Susan Ellen Turner

formerly with Edinburgh Napier University

A current concern in human-computer interaction lies in understanding how we experience virtual reality (VR). This chapter proposes that the VR experience relies on make-believe. The necessary decoupling from the real world to the make-believe world is costly in terms of the cognitive resources required but VR offloads some of the computation cost...

We propose that pretending is a cognitive faculty which enables us to create and immerse ourselves in possible worlds. These worlds range from the veridical to the fan- tastic and are frequently realised as stories varying from the fictional to the scientific. This same ability enables us to become immersed and engaged in such stories (which we may...

A principal, but largely unexplored, use of our cognition when using interacting technology involves pretending. To pretend is to believe that which is not the case, for example, when we use the desktop on our personal computer we are pretending, that is, we are pretending that the screen is a desktop upon which windows reside. But, of course, the...

We report a pair of repertory grid studies that explore the attachment people have for digital and non-digital artefacts. In the first study we found no clear distinctions between emotional attachment to digital and non-digital artefacts: people are attached to their mobile phones in much the same way as to a childhood teddy bear. There was also ev...

Human-computer interaction as a rationalistic, engineering discipline has been taught successfully for more than 25 years. The established narrative is one of designing usable systems for users, some of whom have been described as “naïve”, safely installed behind their desktop personal computers. But the world is changed. All aspects of society use...

Human-computer interaction as a rationalistic, engineering discipline has been taught successfully for more than 25 years. The established narrative is one of designing usable systems for users, some of whom have been described as "naïve", safely installed behind their desktop personal computers. But the world is changed. All aspects of society use...

This study took as its starting point the premise that a high degree of realism is not a necessary condition for the creation of a ‘sense of place’ in mediated experiences such as those presented through virtual reality. A sense of place is the sense of being present somewhere in particular. We report on the usefulness of an intentionally low fidel...

Motivation -- to explore the nature and dimensions of attachment to digital and non-digital artefacts and explicate any differences in emotional attachment between digital and non-digital artefacts. Research approach -- Repertory grid based study Findings/Design -- no clear distinctions between attachment to digital and non-digital artefacts Resear...

User representations are central to user-centred design, personas being one of the more recent developments. However, such descriptions of people risk stereotyping. We review the genesis and application of personas and kindred representations, and discuss the psychological roots of stereotyping and why it is so powerful. It is also noted that user...

Motivation -- The work described in this paper investigated the potential of a low fidelity desktop application using the metaphor of the 'tourist gaze' in conveying a sense of place. Research approach -- An exploratory study was used, in which an application was developed and evaluated by 25 participants. Findings/Design -- The results suggest tha...

Triangulation is the means by which an alternate perspective is used to validate, challenge or extend existing findings. It is frequently used when the field of study is difficult, demanding or contentious and presence research meets all of these criteria. We distinguish between the use of hard and soft triangulation—the former emphasising the chal...

This chapter considers the role of sound, and more specifically, listening, in creating a sense of presence (of ‘being there’) in ‘places’ recreated by virtual reality technologies. We first briefly review the treatment of sound in place and presence research. Here we give particular attention to the role of sound in inducing a sense of presence in...

This paper describes a method for teaching interaction design in a school of computing setting. Practical Interaction Design is something of a hybrid incorporating elements of both 'pure' interaction design and human-computer interaction (HCI) to convey some of the flavour of the former with the tool-rich practicality of the latter. Practical Inter...

We are fundamentally social animals: we are geared to understanding each other; to gauging each other's moods and states of mind; and we are very adept at judging each others personalities. This ability to judge personality can also be generalized to a range of interactive technology including web sites. We present evidence that judgments of person...

The Speckled Computing project is a large multisite research project based in Scotland, UK. The aim of the project is to investigate, prototype, and produce tiny (1mm3) computational devices, called Specks, that can be configured into wireless sensor networks, called SpeckNets. Our particular interest is in how people might interact in such environ...

This chapter considers the role of sound, and more specifically, listening, in creating a sense of presence (of "being there") in "places" recreated by virtual reality technologies. We first briefly review the treatment of sound in place and presence research. Here we give particular attention to the role of sound in inducing a sense of presence in...

The emerging study of technology in space has been shaping human interaction with physical, social, and technological worlds. Drawing upon a wide range of information technology disciplines, this field is now grabbing the attention of many, including computer scientists, anthropologists, and psychologists craving for more on this intriguing new fie...

