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Inter acesNo. 47 Summer 2001
British
Groupwww.bcs-hci.org.uk
1Published by the British HCI Group • ISSN 1351-119XHuman–Computer Interaction
without Frontiers
Interaction
“Cultural diversity makes it unrealistic fordesigners to rely on intuition or personalexperience of interface design.”
“This house believes thatrobots will have free will.”
“HCI has significantlylacked that kind ofproactive pioneer witha vision of a Europeanumbrella, under whichthe many Europeanstrands of HCI couldcomfortably, andprofitably, shelter.”
“Considerableinterestwas shownin forming apartnershipbetweenUK and Indianresearchersandpractitionersin the areasof HCIand usability.”
2 Interfaces 47 • Summer 2001
contents2 Views from the Chair
3 Editorial
4 Cultural Issues in HCIWorkshop report
6 A.I. Symposium ‘Feats and Frontiers’
8 Vet’s Diary
9 ‘The undiscovered country…’
10 Indo British Software Usability Partnership
11 Book Reviews
13 A tribute to Sandra Foubister
14 ProfileJudith Ramsay
20 HCI Executive Contact list
Views from the Chair
Andrew [email protected]
At the time of writing I am preparing for ameeting of the British HCI Group executivecommittee in Edinburgh next week. Theexecutive consists of the twenty or so peoplelisted on the back of this issue of Interfaces whovolunteer their time to make the British HCIGroup function. Your membership fees are usedto pay for the typesetting and printing ofInterfaces and for the administration of themembership list; pretty much all the other workis done by the executive. Mostly we coordinatethis effort by email but three times a year we gettogether to discuss what needs to be done. Aschair of the group this is my opportunity to getpeople to agree to do things and to deadlinesthey might balk at in the more rationalatmosphere of an email conversation. Themeetings also serve a time-honoured purpose asarbitrary deadlines without which stuff just getsput off indefinitely, and an opportunity to gettogether in the pub afterwards.
Next week we will be discussing our newweb site UsabilityNews.com, the (happy) stateof our finances, and ideas for new one-daymeetings. We will receive reports of theprogress in organising HCI'2001 (joint withIHM in Lille, see advance programmeaccompanying this issue) and next year’sconference which is to be at South BankUniversity in London. We will also be makingarrangements for the Annual General Meeting(to be held at the conference), where you elect anew executive committee for the coming year.Well, ‘election’ is probably an overstatement ofwhat happens. I put up a list of people whohave volunteered their services and the meetingindicates its approval. I hope and expect thatmost of the old committee will continue in theirposts – but we always have room for newblood. Maybe you have some ideas aboutdirections the British HCI Group should movein. Why not drop me a line and I will put youon the ‘slate’. Our meetings are businesslike butinformal and you get your expenses paid. Youcan make a difference.
3Interfaces 47 • Summer 2001
Editorial
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 48 is 15 July 2001. Deadline for issue 49 is 15 October 2001. Electronic versions are preferred:RTF, plain text or MS Word (5/6), via electronic mail or FTP (mail [email protected] for FTP address) or on Mac, PC disks;but copy will be accepted on paper or fax.
Send to: Interfaces, c/o Tom McEwan, School of Computing, Napier University, 219 Colinton Road, EdinburghEH14 1DJTel: +44 (0)131 455 4636; 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 July, but don’t wait till then – welook forward to hearing from you.
NEXT ISSUE
To receive your own copy of Interfaces, join the BritishHCI Group by filling in the form on page 15 and sending itto the address given.
Cover photo: Tom McEwan
Tom McEwanEditor
Summer is always a good time to stretch your horizons a bit.This issue sets the scene for the British HCI conference beingheld this summer jointly with our French chums in AFIHM inthe enjoyable and attractive city of Lille this September(IHM-HCI2001).
This issue is also a little late in coming to you becauseyour editor has been riding two horses at once – also trying tocomplete the advanced programme for the conference thatwill hopefully accompany this (but, if not, will arrive a fewdays later!).
The theme ‘Interaction without Frontiers’ has been at theheart of HCI debate this year. In many ways, interaction andusability have always been about various forms of socialinclusion – we have sought to break down the barriersbetween people and IT. More recently we have been able totake a far wider view of the nature of these barriers, andcultural, linguistic and physical ability issues have come tothe fore.
In this issue we examine future and past contexts of thistheme. Andy Smith supplies two articles – one report onCultural Issues in HCI, the recent British HCI Group work-shop, and another on the Indo British Software UsabilityPartnership. Taken together these set the scene perfectly forLille, reaching across boundaries within, and between,cultures. Andy’s insights certainly rang true in a recent
project here, where students created and evaluated aSino-Scottish Site (see next issue). There is less of a gapthan you would think between catering for, panderingto, and patronising other cultures in the name ofusability.
Alison Crerar, in ‘Feats and Frontiers’, broughtlegendary figures like Minsky and Brady to Edinburghat Easter. An entertaining description of what they andothers have been doing for the last fifty years leads us toconsider what we will say about these times in 2050.That is, if the free will of robots permits us!
Speaking of veterans, Alistair Kilgour’s regularcolumn continues to create the future for us from thelessons of the past. Meanwhile the delicately sturdyCassandra Hall entertains with a desiccation ofdestruction metaphors. We have a profile of JudithRamsay (the organiser of the new ScotlandIS UsabilityForum) and a variety of book reviews for you as well.Lastly, we celebrate the life and work of Dr SandraFoubister.
We are a little shorter than usual this issue. You're allbeing too shy with your writing talents. In the next twoissues we will broaden our coverage. See thedescriptions on page 7 for ‘Learning and Doing’ and onpage 13 for ‘Gadgets and Gizmos’. Please get thecontent rolling in for these or for any other aspect.
4 Interfaces 47 • Summer 2001
Producing usable international software products is difficultand there are many examples of systems that have failed. Thefrequently used strategy of software developers – ‘testing’ theusability of the software themselves – is just not appropriatefor international design. Cultural diversity makes itunrealistic for designers to rely on intuition or personalexperience of interface design. However, designing multipleinterfaces for different user groups adds significantly to thecost of development. There are, however, huge difficulties inuser evaluation for both localisation and internationalisationwithin multicultural software development. In addition thereare other multicultural issues, such as the fact that existingdesign guidelines are culturally biased and there are fewsources for multicultural heuristics.
In response to these and other related issues, on5 December 2000 the British HCI Group held a one-dayworkshop in Cultural Issues in HCI, which was hosted by theUniversity of Luton. The goal for the workshop was toprovide a forum for individuals interested in a wide varietyof issues encountered when designing and developinginterfaces and systems that are accessed by internationallyand culturally diverse user groups. It was open to anyonewith an interest in interface and systems design for diverseusers, including academic and industrial researchers andpractitioners working in the areas of interface, web and otherinformation systems design.
In the event thirty people – roughly one third fromindustry and one third from academia – attended theworkshop, which included seven ‘academic’ refereed papersand one keynote ‘practitioner’ presentation.
The first paper was presented by Elke Duncker fromMiddlesex University and was titled Cross-cultural Use ofColours and Metaphors in Information Systems. Elke remindedus that not only do end-users live in different cultures intowhich the designs need to be localised, but that systemdesigners are also part of specific cultures. She discussed twocase studies in the use of colour and metaphor. The firststudy investigated the fact that colour preferences withinsystem designs often carry the characteristics of the culturalcontext in which they were designed. The second studytraced cultural differences in the understanding of metaphorsto the differences in the use of the real-world objects that aremetaphorically used.
