17320618
Exploring user effort involved in using history tools through MHP/GOMS: results and experiences
MHP/GOMS is used to examine the user effort involved in reissuing commands with and without using history tools. Compared to typing, using a history tool for command specification requires more mental effort but less physical effort. However, non-expert typists expend less overall effort using history tools. Also, based on our experiences with using MHP/GOMS to explore “what if” scenarios, we found some serious gaps and limitations. More research, documentation and training is required. Despite the drawbacks, MHP/GOMS is useful as a “tool for thought”, as a “tool for explaining user behaviour”, and as a basis for analyzing the user effort issue.
12171458
Making web sites be places for social interaction
Technology can play an important role in enabling people to interact with each other. The Web is one such technology with the affordances for sharing information and for connecting people to people. In this paper, we describe the design of two social interaction Web sites for two different social groups. We review several related efforts to provide principles for creating social interaction environments and describe the specific principles that guided our design. To examine the effectiveness of the two sites, we analyze the usage data. Finally, we discuss approaches for encouraging participation and lessons learned.
7785175
Dynamic forms: an enhanced interaction abstraction based on forms
Dynamic Forms supports developers in creating a single, dynamic, scrollable form using a form description language. The virtual form is structured into sections and subsections so that effective organization and navigation of the information are possible. The object-oriented, textual, and interpretive nature of the language allow developers to incorporate user suggestions concerning changes to a dynamic form quickly and with minimal tools. Dynamic Forms is based on an understanding of the environment in which data-entry tasks are carried out, the manner in which users perform their tasks, and how the users utilize human and computer resources in solving these tasks.
8964703
Experiences in developing collaborative applications using the World Wide Web “shell”
The components of the World Wide Web, which we call the World Wide Web Shell, provide a framework for collaborative application development in much the same way as an expert system shell does for expert system development. This development is quick enough to support rapid prototyping. Once the collaborative application is developed, the WWW Shell facilitates the distribution of the application and its data to geographically-separated users on diverse computing platforms. We have developed and deployed two collaborative applications, Design Intent and NYNEX Portholes, using the WWW Shell. These applications are described and our experiences developing them with the WWW Shell are detailed. In the process of developing these applications we discovered limitations of the WWW Shell which we present, along with suggested modifications and extensions to address them.
40848730
User's command line reference behaviour: Locality versus recency
27113053
A Multimedia Office Filing System
1879649
Low-Complexity Approaches to Slepian&#8211;Wolf Near-Lossless Distributed Data Compression
This paper discusses the Slepian-Wolf problem of distributed near-lossless compression of correlated sources. We introduce practical new tools for communicating at all rates in the achievable region. The technique employs a simple "source-splitting" strategy that does not require common sources of randomness at the encoders and decoders. This approach allows for pipelined encoding and decoding so that the system operates with the complexity of a single user encoder and decoder. Moreover, when this splitting approach is used in conjunction with iterative decoding methods, it produces a significant simplification of the decoding process. We demonstrate this approach for synthetically generated data. Finally, we consider the Slepian-Wolf problem when linear codes are used as syndrome-formers and consider a linear programming relaxation to maximum-likelihood (ML) sequence decoding. We note that the fractional vertices of the relaxed polytope compete with the optimal solution in a manner analogous to that observed when the "min-sum" iterative decoding algorithm is applied. This relaxation exhibits the ML-certificate property: if an integral solution is found, it is the ML solution. For symmetric binary joint distributions, we show that selecting easily constructable "expander"-style low-density parity check codes (LDPCs) as syndrome-formers admits a positive error exponent and therefore provably good performance
15346826
Open implementation analysis and design
This paper describes a methodology for designing Open Implementations -software modules that can adapt or change their internals to accommodate the needs of different clients. Analysis techniques are used for capturing domain knowledge, user requirements, and domain properties that influence the module’s eventual implementation. Design techniques are used for determining and refining the interfaces by which clients control the modules implementation strategies. The methodology has evolved over the past two years in several pilot projects.
41220365
Presumed Versus Actual Organizational Culture: Managerial Implications for Implementation of Information Systems
This paper builds on Markus and Rohey's four-level framework of analyzing resistance to implementation of information systems. The four levels of analysis pertain to the user, the organizational structure, the political power and the environment. We suggest adding a complementary fifth level pertaining to the organizational culture. The paper proceeds from a definition of culture to an explanation of its dimensions, in line with the management and control approach to culture. A case study of an attempt to implement an information system is presented and the five levels of analysis are used to explain the implementation failure
18476883
Electronic Mail as a Medium for Rich Communication: An Empirical Investigation Using Hermeneutic Interpretation
This study provides an account of how richness occurs in communication that uses electronic mail. In examining actual e-mail exchanged among managers in a corporation, the study interprets the managerial use of the communication medium of electronic mail as the users themselves understand and experience it. Employing the research approach of interpretivism in general and hermeneutics in particular, the study finds that richness or leanness is not an inherent property of the electronic-mail medium, but an emergent property of the interaction of the electronic-mail medium with its organizational context, where the interaction is described in terms of distanciation, autonomization, social construction, appropriation, and enactment.Conclusions and recommendations are that managers who receive e-mail are not passive recipients of data, but active producers of meaning; that the best or just an appropriate communication medium is not determined through an individual manager's exercise of rational decision making, but emerges as best or appropriate over time, over the course of the medium's interactions with many users; that systems professionals need to treat the managerial user of an e-mail system not merely as a client of information services, but also as a processor or co-processor to be integrated into the system design; and that information systems researchers need to dedicate attention to the actual processes by which the users of communication medium come to understand themselves, their own use of the medium, and their organizational context.
7521097
Using a case study to test the role of three key social enablers in ERP implementation
The literature indicates that three key social enablers--strong and committed leadership, open and honest communication, and a balanced and empowered implementation team are necessary conditions/precursors for successful enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation. In a longitudinal positivist case study, we find that, while all three enablers may contribute to ERP implementation success, only strong and committed leadership can be empirically established as a necessary condition. This presents a challenge to future ERP researchers for resolving apparent contradictions between the existing literature and the results of our analysis. One possible direction for future research would be to undertake an interpretive re-examination of the rationalisitic assumptions that underlie much of the existing literature on ERP systems implementation.