The use of sound to create or enhance the sense of presence is well recognized and the measurements of which have focused on hearing, e.g. "were you able to identify a particular sound?", "how well could you localize the sounds". To this treatment of audition we now add, listening. Listening is active, directed, intentional hearing. This aspect of...

Purpose This paper sets out to highlight conclusions from computer‐supported cooperative work (CSCW) research, which are relevant to e‐learning environments, in this case, WebCT. Design/methodology/approach The paper analyses the CSCW literature and identifies the main findings relating to the use and acceptance of collaborative technologies. Thes...

We present a qualitative study, undertaken over a period of nine months, of older people facing the challenges of learning to use interactive technology, specifically personal computers (PCs) and the internet. We examine the range of causal explanations (attributions) voiced by the group in accounting for their difficulties with it. A discourse ana...

Re-creating real places - as distinct from virtual spaces or environments - using virtual reality technology raises a series of significant challenges. Fortunately there is a large body of existing research into the experience of place which might reasonably contribute to our understanding of the task. This paper reviews key aspects of the 'place'...

Casey, 1997:ix This chapter argues that our bodily experience of place may provide a key to achieving a contextualised sense of presence in virtual environments. We begin by briefly reviewing current practice in evaluating virtual environments. The evaluating of these environments hinges on measuring our sense of being there. This is treated as our...

This paper discusses the introduction of a wireless network of personal digital assistants into a specialist unit of a hospital in Edinburgh. All of the technology has been used off-the-shelf and out-of-the-box. While we are able to report that the heterogeneous elements of this implementation have been integrated, work well together and that the u...

We describe a study which explores alternative means of communicating decision points in an interactive movie. The two variants used novel, non-disruptive cues embedded in the movie itself: a fade to black and white and a zoom effect accompanied by subtle sound cues. Both the interactivity and its presentation were received very positively in trial...

This paper draws on concepts from narratology to explore aspects of the role of stories in the small group design process. A brief review of relevant narratological concepts is provided. Their application in an analysis of case study data from a team designing taxonomic software is then reported. It is concluded that narratology, and in particular...

In this paper, we describe a pilot study of the clinical use of a wireless network of personal digital assistants (PDAs). We describe how we are dealing with the concerns of the clinicians with respect to maintaining the security of patient records and the potential interference which wireless devices might cause critical medical systems. Beyond th...

We report an empirical study into the creation of, and response to, a soundscape of a computer centre. We contrast the use of presence questionnaires, as means of assessing the sense of being-there, against a more phenomenological approach. We conclude that we have been able to create a strong sense of place but uncovered a number of experimental /...

Researchers in Information Systems have produced a rich collection of metaanalyses and models of factors influencing the uptake of information technologies. In the domain of CSCW, however, these models have largely been neglected, and while there are many case studies, no systematic account of uptake has been produced. We use findings from Informat...

We introduce our initial investigations into the phenomenology of place as part of the BENOGO project. BENOGO is concerned with giving people the experience of 'being there without going there'. Employing a state-of-the-art mixture of photorealistic, real time rendered images, three-dimensional soundscapes and augmented reality to create a sense of...

Researchers in Information Systems have produced a rich collection of meta-analyses and models of factors influencing the uptake of information technologies. In the domain of CSCW, however, these models have largely been neglected, and while there are many case studies, no systematic account of uptake has been produced. We use findings from Informa...

Researchers in Information Systems have produced a rich collection of meta-analyses and models of factors influencing the uptake of information technologies. In the domain of CSCW, however, these models have largely been neglected, and while there are many case studies, no systematic account of uptake has been produced. We use findings from Informa...

A consideration of eventual context of use is crucially important for the success of virtual environments destined for real-world organizations, yet it is frequently absent from accounts of the design of such applications. We describe how contextual requirements have influenced the design of a collaborative virtual environment (CVE) to support the...

Researchers in Information Systems have produced a rich collection of meta-analyses and models to further understanding of factors influencing the uptake of information technologies. In the domain of CSCW, however, these models have largely been neglected, and while there are many case studies, no systematic account of uptake has been produced. We...

A proper respect for eventual context of use is crucially important for the success of virtual environments destined for real-world organisations, yet is frequently absent from accounts of the design of such applications. We describe how contextual requirements have influenced the design of a CVE to support the delivery of safety-critical training,...

We introduce activity theory and the role of contradictions as a basis for making visible the structure and dynamics of work systems. Then, by way of a case study set in a national counter-fraud agency, we demonstrate how activity theory supports an understanding of an information system in context. Finally, we show how an analysis of contradiction...