Following this, Vanessa Evers of Boston Consulting Groupin London and the Institute of Educational Technology at theOpen University presented a paper entitled Cross-CulturalUnderstanding of Graphical Elements on the DirectED Website.Vanessa provided us with a cautionary note. Her paperinvestigated cultural differences in understanding elementsof a virtual campus website. The findings showed that eventhough there are differences in the way subjects fromdifferent cultural groups understand and perceive graphics,these differences do not always coincide with behaviour thatwould be expected from their cultural value orientations.Mostly, other factors beside culture, such as the Internetcontext and the educational context of the website, influencethe subject in their understanding of the graphical element on
Cultural issues in HCIAndy SmithNotes from a British HCI Group one day workshop held
at the University of Luton on 5 December 2000
the screen. The extent to which cultural variables are usefulin interpreting user responses to interface design elementscould therefore be more limited than was originally expected.
Vanessa postulated that these variables would be betterused to form a description of the culture to be studied, whichcan be used as an aid in instrument development and cross-cultural data collection. An example would be to observecollectivist Japanese in pairs or groups and North Americansindividually during data collection.
In the third presentation Tim French from the Universityof Luton presented a paper jointly authored with myselfentitled Developing Cross-cultural E-finance Web-sites. In thepresentation Tim showed how selected elements of the SMDF(Shared Meanings Design Framework) could be used tovalidate website design for trust, security and usability acrosscultural boundaries. The starting point for this work was thefact that the web page design of any international website iscritical to the success of that site and to the meanings, bothintended and unintended, it may be transmitting. E-financesites have been shown to be particularly sensitive to issues oftrust and security as well as to cross-cultural issues.
SMDF is based upon the semiotic paradigm andessentially consists of a carefully sequenced application ofvarious semiotic enhanced (or semiotically focussed)techniques; the aim being to underpin website developmentfrom initial requirements elicitation through to post-implementation and review. Users can only fully trust awebsite if the site can be deemed to be semiologically valid.The attributes of a semiotically valid site may be difficult toquantify objectively. However, Tim felt instinctively that atruly culturally inclusive site is a quality site in the broadestsense of that term; by exhibiting shared-meanings quality. Sucha site cannot perhaps ever be the subject of either rigorousproof or quantitative verification, but rather must remain anintentionally more elusive entity, embracing user, contextand cultural dimensions. Tim hoped, nevertheless, to presentsome limited empirical evidence to support our approach indue course.
Simon Polovina of University of Hertfordshire presented apaper jointly authored with Bhavin Shantilal Khatri, alsofrom University of Hertfordshire, and Steven Singh from5volt.com, entitled Culture and Web3D: Experiences in Buildinga Virtual Beer Festival Site in 3DML. The paper investigatedthe techno-cultural issues surrounding Virtual Reality on thepresent-day Web, or ‘Web3D’, over the Internet, bydeveloping as its illustration a particularly UK cultural event,the St Albans Virtual Beer Festival. This mimicked the actual,real beer festival that ran in September 2000. Given theplanned cultural focus and the short turnaround of timeavailable, Simon employed the semiotically inspired SMDFFramework (see above), and 3DML (an XML-derived Web3Dmarkup language) to implement the Virtual Beer Festivalrapidly.
The Virtual Beer Festival was analysed, designed,implemented and user-evaluated in three months, in time forthe actual festival. As well as raising tremendous publicityfor the real festival, the virtual site’s development raised
5Interfaces 47 • Summer 2001
issues to do with the simple mechanics of building and usingthe virtual site, as well as addressing user diversity andculture. The paper offered valuable experiences from whichfuture work on the topic of culture and semiotic in VirtualReality can progress.
Lynne Dunckley of the Open University, in a paper jointlyauthored with myself, entitled Cultural Dichotomies in UserEvaluation of International Software, proposed a novel way ofaddressing the problems of evaluating user interfaces forinternational systems. Although the need for effectiveevaluation is greater for international software, usabilityevaluation methods are subject to cultural bias and practicaldifficulties. The approach discussed adopting culturaldichotomies as end-points of various dimensions on whichusers differ. By adopting a partial factorial design strategy(along the lines of the LUCID interface design method) it wassuggested that it was possible to increase the efficiency ofuser testing and focus resources by recruiting users basedupon their underlying dichotomies, as opposed to recruitingusers solely from one culture. These underlying dichotomiesare found in many countries. Lynne described how we haveapplied the approach in a simulated case study to re-analyzethe results from previous usability tests prior to an industrial-scale application. In the analysis both subjective factors, suchas power distance, locus of control and individualism/collectivism, and objective factors, such as age, gender andmother tongue, were addressed.
After lunch the workshop was very fortunate to hear akeynote address from Richard Ishida, GlobalisationConsultant at Xerox. Operating out of the Xerox EuropeTechnical Centre in the UK, Richard works with productdevelopment groups around the world, both internal andexternal to Xerox, and is a regular speaker at majorglobalisation and IT conferences. Richard was able to give anextremely interesting account of his experiences at Xeroxwith a range of interesting examples to illustrate andilluminate the issues and problems of localisation andinternationalisation.
The sixth academic paper was presented jointly by PeterMcKenna and Atif Waraich of Manchester MetropolitanUniversity, and dealt with Social Agency: the Perils ofConstructing Gendered Personalities for Intelligent Agents andAvatars. Their paper focused on intelligent agents andexamined the ways in which new technology is being shapedby social and cultural assumptions, and the impact that itmay in turn have on society. They examined why technology,at its current level of development, results in a semiotics ofpersonal identity that encourages the use of stereotype andcaricature.
Peter and Atif critiqued some of the traditional conceptsand approaches used in HCI and suggested that they may notbe appropriate to intelligent agents. Exaggerated orsimplified features help to sustain believability – or at leastthe suspension of disbelief – and to establish and sustainrecognition. Gender in particular provides characteristics thatare both easy to represent, and easy to recognize. Whiledevelopments in computer technology have allowed users
and programmers to experiment with identity and difference,stereotyped gender characteristics are prevalent amongexisting agents. An examination was presented of several“intelligent” agents whose framework is anthropomorphic,reflecting on the repetition of traditionally genderedcharacteristics, narratives and scripts within the emergenttechnology, and deconstructing the relevant contexts,situations, and behaviours. The general claims made foragents in terms of HCI metaphor – assistants rather thantools; engagement rather than interaction – were examined,and Peter and Atif explored the possibilities for newapproaches where the development of agents can be sociallyinformed, and result in products that are not stereotyped yetare recognisably “human”.
Finally, Trevor Barker (University of Hertfordshire)presented a paper authored with Janet Barker (Home Office)and Martina A Doolan (University of Hertfordshire) entitledThe Development of Multimedia Learning Applications for Use byStudents in Different Linguistic and Cultural Contexts. Trevorreported on aspects of the development, implementation andevaluation of multilingual, multicultural, multimedialearning materials. These materials were developed under theEuropean Horizon project in order to support learners in theUnited Kingdom, Spain and Ireland. Horizon is a European-funded project whose aim is to increase employmentopportunities for students with learning difficulties and/ordisabilities.
Trevor presented a case study of how multimedia learningmaterials were specified in terms of learning content andstructure and how social, cultural and linguistic aspects ofthe learning materials were specified and modified forinternational use. The establishment of teams to developtranslation, implementation and evaluation strategies isreported. Each team produced a detailed report and agreed adelivery plan, including time scales. Examples of howprototypes were developed, implemented and evaluated inthe context of their intended use were described in thepresentation. Trevor addressed some of the many problemsthat were encountered during the project and a description ofhow these were resolved was also included.
