Thesis Interface development

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Chapter 7:

Concept Development


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7.0 CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT Given the opportunities defined by the embracement of ADEE and the stakeholder-driven areas of concentration, the next phase of the investigation was to begin concept ideation and development. This phase introduced many design-driven practices, including brain-storming sessions, quick prototyping, stakeholder testing and iteration. The following concepts that arose from this process are possible digital tools that would help support the frameworks of ADEE, and are by no means an all-encompassing investigation of all of the tools needed to achieve ADEE. Instead, they are forwarded as possible tools that could advance the causes outlined by Assistive, Digitally Enhanced Education, and are intended to further the dialogue surrounding distance education reform. 7.1 Cognitive Narrative Concept As the background research highlighted, the knowledge one is able to garner from presented information is greatly effected by its cognitive narrative. This concept aims to strengthen the cognitive narrative of presented information by providing visual cues that help guide the knowledge-transfer process. 7.1.1 Principles behind the Cognitive Narrative Concept The principles behind this concept are quite simple, and rely upon knowing where the eye of the stakeholder is fixated within the presented information. In many cases, presented concepts involve a mix of different media that complement each other. The idea behind this is simple, if a concept presented in text form can be supported by other media including visuals or interactive elements, the ability of the user to retain knowledge is greatly increased. Unfortunately, until now there has been little way of leading a user through the material in a way that optimizes the knowledge transfer, leading a lot of users to access one type of media, most likely the text, before viewing the supporting media. This support of the cognitive narrative can be introduced in a number of ways, each focused on enabling the user to access relevant information when it is most efficient for them to do so. Moreover, while the aim of the


system is to lead the user through the task of accessing information, it is important to ensure that the interface takes the users natural preferences into account and doesn’t force information upon them, the final decision of whether to engage the additional materials must still remain with the user. With this in mind, there are two main approaches that were proposed for this concept. Firstly, eye-sensitive zones within the presented information are used to trigger actions of supportive learning, with the aim of reinforcing concepts being investigated. The purpose of this approach is to allow a student to access information on a given concept, and then immediately reinforce that learning with other media channels to enhance the knowledge transfer. The second approach is to monitor specific words, concepts or details within presented information, and provide definitions or additional information to fill in voids in comprehension where necessary. 7.1.2 Cognitive Narrative Concept Development To begin the development of the Cognitive Narrative concept, it was necessary to choose a context that would provide a platform to demonstrate the flexibility of the tools it encompasses. For this purpose, the field of art history was chosen, specifically for the myriad of media channels available for the analysis of the content. For the purposes of the initial prototype, Van Goghs’ famous work, “the Starry Night’ was chosen due to the abundant layers of content within the work, and the significant amount of literature dedicated to its interpretation. The first prototype was developed in Revolution Media, a programming software package designed to support quick concept development. The premise behind the concept was to take a critique of an art historian, and then support the user accessing that information by providing supportive media. It has been found in previous studies that when presented with an image and an art-historians critique of a given work, most novice users access one media completely before accessing the supporting material, breaking the intended cognitive narrative and resulting in a less-efficient transfer of information. It is the intent of the author to provide the user with scaffolding within the application that teaches the user best practices of accessing the information, and that once the user becomes more adept at doing so, this

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Opening Page of Cognitive Narrative Prototype that tracks the users interaction with the artwork in question

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Figure 7.1: Cognitive Narrative Prototype Screenshot (Authors’ picture) The cognitive narrative is strengthened by leading the reader from a text description of a concept, immediately to the image to reinforce their learning

Eye movements over a concept trigger a visual cue to draw the users eye from the concept to the visual

