Individual Differences and Task-Based User Interface Evaluation: A Case Study of Pending Tasks in Email

Gwizdka, Jacek and Chignell, Mark H. Individual Differences and Task-Based User Interface Evaluation: A Case Study of Pending Tasks in Email. Interacting with Computers, 2004, vol. 16, n. 4, pp. 769-797. [Journal article (Paginated)]

[thumbnail of 2004_Gwizdka_Chignell_ID_Email_IwC_authors_final.pdf]
Preview
 PDF
2004_Gwizdka_Chignell_ID_Email_IwC_authors_final.pdf
Download (546kB) | Preview

English abstract

This paper addresses issues raised by the ever-expanding role of email as a multi-faceted application that combines communication, collaboration, and task management. Individual differences analysis was used to contrast two email user interfaces in terms of their demands on users. The results of this analysis were then interpreted in terms of their implications for designing more inclusive interfaces that meet the needs of users with widely ranging abilities.The specific target of this research is the development of a new type of email message representation that makes pending tasks more visible. We describe a study that compared a new way of representing tasks in an email inbox, with a more standard representation (the Microsoft Outlook inbox). The study consisted of an experiment that examined how people with different levels of three specific cognitive capabilities (flexibility of closure, visual memory, and working memory) perform when using these representations. We then identified combinations of representation and task that are disadvantageous for people with low levels of the measured capabilities.

Item type: Journal article (Paginated)
Keywords: email interfaces, task management, individual differences, external representations, user interface design
Subjects: L. Information technology and library technology > LA. Telecommunications.
C. Users, literacy and reading. > CB. User studies.
B. Information use and sociology of information > BI. User interfaces, usability.
Depositing user: Jacek Gwizdka
Date deposited: 14 Nov 2009
Last modified: 02 Oct 2014 12:15
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10760/13703

References

Baddeley, A. (1986). Working memory. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Bälter, O. & Sidner, C. (2000). Bifrost Inbox Organizer: Giving users control over the inbox, Technical Report: Lotus Research TR 00-08.

Bellotti, V., Ducheneaut, N., Howard, and Smith, I. (2002). FLANNEL: Adding computation to electronic mail during transmission. In Proceedings of UIST’2002. New York, NY: ACM Press. 1-9.

Bellotti, V., Ducheneaut, N., Howard, M., & Smith, I. (2003). Taking email to task: the design and evaluation of a task management centered email tool. In Proceedings of the Conference on Human Factors in Computing System CHI’2003, New York, NY: ACM Press. 345-352.

Benet-Martinez, V. & John, O. P. (1998) Los Cincos Grandes across cultures and ethnic groups: Multitrait multimethod analyses of the Big Five in Spanish and English. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, (75), 729-750.

Boone, G. (1998). Concept Features in Re:Agent, an Intelligent Email Agent. In Proceedings the Second International Conference on Autonomous Agents. New York, NY: ACM Press. 141-148.

Carroll, J. B. (1974). Psychometric tests as cognitive tasks: A new "structure of intellect". Research Bulletin, 74.

Carroll, J. B. (1993). Human Cognitive Abilities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Carroll, J. M., Neale, D. C., Isenhour, P. L., Rosson, M. B., & Mccrickard, D. S. (2003). Notification and awareness: synchronizing task-oriented collaborative activity. International Journal Of Human-Computer Studies, 58, 605.

Cattel, R.B. (1971). Abilities: Their Structure, Growth and Action. New York, Houghton Mifflin.

Chen, C., & Rada, R. (1996). Interacting with hypertext: A meta-analysis of experimental studies. Human-Computer Interaction, 11(2), 125-156.

Conway, M. A. (1990). Autobiographical memory: An introduction. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Cribbin, T., & Chen, C. (2001). Exploring Cognitive Issues in Visual Information Retrieval. Proceedings of the Eighth IFIP TC.13 Conference on Human-Computer Interaction - INTERACT 2001, Tokyo, Japan.

Cypher, A. (1986). The Structure of Users' Activites. In D.Norman & S. W. Draper (Eds.), User Centered Systems Design: New Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 243-263). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Czerwinski M., Cutrell E. and Horvitz E. (2000) Instant messaging and interruption: Influence of task type on performance. In C. Paris, N. Ozkan, S. Howard and S. Lu (Eds.), Proceedings of OZCHI 2000: Interfacing Reality in the New Millennium. Academic Press, pp. 356-361

Czerwinski M., Horvitz E. and Wilhite S. (2004) A diary study of task switching and interruptions. In Proceedings of ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI'2004. New York: ACM Press.

