Here is the basic concept:

The semantic mediawiki GPS extension enables a user to connect a Garmin GPS device via USB and easily upload GPS tracks as well as associate these tracks to individual log entries via a unique trail identifier. It will later also provide additional GPS track services.

Functional capabilities are:

• Upload Garmin GPS tracks via USB using the Garmin Communicator Plugin
• Store GPS tracks to a database
• Semantically tag track with handler, K9, and trail identifiers
• Enable user to manipulate and tag multiple tracks in a single session
• Provide for map preview of tracks
• Enable the user to easily associate one or more GPS tracks with individual log entries
• Automatically generate a trail (tracklayer or subject) log

It would be nice to say that I’d have this as a turnkey installable mediawiki extension by the end of the semester, but I really doubt it. Time is short!

I’ve installed MediaWiki 1.2 with a number of extensions such as Semantic MediaWiki, GoogleMaps, Semantic Forms, GoogleCharts, Semantic Calendar, etc. Sadly, I spent hours and hours trying to get the Halo Extension working… without success.

The plan is to customize the K9 Log Project to serve as a training / mission log for K9 GPS tracks and activities. I’ll probably also publish periodic updates on my K9 SAR Technology Blog.

Concept description and documentation coming… but you can always hop on over to the wiki where up-to-the-minute coverage is happening.

Concept:

The Garmin Astro is a GPS-enabled dog tracking system that enables a user with an Astro handset to view the position and movement of up to ten dogs simultaneously. Position updates occur approximately every five seconds.

There is currently no software product for viewing Astro tracks on a mapping application in realtime. However, Garmin supplies a plugin, the Garmin Communicator plugin, that allows web clients to communicate with a Garmin GPS and exchange data with that GPS.

This web application will poll a Garmin Astro handset, push track data into a database, and generate a KML network link for Google Earth. It is envisioned to work best on a single client laptop with a local webserver so that the user does not need an internet connection in the field. The generated KML network link will enable a user to see Astro collar positions on Google Earth in near realtime.

Why the heck is a computational linguist building a dog toy? See my dog blog…

1. A brief, concise written statement of project concept and scope. (Concept Document)
2. A static HTML prototype to visualize presentation and user task flow. (Static Wireframe)
3. A statement of required data entities and their attributes to communicate persistence. (Data Model)
4. A concise description of program sequences to communicate processing. (Sequence Diagram)
5. Code Elements. (Tarball of unit tests)

All of these things get packaged up into a design document and software deliverable due at the end of the course. I like it! Presumably, we have a few exercises to do, as well, but he hasn’t told us what they are yet.

Here is our presentation, though I have not recorded the voice track. A few notes are attached, however. Our title: How CoffeeSleuth lost it’s GUI. Attached here is an image depicting the basic interaction design presented. The rest of the presentation really covers the why and how of the design.

Here are some notes that I handed out to the class during the presentation.

Goog-411 Transcript (click to listen)

Prompt: What city and state
User: Clarksburg, Maryland
Prompt: What business name or category?
User: coffee
Prompt: Searching
Prompt:
Top eight results
Number 1 Myorga Coffee on Stringtown Road
To select number one, you cna press one or say number one
Number 2 Starbucks on Frederick Road, Germantown
Number 3 Starbucks on Frederick Road, Germantown
Number 4 Starbucks Coffee on Germantown Road, Germantown
To start a new search, say start over anytime
Number 5 Starbucks on Frederick Road, Germantown
Number 6 Dunkin Donuts on Wisteria Drive, Germantown
Number 7 Mayorga Coffee on Wisteria Drive, Germantown
Number 8, Aqui Brazilian Coffee on Wisteria Drive, Germantown
Top of the list
User:
Number 1 -
Prompt: Number 8, Aqui Brazilian Coffee on Wisteria Drive, Germantown
Prompt: I’ll connect you or say details or go back
User: Text message (able to do this by reading instructions on website)
Prompt: Hold on, Sending text message
Prompt: Hang on and I’ll connect you, or say go back.