We argue that a conceptual framework is required to support the practical evaluation of collaborative virtual environments. We propose such a framework based on an extended, three level concept of affordance. The application of the framework is illustrated by way of a case study. We conclude with some reflection on the framework's effectiveness and...

Summary The paper describes the main themes of a recently funded research project under the European Community's Future and Emerging Technologies 'Presence' initiative. The aim of the research is to develop new tools for empirical and theoretical studies of presence based on the concept of the observer's embodiment in the computationally created vi...

We describe our use of contradictions, a concept central to a popular formulation of activity theory, to derive requirements of a new technical system to support an administrative system. Contradictions are the underlying causes of disturbances in the free operation of workplace activities. We argue and demonstrate that the resolution of such contr...

This paper reports on an experimental study into distance estimation in a simple virtual environment. The results have been then compared with an experimental study of spatial cognition in the real world. It is concluded that the minimal virtual environment resembles a restricted Euclidean environment (or Euclidean environments viewed in a restrict...

The proposal that activity theory might serve as a model or theory for computer-supported cooperative working remains an open question. Here we demonstrate the usefulness of activity theory in elucidating a series of small group software design meetings. The structure and dynamics of the meetings are presented, as are the work processes of transfor...

We argue that the use of a user-centred design approach necessarily involves some form of storytelling or narrative. Given that both the potential end-users and the designers themselves often (perhaps usually) have different interests and points-of-view to present, the resultant co-constructed narrative describing the desired interactive system is...

This paper describes the work in progress of the TREE project. TREE is a European-funded language engineering project addressing the issue of advertising and accessing employment opportunities across Europe. Advertisements for jobs will be stored in a database and made available in the language of choice of the end-user via a WWW interface. An acco...

This chapter describes how we, as HCI practitioners, contributed to the design of a collaborative virtual environment-based simulator. This simulator is to be used by senior maritime professionals to practice and acquire safety-critical skills through simulated training. In the course of this work we encountered a number of unanticipated design and...

In this poster paper, we introduce the DISCOVER project, which is developing a CVE for teams to practice managing emergencies in offshore and maritime domains. Many factors constrain design in such contexts. Here we describe just one of them, the need for a particularly convincing sense of reality, and hence the lack of scope for 'magical' devices...

This paper demonstrates how activity theoretic concepts can be used in conjunction with an ethnographically informed approach to derive requirements on a work situation. We present a case study based on a series of collaborative design episodes, the structured description derived from it and show how a preliminary set of contextually-grounded requi...

This chapter discusses issues in the design of information sharing software systems for the virtual workplace. The discussion focusses on the trial use of a purpose-built shared collaborative notebook by a group of software engineers, managers and support staff distributed over two widely separated sites. The design of the notebook and the user con...

This paper discusses an information sharing system designed to support cooperative working. The discussion focuses on the trial use of a purpose-built shared cooperative notebook by a group of software engineers, managers and support staff distributed over two widely separated sites. The design of the notebook is described and the results of the pi...

Existing organisational context and user expectations have a huge effect on the success of introducing CSCW technology, and should have a correspondingly strong influence on the choice and design of these tools. This paper first discusses organisational context and end-user expectations encountered in a large distributed engineering organisation pl...

This paper draws on concepts from the structuralist analysis of narrative to explore aspects of the role of stories in the small group design process. A brief review of relevant narratological concepts is provided. Their application in a preliminary analysis of case study data from a team designing taxonomic software is then reported. It is conclud...

The EC funded project BENOGO seeks to re-create real places using photo-realistic immersive virtual reality technology and in so doing investigates the nature of presence and sense of place in such environments. We discuss the first stages in our work investigating how far a sense of place can be created in a virtual environment and benchmarked aga...

This paper reports some preliminary work on the IntoMyWorld candidate Presence II project. One of the key components of IntoMyWorld is a mixed reality 'album' of important events. The album will contain entries which will allow people, for example, to re-immerse themselves in their own weddings or other significant events. Among our first tasks are...

Semiotics, the study of signs, is a promising candidate for helping us to understand cognitive ergonomics. Applied to HCI semiotics brings with it new ways with which to understand interaction. The Revised Katz & Fodor (KF) model (Eco, 1976) is used in mobile phone interfaces to show how signs represent information about how an interface works. On...

This paper briefly considers the role for qualitative methods in presence research and discusses underlying issues in the use of such an approach. We conclude by suggesting that the qualitative work in presence may be enhanced by the adoption of rigour criteria akin to those employed in the social sciences and outline a set of such criteria.