Dillon, A. & Watson, C. (1996). User analysis in HCI: The historical lessons from individual differences research. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 45(6), 619-637.

Ducheneaut, N., Bellotti, V. (2001). Email as habitat: an exploration of embedded PIM. Interactions, 8(5), New York, NY: ACM Press. 30-38.

Egan, D. (1988). Individual differences in Human-Computer Interaction. In M. Helander (Ed.), Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers. 543-568.

Ekstrom R.B. et al. (1976). Manual for Kit of Factor Referenced Cognitive Tests. Princeton, NJ, USA: Education Testing Service.

Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Gruen, D. (1996). The Role of External Resources in the Management of Multiple Activities. Unpublished PhD Thesis. UCSD: San Diego, CA, USA.

Gwizdka, J. (2001). Supporting Prospective Information in Email. In Extended Abstracts of ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI'2001. New York, NY: ACM Press. 135-136.

Gwizdka, J. (2002). Reinventing the Inbox – Supporting the Management of Pending Tasks in Email. In Extended Abstracts of ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI'2002. (Doctoral Consortium). New York, NY: ACM Press. 550-551

Gwizdka, J. (2002). Email Land – An Exploration of Email User Interfaces Supporting Pending Tasks. Conference Companion of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology UIST'2002. New York, NY: ACM Press. 9-10.

Gwizdka, J. (2002). TaskView – Design and Evaluation of a Task-based Email Interface. Proceedings of the IBM Centers for Advanced Studies Conference CASCON’2002. Toronto, Canada: IBM. 136-145.

Gwizdka, J., Whittaker S. (2003) “Redesigning Email for the 21st Century” Report from CSCW’02 Workshop. SIGCHI Bulletin, 2003, March/April, Vol. 35. New York, NY: ACM Press.

Gwizdka, J. (2004). Cognitive Abilities and Email Interaction: Impacts of Interface and Task. Unpublished PhD Dissertation. University of Toronto.

Jackson, T. W., Dawson, R. J., & Wilson, D. (2001). The Cost of Email Interruption. The Journal of Systems and Information Technology, 5, 81-92.

Jovicic, A. (2000). Implications for the design of email management software. Unpublished M.Sc. Thesis, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Toronto.

Kaptelinin, V. (2003). UMEA: translating interaction histories into project contexts. In Proceedings of the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI’2003, New York, NY: ACM Press. 353-360.

Kaptelinin, V. (1996). Activity Theory: Implications for human-computer interaction. In B. Nardi, (ed), Context and Consciousness: Activity theory and human-computer interaction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Kiritchenko, S. & Matwin, S. (2001). Email Classification with Co-Training. In Proceedings of the IBM Centers for Advanced Studies Conference CASCON’2001. Toronto, Canada: IBM.

Kline, P. (2000). The New Psychometrics. London and Philadelphia: Routledge.

Kuutti, Kari. (1997). Activity Theory as a potential framework for Human-Computer Interaction research . In B. A. Nardi (ed.): Context and Consciousness: Activity Theory and Human-Computer Interaction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Lindsay, P. & Norman, D. A. (1977). Human Information Processing. Academic Press, New York.

Mackay, W. E. (1988). More than Just a Communication System: Diversity in the Use of Electronic Mail. In Proceedings of Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work CSCW’1988. New York, NY: ACM Press. 26-28.

Malone, T. (1983). How do people organize their desks? Implications for the design of office information systems. ACM Transactions on Information Systems. 1, New York, NY: ACM Press. 99–112.

McFarlane, D. C. & Latorella, K. A. (2002). The Scope and Importance of Human Interruption in Human-Computer Interaction Design. Human-Computer Interaction, 17, 1-61.

McFarlane, D. C. (2002). Comparison of Four Primary Methods for Coordinating the Interruption of People in Human-Computer Interaction. Human-Computer Interaction, 17, 63-139.

Miyake, A. (2001). Individual Differences in Working Memory: Introduction to the Special Section. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130, 163-168.

Miyata, Y. & Norman, D. (1986). Psychological issues in support of multiple activities. In D.Norman & S. W. Draper (Eds.), User Centered Systems Design: New Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 265-284). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Miller, G. (1956). The magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information. Psychological Review, 63(2), 81-97.

Mock, K. (2001). An Experimental Framework for Email Categorization and Management. In Proceedings of SIGIR’2001. ACM Press.

Modjeska, D. and Chignell, M. (In press). Individual Differences in Exploration using Desktop VR. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.

