Qixing's Homepage

Master thesis project, completed in 12 months.

Overview:

Most co-authoring tools support basic annotations, such as edits and comments anchored at specific locations in the document. However, they do not support higher-level communication about a document such as commenting on the tone of a document, giving more explanation about a group of basic annotations, or having a document-related discussion. Such higher-level communication gets separated from the document, often in the body of email messages, creating unnecessary overhead in the write-review-edit workflow inherent in co-authoring.

To address the problem, we first established user-centered requirements for annotation support. We conducted a field investigation of email exchanges (158 emails in total) including document attachments, among three small groups of academics (3 to 5 people). We categorized the higher-level communication from the email and developed a set of eleven requirements to support document annotations. We next developed document-embedded structured annotations called "bundles" that incorporate higher-level communication into a unified annotation model meeting the set of requirements. We also designed and implemented a high-fidelity prototype called the "Bundle Editor" that illustrates our structured annotation model.

Finally, we conducted a usability study with 20 participants to evaluate the annotation reviewing stage of co-authoring. The study showed that the annotation bundles in our high-fidelity prototype reduced reviewing time and increased accuracy, compared to a system that supports only edits and comments.

Responsibilities: Under the supervision of my supervisiors, I was solely responsible for completing the entire user-centered design and development, which included:

• Conducted field investigation on email usage during collaborative writing
• Conducted literature research on computer supported collaborative writing
• Performed task analysis and gathered requirements for collaborative annotation systems
• Translated user research results into low (paper-based) to high (interactive) fidelity prototypes
• Implemented the final design for usability testing using Java
• Planned and executed usability tests
• Analyzed test results and concluded design recommendations
• Wrote a Master's thesis and conference paper on the project

Challenges:

• Because of the dynamic nature of group writing, identifying the common workflow problem among different collaborative groups was challenging
• An innovative design approach was required to solve the workflow overload problem since there is no existing solution
• Designing and planing our usability test so that it fairly evaluates the new system using realistic tasks

Results:

• Users improved both their reading efficiency and accuracy significantly using the structured annotation system
• The thesis project was published in SIGCHI 2006
• My research provided the base research for active continuing research in the area

Publications:

• Master's Thesis: Qixing Zheng. (2005). Structured Annotations to Support Collaborative Writing Workflow. Master's Thesis, University of British Columbia.
• Conference Paper: Qixing Zheng, Joanna McGrenere, and Kellogg Booth. (2006). Co-Authoring with Structured Annotations. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2006 , 131-140.
• Conference Poster and Extended Abstract: Qixing Zheng, Kellogg Booth, and Joanna McGrenere. (2005). Designing Structured Annotations to Support Collaborative Writing Workflow. Poster Presentation, Graphics Interface 2005.

Technologies used:MS Visio, Java, SPSS, Camtasia.

Graduate course group project (3 members), completed in 2 months.

Overview:
The "one-size-fits-all" standard Windows desktop is difficult to interact with for novice computer users. There are too many options available that novice users neither understand nor need and too many steps to memorize to accomplish even simple tasks. Furthermore, current customization functionality is hard to access and use.

Our solution was to redesign the Windows desktop interface for novice users to allow them to perform common computer tasks more confidently and efficiently. We used the "training wheels" approach and built an adaptable interface, which allows users to use a simpler version of the interface when performing everyday tasks and give them the ability to access the full Windows desktop only when it is needed.

Responsibilities:

• Conducted user research through contexual inquiry and survery to find out how novice users used the standard Windows desktop
• Created design mockups (paper drawings, wireframes, and storyboards) based on user research results
• Perfomed cognitive walkthroughs with teammates and gathered requirements for redesign
• Assisted teammates to plan and execute usability testing
• Analyzed the usability test results and concluded design recommendations

Challenges:

• Thinking out of box since all the project members were very familiar with the Windows desktop interface and took for granted that it was easy to understand
• Not only designing a simpler interface but also making sure it encouraged learning and connected well with the standard Windows interface

Results:

• Novice users preferred the adaptable interface and were able to customize the new desktop interface easily
• Novice users felt they could gain more skills through exploration and go back and forth between the two interfaces easily

Technologies used: Java, Photoshop (for creating animated gif), IMovie, MS Excel(statistics packages).

Graduate course group project (2 members), completed in 3 weeks.

Overview: Maintaining multiple versions of the same document and comparing between them can be extremely time-consuming and error-prone. It it hard to tell which paragraph has been changed most dramatically through out revision process, and what are the new changes in each revision compared to the one just before it.

Existing visualizations solutions are either focused on software code rather then natural documents or lack of quantitative information of the revision differences. Our solution was to develop a visualization system, called ClearEye, which assisted users is visualizing the document evolution on a high level. At the same time, it provided detailed comparisons between any two versions so that users could locate changes quickly and accurately.

Responsibilities:

• Conducted literature review in the area of document visualization
• Created information visualization and interface mockups
• Gathered user feedback through cognitive walkthroughs and interviews

Challenges:

• Deciding how detailed the document change information to should be to avoid overwhelming users
• Combining both qualitative and quantitative data visualizations so that users could easily access both

Results:

• User feedback showed the system allowed users to easily tell when and which part of the document had undergone a significant change as well as how the structure of the document was changed over multiple versions
• The detailed comparison view helped users quickly discover the differences and their locations in the two versions of a document

Technologies used: Java2D, Jazz/Piccolo (toolkits for zoomable interfaces)