It is probably difficult for a workshop organiser tosuccessfully evaluate a workshop. However, in a discussionat the end of the workshop delegates certainly indicated thatthe event was highly worthwhile, and furthermore supportedthe ideas firstly of holding a second event in Autumn 2001and secondly of forming a network of researchers andpractitioners in the UK interested in Cultural Issues in HCI.My thanks go to the Programme Committee: Elisa Del Galdo,Lynne Dunckley, Xristine Faulkner, and Tim French, otheradditional reviewers, and everyone who took part andattended the workshop.
Andy SmithUniversity of [email protected]
6 Interfaces 47 • Summer 2001
Every year Edinburgh Branch of BCSorganises an event in memory ofSidney Michaelson [1] who was oneof the founding fathers of computerscience at the University of Edinburgh.This usually takes the form of a publiclecture during the Edinburgh ScienceFestival in April. In recent yearsinvited speakers have included IgorAleksander, John Koza and RosalindPicard.
For the year 2001, the tenthanniversary of Sidney’s death, wedecided to hold an International AISymposium entitled Feats andFrontiers. The idea was tocelebrate some of the majorachievements of ArtificialIntelligence over the last 30 yearsor so, but not to dwell on the past.We wanted a lively eventincluding outstandingcontemporary research. Moreoverwe wanted a good mix ofdelegates from academia andindustry: an opportunity forbusiness people with problems tosolve, to meet academics whomight be interested incollaboration. Alas, I failed tomotivate industry, so it turnedinto more of an academic eventthan had been hoped for.
About 50 delegates fromaround the UK took part. GregMichaelson (Senior Lecturer inComputing at Heriot-Watt)opened proceedings with a shortillustrated tribute to his father. Thiswas followed by a keynote talk fromMarvin Minsky from MIT MediaLabs, entitled How computers could getcommon sense. Marvin was in greatform and everyone shared a sense ofprivilege to hear him in the flesh. Histalk was an intellectual ramble aroundhis latest book, The EmotionMachine[2], interspersed withdigressions both provocative andentertaining. He amused the audienceby pulling out a camera from theinternal pockets of his cotton parka (inwhich he keeps everything includinghis powerbook) and pretending tophotograph us. The camera turned outto include a recorder which he
switched on “in case I say anythinginteresting”!
A number of nuggets were tossed atthe audience during this talk,including ideas for research and somerather testy assertions such as “manypeople hold the mistaken view that thewhole is more than the sum of theparts: it clearly isn’t” and “the wholeof robotics research to date has been awaste of time”. This latter point, sostrongly voiced, rather cut the groundfrom the next speaker but one, UlrichNehmzow, who leads the mobilerobotics research group at theUniversity of Manchester! During theday Marvin was always busy either
with his palm or laptop. No matterwhat the topic, he seemed to havegigabytes of information at his finger-tips, always pulling up an appositequotation or a caustic aside. Thephotograph shows the inimitableMarvin in full flood.
The second keynote was given byMike Brady [3], University of Oxford.This was a densely packed andsuperbly illustrated overview of hisseminal work on medical imageanalysis. Mike presented a fascinatingaccount of the challenges presented bybreast cancer and the ways in whichhis team is working to providealternatives to mammography (whichis only suitable for post-menopausalwomen). 3D modelling techniques arebeing used in a variety of innovative
ways to visualise tumours, to manageand measure them and ultimately tocontribute to minimally invasivesurgical techniques. The passion withwhich Mike pursues this immenselyvaluable work is palpable.
Continuing on the medical theme,John Fox [4], Head of the AdvancedComputation Lab at Imperial CancerResearch spoke on Publets: clinicaljudgement on the web? In this talk heoutlined work pursued over a numberof years, which has come together in atheory of clinical decision making andplan management; an agentknowledge representation language,PROforma, based on this theory, and
an architecture for supportingclinical care which interprets thislanguage.
Ulrich Nehmzow [5] gave anexcellent overview of the historyof robotics, with emphasis on histeam’s interest in autonomousmobile robots. These are self-contained robots that operatewithout external connection.Juergen Klenk from IBM Zurich[6] spoke on the topical subject ofpersonalised applications on cellphones, but from the examples hegave it was clear that the killerapp for this technology has yet toemerge.
Kathryn Thornton [7] from theData Mining Group at theUniversity of Durham presented
research on a novel combination oftechniques: the use of data miningwith VR visualisation for managingATM networks. Harold Thimbleby[8], who has written widely on ethicsand the Internet, provided a verystimulating contribution, AI as appliedethics, which threw up manyinteresting and unexpected analogiesbetween AI, HCI and differentphilosophical systems.
The only cognitive scientist amongthe speakers was Mike Burton,Professor of Psychology at theUniversity of Glasgow, whose talk hadthe intriguing title, What are faces madeof? He gave us an insight into thecomplexities of face recognition byhumans, and demonstrated, by usingthe audience, how singularly poor we
A.I. Symposium ‘Feats and Frontiers’Edinburgh 7 April 2001
Marvin the Maestro
Alison Crerar
7Interfaces 47 • Summer 2001
are at matching the faces of strangers,even when the target face is presentedalong with a line-up of candidates. Itturns out we can recognise knownpeople from very poor face images andfrom very poor video of the body(even excluding the face), but areunreliable in identifying strangerseven from high quality images.
Many interesting questions ariseabout how people do face processing,with implications for eye witnessidentification of criminals. FinallyLyndon Lee [10], leader of intelligentagent research at BT Labs, shared withus the topical world of agent-transacted internet auctions. This newparadigm proposes dynamic pricing,negotiated by agents, operating arange of bargaining protocols. Lyndonfocused only on the technical issues,having no concern for the ethicalconsequences, “that’s for others towork out”, he said.
The formal part of the proceedingsconcluded with a debate. Getting thisoff the ground was no mean task. Canyou imagine getting a bunch of
academics to agree what they willdebate and who will propose andoppose the motion? The email trailthis exercise generated, includingdebating the voting strategy, became amarathon in itself. However, weachieved agreement, and HaroldThimbleby, Chris Huyck and YorickWilks spoke for, and Mike Brady,Aaron Sloman and Mike Burton spokeagainst the motion This house believesthat robots will have free will. The debatewas chaired by Ian Ritchie (recent past Photo credits: Iain McGregor
Mike Brady, Aaron Sloman andMike Burton spoke against themotion
president of BCS) who skilfully keptthe speakers to time. A vote was takenbefore and after the debate. Before, theAyes had a big majority, but at thefinal count outcome was evens: a goodway to end.
And for the finale, we repaired tothe conservatory to enjoy a receptionkindly sponsored by Orbital Software[11]. All in all a very memorable day.
Alison Crerar is Chair of Edinburgh Branchof BCS and a Senior Lecturer in the HCIResearch Group at Napier University.
[1] http://www.cee.hw.ac.uk/~bcsed/michaelson.html
[2] http://www.media.mit.edu/~minsky/E1.html thruE5.html
[3] http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~jmb/[4] http://www.icn.ucl.ac.uk/members/Fox33/[5] http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/robotics/nehmzow.html[6] http://www.zurich.ibm.com/[7] http://www.dur.ac.uk/k.e.thornton/[8] http://www.cs.mdx.ac.uk/harold/[9] http://medusa.psy.gla.ac.uk/~mike/home.htm/[10] http://www.labs.bt.com/projects/agents.htm[11] http://www.orbitalsw.com/
The British HCI Group are currentlyworking on a brand new web site,appropriately called UsabilityNews.com.The site, which is due to go live in theSummer, will focus on the very latestnews within the field of HCI and usability,including what’s new in HCI, latest jobpostings, paper calls, along with usabilityevents around the globe, such asworkshops, conferences and seminars.
