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(1 - 16 of 16)
- Title
- SPEECH INTELLIGIBILITY AND ACCENTS IN SPEECH-MEDIATED INTERFACES: RESULTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
- Creator
- Lawrence, Halcyon M.
- Date
- 2013, 2013-07
- Description
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There continues to be significant growth in the development and use of speech–mediated devices and technology products; however, there is no...
Show moreThere continues to be significant growth in the development and use of speech–mediated devices and technology products; however, there is no evidence that non-native English speech is used in these devices, despite the fact that English is now spoken by more non-native speakers than native speakers, worldwide. This relative absence of non-native English speech in devices may be due in part to the costs associated with localizing speech devices, but it may also be attributable to the fact that not enough is known about user performance with accented speech in speech–mediated environments. In the absence of targeted research, developers may be relying on existing studies which focus on perception (impression) of accented speech, as a basis of decision-making. However, perception paints only part of the picture when it comes to understanding how and why people perform in certain ways and in certain environments. Three studies were conducted to answer the following questions: (1) What are the acoustic-phonetic characteristics of negatively- and positively-perceived accented speech? And how are these characteristics related to markers of intelligible speech? (2) How do participants perform on different types of accented-speech tasks? (3) What is the relationship between user perception of accented speech and user performance in response to accented speech? and; (4) How do participants perform on accented speech tasks of varying complexity? Arising out of this research, there are six recommendations for the use of accented speech in speech-mediated devices. Also, the findings of this study raise questions about inherent linguistic stereotypes which impact both our perceptions and our choices about xvi the accents we want to hear on our speech devices. A discussion about if and how these stereotypes can be altered and measured are included. Future research should examine the role of experienced non-native talkers in speech devices. Results of study one demonstrated that some experienced non-native talkers were positively-perceived by raters and may be good candidates for talkers in speech devices. A study like this would explicitly establish if listeners consistently make native vs. non-native distinctions in their preferences or if a prestige continuum emerges.
PH.D in Technical Communication, July 2013
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- Title
- SUSTAINABLE MULTILINGUAL COMMUNICATION: MANAGING MULTILINGUAL CONTENT USING FREE AND OPEN SOURCE CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
- Creator
- Kelsey, Todd
- Date
- 2011-05-03, 2011-05
- Description
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Multilingual content management systems, combined with streamlined processes and inexpensive organizational tools, make it possible for...
Show moreMultilingual content management systems, combined with streamlined processes and inexpensive organizational tools, make it possible for educators, non-profit entities and individuals with limited resources to develop sustainable and accessible multilingual Web sites. The research included a review of what’s been done in the theory and practice of designing Web sites for multilingual audiences. On the basis of that review, a series of sustainable multilingual Web sites were created, and a series of approaches and systems were tested, including MediaWiki, Plone, Drupal, Joomla, PHPMyFAQ, Blogger, Google Docs and Google Sites. There was also a case study on “Social CMS”, which refers to emergent social networks such as Facebook. The case studies are reported on, and conclude with high-level recommendations that form a roadmap for sustainable multilingual Web site development.
Ph.D. in Technical Communication, May 2011
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- Title
- PREDICTING COMMENT QUALITY ON NEWS WEBSITES: LINGUISTIC INDICATORS AND VIEWS FROM JOURNALISM PROFESSIONALS
- Creator
- Scott, Edward Blake
- Date
- 2014, 2014-07
- Description
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As the web has become more interactive in recent years, with website users having the ability to generate their own content, there has been...