Text Message

Tellme Voice Transcript (click to listen)

Prompt: Main menu
Prompt: business search, ring tones, stock quotes, news center, sports, entertainment, travel, and popular shortcuts
User: business search
Prompt: hmmm. I didn’t get that. Please say one of our categories or say main menu
Prompt: business search
Prompt: I’m sorry, I still didn’t get that. To hear all the categories we have, say main menu
User: business search
Prompt: I’m sorry. I’m having trouble understanding. You can also punch the first three letters of one of our categories on the telephone keypad, for instance — okay, business search then.
User: Prompt: city and state please
User: clarksburg, maryland
Prompt: okay. what business, or type of business are you looking for?
User: coffee
Prompt: To narrow your search, you can say by intersection or you can say I don’t know
Prompt: Alright. When you hear the one you want, just say the number.
Prompt:
1) Mayorga coffee
2) Starbucks, in multiple cities - (There are two. Do you want the __ or the __)
3) Music Cafe, in Damascus
Prompt: You can say repeat, tell me more choices, or new search
Prompt: Sorry I didn’t hear you.
User: Tell me more choices.
Prompt: More choices
Prompt:
4) Dunkin Donuts in multiple cities
5) HUUI Brazilian Coffee, in Germantown
User: 5
Prompt: Okay, HUUI Brazilian Coffee at the 12615 Wisteria Drive Germantown Square
Prompt: The number is 301-540-3395. I’ll text you that info now.
Prompt: You can say share this listing, you can also say repeat the info or start over.


Of course, the user interaction is not yet complete. Users can still go from a link in a text message to map. But I don’t focus on the interaction with the map GUI.

Because I’m a computational linguist by prior education and experience, I decided that we should design an application that allows for fleximodal interaction — that is, an interaction design that allows for users to flexibly switch between modes of conversation (depending on where the user is in the conversational task). The two modes are SMS text and speech. With no further fanfare, here is an abstract and link to the paper. Also, a simple automata that captures the essence of the concept.

Please cite this paper, if you reference material from it.

Abstract

Theories of conversation apply very well in this era of short messages and rapid exchange on mobile devices. In particular, conversational models for information-seeking dialogues have advanced near to the point of commercialization (Larsson and Villing 2007). Such models apply well to both speech and text messaging interaction on cellphones. By allowing the user to interact in short messages using whichever channel is most efficient at that point in the interaction, may provide a means for both improving the efficiency of search and relevance of search results — as well as improving the experience of search on cellphones.

In designing a novel fleximodal cellphone interaction, I studied both Goog411 and Tellme.com voice interactive systems. Here are my conclusions. If they make no sense, read the paper! I’ll follow-up with sample transcripts in my next post.

Despite limitations of VoiceXML, text messaging formats, and the availability of Location-Based Services (LBS), it is possible to make fairly significant improvements to both the efficiency of location search as well as the relevance of search returns. Below are a number of specific observations made by closely examining Tellme and Google voice and SMS location search.

• Avoid presuming that a user’s search criteria is based solely on location. Both Tellme and GOOG-411 voice systems appear to make this presumption. Users may need review results in spatial or social contexts before requesting directions to one or another.
• Extend conversational interaction by using dialogue context such that users can incrementally filter search results and pursue multiple search alternatives without losing the context of the broader search. There is a hint of this in both the SMS systems provided by Tellme and Google. However, once a user selects a particular location, the query is considered complete. There is no way for the user to back up to his original goal. Given limitations of VoiceXML, it is possible this may prove to be serious technical challenge. This should, however, be quite achievable in SMS interaction
• Allow for semantic accommodation and thus enable a highly efficient text search capability. This should include resolving pronominal reference as well as allowing for the user to add additional information that provides answers to yet unanswered questions.
• Make few assumptions about whether a user should use text or voice at any point during an interaction. The interaction should feel seamless and the user choose the mode depending on his cognitive state and the task at hand. The user should not feel as if interaction styles or task plans have changed.
• Improve the relevance of search by incorporating user-contributed data (e.g., ratings, comments, photos) and allowing users to search and sort along these criteria.
• Use GPS location data dynamically during conversational interaction, instead of passing a user off to a separate GPS mapping service. Such information can be used in a variety of ways. For example, to recognize when a user has reached a destination. For now, naive users are averse to installing custom software and this is not necessarily the best option.
• There is much potential in increasing social services by enabling seamless sharing of location with friends by auto SMS updates and a shared map.
• Provide for an online chat recommender system. If a user is in a new city, he may wish to consult with locals. It may be useful to include a web chat capability to speak with other users more directly. It may also be useful to mine web chat conversation for messages pertaining to a particular query response.
• Work with other vendors and standards bodies to address limitations of VoiceXML and SMS technologies.
• Encourage the development and use of a threaded conversation management tool for both SMS and voice messages. Currently, cellphone providers see these two modalities as separate and it’s not possible to integrate the two in a single log.
• Finally, though this was not discussed above, to ensure that the interaction style and strategies are consistent across modalities, generating both the VoiceXML and SMS dialogue recipes from a single source may be valuable to ensuring user experience, dialogue design, and capabilities development are locked in step.