To ensure the site is as up to date aspossible, the web site will be dynamicallygenerated via a back-end database, andadministered on a daily basis by a teamof experienced editors. Anyone will beable to contribute a news article – all theywill need is access to the web via abrowser. All articles submitted will beedited by the editorial team, and pub-lished within a day or so.
This is an exciting development for theBritish HCI Group, withUsabilityNews.com likely to become aone-stop-shop for all the latest happen-ings in usability. Watch this space!
Dave Clarke
…And you can lookforward to seeing all yourfavourite issues ofInterfaces appearinggradually onUsabilityNews.com, as ouralready overworkedproduction editor trawlsthrough your heritage tocreate a series of onlineback issues. Watch thatspace! Ed.
Usability News web site coming soon… Learning and DoingLearning and DoingLearning and DoingLearning and DoingLearning and DoingFor the September issue (deadline 15th July)expect a return to coverage of student activity,with a new wave of ‘My PhD’, and a newfeature - Group Projects. For the former (whichwas a regular feature of past issues) we invitethose early in their research to define in500–800 words, and in plain English, what it isthey hope to do. You are writing for your friendsto understand, not to impress your professors.
For the latter, supply 800–1000-wordsummaries of any group projects with a themerelevant to HCI. We don't want a project diary,nor a piece better suited to a conference shortpaper. But we are interested in how well youcommunicate to the reader what you found outabout the state of the art, and your criticalevaluation – of both your users and of theeffectiveness of your project.
Student group projects have the capacity tomimic the processes of practitioners and oftenfeature interesting research and conclusions.While not pure research, and unlikely to featurestatistically valid conclusions, etc., the very actof getting your teeth into a project of somesubstance, in which you are seeking to createsomething lasting for your portfolio, has thepotential to supply interesting insights. Ifnothing else, someone might read it here andoffer you a job!
8 Interfaces 47 • Summer 2001
Vet’s DiaryAlistair Kilgour
Alistair Kilgour, in his latest veteran’scolumn, sounds the clarion call foreuro-usability – a process that mightstart in Lille this summer, and reachfruition in Zurich two years later. Orsooner if the TGV extensions continueto be built at such rapid rates!
Stars without stripes?Patriotism, said the greatlexicographer, is the last refuge ofthe scoundrel. For the closetscoundrel from a small county, thepressing issue at the moment is one ofsize: towards what size of unit mightyou admit to harbouring suchdisreputable sentiments? Underpressure I have been known to confessto being a Scottish patriot — thoughsome of the company that places mein still gives me serious pause. Andyes, without too many misgivings, Icould admit to being a British patriot.But European — could anyone betaken seriously who confessed tofeelings of European patriotism? Moreand more it seems the answer mightbe yes.
Involvement in the joint Franco-British initiative which will culminatein the IHM-HCI 2001 Conference inLille in September has reinforced mygrowing feeling that for HCI, as for somany other domains, our primaryfocus needs to be European for futurestrength and growth. Of course, NorthAmerica will, for a long time to come,continue to be the major source oftechnical and applied innovation. But,as the quality of the technicalprogramme at Lille will confirm, moreand more of the innovation, insightand inventiveness in interactivedevices, systems and applications is tobe found in the laboratories andenterprises of Europe.
For almost twenty years there hasbeen a European organisation forcomputer graphics — Eurographics.Why is it that, even now, there is noreal equivalent for HCI? Lots ofpossible explanations spring to mind.It might be argued, for example, thatcomputer graphics is a better definedand better understood discipline —though in truth it has always been anuneasy amalgam of physics, geometry,
and algorithm design. Also many ofthe pioneers of what we now call HCIsaw themselves as practitioners ofcomputer graphics.
A more likely explanation of thedifferences in the Europeanconsolidation of the two disciplineshas to do with personalities ratherthan with the nature of the disciplinesthemselves. Computer graphicsbenefited in the seventies andeighties from the far-sighted andstrongly Euro-centric vision of some ofits pioneers, such as Jose Encaraçao,Bob Hopgood and especially DavidDuce. On the other hand, perhapsbecause it took longer in Europe forHCI to be recognised as a significant,distinct, professional discipline, anddue also perhaps to the differentculturally determined flavours whichthe subject took on in different partsof Europe, HCI has significantly lackedthat kind of proactive pioneer with avision of a European umbrella, underwhich the many European strands ofHCI could comfortably, and profitably,shelter.
What about IFIP and its TechnicalCommittee 13 on HCI? It might beargued that TC13 has fulfilled thefunction that “EuroHCI” might haveexercised had it existed. It is truethat IFIP is viewed in North Americaas a European organisation — which isone reason we are unlikely to see anINTERACT conference in a US city inthe foreseeable future. But in realityIFIP is of course a global organisation— something like a United Nations ofwhat is still quaintly calledinformation processing. Although TC13has been highly successful inpromoting and supporting HCI inEurope, it suffers from the drawbacksof its strengths, namely thatrepresentation on its technicalcommittees is not based on the size ofthe country or region represented, letalone on the strength of that countryor region’s research or practice in thetechnical area the committeerepresents. And apart from this, theremit of IFIP requires that it shouldavoid favouring or concentrating itsactivities in one geographic region.So, however it is perceived outside,
TC13 is not and cannot be a uniquelyEuropean champion of HCI.
The fact that INTERACT 2003 willbe held in Zurich, at the beginning ofSeptember, presents European HCIwith a great opportunity. A newlyestablished “EuroHCI” could makeINTERACT 2003 the target for itsofficial launch — and might indeedseek joint hosting and badging of theconference (as SigCHI did withINTERACT ten years earlier).Thereafter EuroHCI could organise itsown biennial event in the yearsbetween INTERACTs. It is true that insome European countries, faut demieux, HCI enthusiasts haveestablished local chapters of SigCHI.The reasons are understandable, butthis kind of development could beviewed as a stop-gap, pending theemergence of a real Europeanalternative.
These issues will be widelydiscussed and debated at IHM-HCI inLille, in several forums as well as inmany bars. This is a gentle plea forBritish readers, and the growingnumber of readers of Interfaces fromother parts of Europe, to put the starsbefore the stripes, envisage (onlyAmericans envision) a strong Europeanfuture for HCI, and work together tomake it happen.
Alistair [email protected]
So, HCI veterans Europe-wide, this isyour chance to take up the gauntlet inresponse to Alistair, whose unchal-lenged residence in the Vet’s chairsuggests that none of you consideryour venerable HCI wisdom equal tohis – c’est incroyable! – but how elseare we to interpret the ringing silencefrom out there...?
9Interfaces 47 • Summer 2001
So, an American judge is doing for theusers what HCI experts have failed todeliver. A recent freebie newspaperannounced that an American judgehad ruled that when a file is deleted itshould disappear from the system.How strange, that something soprofound shouldn’t be slapped all overthe daily newspapers and shouted onNews at Ten. How odd, thatGovernment publicity machineryhasn’t made promises that all deletedfiles will henceforth be rounded up inCambridge for final annihilation byStephen Hawking. Hawking hasfinally discovered the real purpose ofblack holes is a rubbish tip forunwanted files and life is nothing butGod’s desk top, courtesy of Windows(Second Coming). And how amazingthat the Nielsen–Norman circus hasn’tground to a halt, gobsmacked by thesimplicity of this sound-bite from amere judge.
