I think the author wanted me to make but I havean overly esoteric mentality and a vivid imagination.

Order several copies for the library and buy one yourself.It’s not a taxing read. You can get nicely wound up over thehistory if you aren’t American but it’s a carefully researchedand carefully referenced book. Above and beyond all that ittalks to the reader in a lively and entertaining way and

Shaping Web UsabilityAlbert N. BadreAddison Wesley 2002pp 276; £30.99ISBN 0-201-72993-8

explains things in terms that can be easily understoodwithout being condescending. Apart from the history of HCI,which is US-centric, the rest of the book is remarkably eclectic.

It’s certainly easily worth the rather odd £30-99 AddisonWesley want for it and it’s the kind of book I wish mystudents would read because it does show them how toreference and explain sources. Best of all, the design princi-ples are always explained and illustrated which is a nicechange from Nielsen’s somewhat ‘do as I say’ attitude. I likedseeing the user’s psychology used and explained instead ofbeing told I should design like this with no real reasonsgiven.

I’ve been asked to mention that http://www.it-minds.com/contains descriptions of many other IT books with a reviewof this one in case you don’t trust me and mine or want to seea less idiosyncratic view of the world.


Handheld UsabilityScott WeissWiley, 2002ISBN 0 470 84446 9pp 271£ 29.95

I have a theory that dogs ensure authors write good booksand Midge has certainly done that job for Scott Weiss in hisHandheld Usability. This is a book that unashamedlyattempts to plug a gap in the market and, while the authoracknowledges that there are plenty of books about webdesign or designing for the desktop, so far designing handheld devices is virgin territory. Weiss says that he assumesnothing and explains everything, so this is a book thatdoesn’t require you to be an HCI expert before you canembark on designing usability for handhelds. Weiss attemptshere to express the position just now. He says he hascaptured a ‘moment in time’ and he realises that technologyis moving so quickly he can do no more than to deal with thepresent and hope the future looks after itself. It probably will.

It’s a nice little book. The cover is smart, black backgroundwith orange line drawings of handhelds. The orange is usedfor the titles and headings throughout the book giving it a co-ordinated, clean, professional look. White space is used welland the illustrations and diagrams are excellent. The textechoes the professional feel. It is a no-nonsense, factual andsuccinct account of handhelds and their own peculiar needfor usability. Weiss explains everything. Nothing is below orabove him. You want a definition of surf – he has it. Youaren’t too sure what ‘phones’, ‘flips’ and ‘communicators’are – he tells you. I doubt anyone could emerge from thisbook with a question they needed to ask about handhelds.And all of it is done matter-of-factly. He doesn’t talk down tothe audience. It is a peculiarly factual approach and it workswell. There’s a sense of an enthusiastic, practical author whowants to persuade designers to provide us all with handheldswe will want to use. And yes, he is critical. I loved hiscomment that ‘Writing on the tiny screen [of a handheld] is

http://www.it-minds.com/


far less satisfying than writing on paper…’. Here is someone Itrust.

The book examines the differences between handheldsand desktops, and catalogues and explains the various typesof handheld devices and their uses. There are chapters on thedesign process and design practice as both apply tohandhelds. Weiss tackles the thorny problem of prototypingand finishes up with a very succinct and useful chapter aboutwhat I would call usability evaluation but what he callsusability testing (but I’m soon going to give up on thisargument because I think it’s lost!). There are some niceappendices – I particularly liked the history chapter and, yes,it dates back further than, I bet, most of you will imagine.

There’s an extensive glossary and a bibliography, althoughthe book is not heavily referenced, which reinforces the ideathat this is a practical book designed for doers rather thanthinkers.

My students are currently obsessed with handhelds. Ithink Weiss’s book will answer all their questions and getthem to think about how and what they might design. This isa nice addition to the usability field. Academics should makesure there’s one in the library and I suspect that practitionerswill enjoy this timely, no frills book.

