People interact through language and conversation everyday, children learn from an early age to express a variety of intents and responses in an understandable way. But the interaction form most commonly used in systems today is nothing like this. Instead, it is dominated by interactions such as button presses, scrolling, drag and drop, swipe gestures etc. What benefits and drawbacks can be observed when transforming such an application to one where users can use their natural inclination towards conversation to converse directly with the system. This exploratory study compares the usability of a conversational interaction form against the 'de facto'-standard that has a point and click interface. To assess usability differences, a chatbot prototype was designed and implemented. The prototype was developed in partnership with the consulting company Knowit and one of the leading Swedish clothing retailers. This prototype was subsequently tested against the clothing retailer's current application. The two interaction strategies were compared for usability for first and second time use. The results show some self reported usability differences in second time use favouring the chatbot prototype.

Interactive theorem provers are software tools that help users create machine-checked proofs. Although difficult to use, they have been playing an important role in the effort to create highly reliable software. I present several novel user interface ideas for interactive theorem provers, generalizable to other mathematics and programming tools. Prototypes tailored to the Coq interactive theorem prover were developed and tested in an experiment with human participants. The results show promising directions for making interactive theorem provers easier to use.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2006. / "May, 2006." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-80). Online version available on the World Wide Web.

No description available.

A Graphic User Interface is developed to determine the existence of a particular sequence of piano notes within a monophonic sound waveform. Such waveforms are recorded within the Graphic User Interface and then passed to the monophonic analysis engine. The first phase of analysis segments the PCM sound data to localize the potential note locations. The second phase of analysis takes the segmented note locations, moves them to the frequency-domain, and utilizes a probabilistic identification process to determine the identity of each note. Two sound files can be processed together to decide if any notes are common between them. A frequency-based comparison model allows flexibility in finding overlap between the files. Theoretical concepts are visualized using the Graphic User Interface making it a tool for developing additional insight into the analysis of music. / Graduation date: 1997

Scientists in the biological sciences need to retrieve information from a variety of data collections, traditionally maintained in SQL databases, in order to conduct research. Because current assistant tools are designed primarily for business and financial users, scientists have been forced to use the notoriously difficult command-line SQL interface, supplied as standard by most database vendors. The goal of our research has been to establish the requirements of scientific researchers and develop specialized query assistance tools to help them query data collections across the Internet. This thesis describes our work in developing HyperSQL, a Web-to-database scripting language, and most importantly, Query Designer, a user-oriented tool for designing query interfaces directly on Web browsers. Current browsers (i.e., Netscape, Internet Explorer) do not easily interoperate with databases without extensive "CGI" (Common Gateway Interface) programming. HyperSQL is a scripting language that enables database administrators to construct forms-based query interfaces intended for end-users who are not proficient with SQL. Query results are formatted as hypertext-clickable links which can be used to browse the database for related information, bring up Web pages, or access remote search engines. HyperSQL query interfaces are independent of the database computer, making it possible to construct different interfaces targeting distinct groups of users. Capitalizing on our experience with HyperSQL, we developed Query Designer, a user-oriented tool for building query interfaces directly on Web browsers. No experience in SQL and HTML programming is necessary. After choosing a target database, the user can build a personalized query interface by making menu selections and filling out forms--the tool automatically establishes network connections, and composes HTML and SQL code. The automatically generated query form can be used immediately to issue a query, customized, or saved for later use. Results returned from the database are dynamically formatted into hypertext for navigating related information in the database. / Graduation date: 1997

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Tampere, 1999. / Description based on contents viewed Apr. 19, 2007; title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references (p. 58-67).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisor: Lori L. Pollock, Dept. of Computer & Info Sciences. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2005. / Supervisor: Brian Detlor. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 234-272). Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.