HCI2002/EUPA: Search Engines, Mouse-free Surfing, Sketch Retrieval and Space Robots

This session, chaired by Alistair Kilgour, consisted of four short papers gathered under the banner of "browsing and searching". The papers covered a wide range of HCI domains - two were focused on web-related issues, one on content-based image retrieval, and one on trend data (as familiar to doctors and seismologists everywhere).

The session kicked off with a lively talk from Alan Salmoni of Cardiff University. Alan presented an investigation (carried out with Stephen Payne), into how the effectiveness of search engine results is influenced by summary style. This is an enticing research issue. We've all been there – searching for something on the web, and having to trawl through endless lists of cryptic page summaries.

Four summary styles were compared: initial words from each matching page (as in Alta Vista), matched terms in surrounding context (as in Google), keyword summaries, and page titles on their own. Results included a nice example of the oft-quoted HCI result: 'less is more'. Page titles on their own resulted in better judgements of content when compared to the more contextualised summaries. One suggested explanation for this was that query-biased summary context can sometimes appear misleadingly positive. The presentation was followed by some debate on possible effects due to other variables such as correctness, formatting and length of page titles.

Next Robert Hilderman of Regina University presented his work with Terry Peckham and Elizabeth Totten on TextMouse, a mouse-free web interface. The talk commenced with a geography lesson for those of us who thought Regina was somewhere down the Old Kent Road. Another clue that this was not the case was provided by the fact that the speaker pronounced 'mouse' as 'moose'.

This work was aimed at enabling mouse-less web surfing. A series of shocking statistics conveyed the scale of computer-related RSI (repetitive stress injury), of which the speaker had had first-hand experience. Despite the fact that many types of RSI are due to mouse usage, web browsers provide poor keyboard support, and web-surfing remains a mouse-intensive activity.

Robert moved on to present TextMouse, a prototype keyboard-driven web browser. Downloaded pages are reformatted (only slightly – web designers, please calm down), and any clickable object is assigned an alphanumeric label, like 123this . Therefore the user can follow any link by typing in the corresponding code. Preliminary evaluation carried out suggests that the interface provides some relief from the symptoms of RSI. Future work plans include the development of a voice interface ... mouse manufacturers beware!

The third paper was presented by Sunderland's Sharon McDonald (co-authors: Jill Bradnum and Ting Sheng Lai). Their work was an investigation of content-based information retrieval – where the primary search key is a visual feature such as shape, colour or texture.

Twenty subjects were asked to try out two retrieval interfaces – one based on query-by-sketch (see image above), and one based on a colour browser. The users were generally able to specify visual queries, and also to search on dominant image colour. However in certain search tasks, users encountered problems. For instance, when the desired image had not been previously seen, uncertainty over the spatial location of key features led to difficulties when specifying visual queries.

Despite the limitations, further research in this area must surely be encouraged. Synergies with Andrew Monk's keynote on making interaction more fun spring to mind! Tired of misspelling the name of those hard-to-spell HCI professors when hunting down references? How about sketching their distinguishing features instead at doodle.google?

The final presentation was by Antonie Mahlerwein of Loughborough University. The focus of this work, co-authored with Mark Lansdale, was graphical trend data of the kind that doctors and seismologists always seem to be looking at. In particular their investigation was concerned with two poorly understood applications of trend data: as a mnemonic device, and as a shared, mediating resource.

Antonie summarised the series of experiments that they had carried out involving a whopping 245 users. Initially the participants were familiarised with example graphs via a series of orienting tasks. After this they underwent a memory test (individually or in pairs) to see if they remembered the graphs they had previously worked with. In order to liven things up, subjects were told that the trend data contained secret codes or space robot data. This may be a useful tactic for usability engineers who are frustrated by their test users falling asleep when evaluating visualisation tools or e-commerce sites!

In conclusion, orienting tasks that required deeper processing lead to slightly improved recognition. Memory performance was optimal when analysis was a solo effort, and recognition was carried out as a team with each member allowed equal status at recall. So in other words if you ever wake up in a hospital bed with a gaggle of junior doctors at the foot of your bed, squabbling over your vital readings – there is no need to get stressed. This is in fact a good thing!

More detail on all these papers can be found in Volume 2 of the HCI2002 Proceedings, or by following the links above.

Richard Boardman
www.iis.ee.ic.ac.uk/~rick

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