Show moreAs the web has become more interactive in recent years, with website users having the ability to generate their own content, there has been increased tension between the content generated by users and the content generated by “professionals,” especially professional journalists and publishers. Many journalism professionals see the value of allowing users to comment on their work; for example, an interactive site that allows user commenting may increase users’ loyalty to the site, meaning they will return often, generate page views, and increase advertising revenue. Users can also serve to further explore an issue discussed in an article by broadening the discussion to include the viewpoints of those who aren’t professional journalists. However, publishers of news site comments have noted many problems with introducing user-generated content (UGC) to their sites, including the fact that users sometimes post inflammatory, insensitive, or lowquality comments that do not serve to improve the experience of the average reader. The problems caused by these kinds of comments have increased the amount of time and money required to moderate the comments section. Beyond inflammatory comments, however, is the problem of highlighting very good or high-quality comments. What is the degree to which those high-quality comments can be discovered through an automated process? This dissertation sought to test the extent to which comments to news sites can be automatically evaluated for quality by using a text-analysis system. Journalists were interviewed to get their views on user comments in general and comment quality in particular. The data from these interviews was used to generate hypotheses about which linguistic metrics provided by Coh-Metrix, a web-based text-analysis system, might be xiii most indicative of comment quality as described by journalists. Finally, a content analysis and close reading of a sample of news site comments was conducted in order to describe news site comments as a writing genre. Results from the interviews indicated that comment length, comment syntax, comment cohesion, comment narrativity, and comment individuality were all indicative of comment quality. However, statistical analyses on a sample of 246 comments failed to produce significant results for linguistic metrics hypothesized to be indicative of quality. Alternatively, an “positive engagement score” scale was created and used to identify how “engaging” comments were; this scale showed to have a significant, though minor, positive relationship with the number of recommendations a comment received from readers. Finally, the genre analysis of the sample of news site comments revealed that comments in the sample share a communicative purpose of providing additional content related to the article under discussion, providing a practical value for journalists and other professionals by offering tips and fact-checking functions, and providing a space where readers can debate the article in question and begin to develop a sense of community.
Ph.D. in Technical Communication, July 2014
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- Title
- EXPANDING FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATIONS’ ADAPTATION OF STREAMING TECHNOLOGY
- Creator
- Johnson Winston, Patty D.
- Date
- 2011-07-18, 2011-05
- Description
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In the field of technical communication there exist few studies that specifically address faith-based organizations’ use of communication...
Show moreIn the field of technical communication there exist few studies that specifically address faith-based organizations’ use of communication technology. The purpose of this dissertation was to show how these organizations can expand their use of streaming technology by using principles and practices that are common in technical communication. This was addressed in three phases. First, a review of the relationship between religion and media was conducted. It revealed that faith-based organizations are early adaptors of communication technology. Communication technology is used to widely broadcast their organizational missions, tenets and goals. By accomplishing these tasks, faith-based organizations seek to educate and reinforce cultural norms, images, and belief systems among their adherents and attract new members. Second, an examination of theories and instructional practices found in technical communication was conducted. It was determined that adapting a learning-centered approach to instruction can be applied to a distance education model for faith-based education. Third, faith-based websites were analyzed to determine types and current uses of communication technology. It was established that most of the organizations that offer educational courses do not conduct them online, even if they already use streaming media for other purposes. The findings suggest that faith-based organizations’ use of streaming technology for educational purposes is an area of inquiry that should be further explored by technical communicators. Technical communication provides a rich array of disciplines from which to draw, such as Instructional Design, Information Architecture, and Usability.
Ph.D. in Technical Communication, May 2011
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- Title
- TOWARD THE DEVELOPMENT OF USABILITY GUIDELINES FOR SINGLE-WINDOW WEB INTERFACES
- Creator
- Maciukenas, James
- Date
- 2013, 2013-05
- Description
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Since the early 1990s, usability research has guided development of web interfaces used to interact with content available on the Internet....