My report framed in the previous post draws many of its conclusions on the basis of judgments applied to the 10-point framework for analysis detailed in this paper.

This framework describes both general heuristics and also design patterns embodied by Web 2.0 applications (O’Reilly 2005, Hinchcliffe 2006; numbered bullets 1-7 below). Though usability professionals have speculated on what defines success for Web 2.0 applications, some of the most popular sites do very poorly when judged by traditional usability metrics (Alexandra and Dix, 2007). This runs counter to expectation. If the user interfaces are riddled with problems, why are theses sites still so successful? Traditional usability heuristics do not have explanatory power nor are they even reliable indicators for user satisfaction in many instances. Thus, this paper presents a new framework for analysis that takes into account properties shared by successful Web 2.0 applications.

Usability heuristics are general “rules-of-thumb” guidelines useful for explaining problems in an interface while design patterns explicitly focus on context and tell the designer when, how and why the solution can be applied. Hence, the patterns and heuristics used in this assessment structure evaluation in terms of “known good traits” for well-designed Web 2.0 applications and mash-ups (Preston 2007). In particular, this analysis was posed to support issues concerning map-based interaction. Specific criteria for analysis are included in Table 1. This framework incorporates what Tim O’Reilly (2005) calls the seven core “competencies” of Web 2.0 applications (five of the above come directly from Hincliffe 2006). But as Hincliffe remarks, “Web 2.0 is really a set of related forces, design patterns, and business models that are increasingly emerging onto the world stage. And these elements frequently defy detailed technical quantification.”

Bullet point 8 draws on the notion that aesthetics matter. “If you cannot attract a user to stay on a website, it doesn’t matter how well designed operational usability may be” (Sutcliffe 2002, Norman 2004). Interactive sites generate affective responses and are judged in terms of their engagement and appeal. The effects of aesthetics are dependent on the target audience, the domain and the application type. This assessment only includes a very limited perspective of aesthetics.

Additional, related heuristics for exploration / navigation and transactions (bullet points 9 and 10) have been incorporated into the framework. Most of these are traceable back to traditional usability metrics such as Nielsen 1994. The 10-point framework is described below:

1. Global platform (service, data, devices) - Global means end-to-end connectivity from device to machine to net. The focus is on services with cost-effective scalability.

2. Ease of data consumption, access and remix - In particular, we are concerned with user ownership of data. Users demand control over their data and value the ability to easily consume it, access it and mix it with other data. This is of great importance given the challenges of synchronizing data across home and work machines and maintaining copies of data across multiple devices.

3. Continuous and seamless updates - Gone are the days of “monolithic” releases. Users are realtime testers and your services can be instrumented to know how these users are interacting with the system. Changes and improvements are rolled out on a continual basis.

4. Customer self-service - ”Narrow niches make up the bulk of internet’s the possible applications. Therefore: Leverage customer-self service and algorithmic data management to reach out to the entire web, to the edges and not just the center, to the long tail and not just the head.” (O’Reilly 2005)

5. Richly interactive user interface - Ajax and Flash bring interaction capabilities to the web that rival those on the desktop. Some of the more important usability design patterns in this space have to do with making asynchronous server calls so that the user does not have to wait for http transactions (e.g., screen adjacent Google Map tiles load in the background). There are many useful and good design patterns listed at the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library.

