Support vector machine active learning with applications to text classification

Reviewer: Brian Mayoh

Usability aspects of different visualizations of electronic documents are explored in this paper. To this end, it presents the results of an experiment studying the relationship between different electronic document interfaces and user reading activities, user efficiency in completing specific tasks, and overall user satisfaction. Hornbæk and Frøkjær compared three commonly used interfaces. The first is the linear interface, where the document is presented as a linear sequence of text and pictures. Next is the fisheye interface, in which the parts of the document that are considered important are always readable, while the remaining parts are initially collapsed, but may be expanded if users click on them. Third is the overview-and-detail interface, which consists of two panes: the overview pane, which includes section and subsection headings, and the detail pane, which displays the part of the document that is associated with the selected heading in the overview pane. The subjects of the experiment were students in the Computing Department at the University of Copenhagen. The documents used were scientific papers on topics relevant to the students' background. In three consecutive sessions, subjects were given three different documents, each in one of the three electronic formats described above. They were asked to read these documents and to complete specific essay and question-answering tasks. During each session, the user's reading behavior was monitored. Logged data on the user interactions was used to construct progression maps, depicting how the reading progressed, and visibility maps, showing the average length of time that different parts of the document were visible. At the end of each session, user performance with respect to the given tasks was measured. Finally, after having used all three interfaces, the user's subjective preference and satisfaction were recorded. Analysis of the reading behaviors of users revealed the existence of explicit reading patterns associated with each of the different electronic document interfaces. These reading patterns show how different interfaces affect the way people read documents. These reading patterns, in combination with the performance and satisfaction measurements obtained, were used to rationalize the usability aspects of different interfaces. The work presented in this paper is an elaborate survey, showing how electronic document interfaces affect reader's behavior and performance. It complements previous works on how interface designs influence user performance by explicitly identifying reading patterns, based on visual maps of reading activity, and by using these reading patterns to explain usability aspects of different visualizations of electronic documents. The results of the survey will benefit developers seeking to design interfaces that better support reading. Furthermore, the proposed visual maps of user reading activities can be further used by researchers concerned with the study and improvement of the visualization of electronic documents. Online Computing Reviews Service