Show moreSince the early 1990s, usability research has guided development of web interfaces used to interact with content available on the Internet. Following these guidelines has resulted in web pages that in many characteristics are quite similar and are identified here as Conventional Web Interfaces (CWIs). An emergent genre of web interface, the Single Window Interface (SWI), differs in many ways from CWIs. Most importantly, SWIs differ from CWIs in the type of tasks expected of their users and in the visual strategies used to facilitate these tasks. Namely, SWIs facilitate open-ended discovery tasks by using strong visual cues to convey meta-information to the user and encourage both the exploration and perusal of content. This dissertation will demonstrate that the differences between SWIs and CWIs require revisiting current usability guidelines in order to determine how to guide future development of SWIs. If SWI visual strategies can be shown to be effective in conveying meta-information qualities to users, the groundwork will be prepared for future research investigating the effectiveness of these strategies in facilitating open-ended exploration and discovery within SWIs. These efforts will lead to more useful experiences for users of SWIs and inform the fields of technical communication as well as human-computer interaction and usability research, to name just a few of the affected fields of study.
PH.D in Technical Communication, May 2013
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- Title
- TRACING TEXTUAL MEDIATING ARTIFACTS AS AGENTS OF CHANGE AND VANGUARDS OF CORPORATE NORMS
- Creator
- Pappas, George
- Date
- 2017, 2017-05
- Description
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Technical communicators often employ user-centered design approaches to design textual artifacts that mediate workplace activity. The artifact...
Show moreTechnical communicators often employ user-centered design approaches to design textual artifacts that mediate workplace activity. The artifact’s designer is positioned as an expert who knows what is best for the artifact’s user (worker). I argue that those methods discount the role of the worker. I apply activity theory as the conceptual framework and genre tracing as the research method to analyze a corpus of documents that mediated the training evaluation activity at ABC Pharmaceutical (a pseudonym for the company’s name) to explain the evolution of those artifacts and theorize the reasons for their historical development. My findings show that their evolution – whether in the form of new genre selections, modifications, splicing, or even abandonment of genres – was influenced by worker efforts that challenged the official expert solutions. The implications of these findings to the fields of technical communication and business research are that even though design experts and business leaders may want to control the organizational strategies, work processes, and mediating artifacts/tools that accomplish those actions, workers will challenge official positions. There are dialectical forces at work that reflect official centripetal efforts that seek organizational stability from formal, normal, and regular structures versus centrifugal efforts that are disruptive and ad hoc in nature. The genre battles Idiscuss in this dissertation reflect a process that should be accepted as healthy and normal by both leadership and design experts, rather than feared or overly regulated.
Ph.D. in Technical Communication, May 2017
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- Title
- MOTIVES FOR SOCIAL MEDIA USE AMONG PRACTITIONERS AT NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS
- Creator
- Roback, Andrew J.
- Date
- 2017, 2017-05
- Description
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I used the motivation concept from activity theory to derive a fundamental notion of why workers at nonprofit organizations (NPOs) use social...
Show moreI used the motivation concept from activity theory to derive a fundamental notion of why workers at nonprofit organizations (NPOs) use social media sites. This study rejects the notion that practitioners are not taking full advantage of social media sites by not using every available feature and engaging in dialogic communication. Existing work relies too extensively on the dialogic model of communication and frequently focuses on only top-tier NPOs, ignoring the context in which smaller NPOs operate and producing recommendations that are of little practical value. To investigate this issue, I reviewed existing best practices as portrayed in NPO social media strategy guides, and used the principles of activity theory to survey practitioners at human services NPOs in Chicago. I collected data on user motivation for using Facebook and Twitter by asking users to review past posts on these sites and describe their purpose in posting this information. Using this information, I trained an automated text classifier to classify a large corpus of posts based on four types of motivations: soliciting, promoting, sharing, and credit-giving. This dissertation builds off recent studies that question existing wisdom on “effective” use of social media by NPOs and argues for an expanded consideration of user agency and intent when using social media.
Ph.D. in Technical Communication, May 2017
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- Title
- CONNECTIONS BETWEEN FINE ART AND SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE PTRS IN THE PERIOD 1660-1850
- Creator
- O'donnell, Kathryn E.
