|
Coyer/Schram - Assignment 14 1. what did you find 1.1. interesting about the article? We found the information and diagrams about the user knowledge domains to be interesting. 1.2. not interesting about the article? We found the evaluation of human-computer interaction to be a reiteration of material previously discussed in class. 2. what do you consider the main message of the article? The main message of the article is that user modeling is a worthwhile area of study with high payoffs for well built systems. Some of the payoffs include many features of good software engineering such as software reuse. However, the article does point out that growth in this area is slow despite the potentially large benifits of research within the HCI field. 3. to which other previous articles / discussion topics of the course is this article related? This article is related to much of the HCI issues we have been studying over the semester. User modeling fits in with systems such as CLEVER and the EDC because the user is the most important part of those systems, and those systems are designed to be as easy to use as possible as well as providing robust funcitonality for the user. 4. choose MS-Word (or another HFA) as an example: 4.1. how much (in percent) of the functionality of the HFA do you know? We probably only know about 40% of the functionality of the application, but this is a hard percentage to come up with because there is so much functionality one does not know where to guess that it stops. This is similar to asking, how many (in percentage) of the worlds books have you read? 4.2. how do you learn new functionality? Microsoft's built in help documentation has been very helpful if you know specifically what you want to do. Google is also good for learning tasks that you can phrase. However, sometimes we learn by simply stumbling over a new feature that we then add to our capabilities. 4.3. for MS-Word users: is there a command in MS-Word which “transposes two characters” (e.g., “leanr” becomes “learn” by positioning the cursor between n and r and executing the command)? No, not that we could find. 5. what have YOU learnt “on demand” in YOUR life? Briefly describe the most prominent example. Ryan - The most prominant examples of 'learning on demand' are travel related. For instance, when planning a vacation to a specific country, you demand information about how to get there, what to do while there, what to eat, what not to wear, what not to say, etc. For a specific example, when I studied abroad in New Zealand, members of the returning student group mentioned that there were certain words that, though innocuous and innocent in the U.S., are vulgar and even degrading in New Zealand. I searched around the internet (via google) until I found a list of such words (http://www.users.bigpond.com/RandyMiller/Dictionary.htm). Do not, under any circumstances, refer to a small bag carried around the waist as a fanny-pack while in Australia or NZ... check the site to find out why. Aaron - I have learnt a ton of information on demand in my life, from books, tvs, and the internet. The most prominent example is probably the ability to program. When given a problem you want to focus more on how to solve the problem than the specific syntax of the specific language being used to describe your solution to the program. 6. what do people have to know to be able to learn on demand? A person has to know exactly what information they want to learn in order to learn on demand. If a person does not know what they are wanting to learn then they cannot demand the information they need. 7. why should one “learn on demand” instead of relying on “use on demand”? Learning on demand will overall make you a more efficient producer because when given a task you will have some base knowledge that can be used to quickly find other information. 8. which computer systems have you encountered which 8.1. have a User Modeling Component? Most operating systems have a 'tip of the day" application. Most applications as well as operating systems have very indepth help applications that can be easily searched. 8.2. support learning on demand? Any system with access to the internet.
|
