Online discussions offer exciting potential for educational dialogue, but too often result in disjointed conversations with low levels of interactivity. One contributing cause is the traditional text-based interface, which presents posts in a long list, leaving students overwhelmed and without useful navigational cues. To address this problem, we…

LOCO-Analyst is a learning analytics tool we developed to provide educators with feedback on students learning activities and performance. Evaluation of the first version of the tool led to the enhancement of the tool's data visualization, user interface, and supported feedback types. The second evaluation of the improved tool allowed us to see…

This research aims to explore the role of physical representations in young children's numerical learning then identify the benefits of using a graphical interface in order to understand the potential for developing interactive technologies in this domain. Three studies are reported that examined the effect of using physical representations…

This paper compares and discusses the results from two user studies of interactive television (ITV) with a total of 50 subjects. The interfaces of two different ITV information services were studied: one with a place-like interface rich in graphics, animation and audio, and the other a simple interface with text and still images. In the first…

Describes PACE (Public Access Catalogue Extension), an alternative interface designed to enhance online catalogs by simulating images of books and library shelves to help users browse through the catalog. Results of a test in a college library against a text-based online public access catalog, including student attitudes, are described.…

Discusses a review of 34 qualitative and non-qualitative studies related to affective and social aspects of student-computer interactions. Highlights include the nature of the human-computer interaction (HCI); the interface, comparing graphic and text types; and the relation between variables linked to HCI, mainly trust, locus of control,…

Users of content-based software programs, including hypertexts and instructional multimedia, rely on the navigation functions provided by the designers of those program. Typical navigation schemes use abstract symbols (arrows) to label basic navigational functions like moving forward or backward through screen displays. In a previous study, the…