Figure 7.2: Cognitive Narrative Prototype Screenshot (Authors’ picture)


scaffolding will be removed. The layout of the application was carefully considered in detail, and drawing from the conclusions of Piolat et al (1997), the screen was formatted in a fashion to prevent the need for any scrolling.1 In doing so, it has been found that subjects retain more information than those who use scrolling text, thus increasing the efficiency of the knowledge transfer process. Knowing that the user would then be required to turn the page in some fashion, an experiment was made with providing page turning driven by the eye metrics, whereby the interface would recognize when the reader was at the end of the page and automatically turn to the next section of text. The interface offered several levels of information, ranging from simple visual cues to draw the users eye from the concepts presented in the text back to the relevant areas of the artwork to immediately reinforce their learning, to additional information being presented when certain areas of the artwork was explored. An experiment was also made in the development of an eyeenabled gallery interface, whereby looking at a thumb-nail image enables the image to be magnified for exploration. Moving the viewers eye off the image returns it to thumb-nail size. 7.1.3 Testing of the Cognitive Narrative Concept With the initial prototype developed, the concept was presented and tested at the Museums and the Web conference (MW2010) in Denver, Co. During the one and a half hour demonstration slot, the prototype was tested by museum professionals, web developers and interested consumers who were able to experience the features of the concept and offer constructive feedback. While the majority of the testers liked the concept, the testing highlighted the need to adjust some of the time delays, especially with the page-turning function. At the time of testing the page turning delay was set at 500 Milliseconds, and most people felt it needed to be quicker.

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Piolat, Annie, Jean-Yves Roussey, and Olivier Thunin “Effects of screen presentation on text reading and revising’, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 47.1 (1997): 565-589

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Figures 7.1 and 7.2 show the Cognitive Narrative concept being demonstrated at the Museums and the Web conference 2010 (MW2010) in Denver Colorado, April 16th, 2010

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Figure 7.1: Demonstration of Cognitive Narrative Concept, MW2010 (Authors’ picture)

Figure 7.2: Demonstration of Cognitive Narrative Concept, MW2010 (Authors’ picture)


7.1.4 Next step in Development of the Cognitive Narrative concept While the concept was well received at the conference and generated a lot of very interesting conversations, the comments made by the testers will need to be addressed in the next iteration of the program. The timings of the eyeactivated activation of additional content needs to be researched further, and a greater tolerance for eye movements need to be allowed for. One of the biggest challenges encountered was the functionality of the Mirametrix software in regards to this type of prototype. The concept operated by slaving the cursor to the movements of the eye, with the assumption that the eyes would be continuously tracked. While this was the case for the majority of the time, split second blinking that was slower than the capture rate of the software occasionally caused the cursor to jump erratically over the screen for a fraction of a second, which was enough to trigger some unwanted eye-sensitive functions within the screen. 7.2 PULSE Concept As has been discussed at length throughout this project, one of the fundamental downfalls of the current generation of distance education is the loss of tacit feedback channels between stakeholders. Without it, monitoring the progress of student learning becomes exceptionally difficult for instructors as their default feedback pathways fall to test, quizzes, assignments and exams. While these age-old testing mechanisms are effective in gauging student learning and comprehension, they are merely a post-knowledge transfer test and often highlight gaps in student learning when it is too late to address. Instead, a new type of feedback is required to bridge the gap between stakeholders of distance education in, or close to, real-time. Drawing from the research conducted into eye tracking technology, the advancements in webcam-based eye tracking and the findings of the eye tracking investigation conducted for this project, the PULSE concept promotes the idea that an eye-metric driven application can help provide vital feedback channels, and thus increase the efficiency of knowledge transfer in distance education. It allows the stakeholder to actively monitor their progress, and helps them easily navigate through the course content provided.

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7.2.1 Principles behind the PULSE Concept The premise of this concept is simple, to tie a physiological response to stakeholder cognition so that information about their comprehension of presented concepts can be monitored. Through this approach, if a concept is seen to be poorly understood, the instructor will get immediate feedback, and can thereby tailor their upcoming presentations to fill the voids in knowledge transfer. Drawing from the experiments and research, several eye metrics were targeted as potential trigger-mechanisms onto which functionality could be built for this application. The first, and most basic eye metric targeted is the reading speed of the user. The experiments conducted for this experiment highlighted the inverse relationship between reading speed and cognition, i.e. that reading speed drops as the users cognitive load is increased. By using concept tags throughout a given presentation, the reading speed of the user can be monitored and compared to their natural reading speed as a base indicator of increased cognitive load. While the reading speed is a good initial indicator of cognitive load, many outside influences can effect a user as they access information, and thus clutch mechanisms must be included to improve the accuracy of this measurement technique. A reader may move their attention away from the presented information, and thus the interface must be able to determine when the user is attempting to access information. Likewise, the interface must be able to recognize when someone is simply ‘skimming’ the information, and thus differentiate between this and an increase in reading speed. To do this, fixation points of the eye can be monitored and analyzed. The eye movements associated with skimming text are vastly different from those observed when accessing information in a more traditional way, and therefore baseline measurements must be obtained to compare with. Ideally, this would be obtained without the need for a given stakeholder to have to undertake a set-up process, and would instead be an actively-updated user profile that would be autonomous. Another eye metric that can be easily monitored and can give vital


