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Improving the user experience of complex applications: adapting to the user's mental model

Published: 28 August 2007 Publication History

Abstract

Motivation -- To develop a user model based on the users' visual and verbal skills which are important factors in the mental models users employ when interacting with computers.
Research approach -- A laboratory based empirical approach was used, in which 50 participants took part in visual skills, verbal skills and Riding's Cognitive Style Analysis (CSA) tests.
Findings/Design -- We were able to show that Riding's CSA test was not a valid measure for the visual and verbal skills required for user performance in complex applications. A factor analysis conducted on the data gathered was able to identify important components of the necessary skills.
Research limitations/Implications -- The use of laboratory based studies in order to measure real life skills are a limitation of the study. However we argue that our findings are generally applicable in wider contexts.
Originality/Value -- This research makes an important contribution to understanding how to model the skills necessary for users to interact with complex applications
Take away message -- As computer interaction becomes increasingly more complex, it is likely that valid measures of user characteristics and skills, such as those that we are developing will become increasingly important.

References

[1]
Barker, T., Jones, S., Britton, C. and Messer, D. (2002). The use of a co-operative student model of learner characteristics to configure a multimedia application. User Modelling and User Adapted Interaction. 12, 207--241
[2]
Hegarty, M. (1992). Mental animation: Inferring motion from static diagrams of mechanical systems. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 18(5), 1084--1102.
[3]
Kozhevnikov, M., Hegarty, M. and Mayer, R., E. (2003). Revising the Visualizer -- Verbalizer Dimension: Evidence for two types of Visualizers. Cognition and Instruction. 20(1), 44--77.
[4]
Riding, R. (1991a). Cognitive Style Analysis. Birmingham Learning and Training Technology.
[5]
Riding, R. (1991b). Cognitive Style Analysis: User's Manual. Birmingham Learning and Technology.
[6]
Riding, R. (1997). On the nature of cognitive style, learning styles and strategies. Educational Psychology. 17(1/2), 29--49.
[7]
Schnotz, V. (2002). Towards and integrated view of learning from text and visual displays. Educational Psychology Review, 14(1).
  1. Improving the user experience of complex applications: adapting to the user's mental model

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    ECCE '07: Proceedings of the 14th European conference on Cognitive ergonomics: invent! explore!
    August 2007
    334 pages
    ISBN:9781847998491
    DOI:10.1145/1362550
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

    Sponsors

    • The British Computer Society
    • ACM: Association for Computing Machinery
    • SIGCHI: Specialist Interest Group in Computer-Human Interaction of the ACM
    • Interactions, the Human-Computer Interaction Specialist Group of the BCS
    • Middlesex University, London, School of Computing Science
    • European Office of Aerospace Research and Development, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, United States Air Force Research Laboratory
    • EACE: European Association of Cognitive Ergonomics
    • Brunel University, West London, Department of Information Systems and Computing

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    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 28 August 2007

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    Author Tags

    1. mental models
    2. user modelling
    3. visual and verbal skills

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    • Research-article

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    ECCE07
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    ECCE07: European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics 2007
    August 28 - 31, 2007
    London, United Kingdom

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    Overall Acceptance Rate 56 of 91 submissions, 62%

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