Incidentally, it really is just hot off the press. My signedcopy arrived special delivery via Wiley’s wonderful KarenMosman and the launch party at the BM which, sadly, I wasunable to attend. Thank you, Scott… that looks like asignature that will sit well on what deserves to be a popularbook.

The planning process for the Ergonomics Society of Australia(ESA) and the Computer Human Interaction Special InterestGroup (CHISIG) Conference is now well underway. WorkSafeVictoria has confirmed their involvement in the Conference as thePrincipal Sponsor. The Conference has also attracted a numberof other key industry sponsors and exhibitors.

The Conference, which will be held in Melbourne from 25th–27thNovember 2002, has three high profile keynote speakersconfirmed:

Professor Chris Johnson, currently Professor ofComputing Science at Glasgow University and headof a multi-disciplinary research team that focuses onthe failure in the operation, systems engineering,management and regulation of complex applica-tions.

Dr Michael Patkin, well published on so-calledRepetition Strain Injury and currently studyingexpertise in surgery, using task analysis to identifyheuristics and develop new heuristics for the comingera of hybrid robotic surgery.

Professor Bill Green, a design specialist who runshis own design business, was involved in setting upthe Industrial Design course at the University ofCanberra, and has lectured and published exten-sively on Ergonomics and Design).

Sessions and activities parallel to the formal conference program,will focus on OH&S issues of importance to Victorian industry andWorkSafe Victoria. These include Hazardous Facilities, PlantSafety and Manual Handling legislation administered byWorkSafe Victoria.

Anyone wishing to attend the conference or exhibit should seethe website at www.iceaustralia.com/HF2002 or contact theConference Organisers:

International Conferences & Events (ICE) Aust. P/L178 Princes Highway, Sylvania, Sydney NSW 2224

Telephone: +61 (2) 9544 9134Facsimile: +61 (2) 9522 4447Email: [email protected]

Media Contact: Sara Hill (02) 9544 9134

New British HCI Group membership benefit

discounted subscriptions toBehaviour and Information Technology

BHCIG member rates:

£84 print only£94 print and electronic only

in force from 2002 to 2005see http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/tf/0144929X.html

All member subscriptions and customer enquiries should bedirected to:

Ms Jacqueline TearleJournal Customer Services [Society Subscriptions]Taylor & FrancisRankine RoadBasingstoke RG24 [email protected]

Existing benefits (see also inside back cover)• 30% off copies of the conference proceedings through

Springer Verlag• £50 for a volume of Interacting with Computers• 30% off the Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction (2nd

Ed.) (Eds.) Martin G. Helander, Thomas Landauer andPrasad V. Prabhu, and numerous other HCI books (contactAnna Ypma <[email protected]> for details)


Design for the Whole PersonHuman Factors HF2002 Conference

A joint conference of the Ergonomics Society of Australia (ESA)and the Computer Human Interaction Special Interest Group

(CHISIG’s OZCHI Conference)

Melbourne, Australia, 25th–27th November 2002

Home Oriented Informatics and Telematics – HOIT2003April 6-8 2003, Irvine, California

abstracts Sept 15, 2002; completed papers Dec 31, 2002http://www.crito.uci.edu/noah/HOIT2003/

The Seventh International Conferenceon Intelligent User Interfaces – IUI 2003

January 12-15, 2003, Miami Beach, Florida, USAtitles and abstracts Sept 30, 2002; final submissions Oct 4, 2002

http://www.iuiconf.org

Calls for Papers

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/tf/0144929X.html

http://www.crito.uci.edu/noah/HOIT2003/

http://www.iuiconf.org

www.iceaustralia.com/HF2002


Stefano LevialdiProfile

Stefano Levialdi, born in Rome in 1936,graduated as a Telecommunications Engineer,in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1959. Until 1984,he worked on parallel processing of digitalimages, then changed to Visual Languagesand Interfaces with applications to distancelearning. In 1981 he was awarded the Chair ofComputer Science (Bari University) and in1983 moved to the University of Rome, ‘LaSapienza’, where in 1989 he started theComputer Science Curriculum. He nowteaches Human–Computer Interaction.