- Date
- 2013, 2013-05
- Description
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This dissertation investigates connections between scientific illustration in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (PTRS) and...
Show moreThis dissertation investigates connections between scientific illustration in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (PTRS) and fine art in the period from 1660 to 1850, comparing three science illustrations from approximately 100-year intervals, 1667, 1775, and 1839, with fine art images of Van Dyck, (1641), Wilson, (1774), and Constable, (1831). My assessment consisted of an objective visual analysis of the science and fine art images using Wolfflin’s comparison pairs, an analysis of the compositional and external art influences in the science images, and an evaluation of the science images related to period art theory. My research found that the science images do reflect period fine art elements, to a degree, but they are not expressive statements of fine art. My research revealed increasing aesthetic influences in the scientific images from 1667 to 1839, suggesting that the incorporation of fine art elements in these science images, and the increased use of illustrations in PTRS articles, may reflect a growing awareness of the significance of images in scientific argument.
PH.D in Technical Communication, May 2013
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- Title
- PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNICAL COMMUNICATIONS CONTRIBUTIONS TO STUDENT AFFAIRS WRITING COMPETENCIES
- Creator
- Schaefer, Kelly
- Date
- 2016, 2016-05
- Description
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Student affairs practitioners in mid-level positions write in the workplace daily, but in many cases they do not formally or intentionally...
Show moreStudent affairs practitioners in mid-level positions write in the workplace daily, but in many cases they do not formally or intentionally train themselves or their staff members to write. I used qualitative methods of semi-structured interviews, observations, and document analysis to investigate how and to what extent mid-level managers are competent writers. And in terms of their organizations, I investigated the value placed on writing and how and to what extent writing training happens. The investigation of writing practices of professionals working in campus centers in the field of student affairs shows that mid-level campus center professionals write extensively in their positions, including writing across many document types (letters, memos, reports, financial documents), and for multiple audiences in and outside of the university setting (students, staff, peers, supervisors, community members, alumni). Mid-level managers value writing ability and the ability of their staff members to be able to write, and could improve writing knowledge and ability through competency training and development by connecting with work in the field of professional communication. Professional associations can and should support professionals using competency language that supports writing and writing training to develop writing skill and ability competencies. Mid-level managers, as both writers and supervisors, could join associations in employing intentional strategies for writing and writing training suggested by professional communication research.
Ph.D. in Technical Communication, May 2016
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- Title
- INFORMATION VISUALIZATION TECHNIQUES FOR ONLINE IDENTITY PRESENTATION: A MULTIDIMENSIONAL APPROACH
- Creator
- Mahmud, Athir
- Date
- 2016, 2016-07
- Description
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Information visualization offers a unique method to assist users in understanding large quantities of data, such as that which is found in...
Show moreInformation visualization offers a unique method to assist users in understanding large quantities of data, such as that which is found in social media. The recent surge in the use of social media platforms, the abundance of data generated, and the implications about what this data means has made it increasingly necessary to provide feedback to these users about what they and others are presenting online. Thus, it is critical for these individuals to access this information and gain some level of visual understanding regarding their own identities or that of a particular group. This dissertation is organized in the format of a three-paper dissertation. Chapter 1 is the introduction for the subsequent three chapters and provides background on information visualization and identity presentation in social media, while exploring theoretical approaches to visual perception and design. Chapter 2 demonstrates a variety of past and current multidimensional information visualization techniques that are relevant to social media data, as related to online identity presentation. The overview includes data portraits, motion-based visualization, music visualization, and textual structures. Chapter 3 introduces CarrinaCongress, an information visualization dashboard that affords users with the ability to compare two members of Congress in order to better understanding the elected officials’ tweets and external information. Chapter 4 presents HadithViz, a motion-based information visualization dashboard that borrows from video game interfaces and focuses on event-based tweets, as defined by hashtags related to sexism in the video gaming industry. Finally, Chapter 5 is the conclusion to this dissertation and will summarize the three individual studies, discuss limitations and implications, and provide recommendations that future work consist of simple, accessible visualizations that are based on existing visual languages and can be interpreted by a wide-ranging audience.