It scares me how little evencomputing students know about whathappens to a deleted file. I’ve beenasking students for years whether ornot a deleted file is deleted and havereceived replies ranging from ‘ofcourse it has’ to ‘what does it matter?’
What does it matter? If I placewashing in the washing machine and itreaches the end of the programme, Iexpect it to have been washed. Whenthe TV says it is tuned to Channel 4, Itake it for granted it is there. When thetoaster pops up toast, I know it isdone. I get on a train markedSouthampton and I expect it to at leasthave a stab at getting me there. Ohfoolish me, a deleted file isn’t reallydeleted.
Steve Draper once questioned theprocess of “Save”. He looked at theextra mental activity it took to save atodd intervals to ensure “Save”. I seem
to remember he went on and on aboutthe extra time it took and how muchthought it required to remember tosave at frequent intervals.
Steve’s paper made me realise threethings. First, no wonder I’m stressedand exhausted, I do half of my wordprocessor’s work myself. Secondly, if Icut down on how much time I savedfiles I could solve the final problems ofphysics. And thirdly, isn’t it amazingwhat HCI people do with their time? Imean, how amazing that someone hasgone to the trouble to work all that out.A bad night on TV and manytantalising problems get solved. You’dthink someone would do somethingwith it. But they haven’t. Steve Draperisn’t working for M$, nor has he beenknighted. Though I bet he could takeup a lot of dinner party, talking about“save functionality”. In fact, maybe theanswer to all interface problems is tomake sure that the BBC continue toshow complete drivel, thus drivingHCI academia to research.
But actually “Save” isn’t that lethal.So if it doesn’t “Save”, a few pages ofdeathless prose might be lost but atleast you kind of know where youstand, or don’t stand. If I writesomething, think better of it and deleteit, I do actually want to know thatsomeone won’t grab it out of thewastebasket (electronic or not), iron itand use it against me at some laterdate. As for commerce and industry,how can they possible resell computersor give them to schools if they can’t besure that deleted files really aredeleted?
My father has just bought a newcomputer but he refuses to get rid ofthe old one. He is too scared aboutwhat will happen to his precious data.I’ve tried very hard to explain I canclear the computer of anything hedoesn’t want left there but he istraumatised by having tried repeatedlyto get rid of Freeserve from his systemand still having it pop up, uninvited,at unpredictable times. I’m thinking ofasking Steve Draper to figure out howlong it’ll be before my parents need tomove to a bigger house.
And before any readers startspeculating on how far I am my
father’s daughter, just think of how themany systems represent deletion andhow new users must try to make senseof them.
Take the wastebasket. If you putsomething in the real wastebasket thenas long as the wastebasket hasn’t beenemptied you can get it out again. If it’sbeen emptied the chances of getting itback are slim. Though I saw a filmonce where the hero got back from thecouncil crushing machine a preciousjewel. But actually, I’m not convincedthat just any old person could do thatand only James Bond or Indiana Joneswould come back with the jewel intheir hands, or teeth in Indiana Jones’scase. So, the concept of deleteprovided by a wastebasket metaphor isof pretty permanent loss once the binhas been emptied.
A recycler, on the other hand,suggests that it’ll be made intosomething else. Maybe my applicationfor promotion will come back as myresignation letter thus saving time.And then there’s incinerators… Andyes, that file has gone, for good. Burntto a cinder. Though actually, I vaguelyremember that Hercule Poirot oncemanaged to read a note that was burntto a cinder. But again, he’s prettyspecial and maybe doesn’t count. Andhow about a shredder? I readsomewhere that reconstruction ofshredded documents is relatively easyif a bit dull.
So, to sum up, as a novice user of adeletion metaphor I would rategone-ness, according to how gone thefile is from most gone to least gone:incinerator, wastebasket, recycler,shredder.
The truth is all metaphors act thesame and a deleted file is not reallydeleted until you empty the recycler,or the wastebasket or shake out theshredder. Even then all that is reallygone is the pointer to the address so agood recovery package like Norton’sUtilities for example, will get thedarling back for you. Indeed, after anafternoon of experimentation withsome accidentally deleted files I canconfidently tell you that the more youdon’t want to get the file back theeasier it is to recover. (This is all to do
‘The undiscovered country from whose bourne it’s alltoo easy to return…’ Cassandra Hall
Cassandra gets physical with hertrashy ideas, but in so doingdiscovers that her family valuesinclude a disinclination to airingone’s British Linen in public. Morehowling from her next issue.
10 Interfaces 47 • Summer 2001
with the second law of thermo-dynamics, so don’t worry your prettylittle heads about it, just believe me).
Just imagine the hard time we’dgive Shakespeare if we knew that ‘Tobe or not to be’ had started off as ‘Ican’t quite decide whether to topmyself or not?’ Or we could see intheir awful glory the several attemptsthat we know Coleridge must havehad to write Kubla Khan. Some thingsare ‘not meant for human eyes’ asMuir so aptly puts it.
The mental effort involved in allthat juggling with reality reallyworries me. What are users meant tomake of it? And why hasn’t anyonesued Bill Gates for every cent he has?Why has it taken this long for anAmerican judge to get excited about it?In comparison with the sort ofnonsense they usually get excitedabout this is actually very important.
And is it good to offer us theseconflicts with reality? I find myselfsometimes puzzled by the fact thatthere is no undo button on physicalactions I have carried out in the realworld. A friend of mine said she’d lovean undo button on life. The ideahorrifies me. Some of us would neverget off ‘start’ but at least one eminentHCI’er I know would be replayingtheir life with the artificial intelligenceassistance turned off having found ittoo easy the first time.
Yes, yes, yes, it’s nice to get asecond chance about things (andpeople) we have disposed of. Butsometimes ‘gone’ really should meangone, forgotten and lost forever.Amen.
BackgroundThe British Human–ComputerInteraction Group is joining forceswith the Computer Society of India(CSI) to support the effectivedevelopment of sound usabilityprinciples in Indian academic andcommercial information technologyactivities.
The whole idea started when I wasone of the contributors to the UKGovernment’s ‘Get Connected’ ITseminars in India during April andagain in November 2000. Considerableinterest was shown in forming apartnership between UK and Indianresearchers and practitioners in theareas of HCI and usability.
Called the ‘Indo British SoftwareUsability Partnership’ (IBSUP), theinitiative is being led jointly by myselfand Sanjay Prasad, who is VicePresident of the CSI. Sanjay is based inMumbai, formerly known as Bombay.There is also a small steering group ofUK and Indian members, with the UKrepresentatives emerging following anearlier news item on the HCI NewsService.
Of course, in Europe, the USA andother places, usability is often seen tobe ‘mission critical’ to the quality andsuccess of IT systems. In addition HCIis a standard part of degree courses incomputing throughout Europe and theUSA. Usability ‘engineers’ arecommon in Western softwaredevelopment companies. In India, onthe other hand, usability does notenjoy by any means the same profile.Very few university courses addressHCI in their curricula. Although theIndian IT industry is massive, andgrowing fast, the emphasis is verymuch on technical programming skills,mainly being outsourced from theUSA and Europe.
