Direct interaction in virtual environments can be realized using relatively simple hardware, such as standard webcams and monitors. The result is a large gap between the stimuli existing in real-world interactions and those provided in the virtual environment. This leads to reduced efficiency and effectiveness when performing tasks. Conceivably these missing stimuli might be supplied through a visual modality, using sensory substitution. This work suggests a display technique that attempts to usefully and non-detrimentally employ sensory substitution to display proximity, tactile, and force information. We solve three problems with existing feedback mechanisms. Attempting to add information to existing visuals, we need to balance: not occluding the existing visual output; not causing the user to look away from the existing visual output, or otherwise distracting the user; and displaying as much new information as possible. We assume the user interacts with a virtual environment consisting of a manually controlled probe and a set of surfaces. Our solution is a pseudo-shadow: a shadow-like projection of the user's probe onto the surface being explored or manipulated. Instead of drawing the probe, we only draw the pseudo-shadow, and use it as a canvas on which to add other information. Static information is displayed by varying the parameters of a procedural texture rendered in the pseudo-shadow. The probe velocity and probe-surface distance modify this texture to convey dynamic information. Much of the computation occurs on the GPU, so the pseudo-shadow renders quickly enough for real-time interaction. As a result, this work contains three contributions: a simple collision detection and handling mechanism that can generalize to distance-based force fields; a way to display content during probe-surface interaction that reduces occlusion and spatial distraction; and a way to visually convey small-scale tactile texture.

Machine-readable privacy policies have been developed to help reduce user effort in understanding how websites will use personally identifiable information (PII). The goal of these policies is to enable the user to make informed decisions about the disclosure of personal information in web-based transactions. However, these privacy policies are complex, requiring that a user agent evaluate conformance between the users privacy preferences and the sites privacy policy, and indicate this conformance information to the user. The problem addressed in this thesis is that even with machine-readable policies and current user agents, it is still difficult for users to determine the cause and origin of a conflict between privacy preferences and privacy policies. The problem arises partly because current standards operate at the page level: they do not allow a fine-grained treatment of conformance down to the level of a specific field in a web form. In this thesis the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) is extended to enable field-level comparisons, field-specific conformance displays, and faster access to additional field-specific conformance information. An evaluation of a prototype agent based on these extensions showed that they allow users to more easily understand how the website privacy policy relates to the users privacy preferences, and where conformance conflicts occur.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Drexel University, 2009. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 207-216).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-104).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1981. / "August 1981." Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 308-332).

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Computer Science and Information Systems / Master / Master of Philosophy

Certain human communication traits have historically been identified as gender-specific. The purpose of this paper is to collect and compare the most widely-indexed, gender-specific World Wide Web sites from five given interest areas, and to then determine which, if any, traditionally gender-based communication patterns were present within these sites. Using qualitative and quantitative analysis, this study found that in many cases: * Female-oriented sites in this study emphasized communality * stressed sharing personal experience * resisted authoritative language * encouraged emotional interaction # Male-oriented sites in this study relied on authoritative language # emphasized privacy # stressed professionalism # minimized personal interaction . Although these sites represent only a miniscule "snap shot" of communication on the Web, they seemed to suggest that the core of traditionally identified gender-specific communication traits is being actively transplanted into Cyberspace.

Research has repeatedly shown that computer-mediated communications (CMC) lead to higher levels of disclosure of personal information (Tidwell and Walther 2002). Recent studies have examined the role of increasingly common social media and social network services (SNS) on disclosure in a variety of contexts (Mazer et al. 2007; Tufekci 2008). The combination of personal demographic data, taste preferences, public disclosure of friend networks and now increasing usage of tools for instantly updating status (e.g., Twitter, Facebook) has, we believe, fundamentally altered users' understanding of the temporality of information and its (semi-)permanence. This study investigates users' willingness to disclose information with respect to how long ago that information may have been created or captured. Users were more willing to share items as time passed. Potentially, a "Later Button" should be put into practice to address this latent willingness (40% of sharing scenarios) to disclose information at a later date.

Text in Chinese, with English abstract / With the popularization of broadband network in Taiwan, playing online-games has become one of most popular behavior. In 2003, the Taiwan on-line game market scale is up to NT $ 88.3 hundred million. In 2004 it is NT$ 92.7 hundred million. From the above data, the Taiwan on-line game market has been growing rapidly from 2000 to 2004. Focusing on the MMORPG, players exhibit switching behavior from old games to new ones. The thesis is aimed at exploring the factors of the players in the value creation process in playing on-line games, which influence his switching decision making. The research method focuses on external factors' "core services" combined with psychological factors such as "customer satisfaction", "emotion value" and "flow experience", to construct an empirical model to analyze the players' switching barriers and their switching behaviors. Our research adopts the on-line game players' emotion value factors in explaining their switching behaviors, which is different from previous related works. We take samples of Web members of Game-Based and Bahamut, which are the largest on-line game community in Taiwan, as the research objects. A total of 1749 completed questionnaires were obtained, with a response rate of 80.42 %. The explanation strength of the research model reaches 71.1%. The research scope covers the system exterior factors, players' perception factors, emotion value factors, the switching barriers and the switching behaviors. The results indicate that the development of any information system must take into consideration user' s requirements in the emotion value. It also suggests that the human requirement for final value demand should be incorporated into information design education.