On this page you will find, in pictorial form (oooh), the interfaces used in our experiments.
Drop-Down Listbox Interface
The drop-down listbox has been commonly used in the Windows 3.x interfaces and is the
standard to which all search interfaces are judged against, as is much of the Windows
interface. The main detraction of this type of interface is that it uses a moderate amount
of screen space. With the evolution and expanding use of such things as personal data
assistants (PDA's), the value of screen space has increased, and there has been a mild
push to try and develop search interfaces which are more efficient in their use of screen
space than the drop-down listbox.
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This is initially what a subject sees when the drop-down listbox interface is used. The subject has clicked on no buttons yet. The "START" button is active or highlighted. |
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After the start button is clicked on, a target word is displayed next to "Find:" The "STOP" button is now active or highlighted. |
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When the down arrow is clicked upon, the listbox drops down, displaying 8 pieces of information in the database, starting at the top of the list. The subject is now to locate the target word by using the vertical slider to the right of the words. |
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After the target (or any word) is located and clicked upon, that word is displayed in the top of the interface and the listbox dissappears. If this is the word that the subject believes is correct, they are to click on the "STOP" button. The interface will then revert to the original state (the first picture). A score of reaction time to find the correct word and if that selection is correct is recorded along with number of clicks needed to reach that selection. |
AlphaSlider Interfaces
The AlphaSlider interface was originally devised in 1993 and promoted by Ahlberg and
Shneiderman. The essential components of the AlphaSlider are the same as that of the
drop-down listbox. There is a slider area, a slider thumb (the square in the middle that a
user can directly drag on), and left/right arrow keys. The function of it is identical to
that of a drop-down listbox, except for its vertical orientation. Brian Utesch (1995
Doctoral Dissertation at Wichita State University), constructed a new style of AlphaSlider
interface that was used in these studies that brought with it the advantages found through
the testing of different slider interfaces found by Ahlberg and Schneiderman in 1994.
The main advantage of the AlphaSlider interface is that it uses only one line of text
output, it is very efficient in its screen space use. One of its detractions is that it
allows less use of context in searching. With a typical drop-down listbox interface there
are other words in the interface from which the subject or user can see where they are in
ther list and see how fast the alphabet is being moved through.
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This is a standard Alphaslider interface, it has a horizontal slider and an alphabet index below it corresponding to the relative location in the database of information displayed above. |