The main aim of IBSUP is to shareresearch expertise in usability andinterface design and to assist in theembedding of effective usabilityprocedures in the Indian softwareindustry. In addition it plans toidentify and address Indian culturalrequirements for interface design,thereby assisting in the provision of
local software for Indian computerusers.Seminars – call for participationThe first main event organised byIBSUP will be a series of focusedseminars on usability and human–computer interaction to be held inIndia during September 2001. At thetime of writing it is planned to holdthree seminars in both academic andcommercial environments in bothMumbai and Bangalore. Dates havebeen provisionally set within theperiod 9th – 15th September. The eventis being financially supported by theBritish HCI Group and other sourcesof funding are being investigated. It ishoped that economy flights and hotelaccommodation will be provided andthat between three and five UKpresenters will take part together withIndian colleagues.
Researchers and practitioners inHCI/usability are invited to submitproposals for contributing to theseminars. There is considerableflexibility at this time but basicallywhat we are looking for is a one-hourseminar focusing on an aspect of HCI/usability that will be relevant andinteresting for a mixed IT academic/practitioner audience. It is not meantto be a research oriented conference,rather a means of ‘spreading the word’to those new to usability HCI. If youhave any ideas please [email protected]. Informalexpressions of interest are requested assoon as possible and final propsalsbefore 29th June 2001. Finalcontributors will be selected by theSteering Group.The futureThe IBSUP feels that improvedusability within the whole Indian ITindustry will improve the globalcompetitiveness of the Indian ITindustry. An enhanced understandingof the cultural requirements forusability will ensure more effectivesystems that are localised for Indianusers. IBSUP plans to address boththese issues.
Following the seminars it is hopedthat membership of IBSUP will grow,
Indo British Software Usability Partnership… linking India and the United Kingdom inhuman–computer interaction and usability…
Andy Smith
‘The undiscovered country fromwhose bourne it’s all too easy toreturn…’
… continued
11Interfaces 42 • Summer 2001
Book ReviewsXristine Faulkner, Iain McGregor
Sorting Things OutClassification and its ConsequencesGeoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh StarMIT PressISBN 0-262-522950-0, £12.50, 377 pages
I guess I have to start by saying it is difficult to know how toclassify this book. As the authors don’t know how theywould classify it either, I don’t feel too bad about havingfinished it and still not knowing where I’d put it on myshelves. It is an extraordinary text, and I mean that in achallenging and positive way. It would appeal to anyone whois stuck with the chore of having to classify things: scientists,librarians, information systems designers, historians, medics.Sociologists and psychologists would have a field daylooking at the impact and motivations for classification.
This is an impressive attempt to explain the purpose,psychology and problems of classification. I decided to readand review it because, like many others in HCI, I resort toclassification to make life simpler. I teach user classificationwith only the slightest apology and with the assumption thatstudents won’t be shocked by my desire to put things intoconvenient groups. This book has made me think veryseriously about the process of classification and itsconsequences. All the time I have classified users, interfacetypes, tasks, etc., I have wondered really what it meant, butthis book has made me more aware of the dangers than Imaybe was hitherto.
It is an impressive book. Don’t be put off by theunfortunate and rather stupid typos in the first page of theintroduction! My heart missed several beats at that. I feared Iwas about to be subjected to something sloppily and hastilywritten, but the rest of the book allayed those fears. It isthoroughly, painstakingly researched. It is written with ahumour and affection that is very, very appealing. Theasides, well separated from the rest of the text, are interestingand give examples of what the text discusses.
It isn’t a book I can recommend generally to HCIpractitioners and teachers. It certainly isn’t a book forstudents. I would recommend dipping into the book ratherthan reading cover to cover as I did. There are sections aboutmedical classifications which although interesting have lessbearing on what we might be doing in HCI. The sections onwhy we classify, the classification according to race and thetheory and practice of classification are probably the most
particularly in India, and that activity will increaseconsiderably. A range of other activities and events couldfollow. A discussion group is being established that will linkUK and Indian IT personnel on HCI and usability issues.Watch the HCI News Service for updates.
This is a nice book for students. It covers the area in a no-nonsense and clear style. There are even bits of discussionabout Java code along the way. I must admit, I like bookswritten by people who understand code. It seems to me thatperhaps they are able to build the things as well as talkingabout building the things. The case studies are very thoroughand useful and show students exactly what the author means.I’ve noticed that what makes sense to us as lecturers anddevelopers is quite often way outside the experience ofstudents and they do need examples of even the most simpleof ideas. This book is good for doing just that without beingcondescending.
The coverage is wide and there are interesting discussionsalong the way. I found plenty to entertain me and bits I couldargue with as well. The argument for involving the user wasclearly and convincingly put. Lazar explains what notinvolving the user will do and leaves very little room forexcuses. There are pictures and diagrams. I’m afraid that likeAlice I can’t help thinking that a book without pictures is lessinteresting than it might be.
I rather hoped that Lazar might be a replacement forNielsen, whose Designing Web Usability I reviewed and ravedabout some time ago. I still feel irritated by the price of thatbook, especially since I found out that New Riders is anoffshoot of the ubiquitous Pearson circus and I can’t helpthinking that they have no need to ask such a price. (And Icouldn’t make bits of their website work, when I was tryingto get them to send me a book about web design, so I’m notgoing to be reviewing that one, I guess!).
However, sad to say, you still need to buy Nielsen, thoughthis book does have a number of strengths that you mightlike to consider before your students spend their money onNielsen. For a start, it’s probably a bit more student-friendlyand certainly it is better organised for a student to read.Lazar references properly too, which Nielsen doesn’t botherto do. I’m a little concerned about what Lazar references andhope that he gets to look at a bit more than his referenceswould suggest. However, this feels in some ways more of an‘academic book’ than Nielsen and, as much as I admireNielsen’s work, I am fed up with him for the lack ofreferencing. I can’t help feeling it sets a bad example. But
useful for HCI practitioners. What this book did do for me isto make me aware of the impact of my classification and howonce I have formed those classifications how difficult it is torethink them. In fact, classification has a huge effect on theway in which we view material. It makes life easier for us asthe classifying individuals but quite often the effect it has inreality is much more profound than we might believe at firstglance.
This would be a nice addition to the library and at £12.50is cheap enough to put it there without feeling guilty.Anyone who enjoys challenging preconceived ideas too,would undoubtedly derive plenty of argument from thisbook. Incidentally, some of the asides about the Web,newsgroups, email and computer use make very interesting,and sometimes entertaining, reading.
User Centred Web DevelopmentJonathan LazarJones and BartlettISBN 0-7637-1431-3, $34.95, 293 pages
Andy SmithUniversity of [email protected]
12 Interfaces 47 • Summer 2001
Xristine [email protected]
Lazar has a realistic list of references, all of which studentswould be able to find.
There were some odd bits of grammar that irritated mebut I fear my age is beginning to tell and that other people’sgrammar is now even more laid back than mine. But Lazartakes the reader along at a good pace. He has a nice tone anda good feel for the subject. I’m not sure that I can agree with itall but it is an entertaining book to read. I got through it in acouple of hours without feeling over-taxed. Mind, I wastrapped on a plane from Charlotte to Gatwick. However, Idid have a Terry Pratchett novel with me which remaineduntouched so either this is a good book or Terry Pratchett isin trouble.
Incidentally, Jones and Bartlett are new to me. I was givenmy copy at SIGCSE by the very charming and veryknowledgeable guy on their stand. I must say I wasimpressed by their enthusiasm and the speed at which theycontacted me in my other role as committee member incharge of exhibitions for ITiCSE. They’ve also got a nicewebsite that works and works quickly and a sales team whoare on the ball and more importantly on the planet.