6. Architecture of participation that encourages user contribution - Users add value by adding their data to that provided by the service-provider. By aggregating “user data as a side-effect of their use of the application”, network effects ensue. (O’Reilly 2005)

7. Trusted host - The largest concern by people who use hosted services is, “can I trust this host”? Taken explicitly, the question can mean a variety of things, “Is it my data or does it belong to the host? Is my data safe? Will it be there tomorrow? Will it be transformed or altered?”. Trust also refers to the ability of the user to trust the host as a source of information.

8. Attractiveness - Going beyond Web 2.0 competencies, attractiveness refers to aesthetics, minimalism, branding and message.

9. Exploration / Navigation - The ability for a user to be able to find information easily and navigate through a task space can define success or failure for an application.

10. Transactions - Transactions refer to the set of issues regarding communication between a machine interface and human. Thus, understanding, error diagnosis, and error repair apply.

While heuristics are very good at finding problems in the user interface and design patterns for making an impact with fairly little effort and time, additional techniques are needed lend assistance and insight into problems concerning task execution, and also assist with application re-design (Gray 1995, Ling and Solvendy 2005). So a third tool utilized in this study is an informal task analysis for the purpose of eliciting information about deeper structural and task-oriented problems as well as providing a useful framework for the re-design.

Alexandra, P. and A. Dix. 2007. Usability - not as we know it!. Proceedings of HCI 2007. The 21st British HCI Group Annual Conference, 3-7 September 2007, University of Lancaster, UK.

Gray, W. 1995. Discount or Disservice? Discount Usability Analysis–Evaluation at a bargain price or simply damaged merchandise? ACM CHI 1995 Mosaic of Creativity, May 7-11.

Hinchcliffe, D. 2006. The state of Web 2.0. Social Computing Magazine, April 2. .

Ling, C., and G. Salvendy. 2005. Extension of heuristic evaluation method: a review and reappraisal. Ergonomia IJE&HF, Vol. 27(3): 179–197.

Nielsen, J. 1994. Enhancing the explanatory power of usability heuristics. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Celebrating interdependence (Boston, Massachusetts, United States, April 24 - 28, 1994). B. Adelson, S. Dumais, and J. Olson, Eds. CHI ‘94. ACM Press. New York, NY: 152-158.

Norman, D. 2004. Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books.

O’Reilly, T. 2005. What is Web 2.0?. O’Reilly.com. .

Preston, S. 2007. Deep into the AJAX user experience. Ajax World Magazine, 29 April. .

Sutcliffe, A. 2002. Assessing the reliability of heuristic evaluation for website attractiveness and usability. Proceedings of the 35th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

My large conclusion from this assignment was that, generally, these two activities should not be paired. That is, a heuristic analysis seeks to make usability improvements in site (or application) design. If that’s what you are after — or if you don’t have the time or money to commit to an actual re-design, then this might be an approach to use. If you really want to re-design a site, then you need to go back and do a task analysis, cognitive walk-through, etc. to understand user goals and needs.

Another small learning point, if you at all have the possibility of a domain expert who is trained to perform either of these tasks — your analysis and / or re-design has a much better chance of success. Either that, or someone very careful and clever about extracting information from a domain expert.

With no further ado, here is my paper in which I actually do re-design a site, but also develop a novel heuristic in so doing. My next post will focus on that heuristic.

Wireframe re-design of gpsies.com.

Saffer, Dan. Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices. New Riders, 2007. ISBN: 0321432061.

Shneiderman, B. and C. Plaisant. Designing the User Interface, Fourth Edition. Addison Wesley, 2005. ISBN: 0321197860.

Snyder, Carolyn. Paper Prototyping. Morgan Kaufmann, 2003. ISBN: 1558608702.

Raskin, J. The Humane Interface. Addison Wesley, 2000. ISBN: 0201379376.

Lidwell, Holden, Butler. Universal Principles of Design. Rockport, 2003. ISBN: 1592530079.