This research addresses a problem that centers on the persistent disparities in computer use and access among racial minorities, particularly African-Americans and Latinos, and persons of low socio-economic status (SES) here in the USA. "Access" to computer technology maintains a dual meaning. Access may refer to having a computer and software available for use or it may refer to having a computer interface that effectively facilitates user learning. This study conceptualizes "access" as the latter — having an interface that facilitates user learning. One intervention for this problem of access, from a Human Factors perspective, is in recognizing and accounting for culture's influence on one's cognition. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were integrated to effectively determine a process for engaging typically marginalized groups, interface metaphor preferences of African-Americans, and user performance with varying types of interface metaphors. The qualitative aspects of this study provided a basis for understanding how entry was obtained into the participants' community and for obtaining richer descriptions of user successes and challenges with the various interface designs. The researcher developed a culturally valid interface design methodology, i.e., Acculturalization Interface Design (A.I.D.) methodology, which was used to identify meaningful computer interface metaphors for low SES African-Americans. Through the A.I.D. methodology and an associated field study, a group of African-American novice computer users determined that the home, the bedroom and comfort were meaningful computer interface metaphors to integrate into a letter writing task. A separate group of African-Americans performed benchmark tasks on an interface design that utilized the home, bedroom and comfort metaphors or Microsoft Word 2003. The African-American group performed significantly better on the novel interface than on Microsoft Word 2003 for several benchmark tasks. Qualitative analyses showed that low acculturation African-Americans were particularly challenged with those same tasks. Regression analyses used to determine the relationship between psychosocial characteristics and user performance were inconclusive. Subject matter experts (SME), representing low SES Latinos, discussed potential learnability issues for both interface designs. Furthermore, results from the African-American group and the SMEs highlight the critical importance of using terminology (i.e., verbal metaphors) and pictorial metaphors that are culturally and socially valid. / Ph. D.

Kuriant sistemą, kuri turės sąsają internete, reikia turėti metodiką, kuria būtų galima vadovautis projektuojant šią sąsają. Objektinio projektavimo metoduose ir unifikuotame kūrimo procese RUP (angl. Rational Unified Process) nėra aprašytų specialių procesų interneto sąsajai kurti. Nors šia tema rašė nemažai autorių, tačiau sunku rasti vientisą metodiką, kuria galėtų vadovautis interneto sąsajos ir ja paremtos sistemos kūrėjas. Šiame darbe tiriami esami interneto sistemų sąsajos projektavimo metodai, šablonai bei įvairios kūrimo technologijos, siekiant juos sukonkretizuoti, apibendrinti ir sukurti metodinę medžiagą, kurią būtų galima taikyti interneto sistemas projektuojančioje organizacijoje, mokymo procese ar pateikti kaip gidą, bet kuriam interneto sąsajos projektuotojui. Šiais laikais kompiuteriai dalyvauja daugelyje sričių, ir bendravimas tarp žmogaus ir kompiuterio neišvengiamas. Kad vartotojas galėtų valdyti sistemą, šis bendravimas vyktų sklandžiai, reikalinga sąsaja. Esamos sistemos turi sąsają, tačiau susistemintos metodikos, kaip reikėtų kurti tą sąsają, nėra daug, ji išsklaidyta atskiruose literatūros šaltiniuose ar interneto puslapiuose. Dažnai ši metodika slypi projektuotojų mintyse, bet ji taip ir lieka neaprašyta ir pats sąsajos projektavimas būna intuityvus. / Nowadays, information system creation process consists of several different actions, one of those actions – web interface design. Web interface design process requires a good methodology, to make web interface process better, quicker, flexible and satisfy other web interface design criterions. RUP (Rational Unified Process) don’t present any special creation process of internet web interface. Frequently web interface design process lies in the head of it’s designers. There are no full methodology of web interface design process in one place, only some web interface advices or articles about one or other web interface process steps could be found. The goal of this work is to make a methodology of web interface design and implement it for internet service provider system. Methodology also would be useful for companies which participate in web interface design process, also in school or university study process, or like a guide for any web interface designer. The developed methodology for web interface design was used for implementing internet service provider system web interface, system design process and redesign above-mentioned system web interface for measuring process times. Methodology of web interface design, reduce web interface design process time, help to make web interface design process easier, more flexible and understandable for web interface designer, also certain better web interface appearance independence from system functional part, with possibility to... [to full text]