No, sadly, Lazar hasn’t weaned me off Nielsen, which Istill consider to be the web usability bible. But I’m reluctantto ask students to buy Nielsen and I’m happy to recommendthis one to them. If what you want is a book about involvingusers and how to go about the task of doing that with somedesign tips on the way then this is the book. Tell yourstudents to buy this one but keep the Nielsen for yourself.The NATFHE action is over; there must be a huge pay rise onthe way.
As Professor of Computer Science, Education andPsychology, and Director of the Center for Human–Computer Interaction at Virginia Tech, Carroll has grown upwith HCI. Joining IBM in 1976, hearing the remark that“success in the field of computing depended upon thescientist’s tolerance for ambiguity”, he took it to heart,although it took him a further ten years to make sense of it.
The book starts baldly, stating that “Computers are badlybehaved because they are badly designed.” (p. 1). Going on,he describes the dilemma of the smoke and mirrors imagethat an HCI practitioner engenders, when confronted withthe reductionist if/else culture of systems design. HCIresearch can appear to be a pinch of this and a measure ofthat, very much a sorcerer’s brew, formulated to fit the
Making Use: Scenario-Based Design ofHuman–Computer InteractionsJohn M. Carroll.Originally published 1998,republished MIT Press December 2000.£27.50 cloth
current situation. Carroll argues that unless we formalise anapproach, then systems design will always be seen as a blackart.
He proposes the use of an ever-present design practice, acontemporary of computing, that of Scenarios. Scenarios werefirst utilised by the Rand Corporation in the late 1940s,although at the time it was as a strategic planning technique.Scenario-based design systematically studies real-world uses,eliciting sound reasoning, rather than the traditionalopportunistic discoveries associated with incomplete formaluse cases.
A scenario ‘concretises’ a set of requirements through“observing, describing, inventing and developing” (p. 14). Itcan never discover all of the requirements, as only a fullyfunctioning system can elicit the infinite number of therequirements users might have of any complex system. Youcan only build it and then log and analyse the results.
Just like maps, the only accurate description of a system isthe system itself. But scenarios can be re-used and updated,without ever having to be cast in stone. They are alwaysfocused on human activity, but mostly they “stimulate theimagination”. They are qualitative, informing us of whatpeople need, want and wish to do, allowing for the frailties ofdistraction and forgetfulness.
There are five stages in a scenario-based requirementsprocess: Early Vision, Ethnography, Claims Analysis,Activity Design and Prototyping, and seven methodssuggested by Carroll, all of which are explained with greatclarity in Chapter 10. These are: Ethnographic Field Study,Participatory Design, Reuse of Prior Analyses, ScenarioTypologies, Theory-Based Scenarios, Technology BasedScenarios, and Transformations. These can be used in anycombination and are not intended to reinforce the apparentdifference between technology-driven and use-case design,but rather to provide a variety of viewpoints to complementtechniques already used.
Carroll takes us through three projects he worked on –Raison d’Etre, a Video Information System, MiTTs(Minimalist Tutorial and Tools for Smalltalk), both for IBM,and a Virtual Physics Laboratory for high school and middleschool teachers. These make for fascinating reading as it israre to find system development documented in such areadable manner.
The MiTTs project threw up many points; two of the moreobvious were associated with the blackjack game used as abasis for the lessons. First, that knowledge can never beassumed to be universal. A few of the intended students, IBMSmalltalk programmers, had to be taught how to playblackjack before they could even start the lessons, an issuepreviously overlooked. Secondly, that we can all be easilydistracted. The blackjack game had to be made less attractivein order to prevent the programmers playing the game andignoring the lessons.
As a student, my first encounters with HCI were fromwading through Dix, Preece and Shneiderman. I wish that Ihad discovered Carroll. Chapter 2 ‘What is Design?’ shouldbe required reading for all computing undergraduates, with
13Interfaces 42 • Summer 2001
Chapter 11 ‘Getting Around the Task–Artefact Cycle” being aset text for their lecturers.
Carroll is concerned with the user’s needs, rather thanmaking life easy for the designers and technologists trying tobridge the gap between the informal and the systematic. Howmany of us have read ISO 9241-11? There is little doubt thatsoftware/hardware is becoming more complicated, makingusability even more difficult to quantify. Scenariossuccessfully marry the present with the future, allowing the‘what if’, before everything becomes trapped into thedreaded, supposedly extinct waterfall.
Carroll acknowledges that his theories are untested anduses his examples to illustrate where he is coming from,rather than eliciting a definitive proof. But if proof wereneeded, a senior engineer at NASA informed Carroll that“scenario-based design would be the key to developing thecommercial aircraft concept for the next-generation spaceshuttle” (pp 16–17).
Well, that’s sold it to me! But Carroll has a get-out clause:“we should remind ourselves that high-falutin’ theory hasrarely delivered substantive guidance to design.” (p 225). Ithink I’ll print that out for my wall.
Look out for:• Usability engineering: Scenario-Based Development of Human
Computer Interaction. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann.• Human–Computer Interaction in the New Millennium.
Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley/ACM Books.• Scenario-Based Design: The State of the Art. Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Dr Sandra Foubister 1947–2001
Friends and colleagues will be saddened to hear of the deathon Saturday 28th April of Dr Sandra Foubister, after a longstruggle with cancer. Sandra bore her illness with amazingcourage and cheerfulness.
Sandra’s interest in HCI came quite late in her career. Shestudied psychology at Edinburgh University in the late 1960sand was subsequently a postgraduate Research Assistant.She next trained as a music teacher at the then NapierCollege and taught in secondary schools in the Lothians. Inthe late 1980s, she took an MSc and PhD in computerscience at York University, achieving her doctorate in 1995.
She moved to Heriot-Watt as a Research Associate in 1991,and worked on several projects, including the Ceilidh Projectwith Greg Michaelson and Alistair Kilgour in the Computingand Electrical Engineering Department, and HIPERNET andLEVERAGE, two projects looking at language learning overnetworks in Europe, with Terry Mayes and Patrick McAndrewat ICBL. She then contributed in a major way to theMANTCHI project (which was a joint project betweenGlasgow, Glasgow Caledonian, Napier and Heriot-WattUniversities), for which she was mostly based at Napier,working directly with David Benyon and Alison Crerar.
Sandra’s interest in HCI developed while she was working onthe Ceilidh project, and in 1996 she became a member of theHCI Group Executive Committee, with main responsibility formeetings organisation. She fulfilled this role with greatenergy and commitment till she first became ill in 1999.Sandra also contributed significantly to the organisation ofseveral HCI conferences. In particular she was tutorials chairfrom HCI ’95 until ’98.
Apart from her work, Sandra’s major interests, which shepursued with single-minded dedication, were cats andcompetitions. One of her dreams was to move to a cottage inthe country and breed cats commercially. On the competitionfront, she applied all her intelligence and formidabledetermination to the chase, and was successful remarkablyoften. Within the last ten years she won a car and severalexotic holidays, plus numerous other smaller prizes.
All who knew Sandra will have fond recollections of herdirectness, optimism and commitment, both to friends andcolleagues, and to her deeply held interests. She will besadly missed.
Alistair Kilgour contributed the above tribute, with con-tributions from many friends and colleagues, includingStella Mills, Ian Benest, Terry Mayes, Greg Michaelson,Patrick McAndrew, Gilbert Cockton and Alan Dix.