Murphy K.R., Myors B. (1998). Statistical Power Analysis. A Simple and General Model for Traditional and Model Hypothesis Tests. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

Neuwirth, C.M., et al. (1998). Envisioning communication: Task-tailorable representations of communication in asynchronous work. In Proceedings of the Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, CSCW’1998. New York, NY: ACM Press. 265 – 274.

Oulasvirta, A. & Saariluoma, P. (2004). Long-term working memory and interrupting messages in human-computer interaction. Behaviour & Information Technology, 23, 53-64.

Robertson, G., Mackinlay, J., & Card, S. K. (1991). Cone Trees: Animated 3D Visualizations of Hierarchical Information. In (pp. 189-194). ACM Press.

Robertson, G., et al. (1998). Data mountain: using spatial memory for document management. In Proceedings of UIST’1998. New York, NY: ACM Press. 153–162.

Rohall, S. L., Gruen, D., Moody, P., & Kellerman, S. (2001). Email Vsualizations to Aid Communications. In Proceedings of IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization InfoVis’2001. IEEE. 12-15.

Segal, R. B., & Kephart, J. O. (1999). MailCat: An Intelligent Assistant for Organizing E-mail. In Proceedings of The Third Annual Conference on Autonomous Agents. New York, NY: ACM Press. 276-282.

Sein, M. K., Bostrom, R.P., Olfman, L. and Davis, S.D. (1993) "Visualization Ability as a Predictor of User Learning Success", International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 39, 599-620.

Stern, M. K. (2003). Identifying and Understanding Dates and Times in Email. [Technical Report]. (Rep. No. TR2003-11).

Takkinen, J., & Shahmehri, N. (1998). CAFE: A Conceptual Model for Managing Information in Electronic Mail. In Proceedings of the 31st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - HICSS-31, 44-53.

Trafton J. G., Altmann E. M., Brock D. P. and Mintz F. E. (2003) Preparing to resume an interrupted task: Effects of prospective goal encoding and retrospective rehearsal, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 58, 583-603.

Venolia, G. D., Cadiz, J. J., Dabbish, L., & Gupta A. (2001). Supporting Email Workflow. Technical Report: MSR-TR-2001-88: Microsoft Research.

Westerman, S.J. (1993). Individual Differences in Human-Computer Interaction. Unpublished. PhD dissertation. Aston University England.

Westerman, S.J. (1995). Computerised information retrieval: Individual differences in the use of spatial and non-spatial information. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 81, 771-786.

Westerman, S. J., & Cribbin, T. (2000). Mapping semantic information in virtual space: Dimensions, variance, and individual differences. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 53(5), 765-788.

Westerman, S. J., & Cribbin, T. (2000). Cognitive ability and information retrieval: When less is more. Virtual Reality, 5(1), 1-7.

Wickens, C. D., & Carswell, C. M. The Proximity Compatibility Principle: Its Psychological Foundation and Relevance to Display Design. Human Factors, 37(3), 473-495.

Whittaker, S., Sidner, C. (1996). Email overload: exploring personal information management of email. In Proceedings of the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI’1996. ACM Press. 276-283.

Whittaker, S., Terveen, L., & Nardi, B. (2000). Let's Stop Pushing the Envelope and Start Addressing It: A Reference Task Agenda for HCI. Human-Computer Interaction, 15, 75-106.

Whittaker, S., Jones, Q., and Terveen, L. (2002). Managing Long Term Conversations: Conversation and Contact Management. In Proceedings of the 35st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - HICSS-35.

Witkin, H. A., Moore, C. A., Goodenough, D. R. and Cox, P. W. (1977). Field-Dependent and Field-Independent Cognitive Styles and their Educational Research. Review of Educational Research, 47(1), 1-64.

Yiu, K., Baecker, R.M., Silver, N., and Long, B. (1997). A Time-based Interface for Electronic Mail and Task Management. In Proceedings of HCI International '1997. 2, Amsterdam: Elsevier. 19-22.

Zhang, J.& Norman, D. A. (1994). Representations in distributed cognitive tasks. Cognitive Science, 18, 87-122

Zhang, Salvendy, G. (2001). The Implication of Visualization Ability and Structure Preview Design for Web Information Search Tasks. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction.


Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item
Contact us
Send email Sponsors
Sponsor: AIMS Sponsor: D&P Sponsor: UniNa CAB Get connected
Facebook Facebook Twitter Twitter Linkedin LinkedIn RSS RSS