Ph.D. in Technical Communication, July 2016
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- Title
- COMMUNICATION, LEADERSHIP, AND VIRTUAL TEAMS
- Creator
- Robinson, Joy D.
- Date
- 2014, 2014-05
- Description
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A self-managing virtual (SMV) team is a configuration that permits team leaders to manage and administer their team with limited supervisory...
Show moreA self-managing virtual (SMV) team is a configuration that permits team leaders to manage and administer their team with limited supervisory oversight. These teams are widespread in software and engineering environments where resources may be scattered globally (Yukl, 2009). Research into SMV team leadership is, however, in its early stages. Scholars have yet to confirm that traditional leadership theories operate in this theater. Additionally, the slate of leader roles that describe leadership and how these leaders affect success is not well understood. Research into emergent leadership provides limited insight into virtual teams, but current research fails to examine how emergent leaders manifest in the presence of an appointed leader. This study examines the relationship between emergent leadership and team success using the Behavioral Complexity Leadership theory or Leaderplex. In the experiment, two virtual teams attempted a series of interdependent, complex tasks across a series of weeks. This analysis confirmed that leader roles could adequately describe leadership in virtual teams. SMV leaders focused specifically on the Monitor role with the remaining roles left distributed among the membership. The appointed leader condition did not suppress leader roles, however, in this study the appointed leader negatively affected team performance. Lastly, two perspectives (Perception and Practice) showed little correlation between leader roles. The study, conducted using the synthetic milieu of a popular MMO --World of Warcraft, served to push the envelope of permissible social science research environments.
PH.D in Technical Communication, May 2014
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- Title
- TESTING COMPUTER INTERACTION TECHNOLOGY AND METHODS WITH CHILDREN
- Creator
- FROEHLICH, THORSTEN
- Date
- 2007-07
- Description
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Deploying educational computer games for children in schools requires understanding of usability. Usability of computer hardware as well as...
Show moreDeploying educational computer games for children in schools requires understanding of usability. Usability of computer hardware as well as the game user interaction is a major concern of this research. The aim of this thesis is to compare the usability of mice and touchpads, as well as test graphics tablets, with third and fifth grade students. Each of these technologies' usability is measured using drag and drop, point and click, and click-only interaction by measuring time to complete tasks and error rate. For this purpose, 142 students participated in a quantitative usability test conducted in five Chicago-area elementary schools. Students played a custom-designed computer game asking them to solve mathematical problems appropriate for their level of education. The main purpose of the game was to create a realistic workload for users. The game tracked students' interactions by recording on-screen cursor movements. Statistical analysis of variance (a = 0.01) of usability showed no significant difference using point and click compared to drag and drop. There was no significant difference between using mice and touchpads. However, because students had no prior experience using graphics tablets, tablet use could not be learned within ten minutes. Finally, usability was found to increase with students' age. Further, when the movements were analyzed for patterns, statistical analysis revealed that workload had a significant influence on usability. Two patterns emerged: hovering with the cursor to find answers on screen, and evading screen areas where accidental dropping of an item could result in an incorrect answer. Although students employing these patterns require more time than reported in previous research, workload had never been considered as a significant factor before. In conclusion, schools can deploy either desktop computers commonly using mice or notebook computers commonly using touchpads because usability does not differ significantly. Workload is the important factor on usability, and thus when developing and usability testing specific games, the users' workload has to be observed. In addition, game designers should consider supporting both drag and drop and point and click. Finally, when testing games, children should be exactly the age of the target audience for accurate results.