In 1990, Stefano founded the Journal of Visual Languages and Computing(Academic Press), of which he is now Co-Editor, as well as Associate Editor offive international journals. He has edited or co-edited more than 20 books onimage processing. He speaks fluent English, Spanish, Italian and French.

Stefano is widely published – over 210 papers in international journals, writtenwith over 140 different co-authors. He has been the Program Chair of the ACMseries on Advanced Visual Interfaces 1992, up to AVI 2002 (Trento, Italy).He is a Fellow of the International Association for Pattern Recognition (1994),became an IEEE Fellow in 1988 and an IEEE Life Fellow in 2002; he ispresently the Director of the Pictorial Computing Laboratory.

What is your idea of happiness?Being affectively balanced

What is your greatest fear?To suffer pain

With which historical figure do you most identify?In science, with Feynman

Which living person do you most admire?Nelson Mandela

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?To be shy in the wrong circumstances

What is the trait you most deplore in others?To show off

What vehicles do you own?A motorcycle and a car

What is your greatest extravagance?To dance

What makes you feel most depressed?To be sick

What objects do you always carry with you?Glasses, watch, keys, wallet

What do you most dislike about your appearance?My nose

What is your most unappealing habit?To feel sleepy in the evenings

What is your favourite smell?Lemon

What is your favourite word?

High level quality

What is your favourite building?Eiffel Tower

What is your favourite journey?To Paris

What or who is the greatest love of your life?My first girlfriend

Which living person do you most despise?Le Pen

On what occasions do you lie?To avoid someone suffering

Which words or phrases do you over-use?Words like: fine, OK, grand

What is your greatest regret?Not to have chosen another career...

When and where were you happiest?When I was at the University as a student

How do you relax?By doing sport, sailing...

What single thing would improve the quality of yourlife?To have 48-hour days

Which talent would you most like to have?A musical talent

What would your motto be?To dare

What keeps you awake at night?Worries about my family, about their health, etc.

How would you like to die?With a heart stroke

How would you like to be remembered?As a nice guy

I always think of Stefano as being one of thegrandfathers of HCI in Italy. So many of thecurrent leaders of HCI research andteaching cut their academic teeth workingwith Stefano and in the Pictorial ComputingLaboratory.

The AVI conference series, one of Stefano’s‘children’, must be one of the best venues inHCI – not only high quality papers, butoffering a social programme as only theItalians can!

Alan DixProfile commissioning [email protected]

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HCI Executive contact listConference planningChris RoastSheffield Hallam UniversityTel: +44(0) 114 225 5555

(switchboard)Fax: +44(0) 114 225 3161Email: [email protected]

IHM-HCI 2001 Conference liaisonPhil GrayUniversity of GlasgowTel: +44(0) 141 330 4933Fax: +44(0) 141 330 4913Email: [email protected]

HCI2002 ChairFintan CulwinSouth Bank UniversityTel: +44(0) 20 7815 7434Fax: +44(0) 20 7815 7499Email: [email protected]

SIGCHI liaisonAndrew MonkUniversity of YorkTel: +44(0) 1904 433148Fax: +44(0) 1904 433181Email: [email protected]

Indian liaisonAndy SmithUniversity of LutonTel: +44(0) 1582 743716Fax: +44(0) 1582 489212Email: [email protected]

HCI Accreditation SchemeJonathan EarthyLloyd’s Register Industry DivisionTel: +44(0) 20 8681 4040Fax: +44(0) 20 8681 6814Email: [email protected]

BCS liaisonAlistair KilgourTel: +44(0) 845 458 2928 (local rate)Mobile: +44(0) 779 926 3663Fax: +44(0) 870 130 4825Email: [email protected]