Following a moving funeral service on a bright sunnyafternoon on May 8th in Edinburgh, Alistair adds thefollowing: “The thing that surprised (and affected) memost was the playing of a recording of Sandra singing‘I know that my redeemer liveth’. She was notreligious so far as anyone knew, but she was a greatsinger and could have achieved fame if she hadfollowed it up professionally. Instead she became amusic teacher – until computers lured her away frommusic.”
Iain McGregor, HCI Research StudentNapier University, [email protected]
Gadgets and GizmosOct 15th might feel a little early to be thinking of Christmas, butthat’s your deadline for a special feature for our Decemberissue. We are wanting reviews of all manner of seductivetechnology, done to an evaluation framework of your choosing!Whether it’s PDAs, Minidisk players, Flash memory devices,our readers deserve to hear your insights about the varioustoys you have bought recently.
Let’s face it, we are all tempted by the same toys, but if we buypresents for our partner, parents, or kids we don’t want them tobe unhappy with our largesse on the grounds of usability of allthings. And if we treat ourselves, we might as well not makethe same mistakes someone else made. But if there issomething out there that is a dream to use, we all want one.
What vital interviews did you fail to record because the recordbutton doesn't let you know if it’s on or not? What problems didyou have getting your contact list off the desktop and into thePDA? Did those digital pix of your friend’s wedding afford aninstant web-site before they came back from honeymoon?
Feel free to point us to the long-established references inergonomics, HCI, whatever, that you might think by now wouldbe common sense. Hopefully you have got the idea by now –scenario-based!
14 Interfaces 47 • Summer 2001
Judith RamsayProfile
What’s your idea of happiness?A night of unbroken sleep
What is your greatest fear?Anything bad happening to members of my family
Which living person do you most admire?Julian Simpson
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?Letting other people think they are right when theyare not!
What is the trait you most deplore in others?Unnecessary negativity
What vehicles do you own?Several pairs of shoes and a pair of legs
What is your greatest extravagance?Organic Saint Vito Chianti ... mmm!
What makes you feel most depressed?The random and unfair events that life can visitupon people like illness and death
What objects do you always carry with you?Credit cards, Palm Pilot, keys, pain killers
Judith Ramsay is a Senior Consultant withNickleby HFE Ltd in Glasgow, Scotland.Her interest in HCI started with her PhDentitled “Measuring and facilitatinghuman–computer interaction” which shedid under the supervision of Keith Oatleyand Steve Draper. Following completion ofher PhD in 1992, Judith was awarded aRoyal Society European Fellowship tocarry our research in Germany, where sheevaluated an information system forintensive care, and provided input to its
redesign. This work was published in Behaviour and Information Technology,1997, Vol 16, No. 1, p. 17–24.
Judith then moved to Copenhagen to join the Danish leg of the AMODEUS IIEsprit project for the last eighteen months of the project, after which time shemoved to London to work with Jenny Preece at the Centre for People andSystems Interaction on how interrelating social, psychological and technicalfactors influence computer-mediated communication.
In 1997, Judith joined Nortel Networks as a User Experience Specialist,where she acquired significant knowledge in telecommunications, the internetand IP networks. Her work involved the application of behavioural principlesto the design and development of internet services and applications. Inparticular, she worked on the visualisation of network management software,the development of services for e-commerce and mobile commerce, andframeworks for application service provision.
After her three years with Nortel, she returned home to Glasgow to joinNickleby, with whom she has set up SUF (ScotlandIS Usability Forum), anexpert group for the Scottish usability community. This got off to a flying starton 10th May 2001. Nickleby's website is at http://www.nickleby.com/.
What do you dislike most about your appearance?I’m just not tall enough
What is your most unappealing habit?Saying “yes” too readily
What is your favourite smell?Real coffee brewing
What is your favourite word?Julian
What is your favourite building?The Tate Modern
What is your favourite journey?Glasgow to Newcastle
What or who is the greatest love of your life?Julian
On what occasions do you lie?To avoid unnecessarily hurting people
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?“Exactly!”
What is your greatest regret?Losing my father
When and where were you happiest?Around 1995
How do you relax?By remembering what’s important in life
What single thing would improve the quality of yourlife?More free time to clean my kitchen!
Which talent would you most like to have?To be all things to all people
What keeps you awake at night?Stabs of anxiety induced by whatever the topic ofthe week happens to be
What journey do you dread?Any trip involving the Northern Line
What is your favourite day out?A visit to Kew Gardens and the Serpentine
15Interfaces 40 • Spring 1999
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..
Pro
fess
iona
l Int
eres
ts (p
leas
e in
dica
te u
p to
six
are
as o
f pr
ofes
sion
al in
tere
st)
......
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...
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...
Dat
a P
rote
ctio
n A
ctT
he d
ata
on th
is f
orm
will
be
trea
ted
as c
onfi
dent
ial t
o th
e B
CS.
Nam
es a
nd a
ddre
ss m
ay b
e us
ed,
unde
r ou
r st
rict
con
trol
, for
mai
lings
judg
ed b
y th
e B
ritis
h H
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Gro
up E
xecu
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Mem
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nles
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.)
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lved
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rIn
terf
aces
mag
azin
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elpi
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un th
e an
nual
con
fere
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or jo
inin
g th
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ecut
ive.
If
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......
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Cor
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embe
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Jour
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ubsc
ript
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Inte
ract
ing
with
Com
pute
rs’
The
HC
I G
roup
man
ages
a jo
urna
l, In
tera
ctin
g w
ith
Com
pute
rs, p
ublis
hed
quar
terl
y by
Els
evie
r Sc
ienc
e. M
embe
rs m
ay s
ubsc
ribe
to th
is jo
urna
l at a
red
uced
rat
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Plea
se s
end
me
Vol
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£ ...
......
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Plea
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& 1
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£ ...
......
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Plea
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end
me
a fr
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ampl
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sue
Pay
men
tP
leas
e en
ter
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tota
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ount
for
mem
bers
hip
and
subs
crip
tion
s£
.....
......
....
I en
clos
e a
cheq
ue/p
osta
l ord
er (
in P
ound
s St
erlin
g on
ly p
leas
e), m
ade
paya
ble
toB
riti
sh H
CI
Gro
upor Pl
ease
deb
it m
y A
cces
s/V
isa/
Mas
terc
ard
Car
d nu
mbe
rE
xpir
y
/
/
The
info
rmat
ion
prov
ided
on
this
for
m is
to m
y kn
owle
dge
corr
ect a
nd I
agr
ee to
the
cond
ition
s st
ated
.
Sign
atur
e: ..
......
......
......
......
......
......
......
......
......
.....
Dat
e: ..
......
......
.....
Car
d ho
lder
’s n
ame
and
addr
ess
if d
iffe
rent
fro
m a
bove
:
......
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...
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......
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......
......
......
......
......
......
......
......
...
......
......
......
......
......
......
......
......
......
......
......
......
......
......
......
......
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......
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......
...
Send
com
plet
ed f
orm
s an
d ch
eque
s to
:
HC
I M
embe
rshi
p, B
riti
sh C
ompu
ter
Soci
ety,
1 Sa
nfor
d St
reet
, Sw
indo
n, S
N1
1HJ,
UK
(Tel
.+44
(0)1
793
4174
17)
Que
ries
abo
ut m
embe
rshi
p ca
n al
so b
e e-
mai
led
to:
hci@
bcs.
org.
uk
Bri
tish
HC
I G
roup
– A
pplic
atio
n F
orm
200
0P
leas
e pr
int o
r ty
pe
16 Interfaces 47 • Summer 2001
HCI Executive Contact List
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