information about the cognitive load of the user is regressions in text, and regressive saccades. In general, if a user needs to revisit information in the text, they are having difficulty comprehending it. Furthermore, if an increase in regressive saccades are witnessed, it is a true indicator of a high cognitive load. As the complexity of presented information increases, the frequencies of these regressive saccades increase, and can be used as an indicator to tie application functionality to. 7.2.2 PULSE Concept Development The development of the PULSE concept began by creating an interface that gave some visual feedback tied to the time spent focusing on certain areas of the text. The initial prototype was developed and incorporated into the Cognitive Narrative concept, providing a highlight showing where the user was looking that grew in relation to the time spent focusing on the area of the screen. One of the most important aspects of this concept was a line connecting each fixation, allowing for the movement around the screen to be monitored so that conclusions can be drawn about the effectiveness of the narrative concept. While this was the aspect of the prototype tested at the MW2010 conference, this was only one part of a much bigger system designed for feedback. Instead of simply providing visual data only, there are a number of feedback channels that were investigated and proposed as possible solutions to bridge the gap between stakeholders. One such concept involved the use of tagging of concepts throughout the presented information, and monitoring the users comprehension of these through their reading speed and eye movements. While a definitive result outlining the exact comprehension can not be determined through this method, it does allow useful information by comparing the relative drop in reading speed across concepts, and can highlight areas that were poorly understood. To visualize this information, the interface can provide feedback in numerous ways to all parties involved. A student may be interested in their relative performance over the concepts covered, so a feedback mechanism similar to cloud tagging is proposed as a quick illustration of the concepts covered. Larger font would indicate concepts in need of revision, whereas

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smaller tags would be concepts understood well. In this format, hyper-links between similar concepts could be included, allowing students easy access to information both within the presented course content, or via the Internet. Furthermore, by allowing students access to this type of visual feedback throughout the semester, they will have a continually updated indication of their progress, thus encouraging better study practices. While a similar type of feedback would be useful for instructors, they would require information for each student, and possibly more importantly, an understanding of the performance of the student body as a whole. Once again, the cloud tagging concept would provide instant information about the group understanding of concepts, clicking each of the topic names could give more in-depth detail about the performance of individual students, information about who is accessing additional information, and links to the additional resources accessed. 7.2.3 PULSE Prototype Once again, this prototype was developed in Revolution Media, and was a proof of concept in contrast to an operational system. The basic code was written by Dr. Slavko Milekic, and allowed semi-transparent red dots to be shown where the eye fixated. The duration of the eye fixation was depicted by an increase in circle diameter, and the gaze can be followed between fixations via the thin red lines connecting the fixation points. While this prototype does not convey specific information about the students’ comprehension of the presented information, it is the basic underpinning of such a system. When combined with a comprehensive algorithm and concept tagging within the document, it would be able to provide far more thorough feedback about the ways in which the students access information, their comprehension of presented concepts, their strategies for accessing information, and thus could help develop a learning style profile that could be used by an adaptive e-learning environment to help filter information to suit their individual learning style.

Dr. Slavko Milekic is a Professor of Cognitive Science and Digital Design at The University of the Arts, Philadelphia. His research includes the study of eye tracking as an interface technology.


Figures 7.3 and 7.4 show the basic feedback concept as tested at the MW2010 conference in Denver, Colorado. While this feedback shows the basic exploration techniques adopted by the user while investigating the artwork, the underpinning design can be used as a platform to develop far more quantitative feedback channels

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Figure 7.3: Concept Interface (Authors’ picture)

Figure 7.4: Concept Interface showing feedback concept output (Authors’ picture)


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7.2.4 Future development of PULSE Prototype As previously mentioned, it is envisioned that this feedback concept can be developed into a far more versatile tool by addressing a greater range of quantitative and qualitative feedback modes. Some of these channels include the use of cloud tags, whereby concepts poorly understood could be presented as larger text as opposed to fully comprehended concepts that would be very small. The end goal is to provide a program underpinning that is versatile enough to provide feedback in a myriad of different formats, so that the interface can present the information in the way that suits the stakeholders learning style.

