Use of Artificial Landmarks to Improve User Expertise Development in Computer Interfaces Seminar

Monday, July 5, 2-3 p.m.

Online

Md. Sami Uddin, University of Saskatchewan

Faculty Candidate Seminar

Abstract:

One aspect of being an expert with a Graphical User Interface (GUI) is knowing where the tools or commands are in an interface. Experts can quickly find and visit the locations of commands to carry out tasks on computers, but novices – users new to a GUI – must employ slow visual search to find a command’s location. Novices can become experts by
learning the locations of commands in GUIs. However, GUIs often make it difficult for users to learn command locations, mainly due to the presence of a large number of commands. Location learning in the real world is significantly benefitted from landmarks because they provide stable reference frames for nearby objects. Motivated by the real-life benefits of landmarks, my research explores the use of artificial elements (e.g., icons or colour blocks) as landmarks in GUIs. In order to test how landmarks support location learning and revisitation in
GUIs, I have carried out a series of studies with prototype interfaces augmented with artificial landmarks as well as commercially available standard applications. This talk presents results from three studies that show landmarks can be a valuable addition to GUIs that support efficient learning and recall of spatial locations in the interface, improving the development of user expertise.

Presented by Department of Computer Science