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- Title
- THE FRONT VOWELS BEFORE R OF THE NORTH-CENTRAL STATES
- Creator
- HARTMANN, ERIKA
- Date
- 1981-05
- Title
- INCORPORATING DATABASE EDUCATION INTO THE GRADUATE TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION CURRICULUM
- Creator
- GEHRS, GORDON SCOTT
- Date
- 2008-05
- Description
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The purpose of this study was to identify if there existed a need for database education in technical communication programs. This was...
Show moreThe purpose of this study was to identify if there existed a need for database education in technical communication programs. This was achieved using a two part approach: Jobs data was collected from three major search engines and the results plotted showing a roughly 20% requirement for techcomm positions to have some database knowledge and skill. Then the data was further striated by which techcomm positions were expected to have which skills. The jobs data was also supported by the database skills taught in computer science education, and that of information technology. Next, twelve graduate programs were analyzed for their database educational requirements to show that the need for database skills was not being met in techcomm graduate programs. Finally course content was proposed for five new database courses: OS and Networking Basics, Introduction to Databases, Database Design, and Using Databases. A single course outline is proposed for programs wishing to implement the material more easily.
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- Title
- DEVELOPING INFORMATION PRODUCTS USING QUALITY MANAGEMENT
- Creator
- BATSON, LAURA SHEEHAN
- Date
- 2010-12
- Description
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In regards to information design, research provides high-level suggestions on how to learn and interact with customers to obtain their desired...
Show moreIn regards to information design, research provides high-level suggestions on how to learn and interact with customers to obtain their desired requirements; but specifics on an approach to eliciting and controlling measurable requirements throughout the development process are not explored. In other areas of design, such an approach already exists: Quality Management, which has successfully improved processes and provided measurements for improvement in order to decrease errors and increase productivity. This dissertation analyzes the applicability of quality management tools to the process of developing information products. The methodology involved two phases. In the initial phase, the researcher had the task of improving a company's benefits enrollment package for two groups. A Traditional Group used the currently accepted best practices in technical communication, performing a heuristic evaluation and a usability test to determine what changes to make in the existing package. This group focuses on the existing benefits enrollment package. In contrast, a Quality Management Group developed a benefits enrollment package using quality management tools, gathering quantifiable functional requirements early in the design and continuing throughout the process. The researcher prepared a revised benefits enrollment package for both groups, and the results of the studies were compared. According to the usability analysis, the Traditional Group showed considerable improvement from the original package to the redesigned package. However, the Quality Management Group showed even greater improvements in several areas, suggesting the potential viability of this method in information design. Future studies should focus on testing the effectiveness of this process on other types of information products. For the products that are successful, information designers could greatly benefit in learning how to use quality management tools to provide more precise and measurable information products.
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- Title
- THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNICATION MODALITY ON PRESENCE, COGNITIVE LOAD AND RETENTION IN SECOND LIFE
- Creator
- WILKES, STEPHANY FILIMON
- Date
- 2009-12
- Description
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This thesis reports findings from a study (N = 60) of the impact of three communication modalities (voice only, text only, and voice and text...
Show moreThis thesis reports findings from a study (N = 60) of the impact of three communication modalities (voice only, text only, and voice and text simultaneously) on cognitive load, as measured by subjective reports of mental effort; on learning, as measured by tests of recall and retention; and on perceptions of presence as measured by a Presence Questionnaire (Witmer & Singer, 2005). Based on the results of prior empirical research, it is hypothesized that retention scores will be higher for voice participants and voice-and-text participants than for text-only participants; that cognitive load will be lower for voice participants and higher for text conditions; that voice will contribute to greater perceptions to presence; and that higher perceptions of presence will not correlate with deeper learning. Study results indicate that communication modality significantly effected cognitive load (F(2, 54) = 4.58, p = .01) and retention (F(2, 54) = 3.53, p = .04), and that experience with and time spent in the virtual environment had significant effects on measures of cognitive load, retention, and presence: Significant between-subjects effects were found for cognitive load and time (p = .23), for retention and time (p = .21), and for retention and experience (p — .03).
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