Announcing the Publication of

Volume 2 Issue 3 of AIS Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction

(http://thci.aisnet.org)

 

We are excited to report that this has been an increasingly busy time for AIS Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction. The last several months have provided an especially dramatic uptick in submissions to this 21-month old journal. In addition, we have received many papers for our first special issue on Design Science.

 

THCI is located within the AIS (Association for Information Systems) e-library (http://aisel.aisnet.org/thci). To increase awareness and readership, THCI is freely available to everyone during its first two years of publishing (2009 and 2010). You can find information related to all aspects of THCI at its website, including how to submit.

 

We would like to thank AIS Council for its continued support of the journal through these difficult economic times.

 

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In this issue

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The first paper by Babu, Singh, and Ganesh, investigates the topic of usability and accessibility for blind web users. The authors make use of protocol analysis, a time-tested technique, to provide deep understanding of situations faced by blind users. This analysis provides valuable insights for researchers and designers. Qualitative techniques developed in this paper can provide researchers with a rich set of tools in the future.

 

The second paper by Schuff, Turetken, and Zaheeruddin, provides a timely look at Web 2.0 to serve as an avenue for public discourse. In recent weeks, the blossoming attention on the upcoming election has initiated much discussion of the role of blogs in political campaigns. The paper provides recommendations of design artifacts that can reduce the cognitive overload inherent in attempting to make millions of voices count. A prototype system is described in this paper that puts the recommendations to work and provides greater support for the task of integrating and comprehending public discourse. A research agenda provides guidance for future research.

 

We hope these papers are as interesting to you as they were to the editorial panels that worked with them.

 

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Abstracts

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Paper #1: “Understanding Blind Users’ Web Accessibility and Usability Problems”

 

By Rakesh Babu, Rahul Singh, and Jai Ganesh

 

Abstract

Our motivation for this research is the belief that blind users cannot participate effectively in routine Web-based activities due to the lack of Web accessibility and usability for non-visual interaction. We take a cognitive, user-centered, task-oriented approach to develop an understanding of accessibility and usability problems that blind users face in Web interactions. This understanding is critically needed to determine accessibility and usability requirements for non-visual Web interaction. We employ verbal protocol analysis for an in-depth examination of difficulties participants face in completing an online assessment through a course management system. We analyze the problems that hinder accessibility and usability and explain the nature of these problems in terms of design principles. Our study contributes an effective method for qualitative evaluation of Web accessibility and usability. Our findings will guide future research to develop more accessible and usable Web applications for blind users.

 

Paper #2: “Designing Systems that Support the Blogosphere for Deliberative Discourse”

 

By David Schuff, Ozgur Turetken, and Asif Zaheeruddin

 

Abstract

Web 2.0 has great potential to serve as a public sphere (Habermas, 1974; Habermas, 1989) – a distributed arena of voices where all who want to do so can participate. A well-functioning public sphere is important for pluralistic decision-making at many levels, ranging from small organizations to society at large. In this paper, we analyze the capability of the blogosphere in its current form to support such a role. This analysis leads to the identification of the principal issues that prevent the blogosphere from realizing its full potential as a public sphere. Most significantly, we propose that the sheer volume of content overwhelms blog readers, forcing them to restrict themselves to only a small subset of valuable content. This ultimately reduces their level of informedness. Based on past research on managing discourse, we propose four design artifacts that would alleviate these issues: a communal repository, textual clustering, visual cues, and a participation facility for blog users. We present a prototype system, called FeedWiz, which implements several of these design artifacts. Based on this initial design, we formulate a research agenda for the creation of new tools that effectively harness the potential of the growing body of user-generated content in the blogosphere and beyond.

 

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Call for Papers

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THCI is a high-quality peer-reviewed international scholarly journal on Human-Computer Interaction. As an AIS journal, THCI is oriented to the Information Systems community, emphasizing applications in business, managerial, organizational, and cultural contexts. However, it is open to all related communities that share intellectual interests in HCI phenomena and issues. The editorial objective is to enhance and communicate knowledge about the interplay among humans, information, technologies, and tasks in order to guide the development and use of human-centered Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and services for individuals, groups, organizations, and communities.

