Proceedings. 3rd Asia Pacific Computer Human Interaction (Cat. No.98EX110)

The fundamental challenge for human computer interaction (HCI) is to invent and design a culture in which humans can express themselves and engage in personally meaningful activities. Cultures are substantially defined by their media and tools for thinking, working, learning, and collaborating. New media change: (1) the structure and contents of our interests, (2) the nature of our cognitive and p... View full abstract»

In drawing figures using a computer assisted drawing editor, users often find it difficult to draw figures that seem to be very simple. To explain this problem, the paper first introduces an operation model that consists of two layers: concrete layer and abstract layer. The problem is that a user must deal with invisible abstract pictures, which is a combination of editor's drawing functions. To r... View full abstract»

When they encounter problems with a novel or infrequently performed task, experienced users often complete their work by referring to manuals and trying task oriented exploration. However, the contents of the documentation can vary from step by step instructions for a single task to generic descriptions of a family of related procedures. The paper describes the Linked model of Comprehension based ... View full abstract»

The best way to ensure usability is to treat human factors as an input to design, rather than merely evaluating prototypes or design documentation. The capability of pattern languages to facilitate the design process, improve communication, and record design philosophies suggests that they may assist the user centred design process. Researchers have not yet investigated in detail what a pattern la... View full abstract»

The paper describes a Multimedia Multi-User Dungeon System for the Digital Museum. The Digital Museum is a computer aided museum. In the Digital Museum, we can not only see many actual exhibits as the same as usual museums, but access multimedia databases to acquire more information with kiosk terminals. As the interface of multimedia databases, we developed the Multimedia Multi-User Dungeon (MMMU... View full abstract»

In distributed conference systems, participants get access to the shared documents through the computer network. The authors describe requirements in distributed conferences regarding access rights to shared documents. We give four categories of hypermedia representation based on access rights and two principles of human interface design to avoid mismatch between access rights and oral communicati... View full abstract»

The paper describes a design and implementation of the browser for the Digital Museum multimedia multi user dungeon (MMMUD). MMMUD browser is a user interface software to the multi user virtual environment provided by MMMUD. We introduce two ideas to realize MMMUD browser with kiosk terminals: the tool metaphor and the video guide. The tool metaphor is a unified interface for acquiring precise inf... View full abstract»

A new concept of "Attachable Computer" is proposed for the purpose of augmenting the use of daily artifacts by fit-up type small computer devices which can be directly attached on user interfaces of the artifacts. Attachable Computer is a small computer device which can recognize situations on the user interface of electric household appliances such as a light switch or a display panel of video ta... View full abstract»

Digital media such as World Wide Web or CD-ROMs enable us to publish and transfer computer graphics, digital images, or audio data in ways that were not available for paper media. Yet, paper still has many advantages. It is easier to carry, strong enough to survive dropping or bending, and it offers highest resolution for printed text and images. We have developed an augmented desk top interface, ... View full abstract»

The paper introduces a novel technique for producing augmented reality systems that simultaneously identify real world objects and estimate their coordinate systems. This method utilizes a 2D matrix marker, a square shaped barcode, which can identify a large number of objects. It also acts as a landmark to register information on real world images. As a result, it costs virtually nothing to produc... View full abstract»

Public information kiosks are used increasingly in Singapore to provide enquiries and services to the public. Thanks to the National IT2000 plan, such kiosks are now a common sight in public places. To ensure effective use of such kiosks, a field evaluation of a number of public information systems was conducted from a human factors perspective. The paper reports the results of the evaluation for ... View full abstract»

The study presented investigated the influence of system complexity and previous experience on the perception of usability. Each of 24 subjects used a standard (simple) and a feature-rich (complex) graphical information retrieval system to complete a total of 6 information searches. The subjects provided ratings of the ease of learning, using and understanding each system. These ratings were used ... View full abstract»

An evaluation experiment was conducted to compare four interaction modes: mouse based, pen based, pen+voice, and pen+voice+mouse modes. Subjects tested the four modes for drawing and modifying an engineering plan on a CAD system. The results show that the pen+voice+mouse mode was the best of the four modes, in terms of total manipulation time (drawing time and modification time), and the subjects'... View full abstract»

The objective of the study is to improve teacher efficiency so that large numbers of students can be educated, while at the same time implementing an individual approach to education in which each student's progress is taken into account. To achieve this objective, we propose an education system for groups of students at a similar stage of learning. With this system, CAI is used to help individual... View full abstract»

We have developed a multi user electronic conference system for supporting new ideas, named DEMPO III. DEMPO III is a text based desktop electronic conference system for a face to face environment. This system is implemented in a network in our program practicing room, consisting of 40 personal computers and one workstation. So far, though most systems for multiple users have a chat function, ther... View full abstract»

The paper describes the learners interface of a computer aided learning system for foreign students to learn Hiragana/Katakana characters. Since the system is used during a short period for learning them, its user interface must be self explaining without requiring time and effort to get accustomed to it. Moreover the system must enable learners to practice writing of characters like on a piece of... View full abstract»

The multi participant VR system can more enhance the sense of reality than existing single user VR systems. But, we should be careful when designing the system, since the current Internet using TCP/IP cannot afford to deliver such a massive amount of information required for the real time constraint of a VR system. We introduce distributed network structure and protocols for multiple user virtual ... View full abstract»

Translation support systems have the ability to retrieve information quickly from large databases and dictionaries. However, current systems lack the ability to present relevant information automatically, at just the right moment, without interruptions. To allow a user seamless retrieval, an ideal system would be able to observe a translator's behavior, predict their translation processes and auto... View full abstract»

A system aiming at implementing 3D sound, so called, 3DSGS (3D Sound Generation System), is introduced. This system supplies spatial attributes of a sound source which occurred in a particular place to other dull sounds faithfully, which is made possible by utilizing HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function) as convolution filter to modify spectral characteristics of the input source. The 3DSGS develo... View full abstract»

Designing documents, such as writing a technical paper, manual or WWW home pages, starts with a goal in mind but often does not simply proceed in a top down problem solving style. The document design process consists of a cycle of interpretation, modification and understanding. It requires both generating parts (words, sentences, and paragraphs) and structuring them while exploring what to write. ... View full abstract»

In collaborative design, participants usually have different backgrounds and standpoints. Due to these differences, it is hard for participants to mutually understand intentions, and they must make a lot of effort to reach a mutual agreement on the design. Thus, the efficiency of the design processes is decreased. We propose a framework to support participants in mutual understanding by grasping a... View full abstract»

This paper outlines an awareness application called Ticketape. Tickertape is a tool that displays event notifications in the form of scrolling messages across a single-line window. The Tickertape message window provides an interface to a world of highly tailorable transient information. We provide an overview of Tickertape features and then discuss its specific use within a semi-commercial researc... View full abstract»

The ability to synchronously and asynchronously edit work artefacts has become very important in many editing tools. However, most tools usually only provide one kind of collaborative editing "level" or provide incompatible levels of collaborative editing. We describe our recent work in adding flexible, user configurable collaborative editing facilities to component based design environments, and ... View full abstract»

It is important to analyze small group information sharing process in a long term manner. In the long term social process analysis, social network changes in human relationships are significant keys to capture characteristics of the social process. In the early stage of information sharing process analysis, it is necessary to identify the information sharing structure in a small group in a variety... View full abstract»