Browsing by Author "Pyla, Pardha S."
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- Connecting the usability and software engineering life cycles through a communication-fostering software development framework and cross-pollinated computer science coursesPyla, Pardha S. (Virginia Tech, 2007-09-10)Interactive software systems have both functional and user interface components. User interface design and development requires specialized usability engineering (UE) knowledge, training, and experience in topics such as psychology, cognition, specialized design guidelines, and task analysis. The design and development of a functional core requires specialized software engineering (SE) knowledge, training, and experience in topics such as algorithms, data structures, software architectures, calling structures, and database management. Given that the user interface and the functional core are two closely coupled components of an interactive software system, with each constraining the design of the other, there is a need for the SE and UE life cycles to be connected to support communication among roles between the two development life cycles. Additionally, there is a corresponding need for appropriate computer science curricula to train the SE and UE roles about the connections between the two processes. In this dissertation, we connected the SE and UE life cycles by creating the Ripple project development environment which fosters communication between the SE and UE roles and by creating a graduate-level cross-pollinated SE-UE joint course offering, with student teams spanning the two classes, to educate students about the intricacies of interactive-software development. Using this joint course we simulated different conditions of interactive-software development (i.e. with different types of project constraints and role playing) and assigned different teams to these conditions. As part of semester-long class projects these teams developed prototype systems for a real client using their assigned development condition. Two of the total of eight teams in this study used the Ripple framework. As part of this experimental course offering, various instruments were employed throughout the semester to assess the effectiveness of a framework like Ripple and to investigate candidate factors that impact the quality of product and process of interactive-software systems. The study highlighted the importance of communication among the SE and UE roles and exemplified the need for the two roles to respect each other and to have the willingness to work with one another. Also, there appears to exist an inherent conflict of interest when the same people play both UE and SE roles as they seem to choose user interface features that are easy to implement and not necessarily easy to use by system's target users. Regarding pedagogy, students in this study indicated that this joint SE-UE course was more useful in learning about interactive-software development and that it provided a better learning experience than traditional SE-only or UE-only courses.
- Designing for Seamless Task Migration in MPUIs: Bridging Task-DisconnectsPyla, Pardha S.; Holman, Jerome; Pérez-Quiñones, Manuel A. (Department of Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, 2004)Today, the proliferation of mobile computing has changed the work environment forever. As a consequence, users are forced to orchestrate a complex interaction between multiple devices, moving data and information back and forth, to accomplish their tasks. Users trudge out USB key drives, remote desktop software, e-mail and network file storage in an attempt to mitigate this orchestration. We refer to this break from the task at hand as task-disconnect. Task-disconnect represents the break in continuity that occurs when a user attempts to accomplish his or her tasks using more than one device. Our objective is to study how software can bridge this task-disconnect, enabling users to seamlessly transition their tasks among their devices. We present the theory, definition, and discussion of task-disconnect; our approach towards bridging this disconnect; and our prototype application that was built to be used across the desktop computer and the Tablet PC platforms. We then describe our subjective evaluation to measure the effectiveness of the prototype in bridging the task-disconnect. We then conclude with the results and insights gained from our evaluation.
- A Special Topics Course on Personal Information ManagementPérez-Quiñones, Manuel A.; Tungare, Manas; Pyla, Pardha S.; Kurdziolek, Margaret (Department of Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, 2006-12-01)Personal Information Management (PIM) is an important emerg- ing area of study in Computer Science and Information Systems. During the Spring of 2006, we offered a special topics course in PIM at Virginia Tech. This paper presents some motivation of why studying PIM is important, the goals for the course, some sam- ple material from the course, and a few student evaluations. The paper presents in detail an activity called “Day in the Life of My Information” that resulted in an interesting experience from both, educational and research points of view.
- Studying Group Decision Making in Affinity DiagrammingJudge, Tejinder K.; Pyla, Pardha S.; McCrickard, D. Scott; Harrison, Steven R.; Hartson, H. Rex (Department of Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, 2008)Affinity diagramming is a commonly used contextual design practice for which many tools have been developed. However, experts and novices alike eschew tool use, instead using traditional paper and whiteboard methods. This paper presents observations of traditional affinity diagramming sessions, focusing on three areas of consideration—shared awareness, cognitive offloading, and understanding, organizing and searching—that are important for collaborative tools. Specific design requirements for each of these three areas are described.
- Testbed Evaluation of Navigation and Text Display Techniques in an Information-Rich Virtual EnvironmentChen, Jian; Pyla, Pardha S.; Bowman, Douglas A. (Department of Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, 2003)Information-Rich Virtual Environment (IRVE) is a virtual environment (VE) that is enhanced with the addition of related abstract information. Such an environment conveys rich information set that can make the VE more useful if provided with a useful interface and efficient interaction techniques. This motivates our current research goals to investigate the interface and interaction issues involved in IRVE. The fundamental question is how to access and display information in an effective way. This paper presents the first controlled experiment using a travel testbed based on our text layout taxonomy. We investigated two manipulation-based navigation techniques: Hand-Centered Object Manipulation Extending Ray0casting (HOMER) and Go-Go based navigation, and two text layout techniques; within-the-world display (WWD) and heads-up display (HUD). Four search tasks with repeated measures were performed to measure subjects performance in a densely packed environment. We found that using Go-Go based navigation combined with HUD techniques is significantly better than the other three combinations for difficulty search tasks. HUD enabled better performance than WWD and Go-Go technique enabled better performance than HOMER technique ro most of the tasks. Also users preferred the combination of Go-Go and HUD for all tasks. Such results on their own, or combined with specific application characteristics, can provide valuable design guidelines for IRVEs.
- Tuning Complex Systems by Sonifying Their Performance DataHenthorne, Cody; Bukvic, Ivica Ico; Pyla, Pardha S.; Tilevich, Eli (Department of Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, 2013)In the modern computing landscape, the challenge of tuning software systems is exacerbated by the necessity to accommodate multiple divergent execution environments and stakeholders. Achieving optimal performance requires a different configuration for every combination of hardware setups and business requirements. In addition, the state of the art in system tuning can involve complex statistical models, which require deep expertise not commonly possessed by the average software developer. This paper presents a novel approach to tuning complex software systems by leveraging sound to convey performance information during execution. We conducted a scientific survey to determine which sound characteristics (e.g., loudness, panning, pitch, tempo, etc.) are most accurate to express information to the average programmer. As determined by the survey, the characteristics that scored the highest across all the participants were used to create a proof-of-concept demonstration. The demonstration showed that a programmer who is not an expert in either software tuning or enterprise computing can configure the parameters of a real world enterprise application server, so that its resulting performance surpasses that exhibited under the standard configuration. Our results indicate that sound-based tuning approaches can provide valuable solutions to the challenges of configuring complex computer systems.