 

Topics of interest to THCI include but are not limited to the following:

 

• The behavioral, cognitive, motivational and affective aspects of human and technology interaction
• User task analysis and modeling; fit between representations and task types
• Digital documents/genres; human information seeking and web navigation behaviors; human information interaction; information visualization
• Social media; social computing; virtual communities
• Behavioral information security and information assurance; privacy and trust in human technology interaction
• User interface design and evaluation for various applications in business, managerial, organizational, educational, social, cultural, non-work, and other domains
• Integrated and/or innovative approaches, guidelines, and standards or metrics for human centered analysis, design, construction, evaluation, and use of interactive devices and information systems
• Information systems usability engineering; universal usability
• The impact of interfaces/information technology on people's attitude, behavior, performance, perception, and productivity
• Implications and consequences of technological change on individuals, groups, society, and socio-technical units
• Software learning and training issues such as perceptual, cognitive, and motivational aspects of learning
• Gender and information technology
• The elderly, the young, and special needs populations for new applications, modalities, and multimedia interaction
• Issues in HCI education

 

The language for the journal is English. The audience includes international scholars and practitioners who conduct research on issues related to the objectives of the journal. The publication frequency is quarterly: 4 issues per year to be published in March, June, September, and December. The AIS Special Interest Group on Human-Computer Interaction (SIGHCI, http://sigs.aisnet.org/SIGHCI/) is the official sponsor for THCI.

 

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Call for Special Issue on User Participation/Centeredness in New, Challenging IS Contexts

Deadline: submissions are due October 31, 2010

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Call for Special Issue on HCI in the Web 2.0 Era

Deadline: submissions are due February 1, 2011

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Please visit the links above or the links from our AIS THCI page for details on these special issue calls. We anticipate calls for additional special issues in the future, so please keep checking our home page to see what is brewing! If you have an idea for a special issue, please drop us a line or speak with us at ICIS in St. Louis in December.

 

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AIS THCI Editorial Boards

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Editors-in-Chief

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Dennis Galletta, University of Pittsburgh, USA

Ping Zhang, Syracuse University, USA

 

Advisory Board

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Izak Benbasat, University of British Columbia, Canada

John M. Carroll, Penn State University, USA

Phillip Ein-Dor, Tel-Aviv University, Israel

Jenny Preece, University of Maryland, USA

Gavriel Salvendy, Purdue University, USA and Tsinghua University, China

Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland, USA

Jane Webster, Queen's University, Canada,

K.K Wei, City University of Hong Kong, China

 

Senior Editor Board

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Fred Davis, University of Arkansas, USA

Mohamed Khalifa, Abu Dhabi University, United Arab Emirates

Anne Massey, Indiana University, USA

Lorne Olfman, Claremont Graduate University, USA

Kar Yan Tam, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, China

Dov Te'eni, Tel-Aviv University, Israel

Viswanath Venkatesh, University of Arkansas, USA

Susan Wiedenbeck, Drexel University, USA

 

Associate Editor Board

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Michel Avital, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Jane Carey, Arizona State University, USA
Hock Chuan Chan, National University of Singapore
Carina de Villiers, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Matt Germonprez, University of Wisconsin Eau Claire USA
Khaled Hassanein, McMaster University, Canada
Milena Head, McMaster University, Canada
Traci Hess, Washington State University, USA
Shuk Ying (Susanna) Ho, Australian National University, Australia
Netta Iivari, Oulu University, Finland
Zhenhui Jack Jiang, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Weiling Ke, Clarkson University, USA
Sherrie Komiak, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada
Paul Benjamin Lowry, Brigham Young University, USA
Ji-Ye Mao, Renmin University, China
Scott McCoy, College of William and Mary, USA
Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA
Sheizaf Rafaeli, University of Haifa, Israel
Stefan Smolnik, European Business School (EBS), Germany
Jeff Stanton, Syracuse University, USA
Heshan Sun, University of Arizona USA

Jason Thatcher, Clemson University, USA

Noam Tractinsky, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Horst Treiblmaier, Vienna University of Business Administration and Economics, Austria
Ozgur Turetken, Ryerson University, Canada
Mun Yi, University South Carolina, USA

 

Managing Editor

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Michael Scialdone, Syracuse University, USA

 

 

 

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Dennis F. Galletta                      Professor of Business Administration

University of Pittsburgh                    Katz Graduate School of Business

342 Mervis Hall                                        Pittsburgh, PA  15260

Phone +1 412-648-1699                                    Fax +1 412-648-1693

E-mail: galletta @                                         homepage:

        katz.pitt.edu                                 www.pitt.edu/~galletta

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