HCI educationXristine FaulknerSouth Bank UniversityTel: +44(0) 20 7815 7474Email: [email protected]

Practitioner representativesDave ClarkeVisualize Software LtdTel: +44(0) 7710 481863Fax/voicemail: +44(0) 1543 270409Email: [email protected]

Alan Dixvfridge limited and aQtive limitedTel: +44(0) 7887 743 446Fax: +44(0) 1539 730 415Email: [email protected]

Ross PhilipNapier UniversityTel: +44(0) 131 348 3000Mobile: +44(0) 7950 025469Email: [email protected]

Nick Bryan-KinnsDarestepTel: +44 (0) 870 238 2150Fax: +44(0) 207 297 3774Email: [email protected]

Catriona CampbellThe Usability CompanyTel: +44 (0) 207 843 6702Fax: +44 (0) 207 843 6701Mobile: +44 (0) 7970 025126Email: [email protected]

Student representativesRichard BoardmanImperial CollegeTel: +44(0) 20 7589 5111 x56210Fax: +44(0) 20 7581 4419Email: [email protected]

Priscilla ChuengUniversity of HuddersfieldTel: +44(0) 1484 473048Email: [email protected]

Christian GreiffenhagenOxford UniversityTel: +44(0) 1865 273 838Fax: +44(0) 1865 273839Email:[email protected]

EX OFFICIO ROLESInteracting with Computers editorDianne MurrayTel: +44(0) 208 943 3784Fax: +44(0) 208 943 3377Mobile: +44(0) 7960 426581Email: [email protected]

Usability News EditorAnn LightTel: +44(0) 7947 072300Fax: +44(0) 20 8241 5677Email: [email protected]

BCS CONTACTSSue Tueton (Membership) [email protected]+44(0) 1793 417416Andrew Wilkes (Committees)[email protected], +44(0) 1793 417471Stephen Blanchard (Specialist groups)Bob Hill (Printing) +44(0) 1793 417486

The British Computer Society1 Sanford StreetSwindon SN1 1HJTel: +44(0) 1793 417417Fax: +44(0) 1793 480270Email: [email protected]

ChairGilbert CocktonUniversity of SunderlandTel: +44(0) 191 515 3394Fax: +44(0) 191 515 2781Email: [email protected]

Secretary & membershipPeter WildUniversity of BathTel: +44(0) 1225 323246Fax: +44(0) 1225 826492Email: [email protected]

TreasurerIan BenestUniversity of YorkTel: +44(0) 1904 432736Fax: +44(0) 1904 432767Email: [email protected]

Meetings officersColin VenterUniversity of ManchesterTel: +44(0) 161 275 6046Fax: +44(0) 161 275 6071Mobile: +44(0) 7803 205797Email: [email protected]

Anxo Cereijo RoibásUniversity of BrightonTel: +44(0) 1273 64 2458Fax: +44(0) 1273 64 2405Web: www.it.brighton.ac.uk

CompetencesJanet FinlayLeeds Metropolitan UniversityEmail: [email protected]

HCI Web resourcesEamonn O’NeillUniversity of BathTel: +44(0) 1225 323216Fax: +44(0) 1225 826492Email: [email protected]

Press OfficerNico MacdonaldDesign AgendaTel: +44(0) 7973 377897Fax: +44(0) 7976 650257Email: [email protected]

HCI email news moderatorAdrian G. WilliamsonGraham Technology PlcTel: +44(0) 141 533 4000Email: [email protected]

InterfacesTom McEwanNapier UniversityTel: +44(0) 131 455 2793Fax: +44(0) 131 455 4552Email: [email protected]

Interfaces is published quarterly by the British HCI Group. © 2002 The British HCI Group (unless indicated otherwise). The opinions expressed represent thepersonal views of the authors, and are not the official views of their companies, nor of the British HCI Group, unless specifically stated.

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