Figure 7.5 shows a potential feedback format to show students which concepts they need to review. Larger font concepts represent items that are of more importance for the subject, and the opacity represents the need for review. E.g. Student X has a good understanding of the Carnot Cycle, but would need to review the Isothermal Process. Concept Cloud Tags act as links to the course material covering the subjects in question Educational CMS accessible through mobile devices Figure 7.5: PULSE Prototype Cloud Tag Feedback (Authors’ picture adapted from image < http://www.amitbhawani.com/blog/wp-content/ uploads/2010/03/Apple-Ipad-Front.jpg>)


Cloud tag concept. Larger words represent concepts of greater importance, and greater opacity indicates a need for further study

Figure 7.6 shows a potential mobile application giving students access to vital feedback about their cognition of vital concepts covered in a given subject.

PULSE GRAD 701 - MID Studio 1

Changing the nature of the task

Cognitive Load

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X

Affordances

Gibson Affordances

Cognitive Artifacts

Affordances

Affordances 101

Gibson Affordances Norman Affordances

Scaffolding

Theory of Affordances

Weak HOME

CORRIDOR

The ‘pulse’ gives the student immediate feedback about their relative comprehension of the concept in comparison to the expected level.

Figure 7.6 Mobile PULSE Prototype Cloud Tag Feedback (Authors’ picture)


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7.3 Virtual Corridor Concept Another key concern of the current system of distance education that could be addressed by embracing recent advancements in communication technologies is the connection between stakeholders. The contemporary format of distance education fails to encourage interaction between stakeholders, partly due to the asynchronous nature of the system, but also due to a lack of transparency. As the system currently exists, there is no way of knowing when a fellow student or the instructor is available to answer a quick question, resulting in the workflow of students in need of help to be greatly impacted. The Virtual Corridor concept hopes to address these shortcomings by providing stakeholders unprecedented access to each other. 7.3.1 Principles behind the Virtual Corridor Concept The Virtual Corridor concept hopes to take advantage of the increasingly mobile communication technologies such as smart phones, and draw from trends developed in social media sites to bring transparency back to the virtual classroom. While students in a traditional learning environment benefit from interacting with their classmates, it is much harder to mediate these colleague relationships online. Furthermore, while a student struggling with a given concept can bump into their instructor in the corridors of their department and ask a few casual questions, the online student is left with the asynchronous channels of email and chat rooms to receive the help they need. Instead of taking this as a constraint of distance learning, we need only look to social media sites like Facebook to see that these distance relationships can be mediated far more successfully. These social media channels allow the user to see when their ‘friends’ are online, and enables them to engage in instant messaging whenever they choose. If these friends were colleagues instead, the student in need of assistance may be able to contact their instructor or fellow students immediately and have some of their questions answered immediately. This would help to reduce stagnations in the students workflow due to confusion, and would potentially aid in knowledge transfer.


To assist in this process of sharing knowledge, the online corridor will allow students to ‘pass’ documents between each other by dragging them onto their mailbox, and would support multiple channels of communication including instant messaging, audio and video. Students would also be able to show current work on their computer by accessing the whiteboard function, allowing both students to see and modify documents in real-time.

Figure 7.7 shows the mobile Corridor concept envisioned to provide students with greater connectivity to fellow students and their instructor Portraits with a highlight indicate fellow students who are currently online Students can connect with fellow students or their instructor through Instant Messaging, Video Chat or by Calling.

Corridor

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Corridor

GRAD 701 - MID Studio 1

Me: Hey Fraser, can I ask you a couple of quick questions about Affordances?

Me: Hey Fraser, can I ask you a couple of quick questions about Affordances?

Fraser: Sure, what are you having trouble with?

CALL

HOME

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HOME

PULSE

Figure 7.7 Mobile Corridor Prototype (Authors’ picture)


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